The importance of professional competence lies in the effective application of job-oriented knowledge and skills which guarantee one’s successful adaptation to the work. This study analyzes the perception of the importance of physical activity and sports professionals’ competence in working with individuals with disabilities in Spain. As a descriptive quantitative study, face-to-face interviews were conducted through a survey to extract the data. The sample consisted of 214 PAS professionals working with people with disabilities. According to the results, the analyzed constituents (...) of professional competence are important for adequate performance, with the exception of competences of leadership and use of new technologies. It was also found that the perceived importance of each element of professional competence varies according to age, experience and training. Based on the obtained results, the degree of importance of each constituent of professional competence and its implication for the access of people with disabilities to high-quality physical activity and sports services was determined. (shrink)

Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS) is a childhood neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by the presence of motor and vocal tics. Patients with malignant TS experience severe disease sequelae; risking morbidity and mortality due to tics, self-harm, psychiatric comorbidities and suicide. By definition, those cases termed ‘malignant’ are refractory to all conventional psychiatric and pharmacological regimens. In these instances, deep brain stimulation (DBS) may be efficacious. Current 2015 guidelines recommend a 6-month period absent of suicidal ideation before DBS is offered to (...) patients with TS. We therefore wondered whether it may be ethically justifiable to offer DBS to a minor with malignant TS. We begin with a discussion of non-maleficence and beneficence. New evidence suggests that suicide risk in young patients with TS has been underestimated. In turn, DBS may represent an invaluable opportunity for children with malignant TS to secure future safety, independence and fulfilment. Postponing treatment is associated with additional risks. Ultimately, we assert this unique risk-benefit calculus justifies offering DBS to paediatric patients with malignant TS. A multidisciplinary team of clinicians must determine whether DBS is in the best interest of their individual patients. We conclude with a suggestion for future TS-DBS guidelines regarding suicidal ideation. The importance of informed consent and assent is underscored. (shrink)

Este volumen recoge las lecciones del X Curso de Cultura hispanojudía y sefardí de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, organizado por la Asociación de Amigos del Museo Sefardí (Toledo, Septiembre 2000) y consagrado al Pensamiento y Mística hispanojudía y sefardí. Las quince conferencias aquí reunidas ofrecen una perspectiva amplia, representativa y completa de los momentos, autores y temas más significativos tratados por pensadores y místicos sefardíes desde la Edad Media hasta nuestros días. Se aprecia una continuidad en los problemas y (...) una búsqueda constante de nuevas soluciones, adaptadas a las circunstancias de cada época. Es la primera vez que aparece en lengua castellana una visión global de esta rica faceta de la cultura hispanohebrea, que permite al lector acercarse a la evolución del pensamiento de los judíos originarios de Sefarad antes y después de 1492, tanto en su faceta filosófica con en su faceta mística (cábala). (shrink)

Individuals with chronic pain often experience co-existing sleep problems and depression-related states. Chronic pain, sleep problems, and depression interrelate, and have been shown to exacerbate one another, which negatively impacts quality of life. This study explored the relationships between pain severity, pain interference, sleep quality, and depression among individuals with chronic pain. Secondly, we tested whether sleep quality may moderate the relationship between pain and depression. A cross-sectional survey was completed by 1,059 adults with non-malignant chronic pain conditions and collected (...) measures related to pain severity, pain interference, sleep quality, and depression. Multiple regression analyses found that pain severity, pain interference, and sleep quality are all significantly associated with depression. Secondly, moderated regression analyses revealed that sleep quality moderates the relationship between pain interference and depression among individuals with chronic pain such that good sleep quality attenuates the effect of pain interference on depression, and poor sleep quality amplifies the effect of pain interference on depression. These findings suggest that sleep quality may be a relevant therapeutic target for individuals with chronic pain and co-existing depression. (shrink)

