The present study investigates the interaction between personal characteristics that are considered nowadays strengths used to face difficult events or transition period. A number of 200 married or living together participants completed self-reports for common goals, motivational persistence, resilience and well-being. Results show that persistence and resilience do interact with each other at an individual level but also from a family concept perspective. Moreover, maintaining apositive outlook and family spirituality do have an impact over the intensity and direction of the (...) relationship between long term purposes pursuing (LTPP) and recurrence of unattained purposes (RUP) and changes in well-being registered in time. Resiliency as a personal characteristic and family resilience show good psychometric qualities for this study. Although some of the results are descriptive, in-depth analyses of direction and intensity of the relationships lead the finalconclusions to suggestions for further research and implications for psychological practice. (shrink)

O recasamento tem ocorrido com bastante frequência, principalmente como decorrência do número de separações e divórcios. Nesta pesquisa, buscou-se compreender a percepção dos filhos ante as mudanças ocorridas em suas vidas devido ao recasamento, de um ou de ambos os genitores, especialmente, no que ..

In a time marked by the development of innovative treatments in healthcare and the need for health professionals to deal with resulting ethical dilemmas in clinical practice, this study was developed to determine the influence of the bioethics teaching on the moral competence of medical and nursing students. The authors conduct a longitudinal study using the Moral Competence Test extended version before and after attending the ethics curricular unit, in three nursing schools and three medical schools of Portugal. In this (...) questionnaire the participant is confronted with three ethical dilemmas and asked to evaluate arguments for and against the attitude of the main character. For both nursing and medical students, C-score was lower after the attendance of the ethics curricular units, with a statistically significant decrease in the total score for nursing students and a decrease not statistically significant for medical students. A multivariate analysis did not find any association between this decrease and gender, course, or age. The phenomenon of moral segmentation was observed, with better performance in the worker and judge dilemma, than in the doctor dilemma. These results highlight the need to reflect on the curricular strategies that can be implemented for health professionals to better develop moral competence and decision-making, allowing for the provision of humanized health care. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe-se a discutir a possibilidade de utilizar as tecnologias digitais online e as redes sociais como espaço de aprendizagem digital de uma maneira que favoreça a aprendizagem cooperativa entre os estudantes, alicerçado na Epistemologia Genética de Jean Piaget. Este estudo foi baseado em uma pesquisa-ação, nas aulas de Matemática, realizada com estudantes do ensino médio integrado em informática do IFRS – Campus Osório (RS), em 2011 e 2012-1. Os estudantes demonstraram apropriação deste espaço de aprendizagem digital, como o (...) Facebook, e apontaram que este potencializa a aprendizagem cooperativa no que tange à disciplina de Matemática, por ações colaborativas com a professora. (shrink)

BackgroundOrgan transplantation represents the most effective and acceptable therapy for end-stage organ failure. However, its frequent practice often leads to a shortage of organs worldwide. To solve this dilemma, some countries, such as Portugal, have switched from an opt-in to an opt-out system, which has raised concerns about respect for individual autonomy. We aimed to evaluate whether young university students are aware of this opt-out system so that they can make informed, autonomous and conscious decisions, as well as to identify (...) the factors that determine a positive attitude toward post-mortem organ donation.MethodsAn observational, cross-sectional study was developed and a questionnaire was administered to first-year students from six faculties of the University of Porto.ResultsOf the 841 participants, 60% were unaware that Portugal had adopted an opt-out system. Among the informed individuals, their main sources of information included social media, internet, and family. Furthermore, only 48% of all participants agreed with the current opt-out system. Female sex (p = 0.049; OR 1.393), knowledge of the law (p < 0.001; OR 4.749) and family being the primary source of information (p < 0.001; OR 2.855) were independent factors associated with a positive attitude toward post-mortem organ donation law.ConclusionsThere is a significant lack of knowledge among young university students regarding the presumed post-mortem organ donation law and how it works. Female sex, having family as a primary source of information and being aware of the presumed post-mortem organ donation law are the strongest independent factors that determine a positive attitude toward the opt-out system. (shrink)

