BackgroundCountries are increasingly devoting significant resources to creating or strengthening research ethics committees, but there has been insufficient attention to assessing whether these committees are actually improving the protection of human research participants.DiscussionResearch ethics committees face numerous obstacles to achieving their goal of improving research participant protection. These include the inherently amorphous nature of ethics review, the tendency of regulatory systems to encourage a focus on form over substance, financial and resource constraints, and conflicts of interest. Auditing and accreditation programs (...) can improve the quality of ethics review by encouraging the development of standardized policies and procedures, promoting a common base of knowledge, and enhancing the status of research ethics committees within their own institutions. However, these mechanisms focus largely on questions of structure and process and are therefore incapable of answering many critical questions about ethics committees' actual impact on research practices.The first step in determining whether research ethics committees are achieving their intended function is to identify what prospective research participants and their communities hope to get out of the ethics review process. Answers to this question can help guide the development of effective outcomes assessment measures. It is also important to determine whether research ethics committees' guidance to investigators is actually being followed. Finally, the information developed through outcomes assessment must be disseminated to key decision-makers and incorporated into practice. This article offers concrete suggestions for achieving these goals.ConclusionOutcomes assessment of research ethics committees should address the following questions: First, does research ethics committee review improve participants' understanding of the risks and potential benefits of studies? Second, does the process affect prospective participants' decisions about whether to participate in research? Third, does it change participants' subjective experiences in studies or their attitudes about research? Fourth, does it reduce the riskiness of research? Fifth, does it result in more research responsive to the local community's self-identified needs? Sixth, is research ethics committees' guidance to researchers actually being followed? (shrink)

Ongoing changes in many Western countries have resulted in more healthcare services being transferred to municipalities and taking place in patients’ homes. This greatly impacts nurses’ work in home care, making their work increasingly diverse and demanding. In this study, we explore home‐care nursing through a critical discourse analysis of focus group interviews with home‐care nurses. Drawing on insights from positioning theory, we discuss the content and delineation of their work and the interweaving of contextual changes. Nurses hold a crucial (...) position in home healthcare, particularly in ensuring care for sicker patients with complex needs. Assessing health needs, performing advanced care, and at the same time, providing customized solutions in various homes were identified as distinctive for home‐care nurses’ work. Changes have made nurses’ work become driven by comprehensive tasks and acute medical needs that require much of their competence and time. Urgent care seems to take precedence in nurses’ work, leaving less time and attention for other tasks such as conversations and support for coping with everyday life. This underlines the need to investigate and discuss the content and scope of nurses’ work to help shape the further development of home‐care nursing. (shrink)

Background Ensuring individual free and informed decision‐making for research participation is challenging. It is thought that preliminarily informing communities through ‘community sensitization’ procedures may improve individual decision‐making. This study set out to assess the relevance of community sensitization for individual decision‐making in research participation in rural Gambia. Methods This anthropological mixed‐methods study triangulated qualitative methods and quantitative survey methods in the context of an observational study and a clinical trial on malaria carried out by the Medical Research Council Unit Gambia. (...) Results/discussion Although 38.7% of the respondents were present during sensitization sessions, 91.1% of the respondents were inclined to participate in the trial when surveyed after the sensitization and prior to the informed consent process. This difference can be explained by the informal transmission of information within the community after the community sensitization, expectations such as the benefits of participation based on previous research experiences, and the positive reputation of the research institute. Commonly mentioned barriers to participation were blood sampling and the potential disapproval of the household head. Conclusion Community sensitization is effective in providing first‐hand, reliable information to communities as the information is cascaded to those who could not attend the sessions. However, further research is needed to assess how the informal spread of information further shapes people's expectations, how the process engages with existing social relations and hierarchies (e.g. local political power structures; permissions of heads of households) and how this influences or changes individual consent. (shrink)

I Möten med historiens mångfald ger nästa generation av svenska historiker läsaren en inblick i sina pågående eller nyss avslutade forskningsarbeten.

