The aim of our survey was to capture the attitudes of Swedes to marginal donors and xenotransplantation. Modern biotechnology makes it possible to replace non-functioning organs, cells, and genes. Nonetheless, people may have reservations and fears about such treatments. With the survey, Attitudes of the General Public to Transplants, we have sought to expose the ambivalence that arises when medical possibilities are juxtaposed with ideas of risk. The design of the questionnaire originates from the interdisciplinary cooperation between ethnologists, medical scientists, (...) and geneticists. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, it is possible to illustrate the complexity that characterises people’s view of modern biomedicine. People’s reflections are based on a personal and situation bound morality, which does not necessarily coincide with what they generally consider as ethically justifiable. (shrink)

Abstract416 S., £ 60,00. ISBN 978-0-230-30805-3.

BackgroundBeing pregnant is a vulnerable period for women with a history of eating disorders. A central issue in eating disorders is searching control of one’s body and food preferences. Pregnancy implies being increasingly out of control of this. Treatment and targeted prevention start with the patient’s experience. Little is known about how women with a history of eating disorder experience being pregnant.MethodWe interviewed 24 women with a history of eating disorder at the time of pregnancy, recruited from five public pregnancy (...) controls at local family health centers in Norway. Interviews were analyzed by means of ideal type analysis, with a particular focus on how the participants experienced pregnancy and perceived triggers in possible experiences of relapse or worsening during pregnancy. All participants completed the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire and were diagnosed by using the Eating Disorder Examination.ResultsOn becoming pregnant, 23 of the 24 participants experienced worsening or relapse of their disorder. This occurred both at first time and after several pregnancies, and either interviewed early or late in pregnancy. Ideal type analyses indicated seven different personal features associated with worsening or relapse: the “chaotic” “rigid” “perfect” “worried” “shameful” “motherhood fearing” and “the mother with lost identity” Perceived triggers of worsening or relapse were: “loss of control” “unpredictability” “competition” “change of appearance” “shame and nausea” and “loss of identity.”ConclusionPregnancy is a vulnerable period for women with a history of eating disorders. A great variation in personal psychological dynamics seems to interact with perceived triggers in worsening or relapse of eating disorder. Our findings have important implications in understanding mechanisms of relapse in pregnancy, preventing relapse and help tailoring adequate intervention. (shrink)

Why is there such a striking discrepancy between the flexibility, democracy and empowerment that the Bologna process aims for, and the superficial educational activities that it actually results in? Our answer is based on the ritual theory of the American anthropologist Roy Rappaport and the psychoanalytical framework of the Austrian philosopher Robert Pfaller. Interpreting schoolified education as a ritual, we argue that both the reform initiative and its ensuing educational activities should be interpreted as mainly productive of a certain appearance, (...) of compliance with prominent norms of modern society: the norms are articulated in policy documents and enacted in educational activity. We take schoolified education to be a normal ritual, in that this appearance is accepted ‘as if’ it corresponded with reality, while at the same time most people are aware (in a certain sense) of its superficial and ritualistic character. A twist, however, is added by the fact that modern society is distinctly anti-ritualistic, and therefore constantly tries to make education work ‘for real’. Drawing on Pfaller’s distinction between belief and faith, we show that this pursuit of de-ritualisation actually makes education progressively more formalised and coercive. (shrink)

Why is there such a striking discrepancy between the flexibility, democracy and empowerment that the Bologna process aims for, and the superficial educational activities that it actually results in? Our answer is based on the ritual theory of the American anthropologist Roy Rappaport and the psychoanalytical framework of the Austrian philosopher Robert Pfaller. Interpreting schoolified education as a ritual, we argue that both the reform initiative and its ensuing educational activities should be interpreted as mainly productive of a certain appearance, (...) of compliance with prominent norms of modern society: the norms are articulated in policy documents and enacted in educational activity. We take schoolified education to be a normal ritual, in that this appearance is accepted ‘as if’ it corresponded with reality, while at the same time most people are aware (in a certain sense) of its superficial and ritualistic character. A twist, however, is added by the fact that modern society is distinctly anti-ritualistic, and therefore constantly tries to make education work ‘for real’. Drawing on Pfaller’s distinction between belief and faith, we show that this pursuit of de-ritualisation actually makes education progressively more formalised and coercive. (shrink)

This paper explores essential characteristics of current nursing practice from the perspectives of clinically experienced registered nurses in various fields of health care in Sweden. Nursing practice has been the subject of much debate in the past and because of its complexity as well as continuous changes in society it is important to continue the debate. A qualitative study, including 16 group interviews with altogether 74 participants, was conducted. Nursing practice was viewed as a multifaceted field. The participants struggled to (...) define nursing but were able to describe it using concrete examples. The analysis, using interpretive description, identified current practice as essentially consisting of: ‘A practice pervaded by comprehensive responsibility’, ‘A practice that recognises a patient's unique needs’, ‘A practice based on multifaceted knowledge’ and ‘A practice that mediates between traditional values and changing demands’. Current nursing practice can be understood as striving to be in close proximity to the patient, but in tension with pervasive requirements and societal changes. Going forward, it is necessary to continue to reflect on and discuss the nature of nursing practice in an interprofessional context. Studies from primary and home care are also needed to broaden the understanding of nursing practice. (shrink)

This work presents an engaging interdisciplinary study of the nature and scope of interpretation, one of the most important areas of inquiry in today's ...

