The current issue of Approaching Religion includes articles based on conference papers presented at the Fifth Finnish Colloquium on the Middle East and North Africa Studies, which was organised by the Finnish Institute in the Middle East, the University of Eastern Finland, Faculty of Theology, and the University of Helsinki, including the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts and Trad-itions, in Joensuu, 29–31 May 2017. The theme of the conference was ‘Transformations of Identity and Space in (...) the Middle East and North Africa’, and it explored the construction and transformation of identity in space, whether geographical, mental or virtual. (shrink)

The use of patient restrictions (e.g. involuntary admission, seclusion, restraint) is a complex ethical dilemma in psychiatric care. The present study explored nurses’ (n = 22) and physicians’ (n = 5) perceptions of what actually happens when an aggressive behaviour episode occurs on the ward and what alternatives to seclusion and restraint are actually in use as normal standard practice in acute psychiatric care. The data were collected by focus group interviews and analysed by inductive content analysis. The participants believed (...) that the decision-making process for managing patients’ aggressive behaviour contains some in-built ethical dilemmas. They thought that patients’ subjective perspective received little attention. Nevertheless, the staff proposed and appeared to use a number of alternatives to minimize or replace the use of seclusion and restraint. Medical and nursing staff need to be encouraged and taught to: (1) tune in more deeply to reasons for patients’ aggressive behaviour; and (2) use alternatives to seclusion and restraint in order to humanize patient care to a greater extent. (shrink)

: The main contribution of this paper to current philosophical and sociological studies on modeling is to analyze modeling as an object-oriented interdisciplinary activity and thus to bring new insights into the wide, heterogeneous discourse on tools, forms and organization of interdisciplinary research. A detailed analysis of interdisciplinarity in the making of models is presented, focusing on long-standing interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in infectious diseases, mathematicians and computer scientists. The analysis introduces a novel way of studying the elements of the (...) models as carriers of interdisciplinarity. These elements, being functionally interdependent building blocks, evolve during the modeling work and carry the disciplinary tensions in the process. This shows how the long and challenging process of defining and reformulating the object of research is crucial for understanding the dynamics of interdisciplinarity in the making. (shrink)

Previous research on consumers’ willingness to choose a green hotel has yielded mixed results, with some studies indicating a positive relationship with the hotel’s CSR initiatives, while others suggesting that there is no booking advantage for hotels going green. The present research seeks to understand the social nature of green hotel booking decisions and proposes a conceptual framework elucidating three primary factors that underlie consumers’ propensity to choose a green hotel. The study findings indicate that, importantly, a consumer’s social relationship (...) situation with other consumers, self-affirmation, and the option popularity jointly influence consumers’ willingness to choose a green hotel. The authors adopt a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experimental design to test the proposed hypotheses. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

In _The Eudaimonist Ethics of al-Fārābī and Avicenna_, Janne Mattila provides the first comprehensive account of the ethical thought of al-Fārābī and Avicenna.

Afin de mettre en exergue la spécificité de la jurilinguistique, le présent article examine une des particularités du langage du droit, l’utilisation des abréviations dans les textes juridiques, sur laquelle il est, je pense, essentiel de faire des recherches comparatives. Dans ce contexte, ma tâche est d’expliciter la nécessité d’une étude comparative en jurilinguistique en prenant pour appui des travaux que notre groupe de recherche a réalisés sur les abréviations juridiques finlandaises. (Ce groupe de recherche comprenait Anne Jussila, licenciée ès-lettres, (...) Outi Kaltio, licenciée ès-lettres, et l’auteur de ces pages.). (shrink)

Consumer driven and globally competitive financial markets are crucial for the future prosperity of the Finnish society (Laitamäki, Lehti and Paasio 1996). The largest transfer of wealth in history is currently taking place as Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) prepare for their retirement and inherit the assets of the previous generation. Due to cognitive limitations and emotional biases these consumers don’t always make rational decisions with financial services. This conceptual study addresses irrational financial consumer behavior and its impact on the Finnish (...) business and society. The study focuses on two research questions: 1) What type of behavioral finance concepts explain irrational consumer behavior? 2) What are the implications of these behaviors for the Finnish business and society? The purpose of this study is to assist individual consumers, business leaders and policy makers in making better financial services related decisions in Finland. The need for better decisions has been illustrated during Finnish and international financial crises including the US sub-prime loan turmoil in 2008. (shrink)

Activity theory is an interdisciplinary approach to human sciences that originates in the cultural-historical psychology school, initiated by Vygotsky, Leont'ev, and Luria. It takes the object-oriented, artifact-mediated collective activity system as its unit of analysis, thus bridging the gulf between the individual subject and the societal structure. This volume is the first comprehensive presentation of contemporary work in activity theory, with 26 original chapters by authors from ten countries. In Part I of the book, central theoretical issues are discussed from (...) different points of view. Some topics addressed in this part are epistemology, methodology, and the relationship between biological and cultural factors. Part II is devoted to the acquisition and development of language - a theme that played a central role in the work of Vygotsky and Luria. This part includes a chapter that analyzes writing activity in Japanese classrooms, and an original case study of literacy skills of a man with cerebral palsy. Part III contains chapters on play, learning, and education, and part IV addresses the meaning of new technology and the development of work activities. The final part covers issues of therapy and addiction. (shrink)

