This book clarifies the meaning of the most important and pervasive concepts and tools in bioethical argumentation (principles, values, dignity, rights, duties, deliberation, prudence) and assesses the methodological suitability of the main methods for clinical decision-making and argumentation. The first part of the book is devoted to the most developed or promising approaches regarding bioethical argumentation, namely those based on principles, values and human rights. The authors then continue to deal with the contributions and shortcomings of these approaches and suggest further developments by means of substantive and procedural elements and concepts from practical philosophy, normative systems theory, theory of action, human rights and legal argumentation. Furthermore, new models of biomedical and health care decision-making, which overcome the aforementioned criticism and stress the relevance of the argumentative responsibility, are included.
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<p>This forward-thinking reference spotlights an expansive and inclusive community model for youth alcohol prevention as opposed to traditional individual and school-based group approaches. Focusing on a long-term intervention in a Southwestern border town, it documents the development of critical consciousness in an affected community, and emphasizes young people as crucial drivers of change in their environment. The book’s Community Readiness Model provides vital context for successful coalition building between youth, families, and community entities (e.g., schools, civic leaders, police) in reducing alcohol risk factors and promoting healthier choices. Given the severity and prevalence of youth alcohol use, this case study offers a viable blueprint for large-scale engagement in prevention.</p> <p> </p> <p>Among the featured topics:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>Integrating research into prevention strategies using participatory action research.</li> <li>Breaking down silos between community-based organizations: coalition development.</li> <li>Adult perspectives on nurturing youth leadership and coalition participation.</li> <li>Youth perspectives on youth power as the source of community dev</li> </ul>elopment. <li>Coalition as conclusion: tips on creating a functioning coalition.</li> <li>Community transformational resilience for adolescent alcohol prevention.</li> <p> </p> <p><i>Youth-Community Partnerships for Adolescent Alcohol Preven</i><i>tion</i> is both practical and inspiring reading for researchers and other mental health professionals<b> </b>in psychology, social work, and public health who work with adolescents, communities, and civic engagement.</p> <p></p>
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Markov decision process (MDP) models are widely used for modeling sequential decision-making problems that arise in engineering, economics, computer science, and the social sciences.  Many real-world problems modeled by MDPs have huge state and/or action spaces, giving an opening to the curse of dimensionality and so making practical solution of the resulting models intractable.  In other cases, the system of interest is too complex to allow explicit specification of some of the MDP model parameters, but simulation samples are readily available (e.g., for random transitions and costs). For these settings, various sampling and population-based algorithms have been developed to overcome the difficulties of computing an optimal solution in terms of a policy and/or value function.  Specific approaches include adaptive sampling, evolutionary policy iteration, evolutionary random policy search, and model reference adaptive search. <br>This substantially enlarged new edition reflects the latest developments in novel algorithms and their underpinning theories, and presents an updated account of the topics that have emerged since the publication of the first edition. Includes: <br>innovative material on MDPs, both in constrained settings and with uncertain transition properties; <br>game-theoretic method for solving MDPs; <br>theories for developing roll-out based algorithms; and <br>details of approximation stochastic annealing, a population-based on-line simulation-based algorithm. <br>The self-contained approach of this book will appeal not only to researchers in MDPs, stochastic modeling, and control, and simulation but will be a valuable source of tuition and reference for students of control and operations research.
