Authentic objects are those that have a historical link to a person, event, time, or place of some significance. The current study examines everyday beliefs about authentic objects, with three primary goals: to determine the scope of adults' evaluation of authentic objects, to examine such evaluation in two distinct cultural settings, and to determine whether a person's attachment history predicts evaluation of authentic objects. We found that college students in the UK and the USA consistently evaluate a broad range of (...) authentic items as more valuable than matched control objects, more desirable to keep, and more desirable to touch, though only non-personal authentic items were judged to be more appropriate for display in a museum. These patterns were remarkably similar across the two cultural contexts. Additionally, those who had an attachment object as a child evaluated objects more favorably, and in particular judged authentic objects to be more valuable. Altogether, these results demonstrate broad endorsement of "positive contagion" among college-educated adults. (shrink)

Background: Clinical research nurses experience unique challenges in the context of their role that can lead to conflict and moral distress. Although examined in many areas, moral distress has not been studied in clinical research nurses. Research aim: The aim of this study was to examine moral distress in clinical research nurses and the relationship between moral distress scores and demographic characteristics of clinical research nurses. Research design: This was a descriptive quantitative study to measure moral distress in clinical research (...) nurses using the Measure of Moral Distress – Healthcare Professionals (MMD-HP) administered electronically. Demographic data were also collected. Participants and research context: Registered nurses working in the clinical research nurse role ( N = 322) were recruited through use of social media, emails, digital flyers, and snowball recruitment. Data was analyzed using SPSS. Pearson’s correlation, independent t-test, and one-way ANOVA were performed to explore differences among the demographic variables. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Texas Woman’s University. A consent statement was included, and completion of the questionnaire was construed as consent. Findings/results: Analysis revealed a mean overall moral distress score of 79.58 (SD = 64.27) and median of 67, with a range of 0–354. Moral distress scores were negatively correlated with clinical research nurse age ( r = 0-.156, p < 0.05). Reliability of the MMD-HP was demonstrated with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93. Conclusions: The findings demonstrate that clinical research nurses do experience moral distress and revealed a wide range of scores. Further research is necessary to determine potential patient impact due to moral distress and to develop processes to minimize moral distress in the clinical research setting. This study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the digital recruitment methods proved effective in recruiting a wide range of clinical research nurses, both nationally and internationally. (shrink)

Review of Joel Faflak. Romantic Psychoanalysis: The Burden of the Mystery. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. 333 pages; paper $29.95. ISBN 978-0-7914-7269-0.

When I was a 7 months pregnant medical student, an attending surgeon asked me to which specialty I would be applying. When I replied that I was hoping to match in general surgery, he touched my pregnant abdomen and said, “Not with that you’re not.” I am not alone. Gender bias and discrimination have been shown to negatively impact women surgeons throughout their careers and deter women from even applying in surgical fields.1 Bias against female surgical trainees leads to less (...) operative autonomy and higher dropout rates.2 3 Once faculty, women surgeons are less likely to reach leadership roles.4 Recent studies confirm the author’s assertion that implicit biases create substantial harm. The author has undertaken an important study, conducting in-depth interviews with 46 women surgeons in Australia that identifies four distinct types of bias causing cumulative harm. In all four types of biases: Workplace factors including leave policies and mentorship. Epistemic injustices, or unfair assessments of women surgeons’ credibility by patients and colleagues. Stereotyped expectations. Objectification, implicit biases were seen. While many of the broad factors impeding women in surgery are well known, the author argues that these subtler factors, including both implicit bias and epistemic injustice, have a large impact. The …. (shrink)

Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids killed more than 17,000 Americans in 2017, marking a five-fold increase since 1999. High prescribing rates of opioid analgesics have been a substantial contributor to prescription opioid misuse, dependence, overdose and heroin use. There was recognition approximately ten years ago that opioid prescribing patterns were contributing to this startling increase in negative opioid-related outcomes, and federal actions, including Medicare reimbursement reform and regulatory actions, were initiated to restrict opioid prescribing. The current manuscript is a description (...) of those actions, the effect of those actions on opioid prescribing and related patient outcomes. We also describe our proposal of methods of expanding these efforts as an important piece to further reduce opioid-related misuse, dependence, and overdose death. (shrink)

