Background: Nurses, social workers, and medical residents are ethically mandated to engage in policy advocacy to promote the health and well-being of patients and increase access to care. Yet, no instrument exists to measure their level of engagement in policy advocacy. Research objective: To describe the development and validation of the Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale, designed to measure frontline healthcare professionals’ engagement in policy advocacy with respect to a broad range of issues, including patients’ ethical rights, quality of care, culturally (...) competent care, preventive care, affordability/accessibility of care, mental healthcare, and community-based care. Research design: Cross-sectional data were gathered to estimate the content and construct validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability of the Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale. Participants and context: In all, 97 nurses, 94 social workers, and 104 medical residents (N = 295) were recruited from eight acute-care hospitals in Los Angeles County. Ethical considerations: Informed consent was obtained via Qualtrics and covered purposes, risks and benefits; voluntary participation; confidentiality; and compensation. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained from the University of Southern California and all hospitals. Findings: Results supported the validity of the concept and the instrument. In confirmatory factor analysis, seven items loaded onto one component with indices indicating adequate model fit. A Pearson correlation coefficient of.36 supported the scale’s test–retest stability. Cronbach’s α of.93 indicated strong internal consistency. Discussion: The Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties in this initial test. Findings should be considered within the context of the study’s limitations, which include a low response rate and limited geographic scope. Conclusion: The Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale appears to be the first validated scale to measure frontline healthcare professionals’ engagement in policy advocacy. With it, researchers can analyze variations in professionals’ levels of policy advocacy engagement, understand what factors are associated with it, and remedy barriers that might exist to their provision of it. (shrink)

This research project investigated the extent to which nurses engage in two important kinds of ethical behaviours: ethical activism (where they try to make hospitals more receptive to nurses’ participation in ethics deliberations) and ethical assertiveness (where they participate in ethics deliberations even when not formally invited). This research probed not only the extent to which nurses engage in these ethical behaviours but also whether this is influenced by professional, training and organizational factors. A random sample of 165 nurses from (...) three major hospitals in Los Angeles provided the data. Regression analyses indicate that both ethical activism and ethical assertiveness are strongly influenced by nurses’ perceptions of the receptivity of hospitals to their inclusion in ethics deliberations. In addition, nurses’ education in ethics is a significant predictor of ethical activism. The findings have important implications for the content of nurses’ ethics training as well as for expanding the boundaries of nurses’ participation in ethics deliberations. The authors define ethics deliberations as specific meetings of a number of people to discuss an ethical issue, such as one regarding the care of a patient. (shrink)

A diagram that places two planets in orbit around the sun was inserted into the textual space of a Timaeus manuscript of the late 11th century as well as three more in the 12th century. The diagram derives from a Carolingian tradition of study of Martianus Capella’s astronomy and shows his continued authority into the twelfth century. By way of Capella and through similarly-inspired commentaries on Macrobius’ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, the idea of circumsolar motion for Mercury and (...) Venus became a well-known and authoritative theme for William of Conches and other scholars in the eleventh and twelfth centuries wo interpreted Plato in terms of current scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Characterizing the genetic structure of populations is of importance to evolutionary biology, to human disease gene mapping, and to forensic science. Sewall Wright introduced a set of F-statistics to describe population structure in 1951, and he emphasized that these quantities were ratios of variances. Responding to uncertainty over the best way to estimate F-statistics, Weir and Cockerham published a method-of-moments set of estimators in 1984. This paper continues to be widely cited, with over 7,000 citations to date. Some background to (...) the publishing history of the Weir and Cockerham paper is given here, along with subsequent developments and a discussion of current uses of Wright's F-statistics. (shrink)

Mass literacy, mass communication, and the Internet have all increased the amount of information available. But false knowledge still abounds. Taking cues from Sir Thomas Browne, the English Renaissance skeptic, this title examines a host of contemporary errors in thinking and offers a powerful explanation of why they occur.

