Se realizó un diagnóstico de la autonomía biótica en pacientes oncológicos, evidenciando que la mayoría no conocen, y no comprenden la carta de CI afectando la autonomía bioética. Ante esta problemática este proyecto crea dos cuadernillos uno para niños y uno para adultos. Estos cuadernillos parten y responden al reconocimiento de la condición del paciente, sus afectaciones cognitivas y emocionales, su nivel de escolaridad y su nivel de comprensión lectora. Los cuadernillos centrados en estrategias de comprensión lectora, incluyen actividades dialógicas (...) y de reconocimiento emocional para apoyar los procesos de comprensión del CI. (shrink)

According to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, the frequency of positive emotions is associated with the development of positive attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors in organizational contexts. However, positive and negative attitudes at work might also be influenced by different personal and job resources. While emotional intelligence has been significantly associated with positive job attitudes and personal well-being, no studies have yet examined the joint role of teacher happiness and emotional intelligence in key teacher job attitudes. The present study assesses (...) whether emotional intelligence interacts with levels of teacher happiness to jointly explain important teacher job attitudes. A total sample of 685 teaching professionals filled out a battery of scales including subjective happiness, emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Our results revealed that subjective happiness was significantly associated with both higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intention. Likewise, emotional intelligence was positively related to happiness and job satisfaction, and negatively related to turnover intention. Finally, interaction analysis showed the main effects of happiness and emotional intelligence in explaining teacher job attitudes. Beyond the main effects, the interaction effects of happiness and emotional intelligence were significant in predicting all teachers' job attitude indicators, even controlling for the effects of their sociodemographic variables. This work expands our knowledge about the role of teachers' positive emotions in the development of positive work attitudes, and also supports the inclusion of emotional skills in future teacher preparation programs as resources to facilitate work-related well-being. (shrink)

This article examines the Nasa peoples’ resistance praxis known as “Desalambrar”. Through the analysis of Nasayuwe language, textile art, and ritual dance, the article looks at the idea of ontological continuum at the heart of this praxis, exploring how this concept provides the Nasa with a philosophical standpoint for what they have called “the liberation of Mother Earth”. The article then examines how this idea challenges the Eurocentric divide between Man and Nature/Woman and what it can possibly mean for women, (...) gender, feminism, and the environment. (shrink)

This article examines the treatment of gender and the woman question in the ongoing Latin American decolonial debate. More specifically, it traces how the Zapatistas and other indigenous movements as well as some of the main mestizo male voices in this debate have endeavored to frame these issues and the criticism they have received from María Lugones and other decolonial feminists. It then points to some of the limitations in Lugones's own approach, and in a final stream of discussion, it (...) explores some of the ways in which these limitations might be surpassed within a decolonial framework that follows closely indigenous ontological thought. (shrink)

Silence is reserved for what cannot be verbally expressed. The well-known Wittgensteinian quote summarizes an established understanding of the relationship between language and silence: because language is not enough to account for reality and thinking, it must be transcended by other means of expression, like music or silence. But what if the opposite is the case and silence is not the extension but the precondition of language, the ultimate source of meaning? This paper explores how this is the phenomenological and (...) Derridean philosophical framework of Coetzee’s novels, a literary universe created from the will to signify and build singular meanings. (shrink)

Background The wide proliferation of Covid-19 has impacted billions of people all over the world. This catastrophic pandemic outbreak and ostracism at work have posed challenges for all healthcare professionals, especially for nurses, and have led to a significant increase in the workload, several physical and mental problems, and a change in behavior that is more negative and counterproductive. Therefore, leadership behaviors that are moral in nature serve as a trigger and lessen the adverse workplace effects on nurses’ conduct. Aim (...) this research is directed to explore the impact of post-COVID-19 workplace ostracism on nurses’ counterproductive behavior and examine the role of moral leadership as a mediating factor in post-COVID-19 workplace ostracism and nurses’ counterproductive behavior. Ethical consideration Ethical review and approval Was received from Ethical Committee at the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Egypt. Methods A cross-sectional and correlation study was implemented in all units of medical, surgical, critical and intensive care units by using three tools; moral leadership questionnaire, Workplace Ostracism Instrument (WOS), and Counterproductive Work Behaviors Questionnaire (CWBs). A convenient sample of 340 from 699 bedside nurses was granted. Results This study revealed that nurses’ perceived moderate mean percent (55.49 ± 3.46) of overall workplace ostracism and counterproductive behavior (74.69 ± 6.15). However, they perceived a low mean percentage of moral leadership. There was a significant positive correlation between workplace ostracism and counterproductive behavior. Otherwise, a significant negative correlation was found between moral leadership, workplace ostracism and counterproductive behavior. Also, this study proved the mediating effect of moral leadership in decreasing workplace ostracism by 79.3% and counterproductive behavior by 36.7%. Conclusion Hospital administrators need to be aware of the significance of moral leadership and apply integrity in the clinical setting to reduce the drawback of isolation on nurses' conduct and increase value for the organization as a whole and nurses in particular. (shrink)

