Objectives: To analyse the decision making for end of life care for patients with cancer at a teaching hospital in Japan at two periods 10 years apart.Design and setting: Retrospective study conducted in a 550 bed community teaching hospital in Okinawa, Japan.Patients: There were 124 terminally ill cancer patients admitted either in 1989 and 1999 for end of life care with sufficient data to permit analysis.Main measurements: Basic demographic data, notification to the patient that he or she had cancer, patient (...) involvement in do not resuscitate orders, and various medical interventions which were performed in the month prior to the patient’s death were evaluated.Results: In 1989 none of the patients were notified of their diagnosis; in 1999 five patients were informed . Of the 113 patients with a written DNR order, none were involved in consenting to the DNR order. In the month before death, patients in both groups received non-palliative treatments such as feeding tube placements , total parenteral nutrition , and intravenous albumin infusion . Morphine use increased significantly in 1999 compared with the 1989 group.Conclusions: The majority of patients dying of cancer were still not informed of their diagnosis and were seldom involved in DNR decision making at a teaching hospital in Japan. There was no change in the number of potentially futile interventions that were performed but morphine use increased. Modern ethical education is urgently needed in Japanese medical practice to improve decision making process in the end of life care. (shrink)

La Meditación de la técnica contiene las reflexiones de José Ortega y Gasset sobre un fenómeno de invasora presencia en el mundo contemporáneo. Trata, en suma, de inscribir el hecho de la técnica en el marco de una antropología filosófica, fundada en el sistema orteguiano, para así contribuir a la comprensión del momento histórico contemporáneo. El volumen incluye, además del curso ¿Qué es la técnica?, desarrollado en 1933 en la Universidad de Santander, otros textos afines: la conferencia El mito del (...) hombre allende a la técnica pronuncida en Darmstadt y varios ensayos sobre el conocimiento científico, que prueban la permanente atención que Ortega prestó a las novedades de la ciencia contemporánea. En esta nueva edición el texto se ha revisado y corregido conforme a los manuscritos originales o las primeras ediciones. La principal novedad es una Introducción al curso ¿Qué es la técnica?, sólo editada póstumamente. (shrink)

Little is known about health of the growing subpopulation of the working poor in Japan. We aimed to evaluate health status and healthcare utilization in relation to income among Japanese working adults. We conducted a one-month prospective cohort study using a health diary in working adults from a nationally representative random sample in Japan. Based on the government criterion, the working poor group was defined as earning an equivalent annual income of less than 1.48 million Japanese-yen. For health status, we (...) measured symptomatic episodes and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). For healthcare utilization, we measured frequencies of visits to a physician or pharmacy, and use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). We constructed multiple linear regression models for these measures adjusted for age, gender, and co-morbidity, using annual equivalent income as a 4-level categorical variable. (shrink)

In the midst of globalization, English is regarded as an international language, or Lingua Franca, but learning it as a second language (L2) remains still difficult to speakers of other languages. This is true especially for the speakers of languages distantly related to English such as Japanese. In this sense, exploring neural basis for translation between the first language (L1) and L2 is of great interest. There have been relatively many previous researches revealing brain activation patterns during translations between L1 (...) and English as L2. These studies, which focused on language translation with close or moderate linguistic distance (LD), have suggested that the Broca area (BA 44/45) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC; BA 46) may play an important role on translation. However, the neural mechanism of language translation between Japanese and English, having large LD, has not been clarified. Thus, we used functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate the brain activation patterns during word translation between Japanese and English. We also assessed the effects of translation directions and word familiarity. All participants’ first language was Japanese and they were learning English. Their English proficiency was advanced or elementary. We selected English and Japanese words as stimuli based on the familiarity for Japanese people. Our results showed that the brain activation patterns during word translation largely differed depending on their English proficiency. The advanced group elicited greater activation on the left prefrontal cortex around the Broca’s area while translating words with low familiarity, but no activation was observed while translating words with high familiarity. On the other hand, the elementary group evoked greater activation on the left temporal area including the superior temporal gyrus (STG) irrespective of the word familiarity. These results suggested that different cognitive process could be involved in word translation corresponding to English proficiency in Japanese learners of English. These difference on the brain activation patterns between the advanced and elementary group may reflect the difference on the cognitive loads depending on the levels of automatization in one’s language processing. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset publicó en 1939, en la colección Austral, este ensayo filosófico que obtuvo una gran repercusión internacional en su día y sigue siendo en la actualidad una de las obras clave del pensamiento orteguiano. Esta edición conmemora los setenta años transcurridos desde entonces y ofrece la única edición autorizada y revisada personalmente por el autor.