The threat simulation theory of dreaming states that dream consciousness is essentially an ancient biological defence mechanism, evolutionarily selected for its capacity to repeatedly simulate threatening events. Threat simulation during dreaming rehearses the cognitive mechanisms required for efficient threat perception and threat avoidance, leading to increased probability of reproductive success during human evolution. One hypothesis drawn from TST is that real threatening events encountered by the individual during wakefulness should lead to an increased activation of the system, a threat simulation (...) response, and therefore, to an increased frequency and severity of threatening events in dreams. Consequently, children who live in an environment in which their physical and psychological well-being is constantly threatened should have a highly activated dream production and threat simulation system, whereas children living in a safe environment that is relatively free of such threat cues should have a weakly activated system. We tested this hypothesis by analysing the content of dream reports from severely traumatized and less traumatized Kurdish children and ordinary, non-traumatized Finnish children. Our results give support for most of the predictions drawn from TST. The severely traumatized children reported a significantly greater number of dreams and their dreams included a higher number of threatening dream events. The dream threats of traumatized children were also more severe in nature than the threats of less traumatized or non-traumatized children. (shrink)

Mothers with prenatal substance use disorder often show broad deficits in their reflective functioning, implying severe risk for the relationship with their baby. Two different types of prenatal maternal RF may be important for parenting: adult attachment-focused-RF, regarding parent's own childhood experiences, and parenting-focused RF regarding their own current process of becoming a parent. However, their inter-relations and potentially different roles for parenting intervention outcomes are not clear. This study examined the associations between mothers' prenatal AAI-RF and pre- and post-natal (...) PRF, and their role in mother-infant interaction and substance use as treatment outcomes. The participants were 57 treatment-enrolled pregnant mothers with SUD and 50 low-risk comparison mothers. AAI-RF was measured with the Adult Attachment Interview. For a subsample of 30 mothers with SUD, PRF was measured with Pregnancy Interview, and with Parent Development Interview at 4 months. Mother-infant interaction was measured with Emotional Availability Scales at 4 and 12 months, and maternal substance use by post-natal substance relapses. Prenatal AAI-RF and pre- and post-natal PRF were highly associated with each other. Only higher prenatal PRF predicted better mother-infant interaction quality at 4 months and less substance use during the child's first year. Interestingly, prenatal PRF and AAI-RF predicted opposite changes in mother-infant interaction: lower prenatal PRF, but higher AAI-RF predicting more positive change. AAI-RF was especially associated with a change in maternal intrusiveness and hostility, indicating that it represents a more general regulatory tendency. Further studies are needed in larger and lower-risk samples. Our results suggest, however, that AAI-RF and PRF are partially distinct and should be uniquely targeted in perinatal interventions. (shrink)

L’édition spéciale que le lecteur tient entre ses mains est la toute première édition de la Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique en langue française. Elle lui propose un éventail d’analyses représentatives des différentes conceptions de la linguistique juridique ou jurilinguistique comme la dénomme nos collègues canadiens. Elle est dédiée au Doyen Cornu, qui fut, comme l’indique le Professeur Beauchard dans son hommage, une des personnalités juridiques les plus reconnues en France pour ses travaux dans le domaine de la langue et (...) du droit. Les articles sélectionnés dégagent l’essentiel de la linguistique juridique: ils soulignent certains aspects de recherches déjà avancées (Gémar, Goltzeberg) et d’autres débats encore peu explorés (Mattila, Lenoble-Pinson), permettant ainsi au lecteur de situer les enjeux actuels de la linguistique juridique tout en lui révélant les perspectives à venir. (shrink)

Au-delà des frontières des langues, des cultures juridiques et systèmes de droit, conciliant synchronie et diachronie, le Professeur Mattila nous offre une oeuvre riche en couleurs, rencontres illustres et cas d’espèce. Nul doute qu’il s’agit là d’un ouvrage de référence, à la fois au regard de l’introduction d’une approche heuristique et de la cartographie d’un champ de connaissances commun au juriste et au linguiste. Sa vaste étude des interactions terminologiques et conceptuelles des langues et traditions juridiques européennes propose un (...) tableau minutieux, systématique et argumenté de la situation du langage juridique dans cinq langues. Elle offre une réflexion sur le développement de ces langues, notamment sur le plan international. Travail herculéen s’il en est, il ne pouvait être réalisé que par un humaniste accompli. Heikki Mattila, professeur émérite de jurilinguistique à l’Université de Lapland en Finlande, est juriste, spécialiste multilingue du langage juridique, linguiste .. (shrink)