Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag stellt eine differenzierungstheoretische Perspektive auf Sportbeteiligung und Sportinteresse der Erwachsenenbevölkerung vor. Zugrunde liegen empirische Daten aus einer eigenen repräsentativen Bevölkerungsumfrage in Deutschland vom Herbst 2003, in der die Inklusion der Erwachsenen in sämtliche gesellschaftlichen Teilsysteme ermittelt wurde. Die Inklusion in den Sport wird mit Bezug auf die sekundäre Leistungsrolle des Breitensportlers und die Publikumsrolle des Sportzuschauers betrachtet; sodann wird möglichen Zusammenhängen zwischen der Ausprägung der Inklusion in den Sport mit ungleichheitstheoretisch geläufigen Merkmalen sozialer Lage, darüber hinaus dann (...) auch mit der Ausprägung anderer Inklusionsverhältnisse nachgegangen. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag stellt eine differenzierungstheoretische Perspektive auf Sportbeteiligung und Sportinteresse der Erwachsenenbevölkerung vor. Zugrunde liegen empirische Daten aus einer eigenen repräsentativen Bevölkerungsumfrage in Deutschland vom Herbst 2003, in der die Inklusion der Erwachsenen in sämtliche gesellschaftlichen Teilsysteme ermittelt wurde. Die Inklusion in den Sport wird mit Bezug auf die sekundäre Leistungsrolle des Breitensportlers und die Publikumsrolle des Sportzuschauers betrachtet; sodann wird möglichen Zusammenhängen zwischen der Ausprägung der Inklusion in den Sport mit ungleichheitstheoretisch geläufigen Merkmalen sozialer Lage, darüber hinaus dann (...) auch mit der Ausprägung anderer Inklusionsverhältnisse nachgegangen. (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Objective: The establishment of patient-centered measures capable of empirically determining meaningful cognitive change after surgery can significantly improve the medical care of epilepsy patients. Thus, this study aimed to develop reliable change indices (RCIs) and standardized regression-based (SRB) change norms for a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery in the German language. Methods: Forty-seven consecutive patients with temporal lobe epilepsy underwent neuropsychological assessments, both before and 12 months after surgery. Practice-effect-adjusted RCIs and SRB change norms for each test score were computed. To (...) assess their usefulness, the presented methods were applied to a clinical sample, and binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to model the odds of achieving improvement in quality of life (QOL) after surgery. Results: The determined RCIs at 90% confidence intervals, and the SRB equations for each test score included in the test battery are provided. Cohen’s kappa analyses revealed a moderate mean agreement between the two measures, varying from slight to almost perfect agreement across test scores. Using these measures, a negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery was detected. Significance: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to provide RCIs and SRB change norms necessary for the objective determination of neuropsychological change in a comprehensive test battery in the German language, facilitating the individual monitoring of improvement and decline in each patients’ cognitive functioning and psychosocial situations after epilepsy surgery. The application of the described measures revealed a strong negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery. (shrink)

Warning research participants and patients about potential risks associated with participation/treatment is a fundamental part of consent. However, such risk warnings might cause negative expectations and subsequent nocebo effects (i.e., negative expectations cause negative outcomes) in participants. Because no existing review documents how past research has quantitatively examined nocebo effects – and negative expectations – arising from consent risk warnings, we conducted a pre-registered scoping review (N = 9). We identified several methodological issues across these studies, which in addition to (...) mixed findings, limit conclusions about whether risk warnings cause nocebo effects. (shrink)

Older adults often have long-term relationships, and many of their goals are intertwined with their respective partners. Joint goals can help or hinder goal progress. Little is known about how accurately older adults assess if a goal is joint, the role of over-reporting in these perceptions, and how joint goals and over-reporting may relate to older partners' relationship satisfaction and physical health. Two-hundred-thirty-six older adults from 118 couples listed their three most important goals and whether they thought of them as (...) goals they had in common with and wanted to achieve together with their partner. Two independent raters classified goals as “joint” if both partners independently listed open-ended goals of the same content. Goal progress and relationship satisfaction were assessed 1 week later. Allostatic load was calculated using nine different biomarkers. Results show that 85% self-reported at least one goal as joint. Over-reporting– the perception that a goal was joint when in fact it was not mentioned among the three most salient goals of the spouse – occurred in one-third of all goals. Multilevel models indicate that the number of externally-rated joint goals was related to greater goal progress and lower allostatic load, but only for adults with little over-reporting. More joint goals and higher over-reporting were each linked with more relationship satisfaction. In conclusion, joint goals are associated with goal progress, relationship satisfaction, and health, but the association is dependent on the domain of functioning. (shrink)

