BackgroundThe global COVID-19 pandemic confronts people with their fragility, vulnerability, and mortality. To date, scales to measure death awareness mainly focus on the anxiety-provoking aspect of mortality cues. This study aims to cross-culturally adapt and validate the Death Reflection Scale, a scale for measuring positive, growth-oriented cognitions of life reflection and prosocial behavior following confrontation with the finiteness of life.Materials and MethodsThe Death Reflection Scale was translated and adapted in a multi-step process to the German language. In this anonymous, cross-sectional, (...) online survey at a large university in Germany, students, healthcare professionals and other staff completed the DRS alongside comparison measures. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess configural, metric, and scalar measurement equivalence across four age and occupational groups. Convergent/divergent validity testing was done via Spearman correlations.Results1,703 participants provided data for a response rate of ∼5%. 24% of respondents were HCP, 22% students. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a higher-order structure of the DRS with a strong general factor and the originally proposed five subscales. Multi-group CFA showed partial metric equivalence across age groups and partial scalar invariance across occupational groups. Non-invariant scales were the Motivation to live, Putting life into perspective, and Legacy subscales. In the convergent validity testing, two hypotheses were fully confirmed, two partially and four were not confirmed. Experiencing a propensity for increased contemplation and life reflection during the pandemic together with spirituality showed correlations of moderate to large size to the DRS and its subscales.ConclusionFurther conceptual work for death awareness to explore the construct’s stability in different population groups needs to be undertaken. However, the DRS can be mostly used to assess positive and growth-oriented aspects of death awareness and death reflection which may be an important avenue when developing counseling and support interventions for groups experiencing a high burden during the pandemic. (shrink)

"Eva Besnyö was not only an exceptionally gifted photographer but was also politically active during her lifetime: she acquired her photographic skills in the studio of József Pécsi in Budapest, became aware of the aesthetics of modern photography in the early 1930s in Berlin and became a respected master photographer in Amsterdam. Eva Besnyö's life and work were not only influenced by Modernism the arts but also by the dramatic political movements and events of 20th century Europe such as Fascism, (...) National Socialism, immigration and persecution. By the time the Hungarian-Jewish photographer arrived Berlin in 1930, she had made the two most momentous decisions of life: to make photography her profession and to leave Fascist Hungary forever. Modern art was a passion for her. She produced true masterpieces with her Rolleiflex during her expeditions around Berlin. When Besnyö immigrated to Amsterdam in 1932, she was one of the outstanding representatives of "New Photography" together with László Moholy-Nagy and Erwin Blumenfeld: her portraits, architectural views and landscapes have retained their intensity to this day. She worked as a photographer until the 1980s, and among her other roles as a chronicler of the "Dolle Mina" feminist movement. In the 1990s she won prestigious awards Germany and The Netherlands for her outstanding body of work."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

In this commentary, we assess the propositional approach to associative learning not only in terms of veridicality and falsifiability, but also in heuristic value. We remark that it has furthered our knowledge and understanding of human, as well as animal, associative learning. At the same time, we maintain that models developed from the association formation tradition continue to bear great heuristic value as well.

In this paper we present a new proposal for defining actual causation, i.e., the problem of deciding if one event caused another. We do so within the popular counterfactual tradition initiated by Lewis, which is characterised by attributing a fundamental role to counterfactual dependence. Unlike the currently prominent definitions, our approach proceeds from the ground up: we start from basic principles, and construct a definition of causation that satisfies them. We define the concepts of counterfactual dependence and production, and put (...) forward principles such that dependence is an unnecessary but sufficient condition for causation, whereas production is an insufficient but necessary condition. The resulting definition of causation is a suitable compromise between dependence and production. Every principle is introduced by means of a paradigmatic example of causation. We illustrate some of the benefits of our approach with two examples that have spelled trouble for other accounts. We make all of this formally precise using structural equations, which we extend with a timing over all events. (shrink)

Beckers & Vennekens recently proposed a definition of actual causation that is based on certain plausible principles, thereby allowing the debate on causation to shift away from its heavy focus on examples towards a more systematic analysis. This paper contributes to that analysis in two ways. First, I show that their definition is in fact a formalization of Wright’s famous NESS definition of causation combined with a counterfactual difference-making condition. This means that their definition integrates two highly influential approaches (...) to causation that are claimed to stand in opposition to each other. Second, I modify their definition to offer a substantial improvement: I weaken their difference-making condition in such a way that it avoids their problematic analysis of cases of preemption. The resulting Counterfactual NESS definition of causation forms a natural compromise between counterfactual approaches and the NESS approach. (shrink)

