Se aborda la investigación-acción desde la epistemología. Son establecidas las características del método (perspectiva sujeto-sujeto, énfasis en el cambio social, trabajo sistemático y en forma de espiral, con posible retorno a etapas previas, etc). Seguidamente, son efectuadas varias reflexiones fundadas. El seguimiento del método científico (en su versión pura), es calificado de relativo. La investigación-acción es cercana y pertinente para ciertos sectores específicos de realidad. El sujeto investigador tiene pesos y contrapesos. En cuanto a ética científica, se señala que este (...) método, por su operatividad democrática, tiene el potencial de evitar situaciones reprobables. (shrink)

The long 19th century was a period of many developments and technical innovations in agriculture and animal biology, during which actors sought to incorporate new practices in light of new information. By the middle of the century, however, while heredity steadily became the dominant concept in animal husbandry, some policies related to livestock improvement in Brazil seemed to have been tailored following a climate-deterministic concept established in the mid-18th century by the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon. His (...) theory of animal degeneration posited, among other things, the necessity of recurrent crossbreeding to preserve animal species living in nonnative environments from climate-induced degeneration. Although largely discredited by the early 19th century, the teachings of the French naturalist seem to have found supporters in a Brazilian program to modernize national agriculture through the application of the natural sciences. Herein I examine the revival of Buffon’s theories in that government-sponsored program to improve animal husbandry and breeding techniques, including actual applications of this theory in the real world. Ultimately, I argue that Buffon’s theory of degeneration was used to tailor public policies and funding for the improvement of domesticated animals in Brazil between 1856 and 1860. (shrink)

Este análisis teórico busca analizar, por una parte, en la inmersión de la obra del pensador galés Raymond Williams y, por otro lado, el acercamiento a lo que podemos denominar como Estudios Culturales Británicos, una propuesta metodológica y política plausible en virtud de pensar nuestro presente con una mirada y una sensibilidad diferente a lo que ampliamente se ha caracterizado como «presentismo» o futuros cancelados. Para ello, retomar la obra de un pensador parcialmente olvidado en las últimas décadas, no solo (...) nos permitirá atisbar posibilidades de pensar futuros diversos, sino que nos obligará a tomar en consideración una caja de herramientas, sugerente, que terminó defendiendo con matices, contradicciones e incorporaciones hasta el final de su vida en 1988. (shrink)

This article is a review and reflection of the new elements of rights and laws, applied to the principle of justice and sovereignty, but above all in the demonstration that law as a science once again allows us to conceive that as a science it evolves and must be modified according to the new conducts that the State and society require, such is the case of the constitutional recognition that this type of rights have. In the last decades, human beings (...) have evidenced that the way in which they interact with nature is causing serious consequences to the ecosystems that compose it. In the past, these consequences were not yet evident and, therefore, the environmental awareness that exists today did not exist. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze and reflect on certain conditions of this right in Ecuador. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to demonstrate that in Die Bedeutung der Tragödien Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) takes distance from the Aristotelian interpretation of Tragedy. In this fragment, the poet suggests this literary genre should be understood on the bases of the notion of paradox and on how this concept relates to the tragic hero. In order to prove this, I first clarify what the German poet means when he proposes paradox as the easiest way to understand Tragedy. Second, I highlight (...) the correlations between the assertions of this text and Hölderlin’s former stances about Tragedy in the Grund zum Empedokles, the Anmerkungen zum Oedipus and the Anmerkungen zur Antigonä. Finally, I argue that the approach regarding paradox is evidence of the distance Hölderlin took from the Aristotelian definition of Tragedy as mimesis of an action. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

En este texto realizo un análisis del Diario de lectura de los Escolios de Nicolás Gómez Dávila. Cuadernos I y II, escrito por Ernesto Volkening. Lo anterior con el fin de establecer qué significa que este texto sea un diario de lectura o, dicho de otro modo, qué implica calificar este texto como un diario de lectura. En segundo lugar, indico los tipos de lector que se presentan en este diario y, por último, caracterizo el tipo de “yo” narrativo, esto (...) es, el tipo de persona que Volkening presenta a lo largo de su escrito. Esto permite evidenciar que Volkening se caracteriza a sí mismo como un nostálgico y un pesimista que asume la filosofía como una herramienta para proteger el “espíritu” de lo que considera un “tiempo desbocado y enajenante”. Finalmente, hago algunos cuestionamientos con respecto a la ausencia de crítica al Frente Nacional, período en el que Volkening redactó este diario de lectura. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This paper reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subaltern forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a demarcationist focus obscures the complex relations between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary (...) philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production. (shrink)

