Our research describes the experiences, views, and attitudes of participants of mediation dialogue groups involving non-related traffic accidents regarding their participation and related topics, such as responsibility, rehabilitation, and restoration. In Belgium, the criminal law holds that victims and offenders need to be informed about the option of entering a restorative mediation process during criminal proceedings. Mediation is voluntary and provided by an independent state-funded organization. We collected the data through individual semi-structured in-depth interviews with participants of two mediation (...) dialogue groups. The data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. We identified three main themes: (a) the importance of shared stories, (b) blurred boundaries, and (c) opportunities and obstacles for repair. Overall, our analysis suggests that mediation involving similar but non-related incidents may provide the participants with valuable knowledge and insights about one another's lives and thoughts and lead to mutual understanding and support. For some, it may even involve a transformative experience. Importantly, our analysis reveals that (a) the presence of a “shared story” and (b) a group dynamic in which participants feel sufficiently at ease with each other are pivotal to achieving a sense of connection and resonance that allows for such mutual understanding and support. These appear to be prerequisites for enabling any kind of healing. (shrink)

The article describes two approaches to modeling the concept system of science – the thematic and paradigm ones. The re­search represents a case study of the two corpuses of abstracts: abstracts of projects supported by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Russian Federal Property Fund in lin­guistics, as well abstracts of articles by authors (and their co-au­thors) who have received multiple support from this foundation. Thematic modeling was carried out within the frameworks of two approaches: (...) сcorpus based approach (modeling the system of concepts as a holistic entity of term fields network), and single text approach (singling out compositions of term fields steadily present in the texts of projects which can be treated as separate branches of linguistics). The method of semantic graph modeling realized in the “Semograph” Information system (corpus based approach) and the K-means clustering method (single text based approach) were applied. Arrays of keywords (those that occurred in the abstracts of projects supported by the Foundation) grouped into term fields served as operational units. Paradigmatic model­ing was based on the analysis of network interaction of research­ers (created on the basis of the information on joint publications). After the hypergraph of researchers (2,108 state points) had been created, it was divided into subgraphs (network communities) by means of the modularity method (analogue of cluster analysis). Each cluster can be considered as a model of a scientific commu­nity that actualize a certain scientific paradigm; a set of clusters represents a model of the concept system of a certain subject domain from the point of view of representation and interrela­tion of several paradigms. The synthesis of thematic and paradig­matic models appears to be the direction for future research that involves modeling the concept system of science. The considered models can be applied as an effective means of monitoring, fore­casting and managing scientific research, i.e. as an instrument of state and/or department policy. (shrink)

Primary progressive aphasia is a degenerative disease affecting language while leaving other cognitive facilities relatively unscathed. The agrammatic subtype of PPA is characterized by agrammatic language production with impaired comprehension of noncanonical filler-gap syntactic structures, such as object-relatives [e.g., The sandwich that the girl ate was tasty], in which the filler is displaced from the object position within the relative clause to a position preceding both the verb and the agent and is replaced by a gap linked with the filler. (...) One hypothesis suggests that the observed deficits of these structures reflect impaired thematic integration, including impaired prediction of the thematic role of the filler and impaired thematic integration at the gap, but spared structure building. In the current study, we examined the on-line comprehension of object-relative and subject-relative clauses in healthy controls and individuals with agrammatic and logopenic PPA using eye-tracking. Eye-movement patterns in canonical subject-relative clause structures were essentially spared in both PPA groups. In contrast, eye-movement patterns in noncanonical object-relative clauses revealed delayed thematic prediction in both agrammatic and logopenic PPA, on-time structure building in both groups, and abnormal thematic integration in agrammatic, but not logopenic, PPA. We argue that these results are consistent with the hypothesis that agrammatic comprehension deficits reflect impaired thematic integration. (shrink)

The enrolment of children and adolescents in health research requires that attention to be paid to specific assent and consent requirements such as the age range for seeking assent; conditions for parental consent (and waivers); the age group required to provide written assent; content of assent forms; if separate assent and parental consent forms should be used, consent from emancipated young adults; reconsent at the age of adulthood when a waiver of assent requirements may be appropriate and the conditions for (...) waiving assent requirements. There is however very little available information for researchers and ethics committees on how to navigate these different issues. To provide guidance to research initiatives, the SickleInAfrica consortium conducted a thematic analysis of a sample of research ethics guidelines and procedures in African countries, to identify guidance for assent requirements in health research. The thematic analysis revealed that 12 of 24 African countries specified the age group for which assent is required. The minimum age for written assent varied across the countries. Five countries, Algeria, Botswana, Cameroon, Nigeria and The Democratic Republic of Congo require consent from both parents/family council in certain circumstances. Botswana, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda have specific assent/consent requirements for research with emancipated minors. South Africa and Algeria requires re-consent at onset of adulthood. Five countries (Botswana, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania) specified conditions for waiving assent requirements. The CIOMS and the ICH-GCP guidelines had the most comprehensive information on assent requirements compared to other international guidelines. An interactive map with assent requirements for different African countries is provided. The results show a major gap in national regulations for the inclusion of minors in health research. The SickleInAfrica experience in setting up a multi-country SCD registry in Africa highlights the need for developing and harmonising national and international guidelines on assent and consent requirements for research involving minors. Harmonisation of assent requirements will help facilitate collaborative research across countries. (shrink)

BackgroundThe past 10 years have witnessed a significant growth in sharing of health data for secondary uses. Alongside this there has been growing interest in the public acceptability of data sharing and data linkage practices. Public acceptance is recognised as crucial for ensuring the legitimacy of current practices and systems of governance. Given the growing international interest in this area this systematic review and thematic synthesis represents a timely review of current evidence. It highlights the key factors influencing public (...) responses as well as important areas for further research.MethodsThis paper reports a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative studies examining public attitudes towards the sharing or linkage of health data for research purposes. Twenty-five studies were included in the review. The included studies were conducted primarily in the UK and North America, with one study set in Japan, another in Sweden and one in multiple countries. The included studies were conducted between 1999 and 2013. The qualitative methods represented in the studies included focus groups, interviews, deliberative events, dialogue workshops and asynchronous online interviews.ResultsKey themes identified across the corpus of studies related to the conditions necessary for public support/acceptability, areas of public concern and implications for future research. The results identify a growing body of evidence pointing towards widespread general—though conditional—support for data linkage and data sharing for research purposes. Whilst a variety of concerns were raised in cases where participants perceived there to be actual or potential public benefits from research and had trust in the individuals or organisations conducting and/or overseeing data linkage/sharing, they were generally supportive. The studies also find current low levels of awareness about existing practices and uses of data.ConclusionsWhilst the results indicate widespread public support for data sharing and linkage for research purposes, a range of concerns exist. In order to ensure public support for future research uses of data greater awareness raising combined with opportunities for public engagement and deliberation are needed. This will be essential for ensuring the legitimacy of future health informatics research and avoiding further public controversy. (shrink)

