Good Life Research Articles

Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism as a Metaethical Route to Virtue-Ethical Longtermism

Abstract This article proposes a metaethical route from neo-Aristotelian naturalism, as developed in particular by Philippa Foot, to virtue-ethical longtermism. It argues that the metaethical assumptions of neo-Aristotelian naturalism inherently imply that a valid description of the life-form of a species must satisfy a formal requirement of internal sustainability. The elements of a valid life-form description then serve as a normative standard. Given that humans have the ability to influence the fate of future generations and know about their influence, this article posits that our future as a species becomes a part of the description of the human life-form. Consequently, in our case, the sustainability requirement is extended into the future, leading to a minimal and humanist version of longtermism. As in Rosalind Hursthouse’s naturalistic virtue ethics, the focus of the proposed virtue-ethical longtermism remains on developing virtues as the only reliable way for the agent to achieve the good life. However, since what can count as virtue must be compatible with a life-form description that, taken as a whole, facilitates the long-term survival of our species, this position still implies a genuine longtermism, although it contrasts with the quantifying and maximizing logic of consequentialism.

Staining-Independent Malaria Parasite Detection and Life Stage Classification in Blood Smear Images

Malaria is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in tropical and sub-tropical regions. This research proposed a malaria diagnosis system based on the you only look once algorithm for malaria parasite detection and the convolutional neural network algorithm for malaria parasite life stage classification. Two public datasets are utilized: MBB and MP-IDB. The MBB dataset includes human blood smears infected with Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax). While the MP-IDB dataset comprises 4 species of malaria parasites: P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae, and P. falciparum. Four distinct stages of life exist in every species, including ring, trophozoite, schizont, and gametocyte. For the MBB dataset, detection and classification accuracies of 0.92 and 0.93, respectively, were achieved. For the MP-IDB dataset, the proposed algorithms yielded the accuracies for detection and classification as follows: 0.84 and 0.94 for P. vivax; 0.82 and 0.93 for P. ovale; 0.79 and 0.93 for P. malariae; and 0.92 and 0.96 for P. falciparum. The detection results showed the models trained by P. vivax alone provide good detection capabilities also for other species of malaria parasites. The classification performance showed the proposed algorithms yielded good malaria parasite life stage classification performance. The future directions include collecting more data and exploring more sophisticated algorithms.

Commentary: East Asian Educational Migration as Narrative Quests

ABSTRACTI interpret the rich conceptual insights and empirical findings of the special issue Childhood, Migration and the Pursuit of Happiness in Middle‐Class East Asia through the lens of understanding migration as a journey of narrative quests. Drawing from moral philosopher McIntyre's theory of narrative self and the pursuit of a good life, I highlight the dialectic and dialogic aspects of ‘narrative quests’ across multiple cases of East Asian educational migration (educational migration broadly construed). I highlight key features, central themes and tensions of narrative quests among these migrant families. I also pose questions for expanding further inquiry under this theoretical framework.

Towards an Anthropological Perspective on Human Flourishing in Education

ABSTRACT While many recognise the impact formal education has on human flourishing, often overlooked are the forces in society that shape our conception of the good life. Our understanding of flourishing is formed as much by the culture we live in as by the classrooms we learn in. This oversight impacts our ability to think clearly about flourishing because it keeps us from seeing the foundations upon which our idea of the good life is built. Contending that the language used by psychologists often reduces our understanding of human flourishing and existence we argue that the notion of the good life many of us adopt simply by existing in our modern therapeutic culture has been deeply distorted. On this basis, we advance a corrective for constricted therapeutic conceptions of flourishing, arguing that human flourishing needs ‘anthropology’ in two senses – one employed by social scientists and one by theologians and philosophers – and we make the case for the educational importance of turning to ‘anthropologies of the good’ as a positive, constructive examination of flourishing that is philosophically and theologically sophisticated enough to parse the several empirical investigations of human nature and bring clarity and insight to their findings.

