Taking account of local culture: limits to the development of a professional ethos The need to extend the discussion of culture in the study of nursing, combined with an enthusiasm for the possibility of viewing nursing from a new perspective, provides the impetus for this study. Based on fieldwork undertaken in the intensive care unit (RICU) of a major public hospital in Rome (Italy), this paper explores some of the key aspects of the social relations and local staff culture of (...) one particular group of Italian nurses. In a climate of globalization, where the deployment of dominant Anglo‐American ideas is difficult to counter, the RICU presents as a setting which challenges the widespread assumptions of universal standards of nursing practice. By building a picture of the working world of these particular nurses, we are assisted in our understanding of nursing practice as a local cultural activity. In exploring the significance of local culture this paper brings into question the universality of the current paradigm of professionalism and professional identity, and emphasizes the value of acknowledging local culture. (shrink)

Although the most common understanding of suicide is intentional self-killing, this conception either rules out someone who lacks mental capacity being classed as a suicide or, if acting intentionally is meant to include this sort of case, then what it means to act intentionally is so weak that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide. This has implications in health care, and has a further bearing on issues such as assisted suicide and health insurance. In this paper, I argue (...) that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide at all. Rather, I develop a novel approach that deploys the structure of a homicide taxonomy to classify and characterise suicides to arrive at a conceptually robust understanding of suicide. According to my analysis of suicide, an agent is the proximate cause of his death. Suicide is ‘self-killing,’ rather than ‘intentional self-killing.’ Adopting this understanding of suicide performs several functions: We acquire an external standard to assess diverging analyses on specific cases by appealing to homologous homicides. Following such a taxonomy differentiates types of suicides. This approach has application in addressing negative connotations about suicide. As a robust view, adding intention is an unnecessary complication. It is more consistent with psychological and sociological assessments of suicide than ‘intentional self-killing.’ It has useful applications in informing public policy. This paper’s focus is on classifying types of suicides, rather than on the moral permissibility or on underlying causes of suicidal ideation and behaviour. (shrink)

Kant formulated a secular argument against suicide’s permissibility based on what he regarded as the intrinsic value of humanity. In this paper, I first show that Kant’s moral framework entails that some types of suicide are morally permissible. Just as some homicides are morally permissible, according to Kant, so are suicides that are performed according to equivalent maxims. Intention, foreseeability, voluntariness, diminished responsibility, and mental capacity determine the moral characterization of the killing. I argue that a suicide taxonomy that differentiates (...) types of suicide according to morally relevant criteria is compatible with Kantian ethics; it establishes that even where we hold a robust deontological sanctity of life position, we are not obligated to preserve the lives of people whose future life only offers profound suffering, and helping them to die may be justifiable if doing so honors their dignity and autonomy. Nevertheless, homicide and suicide are only weakly morally symmetrical in that even if a given suicide is morally impermissible, we do not normally have the right to prevent it forcibly, though this may be altered by juridical laws under some circumstances. (shrink)

In this paper, I assess the role responsibility argument that claims suicidal agents have obligations to specific people not to kill themselves due to their roles. Since the plausibility of the role responsibility argument is clearest in the parent–child relationship, I assess parental obligations. I defend a view that says that normative roles, such as those of a parent, are contractual and voluntary. I then suggest that the normative parameters for some roles preclude permissible suicide because the role-related contract includes (...) a promise to provide continuing care and emotional support. I propose that as we have established criteria for morally acceptable reasons for cancelling, voiding, or amending a contract, we can apply these to the role responsibility argument to establish grounds for releasing a parent from his role-related and contractual obligations. Failure to fulfil one’s contractual roles may not be blameworthy, depending upon the circumstances. I propose the factors determining culpability in failure to fulfil one’s role-related obligations are: intention, voluntariness, diminished responsibility, mental capacity, and foreseeability. (shrink)