Establishing healthy dietary habits in childhood is crucial in preventing long-term repercussions, as a lack of dietary variety in childhood leads to enduring impacts on both physical and cognitive health. Poor conceptual knowledge about food has recently been shown to be a driving factor of food rejection. The majority of studies that have investigated the development of food knowledge along with food rejection have mainly focused on one subtype of conceptual knowledge about food, namely taxonomic categories (e.g., vegetables or meat). (...) However, taxonomic categorization is not the only way to understand the food domain. We also heavily rely on other conceptual structures, namely thematic associations, in which objects are grouped because they share spatial-temporal properties or exhibit a complementary relationship (e.g., soft-boiled egg and soldiers). We rely on such thematic associations between food items, which may not fall into the same taxon, to determine the acceptability of food combinations. However, the development of children's ability to master these relations has not been systematically investigated, nor alongside the phenomenon of food rejection. The present research aims to fill this gap by investigating (i) the development of conceptual food knowledge (both taxonomic and thematic) and (ii) the putative relationship between children's food rejection (as measured by the Child Food Rejection Scale) and both thematic and taxonomic food knowledge. A proportional (A:B::C:?) analogy task, with a choice between taxonomic (i.e., bread and pasta) and thematic (i.e., bread and butter) food associates, was conducted on children between 3 and 7-years-old (n= 85). The children were systematically presented with either a thematic or taxonomic food base pair (A:B) and then asked to extend the example type of relation to select the respective thematic or taxonomic match to the target (C:?). Our results revealed, for the first time, that increased levels of food rejection were significantly predictive of poorer food identification and decreased thematic understanding. These findings entitle us to hypothesize that knowledge-based food education programs to foster dietary variety in young children, should not only aim to improve taxonomic understanding of food, but also thematic relations. (shrink)

At the beginning of the pandemic, many music ensembles had to stop their activities due to the confinement. While some found creative ways to start making music again with the help of technologies, the transition from “real” rehearsals to “online” rehearsals was challenging, especially among older amateur musicians. The aim of this case study was to examine the effects of this transition on three community band conductors and three older amateur musicians. Specific objectives were to explore intergenerational relationships to support (...) online group music-making; digital literacy and access in later life; and online music-making in a COVID-19 context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and theoretical thematic analysis was undertaken. Results were analyzed from the conductors’ and older musicians’ perspectives, and common trends were combined to facilitate interpretation. The first theme showed that being part of an intergenerational ensemble contributed positively to the learning experience online. The second theme demonstrated that because both conductors and musicians were new to the online rehearsals, it contributed to attenuate the age-related digital divide that may have been observed in other studies. Regarding access in later-life, older musicians reported benefits associated with rehearsing online, specifically in terms of distance/commute, time, energy, and cost. However, for those who did not already have internet and electronic devices, the cost of acquiring all the necessary equipment to make music online could have been too high. Finally, the third theme revealed that musicians appreciated the opportunity to make music online and indicated that it was definitely better than having nothing, especially for its social aspects. In conclusion, while participants noted several challenges associated with online music-making, they were also appreciative of the opportunity to continue making music at a time when in-person rehearsals were not possible. Pedagogical implications are discussed, specifically the importance of the support network, of meeting people where they are, of learning to adapt, and of collaborative teaching. (shrink)

Background: School nurses have great responsibilities as the connecting link between school, children/adolescents, parents, and other healthcare services. Being in this middle position, and handling complex situations and problems related to children in school, may be demanding and also lead to ethical challenges. Clinical ethics support, such as ethics reflection groups, may be of help when dealing with ethical challenges. However, there is little research on experiences with ethics reflection groups among school nurses. Aim: The aim of this (...) research was to explore how nurses in school healthcare experience their role, and how they experience participation in ethics reflection groups, using a model for systematic ethics reflection, the Centre for Medical Ethics model. Research design: The project had a qualitative design, using focus group interviews and thematic analysis. Ethical considerations: The study was evaluated by the Data Protection Official at the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (project no. 57373). The participants were given oral and written information about the study and signed a written consent. Participants and context: Twelve participants from school healthcare were recruited to the interviews. Findings: School nurses described their role as extremely challenging. How the school nurses experienced their role also influenced how they experienced participating in ethics reflection groups. The Centre for Medical Ethics model was experienced as both challenging and comprehensive. However, they also experienced that the model helped them to clarify their role and could also help them to find better solutions. Conclusion: The role as school nurse is complex and demanding, with several ethical challenges. Ethics reflection groups may be of great help when dealing with these challenges. However, it is of great importance that the methods used are adjusted to the professionals’ needs and context. (shrink)

BackgroundIn most Anglophone nations, policy and law increasingly foster an autonomy-based model, raising issues for large numbers of people who fail to fit the paradigm, and indicating problems in translating practical and theoretical understandings of ‘good death’ to policy. Three exemplar populations are frail older people, people with dementia and people with severe traumatic brain injury. We hypothesise that these groups face some over-lapping challenges in securing good end-of-life care linked to their limited agency. To better understand these challenges, (...) we conducted a scoping review and thematic synthesis.MethodsTo capture a range of literature, we followed established scoping review methods. We then used thematic synthesis to describe the broad themes emerging from this literature.ResultsInitial searches generated 22,375 references, and screening yielded 49, highly heterogeneous, studies that met inclusion criteria, encompassing 12 countries and a variety of settings. The thematic synthesis identified three themes: the first concerned the processes of end-of-life decision-making, highlighting the ambiguity of the dominant shared decision-making process, wherein decisions are determined by families or doctors, sometimes explicitly marginalising the antecedent decisions of patients. Despite this marginalisation, however, the patient does play a role both as a social presence and as an active agent, by whose actions the decisions of those with authority are influenced. The second theme examined the tension between predominant notions of a good death as ‘natural’ and the drive to medicalise death through the lens of the experiences and actions of those faced with the actuality of death. The final theme considered the concept of antecedent end-of-life decision-making, its influence on policy and decision-making, and some caveats that arise from the studies.ConclusionsTogether these three themes indicate a number of directions for future research, which are likely to be applicable to other conditions that result in reduced agency. Above all, this review emphasises the need for new concepts and fresh approaches to end of life decision-making that address the needs of the growing population of frail older people, people with dementia and those with severe traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe discursive analysis of criminal organizations’ family dynamics and ideological devices may provide important insights into the inner functioning of these groups. In this article, we describe and analyze a specific set of discursive strategies and the thematic narratives emerging from a TV interview with Giuseppe Riina, a member of Cosa Nostra and the son of one of the most important mafia bosses. Our analyses demonstrate the existence of recurring ideological devices such as reductionism, amoralism, familism, verticalism, normalism, (...) victimism and religious relativism. The results are discussed in light of previous research that examines how discursive strategies and narratives may represent powerful tools for understanding criminal organizations. Family-related discourses, in particular, reveal meanings, values and ideas that contribute to constructing criminal organizations’ internal structure, as well as their relationship with the external world. (shrink)

Receiving a diagnosis of autism in adulthood can be a life changing event, impacting identity, relationships, and mental health. A lack of post-diagnostic support has been highlighted by autistic adults, their allies, clinicians, and service providers. It can be a source of distress for autistic adults, reinforcing feelings of social isolation and rejection. Peer support could be a cost-effective, flexible, and sustainable model to provide community-based support for autistic adults. However, there is little research on the value of peer support, (...) despite calls from the autistic community. This qualitative study explored autistic experiences and needs post-diagnosis, identifying specific ways that peer support may benefit them, and exploring the limitations of peer support. Twelve autistic adults who had all received an autism diagnosis in adulthood completed a semi-structured interview focussing on the diagnostic experience, post-diagnostic support needed and provided, engagement with the autistic community, and post-diagnostic peer support. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts resulted in four themes: Mismatch in support needed and provided; Community connection; Flexible and personalised support; and Sustainability. Participants indicated that peer support may be a useful mechanism to support autistic adults’ post-diagnosis and offers unique opportunities not available through other support channels. Though informal peer support exists, it could be more sustainable and effective if well-supported and funded. (shrink)

