BackgroundThis study aimed to identify the healthcare providers’ experience and perspectives toward end-of-life care decisions focusing on end-of-life discussion and physician’s order of life-sustaining treatment documentation in Korea which are major parts of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Act.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted using a questionnaire developed by the authors. A total of 474 subjects—94 attending physicians, 87 resident physicians, and 293 nurses—participated in the survey, and the data analysis was performed in terms of frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation using the (...) SPSS 24.0 program.ResultsStudy results showed that respondents were aware of terminal illness and physician’s order of life-sustaining treatment in Korea well enough except for some details. Physicians reported uncertainty in terminal state diagnosis and disease trajectory as the most challenging. Study participants regarded factors (related to relationships and communications) on the healthcare providers’ side as the major impediment to end-of-life discussion. Study respondents suggested that simplification of the process and more staff are required to facilitate end-of-life discussion and documentation.ConclusionBased on the study results, adequate education and training for better end-of-life discussion are required for future practice. Also, a simple and clear procedure for completing a physician’s order of life-sustaining treatment in Korea should be prepared and legal and ethical advice would be required. Since the enactment of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Act, several revisions already have been made including disease categories, thus continuous education to update and support clinicians is also called for. (shrink)

Este trabajo surge a partir de la investigación general de las técnicas hidropónicas teniendo en cuenta sus ventajas y desventajas para de esta forma poder encontrar aquel factor determinante a través de una comparación de técnicas hidropónicas que permitan clasificarlas y escoger la mejor opción que genere menos impacto ambiental negativo y demuestre ser más productivo en los entornos urbanos. Adicionalmente, un factor determinante en las ciudades es su espacio limitado por lo que la mejor opción también deberá incluir un (...) óptimo manejo del espacio que permita a casi cualquier individuo poder aplicarlos desde su entorno sin recurrir a excesivas modificaciones. Como principal resultado se escogió a la Hidroponía recirculante como método predominante por los excelentes resultados que se obtienen con relación a los demás, adicionalmente, este puede ser fácilmente aplicado en los ambientes urbanos por su versatilidad y buen manejo de recursos. Palabras Clave: Hidroponia, ambiente, urbano, comparativa, técnicas, cultivo. Referencias [1]J. López, «La producción hidropónica de cultivos,» IDESIA, vol. 36, nº 2, pp. 139-141, 2018. [2]J. Lee, A. Rahman, J. Behrens, C. Brennan, B. Ham, H. Seok Kim, C. Won, S. Yun, H. Azam y M. Kwon, «Nutrient removal from hydroponic wastewater by a microbial consortium,» New Biotechnology, vol. 41, pp. 15-24, 2018. [3]H. Ku, C. Tiong, A. Suresh y B. Ong, «“Active” hydroponic greenhouse system to kick-start and augment reforestation program through carbon sequestration e an experimental and theoretical feasibility study,» Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 129, pp. 637-646, 2016. [4]J. Beltrano y D. Gimenez, Cultivo en hidroponía, Buenos Aires: Universidad de la Plata, 2015. [5]L. Ramírez, M. Pérez, P. Jiménez, H. Giraldo y E. Gómez, «Evaluación preliminar de sistemas acuapónicos e hidropónicos en cama flotante para el cultivo de orégano,» Revista Facultad de Ciencias Básicas, vol. 7, nº 2, pp. 242-259, 2011. [6]S. Hosseinzadeh, D. Testai, M. BKheet y J. De Graeve, «Degradation of root exudates in closed hydroponic systems using UV/H2O2: Kinetic investigation, reaction pathways and cost analysis,» Science of the Total Environment, vol. 1, pp. 1-9, 2019. [7]N. Camarena, A. Rojas y M. Santos, «Fluoride bioaccumulation by hydroponic cultures of camellia,» Chemosphere, vol. 136, pp. 56-62, 2015. [8]W. Wang, Y. Ma, L. Fu, Y. Cui y M. Yaqoob, «Physical an mechanical properties of hydroponic lettuce for automatic harvesting,» Informatión processing in agriculture, vol. 1, pp. 2214-3173, 2020. [9]M. Zárate, Manual de Hidroponia, Coyoacán: Universidad Autónoma de Mexico, 