La nueva enfermedad del coronavirus de 2019 (Covid-19), producida por el coronavirus del Síndrome Respiratorio Agudo Severo 2 (SARS-CoV-2), es una pandemia que está creando una creciente crisis sanitaria mundial, dada su novedad, su alcance y sus inicialmente limitadas opciones de tratamiento eficaz. En efecto, se sabe poco acerca de las intervenciones no farmacéuticas óptimas para evitar la morbilidad y mortalidad causadas por él, y también se conoce poco sobre la rentabilidad y aspectos éticos de dichas intervenciones. Por lo tanto, (...) éste es el primer análisis ético y de rentabilidad de las medidas de contención del Covid-19 que se conoce (así como de las medidas de cuarentena de la población para cualquier pandemia en particular), con el fin de ayudar a los sistemas de salud y a los gobiernos a garantizar la atención clínica más rentable que pueda proporcionarse equitativamente al mayor número posible de pacientes, durante esta pandemia y en las futuras crisis mundiales que sean similares. Este análisis utilizó la metodología adoptada por los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades (CDC), cifras comúnmente aceptadas como entradas, y los supuestos mínimos tanto extremos como del mundo real para proporcionar los resultados más sólidos y confiables posibles. El análisis de costos indicó que en los escenarios extremos, o en el mejor de los casos para las medidas de contención del Covid-19 durante la cuarentena de la población, hay una relación de costo-efectividad de $154.86 millones de dólares gastados por cada muerte evitada, y un costo neto de $1.92 billones a nivel mundial. En el mundo real, esta intervención tiene una proporción de 2,520 millones de dólares gastados por cada muerte evitada y un costo neto de 1,99 billones de dólares. La ética del contrato social personalista, tal y como se articula en el popular sistema ético de derechos y deberes de las Naciones Unidas, pone de manifiesto la especial preocupación por el hecho de que estos confinamientos pueden derivar en injusticias poco éticas perpetuadas por los Estados, de manera que socavan las vidas y las libertades individuales, al tiempo que afectan de manera des- proporcionada a las comunidades de menores ingresos, especialmente a las minorías raciales. Este estudio sugiere, por tanto, que la práctica prevalente de la cuarentena entre la población, en comparación con las precauciones de tipo estándar y las intervenciones más específicas, puede proporcionar un beneficio neto inadecuado por su costo financiero y ético. En un momento de escasez mundial, que pone a prueba la capacidad de los sistemas sanitarios para detectar y atender adecuadamente a los pacientes con Covid-19, especialmente en los países en desarrollo y en las comunidades desatendidas, este estudio respalda que se dediquen menos recursos a intervenciones con una relación costo- beneficio poco clara, y más recursos a intervenciones más asequibles, éticas y equitativas, con mayores pruebas de sus beneficios netos para salvar vidas. (shrink)

"Center for the Study of Language and Information, Leland Stanford Junior University.".

The agricultural communicator is a key link in transmitting information to farmers. If agricultural communicators' ethics are compromised, the resulting biases in news production could have serious detrimental effects on the quality of information conveyed to farmers. But, to date, agricultural communicators' perceptions of ethical problems they encounter at work has not been examined. This study looks at the dimensions of ethical concerns for topics area (agricultural) journalists as defined by practitioners. To determine these dimensions, we sent open ended questionnaires (...) (50 percent response rate) to members of two professional agricultural journalist associations: the Newspaper Farm Editors of America and the American Agricultural Editors' Association.Agricultural communicators overwhelmingly focus on one specific threat to objectivity—advertising pressure. Both NFEA and AAEA respondents indicated that agricultural journalists' responses to advertising pressure adversely affected the entire profession. The responses indicated that agricultural writers were concerned with the different types of pressures and the effects of advertising pressure on the industry as a whole. NFEA and AAEA respondents mentioned both indirect pressure, “freebies,” conferences, trips and press releases from advertising or public relations sections of agri-business firms, and direct pressures from advertisers, salesmen and publishers. The respondents were clearly more comfortable when newspaper policy protected them from advertising pressure and when they had techniques to reduce this pressure. The editors' and reporters' perceptions of advertising pressure clearly indicates that advertising abuses are a clear and present danger and one worthy of far more attention than it has previously received. (shrink)

