BackgroundNonverbal social perception is the ability to interpret the intentions and dispositions of others by evaluating cues such as facial expressions, body movements, and emotional prosody. Nonverbal social perception plays a key role in social cognition and is fundamental for successful social interactions. Patients with schizophrenia have severe impairments in nonverbal social perception leading to social isolation and withdrawal. Collectively, these aforementioned deficits affect patients’ quality of life. Here, we compare nonverbal social perception in patients with schizophrenia and controls and (...) examine how nonverbal social perception relates to daily functioning.MethodsWe compared nonverbal social perception in 41 stable outpatients with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls using the Mini Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity. The participants evaluated 64 video clips showing a female actor demonstrating various nonverbal social cues. Participants were asked to choose one of two options that best described the observed scenario. We correlated clinical ratings, Self-report of Negative Symptoms, and functional assessments with Mini-PONS scores.ResultsPatients performed significantly poorer in the Mini-PONS compared to controls, suggesting deficits in nonverbal social perception. These deficits were not associated with either positive symptoms or negative symptoms. However, impaired nonverbal social perception correlated with distinctive domains of BNSS, as well as functional capacity and functional outcome in patients.ConclusionWe demonstrate that nonverbal social perception is impaired in stable outpatients with schizophrenia. Nonverbal social perception is directly related to specific negative symptom domains, functional capacity and functional outcome. These findings underline the importance of nonverbal social perception for patients’ everyday life and call for novel therapeutic approaches to alleviate nonverbal social perception deficits. (shrink)

In this article, we want to reply to the recent article by Buturovic, to be able to correct some statements and allegations about this combined procedure. Organ donation after euthanasia is an extremely difficult procedure from an ethical point of view. On the one hand, we see a suffering patient who wants to die but who also wants to make an altruistic effort to donate his organs. On the other hand, we visualise a patient in need of an organ but (...) who is wary of the fact that someone else needs to die in order to potentially receive a transplant organ. Healthcare professionals seem to walk a tightrope when balancing between the interests of the patients at these two extremes: while facilitating the dying patient’s last wish on the one hand and abiding by all regulations regarding donation and transplantation on the other. Yet, these physicians, nurses and transplant coordinators do their utmost best to keep a strict line between euthanasia and organ donation, to avoid any external pressure on the patient, and to respect his autonomy. They really make an utmost attempt to make the process bearable for the donating patient. However, undeniably the patient who is about to undergo organ donation after euthanasia is nevertheless confronted with dozens of feelings and thoughts. However, this does not imply that procedural safeguards are failing to disentangle organ donation from euthanasia. (shrink)

It is found that a coherent state of the cavity field can be generated in a micromaser with injected atoms in a coherent superposition of the upper and lower states. The dependence of the density matrix elements of the field on the number of injected atoms indicates that due to the same initial atomic coherence the emission of separately injected single atoms in the cavity is a cooperative process.

BackgroundDecision-making in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest should ideally include clinical and ethical factors. Little is known about the extent of ethical considerations and their influence on prehospital resuscitation. We aimed to determine the transparency in medical records regarding decision-making in prehospital resuscitation with a specific focus on ethically relevant information and consideration in resuscitation providers’ documentation.MethodsThis was a Danish nationwide retrospective observational study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests from 2016 through 2018. After an initial screening using broadly defined inclusion criteria, two experienced (...) philosophers performed a qualitative content analysis of the included medical records according to a preliminary codebook. We identified ethically relevant content in free-text fields and categorised the information according to Beauchamp and Childress’ four basic bioethical principles: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. ResultsOf 16,495 medical records, we identified 759 (4.6%) with potentially relevant information; 710 records (4.3%) contained ethically relevant information, whereas 49 did not. In general, the documentation was vague and unclear. We identified four kinds of ethically relevant information: patients’ wishes and perspectives on life; relatives’ wishes and perspectives on patients’ life; healthcare professionals’ opinions and perspectives on resuscitation; and do-not-resuscitate orders. We identified some “best practice” examples that included all perspectives of decision-making. ConclusionsThere is sparse and unclear evidence on ethically relevant information in the medical records documenting resuscitation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. However, the “best practice” examples show that providing sufficient documentation of decision-making is, in fact, feasible. To ensure transparency surrounding prehospital decisions in cardiac arrests, we believe that it is necessary to ensure more systematic documentation of decision-making in prehospital resuscitation. (shrink)

Dieser Band dokumentiert alle bis heute bekannt gewordenen und nachgewiesenen Spinoza-Briefe. Die dritte Auflage bietet darüber hinaus das zur Zeit wohl umfassendste Verzeichnis der Literatur zum Briefwechsel.

We would like to respond to the comment we received from our colleagues on our case report about organ donation after euthanasia starting at home. We reply to their statements on medical and legal aspects, and provide more information on our view of informed consent.