Children’s and adolescents’ views of health and mental health concepts - A qualitative group interview study

BackgroundDefinitions and perceptions of health and mental health have not remained static over time. This is also true for statistics over Swedish children’s and adolescents’ health and mental health status. The majority of Swedish school-aged children and adolescents report good physical health and good life satisfaction. However, there are some warning signs when it comes to children’s and adolescents’ health and mental health status, for instance, an increased overweight or obesity in children and adolescents, as well as a higher proportion reporting psychological problems and stress. There is also a need for knowing more about the younger population’s voices in this matter. The aim was therefore to explore children’s and adolescent’s conceptualizations and perceptions of health in general, and mental health in particular.MethodsOpen semistructured group interviews with 44 Swedish children and adolescents (10–14 years old) recruited from four schools were conducted. The interviews were conducted between April 2022 and January 2023. Data were analyzed with qualitative content analysis.ResultsChildren’s and adolescents’ conceptualizations of health included aspects of both the body and the mind, with a focus on the latter. Mental health was expressed as a state of being, illustrated by various lived experiences of emotions, moods, and thoughts. The social world was ever present in their understanding of health, e.g., through the lenses of social and gender norms.ConclusionsThis study revealed children’s and adolescents’ recognition of health terms and their ability to observe nuances between mental health problems and everyday struggles. The participants discussed mental health problems to a greater extent than positive mental health. An implication of this study is the highlighted need to focus more on mental health promotion in future preventive programs. These findings might potentially influence how school staff and student health teams communicate with children and adolescents about these concepts.

Community-based dementia risk management and prevention program for Aboriginal Australians (DAMPAA): a randomised controlled trial study protocol

IntroductionAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the First Peoples of Australia. Up to 45% of dementia in these populations is due to potentially modifiable risk factors. The Dementia Prevention...

263 Public perspectives of calf handling: A survey of Canadians

Abstract In North American beef production handling and restraint of young calves is integral to animal welfare and management practices. This study used a mixed method approach to gather public perceptions of three handling and restraint methods common on beef operations in western Canada (RW - Roping and Wrestling, NF – roping and NordForks, and TT – Tilt Table). Canadian participants (n = 551) recruited by CloudResearch to represent the national demographics participated in an online survey that included videos of each handling method to ascertain preferences and acceptability. Prior to watching the videos, participants were given industry information about handling and restraint or generic information regarding hay as a control information statement within the topic of agriculture. The survey also collected information about knowledge of the beef industry, animal welfare, and empathy toward animals. The reasons for preferences were described as presence of a perceived positive attribute and absence of a perceived negative for most preferred methods, and inversely when explaining least preferred method. The findings focused on calf’s experience, perception of handler actions, and pragmatic balancing of handler needs and a good life for the calf. Methods were rated as more acceptable for participants that ate meat consistently, knew more about the beef industry, and, to a lesser extent, if the individual had a lower animal empathy score (Table 1). Acceptability was not affected by providing information about the practices; however, information about handling and restraint did elicit more pragmatic reasoning. Most participants preferred TT over NF and RW (P < 0.001) and found TT more acceptable as well (P < 0.001). The TT was the most preferred method due to calf experience and human handling, notably the absence of dragging a calf, which was predominant in why participants selected NF or RW as their least preferred method. Consistency of themes highlights that the Canadian public has a fundamental expectation of value for the quality of life of the calf, humane handling, and pragmatism which aligns with beef sustainability initiatives and represent points of connection for building trust between industry and the public.

Encapsulation of Hydrophobic-but-Not-Lipophilic Perfluoro Liquids Based on a Self-Assembled Double Emulsion Template via Solvent Evaporation Method.

The facile encapsulation of perfluoro liquids that are hydrophobic but not lipophilic into liposomes or microcapsules presents a significant challenge in the fields of biomedicine, dynamic optics, functional chemical applications, etc. This is due to their chemical inertness and physical immiscibility, particularly those with low boiling points. In this study, a novel strategy based on a double emulsion template via solvent evaporation is proposed after investigating the mechanism of three-phase emulsion systems. The perfluoro liquid droplets can be easily emulsified into a polymer solution as the second emulsion layer, where the polymer shell is formed during solvent evaporation in the continuum medium under proper processing controls. The morphology of particles is predictable and fits well with the linear model derived from Neumann's triangle in three-phase systems. Furthermore, a comprehensive study on the encapsulation of perfluoro ketone, which is widely used as a green fire extinguisher agent, is conducted as an example. The encapsulated perfluoro ketone showed instant thermal response upon heating while maintaining a good shelf life at room temperature. The remarkable fire suppression performance exhibited great potential for practical applications. This work offers more insight into the encapsulation of "naughty" perfluorinated chemicals and provides more possibilities for extended applications.

