Personality,social support and burnout among human service professionals in India

Recent research has investigated the relationship between personality and social support in predicting various forms of adjustment. This study explores this relationship in a sample of 137 human service professionals engaged in post‐degree clinical skills training at the Christian Counselling Centre in Vellore, India. The impact of certain forms of social support on burnout was examined, after controlling for the effect of the personality trait of anxiety. As hypothesized, perceived social support was negatively associated with burnout, even after controlling for the effects of anxiety. This pattern was strongest for the males in this sample. Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were the components of burnout most strongly related to perceived support. The perception of support received from ‘work‐related’ and ‘other’ relationships made a stronger contribution than did ‘family’ or ‘social’ ties with respect to burnout. Implications for future cross‐cultural investigation of the relationships among personality, social support and adjustment are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Islamic Legal and Ethical Views on Organ Transplantation and Donation

In Islam, one of the core beliefs is in the life of the hereafter. At the end of time and all that exists, all human beings will be resurrected (in their bodies and souls) and will face the Day of Judgment. Even their body parts or organs will stand witness against them. Furthermore, in Islamic law, every action or thing is categorized either as legitimate or prohibited. This article explores ethico‐legal opinions on the issues of organ donation and transplantation in the light of these essential Islamic beliefs.     

Challenging Design: How Best to Account for the World as It Really Is

Evolutionary psychology and intelligent‐design theory both need to be able to account for the empirical world, or the world as it is. This essay is an attempt to clarify the challenges these theories need to meet, if the relevant empirical findings are replicable. There is evidence of change in the biological world and of modularity of mind, and there is a growing body of work that finds evolutionary theory a convincing and fruitful account of the “design” of the mind. Three major empirical findings within evolutionary psychology are presented and discussed. The author claims that Cartesian dualism, as it is usually meant within psychology—a split between body and mind—is false, but that Descartes' original division between body and soul has not been challenged and is not challenged by the evidence that the mind is also a biological entity. The article concludes that the convergence of theology and science is to be found in the onus to discover the truth about the world as it really is, and this calls for an ability on both parts to account for the empirical world.     

The Humanistic-Legal Problematic in Solov'ëv's Philosophical Journalism

Could anyone shake nineteenth century Russia out of herphilosophico-juridical stagnation? Was there anyone whodared speak of rights, of freedoms based on vital principles?Was there anyone who had the courage to suggest that the lawof force be turned into recognition of the force of law, orwas bold enough to call for the revival of natural law onits idealist reading? Solov'ëv turned out to be the thinkerwho was able to do these things. An amateur in juridicalquestions, remote from the enlightenment rationalizations ofpolitical liberalism, Solov'ëv set out to lay the basis forjuridical freedom in way that was unexpected philosophicallyand culturally.

     

人类基因组计划在西方引发的人性观思考

人类基因组计划在西方世界引起了相当广泛深入的关于人性观的思考。分子生物学的研究成果正在重新塑造人们对人类进化史和人类本身的认识。基因工程、干细胞研究等前沿领域产生的问题促使人们转向西方的传统哲学去寻找思想资源。尽管遗传决定论的陈旧观点在大众文化中仍时有所见。新的基因组学研究已开始采纳一种更全面的、兼顾历史与社会文化因素的角度。     

Whole Body Coordination and Knee Movement Control During Five Rehabilitation Exercises

Knee rehabilitation exercises to improve motor control, target movement fluency, and displacement variability. Although knee movement in the frontal plane during exercise is routinely assessed in clinical practice, optimal knee control remains poorly understood. In this study, 29 healthy participants (height: 1.73 ± 0.11 m, mass: 73.5 ± 16.4 kg, age: 28.0 ± 6.9 years) performed 4 repetitions of 5 rehabilitation exercises while motion data were collected using the VICON PlugInGait full-body marker set. Fluency and displacement variability were calculated for multiple landmarks, including center of mass (CoM) and knee joint centers. Fluency was calculated as the inverse of the average number of times a landmark velocity in the frontal plane crossed zero. Variability was defined as the standard deviation of the frontal plane movement trajectories. CoM fluency and displacement variability were significantly different between tasks (p < .001). CoM displacement variability was consistently smallest compared to the constituent landmarks (p < .005). This was interpreted as a whole body strategy of compensatory variability constraining CoM frontal plane movement. Ipsilateral knee fluency (p < .01) and displacement variability (p < .001) differed substantially between tasks. The role of the weight-bearing knee seemed dependent on task constraints of the overall movement and balance, as well as constraints specific for knee joint stability.     

Three Pervasive Presuppositions about Human Life and Ethics Strongly Warrant Analysis

Common philosophical discussions concerning the ethics of human interaction with the biosphere and universe have been significantly informed by certain presuppositions: (1) nature is conquerable; (2) human cultural and social (contrasted with moral) progress is somewhat like a thing, beyond human control, and is inevitable and benevolent; and (3) Homo sapiens is the superior life‐form. Although arguments, such as whether humans should conquer nature, founded upon these presuppositions have sometimes been challenged, each of these three presuppositions wants direct analysis. The three have become so ingrained in professional and everyday discourse that they have mythic proportions, as though beyond question. Because of the weightiness of the relevant philosophical issues, they merit overt analysis. Although they are independent and may be analyzed separately, this article treats them as whole, as they often work together in arguments. After finding substantial problems, the article suggests alternative ways of building sustainable presuppositions in similar territory.     

Two-Part Predictors in Regression Models

Researchers often build regression models to relate a response to a set of predictor variables. In some cases, there are predictors that apply to some participants, or to some measurement occasions, but not others. For example, a romantic partner's substance use may be a key predictor of one's own substance use. However, not all participants have a partner, and in a longitudinal study, participants may have a partner during only some occasions. This could be viewed as missing data, but of a very distinctive type: the values are not just unknown but also undefined. In this paper, we present a simple method to accommodate this situation, along with a motivating example, the algebraic justification, a simulation study, and examples on how to carry out the technique.     

Endangering humanity: an international crime?

Abstract

In the Anthropocene, human beings are capable of bringing about globally catastrophic outcomes that could damage conditions for present and future human life on Earth in unprecedented ways. This paper argues that the scale and severity of these dangers justifies a new international criminal offence of ‘postericide’ that would protect present and future people against wrongfully created dangers of near extinction. Postericide is committed by intentional or reckless systematic conduct that is fit to bring about near human extinction. The paper argues that a proper understanding of the moral imperatives embodied in international criminal law shows that it ought to be expanded to incorporate a new law of postericide.