Objective: Atypical patterns of language lateralization due to early reorganizational processes constitute a challenge in the pre-surgical evaluation of patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. There is no consensus on an optimal analysis method used for the identification of language dominance in MEG. This study examines the concordance between MEG source localization of beta power desynchronization and fMRI with regard to lateralization and localization of expressive and receptive language areas using a visual verb generation task.Methods: Twenty-five patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy, including six (...) patients with atypical language lateralization, and ten right-handed controls obtained MEG and fMRI language assessment. Fourteen patients additionally underwent the Wada test. We analyzed MEG beta power desynchronization in sensor (controls) and source space (patients and controls). Beta power decrease between 13 and 35 Hz was localized applying Dynamic Imaging of Coherent Sources Beamformer technique. Statistical inferences were grounded on cluster-based permutation testing for single subjects.Results: Event-related desynchronization of beta power in MEG was seen within the language-dominant frontal and temporal lobe and within the premotor cortex. Our analysis pipeline consistently yielded left language dominance with high laterality indices in controls. Language lateralization in MEG and Wada test agreed in all 14 patients for inferior frontal, temporal and pari... (shrink)

Many competent speakers initially judge that (i) is true and (ii) isfalse, though they know that (iii) is true. (i) Superman leaps more tallbuildings than Clark Kent. (ii) Superman leaps more tall buildings thanSuperman. (iii) Superman is identical with Clark Kent. Semanticexplanations of these intuitions say that (i) and (ii) really can differin truth-value. Pragmatic explanations deny this, and say that theintuitions are due to misleading implicatures. This paper argues thatboth explanations are incorrect. (i) and (ii) cannot differ intruth-value, yet (...) the intuitions are not due to implicatures, but ratherto mistakes in evaluating (i) and (ii). (shrink)

Psychiatric disorders share an excess of seasonal birth in winter and spring, suggesting an increase of neurodevelopmental risks. Evidence suggests season of birth can serve as a proxy of harmful environmental factors. Given that prenatal exposure of these factors may trigger pathologic processes in the neurodevelopment, they may consequently lead to brain volume alterations. Here we tested the effects of season of birth on gray matter volume in a transdiagnostic sample of patients with schizophrenia and depression compared to healthy controls. (...) We found a significant effect of season of birth on gray matter volume with reduced right hippocampal volume in summer-born compared to winter-born patients with depression. In addition, the volume of the right hippocampus was reduced independent from season of birth in schizophrenia. Our results support the potential impact of season of birth on hippocampal volume in depression. (shrink)

Historian Dmitry Peretolchin quotes several of my publications on the creation and application of political technologies in the United States in his program about Saul Alinsky on the House of Cards podcast on the Den TV channel. An advertisement for the conference "Russian World Against the Global Reich" was inserted into this broadcast. This article: analyzes the statements of the podcast about Alinsky and his main ideas; showes that the main source of Alinsky's political technologies is the experience of professional (...) revolutionaries in Russia and that they in no way confirm the idea of a global Reich; describes the political technology that Alexander Prokhanov and his media complex uses to implement the Fifth Empire project, which is currently merged with the ideology of the Russian World; analyzes the ideological orientation of the House of Cards podcast and the Picture of the World club on the Den channel. The articles illustrates how the authors of the podcast are working to substantiate the propaganda direction of the media complex. The article also aims to show that political technologies, in particular, technologies of co-organization continue to develop and be implemented in countries with different political systems and can be applied to various types of social movements. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the current hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI), governments, research institutions, and the industry invited ethical, legal, and social sciences (ELS) scholars to research AI’s societal challenges from various disciplinary viewpoints and perspectives. This approach builds upon the tradition of supporting research on the societal aspects of emerging sciences and technologies, which started with the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) Program in the Human Genome Project (HGP) in the early 1990s. However, although a diverse ELS research (...) community has formed since then, AI’s societal challenges came to be mostly understood under the narrow framing of ethics and disconnected from the insights and experiences of past ELS research. In this article, we make up for this gap and connect insights from past ELS researchers with current approaches to research the societal challenges of AI. We analyse and summarize the history of “ELS programs” (programs that emerged since the HGP to support ELS research in a given domain) as three distinct eras: a genomics era, a nano era, and an RRI era. Each of these eras comprises several achievements and challenges relevant to ELS programs in AI research, such as the setup of independent funding bodies, the engagement of the wider public in research practice, and the increasing importance of private actors. Based on these insights, we argue that AI research currently falls back on self-regulatory, less participatory, and industry-led approaches that trouble ELS programs’ past achievements and hinder opportunities to overcome the still-existing challenges. (shrink)

Publisher: Philosophical Library Publication date: 1953 Subjects: Medicine Medical / Diseases Medical / General Medical / Diseases Medical / Microbiology Science / Life Sciences / Biology / Microbiology Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the (...) book there. (shrink)

Este trabajo explora el contexto de una historia enmarcada del hermetismo en el tratado alquímico seudoepigráfico de El libro del árbol de ziziphus de los más lejanos confines (Kitāb Sidrat al-muntahā). El tratado, que se atribuye a una de las figuras más prominentes de las ciencias árabes ocultas, Abū Bakr b. Waḥšīya (primera mitad del siglo IV/X), está escrito en forma de diálogo entre el protagonista, Ibn Waḥšīya y un alquimista del Occidente islámico, al-Magribī al-Qamarī. La última sección del diálogo (...) introductorio entre estos dos personajes se compone de una historia marco sobre los orígenes de la alquimia y la leyenda de su descubrimiento (Fundlegende) que presenta un texto con una cosmogonía y una representación alegórica del proceso de transmutación. Tanto en la historia enmarcada como en la leyenda del descubrimiento abundan tópicos y motivos herméticos conocidos en otros tratados alquímicos griegos y árabes. La exposición de las diferentes teorías prevalecientes sobre los orígenes de la alquimia refleja, además, fenómenos históricos de la civilización islámica pre-moderna, tales como el movimiento de traducción greco-árabe y la controversia de la šuʿūbīya. Como es propio en la tradición literaria de la Hermetica árabe, Egipto aparece en este tratado como la cuna de la alquimia, pero el autor de este artículo sostiene que la fascinación por Egipto y su cultura material no son una mera convención literaria. En este sentido, el casi desconocido género de libros árabes sobre el tesoro escondido podría arrojar nueva luz sobre narrativas herméticas comunes y su circulación en el Islam medieval. (shrink)