Recopilació dels textos de les reflexions que van tenir lloc en l'encontre inter nacional "Noves fronteres de la ciència, l'art i el pensament. Física de l'estèt ica", celebrat els dies 6 i 7 de setembre de 2005 a l'Auditori Caixa Catalunya-l a Pedrera de Barcelona. En la trobada es plantejaren preguntes universals relati ves als límits de la nostra percepció, al disseny de la matèria o a la narrativa de la complexitat circumdant. Va comptar amb la col·laboración de personalitats d'àmbits (...) no científics que, des de la seva perspectiva, contribuiren a destil·l ar l'estètica emanada de les tendències contemporànies d'aquesta disciplina cien tífica. (shrink)

Recent narratives and debates surrounding long-term AI concerns—the prospect of artificial general intelligence in particular—are fraught with hidden assumptions, priorities, and values. This paper employs a humanistic, narrative-centered approach to analyze the works of two vocal, and opposing, thinkers in the field—Luciano Floridi and Nick Bostrom—to ask how the representational, descriptive differences in their works reveal the high stakes of narrative choices for how we form ideas about humanity, urgency, risk, harm, and possibility in relation to AI. This paper closely (...) reads Floridi and Bostrom using different representational models and historical narratives from works in the environmental humanities, literary theory, bioethics, and the history of technology to uncover the imaginative terrain of recent long-term AI discourse and reveal the complexity and limitations of the messaging underlying the works of different authors. (shrink)

Within a general approach that implies the closely related survey of neurosciences and philosophical thought, the essays collected in the volume develop two main lines of research. The first one, thanks to the contributions of scientists and psychologists , psychoanalysists and bioengineers , allows to fix the attention on the neurobiological, psychological, psychoanalytical and physical remembering. The second one, more specifically philosophical, is declined in three different approaches. the first - with essays by Stefania Achella, Giuseppe D'Anna and Rosario Diana (...) - points to the anlysis of the role played by the rememberance and the prefiguration in the processes of identity construction. The second - with contributions from Fiorella Battaglia, Anna Donise, Sabine Marienberg and Sara Fortuna - focuses on the role of remembering in anthropology and linguistics, as well as the identification of certain diseases of memory. The third, finally - with contributions from Gabriella Baptist, Chiara de Luzenberger and Marco Boninu - tends to define the regulatory function of memory. (shrink)

Selective mutism (SM) is a developmental disorder characterized by a child’s inability to speak in certain contexts and/or in the presence of unfamiliar interlocutors. This work proposes a critical discussion of the most recent studies on SM, with respect to clinical and diagnostic features, as well as the etiology and treatment of this disorder. At present, all research work supports the hypothesis that SM is a complex anxiety disorder with multifactorial etiology (interaction among biological and environmental causes). The latest edition (...) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) places SM mutism among “Anxiety Disorders”, and no longer among “Other Childhood, Infant and Adolescent Disorders” (as in DSM-IV). Other important aspects relate to cognitive biases and emotional states at the base of SM, which partly explain the disorder’s persistence and represent an important objective of intervention work. No data in the literature point to a total remission of SM, but good results are achieved with cognitive behavior intervention and multimodal therapy (MMT) involving a variety of child interaction contexts. (shrink)

Este artículo interroga el lugar de la felicidad en un pensamiento sobre la historia. La constatación respecto de su ausencia en un pensamiento filosófico político nos lleva a revisitar críticamente dos modalidades del relato que han acogido su llamado: el pensamiento utópico y la teoría crítica. El..

