Background: In modern healthcare, the role of solidarity, altruism and the natural response to moral challenges in life-threatening situations is still rather unexplored. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to obtain a deeper understanding of nurses’ willingness to care for patients during crisis. Objective: To elucidate clinical expressions of ontological situational ethics through nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic. Research design, participants and context: A qualitative study with an interpretive design was applied. Twenty nurses who worked in intensive care (...) unit at two Swedish hospitals during the first, second, and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic were interviewed. The analysis was interpretative and applied a theoretical ethics perspective. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Findings: From a philosophical perspective, the nurses expressed sovereign life expressions of mercy and compassion, which arose spontaneously in response to seeing vulnerable fellow humans. They referenced ‘‘the nurse inside me’’ and their choice of profession as motives to provide care. Ontological situational ethics in culture and norms were noted in the constructs of competence, responsibility, solidarity with colleagues and organization; and interest and learning were driving forces. Ethical demand was evident when nurses expressed ideas of meaningfulness in helping their fellow humans; but themes of ambiguity, exhaustion and unwillingness were also present. Conclusions: The nurses showed a high willingness to care for patients during a crisis. Responding to the ethical demand and to care for vulnerable human beings while risking their own health and lives could be interpreted as an inter-human vocation. These spontaneous altruistic actions saved the lives of many patients during the pandemic and need to be understood and supported. (shrink)

Making good decisions in extremely complex and difficult processes and situations has always been both a key task as well as a challenge in the clinic and has led to a large amount of clinical, legal and ethical routines, protocols and reflections in order to guarantee fair, participatory and up-to-date pathways for clinical decision-making. Nevertheless, the complexity of processes and physical phenomena, time as well as economic constraints and not least further endeavours as well as achievements in medicine and healthcare (...) continuously raise the need to evaluate and to improve clinical decision-making. This article scrutinises if and how clinical decision-making processes are challenged by the rise of so-called artificial intelligence-driven decision support systems (AI-DSS). In a first step, this article analyses how the rise of AI-DSS will affect and transform the modes of interaction between different agents in the clinic. In a second step, we point out how these changing modes of interaction also imply shifts in the conditions of trustworthiness, epistemic challenges regarding transparency, the underlying normative concepts of agency and its embedding into concrete contexts of deployment and, finally, the consequences for (possible) ascriptions of responsibility. Third, we draw first conclusions for further steps regarding a ‘meaningful human control’ of clinical AI-DSS. (shrink)

Climate change and decarbonization raise complex justice questions that researchers and policymakers must address. The distributions of greenhouse gas emissions rights and mitigation efforts have dominated justice discourses within scenario research, an integrative element of the IPCC. However, the space of justice considerations is much larger. At present, there is no consistent approach to comprehensively incorporate and examine justice considerations. Here we propose a conceptual framework grounded in philosophical theory for this purpose. We apply this framework to climate mitigation scenarios (...) literature as proof of concept, enabling a more holistic and multidimensional investigation of justice. We identify areas of future research, including new metrics of service provisioning essential for human well-being. [Can be freely read by clicking the ReadCube link below.]. (shrink)

Contemporary organizations often reciprocate to society for using resources and for affecting stakeholders by engaging in corporate social responsibility. It has been shown that CSR has a positive impact on employee attitudes. However, not all employees may react equally strongly to CSR practices. Based on socio-emotional selectivity theory, we contend that the effect of CSR on employee satisfaction will be more pronounced for older than for younger employees, because CSR practices address those emotional needs and goals that are prioritized when (...) people’s future time perspective decreases. In one multi-source field study and one experimental study, we demonstrate that CSR indeed has a stronger positive effect on employee satisfaction for older relative to younger employees. Accordingly, engaging in CSR can be an attractive tool for organizations that aim to keep their aging workforce satisfied with their job. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to investigate the consistency between the self-reports and teacher ratings of students’ emotional and social inclusion at school as well as for their academic self-concept. The German version of the Perceptions of Inclusion Questionnaire (PIQ) was administered to 329 grade 8 students (50.8% female, Mage = 14.5 years, SDage = 0.5 years) and their teachers. First, the three-dimensional structure of both PIQ versions was confirmed by confirmatory item factor analysis. The  and  coefficients (...) demonstrated good reliability for all scales. Second, a correlated trait-correlated method minus one model provided evidence that the method-specificity of teacher ratings was larger than the consistency between the self-reports and teacher ratings. Third, the results of a latent difference model indicated that general method effects can partly be explained by a student’s gender or special educational needs. Finally, the low consistency between self-reports and teacher rating is discussed. (shrink)