Background The first COVID-19 wave started in February 2020 in France. The influx of patients requiring emergency care and high-level technicity led healthcare professionals to fear saturation of available care. In that context, the multidisciplinary Ethics- Support Cell (EST) was created to help medical teams consider the decisions that could potentially be sources of ethical dilemmas. Objectives The primary objective was to prospectively collect information on requests for EST assistance from 23 March to 9 May 2020. The secondary aim was (...) to describe the Cell’s functions during that period. Research design This observational, real-time study of requests for Cell consultations concerned ethical dilemmas arising during a public health crisis. The EST created a grid to collect relevant information (clinical, patient’s/designated representative’s preferences and ethical principles strained by the situation), thereby assuring that each EST asked the same questions, in the same order. Participants and research context Only our university hospital’s clinicians could request EST intervention. Ethical considerations The hospital Research Ethics Committee approved this study (no. CER-2020-107). The patient, his/her family, or designated representative was informed of this ethics consultation and most met with EST members, which enabled them to express their preferences and/or opposition. Findings/results 33 requests (patients’ mean age: 80.8 years; 29 had COVID-19: 24 with dyspnea, 30 with comorbidities). 17 Emergency Department solicitations concerned ICU admission, without reference to resource constraints; others addressed therapeutic proportionality dilemmas. Discussion Intervention-request motives concerned limited resources and treatment intensity. Management revolved around three axes: the treatment option most appropriate for the patient, the feasibility of implementation, and dignified care for the patient. Conclusions COVID-19 crisis forced hospitals to envisage prioritization of ICU access. Established decision-making criteria and protocols do not enable healthcare professionals to escape ethical dilemmas. That acknowledgement highlights ethical risks, enhances the added-value of nursing and encourages all players to be vigilant to pursue collective deliberations to achieve clear and transparent decisions. (shrink)

Developmental research typically relies on face-to-face testing at laboratories, childcare centers, museums or playgroups. Current social distancing measures have led to a halt in research. Although face-to-face interaction is considered essential for research involving young children, current technology provides viable alternatives. This paper introduces an accessible, replicable and easy to follow method to conduct online developmental research with young children employing a word-learning task as an exemplar, including a detailed workflow and step-by-step guide to using easily accessible programs and platforms. (...) Four-year-old children's performance on a word-learning task delivered online vs. face-to-face is provided as a method validation. Children's performance on the word-learning task was predominantly consistent across delivery modes, with only slight variation in performance between modes. The implications of these similar results across face-to-face and online methods are discussed alongside avenues for further research. Importantly, this paper presents an emerging methodological approach for the online administration of developmental science both within and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, adding a new tool to current and future developmental scientist's toolkits. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Climate Science Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. But what is climate change, how do we know about it, and how should we react to it? This article summarizes the main conceptual issues and questions in the foundations of climate science, as well as of the … Continue reading Climate Science, The Philosophy of →.

We explore physiological linkage among 34 same-sex male couples. Interbeat interval, an indicator of cardiovascular arousal, was collected across four conversational contexts in the lab: a baseline period that did not involve conversation, a conversation about body image, a conversation about health goals, and a recovery period that allowed for unstructured conversation. We used a newly developed R statistical package that simplifies the use of dynamic models for investigating interpersonal emotional processes. We identified two different PL patterns: a simple one (...) that was characterized by stable synchronization and low frequency of oscillation; and a complex one that was characterized by drifting synchronization, high frequency of oscillation, and eventual damping. Guided by social baseline theory and the reactive flexibility perspective, we explored the interactions between couple relationship functioning and conversational context as predictors of the PL patterns. The results suggest that partners in well-functioning relationships and emotionally challenging situations may be especially likely to show complex PL patterns that may reflect coregulatory processes. (shrink)

Kolbe and de Melo-Martin (2023) raise important concerns about the limited usefulness of measures of moral distress. They propose that moral distress is best measured in terms of “illegitimate inst...