The brain and body need to adapt constantly to changing social and physical environments. A key mechanism for this adaptation is the ‘stress response’, which is necessary and not negative in and of itself. The term ‘stress’, however, is ambiguous and has acquired negative connotations. We argue that the concept of allostasis can be used instead to describe the mechanisms employed to achieve stability of homeostatic systems through active intervention (adaptive plasticity). In the context of allostasis, resilience denotes the ability (...) of an organism to respond to stressors in the environment by means of the appropriate engagement and efficient termination of allostatic responses. In this review, we discuss the neurobiological and organismal factors that modulate resilience, such as growth factors, chaperone molecules and circadian rhythms, and highlight its consequences for cognition and behavior. (shrink)

Analysis of the mechanisms underlying sex determination and sex differentiation in Drosophila has provided evidence for a complex but comprehensible regulatory hierarchy governing these developmental decisions. It is suggested here that the pattern of sexual differentiation and dosage compensation characteristic of the male is a default regulatory state. Recent results have provided, in addition, some surprising and intriguing conclusions: (1) that several of the critical controlling genes produce more transcripts than was predicted from the genetic analyses; (2) that setting of (...) the alternative sex‐specific states of the doublesex (dsx) locus involves differential transcript processing; and (3) that some aspects of sexual differentation require the prolonged action of certain elements of the regulatory hierarchy. These findings are discussed in connection with the current model of sex determination in Drosophila. (shrink)

The Many-Worlds Interpretation is a theory in physics which proposes that, rather than quantum-level events being resolved randomly as according to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the universe constantly divides into different versions or worlds. All physically possible worlds occur, though some outcomes are more likely than others, and therefore all possible histories exist. This paper explores some implications of this for history, especially concerning causation. Unlike counterfactuals, which concern different starting conditions, MWI concerns different outcomes of the same starting conditions. It (...) is argued that analysis of causation needs to take into account the divergence of outcomes and the possibility that we inhabit a less probable world. Another implication of MWI is convergent history: for any given world there will be similar worlds which are the result of different pasts which are, however, more or less probable. MWI can assist in thinking about historical causation and indicates the importance of probabilistic causation. (shrink)

The brain is an ever‐changing organ that encodes memories and directs behavior. Neuroanatomical studies have revealed structural plasticity of neural architecture, and advances in gene expression technology and epigenetics have demonstrated new mechanisms underlying the brain's dynamic nature. Stressful experiences challenge the plasticity of the brain, and prolonged exposure to environmental stress redefines the normative transcriptional profile of both neurons and glia, and can lead to the onset of mental illness. A more thorough understanding of normal and abnormal gene expression (...) is needed to define the diseased brain and improve current treatments for psychiatric disorders. The efforts to describe gene expression networks have been bolstered by microarray and RNA‐sequencing technologies. The heterogeneity of neural cell populations and their unique microenvironments, coupled with broad ranging interconnectivity, makes resolving this complexity exceedingly challenging and requires the combined efforts of single cell and systems level expression profiling to identify targets for therapeutic intervention. (shrink)

Kids in the Middle: The Micro-Politics of Special Education takes the reader on a fascinating journey through special education in the past, present, and future. On this journey, the micro-politics of special education are seen through the eyes and experiences of children with disabilities, their parents and advocates, adult educators, and school administrators. Supplementing these perspectives to develop an understanding of special education that goes beyond its administrative and political aspects, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , are (...) scholars with expertise in special education law, administration, severe and profound disabilities, ethics, finance, teaching, and disability rights. Together, these voices explain the micro-political issues that affect how children with disabilities are educated. Kids in the Middle promotes a new model of special education to help transform special education. Instead of perpetuating a system grounded in the concepts of promises, privilege, and power, this book considers how to build a system based on caring, compassion, and the common good, a system that will elevate the status of special education children who are lost in the middle. (shrink)

