Background: Family sense of coherence can be defined as the cognitive map of a family that enables the family to deal with stress during their lifetime. FSOC is the degree to which a family perceives family life as comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. To the best of our knowledge, few studies have used this scale, and very few have evaluated FSOC Scale psychometric properties.Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the original FSOC Scale in a sample of Portuguese (...) caregivers of children aged between 10 and 15 years.Methods: A total of 329 caregivers completed a sociodemographic questionnaire and the FSOC Scale. Analyses were performed to evaluate the factor structure of the FSOC Scale with 26 items as well as composite reliability, internal consistency, convergent-related validity, and discriminant-related validity of the scale scores.Results: The findings supported a three-factor solution for a 13-item version that maintains the original FSOC Scale structure. The three FSOC dimensions presented a good fit to the data. Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability, and convergent-related validity were considered very good for the FSOC Scale. No evidence of discriminant-related validity was found for the dimensions of FSOC.Conclusion: The findings support the use of the Portuguese FSOC Scale for research and clinical purposes with Portuguese caregivers. Future research is necessary to further develop a European Portuguese version of the FSOC Scale.Implications: This study provides a psychometric evaluation of FSOC Scale characteristics in a Portuguese sample. The results are helpful for clinicians and family therapists who work with families since it could help them to assess the resources of families and their ability to cope with adversity and enhance their strengths. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ch'an/Zen-Catholic Dialogue Spreads a "Welcome Table" at the 2009 Annual MeetingFrancis V. TisoA retreat program designed by the participants in the ongoing Ch'an/Zen-Catholic Dialogue explored the dialogue of religious experience and the dialogue of life, set amid the redwoods of Guerneville, California. The 28–31 January 2009 meeting was cochaired by the Rev. Heng Sure of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and the Institute for World Religions, Berkeley, California, and by (...) Most Rev. John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City, Utah.Sr. Mary Ann Donovan of the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, led an experience of lectio divina based on John 15:1–17, Jesus's simile of the vine and the branches. Rev. Victoria Austin of the San Francisco Zen Center gave an "encouragement talk," which would typically be delivered to Zen retreatants. She referred to the Gospel passage, noting: "We don't prune the vine because it is dead, but because it has the capacity to be fruitful. We don't purify the mind to get rid of dirt, but to return to the mind's original purity, which is the source of our conscience and is the true life within us." Rev. Jan Chosen Bays of Great Vow Zen Monastery in Oregon observed that "Vows make our life energy more focused, keeping us from losing purpose and meaning. Vows prune away unnecessary things. When we ask for help with the challenge of being faithful to our vows, we call up and encounter unexpected sources of support and 'grace.' "The Ch'an Buddhist presentation focused on meditation experience, which was described as "recovering the natural state of the mind." Prof. Martin Verhoeven of the Pacific School of Religion pointed out that in meditation "we are returning to the origin, not moving forward to 'gain something.'" Linking ethical engagement with contemplation, he said, "When the mind of a meditator is motivated to act out of genuine compassion, its action is accurate and correct. Action is neither driven nor obstructed by ego or sentiment." These comments resonated with Rev. Heng Sure's presentation on the statement on the environment from the recent Gethsemane III conference "Simple and Sufficient," in which Buddhist and Christian monastics embraced an ecologically valid way of life. Urging the group to notice the connections between contemplation and ethical action, Bishop John C. Wester commented: "This [End Page 145] work embodies mercy by lifting people up; it embodies justice as it arises out of our common humanity."Because of the financial challenges that all three sponsoring institutions are facing, it was decided to conclude formal sponsorship of the Ch'an/Zen-Catholic Dialogue with this meeting. However, participants agreed to work together to reconstitute the dialogue regionally. A steering committee was designated to undertake new logistical arrangements and to draft a narrative of the previous seven years of dialogue for posting on our respective websites. Bishop Wester summarized the convictions of participants, both Buddhist and Catholic, by observing: "It is impossible not to be affected by this experience. Dialogue in this atmosphere has had an impact on my own way of ministering to others. I feel that my faith, sensitivity, compassion, and reverence have been enhanced by participating in these meetings."Participants in the 2009 dialogue meeting included Rev. Heng Sure, Berkeley Buddhist Monastery; Bishop John C. Wester, Salt Lake City; Dr. Snjezana Akpinar, Dharma Realm Buddhist University; Rev. Gigen Victoria Austin, San Francisco Zen Center; Rev. Jan Chozen Bays, Great Vow Zen Monastery; Sr. Phyllis D'Anna, SND, Zen Center, Palo Alto; Sr. Mary Ann Donovan, SC, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley; Dr. Ron Epstein, Dharma Realm Buddhist Association; Mrs. Lorraine Moriarty, Society of St. Vincent De Paul; Bhikshuni Heng Jiao, City of 10,000 Buddhas; Bhikshuni Heng Liang, City of 10,000 Buddhas; Rev. Canon Francis Tiso, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Rev. James Massa, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Rev. Thomas W. Devereaux, Diocese of Santa Rosa ecumenical and interreligious officer; Dr. Martin Verhoeven, Pacific School of Religion; and Ron Brown, observer (Cloverdale, California). [End Page 146]Francis V. TisoUnited States Conference of Catholic BishopsCopyright © 2009 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