Die vorliegende Untersuchung bemüht sich um eine Klärung des Verhältnisses von Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft. Zum einen treten die Wissenschaften bereits ihrem Begriffe nach mit dem Anspruch auf eine besondere Qualität des von ihnen zur Verfügung gestellten Wissens auf. Soll es sich hierbei nicht um ein leeres Versprechen handeln, muss sich zeigen lassen, inwiefern sich die Wissenschaften von anderen Wissensformen wie eben dem Alltagswissen abheben. Die Klärung dieses Verhältnisses stellt also implizit eine Bestimmung der besonderen Qualität der Wissenschaften dar - eine (...) der Hauptaufgaben der Wissenschaftsphilosophie. Zum anderen muss auch der Verlässlichkeit unseres Alltagswissens Genüge getan werden. Das lebensweltliche Wissen ermöglicht uns eine mehr als hinreichende Orientierung im Alltag, so dass eine Degradierung desselben zu einer Ansammlung von bloßen Scheingebilden nur eine unzureichende Analyse darstellt. Da sich prinzipiell drei unterschiedliche Gewichtungen des genannten Verhältnisses denken lassen - die erste optiert zu Gunsten der Wissenschaften, die zweite favorisiert die lebensweltlichen Erfahrungsformen, die dritte will beiden Erkenntnisformen zu ihrem jeweiligen Recht verhelfen -, werden diese nacheinander diskutiert und gegeneinander abgewogen. (shrink)

The year 2006 marked the two hundredth anniversary of John Stuart Mill's birth. Though his philosophical reputation has varied greatly, it is now clear that Mill ranks among the most influential modern political thinkers. Despite his enduring influence, the breadth and complexity of Mill's political thought is often underappreciated. While his writings remain a touchstone for debates over liberty and liberalism, many other important dimensions of his political philosophy have until recently been ignored. This book aims to correct such neglect, (...) by illustrating the breadth and depth of Mill's political writings, by drawing together a collection of essays whose authors explore underappreciated elements of Mill's political philosophy. The book shows how Mill's thinking remains pertinent to our own political life in three broad areas - democratic institutions and culture, liberalism, and international politics - and offers a critical reassessment of Mill's political philosophy in light of recent political developments and transformations. (shrink)

This study provides new longitudinal evidence on two major types of gesture–speech combination that play different roles in children’s early language. We analysed the spontaneous production of 10 Italian children observed monthly from 10–12 to 23–25 months of age. We evaluated the extent to which the developmental trends observed in children’s early gesture–word and word–word productions can predict subsequent verbal abilities. The results indicate that “complementary” and “supplementary” gesture–speech combinations predict subsequent language development in a different manner: While the onset (...) of “supplementary” combinations predicts the onset of two-word combinations, the use of “complementary” combinations at 12 and 18 months predicts the vocabulary and the ability to produce more words utterances at 2 years of age. Moreover, the results suggest that both “complementary” and “supplementary” crossmodal combinations are good predictive indexes of early verbal skills during the second year of age. (shrink)

This study provides new longitudinal evidence on two major types of gesture–speech combination that play different roles in children’s early language. We analysed the spontaneous production of 10 Italian children observed monthly from 10–12 to 23–25 months of age. We evaluated the extent to which the developmental trends observed in children’s early gesture–word and word–word productions can predict subsequent verbal abilities. The results indicate that “complementary” and “supplementary” gesture–speech combinations predict subsequent language development in a different manner: While the onset (...) of “supplementary” combinations predicts the onset of two-word combinations, the use of “complementary” combinations at 12 and 18 months predicts the vocabulary and the ability to produce more words utterances at 2 years of age. Moreover, the results suggest that both “complementary” and “supplementary” crossmodal combinations are good predictive indexes of early verbal skills during the second year of age. (shrink)

