Virtual reality allows the user to be immersed in environments in which they can experience situations and social interactions from different perspectives by means of virtual embodiment. In the context of rehabilitation of violent behaviors, a participant could experience a virtual violent confrontation from different perspectives, including that of the victim and bystanders. This approach and other virtual scenes can be used as a useful tool for the rehabilitation of intimate partner violence perpetrators, through improvement of their empathic skills or (...) for training in non-violent responses. In this perspective, we revise and discuss the use of this tool in a prison environment for the rehabilitation of IPV perpetrators with a particular focus on practical aspects based on our experience. (shrink)

The article discusses the problem of coexistence of different types of rationality, different scientific and linguistic pictures of the world as well as the problem of the adoption by one culture of another culture’s scientific picture of the world with accompanying transformations of the linguistic picture of the world of the recipient culture. The article deals with the experience of mutual research and collision between Western and Chinese traditions, using the example of medical science. The author examines the problem of (...) the transfer of scientific medical knowledge from Western to Chinese culture in the context of a radical mismatch of scientific and linguistic pictures. The articles considers two different approaches to the translation of Western medical terminology into Chinese, developed at different times by English translators Benjamin Hobson and John Fryer. Hobson was focused on harmonizing new terminology with the usual concepts of the world language picture of the recipient. Fryer preferred to introduce new specific terms, artificially created directly for the needs of a new scientific picture of the world. In the field of medical terminology, the first of the two approaches turns out to be more viable, since it is more focused on its “end users” – Chinese doctors who study Western medicine in order to use its methods in their medical practice. Therefore, there is only partial applicability of the approaches, methods and terminology developed in one tradition for the evaluation and development of another tradition. (shrink)

This article traces the evolution of feelings of love that connected Vyacheslav Ivanov and Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal from the moment the two first met to the dramatic events that occurred after Lydia...

The interrelated causes and consequences of environmental degradation, poverty, and war are creating a dangerous snowball effect that poses a real threat to people in every nation. While moral arguments for cosmopolitanism may be subject to nationalist objections, the practical argument becomes more convincing as the long-term consequences of global injustice unfold. Contemporary conditions demand a critical re-examination of what is at stake in the question of global justice: when understood as highly influential to all national spheres, the global sphere (...) of justice may turn out to be just as relevant to nationalists as it is to cosmopolitans. Given the pressing nature of the practical demands posed by poverty, war, and environmental destruction, it may well be in the best interest of everyone's co-nationals to prioritise global duties of justice, at least for the time being. (shrink)

Ethical issues of nations are not just a simple and desirable topic in moral and political philosophy. On the one hand, we would like to address general and important topics that are less controversial, and therefore the topic of the nation does not suit us very well. On the other hand, since the end of the First World War, we have been divided into nation states, especially in the European context, as the conquest of a national self-determined movement. In the (...) political space of a unifying Europe, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was again talk of the nation as a restrictive, even unsatisfactory concept of future development. However, the ensuing wave of nationalism, even in the great states of the world, shows a phenomenon that is not so easy to circumvent. It was in the 1990s that several personalities tried to take a stand on the importance of nations for the future of human development. Pope John Paul II of Poland was one of them. (shrink)

In today’s European society one can observe different forms of religious fundamentalism, especially when defending various values relating to questions of the meaning of life or when confronted with multi-religious and multicultural situations. An ethical approach attempts to avoid such extremes, given that genuine human behavior is based on moral virtues, the Aristotelian “Golden mean”. At a time when some voices in left-leaning circles are trying to enshrine in the Charter of Human Rights the right of women to terminate their (...) pregnancies, by vehemently advocating their cause in the European Parliament and in the UN Assembly, and to redefine the traditional meaning of “family,” one might want to refer to the understanding of human rights of the Catholic Social Doctrine and other long-received ethical theories. On the other hand, many in the Pro-life movement also exhibit a fundamentalist approach to society, for example when legal bioethical approaches justify murder. In the contemporary setting it is necessary to clarify the relationship firstly between human rights and human dignity from the religious point of view and subsequently between human rights and the rights of a person, understood as a being who is self-aware. The current paper tries to clarify the position of the Roman Catholic Church on the issues of human dignity and human rights with the hope that this understanding will have a positive impact on the development of a just society as a means of preventing the spread of religious fundamentalism. (shrink)