Andreas & Günther have recently proposed a difference-making definition of actual causation. In this paper I show that there exist conclusive counterexamples to their definition, by which I mean examples that are unacceptable to everyone, including AG. Concretely, I show that their definition allows c to cause e even when c is not a causal ancestor of e. I then proceed to identify their non-standard definition of causal models as the source of the problem, and argue that there is no (...) viable strategy open to AG to fixing it. I conclude that their definition of causation is damaged beyond repair. (shrink)

Common methods for analysing response time (RT) tasks, frequently used across different disciplines of psychology, suffer from a number of limitations such as the failure to directly measure the underlying latent processes of interest and the inability to take into account the uncertainty associated with each individual's point estimate of performance. Here, we discuss a Bayesian hierarchical diffusion model and apply it to RT data. This model allows researchers to decompose performance into meaningful psychological processes and to account optimally for (...) individual differences and commonalities, even with relatively sparse data. We highlight the advantages of the Bayesian hierarchical diffusion model decomposition by applying it to performance on Approach–Avoidance Tasks, widely used in the emotion and psychopathology literature. Model fits for two experimental data-sets demonstrate that the model performs well. The Bayesian hierarchical diffusion model overcomes important limitations of current analysis procedures and provides deeper insight in latent psychological processes of interest. (shrink)

The ethical concerns regarding the successful development of an Artificial Intelligence have received a lot of attention lately. The idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of an AI causing extreme human suffering is important enough to warrant serious consideration. Others look at this problem from the opposite perspective, namely that of the AI itself. Here the idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that (...) it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of humanity causing extreme suffering to an AI is important enough to warrant serious consideration. This paper starts from the observation that both concerns rely on problematic philosophical assumptions. Rather than tackling these assumptions directly, it proceeds to present an argument that if one takes these assumptions seriously, then one has a moral obligation to advocate for a ban on the development of a conscious AI. (shrink)

The foundations of analysis offered by Cauchy and Riemann were not immediately welcomed by the mathematical community. Before 1870 the foundations of mathematics were considered more or less a national affair. In this paper, Dutch ideas of rigour in analysis between 1840 and 1870 will be discussed. These ideas show that Dutch mathematicians were aware of developments abroad but preferred the concept of infinitesimals as a foundation of mathematics.

Unlike nonhuman primates, thousands of bird species have articulatory capabilities that equal or surpass those of humans, and they develop their vocalizations through vocal imitation in a way that is very similar to how human infants learn to speak. An understanding of how speech mechanisms have evolved is therefore unlikely to yield key insights into how the human brain is special.

The aim of this paper is to offer the first systematic exploration and definition of equivalent causal models in the context where both models are not made up of the same variables. The idea is that two models are equivalent when they agree on all "essential" causal information that can be expressed using their common variables. I do so by focussing on the two main features of causal models, namely their structural relations and their functional relations. In particular, I define (...) several relations of causal ancestry and several relations of causal sufficiency, and require that the most general of these relations are preserved across equivalent models. (shrink)

Necessary and sufficient conditions ofinvariance on four-vectors under the Poincaré group E(3, 1) and its subgroups are exploited. As an example the Euclidean group in three dimensions and its subgroups are explicitly considered. Their invariant “potentials” are systematically derived.