Recent work suggests a strong connection between intuitions regarding our own free will and our moral behavior. We investigate the origins of this link by asking whether preschool-aged children construe their own moral actions as freely chosen. We gave children the option to make three moral/social choices (avoiding harm to another, following a rule, and following peer behavior) and then asked them to retrospect as to whether they were free to have done otherwise. When given the choice to act (either (...) morally or immorally), children avoided harm and abided by rules, but they endorsed their freedom to have done otherwise. When choice was restricted by adult instruction, children did not endorse their free choice and indicated feeling constrained by moral obligation in their explanatory responses. These results suggest that children believe that their moral actions afford free will, but this belief is dependent on their experience of choice. (shrink)

Higher education institutions worldwide have begun to embrace sustainability issues and engage their campuses and communities in such efforts, which have led to the development of integrity and ethical values in these organizations and their relationships with stakeholders. This study provides a literary review of the concept of University Social Responsibility (USR) and sustainability programs worldwide, grouped into eight research streams: conceptual framework, strategic planning and USR, educating on USR, spreading USR, reporting and USR, evaluation of USR, barriers and accelerators (...) and case studies. The aforementioned research streams served as a context to explore best practices in sustainability on a global basis. (shrink)

Recent work has shown that preschool-aged children and adults understand freedom of choice regardless of culture, but that adults across cultures differ in perceiving social obligations as constraints on action. To investigate the development of these cultural differences and universalities, we interviewed school-aged children (4–11) in Nepal and the United States regarding beliefs about people's freedom of choice and constraint to follow preferences, perform impossible acts, and break social obligations. Children across cultures and ages universally endorsed the choice to follow (...) preferences but not to perform impossible acts. Age and culture effects also emerged: Young children in both cultures viewed social obligations as constraints on action, but American children did so less as they aged. These findings suggest that while basic notions of free choice are universal, recognitions of social obligations as constraints on action may be culturally learned. (shrink)

La igualdad de género es para la UNESCO una prioridad mundial estrechamente ligada a los esfuerzos de la Organización para promocionar el derecho a la educación de las niñas para que adquieran las mismas competencias en la educación y mediante ella.Existen, dependiendo del contexto (niveles de enseñanza e instrucción) y de la ubicación geográfica, grandes desigualdades de género en el acceso, el logro del aprendizaje y la continuación de la educación, resultando ser las niñas, en general, las más desfavorecidas. A (...) pesar de los logros alcanzados, existe un mayor número de niñas sin escolarizar que de niños - 16 millones de niñas nunca irá a la escuela (Instituto de Estadística de la UNESCO) - y las mujeres representan dos tercios de los 750 millones de adultos que carecen de conocimientos básicos de lectura y escritura. (shrink)

La formación profesional tiene un carácter contextualizado que responde a las exigencias que la época, la sociedad y el país reclaman a las universidades. La Estomatología en Cuba no se encuentra al margen de estos preceptos por lo que desarrolla un plan de estudio que acentúa la flexibilidad para realizar modificaciones necesarias y pertinentes. El estudiante al culminar la carrera debe brindar una atención estomatológica integral donde las anomalías dentomaxilofaciales constituyen la tercera línea de trabajo. Estas ocasionan afectaciones estéticas que (...) repercuten en la autoestima y adaptación social de niños y adolescentes por lo que se necesita de una orientación sicoeducativa, acción para la cual el profesional deberá estar preparado. A partir de las insuficiencias detectadas en el proceso formativo del estomatólogo, el objetivo del presente trabajo es proponer un curso propio sobre la temática para favorecer la graduación de un profesional capaz de resolver los problemas que afectan el complejo estomatognático con un enfoque biosicosocial. Los métodos empleados fueron el histórico-lógico y análisis-síntesis. Professional training has a contextualized nature which reflects the demands that the time, society and the country require from universities. In Cuba, Stomatology is not out of these precepts and therefore it carries out a syllabus that emphasizes flexibility to make necessary and appropriate changes. When students graduate, they must provide a complete stomatological care where dental maxillofacial anomalies are the third line of work. They cause aesthetic harm that affects children and teenagers' self-esteem and social adaptation which makes psych educational guidance necessary; a situation professional must be prepared for. Starting from the weak points discovered in the training process of stomatologists, a crash course in the subject is suggested in order to favor the graduation of professionals who are able to solve problems that affect the stomatognatic complex with a biopsychosocial approach, through the use of required methods, techniques and procedures. (shrink)

