Personhood, consciousness, and god : how to be a proper pantheist

© Springer Nature B.V. 2018In this paper I develop a theory of personhood which leaves open the possibility of construing the universe as a person. If successful, it removes one bar to endorsing pantheism. I do this by examining a rising school of thought on personhood, on which persons, or selves, are understood as identical to episodes of consciousness. Through a critique of this experiential approach to personhood, I develop a theory of self as constituted of qualitative mental contents, but where these contents are also capable of unconscious existence. On this theory, though we can be conscious of our selves, consciousness turns out to be inessential to personhood. This move, I then argue, provides resources for responding to the pantheist’s problem of God’s person.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The Real Combination Problem : Panpsychism, Micro-Subjects, and Emergence

Panpsychism harbors an unresolved tension, the seriousness of which has yet to be fully appreciated. I capture this tension as a dilemma, and offer panpsychists advice on how to resolve it. The dilemma, briefly, is as follows. Panpsychists are committed to the perspicuous explanation of macro-mentality in terms of micro-mentality. But panpsychists take the micro-material realm to feature not just mental properties, but also micro-subjects to whom these properties belong. Yet it is impossible to explain the constitution of a macro-subject (like one of us) in terms of the assembly of micro-subjects, for, I show, subjects cannot combine. Therefore the panpsychist explanatory project is derailed by the insistence that the world’s ultimate material constituents (ultimates) are subjects of experience. The panpsychist faces a choice of abandoning her explanatory project, or recanting the claim that the ultimates are subjects. This is the dilemma. I argue that the latter option is to be preferred. This needn’t constitute a wholesale abandonment of panpsychism, however, since panpsychists can maintain that the ultimates possess phenomenal qualities, despite not being subjects of those qualities. This proposal requires us to make sense of phenomenal qualities existing independently of experiencing subjects, a challenge I tackle in the penultimate section. The position eventually reached is a form of neutral monism, so another way to express the overall argument is to say that, keeping true to their philosophical motivations, panpsychists should really be neutral monists.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Pharmacists in Pharmacovigilance: Can Increased Diagnostic Opportunity in Community Settings Translate to Better Vigilance?

The pharmacy profession has undergone substantial change over the last two to three decades. Whilst medicine supply still remains a central function, pharmacist’s roles and responsibilities have become more clinic and patient focused. In the community (primary care), pharmacists have become important providers of healthcare as Western healthcare policy advocates patient self-care. This has resulted in pharmacists taking on greater responsibility in managing minor illness and the delivery of public health interventions. These roles require pharmacists to more fully use their clinical skills, and often involve diagnosis and therapeutic management. Community pharmacists are now, more than ever before, in a position to identify, record and report medication safety incidents. However, current research suggests that diagnostic ability of community pharmacists is questionable and they infrequently report to local or national schemes. The aim of this paper is to highlight current practice and suggest ways in which community pharmacy can more fully contribute to patient safety

Paradoxical effects of Worrisome Thoughts Suppression: the influence of depressive mood

Thought suppression increases the persistence of unwanted idiosyncratic worries thoughts when individuals try to suppress them. The failure of suppression may contribute to the development and maintenance of emotional disorders. Depressive people seem particulary prone to engage in unsuccessful mental control strategies such as thought suppression. Worry has been reported to be elevated in depressed individuals and a dysphoric mood may also contribute for the failure of suppression. No studies examine, however, the suppression of worisome thoughts in individuals with depressive symptoms. To investigate the suppression effects of worrisome thoughts, 46 participants were selected according to the cut-off score of a depressive symptomatology scale and they were divided in two groups (subclinical and nonclinical group). All the individuals took part in an experimental paradigm of thought suppression. The results of the mixed factorial analysis of variance revealed an increased frequency of worrisome thoughts during the suppression phase on depending of the depressive symptoms. These findings confirm that depressive mood can reduce the success of suppression.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Core components for effective infection prevention and control programmes: new WHO evidence-based recommendations

