Humans' voice offers the widest variety of motor phenomena of any human activity. However, its clinical evaluation in people with movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease lags behind current knowledge on advanced analytical automatic speech processing methodology. Here, we use deep learning-based speech processing to differentially analyze voice recordings in 14 people with PD before and after dopaminergic medication using personalized Convolutional Recurrent Neural Networks and Phone Attribute Codebooks. p-CRNN yields an accuracy of 82.35% in the binary classification of ON (...) and OFF motor states at a sensitivity/specificity of 0.86/0.78. The PAC-based approach's accuracy was slightly lower with 73.08% at a sensitivity/specificity of 0.69/0.77, but this method offers easier interpretation and understanding of the computational biomarkers. Both p-CRNN and PAC provide a differentiated view and novel insights into the distinctive components of the speech of persons with PD. Both methods detect voice qualities that are amenable to dopaminergic treatment, including active phonetic and prosodic features. Our findings may pave the way for quantitative measurements of speech in persons with PD. (shrink)

Background: Moral courage is one of the most fundamental virtues in the nursing profession, however, little attention has been paid to it. As a result, no exact and clear definition of moral courage has ever been accessible. Objective: This study is carried out for the purposes of defining and clarifying its concept in the nursing profession. Methods: This study used a hybrid model of concept analysis comprising three phases, namely, a theoretical phase, field work phase, and a final analysis phase. (...) To find relevant literature, electronic search of valid databases was utilized using keywords related to the concept of courage. Field work data were collected over an 11 months’ time period from 2013 to 2014. In the field work phase, in-depth interviews were performed with 10 nurses. The conventional content analysis was used in two theoretical and field work phases using Graneheim and Lundman stages, and the results were combined in the final analysis phase. Ethical consideration: Permission for this study was obtained from the ethics committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Oral and written informed consent was received from the participants. Results: From the sum of 750 gained titles in theoretical phase, 26 texts were analyzed. The analysis resulted in 494 codes in text analysis and 226 codes in interview analysis. The literature review in the theoretical phase revealed two features of inherent–transcendental characteristics, two of which possessed a difficult nature. Working in the field phase added moral self-actualization characteristic, rationalism, spiritual beliefs, and scientific–professional qualifications to the feature of the concept. Conclusion: Moral courage is a pure and prominent characteristic of human beings. The antecedents of moral courage include model orientation, model acceptance, rationalism, individual excellence, acquiring academic and professional qualification, spiritual beliefs, organizational support, organizational repression, and internal and external personal barriers. Professional excellence resulting from moral courage can be crystallized in the form of provision of professional care, creating peace of mind, and the nurse’s decision making and proper functioning. (shrink)

Words are the essence of communication: They are the building blocks of any language. Learning the meaning of words is thus one of the most important aspects of language acquisition: Children must first learn words before they can combine them into complex utterances. Many theories have been developed to explain the impressive efficiency of young children in acquiring the vocabulary of their language, as well as the developmental patterns observed in the course of lexical acquisition. A major source of disagreement (...) among the different theories is whether children are equipped with special mechanisms and biases for word learning, or their general cognitive abilities are adequate for the task. We present a novel computational model of early word learning to shed light on the mechanisms that might be at work in this process. The model learns word meanings as probabilistic associations between words and semantic elements, using an incremental and probabilistic learning mechanism, and drawing only on general cognitive abilities. The results presented here demonstrate that much about word meanings can be learned from naturally occurring child-directed utterances (paired with meaning representations), without using any special biases or constraints, and without any explicit developmental changes in the underlying learning mechanism. Furthermore, our model provides explanations for the occasionally contradictory child experimental data, and offers predictions for the behavior of young word learners in novel situations. (shrink)