2014. [10]S. Magwaza, L. Magwaza, A. Odindo y C. Buckley, «Partially treated domestic wastewater as a nutrient source for tomatoes grown in a hydroponic system: effect on nutrientabsorption and yield,» Heliyon, vol. 6, nº 12, pp. 2405-8440, 2020. [11]C. ARANO, «Hidroponía: Algunas paginas de historia,» Tecnología de Producción, nº 58, pp. 24-32, 2007. [12]G. Guzmán, Hidroponia en Casa: Una actividad familiar, Costa Rica: Ministerio de Agricultura y ganaderia, 2004. [13]J. Gilsanz, HIDROPONIA, Montevideo : Unidad de Comunicación y Transferencia de Tecnología, 2007. [14]C. Miller, «El debate de hidroponia orgánica: Perspectivas norteamericanas sobre si la producción hidropónica merece ser certificada como orgánica.,» Productores de Hortalizas, nº 6, pp. 36-38, 2017. [15]A. Herrera, «Manejo de la solución nutritiva en la producción de tomate en hidroponía,» Terra Latinoamericana, vol. 17, nº 3, pp. 221-229, 1999. [16]C. Espinal y D. Matulić, «Recirculating Aquaculture Technologies,» Biomedical and Life Sciences, pp. 35-76, 2020. [17]H. Resh, «Técnicas de cultivo con flujo laminar de nutrientes,» de Cultivos Hidroponicos, España, Mundi-Prensa, 2001, pp. 35-37. [18]P. Blanca y L. Teresa, «Sistemas recirculantes y su interés en el cutlivo de ornamentales,» Tecnología de producción, nº 35, pp. 34-36, 2006. [19]C. Magán, «Recirculación de las soluciones nutritivas, Manejo y Control Microbiologico,» InfoAgro, nº 2, pp. 1-2, 2016. [20]S. Goddek, A. Joyce, B. Kotzen y M. Dos-Santos, «Aquaponics and Global Food Challenges,» Aquaponics Food Production Systems. Springer, vol. 1, nº 1, pp. 3-17, 2019. [21]S. G. Verdoliva, D. Gwyn Jones, A. Detheridge y P. Robson, «Controlled comparisons between soil and hydroponic systems reveal increased water use efficiency and higher lycopene and β-carotene contents in hydroponically grown tomatoes,» Scientia Horticulturae, pp. 3002-4238, 2020. [22]A. Chaudhry y V. Mishra, «A Comparative Analysis of Vertical Agriculture Systems in Residential Apartments, » de 2019 Advances in Science and Engineering Technology International Conferences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates, 2019. [23]T. Mazhar, G. Jianmin, L. Imran, S. Kashif, Q. Waqar, S. Sher y C. Jiedong, «Modern plant cultivation technologies in agriculture under controlled nvironment: a review on aeroponics,» Journal of Plant Interactions, vol. 13, nº 1, pp. 338-352, 2012. [24]K. Janiak, A. Jurga, J. Kuźma, W. Breś y M. Muszyński, «Surfactants effect on aeroponics and important mass balances of regenerative life support system – Lettuce case study,» Science of the Total Environment, vol. 718, nº137324, pp. 1-12, 2020. [25]F. Rahman, I. Jahan, R. Biplob, N. Farhin y J. Uddin, «Automated Aeroponics System for Indoor Farming using Arduino,» de 2018 Joint 7th International Conference on Informatics, Electronics & Vision and 2018 2nd International Conference on Imaging, Vision & Pattern Recognition, Kitakyushu, Japan, 2018. [26]M. Caldeyro Stajano, «La Hidroponía Simplificada como Tecnología apropiada, para implementar la Seguridad Alimentaria en la Agricultura Urbana.,» Cuadernos del CEAgro, nº 8, pp. 71-76, 2006. (shrink)

The dominant position of e-commerce is especially being articulated in the retailing industry once again due to several constraints that the world faces in the COVID-19 pandemic era. In this regard, this study explores the significant role of trust transfer and the moderating effect of consumers’ neurotic traits in the framework of trust-satisfaction-repurchase intention in the e-commerce context based on a survey with 406 Korean e-commerce consumers. Moreover, a prediction-oriented segmentation technique combined with structural equation models was utilized to reveal (...) consumers’ probable hidden heterogeneous characteristics. The outcomes of the global model SEM analysis indicate that offline-online trust transference occurs in e-commerce, and the conveyed trust significantly influences satisfaction and consumers’ repeat purchase intention through satisfaction. Neuroticism also has significant positive effects on trust transfer in the global model. However, results in three subgroups generated by POS show heterogeneous characteristics that considerably differed from the global model test results. The implications from this study will be beneficial to field practitioners in the e-commerce industry in addressing the importance of trust transfer, negative neurotic traits as well as heterogeneous aspects of consumers. (shrink)

