Links between musicality and vocal emotion perception skills have only recently emerged as a focus of study. Here we review current evidence for or against such links. Based on a systematic literature search, we identified 33 studies that addressed either (a) vocal emotion perception in musicians and nonmusicians, (b) vocal emotion perception in individuals with congenital amusia, (c) the role of individual differences (e.g., musical interests, psychoacoustic abilities), or (d) effects of musical training interventions on both the normal hearing population (...) and cochlear implant users. Overall, the evidence supports a link between musicality and vocal emotion perception abilities. We discuss potential factors moderating the link between emotions and music, and possible directions for future research. (shrink)

Research into voice perception benefits from manipulation software to gain experimental control over acoustic expression of social signals such as vocal emotions. Today, parameter-specific voice morphing allows a precise control of the emotional quality expressed by single vocal parameters, such as fundamental frequency (F0) and timbre. However, potential side effects, in particular reduced naturalness, could limit ecological validity of speech stimuli. To address this for the domain of emotion perception, we collected ratings of perceived naturalness and emotionality on voice morphs (...) expressing different emotions either through F0 or Timbre only. In two experiments, we compared two different morphing approaches, using either neutral voices or emotional averages as emotionally non-informative reference stimuli. As expected, parameter-specific voice morphing reduced perceived naturalness. However, perceived naturalness of F0 and Timbre morphs were comparable with averaged emotions as reference, potentially making this approach more suitable for future research. Crucially, there was no relationship between ratings of emotionality and naturalness, suggesting that the perception of emotion was not substantially affected by a reduction of voice naturalness. We hold that while these findings advocate parameter-specific voice morphing as a suitable tool for research on vocal emotion perception, great care should be taken in producing ecologically valid stimuli. (shrink)

The philosophy of Thomas Kuhn proposes that scientific progress involves periods of crisis and revolution in which previous paradigms are discarded and replaced. Revolutions in how mental health problems are conceptualised have had a substantial impact on the work of mental health nurses. However, despite numerous revolutions within the field of mental health, the biological paradigm has remained largely dominant within western healthcare, especially in orientating the understanding and treatment of psychosis. This paper utilises concepts drawn from the philosophy of (...) Thomas Kuhn to explore the impact of what Kuhn terms ‘anomalies’ within the dominant biological paradigm: the anomaly of the meaningful utterance, the anomaly of complex aetiology and taxonomy and the anomaly of pharmacological inefficacy in recovery. The paper argues that the biological paradigm for understanding psychosis is in crisis and explores the implications for mental health nursing. (shrink)

Marshall et al. (2024) identify a potential ethical conflict between the principles of beneficence and respect for patient autonomy when patients refuse to remain in an emergency department (ED) fo...

Advance directives are propagated as instruments to maintain patients’ autonomy in case they can no longer decide for themselves. It has been never been examined whether patients’ and healthy persons themselves are inclined to adhere to these documents. Patients’ and healthy persons’ views on whether instructions laid down in advance directives should be followed because that is (or is not) “the right thing to do”, not because one is legally obliged to do so, were studied and compared with that of (...) medical staff. Method: Vignette study presenting five cases. Cancer patients, healthy persons, nursing staff and physicians (n = 100 in each group) were interviewed. An adherence score was calculated (maximum value 5). The adherence score is found to be low in all groups, yet lowest in patients (1.55; standard deviation 1.13) and healthy controls (1.60; 1.37). The scores are significantly different between nursing staff on the one hand and patients and healthy controls on the other (p < 0.005 and p < 0.05, respectively), and between doctors and patients (p < 0.05). Interviewees who want these documents to be followed tend to live alone and to have already written an advance directive. Conclusions: Cancer patients and healthy persons widely disregard instructions laid down in advance directives and consider them less binding than physicians and nursing staff do. Only a minority tends to adhere more to advance directives. To improve decision-making at the end of life when patients are no longer able to decide for themselves alternative concepts, such as advanced care planning, should be considered. (shrink)

Traducción del artículo publicado originalmente como Sorgner, S. L. (2011). Zarathustra 2.0 and Beyond: Further Remarks on the Complex Relationship between Nietzsche and Transhumanism. The Agonist, a Nietzsche Circle Journal, 4(2).