To study hospital physicians’ awareness and perceptions of the legal and financial regulations, and their impact on professional discretion regarding equity in access to treatment and quality of care. A sample of 637 physicians in the Norwegian specialist healthcare services selected from a survey conducted by the Institute for Studies of the Medical Profession. The paper investigates how legal and financial policy instruments affect the application of professional discretion regarding the prioritisation of specialist health services. Descriptive statistics and regressions were (...) conducted for the analyses. Compared with financial incentives, legal regulations (laws, priority rules and guidelines) were assessed to be less negative external interventions in the exercise of medical and professional judgement. The empirical analyses revealed a positive tendency in physicians’ assessments of the impact of legal regulations on treatment equity and healthcare quality, but negative attitudes towards financial instruments. The variations revealed are attributable to various structural and epistemic features of the legal–bureaucratic and economic models of administration in this area of the welfare state. Legal and financial regulations are imposed to achieve certain social goals and values. The findings of this study can provide further insight for the health authorities in other countries concerning implementation of such regulations in the specialist healthcare services. (shrink)

This paper describes a live ethics case project that can be used to teach ethics in a broad variety of business classes. The live case differs from regular cases in that it involves a current situation. Students select an on-going or current event that involves ethical violations and write a case about it. They then present their case and run a debate about the challenges and issues outlined in the case and the actions that could have or should have been (...) taken. The dynamic project fulfills the key criteria for effective ethics education since it increases awareness of the complexity of ethical challenges, allows application of concepts, creates a personal emotional engagement in the case, is relevant, holds students accountable for their position, and creates a setting that encourages students to think critically about ethics. (shrink)

Recently, women entrepreneurship has become of particular interest to corporate social responsibility (CSR) scholarship, however, little is known about the impact of crises on women’s business activities and how they adapt to the disruptions and new market realities caused by a crisis. To design CSR initiatives that genuinely cater to the needs of women entrepreneurs, it is imperative to acquire an in-depth understanding of their unique experiences during times of crisis. This study employed a qualitative methodology to investigate the development (...) of resilience among women entrepreneurs amidst crisis. The study sample comprised Iranian women entrepreneurs who were operating health-related businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to challenges related to money, market, management, motherhood, macro and meso level factors, women entrepreneurs were found to face crisis related challenges such as emotional exhaustion, altruism, fear of failure and uncertainty. Additionally, the findings revealed the different problem-based and emotion-based coping strategies (e.g., bootstrapping and emotional regulation) that women entrepreneurs used to build entrepreneurial resilience as well as business resilience. The resultant findings offer a comprehensive understanding of women entrepreneurs’ resilience-building process and suggest that resilience-building is a contextual as well as a gendered phenomenon. Implications for entrepreneurship research as well as women entrepreneurship and ethics literature is discussed. (shrink)

Background Ethical behavior of health workers is an important part of health services. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between ethics and professional commitment and its relationship with the level of respect for patient rights in medical students. Material & methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with the participation of nursing, midwifery and emergency medicine students of Ilam University of Medical Sciences. Sampling was done by stratified random method. The data was collected using Demographic, (...) Professional Commitment, Professional ethics and a researcher made questioner on compliance with patient rights questionnaires. Results 300 students were participated. The results showed that the average score of professional ethics in middle school students is high (64.07 ± 8.01), the average score of professional commitment is also high (64.07 ± 8.01) and the score of respect for patient rights is also high (10.74). ± 83.46) was obtained. The professional ethics score it showed a positive and statistically significant relationship with the patient’s rights compliance score. only professional commitment is related to gender, but the average of all three variables in different age groups and the type of residence (dormitory, private home, etc.) have meaningful statistical difference. Conclusion The findings of the study show that the level of ethics and professional commitment and respect for patient rights among nursing, midwifery and emergency medicine students was good. It is hoped that the results of this research will provide a basis for better planning for the development of knowledge and respect for patient rights among students. (shrink)