Le rôle des mathématiques dans la formation des officiers de l’armée néerlandaise, a profondément changé pendant le premier xixe siècle avec la fondation de l’Académie militaire en 1828. Les mathématiques étaient au centre de la formation. L’Académie était un des lieux les plus importants de diffusion des connaissances mathématiques aux Pays-Bas pendant la première moitié du xixe siècle, mais elle a perdu ce rôle pendant les années 1860-1870. Dans cet article, je me propose d’examiner à la fois les programmes de (...) l’Académie et le rôle central des enseignants de mathématiques de l’Académie dans la Société Mathématique néerlandaise et dans l’Académie royale des Sciences. Par ailleurs, l’évolution des mathématiques, visible dans ces deux institutions dans les années 1850, n’a pas entraîné une adaptation des programmes au sein de l’Académie. Ainsi, à partir de 1870, l’Académie a presque complètement disparu de la vie mathématique des Pays-Bas. The role of mathematics in the education of Dutch army officers changed dramatically in the early 19th century. This shift became visible with the founding of the Dutch Royal Military Academy in 1828, which shows the role of mathematics in military education shifting toward a purely pedagogical function. This change in approach, which primarily occurred in 1860’s, affected the standing and perception of an academy once highly respected in the field of mathematics. In the present work, I examine both the curricula at the Academy and the crucial role of the Academy’s mathematics instructors in the Dutch Mathematical Society and the Royal Academy of Sciences. Importantly, these two institutions managed to successfully adapt to the changing character of mathematical sciences that occurred around 185 Mathematicians at the Royal Military Academy, however, appeared to cling to an outdated view of mathematics. Failing to update their approach ultimately caused the Academy to lose its once prominent place in the Dutch mathematical community. (shrink)

Vox pops are a frequent and growing practice in the news. However, there seems to be a general tendency in journalistic practice to be quite critical about these interviews with the ordinary man on the street. Yet, hardly any research exists about journalists’ evaluation of vox pops or that has gone further than speculating about why they are used. This study tackles these research gaps using a survey involving 253 Belgian journalists. We conclude that vox pops are used mostly by (...) audiovisual journalists, and that journalists seem to use them mostly because vox pops increase audience involvement with a news item. Generally, the journalists are quite negative about vox pops, but journalists who perceive them as involving and good public opinion tools are more positive. Against our expectations, the experience of journalists does not influence the evaluation nor the use of vox pops. (shrink)

In the last decade, reading research has seen a paradigmatic shift. A new wave of computational models of orthographic processing that offer various forms of noisy position or context-sensitive coding have revolutionized the field of visual word recognition. The influx of such models stems mainly from consistent findings, coming mostly from European languages, regarding an apparent insensitivity of skilled readers to letter order. Underlying the current revolution is the theoretical assumption that the insensitivity of readers to letter order reflects the (...) special way in which the human brain encodes the position of letters in printed words. The present article discusses the theoretical shortcomings and misconceptions of this approach to visual word recognition. A systematic review of data obtained from a variety of languages demonstrates that letter-order insensitivity is neither a general property of the cognitive system nor a property of the brain in encoding letters. Rather, it is a variant and idiosyncratic characteristic of some languages, mostly European, reflecting a strategy of optimizing encoding resources, given the specific structure of words. Since the main goal of reading research is to develop theories that describe the fundamental and invariant phenomena of reading across orthographies, an alternative approach to model visual word recognition is offered. The dimensions of a possible universal model of reading, which outlines the common cognitive operations involved in orthographic processing in all writing systems, are discussed. (shrink)

If states are permitted to create and maintain a military force, by what means are they permitted to do so? This paper argues that a theory of just recruitment should incorporate a concern for moral risk. Since the military is a morally risky profession for its members, recruitment policies should be evaluated in terms of how they distribute moral risk within a community. We show how common military recruitment practices exacerbate and concentrate moral risk exposure, using the UK as a (...) case study. We argue that the British state wrongs its citizens by subjecting them to excessively morally risky recruitment practices. Since, we argue, this risk exposure cannot be justified by appealing to the benefits of a military career for recruits, our argument calls for reform of existing practices. Our method of evaluation is generalizable and thus can be used to assess other states’ practices. (shrink)

This study draws on achievement goal theory and self-determination theory to examine the associations among two motivational climates (i.e. mastery and performance) and two indicators of energy at work (i.e. vigour and emotional exhaustion), as well as the mediating role of basic psychological need satisfaction (i.e. autonomy, relatedness, and competence). A two-wave longitudinal study was conducted collecting data from 1081 engineers and technologists. We applied previously validated instruments to assess the variables of interest. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted to (...) test the hypotheses. Our findings show that mastery climate is positively and significantly related to each of the three basic needs, while a performance climate is negatively and significantly related to each of the three basic needs. Further, the results indicate that the basic needs are significantly associated with both measures of energy, negatively with emotional exhaustion and positively with vigour. This pattern of results suggests that basic psychological need satisfaction mediates the relationship between motivational climates and energy at work. (shrink)

