Search Results (249)

This study aims to understand the meaning nursing professionals attribute to their lived experiences of providing humanized care within a public hospital setting. Grounded in Jean Watson’s theory of human caring, the research adopts a qualitative, descriptive phenomenological design to capture the perceptions and emotions of nurses regarding humanized care. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with nine experienced nurses, selected through purposive sampling. The interviews, conducted virtually between July and December 2024, were analyzed using Colaizzi’s method and supported by Atlas.ti software. Four main thematic categories emerged: institutional health policies, professional image and identity, strengths and challenges in care, and essential competencies for humanized care. The findings highlight the critical role of empathy, cultural sensitivity, ethical commitment, and emotional presence in delivering compassionate care. Participants emphasized that, beyond clinical procedures, humanized care requires relational and contextual sensitivity, often hindered by institutional limitations and excessive administrative burdens. The study concludes that nursing professionals are key agents in promoting ethical, empathetic, and culturally respectful practices that humanize health services. These insights offer valuable contributions for designing policies and training strategies aimed at strengthening humanized care as a cornerstone of quality healthcare systems. Full article

Non-autoclave-cured wet layup composites are used extensively in applications ranging from civil and marine infrastructure to offshore components and in transmission power systems. In many of these applications the composites can be exposed to elevated temperatures for extended periods of time. While residual tensile characteristics have been used traditionally to assess the integrity of the composite after a thermal event/exposure, it is emphasized that fiber-dominated characteristics such as longitudinal tensile strength are not affected as much as those associated with shear. This paper reports on the investigation of shear related characteristics through off-axis and short-beam shear testing after exposure to temperatures between 66 °C and 260 °C for periods of time up to 72 h. It is shown that the use of shear test results in conjunction with tensile tests enables better assessment of the competing effects of postcure, which results in an increase in performance, and thermal degradation, which causes drops in performance. Off-axis-to-tensile strength and short-beam shear strength-to-tensile strength ratios are used to determine zones of influence and mechanisms. It is shown that temperatures up to 149 °C can lead to advantageous postcure related increases in performance whereas temperatures above 232 °C can lead to significant deterioration at time periods as low as 4 h. The use of shear tests is shown to provide data critical to performance integrity showing trends otherwise obscured by just the use of longitudinal tensile tests. A phenomenological model developed based on effects of the competing mechanisms and grouping based on phenomenon dominance and temperature regimes is shown to model data well providing a useful context for deign thresholds and determination of remaining structural integrity. Full article

Participation in organized sport is widely encouraged for youth development, yet positive outcomes are not guaranteed. Parents play a pivotal role in shaping young athletes’ experiences, requiring emotional support, interpersonal skills, and self-regulation. This study examines the meanings parents attribute to their children’s sports participation and how young athletes construct their experiences under parental and coaching influences. An interpretive phenomenological methodology involved semi-structured interviews with coaches, focus groups with parents, and open-ended questionnaires to young athletes. Seventeen players (M = 11.2 years, SD = 0.59), nineteen parents (M = 47.6 years, SD = 3.61), and two coaches from the same football club volunteered to participate in the study. Participants were selected through purposive sampling to ensure a homogeneous experience. The findings reveal that parental involvement balances support and pressure, while trust-building between parents and coaches significantly impacts the athletes’ experiences. The evolving role of technology and the importance of social dynamics within teams also emerged as critical factors. Intrinsic motivation, fostering emotional bonding through the sport, and adopting a developmental rather than purely competitive framework were emphasized factors identified as supporting positive youth sport experiences. These findings offer insights into how interconnected relationships among parents, coaches, and athletes influence children’s sports engagement and development. Full article

Introduction: Low medication adherence and low hypertension control are a public health challenge, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Healthcare system- and patient-related barriers hinder the successful management of hypertension. This study aimed to identify the perceptions of barriers and facilitators to hypertension management among health system stakeholders in Santander, Colombia. Materials and Methods: We conducted a qualitative, phenomenological, and interpretative study, comprising five focus groups, to explore the barriers and facilitators to managing people with hypertension. Each focus group was formed by stakeholders from territorial entities, healthcare insurers, or healthcare providers. Meetings were held between December 2022 and February 2023. The sessions were recorded and transcribed using NVivo Transcription and analyzed using NVivo version 1.6.1. Results: Seven categories of barriers and facilitators were identified: strategies, resources, access, risk assessment, cross-sector collaboration, articulation, and stewardship. Of these categories, articulation and stewardship emerged as the main barriers, as revealed through axial coding and cluster analysis, which highlighted deficiencies in stewardship practices, a lack of clear objectives, and misalignment with public policy frameworks. Conclusions: Multisectoral actions extending beyond healthcare providers and aimed at improving coordination and intersectoral collaboration are essential for enhancing hypertension control in LMICs, such as Colombia. Addressing social determinants and strengthening primary healthcare through community-based strategies are critical, making stewardship and improved access key priorities. Full article