In this paper we define the hyper operations ⊗, ∨ and ∧ on a hyper MV -algebra and we obtain some related results. After that by considering the notions ofhyper MV -ideals and weak hyper MV -ideals, we prove some theorems. Then we determine relationships between hyper MV -ideals in a hyper MV -algebra and hyper K -ideals in a hyper K -algebra . Finally we give a characterization of hyper MV -algebras of order 3 or 4 based on the (...) hyper MV -ideals. (shrink)

Background In order to achieve the goals of the healthcare system, nursing managers are required to comply with ethical principles in decision-making. In complex and challenging healthcare settings, it is shown that the managers’ mere awareness of ethics does not suffice and managers need to be sensitive toward making ethical decisions. Aim To explore nursing managers and their sensitivity toward ethical decision-making by analyzing their related experiences. Method The current study has been conducted in Iran in 2017 through a qualitative (...) content analysis approach. Nineteen nurse managers were selected purposefully from different hospitals in Tehran. Data were collected using semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews, and after transcription, they were analyzed according to the Graneheim and Lundman method. Ethical considerations The research was approved by the ethics committee of Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Participants were informed about the purpose of the study and submitted written informed consents regarding their participation. The principle of autonomy, confidentiality, and anonymity was taken into account in data collection. Results Fifteen subcategories, three categories (assertiveness, commitment, and insight), and one theme of excellent decision-making were the results of data analysis. Discussion Findings showed that nursing managers’ sensitivity to ethical decision-making allows them to make the best decision by insight, commitment, and assertiveness. Making a morally excellent decision ensures that ethical principles are followed in the healthcare system. Conclusion Considering that most managers are committed to making ethical decisions, it is required to develop the scope of their insights even further using a professional management and ethical principles training program. Also, by addressing some of the ethical barriers at personal and organizational levels, the assertiveness in managers can be improved, which in turn can facilitate their ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Background Nursing documentation as a pivotal part of nursing care has many implications for patient care in terms of safety and ethics. Objectives To explore factors influencing nursing documentation from nurses’ perspectives in the Iranian nursing context. Methods This qualitative study was carried out using a qualitative content analysis of data collected from 2018 to 2019 in two urban areas of Iran. Semi-structured interviews (n = 15), observations, and reviews of patients’ medical files were used for data collection. Ethical considerations (...) This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of research and regulations in terms of confidentiality of data, anonymity, and provision of informed consent. Findings The main theme of this study was “unsafe documentation.” Two categories, “types of errors in reporting” and “reasons of errors in reporting,” and 12 subcategories were developed indicating factors influencing nursing documentation in the Iranian nursing context. Conclusion In general, individual, organizational, and national factors affected nursing documentation in Iran. In this respect, hiring more nurses, application of reforms in the healthcare management structure, devising appropriate regulations regarding division of labor, constant education of healthcare staff, establishment of clinical governance, improvement of interpersonal relationships, development of hardware and software techniques for documentation, and provision of support should be done to improve the quality of nursing documentation. The above-mentioned suggestions can help nurses with a safe, ethical, lawful, and reliable documentation in nursing practice. (shrink)

Source: Author: Mohammed Hussein Oroskhan, Esmaeil Zohdi From its beginning in the academic studies during the later nineteenth century, Romanticism has provoked ongoing debates over the nature of its definition. Nonetheless Morse Peckham has satisfactorily settled this matter by indicating that romanticism has dramatically altered the way of thinking therefore it should be distinctively met. For this purpose, he proposed that dealing with the concept of romanticism necessitate dividing it into two concepts of negative and positive romanticism in which a (...) transition is occurred from negative romanticism to positive romanticism however in some cases this transition may not become completed and is lead to the obscure origin of the sense of isolation among various romantic poets. To clearly illustrate Peckham's notion of negative romanticism, it is tried to explore Nima Yushij's Afsaneh who is known to be the most romantic poet of Persian literature. Based upon Peckham's notion of negative romanticism, Nima's sense of despair and isolation in Afsaneh is fully justified and it is highly suggested that Peckham's new perspective toward romanticism can eventually settle the conflicting views on the subject of Romanticism. ]]>. (shrink)