This study aimed to identify the learning and business incubation processes and their impact on developing the performance of business incubators in Gaza Strip, and the study relied on the descriptive analytical approach, and the study population consisted of all employees working in business incubators in Gaza Strip in addition to experts and consultants in incubators where their total number reached (62) individuals, and the researchers used the questionnaire as a main tool to collect data through the comprehensive survey method, (...) where (55) questionnaires were retrieved with a recovery rate of (88.7%). The results of the study showed that there is a high approval of the variables of the study, where the dimension of incubation operations came with a relative weight (84.89%), followed by the learning dimension which got a relative weight (82.50%), while the performance level of the incubators got a relative weight (80.12%) and as the study results showed There is a positive relationship statistically between the two dimensions of learning and business incubation processes and performance development in business incubators, and the linear regression analysis model showed that the main effect in improving the performance of business incubators is "after business incubation operations" while it showed weak effect after learning. The study came out with several recommendations, the most important of which is that business incubators seek to reinforce the learning process and incubation processes for business, and the need to periodically evaluate their performance, and that a more effective mechanism be designed to follow up with companies after the end of the incubation period and monitor the progress of these companies. (shrink)

"This concise, elegant essay on the roots and historical justification of philosophy marks a decisive step in posing the problem of what philosophy is. With consummate clarity and the charisma that distinguished him as a lecturer, Jos Ortega y Gasset re-creates ""that moment when Parmenides began talking about something exceptionally strange, which he called 'being.'"" How and why, he asks, did such a surprising adventure come about?Considering the human qualities that prompt a curiosity about existence and eternity, Ortega examines philosophy's (...) etymology, its connection to poetry, and its differentiation from religion and other modes of thought. He lucidly delineates radical differences of doctrine and style among early Greek thinkers, especially the ""madman of reason"" Parmenides and the ""absolute individual"" Heraclitus. He also considers philosophy's fundamental task of revealing the latent world poised behind the manifest world and discovering the relations between them.""Unable to find lodging among the philosophies of the past,"" Ortega observes, ""we have no choice but to attempt to construct one of our own."" The Origin of Philosophy argues for the vital importance of philosophy as a human endeavor, even while noting that each generation of thought reveals the past as ""a defunct world of errors.""". (shrink)

Fourteen essays by leading scholars from around the world explore the theological, philosophical, and historical connections between the three Abrahamic faiths and ethics. Timely reading for students of religion, philosophy, and ethics.

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

Abstract:The objective in this article is to apply a Daoist model of an ethic derived from the Laozi on writings of the Huang Lao tradition to offer a unique Daoist cosmically derived ethic in its own terms. Having our point of departure in the Laozi we refer to its paradoxical language as a living riddle that is inherent in the tradition, and as such it suggests a "model of modeling." We find this model in Laozi 25, according to which self-so (...) (ziran 自然) serves as foundation for an ethic that is neither dichotomizing nor resting on human moral conventions, but serves rather as a guiding philosophy of living. On this basis we explore the question of an ethic in the Huang Lao tradition. (shrink)

Originally published: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932.

Planteamiento de la naturaleza, de la filosof a y de su raz n hist rica, al contemplar panor micamente la totalidad de su pasado e intentar reconstruir el dram tico suceso de su origen.

En atención a las críticas de la autointerpretación teórica heideggeriana, abordaremos tres temas fundamentales posteriores al “giro” trascendental husserliano. A la luz de la interpretación contemporánea, buscaremos evitar los lugares comunes de la crítica a Husserl, en aras de una discusión más sofisticada en torno al método fenomenológico. /// Considering the most extended arguments of Martin Heidegger against the transcendental " turn " of Phenomenology, we will approach to three main characters of this sui generis transcendentalism. In light of contemporary (...) phenomenological studies, we will avoid commonplaces of misinterpretation in order to gain a more sophisticated debate about phenomenological method. (shrink)