Rooftop gardens, rooftop greenhouses and indoor farms have been established or planned by activists and private companies in Berlin. These projects promise to produce a range of goods that could have positive impacts on the urban setting but also carry a number of risks and uncertainties. In this early innovation phase, the relevant stakeholders’ perceptions and social acceptance of ZFarming represent important preconditions for success or failure of the further diffusion of this practice. We used the framework of acceptance to (...) investigate the stakeholders’ attitudes and to identify the key factors that might hinder or promote the introduction of ZFarming. The results are based on an analysis of 38 qualitative interviews conducted with key stakeholders in Berlin. As the results show, major perceived benefits of ZFarming include improved consumer awareness, education, and the creation of experimental spaces. Stakeholders further perceive opportunities for resource savings, new business models, repurposing of abandoned buildings and improved aesthetics. Major perceived risks are associated with growing techniques that are considered “unnatural”, health risks, conflicts with images of traditional agriculture, the rejection of animal production in urban areas, the risk of projects being too expensive and too complex or being implemented too early, i.e. before the mechanisms are fully understood. The analysis further reveals which contextual factors—political, legal, market-related, spatial or societal—might negatively or positively influence ZFarming acceptance. (shrink)

The phenomenon of perceptual persistence after the motion stops in shape-from-motion displays was used to study the influence of prior knowledge on the maintenance of a percept in awareness. In SFM displays an object composed of discontinuous line segments are embedded in a background of randomly oriented lines. The object only becomes perceptible when the line segments that compose the object and the lines that compose the background move in counterphase. Critically, once the movement of the line segments stops, the (...) percept of the object persists for a short period of time. In the present study, perceptual persistence for digits exceeded that reported for nonsense shapes composed of the same line segments. This result is taken as evidence that the processes involved in the persistence of SFM, and therefore sustained perception, are sensitive to top-down influences. (shrink)

Emotions are a core factor of learning. Studies have shown that multiple emotions are co-experienced during learning and have a significant impact on learning outcomes. The present study investigated the importance of multiple, co-occurring emotions during learning about human biology with MetaTutor, a hypermedia-based intelligent tutoring system. Person-centered as well as variable-centered approaches of cluster analyses were used to identify emotion clusters. The person-centered clustering analyses indicated three emotion profiles: a positive, negative and neutral profile. Students with a negative profile (...) learned less than those with other profiles and also reported less usage of emotion regulation strategies. Emotion clusters identified through spectral co-clustering confirmed these results. Throughout the learning activity, emotions built a stable correlational structure of a positive, a negative, a neutral and a boredom emotion cluster. Positive emotion cluster scores before the learning activity and negative emotion cluster scores during the learning activity predicted learning, but not consistently. These results reveal the importance of negative emotions during learning with MetaTutor. Potential moderating factors and implications for the design and development of educational interventions that target emotions and emotion regulation with digital learning environments are discussed. (shrink)

While many theories exist to explain the complexity of environmental behaviour, the role of individuals' relationship with nature has not yet been fully clarified. This paper attempts to operationalise human-nature relationships. It expands upon a scale assessed by an iterative process of mixed methods in the US and Europe. This scale is then used to assess individuals' relationship with nature, and whether such relationships correlate with environmental behaviour. The value scale of Schwartz's Theory of Basic Values is used to validate (...) the results. The results verify that people hold multiple human-nature relationships, confirm strong correlations between human-nature relationships and values, and reveal that individuals' behaviour is connected to the relationship they have with nature. (shrink)

Conservation can occur anywhere regardless of scale, political jurisdiction, or landownership. We present a framework to help managers at protected areas practice conservation at the scale of relationships. We focus on relationships between stakeholders and protected areas and between managers and other stakeholders. We provide a synthesis of key natural resources literature and present a case example to support our premise and recommendations. The purpose is 4-fold: 1) discuss challenges and threats to conservation and protected areas; 2) outline a relationship-scale (...) approach to address conservation threats; 3) describe the tools and techniques that can be used to implement this approach; and 4) present a case example from rural Alaska, USA, to illustrate relationship-scale conservation. Our case example illustrates how aspects of this approach to conservation were applied to address a wildlife population decline. Tools needed to implement relationship-scale conservation include 1) collecting and documenting narratives of place; 2) measuring and monitoring trust and commitment; and 3) identifying and mitigating threats. We recommend that planners and managers, working with their research partners, redefine and refocus their goals and objectives to include these practices. Doing so will enable them to gain substantial applied knowledge about their stakeholders and foster and maintain place relationships as desired outcomes of conservation. The ultimate outcome is a better prognosis for long-term global survival of protected areas and biodiversity. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. (shrink)