It is estimated that one in ten U.S. adults suffers from chronic insomnia. If left untreated, chronic insomnia reduces quality of life and increases risk for psychiatric and medical disease, especially depression and anxiety. There are two forms of insomnia: secondary insomnia, in which it is comorbid with another condition such as psychiatric disorders, chronic pain conditions, or cardiopulmonary disorders, and primary insomnia, which does not coexist with any other disorder. This treatment program uses cognitive-behavioral therapy methods to correct poor (...) sleep habits. CBT has been proven in multiple studies to improve sleep hygiene by reducing time spent in bed before sleep onset, reducing time spent awake after first sleep onset, and increasing the quality and efficiency of sleep. Developed by the authors, this evidence based treatment can be used for both primary and secondary insomnia sufferers. Patients are first given information about healthy sleep and the reasons for improving sleep habits, then a behavioral program is developed to address that patient's specific sleep problems. Use of sleep logs, assessment forms, and other homework allows client and therapist to work together to develop an effective sleep regimen tailored specifically for each client. Finally, several sessions are dedicated to increasing compliance and problem-solving.TreatmentsThatWork represents the gold standard of behavioral healthcare interventions!BL All programs have been rigorously tested in clinical trials and are backed by years of researchBL A prestigious scientific advisory board, led by series Editor-In-Chief David H. Barlow, reviews and evaluates each intervention to ensure that it meets the highest standard of evidence so you can be confident that you are using the most effective treatment available to dateBL Our books are reliable and effective and make it easy for you to provide your clients with the best care availableBL Our corresponding workbooks contain psychoeducational information, forms and worksheets, and homework assignments to keep clients engaged and motivatedBL A companion website offers downloadable clinical tools and helpful resourcesBL Continuing Education Credits are now available on select titles in collaboration with PsychoEducational Resources, Inc. (shrink)

Belongingness is a central biopsychosocial system. Challenges to belongingness (i.e. exclusion/ostracism) engender robust negative effects on affect and cognitions. Whether overinclusion – getting more than one’s fair share of social attention – favourably impacts affect and cognitions remains an open question. This pre-registered meta-analysis includes twenty-two studies (N = 2757) examining overinclusion in the context of the Cyberball task. We found that the estimated overall effect size of overinclusion on positive affect was small but robust, and the effect on fundamental (...) needs cognitions (belongingness, self-esteem, meaningful existence and control) was moderate in size and positive in direction. Notably, the effect sizes of overinclusion were smaller than the corresponding effects of exclusion. Finally, the effects of overinclusion on positive affect were greater for high, as compared to low, socially anxious individuals. Exploring the sequelae of the full range of inclusion experiences – from exclusion to overinclusion – may enrich our understanding of the functioning of the belongingness system as well as its interaction with another central biosocial system – the social status system. (shrink)

Engineers must deal with risks and uncertainties as a part of their professional work and, in particular, uncertainties are inherent to engineering models. Models play a central role in engineering. Models often represent an abstract and idealized version of the mathematical properties of a target. Using models, engineers can investigate and acquire understanding of how an object or phenomenon will perform under specified conditions. This paper defines the different stages of the modeling process in engineering, classifies the various sources of (...) uncertainty that arise in each stage, and discusses the categories into which these uncertainties fall. The paper then considers the way uncertainty and modeling are approached in science and the criteria for evaluating scientific hypotheses, in order to highlight the very different criteria appropriate for the development of models and the treatment of the inherent uncertainties in engineering. Finally, the paper puts forward nine guidelines for the treatment of uncertainty in engineering modeling. (shrink)

During his long and continuing scholarly career, Patrick Suppes contributed significantly both to the sciences and to their philosophies. The volume consists of papers by an international group of Suppes colleagues, collaborators, and students in many of the areas of his expertise, building on or adding to his insights. Michael Friedman offers an overview of Suppes accomplishments and of his unique perspective on the relation between science and philosophy. Paul Humphreys, Stephen Hartmann, and Tom Ryckman present essays in the philosophy (...) of physics. Jens-Erik Fenstad, Harvey Friedman, and Jaako Hintikka consider problems in the foundations of mathematics, while the late Duncan Luce, Jean-Claude Falmagne, Brian Skyrms, and Hannes Leitgeb have contributed essays in theory of measurement, decision theory and probability. Foundations of economics and political theory are addressed by Adolfo Garcia de la Sienra, Russell Hardin, and Kenneth Arrow. Psychology, language, and philosophy of language are addressed by Elizabeth Loftus, Anne Fagot-Largeault, Willem Levelt, Dagfinn Follesdal, and Marcos Perreau-Guimares and some of Suppes most recent research in neurobiology is addressed in essays by Colleen Crangle, Acadio de Barros and Claudio Carvalhes. Finally Nancy Cartwright and Alexandre Marcelles consider the alignment (or misalignment) of method and policy. Each of the essays is accompanied by a response from Suppes.". (shrink)