This study examined cancer patients’ perceived emotional and informational support from a variety of interpersonal and media sources. We recruited patients from cancer patient association websites and online cancer forums and asked them to report to what extent they received support from interpersonal and media sources. Patients rated professional sources and personal sources as nearly equal sources of emotional support; however, professional sources were rated as significantly greater sources of informational support. Although family and oncologists were the most mentioned interpersonal (...) sources of support, they were also the most mentioned disappointing sources. Of the media sources, online interaction sources were rated as nearly equivalent sources of emotional support as interpersonal sources. That patients perceived emotional support, not only informational support, from various media sources is promising since interpersonal sources can be disappointing to some patients. (shrink)

Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), an influential life-span theory, suggests that older adults prefer persuasive messages that appeal to emotionally-meaningful goals over messages that appeal to knowledge-related goals, whereas younger adults do not show this preference. A mixed-factorial experiment was conducted to test whether older adults (≥65 years) differ from younger adults (25–45 years) in their preference for emotionally-meaningful appeals over knowledge-related appeals, when appeals are clearly developed in line with SST. For older adults we found the expected preference for emotionally-meaningful (...) appeals for cancer centers but not for grocery stores and travel organizations. As expected, in most cases, younger adults did not show a preference. Implications for SST-based communication research and for practice are discussed. (shrink)

'Hands Tied' brings together two very different films about hands: Maria Lassnig's Palmistry (1973) and Ayesha Hameed's A Rough History (of the Destruction of Fingerprints) (2016). These works are contextualised and their scope extended further by a roundtable discussion featuring participants Rachel Aumiller, Sam Dolbear, Nadine El-Enany, Amelia Groom, Clio Nicastro, Anja Sunhyun Michaelsen, and M. Ty., who discuss their relation to fate, work, pleasure, touch, and surveillance.

This paper is intended to stimulate debate amongst stakeholders in the international research community on the topic of returning individual genetic research results to study participants. Pharmacogenetics and disease genetics studies are becoming increasingly prevalent, leading to a growing body of information on genetic associations for drug responsiveness and disease susceptibility with the potential to improve health care. Much of these data are presently characterized as exploratory (non‐validated or hypothesis‐generating). There is, however, a trend for research participants to be permitted (...) access to their personal data if they so choose. Researchers, sponsors, patient advocacy groups, ethics committees and regulatory authorities are consequently confronting the issue of whether, and how, study participants might receive their individual results. Noted international ethico‐legal guidelines and public policy positions in Europe and the United States are reviewed for background. The authors offer ‘Points‐to‐Consider’ regarding returning research results in the context of drug development trials based on their knowledge and experience. These considerations include: the clinical relevance of data, laboratory qualifications, informed consent procedures, confidentiality of medical information and the competency of persons providing results to participants. The discussion is framed as a benefit‐to‐risk assessment to balance the potential positive versus negative consequences to participants, while maintaining the integrity and feasibility of conducting genetic research studies. (shrink)

The authors led the development of a framework for ethical decision-making for an Academic Health Sciences Centre. They understood the existing mission, vision, and values statement (MVVs) of the centre as a foundational assertion that embodies an ethical commitment of the institution. Reflecting the Patient and Family Centred Model of Care the institution is living, the MVVs is a suitable base on which to construct an ethics framework. The resultant framework consists of a set of questions for each of the (...) MVVs. Users of the framework are expected to identify two or more possible decisions to address the issue at hand and then, by applying the provided sequence of questions to each, examine these options and determine the overall ethically preferable decision. The construction of such a framework requires the creative involvement of the institution’s staff. Thus the development of the framework can represent a training process in ethical decision-making as well as advance the ethical atmosphere of the institution. This novel approach has the advantage of placing the MVVs on active duty, at the centre of ethical decision-making, and lifts it from its otherwise relative obscurity in most institutions. (shrink)