Background: Nemaline myopathy is a rare congenital neuromuscular disease associated with progressive weakness and frequent respiratory complications. In emergency situations, families often serve as the first and only responders. The aim of this study is to explore how parents in Spain care for children with nemaline myopathy during emergency situations, focusing on the clinical responses performed at home and the organizational challenges encountered when interacting with healthcare systems. Methods: A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted with 17 parents from 10 families belonging to the Asociación Yo Nemalínica. Semi-structured interviews were performed via video calls, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using Giorgi’s descriptive method and ATLAS.ti software (version 24). Methodological rigor was ensured through triangulation, reflexivity, and member validation. Results: Four themes were identified. First, families were described as acting under extreme pressure and in isolation during acute home emergencies, often providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation and respiratory support without professional backup. Second, families managed ambiguous signs of deterioration using clinical judgment and home monitoring tools, often preventing fatal outcomes. Third, parents frequently assumed guiding roles in emergency departments due to a lack of clinician familiarity with the disease, leading to delays or errors. Finally, the transition to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit was marked by emotional distress and rapid decision-making, with families often participating in critical choices about invasive procedures. These findings underscore the complex, multidisciplinary nature of caregiving. Conclusions: Parents play an active clinical role during emergencies and episodes of deterioration. Their lived experience should be formally integrated into emergency protocols and the continuity of care strategies to improve safety and outcomes. Full article

This study examines how medically disqualified NCAA Division I student-athletes experience the abrupt end of their athletic careers and how those experiences reflect broader cultural and psychological dynamics within college sport. Utilizing an interpretive phenomenology analysis, we explore if the experiences of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I student-athletes, who become medically disqualified, can be conceptualized by researchers through the stages of the Kübler-Ross model addressing grief responses. Unlike the prior research criticizing the application of the model to injured athletes, we found ample support for the possible applicability of each emotional stage; however, our study findings also reveal that the staged transitions do not necessarily follow in sequential order, as suggested by Kübler-Ross. Thus, the model applies as a general framework of grief from loss, but not as a fixed set of grieving processes for elite student-athletes who become medically disqualified. We conclude with implications for NCAA policy, athlete mental health services, and the cultivation of exit cultures that prioritize human well-being over athletic productivity. Full article

Background: Tremor is a common but diagnostically challenging movement disorder due to its clinical heterogeneity and overlapping aetiologies. The 2018 consensus introduced a two-axis classification system that redefined tremor syndromes by distinguishing between clinical phenomenology and underlying causes, and introduced new diagnostic categories, such as essential tremor plus. Methods: This review synthesises recent advances in the epidemiology, classification, pathophysiology, and treatment of tremor syndromes, aiming to provide an integrated and clinically relevant framework that aligns with emerging diagnostic and therapeutic paradigms. Results: We discuss how electrophysiology, neuroimaging, wearable sensors, and artificial intelligence are reshaping diagnostic precision. Syndromes such as essential tremor, parkinsonian tremor, dystonic tremor, task-specific tremor, orthostatic tremor, and functional tremor are examined through syndromic, aetiological, and mechanistic lenses. The limitations of current rating scales and the promise of emerging biomarkers are critically assessed. Conclusions: As therapeutic approaches evolve toward neuromodulation and precision medicine, the need for pathophysiologically grounded diagnostic criteria becomes more urgent. Integrating network-based frameworks, digital diagnostics, and individualised treatment holds promise for advancing tremor care. Full article

Complex phase diagrams are a generic feature of quantum materials that display high-temperature superconductivity. In addition to d-wave superconductivity (or other unconventional states), these phase diagrams typically include various forms of charge-ordered phases, including charge-density waves and/or spin-density waves, as well as electronic nematic states. In most cases, these phases have critical temperatures comparable in magnitude to that of the superconducting state and appear in a “pseudo-gap” regime. In these systems, the high temperature state does not produce a good metal with well-defined quasiparticles but a ”strange metal”. These states typically arise from doping a strongly correlated Mott insulator. With my collaborators, I have identified these behaviors as a problem with “Intertwined Orders”. A pair-density wave is a type of superconducting state that embodies the physics of intertwined orders. Here, I discuss the phenomenology of intertwined orders and the quantum materials that are known to display these behaviors. Full article

