Over the last decade, empirical research on compassion has burgeoned in the biomedical, clinical, translational, and foundational sciences. Increasingly sophisticated understandings and measures of compassion continue to emerge from the abundance of multi- and cross-disciplinary studies. Naturally, the diversity of research methods and theoretical frameworks employed presents a significant challenge to consensus and synthesis of this knowledge. To bring the empirical findings of separate and sometimes siloed disciplines into conversation with one another requires an examination of their disparate assumptions about (...) what compassion is and how it can be known. Here, we present an integrated theoretical review of methodologies used in the empirical study of compassion. Our goal is to highlight the distinguishing features of each of these ways of knowing compassion, as well as the strengths and limitations of applying them to specific research questions. We hope this will provide useful tools for selecting methods that are tailored to explicit objectives (methods matching), taking advantage of methodological complementarity across disciplines (methods-mixing), and incorporating the empirical study of compassion into fields in which it may be missing. (shrink)

Over the last decade, numerous interventions and techniques that aim to engender, strengthen, and expand compassion have been created, proliferating an evidence base for the benefits of compassion meditation training. However, to date, little research has been conducted to examine individual variation in the learning, beliefs, practices, and subjective experiences of compassion meditation. This mixed-method study examines changes in novice meditators’ knowledge and contemplative experiences before, during, and after taking an intensive course in CBCT®, a contemplative intervention that is increasingly (...) used for both inter- and intrapersonal flourishing. The participants in this study were Christian healthcare chaplains completing a 1-year residency in Clinical Pastoral Education who learned CBCT as part of their professional chaplaincy training curriculum. Prior to and upon completion of training, we surveyed participants to assess their beliefs about the malleability of compassion, types of engagement in compassion meditation, and perceptions of the impact of taking CBCT. We also conducted in-depth interviews with a subset of participants to gain a qualitative understanding of their subjective experiences of learning and practicing compassion meditation, a key component of CBCT. We found that participants reported increases in the extent to which they believed compassion to be malleable after studying CBCT. We also found high levels of variability of individual ways of practicing and considered the implications of this for the study of contemplative learning processes. This multi-methodological approach yielded novel insights into how compassion practice and compassion-related outcomes interrelate, insights that can inform the basic scientific understanding of the experience of learning and enacting compassion meditation as a means of strengthening compassion itself. (shrink)

The production of complex sequences like music or speech requires the rapid and temporally precise production of events (e.g., notes and chords), often at fast rates. Memory retrieval in these circumstances may rely on the simultaneous activation of both the current event and the surrounding context (Lashley, 1951). We describe an extension to a model of incremental retrieval in sequence production (Palmer & Pfordresher, 2003) that incorporates this logic to predict overall error rates and speed—accuracy trade-offs, as well as (...) types of serial ordering errors. The model—assumes that retrieval of the current event is influenced by activations of surrounding events. Activations of surrounding events increase over time, such that both the accessibility of distant events and overall accuracy increases at slower production rates. The model's predictions were tested in an experiment in which pianists performed unfamiliar music at 8 different tempi. Model fits to speed—accuracy data and to serial ordering errors support model predictions. Parameter fits to individual data further suggest that working memory contributes to the retrieval of serial order and overall accuracy is influenced in addition by motor dexterity and domain-specific skill. (shrink)

In September 2009, the First Circuit Court of Appeals decided Blue Cross & Blue Shield v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, part of the class action suit known as In re Pharmaceutical Industry Average Wholesale Price Litigation. The First Circuit upheld a Massachusetts District Court finding that AstraZeneca violated Massachusetts’ consumer protection laws by manipulating the “average wholesale price” of its physician-administered injectable cancer drug Zoladex, leading to overpayment by the government, third-party payers, and consumers. This case, which highlights the persistent tension (...) between pharmaceutical pricing flexibility and consumer protection, has important implications for similar pending class actions.Between 1991 and 2003, Medicare, as well as many private insurance companies, pegged reimbursement for certain pharmaceutical products to a national “average wholesale price” for each drug. Although the amended 1991 Medicare Part B regulations3 that introduced the term “average wholesale price” failed to define it explicitly, there is some indication in the legislative history that AWP was intended to refer to the prices that physicians and pharmacists actually pay to the drug manufacturers. (shrink)