Pathological gaming among adolescents has been reported to hamper the achievement of a balanced life and to threaten the development of social competencies. Despite the increasing social concerns on the adolescent users, however, the mechanism of gaming behavior of adolescents has not been sufficiently examined. This study explored the mechanism of pathological gaming among adolescents from 3-year longitudinal data of 778 Korean adolescent gamers, by analyzing the effects of negative affects on the degree of pathological gaming through the mediation variables (...) based on the stimulus-organism-response framework. Latent class analysis was used to uncover potential risk groups, and through partial least squares-structural equation modeling analysis, the mediation pathways to pathological gaming were compared between the risk group and the non-risk group. The results highlighted the key role of academic stress on the degree of pathological gaming. In the entire group, academic stress primarily increased pathological gaming through self-control. The mediation path of self-control was the most influential result in the risk group. Aggression was the key mediator between loneliness and pathological gaming in the non-risk group. The theoretical and practical implications of the results were discussed. (shrink)

Lorsque nous parlons généralement d’un espace vide, ce vide n’est pas réellement vide physiquement. L’espace vide est rempli d’air, de matière invisible, mais il ne peut pas être vu ou capturé. Pourtant, nous savons bien que l’air, élément indispensable pour tous les êtres vivants, est également présent autour de nous. Devrions-nous alors considérer différemment l’espace vide et l’air dans l’installation? Pour Yasuaki Onishi, sculpteur et installateur in situ, l’espace vide est un lieu essentiel pour l’installation et l’inspiration. Il s’intéresse à (...) l’invisible, à l’espace, à l’air, à l’espace négatif, etc. Il révèle ce qui est invisible, en utilisant un matériau léger tel qu’un adhésif liquide noir et le support de matériaux immatériels tels que la lumière, l’air ou d’autres matériaux intangibles. Parmi ses travaux, en particulier, en analysant les œuvres de la série Vertical Volume, Daily Distance, Gawa, Shaping Air – A Breath of Mobility et Vertical Space, nous cherchons dans cette étude la signification de l’air invisible, du ki, du svi, du wonsang et le sens du vide du Tao et du bouddhisme. Quel est le sens du vide dans une installation de Yasuaki Onishi? Et quel est l’enjeu entre l’espace vide et l’espace plein, l’espace visible et l’espace invisible, la matérialité et l’immatérialité? Dans son travail, qui ne suit pas le processus général de la sculpture traditionnelle, nous trouverons le lien avec la signification de l’espace négatif et avec le terme coréen gan, l’espace-temps, avec le mot japonais ma qui constitue un concept esthétique au Japon. When we generally speak of an empty space, this empty is not really physically empty. The empty space is filled with air, invisible matter, but it cannot be seen or captured. However, we know that air, an essential element for all living things, is also present around us. So should we consider differently the empty space and air in the installation? For Yasuaki Onishi, sculptor and installator in situ, the empty space is an essential place for installation work and inspiration. The empty space that we think is empty is filled with substances that are invisible. The empty space is filled with air, but it can’t be seen or captured. He is interested in the invisible, space, air, negative space, etc. He reveals what is invisible, using a light material such as a black liquid adhesive, with the support of non-material materials such as light, air or other intangible materials. Among his works, in particular, by analyzing the works of the series Vertical Volume, Daily Distance, Gawa, Shaping Air – A Breath of Mobility and Vertical Space, we look for the meaning of invisible air, breath, ki, svi, the etymology of sunyata, wonsang 원상, and the meaning of emptiness of Tao and Buddhism. Through the work of Yasuaki Onishi, what is the meaning of the emptiness in his installation? And what is at stake between empty space and full space, visible space and invisible space, materialism and immateriality. In his work, which does not follow the general process of typical sculpture, we will find the connection with the meaning of “negative space” and the term Korean gan “간 ”, the space-time, as the Japanese word “ma ” that use as a concept of aesthetics in Japan. (shrink)

