Disability and the Muslim Perspective: An Introduction for Rehabilitation and Health Care Providers

[Excerpt] This monograph offers an introduction to and overview of a broad spectrum and diversity of Muslims with disabilities and chronic health conditions who come from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances. The perspective provided here also highlights larger issues of human rights. Given the current immigration trends in the United States, it is critical that service providers work across cultures and systems to help Muslims access disability and health care services and resources in their communities. Over the years, service professionals and researchers have come to recognize that individuals with disabilities and health conditions do not always hold the same health beliefs, understandings, objectives, and priorities as the service providers they encounter. The result is an intercultural gap in understanding between clients and providers that may result in a poor treatment or rehabilitative outcome. This monograph will use the terms client, consumer, and patient interchangeably to denote those seeking disability services, medical services, or both. We emphasize that to bridge the gap between Muslim service users and mainstream U.S. service systems, service providers in disability and rehabilitation systems need to increase their sensitivity and ability to accommodate differences between their services and the needs of their clients

Where the Rainbow Ends: Trying to Find a Pot of Gold for Same-Sex Couples in Pennsylvania

The article provides an overview of Pennsylvania law regarding same-sex couples, including an examination of domestic partner rights, adoption rights, and estate planning procedures

A goal programming methodology for multiobjective optimization of distributed energy hubs operation

This paper addresses the problem of optimal energy flow management in multicarrier energy networks in the presence of interconnected energy hubs. The overall problem is here formalized by a nonlinear constrained multiobjective optimization problem and solved by a goal attainment based methodology. The application of this solution approach allows the analyst to identify the optimal operation state of the distributed energy hubs which ensures an effective and reliable operation of the multicarrier energy network in spite of large variations of load demands and energy prices. Simulation results obtained on the 30 bus IEEE test network are presented and discussed in order to demonstrate the significance and the validity of the proposed method

Preserving Family: Themes from a Qualitative Study of Kin Caregivers

This article presents themes from a qualitative study of 58 African American female kinship caregivers in San Francisco. Core concepts that emerged describe various paths along which children move into kin homes, and caregivers\u27 mixed emotional reactions to becoming surrogate parents. Women also discussed multiple family roles they assumed after taking in children. Responses highlight three primary reasons for becoming caregivers that center on providing for and protecting these children—particularly from the perceived threat of the public foster care system—and ultimately preserving the family unit. Paradoxically, caregivers\u27 reasons mirror the stated goals of the public foster care system, which they view as a threat to family stability. We discuss the problems of implementing practice and policy recommendations for permanency and family preservation and how to bridge the gap between the deeply held negative beliefs of African American caregivers towards the public system and begin to build trust

Ensaio sobre Educação, Tempo Livre e Trabalho

Trata-se de refletir sobre as relações entre educação, tempo livre e trabalho no interior da sociedade contemporânea. A educação hoje em dia é pensada diretamente para o mercado de trabalho, neste sentido é preciso denunciar a industrialização da educação e analisá-la criticamente. Com a educação voltada ao trabalho, sua relação com seu oposto, o tempo livre, tornase imanente. Reivindicar criticamente a educação em todos os âmbitos da vida é o objetivo deste textoThis essay is a reflection on the relations between education, free time and work in contemporary society. Education nowadays is thought directly for the market. In this sense it is necessary to denounce the industrialization of the education and to analyze it in a critical manner. Education being bound to work makes its relation with its opposite, i.e, free time, an immanent one. To critically claim education in all the scopes of life is the objective of this tex

Agency without Avoidability: Defusing a New Threat to Frankfurt’s Counterexample Strategy1

In this paper, I examine a new line of response to Frankfurt’s challenge to the traditional association of moral responsibility with the ability to do otherwise. According to this response, Frankfurt’s counterexample strategy fails, not in light of the conditions for moral responsibility per se, but in view of the conditions for action. Specifically, it is claimed, a piece of behavior counts as an action only if it is within the agent’s power to avoid performing it. In so far as Frankfurt’s challenge presupposes that actions can be unavoidable, this view of action seems to bring his challenge up short. Helen Steward and Maria Alvarez have independently proposed versions of this response. Here I argue that this response is unavailable to Frankfurt’s incompatibilist opponents. This becomes evident when we put this question to its proponents: “Are actions that originate deterministically ipso facto unavoidable?” If they answer “yes,” they encounter one horn of a dilemma. If they answer “no,” they encounter the other horn. Since no one has a clearer stake in meeting Frankfurt’s challenge than these theorists do, it is significant that the Steward-Alvarez response is unavailable to them