Objective: While behavioral recommendations regarding physical activity commonly focus on reaching demanding goals by proposing ‘thresholds’, little attention has been paid to the question of how much of a behavioral change is needed to make people feel that they have changed. The present research investigated this relation between actual and felt behavior change. Design: Using data from two longitudinal community samples, Study 1 and 2 comprised 614 (63 % women) and 398 participants (61 % women) with a mean age of (...) 40.9 years (SD = 13.6) and 42.5 years (SD = 13.4), respectively. Using a stage-approach, participants were classified into four groups by asking them at the respective second measurement to indicate whether they had become more physically active since their last participation six months ago (“Changers”), had tried but did not succeed in becoming more physically active (“Attempters”), were already physically active on a regular basis (“Regular Actives”), or had not tried to become more physically active (“Non-Attempters”). Physical activity was measured using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), and fitness level was assessed as physical working capacity (PWC) via bicycle ergometry. Mixed ANOVAs including Time and Perceived Change as within and between factors were conducted, followed up by simple effect analyses. Results: Participants stating to have become more active in the past six months (Changers) showed a significant increase in vigorous physical activity but not in moderate physical activity, with an average of 6.8 (Study 1) and 10.6 (Study 2) MET-h per week in vigorous activity. Corroborating these findings, objective fitness also significantly increased in the group of Changers. No systematic change in moderate or vigorous physical activity was observed for the three other ‘non-changer’ groups (regular actives, attempters, non-attempters). Conclusion: The intensity of physical activity is the crucial variable for people’s perception of change in physical activity. Moderate physical activity seems not to be perceived as an effective means for behavior change. It thus might fail to unfold sufficient motivational impact, despite its known positive effects on health. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper is intended to stimulate debate amongst stakeholders in the international research community on the topic of returning individual genetic research results to study participants. Pharmacogenetics and disease genetics studies are becoming increasingly prevalent, leading to a growing body of information on genetic associations for drug responsiveness and disease susceptibility with the potential to improve health care. Much of these data are presently characterized as exploratory (non‐validated or hypothesis‐generating). There is, however, a trend for research participants to be (...) permitted access to their personal data if they so choose. Researchers, sponsors, patient advocacy groups, ethics committees and regulatory authorities are consequently confronting the issue of whether, and how, study participants might receive their individual results. Noted international ethico‐legal guidelines and public policy positions in Europe and the United States are reviewed for background. The authors offer ‘Points‐to‐Consider’ regarding returning research results in the context of drug development trials based on their knowledge and experience. These considerations include: the clinical relevance of data, laboratory qualifications, informed consent procedures, confidentiality of medical information and the competency of persons providing results to participants. The discussion is framed as a benefit‐to‐risk assessment to balance the potential positive versus negative consequences to participants, while maintaining the integrity and feasibility of conducting genetic research studies. (shrink)

Theories of decision-making and its neural substrates have long assumed the existence of two distinct and competing valuation systems, variously described as goal-directed vs. habitual, or, more recently and based on statistical arguments, as model-free vs. model-based reinforcement-learning. Though both have been shown to control choices, the cognitive abilities associated with these systems are under ongoing investigation. Here we examine the link to cognitive abilities, and find that individual differences in processing speed covary with a shift from model-free to model-based (...) choice control in the presence of above-average working memory function. This suggests shared cognitive and neural processes; provides a bridge between literatures on intelligence and valuation; and may guide the development of process models of different valuation components. Furthermore, it provides a rationale for individual differences in the tendency to deploy valuation systems, which may be important for understanding the manifold neuropsychiatric diseases associated with malfunctions of valuation. (shrink)

Over the last decade, our appreciation of the importance of the nucleolus for cellular function has progressed from the ordinary to the extraordinary. We no longer think of the nucleolus as simply the site of ribosome production, or a dynamic subnuclear body noted by pathologists for its changes in size and shape with malignancy. Instead, the nucleolus has emerged as a key controller of many cellular processes that are fundamental to normal cell homeostasis and the target for dysregulation in many (...) human diseases; in some cases, independent of its functions in ribosome biogenesis. These extra‐nucleolar or new functions, which we term “non‐canonical” to distinguish them from the more traditional role of the nucleolus in ribosome synthesis, are the focus of this review. In particular, we explore how these non‐canonical functions may provide novel insights into human disease and in some cases new targets for therapeutic development. (shrink)

