Political science - Iran - History ; Political science - Philosophy.

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527-Criticism and interpretation ; Political science-Translating.

Study on religious and philosophical works of Gopālanidhi Tivārī, 1921-2000, Hindu scholar.

The Elements of Islamic Metaphysics signals a new approach to the teaching of Islamic philosophy. It provides a useful overview of 20th century philosophy in Iran, and traces the development of philosophical thought in the context of a religious tradition whose intellectual character was determined to a large extent by the contents of the Qur’anic revelation and the prophetic teachings. At the same time it attempts to demonstrate how philosophical thought is by nature independent of religious doctrine and differs from (...) theology, which depends on revelation and tradition. (shrink)

This paper examines the efficacy of a statelessness reduction plan implemented by the country of Chile. We evaluate the programmatic alignment of Chile’s statelessness reduction plan, #Chilereconoce, with policy enacted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in that office’s campaign to eradicate statelessness by the year 2024. In addition to evaluating the structure of Chile’s statelessness reduction plan, we explore the policy outcomes of this plan in achieving its desired goal of reducing statelessness in Chile. We use Chile (...) as a case study because it implemented the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ 2014-2024 Action Plan and, therefore, can shed light on if such a plan can put a nation-state on the path to remedy the deleterious effects of statelessness. Our central argument is that Chile’s statelessness reduction plan can, in-fact, serve as a blueprint for governmental institutions to follow towards achieving the goal of reducing statelessness. The success of such a plan, however, is conditioned upon whether principle actors within governmental institutions confront, head on, structural challenges that otherwise tend to undermine the merging of a confluence of critical factors that must be aligned for success to occur. The Chilean project demonstrates that reducing statelessness requires community action, implementation of domestic legislative reform, and governmental accession to international treaties. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss nurses’ and physicians’ comments in a questionnaire relating to patients’ transition from curative treatment to palliative care. The four-page questionnaire relating to experiences of and attitudes towards communication, decision-making, documentation and responsibility of nurses and physicians and towards the competence of patients was developed and sent to a random sample of 1672 nurses and physicians of 10 specialties. The response rate was 52% , and over one-third made comments. The respondents (...) differed in their comments about three areas: the concept of palliative care, experiences of unclear decision-making and difficulties in acceptance of the patient’s situation. The responses are analysed in terms of four ethical theories: virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism and casuistry. Many virtues considered to be appropriate for healthcare personnel to possess were invoked. Compassion, honesty, justice and prudence are especially important. However, principles of medical ethics, such as the deontological principle of respect for self-determination and the consequence of avoidance of harm, are also implied. Casuistry may be particularly helpful in analysing certain areas of difficulty—namely, what is meant by “palliative care”, decision-making and accepting the patient’s situation. Keeping a patient in a state of uncertainty often causes more suffering than necessary. Communication among the staff and with patients must be explicit. Many of the staff have not had adequate training in communicating with patients who are at the end of their life. Time for joint reflection has to be regained, and training in decision-making is essential. In our opinion, palliative care in Sweden is in need of improvement. (shrink)

In recent papers the authors have discussed the dynamical properties of “large Poincaré systems” (LPS), that is, nonintegrable systems with a continuous spectrum (both classical and quantum). An interesting example of LPS is given by the Friedrichs model of field theory. As is well known, perturbation methods analytic in the coupling constant diverge because of resonant denominators. We show that this Poincaré “catastrophe” can be eliminated by a natural time ordering of the dynamical states. We obtain then a dynamical theory (...) which incorporates a privileged direction of time (and therefore the second law of thermodynamics). However, it is only in very simple situations that this time ordering can be performed in an “extended” Hilbert space. In general, we need to go to the Liouville space (superspace) and introduce a time ordering of dynamical states according to the number of particles involved in correlations. This leads then to a generalization of quantum mechanics in which the usual Heisenberg's eigenvalue problem is replaced by a complex eigenvalue problem in the Liouville space. (shrink)

Objective: To assess the adequacy of the process of informed consent for surgical patients at the University Hospital of the West Indies. Method: The study is a prospective, cross-sectional, descriptive study. 210 patients at the University Hospital of the West Indies were interviewed using a standardised investigator-administered questionnaire, developed by the authors, after obtaining witnessed, informed consent for participation in the study. Data were analysed using SPSS V.12 for Windows. Results: Of the patients, 39.4% were male. Of the surgical procedures, (...) 68.6% were scheduled, 7.6% urgent and 23.8% emergency, 35.2% were minor and 64.8% major. Information imparted/received was acceptable in 40% of cases, good in 24% and inadequate (unacceptable) in 36% of cases. Almost all (97.6%) patients stated that they understood why an operation was planned and 93.3% thought that they had given informed consent. Most (95.2%) thought that they had free choice and made up their own mind. A quarter (25.2%) of all patients were told that it was mandatory for them to sign the form. There was a discussion of possible side effects and complications in 56.7% of patients. Conclusions: This study clearly indicates that surgical patients at the University Hospital of the West Indies feel that they have given informed consent. However, it also suggests that more information should be given to patients for consent to be truly informed. (shrink)

El texto que presentamos recoge las principales conclusiones que han derivado de los estudios sobre la Colección de documentos árabes del Archivo Histórico Provincial de Granada. Compuesta principalmente por documentos de carácter jurídico, el análisis del contenido de cada uno de ellos en relación con la materialidad del soporte y las tintas así como la coincidencia en el diseño y planificación de la página revelan el uso de idénticos protocolos de ejecución. Esta investigación nos está permitiendo, además, establecer coincidencias relevantes (...) relacionadas con los procesos de elaboración del papel entre los últimos años de permanencia de los árabes en la Península Ibérica y los primeros tras la incorporación del territorio a la Corona de Castilla y, sobre todo, con el modo de ejecutar el documento de archivo en sus formas externa e interna. (shrink)

Logic; Islamic philosophy; Islam--doctrines.