Emotion regulation (i.e. either up- or down-regulating affective responses to emotional stimuli) has been shown to modulate long-term emotional memory formation. Further, research has demonstrated that the emotional aspects of scenes are preferentially remembered relative to neutral aspects (known as the emotional memory trade-off effect). This trade-off is often enhanced when sleep follows learning, compared to an equivalent period of time spent awake. However, the interactive effects of sleep and emotion regulation on emotional memory are poorly understood. We presented 87 (...) participants with pictures of neutral or negative objects on neutral backgrounds paired with instructions to either increase or decrease their emotional response by altering personal relevance, or to passively view the stimuli. Following a 12 h period of sleep or wakefulness, participants were tested for their memory of objects and backgrounds separately. Although we replicated the emotional memory trade-off effect, no differences in the magnitude of the trade-off effect were observed between regulation conditions. Sleep improved all aspects of memory, but it did not preferentially benefit memory for emotional components of scenes. Irrespective of a period of sleep or wake following encoding, findings suggest emotion regulation during encoding did not influence memory for emotional items at a 12-hour delay. (shrink)

Under what conditions are people responsible for their choices and the outcomes of those choices? How could such conditions be fostered by liberal societies? Should what people are due as a matter of justice depend on what they are responsible for? For example, how far should healthcare provision depend on patients' past choices? What values would be realized and which hampered by making justice sensitive to responsibility? Would it give people what they deserve? Would it advance or hinder equality? The (...) explosion of philosophical interest in such questions has been fuelled by increased focus on individual responsibility in political debates. Political philosophers, especially egalitarians, have responded to such developments by attempting to map out the proper place for responsibility in theories of justice. This book both reflects on these recent developments in normative political theory and moves the debate forwards. (shrink)

Within the deep philosophical reflection of the thirteenth century are commonly heard names such as Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure. However, little is said of those disciples of lesser brilliance who spread the thought of their teachers. Such is the case of Ulrich of Strasbourg. This Dominican friar, a fellow student of Thomas Aquinas in Cologne, studied under Albertus Magnus the De Divinis nominibus of Pseudo-Dionysius. Years later, Ulrich wrote a work called Summa de bono where, in dealing with (...) beauty, a unique Neoplatonic synthesis operates, but from the original perspective of his master. This paper analyses the concept of beauty present in Ulrich of Strasbourg to show how there is as much clear dependence on Albertian Neoplatonism as there is originality in the presentation of the topic. (shrink)

La especulación filosófica suele observar que lo feo y el mal carecen de entidad y que sólo pueden ser considerados como una belleza y bondad menguadas. Sin embargo, esta disminución entitativa no constituye sólo una carencia, sino que además puede ofrecer en sí la posibilidad de una belleza y un bien mayores. En este sentido, pensar la belleza del mal no ha constituido para muchos autores antiguos y medievales una imposibilidad lógica, sino por el contrario una nueva manera de hablar (...) de la Belleza del Universo. Este ha sido el parecer agustino y dionisiano, y es también el que asume la conocida Summa Halensis, aunque desde una óptica cuya originalidad radica en la integración de esas tradiciones. Analizar cómo la Summa Halensis entiende que la belleza es capaz de integrar a lo malo, es la intención del presente trabajo. (shrink)

No hay duda que la cuestión de los trascendentales y su posible distinción atrajo la atención de los pensadores del siglo XIII. Sin embargo, este tema siguió caminos diversos. En tal sentido, la Summa Halensis propone un abordaje que no sólo delimita cada transcendental en sí, sino que además los incorpora al plano soteriológico humano. Así, el presente trabajo se ocupará de ambos aspectos.

Conley and colleagues (2023) conduct a fascinating analysis of how influential organizations in the global governance of human genome editing debate conceptualize and perform public engagement. Whi...