This essay argues that Pascal's work both questions the accuracy of perspective in an infinite universe, and describes a model for moral truth that escapes the limitations of perspective. This model, rooted in Christianity, requires a total reorientation of approach towards moral truth. By asserting the limits of rational method, making use of recent scientific developments, and constructing a new model for moral truth, Pascal's work sought to update the role of Christianity to be not only consonant with the secular (...) thinking of his day but also as the only solution to the implications of that thinking. (shrink)

: This essay argues that Pascal's work both questions the accuracy of perspective in an infinite universe, and describes a model for moral truth that escapes the limitations of perspective. This model, rooted in Christianity, requires a total reorientation of approach towards moral truth. By asserting the limits of rational method, making use of recent scientific developments, and constructing a new model for moral truth, Pascal's work sought to update the role of Christianity to be not only consonant with the (...) secular thinking of his day but also as the only solution to the implications of that thinking. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research assumes that teams of highly specialized scientists develop new knowledge by bridging their respective horizons. Nurse educators preparing nursing doctoral students to conduct interdisciplinary research need insight into how members of interdisciplinary research teams experience knowledge horizons in these complex contexts. Based on the work of the philosopher Bernard Lonergan, this pilot study uses Transcendental Method for Research with Human Subjects to explore interdisciplinary researchers' experiences with and attitudes toward interdisciplinary research. Results reveal the overarching conceptual category of (...) “engaged interdisciplinary inquiry” which includes six themes: (i) valuing interdisciplinary engagement; (ii) direct engagement; (iii) interior engagement; (iv) disengagement; (v) facilitated engagement and (vi) engaged researcher development. Results also suggest engagement depends on vigorous “back and forth”, or dialogue, with self and others, and demonstrate the study method is fruitful for cognitive inquiry. This pilot supports expanded study to inform preparation for and conduct of interdisciplinary research involving nurses and raises important questions about how the trend toward interdisciplinary research affects nursing science. (shrink)

This book, spanning the years 1650–1730 in France and England, looks primarily at the history of literary criticism during that period in order to show how the rising interest in the sublime pushes literary critics to entirely alter their approach to theorizing works of literature. It provides a new approach to understanding how eighteenth-century aesthetic theories are indebted to seventeenth-century religious, philosophical, and literary ideas.

This paper summarizes a discussion session investigating the corporate representatives behind corporate citizenship and sustainability initiatives.

This essay shows how two early modern literary critics, John Dennis and Nicolas Boileau, sought to map out how the mind came to know the transcendental aspects of a literary work, specifically poetry. Both theorize a non-rational faculty rooted in sensible experience which is able to gain knowledge outside of reason's grasp. The essay argues that each writer uses a religious model to describe the profoundest intellectual effects of poetry. This appropriation of a religious model, however, results in an inability (...) for both writers to account for the rationally knowable aspects of poetry along with its transcendental effects. (shrink)