IntroductionEspecially in the chronic phase, individuals with traumatic brain injury may still have impairments at the discourse level, even if these remain undetected by conventional aphasia tests. As a consequence, IwTBI may be impaired in conversational behavior and disadvantaged in their socio-communicative participation. Even though handling discourse is thought to be a basic requirement for participation and quality of life, only a handful of test procedures assessing discourse disorders have been developed so far. The MAKRO Screening is a recently developed (...) screening tool designed to assess discourse impairments. The test construction is based on psycholinguistic frameworks and the concept of macro-rules, which refer to cognitive functions responsible for organizing and reducing complex information in discourse.AimThe aim of our study was to investigate discourse processing in IwTBI in different tasks and to assess problems in communicative participation in the post-acute and chronic phase. In this context, we also aimed to analyze the influence of the severity of the initial impairment and the verbal executive abilities on the discourse performance. Additionally, the impact of macrolinguistic discourse impairments and verbal fluency on perceived communicative participation was targeted in our analysis.MethodsData from 23 IwTBI and 23 healthy control subjects have been analyzed. They completed two subtests of the MAKRO screening: Text production and Inferences. Discourse performance was examined in relation to measures of semantic fluency and verbal task-switching. Socio-communicative problems were evaluated with the German version of the La Trobe Communication Questionnaire.ResultsIwTBI showed lower test results than the control group in the two subtests of the MAKRO-Screening. Difficulties in picture-based narrative text production also indicated greater perceived difficulties in communicative participation. We also found that the subject’s performance on the MAKRO-Screening subtests can partly be explained by underlying dysexecutive symptoms and the severity of their injury. The preliminary results of our study show that cognitive-linguistic symptoms in IwTBI are also evident in the chronic phase. These can be detected with procedures referring to the discourse level, such as the MAKRO-Screening. The assessment of discourse performance should be an integral part in the rehabilitation of IwTBI in order to detect cognitive-linguistic communication disorders and to evaluate their impact on socio-communicative participation. (shrink)

The association between online Flow and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has attracted significant attention. Despite the consensus that online Flow plays a pivotal role in the development of IGD and other Internet addictive behaviours, there has been a lack of consistency in measurement scales used to assess online Flow. Even widely used measures of online Flow have not been psychometrically assessed across culturally diverse populations of gamers. Such an assessment would enhance the accuracy of cross-cultural comparisons regarding the association between (...) online Flow and IGD. Attending to this need, the present study assessed the psychometric properties of the binary coded (i.e. Yes, No) Online Flow Questionnaire (OFQ), while concurrently taking into consideration country, age, language, and mode of data collection (online or face-to-face) differences. Two sequences of successive multiple group confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the psychometric properties of the OFQ, between: a) emergent adults from the United States of America (N = 482, Mage = 25.23, SD = 2.746) and Australia (N = 168, Mage = 23.55, SD = 3.37) and b) adolescents from Greece (N = 1579, Mage = 16.12, SD =.849) and Cyprus (N = 1372, Mage = 15.54, SD =.656). Configural and partial metric invariance were confirmed between the USA and Australian samples. For the Greek and Cypriot samples, results indicated full configural and metric invariance. These results provide initial information to researchers and clinicians of the extent to which the OFQ maintains its consistency when used across cultures and invite for further cross-cultural studies in the field. Implications, as well as limitations, are discussed. (shrink)

Recent longitudinal observations show that human menstrual cycles, sleep‐wake cycles and manic‐depressive cycles can become synchronized with lunar cycles, but do so in uniquely complex and heterogeneous ways that are unlikely to have been detected by past studies. Past studies’ negative results have given rise to a scientific consensus that human biology and behavior are unaffected by lunar cycles. The recent observations show that synchrony can be temporary, and can occur with more than one type of lunar cycle, more than (...) one phase of a lunar cycle and more than one resonant frequency of a lunar cycle. Given the variability of human responses to lunar cycles, aggregate analyses used in almost all previous studies would likely have cancelled out individuals’ responses and led to false negative results. In light of these observations, the question of lunar influence should be investigated further, with longitudinal observations and case‐by‐case analyses of individuals’ data. (shrink)

Charlotte Wolff was born in Riesenburg, West Prussia into a middle-class Jewish family. She studied philosophy and then medicine at several German universities, completing her doctorate in Berlin in 1926. Working in various institutions over the next few years, she was also interested in psychotherapy and had a small private medical and psychotherapeutic practice. In 1933 she was forced to leave Germany because of the Nazi regime, and settled for a few years in Paris. As a German refugee she (...) was unable to practice medicine, so she began her research into the correlation between hand traits and personality. In 1936 she went to London to continue her research work and lived there until her death. An active lesbian from an early age, her later research turned to sexology and her writing on lesbianism and bisexuality were influential early works in the field. This is a great opportunity to rediscover her early work, including her first autobiography. (shrink)

The Metaphysics of Gender is a book about gender essentialism: what it is and why it might be true.