Natural disasters, technological disasters, and terrorist attacks have an extensive aftermath, often involving society’s institutions such as the legal system and the police. Victims’ perceptions of institutional trustworthiness may impact their potential for healing. This cross-sectional study investigates institutional trust, health, and social support in victims of a disaster that occurred in 1990. We conducted face-to-face interviews with 184 survivors and bereaved, with a 60% response rate 26 years after the disaster. Levels of trust in the police and in the (...) justice system were compared with general population data. We assessed the relationships between institutional trust and current psychological distress, social support, and quality of life. The levels of trust in the police and in the justice system were notably lower in survivors and bereaved than in the general population. Among the victims, low institutional trust was associated with more mental health problems, poorer social support, more barriers to seeking social support, and a lower quality of life. Lost trust in the aftermath of a disaster may perhaps never be restored and the lack of trust may act to strengthen or maintain health problems. An exclusively individualistic approach to trauma and disaster may miss out on the opportunities for promoting health and wellbeing that lies within the larger societal structures. Decision-makers should take this information into account, and acknowledge the potential long-term consequences of institutional performance in the aftermath of a disaster. (shrink)

Twenty years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa ushered in a new era, bringing new tools for societies engaged in transition toward more just circumstances. In New paths in reconciliation, transitional and Indigenous justice, sixteen authors take stock of South Africa's Commission and related political processes arising more recently in New Zealand and Canada. The collection includes critical assessment of those processes and radical challenges to their assumptions concerning sovereignty and just process in the current context of (...) settler-colonial states. This introduction reviews the authors' contributions and introduces background for Indigenous approaches to law and justice, including Indigenous reclamation and resurgence. (shrink)

Dans plusieurs passages, Épicure mentionne des durées infraperceptibles saisies par la raison, ce qui conduit à envisager un atomisme du temps, c’est-à-dire l’existence de durées indivisibles ou quanta de temps. Cette hypothèse, nulle part explicite chez Épicure et Lucrèce, a été évoquée par quelques doxographes. L’objet de cet article est de l’étayer et de la préciser, en lisant les textes épicuriens sur le temps à la lumière des trois grandes objections antiatomistes de la Physique. Notre analyse conclut que l’atomisme du (...) temps permet de répondre aux objections d’Aristote, mais doit être limité au seul niveau des atomes, par opposition à celui des agrégats. Il permet alors en effet de justifier l’isotachie des atomes, de rendre concevable la communauté de structure de la grandeur, du mouvement et du temps, et de garantir le caractère fini de la vitesse atomique. Deux lignes argumentatives se superposent : une conception proprement atomiste du mouvement et une reprise des termes de la physique aristotélicienne destinée à mieux en réfuter les objections. (shrink)

Today’s film scholars draw from a dizzying range of theoretical perspectives—they’re just as likely to cite philosopher Gilles Deleuze as they are to quote classic film theorist André Bazin. To students first encountering them, these theoretical lenses for viewing film can seem exhilarating, but also overwhelming. _Thinking in the Dark _introduces readers to twenty-one key theorists whose work has made a great impact on film scholarship today, including Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei Eisenstein, Michel Foucault, Siegfried Kracauer, and Judith Butler. Rather than (...) just discussing each theorist’s ideas in the abstract, the book shows how those concepts might be applied when interpreting specific films by including an analysis of both a classic film and a contemporary one. It thus demonstrates how theory can help us better appreciate films from all eras and genres: from _Hugo _to_ Vertigo_, from _City Lights _to _Sunset Blvd._, and from _Young Mr. Lincoln_ to _A.I. _and _Wall-E_. The volume’s contributors are all experts on their chosen theorist’s work and, furthermore, are skilled at explaining that thinker’s key ideas and terms to readers who are not yet familiar with them. _Thinking in the Dark _is not only a valuable resource for teachers and students of film, it’s also a fun read, one that teaches us all how to view familiar films through new eyes. Theorists examined in this volume are: Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, Roland Barthes, André Bazin, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Stanley Cavell, Michel Chion, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Douchet, Sergei Eisenstein, Jean Epstein, Michel Foucault, Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Lacan, Vachel Lindsay, Christian Metz, Hugo Münsterberg, V. F. Perkins, Jacques Rancière, and Jean Rouch. (shrink)