Despite its biological importance, the mechanism of formation of cutin, the polymeric matrix of plant cuticles, has not yet been fully clarified. Here, for the first time, we show the participation in the process of lipid vesicles formed by the self‐assembly of endogenous polyhydroxy fatty acids. The accumulation and fusion of these vesicles (cutinsomes) at the outer part of epidermal cell wall is proposed as the mechanism for early cuticle formation. BioEssays 30:273–277, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Background Neuroimaging and lesion studies suggested that the dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices mediate visual metacognitive awareness. The causal evidence provided by non-invasive brain stimulation, however, is inconsistent. -/- Objective/hypothesis Here we revisit a major figure discrimination experiment adding a new Kanizsa figure task trying to resolve whether bilateral continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) over these regions affects perceptual metacognition. Specifically, we tested whether subjective visibility ratings and/or metacognitive efficiency are lower when cTBS is applied to these two (...) regions in comparison to an active control region. -/- Methods A within-subjects design including three sessions spaced by one-week intervals was implemented. In each session, every participant was administered bilateral cTBS to either prefrontal, control or parietal cortices. Two concurrent tasks were performed, a real and an illusory figure task, stabilising objective performance with use of an adaptive staircase procedure. -/- Results When performing the replicated task, cTBS was found insufficient to disrupt neither visibility ratings nor metacognitive efficiency. However, with use of Kanizsa style illusory figures, cTBS over the dorsolateral prefrontal, but not over the posterior parietal cortex, was observed to significantly diminish metacognitive efficiency. -/- Conclusion(s) Real and illusory figure tasks demonstrated different cTBS effects. A possible explanation is the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in the creation of expectations, which is necessary for efficient metacognition. Failure to replicate previous findings for the real figure task, however, cannot be said to support, conclusively, the notion that these brain regions have a causal role in metacognitive awareness. This inconsistent finding may result from certain limitations of our study, thereby suggesting the need for yet further investigation. (shrink)

This paper intends to sum up the main findings of the European project RoboLaw. In this paper, the authors claim that the European Union should play a pro-active policy role in the regulation of technologies so as to inform the development of technologies with its values and principles. The paper provides an explication of the rationale for analysing of a limited and heterogeneous number of robotics applications. For these applications, the following issues are addressed: whether robotics deserve a special case (...) of regulation; the direct and indirect role ethics can play in regulating technology; the transformations of both vulnerabilities and capabilities, and the effects of liability law in favouring the socially relevant applications. In conclusion, a reflection on the possibility to generalize some of the RoboLaw findings to other technologies is proposed, with respect to liability and ethics. (shrink)

Emotion recognition skills and the ability to understand the mental states of others are crucial for normal social functioning. Conversely, delays and impairments in these processes can have a profound impact on capability to engage in, maintain, and effectively regulate social interactions. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the performance of 42 autistic children, 45 unaffected siblings, and 41 typically developing controls on the Affect Recognition and Theory of Mind subtests of the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment Battery. There were no significant (...) differences between siblings and TD controls. Autistic children showed significantly poorer performance on AR when compared to TD controls and on TOM when compared to both TD controls and unaffected siblings. An additional comparison of ASD, unaffected sibling and TD control subsamples, matched on full-scale IQ, revealed no group differences for either AR or TOM. AR and TOM processes have received less research attention in siblings of autistic children and remain less well characterized. Therefore, despite limitations, findings reported here contribute to our growing understanding of AR and TOM abilities in siblings of autistic children and highlight important future research directions. (shrink)

In actuarial parlance, the price of an insurance policy is considered fair if customers bearing the same risk are charged the same price. The estimate of this fair amount hinges on the expected value obtained by weighting the different claims by their probability. We argue that, historically, this concept of actuarial fairness originates in an Aristotelian principle of justice in exchange (equality in risk). We will examine how this principle was formalized in the 16th century and shaped in life insurance (...) during the following two hundred years, in two different interpretations. The Domatian account of actuarial fairness relied on subjective uncertainty: An agreement on risk was fair if both parties were equally ignorant about the chances of an uncertain event. The objectivist version grounded any agreement on an objective risk estimate drawn from a mortality table. We will show how the objectivist approach collapsed in the market for life annuities during the 18th century, leaving open the question of why we still speak of actuarial fairness as if it were an objective expected value. (shrink)

