Autonomy of people on the autism-spectrum has only been very rarely conceptually explored. Autism spectrum is commonly considered a hetereogenous disorder, and typically described as a behaviorally-defined neurodevelopmental disorder associated with the presence of social-communication deficits and restricted and repetitive behaviors. Autism research mainly focuses on the behavior of autistic people and ways to teach them skills that are in line with social norms. Interventions such as therapies are being justified with the assumption that autists lack the capacity to be (...) self-reflective and to be “author of their lives”. We question this assumption, as some empirical research shows that autists are aware of their strengths and are critical about social norms, we take this as a starting point to reconsider the beliefs about autistic people’s capacities. As a theoretical framework, we draw on Berlin’s idea of positive and negative liberty as he clearly distinguishes between one’s own developed preferences and the simple absence of interference. By drawing on the concept of positive liberty, we illustrate that a lot of autists are aware of their own needs, and usually do not deny their own needs, values and interests. This makes them less prone than non-autistic people to adapt their preferences to external influences, which might be seen as sticking to an authentic way of living. Our analysis shows that many autists are hindered to be autonomous due to unjustified interference, unreflected assumptions about their self-determination, or by paternalistic actions. These observations contribute to a better understanding when help and interference are justified and a more differentiated understanding of autonomy of autistic people. (shrink)

The Gesta Normannorum Ducum is one of the most important sources for the history of Normandy and England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and contains the earliest prose account of the Norman Conquest. It was written by a succession of authors, the first of whom was William of Jumièges, who wrote for William the Conqueror. Later writers, such as Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni, interpolated and extended the chronicle as far as King Henry I. The later accretions reveal (...) much not only about changing attitudes towards the Norman invasion of England, but also about views of the early Viking foundation of Normandy. Elisabeth van Houts's two-volume edition is based on a study of all forty-seven extant manuscripts of the Gesta, including the earliest surviving copy of c. 1100, hitherto unknown. The full original text of William of Jumièges is supplied, as well as the integral text of the subsequent revisions and additions. Volume I contains Dr van Houts's introduction to the whole work, together with the text and translation of books i-iv. Books v-viii will appear in Volume II. The edition forms an important contribution to our understanding of Anglo-Norman politics. (shrink)

This article presents two studies that examine cause-related marketing promotions that require consumers’ active participation. Requiring a follow-up behavior has very valuable implications for maximizing marketing expenditures and customer relationship management. Theories related to ethical behavior, like motivated reasoning and defensive denial, are used to explain when and why consumers respond negatively to these effort demands. The first study finds that consumers rationalize not participating in CRM by devaluing the sponsored cause. The second study identifies a tactic marketers can utilize (...) to neutralize consumers’ use of defensive denial. Allowing the consumer to choose the sponsored cause seems to effectively refocus their attention and increases consumers’ threshold for campaign requirements. Implications for nonprofits and marketing managers include a tendency for consumers to be more likely to perceive a firm as ethical and socially responsible when they are allowed to choose the specific cause that is supported. (shrink)

One in three university students experiences mental health problems during their study. A similar percentage leaves higher education without obtaining the degree for which they enrolled. Research suggests that both mental health problems and academic underperformance could be caused by students lacking control and purpose while they are adjusting to tertiary education. Currently, universities are not designed to cater to all the personal needs and mental health problems of large numbers of students at the start of their studies. Within the (...) literature aimed at preventing mental health problems among students (e.g., anxiety or depression), digital forms of therapy recently have been suggested as potentially scalable solutions to address these problems. Integrative psychological artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of a chatbot, for example, shows great potential as an evidence-based solution. At the same time, within the literature aimed at improving academic success, the online life-crafting intervention in which students write about values and passions, goals, and goal-attainment plans has shown to improve the academic performance and retention rates of students. Because the life-crafting intervention is delivered through the curriculum and doesn’t bear the stigma that is associated with therapy, it can reach larger populations of students. But life-crafting lacks the means for follow-up or the interactiveness that online AI-guided therapy can offer. In this paper, we propose to integrate the current literature on chatbot interventions aimed at the mental health of students with research about a life-crafting intervention that uses an inclusive curriculum-wide approach. When a chatbot asks students to prioritize both academic as well as social and health-related goals and provides personalized follow-up coaching, this can prevent -often interrelated- academic and mental health problems. Right on-time delivery, and personalized follow-up questions enhance the effects of both -originally separated- intervention types. Research on this new combination of interventions should use design principles that increase user-friendliness and monitor the technology acceptance of its participants. (shrink)

Evaluates trade-offs and uncertainties inherent in achieving sustainable energy, analyzes the major energy technologies, and provides a framework for assessing policy options.