The label ‘Translational Research’ (TR) has become ever more popular in the biomedical domain in recent years. It is usually presented as an attempt to bridge a supposed gap between knowledge produced at the lab bench and its use at the clinical bedside. This is claimed to help society harvest the benefits of its investments in scientific research. The rhetorical as well as moral force of the label TR obscure, however, that it is actually used in very different ways. In (...) this paper, we analyse the scientific discourse on TR, with the aim to disentangle and critically evaluate the different meanings of the label. We start with a brief reconstruction of the history of the concept. Subsequently, we unravel how the label is actually used in a sample of scientific publications on TR and examine the presuppositions implied by different views of TR. We argue that it is useful to distinguish different views of TR on the basis of three dimensions, related to (1) the construction of the ‘translational gap’; (2) the model of the translational process; and (3) the cause of the perceived translational gap. We conclude that the motive to make society benefit from its investments in biomedical science may be laudable, but that it is doubtful whether the dominant views of TR will contribute to this end. (shrink)

Spirituality and religion are not synonymous and, in fact, require not only different definitions but also appropriate vocabulary. A deeper discussion of the issues concerning spirituality ensues in several sections: 1) fundamental differences between spirituality and religion; 2) brain operations relative to transcendent states; 3) a definition of consciousness; 4) music, culture, and transcendence; 5) transcendence; 6) transcendence through music, and 7) spirituality in music education. The last section contains several recommendations on how spirituality can be embraced by music educators (...) and included in the curriculum to enhance the worldview of students. (shrink)

We work in set theory ZF without axiom of choice. Though the Hahn-Banach theorem cannot be proved in ZF, we prove that every Gateaux-differentiable uniformly convex Banach space E satisfies the following continuous Hahn-Banach property: if p is a continuous sublinear functional on E, if F is a subspace of E, and if f: F → ℝ is a linear functional such that f ≤ p|F then there exists a linear functional g : E → ℝ such that g extends (...) f and g ≤ p. We also prove that the continuous Hahn-Banach property on a topological vector space E is equivalent to the classical geometrical forms of the Hahn-Banach theorem on E. We then prove that the axiom of Dependent choices DC is equivalent to Ekeland's variational principle, and that it implies the continuous Hahn-Banach property on Gateaux-differentiable Banach spaces. Finally, we prove that, though separable normed spaces satisfy the continuous Hahn-Banach property, they do not satisfy the whole Hahn-Banach property in ZF+DC. (shrink)

Anthropology?its methodology, its paths to knowing; but also its epistemology, its modes of knowing?saturates the practices of Science and Technology Studies (STS). In a nutshell, anthropology has helped STS find ways to break open the discourses of science. If we were to believe our ?natives??scientists?and accept what they say about what they do and know on their own terms, we would not be able to add anything to these stories. And so in STS, we have modified the anthropological propensity to (...) make the strange familiar and invented the technique of making the familiar strange. Now we can reimagine our natives? stories, note how they are told, and investigate why they are told the way they are?relating them to the practices from which they spring. Our terminological tinkering?refusing to adopt the terms of the actors?is, then, also an epistemological tinkering; we account for these practices in terms of our own. (shrink)