Psychobiological responses to music have been examined previously in various naturalistic settings in adults. Choir singing seems to be associated with positive psychobiological outcomes in adults. However, evidence on the effectiveness of singing in children and adolescents is sparse. The COVID-19 outbreak is significantly affecting society now and in the future, including how individuals engage with music. The COVID-19 pandemic is occurring at a time when virtual participation in musical experiences such as singing in a virtual choir has become more (...) prevalent. However, it remains unclear whether virtual singing leads to different responses in comparison with in-person singing. We evaluated the psychobiological effects of in-person choral singing in comparison with the effects of virtual choral singing in a naturalistic pilot within-subject study. A group of children and young adolescents from a school in Salzburg, Austria were recruited to take part in the study. Subjective measures were taken pre- and post-singing sessions once a week. Additionally, salivary biomarkers and quantity of social contacts were assessed pre- and post-singing sessions every second week. Psychological stability, self-esteem, emotional competences, and chronic stress levels were measured at the beginning of in-person singing as well as at the beginning and the end of the virtual singing. We observed a positive impact on mood after both in-person and virtual singing. Over time, in-person singing showed a pre-post decrease in salivary cortisol, while virtual singing showed a moderate increase. Moreover, a greater reduction in stress, positive change in calmness, and higher values of social contacts could be observed for the in-person setting compared to the virtual one. In addition, we observed positive changes in psychological stability, maladaptive emotional competences, chronic stress levels, hair cortisol, self-contingency and quality of life. Our preliminary findings suggest that group singing may provide benefits for children and adolescents. In-person singing in particular seems to have a stronger psychobiological effect. (shrink)