This study investigated the effect of stroking vs. simple human presence on later reactions of dairy cows to routine veterinary handling. While in two groups of cows the experimenter stroked the ventral part of the neck or the withers for three consecutive weeks, the third group was exposed to close visual presence. After the treatment period the cows were subjected to rectal palpation. The three groups differed significantly in stepping during rectal palpation, which occurred less often in Neck- and Withers-animals (...) than in control animals. Heart rate increase was significantly higher in the control group than in the two stroking groups. Previous stroking led to fewer stress reactions during the rectal palpation, possibly due to a combined effect of improved relationship towards and thus perception of humans and lasting anti-stress effects of tactile stimulation. (shrink)

The current informal practice of pharmacometrics as a combination art and science makes it hard to appreciate the role that informatics can and should play in the future of the discipline and to comprehend the gaps that exist because of its absence. The development of pharmacometric informatics has important implications for expediting decision making and for improving the reliability of decisions made in model-based development. We argue that well-defined informatics for pharmacometrics can lead to much needed improvements in the efficiency, (...) effectiveness, and reliability of the pharmacometrics process. The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of the pervasive yet often poorly appreciated role of informatics in improving the process of data assembly, a critical task in the delivery of pharmacometric analysis results. First, we provide a brief description of the pharmacometric analysis process. Second, we describe the business processes required to create analysis-ready data sets for the pharmacometrician. Third, we describe selected informatic elements required to support the pharmacometrics and data assembly processes. Finally, we offer specific suggestions for performing a systematic analysis of existing challenges as an approach to defi ning the next generation of pharmacometric informatics. (shrink)

This study investigates the increased commercialization of African indigenous vegetables (AIV)—former subsistence crops such as African nightshade, cowpea leaves and amaranth species grown mainly by women—from a feminist economics perspective. The study aims to answer the following research question: How does AIV commercialization affect the gendered division of labor, women’s participation in agricultural labor, their decision-making power, and their access to resources? We analyze commercialization’s effects on gender relations in labor and decision-making power and also highlight women’s agency. Based on (...) a mixed method design and analyzing household-level panel data and qualitative focus groups from Kenya, we observe an economic empowerment of women that we relate to women’s individual and collective strategies as well as their retention of control over AIV selling and profits. Yet, while we see economic empowerment of women through commercialization—how they broaden their scope of action and are empowered by generating revenue—that does not contribute to a redistribution of labor or land rights, which are key for gender equality, instead it increases women’s labor burden. (shrink)

This study investigated the effect of stroking vs. simple human presence on later reactions of dairy cows to routine veterinary handling. While in two groups of cows the experimenter stroked the ventral part of the neck or the withers for three consecutive weeks, the third group was exposed to close visual presence. After the treatment period the cows were subjected to rectal palpation. The three groups differed significantly in stepping during rectal palpation, which occurred less often in Neck- and Withers-animals (...) than in control animals. Heart rate increase was significantly higher in the control group than in the two stroking groups. Previous stroking led to fewer stress reactions during the rectal palpation, possibly due to a combined effect of improved relationship towards and thus perception of humans and lasting anti-stress effects of tactile stimulation. Keywords: cattle; tactile stimulation; human–animal relationship; animal welfare. (shrink)

Research on dyscalculia in neurodegenerative diseases is still scarce, despite high impact on patients’ independence and activities of daily living function. Most studies address Alzheimer’s Disease; however, patients with Parkinson’s Disease also have a higher risk for cognitive impairment while the relation to arithmetic deficits in financial contexts has rarely been studied. Therefore, the current exploratory study investigates deficits in two simple arithmetic tasks in financial contexts administered within the Clinical Dementia Rating in a sample of 100 PD patients. Patients (...) were classified as cognitively normal or mildly impaired according to Level I consensus criteria, and assessed using a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery, neurological motor examination, and sociodemographic and clinical questionnaires. In total, 18% showed arithmetic deficits: they were predominately female, had longer disease duration, more impaired global cognition, but minor signs of depression compared to PD patients without arithmetic deficits. When correcting for clinical and sociodemographic confounders, greater impairments in attention and visuo-spatial/constructional domains predicted occurrence of arithmetic deficits. The type of deficit did not seem to be arbitrary but seemed to involve impaired place × value processing frequently. Our results argue for the importance of further systematic investigations of arithmetic deficits in PD with sensitive tests to confirm the results of our exploratory study that a specific subgroup of PD patients present themselves with dyscalculia. (shrink)

