IntroductionGeneralized Anxiety Disorder is a prevalent emotional disorder associated with increased dysfunctionality, which has a lasting impact on the individual’s quality of life. Besides medication, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy represents the golden standard psychotherapeutic approach for GAD, integrating multilevel techniques and various delivery formats that enable the development of tailored treatment protocols. The objective of this study was to compare the efficiency of a standard CBT protocol targeting worries, dysfunctional beliefs, and intolerance of uncertainty with an integrative and multimodal CBT intervention augmented (...) with Virtual Reality.Materials and methodsThis study included 66 participants with moderate GAD symptoms that were randomized to the standard CBT group and the Integrative and Multimodal CBT augmented with VR group. The interventions comprised 10 weekly sessions conducted by trained CBT therapists, including cognitive restructuring, problem-solving, behavioral exposure, and relaxation techniques. Baseline and post-assessments were conducted with both groups. Primary outcome measures included the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale and Penn-State Worry Questionnaire to evaluate the severity of GAD symptoms and worries, respectively. Secondary outcomes involved the administration of Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale and Unconditional Self-Acceptance Questionnaire.ResultsBoth interventions determined statistically significant effects on both primary and secondary outcomes in the expected direction. However, CBTs was associated with higher effect sizes for anxiety and worries, in contrast to IM-VRCBT. Also, secondary analyses revealed positive correlations between changes in anxiety and worries level and the reduction of dysfunctional cognitive processes.ConclusionThis research emphasized the effectiveness of CBT interventions for treating adults with moderate GAD symptomatology. Specifically, both interventions were efficient for reducing anxiety symptomatology present at individuals with GAD. However, regarding cognitive dysfunctions like worries, the standard CBT protocol performed better, as compared to the IM-VRCBT. In addition, we conclude that VR could be integrated within CBT interventions in a single protocol for GAD treatment. (shrink)

From experience, we know that some cognitive processes are effortless and automatic (or nearly automatic), while others are hard and deliberate. Dual process (DP) accounts of human cognition explain these differences by positing two qualitatively distinct types of cognitive processes within the human mind—types that cannot be reduced to each other. Because DP constructs are bound to show up in discourse on human cognition, decision-making, morality, and character formation, moral philosophers should take DP accounts seriously. Here, I provide an overview (...) of the current state of DP accounts—their basic tenets, major concepts, and the various models of the DP framework—and note some of its more salient criticisms from the psychological research community. Finally, I show that DP accounts’ commitment to a real qualitative distinction between rational and non-rational human behavior puts them at odds with a Thomistic/Aristotelian view of practical rationality. (shrink)

The multiplicity of Islamic interpretations is reflected in the heterogeneous nature of the Romanian Muslim communities. The internal fragmentation and disunity of Muslim communities, intra-Islamic difficulties, ideological and sectarian rivalry, success of Salafism among certain groups, the absence of stronger and more visible Islamic alternative discourses and the lack of interest in finding adequate mechanisms to facilitate the integration of the new Muslims in society are some of the general problems of the Romanian Muslims. Local Islamic revival has an ethno-cultural (...) dimension, a religious and even a political one as external disputes are imported in the Romanian context and affects the way Muslims define and practice Islam. Some Rroma and indigenous Tatar-Turkish adopted the neo-traditionalism consolidated in the second half of the last century and promoted by the most active Sunni NGOs in Romania. Some converts emancipated from the ideological control by conservative and neoconservative Islamic currents and are in search of progressive or mystical interpretations; other new Muslims found safety in the Salafi’s certitudes and rigid rules. Case study findings presented in this article may suggest that the more it depends on formal rituals, external behavior and rigid canonical displays of religiosity, the more fragile the Muslim identity becomes. A vulnerable constructed Self conceives differences and alterity as an attack against personal identity, hence the increasing aggressive and intolerant, superior Salafi attitudes. The more it is built on universal values, inner experience, ethical convictions, the more open and capable of integrating alterity and fostering positive relations with people of different religions becomes Muslim identity. (shrink)