This article critically considers sample multigenerational oral traditions of Numic-speaking communities known as the Nüümü (Northern Paiute), Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Newe (Western Shoshone), written down over the last 151 years. Utilizing the GOAT! phenomenological method to compare the onto-epistemologies of Numic peoples with a wide range of data from (G)eology, (O)ral traditions, (A)rchaeology and (A)nthropology, and (T)raditional knowledge, the author analyzed 824 multigenerational ancestral teachings. These descriptions encode multigenerational memories of potential geological, climatic, and ecological observations and interpretations of multiple locations and earth processes throughout the Numic Aboriginal homelands within California and the Great Basin. Through this layered and comparative analysis, the author identified potential convergences of oral traditions, ethnography, ethnohistory, rock art, and geological processes in the regions of California, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau, indicative of large-scale earth changes, cognized by Numic Indigenous communities as earth birthing events, occurring during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene to Middle and Late Holocene, including the Late Dry Period, Medieval Climatic Anomaly, and Little Ice Age. Full article

This essay argues for the reciprocal benefits of joining the new theories of matter emerging out of critical posthumanism and the psychedelic drugs currently experiencing a so-called “renaissance” in global north societies. While the former’s twin emphasis on relationality and embodiment is perfectly suited to capture and ground the ontological, epistemological, and ethical implications of psychedelic experiences of interconnectedness and transformation, these substances are in turn powerful companions through which to enact a “posthuman phenomenology” that helps us with the urgent task to “access, amplify, and describe” our deep imbrication with our more-than-human environments. In other words, I argue that while the “new materialism” emerging out of posthumanism can help elaborate a psychedelic rationality, psychedelics can in turn operate as educators in materiality. It is from this materialist perspective that we can best make sense of psychedelics’ often touted potential for social transformation and the enduring suspicion that they are somehow at odds with the “ontoepistemological order” of modernity. From this point of view, I contend that a crucial critical move is to push against the common trope that this opposition is best expressed as a turn from the narrow scientific and “consumerist materialism” of modern Western societies to more expansive “spiritual” worldviews. Pushing against this science-–spirituality binary, which in fact reproduces modern “indivi/dualism” by confining psychedelic experience inside our heads, I argue instead that what is in fact needed to think through and actualize such potentials is an increased attention to our material transcorporeality. In a nutshell, if we want psychedelics to inform social change, we must be more, not less, materialist—albeit by redefining matter in a rather “weird”, non-reductive way and by redefining consciousness as embodied. By the end of the essay, attaching psychedelics to a new materialism will enable us to formulate a “material spirituality” that establishes psychedelics’ political value less in an idealistic or cognitive “politics of consciousness” and more in a “materialization of critique”. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most influential and rapidly developing phenomena of our time. New fields of study are being created at universities, and managers are constantly introducing new AI solutions for business management, marketing, and advertising new products. Unfortunately, AI is also used to promote dangerous political parties and ideologies. The research problem that is the focus of this work is expressed in the following question: How does the symbiotic relationship between artificial and natural intelligence manifest across three dimensions of human experience—philosophical understanding, educational practice, and pastoral care—and what hermeneutical, phenomenological, and critical realist insights can illuminate both the promises and perils of this emerging co-evolution? In order to address this issue, an interdisciplinary research team was established. This team comprised a philosopher, an educator, and a pastoral theologian. This study is grounded in a critical–hermeneutic meta-analysis of the existing literature, ecclesial documents, and empirical investigations on AI. The results of scientific research allow for a broader insight into the impact of AI on humans and on personal relationships in Christian communities. The authors are concerned not only with providing an in-depth understanding of the issue but also with taking into account the ecumenical perspective of religious, social, and cultural education of contemporary Christians. Our analysis reveals that cultivating a healthy symbiosis between artificial and natural intelligence requires specific competencies and ethical frameworks. We therefore conclude with practical recommendations for Christian formation that neither uncritically embrace nor fearfully reject AI, but rather foster wise discernment for navigating this unprecedented co-evolutionary moment in human history. Full article