The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together by Charles T. Tart. Philosophy of Personal Identity and Multiple Personality by Logi Gunnarsson. Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena by Hereward Carrington. Can the Mind Survive beyond Death? In Pursuit of Scientific Evidence by Satwant K. Pasricha. Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation by Rupert Sheldrake. A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation by Rupert Sheldrake. “Why AI Is a Dangerous Dream,” (...) Opinion, Interview with Noel Sharkey by Nic Fleming. (shrink)

This study reflects on the ways in which children, during pandemic times, expressed themselves and came into contact with their teachers and classmates through Image-Letters, ways of saying and saying themselves to the world through audiovisual media. Sensible sharing of their daily lives were revealed by these media and made us think about the diverse childhood of this time. The theoretical framework that supported this work had the contribution of De Certeau regarding studies on everyday life, Walter Benjamin with his (...) writings on childhood experience, Sandra Corazza and Walter Kohan with their contributions to studies on contemporary childhoods and Virgínia Kastrup who supported us on to the cartography method, a methodological approach that allowed us to follow the research process. The objective of this work was to observe the ways in which children communicate through verbal-visual media and what type of content and everyday fragments they choose to share their experiences during the pandemic period.with the school institution. It is important to highlight that the dissemination of the images was authorized by the children and their guardians through a free and informed consent term, in compliance with the ethical principles of research with images of children. Furthermore, the images are available through QRcode and can be accessed through a smartphone camera. (shrink)

The field of genetics has seen major advances in recent decades, particularly in research, prevention and diagnosis. One of the most recent developments, the genomic editing technique Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9, has opened the possibility for genetic therapies through genome modification. The technique marks an improvement on previous procedures but poses some serious ethical conflicts. Bioethics is the discipline geared at finding answers to ethical challenges posed by progress in medicine and biology and examining their repercussions for (...) society. It can also offer a conceptualization of these ethical dilemmas. The aim of this paper is to offer a map of the ethical dilemmas associated with this technique by way of a critical analysis of current literature. The main issues can be grouped in four areas: efficacy and security; the types of cells which can be targeted by the technique (somatic, embryonic and gametes); the goal of the therapy; and accessibility and justice. (shrink)

Este artículo es una aproximación crítica e integradora de los procesos de subjetivación política en los trabajos de Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, Raymond Williams y Stuart Hall. Para ello, se explicará, en primer lugar, el giro epistémico realizado por Michel Foucault a finales de 1970 que le conduce a buscar la estética de la existencia tras teorizar la relación de poder y libertad. Posteriormente se analizará qué entienden por subjetivación política estos autores. El análisis de la transformación teórica que lleva (...) a cabo Michel Foucault de la relación entre poder y libertad a partir de obras como El nacimiento de la biopolítica, El uso de los placeres o La hermenéutica del sujeto permitirá precisar el análisis comparativo entre hegemonía, cuidado de sí y contrahegemonía en los autores señalados. Por último, presentaremos la especificidad de la relación entre los trabajos de Gramsci y Foucault con Williams y Hall como mediadores epistemológicos. (shrink)

Global Mental Health is a field of research and practice that addresses the expansion of universal and equitable mental health care worldwide. This article explores the ways the concept of culture is employed in Global Mental Health literature. Global Mental Health advocates and critics assume an ontological separation between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ to typify mental illness, linking it predominantly to one or the other of these two categories. Advocates of Global Mental Health view mental disorders as a nature–culture hybrid, while (...) critics see them as typically cultural phenomena. The cultural critique of Global Mental Health can be strengthened by a sociological approach to both the role of critique and the uses of the concept of culture within social sciences. As an alternative to the ontologization of culture, we propose a different theoretical approach to the social issues involved in the expansion of international public health care in mental health: Arthur Kleinman's and Didier Fassin’s moral anthropological approaches. (shrink)

