The psychological state and neural correlates of 19 women undergoing normal childbirth were studied. Frequent occurence of nonordinary psychological phenomena was traced back in 6 subjects, occurring in active and passive alertness, as well as hypnagogic/hypnopompic periods, and in dreaming, during the late period of pregnancy, giving birth, and the period of 2-4 days post partull. The brain activity of the aforementioned subgroup during this time was characterized primarily by general activation of the right hemisphere in the bandpass of infraslow (...) electrical processes and by more localized EEG activation. The implications of the data for research on gender-specific altered states of consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

Résumé Draupadi, protagoniste de la nouvelle de Mahasweta Devi publiée ici dans sa version anglaise, est une femme assujettie, mais capable de se rebeller, de résister jusqu’à la mort. Elle ne cherche pas la compassion. Son corps nu et mourant devant l’ennemi, elle résiste, son dernier acte est un acte de résistance dans lequel elle défie son ennemi de la (ren)contrer : pour la première fois, son ennemi, Senanayak, a peur, peur de faire face à un « objectif désarmé ». (...) Mais qui est Senanayak? Dans la nouvelle, Senanyak est un officier de l’armée du gouvernement du Bengale qui commande l’arrestation et l’humiliation de Draupadi, la femme qui a pris la tête de la révolte tribale au moment des luttes des Naxalites pour la réforme agraire, dans les années 1960. Mais dans sa préface à la nouvelle, Gayatri Spivak suggère de rapprocher la figure de Senanayak de celle de l’intellectuel du Premier-monde, coproducteur malgré lui des régimes d’exploitation et de domination dans le Tiers-monde. Son point de vue sur l’engagement des féministes occidentales est alors clair : « nous ne serons pas capables de parler aux femmes de là-bas si nous dépendons entièrement des conférences et des anthologies d’informateurs formés à l’Ouest ». (shrink)

Little is known about the consequences of moral distress. The purpose of this study was to identify clinical situations that caused nurses to experience moral distress, to understand the consequences of those situations, and to determine whether nurses would change their practice based on their experiences. The investigation used a descriptive approach. Open-ended surveys were distributed to a convenience sample of 204 critical care nurses employed at a university medical center. The analysis of participants’ responses used an inductive approach and (...) a thematic analysis. Each line of the data was reviewed and coded, and the codes were collapsed into themes. Methodological rigor was established. Forty-nine nurses responded to the survey. The majority of nurses had experienced moral distress, and the majority of situations that caused nurses to experience moral distress were related to end of life. The nurses described negative consequences for themselves, patients, and families. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is devoted to the analysis of the urgent problem of the information society: the overload of a person with information and, as a result, the impossibility of adequate formation and development of the personality; as well as the problem of "digitization" of human existence and the formation of a new reality of dataism. Theoretical basis. A lot of modern scientific works are devoted to the analysis of the information society, its problems and features. The information society is (...) a logical continuation of the scientific and technological revolution, which led to the rapid growth of scientific knowledge and the technology development. In the 20th century, technologies have touched the sphere of knowledge and information, as a result of which the formation and development of the information society, or "knowledge society", takes place. Information becomes the main resource in it, and, one way or another, a person’s life is inextricably connected with the information space. With the information society formation, the problem of information search and processing becomes one of the most urgent. It turns out that despite the abundance and availability of information, it is very difficult to determine its relevance. A lot of effort is spent on developing information retrieval algorithms. Another problem is related to the person’s inability to process large amounts of data. This situation begins to influence not only the education process and professional activity, but also the formation of a person’s personality. A person is "lost" in the information space and gradually loses his/her "I". Algorithms for data analysis come to the rescue, but gradually, instead of giving a person material for thought, they begin to make decisions on their own, and therefore, live life instead of a person. With the advent of Big Data processing algorithms, a new ideological paradigm appears – dataism, which predicts the merger of a person with the general data flow. Originality. The authors make assumptions that the dataistic future is "natural". A lot of works, including in the framework of philosophy, are focused on the problem of "dissolving" a person in the information space and finding ways to overcome it. But, in our opinion, this process is a completely logical continuation of human evolution. Conclusions. Existence of a person as a data flow is not a problem and a threat, but a new dimension of his/her being, and, therefore, requires a careful study and formulation of the main principles of this form of existence. (shrink)

Предпринимается попытка связать результаты самопознания со взглядами человека на историю всего человеческого и мир в целом. Для тех, кто интересуется антропологическими проблемами философии.

The history of the National Health Service research ethics system in the UK and some of the key drivers for its change into the present system are described. It is suggested that the key drivers were the unnecessary delay of research, the complexity of the array of processes and contradictions between research ethics committee (REC) decisions. It is then argued that the primary drivers for this change are and will be replicated by the systems of research ethics review being put (...) in place at UK universities in response to the Economic and Social Research Council research ethics framework. It is argued that this is particularly problematic for multi-centre review and for researchers who switch institutions. Finally, some potential solutions to this problem and their feasibility are discussed. (shrink)

The nature of the Plague described by Thucydides in Book 2, chapter 49, has long been discussed both by medical and by classical scholars. Of numerous suggested identifications none has found general approval; and it is doubtful whether any opinion is more prevalent today than that the problem is insoluble. The classical scholar is handicapped by his ignorance of medical science; his medical colleague has often been led astray by translations deficient in exactitude if not disfigured by error. The difficulties (...) are great enough: but there is one indispensable preliminary task which can be undertaken with some prospect of success. If Thucydides' description is to be compared with modern records, it is necessary first to determine what the Greek words mean; and that can only be done by determining how far the Greek is expressed in the technical terms of contemporary medical science. It is obvious that Thucydides required a special vocabulary for this part of his work; and in fact over forty words in chapters 49 and 50 are unexampled elsewhere in his History, and a dozen more are used in meanings unexampled elsewhere. It is certain that a number of medical treatises were in circulation in Thucydides' lifetime, and that a more or less standard vocabulary had been or was being established. Now if it can be shown that the great majority of the terms employed by Thucydides in ch. 49 recur, apparently with the same meanings, as standard terms in the contemporary doctors, our second task—the comparison of Thucydides' description with modern records—will become a more rational undertaking than it was before, no longer the doubtful speculation which many of the modern doctors suppose it to be, thinking as they do that they have to deal with a layman's generalities expressed in literary language. (shrink)

David Blank presents a new translation into clear modern English of a key treatise by one of the greatest of ancient philosophers, together with the first ever commentary on this work. Sextus Empiricus' Against the Grammarians is a polemical attack on ancient Greek ideas about grammar, and provides one of the best examples of sustained Sceptical reasoning.

The contents of Scala Graduum Caloris are described, supplemented by unpublished material. Both temperature measurements by his linseed oil thermometer and those based upon his law of cooling are shown to be reasonably accurate to 300°C, but above that value they are much too low. The apparent agreement and the deviation are explained by the differences between the assumptions that Newton made in deriving his law of cooling and the conditions in which he used it. Newton's attempts to link terrestrial (...) and celestial science in applications in the Principia are shown to fail from his confounding the concepts of temperature, heat and radiant intensity and his ignorance of most factors affecting the temperature rise of irradiated materials. Other comments on varied aspects of heat, mainly published in the Queries, are set out and analysed. His originality is assessed. (shrink)