Hyun Kim

This paper is a study on the factors affecting the changes of the political system of Vietnam that has attempted a reform within the system through its reform and open-door policy. The study originates in the interest in whether Vietnam could continue its changes of system via economic reform, and whether the economic reform could affect the reform of the political system. One assumption of the study is that the answer to which path Vietnamese socialism would take should be first found in understanding the factors influencing the changes of the system of Vietnam.

BackgroundExperience with open disclosure and its study are restricted to certain western countries. In addition, there are concerns that open disclosure may be less suitable in non-western countries. The present study explored and compared the in-depth perceptions of the general public and physicians regarding open disclosure in Korea.MethodsWe applied the COREQ checklist to this qualitative study. We conducted 20 in-depth interviews and four focus group discussions with 16 physicians and 18 members of the general public. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were performed according to semi-structured guidelines developed according to a systematic review of open disclosure. We conducted a directed content analysis by analyzing the verbatim transcripts and field notes in accordance with the predetermined guidelines.ResultsOpen disclosure perceptions were summarized in terms of the “five Ws and one H”. All physician and general public participants acknowledged the normative justifiability of open disclosure. The participants mostly agreed on the known effects of open disclosure, but the physicians had negative opinions on its expected effects, such as decreased intention of the general public to file lawsuits and increased credibility of medical professionals. Generally, the participants thought that open disclosure is required for medical errors causing major harm. However, the physicians and general public had conflicting opinions on the need for open disclosure of near misses. Most physicians did not know how to conduct open disclosure and some physicians had bad experiences due to inappropriate or incomplete open disclosure.ConclusionPhysicians and the general public in Korea acknowledge the need for open disclosure. Guidelines according to the type of patient safety incident are required to encourage physicians to more readily conduct open disclosure. Furthermore, hospitals need to consider organizing a dedicated team and hiring experts for open disclosure.

Both Ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers provide accounts of the life lived well: a Confucian junzi, a Daoist sage and a Greek phronimos. Cultivation in Early China and Ancient Greece engages in comparative, cross-tradition scholarship and investigates the processes associated with cultivating or nurturing the self in order to live such lives. By focusing on the processes rather than the aims of cultivating a good life, an international team of scholars investigate how a person develops and practices a way of life. They look at what is involved in developing practical wisdom, exercising reason, cultivating equanimity and fostering reliability. Using the thought of those thinkers central to both traditions, including Plato, Confucius, Han Fei and Marcus Aurelius, they examine themes of harmony, balance and beauty, and highlight the different concerns of scepticism across both traditions. They also discuss the action of doing as an indispensable method of learning. As a result, Cultivation in Early China and Ancient Greece is a valuable collection opening up new lines of inquiry in ethics and demonstrating the importance of drawing on philosophical ideas from across cultural traditions.

The problem of mental causation results from some unwarranted metaphysical assumption: the Principle of Nomological Character of Causality. However, there is little reason to understand causation in the manner required to make NCC work. The motivation for the demand for laws in action explanations stems at least in part from the fact that the laws cited in explanations are the laws that subsume events in naturalistic causal relations. By rejecting the idea that causal explanation is causal because it is grounded in natural causal relations, the motivation for requiring laws in explanations disappears. I claim that this is the reason why we need to pay attention to our practice and explanatory strategies. By rejecting NCC we can in fact arrive at a sustainable, defensible and rewarding account of mental causation. The primacy of explanatory practice over the ontological commitment reverses such that an explanation is causal if we accept it as such. By reinterpreting the notion of causation we regain the causal efficacy of the mental. We look to a theory of intentional action for help in answering the problem of mental causation. In this work I provide a novel conception of intentional action by distinguishing normative reasons from motivating reasons. The proposal recommends itself as being capable of dealing with many problems, including the problems raised by unintended side effects and lucky actions. More importantly, the proposal is able to deal with the problem of causal deviance and consequently is promising in that it avoids epiphenomenalism of mental properties. I conclude the criteria for intentional action must be wide enough to include the normative perspectives of a third-point of view as well as the psychological perspectives.

