Expanding transformative experience.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Carel H
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7217260 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Expanding transformative experience.
Carel Havi H Kidd Ian James IJ
European journal of philosophy 20191030 1
We develop a broader, more fine-grained taxonomy of forms of transformative experience, inspired by the work of L. A. Paul. Our vulnerability to such experiences arises, we argue, due to the vulnerability, dependence, and affliction intrinsic to the human condition. We use this trio to distinguish a variety of positively, negatively, and ambivalently valenced forms of epistemically and/or personally transformative experiences. Moreover, we argue that many transformative experiences can arise gra ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:In the context of the 2016 Peace Agreement signed between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo), several challenges for society and academia have emerged: (1) overcoming the gap between the rural and urban settings, which has been one of the roots of the Colombian armed conflict, and (2) training psychologists and transforming traditional educational practices, which have not been designed to fulfill community needs in a post-conflict setting. One of the strategies from academia to overcome these difficulties is to create alliances with rural communities where students learn key competences to foster a horizontal approach while actively working with the community. In the region of Caquetá, Colombia, two Territorial Spaces for Training and Reincorporation (ETCR) were created in order to provide a space for former guerrilla members' reintegration to civil society. In the ETCR Héctor Ramírez, 27 students and two faculty participated in a service-learning project (2 weeks in December 2018 and two in June 2019) where they engaged in local daily practices and social projects based on the community's prioritized needs. The aim of this study was to analyze the learning process of undergraduate psychology students in this community psychology service-learning project in the context of peacebuilding in Colombia. This study is grounded in a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach and data collected include reflective narratives and video diaries by students before and during the course, and two focus groups after the experience. Findings suggest that students who participated in the experience are in the process of developing cultural humility, through affective understandings and the consolidation of communities of practice that include the former guerrilla members and their knowledges. Preparing psychologists to lead peacebuilding and reconciliation processes is of importance to the field because the professional competencies gained in this context surpass the professional practice as they become part of the students' abilities as citizens. The social impact is twofold: the students learn to create partnerships where purposes are co-constructed and trust-based, while the community takes the lead of their processes creating alliances with an academia that recognizes their knowledge and practices.
| S-EPMC6989592 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundAcademic literature highlights blockchain's potential to transform health care, particularly by seamlessly and securely integrating existing data silos while enabling patients to exercise automated, fine-grained control over access to their electronic health records. However, no serious scholarly attempt has been made to assess how these technologies have in fact been applied to real-world health care contexts.ObjectiveThe primary aim of this paper is to assess whether blockchain's theoretical potential to deliver transformative benefits to health care is likely to become a reality by undertaking a critical investigation of the health care sector's actual experience of blockchain technologies to date.MethodsThis mixed methods study entailed a series of iterative, in-depth, theoretically oriented, desk-based investigations and 2 focus group investigations. It builds on the findings of a companion research study documenting real-world engagement with blockchain technologies in health care. Data were sourced from academic and gray literature from multiple disciplinary perspectives concerned with the configuration, design, and functionality of blockchain technologies. The analysis proceeded in 3 stages. First, it undertook a qualitative investigation of observed patterns of blockchain for health care engagement to identify the application domains, data-sharing problems, and the challenges encountered to date. Second, it critically compared these experiences with claims about blockchain's potential benefits in health care. Third, it developed a theoretical account of challenges that arise in implementing blockchain in health care contexts, thus providing a firmer foundation for appraising its future prospects in health care.ResultsHealth care organizations have actively experimented with blockchain technologies since 2016 and have demonstrated proof of concept for several applications (use cases) primarily concerned with administrative data and to facilitate medical research by enabling algorithmic models to be trained on multiple disparately located sets of patient data in a secure, privacy-preserving manner. However, blockchain technology is yet to be implemented at scale in health care, remaining largely in its infancy. These early experiences have demonstrated blockchain's potential to generate meaningful value to health care by facilitating data sharing between organizations in circumstances where computational trust can overcome a lack of social trust that might otherwise prevent valuable cooperation. Although there are genuine prospects of using blockchain to bring about positive transformations in health care, the successful development of blockchain for health care applications faces a number of very significant, multidimensional, and highly complex challenges. Early experience suggests that blockchain is unlikely to rapidly and radically revolutionize health care.ConclusionsThe successful development of blockchain for health care applications faces numerous significant, multidimensional, and complex challenges that will not be easily overcome, suggesting that blockchain technologies are unlikely to revolutionize health care in the near future.