Research shows that goal-relevant objects are rated positively, which results from their functionality towards the aim. In previous studies these objects were always external to the agent. However, relevant knowledge of self is also potentially accessible during goal pursuit, as self-esteem is an indicator of aim’s feasibility. In two experimental studies we tested whether goal activation affects temporal changes in automatic evaluations of personality traits related to the dimensions of agency and communion. We administered affect misattribution procedure where participants rated (...) neutral Chinese hexagrams proceeded by words describing traits. The list of words comprised agentic and communal traits. The rating took place twice - before and after introducing a manual task. In the first study, goal activation led to slightly more positive implicit evaluations of agentic and more negative evaluation of communal traits, which is consistent with empirical data on self-perception depending on agentic knowledge rather than communal one. In the second study we showed that goal activation led to changes only for promotion-, but not prevention-oriented individuals, which is explained by motivation strength. The results indicate that valuation of traits changes temporarily along with goal pursuit. (shrink)

Gaze following is the ability to use others’ gaze to obtain information about the environment. As such, it may be highly adaptive in a variety of socio-ecological contexts, and thus be widespread across animal taxa. To date, gaze following has been mostly studied in primates, and partially in birds, but little is known on the gaze following abilities of other taxa and, especially, on the evolutionary pressures that led to their emergence. In this study, we used an experimental approach to (...) test gaze following skills in a still understudied taxon, ungulates. Across four species, we assessed the individual ability to spontaneously follow the gaze of both conspecifics and human experimenters in different conditions. In line with our predictions, species followed the model’s gaze both with human and conspecific models, but more likely with the latter. Except for guanacos, all species showed gaze following significantly more in the experimental conditions. Despite the relative low number of study subjects, our study provides the first experimental evidence of gaze following skills in non-domesticated ungulates, and contributes to understanding how gaze following skills are distributed in another taxon—an essential endeavor to identify the evolutionary pressures leading to the emergence of gaze following skills across taxa. (shrink)

Currently, value sensitive design (VSD) does not commit to a particular ethical theory. Critiques contend that without such an explicit commitment, VSD lacks a methodology for distinguishing genuine moral values from mere stakeholders-preferences and runs the risk of attending to a set of values that is unprincipled or unbounded. We argue that VSD practitioners need to complement it with an ethical theory. We argue in favour of a mid-level ethical theory to fulfil this role.

The aim of the paper is to establish a relation between the cooperative principle formulated by H.P. Grice in pragmatics and the principle of sincere cooperation laid down in the founding Treaties on the European Union and interpretated by the Court of Justice of the European Union, intimately linked to the ethical imperative of cooperation, in a cultural framework shared by the Member States. The key concepts are ratio and value and the case-law analysed is provided by the recent cases (...) of the Romanian magistrates. The principle of cooperation reasserted also as the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism is the main obligation and it implies compliance with agreements and action to obtain certain effects. (shrink)

This book considers the aesthetic, cultural, and philosophical facets of a temporal paradox in the works of French novelist Claude Simon, and its broader implications for the study of narrative, and for cultural and post-modern theory.

In the context of the new paradigms of the knowledge-based economy, education and the quality of the educational system is becoming one of the strongest factors of influence. Decisions regarding the financing of education have a particular impact on the level of expenditure in the pre-university system and on the organization of the system of study courses. Furthermore, they are closely linked to the economics and accounting of pre-university education institutions. The existence or lack of material resources can greatly influence (...) the teaching activity process and implicitly the results achieved by the system. This paper aims to examine the consequences of certain decisions regarding funding in education, student achievement in pre-university education using data on government spending in the world relative to a single student, the level of salaries in secondary education and the number of students per teacher and the student's test scores. The authors chose the quantitative research methodology using the multiple linear regression model with dependent and independent variables to test the extent to which certain parameters of the funding process can influence the results achieved by students in standardized tests. The research results show that decisions regarding the financing of education in terms of salaries and the level of funding based on the standard cost per student have a direct impact on the achievements of the students and also, on the scores achieved by students. (shrink)

