Right There, in the Midst of It: Impacts of the Therapeutic Relationship on Mental Health Nurses

Mental health nurses are frequently confronted by intense emotions within the therapeutic relationship. In this philosophical hermeneutic inquiry, five mental health nurses were interviewed to extend our understandings of how nurses are impacted by the interplay with the often emotion-laden narratives of their patients. Findings exposed the nurses journeyed between fluctuating needs to separate and protect their private from their work life. In order for this fluctuation to occur, they developed a sense of the world as requiring a sanctuary. This ontological place of home is the extent to which they felt safe and sheltered in order for this process of awareness of self as person and self as nurse to unfold. This research brings to the forefront the ways in which mental health nursing practice, education, and research are reciprocally moved by the practical day-to-day activities of being in therapeutic relationships

“Do You Think the Angels Will Speak Spanish?”: Nurses’ Experiences of Death in Pediatric Oncology

Caring for children dying of cancer and families experiencing immense suffering is challenging complex work. Pediatric oncology nurses attend to the physical and emotional needs of children and their families during the illness progression, at the moment of death, and beyond, however, little is known about how they themselves are affected, and how this influences the care they give. Our intent with this philosophical hermeneutic research was to add to understandings of these effects on pediatric oncology nurses and to support them in this challenging component of their work. This is a part of the doctoral research of the first author which is published online (Morck, 2014), and was supervised by the second author. Fifteen pediatric oncology registered nurses were interviewed to expand our understanding of this topic. These data were then analyzed according to hermeneutic tradition as guided by the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Findings from this research revealed nurses struggled to navigate the ideals of nursing versus the realities of practice when working with children who may die. This called for them to maintain a fine balance between the personal and the professional. This ontological struggle is not absolute but premised on a shifting continuum based on a complexity of personal and professional beliefs, experiences, and expectations. There needs to be a reminder that death continues to be an unfortunate constant in the work of these nurses - - a reality, that in many ways, society has turned away from and hidden, a reality that has shaped the way death is experienced within pediatric oncology. This common middle ground is what nurses called for in order to be sustained and remain in their work. Research and transformative education that specifically addresses the tension created by insufficient end of life and death education is required for nurses to feel more comfortable and competent within the ontology of death and dying. This necessitates a re-conceptualization of how death is processed in pediatric oncology

Invited Paper. The Hermeneutic Wager: Building Community in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Hovey was contacted by the lead of a pan-Canadian working group on pediatric brain tumours (PBTWG). While all stakeholders (researchers, clinicians, regulators, patient advocates, ethicists, and industry experts) were highly motivated to address barriers through innovative strategies in collaboration, clinical research, regulation, and business models, advancement has been challenging on multiple levels. Hovey and his team were tasked to facilitate and successfully engage this diverse divisive group of stakeholders to achieve their goals. Inspired by Richard Kearney’s anatheistic wager, the hermeneutic wager acts simultaneously as a team building and research approach, as it serves to gain insight into the perspectives of members of a purposeful community. Through its five conversations, namely imagination, humility, commitment, discernment, and hospitality, the hermeneutic wager elicits responses from the participants that are based on meaningful participation in a relational approach of community co-creation. We individually interviewed the PBTWG facilitators (5). With informed consent, our research team also recorded all 5 of the PBTWG work group meetings (20 participants from 6 stakeholder groups) and break-out room meetings and took notes which consist of rich and extensive narrative data. This data was analyzed alongside the individual PBTWG interviews. The audio and visual data collected via a secure Zoom platform was then transcribed verbatim and analyzed interpretively according to the applied philosophical hermeneutic tradition. Findings centered around six points: “The Work of Stories,” “Changing Landscapes: Community / Communication not Consensus,” “Let the Words Lead You,” “Those Words Matter,” “Metaphors as a Bridge to Understanding,” and “A Road Map to be Inspired By.” Through these findings, we contend that the hermeneutic wager is an invitation for conversation that builds a path to the generation of new and creative understandings that transcend previous ways of knowing. The efficacy of the hermeneutic wager resides in its ability to help build a community of people who work together through and across difference to arrive at a shared understanding and collective outcome. &nbsp

El bautismo y la conversion

El estudio trata de la relación que existe entre la regeneración en el bautismo de niños

Inspiration and experiences from the joint analysis of shining examples of comprehensive energy renovation building projects within IEA EBC Annex 56