A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo geral investigar a vivência de papéis desempenhados por idosos durante o Ciclo de Vida Familiar. Participaram 12 homens, sendo que seis pertenciam ao Grupo Reviver, da Universidade Aberta à terceira idade, de uma faculdade situada em Paulo Afonso; e seis não participavam do referido projeto. Todos os participantes são da camada média e moradores da área urbana. Eles foram entrevistados individualmente, tendo sido as entrevistas analisadas a partir dos seguintes temas: fase de aquisição, criação (...) e desenvolvimento dos filhos, saída dos filhos de casa, fase última, percepção do tratamento dispensado ao idoso ao longo do tempo e o que gostaria de mudar em sua vida. Pode-se concluir que os idosos que fazem parte do Grupo Reviver mostraram-se mais otimistas, com planos para o futuro e vida social ativa, o que não ocorreu com o outro grupo. Espera-se que este trabalho possa contribuir para os profissionais que lidam com as questões da velhice e da família. (shrink)

As it emerged from philosophical analyses and cognitive research, most concepts exhibit typicality effects, and resist to the efforts of defining them in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This holds also in the case of many medical concepts. This is a problem for the design of computer science ontologies, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms of typical traits. However, the need of representing concepts in terms of (...) typical traits concerns almost every domain of real world knowledge, including medical domains. In particular, in this article we take into account the domain of mental disorders, starting from the DSM-5 descriptions of some specific mental disorders. On this respect, we favor a hybrid approach to the representation of psychiatric concepts, in which ontology oriented formalisms are combined to a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual spaces. (shrink)

In the ongoing pandemic, death statistics influence people’s feelings and government policy. But when does COVID-19 qualify as the cause of death? As philosophers of medicine interested in conceptual clarification, we address the question by analyzing the World Health Organization’s rules for the certification of death. We show that for COVID-19, WHO rules take into account both facts and values.

The general definition of mental disorder stated in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders seems to identify a mental disorder with a harmful dysfunction. However, the presence of distress or disability, which may be bracketed as the presence of harm, is taken to be merely usual, and thus not a necessary requirement: a mental disorder can be diagnosed as such even if there is no harm at all. In this paper, we focus on the (...) harm requirement. First, we clarify what it means to say that the harm requirement is not necessary for defining the general concept of mental disorder. In this respect, we briefly examine the two components of harm, distress and disability, and then trace a distinction between mental disorder tokens and mental disorder types. Second, we argue that the decision not to regard the harm requirement as a necessary criterion for mental disorder is tenable for a number of practical and theoretical reasons, some pertaining to conceptual issues surrounding the two components of harm and others pertaining to the problem of false negatives and the status of psychiatry vis-à-vis somatic medicine. However, we believe that the harm requirement can be maintained among the specific diagnostic criteria of certain individual mental disorders. More precisely, we argue that insofar as the harm requirement is needed among the specific diagnostic criteria of certain individual mental disorders, it should be unpacked and clarified. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of social intentions on action. Participants were requested to reach towards, grasp an object, and either pass it to another person or put it on a concave base . Movements’ kinematics was recorded using a three-dimensional motion analysis system. The results indicate that kinematics is sensitive to social intention. Movements performed for the ‘social’ condition were characterized by a kinematic pattern which differed from those obtained for the ‘single-agent’ condition. (...) Results are discussed in terms of a motor simulation hypothesis, which assumes that the same mechanisms underlying motor intention are sensitive to social intentions. (shrink)

Philosophers of medicine have formulated different accounts of the concept of disease. Which concept of disease one assumes has implications for what conditions count as diseases and, by extension, who may be regarded as having a disease and for who may be accorded the social privileges and personal responsibilities associated with being sick. In this article, we consider an ideal diagnostic test for coronavirus disease 2019 infection with respect to four groups of people—positive and asymptomatic; positive and symptomatic; negative; and (...) untested—and show how different concepts of disease impact on the disease and sickness judgements for these groups. The suggestion is that sickness judgements and social measures akin to those experienced during the current COVID-19 outbreak presuppose a concept of disease containing social harm as a component. We indicate the problems that arise when adopting this kind of disease concept beyond a state of emergency. (shrink)

Most of the epidemiological models of the Covid-19 pandemic contain the reproduction number as a parameter. In this article we focus on some shortcomings regarding its role in driving health policies and political decisions. First, we summarize what R is and what it is used for. Second, we introduce a three-question matrix for the evaluation of any construct or parameter within a model. We then review the main literature about R to highlight some of its shortcomings and apply to them (...) our three-question matrix. Finally, we argue that these shortcomings are important for an epistemic and political evaluation of R. (shrink)