BackgroundReturning neuroimaging incidental findings may create a challenge to research participants’ health literacy skills as they must interpret and make appropriate healthcare decisions based on complex radiology jargon. Disclosing IF can therefore present difficulties for participants, research institutions and the healthcare system. The purpose of this study was to identify the extent of the health literacy challenges encountered when returning neuroimaging IF. We report on findings from a retrospective survey and focus group sessions with major stakeholders involved in disclosing IF.MethodsWe (...) surveyed participants who had received a radiology report from a research study and conducted focus groups with participants, parents of child participants, Institutional Review Board members, investigators and physicians. Qualitative thematic analyses were conducted using standard group-coding procedures and descriptive summaries of health literacy scores and radiology report outcomes are examined.ResultsAlthough participants reported high health literacy skills, 67 % did not seek medical care when recommended to do so; and many participants in the focus groups disclosed they could not understand the findings described in their report. Despite their lack of understanding, participants desire to have information about their radiology results, and the investigators feel ethically inclined to return findings.ConclusionsThe language in clinically useful radiology reports can create a challenge for participants’ health literacy skills and has the potential to negatively impact the healthcare system and investigators conducting imaging research. Radiology reports need accompanying resources that explain findings in lay language, which can help reduce the challenge caused by the need to communicate incidental findings. (shrink)

Community engagement to protect and empower participating individuals and communities is an ethical requirement in research. There is however limited evidence on effectiveness or relevance of some of the approaches used to improve ethical practice. We conducted a study to understand the rationale, relevance and benefits of community engagement in health research. This paper draws from this wider study and focuses on factors that shaped Community Advisory Group members’ selection processes and functions in Malawi. A qualitative research design was used; (...) two participatory workshops were conducted with CAG members to understand their roles in research. Workshop findings were triangulated with insights from ethnographic field notes, key informant interviews with stakeholders, focus group discussions with community members and document reviews. Data were coded manually and thematic content analysis was used to identify main issues. Results have shown that democratic selection of CAG members presented challenges in both urban and rural settings. We also noted that CAG members perceived their role as a form of employment which potentially led to ineffective representation of community interests. We conclude that democratic voting is not enough to ensure effective representation of community's interests of ethical relevance. CAG members’ abilities to understand research ethics, identify potential harms to community and communicate feedback to researchers is critical to optimise engagement of lay community and avoid tokenistic engagement. (shrink)

Recruiting participants from underserved and marginalized communities for behavioral research is an essential yet challenging task. We examined participants' motivation to participate in a focus group about health communication and their beliefs about appropriate remuneration for participation. Twelve focus groups were conducted with low-income African American and Latina adolescent girls and African American women. We utilized a grounded theory approach and thematic analysis to examine views about research participation and remuneration. This study can inform important considerations about the (...) consent process, study recruitment, and remuneration. (shrink)

Although there is much interest in the development of prosocial behaviour in young children, and many interventions that attempt to cultivate kindness in children, there is a paucity of research exploring children’s lived experiences of kindness and including their voices. In this study, children’s understanding of kindness is approached through qualitative interviews using puppets. Interviews were conducted with 33 children aged 5-6 years in 3 schools in the United Kingdom. Through thematic analysis, 4 themes were developed: doing things for (...) others, relating with others, rules and values, and kindness affects us. These themes are examined in light of current thinking on prosocial and sociomoral development, and several key insights are highlighted, including types of prosocial behaviour, social connection, kindness-by-omission and defending, in-group bias, universal kindness versus personal safety, self-image, and a desire to improve the condition of society. These findings have implications for future research on prosocial development and for the design of kindness-based interventions, as well as providing an ecologically valid method of inquiry for use with young children. (shrink)

In a newly designed collaborative online music course, four musical novices unknown to each other learned to play the clarinet starting from zero. Over the course of 12 lessons, a special emphasis was placed on creativity, mutual interaction, and bodily movement. Although addressing these dimensions might be particularly challenging in distance learning contexts, a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with the learners revealed how the teaching approach proposed has generally facilitated learning. Qualitative findings highlight the importance of establishing meaningful (...) relationships with the musical instrument as well as with other students to build musicality, and of the interplay between creativity and control in individual and collective music-making activities. We suggest that remote music tuition with a small group can be a valuable resource to start learning music and that a creative, collaborative, and movement-based approach can contribute to musical growth. (shrink)

BackgroundBiobanking biospecimens and consent are common practice in paediatric research. We need to explore children and young people’s (CYP) knowledge and perspectives around the use of and consent to biobanking. This will ensure meaningful informed consent can be obtained and improve current consent procedures.MethodsWe designed a survey, in co-production with CYP, collecting demographic data, views on biobanking, and consent using three scenarios: 1) prospective consent, 2) deferred consent, and 3) reconsent and assent at age of capacity. The survey was disseminated (...) via the Young Person’s Advisory Group North England (YPAGne) and participating CYP’s secondary schools. Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic approach by three independent reviewers (including CYP) to identify common themes. Data triangulation occurred independently by a fourth reviewer.ResultsOne hundred two CYP completed the survey. Most were between 16–18 years (63.7%, N = 65) and female (66.7%, N = 68). 72.3% had no prior knowledge of biobanking (N = 73).Acceptability of prospective consent for biobanking was high (91.2%, N = 93) with common themes: ‘altruism’, ‘potential benefits outweigh individual risk’, 'frugality', and ‘(in)convenience’.Deferred consent was also deemed acceptable in the large majority (84.3%, N = 86), with common themes: ‘altruism’, ‘body integrity’ and ‘sample frugality’. 76.5% preferred to reconsent when cognitively mature enough to give assent (N = 78), even if parental consent was previously in place. 79.2% wanted to be informed if their biobanked biospecimen is reused (N = 80).ConclusionProspective and deferred consent acceptability for biobanking is high among CYP in the UK. Altruism, frugality, body integrity, and privacy are the most important themes. Clear communication and justification are paramount to obtain consent. Any CYP with capacity should be part of the consenting procedure, if possible. (shrink)

Socio-cultural and political transformations that are taking place in the modern world under the influence of globalization, predetermine the growth of scientific interest in the history and the theory of shaping the group unity.The coverage of various aspects of this problem is found in the works of foreign philosophers (M. Gibernau, S. Huntington, E. Hiddens, B. Yak, et al.), which focus their primary attention on studying the factors, contributing to the emergence of communities in the modern world, while distancing from (...) the development of universal explanatory schemes for the process of forming the collective unity at various stages of the historical development of society.Some Ukrainian researchers (Y. Hrytsak, V. Kravchenko, H. Kasyanov, et al.), who, in contrast to foreign scholars, pay more attention to studying the various aspects of Ukrainian nation-building, are approaching the above problems from a bit different angle of view to solve them. Undoubtedly, the work of these researchers thoroughly and fully covers the history of the formation of the Ukrainian nation, explains the reasons or factors that contributed to its appearance. Meanwhile, they do not have sufficient potential to explain the causes of the cultural fragmentation of modern Ukrainian society, which, in our opinion, has become a logical consequence of the undivided domination in the Ukrainian intellectual discourse of the paradigm of perennialism, within which the cultural identity of the community appears to be a kind of “entity or reality.” Proponents of this position believe that the cultural diversity of nations emerged in the early stages of social development. Within this outlook, Ukrainians, as a mentally and culturally distinct community, have always existed. Of course, their culture has been developing and enriching in the process of historical development and intercultural communication, while its original spiritual and symbolic core remaining unchanged.Despite the fact, that renaissance has a rational grain and can become themethodological basis for very effective national consolidation strategies, one should not ignore its failure to explain the causes of the cultural and civilizational fragmentation of modern Ukrainian society. In our opinion, the solution of this issue requires a comprehensive understanding of the origins, mechanisms and factors, and the formation of a culturally homogeneous Ukrainian cultural space. In view of this, the purpose of our work is to uncover the theoretical preconditions and mechanisms for shaping the cultural identity of Ukrainians in the XIX and early XX centuries. Instead, the task of the work is to highlight the ideological foundations of the growth of scientific interest in folk culture in foreign and Ukrainian intellectual discourse and to reveal their significance in the process of thematizing the modern Ukrainian identity.Methods.The interdisciplinary approach and the principle of unity of the historical and logical have become a methodological basis of scientific research. Methods of historical and philosophical reconstruction, cultural analysis, and extrapolation have been also widely used in the process of research, as well as the fundamental principles of hermeneutics, which have been taken into account.Results. The dominance of the educational enlightenment-cognitive paradigm has contributed to the growth of scientific interest in the cultural identity of peoples, which, according to the prevailing beliefs, has been most clearly preserved in folk poetry and ancient literature. The study of the latter has resulted in the outbreak of ethnographic and linguistic exploration, which facilitated the gradual introduction of the Ukrainian language to literary use, thereby contributing to the thematization of modern Ukrainian identity. (shrink)