Why are human beings inclined to commit violence that finally brings themselves into conflict? How could human beings have maintained their society that is full of violence and conflicts? René Girard's theory of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism are the answers to these two anthropological questions. Even though his theory basically belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy, it is not limited to that realm. In reality, his theory has been applied in other academic disciplines, in particular, in social (...) science, such as political science and economics.There are two remarkable features of Girard's theory that make it possible for its influence to extend beyond anthropology. The first one is that... (shrink)

In the past two decades, Confucian meritocrats have justified the unequal distribution of political power by appeal to the ideal of Confucian virtue politics. In this article, I demonstrate that at the heart of Confucian virtue politics lies a political leader’s affective accountability and show that non-democratic Confucian meritocracy fails to embody this moral ideal. Then, I argue that the ideal of Confucian virtue politics can be better realized in democratic system. To this end, I first describe how ordinary citizens’ (...) moral demand for a political leader’s affective accountability in a consolidated democratic society can make theoretical space for a Confucian political leader. Next, I articulate the role of a Confucian political leader in contemporary democratic society from a normative standpoint and show that at the core of Confucian democratic meritocracy lies ‘mutual moral transformation’, formed by dialectical interactions between a virtuous Confucian political leader and empowered citizens. (shrink)

Background Recently, palliative care is increasingly important, with an emphasis on the process of dying with dignity. However, nurses who care for such patients experience the associated ethical dilemmas. Objective To explore the meaning of nurses’ experiences in dealing with ethical dilemmas in relation to palliative sedation. Research design A qualitative research design was employed with a thematic analysis approach. Participants and research context Using purposive sampling, 15 nurses, working at palliative care units for at least 1 year, were recruited (...) as participants. Data were collected using unstructured in-depth interviews, and data collection and analysis was performed simultaneously. Ethical considerations Ethical approval was obtained from the authors’ institutional review board. All participants provided informed consent. For the face-to-face interview, the South Korean standard COVID-19 quarantine guidelines, such as mandatory masking and social distancing, were followed. Results Dilemmas raised by patients, were related to concerns about appropriate drug dose; dilemmas raised by nurses, were related to passive care, sense of guilt for failure to predict death, and colleague’s disrespectful attitudes toward patients; dilemmas from patients’ families were related to demands for palliative sedation and reversal of those demands. Care actions to deal with ethical dilemmas comprised evidence-based care, person-centered thinking, reflecting on the death situation, compassion, providing explanation and help to family members. Conclusion Nurses’ ethical dilemmas were pre-dominantly influenced by themselves, rather than by the patients or their families, especially if they felt they could not do their best for patients. The core concept of care actions to deal with the ethical dilemmas, was person-centered care and compassion. Then, how patients and their family members perceive person-centered care and compassion, should be further explored to improve palliative sedation. (shrink)

There are close parallels between Frank Jackson's case of black-and-white Mary and David Lewis's case of the two omniscient gods. This essay develops and defends what may be called “the ability hypothesis” about the knowledge that the gods lack, by adapting Lewis's ability hypothesis about the knowledge that Mary acquires. What the gods might lack despite their propositional omniscience is not any distinctive kind of information, but certain abilities of introspection. The motivating idea is that knowledge one acquires by exercising (...) introspective abilities cannot fail to be knowledge about oneself or indexical knowledge. So in order to envisage the gods' epistemic situation coherently, we need to assume that they lack those introspective abilities. But once we recognize that, it turns out that positing a special kind of information is a gratuitous addition. The two gods' ignorance simply consists in their lack of introspective abilities. (shrink)

RETRACTION NOTICE: This article has been retracted at the request of its author, David Kwon. The author acknowledges citation irregularities throughout the article as the reason for the retraction. The editors of the journal supports this retraction. The article will only be available with this retraction notice.

