Freedom Of People Research Articles

Space at home and psychological distress during the Covid-19 lockdown in Italy

Prolonged periods of restrictions on people's freedom of movement during the first massive wave of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that most people engaged in all their daily activities at home. This suggested the need for the spatial features of the home and its occupants' perception of them to be investigated in terms of people's wellbeing.The present study was conducted on a large sample (N = 1354) drawn from different Italian regions. It examined the relationship between the “objective” and “subjective” dimensions of the home, measured in terms of objective home crowding and satisfaction with the space at home, in relation to perceived stress and the perceived risk of COVID-19 infection during the lockdown. The results showed that perceived stress is influenced by objective home crowding through the mediation of satisfaction with the space at home. These associations were more pronounced in younger generations. The negative association between satisfaction with the space at home and perceived stress was higher, the lower the perceived COVID-19 risk.

Freedom of choice and the tobacco endgame.

Endgame proposals strive for a tobacco‐free (or at least cigarette‐free) society. Some endgame proposals are radical and include, for example, a complete ban on cigarettes. Setting aside empirical worries, one worry is ethical: would such proposals not go too far in interfering with individual freedom? I argue that concerns around freedom do not speak against endgame proposals, including strong proposals such as a ban on cigarettes. I first argue that when balancing freedom with public health goals in tobacco control, the latter win out. But I also argue that, in principle, a concern with freedom itself already justifies endgame measures. First, such measures can increase people's lifetime freedom, that is, the freedom they have across their entire lives. Second, such measures can facilitate a better interpersonal distribution of freedom by increasing aggregate societal freedom and by reducing inequalities. Overall, freedom does not preclude strict tobacco control but supports it.

CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM AS IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN AMERICAN DYSTOPIAN NOVELS

Literature reflects the history of people's lives, which includes lifestyle, culture, language, desires, and important events in people's lives. Dystopia novels cannot be separated from discussions about authoritarian government, restraints on people's freedom, criticism of the development of technology and information, exploitation and the class system, and the arbitrariness of the rulers. Despite telling a bad world, Dystopian novels proved popular in America, a country that promised freedom, equality, and freedom to its citizens. The possibility of different realities captured by American popular novelists who differ from their imaginations gave birth to dystopian novels that are popular in American society. Thus, this study is important to analyse Capitalism and Socialism as ideological constructions in American dystopian novels through Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, Uglies, and The Hunger Games. This research will formulate an understanding of whether or not American dystopian novels confirm or negate the ideology of Capitalism and the ideology of Socialism.

Freedom of expression -The Clash of Rights

This article will examine the shift in the role of freedom of expression based on recent events, observing how the right to freedom guaranteed by law has shifted into a coercive political tool in modern democracy. The results of this article show that, freedom of expression has been melted and shaped into a shield into a sword. This has changed from what was traditionally a negative role to guarantee people's freedom from arbitrary exercise of power, to a positive role in which people can exercise their liberties against their own rights.

Influência da estrutura organizacional na capacidade de aprendizado organizacional: o caso de uma fabricante mundial de veículos comerciais

Purpose – This study aims to analyze the influence of the dimensions of the organizational structure on the organizational learning capacity in a transport company. Design/methodology/approach – For this, we adopted as a research design the method of case study and for data collection and analysis, using the quantitative and qualitative procedures. For the purposes of this study, the choice was made of the Administrative Unit of Construction Equipment of a worldwide manufacturer of commercial vehicles.Findings – Among the results it was verified that: (i) an environment conducive to organizational learning must be supported by organizational organizational structures; (ii) the dimensions of centralization and integration when working in congruence tend to reinforce processes and levels of learning; (iii) the high degree of formalization has no influence on organizational learning capacity.Research limitations/implications – As limiting factors of the research, the cross-sectional approach is considered to study the theme of organizational learning. Still, the data collection in only one Unit of the company Alpha, the number of interviews carried out and the fact that it involves only managers from the commercial and sales sectors.Practical implications – The dimensions Centralization and Integration influence the Capacity for Organizational Learning.Originality/value – In order to develop an environment conducive to organizational learning, organizations should make use of more flexible structural forms, which encourage people's autonomy and freedom through decentralization. Also, that organizations seek a high level of integration, information sharing and that communication is fluid throughout the company.

