Background The worldwide increase in older persons demands technological solutions to combat the shortage of caregiving and to enable aging in place. Smart home health technologies (SHHTs) are promoted and implemented as a possible solution from an economic and practical perspective. However, ethical considerations are equally important and need to be investigated. Methods We conducted a systematic review according to the PRISMA guidelines to investigate if and how ethical questions are discussed in the field of SHHTs in caregiving for older (...) persons. Results 156 peer-reviewed articles published in English, German and French were retrieved and analyzed across 10 electronic databases. Using narrative analysis, 7 ethical categories were mapped: privacy, autonomy, responsibility, human vs. artificial interactions, trust, ageism and stigma, and other concerns. Conclusion The findings of our systematic review show the (lack of) ethical consideration when it comes to the development and implementation of SHHTs for older persons. Our analysis is useful to promote careful ethical consideration when carrying out technology development, research and deployment to care for older persons. Registration We registered our systematic review in the PROSPERO network under CRD42021248543. (shrink)

With robots being introduced into caregiving, particularly for older persons, various ethical concerns are raised. Among them is the fear of replacing human caregiving. While ethical concepts like well-being, autonomy, and capabilities are often used to discuss these concerns, this paper brings forth the concept of social dignity to further develop guidelines concerning the use of robots in caregiving. By social dignity, we mean that a person’s perceived dignity changes in response to certain interactions and experiences with other persons. In (...) this paper, we will first present the concept of social dignity, and then identify a niche where robots can be used in caregiving in an ethical manner. Specifically, we will argue that, because some activities of daily living are performed in solitude to maintain dignity, a care recipient will usually prefer robotic assistance instead of human assistance for these activities. Secondly, we will describe how other philosophical concepts, which have been commonly used to judge robotic assistance in caregiving for the elderly so far, such as well-being, autonomy, and capabilities, are less useful in determining whether robotic assistance in caregiving is ethically problematic or not. To conclude, we will argue that social dignity offers an advantage to the other concepts, as it allows to ask the most pressing questions in caregiving. (shrink)

This functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study investigated high and low suggestible people responding to two visual hallucination suggestions with and without a hypnotic induction. Participants in the study were asked to see color while looking at a grey image, and to see shades of grey while looking at a color image. High suggestible participants reported successful alterations in color perception in both tasks, both in and out of hypnosis, and showed a small benefit if hypnosis was induced. Low suggestible people (...) could not perform the tasks successfully with or without the hypnotic induction. The fMRI results supported the self report data, and changes in brain activity were found in a number of visual areas. The results indicate that a hypnotic induction, although having the potential to enhance the ability of high suggestible people, is not necessary for the effective alteration of color perception by suggestion. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Die Entwicklung der Austauschverhältnisse im Alten China" verfügbar.

We compare a “Mach-Zehnder interferometer in time” for cold neutrons with its well-known spatial counterpart and demonstrate the intimate connection between space and time for both setups. Further, we outline a combined space-time interferometer, which coherently splits a wavepacket in longitudinal and lateral direction. On the way towards time interferometry “neutron computer holography” seems to be an attractive application. It allows the three-dimensional reconstruction of an object from the scattered intensity, but in contrast to holography with light, there is no (...) need for a reference wave. On the other hand, the possible resolution is worse than in the light case. (shrink)

This paper presents the metaphysics of the Vietnamese Buddhist Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh. He interprets the Buddhist principle of interdependent arising in terms of interbeing, the idea that everything depends for its existence on everything else. On his view, everything “inter-is” with everything else, or “to be is to inter-be.” His interpretation is particularly interesting in light of the contemporary debate on fundamentality in western metaphysics. By embracing the idea of interbeing, he opposes the view that there are fundamental (...) entities which do not depend for their existence on anything else. I give an outline of Thich Nhat Hanh’s views, answer an objection, and explain his reasons for adopting his standpoint. My aim is not to offer a full defense of his views, but only to show that the often neglected position of metaphysical coherentism, which Thich Nhat Hanh adopts, deserves further consideration. (shrink)