Objective: Illness perceptions are important predictors of emotional and behavioral responses in many diseases. The current study aims to investigate the COVID-19-related IP throughout Europe. The specific goals are to understand the temporal development, identify predictors and examine the impacts of IP on perceived stress and preventive behaviors.Methods: This was a time-series-cross-section study of 7,032 participants from 16 European countries using multilevel modeling from April to June 2020. IP were measured with the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire. Temporal patterns were observed (...) considering the date of participation and the date recoded to account the epidemiological evolution of each country. The outcomes considered were perceived stress and COVID-19 preventive behaviors.Results: There were significant trends, over time, for several IP, suggesting a small decrease in negativity in the perception of COVID-19 in the community. Age, gender, and education level related to some, but not all, IP. Considering the self-regulation model, perceptions consistently predicted general stress and were less consistently related to preventive behaviors. Country showed no effect in the predictive model, suggesting that national differences may have little relevance for IP, in this context.Conclusion: The present study provides a comprehensive picture of COVID-19 IP in Europe in an early stage of the pandemic. The results shed light on the process of IP formation with implications for health-related outcomes and their evolution. (shrink)

En nuestra comunicación tratamos de las interpretaciones sobre uno de los fragmentos textuales comprendidos en el Sobre la Verdad, texto sofístico que pasa, en interpretaciones clásicas como las de Untersteiner o Guthrie, por ser pionero en nuestra tradición filosófico política en cuanto en él se expondrían tesis de claro carácter igualitarista. Si bien en las interpretaciones mencionadas se proclama que el texto en cuestión ataca los fundamentos teoréticos de los defensores de la esclavitud natural, no es menos cierto que otras (...) lecturas atenúan tal rasgo, hablando de un igualitarismo parcial y relativo únicamente a las diferencias culturales. Sin perder de vista el vínculo que ambas posiciones mantienen con la famosa Quaestio Antiphontea criticamos, en base a los textos aducidos por los propios intérpretes, la última posición mencionada, defendiendo que si bien los fragmentos y testimonios a nuestra disposición no nos permiten demostrar definitivamente la naturaleza de las tesis políticas de Antifonte, los mismos nos ofrecen la posibilidad de argüir algunas probabilidades a favor de la existencia de un igualitarismo de corte universal en el Sobre la Verdad. (shrink)

The multiobjective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis method captures diverse features such as the criteria and alternatives of appraising a multiple criteria decision-making problem. At the same time, the multiple criteria problem includes a set of decision makers with diverse expertise and preferences. In fact, the literature lists numerous approaches to aid in this problematic task of choosing the best alternative. Nevertheless, in the MCDM field, there is a challenge regarding intangible information which is commonly involved in multiple (...) criteria decision-making problem; hence, it is substantial in order to advance beyond the research related to this field. Thus, the objective of this paper is to present a fused method between multiobjective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis and Pythagorean fuzzy sets for the choice of an alternative. Besides, multiobjective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis is utilized to choose the best alternatives. Finally, two decision-making problems are applied to illustrate the feasibility and practicality of the proposed method. (shrink)

A growing number of recreational races are being held in different locations, drawing many local and visiting runners. This study examined the relationships between quality, value, satisfaction, and loyalty among runners in a recreational race and examines potential differences in relationships between these constructs based on the runners’ experience. The participants were 985 runners with a mean age of 40.74±9.41years. Validated, reliable ad hoc instruments were used. A multi-group analysis was performed to ascertain the existence of relationships between the constructs (...) and differences in the relationships between the different study groups. The results show that quality is a direct antecedent of value and satisfaction. Value is directly related to satisfaction and indirectly related to loyalty. Satisfaction is related to the loyalty of participants in the race. Differences in the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty were dependent upon the runners’ experience. Loyalty to a race depends primarily on satisfaction and is modified by the runners’ experience. (shrink)