Atran adds a synthesis of much of the literature on folk-biological classification to important new experimental data relevant to long-standing inferences about the structure of folk taxonomies. What we know about such systems is somewhat overstated, and key issues remain unresolved, especially concerning the centrality of “generic species,” the primacy of “general purpose” taxonomies, and domain specificity.

Functional human brain mapping is commonly performed during invasive monitoring with intracranial electroencephalographic electrodes prior to resective surgery for drug­ resistant epilepsy. The current gold standard, electrocortical stimulation mapping, is time ­consuming, sometimes elicits pain, and often induces after discharges or seizures. Moreover, there is a risk of overestimating eloquent areas due to propagation of the effects of stimulation to a broader network of language cortex. Passive iEEG spatial-temporal functional mapping has recently emerged as a potential alternative to ESM. However, (...) investigators have observed less correspondence between STFM and ESM maps of language than between their maps of motor function. We hypothesized that incongruities between ESM and STFM of language function may arise due to propagation of the effects of ESM to cortical areas having strong effective connectivity with the site of stimulation. We evaluated five patients who underwent invasive monitoring for seizure localization, whose language areas were identified using ESM. All patients performed a battery of language tasks during passive iEEG recordings. To estimate the effective connectivity of stimulation sites with a broader network of task-activated cortical sites, we measured cortico-cortical evoked potentials elicited across all recording sites by single-pulse electrical stimulation at sites where ESM was performed at other times. With the combination of high gamma power as well as CCEPs results, we trained a logistic regression model to predict ESM results at individual electrode pairs. The average accuracy of the classifier using both STFM and CCEPs results combined was 87.7%, significantly higher than the one using STFM alone, indicating that the correspondence between STFM and ESM results is greater when effective connectivity between ESM stimulation sites and task-activated sites is taken into consideration. These findings, though based on a small number of subjects to date, provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that incongruities between ESM and STFM may arise in part from propagation of stimulation effects to a broader network of cortical language sites activated by language tasks, and suggest that more studies, with larger numbers of patients, are needed to understand the utility of both mapping techniques in clinical practice. (shrink)

This study examined the differences in the level of physical fitness and academic performance among male middle-school children based on different body status categories. A total of 69 male children [age: 12.4 ± 0.7 years; body mass: 58.5 ± 7.2 kg; height: 1.62 ± 0.09 m; and body mass index : 22.4 ± 3.3 kg/m2] participated and were divided into BMI age-adjusted groups. Height, mass, BMI, stork test of static balance, 10 and 15 m sprint as an indicator for speed, (...) hand-grip strength test, agility T-half test, medicine ball throw, and the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test level 1 were assessed. School records were retrieved for grade point averages of mathematics, science, and Arabic. We found significant group differences regarding anthropometric, physical, and academic performance parameters. The largest difference correlation between parameters of different dimensions was found. In conclusion, the highest BMI group exhibited similar physical and academic performances than the lowest group. Thus, these data emphasize the importance and appropriateness to engage young Qatari schoolchildren in physical activity as it associates with superior academic performance. (shrink)

The AIDS epidemic touches upon basic humanities themes: sex, death and social worth, to name just three. AIDS policy in general builds upon society's discourse on these topics. The growing Latino population (25% of California and Texas) needs an AIDS policy that builds upon the Latino humanities tradition. The contours of the Latino intellectual tradition, as focused on issues attendant to health, are presented, with examples from Aztec, colonial and modern times.

