Fear Of Future Research Articles

The Politics of Public Space: Toronto’s Yonge Street Pedestrian Mall, 1971–1974

Beginning in the 1950s, hundreds of cities in Canada and the United States experimented with closing major downtown shopping streets to automobile traffic and opening them up to pedestrians. The few scholars who have studied these pedestrian malls have emphasized their failure as an economic revitalization initiative: hopes that creating new public spaces would lure suburban shoppers downtown were frustrated, and few are still in operation today. This article takes a different approach, using a rich archive of sources on Toronto’s Yonge Street pedestrian mall (1971–4) to analyze its life as a public space. This is a revealing angle from which to understand the North American downtown in a period of automobility, urban renewal, and municipal reform. Over four summers, a range of historical actors invested the mall concept with their hopes and fears for the urban future and appropriated its spaces through everyday practices. As a result, the Yonge Street pedestrian mall acquired multiple identities: a site of sociability and displays of civic pride; a protest against pollution; a marketplace; a gathering place for youth; a spectacle of downtown life. This article explores the representations and street life that created these images of the mall, arguing that the experiment is best understood as a contested and disorderly public space. It also places the different historical actors and ideas that met on Yonge Street in the larger context of the postwar North American city.

Perceptions of immigrant Nigerian women in South African Higher Education about social change

The focus of this article is immigrant women's perceptions of social change, and how they respond to it. In the article, social change refers to the fact that more people than ever before are engaged in different activities that lead to alterations in the norms and behavioural patterns of people as individuals or as a group in society. The study analysed social change via the perceptions of individuals-immigrant Nigerian women in South African higher education. In line with phenomenological research with which this article is aligned, an intrinsic qualitative case study approach-interviews-was employed to gather data. The cases involved four Nigerian women who are currently residing in South Africa and studying at higher education institutions in the country. Snowball sampling was used to select participants. Social change, as revealed in this article, is a lens that can be used to better understand individuals as a society or people. Furthermore, and in terms of materialist social theory that was utilised, this article reveals that social change relates to economic relationships between self (individuals or group) and society where survival of people is linked to surplus economic goods and the acquisition of tangible and intangible wants in order to deal with the fear of an unknown future. The article concludes that the understanding of self as a fallout of social change is a means of understanding others and vice versa, which can help people-especially locals or indigenes-conquer their fear of foreigners or immigrants.

A Patient-Centered Approach to Tailoring a Mobile-Based Mindfulness and Social Support Intervention for Adolescents and Young Adults With Cancer

Background: There is an emerging interest in identifying and meeting the unique needs of adolescents and young adults (AYA) with cancer. Roughly 700,000 AYA are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States, and the incidence in this cohort has increased steadily over the past 30 years. Nevertheless, improvements in cancer outcomes for AYA lag far behind the advances that have been made for young children and older adults. Recent work has documented significant levels of unmet needs among AYA with cancer, particularly psychosocial challenges during the transition to adulthood—e.g., abrupt disruption to school and social life, fears for an uncertain future, and body image concerns. A mobile-based intervention for youth is an ideal way to complement treatment by delivering a psychosocial intervention which is developmentally appropriate and derived from evidence-based approaches to fostering resilience through mindfulness-based coping strategies and social support.

Ethnicity moderates the effects of resources on adjustment of Jewish and Arab mothers of children diagnosed with cancer

ABSTRACTObjective: The study aimed to explore the adjustment of Jewish and Arab mothers of children diagnosed with cancer. Method: Ninety-seven Jewish and 100 Arab mothers completed questionnaires assessing mastery, social support, and adjustment (psychological distress, quality of life, and future fears and hopes). Results: Arab mothers were higher than Jewish mothers on distress and lower on social support and future hopes). Mastery and social support contributed independently to adjustment indices. Ethnicity moderated the effects of mastery and social support on adjustment. Conclusion: Ethnicity, mastery, and social support are important factors in mothers' adjustment to their child's cancer.

Spirituality promotes better health outcomes and lowers anxiety about aging: The importance of spiritual dimensions for baby boomers as they enter older adulthood

ABSTRACTBaby boomers present unique challenges to aged care service provision. Like previous generations, baby boomers will face challenges of ageing. Spirituality in later life, understood largely as meaning in life, is crucial to well-being. Little has been studied about this dimension of ageing for baby boomers. This mixed methods study used survey and focus groups methods to investigate spirituality in a sample of baby boomers (N = 143). Participants comprised staff, children of adults in care, and Uniting Church congregational members. We examined associations between physical and mental health, and ageing anxiety with spirituality and whether baby boomer spirituality buffered the impact of negative life events. Focus groups revealed fears of future frailty, loss, and fears of dementia. Religious affiliation in study was lower, yet spirituality was important, even with those without religious affiliation. Closeness of association of staff with older people in their care seemed to account for lower levels of fear of older people amongst staff, but higher fears of future loss compared with the other groups. Higher levels of spirituality were related to better mental and physical health and lower anxiety about and fear of ageing, and buffered the impact of negative life events where they occurred.

Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

Imagining future events conveys adaptive benefits, yet recurrent simulations of feared situations may help to maintain anxiety. In two studies, we tested the hypothesis that people can attenuate future fears by suppressing anticipatory simulations of dreaded events. Participants repeatedly imagined upsetting episodes that they feared might happen to them and suppressed imaginings of other such events. Suppressing imagination engaged the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which modulated activation in the hippocampus and in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Consistent with the role of the vmPFC in providing access to details that are typical for an event, stronger inhibition of this region was associated with greater forgetting of such details. Suppression further hindered participants' ability to later freely envision suppressed episodes. Critically, it also reduced feelings of apprehensiveness about the feared scenario, and individuals who were particularly successful at down-regulating fears were also less trait-anxious. Attenuating apprehensiveness by suppressing simulations of feared events may thus be an effective coping strategy, suggesting that a deficiency in this mechanism could contribute to the development of anxiety.

Psychometrics of the Zarit Burden Interview in Caregivers of Patients With Heart Failure.

Identification of family caregivers who are burdened by the caregiving experience is vital to prevention of poor outcomes associated with caregiving. The Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), a well-known measure of caregiving burden in caregivers of patients with dementia, has been used without being validated in caregivers of patients with heart failure (HF). The purpose of this study is to examine the reliability and validity of the ZBI in caregivers of patients with HF. A total of 124 primary caregivers of patients with HF completed survey questionnaires. Caregiving burden was measured by the ZBI. Reliability was examined using Cronbach's α and item-total/item-item correlations. Convergent validity was examined using correlations with the Oberst Caregiving Burden Scale. Construct validity was demonstrated by exploratory factor analysis and known hypothesis testing (ie, the hypothesis of the association between caregiving burden and depressive symptoms). Cronbach's α for the ZBI was .921. The ZBI had good item-total (r = 0.395-0.764) and item-item (mean r = 0.365) correlations. Significant correlations between the ZBI and the Oberst Caregiving Burden Scale (r = 0.466 for the caregiving time subscale and 0.583 for the caregiving task difficulty subscale; P < .001 for both) supported convergent validity. Four factors were identified (ie, consequences of caregiving, patient's dependence, exhaustion with caregiving and uncertainty, and guilt and fear for the patient's future) using factor analysis, which are consistent with previous studies. Caregivers with high burden scores had significantly higher depressive symptoms than did caregivers with lower burden scores (7.0 ± 6.8 vs 3.1 ± 4.3; P < .01). The findings provide evidence that the ZBI is a reliable and valid measure for assessing burden in caregivers of patients with HF.

Narratives of Fear in Syria

Scholarship on Syria has traditionally been limited by researchers' difficulty in accessing the reflections of ordinary citizens due to their reluctance to speak about politics. The 2011 revolt opened exciting opportunities by producing an outpouring of new forms of self-expression, as well as encouraging millions to tell their stories for the first time. I explore what we can learn from greater attention to such data, based on thick descriptive analysis of original interviews with 200 Syrian refugees. I find that individuals' narratives coalesce into a collective narrative emphasizing shifts in political fear. Before the uprising, fear was a pillar of the state's coercive authority. Popular demonstrations generated a new experience of fear as a personal barrier to be surmounted. As rebellion militarized into war, fear became a semi-normalized way of life. Finally, protracted violence has produced nebulous fears of an uncertain future. Study of these testimonials aids understanding of Syria and other cases of destabilized authoritarianism by elucidating lived experiences obscured during a repressive past, providing a fresh window into the construction and evolution of national identity, and demonstrating how the act of narration is an exercise in meaning making within a revolution and itself a revolutionary practice.

Cumulative Trauma Among Mayas Living in Southeast Florida.

Mayas, having experienced genocide, exile, and severe poverty, are at high risk for the consequences of cumulative trauma that continually resurfaces through current fear of an uncertain future. Little is known about the mental health and alcohol use status of this population. This correlational study explored t/he relationship of cumulative trauma as it relates to social determinants of health (years in the United States, education, health insurance status, marital status, and employment), psychological health (depression symptoms), and health behaviors (alcohol use) of 102 Guatemalan Mayas living in Southeast Florida. The results of this study indicated that, as specific social determinants of health and cumulative trauma increased, depression symptoms (particularly among women) and the risk for harmful alcohol use (particularly among men) increased. Identifying risk factors at an early stage before serious disease or problems are manifest provides room for early screening leading to early identification, early treatment, and better outcomes.