Concerted, timely action for mitigating climate change is of uttermost importance to keep global warming as close to 1.5°C as possible. Air traffic already plays a strong role in driving climate change and is projected to grow—with only limited technical potential for decarbonizing this means of transport. Therefore, it is desirable to minimize the expansion of air traffic or even facilitate a reduction in affluent countries. Effective policies and behavioral change, especially among frequent flyers, can help to lower greenhouse gas (...) emissions. For both, a positive evaluation and public support is indispensable. This study contributes to understanding air travel behavior and the perception of regulative policies. We examined the role of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, efficacy, global identity, and justice concerns for intentions to avoid flights and aviation-related environmental policy support. We conducted an online survey study with a quota sample of N = 2,530 participants in Germany. The strongest positive predictors of intentions to refrain from flying and policy support were perceived behavioral control to travel without flying, efficacy beliefs that avoiding air travel contributes to climate change mitigation, and intergenerational justice concerns; pro-travel attitude was a negative predictor. Moreover, we tested whether the provision of additional information on climate impact, global and intranational inequalities as well as subsidies affected the intention to avoid air travel and policy support. We found no effects of the different types of information. Nor did we find an interaction between the type of information provided and global or national identity. Our results highlight the need for a shift within the mobility sector that facilitates attractive and accessible transport alternatives in order to strengthen people’s behavioral control to choose other means than planes and their efficacy perceptions. Moreover, raising awareness of the impacts of climate change on future generations and developing strategies to promote people’s concern for intergenerational justice might motivate people to reduce air travel and thereby contribute to a livable future for new generations. (shrink)

Background: Although performance on the category fluency test is influenced by many cognitive functions, item-level scoring methods of CFT performance might be a promising way to capture aspects of semantic memory that are less influenced by intervenient abilities. One such approach is based on the calculation of correlation coefficients that quantify the association between item-level features and the serial order with which words are recalled.Methods: We explored the neural underpinnings of 10 of these correlational indices in a sample of 40 (...) healthy adults who completed a classic 1-min CFT and an MRI protocol inclusive of T1-weighted and resting-state fMRI sequences for the evaluation of the default-mode network. Two sets of linear models were defined to test the association between neural maps and each correlational index: a first set in which major demographic and clinical descriptors were controlled for and a second set in which, additionally, all other 9 correlational indices were regressed out.Results: In the analysis of the DMN, ‘SRO-frequency’, ‘SRO-dominance’ and ‘SRO-body-object interaction’ correlational indices were all negatively associated with the anterior portion of the right temporoparietal junction. The ‘SRO-frequency’ correlational index was also negatively associated with the right dorsal anterior cingulate and the ‘SRO-dominance’ correlational index with the right lateral prefrontal cortex. From the second set of models, the ‘SRO-typicality’ correlational index was positively associated with the left entorhinal cortex. No association was found in relation to grey matter maps.Conclusion: The ability to retrieve more difficult words during CFT performance as measured by the correlational indices between SRO and item-level descriptors is associated with DMN expression in regions deputed to attentional reorienting and processing of salience of infrequent stimuli and dominance status. Of all item-level features, typicality appears to be that most closely linked with entorhinal functioning and may thus play a relevant role in assessing its value in testing procedures for early detection of subtle cognitive difficulties in people with suspected Alzheimer’s degeneration. Although exploratory, these findings warrant further investigations in larger cohorts. (shrink)

A challenge for theories of incomplete descriptions is to capture the consistency of ‘Sobel sequences’ and to account for an asymmetry in the acceptability of utterances of Sobel sequences and ‘reverse Sobel sequences’. David Lewis’s theory of incomplete descriptions answers, unlike many other theories, the challenge from Sobel sequences, but it does not answer the challenge from reverse Sobel sequences. This article presents another asymmetry in the availability of anaphoric readings of Sobel sequences and reverse Sobel sequences, and proposes an (...) explanation of the original asymmetry on its grounds. This provides an answer to the challenge for Lewis’s theory. (shrink)

The Diamond Sutra is one of the earliest and most treasured of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras and had a wide influence on the development of Zen Buddhism. There has been, in recent years, great interest in one particular form of sentences that repeatedly occur in the sutra, sentences of the form “A is not A, therefore it is A”. These sentences display what has been called the “logic of not” or the “logic of affirmation-in-negation”. They are of special interest (...) since they do not only encapsulate one of the central insights of Zen Buddhism, that of nonduality, but at the same time seem to go against one of the most orthodox laws of logic in Western philosophy, the law of identity. This paper discusses the interpretation of these “diamond sentences” by the Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh. I present Thich Nhat Hanh’s interpretation of the diamond sentences in terms of interbeing and go on to argue that and explain how, on his interpretation, the validity of the law of identity is indeed rejected. Finally, I spell out consequences for formulating a “logic of Zen” and for a related debate about the validity of the law of non-contradiction in Zen. (shrink)