We defend, from a contractarian perspective, that the fair price of an insurance policy is the amount that the contracting parties agree when they are both equally uncertain about the insured event. Drawing on the approach developed by R. Sugden in _The Community of Advantage_, we answer two standard objections raised against contractarianism in the actuarial sciences: (1) people are not wise enough to assess their actuarial risks; (2) they are not rational enough to decide which insurance policy suits them (...) better. We show under which circumstances people can make fair actuarial agreements, without presupposing any objective risk or rationality benchmarks. (shrink)

The task of speaking the truth is an infinite labor: to respect it in its complexity is an obligation that no power can afford to shortchange, unless it would impose the silence of slavery (Foucault 1989, p. 308).... the attainment of truth is the outcome of the development of complex and elaborate methods of searching, methods that... in many respects go against the human grain, so they are adopted only after long discipline in a school of hard knocks (Dewey [1925] (...) 1988, pp. 234-35). (shrink)

This article examines the influence of a teacher education program designed to promote aspects of critical multicultural citizenship on the views of preservice teachers’ concerning citizenship education for culturally diverse contexts. The findings are based on a case study of four minority preservice teachers who attended a large research university in the Southwest and who expressed beliefs related to critical multicultural citizenship. Two questions guided this study: Where did participants acquire their views on citizenship and citizenship education? What role did (...) their teacher education program play in fostering their views of citizenship education? Findings from this study illuminated nuances in the interaction between participants’ prior beliefs about teaching for citizenship education and those ideas expressed in the teacher education program. While participants clung soundly to prior experiences, they often borrowed terminology and tools that were explicitly conveyed in the teacher education program to both express their ideas and to frame their classroom practices. Implications for teacher educators are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWorldwide emergence of strongmen leaderships and eroded or failed democracies suggest that the era of unchallenged neoliberal hegemony may be winding down and that alternatives are rising....

The emerging field of neuroeducation, concerned with the interaction between mind, brain and education, has proved revolutionary in educational research, introducing concepts, methods, and technologies into many advanced institutions around the world. The Educated Brain presents a broad overview of the major topics in this new discipline: Part I examines the historical and epistemological issues related to the mind/brain problem and the scope of neuroeducation; Part II provides a view of basic brain research in education and use of imaging techniques, (...) and the study of brain and cognitive development; and Part III is dedicated to the neural foundations of language and reading in different cultures, and the acquisition of basic mathematical concepts. With contributions from leading researchers in the field, this book features the most recent and advanced research in cognitive neurosciences. (shrink)

The majority of antimicrobials that are produced are administered to animals, particularly food animals. While the overall impact of antimicrobial use in animals on antimicrobial resistance in humans and the environment is unclear, it undeniably has a role. Yet, some degree of antimicrobial use in animals is necessary for animal health and welfare purposes. Balancing the benefits and risks of antimicrobial use in animals is challenging because of the complexity of the problem and limitations in available data. However, a range (...) of measures can be implemented to reduce, refine and optimize antimicrobial use in animals, with a goal of minimizing the impact on human and environmental health while maintaining necessary therapeutic use in animals. A pandemic instrument can provide the necessary foundation for the whole-of-society and whole-of government One Health approach that is required to strengthen surveillance, communication, collaboration, and action. (shrink)

The study of sleep and wakefulness can inform debates about the nature of consciousness. We argue that sleep and wakefulness fall along a multidimensional continuum and that inconsistencies and paradoxes with the accounts put forth by Merker et al. and Tononi can be understood in terms of a pervasive false dichotomy between these two states.

Exploramos aquí la conexión entre los conceptos de riesgo e igualdad en el argumento del observador imparcial. La concepción de la justicia que elegiría un observador imparcial se justifica por la pureza del procedimiento de elección. Sin embargo, si modelizamos esta decisión utilizando medidas del riesgo habituales en matemática financiera, veremos cómo el criterio de elección del observador bajo el velo de la ignorancia contiene una preferencia implícita por el grado de desigualdad resultante. Esto nos obliga a reconsiderar la pureza (...) procedimental de la elección. (shrink)