We report one production and one comprehension experiment investigating the effect of animacy in relative clause attachment in Chinese. Experiment 1 involved a fill-in-the-blank task that manipulated the order of an animate noun phrase in a complex NP construction. The results showed that while low attachment responses exceeded high attachment responses overall (cf. Shen, 2006), a tendency exists to attach a relative clause to an animate NP in Chinese (cf. Desmet et al., 2002). Experiment 2 used a rating task to (...) examine the interplay between animacy and structural information by manipulating the order of the animate NP as well as the relative clause type (i.e., subject vs. object relative clauses). The results showed that the animate NP modification tendency found in Experiment 1 was limited to subject-relative clauses and that no animacy-related effect was found with object-relative clauses. These results are incompatible with purely structural parsing strategies such as Late Closure (Frazier, 1987) and the Predicate Proximity Principle (Gibson et al., 1996). Instead, the current results suggest that attachment ambiguity resolution in Chinese relative clauses is sensitive to animacy as well as structural information. (shrink)

This paper examines the globalization process of German core export metalworking industries, to show how the globalization of national corporations has different effects on domestic economies. Contrary to the prevalent views on the globalization of production, this paper holds that the outcomes and patterns of globalization vary, due mainly to the politics of the main actors inside and outside corporations. This paper compares Germany’s negotiated globalization with U.S. employer unilateralism. In most U.S. corporations, employers decide how to globalize based on (...) the short-term perspective of shareholder value. By contrast, in Germany, main industrial actors—including employers, works councils, and trade unions—collectively negotiate how to globalize. In this conflict-laden process of collective negotiation, German actors have created a political compromise that combines the upgrading of domestic production with globalizing overseas, whereas Americans have failed to do so. Furthermore, this paper emphasizes that divergent patterns of globalization are not predetermined by national institutions. To the contrary, the successful outcomes in German globalization come mainly from actors’ proactive readjustments in their traditional model of industrial relations, creating new practices, such as active union involvement in company-level bargaining, and the democratic bottom-up process instead of the traditional top-down process of negotiation. (shrink)

This article investigates how South Korea was able to make relatively smooth democratic transition and deepening by relying on recent scholarship on democratization. It argues that this may be attributed in part to Korea’s regionalist politics. Its detrimental implications for democracy in general nonetheless. Despite its regionalism in Korea served democratization in two ways: first, by helping Korea’s politics move from the principled confrontation between the democratic forces and the authoritarian forces to the more pragmatic contestation between regionalist political actors; (...) second, by guaranteeing major political actors some minimum political power and thus providing them with motivations to adhere to Korea’s fledgling democratic game. (shrink)

Service providers working for a service organization are asked to express such positive emotions as joy, pleasure, and politeness required at the organizational level rather than their natural emotions they are experiencing at the moment. They cannot express their emotion they are actually going through and accordingly, their level of emotional labor and emotional dissonance influence on their job commitment and trust toward their organization. This study thus set out to investigate the effects of leading variables of emotional labor on (...) the level of emotional labor and the impact of emotional labor on organizational trust and organizational commitment with a subject group of college administrative staffs. Three underlying factors such as job stress, intimacy, and professionalism were identified as the determinants of emotional labor. Conceptual background about job stress, intimacy, emotional labor, and organizational effectiveness as the core variables of the study was investigated. Based on the conceptual background and our research questions, 5 research hypotheses and the proposed research model regarding the effects of emotional labor on organizational commitment and trust were developed. We also tried to include the moderating effects of work environment and gender of service providers on the research model. Unlike many different studies on emotional labor from the traditional perspective of service, this study also offers a practical implication by expanding and applying it to the field of college administrative service, which is an area where service providers are in the different working environment from the traditional company work environment. Finally, the managerial implications and the limitations of the study were also discussed. (shrink)

This paper serves three purposes. First, it examines the theme of jus post bellum (“postwar justice”) as it emerges within a just peacemaking (JP) framework. Second, it defines just political participation as civil society peacebuilding reflected in Catholic social thought (CST). Third, it envisions a place for just political participation within the jus post bellum praxis specifically endorsed by the World Bank report of 2007, titled Civil Society and Peacebuilding: Potential, Limitations and Critical Factors. The paper then attends to the (...) Church and faith-based organizations and their roles in civil society peacebuilding postbellum. In doing so, it clarifies the characteristics of jus post bellum within a JP scheme by (a) distinguishing them from the just war approach, (b) identifying JP-oriented jus post bellum thinkers such as Daniel Philpott and Larry May, and (c) incorporating civil society peacebuilding endorsed by both the World Bank report and CST. (shrink)

May 11, 2023, marked the end of the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). During the PHE, regulatory flexibilities allowed telehealth to more effectively connect physicians providing care and patients seeking it. This paper discusses the implications of the end of the PHE on telehealth coverage, payment, reimbursement, and licensure, and exposes inconsistencies and inequities in extant state regulations.