This article examines three divergent constructions about the salience of legal gender in lay people’s everyday lives and readiness to decertify gender. In our interviews (and survey data), generally participants minimised the importance of legal gender. The central argument in this article is that feminist socio-legal scholars applying legal consciousness studies to legal reform topics should find scrutinizing the construction of interview talk useful. We illustrate this argument by adapting and applying Ewick and Silbey’s (1998) ‘The Common Place of Law: (...) Stories from Everyday Life', ‘before’, ‘with’ and ‘against’ typology to interview talk about legal gender, and critique their cognitivist approach by offering a constructionist alternative. In our analysis, we offer a detailed discursive explication of three key legal consciousness themes. These themes offer a balanced representation of a dataset problematically ‘skewed’ towards sex-based rights feminist perspectives, namely that ‘before’ legal gender is an anti-decertification account, decertification would be risky for natal females; a ‘with’ legal gender construction is neither for nor against decertification per se, though the impact of decertification is produced in accounts as limited and unimportant; and ‘against’ legal gender is a pro-decertification classification, as not abolished legal gender is constructed as harmful to already marginalised groups. In concluding, we explore the reasoning for the lack of readiness for decertification currently, and return to the value of examining the construction of lay discourse about legal matters as talk is a form of social action. We suggest that applying discursive analysis to themes in legal consciousness studies enables a refocusing on the how rather than purely the what of divergent legal consciousnesses, and that this approach is a fruitful addition to feminist socio-legal studies. (shrink)

The merits of this sourcebook are too innumerable to list in entirety but it must be said that it has achieved an almost perfect balance among the requirements of representativeness, comprehensiveness, and structured presentation. The only traditions in religion which are not represented are Christianity and Judaism, and Eliade has made the right decision to presuppose a familiarity with this material on the part of the student so that he might present more material, within a manageable compass, on religions which (...) are less familiar to the occidental mind. There are 360 separate but moderately cross-referenced entries, and in choosing these Eliade has drawn on the primary documents, of course, most heavily. Where these are lacking, however, as is particularly the case with primitive religions, he has provided deftly selected accounts taken from anthropological studies. The selections are grouped around six main themes: I. Gods, Goddesses, and Supernatural Beings; II. Myths of Creation and Origin; III. Man and the Sacred; IV. Death, Afterlife, Eschatology; V. Specialists of the Sacred: From Medicine Men to Mystics and Founders of Religions; VI. Speculations on Man and God. Each of these sections is then subdivided into between five and ten parts, with occasional further structuration going on in some of the subparts. The book would complement any systematic study in comparative religion, and, as might be suspected, meshes beautifully with Eliade's own Patterns in Comparative Religion.—E. A. R. (shrink)

BACKGROUND Patients with chronic pain face significant barriers in finding clinicians to manage long-term opioid therapy (LTOT). For patients on LTOT, it is increasingly common to have them sign opioid treatment agreements (OTAs). OTAs enumerate the risks of opioids, as informed consent documents would, but also the requirements that patients must meet to receive LTOT. While there has been an ongoing scholarly discussion about the practical and ethical implications of OTA use in the abstract, little is known about how clinicians (...) use them and if OTAs themselves modify clinician prescribing practices. OBJECTIVE To determine how clinicians use OTAs and the potential impacts of OTAs on opioid prescribing. DESIGN We conducted qualitative analysis of four focus groups of clinicians from a large Midwestern academic medical center. Groups were organized according to self-identified prescribing patterns: two groups for clinicians who identified as prescribers of LTOT, and two who did not. PARTICIPANTS 17 clinicians from General Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, and Palliative Care were recruited using purposive, convenience sampling. APPROACH Discussions were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for themes using reflexive thematic analysis by a multidisciplinary team. KEY RESULTS Our analysis identified three main themes: (1) OTAs did not influence clinicians’ decisions whether to use LTOT generally but did shape clinical decision-making for individual patients; (2) clinicians feel OTAs intensify the power they have over patients, though this was not uniformly judged as harmful; (3) there is a potential misalignment between the intended purposes of OTAs and their implementation. CONCLUSION This study reveals a complicated relationship between OTAs and access to pain management. While OTAs seem not to impact the clinicians’ decisions about whether to use LTOT generally, they do sometimes influence prescribing decisions for individual patients. Clinicians shared complex views about OTAs’ purposes, which shows the need for more clarity about how OTAs could be used to promote shared decision-making, joint accountability, informed consent, and patient education. (shrink)

Although content related to parenting Autistic children is common in online media, little attention is paid to the experiences of Autistic parents. There is a growing trend of parents receiving autism diagnoses after their children are diagnosed, yet a basic Google search on “parents” and “autism” reveals myriad data on the experiences of parents of Autistic children and little on experiences of Autistic parents. A systematic online search, augmented with a “crowd-sourcing” request to online parent support groups, identified only (...) 15 articles and blogs that discuss Autistic parenting in advocacy, lifestyle, and parenting websites. This article explores the scope and content of Autistic parenting discourse in these online media to consider how the experiences of Autistic parents are conceptualized and situated within broader narratives of neurodiversity, autism and parenting. Media discourse focused on women who had received their autism diagnosis in adulthood, their experiences navigating their diagnoses, minimizing parenting challenges, and pushing back against autism stereotypes, with the majority of content intended for Allistic audiences. Recent increased recognition of autism in women has coincided with a new interest in Autistic parenthood, raising questions about gendered assumptions and disabled mothering. The media narrative includes “defying stereotypes” and “proving” autism is compatible with parenthood, echoing mainstream beliefs. Social justice issues reinscribed in the narrative illustrate how centring the voices of Autistic parents can reconceptualize public perception of autism and bridge the disconnect between parenting Autistic children, and Autistic parenting of children. (shrink)

IntroductionThe value of a short life characterized by disability has been hotly debated in the literature on fetal and neonatal outcomes.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review to summarize the available empirical literature on the experiences of families in the context of trisomy 13 and 18 (T13/18) with subsequent thematic analysis of the 17 included articles.FindingsThemes constructed include (1) Pride as Resistance, (2) Negotiating Normalcy and (3) The Significance of Time.InterpretationOur thematic analysis was guided by the moral experience framework conceived (...) by Hunt and Carnevale (2011) in association with the VOICE (Views On Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics) collaborative research group.RelevanceThis article will be of interest and value to healthcare professionals and bioethicists who support families navigating the medically and ethically complex landscape of T13/18. (shrink)

