Background: Recently, a singular survey titled “Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals,” which addresses shortcomings of previous instruments, has been validated. Aim: To determine how moral distress affects nurses and physicians differently across the various wards of a community hospital. Participant and research context: We distributed a self-administered, validated survey titled “Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals” to all nurses and physicians in the medical/surgical ward, telemetry ward, intensive care units, and emergency rooms of a community hospital. Findings: A total of 101 (...) surveys were included in the study. The mean Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals score for all respondents was 143.0 (standard deviation = 79.8). The mean Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals score was 1.75 greater for nurses than for physicians (92.5 vs 161.5, p <.001), and nurses were 2.52 times more likely to consider leaving their position due to moral distress (68% vs 27%). The mean Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals score for moral distress was least prevalent in the medical/surgical ward (92.5, SD = 38.2) and highest in the telemetry ward (197.7, SD = 83.6). The intensive care unit ward had a mean Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals score mildly greater than the emergency room. Ethical considerations: No participant identifying information or information connecting a survey response to an individual was collected. This study was approved by the Raritan Bay Medical Center’s Institutional Review Board. Discussion: This study provides insight into the level of moral distress in the community hospital setting. Telemetry nurses experience significantly more than nurses in other wards. Telemetry nurses typically manage patients sicker than medical/surgical wards, however do not have the resources of the critical care units. This scenario presents challenges for telemetry nurses and may explain their elevated moral distress. Conclusion: In community hospitals, telemetry nurses experience a considerably greater amount of moral distress compared to their colleagues in other wards. As measured by the Measure of Moral Distress—Healthcare Professionals questionnaire, moral distress continues to be higher among nurses compared to physicians. (shrink)

This article attempts to examine the portrayal of the character of Arthur Fleck in Todd Phillips’s Joker (2019). In the initial part of the film, Arthur exhibits signs that reveal he is headed towards committing a violent crime. Arthur displays signs of psychopathy and a lack of empathy. This article links criminal behaviour analysis to the Bible of the Arya Samaj, an Indian text, to find out how ancient Indian literature’s empirical theories, which are intertwined with philosophical and religious content, (...) shed light on criminal behaviour. The primary purpose of this article is to analyse the behavioural pattern in the character of Fleck and establish links to Dayanand Saraswati’s Satyarth Prakash, which discusses different types of Avidyas, a key concept in Indian philosophy that can be translated as ignorance or unwisdom, which is seen as a fundamental cause of suffering and bondage. It is certainly a significant factor in a person’s personality and behaviour. The major aim of this character analysis is not only to establish the link between Indian ancient texts and criminological behavioural patterns but also to reconceptualize evil through the lenses of Vedic hermeneutics. Vedic hermeneutics is the study of interpreting and understanding the ancient Vedic texts of Hinduism, where an important aspect is the recognition of different levels of meaning within the texts. (shrink)

Drawing from two strands of ecological psychology, we suggest that even if social robots are interactive depictions, people need not mentally represent them as such. Rather, people can engage with the opportunities for action or affordances that social robots offer to them. These affordances are constrained by the larger sociocultural settings within which human–robot interactions occur.

A prominent way through which wave-particle duality has been ascribed to photons is by illustrating their “wave-like” behaviour in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer and “particle-like” behaviour in the anti-correlation experiment. This duality has been formulated in two ways. Some have based the claim on the complementarity principle. This formulation, however, has already been shown to be problematic. Others have made a much simpler duality claim by considering that single-photons are analogous to waves and particles in the above experiments. I criticise this (...) formulation by arguing that the analogies cannot be distinctly established. Thus, this duality claim is found to be unsubstantiated. (shrink)

In Aesthetic Theory, Adorno argues that, in modernity, art and philosophy are reciprocally dependent upon each other for legitimation and critical force. This claim has puzzled scholars and provoked controversy. I argue that Adorno’s thesis may be comprehended in the following manner: art requires philosophy because, without the latter, art would lack the power to critique social and historical reality (in particular, the ideological elements that often remain invisible as second nature), and to rationally interpret the material particularity expressed by (...) such reality; and, conversely, philosophy requires art because the latter expresses historical experience to reason. Such material historical experience is necessary in order to prevent philosophy from falling into ideological convention; idle speculation; or abstract and reified instrumentality. Thus, the constellation of history, art, and philosophy is essential to Adorno’s aesthetics. (shrink)