When we ask modern questions about democracy and democratization, we have to clarify the meaning of these words. It has been 21 years since the Velvet Revolution and we still think that it had to do with democracy and the democratization of our Czechoslovak society in that time, as if the common use of the word "democratization" makes possible the expression or the vindicate one´s own opinion. There is a question whether the majority of our society was thinking this way. (...) In this context it would be very interesting to see the practical purposes of our Church society during the revolution, as hierarchic or as non-hierarchic. Also there are still the voices of some people that echo the unpreparedness of the Church for this modern world, especially when communicating with the faithful and the society. . (shrink)

The prevailing scientific paradigm is that matter is primary and everything, including consciousness can be derived from the laws governing matter. Although the scientific explanation of consciousness on these lines has not been realized, in this view it is only a matter of time before consciousness will be explained through neurobiological activity in the brain, and nothing else. There is an alternative view that holds that it is fundamentally impossible to explain how subjectivity can arise solely out of material processes—“the (...) hard problem of consciousness”—and instead consciousness should be regarded in itself as a primary force in nature. This view attempts to derive, for example, the laws of physics from models of consciousness, instead of the other way around. While as scientists we can understand and have an intuition for the first paradigm, it is very difficult to understand what “consciousness is primary” might mean since it has no intuitive scientific grounding. Here we show that worlds experienced through virtual reality are such that consciousness is a first order phenomenon. We discuss the Interface Theory of Perception which claims that in physical reality perceptions are not veridical and that we do not see the “truth” but that perception is based on evolutionary payoffs. We show that this theory may provide an accurate description of perception and consciousness within VR, and we put forward an experimental study that could throw light on this. We conclude that VR does offer an experimental frame that provides intuition with respect to the idea that “consciousness is first” and what this might mean regarding the perceived world. However, we do not draw any conclusions about the veracity of this notion with respect to physical reality or question the emergence of consciousness from brain function. (shrink)

Background During the most critical phases of COVID-19 pandemic, dramatic situations were experienced in hospitals and care centers that nurses could hardly verbalize. Especially relevant were deep challenges related to terminal illness, situations of extreme sacrifice, as well as reflections on protective measures mixed with beliefs. We intend to analyze which problems had the greatest impact on professionals. Aim The aim is to explore the ultimate basis for action when making decisions and the orientation of their behavior in the face (...) of moral conflicts. Method The methodological strategy is an interpretive synthesis. Narrative review of academic articles that analyzed ethical dilemmas during the pandemic was carried out by searching five databases (Pubmed, Scopus, Psycinfo, CINHAL, and WOS) between January 2020 and December 2022. Finally, 43 articles were selected. Ethical Considerations Ethical requirements were respected in all study phases. Results The reading and review of the 43 articles initiated the first phase of inductive coding which resulted in 14 initial sub-themes. Based on this structure, a second phase of coding was carried out, giving rise to six categories or emerging themes. To facilitate the process of identifying the central category, the authors agreed to carry out a phase of synthesis, grouping the six themes into three meta-themes: the identification and acceptance of human vulnerability; the discovery of positive paradigms in traumatic situations in society; the prevalence of the common good over the particular interest, as the core structure of any society. Conclusion The study has shown the need to consider healthcare benevolence as a new dimension of health care upon global vulnerability. Responsibility is required to ensure the well-being of a global society, prioritizing the common good over particular interests and building solutions on solid moral structures. A new ethical landscape is essential, starting with a humanistic curricular training of all healthcare professionals. (shrink)

The human intestines are constantly under the influence of numerous pathological factors: enteropathogenic microorganisms, food antigens, physico‐chemical stress associated with digestion and bacterial metabolism, therefore it must be provided with a system of protection against adverse impact. Recent studies have shown that Paneth cells play a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis of the small intestines. Paneth cells perform many vital functions aimed at maintaining a homeostatic balance between normal microbiota, infectious pathogens and the human body, regulate the qualitative composition and (...) number of intestinal microorganisms, prevent the introduction of potentially pathogenic species, and protect stem cells from damage. Paneth cells take part in adaptive and protective‐inflammatory reactions. Paneth cells maintain dynamic balance between microbial populations, and the macroorganism, preventing the development of intestinal infections and cancer. They play a crucial role in gastrointestinal homeostasis and may be key factors in the etiopathological progression of intestinal diseases. (shrink)

We conducted three studies to examine how the recipients of negative workplace gossip judge the gossip sender’s morality and how they respond behaviorally. Study 1 provided experimental evidence that gossip recipients perceive senders as low in morality, with female recipients rating the sender’s morality more negatively than male recipients. In a follow-up experiment (Study 2), we further found that perceived low morality translates into behavioral responses in the form of career-related sanctions by the recipient on the gossip sender. A critical (...) incident study (Study 3) enhanced the external validity and extended the moderated mediation model by showing that gossip recipients also penalize senders with social exclusion. We discuss the implications for practice and research on negative workplace gossip, gender differences in attributions of morality, and gossip recipients’ behavioral responses. (shrink)

Genetic counselling is an important aspect of prenatal care in many developed countries. This tendency has also begun to emerge in Br.