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have the potential to fundamentally change the way that we go about treating and understanding human disease. Despite this extraordinary potential, these cells also have an innate capability to form tumors in immunocompromised individuals when they are introduced in their pluripotent state. Although current therapeutic strategies involve transplantation of only differentiated hPSC derivatives, there is still a concern that transplanted cell populations could contain a small percentage of cells that are not fully differentiated. In addition, (...) these cells have been frequently reported to acquire genetic alterations that, in some cases, are associated with certain types of human cancers. Here, we try to separate the panic from reality and rationally evaluate the true tumorigenic potential of these cells. We also discuss a recent study examining the effect of culture conditions on the genetic integrity of hPSCs. Finally, we present a set of sensible guidelines for minimizing the tumorigenic potential of hPSC‐derived cells. © 2016 The Authors. Inside the Cell published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This article focuses on how men's sexualization of work relations and the workplace contributes to job-level gender segregation among coal miners. The findings suggest that sexualization represents men's power to stigmatize women in order to sustain stereotypes about them as inferior workers. In particular, supervisors use stereotypes to justify women's assignments to jobs in support of and in service to men. Once in these jobs, men's positive evaluations of women workers become contingent upon their fulfillment of men's gendered expectations. These (...) processes foster the gender typing of jobs and lead to the gendered division of labor underground. (shrink)

The ability to sustain antibiotic efficacy is directly affected by incentive models aiming to stimulate antibiotic research and development. This paper analyzes the extent to which the models proposed by the Innovative Medicine Initiative-funded research project DRIVE-AB can be expected to support sustainable use, drawing on basic economic theory and the incentives that derive from it. It then discusses the use of minimal safeguards that will be needed to support sustainable use where industry incentives have not been re-aligned with those (...) of public health. (shrink)

Written by leading researchers in educational and social psychology, learning science, and neuroscience, this edited volume is suitable for a wide-academic readership. It gives definitions of key terms related to motivation and learning alongside developed explanations of significant findings in the field. It also presents cohesive descriptions concerning how motivation relates to learning, and produces a novel and insightful combination of issues and findings from studies of motivation and/or learning across the authors' collective range of scientific fields. The authors provide (...) a variety of perspectives on motivational constructs and their measurement, which can be used by multiple and distinct scientific communities, both basic and applied. (shrink)

In this article, the importance of ritual as a collective response to death is discussed. A case example, taken from a larger ethnographic study, is used to explore the responses and reactions of a group of Italian nurses to death as it occurs within an intensive care unit in Rome, Italy. The material presented is used to analyse the significance that cultural, religious and social beliefs and quasi‐beliefs can have in nursing practice. The issues highlighted in this examination of the (...) place of ritual in death are located and discussed within their highly specific cultural context and suggest that, where emphasis remains on nurses as a collective rather than on the individual nurse, ritual acts to ensure that social and moral order prevails. (shrink)

Derek Parfit’s view of ‘personal identity’ raises questions about whether advance decisions refusing life-saving treatment should be honored in cases where a patient loses psychological continuity; it implies that these advance decisions would not be self-determining at all. Part I of this paper argues that this assessment of personal identity undermines the distinction between suicide and homicide. However, rather than accept that an unknown metaphysical ‘further fact’ underpins agential unity, one can accept Parfit’s view but offer a different account of (...) what it implies morally: that the social and legal bases for ascribing a persisting ‘personal identity’ maintain the distinction between homicide and suicide. (shrink)

Discipline and passion: meaning, masochism and mythology in popular medical romancesThis paper is an interpretive analysis of the discourses within popular romance literature, with a particular focus on the genre that includes constructions of the images of nurses and nursing. An historical contrast is made along with examinations of the uses and meanings encompassed within this body of literature, and its messages for women as nurses as it reflectdcreates societal change. Deviations from the formulaic nature of these works are explored. (...) Discipline and passion are the recurring themes evident throughout in juxtapositions of romance and power differentials in the hospital/medical scene. The soft‐core, sado‐masochistic images evident in many titles are explored in a way that raises questions about sexuality, romance, nursing mythology, and the future of this sub‐genre of the popular romance. (shrink)