Abstract Health care-associated infections (HAI) are a major public health problem with a significant impact on morbidity, mortality and quality of life. They represent also an important economic burden to health systems worldwide. However, a large proportion of HAI are preventable through effective infection prevention and control (IPC) measures. Improvements in IPC at the national and facility level are critical for the successful containment of antimicrobial resistance and the prevention of HAI, including outbreaks of highly transmissible diseases through high quality care within the context of universal health coverage. Given the limited availability of IPC evidence-based guidance and standards, the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to prioritize the development of global recommendations on the core components of effective IPC programmes both at the national and acute health care facility level, based on systematic literature reviews and expert consensus. The aim of the guideline development process was to identify the evidence and evaluate its quality, consider patient values and preferences, resource implications, and the feasibility and acceptability of the recommendations. As a result, 11 recommendations and three good practice statements are presented here, including a summary of the supporting evidence, and form the substance of a new WHO IPC guideline

Sex-linked mating strategies diverge with a manipulation of genital salience

Trivers (Sexual selection and the descent of man, Aldine-Atherton, Chicago, pp 136–179, 1972) proposed that evolutionary factors should favor divergent mating strategies for males versus females. Such differences may be less pronounced among human beings than other animals and social norms and sex roles are also pertinent influences. The present experiment (N = 133 college undergraduates, 74 female) sought to bypass some of these other influences. Participants were randomly assigned to a condition designed to increase attention to the genital region (a downward pointing arrow) or not (an upward pointing arrow). They then reported on their interest in short-term (e.g., a one-night stand) and long-term (e.g., a potential marital partner) mating opportunities. A theory-consistent three-way interaction occurred such that the genital salience manipulation primed a shorter-term reproductive strategy among men and a longer-term reproductive strategy among women. The results provide unique support for evolution-linked ideas about sex differences in the form of a role for bodily attention

How managers can build trust in strategic alliances: a meta-analysis on the central trust-building mechanisms

Trust is an important driver of superior alliance performance. Alliance managers are influential in this regard because trust requires active involvement, commitment and the dedicated support of the key actors involved in the strategic alliance. Despite the importance of trust for explaining alliance performance, little effort has been made to systematically investigate the mechanisms that managers can use to purposefully create trust in strategic alliances. We use Parkhe’s (1998b) theoretical framework to derive nine hypotheses that distinguish between process-based, characteristic-based and institutional-based trust-building mechanisms. Our meta-analysis of 64 empirical studies shows that trust is strongly related to alliance performance. Process-based mechanisms are more important for building trust than characteristic- and institutional-based mechanisms. The effects of prior ties and asset specificity are not as strong as expected and the impact of safeguards on trust is not well understood. Overall, theoretical trust research has outpaced empirical research by far and promising opportunities for future empirical research exist

A meta-analytic review of stand-alone interventions to improve body image

Objective Numerous stand-alone interventions to improve body image have been developed. The present review used meta-analysis to estimate the effectiveness of such interventions, and to identify the specific change techniques that lead to improvement in body image. Methods The inclusion criteria were that (a) the intervention was stand-alone (i.e., solely focused on improving body image), (b) a control group was used, (c) participants were randomly assigned to conditions, and (d) at least one pretest and one posttest measure of body image was taken. Effect sizes were meta-analysed and moderator analyses were conducted. A taxonomy of 48 change techniques used in interventions targeted at body image was developed; all interventions were coded using this taxonomy. Results The literature search identified 62 tests of interventions (N = 3,846). Interventions produced a small-to-medium improvement in body image (d+ = 0.38), a small-to-medium reduction in beauty ideal internalisation (d+ = -0.37), and a large reduction in social comparison tendencies (d+ = -0.72). However, the effect size for body image was inflated by bias both within and across studies, and was reliable but of small magnitude once corrections for bias were applied. Effect sizes for the other outcomes were no longer reliable once corrections for bias were applied. Several features of the sample, intervention, and methodology moderated intervention effects. Twelve change techniques were associated with improvements in body image, and three techniques were contra-indicated. Conclusions The findings show that interventions engender only small improvements in body image, and underline the need for large-scale, high-quality trials in this area. The review identifies effective techniques that could be deployed in future interventions

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at √s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t˜→tχ˜01 or t˜→ bχ˜±1 →bW(∗)χ˜01 , where χ˜01 (χ˜±1 ) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t˜ → tχ˜01 . For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270–645 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t˜ → tχ˜01 or t˜ → bχ˜±1 , and assuming the χ˜±1 mass to be twice the χ˜01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250–550 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 60 GeV