En la actualidad se habla de la anomalía dentomaxilofacial como una enfermedad inherente a la civilización, cuya prevalencia varia en las distintas partes del mundo, el alto índice se relaciona a la heterogeneidad genética. Estas anomalías tienen una etiología multifactorial donde intervienen diversos factores internos o externos, que provocan variabilidad en su forma de presentación; cada una tiene características muy particulares y diversos grados de complejidad a la hora de ser tratadas, sin embargo poseen un aspecto común, afectan por lo (...) general la estética y la psiquis de los pacientes que las padecen. Con el objetivo de determinar afectaciones psicológicas en niños y adolescentes con anomalías dentomaxilofaciales se realizó un estudio no experimental descriptivo transversal. Se ejecutó en dos etapas y se emplearon métodos empíricos la recolección de la información a través de interrogatorio y examen clínico, incluido el Test Auto reporte vivencial para determinar la afectación psicológica del niño o adolescente. Se evidenció que los adolescentes resultaron ser afectados psicológicamente en presencia de anomalías de origen dentario. Presently, while prevalence varies in different parts of the world, dentomaxillofacial anomaly is regarded as a disease of our civilization. Its high rate is related to genetic heterogeneity. These anomalies have a multifactorial etiology since various internal or external factors that cause variability in its presentation are involved. Each of these anomalies has unique characteristics and varying degrees of complexity when being treated. However, they have a common feature: they usually affect the aesthetics and psyche of patients who suffer from them. In order to determine the psychological effects of dentomaxillofacial anomalies in children and adolescents, a non-experimental, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted. It was carried out in two stages and empirical methods were used for collecting information through interview and clinical examination, including Experiential Self-Report to determine the psychological effects in the child or adolescent. Through this study, adolescents were found to be affected psychologically in the presence of anomalies of dental origin. (shrink)

This article conceptualizes corporate accountability under international law and introduces an analytical framework translating corporate accountability into seven core elements. Using this analytical framework, it then systematically assesses four models that could be used in a future business and human rights treaty: the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights model, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights model, the progressive model, and the transformative model. It aims to contribute to the BHR treaty negotiation process by clarifying different options (...) and possible trade-offs between them, while taking into account political realities. Ultimately, the article argues in favour of the BHR treaty embracing a progressive model of corporate accountability, which combines ambitious development of international law with realistic prospects of state support. (shrink)

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced its intent to strengthen enforcement of legal protections for health care providers' conscience rights. It proposed regulations that would give the DHHS Office of Civil Rights greater authority to ensure that recipients of federal funding comply with federal conscience laws. This recent development creates an opportunity for scholars and policy‐makers to revisit the perennial debate about whether and how law should protect health care providers' rights of conscience. Arguments (...) about who should be protected, what actions should be protected, and whether there should be any limitations on the exercise of conscience rights have brought us no closer to a resolution. However, there is one remaining avenue for analysis that has, surprisingly, received very little attention—the question of how providers are protected, and from what consequences. Existing U.S. conscience laws immunize health care providers from a wide range of adverse consequences—including civil liability, criminal prosecution, administrative penalties, adverse action by employers, and discrimination by private actors, among others. However, academic and public policy debates rarely acknowledge the breadth of these protections. It is essential to disentangle this network of possible protections. (shrink)

Michel Henry sostiene que la subjetividad se muestra fenomenológicamente según la estructura de la autoafección, y que esta no admite ningún tipo de distancia temporal, siendo la temporalidad una marca exclusiva de la trascendencia. Sin embargo, a partir de los años noventa, Henry lleva adelante una lectura fenomenológica de ciertos aspectos de la doctrina cristiana, gracias a la cual logró dar con otro tipo de temporalidad. Esta nueva temporalidad, de carácter inmanente, es la problemática que se abordará en este artículo, (...) en el cual se buscará establecer cómo ella es efectivamente experienciable. En la primera sección, se precisará la dinámica del nacimiento trascendental y de la temporalidad que tal nacimiento entraña. La doctrina del nacimiento trascendental, que Henry elabora inspirándose en Meister Eckhart y que alude al engendramiento del viviente en la Vida absoluta sirve de guía para pensar una relación inmanente entre la eternidad, el instante y el tiempo. En la segunda sección, veremos cómo, ya desde la perspectiva del viviente, la temporalidad inmanente se articula como presente viviente. La tercera y última sección estará reservada al estudio de la afectividad y la habitualidad corporal como manifestaciones concretas de la temporalidad inmanente. Así, podremos concluir que aquello que se explica a partir de las notas particulares de la Vida absoluta no solo da cuenta de una temporalidad inmanente como una dimensión fundante de la experiencia subjetiva, sino también de una dimensión concreta y fenomenológicamente atestable para el viviente. Estos resultados permitirán, además, sentar las bases para investigaciones futuras que vinculen la temporalidad inmanente con la trascendente. (shrink)

