"All life upon the stage"; the Theatrum Mundi. In this volume, a seventeenth century metaphor is revisited and is seen as applying to all art in all times. In the "magic mirror of art" the human being discerns the hidden spheres of human life and commemorates and celebrates its glorious victories and mourns its ignominious defeats. Let us rediscover Art as a witness to the human predicament as well as a celebrant of humanity's most sublime moments. This is the invitation (...) of this collection of studies by A-T. Tymieniecka, Hanna Scolnicov, Muella Erkilic, Matt Landrus, Patricia Trutty-Coohill, Monika Bakke, David Brubaker, Tammy Knipp, Howard Pearce, Ellen J. Burns, G. Backhaus, Ethan J. Leib, Lawrence Kimmel, Ingrid Scheibler, Gottfried Scholz, L.F. Werth, A. Carillo, M. Statkiewicz, K. O'Rourke, B. Meyler, H. Meltzer, Jiuan Heng, W.V. Davies. Art as mirror of life, human life as participating in a stage play, corresponds to the fervent search human being of the causes, reasons, puzzles of our existence which elude us in the concrete life. This XVII c. conception of Theatrum Mundi opens as this volume shows a fascinating field of investigation for our times. (shrink)

Objective The UK Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine programme commenced in the autumn of 2008 for year 8 (age 12–13 years) schoolgirls. We examine whether the vaccine should be given when there is a difference of opinion between daughters and parents or guardians. Design Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Participants A sample of 25 stakeholders: 14 professionals involved in the development of the HPV vaccination programme and 11 professionals involved in its implementation. Results Overriding the parents' wishes was perceived as problematic (...) and could damage the relationship between school and parents. A number of practical problems were raised in relation to establishing whether parents were genuinely against their daughter receiving the vaccine. Although many respondents recognised that the Gillick guidelines were relevant in establishing whether a girl could provide consent herself, they still felt that there were significant problems in establishing whether girls could be assessed as Gillick competent. In some areas school nurses had been advised not to give the vaccine in the absence of parental consent. None of the respondents suggested that a girl should be vaccinated against her consent even if her parents wanted her to have the vaccine. Conclusions While the Gillick guidelines provide a legal framework to help professionals make judgements about adolescents consenting to medical treatment, in practice there appears to be variable and confused interpretation of this guidance. Improved legal structures, management procedures and professional advice are needed to support those who are assessing competence and establishing consent to vaccinate adolescents in a school setting. (shrink)

A four-factor model of spiritual intelligence is first proposed. Supportive evidence is reviewed for the capacities of critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion. Based on this model, a 24-item self-report measure was developed and modified across two consecutive studies . The final version of the scale, the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory , displayed excellent internal reliability and good fit to the proposed model. Correlational analyses with additional measures of meaning, metapersonal self-construal, mysticism, religiosity, and (...) social desirability offer support for construct and criterion-related validity. According to both intelligence criteria and current psychometric standards, findings validate the proposed model and measure of spiritual intelligence. Future directions are discussed. (shrink)

This study aims to further investigate the convergent validity of the recently-proposed metapersonal model and measure of self-construal, and to emphasize the discriminant validity of the metapersonal self-construal as a distinct construct, capturing a unique aspect of self-construal separate from either interdependent or independent aspects. The study looked at two questions: Does the metapersonal self-construal predict higher emotional intelligence? Do those who have higher metapersonal self-construal scores also report greater well-being? A group of 212 undergraduate students was assessed using a (...) self-construal scale that includes the new measure of metapersonal self-construal, along with scales measuring emotional intelligence and well-being. The metapersonal self-construal predicted higher emotional intelligence scores and greater well-being than either the independent or interdependent self-construals. (shrink)

The thymus gland, which plays a key role in the maturation and functioning of the lymphoid system, is implicated in the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The observation that the thymic hormone, thymosin α1, is elevated in individuals at risk for AIDS (as opposed to being depressed in other immunodeficient states) has provided the first direct evidence that the thymus is malfunctioning early in the course of this deadly disease. These observations have been valuable in screening for the syndrome with (...) a rapid radioimmunoassay and in the initiation of the first clinical trials with thymosin in high risk homosexuals and hemophiliacs. If the progressive immune paralysis in AIDS is due to a dying thymus, the early identification of asymptomatic carriers of AIDS or individuals with modest AIDS‐related dysfunction may lead to therapy with thymosin or other thymomimetic agents that can restore immune function and prevent the onset of frank AIDS. (shrink)

With their comprehensive categorization of “ambivalence-related phenomena,” Moore et al. helpfully clarify and contextualize these decisional states as they arise in patient care. Given the...

Earp, Lewis, and Hart write about the racism entrenched in policies criminalizing drug use and possession and describe the disparate impact that these policies have on certain racialized com...