This volume breaks new grounds by bringing together a great variety of innovative contributions on triangulation, epistemology, and mind. The notion of triangulation, developed by Donald Davidson during the last two decades of his life, has changed our understanding of the relationship between subjective, intersubjective, and objective, and shed new light on concepts such as externalism, internalism, communication, interpretation, and language. At the same time, however, it has been strongly criticized for several aspects. The papers collected in this volume written (...) by established contributors aim to provide new insights into the contemporary debate on triangulation. The upshot is not only a deeper understanding of Davidson s ideas but also a new appreciation of some central problems of epistemology and the philosophy of mind with regard to adjoining disciplines such as, for instance, cognitive sciences and the philosophy of language.". (shrink)

There has been a great deal of interaction among game theorists, philosophers and logicians in certain foundational problems concerning rationality, the formalization of knowledge and practical reasoning, and models of learning and deliberation. This volume brings together the work of some of the pre-eminent figures in their respective disciplines, all of whom are engaged in research at the forefront of their fields. Together they offer a conspectus of the interaction of game theory, logic and epistemology in the formal models of (...) knowledge, belief, deliberation and learning, and in the relationship between Bayesian decision theory and game theory, as well as between bounded rationality and computational complexity. (shrink)

Riassunto: In questo contributo analizzeremo il criterio del danno, presente nella definizione generale di disturbo mentale del DSM. La questione ha rilevanza sia da un punto di vista filosofico, perché il danno è una componente normativa e valoriale, non oggettiva, sia da un punto di vista clinico, perché chi ha difeso il criterio del danno ha spesso sostenuto che in sua assenza avremmo troppi falsi positivi. Infine, ha importanza dal punto di vista socio-sanitario in relazione al rapporto tra la psichiatria (...) e la medicina non psichiatrica, nello specifico tra il DSM e l’ICD. Sosterremo che ci sono buone ragioni per non mantenere il danno come criterio necessario nella definizione generale del disturbo mentale. Dopo una breve introduzione, forniremo una panoramica storica sul ruolo del criterio del danno nelle varie edizioni del DSM. Successivamente si illustrerà la principale obiezione contro l’inclusione del criterio del danno nella definizione generale di disturbo mentale, ossia il problema dei falsi negativi, per poi presentare e discutere ulteriori ragioni – medico-pratiche e concettuali – che depongono a sfavore dell’attribuzione di un forte peso al criterio del danno. In sede conclusiva ribadiamo come la decisione presa dalla task force del DSM-5 di escludere il criterio del danno dalla definizione generale di disturbo mentale debba essere sostenuta. Parole chiave: Danno; Disabilità; Disagio; Disturbo mentale; DSM “Harm” as Criterion for the Definition of Mental Disease in DSM. Some Epistemological Reflections: In this paper, we analyse the harm requirement in the general definition of mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders. This issue has both philosophical and clinical relevance: on the one hand the harm requirement is a normative, value-laden, non-objective component in the definition of mental disorder; on the other hand, the harm requirement has often been defended on the grounds that it prevents an increase in false positives. The issue is also important in assessing the relationship between psychiatry and somatic medicine, more precisely, between the DSM and the International Classification of Diseases. We argue that there are good reasons not to maintain the harm requirement in the general definition of mental disorder. After a brief introduction, we overview the history of the harm requirement across the various editions of the DSM. Then, we examine the main objection to the inclusion of the harm requirement in the general definition of mental disorder, that is, the problem of false negatives, and also present several other points – both practical and conceptual – that help demonstrate why the harm requirement is inadequate as a definiens of mental disorder. To conclude, we stress that the decision of the DSM-5 task force not to regard the harm requirement as a necessary component of mental disorder should be endorsed. Keywords: Harm; Disability, Distress; Mental Disorder; DSM. (shrink)

