Rationale, aims and objectives Given the increasing prevalence of cataract and demand for cataract extraction surgery, patients must often wait to undergo this procedure. We validated a previously developed priority scoring system in terms of clinical variables, pre-intervention health status, appropriateness of surgery and gain in visual acuity (VA) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).Methods Explicit prioritization criteria for cataract extraction created by a variation of the Research and Development (RAND) and University of California Los Angeles appropriateness methodology were retrospectively (...) applied to a prospective cohort of 5257 patients on waiting lists to undergo cataract by phacoemulsification at 17 hospitals in Spain. Demographic data, clinical data and data related to surgical technique were collected by trained ophthalmologists. Patients were evaluated by their ophthalmologist before the intervention and 6 weeks afterward. They also completed, by mail, the Visual Function Index (VF-14) before the intervention and 3 months afterward.Results High-priority patients experienced greater improvement in VA and HRQoL than those classified as intermediate or low-priority (P < 0.0001), even after adjusting by VA and the VF-14 score at baseline. The time to intervention was the same for high-priority patients as it was for intermediate and low-priority patients.Conclusions The priority score we developed identified patients most likely to experience the greatest improvements from cataract extraction. Use of this tool could provide a fairer and more rational way to prioritize patients for cataract extraction. (shrink)

Childhood obesity, linked to a sedentary lifestyle and an unbalanced diet, is one of the main problems in today’s Western societies. In this sense, the aim of the study was to analyze students’ perceived satisfaction in physical education classes with learning strategies and engagement in learning and critical thinking as determinants of healthy lifestyle habits. The study involved 2,439 high school students aged 12–18 years (M= 14.66,SD= 1.78). Structural equation modeling was conducted to analyze the predictive relationships between the study (...) variables. The results showed that teaching, teaching mastery, and cognitive development are precursors to deep thinking on the part of students, indicators of the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits. These results reflect the importance of the methodology adopted by the teacher in order to positively influence the students’ habits. (shrink)

El presente artículo busca sacar a la luz los problemas epistemológicos que entraña, desde una perspectiva de género, la selección del canon literario en que se ha tomado por «natural» la exclusión de numerosos textos femeninos. Partiendo de un concepto sociocultural de «práctica» y distinguiendo entre la científica y laliteraria, se analizan dos poemas (uno de María de San José Salazar y otro de Lope de Vega) en cuya semejanza formal parece no haberse reparado. La indiferencia por el texto (...) femenino, frente a la abrumadora tinta vertida sobre el masculino, puede encontrarse en dos grupos de razones: extradiscursivos (práctica científica) e intradiscursivos (práctica literaria). La principal conclusión apunta a que el poema de Lope de Vega es individualista, universalizante y activo, mientras que el de Salazar ofrece una correlación de categorías que permiten entender la riqueza de una propuesta vital inclusiva, en discordancia con lo que se espera de un texto desde la práctica científica históricamente patriarcal. (shrink)

Purpose: Performance measurement systems (PMS) in Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) are more complex than in for-profit organizations. NPOs have an orientation towards social mission and values, and they consider not only organizational efficiency and viability, but also the social impact of the organization. This research provides a comprehensive synthesis of PMSs in NPOs. Design/methodology/approach: Using a literature review, supported by bibliometric and network analyses. A paper set of 240 articles related to this research field is examined. Topics that are the most (...) prevalent in this research area and their interrelationships are identified, presenting an outline of current efforts. Findings: Despite the descriptive analyses for the paper set, a framework is proposed for organizing the design-implementation factors of PMSs in nonprofit organizations, identifying the main requirements for their successful development. Originality/value: Investigation on performance measurement in nonprofit organizations is still in its early stages of development with many opportunities to further develop the field. Conceptual frameworks and models, as well as specific theories, are being generated for this field of research, and the process of adapting models from the general field of performance measurement is taking place. The meta-framework that organizes the main research topics of PMS in nonprofit organizations and the framework that consolidates factors that influence the design-implementation of PMSs in nonprofit organizations developed represents this paper contribution. (shrink)

The study of these fundamental questions, which were in part already addressed in a first monographic section dedicated to Ḥasdai Crescas in the last issue of this journal, is expanded in its perspective and scope by the articles contained in this second dossier.

