Abstract Context: Established in 1997, Summa Health System’s Medical Ethics Committee (EC) serves as an educational, supportive, and consultative resource to patients/families and providers, and serves to analyze, clarify, and ameliorate dilemmas in clinical care. In 2009 the EC conducted its 100th consult. In 2002 a Palliative Care Consult Service (PCCS) was established to provide supportive services for patients/families facing advanced illness; enhance clinical decision-making during crisis; and improve pain/symptom management. How these services affect one another has thus far been (...) unclear. Objectives: This study describes EC consults: types, reasons, recommendations and utilization, and investigates the impact the PCCS may have on EC consult requests or recommendations. Methods: Retrospective reviews of 100 EC records explored trends and changes in types of consults, reasons for consults, and EC recommendations and utilization. Results: There were 50 EC consults each in the 6 years pre- and post-PCCS. Differences found include: (1) a decrease in number of reasons for consult requests (133–62); (2) changes in top two reasons for EC consult requests from ‘Family opposed to withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (LST)’ and ‘Patient capacity in question’ to ‘Futility’ and ‘Physician opposed to providing LST’; (3) changes in top two recommendations given by the EC from ‘Emotional Support for Patient/Family’ and ‘Initiate DNR Order’ to ‘Comfort Care’ and ‘Withdraw Treatment.’ Overall, 88% of recommendations were followed. Conclusion: PCCS availability and growth throughout the hospital may have influenced EC consult requests. EC consults regarding family opposition to withdrawing LST and EC recommendations for patient/family support declined. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s10730-011-9170-9 Authors Jessica Richmond Moeller, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Akron General Medical Center, 400 Wabash Ave, Akron, OH 44307, USA Teresa H. Albanese, Health Services Research and Education Institute, Summa Health System and Northeast Ohio Medical University, 55 Arch St., Suite 1A, Akron, OH 44304, USA Kimberly Garchar, Kent State University, 6000 Frank Ave., N.W, North Canton, OH 44720, USA Julie M. Aultman, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Northeast Ohio Medical University, P.O. Box 95, Rootstown, OH 44272, USA Steven Radwany, Palliative Care and Hospice Services, Summa Health System and Northeast Ohio Medical University, 55 Arch St., Suite 1A, Akron, OH 44304, USA Dean Frate, Internal Medicine, Palliative Care and Hospice Services, Summa Health System and Northeast Ohio Medical University, 55 Arch St., Suite 1A, Akron, OH 44304, USA Journal HEC Forum Online ISSN 1572-8498 Print ISSN 0956-2737. (shrink)

H G WellsHerbert George Wells, an English writer, was born on 21st 1866 and died on 13 Aug 1946. He was renowned for his works of science fiction especially 'The Time Machine'. He is also referred as 'The Father of Science Fiction'.

Byzantine Empire; economic and social conditions; history.

Exploring the darkest side of organizations may have a potential to change our previous assumptions about business life. Scholars both in management and organizational research fields have shown interest in the "bright" side of behavioral life and have looked for the ways to create a positive organizational climate and assumed a positive relation between happiness of employees and productivity. These main assumptions of the Human Relations School have dominated the scientific inquiry on organizational behavior. However, "the dark side of organizational (...) life" may have more explanatory power than "the bright side". Hostility, jealousy, envy, rivalry, gossip, problematic personalities, dislike, revenge, and social exclusion are the realities of business life. A manager may devote most of their time to cope with conflicts, deviant behaviors, ambitious individuals, gossips, and dysfunctional rivalry among employees. It is evident that negative events and interactions among employees cost more time and energy for a manager than the positive side of organizational life. This edited collection specifically focuses on these issues and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of management, organizational studies and behavior, sociology, social psychology, and human resource management. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic caused university education to transition from face-to-face contacts to virtual learning environments. Young adults were forced to live an entirely new life online, without valuable and enjoyable social interaction. We examined subjective perspectives towards life online during the pandemic. We identified four viewpoints about life mediated by computers. Two viewpoints express “struggling”: Viewpoint 1 (Angry, Depressed and Overwhelmed), and Viewpoint 3 (Restricted to and Overwhelmed by Virtuality). A third feeling-state conveys experiences of “surviving”: Viewpoint 4 (Isolated and (...) Powerless in Convenience). Surprisingly, Viewpoint 2 is about “thriving” (Comfortable and Convenient Routine with Computers). The research shows that virtualization, confinement, and anxiety are taking a toll on the mental health of some members of the younger generation, while at the same time other members feel they are thriving in a situation of limited resources, virtuality, and reduced face-to-face human interaction. (shrink)

This paper examines a general political problem of how to balance the need for concentrated power in the hands of the state—which is needed for effective governance—against the egalitarian desire to equalize power. It distinguishes between ‘positive’ political power appropriately wielded by the state, and ‘negative’ power that individuals may use to protect their own activities and interests from excessive or illegitimate state action and argue for institutions and practices designed to equalize power by ‘leveling up’ the powerless to match (...) the strong. (shrink)

Why is it hard to solve the climate crisis, and what can we do? This book answers these questions, which are of interest to the public, academics, and businesspeople. Using stories from the front lines of the energy transition, we show how to unlock the climate impasse.

al-Qism al-awwal. Fī ḍawābiṭ al-fikr (manṭiq) --.

The de minimis principle states that some risks are so trivial that they can be ignored or treated categorically differently from non-trivial risks. Lundgren and Stefánsson criticize the de minimis principle, arguing that it either has to be applied locally or globally and that problems arise whichever application is chosen. Aven and Seif respond to Lundgren and Stefánsson’s argument and defend the de minimis principle as a “meaningful and useful perspective for handling risk in practice.” The response highlights some aspects (...) of the argument in Lundgren and Stefánsson that needs clarification, which is what we do in this note. (shrink)

In the present essay we attempt to reconstruct Newtonian mechanics under the guidance of logical principles and of a constructive approach related to the genetic epistemology of Piaget and García (Psychogenesis and the history of science, Columbia University Press, New York, 1989). Instead of addressing Newton’s equations as a set of axioms, ultimately given by the revelation of a prodigious mind, we search for the fundamental knowledge, beliefs and provisional assumptions that can produce classical mechanics. We start by developing our (...) main tool: the no arbitrariness principle, that we present in a form that is apt for a mathematical theory as classical mechanics. Subsequently, we introduce the presence of the observer, analysing then the relation objective–subjective and seeking objectivity going across subjectivity. We take special care of establishing the precedence among all contributions to mechanics, something that can be better appreciated by considering the consequences of removing them: (a) the consequence of renouncing logic and the laws of understanding is not being able to understand the world, (b) renouncing the early elaborations of primary concepts such as time and space leads to a dissociation between everyday life and physics, the latter becoming entirely pragmatic and justified a-posteriori (because it is convenient), (c) changing our temporary beliefs has no real cost other than effort. Finally, we exemplify the present approach by reconsidering the constancy of the velocity of light. It is shown that it is a result of Newtonian mechanics, rather than being in contradiction with it. We also indicate the hidden assumption that leads to the (apparent) contradiction. (shrink)

At a meeting of the Physical Society of London in 1925 participants expressed their concerns regarding a recent suggestion by the Australian physicist T. H. Laby for replicating the established value of the mechanical equivalent of heat. This rather controversial discussion about the value of redetermining this numerical fact brings to light different understandings of the moral economy of accuracy in scientific work; it signals a distinctive new stage in the historical understanding of accuracy and precision and the moral integrity (...) in conducting research. (shrink)