This research replicates Bhattacharjee et al. :1167–1184, 2013) moral decoupling model and extends the original along the dimensions of theory, method, and context. Adopting a branding perspective and focusing on the corporate domain rather than the public figures investigated by Bhattacharjee and colleagues, this research examines the proposition that consumers dissociate judgments of morality from judgments of performance to justify purchasing from companies deemed to act immorally. The original study is further extended by applying the model in a different cultural (...) context and employing a more realistic stimulus to establish external and ecological validity. The results of the replication generally support the original findings, in particular, under conditions of higher product involvement, a theoretical extension. (shrink)

C/D box snoRNAs (SNORDs) are an abundantly expressed class of short, non‐coding RNAs that have been long known to perform 2′‐O‐methylation of rRNAs. However, approximately half of human SNORDs have no predictable rRNA targets, and numerous SNORDs have been associated with diseases that show no defects in rRNAs, among them Prader‐Willi syndrome, Duplication 15q syndrome and cancer. This apparent discrepancy has been addressed by recent studies showing that SNORDs can act to regulate pre‐mRNA alternative splicing, mRNA abundance, activate enzymes, and (...) be processed into shorter ncRNAs resembling miRNAs and piRNAs. Furthermore, recent biochemical studies have shown that a given SNORD can form both methylating and non‐methylating ribonucleoprotein complexes, providing an indication of the likely physical basis for such diverse new functions. Thus, SNORDs are more structurally and functionally diverse than previously thought, and their role in gene expression is under‐appreciated. The action of SNORDs in non‐methylating complexes can be substituted with oligonucleotides, allowing devising therapies for diseases like Prader‐Willi syndrome. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 93-94.

This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, and reconstructs (...) the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

The translational research community, in general, and the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) community, in particular, share the vision of repurposing EHRs for research that will improve the quality of clinical practice. Many members of these communities are also aware that electronic health records (EHRs) suffer limitations of data becoming poorly structured, biased, and unusable out of original context. This creates obstacles to the continuity of care, utility, quality improvement, and translational research. Analogous limitations to sharing objective data in (...) other areas of the natural sciences have been successfully overcome by developing and using common ontologies. This White Paper presents the authors’ rationale for the use of ontologies with computable semantics for the improvement of clinical data quality and EHR usability formulated for researchers with a stake in clinical and translational science and who are advocates for the use of information technology in medicine but at the same time are concerned by current major shortfalls. This White Paper outlines pitfalls, opportunities, and solutions and recommends increased investment in research and development of ontologies with computable semantics for a new generation of EHRs. (shrink)

„Medizinische Notwendigkeit“ (MedN) ist der zentrale Steuerungsbegriff für die Finanzierung medizinischer Versorgung in der deutschen Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung. Trotz seiner scheinbaren Objektivität und Bestimmtheit durch ärztliche Expertise ist der Begriff alles andere als eindeutig definiert. In diesem ersten von fünf geplanten Aufsätzen zur Begriffsklärung von MedN aus medizintheoretischer, -ethischer, rechtlicher und (sozial)medizinischer Perspektive geht es um eine Systematisierung der aktuellen Kontroversen. Damit soll eine Fundierung für Detaildebatten gelegt werden, die bisher fehlt. Geklärt werden sollen die begriffliche Struktur, Funktion, Kontextualität und Missverständlichkeit (...) von MedN sowie die grundsätzlichen Grenzen einer Begriffsanalyse für die anstehenden normativen Fragen medizinischer Leistungssteuerung. (shrink)

I should like to offer my greatest thanks to Paul Griffiths for providing the opportunity for this exchange, and to commentators Gillian Brown, Steven Fuller, Stefan Linquist, and Erika Milam for their generous and thought-provoking comments. I shall do my best in this space to respond to some of their concerns.

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in hospitals yields many advantages but also confronts healthcare with ethical questions and challenges. While various disciplines have conducted specific research on the ethical considerations of AI in hospitals, the literature still requires a holistic overview. By conducting a systematic discourse approach highlighted by expert interviews with healthcare specialists, we identified the status quo of interdisciplinary research in academia on ethical considerations and dimensions of AI in hospitals. We found 15 fundamental manuscripts by constructing (...) a citation network for the ethical discourse, and we extracted actionable principles and their relationships. We provide an agenda to guide academia, framed under the principles of biomedical ethics. We provide an understanding of the current ethical discourse of AI in clinical environments, identify where further research is pressingly needed, and discuss additional research questions that should be addressed. We also guide practitioners to acknowledge AI-related benefits in hospitals and to understand the related ethical concerns. (shrink)