This essay explores the relationship between nature and grace and the theological impact of this relationship on feminist anthropological debates. Engaging this debate through an examination and critique of Serene Jones’ ‘eschatological essentialism’, this essay suggests that Jones mistakenly characterizes constructivism, and thus turns too quickly to an essentialist paradigm without considering its risks. Using Judith Butler and Karl Barth, this essay proposes an account of identity that the author calls a ‘Christological constructivism’. Suggesting that the person and work of (...) Christ instantiates a grace that disrupts nature, Daniels argues for an account of identity as ‘more-than’, suggesting that this anthropology engenders healing for women, and men, within communities religious and otherwise. (shrink)

Ecclesial practices have long served as a resource in and for Christian ethical scholarship; drawing on both the postliberal tradition and critical identity studies, a number of contemporary theologians and ethicists have turned to ecclesial practices as a liberative resource for marginalized identities and oppressed communities. Through a close reading of two contemporary examples of this ethical approach, this essay outlines and critically examines how Christian identity, belonging, and practice function discursively, subsuming difference into religious sameness, in ways that perpetuate (...) the systemic and social injustices they aim to address and combat. Drawing on recent critiques of the theo-ethical turns to practice by Katie Grimes and Lauren Winner, and on feminist philosopher Lynne Huffer’s ethics of narrative performance, this essay proposes a more critical attention to difference for and within ethical turns to Christian practices, and begins to outline potential paths forward. (shrink)

As they age, many people are afraid that they might become a burden to their families and friends. In fact, fear of being a burden is one of the most frequently cited reasons for individuals who request physician aid in dying. Why is this fear so prevalent, and what are the issues underlying this concern? I argue that perceptions of individual autonomy, dependency, and dignity all contribute to the fear of becoming a burden. However, this fear is misplaced; common conceptions (...) of these values should be re-framed and re-examined. Practices that support a more community-centered type of autonomy can be found in dependency and dignity. This paper offers some practical examples of how to address common end-of-life situations that may cause anxiety to patients who are worried about being a burden. These practices include discussing expectations, both for care and how the relationship among the participants might change, and modeling respectful caregiving behaviors. Most difficult of all, though, includes cultural and societal attitude changes so that people recognize the good in receiving care and get used to the idea that they do not need to do anything to be valuable. (shrink)

In his historical perspective on the changes in scientific thought over the last 100 years, Carl N. Degler explores the study of social evolution and the ongoing search for human nature. In Search of Human Nature provides a detailed perspective on the reasons behind the shifting emphasis in social thought from biology, to culture, and again to biology. Degler examines why these changes took place, the evidence and people fostering these changes and why students of human nature decided to (...) accept this momentous change in thought. He suggests varying ideologies as the underlying force behind this shift in the study of social science. From Darwin's theory that human social behaviour has drastically evolved from animals, to the belief that human experience serves as the basic differentiating factor in humans, Degler provides a thorough and captivating examination of the roots of human behaviour. (shrink)

Within the book, he discussed the origin and forms of musical activity as well as various theories on the origin of music. This is the first time that this important work is available in English.

Carl Schmitt and the Problem of the Realization of Law 1. The famous pithy aphorisms that Carl Schmitt used to open his major works - 'the sovereign is he who decides on the exception', 'the concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political', etc. - have become a part of the common discourse of contemporary scholarship on politics and the law. The theoretical framework that animates these slogans, however, has remained somewhat opaque. It has often been (...) argued that there is no such framework, that Schmitt was a situational thinker whose works are best understood as interventions in concrete political debates that do not add up to a grand theoretical vision. (shrink)