Abstract:This essay addresses the largely unrecognized art of a former comfort woman, Duk-kyung Kang (1929–1997). Comfort women were forced sexual slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War. By analyzing how both postcolonial and decolonial aesthetics are embodied in her paintings, the potential of her art to challenge colonialism becomes pronounced.

Human perception has long been a critical subject of design thinking. While various studies have stressed the link between thinking and acting, particularly in spatial experience, the term “design thinking” seems to disconnect conceptual thinking from physical expression or process. Spatial perception is multimodal and fundamentally bound to the body that is not a mere receptor of sensory stimuli but an active agent engaged with the perceivable environment. The body apprehends the experience in which one’s kinesthetic engagement and knowledge play (...) an essential role. Although design disciplines have integrated the abstract, metaphoric, and visual aspects of the body and its movement into conceptual thinking, studies have pointed out that design disciplines have emphasized visuality above the other sensory domains and heavily engaged with the perception of visual configurations, relying on the Gestalt principles. Gestalt psychology must be valued for its attention to a whole. However, the theories of design elements and principles over-empathizing such visuality posit the aesthetics of design mainly as visual value and understate other sensorial and perceptual aspects. Although the visual approach may provide a practical means to represent and communicate ideas, a design process heavily driven by visuality can exhibit weaknesses undermining certain aspects of spatial experience despite the complexity. Grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s notion of multisensory perception, this article discusses the relationship between body awareness and spatial perception and its implication for design disciplines concerning built environments. Special attention is given to the concepts of kinesthetic and synesthetic phenomena known as multisensory and cross-sensory, respectively. This discussion integrates the corporeal and spatiotemporal realms of human experience into the discourse of kinesthetic and synesthetic perceptions. Based on the conceptual, theoretical, and precedent analyses, this article proposes three models for design thinking: Synesthetic Translation, Kinesthetic Resonance, and Kinesthetic Engagement. To discuss the concepts rooted in action-based perception and embodied cognition, this study borrows the neurological interpretation of haptic perception, interoception, and proprioception of space. This article suggests how consideration of the kinesthetic or synesthetic body can deepen and challenge the existing models of the perceptual aspects of environmental psychology adopted in design disciplines. (shrink)

Purpose The debate about the end-of-life care decision is becoming a serious ethical and legal concern in the Far-Eastern countries of Korea, China and Japan. However, the issues regarding end-of-life care will reflect the cultural background, current medical practices and socioeconomic conditions of the countries, which are different from Western countries and between each other. Understanding the genuine thoughts of patients who are critically ill is the first step in confronting the issues, and a comparative descriptive study of these perspectives (...) was conducted by collaboration between researchers in all three countries. Methods Surveys using self-reporting paper questionnaire forms were conducted from December 2008 to April 2009 in Korea (six hospitals in two regions), China (five hospitals in four regions) and Japan (nine hospitals in one region). The subjects were patients who were critically ill who had been diagnosed as having cancer. A total of 235 participants (Korea, 91; China, 62; Japan, 52) were eventually recruited and statistically analysed. Results Most respondents had sometimes or often thought of their own death, mostly fear of ‘separation from loved ones’. They wanted to hear the news regarding their own condition directly and frankly from the physician. A quarter of them preferred making end-of-life care decisions by themselves, while many respondents favoured a ‘joint decision’ with their family members. The most favoured proxy decision maker was the spouse, followed by the children. Most admitted the necessity of ‘advance directives’ and agreed with artificial ventilation withdrawal in irreversible conditions. The most common reason was ‘artificial prolongation of life is unnecessary’. Most respondents agreed with the concept of active euthanasia; however, significant differences were sometimes observed in the responses according to variables such as patient's country of origin, age, gender and education level. Conclusion Patients in Far-Eastern countries gave various responses regarding end-of-life care decisions. Although familial input is still influential, most patients think of themselves as the major decision maker and accept the necessity of advance directives with Westernization of the society. Artificial ventilation withdrawal and even active euthanasia may be acceptable to them. (shrink)

Kit Fine has argued that the Tarski Semantics for the language of first order logic is inadequate. A semantic theory for FOL is inadequate if there are formulae of FOL whose meanings or satisfaction conditions it cannot compositionally account for. It is argued here that Fine’s case against Tarski rests on a mistake.