We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with heritage-Greek, (...) -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike. (shrink)

Is the being in an irreversible persistent vegetative state as the result of a horrible accident numerically identical to the human person, Lindsay, who existed before the accident? Many proponents of Thomistic metaphysics have argued that Aquinas’s answer to this question must be “yes.” In particular, it seems that Aquinas’s commitment to both Aristotelian hylomorphism and the unity of substantial form (viz., that each body/soul composite possesses one and only one substantial form) entails the position that the human person remains (...) alive as long as biological life persists. I argue, however, that although Aquinas does possess a deeply integrated account of human nature and is indeed committed to the claim that the person, Lindsay, exists as long as Lindsay’s body lives, there is good reason to suppose that he also holds that the body in the PVS is not Lindsay’s body in anything more than an equivocal sense. (shrink)

This volume brings together twenty original essays on the changes and continuities in gender relations and intersecting politics of sexuality, race, class and location. The book is located in debates about contemporary culture at a moment of rapid technological change, global interconnectedness and the growing cultural dominance of neoliberalism and postfeminism. The collection traverses disciplines, spaces and approaches. It is marked by an extraordinarily wide focus, ranging from analyses of celebrity magazines and makeover shows to examinations of the experiences of (...) young female migrants, 'mail order brides' and young women who repudiate feminism. The contributions are united by their attempts to think through the ways in which experiences and representations of femininity are changing in the twenty-first century. Are we seeing new femininities? Are neoliberalism and postfeminism constructing new identities and subjectivities? What kinds of analytic tools and cultural politics are needed to critically engage with the current moment? This book will be of interest to everyone studying gender, media or cultural studies. (shrink)

Ethical perspectives on regional, rural, and remote healthcare often, understandably and importantly, focus on inequities in access to services. In this commentary, we take the opportunity to examine the implications of normalizing metrocentric views, values, knowledge, and orientations, evidenced by the recent (2022) New South Wales inquiry into health outcomes and access to hospital and health services in regional, rural and remote New South Wales, for contemporary rural governance and justice debates. To do this, we draw on the feminist inspired (...) approach to rural health ethics involving analysis of power relationships developed by Simpson and McDonald and related ideas from critical health sociology. In presenting this analysis, we extend contemporary thought about spatial health inequities and structural violence. (shrink)

This daily diary study examined the within-person coupling between four emotion regulation strategies and both subjective well-being and perceived stress in daily life of geriatric nurses. Participants (N = 89) described how they regulated their emotions in terms of cognitive reappraisal and suppression. They also indicated their subjective well-being and level of perceived stress each day over three weeks. At the within-person level, cognitive reappraisal intended to increase positive emotions was positively associated with higher subjective well-being and negatively associated with (...) perceived stress. Suppression of the expression of positive emotions was negatively associated with subjective well-being and positively associated with perceived stress. However, cognitive reappraisal intended to down-regulate negative emotions and suppression as a strategy to inhibit the expression of negative emotions were not associated with daily well-being or perceived stress. Off-days were rated as days with higher subjective well-being and lower perceived stress in contrast to working days. At the between-person level, individuals who reported more daily negative affect reported increased suppression of positive emotions, corroborating the within-person findings. Moreover, findings indicated that nurses with more years of experience in the job reported higher subjective well-being and less perceived stress. These results provide insights into important daily emotional processes of geriatric nurses, both at workdays and in their leisure time. (shrink)

Studies of AGL have frequently used training and test stimuli that might provide multiple cues for learning, raising the question what subjects have actually learned. Using a selected subset of studies on humans and non‐human animals, Trotter et al. demonstrate how a meta‐analysis can be used to identify relevant experimental variables, providing a first step in asssessing the relative contribution of design features of grammars as well as of species‐specific effects on AGL.

