Arthur G. Tansley never accepted Frederic E. Clements’ view that succession is a developmental process whose final stage, the climax formation, is determined primarily by regional climate and that all other types of vegetation are some kind of successional stage or arrested successional stage. Tansley was convinced that in a given region a variety of environmental factors could produce different kinds of climax formations. At the heart of their dispute was Clements’ organicist view of succession, i.e., the formation was a (...) complex organism with an ontogeny and phylogeny. As early as 1905, Tansley offered an alternative to Clements’ complex organism, the quasi-organism, but Clements in private and public rejected this compromise. Tansley and other plant ecologists continued to criticize Clements’ theories for the next 20 years, but with no impact on Clements. John Phillips, a South African plant ecologist who was a follower of Clements, published a series of papers in 1934 and 1935 defending Clementsian ecology. These papers were triggered by the publication of a letter by another ecologist working in Africa who claimed that there was a strong correlation between soils and various kinds of climax vegetation, which was contrary to what was predicted by Phillips and Clements. In 1935, Tansley published an attack on Phillips and Clements and their developmental theory of succession. In it, he proposed the concept of the ecosystem as a way to get around Clements’ monoclimax theory by making the physical environment (e.g., soil chemistry, soil texture, soil moisture) as important a factor as climate, plants and other organisms in determining the composition and characteristics of ecological entities, i.e., ecosystems. Tansley’s ecosystem concept quickly replaced Clements’ monoclimax theory as a dominant paradigm in ecology. (shrink)

Arthur G. Tansley never accepted Frederic E. Clements’ view that succession is a developmental process whose final stage, the climax formation, is determined primarily by regional climate and that all other types of vegetation are some kind of successional stage or arrested successional stage. Tansley was convinced that in a given region a variety of environmental factors could produce different kinds of climax formations. At the heart of their dispute was Clements’ organicist view of succession, i.e., the formation was a (...) complex organism with an ontogeny and phylogeny. As early as 1905, Tansley offered an alternative to Clements’ complex organism, the quasi-organism, but Clements in private and public rejected this compromise. Tansley and other plant ecologists continued to criticize Clements’ theories for the next 20 years, but with no impact on Clements. John Phillips, a South African plant ecologist who was a follower of Clements, published a series of papers in 1934 and 1935 defending Clementsian ecology. These papers were triggered by the publication of a letter by another ecologist working in Africa who claimed that there was a strong correlation between soils and various kinds of climax vegetation, which was contrary to what was predicted by Phillips and Clements. In 1935, Tansley published an attack on Phillips and Clements and their developmental theory of succession. In it, he proposed the concept of the ecosystem as a way to get around Clements’ monoclimax theory by making the physical environment (e.g., soil chemistry, soil texture, soil moisture) as important a factor as climate, plants and other organisms in determining the composition and characteristics of ecological entities, i.e., ecosystems. Tansley’s ecosystem concept quickly replaced Clements’ monoclimax theory as a dominant paradigm in ecology. (shrink)

In this survey study of 7,208 Dutch healthcare workers, we investigate whether healthcare workers dealing with COVID-19 patients experience lower general health, more physical and mental exhaustion and more sleep problems than other healthcare workers. Additionally, we study whether there are differences in well-being within the group of healthcare workers working with COVID-19 patients, based on personal and work characteristics. We find healthcare workers who are in direct contact with COVID-19 patients report more sleep problems and are more physically exhausted (...) than those who are not in direct contact with COVID-19 patients. Mental exhaustion and general health do not significantly differ between healthcare workers who are in direct contact with COVID-19 patients and those who are not. Among healthcare workers in direct contact with COVID-19 patients, lower well-being on one or more indicators is reported by those who are female, living alone, without leadership role, or without sufficient protective equipment. Regarding age, physical exhaustion is more prevalent under healthcare workers older than 55 years, whereas mental exhaustion is more prevalent under healthcare workers younger than 36 years. These results stress the need of mental and physical support of healthcare workers during a pandemic, catered to the needs of healthcare workers themselves. (shrink)

Due to its extraordinary predictive power and the great generality of its mathematical structure, quantum theory is able, at least in principle, to describe all the microscopic and macroscopic properties of the physical world, from the subatomic to the cosmological level. Nevertheless, ever since the Copen hagen and Gottingen schools in 1927 gave it the definitive formu lation, now commonly known as the orthodox interpretation, the theory has suffered from very serious logical and epistemologi cal problems. These shortcomings were immediately (...) pointed out by some of the principal founders themselves of quantum theory, to wit, Planck, Einstein, Ehrenfest, Schrodinger, and de Broglie, and by the philosopher Karl Popper, who assumed a position of radical criticism with regard to the standard formulation of the theory. The aim of the participants in the workshop on Open Questions in Quantum Physics, which was held in Bari (Italy), in the Department of Physics of the University, during May 1983 and whose Proceedings are collected in the present volume, accord ingly was to discuss the formal, the physical and the epistemo logical difficulties of quantum theory in the light of recent crucial developments and to propose some possible resolutions of three basic conceptual dilemmas, which are posed respectively ~: (a) the physical developments of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument and Bell's theorem, i. e. (shrink)