Psychometrically sound instruments that assess temporal dynamics of creative abilities are limited. The Ambulatory Battery of Creativity is designed to assess creative ideation performance multiple times in everyday life and was proven to capture the intra-individual dynamic of creative abilities reliably and validly. The present ambulatory study aimed to replicate and extend the psychometric evidence of the novel ABC. Sixty-nine participants worked on the ABC during a 5-day ambulatory assessment protocol. Each day, participants completed six randomly presented items of the (...) verbal and the figural ABC. Matching previous psychometric analyses, the results indicated good between-person and good within-person reliability. Furthermore, evidence for between-person and within-person validity of the ABC was obtained. Performance in the verbal and the figural ABC were interrelated and correlated with an independent measure of creative potential. The verbal ABC was further associated with openness, self-reported creative behavior, creative activities, and creative achievements, thus providing additional evidence of construct validity, especially for the verbal ABC. Finally, the verbal and the figural ABC yielded convincing within-person validity: Longer response times and higher subjective originality ratings were associated with more original ideas. This replication and extension of the ABC’s psychometric properties indicates that it enables a reliable and valid assessment of moment-to-moment fluctuations of creative ideation abilities in everyday life, which may facilitate the investigation of exciting new research questions related to dynamic aspects of creative ability. (shrink)

Head stabilization is fundamental for balance during locomotion but can be impaired in elderly or diseased populations. Previous studies have identified several parameters of head stability with possible diagnostic value in a laboratory setting. Recently, the ecological validity of measures obtained in such controlled contexts has been called into question. The aim of this study was to investigate the ecological validity of previously described parameters of head stabilization in a real-world setting. Ten healthy subjects participated in the study. Head and (...) trunk movements of each subject were recorded with inertial measurement units (IMUs) for a period of at least ten hours. Periods of locomotion were extracted from the measurements and predominant frequencies, root mean squares (RMSs) and bout lengths were estimated. As parameters of head stabilization, attenuation coefficients (ACs), harmonic ratios (HRs), coherences and phase differences were computed. Predominant frequencies were distributed tightly around 2 Hz and ACs, HRs and coherences exhibited the highest values in this frequency range. All head stability parameters exhibited characteristics consistent with previous reports, although higher variances were observed. These results suggest that head stabilization is tuned to the 2 Hz fundamental frequency of locomotion and that previously described measures of head stability could generalize to a real-world setting. This is the first study to address the ecological validity of these measures, highlighting the potential use of head stability parameters as diagnostic tools or outcome measures for clinical trials. The low cost and ease of use of the IMU technology used in this study could additionally be of benefit for a clinical application. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has already had an enormous impact on numerous aspects of human society such as health, education, economy, business, or work and created favorable conditions for the expansion of teleworking. The aim of the paper is to identify and analyze five teleworking impact factors that affect thewellbeing and productivity of employees. The data were gathered by a quantitative research method through a questionnaire applied to 327 Romanian employees who hold a Bachelor or Master degree. Firstly, they were analyzed (...) and interpreted through a factorial analysis focusing on the five teleworking impact factors. Secondly, the authors carried on cluster analysis, followed by multiple linear regression, using R statistical software. This study shows that there is a plethora of factors that influence the wellbeing and productivity of employees: individual and societal factors, organizational and work-related factors, technological factors, social factors at home, and social factors at work. Also, the cluster analysis brings to light significant differences between various Romanian employees such as: their gender, income, age, education, and city size. (shrink)

Forschung in der Papyrussammlung: Eine Festgabe für das Neue Museum. Edited by Verena M. Lepper. Ägyptische und Orientalische Papyri und Handschriften des Ägyptischen Museums und Papyrussammlung Berlin, vol 1. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012. Pp. 512. $238.

The debate about global distributive justice is characterized by an often stark opposition between universalistic approaches, advocating an egalitarian global redistribution of wealth (Beitz, Pogge, Barry, Tan), and particularistic positions, aiming to justify a restriction of redistribution to the domestic community (D. Miller, R. Miller, Blake, Nagel, Rawls). I argue that an approach starting from the deliberative model of democracy (Habermas) can overcome this opposition. On the one hand, the increasingly global scope of economic interactions implies that the range of (...) individuals concerned with the redistribution of wealth should also be increasingly universal. On the other hand, the need for democratic deliberation refers to the fact that demands of justice should be contextual and should take into account the particular circumstances, needs and values of the people concerned. Both concerns can be realized simultaneously only within a multi-layered democratic system in which redistribution is a concern at the domestic, the international and the global level. (shrink)