Introducción: Los cambios biológicos, sicológicos, económicos y sociales que se observan durante el envejecimiento conllevan a pensar que en los ancianos existe una serie de factores que favorecen la aparición de una depresión. Objetivo: evaluar la efectividad de una intervención sicológica para disminuir la depresión en adultos mayores de la Casa de abuelos "Dr. Diego Tamayo Figueredo", de Puerto Padre, en el período de noviembre de 2013 - mayo de 2014. Material y métodos: se realizó un estudio de intervención sicológica (...) en una muestra de 12 adultos mayores de la casa de abuelos. Se aplicó un programa de intervención sicológica, así como la Escala de Depresión Geriátrica para realizar la valoración antes y después de la intervención. Se empleó el modelo Cognitivo- Conductual de Beck. Los datos fueron tratados según la estadística descriptiva. Resultados: el porciento más elevado de pacientes correspondió al grupo de ancianos con edades entre los 60 y 90 años de edad. Respecto al sexo, el más frecuente es el masculino. El asma bronquial, la hipertensión arterial y la diabetes Mellitus representaron el mayor porciento de antecedentes patológicos personales. Conclusión: la intervención sicológica resultó efectiva pues se logró disminuir a leve los niveles iniciales de depresión establecida y los considerados con leve a no depresión, por lo tanto se afirma que con su aplicación fue modificado el estado emocional de los adultos mayores que se implicaron en la muestra. Introduction: Biological, psychological, financial and social changes observed during aging lead to think that there is a series of factors that favor the appearance of depression in senior citizens. Objective: Assessing the effectiveness of a psychological intervention in order to reduce depression in senior citizens from "Dr. Diego Tamayo Figueredo" Senior Citizens' House, Puerto Padre, from November 2013 to May 2014. Material and methods: A psychological intervention study was conducted on a sample of 12 senior citizens from the house. A psychological intervention program as well as the Geriatrics Depression Scale were applied before and after the intervention in order to make the assessment. The Beck's cognitive-behavior model was used. Data was processed according to descriptive statistics. Results: The highest percentage of patients corresponded to a group of seniors between 60 and 90 years of age. Regarding sex, males are more common. Bronchial asthma, arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus represented the highest percentage of personal pathological history. Conclusion: The psychological intervention proved to be effective since initial established depression levels were reduced to minor and those considered as minor were reduced to no depression ; therefore, it is stated that its application modified the state of mind of the senior citizens involved in the sample. (shrink)

This paper combines the social psychology concept of moral elevation with the evolutionary concept of traditions as descendant-leaving strategies to produce a new explanation of the role of saints in Christianity. Moral elevation refers to the ability of prosocial acts to inspire people to engage in their own acts of charity and kindness. When morally elevating stories and visual depictions become traditional by being passed from one generation to the next, they can produce prosocial behavior advantageous to survival and reproduction (...) among many generations of descendants. Traditions that increase the number of descendants in future generations can be seen as descendant-leaving strategies. Stories and visual depictions of the sacrifices of saints appear to be designed to produce states of moral elevation, and they have been transmitted from one generation to the next for many centuries. We propose that this ability of sacrificing saints to inspire future generations to engage in prosocial acts has contributed to the continuation and spread of Christianity. (shrink)

This book proposes replacing the philosophical tradition inaugurated by Descartes and Locke which is inherently idealist and, says the author, prone to impoverished notions of rationality and creativity with human ontology. This latter understands human being as nothing but the complex inter-relations between its biological constitution and the natural, social and linguistic worlds in which it is embedded and the emergent properties such as conciousness, subjectivity and selfhood which arise from these. Drawing on the phenomenologies of Merleau Ponty and Heidegger (...) but placing them in this naturalistic context the study shows how knowledge, rationality and creativity arise from within the human relationship to the world. Only on such a basis, it is argued, can the existence of a world independent of human conciousness be sustained along with the rationality of science and coherent theories of the self and truth. (shrink)

“We can look back on what we have achieved and, without exaggerating, call it a ‘miracle’.” This quote is Angela Merkel’s second famous remark on Israel (the most famous being that Israel’s securit...

Alfred Wainwright was arguably the best known British guidebook writer of the20th century, and his work has been highly influential in promoting and directing fell-walking in northern Britain, in particular in the English Lake District. His work has, however, received little critical attention. This paper represents an initial attempt to undertake such a study. We examine Wainwright’s work through the lens of the landscape values and aesthetics that, we suggest,underpins it, and by an exploration of what might be called Wainwright’s (...) ‘environmental identity’. We argue that Wainwright manifests a strikingly contemporary embodied landscape aesthetic and a strongly place-attached environmental identity. We consider some possiblei mplications of this landscape aesthetic and place attached identity, including their relation to broader environmental commitments and the possibility that the endorsement of such values may have exclusionary consequences for members of ‘outsider’ groups. (shrink)