Conceptualizing person undergoing rehabilitation care in the light of Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition

Objective: To reflect on the concept of person, in the context of rehabilitation, in the light of Axel Honneth’s Theory of Recognition. Methods: Theoretical-philosophical essay. Results: The concepts of person, patient, user or client have given rise to central debates in health care models, especially in the area of rehabilitation. In this context, the concept of person stands out, from an anthropological and theological perspective to the inclusion of the complexity of social interactions in this meaning. Axel Honneth adds to this view by reflecting on the individuation of the being through the foundation of recognition, sustained by the need for self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem, making it possible to draw up a collaborative care plan that strives for the good life of the person undergoing rehabilitation. Conclusion: We can conclude that conceiving of care centered on people with disabilities is much more coherent nowadays than perpetuating other debatable expressions in terms of health. Regardless of the term to be used, recognizing all the dimensions inherent in the concept of person is fundamental in terms of establishing the integral dialogical relationship that is intended between health professionals and the person-patient-user-client undergoing rehabilitation.

Business and Politics of Eastern Africa

This article underscores a history of economic relations between Kenya and Uganda from 1962 to 2024. This is due to the fact that Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Sudan, Zaire, Somalia, Burundi, and Ethiopia are the most important business partners for Kenyan exports. The article reviews various literatures and a major gap has been identified. Theoretically, it adopts a bureaucratic theory, as was propounded by Max Weber in 1921. Methodologically, the article embraces a historical research design, as it helps in evaluating and relating the past occurrences in order to establish the causes, effects or trends of those occurrences with the aim of utilising the data to understand and explain the past, present and future anticipated events. In its findings, four eras of Kenya presidents are discussed. These includes: Jomo Kenyatta era, Daniel Arap Moi era, Mwai Kibaki era and finally Uhuru Kenyatta era. Based on the aforementioned eras, the article found out that; first the promise of democracy, a good life, and freedom was punctuated throughout the pronouncements that marked the formative years of the Kenyatta state. Secondly, this article discovered that, in 1990, when Moi was in power, the rhetoric of the KANU party suggested that African traditions were particularly well-suited to a one-party democracy environment. One of the traditions that were mentioned was the practice of making decisions through consensus rather than through competition. Lastly, during Kibaki era, Informal trade thrived due to bureaucratic hurdles and corruption at border points between Uganda and Kenya. In Conclusion, the rise of informal cross-border trade, particularly during times of political instability, has significantly influenced economic interactions between the two countries.

Reaching millions: Water, substitute infrastructure, and the politics of scale in Kenya

AbstractThis article analyzes the politics of scale in global development by focusing on a sanitation program in western Kenya. It follows the daily work of a nongovernmental organization that seeks to provide access to chlorine dispensers to millions of people for the purpose of disinfecting water. By engaging with literatures on development and infrastructure, this article proposes reach as an analytic that jointly attends to the aspirations, labors, and uncertain outcomes embedded in scale work. An ethnography of reach emphasizes the temporality of off‐grid infrastructures to capture the ambivalent relationships between aspirations and results and between standardization and adaptation, as well as the unstable nature of care. This proves useful to theorizing expansion as potentially generative of, rather than only inimical to, the good life—thereby troubling the vision of scale making as replication often used to understand development projects and their consequences.