In a number of very influential publications, Epstein and Hoover (among other authors) have recently argued that a thoroughly micro-foundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. However, as we show in this article, this metaphysical/social ontological approach to the debate fails to resolve the status of micro-foundations in the practice of economic modelling. To overcome this, we argue that endogenizing a model—that is, providing micro-foundations for it—correlates with making that model more complex. Specifically, we show that models with (...) more micro-foundations tend to have more parameters or variables. This matters, as there are well-established methodological reasons for preferring models with fewer parameters or variables—ceteris paribus. We therefore conclude that, from a practice-based point of view, micro-foundations are only defensible to the extent that they significantly improve the ability of the relevant model to fit the data of interest. In this way, we arrive at a practice-based, methodological reconceptualization of the debate surrounding the need for micro-foundations in economics. (shrink)

The question of how society should deal with social conflicts arising from cultural differences persists. Should we adopt an exclusivist approach by excluding reasons based on specific cultural traditions (culture-based reasons) from public debates about social policy, especially because these reasons do not appeal to the public at large? Or should we resort to an inclusivist approach by including reasons based on cultural traditions in public debate to give recognition to the diverse cultural identities of those who practice these traditions? (...) While these two approaches assign different roles to cultural traditions in public debate, both seem to welcome compromise between conflicting parties. This paper reviews contending normative approaches for dealing with conflicts in multicultural societies and explores the place of culture-based reasons in public debates designed to resolve conflicts. (shrink)

In view of recent studies that identified certain interest groups as potential whistleblowers, we propose an integrative conceptual framework to examine whistleblower behavior by whistleblower type. The framework, dubbed the whistleblowing triangle, is modeled on the fraud triangle and is comprised of three factors that condition the act of whistleblowing: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. For a rich examination, we use a qualitative research framework to analyze 11 whistleblowing cases of corporate financial statement fraud in Canada that were publicly denounced between (...) 1995 and 2012. Our analysis indicates that whistleblowers are not only insiders but also outsiders [financial analysts, auditing firms, journalists, politicians, customers, and investors]. It also suggests that a dynamic relation may exist between whistleblowers. In addition, our findings show that most whistleblowers opt for external channels when they fail to receive an adequate response from management, seek media exposure, are interested in financial benefits resulting from the act of whistleblowing, or are interested in protecting their investment. Lastly, we propose categorizing whistleblowers into four conceptual types: protective, skeptical, role-prescribed, and self-interested. (shrink)

In this pathbreaking study, Micaela di Leonardo reveals the face of power within the mask of cultural difference. From the 1893 World's Fair to Body Shop advertisements, di Leonardo focuses on the intimate and shifting relations between popular portrayals of exotic Others and the practice of anthropology. In so doing, she casts new light on gender, race, and the public sphere in America's past and present. "An impressive work of scholarship that is mordantly witty, passionately argued, and takes no (...) prisoners."--Lesley Gill, News Politics "[Micaela] di Leonardo eloquently argues for the importance of empirical, interdisciplinary social science in addressing the tragedy that is urban America at the end of the century."--Jonathan Spencer, Times Literary Supplement "In her quirky new contribution to the American culture brawl, feminist anthropologist Micaela di Leonardo explains how anthropologists, 'technicians of the sacred,' have distorted American popular debate and social life."--Rachel Mattson, Voice Literary Supplement "At the end of di Leonardo's analyses one is struck by her rare combination of rigor and passion. Simply, [she] is a marvelous iconoclast."--Matthew T. McGuire, Boston Book Review. (shrink)