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<p>If we are going to promote creativity as an ideal to strive toward, shouldn't we make sure we also instil ethical anticipation so our creative contributions produce a better world rather than chaos and waste? Creativity drives cultural development. We all, directly or indirectly, collaborate in the creation of culture, and we are jointly responsible for the way that culture develops. The goals and decisions we make as both creators and adopters pave pathways into the future for us all.<br><br>Instead of merely reflecting on past events, Ethical Ripples of Creativity and Innovation educates for 'proflection'—through cases that present what-might-be scenarios for creative contributions that are emerging into mainstream culture, stimulating real-time thinking about creativity-in-action.. This book offers the opportunity to strengthen ethical anticipation by considering the possibilities streaming from current creative offerings that affect our bodies, emotions, selves, and social interactions. <br><br></p>
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This book provides a comprehensive overview on issues surrounding fertility in patients who have been diagnosed with breast cancer or belong to a high-risk population. The impact of breast cancer treatment on fertility is clearly explained and all the available options for fertility preservation are discussed, including the use of assisted reproduction technologies. Guidance is offered on family planning and on management options when breast cancer arises during pregnancy and when pregnancy occurs after breast cancer. Answers are provided to a wide range of key questions, including: What is the impact of pregnancy after breast cancer on prognosis? What advice should be given on the timing of pregnancy in relation to chemotherapy and endocrine treatment? What is the effect of reducing the duration of endocrine treatment to allow an earlier attempt at pregnancy? Is breast feeding possible? Medical treatments of breast cancer have a huge impact on fertility. While many procedures can be applied to preserve fertility, all must be put into action within the very short time available before starting treatment. Any delay in referral of a woman wishing to preserve her fertility to an ART center with experience in oncologic patients may preclude the possibility of a future pregnancy. In addition, an increasing number of high-risk patients are asking questions about their reproductive life, from choice of contraception to the risks of assisted reproduction techniques. Physicians will find this book an invaluable aid in providing flawless counseling to their patients and ensuring that they receive optimal management.
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The current book provides a final report of activity performed by the COST 290 Action, ‘‘Traffic and QoS Management in Wireless Multimedia Networks,’’ which ran from March 10, 2004, until June 3, 2008. After an introduction to the COST framework and the Action’s survey time-frame and activities, the main part of the book addresses a number of technical issues, which are structured into several chapters. All those issues have been carefully investigated by the COST 290 community during the course of the project – the information presented in this book can be regarded as ultimate for each particular topic; every open research issue addressed in the book is described carefully, corresponding existing studies are analyzed and results achieved by the COST 290 community are presented and compared, and further research directions are defined and analyzed. Because the book covers a wide area of research addressing issues of modern wired and wireless networking at different layers, starting from the physical layer up to the application layer, it can be recommended to be used by researchers and students to obtain a comprehensive analysis on particular research topics including related areas, to obtain broad and ultimate referencing, and to be advised on current open issues. COST 290 is one of the Actions of the European COST Program. Founded in 1971, COST is an intergovernmental framework for European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research, allowing the coordination of nationally funded research on a European level.
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<div> This book analyses the waves of protests, from spontaneous uprisings to well-organized forms of collective action, which have shaken European cities over the last decade. It shows how analysing these protests in connection with the structural context of neoliberal urbanism and its crises is more productive than standard explanations. Processes of neoliberalisation have caused deeply segregated urban landscapes defined by deepening social inequality, rising unemployment, racism, securitization of urban spaces and welfare state withdrawal, particularly from poor peripheral areas, where tensions between marginalized youth and police often manifest in public spaces. Challenging a conventional distinction made in research on protest, the book integrates a structural analysis of processes of large scale urban transformation with analyses of the relationship between 'riots' and social movement action in nine countries: France, Greece, England, Germany, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and Turkey.       </div>
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<p>Differing interpretations, perspectives and expectations on the term sustainability exist. To take sustainability as an action guiding mandate for implementation it needs to be concrete and measurable as well it should weigh pros and cons. But how can such an integrated measurement in the field of renewable energy be conducted balancing the trade-offs between opposing indicators? </p> <p><i>Glances at Renewable and Sustainable Energy</i> provides a thorough overview on the generic principles of sustainability assessment, including projective, thresholding and systemic principles and summarizes five common approaches for a holistic measurement. Approaches such as multi criteria decision analysis, ecological footprint analysis and normative-functional concepts are applied to different case studies in developed-, emerging and developing countries to cover a wide bandwidth of various renewable energy carriers under various conditions. Each case study includes 2 boxes illustrating the scheme behind the approach and exemplary calculations to allow a systematic comparison and a critical reflection of the methods applied.</p> <p> </p> <p>Compiling results on renewable energy assessment of the last decades, <i>Glances at Renewable and Sustainable Energy </i>gives researchers, students, consultants, politicians and entrepreneurs the tools to advance their oriental and instructional knowledge on sustainability and sustainability measurement, to reflect their decisions and tools for analysis and to transfer this knowledge into problem-solving.</p> <p></p>
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