Esta reedición de La deshumanización del arte incluye, además del ensayo que da título al volumen, una serie de artículos que Ortega no recogió en ninguno de sus libros. En ellos se comprueba la persistencia con que supo extraer de la experienca del arte notas relevantes para el curso de sus formulaciones filosóficas. En esta nueva edición -revisada conforme a los originales- se incluye el discurso " La verdad no es sencilla ", publicado recientemente con carácter póstumo, y un apéndice, (...) inédito hasta la fecha, al ensayo " Sobre el punto de vista en las artes ". (shrink)

La presente versión del tratado De Bono Habitu Liber o El libro sobre la buena condición, de Galeno de Pérgamo, se presenta al lector de habla hispana como un acercamiento a la prolífca obra flosófca de quien fuera reconocido en su época como un notable médico anatomista y físico. Los argumentos expuestos por el autor acerca de la ‘buena condición’ dan cuenta de la infuencia retórica de Platón y Aristóteles, al mismo tiempo, de las enseñanzas médicas de Hipócrates. Junto al (...) texto original y la traducción al español, se ofrece una versión en latín empleada en el proceso de traducción como un apoyo para resolver las difcultades textuales y léxicas que presentaba el texto griego, al permitir confrontar una recepción medieval del tratado. (shrink)

In his groundbreaking work of 1969, Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation, Edwin Curley attacked the traditional understanding of the substance-mode relation in Spinoza, which makes modes inhere in the substance. Curley argued that such an interpretation generates insurmountable problems, as had been already claimed by Pierre Bayle in his famous entry on Spinoza. Instead of having the modes inhere in the substance Curley suggested that the modes’ dependence upon the substance should be interpreted in terms of (efficient) causation, i.e., (...) as committing Spinoza to nothing over and above the claim that the substance is the (efficient) cause of the modes. These bold and fascinating claims generated one of the most important scholarly controversies in Spinoza scholarship of the past thirty-five years. In this chapter I argue against Curley’s interpretation and attempt to reestablish the traditional understanding of Spinozistic modes as inhering in God and as predicated of God. I also criticize Curley’s philosophical motivation for suggesting this interpretation. I do believe, however, that Curley is right about the existence of an intimate connection between the substance-mode relation and causation in Spinoza. In the next chapter I will study the notion of ‘immanent cause’, which merges efficient causality and inherence. I will clarify the relation between immanent, efficient and material causation, and show where precisely Spinoza diverged from the traditional Aristotelian taxonomy of causes. In the second chapter I also discuss the German Idealists’ view of Spinoza as an ‘acosmist’. Under this interpretation Spinoza was a modern reviver of Eleatic monism, who allegedly asserts the mere existence of God, and denies the reality of the world of particular things. Spinozistic modes - according to this reading - are nothing but passing and unreal phenomena. Though this view of Spinoza as an ‘acosmist’ can be supported by some lines in Spinoza’s thought, I believe it should be rejected since it is not consistent with some of the most central doctrines of the Ethics. In the final part of the second chapter I discuss the relation between modes and the attributes under which they fall, and suggest a terminological distinction between a ‘mode of God’ (i.e., a mode under all attributes) and a ‘mode of an attribute’ (i.e., a mode under a specific attribute), a distinction which can help us avoid some common confusions in the treatment of the issue. (shrink)

The logical empiricists often appear as a foil for feminist theories. Their emphasis on the individualistic nature of knowledge and on the value-neutrality of science seems directly opposed to most feminist concerns. However, several recent works have highlighted aspects of Carnap's views that make him seem like much less of a straightforwardly positivist thinker. Certain of these aspects lend themselves to feminist concerns much more than the stereotypical picture would imply.

_Huangdi Neijing_ is a classic medical text of ancient China. Composed of two sections, _Suwen_ and _Lingshu_, the book is filled with enduring wisdom and insight and is still consulted by doctors today. This translation is based largely on Li Zhongzi's concise 1642 edition, titled _Neijing Zhiyao_, and continues the centuries-long effort to annotate the text, especially in light of modern developments in medicine. Instead of "explaining a classic with a classic," this edition adds commentaries and emendations that enhance the (...) theoretical core of _Huangdi Neijing_, illuminating a seminal work of Chinese medicine that covers much more than the basic principles of yin-yang and the five elements. (shrink)