We routinely need to process the identity of many faces around us, and how the brain achieves this is still the subject of much research in cognitive neuroscience. To date, insights on face identity processing have come from both healthy and clinical populations. However, in order to directly compare results across and within participant groups, and across different studies, it is crucial that a standard task is utilised which includes different exemplars (for example, non-face stimuli along with faces), is memory-neutral, (...) and taps into identity recognition across orientation and across viewpoint change. The goal of this study was to test a previously behaviourally tested, optimised face and object identity matching design in a healthy control sample whilst being scanned using fMRI. Specifically, we investigated categorical, orientation, and category-specific orientation effects while participants were focused on identity processing of simultaneously presented exemplar stimuli. Alongside observing category and orientation specific effects in a distributed set of brain regions, we also saw an interaction between stimulus category and orientation in the bilateral fusiform gyrus and bilateral middle occipital gyrus. Generally these clusters showed the pattern of a heightened response to inverted, as opposed to upright faces; and to upright, as opposed to inverted shoes. These results are discussed in relation to previous studies and to potential future research within prosopagnosic individuals. (shrink)

Interferon (IFN) induced during a virus infection mediates antiviral effects both by direct inhibition of virus replication and by influencing the proliferation, differentiation, and chemotaxis of cyto‐toxic lymphocytes which control the infection. Cells from tissue taken from virus‐infected mice are conditioned by IFN to resist lysis by natural killer (NK) cells, while they become increasingly susceptible to lysis by cytotoxic Tlymphocytes (CTL). This is due to marked IFN‐induced biochemical changes, including an up‐regulation of major histocompatibility antigens, which are targets for (...) CTL. Cytopathic viruses, which inhibit cellular RNA and protein synthesis, render target cells refractory to IFN‐mediated protection against NK cells, thereby providing a mechanism for NK cells to mediate antiviral effect by preferentially lysing virus‐infected but not uninfected cells. (shrink)

It is commonly hypothesized that scientists are more likely to engage in data falsification and fabrication when they are subject to pressures to publish, when they are not restrained by forms of social control, when they work in countries lacking policies to tackle scientific misconduct, and when they are male. Evidence to test these hypotheses, however, is inconclusive due to the difficulties of obtaining unbiased data. Here we report a pre-registered test of these four hypotheses, conducted on papers that were (...) identified in a previous study as containing problematic image duplications through a systematic screening of the journal PLoS ONE. Image duplications were classified into three categories based on their complexity, with category 1 being most likely to reflect unintentional error and category 3 being most likely to reflect intentional fabrication. We tested multiple parameters connected to the hypotheses above with a matched-control paradigm, by collecting two controls for each paper containing duplications. Category 1 duplications were mostly not associated with any of the parameters tested, as was predicted based on the assumption that these duplications were mostly not due to misconduct. Categories 2 and 3, however, exhibited numerous statistically significant associations. Results of univariable and multivariable analyses support the hypotheses that academic culture, peer control, cash-based publication incentives and national misconduct policies might affect scientific integrity. No clear support was found for the “pressures to publish” hypothesis. Female authors were found to be equally likely to publish duplicated images compared to males. Country-level parameters generally exhibited stronger effects than individual-level parameters, because developing countries were significantly more likely to produce problematic image duplications. This suggests that promoting good research practices in all countries should be a priority for the international research integrity agenda. (shrink)

We show that the formulations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics can be derived from an extended least action principle. The principle can be considered as an extension of the least action principle from classical mechanics by factoring in two assumptions. First, the Planck constant defines the minimal amount of action a physical system needs to exhibit during its dynamics in order to be observable. Second, there is constant vacuum fluctuation along a classical trajectory. A novel method is introduced to define the (...) information metrics to measure additional observability due to vacuum fluctuations, which is then converted to an additional action through the first assumption. Applying the variational principle to minimize the total actions allows us to recover the basic quantum formulations including the uncertainty relation and the Schrödinger equation in the position representation. In the momentum representation, the same method can be applied to obtain the Schrödinger equation for a free particle while further investigation is still needed for a particle with an external potential. Furthermore, the principle brings in new results on two fronts. At the conceptual level, we find that the information metrics for vacuum fluctuations are responsible for the origin of the Bohm quantum potential. Even though the Bohm potential for a bipartite system is inseparable, the underlying vacuum fluctuations are local. Thus, inseparability of the Bohm potential does not justify a non-local causal relation between the two subsystems.responsible for manifesting entanglement effects without underlying physical interactions, implying that entanglement effects are non-causal. At the mathematical level, quantifying the information metrics for vacuum fluctuations using more general definitions of relative entropy results in a generalized Schrödinger equation that depends on the order of relative entropy. The extended least action principle is a new mathematical tool. It can be applied to derive other quantum formalisms such as quantum scalar field theory. (shrink)

We show that there exists a properly Σ2 minimal degree b, and moreover that b can be chosen to join with 0′ to 0″ – so that b is a 0″ complement for every degree a such that 0′ ≤ a < 0″.