Charlotte Witt extracts from this text a coherent and provocative view about sensible substance by focusing on Aristotle's account of form or essence.

InThe Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that women are often complicit in reinforcing their own unfreedom. But why women become complicit remains an open question. The aim of this article is to offer a systematic analysis of complicity by focusing on the Heideggerian strands of Beauvoir's account. I begin by evaluating Susan James's interpretation of complicity qua republican freedom, which emphasizes the dependent situation of women as the primary cause of their complicity. I argue that James's analysis is compelling (...) as far as it goes, but that it implies complicity is the inevitable outcome of women's current existence and fails to adequately account for Beauvoir's claim that women actively embrace their own unfreedom. I then draw out the Heideggerian strands of Beauvoir's analysis, demonstrating how this enables us to systematize Beauvoir's account of women's oppressive situation with her claims regarding the active role women can play in reinforcing their own unfreedom. I argue that this approach preserves the strengths of the republican interpretation, but provides a better account of cases where complicity may not be inevitable and yet some women still act to reinforce rather than resist their own unfreedom. (shrink)

The central question of this paper is: are deterministic and indeterministic descriptions observationally equivalent in the sense that they give the same predictions? I tackle this question for measure-theoretic deterministic systems and stochastic processes, both of which are ubiquitous in science. I first show that for many measure-theoretic deterministic systems there is a stochastic process which is observationally equivalent to the deterministic system. Conversely, I show that for all stochastic processes there is a measure-theoretic deterministic system which is observationally equivalent (...) to the stochastic process. Still, one might guess that the measure-theoretic deterministic systems which are observationally equivalent to stochastic processes used in science do not include any deterministic systems used in science. I argue that this is not so because deterministic systems used in science even give rise to Bernoulli processes. Despite this, one might guess that measure-theoretic deterministic systems used in science cannot give the same predictions at every observation level as stochastic processes used in science. By proving results in ergodic theory, I show that also this guess is misguided: there are several deterministic systems used in science which give the same predictions at every observation level as Markov processes. All these results show that measure-theoretic deterministic systems and stochastic processes are observationally equivalent more often than one might perhaps expect. Furthermore, I criticise the claims of the previous philosophy papers Suppes (1993, 1999), Suppes and de Barros (1996) and Winnie (1998) on observational equivalence. (shrink)

In the current paper, our aim is to explore the latent power dynamics surrounding corporate social responsibility in developing countries. To do this, we synthesize an analytic framework that borrows from both cross-cultural management literature as well as feminist considerations of power. We then use the framework to examine three streams of CSR literature. Our analysis uncovers the prevalence of arguments and discussions about indigenous and power-over themes rather than more generative, endogenous, and power-to themes. The paper concludes with the (...) suggestion for more space in the CSR literature for examining the realities and potentialities of local SME CSR expressions to counterbalance the overwhelming focus on MNCs. Such counterbalancing can better lead to the recognition that power and domination are not the only important dynamics to examine in CSR research. Just as important is the need for a more nuanced consideration of the role and contributions of different actors to the continuously unfolding CSR discourse. (shrink)

* INTRODUCTION This book seeks to add dimension to our understanding of Greek Skepticism by concentrating attention on a particular area that is of ...

Charlotte Sabourin | : Cet article se penche sur la contribution de Gabrielle Suchon à la célèbre « querelle des femmes ». J’y démontre que, quoique Suchon défende l’égalité des deux sexes en ce qui a trait à leurs capacités à la liberté, à la science et à l’autorité, elle vise ultimement à montrer que les femmes peuvent se rendre supérieures aux hommes. Je montrerai que son projet d’élévation des femmes ne peut être accompli qu’en soustrayant les femmes à (...) l’influence des hommes, les relations entre les deux sexes étant foncièrement préjudiciables aux premières. | : This paper examines Gabrielle Suchon’s contribution to the famous “querelle des femmes”. I argue that although Suchon is a proponent of the equality of the sexes with respect to their capacities for freedom, science and authority, she ultimately suggests that there is a way in which women can make themselves superior to men. I will show that her project for the elevation of women can be accomplished only by isolating women from men, given that the relationships between the sexes will always be detrimental to women. (shrink)