Media guidelines on safe suicide-related reporting are within the suicide prevention armamentarium. However, implementation issues beleaguer real-world practice. This study evaluated the perspectives of the Malaysian media community, persons with lived experience of suicidal behavior, and mental health professionals on suicide-related reporting in terms of the impact, strategies, challenges, and the implementation of guidelines on safe reporting. Three focus group discussions of purposively sampled Malaysian media practitioners, PLE, and MHP were audio-recorded, transcribed, coded and thematically analyzed. Inclusion criteria were: English (...) fluency, no clinical depression or suicidal ideation, no recent previous suicide attempts or suicide bereavement. Three major themes emerged: Unsafe Reporting; Impact; and Safe Reporting. Most described current reporting as unsafe by being potentially triggering to media users and may contribute to contagion effect. Positive impacts identified included raised awareness toward suicide and its prevention. Unsafe reporting was attributed to inadequate awareness, knowledge, and guidance, lack of empathy and accountability, job-related factors, popularity-seeking, lack of monitoring and governance, and information source with unsafe content. Majority agreed on how suicide stories should be framed to produce a safe report. The media community diverged on how detailed a suicide story should be. Safe reporting challenges included difficulties in balancing beneficial versus harmful details, social media ubiquity and its citizen reporters. Participants suggested these safe reporting strategies: stakeholder engagement, educational approaches, improving governance and surveillance, and guidelines revision. Most acknowledged the relevance of guidelines but were unaware of the existence of local guidelines. Implementation challenges included the dilemma in balancing media industry needs vis-à-vis safe reporting requirements, stakeholder engagement difficulties and social media regulation. There is poor awareness regarding safe suicide-related reporting across all groups. PLE and MHP were negatively impacted by current unsafe messaging which aggravated trauma and grief reactions. Postvention support gaps for mental health professionals were highlighted. Safe reporting promotion strategies should include stakeholder engagement to increase awareness on minimizing Werther and maximizing Papageno effects. Strategic re-examination and dissemination of local media guidelines to address new media issues, and effective surveillance mechanisms, are crucial in sustainable improvement of safe reporting practices. (shrink)

In many countries, life expectancy has increased considerably in past years, and the importance of finding ways to ensure good levels of wellbeing through aging has become more important than ever. Arts based interventions are promising in this respect, and the literature suggests that musical activities can reduce isolation and anxiety and foster feelings of achievement and self-confidence. The present study examined the effects of group music making programs on the health and wellbeing of nursing home residents in Southern Switzerland. (...) A team of professional and student musicians delivered 10 weekly music sessions in four nursing homes, focusing on singing, rhythm-based activities with percussion instruments, and listening to short, live performances. 22 participants (16 women and 6 men, aged 72-95 years, mean 83.6, SD ± 6.9) were recruited to take part in the study and were interviewed after the last music session. The data were analyzed with thematic analysis to investigate how residents experienced group music making and its effects. The findings show that the music programs were beneficial for residents’ wellbeing. Music plays an important role in their lives, both in their pasts and presently, and being involved in musical activities offers engagement and novelty in daily life, providing learning opportunities and facilitating interpersonal relationships. Moreover, these results were due to interactions with the musicians involved. Residents particularly appreciated the opportunity to listen to live performances as part of the sessions. This study suggests that nursing home residents value music and that music based interventions play an important and direct role in enhancing their wellbeing. (shrink)

Taking a Darwinian approach, we propose that people reason to detect free-riders on the Wason Selection task with the sharing-rule; If one receives the resource, one is an in-group member (standard), or If one is an in-group member, one receives the resource (switched). As predicted, taking the resource-provider's perspective, both undergraduates and children (11 to 12 years old) checked for the existence of out-group members taking undeserved resource. Changing the perspective to that of the resource-recipient did not alter the selection (...) pattern in undergraduates, although the prediction was that another type of free-riding -failure to share by resource-provider- would be checked as well. However, by removing confounding factors in the materials, both undergraduates and children checked for both types of free-riding, which fully supports the prediction. These results indicate that the sharing-rule elicits a thematic content effect that cannot be explained by preceding deontic reasoning theories. (shrink)

In recent years, digital tools, such as WhatsApp, have been increasingly deployed to support group interaction and collaboration in higher education contexts. To understand contemporary, digitally-mediated collaborative dynamics – including the role played by tutors and the situated nature of group development – robust and innovative methodologies are needed. In this paper, we illustrate how integrating qualitative methods with quantitative tools used in qualitative ways makes it possible to trace how tutors adapt their style to support group development, which in (...) turn triggers student development in a circular and responsive process. To make visible this contemporary phenomenon, we combine thematic content analysis – a qualitative tool – with a quantitative method: Social Network Analysis. Drawing on data generated by two WhatsApp learning groups in research exploring the collaborative construction of boundary objects in a master’s level “E-learning Psychology” course, we suggest that our methodological approach has the potential to support interrogation of complex and dynamic digitally-mediated group interactions. Our results show the situational nature of an effective tutorship style through its complex adaptation to learners’ maturity, digital tools, and learning goals. (shrink)

In recent decades there has been a significant increase in community rehabilitation programs for people with mental health conditions. One such nationwide programs is Amitim in Israel whose mission is to foster the psychosocial rehabilitation of people with mental health conditions in the community. Amitim’s flagship program consists of arts-based groups that integrate participants with mental health conditions and non-clinical community members. To better understand the experiences of participants in these arts-based groups, five focus groups were conducted (...) with participants from 15 integrated arts-based groups. In total, 17 people with mental health conditions and 21 non-clinical community members were interviewed for this qualitative study. Three main themes emerged from the thematic analysis: creation and expression through the arts promote well-being, self-disclosure in a safe space encourages a sense of belonging, and “we are all in the same boat.” The participants underscored the role of creation and expression through the arts in facilitating emotional expression, self-discovery, interpersonal communication, and spiritual elevation. The findings suggest that the facilitators should instill a sense of equality by enabling intergroup acquaintances without labeling participants’ mental health status. Integrated arts-based groups should be accompanied by a mental health professional who can contain and work through complex emotional situations when needed. Arts therapists who specialize in both arts and mental health are particularly suitable for this role. Overall, the interviewees reported that participation in the integrated arts-based groups positively impacted their personal recovery processes by providing a corrective experience of equality as well as enhancing a sense of belonging to the community and social relationships. The participants also reported being empowered by the final artistic event that not only enhanced their sense of visibility, competence, and aspirations for future development in personal, interpersonal, and artistic realms, but also helped to combat both self- and public stigma. (shrink)