Focusing on the controversial birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin, this article explores how debates about the safety of these drugs have materialized in risk evaluations and the management of technological risk. Drawing on in-depth interviews with stakeholders and content analysis of legal, medical, and regulatory documents, I highlight how professional contraceptive risk assessment is characterized by systemic uncertainty and doubt, resulting in increased responsibility for users themselves to manage the drugs’ potentially increased risks of venous thromboembolism. The analysis centers (...) on three key areas in the assessment process that denote disagreement: risk measurement in postmarket surveillance data, the distinctiveness of the drugs’ benefits when compared to other contraceptive technologies, and the weighing of the risks and benefits against each other. While professionals negotiate uncertainty both in epidemiological research and in clinical practice, users are constructed as agents who should manage risk individually. Such processes are underlined by a diffusion of responsibility in the systemic management of contraceptive risk. This article suggests, more broadly, that medical technologies can be conceptualized as artifacts that are instrumental in the dispersion of risks. (shrink)

Science fiction cinema proposal for Bioethic education Proposta do cinema de ficção científica para educar em Bioética Posthumanism state that technologies will eliminate aging, improve cognitive, physical and psychological skills and keep alive human minds by uploading them in machines as artificial intelligence. These beliefs, as constant features in science fiction films, could be useful to educate medical students in Bioethics. We propose some of these science fiction films related with technological changes of humans and the noxious consequences: Being turned (...) into a humanoid created by genetic engineering; a slave or a merchandize without rights; discrimination because of eugenesic genetic manipulation; and/or the creation of cyborgs of mass destruction. Also, the movies can show the reader issues of ethnic supremacy dilemmas, identity impersonate and ambition, impersonal intelligence and conscience and identity transpass after death. These films will help teachers to analyze with students the moral limits of science and technologies. Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigo Alerm-González AJ, González-Pérez U. Propuesta del cine de ciencia ficción para educar en Bioética. Pers Bioet. 2019; 22: 14-33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5294/pebi.2019.23.1.2 Recibido: 10/11/2017 Aceptado: 20/10/2018. (shrink)

The fundamental—from the philosophy of science point of view—question of the growth of scientific knowledge implicates epistemological investigations of the creation context in science. In the paper I am arguing this thesis.

Bd. 1. Adolph Goldschmidt, Ernst Meumann, Wilhelm Waetzoldt und Arnold Schering -- Bd. 2. Paul Frankl, Emilt Utitz, Gustav Johann von Allesch und Wilhelm Worringer.

The purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between the economic well-being of countries and their openness to external markets. The scientific novelty consists in the comparison of two groups of countries with different characteristics and identifying specific patterns of the impact of selected macroeconomic factors on GDP. The article presents an econometric analysis and contains regression equations for each state. Interpretation of the coefficients of the derived models makes it possible to estimate changes in GDP with the (...) change of indicators. As a result, it was revealed that export is the most stable and strongly influencing the economy of all countries macroeconomic factor, and the strength of influence depends on the level of development of the country. The stability of GDP in developing countries is largely achieved through the regulation of internal factors, and in developed countries through exports regulation. (shrink)

Nietzsche is one of the most controversial and disputed philosophers, especially because of his association with Hitler and Nazism, but also through his upsetting philosophical decisions that deny the possibility of any morality centered on good and evil as absolute values in themselves. As for his association with Hitler, the sources prove that Nietzsche’s philosophy has nothing to do with the justification or support of the nationalist-socialist dictatorship. In addition, any connoisseur of his work can easily see that Hitler does (...) not fit at all with the description of the overman that Nietzsche conceptualizes and identifies with. As for morality, it seems to support a relativization of the values of good and evil until their dissolution, but a closer look can see that the morality of the masters accredited by Nietzsche is one of austerity, balance, respect, honor, dignity, of preferring loneliness to the amusement of the crowd. All these are values that even Christianity proposes. Lonely and incomprehensible, the master, Nietzsche lives a lifestyle similar to Christian ascetics. And just as the philosopher claims that the life of the masters should not be passed through the sieve of ordinary moral evaluations, who could judge in terms of “good” or “bad” the way the austere ones lived? (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas famously argues that it is not necessary to be virtuous in order to be wise. To many contemporary moral philosophers, this claim signals Aquinas’s failure to address the interrelatedness of our moral and intellectual life. I conduct a case study of Ivan Karamazov to demonstrate that this view is mistaken. After sketching Ivan’s character, I present Aquinas’s accounts of wisdom and pride and their nuanced relationship. I argue that Ivan illustrates the Thomistic view that pride, though not an (...) insurmountable obstacle to one’s acquisition of some intellectual virtues, makes it impossible for anyone to achieve wisdom. The vice of pride therefore proves truly devastating to one’s intellectual life, since wisdom, for Aquinas, is the highest and most important of intellectual virtues. (shrink)