Plasminogen activator inhibitor‐1 (PAI‐1) is a physiological inhibitor of urokinase (uPA), a serine protease known to promote cell migration and invasion. Intuitively, increased levels of PAI‐1 should be beneficial in downregulating uPA activity, particularly in cancer. By contrast, in vivo, increased levels of PAI‐1 are associated with a poor prognosis in breast cancer. This phenomenon is termed the “PAI‐1 paradox”. Many factors are responsible for the upregulation of PAI‐1 in the tumor microenvironment. We hypothesize that there is a breast cancer (...) predisposition to a more aggressive stage when PAI‐1 is upregulated as a consequence of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS). MetS exerts a detrimental effect on the breast tumor microenvironment that supports cancer invasion. People with MetS have an increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, peripheral vascular disease and hyperinsulinemia. Recently, MetS has also been identified as a risk factor for breast cancer. We hypothesize the existence of the “PAI‐1 cycle”. Sustained by MetS, adipocytokines alter PAI‐1 expression to promote angiogenesis, tumor‐cell migration and procoagulant microparticle formation from endothelial cells, which generates thrombin and further propagates PAI‐1 synthesis. All of these factors culminate in a chemotherapy‐resistant breast tumor microenvironment. The PAI‐1 cycle may partly explain the PAI‐1 paradox. In this hypothesis paper, we will discuss further how MetS upregulates PAI‐1 and how an increased level of PAI‐1 can be linked to a poor prognosis. BioEssays 29:1029–1038, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Consumer demand for health information and health services has rapidly evolved to capture and even propel the movement to online health information seeking. Seventeen percent of health information internet users will look for information about memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. We examined the content of the 25 most frequently retrieved websites marketing AD dietary supplements. We found that the majority of websites and their products claimed AD-related benefits, including improvement and enhancement of function, treatment for AD, prevention of AD, (...) maintenance of function, delayed progression of AD, and decreased symptoms. Supplements were described as effective, natural, powerful or strong, dependable and pure or of high quality. Peer reviewed references to proper scientific studies were infrequent on websites. Statements highlighting the risks of dietary supplements were as common as statements mitigating or minimizing these risks. Different strategies were used to promote supplements such as popular appeals and testimonials. Further enforcement of relevant policy is needed and preparation of clinicians to deal with requests of patients and caregivers is indicated. (shrink)

The vast network of Drosophila geneticists spawned by Thomas Hunt Morgan's fly room in the early 20th century has justifiably received a significant amount of scholarly attention. However, most accounts of the history of Drosophila genetics focus heavily on the "boss and the boys," rather than the many other laboratory groups which also included large numbers of women. Using demographic information extracted from the Drosophila Information Service directories from 1934 to 1970, we offer a profile of the gendered division of (...) labor within Drosophila genetics in the United States during the middle decades of the 20th century. Our analysis of the gendered division of labor supports a reconsideration of laboratory practices as different forms of work. (shrink)

With In Search of Mechanisms, Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden offer both a descriptive and an instructional account of how biologists discover mechanisms. Drawing on examples from across the life sciences and through the centuries, Craver and Darden compile an impressive toolbox of strategies that biologists have used and will use again to reveal the mechanisms that produce, underlie, or maintain the phenomena characteristic of living things. They discuss the questions that figure in the search for mechanisms, characterizing (...) the experimental, observational, and conceptual considerations used to answer them, all the while providing examples from the history of biology to highlight the kinds of evidence and reasoning strategies employed to assess mechanisms. At a deeper level, Craver and Darden pose a systematic view of what biology is, of how biology makes progress, of how biological discoveries are and might be made, and of why knowledge of biological mechanisms is important for the future of the human species. (shrink)

Obese people consume significantly greater amounts of health resources. This study set out to determine if health resource utilization by obese people decreases after losing weight in a comprehensive medically supervized weight management programme. Four hundred and fifty-six patients enrolled in a single-centred, multifaceted weight loss programme in a universal health care system were studied. Patient information was anonymously linked with administrative databases to measure health resource utilization for 1 year before and after the programme. Mean body mass index (BMI) (...) decreased by more than 15%. The mean annual physician visits (pre = 9.6, post = 9.4) did not change significantly after the programme. However, patients saw a significantly fewer number of different physicians per year following the programme (pre = 4.5, post = 3.9; P < 0.001). Mean annual number of emergency visits (pre = 0.2; post = 0.2) and hospital admissions (pre = 0.05; post = 0.08) did not change. Neither baseline BMI, nor its change during the programme, influenced changes in health resource utilization. Our study suggests that weight loss in a supervized weight management programme does not necessarily decrease short-term health resource utilization. Further study is required to determine if patients who maintain their weight loss experience a decrease in health utilization. (shrink)

