Considerations on the Psychological Status of the Patients Undergoing Radical Cystectomy

The psychological impact on patients suffering radical cystectomy is twofold - (both that of the underlying neoplastic disease and that measured by the quality of life subsequent to surgery) and increases as the urinary derivation technique is less physiological and affects more the local anatomy. Although there are numerous questionnaires that assess the quality of life of patients with cancer (HRQoL - health related QoL), not many probe bladder cancer morbidity or correlate the different types of urinary diversions’ impact on QoL (quality of life). We analyzed 39 cases in our clinic who underwent radical cystectomy between August 2013 and August 2014. Different diversions were performed, as follows: for 24 patients a cutaneous ureterostomy was performed, in 10 cases a Mainz II pouch, in 3 cases a Bricker derivation and in 2 patients a Studer neobladder was performed. In these patients, QoL - Cancer Version and FACT-BL questionnaires were administered and were followed for an initial period of 2 years. According to our survey, the Bricker derivation is best tolerated, followed by neobladder and the Mainz II pouch

Ethical dilemmas in senior teacher educators’ administrative work

The current study presents the professional experiences of senior teacher educators (‘Associate Professors’), with an emphasis placed on ethical dilemmas they face during their administrative work. The main purpose is to characterize the critical incidents underlying these dilemmas, their interpretation, and the ways of balancing the different considerations in their resolution. A qualitative analysis of twelve narrative interviews pointed to four core values which underpinned the approaches taken by teacher educators in their handling of critical situations: perception of integrity, empathy and care, commitment to the institution, and the need to promote initiatives. Findings indicate that the concept of integrity is central to the decision making processes, but that this concept is interpreted differently according to the personality characteristics, experience, and educational vision of the interviewees. It is proposed to conduct further studies that examine the interpretation of ‘integrity’ as a concept among senior teacher educators

Introspecting Preferences in Answer Set Programming

This paper develops a logic programming language, ASP^EP, that extends answer set programming language with a new epistemic operator >~_x where x in {#,supseteq}. The operator are used between two literals in rules bodies, and thus allows for the representation of introspections of preferences in the presence of multiple belief sets: G >~_# F expresses that G is preferred to F by the cardinality of the sets, and G >~_supseteq F expresses G is preferred to F by the set-theoretic inclusion. We define the semantics of ASP^EP, explore the relation to the languages of strong introspections, and study the applications of ASP^EP by modeling the Monty Hall problem and the principle of majority

Logic and Topology for Knowledge, Knowability, and Belief - Extended Abstract

In recent work, Stalnaker proposes a logical framework in which belief is realized as a weakened form of knowledge. Building on Stalnaker's core insights, and using frameworks developed by Bjorndahl and Baltag et al., we employ topological tools to refine and, we argue, improve on this analysis. The structure of topological subset spaces allows for a natural distinction between what is known and (roughly speaking) what is knowable; we argue that the foundational axioms of Stalnaker's system rely intuitively on both of these notions. More precisely, we argue that the plausibility of the principles Stalnaker proposes relating knowledge and belief relies on a subtle equivocation between an "evidence-in-hand" conception of knowledge and a weaker "evidence-out-there" notion of what could come to be known. Our analysis leads to a trimodal logic of knowledge, knowability, and belief interpreted in topological subset spaces in which belief is definable in terms of knowledge and knowability. We provide a sound and complete axiomatization for this logic as well as its uni-modal belief fragment. We then consider weaker logics that preserve suitable translations of Stalnaker's postulates, yet do not allow for any reduction of belief. We propose novel topological semantics for these irreducible notions of belief, generalizing our previous semantics, and provide sound and complete axiomatizations for the corresponding logics.Comment: In Proceedings TARK 2017, arXiv:1707.08250. The full version of this paper, including the longer proofs, is at arXiv:1612.0205