The problem of unhappiness is deceptively simple. It is all pervasive, and susceptible to highly theoretical formulations and explanations. In this work, Martin Kalin explores and evaluates two theories which compete as explanations of human unhappiness. Marxism is a utopian theory, in that Marx’s identification of the sources of unhappiness predicts their removal, or at least their radical diminution. Man’s alienation from his work and from his own species is necessary for pre-capitalist and capitalist historical developments. But communist society (...) arises out of that revolution which overcomes precisely those historical conditions which cause alienation. Thus Marx holds that human unhappiness can be and will be overcome in human history. But Marx’s theory has difficulty accounting for the revolutionary forces which will bring this about. And more, Marx’s concept of man includes the notion that human powers are always adequate to human needs. Freudian psychoanalysis especially questions this last point. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:464 Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Claire Raymond and Sarah Corse A Distorting Mirror: Educational Trajectory After College Sexual Assault This article focuses on the broad and specific impacts of college sexual assault on student-survivors’ academic performance, academic trajectory, and their sense of self in relation to the university community. We frame this study with, and relate our findings to, the historic and (...) theoretical literatures that provide the context for this essay, including the large and burgeoning literature on the sexual assault of women college students and recent studies analyzing the role of fraternities in sexual assault, students’ fears and perceptions about college assault, bystander intervention training, and survivors’ grade-point averages after assault.1 Our study also builds on the history of feminist resistance to rape, feminist writings about rape, and campus activism against rape, with the 1. Cortney Franklin, Leana Allen Bouffard, and Travis C. Pratt, “Sexual Assault on the College Campus: Fraternity Affiliation, Male Peer Support, and Low Self-Control,” Criminal Justice and Behavior 39, no. 11 (2012): 1457– 80; Christine A. Gidycz, John R. McNamara, and Katie M. Edwards, “Women ’s Risk Perception and Sexual Victimization: A Review of the Literature,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 11, no. 5 (2006): 441–56; Jennifer Katz and Jessica Moore, “Bystander Education Training for Campus Sexual Assault Prevention: An Initial Meta-Analysis,” Violence and Victims 28, no. 6 (2013): 1054–67; Douglas W. Pryor and Marion R. Hughes, “Fear of Rape among College Women: A Social Psychological Analysis,” Violence and Victims 28, no. 3 (2013): 443–65; Carol E. Jordan, Jessica L. Combs, and Gregory T. Smith, “An Exploration of Sexual Victimization and Academic Performance among College Women,” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 15, no. 3 (2014): 191–200. Claire Raymond and Sarah Corse 465 goal of shedding light on one aspect of the problem. Groundbreaking (and in some cases controversial) works analyzing the cultures of rape, such as Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will and Peggy Sanday’s “The Socio-Cultural Context of Rape” (in which Sanday creates the concept of the rape-producing culture—a concept that is central to our argument in this essay), found immediate reception with feminist activists of the 1970s and early 1980s.2 Mary Koss’s work regarding the scope of rape in college settings is also foundational to our study of campus rape.3 Susan Estrich, Catharine MacKinnon, and other feminist theorists in the mid-1980s developed critical apparatuses to shift the understanding of rape, providing a feminist framework wherein rape is interpreted as violence committed against a woman—in opposition to the patriarchal argument that rape is caused by a woman’s actions or is the product of her distortion of events after the fact.4 Angela Davis and bell hooks were deeply influential in framing understandings of the racial and racist aspects of feminist discussions of rape, while legal scholar Sarah Deer has more recently broadened understandings of the racialized discourse of rape, and Lisa Wade has written on twenty-first century hookup culture and the ways that this social landscape promulgates rates of maleon -female rape that are significantly higher on college campuses than in the general population.5 2. Peggy Reeves Sanday, “The Socio-Cultural Context of Rape: A Cross-Cultural Study,” Journal of Social Issues 37, no. 4 (1981): 5–27; Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Penguin Books, 1976). 3. Mary P. Koss, Christine A. Gidycz, and Nadine Wisniewski, “The Scope of Rape: Incidence and Prevalence of Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample of Higher Education Students,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 55, no. 2 (1987): 162–70. 4. Susan Estrich, Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Duncan Chappell, Robley Geis, and Gilbert Geis, eds., Forcible Rape: The Crime, the Victim and the Offender (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977). 5. Angela Davis, “Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist,” in her Women, Race, and Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), 172–201; bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End Press, 1984); Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:René Girard and the Rhetoric of ConsumptionKathleen M. Vandenberg (bio)The work of René Girard, so productively applied in so many different fields—in theology, in anthropology, in literature, to name a few—has yet to be recognized or applied in the field of rhetorical studies. Yet there exists, I argue, a need precisely for Girard's theories as the over 2000 year-old discipline enters the twenty-first century.Girard's theory of mimetic or triangular (...) desire can be used as a model for understanding persuasion, because it is, among other things, an "expression of a basic set of ideas on... the dynamics of the self and human relations" (1996, vii). Girard's concern is with human relationships and, in a sense, with how individuals in these relationships act rhetorically upon themselves and others. Girard's mimetic theory hinges on the dynamics of imitation and explains how individuals relate through both the conscious and the unconscious sharing of behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs in certain situations. These situations are clearly rhetorical, as can be seen by examining the definition of the "rhetorical situation" set forth by Lloyd Bitzer, in his seminal 1968 article, "The Rhetorical Situation." Bitzer proposes three conditions that must be met for a rhetorical situation to exist: an exigency or imperfection marked by urgency; a rhetorical audience or an audience that can act; and constraints, or elements that have the power to constrain the decision and action needed to modify the exigency (7). In mass-mediated modern rhetoric, I argue that the exigencies exist externally (in the culture) and internally, the audience is both others and self, and the constraints are the alienation, mystification, and desire generated by hierarchies. Twentieth-century rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke advises that "we must often think of rhetoric not in terms of some one particular address, but as a general body of identifications that owe their convincingness much more to trivial repetition and dull daily reënforcement than to exceptional rhetorical skill" (1950, 26). Such is the case with this particular form of rhetoric, which is generated and propagated by mimetic contagion and thus is best more narrowly defined as sociological propaganda, a type of propaganda [End Page 259] theorized by Jacques Ellul in Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1975).Ellul, the first to distinguish between political propaganda and sociological propaganda, proposes that the latter encompasses social behaviors "much more vast and less certain" than those of political propaganda (1975, 62). These social behaviors permit the penetration of an ideology in a society, a penetration that is achieved through the active participation of the masses. Sociological propaganda, as Ellul describes it, works from within; it is dependent on the individual's willingness and ability to persuade him- or herself and others. Sociological propaganda, Ellul posits, is created when members of a group behave in such a way as to influence the attitudes, actions, and lifestyles of others; often this behavior is unconscious, unintentional, and spontaneous.In these ways, the rhetoric of sociological propaganda operates in a markedly different fashion than more "traditional" rhetoric, which is largely understood to operate as a unilateral transaction in which an individual orator actively, openly, and orally works to move a relatively passive but physically present audience to act in accordance with the orator's own beliefs through a formally delivered speech. In its reliance on the interaction and cooperation of the many rather than the centrality and dominance of one speaker, in its acceptance of unintentional, spontaneous, and unconscious persuasion, in its dependence on the modern mass media, and in the limitless and nebulous nature of its boundaries in time and space, sociological propaganda constitutes a type of rhetoric heretofore insufficiently addressed by rhetorical studies. Although existing perspectives in rhetorical criticism have certainly addressed some aspects of this rhetoric, sociological propaganda is not easily explained with the terminology of traditional rhetorical criticism or easily approached from traditional rhetorical perspectives.This article asserts that the best way to approach and understand such propaganda is through the perspective of René Girard. Approaching this propaganda from a Girardian perspective permits us to look beyond the symbols of sociological propaganda and analyze our own responsibility in rhetorical... (shrink)