| S-EPMC8726042 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Past research suggests that use of psychedelic substances such as LSD or psilocybin may have positive effects on mood and feelings of social connectedness. These psychological effects are thought to be highly sensitive to context, but robust and direct evidence for them in a naturalistic setting is scarce. In a series of field studies involving over 1,200 participants across six multiday mass gatherings in the United States and the United Kingdom, we investigated the effects of psychedelic substance use on transformative experience, social connectedness, and positive mood. This approach allowed us to test preregistered hypotheses with high ecological validity and statistical precision. Controlling for a host of demographic variables and the use of other psychoactive substances, we found that psychedelic substance use was significantly associated with positive mood-an effect sequentially mediated by self-reported transformative experience and increased social connectedness. These effects were particularly pronounced for those who had taken psychedelic substances within the last 24 h (compared to the last week). Overall, this research provides robust evidence for positive affective and social consequences of psychedelic substance use in naturalistic settings.
| S-EPMC7007572 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC527699 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND: Biological invasions are fundamentally biogeographic processes that occur over large spatial scales. Interactions with soil microbes can have strong impacts on plant invasions, but how these interactions vary among areas where introduced species are highly invasive vs. naturalized is still unknown. In this study, we examined biogeographic variation in plant-soil microbe interactions of a globally invasive weed, Centaurea solstitialis (yellow starthistle). We addressed the following questions (1) Is Centaurea released from natural enemy pressure from soil microbes in introduced regions? and (2) Is variation in plant-soil feedbacks associated with variation in Centaurea's invasive success? METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We conducted greenhouse experiments using soils and seeds collected from native Eurasian populations and introduced populations spanning North and South America where Centaurea is highly invasive and noninvasive. Soil microbes had pervasive negative effects in all regions, although the magnitude of their effect varied among regions. These patterns were not unequivocally congruent with the enemy release hypothesis. Surprisingly, we also found that Centaurea generated strong negative feedbacks in regions where it is the most invasive, while it generated neutral plant-soil feedbacks where it is noninvasive. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Recent studies have found reduced below-ground enemy attack and more positive plant-soil feedbacks in range-expanding plant populations, but we found increased negative effects of soil microbes in range-expanding Centaurea populations. While such negative feedbacks may limit the long-term persistence of invasive plants, such feedbacks may also contribute to the success of invasions, either by having disproportionately negative impacts on competing species, or by yielding relatively better growth in uncolonized areas that would encourage lateral spread. Enemy release from soil-borne pathogens is not sufficient to explain the success of this weed in such different regions. The biogeographic variation in soil-microbe effects indicates that different mechanisms may operate on this species in different regions, thus establishing geographic mosaics of species interactions that contribute to variation in invasion success.
| S-EPMC3100334 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Educational strategies globally are changing from an authoritative, top-down model to one focused on greater student and stakeholder participation in planning and implementation of research and educational activities. In addition to emphasis on student-centered education, strategies currently evolve to encompass learning organizations and multistakeholder learning networks. These are essential to address the complexity and scope of tomorrow's challenges, involving issues that could be called 'wicked problems' not easily addressed by single disciplines nor resulting in solutions that please all the players. In this study we describe how a transformative innovation - the NEXTFOOD educational approach - may contribute substantially to a transition of agricultural and food education and how it can be developed and diffused within and between teaching institutions. The method was action research informed by several workshops organized at annual consortium conferences during the first three years of the project. The findings show that a successful transformation involves learning both within and across innovation projects repeated at various organisations in a network. The action research model presented in this paper may be useful as an instrument to support the facilitation of transformative innovations. The transition process resulted in substantial changes in mindset, educational practices and organisational structures at the teaching institutions. However, scaling-up promising educational initiatives may encounter several barriers that need to be overcome at individual, group and institutional levels, and we provide insight on how this can be accomplished in a multi-national consortium of universities.