Combining participant observation with in-depth interviewing, this small-scale, focused study examines the philosophies and practices promoted by La Leche League International, the foremost international breast-feeding support organization. In particular, the study examines four linked conceptual paradoxes related to reconceptualizing women's bodies, validating motherhood, staying home, and living with baby, each representing an internal contradiction of liberation and constraint for League members. While LLLI's prescriptions for “good mothering through breast-feeding” may encourage women to reclaim their bodies, boost their sense of competence (...) as mothers, and resist conventional authorities, at the the same time, the League's conception of what it means to be a good mother pushes women into socially prescribed and limiting roles rooted in biological determinism. (shrink)

Purpose: This study explores social networkers' interest in and attitudes toward personal genome testing (PGT), focusing on expectations related to the clinical integration of PGT results. Methods: An online survey of 1,087 social networking users was conducted to assess 1) use and interest in PGT; 2) attitudes toward PGT companies and test results; and 3) expectations for the clinical integration of PGT. Descriptive statistics were calculated to summarize respondents' characteristics and responses. Results: Six percent of respondents have used PGT, 64% (...) would consider using PGT, and 30% would not use PGT. Of those who would consider using PGT, 74% report they would use it to gain knowledge about disease in their family. 34% of all respondents consider the information obtained from PGT to be a medical diagnosis. 78% of those who would consider PGT would ask their physician for help interpreting test results, and 61% of all respondents believe physicians have a professional obligation to help individuals interpret PGT results. Conclusion: Respondents express interest in using PGT services, primarily for purposes related to their medical care and expect physicians to help interpret PGT results. Physicians should therefore be prepared for patient demands for information and counsel on the basis of PGT results. (shrink)

Reading Religious Ritual with Ricoeur extends Ricœur’s philosophical treatment of religion beyond an analysis of mythic symbols and the biblical texts to religious ritual practices. It also applies his broader hermeneutic lens to liturgical actions and practices in regard to religious truth, language, imagination, and identity.

Galen’s commentary on the Hippocratic Aphorisms is transmitted by a large amount of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. Some of them remarkably display a “mixed” text, in which Galen’s commentary is combined with passages from the later commentator Theophilus. Most important among these is the Marc. gr. V 9 (coll. 1017), which inserts two large passages by Theophilus into the Galenic commentary (i. e. VI 1-38; VII 12-73). Both of them were copied by the late physician and student of John Argyropoulos (...) in Constantinople, Demetrios Angelos, who was not primarly involved in the production, but purchased the manuscript after completion and restored its text using another commentary on the Aphorisms, which he had at his disposal. This paper aims at investigating codicological, paleographical and philological aspects of the Marc. gr. V 9, in order to retrace the origin of its mixed commentary and place it in its historical-cultural context. (shrink)

Definition of the problemFrom an ethical point of view we analyse the ruling of the German Federal Joint Committee (Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss, G‑BA) of September 2019 to revise the guidelines about the coverage of noninvasive prenatal tests (NIPT) by mandatory health insurance, in order to include them under specified conditions. The decision contains four essential elements: a definition of the aim of NIPT testing (to avoid invasive testing), a criterion of access (test must be “necessary” for the pregnant woman to tackle (...) her individual situation), statements about the process of decision-making (after counselling by a physician and case by case) and a normative contextualization (termination of pregnancy under § 218 a German penal law) which is to be found in its explanations. There are tensions in the proposed model that oscillate about two axes: (1) The suffering that results from a possible birth of a child with trisomy or from not knowing about the genetic condition of the fetus can ultimately only be evaluated subjectively, from the perspective of the pregnant woman. (2) The meaning of an individual decision in the case-by-case model remains unclear because when judging about individual cases general points of view also need to be considered. However, we argue that the model of the G‑BA could be a sociopolitically and ultimately also ethically defensible pragmatic solution, exactly because of its paradoxes and its inherent flexibility. (shrink)

