In order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics in violent situations in institutional care for elderly people the aim of this study was to explore involved parties’ positions, and to illuminate forces and moves related to these positions. One involved care provider's narrative was analysed using narrative analysis and positioning theory. In the narrative the involved parties’ positions were fluid and often overlapping, and not exclusively as victim or perpetrator. Across the narrative the narrator altered the involved (...) parties’ positions by using available discourses. We understand that the altered positions were a salient way for the care provider to make sense of her experiences. By reading the care provider's narrative we further understand that she was much more than just a perpetrator, which was the origin for her narrative. This study led us to two assumptions important for implications in nursing practice. First, it is of significance how we position ourselves and others in narratives and conversations. Second, there is a difference between being categorised in advance and getting the opportunity to narrate one's own story. (shrink)

Previous studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication suggest that firms’ social initiatives should be communicated through third-party, non-corporate sources because they are perceived as unbiased and therefore reduce consumer skepticism. In this article, we extend existing research by showing that source effects in the communication of social sponsorships are contingent on the brand’s pre-existing reputation. We argue that the congruence between the credibility and trustworthiness of the message source and the brand helps predict consumer responses to a social sponsorship. (...) The results show that a non-corporate source (publicity) generates more positive brand evaluations than a corporate source (advertising) when the sponsor has a positive reputation. However, the converse effect occurs when brand reputation is low: when the sponsor has a poor reputation, a corporate source generates more positive brand evaluations than a non-corporate source. Mediation analyses show that the interaction effect between CSR information source and brand reputation can be explained by sponsorship attitude, persuasion knowledge, and perceived fit between the brand and the cause. (shrink)

This study builds on previous research combining achievement goal orientation from Achievement Goal Theory and motivational regulation from Self-Determination Theory. The aim was to assess the combination of the "what" and "why" of youth sport activity, and how it relates to the need for competence and self-esteem. Achievement goal orientation, specifically task and ego, was employed to represent the "what", whilst intrinsic and external regulation reflected the "why". Based on a sample of 496 youth sports participants, structural equation modeling with (...) a bootstrapping procedure was used to examine whether the indirect relationship between achievement goal orientation and self-esteem was conditional to motivational regulation. The results show partial support for the conditional process models. Specifically, task orientation was indirectly linked with self-esteem through competence need, and the relationship was stronger with higher levels of intrinsic regulation for sport. Furthermore, ego orientation was negatively associated with self-esteem through a positive relationship with competence frustration. However, this relationship emerged only for those higher in intrinsic regulation. External regulation did not emerge as a moderator, but presented a positive relationship with competence frustration. Findings are discussed in light of both Achievement Goal Theory and Self-Determination Theory, and underline the importance of considering both the "what" and "why" when attempting to understand motivation in youth sport. (shrink)

This study explores the amount of control patients have versus the amount of control physicians have in making decisions regarding what course will be taken in the face of disease. This includes decisions about aggressive treatment, alternatives to aggressive treatment, hospice care, and possibly physician‐assisted death, if that is an option. The findings of this research conclude that there are many levels of control for physicians and patients, and that in certain cases patients may have limited control and in other (...) circumstances patients are entirely in control over their healthcare decisions. The personalities and education levels of both the physicians and the patients determine what kinds of options and control a patient will have. (shrink)

Sustainable products offered in today’s marketplace are labelled with product-related green attributes or non-product-related green attributes. The current research investigates consumers’ inferences about a product’s functional quality when its core attributes are green and when its peripheral attributes are green. Four experimental studies and an internal meta-analysis show that there is a sustainability liability effect in strength-dependent categories, and a sustainability asset effect in gentleness-dependent categories. Our research contributes to the current understanding of how consumers make inferences about product quality (...) when contemplating different types of green attributes. The findings have implications for how strength-dependent and gentleness-dependent products should be labelled as green. (shrink)