A philosophy of nursing is to express our considered opinion on what we believe to be true about the nature of the profession of nursing and provide a basis for nursing activities. It affirms the ethical values that we hold as fundamental to our practice. For many of us in nursing, our philosophy derives from Nightingale and phenomenology. We believe Nightingale and phenomenology are uniquely placed within nursing philosophies, to assist the nurse to understand the use of music within a (...) holistic, caring‐healing paradigm, as nursing continues to adapt and evolve in the 21st century. This article proposes that both Nightingale's environmental philosophy and phenomenology are excellent intellectual and practice frameworks for nurses to consider music‐based interventions for older adults who experience dementia. The potential outcome is an enhanced understanding of the well‐being of this vulnerable group of older persons. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that exposure to nature may reduce delay discounting and thereby facilitate healthier dietary intake. This pre-registered study examined the impact of online exposure to images of natural scenes on delay discounting and food preferences. It was predicted that exposure to images of natural scenes would be associated with: lower delay discounting; higher desirability for fruits and vegetables ; and delay discounting would mediate the effect of nature-image exposure on food desirability. Adult participants were recruited to an online (...) between-subjects experiment in which they viewed a timed sequence of six images either showing natural landscape scenes or urban scenes. They then completed measures of mood, delay discounting and rated their momentary desire to eat four fruits and vegetables, and four energy-dense foods. There was no statistically significant effect of experimental condition on delay discounting or food desirability. Bayes factors supported the null hypothesis for discounting, and energy-dense food desirability, but provided no strong evidence for either hypothesis for F&V desirability. These findings indicate that brief online exposure to images of nature does not affect momentary impulsivity or energy-dense food preference, whereas for preference for less-energy dense foods, the evidence was inconclusive. (shrink)

Donors, scientists and farmers all benefit when research and development projects have high impact. However, potential benefits are sometimes not realized. Our objective in this study is to determine why resource-poor farmers in Togo (declined to) adopt recommended practices that were promoted through a multi-organizational project on soil fertility management. We examine the processes and outcomes related to the adoption process. The project was undertaken in three villages in the Central Region of Togo in West Africa. The development and research (...) processes that took place during the implementation of the project were critically analyzed using a conceptual framework that may be useful for improving the impact of future participatory projects. At the macro level, opportunities for innovation were not deliberately explored with participating farmers and other village members; consequently “pre-analytical choices” made during the planning phase resulted in practices that resource-poor farmers were, for a variety of reasons, unable or unwilling to adopt. From the outset, donors and scientists focused on soil fertility management, but failed to take into account the wider economic context within which soil fertility management took place. This was a major obstacle to the subsequent adoption of recommended management strategies. Scientists and donor partners measured the success of the Project in terms of crop productivity, but farmers’ choices were influenced by a complex mix of socio-economic, political and technical factors. We also illustrate the importance of selecting appropriate categories of farmers for a particular experiment. We conclude that for participatory research and development projects to be successful, it is not enough to develop technologies that “work” in a technical sense. In order to be scaled up and widely implemented, such technologies must also meet a variety of needs of resource-poor farmers and be acceptable from a socio-cultural point of view. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTheoretical models of depression posit that, under stress, elevated trait rumination predicts more pronounced or prolonged negative affective and neuroendocrine responses, and that trait rumination hampers removing irrelevant negative information from working memory. We examined several gaps regarding these models in the context of lab-induced stress. Non-depressed undergraduates completed a rumination questionnaire and either a negative-evaluative Trier Social Stress Test or a non-evaluative control condition, followed by a modified Sternberg affective working memory task assessing the extent to which irrelevant negative (...) information can be emptied from working memory. We measured shame, negative and positive affect, and salivary cortisol four times. Multilevel growth curve models showed rumination and stress interactively predicted cortisol reactivity; however, opposite predictions, greater rumination was associated with blunted cortisol reactivity to stress. Elevated trait rumi... (shrink)

Introduction: Screen-based and mobile technology has grown at an unprecedented rate. However, little is understood about whether increased screen-use affects executive functioning, the range of mental processes that aid goal attainment and facilitate the selection of appropriate behaviors. To examine this, a systematic review was conducted.Method: This systematic review is reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using Web of Science, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Scopus databases to identify (...) articles published between 2007 and March 2020, examining the use of mobile technologies on aspects of EF in healthy adults aged 18–35 years. In total 6079 articles were screened by title, and 39 screened by full text. Eight eligible papers were identified for inclusion. Our methods were pre-registered on the PROSPERO international prospective register of systematic reviews.Results: A total of 438 participants were included across the eight studies. Five of the eight studies examined more than one EF. Five studies measured inhibition, and four studies measured decision-making. Smartphone use was negatively associated with inhibition and decision-making. Working memory performance was found to be improved by increased time engaging in video games and by refraining from smartphone use prior to bedtime. Quality assessments indicated high risk of methodological biases across the studies and a low quality of evidence for determining the relationship between technology use and executive functioning.Conclusions: This review highlights the scarcity of the literature in this area. It presents a call for rigorous and objective research to further our understanding of the impact of mobile technology on different aspects of executive function. (shrink)