BackgroundDespite rapid growth of the scientific literature, no consensus guidelines have emerged to define the optimal criteria for editors to grade submitted manuscripts. The purpose of this project was to assess the peer reviewer metrics currently used in the surgical literature to evaluate original manuscript submissions.MethodsManuscript grading forms for 14 of the highest circulation general surgery-related journals were evaluated for content, including the type and number of quantitative and qualitative questions asked of peer reviewers. Reviewer grading forms for the seven (...) surgical journals with the higher impact factors were compared to the seven surgical journals with lower impact factors using Fisher’s exact tests.ResultsImpact factors of the studied journals ranged from 1.73 to 8.57, with a median impact factor of 4.26 in the higher group and 2.81 in the lower group. The content of the grading forms was found to vary considerably. Relatively few journals asked reviewers to grade specific components of a manuscript. Higher impact factor journal manuscript grading forms more frequently addressed statistical analysis, ethical considerations, and conflict of interest. In contrast, lower impact factor journals more commonly requested reviewers to make qualitative assessments of novelty/originality, scientific validity, and scientific importance.ConclusionSubstantial variation exists in the grading criteria used to evaluate original manuscripts submitted to the surgical literature for peer review, with differential emphasis placed on certain criteria correlated to journal impact factors. (shrink)

The authors discuss some of the conceptual issues that must be considered in using and understanding psychiatric classification. DSM-IV is a practical and common sense nosology of psychiatric disorders that is intended to improve communication in clinical practice and in research studies. DSM-IV has no philosophic pretensions but does raise many philosphical questions. This paper describes the development of DSM-IV and the way in which it addresses a number of philosophic issues: nominalism vs. realism, epistemology in science, the mind/body dichotomy, (...) the definition of mental disorders, and dimensional vs. categorical classification. (shrink)

The sixteen essays in Gender Struggles address a wide range of issues in gender struggles, from the more familiar ones that, for the last thirty years, have been the mainstay of feminist scholarship, such as motherhood, beauty, and sexual violence, to new topics inspired by post-industrialization and multiculturalism, such as the welfare state, cyberspace, hate speech, and queer politics, and finally to topics that traditionally have not been seen as appropriate subjects for philosophizing, such as adoption, care work, and the (...) home. (shrink)

Tras el Pacto de Estado contra la Violencia de Género se han llevado a cabodiversas iniciativas legislativas en torno a las denominadas violencias sexualesque han desembocado en la L.O. 10/2022 de Garantía Integral de la LibertadSexual.En este trabajo se pretenden abordar dos de las cuestiones más importantesde esta Ley, el consentimiento expreso y la eliminación de la distinción entreabuso sexual y agresión sexual, todo ello, partiendo de la realidad a que sequiere dar respuesta, de las obligaciones asumidas a nivel internacional (...) ydel análisis del derecho comparado, sin olvidar la ineludible perspectiva degénero y, por su puesto, teniendo en cuenta los informes el Consejo Fiscal y elCGPJ al anteproyecto y las enmiendas presentadas al articulado del proyectopresentado el 07/07/2021. (shrink)

Many frameworks exist that explain how people interact with avatars. Our core argument is that the primary theoretical mechanisms of a user-avatar bond rest with the way people engage avatars and, thereby, the broader digital environment. To understand and predict such engagement, we identify a person’s skill in handling/engaging the avatar in the digital environment as an ordering parameter. Accordingly, we define skill as a person’s ability to enact their agency successfully to achieve desired states. To explain how skill orders (...) experience, we ground our theorizing in ecological perception and systems theory. In our explication, we describe how stable action coupling enables a state of embeddedness in the digital environment. Then, we explain how embeddedness promotes motivational attunement and what the digital environment affords to users at different levels of skill. Throughout, we consider how our theoretical scaffolding generates tractable contentions regarding how skill influences UABs. (shrink)

Thematically organized around the major concerns of Basil Bernstein's work as a sociologist, this book includes chapters from some of the leading sociologists and educational scholars. Each section attempts to provide a critical evaluation of Bernstein's work, framed within four interrelated contexts: his sociological theory, sociology of language and code theory, sociology of education and social reproduction, and the influence of his sociology on educational research. In a separate section, Bernstein himself responds to the earlier chapters. The book examines Bernstein's (...) sociology of schools in relation to his general sociological theory and in doing so demonstrates that sociology is an essential lens for understanding the structure and processes of schooling. It also provides a critical evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of Bernstein's work, as well as a correction to current work in education, which eschews theory in favor of practicality. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a host of ethical challenges, but key among these has been the possibility that health care systems might need to ration scarce critical care resources. Rationing p...

Academic accrediting/standard-setting bodies and the accounting profession view the continued emergence of reputation-damaging ethical transgressions within the accounting profession as a failure of accounting education to effectively implement necessary reforms. Although accounting educators have proposed various frameworks and instructional methods for improving ethics education, accounting still lags behind other professions in the moral development of aspiring professionals. The purpose of this paper is to provide a model for an enhanced ethics course developed for an accounting curriculum. The model course was (...) designed to respond to identified deficiencies in accounting ethics education and improve the moral development of accounting students. The paper discusses course design, delivery methods, educational goals, topical coverage and assessment of learning. Assessment data indicated that accounting students’ levels of moral development improved to a level consistent with other professions upon successful completion of the course. (shrink)