BackgroundRich in different kind of potent cells, embryos are used in modern regenerative medicine and research. Neurobiologists today are pushing the boundaries for what can be done with embryos existing in the transitory margins of medicine. Therefore, there is a growing need to develop conceptual frameworks for interpreting the transformative cultural, biological and technical processes involving these aborted, donated and marginal embryos. This article is a contribution to this development of frameworks.MethodsThis article examines different emotional, cognitive and discursive strategies used (...) by neurobiologists in a foetal cell transplantation trial in Parkinson’s disease research, using cells harvested from aborted embryos. Two interviews were analysed in the light of former observations in the processing laboratories, using the anthropologist Mary Douglas’s concept of pollution behaviour and the linguist, philosopher, psychoanalyst and feminist Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abjective to explain and make sense of the findings.ResultsThe findings indicate that the labour performed by the researchers in the trial work involves transforming the foetal material practically, as well as culturally, from trash to treasure. The transformation process contains different phases, and in the interview material we observed that the foetal material or cells were considered objects, subjects or rejected as abject by the researchers handling them, depending on what phase of process or practice they referred to or had experience of. As demonstrated in the analysis, it is the human origin of the cell that makes it abjective and activates pollution discourse, when the researchers talk of their practice.ConclusionsThe marginal and ambiguous status of the embryo that emerges in the accounts turns the scientists handling foetal cells into liminal characters in modern medicine. Focusing on how practical as well as emotional and cultural strategies and rationalizations of the researchers emerge in interview accounts, this study adds insights on the rationale of practically procuring, transforming and utilizing the foetal material to the already existing studies focused on the donations. We also discuss why the use and refinement of a tissue, around which there is practical consensus but cultural ambiguity, deserves further investigation. (shrink)

ch. 1. Istorii︠a︡ sot︠s︡iologicheskikh ucheniĭ -- ch. 2. Nauchnai︠a︡ teorii︠a︡ obshchestva.

This paper brings together the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Alston in speech-act theory with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of the nature of divine speaking through the medium of Scripture. Despite the fecundity of Wolterstorff's seminal work on the philosophical theology of Scripture, aspects of his speech-act centric account are underdeveloped and would benefit from the contributions of William Alston. In particular, his account of divine speech-acts could be fruitfully expanded by incorporating the concept of ‘taking (...) responsibility’ that is central to Alston's analysis of the nature of illocutionary acts. This would elucidate both the way in which readers of Scripture encounter divine practical authority in the reading process and the nature of the response of faith that is demanded of them. (shrink)

Several recent papers dealing with Plato's position on the imperfection of the phenomenal world draw heavily on the differences between two kinds of predicates in order to show the following: In the middle dialogues, Plato posits Forms only as referents of what the writers call incomplete predicates. He does not posit Forms as referents for complete predicates. When interpreters ignore the differences between these kinds of predicates, they ascribe too radical a view regarding the imperfection of the phenomenal world to (...) the middle dialogues. The ontology of these dialogues includes sensible particulars which retain their identity over time even though they are continually changing in some respect or other. (shrink)

A brief presentation of the major conclusions contained in the recently published monograph entitled "The Ascent to Law: Searches and Solutions," written over a period of many years. Chapter headings are: The law - an objective reality. The dogma of the law. The drama of scholarship. Searching. "The entire" substance of the law. Juridical constructs. The logic of laws. The secret of the law. Law - the highest purpose. Law in the life and fate of mankind.

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; and (...) reproductive rights. (shrink)

While Weber’s distinction between ‘ideal’ and ‘material’ interests is one of the most enduring aspects of his theoretical legacy, it has been subjected to little critical commentary. In this article, we revisit the theoretical legacy of interest-based explanation in social theory, with an eye to clarifying Weber’s place in this tradition. We then reconsider extant critical commentary on the ideal/material interest distinction, noting the primarily Parsonian rendering of Weber and the unproductive allegiance to ‘generic need’ readings of Weber’s action theory. (...) We reconstruct the basis of the ideal/material interest distinction in the work of Rudolph von Ihering and provide a sounder basis for its analytic role in Weber’s ‘grand’ project. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study was to address the shortcomings of Cronbach’s alpha concerning the semantic overlap between items. Using an example from a motivational measure, the correction of Cronbach’s alpha was applied by partialing out the effects due to conceptual overlap. The significance of Cronbach’s alpha was tested using simulated random data derived from the measure and by estimating the confidence intervals with known and unknown distributions. The results indicated that the uncorrected conceptual overlap coefficient alpha was equal (...) to 0.89 and 0.66 following the correction. After simulating the corrected statistical results, the distribution of alpha with random numbers had an estimate of 95%, equal to 0.41. The lower bound of the corrected alpha distribution was equal to 0.41, suggesting that the corrected alpha could easily belong to the distribution of alpha developed from simulated random numbers. Thus, the semantic overlap between items on a measure represents a significant threat to the validity of the alpha coefficient. (shrink)

Papers delivered at the joint meeting of the Hegel Society of America and the Hegel Society of Great Britain held at Merton College, Oxford, Sept. 1-4, 1981, to mark the 150th anniversary of Hegel's death. Includes bibliographical references and index.