Racial preferences are among the most contentious issues in our society, touching on fundamental questions of fairness and the proper role of racial categories in government action. Now two contemporary philosophers, in a lively debate, lay out the arguments on each side. Carl Cohen, a key figure in the University of Michigan Supreme Court cases, argues that racial preferences are morally wrong--forbidden by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and explicitly banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He (...) also contends that such preferences harm society in general, damage the universities that use them, and undermine the minorities they were intended to serve. James P. Sterba counters that, far from being banned by the Constitution and the civil rights acts, affirmative action is actually mandated by law in the pursuit of a society that is racially and sexually just. The same Congress that adopted the 14th Amendment, he notes, passed race-specific laws that extended aid to blacks. Indeed, there are various kinds of affirmative action--compensation for past discrimination, remedial measures aimed at current discrimination, the guarantee of diversity--and Sterba reviews the Supreme Court cases that build a constitutional foundation for each. Affirmative action, he argues, favors qualified minority candidates, not unqualified ones. Both authors offer concluding comment on the University of Michigan cases decided in 2003. Half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, issues pertaining to racial discrimination continue to grip American society. Ideal for courses in political, social, ethical, and legal philosophy, this penetrating debate explores the philosophical and legal arguments on all sides of affirmative action, but also reveals the passions that drive the issue to the forefront of public life. (shrink)

One of the most prominent African American intellectuals of the twentieth century, W. E. B. Du Bois continues to influence the understanding of race relations in the United States. In this deeply personal introduction to the man and his ideas, esteemed scholar Carl A. Grant reflects on how Du Bois's work has illuminated his own life practices as a Black student, teacher, assistant principal, and professor. Sharing the story of a brilliant man's life contribution to teaching about race and (...) the ideologies and methodologies of racism in education and social and political thought, Grant begins his narrative with a broad overview of Du Bois's life and scholarship, before turning more specifically to Du Bois's theory of an educational system. The book concludes with an examination of Du Bois's curriculum model, predicated upon the work of the NAACP, the Harlem Renaissance, and Du Bois's own writings, as well as a discussion of the lasting legacy of Du Bois's educational and social theory in the present day. Ideal for graduate-level courses in curriculum theory, educational foundations, and education history, Du Bois and Education provides an in-depth examination of Du Bois's scholarship, social criticism, and political thought as they relate to his educational theory. (shrink)

The book is an examination of the problem of the self and the role of error in its identity.

I argue that Quine’s naturalization of Lewis’s Kantian pragmatism should be understood in terms of Lewis’s attempt to de-psychologize pragmatist epistemology. Lewis wants epistemology to be a priori in order to be distinct from psychology. Quine’s criticisms of Lewis result in a picture that weakens the distinction between epistemology and psychology. Nevertheless, Quine’s naturalized Kantian pragmatism remains far more Kantian than is widely recognized, due to what Quine retains from Lewis.

This book offers a bold new theoretical understanding of the current ecological crisis via the Frankfurt School. Focusing on key notions of dialectics, natural history, and materialism, a critical theory of nature is outlined in favor of a more traditional Marxist theory of nature, albeit one which still builds on Marxist concepts to confirm humanity's centrality in manufacturing environmental misery. Pre-eminent thinkers including Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch, and Theodor Adorno are highlighted for their potential to diagnose the interpenetration of capitalism (...) and nature in a way that neither absolutizes nor obliterates the boundary between the social and natural. (shrink)