Why and how have supply chain codes of conduct diffused among lead firms around the globe? Prior research has drawn on both institutional and stakeholder theories to explain the adoption of codes, but no study has modeled adoption as a temporally dynamic process of diffusion. We propose that the drivers of adoption shift over time, from exclusively nonmarket to eventually market-based mechanisms as well. In an analysis of an original data set of more than 1,800 firms between the years 2006 (...) and 2015, we find that strong nonmarket labor institutions in a firm’s home country are critical to initiating and sustaining the diffusion process. Market mechanisms, such as investor scrutiny and brand risk, emerge as important later. Contrary to prior research, we did not find a significant effect from nongovernmental organization (NGO) pressure. We conclude that markets for corporate social responsibility can and do arise, but only after they are effectuated by nonmarket institutions. (shrink)

In 2000, the United States Congress passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act requiring its State Department to issue annual Trafficking in Persons Reports (TIP Reports) describing “the nature and extent of severe forms of trafficking in persons” and assessing governmental efforts across the world to combat such trafficking against criteria established by US law. This article examines the opportunities and risks presented by the TIP Reports, tracing their evolution over the past decade and considering their impact on (...) the behavior of states. In looking to the future, the article focuses on how this influential unilateral compliance mechanism could improve its legitimacy, respond to negative impacts, and better contribute to the international legal regime around trafficking. (shrink)

The essence of temporal universe creation is that any analytical solution has to comply with the boundary condition of our universe; dimensionality and causality constraints. The essence of this book is to show that everything has a price within our temporal (t > 0) universe; energy and time.

In 2018-2019, at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, we developed and piloted a narrative-based health systems science intervention for patients living with HIV and medical students in which medical students co-wrote patients’ life narratives for inclusion in the electronic health record. The pilot study aimed to assess the acceptability of the “life narrative protocol” from multiple stakeholder positions and characterize participants’ experiences of the clinical and pedagogical implications of the LNP. Students were recruited from (...) KSOM. Patients and staff were recruited from the Maternal, Child, and Adolescent/Adult Center for Infectious Disease and Virology at Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center. Ten patients, seventeen students, and ten MCA staff participated in the pilot study. Qualitative methods were used to gather data from students’, patients’, and staff’s perspectives. Three themes emerged from the thematic analysis: patients’ life narratives conveyed their unique life experiences and voices; the protocol could result in wide-ranging effects on HIV care; the LNP enabled students to contribute value to patients’ healthcare. Across groups, participants considered the LNP an acceptable intervention. The LNP, its limitations, and implications for HIV care, narrative medicine, and health information technology are presented. (shrink)

The purpose of the present systematic and critical review was to assess the findings and to identify the gaps in the literature concerning gay and bisexual fathers. A comprehensive search of relevant literature using electronic databases and reference lists for articles published until December 2016 was conducted. A total of 63 studies, spanning from 1979 to 2016, were collected. More than half of the studies were published after 2011 and the overwhelming majority were conducted in the United States. Nine themes (...) were identified in the studies reviewed: (1) Pathways to fatherhood; (2) Motivations for fatherhood; (3) Parenting experiences and childrearing; (4) Family life and relationship quality; (5) Gender and father identities and gender-role orientation; (6) Disclosure of sexual identity; (7) Social climate; (8) Father’s psychosocial adjustment; and (9) Children’s psychosocial adjustment. It was found that research on gay fatherhood appears to be more heterogeneous than on lesbian motherhood, perhaps because of the variety of pathways to parenthood (via co-parenting, adoption, fostering, or surrogacy). Two-father families are becoming more visible in research on sexual minority parenting and gradually transforming the conceptualization of parenting in family research. (shrink)

This paper describes a pilot study of a new model for narrative medicine training, “community-based participatory narrative medicine”, which centers on shared narrative work between healthcare trainees and patients. Nine medical students and eight patients participated in one of two, five-week-long pilot workshop series. A case study of participants’ experiences of the workshop series identified three major themes: the reciprocal and collaborative nature of participants’ relationships; the interplay between self-reflection and receiving feedback from others; and the clinical and pedagogical implications (...) of the CBPNM model. Principles and proposed outcomes of the CBPNM model are presented. (shrink)