Experiences of discrimination such as everyday racism can negatively affect the mental and physical health of children and adolescents with an immigrant background and impair their integration process in the host societies. Although experiences of racism are part of the everyday life of many minors affected by the process of “Othering”, an overview of empirical findings is missing for this age group worldwide. A systematic review was conducted to identify and analyze international research on the impact of discrimination on the (...) developmental outcomes and integration of immigrant children and adolescents. Three scientific databases were systematically searched up to June 11, 2021. A total of k = 4,769 identified publications were reviewed based on inclusion and exclusion criteria in terms of the PICOS format by independent reviewers. Thirty-four primary studies published between 1998 and 2021 met all inclusion criteria. The samples examined were mainly migrant youth, with only k = 2 studies assessing refugee youth and k = 1 study assessing both migrant and refugee youth. The majority of included studies assessed perceived discrimination, with only k = 1 study directly assessing experiences of racism. The association between discrimination or racism and developmental outcomes was assessed by the included studies within the three main topics of mental and physical health-related outcomes, school-related outcomes, and other developmental outcomes. Data collection procedures were implemented, and findings on minors’ developmental outcomes and integration process who experience discrimination and racism were summarized and discussed. The current review suggests experienced discrimination as a negative predictor of children and adolescents’ health-related outcomes, while no clear results could be found for the association between discrimination and school-related outcomes. A need for more empirical research focusing on the path and indirect link between discrimination and children and adolescents’ school-related outcomes as well as resulting school recommendations and the chosen career path was derived.Systematic Review Registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=260291], identifier [CRD42021260291]. (shrink)

L(ow) tone in Mandarin Chinese causes both downstep and post-low-bouncing. Downstep refers to the lowering of a H(igh) tone after a L tone, which is usually measured by comparing the H tones in a “H…HLH…H” sentence with a “H…HHH…H” sentence (cross-comparison), investigating whether downstep sets a new pitch register for the scaling of subsequent tones. Post-low-bouncing refers to the raising of a H tone after a focused L tone. The current study investigates how downstep and post-low-bouncing interact with focus and (...) phrasing in Mandarin Chinese. In the experiment, we systematically manipulated (a) the tonal environment by embedding two syllables with either LH or HH tone (syllable X and Y) sentence-medially in the same carrier sentences containing only H tones; (b) boundary strength between X and Y by introducing either a syllable boundary or a phonological phrase boundary; and (c) information structure by either placing a contrastive focus in the HL/HH word (XF), syllable Y (YF), or the sentence-final word (ZF). A wide-focus condition served as the baseline. With systematic control of focus and boundary strength around the L tone, the current study shows that the downstep effect in Mandarin is quite robust, lasting for 3–5 H tones after the L tone, but eventually levelling back again to the register reference line of a H tone. The way how focus and phrasing interact with the downstep effect is unexpected. Firstly, sentence-final focus has no anticipatory effect on shortening the downstep effect; instead, it makes the downstep effect lasts longer as compared to the wide focus condition. Secondly, the downstep effect still shows when the H tone after the L tone is on-focus (YF), in a weaker manner than the wide focus condition, and is overridden by the post-focus-compression. Thirdly, the downstep effect gets greater when the boundary after the L tone is stronger, because the L tone is longer and more likely to be creaky. We further analyzed downstep by measuring the F0 drop between the two H tones surrounding the L tone (sequential-comparison). Comparing it with F0 drop in all-H sentences (i.e., declination), it showed that the downstep effect was much greater and more robust than declination. However, creaky voice in the L tone was not the direct cause of downstep. At last, when the L tone was under focus (XF), it caused a post-low-bouncing effect, which is weakened by a phonological phrase boundary. Altogether, the results showed that although intonation is largely controlled by informative functions, the physical-articulatory controls are relatively persistent, varying within the pitch range of 2.5 semitones. Downstep and post-low-bouncing in Mandarin Chinese thus seem to be mainly due to physical-articulatory movement on varying pitch, with the gradual tonal F0 change meeting the requirement of smooth transition across syllables, and avoiding confusion in informative F0 control. (shrink)

This article comprises a short case exemplifying ethical challenges arising for a participatory researcher working with Afghan women refugees during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. The researcher is an Iranian-German woman, qualified as a midwife, undertaking doctoral research on refugees’ access to reproductive health care. Disclosures about some women’s experience of domestic violence are made, which raise ethical issues for the researcher relating to personal-professional boundaries, roles and responsibilities. Two commentaries are given on this case from participatory researchers based in (...) Germany, UK and Austria. Both commentaries highlight the relevance of the ethics of care for participatory research and for this research in particular, which entails very close relationships between the doctoral researcher and the refugee women with whom she is researching. The first commentary analyses the research process in terms of Tronto’s five phases of care, while the second illustrates the importance of caring institutions in supporting researchers working on sensitive topics. (shrink)

