Neue Besch?ftigungsstrategien jenseits von externer und interner Flexibilisierung

Recent research about regular employment in core areas of high qualified service work in Germany yields contradictory findings about continuities and changes in employment stability. In addressing current debates about changing employment relations, this paper examines how organizational change and the role of customers in service work interact to shape employer demands for more flexible employment. The results of a qualitative study of employment practices in one branch of qualified service work, IT services, shows how clients?? intervention into the production process affects skill demand and firms?? use of flexible employment. At the same time, a pronounced client orientation precipitates the need for context-specific knowledge and stability of employment. The resulting employment strategies aim at developing long-term relations with free-lancers and other short-term workers. These new employment practices call into question the well-accepted distinction between internal and external forms of employment flexibility.     

Promoting work-related activities in a high secure setting: exploration of staff and patients’ views

Introduction: Adults diagnosed with mental disorders, in particular those who have a history of offending, have low employment rates. Here we explore staff and patients’ views on the importance of work and vocational activities offered at a high secure hospital. Method: Two hundred seventy-six patients and 106 staff were approached; 54.3% of the patients and 58% of staff completed the questionnaire. Results: Educational achievement in patients was low but nearly two-thirds of patients had been engaged in some form of work prior to admission. Staff and patients felt that vocational opportunities offered in the hospital should more closely resemble ‘real work’ and they broadly agreed on the areas of activities of potential benefit. Staff felt more strongly than patients that patients lose work-related skills during admission. Both groups recognised the importance of work for mental health and in preventing reoffending. Conclusion: Detention in such settings provides an opportunity for patients to maintain as well as expand on skills aiding their future reintegration into work settings.     

Differences among species in compact bone tissue microstructure of mammalian skeleton: use of a discriminant function analysis for species identification

In order to develop an identification key for distinguishing between several mammalian species, bone structure of their compact bone tissue was analyzed using qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Ninety femora of adult male humans, pigs, cows, sheep, rabbits, and rats were studied. The average area, perimeter, minimum, and maximum diameter of 1863 Haversian canals and 1863 secondary osteons were measured using a digital image device. The observed data were first used to evaluate inter- and intraspecies diversity. After that, we applied a discriminant function analysis for differentiation of the species by these variables. Classification functions for investigated species give cross-validated correct classification rates for 76.17% of cases. This percentage value can be increased by integrating conclusions from the qualitative analysis.     

Self-Awareness (<Emphasis Type="Italic">svasaṃvedana</Emphasis>) in Dignāga’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pramāṇasamuccaya</Emphasis> and -<Emphasis Type="Italic">vṛtti</Emphasis>: A Close Reading

The concept of “self-awareness” (svasaṃvedana) enters Buddhist epistemological discourse in the Pramāṇasamuccaya and -vṛtti by Dignāga (ca. 480–540), the founder of the Buddhist logico-epistemological tradition. Though some of the key passages have already been dealt with in various publications, no attempt has been made to comprehensively examine all of them as a whole. A close reading is here proposed to make up for this deficit. In connection with a particularly difficult passage (PS(V) 1.8cd-10) that presents the means of valid cognition and its result (pramāṇa/pramāṇaphala), a new interpretation is suggested, inspired by the commentary of Jinendrabuddhi. This interpretation highlights an aspect of selfawareness that has hitherto not been claimed for Dignāga: self-awareness offers essentially subjective access to one’s own mental states and factors.     

Ageing in forensic psychiatric secure settings: the views of members of staff

Background: Although the prevalence of older patients in forensic psychiatric services is increasing, research around service provision for this population is very limited. We aimed to gather the views of members of staff on how well secure services are meeting the challenges of an ageing population.

Methods: Three focus groups were carried out with 13 members of staff working with older patients in secure services. A topic guide, based on the research team’s previous research, guided the sessions. The focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed through thematic analysis.

Results: Two themes were identified: (1) Identifying patients’ needs, which focused on how promptly any emerging issues in the older patients are identified and reported; (2) addressing patients’ needs, which focused on how the unique needs of the older patients are addressed, once established.

Conclusions: There are unique age-related issues that may have an impact on the older patients’ opportunities for recovery, including a lack of specialist training for members of staff, prolonged stay in secure care and a limited number of age-relevant activities. Far from optimal, provision requires improvement through the active involvement of the primary stakeholders.     

Geschlecht, Ethnie, Klasse im Kapitalismus – über die Verschr?nkung sozialer Verh?ltnisse und hegemonialer Deutungen im gesellschaftlichen Reproduktionsprozess

This article asks how far social differentiation referring to gender and ethnicity as well as related inequalities are not only a result of capitalist economy but a structural feature of capitalism. The intersection of social relations and hegemonic constructions are the subject of analysis. Arguments and insights of regulation theory, feminist theory and men??s studies are discussed and continued. It is shown how andro- and eurocentric orientations were an essential feature of capitalism from its origin, and how they determined its historic specific societal structures, societal orders and dynamics. This is discussed focusing on the functional differentiation and the division of labour, inter- and intra-societal relations and hegemonic constructions, and referring to globalization and gender relations. It appears that historically capitalist formation inevitably must be seen as based on gendered and ethnic domination, but that there are also contingencies beside relations of subordination. New arrangements of domination as well as tendencies towards equity emerge. In conclusion, an epistemological outlook opens up for an analytical view in favor of perspectives which transcend the critical reflection on the western capitalist standpoint.     

Changing Frames in Buddhist Thought: The Concept of Ākāra in Abhidharma and in Buddhist Epistemological Analysis

It has been argued that the use of the concept of ākāra—a mental “form,” “appearance” or “aspect”—in Buddhist epistemological analysis or pramā?a exhibits continuities with earlier Buddhist thinking about mental processes, in particular in Abhidharma. A detailed inquiry into uses of the term ākāra in pertinent contexts in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmako?abhā?ya brings to light different semantic nuances and functions of this term. The characteristic use of ākāra in Buddhist epistemological discourse turns out to be continuous with only some of the nuances it has in Abhidharma. Moreover, ākāra becomes associated with novel explanatory functions in Buddhist pramā?a. These discoveries underscore the need to pay closer attention to the reuse of terms and concepts, ideas and arguments in Buddhist philosophy, and to the often subtle adaptations and transformations that formed an integral part of its history.