This article addresses the research question: “How do Dutch highly educated Muslim women of Moroccan descent use prayer in dealing with problems?” The theoretical framework was mainly based on the work of Pargament et al. regarding religious coping. The empirical part of the study consisted of a quantitative and a qualitative part. This article presents results of the quantitative part. For the quantitative part of our research, 177 questionnaires were collected using snowball sampling. We asked respondents about their praying practices (...) and their ways of religious coping, using the Brief RCOPE. The connection and communication in their prayer with a loving, caring, benevolent God is the main religious way in which these Muslim women of Moroccan descent cope with all kinds of problems. This use of prayer as a way of coping can be clarified through the psychological functions of religiosity and prayer that are suggested by Pargament, Koenig, and Perez. Prayer could help them in: finding meaning, being master over their circumstances and controlling their emotions, finding comfort and closeness to God, experiencing intimacy with others and closeness to God, and transforming their way of life. We did find few negative religious coping strategies, such as negative feelings towards God or alienation. This is in line with research results of Abu Raiya and Pargament. As Islam implies surrender to God, it may be difficult for Muslims to admit their religious distress, doubts, and struggles. (shrink)

Inleiding vanuit historisch perspectief tot de rechtsfilosofie.

Background: Debates over legalisation of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia often warn of a “slippery slope”, predicting abuse of people in vulnerable groups. To assess this concern, the authors examined data from Oregon and the Netherlands, the two principal jurisdictions in which physician-assisted dying is legal and data have been collected over a substantial period.Methods: The data from Oregon comprised all annual and cumulative Department of Human Services reports 1998–2006 and three independent studies; the data from the Netherlands comprised all four (...) government-commissioned nationwide studies of end-of-life decision making and specialised studies. Evidence of any disproportionate impact on 10 groups of potentially vulnerable patients was sought.Results: Rates of assisted dying in Oregon and in the Netherlands showed no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured , people with low educational status, the poor, the physically disabled or chronically ill, minors, people with psychiatric illnesses including depression, or racial or ethnic minorities, compared with background populations. The only group with a heightened risk was people with AIDS. While extralegal cases were not the focus of this study, none have been uncovered in Oregon; among extralegal cases in the Netherlands, there was no evidence of higher rates in vulnerable groups.Conclusions: Where assisted dying is already legal, there is no current evidence for the claim that legalised PAS or euthanasia will have disproportionate impact on patients in vulnerable groups. Those who received physician-assisted dying in the jurisdictions studied appeared to enjoy comparative social, economic, educational, professional and other privileges. (shrink)

Interactive technology assessment (iTA) provides an answer to the ethical problem of normative bias in evaluation research. This normative bias develops when relevant perspectives on the evaluand (the thing being evaluated) are neglected. In iTA this bias is overcome by incorporating different perspectives into the assessment. As a consequence, justification of decisions based on the assessment is provided by stakeholders having achieved agreement. In this article, agreement is identified with wide reflective equilibrium to show that it indeed has the potential (...) of justifying decisions. We work out several conditions for this agreement to be achievable and just. (shrink)

The King Report on Corporate Governance (1994) evoked unprecedented interest in corporate governance in South Africa. This does not mean that corporate governance was not an issue of concern before the release of this historical report. To the contrary, corporate governance in its broader sense has been at stake since the inception of the first publicly owned companies in South Africa. This article intends to give an overview of corporate governance in South Africa. It starts by making a distinction between (...) broad and narrow conceptions of corporate governance. Before applying this distinction to the practice of corporate governance in South Africa, a brief overview of the corporate landscape in South Africa is provided. Then the South African situation with regard to broad and narrow corporate governance respectively is analysed. The article ends with a discussion of the review of corporate governance that currently is in the making in South Africa. Throughout the article both the financial and ethical dimensions of corporate governance is attended to. (shrink)