The ‘default mode’ network refers to cortical areas that are active in the absence of goal-directed activity. In previous studies, decreased activity in the ‘default mode’ has always been associated with increased activation in task-relevant areas. We show that the induction of hypnosis can reduce anterior default mode activity during rest without increasing activity in other cortical regions. We assessed brain activation patterns of high and low suggestible people while resting in the fMRI scanner and while engaged in visual tasks, (...) in and out of hypnosis. High suggestible participants in hypnosis showed decreased brain activity in the anterior parts of the default mode circuit. In low suggestible people, hypnotic induction produced no detectable changes in these regions, but instead deactivated areas involved in alertness. The findings indicate that hypnotic induction creates a distinctive and unique pattern of brain activation in highly suggestible subjects. (shrink)

Background Gerontechnologies are increasingly used in the care for older people. Many studies on their acceptability and ethical implications are conducted, but mainly from the perspective of principlism. This narrows our ethical gaze on the implications the use of these technologies have. Research question How do participants speak about the impact that gerontechnologies have on the different phases of care, and care as a process? What are the moral implications from an ethic of care perspective? Research design Secondary analysis of (...) semi-structure interviews, whose segments on specific technologies were analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. Participants and research context Sixty-seven Swiss stakeholders involved in the use of gerontechnologies, including professional caregivers, informal caregivers, and older persons themselves. Ethical considerations The research study was evaluated by the Ethics Commission of Northwest and Central Switzerland (EKNZ). All participants received an information document before the interview date detailing the purpose, procedure, and anonymization measures. After explaining the study during the agreed upon interview time and upon receiving their written informed consent, the interview process began. Findings/results Four themes are identified: Identifying care needs, Taking responsibility, Hands-on work, Responding to care. As part of these themes, many codes highlighting the ambivalent impact of gerontechnologies are created, ranging from ‘Expanded capacity for…identifying care needs’ to ‘Create new & (un)necessary…hands-on work’. The moral implications of these results from the care ethics perspective are discussed, through the ethical elements of: attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness. Conclusions The moral implications of gerontechnologies on care phases from the care ethics perspective open up several questions on whether they actually help give care a central role in social life and provide more competent care. (shrink)

Guidelines recommend a ‘do-not-resuscitate’ code status for inpatients in which cardiopulmonary resuscitation attempts are considered futile because of low probability of survival with good neurological outcome. We retrospectively assessed the prevalence of DNR code status and its association with presumed CPR futility defined by the Good Outcome Following Attempted Resuscitation score and the Clinical Frailty Scale in patients hospitalised in the Divisions of Internal Medicine and Traumatology/Orthopedics at the University Hospital of Basel between September 2018 and June 2019. The definition (...) of presumed CPR futility was met in 467 of 2889 patients. 866 patients had a DNR code status. In a regression model adjusted for age, gender, main diagnosis, nationality, language and religion, presumed CPR futility was associated with a higher likelihood of a DNR code status. In the subgroup of patients with presumed futile CPR, 144 of 467 had a full code status, which was independently associated with younger age, male gender, non-Christian religion and non-Swiss citizenship. We found a significant proportion of hospitalised patients to have a full code status despite the fact that CPR had to be considered futile according to an established definition. Whether these decisions were based on patient preferences or whether there was a lack of patient involvement in decision-making needs further investigation. (shrink)

Que nous apprend le processus de fabrication des photographies de « bénéficiaires » sur le droit à l’image dans l’humanitaire ? Au Kirghizstan, l’image est l’objet d’une négociation de l’aide. La fabrication d’« authentiques victimes » y est centrale comme dans les campagnes de l’église protestante allemande. L’analyse d’affiches conclut à un commun objectif : effacer l’altérité du « bénéficiaire » pour permettre un lien avec le « spectateur ». Le caractère factice de l’authenticité se révèle lorsque le photographié conteste (...) l’image. L’exigence de l’égalité surgit alors comme condition aux projets pour les droits de l’Homme et offre des pistes pour une gouvernance de l’éthique du numérique. (shrink)

Entrevista a Christian Felber al hilo de su visita a Benicàssim en agosto de 2013. Charlamos con él sobre algunos aspectos de su teoría del bien común, así como de otros temas de corte ético, político, económico y social.