The International Energy Agency established in 2011 an Implementing Agreement within the Energy in Buildings and Communities Program to undertake research and provide an international focus on Cost Effective Energy and Carbon Emissions Optimization in Building Renovation (EBC Annex 56). The project aimed at developing a new methodology to enable cost effective renovation of existing buildings while optimizing energy consumption and carbon emissions reduction. Gathering of case studies was one of the activities undertaken to reach the overall project objectives. Among the case studies, a selection of â Shining Examplesâ was made to encourage decision makers to promote efficient and cost effective renovations. This paper presents the results of the analyses made on these Shining Examples.The work within IEA EBC is co-funded by different national authorities and the individually participating national organisations – universities and private companies. Without their contributions, this work had not been possibl

Invited Paper. The Hermeneutic Wager: Building Community in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Hovey was contacted by the lead of a pan-Canadian working group on pediatric brain tumours (PBTWG). While all stakeholders (researchers, clinicians, regulators, patient advocates, ethicists, and industry experts) were highly motivated to address barriers through innovative strategies in collaboration, clinical research, regulation, and business models, advancement has been challenging on multiple levels. Hovey and his team were tasked to facilitate and successfully engage this diverse divisive group of stakeholders to achieve their goals. Inspired by Richard Kearney’s anatheistic wager, the hermeneutic wager acts simultaneously as a team building and research approach, as it serves to gain insight into the perspectives of members of a purposeful community. Through its five conversations, namely imagination, humility, commitment, discernment, and hospitality, the hermeneutic wager elicits responses from the participants that are based on meaningful participation in a relational approach of community co-creation. We individually interviewed the PBTWG facilitators (5). With informed consent, our research team also recorded all 5 of the PBTWG work group meetings (20 participants from 6 stakeholder groups) and break-out room meetings and took notes which consist of rich and extensive narrative data. This data was analyzed alongside the individual PBTWG interviews. The audio and visual data collected via a secure Zoom platform was then transcribed verbatim and analyzed interpretively according to the applied philosophical hermeneutic tradition. Findings centered around six points: “The Work of Stories,” “Changing Landscapes: Community / Communication not Consensus,” “Let the Words Lead You,” “Those Words Matter,” “Metaphors as a Bridge to Understanding,” and “A Road Map to be Inspired By.” Through these findings, we contend that the hermeneutic wager is an invitation for conversation that builds a path to the generation of new and creative understandings that transcend previous ways of knowing. The efficacy of the hermeneutic wager resides in its ability to help build a community of people who work together through and across difference to arrive at a shared understanding and collective outcome. 

Multiple agency perspective, family control, and private information abuse in an emerging economy

Using a comprehensive sample of listed companies in Hong Kong this paper investigates how family control affects private information abuses and firm performance in emerging economies. We combine research on stock market microstructure with more recent studies of multiple agency perspectives and argue that family ownership and control over the board increases the risk of private information abuse. This, in turn, has a negative impact on stock market performance. Family control is associated with an incentive to distort information disclosure to minority shareholders and obtain private benefits of control. However, the multiple agency roles of controlling families may have different governance properties in terms of investors’ perceptions of private information abuse. These findings contribute to our understanding of the conflicting evidence on the governance role of family control within a multiple agency perspectiv

Bisphenol A exposure in Mexico City and risk of prematurity: a pilot nested case control study

Abstract Background Presence of Bisphenol A (BPA) has been documented worldwide in a variety of human biological samples. There is growing evidence that low level BPA exposure may impact placental tissue development and thyroid function in humans. The aim of this present pilot study was to determine urinary concentrations of BPA during the last trimester of pregnancy among a small subset of women in Mexico City, Mexico and relate these concentrations to risk of delivering prematurely. Methods A nested case-control subset of 60 participants in the Early Life Exposure in Mexico to ENvironmental Toxicants (ELEMENT) study in Mexico City, Mexico were selected based on delivering less than or equal to 37 weeks of gestation and greater than 37 weeks of gestation. Third trimester archived spot urine samples were analyzed by online solid phase extraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography isotope dilution tandem mass spectrometry. Results BPA was detected in 80.0% (N = 48) of the urine samples; total concentrations ranged from < 0.4 μg/L to 6.7 μg/L; uncorrected geometric mean was 1.52 μg/L. The adjusted odds ratio of delivering less than or equal to 37 weeks in relation to specific gravity adjusted third trimester BPA concentration was 1.91 (95%CI 0.93, 3.91, p-value = 0.08). When cases were further restricted to births occurring prior to the 37th week (n = 12), the odds ratio for specific-gravity adjusted BPA was larger and statistically significant (p < 0.05). Conclusions This is the first study to document measurable levels of BPA in the urine of a population of Mexican women. This study also provides preliminary evidence, based on a single spot urine sample collected during the third trimester, that pregnant women who delivered less than or equal to 37 weeks of gestation and prematurely (< 37 weeks) had higher urinary concentrations of BPA compared to women delivering after 37 weeks.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78251/1/1476-069X-9-62.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78251/2/1476-069X-9-62.pdfPeer Reviewe