The paper investigates semantic properties of expressions that suggest the possibility that emotions are shared. An example is the saying that a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. I assume that such expressions on sharing an emotion refer to a specific mode of subjective experience, displayed in first person attributions of the form 'We share E'. Subjective attributions of this form are intrinsically ambiguous on all levels of their semantic elements: 'emotion', 'sharing' and 'We'. One question the paper seeks to (...) answer is whether and in what respect these semantic ambiguities mirror an indeterminacy of emotional experience. Discussing 'aggregate sharing' in distinction of mere 'distributive sharing' , I argue that there is no sufficient criterion to determine which mode of sharing an emotional experience shaped as 'We feel E' displays. Disambiguation of this intrinsic indeterminacy must recur to situational parameters of individuals' de re relatedness. (shrink)

Synthetic genomics is a new field of research in which small DNA pieces are assembled in a series of steps into whole genomes. The highly reduced genomes of host‐associated bacteria are now being used as models for de novo synthesis of small genomes in the laboratory. Bacteria with the smallest genomes identified in nature provide nutrients to their hosts, such as amino acids, co‐factors and vitamins. Comparative genomics of these bacteria enables predictions to be made about the gene sets required (...) for core cellular functions and the associated metabolic network for the biosynthesis of host‐selected compounds. Synthetic biology may ultimately enable researchers to make customized cell‐specific organelles for the production and delivery of drugs to humans and domestic animals. Synthetic genomics may also become the method of choice for functional analyses of genes and genomes from bacteria that cannot be cultivated in the laboratory. (shrink)

Prototyping is not a new approach to computer-based information system development. It is just one technique among many used in system design. What might be new is for what purpose prototyping is used. The purpose could be to achieve a more user controlled system development and to give the future users a tool that will enable them to fully participate in not only the work with requirements specifications, but also in the actual systems design and organisational change. This paper describes (...) a working model of an approach-the PROTEVS model-in which it is recommended that the future system users design their own prototype systems. The prototypes may act as both requirements specifications and solutions for actual change. This alternative approach aims to offer a basis for new ways of action for future users as participants in the design, evaluation, and change of a workplace. A suitable environment for the approach to act within is also described—a local design shop. (shrink)

Collaboration in the arts is no longer a conscious choice to make a deliberate artistic statement, but instead a necessity of artistic survival. In today’s hybrid world of virtual mobility, collaboration decentralizes creative strategies, enabling artists to carve new territories and maintain practice-based autonomy in an increasingly commercial and saturated art world. Collaboration now transforms not only artistic practices but also the development of cultural institutions, communities and personal lifestyles. This book explores why collaboration has become so integrated into a (...) greater understanding of creative artistic practice. It draws on an emerging generation of contributors—from the arts, art history, sociology, political science, and philosophy—to engage directly with the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of collaborative practice of the future. (shrink)