This paper investigates the formation and propagation of wavefunction `branches' through the process of entanglement with the environment. While this process is a consequence of unitary dynamics, and hence significant to many if not all approaches to quantum theory, it plays a central role in many recent articulations of the Everett or `many worlds' interpretation. A highly idealized model of a locally interacting system and environment is described, and investigated in several situations in which branching occurs, including those involving Bell (...) inequality violating correlations; we illustrate how any non-locality is compatible with the locality of the dynamics. Although branching is particularly important for many worlds quantum theory, we take a neutral stance here, simply tracing out the consequences of a unitary dynamics. The overall goals are to provide a simple concrete realization of the quantum physics of branch formation, and especially to emphasise the compatibility of branching with relativity; the paper is intended to illuminate matters both for foundational work, and for the application of quantum theory to non-isolated systems. (shrink)

Partial commentaries of Gomez Davila’s epigraphs in Scholia to an Implicit Text have been put forward by several scholars. Nevertheless, none of them has yet attempted a systematic study of their meaning and their relation to the rest of the book or the literary sources to which they allude. This article is aimed to present such a systematic analysis, thus revealing two things: first, a number of essential premises of Gómez Dávila’s thought; second, the importance of intertextuality for a thorough (...) understanding of this work: the epigraphs need an hors du texte and the scholia to be interpreted, just as the scholia need the epigraphs and an “out of the text” to be deciphered. In other words, neither is autonomous: their meaning is to be found in intertextuality. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the views of healthcare professionals in Portugal about healthcare rationing, and compare them with the views of college students. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 60 healthcare professionals and 180 college students. Respondents faced a hypothetical rationing dilemma where they had to order four patients and justify their choices. Multinomial logistic regressions were used to test for differences in orderings, and content analysis to categorize the (...) written justifications. The findings suggest that both groups appeared to support three main rationing principles: health maximization, priority to the severely ill and priority to the young. However, professionals seemed to give less weight to the latter principle. In conclusion, professionals have similar views to students about healthcare rationing, though may be slightly less inclined to give priority to the young. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the micro and macro predictors of Portuguese willingness to pay (WTP) more taxes to bolster funds channelled to the National Health Service (NHS). An online questionnaire was used to collect data from 584 Portuguese citizens. The statistical analysis was performed through the application of logistic regressions. The research shows that willingness to support increasing taxes depended on socioeconomic, behavioural, and psychological factors. The WTP more taxes to finance the NHS were associated (...) with younger ages, life satisfaction and dispositional optimism, satisfaction with the NHS performance, current perceived risk exposure, and risk orientation. Identifying and understanding the main influencing factors associated with WTP more taxes for NHS is essential to assist policy-makers in developing healthcare reforms. Decision-makers may take this opportunity to improve the NHS since those who ultimately benefit from the measures can provide an additional source of health financing. (shrink)

The COVID-19 emergency has hit the whole world, finding all countries unprepared to face it. The first studies focused on the medical aspects, neglecting the psychological dimension of the populations that were forced to face changes in everyday life and in some cases to stay forcedly at home in order to reduce contagion. The present research was carried out in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. The aim was to analyze the perception of happiness, mental health, (...) and the sense of loneliness experienced by adults during the lockdown due to the COVID pandemic. Specifically, the variables will be examined in relation to gender difference, living alone, with partner, or with partner and children. The research followed a quantitative approach using an online questionnaire. The project involved 1100 subjects from whom 721 participants were extrapolated. Of them, 17.3% claimed to live alone, 39.5% with their partner, and 43.1% with their partner and children. The results show that people in general experienced a lower level of happiness and mental health and higher levels of loneliness compared to normative sample. The lockdown and pandemic condition due to COVID-19 seems to have canceled the gender differences in the perception of happiness and mental health, while it seems to have increased the perception of loneliness experienced by males compared to the pre-pandemic condition. In addition, those who lived alone perceived a greater level of loneliness than those who lived with their partner or partner and children. Unexpectedly, no significant differences emerged regarding the level of happiness and mental health between those who had direct contact with the virus and those who did not. These data should make political decision-makers reflect on the need to pay more attention to the implications that such drastic measures as a lockdown can have on people’s psychological well-being. (shrink)