Understanding and investigating relationality in the capability approach

AbstractThe capability approach (CA) is a framework for understanding, assessing, and promoting the quality of human lives and social justice. It focuses on capabilities – people's freedoms and opportunities to live in valuable ways. Although its proponents readily acknowledge that capabilities can depend on personal, social and environmental factors, little attention has been paid to the ontology of capabilities (what they are and how they are caused and constituted) and the inherent relationality of the approach is often not well followed through in research and practice. This, we suggest, leaves the CA vulnerable to misinterpretation and misappropriation. In this paper we draw on the complementary lenses of critical realism, hermeneutics and complexity theory to develop an explicitly relational ontology of capabilities that explains how capabilities, as potential for ways of being or forms of doing, are generated by both personal agency and material and social structures. We demonstrate how these lenses can illuminate the relational constitution of particular capabilities through reference to a composite case involving a man called Bert and his healthcare team. We outline how our relational ontology of capabilities can demand and support more theoretically coherent and socially just approaches to CA informed practice, research and policy.

The elusive promise of universal social protection: the case of the Greek general minimum income (GMI)

PurposeThe need to alleviate poverty and achieve the United Nations (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Universal Social Protection (USP) mechanisms is a high priority for governments and international organisations (IOs). This paper focuses on the recent introduction of a general minimum income (GMI) in Greece, in the context of the international diffusion of governing expertise. It examines whether the “universal” scheme being implemented constitutes a paradigm shift likely to offer solutions to the country's previous fragmented and unjust welfare system, and to problems the society has faced since the 2010s depression.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses critical grounded theory, with data gathering through iterative field observations and semi-structured interviews.FindingsResults highlight the elusiveness of USP normative promises: rather than enhancing people's effective freedoms to act as self-determining agents, USP pushes the poor to adapt to current degraded socio-economic conditions. Participation in the shadow economy is a structural feature of USP; it is implicitly tolerated insofar as it is regarded, in the words of the World Bank (WB), an “engine for growth”. This constitutes an institutional and governance challenge for the implementation and expansion of social welfare programmes and could compromise the 2030 SDGs Agenda.Originality/valueWhile research to date has examined the “modernisation” of the Greek welfare system in a national or comparative perspective, it adds to the literature by framing the study in the field of global social policy, shedding light on the discrepancies between internationally designed mechanisms and the normative aims of USP.

Discovering symptom patterns of COVID-19 patients using association rule mining

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic is a significant public health crisis that is hitting hard on people's health, well-being, and freedom of movement, and affecting the global economy. Scientists worldwide are competing to develop therapeutics and vaccines; currently, three drugs and two vaccine candidates have been given emergency authorization use. However, there are still questions of efficacy with regard to specific subgroups of patients and the vaccine's scalability to the general public. Under such circumstances, understanding COVID-19 symptoms is vital in initial triage; it is crucial to distinguish the severity of cases for effective management and treatment. This study aimed to discover symptom patterns and overall symptom rules, including rules disaggregated by age, sex, chronic condition, and mortality status, among COVID-19 patients. MethodsThis study was a retrospective analysis of COVID-19 patient data made available online by the Wolfram Data Repository through May 27, 2020. We applied a widely used rule-based machine learning technique called association rule mining to identify frequent symptoms and define patterns in the rules discovered. ResultIn total, 1,560 patients with COVID-19 were included in the study, with a median age of 52 years. The most frequently occurring symptom was fever (67%), followed by cough (37%), malaise/body soreness (11%), pneumonia (11%), and sore throat (8%). Myocardial infarction, heart failure, and renal disease were present in less than 1% of patients. The top ten significant symptom rules (out of 71 generated) showed cough, septic shock, and respiratory distress syndrome as frequent consequents. If a patient had a breathing problem and sputum production, then, there was higher confidence of that patient having a cough; if cardiac disease, renal disease, or pneumonia was present, then there was a higher confidence of septic shock or respiratory distress syndrome. Symptom rules differed between younger and older patients and between male and female patients. Patients who had chronic conditions or died of COVID-19 had more severe symptom rules than those patients who did not have chronic conditions or survived of COVID-19. Concerning chronic condition rules among 147 patients, if a patient had diabetes, prerenal azotemia, and coronary bypass surgery, there was a certainty of hypertension. ConclusionThe most frequently reported symptoms in patients with COVID-19 were fever, cough, pneumonia, and sore throat; while 1% had severe symptoms, such as septic shock, respiratory distress syndrome, and respiratory failure. Symptom rules differed by age and sex. Patients with chronic disease and patients who died of COVID-19 had severe symptom rules more specifically, cardiovascular-related symptoms accompanied by pneumonia, fever, and cough as consequents.