Workforce transformation is one of the most pressing challenges in the AI-driven construction industry, as traditional skilled labour roles are rapidly evolving into more interdisciplinary, digitally enabled positions. This study aims to investigate how AI is fundamentally reshaping skill requirements within the construction sector, to analyse stakeholder perceptions and adaptive responses to workforce transformation, and to explore strategies for optimizing construction workforce development to facilitate the critical transition from traditional “skilled workers” to contemporary “smart talent.” It employs phenomenological qualitative research methodology to conduct in-depth interviews with 20 stakeholders in Chongqing, and uses NVivo 14 to conduct thematic analysis of the data. The findings indicate that AI has penetrated all areas of the construction process and is transforming jobs to more likely be digitalized, collaborative, and multi-faceted. However, significant cognitive disparities and varying adaptive capacities among different stakeholder groups have created structural imbalances within the workforce development ecosystem. Based on these key findings, a four-pillar talent development strategy is proposed, encompassing institutional support, educational reform, enterprise engagement, and group development, while stressing the necessity for systemic-orchestrated coordination to reimagine a smart talent ecosystem. This study advances theoretical understanding of digital transformation within construction labour markets, while offering real pathways and institutional contexts for developing regions that desire to pursue workforce transformation and sustainable industrial development in the AI era. Full article

A longstanding ambiguity surrounds the operationalization of consciousness in artificial systems, complicated by the philosophical and cultural weight of subjective experience. This work examines whether cognitive architectures may be designed to support a functionally explicit form of artificial consciousness, focusing not on the replication of phenomenology, but rather on measurable, technically realizable introspective mechanisms. Drawing on a critical review of foundational and contemporary literature, this study articulates a conceptual and methodological shift: from investigating the experiential perspective of agents (“what it is like to be a bat”) to analyzing the informational, self-regulatory, and adaptive structures that enable purposive behavior. The approach combines theoretical analysis with a comparative review of major cognitive architectures, evaluating their capacity to implement access consciousness and internal monitoring. Findings indicate that several state-of-the-art systems already display core features associated with functional consciousness—such as self-explanation, context-sensitive adaptation, and performance evaluation—without invoking subjective states. These results support the thesis that cognitive engineering may progress more effectively by focusing on operational definitions of consciousness that are amenable to implementation and empirical validation. In conclusion, this perspective enables the development of artificial agents capable of autonomous reasoning and self-assessment, grounded in technical clarity rather than speculative constructs. Full article

This study presents a systematic review of fatigue analysis methodologies and failure criteria for asphalt binders and mixtures employed in various cyclic fatigue testing configurations. The investigation focuses on two principal predictive approaches: phenomenological models and mechanistic frameworks, which are commonly utilized to forecast asphalt pavement fatigue life based on experimental data from different fatigue tests. A critical evaluation is conducted on the diverse failure criteria integrated within these analytical approaches, with particular emphasis on their respective merits and limitations. The current research findings reveal a notable absence of consensus regarding the precise definition of the fatigue failure criteria for asphalt materials. Furthermore, critical parameters including accuracy assessment, reliability verification, and sensitivity analysis of these failure criteria are identified as requiring enhanced research attention. This review recommends specific fatigue failure criteria classified according to fatigue testing methods and material types. This comprehensive analysis of fatigue failure mechanisms in asphalt composites aims to inform strategic refinements for future research trajectories and enhance durability-oriented pavement design practices. Full article

Mental illness relapse among teachers presents a growing public health concern, particularly in under-resourced settings, where social and structural factors often go unaddressed. This study aimed to explore challenges outside the workplace that contribute to mental illness relapse among public school teachers in Limpopo Province and how they cope with them. Guided by the Stress-Vulnerability Model, a qualitative explorative phenomenological design was employed. Fourteen participants with a documented history of existing mental illness and mental illness relapse were purposively selected across four different hospitals. The data were collected through in-depth, face-to-face semi-structured interviews until data saturation was reached. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using Tesch’s open coding method. The findings revealed unstable home environments, community-level stigma, inadequate institutional support, and systemic barriers to mental healthcare access. Moreover, the participants rely on family members for support and on spiritual practices to cope, highlighting gaps in formal support systems. Addressing these overlooked challenges is critical to reducing relapse resulting from social and systematic challenges, promoting mental health equity, and sustaining teacher resilience in underserved communities. This study calls for collaborative efforts from policymakers, educational institutions, healthcare providers, and community leaders, including faith-based organisations, to develop integrated mental health strategies. Such strategies can promote mental health equity, reduce stigma, and support sustainable teacher well-being in vulnerable communities. Full article