The King Report on Corporate Governance (1994) evoked unprecedented interest in corporate governance in South Africa. This does not mean that corporate governance was not an issue of concern before the release of this historical report. To the contrary, corporate governance in its broader sense has been at stake since the inception of the first publicly owned companies in South Africa. This article intends to give an overview of corporate governance in South Africa. It starts by making a distinction between (...) broad and narrow conceptions of corporate governance. Before applying this distinction to the practice of corporate governance in South Africa, a brief overview of the corporate landscape in South Africa is provided. Then the South African situation with regard to broad and narrow corporate governance respectively is analysed. The article ends with a discussion of the review of corporate governance that currently is in the making in South Africa. Throughout the article both the financial and ethical dimensions of corporate governance is attended to. (shrink)

Flow is a state of full task engagement that is accompanied with low-levels of self-referential thinking. Flow is considered highly relevant for human performance and well-being and has, therefore, been studied extensively. Yet, the neurocognitive processes of flow remain largely unclear. In the present mini-review we focus on how the brain's locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system may be involved in a range of behavioral and subjective manifestations of flow. The LC-NE system regulates decisions regarding task engagement vs. disengagement. This is doneviadifferent (...) modes of baseline and stimulus-evoked norepinephrine release. We emphasize the theoretical and empirical overlap between the LC-NE system and flow. For both, a match between a person's skill and task challenge is important in order to induce high levels task-related attention. Moreover, psychophysiological indicators of LC-NE system activity, such as eye pupil diameter and arousal are also sensitive to flow states. Flow is related to arousal in an inverted U-shape. Similarly, in theories on the LC-NE system, task engagement is highest with intermediate levels of arousal. We argue that knowledge about the role of the LC-NE system in establishing the flow experience may help to gain fundamental knowledge of flow and can contribute to unifying various empirical findings on this topic. (shrink)

Our study presents an overview of the issues that were brought forward by participants of a moral case deliberation (MCD) project in two elderly care organizations. The overview was inductively derived from all case descriptions (N = 202) provided by participants of seven mixed MCD groups, consisting of care providers from various professional backgrounds, from nursing assistant to physician. The MCD groups were part of a larger MCD project within two care institutions (residential homes and nursing homes). Care providers are (...) confronted with a wide variety of largely everyday ethical issues. We distinguished three main categories: ‘resident’s behavior’, ‘divergent perspectives on good care’ and ‘organizational context’. The overview can be used for agendasetting when institutions wish to stimulate reflection and deliberation. It is important that an agenda is constructed from the bottom-up and open to a variety of issues. In addition, organizing reflection and deliberation requires effort to identify moral questions in practice whilst at the same time maintaining the connection with the organizational context and existing communication structures. Once care providers are used to dealing with divergent perspectives, inviting different perspectives (e.g. family members) to take part in the deliberation, might help to identify and address ethical ‘blind spots’. (shrink)

Bijdragen over de actuele betekenis van de filosofie, met name de Reformatorische Wijsbegeerte.

Moral case deliberation (MCD) is a specific form of clinical ethics, aiming to stimulate ethical reflection in daily practice in order to improve the quality of care. This article focuses on the implementation of MCD in nursing homes and the questions how and where to organize MCD. The purpose of this study was to evaluate one way of organizing MCD in two Dutch nursing homes. In both of these nursing homes the MCD groups had a heterogeneous composition and were organized (...) apart from existing institutional communication structures. As part of a naturalistic evaluation, systematic observations, interviews and focus groups were completed. The findings indicate that the heterogeneous composition and MCD meetings separate from existing structures have benefits. However, the participants also reported negative experiences. This gives rise to the question whether a mixed MCD group which meets separately is an effective way to embed MCD as an instrument for reflection on moral issues in daily practice. We conclude that there is no single answer to that question. In the end, the two implementation strategies (i.e. within existing communication structures and a mixed MCD group) can be complementary to each other. (shrink)

This article reviews the development of social quality indicators and the challenges ahead. First, through a review of recent Asian and Australian work carried out on social quality indicators, and the World Bank related work on “social development indicators,” the article argues that social quality indicators research should move beyond the empirical level of particular policy areas. Therefore, it should be guided by a clear methodological perspective regarding the role of indicators as part of a social quality theory (SQT) and (...) their relation to the social quality approach (SQA). Second, the article opens a debate about the rationale behind distinguishing between three different functions of social quality indicators. Indicators should address the change in the conditional factors in daily life, as manifested in its economic, socio-political, socio-cultural and environmental dimensions, in order to examine the consequences of general trends and contradictions in (1) societal circumstances, (2) the development (or lack of development) toward sustainability, and (3) the related issue of sustainable urban development. Before 2010 social quality scholars mainly concentrated on the first issue. Recently, however, they are approaching all three issues. It is essential to delve deeper into SQT and the SQA for understanding these three issues separately and integrally. This has implications for the nature of social quality indicators and their comparison to those of other mainstream approaches; the article introduces this agenda of work. (shrink)