The paper is a study of the establishment of the theoretical, human and institutional presuppositions of the development of modern methodology of sciences in Slovakia 1946-1962. It focuses particularly on the examnination of V. Filkorn´s scientific and educational work, who was drawing on the previous and contemporary activity of S. Felber and I.Hrušovský. In that time V. Filkorn published his first essential works and developed an original conception of the methodology of sciences with its special view of the method (...) of science, scientific law, and the relationship between logic and dialectics. It is defined as logical analysis of the building of the system od science by means of modern logic and an articulated theory of categories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth Shall Make You FreireRobert CanterTeaching Contemporary Theory to Undergraduates, edited by Dianne F. Sadoff and William E. Cain; 271 pp. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1994; $19.75, paper.IThe newest title in the MLA’s Options for Teaching series, this publication is well-timed. Concerns about “classroom advocacy” and “politicized teaching” have recycled into near-critical mass, even in the mass media. The book is well-arranged, too, with a (...) solid sample of deconstructionist, New Historicist, Marxist, feminist, and cultural studies, and more mix-and-match theorists describing their classroom aims and means in twenty-one essays grouped into four sections. Sadoff and Cain offer elegantly evasive introductions—not only to these essays per se, but to the issues these essays purport to address. In “Surveying Theory,” David B. Downing, John Kucich, Susan S. Lanser, Lynette Felber, Donald G. Marshall, and Gary Waller lay broadly “anti-foundational” groundwork. In “Focusing,” Diana Fuss, Sandra A. Grayson, Beverly Lyon Clark, Evan Carton, Laurie A. Finke, Jonathan Arac, and Cary Nelson deconstruct things in more detail. In “Theory and Culture,” Huston Diehl, Cannon Schmitt and Donald Ulin, Lindon Barrett, Simon Gikandi, D. N. Rodowick, and Jan Gorak again widen the scope of “theorized teaching,” aiming regulation anticanonical shrapnel at every bastion of coded convention. And while readers may pause over [End Page 336] its backcover promise of “lively and accessible prose,” on the whole, the book is unusually readable for an MLA publication about theory.Since Teaching Contemporary Theory to Undergraduates is a how-to directed at true-believers, it might seem like critical blindsiding to address its fundamental assumptions rather than its tactical suggestions, to focus on its “theory” rather than on its pedagogy. Yet such a focus is not only fair but necessary. The pedagogy is in this book a pawn of the theory. And the theory is, at best, a lesson in how not to teach students how to learn. For despite all its noisy celebrations of methodological, cultural, ontological, and occasionally even human “difference,” the anthology is really a chorus of self-defeating dogma. 1 Like the virtue of variety, even the relative absence of jargon here works as much against as for the book, revealing self-contradictions so perfectly unwitting that they are twice as funny. It is a good thing, then, that the authors eventually contradict these claims, too—even if they know not that they do.The canon? In accordance with postmodern tradition, “the canon” can be calibrated to be whatever best attacks whatever other tradition a particular theorist is aiming at. It is a very modular “monolith.” And theorists never try to “overdetermine” definitions, anyway. The classroom? As an “overdetermined” site of class-struggle, “the classroom (and the academy at large) is... a social institution designed to reproduce the interests, values, and politics of the dominant social classes” (p. 104). Convention? Anything “mainstream” is so polluted with “the notion of mastery, of total and complete knowledge” that even assigning “mainstream” theorists in a theory class “reproduces that hegemony, no matter how critically we read them” (pp. 105, 61). The runoff of mainstream theorists quoted here—conventional MLA Style—makes the same point. Culture? As always already—and only—“a struggle between power and its disenfranchised shadow,” culture “systematically excludes and marginalizes disenfranchised social members” (pp. 263–64, 20–21).Education? As Paulo Freire has revealed, 2 on the one, bad, goatish, wrong Right-wing hand of God, there is the repressive “banking” model of education; on the other, good-shepherdish, right Left-wing side, there is the liberating “problem-posing” model. You are either a droning clerk bent on subduing students into serfdom, or you are a resistance fighter lighting fuses of freedom. “Instrumental activity” does “pedagogical violence,” making the teacher a tyrant and the student a victim, a “submissive imitator” in a “system” that’s “abidingly committed [End Page 337] to the vision of a white-supremacist oligarchy.” Even asking students what level of “guidance” they feel they need is imposing “rhetorical control” (pp. 32, 23, 222, 135).Facts? The fact is, they are “the discursive gestures of the dominant groups” (p. 222). Unless they are... (shrink)

The paper offers a discussion of the views of intuitive realists on the philosophy of psychology, which the author sees as related to their respective philosophical conceptions. According to the author there were no responses to the intuitivist interpretation of the psychic phenomena from the side of the psychologists of that time. The responses came, however, from the philosophers S. Felber and I. Hrušovský, who criticized the views of O. Losski and J. Dieška immediately after their being published. The (...) psychology of intuitive realism is voluntaristic, closely related to Losski’s ontology. (shrink)