The rapid and unplanned change to teaching and learning in the online format brought by COVID-19 has likely impacted many, if not all, aspects of university students' lives worldwide. To contribute to the investigation of this change, this study focuses on the impact of the pandemic on student well-being, which has been found to be as important to student lifelong success as their academic achievement. Student well-being has been linked to their engagement and performance in curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities, (...) intrinsic motivation, satisfaction, meaning making, and mental health. The purpose of this study was to examine how student perceptions of their degree completion and future job prospects during the pandemic impact their well-being and what role university support plays in this relationship. We used the conservation of resources theory to frame our study and to develop five hypotheses that were later tested via structural equation modeling. Data were collected from 2,707 university students in France, Germany, Russia, and UK via an online survey. The results showed that university support provided by instructors and administration plays a mediating role in the relationship between the perceived impact of COVID-19 on degree completion and future job prospects and levels of student well-being. Student well-being is decreased by their concerns for their degree completion but not by their concerns for future job prospects. In turn, concerns for future job prospects affect student well-being over time. These results suggest that in a “new normal,” universities could increase student well-being by making support to student studies a priority, especially for undergraduates. Also, universities should be aware of the students' changing emotional responses to crisis and ensure visibility and accessibility of student support. (shrink)

This article deals with the analysis of neo-mythological and pantheistic subjects in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Knut Hamsun. The analytical comparison of Nietzsche’s philosophical concepts and Hamsun’s literary psychologism is poised to find an underlying understanding of human nature at the confluence of ethics and aesthetics - of goods and beauty, of evil and ugly. A precise definition of the aesthetic categories “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” is carried out based on Nietzsche’s work “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit (...) of Music”. The relevance of the Dionysian culture’s phenomena is based on the Nietzschean belief in an Übermensch within the modern mindset. The concept of “Dionysus” finds its continuation in the postmodern philosophy of Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot, in such archaic emotional and aesthetic aspects of human essence as violence and sacrifice understood in an extremely abstract sense. The authors stress that modern culture’s interest in violence and sacrifice is rooted in Nietzsche’s idea of Dionysius in the meaning of one of the beginnings of any segment of European culture. The foundations for overcoming postmodernism in the 21st century and the subsequent development of aesthetic views can be found in an attempt to revise the foundation of European culture through rethinking the concept of Übermensch-Zarathustra-Dionysus. (shrink)

This study was aimed at predicting individual differences in text reading fluency. The basic proposal included two factors, i.e., the ability to decode letter strings (measured by discrete pseudo-word reading) and integration of the various sub-components involved in reading (measured by Rapid Automatized Naming, RAN). Subsequently, a third factor was added to the model, i.e., naming of discrete digits. In order to use homogeneous measures, all contributing variables considered the entire processing of the item, including pronunciation time. The model, which (...) was based on commonality analysis, was applied to data from a group of 43 typically developing readers (11- to 13-year-olds) and a group of 25 chronologically matched dyslexic children. In typically developing readers, both orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components contributed significantly to the overall prediction of text reading fluency. The model prediction was higher (from ca. 37% to 52% of the explained variance) when we included the naming of discrete digits variable, which had a suppressive effect on pseudo-word reading. In the dyslexic readers, the variance explained by the two-factor model was high (69%) and did not change when the third factor was added. The lack of a suppression effect was likely due to the prominent individual differences in poor orthographic decoding of the dyslexic children. Analyses on data from both groups of children were replicated by using patches of colours as stimuli (both in the RAN task and in the discrete naming task) obtaining similar results. We conclude that it is possible to predict much of the variance in text-reading fluency using basic processes, such as orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components, even without taking into consideration higher-order linguistic factors such as lexical, semantic and contextual abilities. The approach validity of using proximal vs distal causes to predict reading fluency is discussed. (shrink)