Analysis of Food Nutrients Impact for Improving Public Health Using Multi Features Deep Recurrent Neural Network for Health Care Management

The food nutrients in daily life is incredible source to make good food for good life cycle. In recent analysis, the new food styles and ingredients affects the public health especially children to cause various disease and impacts which leads dangerous to healthier life. By analyzing food nutrients and presence healthy ingredients in daily life is important. World health organization pays number of research to healthcare management and suggestions to improve the public health by recommending different protocols. The risk is identifying presence of nutrients scaling is tedious due to prevailing techniques machine learning techniques does not provide good results to make better good food recommendation. The problem is more data labels and features are need to analyze which increase the false rate to reduce accuracy. To address the issue, to propose a deep LSTM gated recurrent neural network (LSTM-GRNN) based on Support vector feature selection (SVFS) to identify the presence of food nutrients to recommend the good food to improve the public health. Initially the food product and nutrients scaling logs are collected and to make preprocessing based on C-score normalization form feature labels. Then nutrients scaling impact rate is analyzed for each food ingredients presence by extracting the margins from features list. The important feature is selected by using SVSR to reduce the feature margins based on support vector. Then the selected features are trained into LSTM unit with recurrent neural network to identify the presence of nutrients rate in each food and to categorize the class by presence. The higher scaling rate of class is considered as good food to recommend for healthy facts. The proposed system attains higher detection accuracy in precision, recall rate and f1 measure, also the lower false negative rate increase the performance of accuracy compared to the existing system.

Women Who Kill: The Image of Postfeminist Success as Motive in the Novels of Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid

Within the crime genre, women who kill are provided with motivations that echo points of tension in society, killing to gain or retain something necessary for the successful life that they believe they cannot attain using any other method. The recent appearance of the image of postfeminist success, as outlined by Angela McRobbie, as a motive for murder in the novels of Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid is significant as it indicates a critical engagement with the neoliberal expectation that women need to achieve the postfeminist image of success to reach a feminine version of the good life. This article will examine how the image of postfeminist success becomes a motive for murder in Cleeves's and McDermid’s novels, highlighting societal concerns over the impact on women of the expectations of the postfeminist image of success.

Hurdle Concept and the Role of Lactic Acid Bacteria

The hurdle idea is a food preservation technique that includes building up a number of barriers to prevent microbes from growing and prolong the shelf life of perishable goods. The idea of using lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which are essential for food preservation, is one that is significant. Through a variety of processes, including fermentation, competitive exclusion, metabolite generation, biofilm formation, nutritional competition, and metabolic activity, LAB support the hurdle concept. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) ferment glucose to produce lactic acid, which results in an acidic environment that prevents infections and spoiling germs from growing.

Organisational Listening as a Means to Create More Citizen-Centric Well-Being Public Policies

ABSTRACT The aim of well-being public policy (WPP) is to create policies and services that improve citizens’ well-being, which requires an understanding of what citizens value. Bringing citizens’ subjective experiences into the policy equation is challenging, but organisational listening has great potential as a solution. This article presents a single-case study demonstrating how public organisations can use organisational listening as a tool to create better WPPs and how this approach has helped organisations to better realise what being more citizen-centric means. This article thus demonstrates the importance of strategic communication in organisations, how citizen-centric service ecosystems can be operationalised in the context of WPPs, and how WPP creation can be approached by understanding what constitutes a good everyday life from the citizens’ perspective, thus extending well-being as a concept.

Perspective: Clinical care of pedophilic individuals in Zurich, Switzerland.

Individuals with pedophilia are considered to have an elevated risk for child sexual abuse (CSA). Nevertheless, it is assumed that pedophilic sexual impulses can be controlled from acting out. To prevent CSA an outpatient treatment facility for people with pedophilia was founded in Zurich, Switzerland in 2021. The program focuses on the prevention of CSA and improvement of quality of life, incorporating empirically validated treatment principles, such as the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model and the Good Lives Model (GLM). Within the initial 24-month 142 individuals sought help, 46 individuals (mean age 36.0 ± 12.4 years) completed the assessment phase, two-thirds suffered from psychiatric comorbidities, and 67.4% reported sexual delinquency. The high drop-out rate was predominantly due to ongoing criminal proceedings, or other mental health conditions. Overall patients at this facility generally sought treatment voluntarily, leading to good treatment adherence, with severe self-harm being more prevalent than acute danger to others. A treatment approach focused solely on pedophilia is considered insufficient; psychiatric and psychosocial factors must also be addressed.