The doctor-patient relationship is built on an implicit covenant of trust, yet it was not until the post-World War Two era that respect for patient autonomy emerged as an article of mainstream medical ethics. Unlike their medical forebears, physicians today are expected to furnish patients with adequate information about diagnoses, prognoses and treatments. Against these dicta there has been ongoing debate over whether placebos pose a threat to patient autonomy. A key premise underlying medical ethics discussion is the notion that (...) the placebo effect necessitates patient deception. Indeed, the American Medical Association guidelines imply that placebo treatment necessary entails a form of deception. As a consequence of this assumption, the fulcrum of debate on the use of placebo treatment has hinged on whether that deception is ever justified. Recently performed experiments with open-label transparently prescribed placebos have begun to challenge the notion that deception is necessary in eliciting the placebo effect and such effects necessarily involve a binary distinction between autonomy and beneficence. In this article we focus on the content of disclosures in distinctive open-label, transparently disclosed placebo studies and inquire whether they might be said to invoke deception in clinical contexts, and if so, whether the deception is unethical. We find that open placebos may be said to involve equivocation over how placebos work. However, drawing on surveys of patient attitudes we suggest that this equivocation appears to be acceptable to patients. We conclude that open placebos fulfil current American Medical Association guidelines for placebo use, and propose future research directions for harnessing the placebo effect ethically. (shrink)

In the development of governmental policy for artificial intelligence that is informed by ethics, one avenue currently pursued is that of drawing on “AI Ethics Principles”. However, these AI Ethics Principles often fail to be actioned in governmental policy. This paper proposes a novel framework for the development of ‘Actionable Principles for AI’. The approach acknowledges the relevance of AI Ethics Principles and homes in on methodological elements to increase their practical implementability in policy processes. As a case study, elements (...) are extracted from the development process of the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI of the European Commission’s “High Level Expert Group on AI”. Subsequently, these elements are expanded on and evaluated in light of their ability to contribute to a prototype framework for the development of 'Actionable Principles for AI'. The paper proposes the following three propositions for the formation of such a prototype framework: preliminary landscape assessments; multi-stakeholder participation and cross-sectoral feedback; and, mechanisms to support implementation and operationalizability. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This paper explores how corporations, through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities, can help to effect positive developmental change. We use research on institutional change, deinstitutionalization, and institutional work to develop our central theoretical framework. This framework allows us to suggest more explicitly how CSR can potentially be mobilized as a purposive form of institutional work aimed at disrupting existing institutions in favor of positive change. We take the gender institution in the Arab Middle East as a case in point. (...) Our suggestion is that the current context of the Arab Spring, which combined with increasingly obvious endogenous institutional contradictions, has created a fertile ground for shaping change processes within the gender institution. Finally, we provide concrete examples of CSR initiatives that regional corporate actors can engage in for positive developmental change supporting women. (shrink)

This book develops an account of what substance is in terms of the notion of independence. As the authors note, there is a tradition of defining substance as independent that begins with Aristotle. But what notion of independence can provide an adequate definition of substance? The authors find traditional attempts to define independence, including Aristotle’s, inadequate on a number of grounds, and they propose an alternative account. As a preface to this undertaking, the authors consider and reject a number of (...) standard objections to their project, and as an afterword, they argue that the notion of spiritual substance is as intelligible as the notion of material substance. (shrink)

Resilience factors have been suggested as key mechanisms in the relation between symptoms and disability among individuals with chronic pain. However, there is a need to better operationalize resilience and to empirically evaluate its role and function. The present study examined psychological flexibility as a resilience factor in relation to symptoms and functioning among 252 adults with chronic pain applying for participation in a digital ACT-based self-help treatment. Participants completed measures of symptoms (pain intensity, anxiety), functioning (pain interference, depression), as (...) well as the hypothesized resilience factor psychological flexibility (measured as avoidance, value obstruction, and value progress). As expected, symptoms, functioning and resilience factors were significantly associated. Hierarchical linear regression analyses showed that psychological flexibility significantly contributed to the prediction of pain interference and depression when adjusting for age, pain and anxiety. Also, participants with low levels of psychological flexibility were more likely to be on sick leave. Furthermore, a series of multiple mediation analyses showed that psychological flexibility (avoidance, value obstruction, value progress) had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between symptoms and functioning. Avoidance was consistently shown to contribute to the indirect effect. Results support previous findings and suggest the importance of psychological flexibility as a resilience factor among individuals with chronic pain and anxiety. (shrink)

Animals do a wide range of work in our society, but they are rarely recognized as workers or accorded any labour rights, and their working conditions are often oppressive and exploitative. Drawing on law, ethics, and labour studies, the essays in this volume explore the potential and dangers of animal labour.