PERANAN HAJI MISBACH DALAM PERGERAKAN ISLAM KOMUNISME DI SURAKARTA PADA TAHUN 1914-1926

This study aims to: (1) describe the biography of Haji Misbach; (2) describe Haji Misbach's thoughts about the Islamic communism movement; (3) to describe the role of Haji Misbach in the Islamic communism movement in Surakarta in 1914- 1926. The research method used in this research is a historical method written descriptively-analytically. By using historical, political, social and religious approaches. The first stage is heuristics. Second, verification. Third, interpretation. Fourth, historiography, with the nature of research, literature or literature studies. The results of this study indicate that: (1) Haji Misbach was born with the name Ahmad, in Kauman, Surakarta, in 1876. He grew up in a family of batik traders. He is better known as Haji Misbach; (2) Haji Misbach wanted to juxtapose the teachings of communism and Islam. In his thought, Haji Misbach called on Muslims to fight and jihad against the capitalists and Dutch colonialism. On the one hand, Communism is a means of struggle against capitalism; (3) The role of Haji Misbach in the Islamic communism movement occurred during 1914 to 1926. He fought a lot by joining in several organizations and was active in establishing, leading, and managing a newspaper which he used as a media to carry out propaganda fighting for people's freedom from shackles. Capitalism wrapped in colonialism.

The milestones of party building of the constitutional democrats of Siberia during the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War

This article is dedicated to the questions of party building of the constitutional democrats of Siberia during 1917 – 1920, which is one of most tragic periods of the Russian history. Based on the analysis of  published and archival materials and documents of the central and local committees of the People's Freedom Party in Eastern Russia during the Revolution and Civil War, the goal is set to determine the causes and follow the trends of changes in composition of the party, vector and nature of the activity of Siberian cadet groups. The research relies on the fundamental principles of scientific objectivism and historicism, which allows examining the topic in dynamics and in relation to the specific socioeconomic, political, and cultural circumstances that developed during this period. The scientific novelty consists in demonstration of the dynamics and identification of the causes of changes in composition and tactics of the Siberian cadet groups throughout the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. Emphasis is placed on the “democratic counter-revolution” and the political regime of A. V. Kolchak. The conclusion is made that the nature of organizational party activity of the Siberian cadets is determined by a range of factors, namely local conditions and events that unfolded in the capital of Russia. A considerable influence was produced by the directives of the Central Committee of the People's Freedom Party, political orientations of the All-Russian National Center, and the experience acquired by the party and its leaders during the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War.

Representations of Human Development and Inequalities in Brazil based on Atlas Brasil Indicators and Indexes

This article aims to reflect on the indicators and indices of the Atlas of Human Development in Brazil - Atlas Brasil, as an instrument for the knowledge of reality. In order to achieve this objective, a bibliographical survey was carried out on the theme, covering the international and national scales, in addition to the information provided by Atlas Brasil. It is noteworthy that by making available to all citizens on an interactive platform, easy to access and understand, Atlas Brasil is an important instrument to be suitable for promotion and monitoring, from national to local scale, of human development in the country. Due to the autonomy of Brazilian municipalities to achieve their public policies / services, the knowledge of intra-municipal heterogeneities, which affect development, for example, on the scale of “neighborhoods”, is useful to intervene in priority areas more precisely. This is already possible for metropolitan regions, perhaps soon for all Brazilian municipalities. Furthermore, the importance of providing and using information is ratified to increase people's choice and freedom to transform the reality in which they live.

Psicología de la emergencia en contexto de pandemia: aportes y herramientas para la intervención psicológica

La propagación del virus SARS-CoV-2 en el mundo y la declaración de pandemia por parte de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS, 2020a) requirió la implementación de cuarentenas preventivas y restricciones a las libertades de las personas, transformándose un factor de riesgo para la salud mental de las personas. Así, adquiere importancia la Psicología de la Emergencia, como un campo del saber especializado en el estudio del comportamiento humano frente a eventos potencialmente traumáticos, en los que se ven desbordados los recursos personales y capacidades de afrontamiento disponibles en el entorno próximo. Este artículo describe la gestión del riesgo de desastres, señalando la organización de la respuesta frente a estos eventos. Además, aporta recomendaciones para la aplicación de los Primeros Auxilios Psicológicos y la intervención telepsicológica en contexto de pandemia, destacando el apoyo social y la promoción de comunidades resilientes, como estrategias de afrontamiento eficaces ante emergencias y desastres.