While civic education may not always be explicitly included in school curriculums, it can still be imparted through various non-teaching practices and in different places. In this article, we will delve into three potential educational spaces -memorials, museums, and libraries- that are commonly found in Western democracies. We will explore the significance and scope of each of these spaces and discuss their respective ethical, political, and aesthetic responsibilities. Additionally, we will examine how they possess agency and can influence the educational (...) process, recognizing that even non-human entities, such as nature itself, can play an important role in shaping our understanding of civic education. (shrink)

El presente estudio propone un enfoque crítico de la cuestión del mal y del sufrimiento humano. En el marco del pensamiento ético de Levinas y desde una nueva perspectiva respecto de la concepción actual del lenguaje y del cuerpo, pretendemos cuestionar todas las formas de racionalismo y comprensión metafísica acerca del dolor y del sufrimiento humano. El propósito del presente estudio consiste en delinear una nueva forma de comportamiento en torno a la cuestión del mal y la debilidad humana, buscando (...) alternativas conceptuales para esclarecer este complejo problema ético. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the role of voices as cues to adults of children’s needs for potential caregiving during early childhood. To this purpose, 74 college students listened to pairs of 5-year-old versus 10-year-old children verbalizing neutral-content sentences and indicated which voice was better associated with each of 14 traits, potentially meaningful in interactions between young children and adults. Results indicated that children with immature voices were perceived more positively and as being more helpless than children (...) with mature voices. Children’s voices, regardless of the content of speech, seem to be a powerful source of information about children’s need for caregiving for parents and others during the first six years of life. (shrink)

The Concussion in Sport Group guidelines have successfully brought the attention of brain injuries to the global medical and sport research communities, and has significantly impacted brain injury-related practices and rules of international sport. Despite being the global repository of state-of-the-art science, diagnostic tools and guides to clinical practice, the ensuing consensus statements remain the object of ethical and sociocultural criticism. The purpose of this paper is to bring to bear a broad range of multidisciplinary challenges to the processes and (...) products of sport-related concussion movement. We identify lacunae in scientific research and clinical guidance in relation to age, disability, gender and race. We also identify, through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary analysis, a range of ethical problems resulting from conflicts of interest, processes of attributing expertise in sport-related concussion, unjustifiably narrow methodological control and insufficient athlete engagement in research and policy development. We argue that the sport and exercise medicine community need to augment the existing research and practice foci to understand these problems more holistically and, in turn, provide guidance and recommendations that help sport clinicians better care for brain-injured athletes. (shrink)

En el marco de los 800 años de la celebración del encuentro de San Francisco y el Sultán, convocado por la Orden Franciscana, el presente artículo pretende indagar sobre la concepción de la imagen del moro en la sociedad colonial y, particularmente reflejados en la serie de 54 cuadros de la vida de san Francisco del Museo de Arte Colonial de San Francisco, Santiago de Chile, confeccionada en el siglo XVII en un taller del Cuzco y cuyo (...) destino fue el Convento homónimo para la formación y contemplación de los religiosos, que nos permite descubrir su representación. El moro representa el signo del individuo o del territorio pagano, en acción o contexto de violencia, pero capaz de la conversión. Estos aspectos son comunes a los prejuicios traídos por los colonizadores, marcados por la larga lucha en la península contra ellos y las políticas de expulsión de esta comunidad desde España. El arte colonial, a su vez, fue un ejercicio de diálogo cultural que adaptó la cultura hispánica a la realidad del nuevo mundo, y, por tanto, permitió la lectura del moro trasladada a las dificultades y éxitos de la evangelización y a la violencia ejercida por los conquistadores. (shrink)