Is God's foreknowledge compatible with human freedom? One of the most attractive attempts to reconcile the two is the Ockhamistic view, which subscribes not only to human freedom and divine omniscience, but retains our most fundamental intuitions concerning God and time: that the past is immutable, that God exists and acts in time, and that there is no backward causation. In order to achieve all that, Ockhamists distinguish ‘hard facts’ about the past which cannot possibly be altered from ‘soft facts’ (...) about the past which are alterable, and argue that God's prior beliefs about human actions are soft facts about the past. (shrink)

The use of platelet rich plasma as a novel treatment is discussed in the context of a qualitative research study comprising 38 interviews with sports medicine practitioners and other stakeholders working within the English Premier League during the 2013–16 seasons. Analysis of the data produced several overarching themes: conservatism versus experimentalism in medical attitudes; therapy perspectives divergence; conflicting versions of appropriate evidence; subcultures; community beliefs/practices; and negotiation of medical decision-making. The contested evidence base for the efficacy of PRP is presented (...) in the context of a broader professional shift towards evidence based medicine within sports medicine. Many of the participants while accepting this shift are still committed to casuistic practices where clinical judgment is flexible and does not recognize a context-free hierarchy of evidentiary standards to ethically justifiable practice. We also discuss a tendency in the data collected to consider the use of deceptive, placebo-like, practices among the clinician participants that challenge dominant understandings of informed consent in medical ethics. We conclude that the complex relation between evidence and ethics requires greater critical scrutiny for this emerging specialism within the medical community. (shrink)

Following the lead of Hannah Arendt and others, I want to argue that the imperial mystique seen in the British Empire found its way into Germany’s expansionist ambitions. I am concerned with the emotional costs of oppression, or what I call soul death. I focus on three key writers of the 20th century: Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, and J. M. Coetzee, placing their writings in the context of war trauma and the barbarities associated with 20th century totalitarianism. My argument (...) seeks to elucidate the relationship between postcoloniality and the wars that shaped that century. These narratives of distress will be juxtaposed with novels by Imre Kertész and Arnošt Lustig whose writings of the Holocaust and the war atmosphere on the Eastern Front illuminate scenes of trauma and personal anguish. Here my study draws on the work of recent psychologists whose term soul murder is made much of. These writers’ works can be more fully understood to reveal patterns of personal destruction that are part of living under imperialism. They bring to the forefront behaviours that expose the debasement and hardening witnessed in the early decades of the century. (shrink)

Feminist Geneaologies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures provides a feminist anaylsis of the questions of sexual and gender politics, economic and cultural marginality, and anti-racist and anti-colonial practices both in the "West" and in the "Third World." This collection, edited by Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, charts the underlying theoretical perspectives and organization practices of the different varieties of feminism that take on questions of colonialism, imperialism, and the repressive rule of colonial, post-colonial and advanced capitalist nation-states. It provides a (...) comparative, relational, historically grounded conception of feminist praxis that differs markedly from the liberal pluralist, multicultural understanding that sheapes some of the dominant version of Euro-American feminism. As a whole, the collection poses a unique challenge to the naturalization of gender based in the experiences, histories and practices of Euro-American women. (shrink)