Nurses have moral obligations incurred by membership in the profession to participate knowingly in health policy advocacy. Many barriers have historically hindered nurses from realizing their potential to advance health policy. The contemporary political context sets additional challenges to policy work due to polarization and conflict. Nursing education can help nurses recognize their role in advancing health through political advocacy in a manner that is consistent with disciplinary knowledge and ethical responsibilities. In this paper, the authors describe an exemplar of (...) Elizabeth Barrett's “Power as Knowing Participation in Change” theory as a disciplinary lens within a doctoral nursing health policy course. Barrett (radically) emphasizes “power as freedom” instead of “power as control.” This approach is congruent with nursing disciplinary values and enhances awareness of personal freedom and building collaborative relationships in the policy process. The theory was used in concert with other traditional policy content and frameworks from nursing and other disciplines. We discuss the role of nursing ethics viewed as professional responsibility for policy action, an overview of Barrett's theory, and the design of the course. Four student reflections on how the course influenced their thinking about policy advocacy are included. While not specific to policymaking, Barrett's theory provides a disciplinary grounding to increase students' awareness of freedom and choices in political advocacy participation. Our experience suggests that Barrett's work can be fruitful for enhancing nurses' awareness of choices to participate in change across settings. (shrink)

Psychiatry is rapidly adopting digital phenotyping and artificial intelligence/machine learning tools to study mental illness based on tracking participants’ locations, online activity, phone and text message usage, heart rate, sleep, physical activity, and more. Existing ethical frameworks for return of individual research results (IRRs) are inadequate to guide researchers for when, if, and how to return this unprecedented number of potentially sensitive results about each participant’s real-world behavior. To address this gap, we convened an interdisciplinary expert working group, supported by (...) a National Institute of Mental Health grant. Building on established guidelines and the emerging norm of returning results in participant-centered research, we present a novel framework specific to the ethical, legal, and social implications of returning IRRs in digital phenotyping research. Our framework offers researchers, clinicians, and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) urgently needed guidance, and the principles developed here in the context of psychiatry will be readily adaptable to other therapeutic areas. (shrink)

Despite the growing interest in developing a micro-level understanding of strategy practices, there are few studies focusing on the official textual expression of these practices in the form of strategic plans. Using a large corpus of strategic plans from public and third sector organizations, this article examines the particular features of the strategic plan genre of communication. This corpus is systematically compared with nine other corpora derived from the same general domain or having similar expected characteristics. Our analysis combines linguistic (...) analysis with an analysis of the moves characteristic of the genre. The article seeks to advance a genre-based view of strategy practices to study the professional and institutional practices of strategists. (shrink)

Marine ecosystems are under increasing pressure from human activity, yet successful management relies on knowledge. The evidence-based policy (EBP) approach has been promoted on the grounds that it provides greater transparency and consistency by relying on ‘high quality’ information. However, EBP also creates epistemic responsibilities. Decision-making where limited or no empirical evidence exists, such as is often the case in marine systems, creates epistemic obligations for new information acquisition. We argue that philosophical approaches can inform the science-policy interface. Using marine (...) biosecurity examples, we specifically examine the epistemic challenges in the acquisition and acceptance of evidence to inform policy, discussing epistemic due care and biases in consideration of evidence. (shrink)

Our contribution in this paper is to highlight the ethical implications of workforce engagement strategies in an age of austerity. Hard or instrumentalist approaches to workforce engagement create the potential for situations where engaged employees are expected to work ever longer and harder with negative outcomes for their well-being. Our study explores these issues in an investigation of the enactment of an engagement strategy within a UK Health charity, where managers and workers face paradoxical demands to raise service quality and (...) cut costs. We integrate insights from engagement, paradox, and ethic of care literatures, to explore these paradoxical demands—illustrating ways in which engagement experiences become infused with tensions when the workforce faces competing requirements to do ‘more with less’ resources. We argue that those targeted by these paradoxical engagement strategies need to be supported and cared for, embedded in an ethic of care that provides explicit workplace resources for helping workers and managers cope with and work through corresponding tensions. Our study points to the critical importance of support from senior and frontline managers for open communications and dialogue practices. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical and regulatory guidance on the collection and use of human biospecimens for research forms an essential component of national health systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, where rapid advances in genetic- and genomic-based technologies are fueling clinical trials involving HBS and the establishment of large-scale biobanks.MethodsAn extensive multi-level search for publicly available ethics regulatory guidance was conducted for each SSA country. A second review documented active trials listed in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform as of January 2015 in which (...) HBS collection was specified in the protocol. Findings were combined to determine the extent to which countries that are study sites for HBS-related research are supported by regulatory guidance language on the collection, use, ownership and storage of biospecimens.ResultsOf the 49 SSA countries, 29 had some form of national ethics guidance, yet only 17 provided language relating to HBS-related research, with specific guidance on consent, ownership, reuse, storage, and export/import/transfer. Ten countries accounted for 84 % of the active clinical trials involving the collection of HBS in SSA. All except one of these countries were found to have some national guidance in the form of regulations, codes of ethics, and/or standard operating procedures; however, only seven of the ten offered any language specific to HBS.ConclusionsDespite the fact that the bulk of registered clinical trials in SSA involving HBS, as well as existing and proposed sites for biorepositories under the H3Africa Initiative, are currently situated in countries with the most complete ethics and regulatory guidance, variability in the regulations themselves may create challenges for planned and future pan-African collaborations and may require legislative action at the national level to revise. Countries in SSA that still lack regulatory guidance on HBS will require extensive health system strengthening in ethics governance before they can be full participants in the modern research enterprise. (shrink)