A current issue in psycholinguistic research is whether the language difficulties exhibited by children with developmental language disorder [DLD, previously labeled specific language impairment ] are due to deficits in their abilities to pick up patterns in the sensory environment, an ability known as statistical learning, and the extent to which explicit learning mechanisms can be used to compensate for those deficits. Studies designed to test the compensatory role of explicit learning mechanisms in children with DLD are, however, scarce, and (...) the few conducted so far have led to inconsistent results. This work aimed to provide new insights into the role that explicit learning mechanisms might play on implicit learning deficits in children with DLD by resorting to a new approach. This approach involved not only the collection of event-related potentials, while preschool children with DLD [relative to typical language developmental controls] were exposed to a continuous auditory stream made of the repetition of three-syllable nonsense words but, importantly, the collection of ERPs when the same children performed analogous versions of the same auditory SL task first under incidental and afterward under intentional conditions. In each of these tasks, the level of predictability of the three-syllable nonsense words embedded in the speech streams was also manipulated to mimic natural languages closely. At the end of both tasks’ exposure phase, children performed a two-alternative forced-choice task from which behavioral evidence of SL was obtained. Results from the 2-AFC tasks failed to show reliable signs of SL in both groups of children. The ERPs data showed, however, significant modulations in the N100 and N400 components, taken as neural signatures of word segmentation in the brain, even though a detailed analysis of the neural responses revealed that only children from the TLD group seem to have taken advantage of the previous knowledge to enhance SL functioning. These results suggest that children with DLD showed deficits both in implicit and explicit learning mechanisms, casting doubts on the efficiency of the interventions relying on explicit instructions to help children with DLD to overcome their language difficulties. (shrink)

This paper aims to enhance security in IoT device networks through a visual tool that utilizes three projection techniques, including Beta Hebbian Learning (BHL), t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) and ISOMAP, in order to facilitate the identification of network attacks by human experts. This work research begins with the creation of a testing environment with IoT devices and web clients, simulating attacks over Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) for recording all relevant traffic information. The unsupervised algorithms chosen provide a set (...) of projections that enable human experts to visually identify most attacks in real-time, making it a powerful tool that can be implemented in IoT environments easily. (shrink)

We would like to thank the commentators for their generous comments, valuable insights and helpful suggestions. We begin this response by discussing the selfishness axiom and the importance of the preferences, beliefs, and constraints framework as a way of modeling some of the proximate influences on human behavior. Next, we broaden the discussion to ultimate-level (that is evolutionary) explanations, where we review and clarify gene-culture coevolutionary theory, and then tackle the possibility that evolutionary approaches that exclude culture might be sufficient (...) to explain the data. Finally, we consider various methodological and epistemological concerns expressed by our commentators. (shrink)

Let T be a second-order arithmetical theory, Λ a well-order, λ < Λ and X ⊆ ℕ. We use $[\lambda |X]_T^{\rm{\Lambda }}\varphi$ as a formalization of “φ is provable from T and an oracle for the set X, using ω-rules of nesting depth at most λ”.For a set of formulas Γ, define predicative oracle reflection for T over Γ ) to be the schema that asserts that, if X ⊆ ℕ, Λ is a well-order and φ ∈ Γ, then$$\forall \,\lambda (...) < {\rm{\Lambda }}\,.$$In particular, define predicative oracle consistency ) as Pred–O–RFN{0=1}.Our main result is as follows. Let ATR0 be the second-order theory of Arithmetical Transfinite Recursion, ${\rm{RCA}}_0^{\rm{*}}$ be Weakened Recursive Comprehension and ACA be Arithmetical Comprehension with Full Induction. Then,$${\rm{ATR}}_0 \equiv {\rm{RCA}}_0^{\rm{*}} + {\rm{Pred - O - Cons\ }}\left \equiv {\rm{RCA}}_0^{\rm{*}} + \,{\rm{Pred - O - Cons\ }}\left \equiv {\rm{RCA}}_0^{\rm{*}} + \,{\rm{Pred - O - RFN}}\,_{{\bf{\Pi }}_2^1 } \left.$$We may even replace ${\rm{RCA}}_0^{\rm{*}}$ by the weaker ECA0, the second-order analogue of Elementary Arithmetic.Thus we characterize ATR0, a theory often considered to embody Predicative Reductionism, in terms of strong reflection and consistency principles. (shrink)

In this work, we shall study structural abduction and how ways of searching for solutions to the corresponding abductive problems could be modeled. Specifically, we shall define modal semantic tableaux for normal modal systems and study its applications to structural abduction. This method even makes structural abduction clearer and, as it shall be seen, when a radical change of logic is epistemologically required, the corresponding tableau will have pertinent information to suggest it.