EMDR Therapy as Portal to a Child’s Processing of a Medical Condition: A Case Study and Session Deconstruction

This case study demonstrates the effective use of EMDR in helping a child manage fears triggered by a life-threatening chronic medical condition—congenital heart failure. It is well documented that childhood chronic illness creates ongoing stress and psychological problems for children and their families. Evidence suggests that interventions to enhance coping skills improve psychological functioning. EMDR has the potential to contribute to this end. Deconstructive analysis of a single EMDR session illustrates the working of Shapiro’s adaptive information processing (AIP) model. It demonstrates that the child can spontaneously open up channels of association to uncover, process, and resolve fears relating to the medical condition, as well as other concerns. A case is made for targeting whatever current, overt problem or symptom the child presents, because this inevitably serves as a portal to more covert, even unconscious core issues. Past, current, and future fears and traumatic experiences emerge and are processed to resolution. Also highlighted is the importance of integrating the individual EMDR treatment component into a family systems treatment approach for optimum outcome, because the illness impacts the whole family, ergo, the child. Recommendations for EMDR treatment planning and implementation with chronic illness are offered.

Secular Stagnation: Fear of a Non-Reproductive Future

In the wake of the global financial crisis, a number of high profile economists have sought to revive Alvin Hansen’s Depression-era theory of “secular stagnation” to account for the stagnant tendencies in the American economy, citing Japan as a cautionary tale of combined demographic and economic decline. Following Hansen, it is argued that the long-term stagnation of the world economy can be attributed to a failure of the reproductive will, made manifest in declining birth rates and ageing populations. Although the causal connections between population and price trends are controversial even among mainstream demographers and economists, such arguments date back to the origins of political economy and appear to magically resurface with each major episode of crisis. If the crisis is inflationary, it tends to be ascribed to overpopulation; if it is deflationary, we find a corresponding concern with slowing birth rates. This article seeks to understand the durability of the demographic theory of crisis by examining the punitive and restorative work it performs in periods of capitalist restructuring.

Young Future Africa - Images, Imagination and its Making: An Introduction

Introduction To begin with some generalised observations, when talk is of the future, children and youth never seem to be far off. Apparently, for a good reason. For how can we imagine the future without them? In common public discourses, it is often said that “children are our future”, but for generations, doubts have been expressed about whether “today’s youth” will be able and willing to creatively shape the future. This doubt is indicative of what society expects from children and young people: while they may be seen as carriers of political and economic achievements and the existing social order, they are, after all, the symbol of new horizons, change, and of a brighter and better future. However, such expectations are also often bound up with worries concerning the future prospects of children and young people. Perhaps this has always been so (Lindenau 2009: 9f). But the pace at which social, economic and political changes are currently taking place in the world, while bringing new advances and opportunities, also brings feelings of insecurity and fear of an uncertain future. This field of tension between uncertainty and hope with respect to young people and the future is possibly a cross-cultural phenomenon. However, it is perhaps nowhere as palpable as in Africa. There, the special significance of children and youth is clear for demographic reasons. Around two thirds of the population of the “young continent”, as it is often called in political and academic discourse

Blasfemia y expiación pública: la oralidad de la exclusión social (siglos XV y XVII)

A través del estudio de diversas fuentes civiles y religiosas elaboradas en el transcurso de los siglos XV al XVII (legislación real y religiosa, literatura teológica y de reforma moral...) analizamos la función de las ceremonias publicas de expiación contra blasfemias y juramentos en el marco geográfico peninsular con especial incidencia en Cataluña. Celebraciones expiativas convertidas a veces en instrumento principal para exorcizar los males de una sociedad atenazada por el miedo ante un futuro incierto, frente a la incapacidad de los poderes temporal y espiritual en resolver situaciones de crisis política o social extremas.

Raising Questions and Finding Answers: Money Laundering in Light of Three Theories

Globalization and technology have raised a complete new prospective of trade and finance flows across the globe. Money laundering is one of the biggest obstacles for creating a safe and effective operating international financial system. It is considered now the third largest “business” in the word and has very deep political and economic implications. Unfortunately money laundering is more then only that, and the reasons why, would be modestly explored by this article. This article approach to money laundering will be from a different prospective, and will try to go to the core of the theoretical understanding, for then trying to explore and give suggestions for the practical issues as they have been argued by many scholars, legal and financial experts. This article will try to understand better money laundering by addressing common aspects with other three theories, that among the others, I find particularly interesting because they share common or diametrically opposite elements. The legislator in money laundering was worried by criminalizing this offense not only because of the moral blameworthiness or the harm caused by looking in the past, for what it relates to the underlying offense and its danger, but mostly for the future fear of generating criminality and further wrongful conducts and harm. Preventing further criminality meets perfectly with all consequentialist reasons of imposing punishment. This view of money laundering as a “harm generator” or “wrongness generator”, is the most convincing about the real reasons of criminalization. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3p285