Is being gender nonconforming distressing? It depends where you live: gender equality across 15 nations predicts how much gender nonconformity is related to self-esteem.

Individuals exhibiting gender nonconforming behaviors experience low self-esteem and a number of other mental health conditions, including elevated suicide risk. Most of the relevant evidence is confined to US studies, however. Adopting a cross-national approach, we examined the pervasiveness of the psychological burden associated with gender nonconformity. Because self-esteem is sensitive to the fulfillment of societal expectations for gender conformity, we reasoned that the relationship between gender conformity and self-esteem ought to decrease as societies become less restrictive in their gender norms. To test this proposition, we conducted two studies including 18 national samples from 15 countries varying in gender equality. Participants responded to an online survey that included measures of gender conformity and self-esteem (N = 4486). Using multilevel analyses and meta-analytic statistics over the samples of both studies, we found that as gender equality increased, the association between gender conformity and self-esteem decreased. The results suggest that rather than being inherently noxious, gender non-conformity becomes detrimental to self-esteem when it clashes with restrictive gender role norms that are enacted by the macrosocial context. We suggest that previous findings on psychological problems related to gender nonconformity be considered within a broader macrosocial context that may constrain people's freedom to move against gender role norms.

Национальный лидер Якутии Г.В. Ксенофонтов и политические партии в 1917 г.

The present study examines the attitude of one of the national leaders of Yakutia G.V. Ksenofontov to the political parties operating in the Yakutsk region in 1917. A lawyer and politician G.V. Ksenofontov became one of the founders of the national party – the Yakut Labor Union of Federalists, whose program combined the ideas of a federal structure of Russia, Siberian regionalism and popular socialism. The analysis of the archives and periodicals shows that the Yakut Federalists collaborated with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, were involved in a political struggle against local organizations of the Kadets and Social Democrats. G.V. Ksenofontov was nominated as a candidate for membership in the Constituent Assembly from the Federalist Party. During the pre-election campaign, an active polemic was waged, the Federalists criticized the Kadets and Social Democrats for their negative attitude towards the idea of federation. The Party of People's Freedom was perceived as bourgeois, and in the ideology of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party the leaders of ethnic intelligentsia were repulsed by the orientation of the Social Democrats towards the proletariat, which was practically absent in the Yakutsk region. The bloc of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Federalists operated in the government bodies and in the elections to the Constituent Assembly. The election results showed that the union of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Federalists enjoyed support of the local population. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the history of Yakutia during the Russian Revolution of 1917 had its own characteristics. G.V. Ksenofontov contributed heavily to the political development of the region, his activity as the leader of the Federalist Party and a candidate for membership in the Constituent Assembly promoted an increase in the level of political literacy of the population, prepared the Yakut society for the transition to a new level of its development, for the formation of statehood, the creation of Yakutsk Autonomous Soviet Socialistic Republic.

‘Mutations from Below’: The Land Raiders of Reef and An Sùileachan (2013) by Will Maclean and Marian Leven

The focus of this paper is the memorial structure, An Sùileachan, at Uig on the Island of Lewis which was designed by Will Maclean and Marian Leven and built by stonemasons Ian Smith and James Crawford in 2013. The memorial, dedicated to the Land Raiders of Reef, is the fourth in a series of memorial sculptures to commemorate the struggles of the people against landlord control in different communities on the Island of Lewis. The title for this paper ‘Mutations from Below’ is used by Michel Foucault in his radical re-interpretation of classification systems, The Order of Things. Much of Foucault's writing is concerned with power relations, the way that power is exercised over people's freedom. The democratic thrust of Foucault's writings is paralleled in the determination of the artists, Maclean and Leven, to give a voice to the unrepresented voices of the people of Reef at the time of the Land Raid in 1913 and more generally to the voices of the people in their opposition to their treatment at the hands of landowners and their factors during the Clearances. In successive stages of the essay, the insights of different cultural theorists – Martin Heidegger, Gianni Vattimo, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Jacques Rancière – help to ground the argument in philosophical exegesis. Finally, the paper seeks to determine the nature and extent of the connection between the political and the aesthetic within the memorial sculptural form as exemplified at An Sùileachan.

