Mind-life continuity: a qualitative study of conscious experience

There are two fundamental models to understanding the phenomenon of natural life. One is thecomputational model, which is based on the symbolic thinking paradigm. The other is the biologicalorganism model. The common difficulty attributed to these paradigms is that their reductive tools allowthe phenomenological aspects of experience to remain hidden behind yes/no responses (behavioraltests), or brain ‘pictures’ (neuroimaging). Hence, one of the problems regards how to overcome meth-odological difficulties towards a non-reductive investigation of conscious experience. It is our aim in thispaper to show how cooperation between Eastern and Western traditions may shed light for a non-reductive study of mind and life. This study focuses on the first-person experience associated withcognitive and mental events. We studied phenomenal data as a crucial fact for the domain of livingbeings, which, we expect, can provide the ground for a subsequent third-person study. The interventionwith Jhana meditation, and its qualitative assessment, provided us with experiential profiles based uponsubjects' evaluations of their own conscious experiences. The overall results should move towards anintegrated or global perspective on mind where neither experience nor external mechanisms have thefinal wor

Schizophrenia, social practices and cultural values: A conceptual introduction

Schizophrenia is usually described as a fragmentation of subjective experience and the impossibility to engage in meaningful cultural and intersubjective practices. Although the term schizophrenia is less than 100 years old, madness is generally believed to have accompanied mankind through its historical and cultural ontogeny. What does it mean to be “mad”? The failure to adopt social practices or to internalize cultural values of common sense? Despite the vast amount of literature and research, it seems that the study of schizophrenia and of the psychoses is suffering from a generic disintegration. In this introduction, we offer an historical overview of the variety of theories and approaches to schizophrenia. We also provide an overview of how the authors in this volume attempt an integrative account where training, practice, theory and research are considered as parts of a larger whole. This is a varied and pluralistic volume, and it is up to the readers to make use of different chapters according to their own needs

Viscous dark fluid Universe: a unified model of the dark sector?

The Universe is modeled as consisting of pressureless baryonic matter and a bulk viscous fluid which is supposed to represent a unified description of the dark sector. In the homogeneous and isotropic background the \textit{total} energy density of this mixture behaves as a generalized Chaplygin gas. The perturbations of this energy density are intrinsically nonadiabatic and source relative entropy perturbations. The resulting baryonic matter power spectrum is shown to be compatible with the 2dFGRS and SDSS (DR7) data. A joint statistical analysis, using also Hubble-function and supernovae Ia data, shows that, different from other studies, there exists a maximum in the probability distribution for a negative present value of the deceleration parameter. Moreover, the unified model presented here favors a matter content that is of the order of the baryonic matter abundance suggested by big-bang nucleosynthesis. A problem of simple bulk viscous models, however, is the behavior of the gravitational potential and the reproduction of the CMB power spectrum.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, contributed paper to 8th Friedmann Seminar, 30 May to 3 June 2011, Rio de Janeiro, Brazi

Roland Morris disability questionnaire adaptation and validation for the Portuguese speaking patients with back pain

O objectivo do presente estudo foi adaptar e validar para a língua portuguesa o Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) por não existirem escalas em Português Euro- peu para avaliar o grau de incapacidade dos doentes com lombalgias. Após os procedi- mentos de tradução e retroversão, a versão portuguesa do RMDQ foi testada em 112 doentes com lombalgias (30 homens e 82 mulheres), a fim de analisar as suas característi- cas psicométricas. A análise da fidelidade das medidas indica que o RMDQ apresenta níveis elevados de consistência interna ( α de Cronbach: 0,81) e de estabilidade temporal (correlação teste-reteste: 0,86). A validade externa foi avaliada através da convergência com resultados obtidos através da Escala Numérica de Dor (END), do Teste de Schober (TS) e do grau de flexão anterior da coluna (GFA). Os resultados revelaram uma correlação elevada entre o RMDQ e o END (r = 0,73) e uma correlação moderada com o TS e o GFA (respectivamente, r = -0,52 e r = 0,42). A análise psicométrica mostrou, assim, que o RMDQ fornece medidas fiáveis e válidas de incapacidade para o doente com lombalgia, encontrando-se assim adaptado e validado para os doentes portugueses

How relevant is the origin of human capital for immigrant wages? Evidence from Spain

The objective of this article is to analyse the role played by the different components of human capital in the wage determination of immigrants in the Spanish labour market. Using microdata from the Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes, we find that human capital of immigrants acquired in Spain presents higher returns than human capital obtained in home countries, reflecting the limited international transferability of the latter. This result is reinforced by the strong heterogeneity observed in wage returns to different kinds of human capital across immigrants from different origins and, in particular, by the fact that immigrants with the higher returns to human capital acquired in their home countries are those coming from other developed countries and Latin America, the two regions more similar to Spain in terms of development and/or culture

Immigrant occupational mobility: Longitudinal evidence from Spain

This article examines the occupational mobility of immigrants between their countries of origin and Spain on the basis of one of the few surveys available internationally with longitudinal information on immigrant employment in home and host countries. The evidence shows that the occupational status of immigrants in the Spanish labour market is, in general, substantially worse than in their countries of origin. The severe loss of occupational status experienced by immigrants is explained by the combined effect of the intense initial downgrading they experience when entering the Spanish labour market and their very slow occupational progress during their stay in Spain. These findings are more in line with the segmented assimilation theory, which suggests a limited or blocked immigrant occupational mobility, than with the assimilation theory, which predicts a U-shaped evolution in the occupational status of immigrants between their home and host countries. As a result, the Spanish case contrasts sharply with previous evidence for other advanced countries, which tends to support the assimilation perspective. Finally, the empirical evidence suggests that one of the elements impeding the occupational mobility of immigrants in Spain is the significant size of the secondary segment of the labour market, which restricts immigrants' opportunities mainly to low-status occupations

An analysis of wage differentials between full-and part-time workers in Spain

This research examines wage differences between part-time and full-time workers using microdata from the Spanish Structure of Earnings Survey. The main contribution of the paper is related to the analysis of differences along the wage distribution using econometric decomposition methods and introducing a regional perspective. The evidence shows that part-time workers in Spain experience a significant wage disadvantage. This disadvantage is worse in the case of female workers and it is not homogenous along the wage distribution, being comparatively more relevant for the most qualified women and becoming positive for the most qualified men. However, the disadvantage is practically explained by the endowments of characteristics, with a leading role of segregation of part-time workers in lowwage firms. From a regional perspective, although in the majority of the regions wage differences tend to be explained by endowments of characteristics, there are several regions where the unexplained part of the differential is significant, particularly in the case of male workers. These regional differences seem to be related to differences in the market power of firms at the regional level

Labour segregation and immigrant and native-born wage distributions in Spain: an analysis using matched employer-employee data

This article carries out an empirical examination of the origin of the differences between immigrant and native-born wage structures in the Spanish labour market. Especial attention is given in the analysis to the role played by occupational and workplace segregation of immigrants. Legal immigrants from developing countries exhibit lower mean wages and a more compressed wage structure than native-born workers. By contrast, immigrants from developed countries display higher mean wages and a more dispersed wage structure. The main empirical finding is that the disparities in the wage distributions for the native-born and both groups of immigrants are largely explained by their different observed characteristics, with a particularly important influence in this context of workplace and, particularly, occupational segregation