This paper examines the extent to which dispute resolvers in customary law systems provide widely understandable justifications for their decisions. The paper first examines the liberal-democratic reasons for the importance of publicity, understood to be wide accessibility of legal justification, by reviewing the uses of publicity in Habermas’ and Rawls’ accounts of the rule of law. Taking examples from Sierra Leone, the paper then argues that customary law systems would benefit from making local dispute resolution practices, such as “begging” from (...) elders, witchcraft, and customary law judgments, more widely accessible. The paper concludes that while legal pluralism is usually taken to be an analytical concept, it may have a normative thrust as well, and that publicity standards would also apply to formal courts in developing countries, which are also typically “defective” along this dimension. (shrink)

Global poverty is a huge problem in today's world. This survey article seeks to be a first guide to those who are interested in, but relatively unfamiliar with, the main issues, positions and arguments in the contemporary philosophical discussion of global poverty. The article attempts to give an overview of four distinct and influential normative positions on global poverty. Moreover, it seeks to clarify, and put into perspective, some of the key concepts and issues that take center stage in the (...) philosophical discussion of global poverty. The four positions to be discussed are labeled the Maximalist Position, the Minimalist Position, Intermediate Position I and Intermediate Position II. After an account of these four distinct positions, we turn, in the conclusion, to a discussion of what role empirical sciences such as economics and political science should play in normative considerations about global poverty. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 28, Issue 3, Page 337-349, September 2021.

pt. 1. Basics of eastern and western views -- pt. 2. New analytical methods and workability -- pt. 3. Predictive power and future prospects.

This article explores the uptake and circulation of ‘transgender’ in academic and philanthropic institutions, as a way of taking seriously Robyn Wiegman’s call for a divergentist approach. In so doing, the article aims to demonstrate the intimate entanglements between non-profit and academic spheres and identity knowledges therein. Taken together, both contexts reveal the messiness and complexities of institutionality, not only as a lived reality for individuals such as philanthropy professionals and academics, but also as an object of study itself.

Prior research has used an Interactive Landslide Simulator tool to investigate human decision making against landslide risks. It has been found that repeated feedback in the ILS tool about damages due to landslides causes an improvement in human decisions against landslide risks. However, little is known on how theories of learning from feedback would account for human decisions in the ILS tool. The primary goal of this paper is to account for human decisions in the ILS tool via computational models (...) based upon reinforcement learning and to explore the model mechanisms involved when people make decisions in the ILS tool. Four different reinforcement-learning models were developed and evaluated in their ability to capture human decisions in an experiment involving two conditions in the ILS tool. The parameters of an Expectancy-Valence model, two Prospect-Valence-Learning models, a combination EV-PU model, and a random model were calibrated to human decisions in the ILS tool across the two conditions. Later, different models with their calibrated parameters were generalized to data collected in an experiment involving a new condition in ILS. When generalized to this new condition, the PVL-2 model’s parameters of both damage-feedback conditions outperformed all other RL models. We highlight the implications of our results for decision making against landslide risks. (shrink)

Behaviour change via monetary investments is a way to fighting climate change. Prior research has investigated the role of climate-change investments using a Collective-Risk-Social-Dilemma game, where players have to collectively reach a target by contributing to a climate fund; failing which they lose their investments with a probability. However, little is known on how variability in the availability of information about players’ investments influences investment decisions in CRSD. In an experiment involving CRSD, 480 participants were randomly assigned to different conditions (...) that differed in the availability of investment information among players. Half of the players possessed a higher starting endowment compared to other players. Results revealed that investments against climate change were higher when investment information was available to all players compared to when this information was available only to a few players or to no one. Similarly, investments were higher among rich players compared to poor players when information was available among all players compared to when it was available only to a few players or to no one. Again, the average investment was significantly greater compared to the Nash investment when investment information was available to all players compared to when this information was available only to a few players or to no one. We highlight some implications of our laboratory experiment for human decision-making against climate change. (shrink)

