We present comparative research on precarious work and trade union strategies in three sectors (construction, industrial cleaning, temporary agency work) across seven European countries. Specific ...sectors have a profile of precarious work that is remarkably similar across countries, originating from similar employer strategies and work organizations. This results in unions facing comparable challenges concerning precarious work at sectoral level and developing comparable sectoral strategies to combat precarious work. The success of these strategies depends to a large extent on the available power resources. Between sectors within single countries, we observe some similarities but also very substantial differences in their institutional configuration and in actors’ constellations, power resources and repertoires of action. National institutional contexts seem much less significant than often assumed.
In the context of rising inequality between capital and labour and among wage-earners in Europe, this state-of-the-art article reviews the literature concerning the relationship between collective ...bargaining and inequality. It focuses on two main questions: (i) what is the relationship between collective bargaining, union bargaining power and inequality between capital and labour? and (ii) what is the relationship between collective bargaining, union bargaining power and wage inequality among wage-earners? Both questions are discussed in general terms and for single- and multi-employer bargaining systems. It is argued that collective bargaining coverage and union density are negatively related to both types of inequality. These relationships are however qualified by four additional factors: who unions represent, the weight of union objectives other than wages, the statutory minimum wage, and extensions of collective agreements by governments.
Abstract
Objectives
Persons with MS (PwMS) are frequently affected by fatigue and depression. Mindfulness-based interventions may reduce these symptoms in PwMS and consequently their application has ...been extended to various settings. Only few efforts have been made to explore effects of short-term mindfulness training during brief periods of hospitalization. In the current study, the feasibility and potential effects of short-term mindfulness training on depression, fatigue, rumination and cognition were explored in PwMS in an acute-care hospital setting. Based on previous work, it was further examined whether the relation between trait mindfulness and fatigue prior to and following the intervention was mediated by depression and whether a mediation effect was also observable throughout the intervention.
Methods
A short-term mindfulness training protocol was developed, tailored to the requirements of the acute-care setting. Subsequently, 30 PwMS were recruited sequentially and received mindfulness training during the routine clinical process (median duration in hospital: eight days, number of sessions: four). Participants completed relevant self-report measures (depression, fatigue, rumination) and a neuropsychological assessment before and after training.
Results
Participants reported significantly increased trait mindfulness and decreased depression and fatigue following the intervention. Respective change scores were highly correlated so that increased trait mindfulness was associated with decreased symptoms. In the rumination domain, patients reported a tendency for an increased adaptive ability to engage in distractive behavior during arising negative mood. Other measures of trait rumination and cognition remained relatively stable. Results of the mediation analyses indicated that depression mediated the negative relationship between trait mindfulness and fatigue symptoms at pre and post assessments. With regards to the change scores, an association between mindfulness and cognitive fatigue ceased to be significant when depression was controlled, albeit in this case, the mediation effect did not reach significance.
Conclusion
Results of the current study indicate that short-term mindfulness training during brief periods of hospitalization may be beneficial for PwMS. They further complement previous work by identifying depression as a potential mediator of the antagonistic relationship between mindfulness and fatigue. Based on the current exploratory study, future trials are warranted to address this mechanism of mindfulness training in more detail.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health threat to humanity, animals, plants and the wider environment. The intrinsic complexity and interconnectivity of human, animal and environmental ...factors has now been globally acknowledged and warrants a One Health approach. International communities launched guidelines to support the development and implementation of comprehensive national One Health (OH) AMR strategies with a particular concern for threatened antibiotics. Yet, AMR National Action Plans have proven difficult to implement because of social and structural obstacles/barriers, which are well-known as OH challenges (Keune, Payyappallimana, Morand and Rüegg 2022) such as overcoming inter-sectorial and interdisciplinary barriers, taking into account structural societal dynamics, implementing transdisciplinary system’s approaches. To enhance necessary transformative system changes, it is vital to operationalize and contextualize One Health AMR approaches for the design, implementation and evaluation of community-based AMR interventions, tailored to the local circumstances.
The healthcare sector has proven to be supportive in stimulating health through contact with nature (Robinson and Breed, 2019; Kondo et al., 2020). Despite the positive practice examples, we see ...several challenges. There is no clear consensus or common understanding on quality assurance and health impact assessment of green care: there still is a wide range of approaches within different health expert communities and contexts, either with or without some form of qualified support such as coaching. As there is no ‘one size’ prescription fit for all, green care needs to be tailored to individual characteristics and circumstances, both of which are dynamic, e.g., in an environmental sense due to climate change, or related to socio-cultural dynamics (Beute et al., 2020a,b; Superior Health Council Belgium 2021). Sustainable health-related nature contact is not always easy to achieve especially when there is no follow-up with either healthcare professionals or other supporting organizations through social prescription. Accessibility of natural areas is often quite unequally distributed, with the more vulnerable often benefitting least, especially in urbanized areas. Another challenge is to achieve a reciprocal health relationship with nature: a stronger connection with nature and caring for nature helps to sustain a positive healthy relationship (O’Brien et al., 2010; Kurt et al., 2018), which may also contribute to nature conservation in a One Health perspective. As such, the healthcare sector can act as ambassadors for ‘One Healthy’ natural environments.