This project seeks to highlight the benefits of the implementation and management of the teaching digital portfolio. In today's world full of technology and tools that facilitate daily activities, education and its various processes must also embrace the digital tools available and make them the basis for any innovation and improvement process. The teaching portfolio in physics has long been the means by which teachers have organized the processes, evidence, and other results of educational work. Nowadays, all that range of (...) evidence and productions, which signify the achievement and advances in each group of students, has been able to be integrated into technology. (shrink)

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the approach to the health-disease system, raising the question about the principles of bioethics present in physician–patient relations. The principles while widely accepted may not be sufficient for a comprehensive ethical analysis. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the perception of these principles and the physician–patient relationship during a hospital stay through a qualitative approach. Method Sixteen semi-structured interviews took place to know the patients’ perception during their 2020 hospitalization for COVID-19. (...) The data was analyzed through the constant comparison method, creating categories and comparing them. In the end, seven categories were established and were grouped in three: bioethical principles (dignity, charity, vulnerability, autonomy), doctor-patient relationship (participant commitment, informed consent, health staff-patient relationship) and the experience of the disease (illness, the role of the family). Results The research found that most patients described a positive experience, with the feeling of having been well cared for with no sense of discrimination or injustice done. The majority also reported that their autonomy was respected in the treatment decisions. The evaluation of these attitudes is an area of opportunity, especially when the patients' vulnerability is at risk. Conclusions The ethics of virtue offers a better reflection of how human beings manifest themselves by emphasizing the development of virtuous character and behaviors that allow them to realize their values in life. Authorized by the Research Ethics Committee with registration: DI/18/105-B/3/308. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease pandemic fundamentally disrupted humans’ social life and behavior. Public health measures may have inadvertently impacted how people care for each other. This study investigated prosocial behavior, its association well-being, and predictors of prosocial behavior during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and sought to understand whether region-specific differences exist. Participants from eight regions clustering multiple countries around the world responded to a cross-sectional online-survey investigating the psychological consequences of the first upsurge of lockdowns in spring 2020. Prosocial behavior (...) was reported to occur frequently. Multiple regression analyses showed that prosocial behavior was associated with better well-being consistently across regions. With regard to predictors of prosocial behavior, high levels of perceived social support were most strongly associated with prosocial behavior, followed by high levels of perceived stress, positive affect and psychological flexibility. Sociodemographic and psychosocial predictors of prosocial behavior were similar across regions. (shrink)

BackgroundInformation and communication technology solutions have the potential to support active and healthy aging and improve monitoring and treatment outcomes. To make such solutions acceptable, all stakeholders must be involved in the requirements elicitation process. Due to the COVID-19 situation, alternative approaches to commonly used face-to-face methods must often be used. One aim of the current article is to share a unique experience from the Pharaon project where due to the COVID-19 outbreak alternative elicitation methods were used. In addition, an (...) overview of common functional, quality, and emotional goals identified by six pilot sites is presented to complement the knowledge about the needs of older adults.MethodsOriginally planned face-to-face co-creation seminars were impossible to carry out, and all pilot sites chose alternative requirements elicitation methods that were most suitable in their situation. The elicited requirements were presented in the form of goal models. In one summary goal model, we provide an overview of common functional, quality, and emotional goals.ResultsDifferent elicitation methods were combined based on the digital literacy of the target group and their access to digital tools. Methods applied without digital technologies were phone interviews, reviews of literature and previous projects, while by means of digital technologies online interviews, online questionnaires, and virtual co-creation seminars were conducted. The combination of the methods allowed to involve all planned stakeholders. Virtual and semi-virtual co-creation seminars created collaborative environment comparable to face-to-face situations, while online participation helped to save the time of the participants. The most prevalent functional goals elicited were “Monitor health,” “Receive advice,” “Receive information.” “Easy to use/comfortable,” “personalized/tailored,” “automatic/smart” were identified as most prevalent quality goals. Most frequently occurring emotional goals were “involved,” “empowered,” and “informed.”ConclusionThere are alternative methods to face-to-face co-creation seminars, which effectively involve older adults and other stakeholders in the requirements elicitation process. Despite the used elicitation method, the requirements can be easily transformed into goal models to present the results in a uniform way. The common requirements across different pilots provided a strong foundation for representing detailed requirements and input for further software development processes. (shrink)