This article discusses which barriers hamper access to, and participation in, cultural life for members of vulnerable groups, in particular persons belonging to old and new minorities and persons with disabilities in the context of digitization. It then examines what role public authorities can play in addressing and dismantling these barriers. The article adopts a bottom-up approach, in that it is based on a qualitative study, which gives voice to vulnerable groups. The qualitative research involved interviews with different (...) organisations representing, or working with, vulnerable groups in 12 European Union Member States (Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta and Spain). In that regard, the article approaches vulnerability from a distinct conceptual standpoint, identifying vulnerability as a condition caused by structural barriers. On the whole, the article shows that, while digitization of cultural content, goods and services, offers increased opportunities for culture to be democratised and for its consumption by wider and more varied audiences to be enhanced, it also engenders structural barriers and creates additional challenges. Furthermore, while digitisation has ensured more diverse representation in cultural content, vulnerable groups still face stereotypical and negative portrayals within mainstream cultural content. The thematic analysis of the qualitative interviews also captures different dimensions of access to digital cultural and supports the identification of effective policy measures to bridge the ‘digital divide’ and assist in the fulfilment of cultural rights of vulnerable groups. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 107-108 [Access article in PDF] Sixth International Conference of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies John Berthrong Boston University The society's sixth international conference, held 5-12 August 2000, was an exceptionally successful event for the five hundred plus participants. In great measure the success was due to the conference's scenic and user-friendly location at the Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma,Washington, and to the untiring work of Professor (...) Paul Ingram and his staff. The spirit of Mount Rainier towered over the whole event, reminding us that both Buddhism and Christianity have a stake in global healing.One of the most enjoyable aspects of the conference was how well the various panels, presentations, plenary programs, and workshops matched the announced theme of the conference. Although I cannot speak for all the participants, in my extensive sampling of the events, care was given in addressing the question of global healing from a diverse set of spiritual perspectives and academic disciplines.Whether you attended the section on meditation or the erudite papers on orthodoxy, the presenters strove to show how their work could be understood as a way to promote global healing.Nowhere was this attention to the theme of the conference more clearly demonstrated than in the evening plenaries. I confess that I am not a fan of evening meetings. However, in each case the various panels presented their analysis as a gift to the larger mosaic of the conference. The evenings began with Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne and Dr. Cecil Murray addressing nonviolent struggle for economic justice. This was followed by presentations on the Earth Charter; gender, justice, and oppression in Buddhism and Christianity; and consumerism and ecology. I would also be remiss if I did not note that we were treated to wonderful musical performances not only at the opening and closing ceremonies but during all the other plenaries as well.One of the most noteworthy features of the work of the society over the last two decades has been its conviction that erudite scholarship and the actual profession and practice of religion are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, the society was founded on the belief that dialogue between Buddhists and Christians is a good thing in and of itself. The workshop on the interior dialogue of meditation was a gentle refutation to those in the academic world who maintain that only analysis of isolated religious practices or texts makes any sense. The society has always urged its members to bring their practices as well as their ideas to the dialogical encounter. [End Page 107]Music played a moving role in the life of the conference. The plenary sessions took place in the magnificent new music center at PLU, wherein resides a huge concert organ.We were literally moved by the organ's powerful rendition of the classic works of the Western religious musical tradition. Matching the organ was the gentle call of the shakuhachi. An organ and a shakuhachi may seem mismatched in theory and performance--much less sheer volume for the bamboo flute--but they blended into a symphony of shared sacred music.Having praised the thematic attentiveness, musical brilliance, and spiritual depth of the conference, I must likewise highlight the academic integrity of the papers. Many of the professorial types mentioned over and over again how pleased they were with the thoughtfulness of the academic presentations. Here we need not only to thank the authors but also the conference planning committee for its ability to select the best representatives of erudite, informed, and engaged models of academic scholarship. Those who were not present will simply have to wait for many of these fine papers to be published in various scholarly journals. Another helpful detail was the conference bookstore, which stocked many of the recent publications of the participants.The only criticism I heard during the whole conference was that it was, alas, a bit too long. In this busy world it is difficult for most people to block out a whole week for one conference. I mention this only in... (shrink)

ABSTRACT The research purpose is to investigate the influence of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism on Chinese folklore vocals and their elements in modern music. The research methodology is based on descriptive, comparative, interpretative and statistical analysis (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient). The analysis of the folk vocals of each thematic group among 110 folk songs of the Shi Jing supports the argument that Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism had the greatest influence on the vocals. During the analysis, it was determined that (...) folk songs about love (0.942) and songs themed around nature (0.917) exhibit the most pronounced influence on their potential utilisation in the performance of popular compositions. The findings indicated that 75% of the folk vocal compositions with nature-related themes demonstrated discernible influences from Buddhism. The research findings have enabled the identification of exemplary renditions of the folkloric composition ‘Czo-yui’ from the ‘Book of Changes’, adeptly adapted to contemporary motifs, which were achieved at a notably high level within respondent groups #1 (7.2), #4 (7.4) and #5 (7.1). These commendable outcomes are attributed to the preservation of harmonious tonality, precise intonation and artistic expression during the performance process. (shrink)

All individual terms listed as jāti-s (sophisticated ripostes) in Nyāyasūtra V a 1 have the peculiar uniform ending -sama. The interpretation of this ending here reveals a greater nuance of meaning than the hitherto customary understanding of it. It will be demonstrated that the observable semantic difference is due to a historical shift of signification as a result of an enlarging and systematizing of the thematic group of jāti-s. In this paper, I examine relevant text material, including two very (...) important manuscripts of the Nyāyabhṣya to show this semantic difference. The understanding gained by this analysis will help to trace the historical development of the complex of jāti-s within the larger context of the ancient Indian tradition of debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.3 (2001) 440-444 [Access article in PDF] Arnd Kerkhecker. Callimachus' Book of Iambi. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. xxiv + 334 pp. 5 plates. Cloth, $85.00. The Iambi have been slow to profit from Callimachus' recent popularity, even though our much changed sense of the archaic iambicists, especially Archilochus, makes the collection due for a major reassessment. In Hellenistica Groningana 1 (1993), the Iambi claim scarcely (...) two pages out of two hundred, and in Alan Cameron's iconoclastic Callimachus and His Critics (1995) a bit more than five out of five hundred. Though Callimachean polyeideia cannot be well understood without the Iambi, readers continue to be daunted by these difficult fragments, which in places are little more than a tale told by a diegete, signifying nothing very certain.Now, twenty years after Dee Lister Clayman's fine, short survey of the Iambi, we have not one, but two, book-length readings of the collection. As if the [End Page 440] poet had suddenly risen to sow discord while preaching eunoia, Kerkhecker's formidable Oxford dissertation of 1997 comes to us already in pitched disagreement with Benjamin Acosta-Hughes's Stanford thesis (1995), forthcoming from the University of California Press as Polyeideia: The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition. Callimachus would not have it any other way.These rival projects complement each other as well as disagree. Acosta-Hughes accommodates the Greekless reader with translations of the Diegesis and the ten Iambi he discusses; in addressing classicists generally, Kerkhecker provides close guidance to the papyri for nonspecialists. As his title indicates, Acosta-Hughes focuses on aesthetics; Kerkhecker revives J. K. Newman's question, "Do the Iamboi make no moral appeal?" (9). Where Acosta-Hughes reads the collection by thematic groupings, Kerkhecker reads the Iambi in sequence and, importantly, as a single composition in thirteen parts. The operative word in his title is "book." I limit myself below to Kerkhecker's monograph, which provides an indispensable ancilla to and partial updating of Pfeiffer's edition, and which constructs as strong a case as can be imagined, on the current evidence, for the designed unity of the Iambi: "Callimachus is not just collecting and editing his own poems, much like those of others; he is composing with the collection in mind, with a view to the scholarly edition, for the Book" (290).Kerkhecker presents an impressive range of mastery, from papyrology to connoisseurship of a later Aufklärungszeitalter. Wieland, Lessing, Herder, and even Fielding offer a reminder of what was once at stake in debates about art. Kerkhecker writes lucid, lively, and often witty prose that is worthy of his tastes and subject. To counter the current age of theory, he reasserts a reminiscently Enlightenment faith in the text; "social text" and "intertext" join Euhemerus in silence and disgrace. Kerkhecker reads the Iambi as a self-enclosed poetic universe, without relying on speculations about chronology, Ptolemaic patronage, designed correspondence to the Aetia, Horatian imitation, or Cameron's questions about performance. On Greek "poetry books," Cameron and Kerkhecker stand in diametrical opposition. In Kerkhecker's view, Callimachus' book articulates a "new Iambic Spirit" (293) by looking inward: to manners more than morals, to Selbstkritik rather than Zeitkritik, and to self-parody beneath feigned polemic. As in later ages, the mark of such hermetic and self-conscious Buchdichtung is multilayered irony.Reconstructions of Greek poetry books proceed against stiff resistance, but Kerkhecker's monograph securely earns a place on the shelf near Pfeiffer by the rigor and erudition of his interpretation on all levels. Chapters on individual Iambi begin with a reassessment of Pfeiffer's edition based on Kerkhecker's collation of the papyri and with an explanation of Pfeiffer's rationale in combining papyri, quotations, and other evidence. Kerkhecker discusses unpublished readings by Coles, Maas, and Rea, and differs in some sixty places from Pfeiffer, whose authority survives this scrutiny intact. Until the now faded Oxyrhynchus Papyri VII.1011 can be reedited, the reader has a full and fair assessment of how the evidence stands. Kerkhecker forthrightly discloses the extent of his own... (shrink)