Diagnostics of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) require a multimodal approach. Neuropsychologists examine the degree and etiology of dementia syndromes and results are combined with those of cerebrospinal ...fluid markers and imaging data. In the diagnostic process, neuropsychologists often rely on anamnestic and clinical information, as well as cognitive tests, prior to the availability of exhaustive etiological information. The congruency of this phenomenological approach with results from FDG-PET/CT examinations remains to be explored. The latter yield highly accurate diagnostic information.
A mixed sample of N = 127 hospitalized neurological patients suspected of displaying a dementia syndrome underwent extensive neuropsychological and FDG-PET/CT examinations. Neuropsychological examinations included an anamnestic and clinical interview, and the CERAD cognitive test battery. Two decisional approaches were considered: First, routine diagnostic results were obtained, i.e. the final clinical decision of the examining neuropsychologist (AD
vs. non-AD
). Secondly, a logistic regression model was implemented, relying on CERAD profiles alone. CERAD subscales that best predicted AD based on FDG-PET/CT were identified and a nominal categorization obtained (AD
vs. non-AD
). Congruency of results from both approaches with those of the FDG-PET/CT (AD
vs. non-AD
) were estimated with Cohen's Kappa (κ) and Yule's Y coefficient of colligation. Descriptive estimates of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of CERAD relative to FDG-PET/CT diagnostics were derived.
AD
patients constituted N = 33/127 (26%) of the sample. The clinical decision approach (AD
vs. non-AD
) showed substantial agreement with the FDG-PET/CT classification (κ = .69, Y = .72) involving good accuracy (84.2%), moderate sensitivity (75.8%) and excellent specificity (92.6%). In contrast, the decisional approach that relied on CERAD data alone (AD
vs. non-AD
) involved only moderate agreement with the FDG-PET/CT (κ = .54, Y = .62) with lower accuracy (74.8%), attributable to decreased sensitivity (56.3%) and comparable specificity (93.3%).
It is feasible to identify AD through a comprehensive neuropsychological examination in a mixed sample of neurological patients. However, within the boundaries of methods applied here, decisions based on cognitive test results alone appear limited. One may conclude that the clinical impression based on anamnestic and clinical information obtained by the neuropsychological examiner plays a crucial role in the identification of AD patients in routine clinical practice.
There is a basic tension within the idea of Comparative Hagiology, because the two terms that constitute its name are incongruous. To formulate a comparative hagiological project, we must choose at ...the outset which term will take priority. Prioritizing the comparative in comparative hagiology orients us to focus more on the basic disciplinary approaches to gather compare-able data, leaving hagiology as a placeholder whose content will be defined by the results of the comparison. Prioritizing hagiology requires first defining hagio- and reckoning with the European and Christian baggage that it brings to cross-cultural and inter-religious comparison. Holding that definition in mind, we then locate examples to compare by whatever approach seems fruitful in that case. Different choices of priorities lead to potentially different results. I argue that a path that prioritizes comparative is more likely to inspire experimental and innovative groupings, unconventional definitions of hagiology, and new perspectives in the cross-cultural study of religion. An approach that prioritizes hagiology runs a greater risk of repeating the same provincial and conceptual biases that doomed much of 20th-century comparative religion scholarship.
There is a certain sigh of relief-a sense of coming home-when encountering a concept that deeply reinforces a scholarly path that you have been on for over a decade, especially when that concept is ...better articulated than anything you have ever produced yourself. It was that home that I found in Vinciane Despret's
My mind perked up when I read, "if we are to sound like economists, there is also a price to be paid,"
and then really connected with a sentence where she explains that in addition to being particularly punishing to read, studies of bird territories and territorialization, which are rooted in a clean, quantitative economics approach, have certain things that fail to be said, due to an "element of negligence."
Finally, she turns to a quotation by Bruno Latour that rang wonderfully true with a sense of where I have lived over the last several years.
Say to the Sun, “Don’t Rise,” and to the Moon, “Don’t Set”: Two Oral Narratives from the Country- side of Maharashtra. Edited and translated by Anne Feldhaus, with Ramdas Atkar and Rajaram Zagade. ...Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xii + 632, 3 illus. $99.
75 years have passed since the liberation of Auschwitz, but racism, nationalism and xenophobia (including anti-Semitism) are still widespread; in fact, due to an increasingly solipsistic policy of ...international leaders, hostility against those who don’t match race, religion, culture or sexual orientation is even experiencing a renaissance. Fake news start to replace facts. In Germany, politicians of the (democratically elected) right-wing party AfD (Alternative for Germany publicly question the significance of the holocaust. According to the polls, around 33% of European youths have little or no knowledge about the attempted annihilation of Jews during World War II. In order to prevent the return of barbarism it is essential to remember and understand the characteristics that actually led to barbarism in the first place. Peter Weiss’ play Die Ermittlung: Oratorium in 11 Gesängen The Investigation. Oratorio in 11 Songs written in 1965, takes a very thorough look at what Auschwitz was, how it had been made possible and how it survived in society even after the war. The following article examines the play and its context in literature and films on the Holocaust, paying particular attention to the possibility of explaining the, as Elie Wiesel has put it, “unexplainable” and converting it into a teaching experience for current generations.
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