We do not know how much clinical physicians carrying out clinical trials in oncology and haematology struggle with ethical concerns. To our knowledge, no empirical research exists on these questions in a Nordic context. Therefore, this study aims to learn what kinds of ethical challenges physicians in Sweden, Denmark and Finland face when caring for patients in clinical trials; and what strategies, if any, they have developed to deal with them. The main findings were that clinical cancer trials pose ethical (...) challenges related to autonomy issues, unreasonable hope for benefits and the therapeutic misconception. Nevertheless, some physicians expressed that struggling with such challenges was not of great concern. This conveys a culture of hope where health care professionals and patients uphold hope and mutually support belief in clinical trials. This culture being implicit, physicians need opportunities to deliberately reflect over the characteristics that should constitute this culture. (shrink)

This case deals with the corporate response to a crisis and the successful evacuation of approximately 900 hotel guests, staff, and family members of staff whowere stranded in the Fairmont New Orleans hotel by Hurricane Katrina. This rescue effort, spearheaded by managers at the sister Fairmont hotel in Dallas, Texas, was completed shortly after 12 a.m. on Friday, September 2, 2005, when the last bus with evacuees pulled into the Dallas Fairmont after making a round trip of more than 1000 (...) miles — and about 64 hours after planning began. This case is particularly significant for lessons that may be derived about crisis management and leadership, and it also raises several interesting ethical issues. The case, which relies on field research plus secondary sources, is appropriate for business ethics and business strategy courses. (shrink)

Critically significant parental effects in behavioral genetics may be partly understood as a consequence of maternal brain structure and function of caregiving systems recently studied in humans as well as rodents. Key parental brain areas regulate emotions, motivation/reward, and decision making, as well as more complex social-cognitive circuits. Additional key environmental factors must include socioeconomic status and paternal brain physiology. These have implications for developmental and evolutionary biology as well as public policy.

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the licensing of and codes of ethics that affect the accountant not in public accounting, the potential for an accountant not in public accounting encountering an ethical conflict situation, and the moral responsibility of such accountant when faced with an ethical dilemma. We review an approach suggested by the National Association of Accountants for dealing with an ethical conflict situation including that association's position on whistleblowing. We propose another approach based on the work of De (...) George (1981), in which both internal and external whistleblowing are possible alternatives, for use by management accountants in an ethical conflict situation. Finally, we consider the implications of our analysis for management accounting. While most of the analysis centers on management accountants, we note the likely applicability of the analysis to accountants in the public sector. (shrink)

This article explores some of the issues raised by Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP) and the relationship between medicine and law, specifically the discourses which feature in the courtroom portraying motherhood and expectations of parenting. These discourses are often hidden yet play a determining role in prosecutions for alleged maltreatment of children involving medically unexplained infant death syndrome. We offer a critique of MSbP and seek to unveil the assumptions about mothers, the parent predominantly affected by the ‘diagnosis’, and mothering (...) that underlie the association of women accused of deliberating harming their children. We suggest such insights are valuable because although the syndrome has never acquired a clear medical or legal definition, it has had repeated appearances in the literature and courtroom over the last 25 years and has more recently attracted attention from government, health care practitioners, academics and the media. We explore these issues through an examination of two recent Court of Appeal decisions in England: those of Sally Clark and Angela Cannings. (shrink)

This book updates and adds to the classic Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, showing how social movement theory has grown and changed.