A growing number of powerful arguments have been formulated by philosophers and logicians in recent years demonstrating that the existence of God is improbable. These arguments assume that God's existence is possible but argue that the weight of the empirical evidence is against God's actual existence. This unique anthology collects most of the important arguments for the improbability of God that have been published since the mid-1900s. The editors make each argument clear and accessible by providing a helpful summary. In (...) addition, they arrange this diverse collection of arguments for the improbability of God into four thematic groups: Part 1 contains cosmological arguments based on the weight of the evidence relative to the origin of the universe; Part 2 presents teleological arguments based on the weight of the evidence relative to the order in the universe; Part 3 deals with inductive evil arguments based on the weight of the evidence relative to the widespread and horrendous evil in the world; and Part 4 contains nonbelief arguments based on the weight of the evidence relative to the widespread nonbelief or the reasonable nonbelief in the world. The list of distinguished authors includes William Rowe, Theodore Drange, Quentin Smith, Victor Stenger, J. L. Schellenberg, and Michael Martin, among others. With this new anthology as a companion to their earlier anthology, The Impossibility of God (2003), Martin and Monnier have created an indispensable resource in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Background: Human rights are an important part of nursing care, and nurses deal with human rights matter daily. Despite their relevance and acknowledgement of their importance, human rights issues remain limited in nursing education. Aim: The study’s aim was to describe how human rights education has been addressed in nursing education. Method: A scoping review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) recommendations. The search was conducted in March 2023, with (...) an updated search in February 2024. We searched in the following databases provided by EBSCO: Academic Search Elite, CINAHL, Education Source, ERIC, ScienceDirect and MEDLINE. Additionally, we also searched in Embase via Ovia and Scopus. The papers were screened for eligibility by title, abstract and full text independently by at least two reviewers, and the whole research team was involved in this process. Ethical considerations: The scoping review was guided by ethical conduct and scientific guidelines. Findings: Nine papers matched the inclusion criteria. Three thematic groups were identified: (a) focus of human rights education, (b) the learning design of the coursework and (c) learning outcomes in human rights education. Conclusion: Human rights education can benefit from being tailored to the students’ experiences and including voices from the rights-holders. Bringing in the students’ experiences and rights-holders’ voices can enable self-reflection and discussion regarding human rights concerns. Hence, if the intention is to support nursing students to develop an awareness and act upon human rights concerns, the curriculum ought to include opportunities for reflection and discussion around human rights concerns and experiences in the students’ own context. (shrink)

The intelligibility of nature was a persistent theme of William A. Wallace, OP, one of the most prolific Catholic scholars of the late twentieth century. This Reader aims to make available a representative selection of his work in the history of science, natural philosophy, and theology illustrating his defense and development of this central theme. Wallace is among the most important Galileo scholars of the past fifty years and a key figure in the recent revival of scientific realism. Further, his (...) long and productive scholarly career has been shaped by a continuous effort to bring the resources of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition to the solution of contemporary problems of philosophy and science. Through all of these contributions, Wallace has provided the foundation for a renewed confidence in the capacity of human knowers to attain understanding of the natural order. Consequently, the overall aim of this volume is to secure continued access to his scholarship for readers in the new millennium. Intelligibility of Nature will contain twenty-nine previously published essays written by Wallace over a period of some forty years. Many of these essays are currently not readily accessible. They are arranged in five thematic groups, each representing a major subject-area of Wallace's scholarly interests. The first group is devoted to essays on making nature intelligible through the use of scientific models. The second group of essays investigates various ways in which the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition is foundational to contemporary scientific research. Essays in the third group are historical studies on the origins of modern science. The fourth group of essays discuss the viability of the cosmological argument for the existence of God in light of natural science. The final group of essays consider the relation of science and religion. Together these essays provide a representative sample of Wallace's multifaceted contributions to scholarship. (shrink)

The article examines the representations of the "diaspora” in texts published on "migrant” digital communication platforms. With the help of discourse analysis The messages posted in open access in thematic groups in VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and Telegram channels were studied. The purpose of the study was to find out what meanings and functions the users of these sites give the word "diasporas”. The "Diaspora” was considered as a nodal point, uniting the narratives of people visiting "migrant” sites into a (...) single framework. It was assumed that the "diaspora” does not have a clear, fixed content and various actors are trying to turn it from an "element” into a "moment”, securing a certain meaning for it. More than a thousand messages found on "migrant” sites were analyzed. The study showed that the "diaspora” within the considered digital platforms is most often mentioned in the reposts of press releases of state and public organizations, where it is presented as an object of social action, an intermediary between migrants and the state. In these texts, the "diaspora” is represented in the same semantic row with various state authorities and their representatives. At the same time, the "diaspora” is defined as a participant in events organized by the state bureaucracy of the host country or the donor country, the purpose of which is the manifestation of ethnicity. In user comments, these values are disputed: people either doubt its existence or its ability to effectively solve their problems. (shrink)

The Pensées is a difficult book. When originally published in 1670, eight years after Pascal’s death, it was simply a collection of “thoughts” or pensées found among his papers after his death. Modern editors have based their editions on two seventeenth-century copies that group many of the fragments into thematic groups that purport to reflect Pascal’s own organization. Even so, the Pensées is still a collection of fragments. The reader, particularly the first-time reader, needs a guide.It was well (...) known among his friends that Pascal was working on an apology for Christianity. In Pascal: Reasoning and Belief, Michael Moriarty is attempting both to recover Pascal’s plan for this apology and to offer a philosophical... (shrink)

Kevin Lynch's books are the classic underpinnings of modern urban planning and design, yet they are only a part of his rich legacy of ideas about human purposes and values in built form. City Sense and City Design brings together Lynch's remaining work, including professional design and planning projects that show how he translated many of his ideas and theories into practice. An invaluable sourcebook of design knowledge, City Sense and City Design completes the record of one of the foremost (...) environmental design theorists of our time and leads to a deeper understanding of his distinctively humanistic philosophy. The editors, both former students of Lynch, provide a cogent summary of his career and of the role he played in shaping and transforming the American urban design profession during the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s. Each of the seven thematic groupings of writings and projects that follow begins with a short introduction explaining their content and their background. The essays in part I focus on the premises of Lynch's work: his novel reading of large-scale built environments and the notion that the design of an urban landscape should be as meaningful and intimate as the natural landscape. In part II, excerpts from Lynch's travel journals reveal his early ideas on how people perceive and interpret their surroundings—ideas that culminated in his seminal work, The Image of the City. This part of the book also presents Lynch's experiments with children and his assessment of environmental-perception research. The examples of both small-scale and large-scale analysis of visual form in part III are followed by three parts on city design. These include Lynch's more theoretical works on complex planning decisions involving both functional (spatial and structural organization) and normative (how the city works in human terms) approaches, articles discussing the principles that guided Lynch's teaching and practice of city design, and descriptions of Lynch's own projects in the Boston area and elsewhere. The book concludes with essays written late in Lynch's career, fantasy pieces describing utopias and offering new design freedoms and scenarios warning of horrifying "cacotopias.". (shrink)