L’introduzione al fascicolo Analogia e medioevo sive vent’anni di analogie presenta il numero 18 di "Doctor Virtualis" e traccia le tappe fondamentali della rivista. Si delineano dapprima alcune linee della storia della rivista e le sue ispirazioni teoriche e storiografiche principali, per poi mettere in luce le ragioni della rilevanza del tema dell’analogia, come oggetto utilizzato e pensato nei secoli medievali e come strumento di ricerca storiografica, e infine si conclude con l’articolazione del fascicolo. The introduction to the issue Analogy (...) and the Middle Ages sive twenty years of analogies presents issue n. 18 of Doctor Virtualis and traces the milestones of the journal. It first sketches some lines of the history of the journal and its main theoretical and historiographical inspirations, then highlights the reasons for the relevance of the theme of analogy, as an object used and thought of in the medieval centuries and as a tool for historiographical research, and finally concludes with the articulation of the issue. (shrink)

Background Only a few studies have been conducted to assess physicians’ knowledge of legal standards. Nevertheless, prior research has demonstrated a dearth of medical law knowledge. Our study explored physicians’ awareness of legal provisions concerning informed consent and confidentiality, which are essential components of the physician-patient relationship of trust. -/- Methods A cross-sectional study assessed attending physicians’ legal knowledge of informed consent and confidentiality regulations. The study was conducted in nine hospitals in Dolj County, Romania. Physicians were given a questionnaire (...) with ten scenarios and instructed to select the response that best reflected their practice. We assessed the responses of physicians who claimed their practice to be entirely legal. Their legal knowledge was evaluated by comparing their answers to applicable laws. We also calculated a score for the physicians who admitted to committing a legal breach. -/- Results Of the 305 respondents, 275 declared they never committed any law violation. However, their median correct answer score was 5.35 ± 1.66 out of 10. The specialty was the strongest predictor of legal knowledge, with emergency physicians rating the lowest and non-surgical physicians scoring the highest. Physicians who worked in both private and public sectors were better knowledgeable about legal issues than those who worked exclusively in the public sector. Results indicate that physicians are aware of the patient’s right to informed consent but lack comprehensive understanding. While most physicians correctly answered simple questions, only a tiny minority identified the correct solution when confronted with ethical dilemmas. The physicians who acknowledged breaching the law, on the other hand, had a slightly higher knowledge score at 5.45 ± 2.18. -/- Conclusion Legal compliance remains relatively low due to insufficient legal awareness. Physicians display limited awareness of legal requirements governing patient autonomy, confidentiality, and access to health data. Law should be taught in all medical schools, including undergraduate programs, to increase physicians’ legal knowledge and compliance. (shrink)

This study explores the intra-organizational antecedents of sustainable governance by examining the impact of female presence at the corporate apex. Drawing upon the upper echelon theory, we investigate whether women in top positions influence sustainable governance practices. Our research focuses on a sample of companies operating within two distinct market economies: liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs). The United States, represented by the S&P100, and the United Kingdom, represented by the FTSE100, serve as examples of LMEs. Conversely, (...) Germany (DAX30), France (CAC40), Spain (IBEX35), and Switzerland (SMI) are illustrative of CMEs. Analyzing archival data spanning from 2010 to 2019, we confirm that the presence of a critical mass of women on the board of directors significantly increases the likelihood of establishing a sustainability committee within organizations. This relationship holds true across both LMEs and CMEs, highlighting the universal importance of gender diversity in driving sustainable governance initiatives. Interestingly, we observe that the impact of women with structural power on sustainability committee formation is specific to LMEs, suggesting the context-dependent nature of female leadership in sustainable governance. (shrink)

The Test Your Memory is a brief self-administered, cognitive screening test, currently used in several settings. It requires minimal administrator supervision and the computation of the final test score takes approximately 2 min. We assessed the discrimination ability of the Italian version of the TYM in detecting Mild Cognitive Impairment in clinical setting. TYM-I was administered to 94 MCI patients and 134 healthy controls. The clinical diagnosis of MCI was considered as the gold standard. An extended formal neuropsychological test battery (...) was used to define MCI subtypes. Receiver Operating Characteristic analyses were conducted to find the optimal cut-off and measure discrimination ability of TYM-I in detecting MCI. TYM-I had a similar area under the curve point estimate as Mini Mental State Examination. A TYM-I score lower or equal to 36 was found to be optimal cut off to detect MCI. The TYM-I showed the highest discrimination ability among individuals aged more than 70 and high educational level. The amnestic MCI subtype patients, compared to non-amnestic MCI patients, had worse performance in recall, orientation and visuospatial abilities TYM-I subscores. The TYM-I is a valid screening test in detecting cognitive dysfunction, easily carried out in clinical practice. The TYM-I subscores may allow to identify amnestic and non-amnestic MCI subtypes. (shrink)

Genetic counselling is an important aspect of prenatal care in many developed countries. This tendency has also begun to emerge in Br.