Trait emotional intelligence concerns our perceptions of our emotional abilities, that is, how good we believe we are in terms of understanding, regulating, and expressing emotions in order to adapt to our environment and maintain well-being. In this article, we present succinct summaries of selected findings from research on the location of trait EI in personality factor space, the biological underpinnings of the construct, indicative applications in the areas of clinical, health, social, educational, organizational, and developmental psychology, and trait EI (...) training. Findings to date suggest that individual differences in trait EI are a consistent predictor of human behavior across the life span. (shrink)

The current assessment of behaviors in the inventories to diagnose autism spectrum disorders (ASD) focus on observation and discrete categorizations. Behaviors require movements, yet measurements of physical movements are seldom included. Their inclusion however, could provide an objective characterization of behavior to help unveil interactions between the peripheral and the central nervous systems. Such interactions are critical for the development and maintenance of spontaneous autonomy, self-regulation and voluntary control. At present, current approaches cannot deal with the heterogeneous, dynamic and stochastic (...) nature of development. Accordingly, they leave no avenues for real-time or longitudinal assessments of change in a coping system continuously adapting and developing compensatory mechanisms. We offer a new unifying statistical framework to reveal re-afferent kinesthetic features of the individual with ASD. The new methodology is based on the non-stationary stochastic patterns of minute fluctuations (micro-movements) inherent to our natural actions. Such patterns of behavioral variability provide re-entrant sensory feedback contributing to the autonomous regulation and coordination of the motor output. From an early age, this feedback supports centrally driven volitional control and fluid, flexible transitions between intentional and spontaneous behaviors. We show that in ASD there is a disruption in the maturation of this form of proprioception. Despite this disturbance, each individual has unique adaptive compensatory capabilities that we can unveil and exploit to evoke faster and more accurate decisions. Measuring the kinesthetic re-afference in tandem with stimuli variations we can detect changes in their micro-movements indicative of a more predictive and reliable kinesthetic percept. Our methods address the heterogeneity of ASD with a personalized approach grounded in the inherent sensory-motor abilities that the individual has already developed. (shrink)

The use of traditional ethical methodologies is inadequate in addressing a constructed maternal–fetal rights conflict in a multicultural obstetrical setting. The use of caring ethics and a relational approach is better suited to address multicultural conceptualizations of autonomy and moral distress. The way power differentials, authoritative knowledge, and informed consent are intertwined in this dilemma will be illuminated by contrasting traditional bioethics and a caring ethics approach. Cultural safety is suggested as a way to develop a relational ontology. Using caring (...) ethics and a relational approach can alleviate moral distress in health-care providers, while promoting collaboration and trust between providers and their patients and ultimately decreasing reproductive disparities. This article examines how a relational approach can be applied to a cross-cultural reproductive dilemma. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

Biomedical research is increasingly globalized with ever more research conducted in low and middle-income countries. This trend raises a host of ethical concerns and critiques. While community engagement has been proposed as an ethically important practice for global biomedical research, there is no agreement about what these practices contribute to the ethics of research, or when they are needed.

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Host-microbiome interactions (HMIs) are critical for the modulation of biological processes and are associated with several diseases, and extensive HMI studies have generated large amounts of data. We propose that the logical representation of the knowledge derived from these data and the standardized representation of experimental variables and processes can foster integration of data and reproducibility of experiments and thereby further HMI knowledge discovery. A community-based Ontology of Host-Microbiome Interactions (OHMI) was developed following the OBO Foundry principles. OHMI leverages established (...) ontologies to create logically structured representations of microbiomes, microbial taxonomy, host species, host anatomical entities, and HMIs under different conditions and associated study protocols and types of data analysis and experimental results. (shrink)

This study aimed to understand the expressions of fear in the journeys of health professionals who worked in the confrontation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), in the city of Manaus, in the Brazilian Western Amazon. This is an exploratory qualitative study that adopts interpretive description as a method to generate informed knowledge responsive to the needs of the practice. We included 56 participants, comprising 23 health managers and 33 health workers (middle and higher level) of different professional categories. The results (...) revealed three circles of experience: (1) knowledge and professional experience in dealing with the disease (unknown–known–experienced); (2) the growing proximity to death and loss (predicted–witnessed–suffered); and (3) the involvement and proximity to whatever affects the individual, their emotions, and personal transformations in the face of the threat (the collective, the neighbor, and oneself). Our results suggest that health professionals who worked during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Manaus experienced insecurity, dread, and fear, illustrating the complexity of developing their activities in the front line of care and management during the different phases of the pandemic. A contribution of the study is precisely that of capturing this complexity, which suggests the impossibility of analyzing fear only in its simple manifestation, or in each circle of experience. (shrink)