The recent accumulation of environmental crises poses a radical challenge to the conceptual organization of the modern Western political imaginary and the history of political thought by unsettling its ontological understanding of ‘nature’. Specifically, to the extent that they rely on such troublesome understandings, this means the central notions we use to orient ourselves politically, such as labor, can no longer straightforwardly serve this purpose. This paper has argued a paradoxical return to Locke against Locke, and the insight into the (...) entanglements of labor, property, and nature this enables, can provide us with a way of holding together the complexity of this predicament. The first part recovered from the critical scholarship on Locke of the past 50 years the manifold ways in which Lockean ideas about labor are caught up with specific assumptions about colonialism, gendered hierarchies, and nature. The second part argued no singular conceptual reconstruction of labor can do justice to its hybrid character, which the present predicament has revealed. The third part argued, by recovering what the Lockean heritage has obscured, the critical scholarship gives us a way into the knotty problems of the organization of labor and the structure of the political collective. (shrink)

Reinholds Briefe uber die Kantische Philosophie gehoren zu den wirkungsmachtigsten Produkten seines umfangreichen Schaffens. Von den Zeitgenossen teils mit grosser Begeisterung aufgenommen, tragen sie wesentlich zur Etablierung der ersten Kant-Bewegung bei. Durch ihr Bestreben, die Vernunftkritik als Theorie der moralisch-religiosen Erneuerung zu prasentieren, gelten sie als die brisanteste unter den damaligen philosophischen Neuerscheinungen. Sie sind wegweisend fur einen Kantianismus, der sich im Laufe der 1790er Jahre als eine die politischen Umwalzungen in Frankreich flankierende Geistesrevolution begreift. Der neu herausgegebene Band enthalt (...) zwolf Briefe, welche die auffallendsten Resultate von Kants Vernunftkritik ausgehend von den dringendsten wissenschaftlichen und moralischen Bedurfnissen unserer Zeit darstellen. Der Adressat erfahrt, dass mit Kants Erkenntniskritik und moralischer Neubegrundung der speziellen Metaphysik ein taugliches Mittel zur Bewaltigung gegenwartiger Grundlagenkrisen im Gebiete von Moral, Naturrecht, Theologie und Asthetik bereitsteht. Mit Nachdruck wird das problemlosende Potential von Kants moraltheologischen Resultaten hervorgehoben. In Kants Vernunftglauben und Statuierung eines moralischen Erkenntnisgrundes fur das Dasein Gottes und die Unsterblichkeit der Seele sieht Reinhold die besten Voraussetzungen fur die Beendigung einer Reihe aufklarungshemmender Debatten. Im Visier steht allem voran der als Pantheismusstreit beruhmt gewordene Disput zwischen Mendelssohn und Jacobi, in dessen Einflussbereich ein wenig ergiebiger Kampf zwischen Naturalisten und Supernaturalisten dominant werden sollte. Die Darstellung geschichtlicher Kontexte zur Idee der Unsterblichkeit der Seele und die eingehende Auseinandersetzung mit den antiken Seelenlehren kulminieren in der These, durch Kants Kritik und Neufundierung der rationalen Psychologie konne auch der bisherige, Antike und Neuzeit durchziehende Gegensatz zwischen Spiritualisten und Materialisten als aufgelost gelten. Wiederholt wird zu Reflexionen uber die Geschichte der Menschheit angesetzt, die deutlich machen, dass Reinhold das Geschichtsbild der Illuminaten mehr und mehr in Anlehnung an Lessings Idee einer kommenden Menschheitsepoche des dritten Evangeliums sowie an Kants Vision eines weltburgerlichen Endzustandes vortragt. Die Neuedition ist mit einer ausfuhrlichen Einleitung und einem Kommentar versehen. In diesen Teilen wird unter anderem auf die Entstehungsgeschichte der Briefe, auf Reinholds Kant-Rezeption sowie auf sein Kant-Verstandnis, das mit der damals gangigen Ansicht uber den Alleszermalmer kontrastiert, eingegangen. Vermerkt werden zudem inhaltlich relevante Abweichungen von fruheren Fassungen der in den Band von 1790 eingeflossenen Textteile. (shrink)