Şems-i Sivâsî, Halvetiyye tarikatının ana şubelerinden biri olan Sivâsiyye kolunun müessisidir. On altıncı yüzyılın ilmî, siyâsî, kültürel ve dinî sahalarında derin izler bırakan Sivâsî, memleketi Zile’den Sivas’a hicret ettikten sonra ilk olarak İrşâdü’l-avâm adlı bir eser kaleme almış ve bu çalışmada nefsin ıslahı, mürşid-i kâmilin gerekliliği, mürşidlerin özellikleri ve nefsi ıslah konusundaki fonksiyonları gibi başlıklarla döneminde gözlemlediği ve zaman zaman istismar edildiğini düşündüğü mânevî yolculuğun kılavuzlarını konu edinmiştir. Eserin isminden de anlaşılacağı üzere Sivâsî, mânevî seyrin inceliklerini bilmedikleri için şekle aldanıp (...) süslü sözlere kanan ve layık olmadıkları halde şeyhlik makamını işgal edenleri kendilerine rehber edinenleri uyarmayı hedef olarak belirlemiştir. Sivâsî bu hedefine uygun olarak eserde sahte şeyhlerin itikâdî, amelî ve ahlâkî konulardaki sapmalarını âyetler, hadisler, naklettiği kıssalar ve kullandığı çeşitli metaforlarla gözler önüne sermiştir. O, tasavvufî sistemin istismar edilmesi noktasında şeyhlik/mürşid-i kâmillik konumunun son derece önemli olduğunu belirtmiş ve ilk dönemlerden itibaren bu konumun istismarına yönelik yapılan eleştiri ve uyarılara katkı sağlamıştır. Bu anlamda Hasan-ı Basrî, İmâm-ı Gazzâlî, Ahmed-i Yesevî, Mevlânâ, Necmeddîn-i Dâye ve Kâşânî’nin de ifade ettiği gibi, müteşeyyihlere dair uyarılarda bulunan bir geleneğin on altıncı asırdaki temsilcilerinden biri olmuştur. Günümüzde de çeşitli vesilelerle tartışma konusu haline gelen bu hususta Sivâsî’nin bir şeyh olarak yaptığı tespitler, uyarılar ve çözüm önerileri önem arz etmektedir. Bu makalede Sivâsî’nin müteşeyyih kimseler hakkındaki düşünceleri zikredilmekle birlikte kendinden önce bu konuda görüş bildiren isimlerle benzer ve farklı yönlerine de işaret edilmiştir. Çalışmada Sivâsî’nin sahte şeyhlere dair değerlendirmeleriyle tasavvufta bir iç tenkit geleneği olarak kabul edilebilecek bu usulün kendinden önceki ve sonraki isimler arasındaki konumuna da vurgu yapılmıştır. (shrink)

An additional compartment of vaccinated individuals is considered in a SIS stochastic epidemic model with infection reintroduction. The quantification of the spread of the disease is modeled by a continuous time Markov chain. A well-known measure of the initial transmission potential is the basic reproduction number $$R_0$$, which determines the herd immunity threshold or the critical proportion of immune individuals required to stop the spread of a disease when a vaccine offers a complete protection. Due to repeated contacts between the (...) typical infective and previously infected individuals, $$R_0$$ overestimates the average number of secondary infections and leads to, perhaps unnecessary, high immunization coverage. Assuming that the vaccine is imperfect, alternative measures to $$R_0$$ are defined in order to study the influence of the initial coverage and vaccine efficacy on the transmission of the epidemic. (shrink)

This article describes an implemented architecture for intermediate vision. By integrating a variety of Intermediate visual mechanisms and putting them to use in support of concrete activity, the implementation demonstrates their utility. The sytem, SIVS, models psychophysical discoveries about visual attention and search. It is designed to be efficiently implementable in slow, massively parallel, locally connected hardware, such as that of the brain.SIVS addresses five fundamental problems. Visual attention is required to restrict processing to task-relevant locations in the image. Visual (...) search finds such locations. Visual routines are a means for nonuniform processing based on task demands. Intermediate objects keep track of intermediate results of this processing. Visual operators are a set of relatively abstract, general-purpose primitives for spatial analysis, out of which visual routines are assembled. (shrink)

The brain-in-a-vat argument for skepticism is best formulated, not using the closure principle, but using the “Preference Principle,” which states that in order to be justified in believing H on the basis of E, one must have grounds for preferring H over each alternative explanation of E. When the argument is formulated this way, Dretske’s and Klein’s responses to it fail. However, the strengthened argument can be refuted using a direct realist account of perception. For the direct realist, refuting the (...) SIV scenario is not a precondition on knowledge of the external world, and only the direct realist can give a non-circular account of how we know we’re not brains in vats. (shrink)

The brain-in-a-vat argument for skepticism is best formulated, not using the closure principle, but using the “Preference Principle,” which states that in order to be justified in believing H on the basis of E, one must have grounds for preferring H over each alternative explanation of E. When the argument is formulated this way, Dretske’s and Klein’s responses to it fail. However, the strengthened argument can be refuted using a direct realist account of perception. For the direct realist, refuting the (...) SIV scenario is not a precondition on knowledge of the external world, and only the direct realist can give a non-circular account of how we know we’re not brains in vats. (shrink)