For over a century, the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard has been at the center of a number of important discussions, concerning not only philosophy and theology, but also, more recently, fields such as social thought, psychology, and contemporary aesthetics, especially literary theory. Despite his relatively short life, Kierkegaard was an extraordinarily prolific writer, as attested to by the 26-volume Princeton University Press edition of all of his published writings. But Kierkegaard left behind nearly as much unpublished writing, most of which (...) consists of what are called his "journals and notebooks." Kierkegaard has long been recognized as one of history's great journal keepers, but only rather small portions of his journals and notebooks are what we usually understand by the term "diaries." By far the greater part of Kierkegaard's journals and notebooks consists of reflections on a myriad of subjects--philosophical, religious, political, personal. Studying his journals and notebooks takes us into his workshop, where we can see his entire universe of thought. We can witness the genesis of his published works, to be sure--but we can also see whole galaxies of concepts, new insights, and fragments, large and small, of partially completed but unpublished works. Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks enables us to see the thinker in dialogue with his times and with himself. Volume 6 of this 11-volume series includes four of Kierkegaard's important "NB" journals, covering the months from early May 1849 to the beginning of 1850. At this time Denmark was coming to terms with the 1848 revolution that had replaced absolutism with popular sovereignty, while the war with the German states continued, and the country pondered exactly what replacing the old State Church with the Danish People's Church would mean. In these journals Kierkegaard reflects at length on political and, especially, on ecclesiastical developments. His brooding over the ongoing effects of his fight with the satirical journal Corsair continues, and he also examines and re-examines the broader personal and religious significance of his broken engagement with Regine Olsen. These journals also contain reflections by Kierkegaard on a number of his most important works, including the two works written under his "new" pseudonym Anti-Climacus and his various attempts at autobiographical explanations of his work. And, all the while, the drumbeat of his radical critique of "Christendom" continues and escalates. Kierkegaard wrote his journals in a two-column format, one for his initial entries and the second for the extensive marginal comments that he added later. This edition of the journals reproduces this format, includes several photographs of original manuscript pages, and contains extensive scholarly commentary on the various entries and on the history of the manuscripts being reproduced. (shrink)

The current paradigm in medicine generally distinguishes between genetic and environmental causes of disease. Although the word paradigm has become a commonplace, the theories of Thomas Kuhn have not received much attention in the journals of medicine. Kuhn's structuralist method differs radically from the daily activities of the scientific method itself. Using linguistic theory, this essay offers a structuralist reading of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Our purpose is to highlight the similarities between these structuralist models of science (...) and language. In part, we focus on the logic that enables Kuhn to assert the priority of perception over interpretation in the history of science. To illustrate some of these issues, we refer to the distinction between environmental and genetic causes of disease. While the activity of scientific research results in the revision of concepts in science, the production of significant differences that shape our knowledge is in part a social and linguistic process. (shrink)

The first longevity revolution began in the middle of the 19th century, accelerated through the first half of the 20th century, and led to the first and only quantum leap in human life expectancy.In the 20th century alone, life expectancy at birth in most developed nations rose by about 30 years. The first three quarters of the century were notable for gains made at younger and middle ages, and in the last quarter century, old age mortality declined. Nothing in history (...) has ever come close to the magnitude of this benefit to humanity. The rise in life expectancy occurred swiftly because the primary beneficiaries of advances in public health and... (shrink)

Plagiarism strikes at the heart of academe, eroding the fundamental value of academic research. Recent evidence suggests that acts of plagiarism and awareness of these acts are on the rise in academia. To address this issue, a vein of research has emerged in recent years exploring plagiarism as an area of academic inquiry. In this new academic subject, case studies and analysis have been one of the most influential methodologies employed. Case studies provide a venue where acts of plagiarism can (...) be discussed and analyzed in a constructive manner, and that is the primary purpose of this article. Unlike previous studies, however, we focus on the role of the publisher, a key player in dealing with acts of plagiarism, but one who has received little attention in the academic literature. Specifically, we examine how an academic publisher addressed allegations of plagiarism and how the publisher’s decision-making affected the outcome. We analyze the case by applying the guidelines from different frameworks and ethical theory and develop recommendations from the lessons evidenced, the second main objective of our article. This analysis advances the dialog on academic plagiarism by exploring the role of the publisher from a deontological perspective of ethical absolutism. (shrink)

Plagiarism strikes at the heart of academe, eroding the fundamental value of academic research. Recent evidence suggests that acts of plagiarism and awareness of these acts are on the rise in academia. To address this issue, a vein of research has emerged in recent years exploring plagiarism as an area of academic inquiry. In this new academic subject, case studies and analysis have been one of the most influential methodologies employed. Case studies provide a venue where acts of plagiarism can (...) be discussed and analyzed in a constructive manner, and that is the primary purpose of this article. Unlike previous studies, however, we focus on the role of the publisher, a key player in dealing with acts of plagiarism, but one who has received little attention in the academic literature. Specifically, we examine how an academic publisher addressed allegations of plagiarism and how the publisher’s decision-making affected the outcome. We analyze the case by applying the guidelines from different frameworks and ethical theory and develop recommendations from the lessons evidenced, the second main objective of our article. This analysis advances the dialog on academic plagiarism by exploring the role of the publisher from a deontological perspective of ethical absolutism. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 11, Page 31-38, November 2011.