Evaluating the Good Lives Model Among Students: The Role of Primary Goods and Self-Regulation in Achieving a Good Life

ABSTRACT The Good Lives Model (GLM) is an offender rehabilitation theory. The model explains that offenders commit crimes because they have problems achieving certain Primary Goods (PG). The current study tested the hypotheses that people with higher importance of the PG will achieve more of their PG and engage in less antisocial behavior. We expected self-regulation to moderate this association. We included data from 156 students in a structural equation model. Among individuals with high conscientiousness, higher PG importance was associated with less antisocial behavior. Furthermore, higher PG importance, as well as more conscientiousness was associated with higher PG achievement. In those with high lack of urgency, PG importance was negatively associated with GPA and positively with antisocial behavior. The results provide partial support for the GLM in the student population and less serious antisocial behavior.

Balancing Academic and Personal Life: Challenges for Medical StudentsPersonal Life in Medical Students

Medical students are found to experience stress with a considerable impact because of the academic studies they are undertaking. High demands compared to non-medical students can interfere with other life domains, such as personal life. This interference can manifest in several ways, such as diminished time for social interactions and leisure activities. The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the potential impact on the relationship between academic life and personal life. The research was conducted with a sample of 7 medical student participants from Universitas Padjadjaran. Participants completed a questionnaire with 5 open-ended questions designed to capture their experiences and perspectives in detail. The findings revealed that a significant number of participants struggle with time management, feeling that their academic commitments leave them with minimal time for free activities and social engagements. This imbalance contributes to a sense of inadequacy in maintaining a fulfilling personal life. The study highlighted that a well-rounded personal life is crucial for sustaining optimal academic performance. A good personal life can provide good academic conditions, but the lack of free time for personal life makes participants do other alternatives such as postponing, procrastinating, and causing stress. Addressing these issues requires a holistic approach that not only alleviates academic burdens but also promotes a healthy balance between professional and personal domains. It’s essential for ensuring the well-being and success of medical students in both their academic pursuits and personal life.

Nature of Vedic Ethics and its Critique as Soteriology

The present paper deals with the idea of understanding Vedic ethics as a code of righteous living, in the light of Mīmāṁsā philosophy. The paper also intends to reflect upon the possibility of such methods as a means of attaining liberation. In other words, the Vedas provide us with prescriptive codes of right and wrong actions. It commands us about duties and non-duties, through the performance of rituals, in order to lead a good life. We know that human endeavours are primarily based on attaining the desired, and to prevent the unwanted ends. Hence, the entire effort of human actions lies in the fact that we want to attain the cessation of sufferings. This paves the way for studies in Soteriology, and the question arises that, could the Vedas be considered as a literature on Soteriology. The paper consists of a number of sections. The initial ones involve the linguistic analysis of the Vedic statements based on Sanskrit grammar and semantics. These are aimed at depicting the manner in which Vedic sentences act as prescriptive ethical codes. The latter ones deal with the questions raised by the opposing schools, namely Sāṁkhya-Yoga, against the idea of considering Vedas as a supreme sanction of means, leading beings to their salvation from empirical sufferings, and their plausible responses. Keywords: duties, ends, sacrifices, knowledge, liberation

Risks for a good life in old age-Importance of selected dimensions of living conditions

Life situation dimensions, such as financial resources, housing, health and social relationships, have asignificant influence on the scope available to older people for coping with everyday life and participation and thus for agood life in old age. As abasis for identifying current and future challenges posed by precarious living conditions in old age, current publicly available data and study results on the income situation, housing, health and care are reported as central dimensions of the living conditions of people aged65 years and over in Germany. The study results presented provide indications as to which groups of older people live in particularly precarious living situations, which provide starting points for municipal action. Inequalities exist in the availability of income, affordable and accessible housing, social networks, health opportunities and care support services. Particular importance is attached to the risk of poverty, which goes hand in hand with the risk of disadvantages in the other dimensions analyzed.