| S-EPMC10445915 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The general concept of radiation therapy used in conventional cancer treatment is to increase the therapeutic index by creating a physical dose differential between tumors and normal tissues through precision dose targeting, image guidance, and radiation beams that deliver a radiation dose with high conformality, e.g., protons and ions. However, the treatment and cure are still limited by normal tissue radiation toxicity, with the corresponding side effects. A fundamentally different paradigm for increasing the therapeutic index of radiation therapy has emerged recently, supported by preclinical research, and based on the FLASH radiation effect. FLASH radiation therapy (FLASH-RT) is an ultra-high-dose-rate delivery of a therapeutic radiation dose within a fraction of a second. Experimental studies have shown that normal tissues seem to be universally spared at these high dose rates, whereas tumors are not. While dose delivery conditions to achieve a FLASH effect are not yet fully characterized, it is currently estimated that doses delivered in less than 200 ms produce normal-tissue-sparing effects, yet effectively kill tumor cells. Despite a great opportunity, there are many technical challenges for the accelerator community to create the required dose rates with novel compact accelerators to ensure the safe delivery of FLASH radiation beams.
| S-EPMC10795821 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Urban transformations form a central challenge for enabling global pathways towards sustainability and resilience. However, it remains unclear what kind of capacity is needed to deliver urban change that is actually transformative. Against a backdrop of current claims and efforts to achieve urban transformations, this special issue reviews the relational concept of urban transformative capacity and how it can inform novel approaches in research, policy, and practice. Drawing on seven papers analyzing diverse empirical contexts, we identify four requirements that should guide future action: (1) foster inclusion and empowerment as prerequisites, (2) close the intermediation gap and strengthen the role of local academia, (3) challenge and reinvent urban planning as a key arena, and (4) enhance reflexivity through novel self-assessment techniques. Overall, current levels of urban transformative capacity are assessed as very low, making its development a high-priority objective for all stakeholders, but for planning and research policy in particular.
| S-EPMC6462303 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Traditionally, electronics have been designed with static form factors to serve designated purposes. This approach has been an optimal direction for maintaining the overall device performance and reliability for targeted applications. However, electronics capable of changing their shape, flexibility, and stretchability will enable versatile and accommodating systems for more diverse applications. Here, we report design concepts, materials, physics, and manufacturing strategies that enable these reconfigurable electronic systems based on temperature-triggered tuning of mechanical characteristics of device platforms. We applied this technology to create personal electronics with variable stiffness and stretchability, a pressure sensor with tunable bandwidth and sensitivity, and a neural probe that softens upon integration with brain tissue. Together, these types of transformative electronics will substantially broaden the use of electronics for wearable and implantable applications.
| S-EPMC6824851 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Central to research funding are grant proposals that researchers send in to potential funders for review, in the hope of approval. A survey of policies at major research funders found that there is room for more transparency in the process of grant review, which would strengthen the case for the efficiency of public spending on research. On that basis, debate was invited on which transparency measures should be implemented and how, with some concrete suggestions at hand. The present article adds to this discussion by providing further context from the literature, along with considerations on the effect size of the proposed measures. The article then explores the option of opening to the public key components of the process, makes the case for pilot projects in this area, and sketches out the potential that such measures might have to transform the research landscape in those areas in which they are implemented.
| S-EPMC4280101 | biostudies-other