There are results which show that measure-theoretic deterministic models and stochastic models are observationally equivalent. Thus there is a choice between a deterministic and an indeterministic model and the question arises: Which model is preferable relative to evidence? If the evidence equally supports both models, there is underdetermination. This paper first distinguishes between different kinds of choice and clarifies the possible resulting types of underdetermination. Then a new answer is presented: the focus is on the choice between a Newtonian deterministic (...) model supported by indirect evidence from other Newtonian models which invoke similar additional assumptions about the physical systems and a stochastic model that is not supported by indirect evidence. It is argued that the deterministic model is preferable. The argument against underdetermination is then generalised to a broader class of cases. Finally, the paper criticises the extant philosophical answers in relation to the preferable model. Winnie’s (1998) argument for the deterministic model is shown to deliver the correct conclusion relative to observations which are possible in principle and where there are no limits, in principle, on observational accuracy (the type of choice Winnie was concerned with). However, in practice the argument fails. A further point made is that Hoefer’s (2008) argument for the deterministic model is untenable. (shrink)

Problematic substance use (PSU) among nurses has wide‐ranging adverse implications. A critical integrative literature review was conducted with an emphasis on building knowledge regarding the influence of structural factors within nurses' professional environments on nurses with PSU. Five thematic categories emerged: (i) access, (ii) stress, and (iii) attitudes as contributory factors, (iv) treatment policies for nurses with PSU, and (v) the culture of the nursing profession. Conclusions were that an overemphasis on individual culpability and failing predominates in the literature and (...) that crucial knowledge gaps exist regarding the influence of structural factors on driving and shaping nurses' substance use. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to illustrate concrete problems in the asymmetrical nurse–patient power relationship. It is an ethical demand that the nurse is faced with the challenges that the power in the relation is administered so that the patient's room for action is expanded and trust maintained. It is an essential message in care philosophy, but in clinical practice, success is not always achievable. A hidden and more or less unconscious restriction of the patient's room for action may (...) result in the excesses of care. Three selected aspects: dependence, trust, and power described by the Danish philosopher K.E. Løgstrup and the Norwegian nursing philosopher Kari Martinsen's care philosophy has inspired this empirically based examination of some current barriers in the asymmetrical nurse–patient relationship. On the basis of qualitative interviews with six patients and six nurses, the research thus provides an identifying and problem‐exploratory examination of some current obstacles in which the handling of trust and power reflects the excesses of care. The findings develop three themes. ‘Being a burden’ acknowledges that the balance of power will always tip to the nurse's advantage. The second theme, ‘Doing only what's absolutely necessary’, shows how a fixation with ‘technicalism’ creates a distance between people that may constrain the patient's room for action. The last theme is concerning the nurse's ability to navigate between closeness and distance is essential in avoiding ‘the excesses of care’, paternalism, and overprotectiveness. A situation in which distance takes the upper hand and care turns into paternalism. A different situation would arise if the nurse's emotions became sentimental or intimate with the result that closeness gets the upper hand. To avoid a harmful exercise of power and the excesses of care, the findings have demonstrated that a relationship‐based caring is a demand for situation‐specific sensitive attention skills. (shrink)

The received wisdom in statistical mechanics is that isolated systems, when left to themselves, approach equilibrium. But under what circumstances does an equilibrium state exist and an approach to equilibrium take place? In this paper we address these questions from the vantage point of the long-run fraction of time definition of Boltzmannian equilibrium that we developed in two recent papers. After a short summary of Boltzmannian statistical mechanics and our definition of equilibrium, we state an existence theorem which provides general (...) criteria for the existence of an equilibrium state. We first illustrate how the theorem works with a toy example, which allows us to illustrate the various elements of the theorem in a simple setting. After a look at the ergodic programme, we discuss equilibria in a number of different gas systems: the ideal gas, the dilute gas, the Kac gas, the stadium gas, the mushroom gas and the multi-mushroom gas. In the conclusion we briefly summarise the main points and highlight open questions. (shrink)