Despite the intrinsic complexity of integrating individual, social and technologically supported intelligence, the paper proposes a relatively simple ‘connectionist’ framework for conceptualizing distributed cognitive systems. Shared information sources (documents) are represented as nodes connected by links of variable strength, which increases as the documents co-occur in the usage patterns. This learning procedure captures and exploits its users’ implicit knowledge to help them find relevant information, thus supporting an unconscious form of exchange. These principles are applied to a concrete problem domain: (...) architects sharing design knowledge through a database of associatively connected building projects. (shrink)

This paper explores the development of the chemical table as a tool designed for chemical information visualization. It uses a historical context to investigate the purpose of chemical tables and charts, analyzing them from the perspective of theory of tables, cartography, and design. It suggests reasons why the two-dimensional periodic table remains the de facto standard for chemical information display.

Why do some types of settings and some combinations of sensory information induce a sense of dread in humans? This article brings empirical evidence from psychological research to bear on the experience of horror, and explains why the tried-and-true horror devices intuitively employed by writers and filmmakers work so well. Natural selection has favored individuals who gravitated toward environments containing the “right” physical and psychological features and avoided those which posed a threat. Places that contain a bad mix of these (...) features induce unpleasant feelings of dread and fear, and therefore have become important ingredients of the settings for horror fiction and films. This article ap­plies McAndrew and Koehnke’s theory of creepiness to the study of classic horror settings and explores the role played by architecture, isolation, association with death, and other environmental qualities in the experience of creepiness and dread. (shrink)

We share Minkoff et al.’s (2024) concern regarding the potential disavowal of pregnant patients’ right to refuse medical interventions, without or against their explicit consent, aimed at preservin...

Prominent views about representation share a premise: that mathematical communication theory is blind to representational content. Here I challenge that premise by rejecting two common misconceptions: that Claude Shannon said that the meanings of signals are irrelevant for communication theory (he didn't and they aren't), and that since correlational measures can't distinguish representations from natural signs, communication theory can't distinguish them either (the premise is true but the conclusion is false; no valid argument can link them).

Intergroup and long-distance relationships are both central features of human social life, but because intergroup relationships are emphasized in the literature, long-distance relationships are often overlooked. Here, we make the case that intergroup and long-distance relationships should be studied as distinct, albeit related, features of human sociality. First, we review the functions of both kinds of relationship: while both can be conduits for difficult-to-access resources, intergroup relationships can reduce intergroup conflict whereas long-distance relationships are especially effective at buffering widespread resource (...) shortfalls. Second, to illustrate the importance of distinguishing the two relationship types, we present a case study from rural Bolivia. Combining ethnography and two different experimental techniques, we find that the importance of intergroup relationships—and the salience of group membership itself—varies across populations and across methods. Although ethnography revealed that participants often rely on long-distance relationships for resource access, we were unable to capture participant preferences for these relationships with a forced-choice technique. Taken together, our review and empirical data highlight that (1) intergroup and long-distance relationships can have different functions and can be more or less important in different contexts and (2) validating experimental field data with ethnography is crucial for work on human sociality. We close by outlining future directions for research on long-distance relationships in humans. (shrink)