Much of modern technology critique inherits Heidegger’s ontico-ontological distinction. In this paper, following Stiegler’s linking of the ontic to the transgenerational, I argue that Heidegger leaves the materiality of technics as a potential site for difference in the wake. Put differently, Heidegger “declines the gift of the ontic,” instead constructing an order of an imagined Graeco-German inheritance—a culturally and linguistically specific “saving-power” against the ills of modern technology. Through Derrida’s inheritance of Heidegger’s work—marked by a different language and positionality—I reconsider (...) ontico-ontological difference as an opening to a co-constitutive productivity of world and thing, where the passing on of mnemonic inheritance features multiplicities of languages and cultural techniques that preempt Heidegger’s “Graeco-German monolingualism.” This calls for a central positioning of the politics of memory and inheritance within modern technology critique, thereby attending both to the material realities as well as the cultural differences of technics. (shrink)

The present study sets out to discuss a literary work as a reflection of topophrenia, a space of anguish, which contains the data of both the abandoned space and of the new home, which are hypostasized in positive or negative emotions that the exiled writer experiences. Focusing on the exile and the space in Norman Manea’s works, this article proves the existence of an original view about this experience. Manea’s last novel, The Exiled Shadow (2021) is also included in our (...) analyses. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Review of Ingvild Flaskerud’s, Visualizing Belief and Piety in Iranian Shiism , (New York: Continuum, 2010).

The purpose of the study is to research intermediary transactions in the oil and gas producing industries and present them based on the results of the internal audit. In accordance with this goal, the article discusses and analyzes the theoretical aspects of accounting and methods of conducting an internal audit of settlements for intermediary transactions in oil companies. Attention is focused on the fact that intermediary operations are important in regulating the mechanism of market relations of both manufacturing companies and (...) purchasing companies. The article analyzes the current methodological guidelines of oil companies on the accounting of intermediary operations and the rules for conducting internal audits. As a result, shortcomings in the accounting of intermediary operations were identified and methodological recommendations for their improvement were presented, confirming the scientific novelty of the study. (shrink)

The employee motivation at the organizational level is naturally quantified in achieving performance goals. In this paper are studied the motivational factors from the perspective of employee work performance reflected, vertically, in the organizational performance and further in the macroeconomic performance. Using an empirical study in which the observed data were obtained through a survey conducted in this year among the Romanian employees, in this paper we validate three hypotheses that establish the association of employee performance, on the one hand (...) with proactive personality traits and on the other hand with certain motivational factors. As well, we highlight some managerial implications that can contribute to increasing workplace performance by using of appropriate motivational factors. (shrink)

Illocutionary Force and Romanian Orthodox Sermons: An Application of Speech Act Theory to Some Romanian Orthodox Sermons The aim of the paper is to analyze religious discourse with the use of the instruments of semantics and pragmatics. Essentially, it sets out to identify the linguistic elements which enable the illocutionary force in the Romanian orthodox sermons, especially in the discourse of some important figures which have influenced and still influence the Romanian orthodox theology and the religious life in Romania: Father (...) Cleopa, Father Nicolae Steinhardt, and, nowadays, Father Teofil Pârâianu. It is usually assumed that a sermon implies, on the one hand, a kerugmatik action, that of annunciation, and, on the other hand, a translating action of the biblical induce the human will to practice the words in order to Christian precepts. Mutatis mutandis, the perlocutionary effect depends on the illocutionary act and of the illocutionary force. In theory, the illocutionary force of an utterance is strictly motivated by the pragmatic. But there are linguistic elements which function as efficient markers of the illocutionary force, for example performative verbs, verbal moods and some adverbs. The criteria proposed by Searle in order to differentiate the illocutionary acts resulted in the identification of several types inside this class. Searle's taxonomy serves the research purposes: the identification of illocutionary acts found in this kind of religious discourse and, finally, outlining a pattern of manifestation of the illocutionary force inside the sermon. (shrink)