Live donor kidney transplantation is the best treatment option for most patients with late-stage chronic kidney disease; however, the rate of living kidney donation has declined in the United States. A consensus conference was held June 5-6, 2014 to identify best practices and knowledge gaps pertaining to live donor kidney transplantation and living kidney donation. Transplant professionals, patients, and other key stakeholders discussed processes for educating transplant candidates and potential living donors about living kidney donation; efficiencies in the living donor (...) evaluation process; disparities in living donation; and financial and systemic barriers to living donation. We summarize the consensus recommendations for best practices in these educational and clinical domains, future research priorities, and possible public policy initiatives to remove barriers to living kidney donation. (shrink)

The behavioural decision-theoretic concepts of mental accounting, framing and transaction utility have now been employed in marketing models and techniques. To date, however, there has not been any discussion of the ethical issues surrounding these significant developments. In this paper, an ethical evaluation is structured around three themes: (i) utilitarian justification (ii) the strategic exploitation of cognitive habits, and (iii) the claim of scientific status for the techniques. Some recommendations are made for ethical practices.

This book brings together scholars from a variety of epistemological perspectives to explore the multiple ways in which sexuality does indeed matter in the arena of public education.

Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better (...) understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. (shrink)

Schmidt and Egler's critique of Christianity's exclusivist claim to truth rests on two suppositions: (a) that inter-religious pastoral care for dying patients requires a respect for their cultural backgrounds which necessitates accepting the equal validity of their respective (non-Christian) religions, and (b) that exclusivism is incompatible with the Christian love-of-neighbor commandment. In opposition to this critique, (a) the authors' own “pluralist” understanding of Christianity is refuted on two levels. First, it leads to inconsistencies in the authors' own (and very adequate) (...) understanding of pastoral care, especially with regard to their notion of intolerance, and second, it is irreconcilable with explicit New and Old Testament claims to absoluteness. In addition, (b) the authors' understanding of the way in which “exclusivism” justifies intolerance and missionary violence is shown to rest, first, on a secularized reduction of Christianity, i.e., of Christians' own “religious identity” as well as of the Christian way of “helping those in need,” and second, on a merely theoretical (rather than also practical) view of Christians' commitment to God. As a corollary to that refutation, a reconsideration of the truly Christian sources of obedience and charity is recommended. (shrink)

This volume presents the concept of Ecoscape as spatial interrelations, or spatially patterned processes, that are constitutive of an environment_an ecosystem. Contributors investigate environmental issues concerning the human impact on geohistory, food distribution, genetically modified biota, waste management, scientific mapping, and the rethinking of human identity.

There has been a great deal of interest in medieval action theory in recent years. Nonetheless, relatively little work has been done on figures prior to the so-called High Middle Ages, and much of what has been done has focused on better-known thinkers, such as Augustine and Anselm. By comparison, Bernard of Clairvaux's treatise, De gratia et libero arbitrio has been neglected. Yet his treatise is quoted widely by such important scholars as Philip the Chancellor, Alexander of Hales, and Albertus (...) Magnus. Some historians of philosophy argue that his writings inspired the voluntarist movement that developed in the 1270s. Thus, Bernard must be seen as an important influence upon later medieval theories of action. In this paper, I examine the basic structure of his interesting account of human action and its freedom and conclude by raising some further issues connected to his work. /// Nos últimos anos assistiu-se a uma retoma do interesse pela teoria medieval da acção. Apesar disso, poucos estudos têm versado sobre os pensadores anteriores à assim chamada Alta Idade Média, para além de que esses estudos se debruçam sobretudo sobre os filósofos mais conhecidos, como é o caso de Agostinho e de Anselmo. Comparativamente, o tratado de S. Bernardo de Claraval, De gratia et libero arbítrio, não tem suscitado muita atenção crítica. Contudo, numerosos pensadores citaram este tratado, entre eles Filipe o Chanceler, Alexandre de Hales, e Alberto Magno. Vários histonadores da filosofia têm avançado a tese de que os escritos de Bernardo influenciaram o movimento voluntarista que se desenvolveu nos anos 1270. Nesse sentido, as ideias de Bernardo de Claraval tiveram um certo impacto sobre as teorias da acção que haveriam de aparecer mais tarde. No presente artigo, a autora examina as ideias do pensador medieval sobre a acção humana e a sua liberdade, terminando com o levantar de algumas novas questões sobre o tratado de Bernardo de Claraval. (shrink)