Machine learning algorithms may radically improve our ability to diagnose and treat disease. For moral, legal, and scientific reasons, it is essential that doctors and patients be able to understand and explain the predictions of these models. Scalable, customisable, and ethical solutions can be achieved by working together with relevant stakeholders, including patients, data scientists, and policy makers.

Recognition that biological systems are stabilized far from equilibrium by self-organizing, informed, autocatalytic cycles and structures that dissipate unusable energy and matter has led to recent attempts to reformulate evolutionary theory. We hold that such insights are consistent with the broad development of the Darwinian Tradition and with the concept of natural selection. Biological systems are selected that re not only more efficient than competitors but also enhance the integrity of the web of energetic relations in which they are embedded. (...) But the expansion of the informational phase space, upon which selection acts, is also guaranteed by the properties of open informational-energetic systems. This provides a directionality and irreversibility to evolutionary processes that are not reflected in current theory.For this thermodynamically-based program to progress, we believe that biological information should not be treated in isolation from energy flows, and that the ecological perspective must be given descriptive and explanatory primacy. Levels of the ecological hierarchy are relational parts of ecological systems in which there are stable, informed patterns of energy flow and entropic dissipation. Isomorphies between developmental patterns and ecological succession are revealing because they suggest that much of the encoded metabolic information in biological systems is internalized ecological information. The geneological hierarchy, to the extent that its information content reflects internalized ecological information, can therefore be redescribed as an ecological hierarchy. (shrink)

A collection of critical essays by English and American scholars, including such controversial academic political theorists as Gutmann, Barry and Nussbaum, that raises questions about the current theoretical reassessment of political liberalism.

Bruce L. Kinzer offers a rich examination of personal and political themes in the life of John Stuart Mill, one of the most influential liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century. By investigating young Mill's formative period and his relations with his father, Harriet Taylor, and Thomas Carlyle, Kinzer casts light on the challenges Mill faced in understanding himself and what he wished to become. Kinzer's political explorations probe issues central to the appreciation of Mill as an engaged political thinker (...) and actor and offers an insightful portrait of a complex and towering figure."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

'A very welcome compendium on the wide range of research methods available for economists and social scientists more generally. Highly recommended, particularly for those wishing to explore alternative methods to be applied in all fields of economic analy.

The belief that damaging an object may harm the individual to which the object relates is common among adults. We explored whether arousal following the destruction of a photograph of a loved partner is greater than that following the destruction of a photograph of a stranger, and whether this response is greater than when a photograph representing a non-person sentimental attachment is destroyed, using a measure of skin conductance response. Long-term supporters of a football team, who were also in a (...) long-term relationship, showed increased arousal when asked to destroy a photograph of their partner, but not a photograph of their team, even though both elicited equivalent ratings of emotional attachment. This may be because football teams are conceptualized differently from individuals. Future studies should address whether destruction of symbols that represent the enduring nature of the team elicit more emotional distress than photograph. (shrink)

Locri Epizephiri, a city-state on the Ionian Sea, established settlements on the Tyrrhenian coast and routes across the peninsula of Calabria. Although some scholars have questioned the importance of land routes over the peninsula, this study indicates these itineraries were vital, particularly during the Classical period when Locri came into conflict with Rhegium, master of the Straits of Messina. This study examines Locri’s struggles for supremacy of the Tyrrhenian coast and investigates the major routes in Locri’s territory between the Ionian (...) and Tyrrhenian seas. Much evidence for the itineraries is from the authors’ explorations on the ground in Calabria. (shrink)

Bruce L. Kinzer provides the first comprehensive investigation of J.S. Mill's multifaceted engagement with the Irish question, the fundamental issues inherent in British-Irish politics.