NGOs: under fire, under surveillance: South Africa’s civil rights organisations fear for future

NGOs: under fire, under surveillance: South Africa’s civil rights organisations fear for future

Sailing in Uncharted Waters: Four Dutch Steamship Companies during the First World War, 1914–1918

During the First World War, steamship companies based in neutral Holland were confronted by a number of very costly, war-related challenges. The conflict also brought unexpected windfalls: neutrality put these shipping firms in a unique position to profit from the worldwide disruption to global trade. In this article, I reconstruct the wartime balance sheets of four Dutch steamship companies, and relate my findings to an analysis of their wartime policies. My main conclusion is that these companies shared a remarkably similar fear of the post-War future which guided their wartime financial policies. By saving, expanding their fleet and improving their facilities, they desperately tried to guard themselves against the prospect of renewed foreign competition after the War.

DANCING TO A DIFFERENT TUNE: LIVING AND DYING WITH CANCER, ORGAN FAILURE AND PHYSICAL FRAILTY

IntroductionThe “danse macabre” has been depicted in Europe since medieval times. Providing good end-of-life care for all patients, whatever form their last dance takes, is a global challenge.Aim(s) and method(s)To...

Enhanced information regarding exercise training as treatment is needed. An interview study in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe thoughts and attitudes of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) when talking about exercise training as treatment. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were performed and analyzed with the grounded theory method. Four men and six women were interviewed (ages 66–84 years), with moderate to severe COPD, and no experience of organized exercise training as treatment for COPD. Results: The analysis resulted in one core category, unknown territory, and three categories, good for those who can, but not for me; fear of future; and mastering. Exercise training as treatment was perceived by the participants as something unknown. It was also described as important for others but not for them. Their perceptions were that they could not perform exercise training, and did not have the knowledge of what or how to perform exercise that was good for them. Conclusions: Patients with COPD, with no previous experience of exercise training as treatment for their disease, describe exercise training as something unknown and unimportant for them. The results provide important knowledge for healthcare professionals regarding how to educate patients with COPD about the content and benefits of exercise training as treatment.Implications for RehabilitationExercise training is effective for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with regard to dyspnea, physical capacity, health-related quality of life, and health care use.Patients with COPD perceive a lack of information regarding exercise training as treatment.The information and the presentation of exercise training as treatment might be of importance to get better adherence to this treatment.

The delivery room: Is it a safe place? A hermeneutic analysis of women's negative birth experiences

BackgroundWomen's negative experiences in the delivery room can have significance for later fear of childbirth. Therefore, it is important to critically evaluate the care during childbirth. The aim was to gain a deeper understanding of women's negative experiences in the delivery room. MethodsThis study is based on original data from three qualitative studies on Swedish women's experiences of fear of childbirth. Data were collected from interviews with 21 women; 15 pregnant women (6 + 9) with intense fear of childbirth, and six women who had experienced intense fear of childbirth 7–11 years prior to the interview. The analysis had a hermeneutic approach, with focus on the women's descriptions of their previous negative birth experiences. FindingsThe interpretation showed that in the delivery room the women were objects of surveillance, and they endured suffering related to the care during childbirth. This involves experiences of midwives as uncaring, feelings of being suppressed, unprotected and lacking safety, of feeling disconnected and of the body as incompetent in giving birth. The birth environments are understood as power structures, containing views of women's birthing bodies as machines, and delivery rooms as surveillance environments, involving interventions such as foetal heart monitoring, induction and augmentation of labour. ConclusionsThe delivery room was, for these women, a place creating fear of childbirth. To avoid negative birth experiences and future fear, women must be offered not only medical, but also emotional and existential safety in the delivery room.

Managing economic and technological competitiveness in the US semiconductor industry: short– and long–term strategies

The US semiconductor industry has been losing ground to the Japanese industry in the international market. Swift advances in Japanese economic and technological competitiveness have generated fears for the future of US manufacturers of chips. The USA is being forced to look for ways to counteract the present trends and, effectively, to manage the short– and long–term economic and technological development of the industry. In the short–term. defensive measures are being implemented which centre on the US–Japan chip agreement. In the longer term, Americans are betting on a military–backed programme aimed at wiping out the lead Japan has in semiconductor manufacturing technology. The involvement of the military in the international economic context of the 1980s raises several problems for the development of the US semiconductor industry. It remains to be seen whether the success of the military–backed semiconductor development of the 1950s and 1960s can be repeated.