We analyze the dynamics of repeated interaction of two players in the Prisoner's Dilemma under various levels of interdependency information and propose an instance-based learning cognitive model to explain how cooperation emerges over time. Six hypotheses are tested regarding how a player accounts for an opponent's outcomes: the selfish hypothesis suggests ignoring information about the opponent and utilizing only the player's own outcomes; the extreme fairness hypothesis weighs the player's own and the opponent's outcomes equally; the moderate fairness hypothesis weighs (...) the opponent's outcomes less than the player's own outcomes to various extents; the linear increasing hypothesis increasingly weighs the opponent's outcomes at a constant rate with repeated interactions; the hyperbolic discounting hypothesis increasingly and nonlinearly weighs the opponent's outcomes over time; and the dynamic expectations hypothesis dynamically adjusts the weight a player gives to the opponent's outcomes, according to the gap between the expected and the actual outcomes in each interaction. When players lack explicit feedback about their opponent's choices and outcomes, results are consistent with the selfish hypothesis; however, when this information is made explicit, the best predictions result from the dynamic expectations hypothesis. (shrink)

Employee behavior, decision-making, and cooperation across the supply chain network are all greatly influenced by organizational culture (OC). In supply chain outcomes (SCO), an understanding of the effect promotes efficiency overall, improves coordination, and maximizes performance. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was initially applied to experimentally analyze data from a survey of 85 enterprises using a quantitative approach. The relationships between cultures such as OC, market culture (MC), clan culture (CC), Hierarchy culture (HC), Professional culture (PC), Adhocracy culture (AC), (...) and supply chain outcomes are analyzed in this research. The findings are evaluated using the combination of a reliability and validity test, multiple regression analysis. The SEM approach is employed to investigate the intricate correlation that exists between these cultural aspects and SCO. A more detailed comprehension of these linkages is provided by the simulation technique, which enables a thorough investigation of the ways in which each cultural feature affects SCO. Positive correlations between the independent variables (OC, AC, MC, HC, PC, and CC) and the dependent variable (SCO) are predicted. The majority of these relationships exhibit statistically significant positive impacts(p < 0.05), signifying noteworthy and substantial benefits for SCO. Furthermore, although OC, AC, MC, PC, and CC have substantial positive impacts, HC has a relevant but invisible effect. OC has a major influence on SCO, according to the study, with some cultural characteristics having a considerable impact on performance measures. Improved efficacy and efficiency in supply chain operations are fostered by a well-aligned culture. (shrink)

BackgroundSarcomas are a diverse group of neoplasms that vary greatly in clinical presentation and responsiveness to treatment. Given the differences in the sites of involvement, rarity, and treatment modality, a multidisciplinary approach is required. Previous literature suggests patients with sarcoma suffer from poorer quality of life especially physical and functional wellbeing. Adolescent and young adult patients are an underrepresented population in cancer research and have differing factors influencing QoL.MethodsRetrospective analysis of Young Adult patients enrolled in the Sarcoma Tissue Repository at (...) University of Iowa. QoL was assessed using the self-report FACT-G questionnaire at enrollment and 12 months post-diagnosis; overall scores and the 4 wellbeing subscales were calculated. Linear mixed effects models were used to measure the association between the rate of change in FACT-G subscale scores and baseline clinical, comorbidity, and treatment characteristics.Results49 patients were identified. 57.1% of patients had a malignancy involving an extremity. Mean FACT-G scores of overall wellbeing improved from baseline to 12 months. Social and emotional wellbeing did not differ significantly between baseline and 12 months. Physical wellbeing and functional wellbeing scores improved from baseline to 12 months. No difference was seen for FACT-G overall scores for age, sex, laterality, marital status, performance status, having children, clinical stage, limb surgery, chemotherapy, or tumor size. A difference was demonstrated in physical wellbeing scores for patients with baseline limitation compared to those with no baseline limitation. A difference was demonstrated in social wellbeing based on anatomical site.ConclusionYoung adults with sarcoma treated at a tertiary center had improvements in overall reported QoL at 12 months from diagnosis. Overall baseline QoL scores on FACT-G were lower than the general adult population for YA patients with sarcoma but at 12 months became in line with general population norms. The improvements seen merit further investigation to evaluate how these change over the continuum of care. Quality of life changes may be useful outcomes of interest in sarcoma trials. (shrink)