How do we conceive of class and class struggle? Orthodox Marxism has often been represented as understanding class as a relationship to production, a conceptualization reinforcing a sense of class struggle where the accent is placed on the conflictual relations within the workplace. Overt capitallabour conflict at the point of production does indeed constitute class struggle, but neither class nor class struggle can be reduced in Marxist terms to strikes, lockouts, and the like. Rather, as Marx’s writings suggest, the origins (...) of class formation lie in dispossession, and it is as the dispossessed that workers, waged and wageless, have routinely resisted both the exploitation and the oppression that is fundamental to capitalism’s project. This project, in which accumulation through dispossession is driven by periodic crises, necessarily involves destruction and creates not only vast wealth but vast destitution. The working class is made as a productive force, divorced from ownership of the means of production, but it is also made amidst persistent crises, which lead to unemployment, the precariousness of labour, and the existence of reserve armies of labour. A comprehension of the origins of class in dispossession thus widens our understanding of class struggles, which take place at the point of production but which also develop in all manner of other ways, including struggles around space, against the state, and in the reproductive realm. (shrink)

Whether any property is internal to a particular object may be taken to depend upon the way in which the object is described. Thus it is not an internal property of Scott to have been the author of Waverley , neither is it an internal property of the author of Ivanhoe . But what of the author of Waverley? Is the proposition that the author of Waverley composed Waverley necessarily true? On one interpretation of it it surely is. Even so, (...) one can attach a sense to saying that the person who was in fact the author of Waverley might not have been so. All that is needed for this is that he be capable of being otherwise identified. (shrink)

Proof, Knowledge, and Scepticism: Essays in Ancient Philosophy III. By. Edited by.

Chapter 47 contains a sentence which has been the subject of a good deal of controversy and is manifestly corrupt. In the codex it reads as follows: κα τοᾁτων πνω μαιμᾃτατον θνος Bακτριανν π βασιλα οσαν διον τπον κα 'Aλξανδρος ρμηθες π τν μερν τοᾁτων ρι τοȗ Γγγον διλθε κτλ. Attempts have been made to connect this sentence with the rulers of the Kushan dynasty. It has even been suggested that οσαν represents Kονσαν : the suggestion naturally won no acceptance, (...) but one may point out that in any case it failed to attack the real difficulty, which lies in the words διον τπον On that essential point, the views of recent editors have both varied and combined. (shrink)

Frege famously argued that truth is not a property or relation. In the “Notes on Logic” Wittgenstein emphasised the bi-polarity of propositions which he called their sense. He argued that “propositions by virtue of sense cannot have predicates or relations.” This led to his fundamental thought that the logical constants do not represent predicates or relations. The idea, however, has wider ramifications than that. It is not just that propositions cannot have relations to other propositions but also that they cannot (...) have relations to anything at all. The paper explores the consequences of this insight for the way in which we should read the Tractatus. In the “Notes on Logic” the insight led to Wittgenstein's emphasis on “facts” in any attempt to understand the nature of symbolism. This emphasis is continued in the Tractatus. It is central to his view that propositions are facts which picture facts which prevent us from construing such picturing as a relation between what pictures and what is pictured. It illuminates the importance of context principle with regard to the distinction between showing and saying to which Wittgenstein attached so much importance and it underlies the non-relational view of psychological propositions which he advocates. Finally, if propositions by virtue of sense cannot have predicates or relations the paradox at the end of a work which consist largely of propositions about propositions becomes intelligible. (shrink)

_ The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Educational Thinkers_ comprises 128 essays by leading scholars analysing the most important, influential, innovative and interesting thinkers on education of all time. Each of the chronologically arranged entries explores why a particular thinker is significant for those who study education and explores the social, historical and political contexts in which the thinker worked. Ranging from Confucius and Montessori to Dewey and Edward de Bono, the entries form concise, accessible summaries of the greatest or most influential (...) educational thinkers of past and present times. Each essay includes the following features; concise biographical information on the individual, an outline of the individual’s key achievements and activities, an assessment of their impact and influence, a list of their major writings, suggested further reading. Carefully brought together to present a balance of gender and geographical contexts as well as areas of thought and work in the broad field of education, this substantial volume provides a unique history and overview of figures who have shaped education and educational thinking throughout the world. Combining and building upon two internationally renowned volumes, this collection is deliberately broad in scope, crossing centuries, boundaries and disciplines. The Encyclopaedia therefore provides a perfect introduction to the huge range and diversity of educational thought. Offering an accessible means of understanding the emergence and development of what is currently seen in the classroom, this Encyclopaedia is an invaluable reference guide for all students of education, including undergraduates and post-graduates in education or teacher training and students of related disciplines. (shrink)