The article purports to examine the risk to cultural identity amongst an Indian community in South Africa using a single case study methodology. A case study approach was followed, using the qualitative research methodology, whereby not only the how, but also adding focus on the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experiences and motivations that people have underlie their behaviour. The year 1960 marked the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Indians to the Colony of Natal, hence the study considers the period (...) 1895 to 1960. Identifying with a particular culture allows members of that community to experience feelings of belonging and security. Moving across continents, Indian indentured sugar plantation labourers came to the Colony of Natal from 1860 until 1911 bringing with them their cultural identity. The risk to cultural identity is a significant contributor to an individual’s well-being. Cultural identity may be viewed as a sense of belonging based on one’s ancestry, rituals, religion, traditions, values and even language. When they were transported during the concurrent time of colonisation and indenture, they became displaced and thus an emotional threat to their well-being, belonging and security was created and simultaneously experienced. This threat compromised their cultural identity. This risk to cultural identity is investigated in the narrative of an Indian female national matriarch, Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh who arrived in the Colony in 1895 and passed away in 1959. A risk to cultural identity existed, but the Indian community in South Africa did not experience deculturalisation. They were able to practise their ancestral culture without losing their identity. This is one of the findings and it concludes the abstract.Contribution: The study of identity, identity diffusion, identity loss is a very important aspect to study, especially for displaced communities who suffer not only alienation from their mother country, but also losing contact and cultures as a result of displacement. This article provides insight on the risk to cultural identity in Natal between 1895 and 1960. In terms of the findings, cultural identity is an important contributor to well-being. Identifying with a particular culture gave the matriarch a feeling of belonging and security. It also provides access to social and other networks which provide support and shared strength, values and aspirations. Although a product of oral history, for this research, the article could not be supported by other historical materials in an attempt at balancing the views as scholars have not explored the widowed Indian nationals who have remained in the Colony after indenture. This article should not be viewed simplistically as a retelling of Mrs Singh’s life story, but rather a narrative based on reflective memories that pieced together her departure from India under the political system of indenture, living and surviving as a widow under harsh laws and having multiple identities. The narrative oral history approach combined with a qualitative research methodology does not focus on analysis and interpretation but rather brings to the fore, the opportunity for further exploratory studies where the question ‘why’ will be answered. (shrink)

Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist’s edition of the Anonymus Aurelianensis III – the earliest known Latin commentary on Aristotle’s Prior analytics –, offers the critical text and a systematic comparison with the ancient Greek commentary tradition.

ZusammenfassungDurch Migrationsprozesse und zunehmenden Pluralismus ist in Deutschland das Thema „kulturelle Diversität“ in der Medizin aktueller denn je. In der medizinischen Fachliteratur und im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs wird vermehrt von interkulturellen Konflikten im Kontakt zwischen Arzt und Patient berichtet, was die Frage nach der Rolle von Interkultureller Kompetenz für die klinische Praxis aufwirft. Zunächst widmet sich der Beitrag kritisch den verschiedenen Auffassungen des Begriffs „Kultur“ im medizinischen Kontext, um anschließend eine Methode der interkulturellen Philosophie als eine Möglichkeit für eine kultursensitive Ethik (...) zu skizzieren. Anschließend wird aufgezeigt, welche Schwierigkeiten mit dem Begriff der Interkulturellen Kompetenz verbunden sind und weshalb die Autoren diesen trotzdem als unerlässlich für die Wahrnehmung potentieller Konfliktfelder als auch für den Umgang mit diesen erachten. Schließlich werden derzeitige Entwicklungen in der medizinischen Ausbildung sowie konkrete Beispiele für eine kultursensible Ethikberatung illustriert. Es zeigt sich, dass international zahlreiche Ausgestaltungen Interkultureller Kompetenz in Form von Leitfäden und konkreten Schulungsmodulen existieren, aber auch, dass es in Deutschland an konkreten Umsetzungen in der Breite mangelt und die Zusammenarbeit wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen sowie der betroffenen Institutionen derzeit noch ausbaufähig ist. (shrink)

This study examined whether worktime control buffered the impact of worktime demands on work-family interference (WFI), using data from 2,377 workers from various sectors of industry in The Netherlands. We distinguished among three types of worktime demands: time spent on work according to one's contract (contractual hours), the number of hours spent on overtime work (overtime hours), and the number of hours spent on commuting (commuting hours). Regarding worktime control, a distinction was made between having control over days off and (...) vacations (leave control) and having control over starting and finishing times (flextime). These three worktime demands were expected to have separate as well as joint effects on WFI, whereas worktime control should buffer these adverse effects of worktime demands on WFI. Stepwise regression analyses showed that working high numbers of contractual and overtime hours was indeed associated with high WFI. Further, worktime control indeed made a difference in terms of WFI: whereas leave control contributed directly to lower WFI, flextime buffered the adverse effects of long contractual workhours. Our results suggest that very long working days should be prevented, and that worktime control may be a powerful tool to help workers maintaining a good work-family balance. (shrink)