Search

Background: Palliative care is insufficiently integrated in the continuum of care for older people. It is unclear to what extent healthcare policy for older people includes elements of palliative care and thus supports its integration. Aim: (1) To develop a reference framework for identifying palliative care contents in policy documents; (2) to determine inclusion of palliative care in public policy documents on healthcare for older people in 13 rapidly ageing countries. Design: Directed documentary analysis of public policy documents (legislation, policies/strategies, guidelines, white papers) on healthcare for older people. Using existing literature, we developed a reference framework and data extraction form assessing 10 criteria of palliative care inclusion. Country experts identified documents and extracted data. Setting: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, England, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain. Results: Of 139 identified documents, 50 met inclusion criteria. The most frequently addressed palliative care elements were coordination and continuity of care (12 countries), communication and care planning, care for family, and ethical and legal aspects (11 countries). Documents in 10 countries explicitly mentioned palliative care, nine addressed symptom management, eight mentioned end-of-life care, and five referred to existing palliative care strategies (out of nine that had them). Conclusions: Health care policies for older people need revising to include reference to end-of-life care and dying and ensure linkage to existing national or regional palliative care strategies. The strong policy focus on care coordination and continuity in policies for older people is an opportunity window for palliative care advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scientists agree that replications are critical to the debate on the validity of religious priming research, religious priming replications are scarce. This paper attempts to replicate and extend previously observed effects of religious priming on ethical behavior. We test the effect of religious instrumental music on individuals' ethical behavior with university participants (N = 408) in the Czech Republic, Japan, and the US. Participants were randomly assigned to listen to one of three musical tracks (religious, secular, or white noise) or to no music (control) for the duration of a decision-making game. Participants were asked to indicate which side of a vertically-bisected computer screen contained more dots and, in every trial, indicating that the right side of the screen had more dots earned participants the most money (irrespective of the number of dots). Therefore, participants were able to report dishonestly to earn more money. In agreement with previous research, we did not observe any main effects of condition. However, we were unable to replicate a moderating effect of self-reported religiosity on the effects of religious music on ethical behavior. Nevertheless, further analyses revealed moderating effects for ritual participation and declared religious affiliation congruent with the musical prime. That is, participants affiliated with a religious organization and taking part in rituals cheated significantly less than their peers when listening to religious music. We also observed significant differences in cheating behavior across samples. On average, US participants cheated the most and Czech participants cheated the least. We conclude that normative conduct is, in part, learned through active membership in religious communities and our findings provide further support for religious music as a subtle, moral cue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence are seen as mater-of-course parts of the world today. Japan, as one of the leading countries in technological innovations, is the most advanced in terms of approach to digital society. Japanese society and government have been working on a new concept of life where all the digital technologies will communicate through the internet. Society organised in this way is called Society 5.0 - super Smart society. In Japan, this concept is centred about seventeen sustainable goals (United Nations, 2018). Society 5.0 is a reaction to the fundamental technological revolutionary changes known today as Industry 4.0. Thus, Society 5.0 is the consequence of a technological revolution that will eventually affect not just the production but all parts of today's life as well. The new technologies evoke some fundamental philosophical and existential questions. How can technological advances improve the prosperity and functioning of society? What about the privacy and security of all the users? The present paper compares Japan and the Czech Republic from the perspective of digitalization of society based on three main aspects: government programs supporting digital technologies, number of technically educated experts and investments in science and research. The objective is to find out how much the Czech Republic has advanced towards preparations for digital society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic prerequisite for the presented research was research of scientific databases. This theoretical basis is for primary two-level research. The first level consists of quality research for which important companies in the Czech Republic were selected, presenting applied personnel marketing. The result was 13 attributes which HR staff view as the way to conduct personnel marketing. The resulting attributes were the basis for quantitative research. For uncovering of potential latent attributes the results were subjected to factor analysis. The result of the research is a targeted overview of how companies perceive personnel marketing as well as how they use it. Research has been carried out in the Czech Republic, but the results are applicable globally, because all enterprises in survey have a parent company in the EU, USA, Japan or China, and apply their corporate culture. The results of the research are applicable both in the theoretical area where they moved to the examined issues forward and in the practical area where they may serve for better work with human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]