Body memory comprises the acquired dispositions that constitute an individual's present capacities and experiences. Phenomenological accounts of body memory describe its effects using dynamical metaphors: it is conceived of as curvatures in an agent-environment relational field, leading to attracting and repelling forces that shape ongoing sensorimotor interaction. This relational perspective stands in tension with traditional cognitive science, which conceives of the underlying basis of memory in representational-internal terms: it is the encoding and storing of informational content via structural changes inside (...) the brain. We propose that this tension can be resolved by replacing the traditional approach with the dynamical approach to cognitive science. Specifically, we present three of our simulation models of embodied cognition that can help us to rethink the basis of several types of body memory. The upshot is that, at least in principle, there is no need to explain their basis in terms of content or to restrict their basis to neuroplasticity alone. Instead these models support the perspective developed by phenomenology: body memory is a relational property of a whole brain-body-environment system that emerges out of its history of interactions. (shrink)

Tras una breve introducción en el fenómeno migratorio, el autor delimita los documentos sociales de la Iglesia a partir de los cuales realizará su estudio descriptivo y valorativo de las migraciones, apuntando sus dificultades, consecuencias y características. En un segundo momento, aborda sus principales causas y las actuaciones llevadas a cabo en el orden político-administrativo y eclesial. Por último, concluye reconociendo la fuerza de los argumentos bíblicos y de los emanados de la tradición cristiana a favor del reconocimiento de la (...) idéntica dignidad humana, la cual ha de situar al hombre en el centro de la política y la economía y no como el sub-producto de ningún sistema. (shrink)

En Una Teoría de la Justicia (A Theory of Justice, 1971), la justicia —sus dos principios— viene a regular los intereses, fundamento y motor de la sociedad y del individuo ralwsianos. No obstante, tal regulación —individualista— preserva y favorece la libertad máxima individual, de modo que ésta, sin embargo, no llegue a alterar el orden social. Sobre la moralidad que Rawls propone, ante todo, hay que saber que la justicia como imparcialidad (Justice as fairness como él llama a su teoría) (...) no pretende la completa especificación de la conducta, sino más bien aproximarse a unos límites, a un marco dentro de los cuales los individuos y asociaciones son libres de perseguir sus fines (Rawls, 1978: 566). Acaso sean la indefinición o la poca importancia de pensar acerca de dichos fines los que hagan considerar a Rawls la moralidad como una simple preferencia (1978: 244), rasgo común en las tradiciones con las que se relaciona (utilitarismo y contractualismo). El concepto de bien se halla implícito en toda la teoría de la justicia de Rawls y sus conceptos (sociedad, individuo, deber, etc.), y, por tanto, en muchos debates que Rawls ha generado, aunque, a nuestro juicio, no ha sido examinado con suficiente detenimiento. El análisis que se propone discurre por tres temas distintos: el contexto del concepto de bien, la teoría específica (del bien) y la teoría general (del bien), para terminar con la conclusión. (shrink)

Background:Stress can frequently occur in the driving context. Its cognitive effects can be deleterious and lead to uncomfortable or risky situations. While stress detection in this context is well developed, regulation using dedicated advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) is still emergent.Objectives:This systematic review focuses on stress regulation strategies that can be qualified as “subtle” or “mindless”: the technology employed to perform regulation does not interfere with an ongoing task. The review goal is 2-fold: establishing the state of the art on such (...) technological implementation in the driving context and identifying complementary technologies relying on subtle regulation that could be applied in driving.Methods:A systematic review was conducted using search operators previously identified through a concept analysis. The patents and scientific studies selected provide an overview of actual and potential mindless technology implementations. These are then analyzed from a scientific perspective. A classification of results was performed according to the different stages of emotion regulation proposed by the Gross model.Results:A total of 47 publications were retrieved, including 21 patents and 26 studies. Six of the studies investigated mindless stress regulation in the driving context. Patents implemented strategies mostly linked to attentional deployment, while studies tended to investigate response modulation strategies.Conclusions:This review allowed us to identify several ADAS relying on mindless computing technologies to reduce stress and better understand the underlying mechanisms allowing stress reduction. Further studies are necessary to better grasp the effect of mindless technologies on driving safety. However, we have established the feasibility of their implementation as ADAS and proposed directions for future research in this field. (shrink)