'Risquons-Tout' is an ambitious, thematic group exhibition that explores the potential of transgression and unpredictability. It examines how art challenges the homogenisation of thought in the now infamous echo chambers of our overcrowded info-sphere. 'Risquons-Tout' presents some of the most innovative and influential artists and authors from the Eurocore region, which extends between Amsterdam, Paris, Cologne, Düsseldorf and London, with Brussels at its centre. The title is borrowed from a place located on the Belgian-French border, a real yet liminal (...) space of transition, passage and informal exchanges, notably smuggling. The invited artists negotiate different dynamics of bridging, passing, translating and transgressing. In doing so they burst the safe bubbles generated by prediction algorithms, designed to avoid any risk, whether intellectual, financial, emotional or physical. The exhibition's geographic and political scope addresses today's global connectivity, trans-national circulation and diasporic movements. 'Risquons-Tout' will occupy the entire WIELS building and range out into neighbouring exhibition and performance spaces. It will present the works of 38 internationally recognised or emerging artists. The exhibition proposes a rich array of practices that defy easy categorisation. 'Risquons-Tout' will also include a performative section and an Open School that will serve as a laboratory for artists and scholars to draw upon questions of risk, unpredictability and borders through a range of alternative methods for the transmission of knowledge. Exhibition: WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (12.09.2020 - 10.01.2021). (shrink)

The intelligibility of nature was a persistent theme of William A. Wallace, OP, one of the most prolific Catholic scholars of the late twentieth century. This Reader aims to make available a representative selection of his work in the history of science, natural philosophy, and theology illustrating his defense and development of this central theme. Wallace is among the most important Galileo scholars of the past fifty years and a key figure in the recent revival of scientific realism. Further, his (...) long and productive scholarly career has been shaped by a continuous effort to bring the resources of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition to the solution of contemporary problems of philosophy and science. Through all of these contributions, Wallace has provided the foundation for a renewed confidence in the capacity of human knowers to attain understanding of the natural order. Consequently, the overall aim of this volume is to secure continued access to his scholarship for readers in the new millennium. -/- Intelligibility of Nature contains twenty-nine previously published essays written by Wallace over a period of some forty years. Many of these essays are currently not readily accessible. They are arranged in five thematic groups, each representing a major subject-area of Wallace's scholarly interests. The first group is devoted to essays on making nature intelligible through the use of scientific models. The second group of essays investigates various ways in which the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition is foundational to contemporary scientific research. Essays in the third group are historical studies on the origins of modern science. The fourth group of essays discuss the viability of the cosmological argument for the existence of God in light of natural science. The final group of essays consider the relation of science and religion. Together these essays provide a representative sample of Wallace's multifaceted contributions to scholarship. (shrink)

This article explores and critically evaluates the potential contribution to discourse studies of topic modelling, a group of machine learning methods which have been used with the aim of automatically discovering thematic information in large collections of texts. We critically evaluate the utility of the thematic grouping of texts into ‘topics’ emerging from a large collection of online patient comments about the National Health Service in England. We take two approaches to this, one inspired by methods adopted in (...) existing topic modelling research and the other using more established methods of discourse analysis. In the study, we compare the insights produced by each approach and consider the extent to which the automatically generated topics might be of use to discourse analysts attempting to organise and study sizeable datasets. We found that the topic modelling approach was able to group texts into ‘topics’ that were truly thematically coherent with a mixed degree of success, while the more traditional approach to discourse analysis consistently provided a more nuanced perspective on the data which was ultimately closer to the ‘reality’ of the texts it contains. This study thus highlights issues concerning the use of topic modelling and offers recommendations and caveats to researchers employing such approaches to studying discourse in the future. (shrink)

The article examines the representations of the "diaspora” in texts published on "migrant” digital communication platforms. With the help of discourse analysis The messages posted in open access in thematic groups in VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and Telegram channels were studied. The purpose of the study was to find out what meanings and functions the users of these sites give the word "diasporas”. The "Diaspora” was considered as a nodal point, uniting the narratives of people visiting "migrant” sites into a (...) single framework. It was assumed that the "diaspora” does not have a clear, fixed content and various actors are trying to turn it from an "element” into a "moment”, securing a certain meaning for it. More than a thousand messages found on "migrant” sites were analyzed. The study showed that the "diaspora” within the considered digital platforms is most often mentioned in the reposts of press releases of state and public organizations, where it is presented as an object of social action, an intermediary between migrants and the state. In these texts, the "diaspora” is represented in the same semantic row with various state authorities and their representatives. At the same time, the "diaspora” is defined as a participant in events organized by the state bureaucracy of the host country or the donor country, the purpose of which is the manifestation of ethnicity. In user comments, these values are disputed: people either doubt its existence or its ability to effectively solve their problems. (shrink)

Among the political changes brought about by the First World War was the formation of new countries, including Latvia. This in turn resulted in a strong need for the first national legislative acts and thus a substantial amount of effort to develop Latvian legal terminology which dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. The purpose of the paper is to study the development of Latvian terminology of marriage in the 20th century through analysis of the relevant body of (...) laws. The paper focuses on marriage-related terms extracted from the major legislative acts governing the institution of marriage in the 20th century. The present study adopts the qualitative research approach which constitutes data collection and data analysis. For the purposes of a comprehensive and efficient analysis of the extracted legal terms, marriage terms are divided into the following five thematic groups: 1) engagement; 2) entering into marriage; 3) nullity of marriage; 4) dissolution of marriage ; and 5) consequences of dissolution or nullity of marriage. The paper suggests that the core of the Latvian terminology of marriage has remained stable, as entering into marriage is a solid procedure where two interested parties give notice to a public or religious institution in order to officially register their relationship. Similarly, both parties often feel the need to terminate this relationship just as officially. This stability of fundamental processes contributes to terminological continuity. (shrink)

This book is a fascinating and substantial contribution to the study of ancient philosophy. It is a collection of thirty-two papers delivered at an international congress devoted to the title theme. All but two of the essays are in French; one is in English and the other is in Italian. Mattéi, who directed the congress, has ordered the articles into five thematic groups and written a lucid and seductive preface. My own remarks, which I must limit to the (...) briefest survey of the contents, are indebted to, but at the same time divergent from, his guidance there. (shrink)

This eighth volume of the Collected Works of Jung comprises a collection of essays in which Jung struggles with the basic theoretical problems of his psychology. He brings an impressive erudition to his search for concepts, models and explanatory principles adequate to the refractory psychic phenomena with which he deals. In keeping with Jung's conviction that the psyche is "a thing of such infinite complexity that it can be observed and studied from a great many sides," the essays exhibit a (...) variety of approaches, from the relatively empirical to the frankly speculative. The essays span some forty years of Jung's reflection and, thanks to their arrangement in thematic groupings by the editors, present an interesting study in the refinement of his thought and statement.--J. M. W. (shrink)

Background: Respecting patients’ dignity has been described as a fundamental part of nursing care. Many studies have focused on exploring the concept of patients’ dignity from the patient and nurse perspective, but knowledge is limited regarding students’ nursing perceptions and experiences. Objective: To explore the issue of patients’ dignity from the perspective of nursing students. Research design: A qualitative study was employed with the formation of four focus groups and the participation of nursing students. Data were analysed via a (...) thematic content analysis of the discussions. Participants and research context: Thirty-four nursing students of a Cyprus University participated in the four focus groups. Each group was homogenous in terms of the year of study and heterogeneous in terms of clinical practice in various wards. Ethical consideration: The study’s protocol was reviewed and approved by the Cyprus National Bioethics Committee. Ethical standards were followed throughout the study. Findings: Several factors that maintain or compromise patients’ dignity emerged. These factors were grouped into five themes: (a) patients’ preferences, verbal abuse and regarding a patient as a unique person; (b) privacy and confidentiality; (c) loss of autonomy and need for help; (d) discrimination and (e) attribution and reciprocity. Discussion: Different understandings of the perceived concept of dignity and the factors that maintain or compromise patient’s dignity were expressed through the eyes and the feelings of nursing students. Students highlighted the importance of promoting patient dignity as an important component of nursing care. Conclusion: Nurse educators can use the findings of this study in order to tailor nursing programmes to emphasise the importance of respecting patients’ dignity. In addition, nurse ward managers can use the findings as means for persuading nurses to change current behaviour. (shrink)