‘You do not love Russia YEt...’ What Nikolay Vasilievich quarrelled about with Vissarion Grigorievich

How can a teacher make seemingly anachronistic literary polemics sound interesting to a modern student? The article offers an example of making an age-old dispute about the reasons of social hardships in Russia sound relevant. In June 1847, V. Belinsky penned his embittered and passionate missive to N. Gogol, full of fierce criticism of the latter's book Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends [Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druziami]. Belinsky was convinced that the blame should fall on the despotic authorities and defective public and social institutions which restrict people's freedom and leave them morally debilitated; therefore, reforms must begin with an overthrow of the regime. Gogol was gazing inwards and decided that everybody had themselves to blame and should feel personally responsible. Who of the two was right? Were their opinions so irreconcilable? Gogol admitted that there was some truth in Belinsky's scolding, citing his disconnect due to living abroad, whereas Belinsky, insulted from the very first pages by what he called ‘obscurantism and bigotry,' may have overlooked or misinterpreted something, hot-tempered as he was.

Digital development for a progressive networked society

Digital development for a progressive networked society

COVID-19 restrictions and consumers’ psychological reactance toward offline shopping freedom restoration

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic threats and its subsequent restrictions on people's freedom, social interaction, closures of workplaces and shopping stores have caused public psychological reactance. In response, the study develops and tests a conceptual framework, which unveils the effects of perceived choice hesitation and perceived choice confidence on consumers’ psychological reactance. It also corroborates two bipolar behavioral outcomes of consumers’ psychological reactance— choice freedom satisfaction and resistance to persuasion. We employ the moderating role of anticipated worry and trust in government in strengthening the psychological reactance and final behavioral outcomes, respectively. Data collected from the country of origin of COVID-19 pandemic indicated the positive effects of antecedents on psychological reactance, which negatively affected choice freedom satisfaction and positively to resistance to persuasion. Anticipated worry and trust in government positively moderated these relationships. Findings extend the literature on psychology, service management, and consumer behavior, and suggest to government policymakers and store managers.

Whose Body, Whose Life, Whose Decision? A Wesleyan Reflection on Personal Autonomy, Interdependence, and Human Flourishing

ABSTRACT The belief that human beings are rational, autonomous creatures, whose well-being is largely defined by their ability to make personal choices, dominates much of Western culture. Human dignity and the quality of life are largely seen in terms of individual rights and personal choice, valuing people's independence and freedom to act for their own welfare. This model negatively impacts those suffering from dementia. This paradigm is challenged by the Christian claim of being created in the image of God, defined within a Wesleyan framework of relational and interdependent connections. There is a solid body of evidence that persons flourish best in relationships that embody mutual care. The challenge for the church is to be involved in practical, quality care for all persons.

Comparison of a co-produced mental health service to traditional services: A co-produced mixed-methods cross-sectional study.

This study investigates the differences between a co‐produced experimental mental health centre and traditional day centres. For this purpose, we used a collaborative and mixed‐method approach in two complementary studies: (i) a quantitative cross‐sectional study designed to compare users' hospitalization rates and their use of psychiatric medications and (ii) a qualitative study designed to explore and document the experienced differences between co‐produced and traditional services. In the quantitative cross‐sectional study, surveys were administered to 37 users of one co‐produced mental health service and to 40 users of traditional mental health services. A negative binomial regression analysis was performed to examine the relationships between predictors and users' hospitalization rates. After adjusting for the potential confounders, users of the co‐produced centre reported a 63.2% reduced rate of hospitalizations compared with users of traditional mental health services (P = 0.002). Furthermore, 39% of users of the co‐produced centre reported a reduction or even withdrawal from psychiatric medications against 22% of the comparison group (P = 0.036). In the qualitative study, six main differences emerged from a thematic analysis of a large user‐led focus group. In the participants' experiences, the co‐produced service focused on (i) parity and respectful relationships, (ii) people's strengths, (iii) freedom, (iv) psychological continuity, (v) social inclusion, and (vi) recovery orientation. Our research provides empirical evidence concerning the ‘preventive aspect’ of co‐produced mental health services. Additionally, new insights into how different stakeholders, particularly users of co‐produced mental health services, experience the differences between co‐produced and traditional mental health services are provided.