En décembre 2007, Jacqueline Hamesse a fêté son 65ème anniversaire, puis a accédé à l’éméritat en 2008. Nombreux sont les collègues et amis qui ont souhaité marquer ces dates en rendant hommage à son dévouement aux études médiévales, que ce soit dans l’enseignement et la recherche ou pour la création et le développement d’institutions internationales dans ce domaine, sans oublier les efforts déployés pour l’édition de nombreux ouvrages collectifs et l’organisation de diverses rencontres scientifiques. Nous avons donc décidé de lui (...) dédier ce volume d’études intitulé «Florilegium mediaevale». L’ouvrage comprend des études concernant l’un des quatre thèmes suivants: les textes philosophiques dans leur contexte et leur support matériel, les instruments travail ainsi que le vocabulaire des textes philosophiques. En effet, ce sont des domaines qui ont surtout retenu son attention depuis de nombreuses années et dans lesquels elle a apporté des contributions significatives à la recherche. Contributions de: L-J. Bataillon (†) et O. Weijers (Paris / Den Haag), F. Bertelloni (Buenos Aires), Ch. Burnett (London), J. Casteigt (Toulouse), J. Celeyrette et J-L. Solère (Lille / Boston), W. Courtenay (Wisconsin-Madison), G. Dahan (Paris), G. Dinkova-Bruun (Toronto), K. Emery Jr. (Notre Dame), Ch. Erismann (Cambridge), B. Faes de Mottoni (Milano), G. Federici Vescovini (Firenze), B. Fernández de la Cuesta (Madrid), R. Friedman et Ch. Schabel (Leuven / Nicosia), D. Gottschall (Lecce), S. Harvey (Jerusalem), I. Heullant-Donat (Reims), R. Hissette (Köln), M. Hoenen (Freiburg i.B.), J. Meirinhos (Porto), O. Merisalo (Jyväskylä), M. Mulchahey (Toronto), M. J. Muñoz Jiménez (Madrid), M. C. Pacheco (Porto), G. Piaia (Padova), R. H. Pich (Porto Alegre), J. Puig Montada (Madrid), R. Ramón Guerrero (Madrid), C. Sirat et M. Geoffroy (Paris), G. Spinosa (Roma), I. Ventura (Louvain-la-Neuve). (shrink)

Pedro de Toledo’s translation, Enseñador e Mostrador delos Turbados, is the earliest and most extensive philosophical text to appear in Spanish. The first translation into a vernacular language of RaMBaM’s Guide for the Perplexed is presented in Ms. 10289 of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. The text seems an intellectual battle-field. It presents some interesting and peculiar characteristics at once: a text covered with glosses of the translator himself, and comments, variant translations, philosophical and theological disagreements, the use of rabbinic and (...) scriptural sources, by an anonymous critical commentator. These discrepancies show how the sensitive nature of the Maimonides ideas demands a particular hermeneutics, and offers an interesting view about the Spanish Jewish controversy in the fifteenth century. (shrink)

In the graphical representation of ontologies, it is customary to use graph theory as the representational background. We claim here that the standard graph-based approach has a number of limitations. We focus here on a problem in the graph-based representation of ontologies in complex domains such as biomedical, engineering and manufacturing: lack of mereotopological representation. Based on such limitation, we proposed a diagrammatic way to represent an entity’s structure and various forms of mereotopological relationships between the entities.

Automatic control of physiological variables is one of the most active areas in biomedical engineering. This paper is centered in the prediction of the analgesic variables evolution in patients undergoing surgery. The proposal is based on the use of hybrid intelligent modelling methods. The study considers the Analgesia Nociception Index to assess the pain in the patient and remifentanil as intravenous analgesic. The model proposed is able to make a one-step-ahead prediction of the remifentanil dose corresponding to the current state (...) of the patient. The input information is the previous remifentanil dose, the ANI variable and the electromyogram signal. Modelling techniques used are Artificial Neural Networks and Support Vector machines for Regression combined with clustering methods. Both training and validation were done with a real dataset from different patients. Results obtained show the potential of this methodology to calculate the drug dose corresponding to a given analgesic state of the patient. (shrink)

The notion that patients’ medical decision-making capacity depends on risk considerations has some acceptance in the bioethical literature. However, it arouses some criticism since it seems to give rise to paternalistic attitudes. In addition, the idea of capacity assessment as a collaborative space in which aid is given to the patient is emphasized so that they can decide about their life. It does not seem ethically acceptable to pose the evaluation as a simple observer report. Capacity assessment can sometimes be (...) impossible or inconsequential. In short, capacity assessment is a procedure that, used wisely, can allow the patient to take charge of their life. Misused, it can be the gateway to unjustified paternalistic actions. (shrink)