BackgroundParental reflective functioning refers to parents’ mental capacity to understand their own and their children’s behaviors in terms of envisioned mental states. As part of a broader concept of parental mentalization, PRF has been identified as one of the central predictors for sensitive parenting. However, the unique contribution of PRF to the quality of various parenting behaviors has not yet been addressed systematically. Thus, the present article provides a systematic overview of current research on the associations between PRF or its (...) sub-dimensions and observed parenting behaviors in infancy and early childhood, while considering the influence of contextual factors.MethodsThe review was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines. Systematic searches were carried out in five electronic databases. The eligibility and methodological quality of the identified studies were assessed using pre-defined criteria and a standardized checklist.ResultsSixteen studies with moderate to high quality on a total of 15 parenting behaviors were included, the majority of which examined positive parenting behaviors, while negative parenting behaviors were rarely investigated. Most of the associations indicated a positive effect of PRF on parenting behavior, with mostly small-sized effects. The strength and direction of the associations varied depending on the dimensionality of PRF, observation settings, sample types, socioeconomic factors, and cultural background. Moreover, five assessment instruments for PRF and 10 observation instruments for parenting behaviors were identified.ConclusionIn summary, PRF has shown a positive association with parenting quality. However, its complex interaction with further contextual factors emphasizes the need for differentiation of PRF dimensions and the consideration of the observation settings, assessment time points, psychosocial risks, and sample types in observational as well as intervention studies. Further high-quality studies with multivariate analyses and diverse study settings are required. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIm Rahmen des Modellvorhabens „Patienten als Partner—Tumorpatienten und ihr Mitwirken bei medizinischen Entscheidungen“ wurden zwischen März 2002 und August 2003 272 palliativ behandelte Tumorpatienten nach ihrer Einstellung zur Patientenverfügung und zur gewünschten Beteiligung an medizinischen Entscheidungen befragt. Von den Befragten kannten 30% Patientenverfügungen nicht, darunter signifikant mehr Befragte mit formal niedrigerem Bildungsabschluss. Es hatten bereits 11% eine Patientenverfügung abgeschlossen, 22% wollten wahrscheinlich eine abschließen, und 30% wollten keine abschließen. Es fand sich ein statistisch signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen dem Abschluss einer Patientenverfügung (...) und dem Wunsch nach mehr eigener Entscheidungsverantwortung. Die Einstellung zur Patientenverfügung und der Wunsch nach partizipativer Entscheidungsfindung stehen in keinem statistisch signifikanten Zusammenhang. Patienten mit schriftlichen Vorausverfügungen haben einen erhöhten Kommunikations- und Rückkopplungsbedarf, auf den Ärzte sensibel eingehen sollten. Bei der Information über Patientenverfügungen sollten Menschen mit niedrigerem Bildungsstand mehr als bisher berücksichtigt werden. (shrink)

Business leaders are increasingly responsible for the societal and environmental impacts of their actions. Yet conceptual views on responsible leadership differ in their definitions and theoretical foundations. This study attempts to reconcile these diverse views and uncover the phenomenon from a business leader’s point of view. Based on rational egoism theory, this article proposes a formal mathematical model of responsible leadership that considers different types of incentives for stakeholder engagement. The analyses reveal that monetary and instrumental incentives are neither sufficient (...) nor necessary for business leaders to consider societal and environmental stakeholder needs. Non-monetary and non-instrumental incentives, such as leaders’ values and authenticity, as well as their planning horizons, counterbalance pure monetary and instrumental orientations. The model in this article complements the growing body of research on responsible leadership by reconciling its various conceptual views and providing a foundation for future theory development and testing. (shrink)

Bobzien presents the definitive study of one of the most interesting intellectual legacies of the ancient Greeks: the Stoic theory of causal determinism. She explains what it was, how the Stoics justified it, and how it relates to their views on possibility, action, freedom, moral responsibility, moral character, fatalism, logical determinism and many other topics. She demonstrates the considerable philosophical richness and power that these ideas retain today.

In this article I advocate a worldly account of normative reasons according to which there is an ontological gap between these and the premises of practical thought, i.e. motivating considerations. While motivating considerations are individuated fine-grainedly, normative reasons should be classified as coarse-grained entities, e.g. as states of affairs, in order to explain certain necessary truths about them and to make sense of how we count and weigh them. As I briefly sketch, acting for normative reasons is nonetheless possible if (...) the connection between normative reasons and motivating considerations is a competence-based correspondence. (shrink)