This paper aims to introduce a robust framework for forecasting demand, including data preprocessing, data transformation and standardization, feature selection, cross-validation, and regression ensemble framework. Bagging ), boosting and extreme gradient boosting regression ), and stacking are employed as ensemble models. Different machine learning approaches, including support vector regression, extreme learning machine, and multilayer perceptron neural network, are adopted as reference models. In order to maximize the determination coefficient value and reduce the root mean square error, hyperparameters are set using (...) the grid search method. Using a steel industry dataset, all tests are carried out under identical experimental conditions. In this context, STACK1 and STACK2 models provided better performance than other models. The highest accuracies of R2 of 0.97 and 0.97 are obtained using STACK1 and STACK2, respectively. Moreover, the rank according to performances is STACK1, STACK2, XGBR, GBR, RFR, MLP, ELM, and SVR. As it improves the performance of models and reduces the risk of decision-making, the ensemble method can be used to forecast the demand in a steel industry one month ahead. (shrink)

Environmentalist philosophers often paint a holistic picture, stressing such things as the continuity of humanity with wider nature and our membership of the 'natural community' . The implication seems to be that a non-anthropocentric philosophy requires that we strongly identify ourselves with nature and therefore that we downplay any human/non-human distinction. An alternative view, I think more interesting and plausible, stresses the distinction between humanity and a nature valued precisely for its otherness. In this article I discuss some of its (...) main elements, and some of the difficulties involved with keeping nature's otherness in focus. Firstly (in sections 1-5), I try to clarify what I take to be the otherness-based position by distinguishing it from the apparently similar views of John Passmore, Robert Elliott and Keekok Lee, and some opposed holistic views, especially of J. Baird Callicott. Then, in the second half of the article (sections 6-7), I argue that if nature is valued in virtue of its otherness, this value is best thought of as an extrinsic, final and objective good, where 'objectivity' is a 'method of understanding', in Thomas Nagel's sense. Although I give some reasons for preferring an otherness account to certain alternative positions, I make no overall attempt to 'prove' that nature is valuable for its otherness. My aim is to show that, if it is, then this seems the best way to understand that value. (shrink)

Collingwood’s “Libellus de Generatione: An Essay in Absolute Empiricism” was a tract of strenuous philosophical revisionism; never published, perhaps unpublishable, supposedly destroyed, it survived. He begins by stressing his obligations to David Hume; he offers his thematic: “absolute denial of any such concept as substance and the resolution of all reality into the reality of experience.” “The reality of mind is the process of its experience, its life, and nothing else”. Or, “the mind is a mirror... whose being is solely (...) the activity of reflecting”; it has no “substance of its own of which this activity is only a reflection”. Collingwood’s entire career as student and teacher... (shrink)

Hegel’s idealism is generally perceived as a system of rational sublation (Aufhebung) of all empirical contingencies: nothing resists notional mediation which, in a movement of negation of negation, establishes a rational totality. Already Schelling opposed to this complete sublation an “indivisible remainder” of empirical contingency. However, a close reading of Hegel makes it clear that the concluding moment of a dialectical movement of sublation is an empirical remainder which totalizes it, like the body of Christ in Christianity. And the same (...) goes for the process of “negation of negation”: it concludes with a failure of negation, and its ultimate form is a failed suicide where the subject survives as a living dead. Such a reading of Hegel makes him a thinker of our time which is the time of a failed negation: most of us live as survivors of our death, with life dragging on in depressive apathy. (shrink)

Developing an intellectualist account of skill, Stanley and Williamson define skill as a kind of disposition to action-guiding knowledge. The present paper challenges their definition of skill. While we don’t dispute that skill may consist of a cognitive, a dispositional, and an action-guiding component, we argue that Stanley and Williamson’s account of each component is problematic. In the first section, we argue, against Stanley and Williamson, that the cognitive component of skill is not a case of propositional knowledge-wh, which is (...) typically indexical. In the second section, we seek to show that Stanley and Williamson face difficulties in arguing for a generic claim about skill as a kind of disposition, and they fail to defend intellectualism about skill based on the dispositional account. In the third section we argue that Stanley and Williamson need a more detailed account of the action-guiding aspect of skill to avoid several difficulties, including a threat of a regress. We close with some lessons for the debate over intellectualism and anti-intellectualism about skill. (shrink)