There are many ways to assess face perception skills. In this study, we describe a novel task battery FEAST (Facial Expression Action Stimulus Test) developed to test recognition of identity and expressions of human faces as well as stimulus control categories. The FEAST consists of a neutral and emotional face memory task, a face and object identity matching task, a face and house part-to-whole matching task, and a human and animal facial expression matching task. The identity and part-to-whole matching tasks (...) contain both upright and inverted conditions. The results provide reference data of a healthy sample of controls in two age groups for future users of the FEAST. (shrink)

The Gesta Normannorum Ducum is one of the most important sources for the history of Normandy and England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and contains the earliest prose account of the Norman Conquest. It was written by a succession of authors, the first of whom was William of Jumieges, who wrote for William the Conqueror. Later historians, such as Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni, interpolated and extended the chronicle as far as King Henry I. The later accretions reveal (...) much not only about changing attitudes towards the Norman invasion of England, but also about views of the early Viking foundations of Normandy.Elisabeth van Houts's two-volume edition is based on a study of all forty-seven extant manuscripts of the Gesta, including the earliest surviving copy of c. 1100, unknown until very recently. The full original text of William of Jumieges is supplied, as well as the integral text of the subsequent revisions and additions. Volume I contains Dr van Houts's introduction to the whole work, together with the text and translation of books i-iv. Volume II contains books v-viii. The edition forms an important contribution to our understanding of Anglo-Norman politics. (shrink)

We study the minimal enumeration degree problem in models of fragments of Peano arithmetic () and prove the following results: in any model M of Σ2 induction, there is a minimal enumeration degree if and only if M is a nonstandard model. Furthermore, any cut in such a model has minimal e-degree. By contrast, this phenomenon fails in the absence of Σ2 induction. In fact, whether every Σ2 cut has minimal e-degree is independent of the Σ2 bounding principle.

:In this article, we present an educational intervention that embeds ethics education within research laboratories. This structure is designed to assist students in addressing ethical challenges in a more informed way, and to improve the overall ethical culture of research environments. The project seeks to identify factors that students and researchers consider relevant to ethical conduct in science, technology, engineering, and math and to promote the cultivation of an ethical culture in experimental laboratories by integrating research stakeholders in a bottom-up (...) approach to developing context-specific, ethics-based guidelines. An important assumption behind this approach is that direct involvement in the process of developing laboratory specific ethical guidelines will positively influence researchers’ understanding of ethical research and practice issues, their handling of these issues, and the promotion of an ethical culture in the respective laboratory. The active involvement may increase the sense of ownership and integration of further discussion on these important topics. Based on the project experiences, the project team seeks to develop a module involving the bottom-up building of codes-of-ethics-based guidelines that can be used by a broad range of institutions and that will be distributed widely. (shrink)

Objectives The objective of this research was to develop ethics accreditation standards for hospitals. Research design Our research methods included a literature review, an expert focus group, the Delphi technique and a hospital survey. The entire process was separated into two stages: (1) the development of a draft of hospital ethics accreditation standards; and (2) conducting a nationwide hospital survey of the proposed standards. Results This study produced a tentative draft of hospital ethics accreditation standards comprised of six chapters and (...) 62 standards based on the expert focus group and Delphi technique. The six chapters are: Medical ethics policies, regulations and leadership; The establishment and operation of a medical ethics committee; The establishment and operation of research-related ethics committees; Medical ethics education; Organisational ethical climate; and Respect for patients' rights and establishment of good hospital-patient relationships. The hospital survey indicated that the concept of an organisational ethical climate was new to most hospital managers, most hospitals disliked the idea of having a separate hospital ethics accreditation system, and small hospitals were concerned about their ability to comply with all of the standards. Conclusions Regardless of whether hospital ethics accreditation can be a stand-alone accreditation or just part of existing hospital accreditation programmes, we hope this draft can serve as a good reference for future endeavours by hospital accreditation authorities. (shrink)