This paper examines Kierkegaard’s concept of the leap, Carl Schmitt’s concept of the exception, Benjamin’s concept of the origin and the extreme and tries to demonstrate that they all derive from a contingent foundation stipulating that the reason can fulfill its founding function only because of its own absence. According to these concepts, not the reason itself but the very absence of the last reason makes the foundation of the multiplicity of reasons possible. They assume a paradox figure of the reason, in which the figure of the foundation coincides with the figure of the withdrawal.

Background Conventional consent practices face ethical challenges in continuously evolving digital health environments due to their static, one-time nature. Dynamic consent offers a promising solution, providing adaptability and flexibility to address these ethical concerns. However, due to the immaturity of the concept and accompanying technology, dynamic consent has not yet been widely used in practice. This study aims to identify the facilitators of and barriers to adopting dynamic consent in real-world scenarios. Methods This scoping review, conducted in December 2022, adhered to the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines, focusing on dynamic consent within the health domain. A comprehensive search across Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus yielded 22 selected articles based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results The facilitators for the adoption of dynamic consent in digital health ecosystems were the provision of multiple consent modalities, personalized alternatives, continuous communication, and the dissemination of up-to-date information. Nevertheless, several barriers, such as consent fatigue, the digital divide, complexities in system implementation, and privacy and security concerns, needed to be addressed. This study also investigated current technological advancements and suggested considerations for further research aimed at resolving the remaining challenges surrounding dynamic consent. Conclusions Dynamic consent emerges as an ethically advantageous method for digital health ecosystems, driven by its adaptability and support for continuous, two-way communication between data subjects and consumers. Ethical implementation in real-world settings requires the development of a robust technical framework capable of accommodating the diverse needs of stakeholders, thereby ensuring ethical integrity and data privacy in the evolving digital health landscape.

© 2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. The impacts of droughts on the Amazon ecosystem have been broadly discussed in recent years, but a comprehensive understanding of the consequences is still missing. In this study, we show evidence of a fragile hydrological equilibrium in the western Amazon. While drainage systems located near the equator and the western Amazon do not show water deficit in years with average climate conditions, this equilibrium can be broken during drought events. More importantly, we show that this effect is persistent, taking years until the normal hydrological patterns are reestablished. We show clear links between persistent changes in forest canopy structure and changes in hydrological patterns, revealing physical evidence of hydrological mechanisms that may lead to permanent changes in parts of the Amazon ecosystem. If prospects of increasing drought frequency are confirmed, a change in the current hydroecological patterns in the western Amazon could take place in less than a decade.

The task of defining intentional action has given rise to heated debates in contemporary philosophy. I will show that it is not enough to fully understand the phenomena of intentional action by analyzing only the agent’s reasons that accompany each type of action. The solution for the problem generated by the Standard Account in explaining intentional action is to rethink the notion of intentional action and I approached the issue of intentional action by focusing on the role of normative considerations in determining whether an action was performed intentionally. The reason why we need to take normative considerations is derived from the falsity of the Simple View, which is to say that there is a gap between what is required for intending to Φ and what is sufficient for intentionally Φ-ing. By focusing on this aspect I provide a novel definition of intentional action. The definition recommends itself as being capable of dealing with many problems, including the problems raised by unintended side effects and lucky actions.

Shift work and overtime have been implicated as important work-related risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Many firefighters who contractually work on a 24-hr work schedule, often do overtime which can result in working multiple, consecutive 24-hr shifts. Very little research has been conducted on firefighters at work that examines the impact of performing consecutive 24-hr shifts on cardiovascular physiology. Also, there have been no standard field methods for assessing in firefighters the cardiovascular changes that result from 24-hr shifts, what we call "cardiovascular strain". The objective of this study, as the first step toward elucidating the role of very long shifts in the development of CVD in firefighters, is to develop and describe a theoretical framework for studying cardiovascular strain in firefighters on very long shifts. The developed theoretical framework was built on an extensive literature review, our recently completed studies with firefighters in Southern California, e-mail and discussions with several firefighters on their experiences of consecutive shifts, and our recently conducted feasibility study in a small group of firefighters of several ambulatory cardiovascular strain biomarkers. The theoretical framework developed in this study will facilitate future field studies on consecutive 24-hr shifts and cardiovascular health in firefighters. Also it will increase our understanding of the mechanisms by which shift work or long work hours can affect CVD, particularly through CVD biological risk factors, and thereby inform policy about sustainable work and rest schedules for firefighters.