This paper investigates the effect of the countervailing forces within organizations of formal systems that direct employees toward ethical acts and informal systems that direct employees toward fraudulent behavior. We study the effect of these forces on deception, a key component of fraud. The results provide support for an interactive effect of these formal and informal systems. The effectiveness of formal systems is greater when there is a strong informal “push” to do wrong; conversely, in the absence of a strong (...) push to do wrong, the strength of formal systems has little impact on fraudulent behavior. These results help to explain why the implementation of formal systems within organizations has been met with mixed results and identifies when formal systems designed to promote ethical behavior will be most efficacious. (shrink)

Despite the burgeoning literature on professionalism in other health professions, psychology lags behind in the level of attention given to this core competency. In this article, we review definitions from other health professions and how they address professionalism. Next, we review how this competency evolved within health service psychology (HSP), and we propose a definition. We offer an approach for assessing professionalism within HSP. Consideration is given to strategies and methods for providing effective education and training in this multifaceted competency. (...) Finally, recommendations are made for creating a culture of professionalism within HSP and honoring psychology’s social contract with multiple publics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 363-381 [Access article in PDF] Imre Lakatos and Literary Tradition Suzanne Black ALTHOUGH THE CANON DEBATES have largely subsided, the categories of tradition and canon remain problematic and unhelpfully contentious. Some authors view tradition as weighty and oppressive, while cultural studies scholars criticize the concept itself as elitist and exclusionary. Yet literature, like other creative pursuits, cannot avoid its past; nor should it (...) seek to do so. Progressive ideas have a history and a logical development; to argue otherwise leaves them vulnerable to accusations of faddish trendiness. Artists learn from the work of other artists, and critics rely on older examples to describe and understand what they study. Thus activist critics, writers, and moderate scholars all need some way to react to and to conceive of literary history.E. Dean Kolbas has argued that shared assumptions such as a preoccupation with educational institutions limit the arguments of conservative humanists and canon openers alike. 1 If the perspective of literary critics is indeed narrow, they may benefit from broader and more interdisciplinary studies of tradition. For example, historicist philosophy of science devoted considerable energy to understanding how major accomplishments influence the work of scientists. This scholarship offers several complex accounts of the ways science is shaped by its past, and so can offer literary critics another, more structured, more rational, and even more flexible, view of tradition. In addition, some of its preoccupations, like the emergence of consensus or criteria for the selection of representative examples, are relevant to the canon debates. Finally, because writers and scientists understand the past differently and because their ideas develop in distinct social contexts, literary theory and philosophy of science have potentially complementary strengths and weaknesses. [End Page 363]In this article I first summarize Imre Lakatos's conception of the research program and explain some of its potential benefits for an understanding of literary tradition. Then, to show that the concept of a "literary research program" makes sense, I use the category to examine the ideas of Ricardo Reis, a neo-classical persona created by the Portuguese modernist Fernando Pessoa. Finally, I turn to a discussion of W. H. Auden's "Letter to Lord Byron" to identify some difficulties in applying Lakatos's model to literature. To view Auden as working within a Byronic program directs attention to his interpretation of the older poet, but the poem's formal innovation and its irony suggest some important differences between artistic and scientific approaches to the past, as well as some limitations of Lakatos's analytical framework.During the 1960s and 1970s, partly in response to Thomas Kuhn, but also in reaction against other approaches to their field, several important philosophers of science sought to incorporate the history of science into their work. David J. Hess terms this tendency a historicist "period and style" 2 within philosophy of science. As the Hungarian philosopher Imre Lakatos (echoing Kant) contended, "Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind." 3 Generalizing about how scientists think (or ought to think) while still bearing in mind actual science led some philosophers of science to devise subtle and provocative ways of viewing the past. Kuhn's notion of paradigms as "models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research" 4 is the best known and influenced Stanley Fish and Frank Kermode. Generally, however, literary critics are unaware of philosophers' responses to Kuhn and of their attempts to refine his category of paradigm. Larry Laudan, for example, sought to delineate the role of "research traditions" in the natural sciences. As his terminology suggests, these formulations overlap to some extent with literary understandings of past practice.But how much overlap is there, and is it significant? While Kuhn and Laudan both mention the arts, they disagree about the relevance of their work to the humanities. In 1969, noting that "topics" such as "competing schools," "changing standards of value" and "altered modes of perception" "have long been basic for the art historian," Kuhn argued that The Structure of Scientific Revolutions "makes them central to... (shrink)