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are central to any educational system. The term started with the National Science Foundation as “SMET” and was changed to STEM at a later date due to phonetic reasons. The term was not widely used until Virginia Tech University began offering a “STEM education” degree in 2005 (Friedman 2005). The term STEM covers a broad spectrum of different disciplines. While, in general, STEM is used as an umbrella term for the natural sciences, engineering, (...) mathematics, and technology-related fields, there are some variations in its usage. For example, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) characterizes STEM as including chemistry, computers and information technology, engineering, geoscience, life sciences, mathematical sciences, physics and astronomy, psychology, social sciences, educational research, and STEM education (Gonzalez and Kuezi 2012). Whereas this approach considers the social sciences to be of central importance to STEM and the STEM workforce (Spalter-Roth 2004), in the United Kingdom, STEM is seen to include fields such as medicine, dentistry, and architecture but exclude the social sciences and education (United Kingdom, House of Lords, Science, and Technology, Committee 2012). (shrink)

Suddendorf & Corballis (S&C) argue that animals are not capable of mental time travel (MTT) or its components. However, new results on chimpanzees suggest that they plan for the future and possess some MTT components. Moreover, future-oriented behaviour and episodic-like memory in other animals suggest that not all animals are limited to the present. Animals' capacities should not be dismissed without testing them.

Theories of decision-making and its neural substrates have long assumed the existence of two distinct and competing valuation systems, variously described as goal-directed vs. habitual, or, more recently and based on statistical arguments, as model-free vs. model-based reinforcement-learning. Though both have been shown to control choices, the cognitive abilities associated with these systems are under ongoing investigation. Here we examine the link to cognitive abilities, and find that individual differences in processing speed covary with a shift from model-free to model-based (...) choice control in the presence of above-average working memory function. This suggests shared cognitive and neural processes; provides a bridge between literatures on intelligence and valuation; and may guide the development of process models of different valuation components. Furthermore, it provides a rationale for individual differences in the tendency to deploy valuation systems, which may be important for understanding the manifold neuropsychiatric diseases associated with malfunctions of valuation. (shrink)

In nursing today, it remains unclear what constitutes a good foundation for qualitative scientific inquiry. There is a tendency to define qualitative research as a form of inductive inquiry; deductive practice is seldom discussed, and when it is, this usually occurs in the context of data analysis. We will look at how the terms ‘induction’ and ‘deduction’ are used in qualitative nursing science and by qualitative research theorists, and relate these uses to the traditional definitions of these terms by Popper (...) and other philosophers of science. We will also question the assertion that qualitative research is or should be inductive. The position we defend here is that qualitative research should use deductive methods. We also see a need to understand the difference between the creative process needed to create theory and the justification of a theory. Our position is that misunderstandings regarding the philosophy of science and the role of inductive and deductive logic and science are still harming the development of nursing theory and science. The purpose of this article is to discuss and reflect upon inductive and deductive views of science as well as inductive and deductive analyses in qualitative research. We start by describing inductive and deductive methods and logic from a philosophy of science perspective, and we examine how the concepts of induction and deduction are often described and used in qualitative methods and nursing research. Finally, we attempt to provide a theoretical perspective that reconciles the misunderstandings regarding induction and deduction. Our conclusion is that openness towards deductive thinking and testing hypotheses is needed in qualitative nursing research. We must also realize that strict induction will not create theory; to generate theory, a creative leap is needed. (shrink)

Sleep onset is associated with marked changes in behavioral, physiological, and subjective phenomena. In daily life though subjective experience is the main criterion in terms of which we identify it. But very few studies have focused on these experiences. This study seeks to identify the subjective variables that reflect sleep onset. Twenty young subjects took an afternoon nap in the laboratory while polysomnographic recordings were made. They were awakened four times in order to assess subjective experiences that correlate with the (...) (1) appearance of slow eye movement, (2) initiation of stage 1 sleep, (3) initiation of stage 2 sleep, and (4) 5 min after the start of stage 2 sleep. A logistic regression identified control over and logic of thought as the two variables that predict the perception of having fallen asleep. For sleep perception, these two variables accurately classified 91.7% of the cases; for the waking state, 84.1%. (shrink)

The tension between economic policy and health policy is a longstanding dilemma, but one that was brought to the fore with the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement in 1994. The pharmaceutical industry has long argued that intellectual property protection is vital for innovation. At the same time, there are those who counter that strong IPP negatively impacts the affordability and availability of essential medicines in developing countries. However, actors on both sides of the debate were (...) in agreement that something needed to be done to address the HIV/AIDS crisis, especially in developing countries. In response to sustained and significant pressure from civil society groups, members of the World Trade Organization agreed to the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health in 2001. The Declaration clarified that countries unable to manufacture the needed pharmaceuticals could obtain more affordable generics elsewhere if necessary. (shrink)