O artigo apresenta reflexões acerca das afinidades eletivas entre os Estudos Sociais da Ciência e a Bibliometria, a Cientometria, campos de estudo voltados, respectivamente, para a análise das práticas e dinâmicas das comunidades científicas e da avaliação da produção científica e tecnológica produzidas pelos cientistas no interior das áreas de conhecimento.

I testi biblici si guardano, rinviano l'uno all'altro, si citano si rispecchiano l'uno nell'altro, e il frutto di tale rispecchiamento precipita a formare nuovi strati testuali.

Thanks to their heterogeneity, the nine essays in this volume offer a clear testimony of Donald Davidson's authority, and they undoubtedly show how much his work - even if it has raised many doubts and criticisms - has been, and still is, highly influential and significant in contemporary analytical philosophy for a wide range of subjects. Moreover, the various articles not only critically and carefully analyse Davidson's theses and arguments (in particular those concerning language and knowledge), but they also illustrate (...) how such theories and ideas, despite their unavoidable difficulties, are still alive and potentially fruitful. Davidson's work is indeed an important and provocative starting point for discussing the future progress of philosophy. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze the letters of Nietzsche, questioning if we can legitimately regard them as a vehicle for understanding and interpretation his work. Although letters are inevitably tainted by their context, it is now generally accepted that they cannot be thought of as “parasitic” on the works of their author, but are an “integral part of his machine for writing or expression” (Deleuze-Guattari). It is not a question of interpolating or interpreting the genesis and contents of the works (...) with the pressure of biographical elements, so much as using the letters as a sort of hermeneutic scheme, the better to understand an author’s representation of himself, the underlying intentions of his works, and to grasp their stylistic elements and argumentative resources, which the works inevitably transform. (shrink)

La discussione generale sulla filosofia della scienza contemporanea è complicata dal numero e dall’eterogeneità delle scienze, mentre lo studio di temi specifici porta inevitabilmente a dissertazioni specialistiche che mancano nel dare ragione della trama di senso sottostante. Questo Piccolo trattato di epistemologia intende occupare uno spazio vuoto, proponendo alcuni temi chiave per la comprensione dei meccanismi alla base della conoscenza scientifica: i rapporti tra filosofia e scienze, siano esse naturali o umane; la complessa relazione tra fatti e valori; la distinzione (...) tra scoperta e giustificazione; la necessità di un discorso etico sulla ricerca, che chiami in causa categorie come fiducia, empatia, altruismo ed egoismo. Con un approccio chiaro e rigoroso, il volume intende rivolgersi a quell’ampia fascia di pubblico interessata alle tematiche centrali dell’epistemologia, della filosofia e delle scienze. (shrink)

Exemplos, relatos e anedotas históricas são recorrentes nos Ensaios e revelam a maneira original de Montaigne se apropriar da história: como estudo do passado e das ocorrências particulares; como alimento moral; como referência fictícia ou real; através da relação da história com a retórica e a prova argumentativa; como história contemporânea e a crítica da mentalidade cultural; como história de vida. Em todas essas articulações da narrativa histórica, que podemos sintetizar ao modo de uma conversação com os homens do passado (...) e do presente, encontramos o alvo de Montaigne: ir das ações às intenções, do outro para o conhecimento de si, do diverso para o discernimento. A história, sobretudo aquela à maneira plutarquiana, constitui matéria prima indispensável para o exercício do julgamento de Montaigne. Examples, reports and historical anecdotes are not hard to find in Les Essais and reveal Montaigne's original way of approaching history: as a study of the past and particular events; as moral nourishment; as fictitious or real reference; by relating history to rhetoric and argumentative proof; as contemporary history and criticism of cultural mentality; as life story. In all these articulations of historical narrative, which we can synthesize as a conversation with men of the past and present time, we find Montaigne's target: to go from actions to intentions, from the other to the knowledge of oneself, from diversity to discernment. History, mainly the one that follows Plutarch's style, composes the raw material indispensable to Montaigne's exercise of judgment. (shrink)