La experiencia de los receptores en el trasplante de ��rganos y tejidos

El trasplante de ��rganos y/o tejidos es considerado como una opci��n terap��utica viable para el tratamiento tanto de enfermedades cr��nicas o en estadios terminales, como de afectaciones no vitales, pero que generen una disminuci��n en la calidad de vida percibida por el paciente. Este procedimiento, de car��cter multidimensional, est�� compuesto por 3 actores principales: el donante, el ��rgano/tejido, y el receptor. Si bien un porcentaje significativo de investigaciones y planes de intervenci��n han girado en torno a la dimensi��n biol��gica del trasplante, y a la promoci��n de la donaci��n; el inter��s por la experiencia psicosocial y la calidad de vida de los receptores en este proceso ha aumentado durante la ��ltima d��cada. En relaci��n con esto, la presente monograf��a se plantea como objetivo general la exploraci��n de la experiencia y los significados construidos por los pacientes trasplantados, a trav��s de una revisi��n sistem��tica de la literatura sobre esta tem��tica. Para ello, se plantearon unos objetivos espec��ficos derivados del general, se seleccionaron t��rminos o palabras claves por cada uno de estos, y se realiz�� una b��squeda en 5 bases de datos para revistas indexadas: Ebsco Host (Academic Search; y Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection); Proquest; Pubmed; y Science Direct. A partir de los resultados, se establece que si bien la vivencia de los receptores ha comenzado a ser investigada, a��n es necesaria una mayor exploraci��n sobre la experiencia de estos pacientes; exploraci��n que carecer��a de objetivo si no se hiciera a trav��s de las narrativas o testimonios de los mismos receptores

How can strategic philanthropy contribute to innovation for companies

This investigation proposes to explore the existing link between a strategic conception of philanthropy and innovation. Indeed, the nature of the research question relies on an unexplored field in the CSR and Innovation management academic literature. It starts with the interest to know which the benefits are for a firm encouraged to invest strategically in philanthropy. In this regard, the analysis contributes in fitting this gap by following different objectives in an exploratory perspective. Throughout the research it will be analyzed the concept and the current and past contributions on the different branches of innovation (product innovation, managerial innovation, technological innovation), to accentuate the relation between an accurate strategic approach to philanthropy and the impact on the organizational value. Indeed, analyzing philanthropic innovation may provide insights about business opportunities and notions related to social investments and profit. That aspect includes the link between those strategic decisions that a firm can use to maximize those investments as it was part of their core business. It also proves the existing link between CSR and innovation, and the possibilities that the enterprises have towards this subject.

On blame-freeness and reciprocity: an experimental study

The theory of reciprocity is predicated on the assumption that people are willing to reward nice or kind acts and to punish unkind ones. This assumption raises the question as to how to define kindness. In this paper we offer a new definition of kindness that we call ���blame-freeness.��� Put most simply, blame-freeness states that in judging whether player i has been kind or unkind to player j in a social situation, player j would have to put himself in the strategic position of player i, while retaining his preferences, and ask if he would have acted in a manner that was worse than i did under identical circumstances. If j would have acted in a more unkind manner than i acted, then we say that j does not blame i for his behavior. If, however, j would have been nicer than i was, then we say that ���j blames i��� for his actions (i���s actions were blameworthy). We consider this notion a natural, intuitive and empirically relevant way to explain the motives of people engaged in reciprocal behavior. After developing the conceptual framework, we then test this concept in a laboratory experiment involving tournaments and find significant support for the theory.

Bondade, Altru��smo e Coopera����o. Considera����es evolutivas para a educa����o e a ��tica ambiental

A origem biol��gica da bondade humana e a sua rela����o com o altru��smo social e a coopera����o s��o discutidas no contexto da biologia evolutiva. Os seus fundamentos naturais s��o apresentados a partir de precursores animais como a empatia social e a teoria da mente, nos primatas. Apresentam-se algumas das condi����es para a emerg��ncia da ��tica humana. Num mundo globalizado, discutem-se as condi����es etol��gicas e psicol��gicas para a experi��ncia da bondade em contextos expandidos. Significadas pela linguagem, a bondade e a compaix��o s��o vitais tanto para a defini����o de princ��pios ��ticos em ambiente, como para a educa����o para os valores ambientais.

Williams Syndrome: the extent of agreement between parent and self report of psychological difficulties

Background and Objectives: People with Williams syndrome (WS) have been reported by their carers to have problems with attention, anxiety and social relationships. People with WS have been shown to report their anxieties. This study extends our knowledge of how people with WS see themselves in terms of behaviour and social relationships. Methods: A survey using self and parent report forms of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Results: Both parents and individuals with WS (N = 31) reported difficulties in emotional disorder and hyperactivity symptoms and strengths in prosocial behaviours such as altruism and empathy. They disagreed about peer problems. Conclusions: People with WS understand some but not all of their difficulties. In particular they fail to recognize their social difficulties which may lead them to be vulnerable to exploitation.

The experimetrics of public goods: inferring motivations from contributions

In public goods experiments, stochastic choice, censoring and motivational heterogeneity give scope for disagreement over the extent of unselfishness, and whether it is reciprocal or altruistic. We show that these problems can be addressed econometrically, by estimating a finite mixture model to isolate types, incorporating double censoring and a tremble term. Most subjects act selfishly, but a substantial proportion are reciprocal with altruism playing only a marginal role. Isolating reciprocators enables a test of Sugden���s model of voluntary contributions. We estimate that reciprocators display a self-serving bias relative to the model.

Beyond indifferent players: on the existence of prisoners dilemmas in games with amicable and adversarial preferences

Why don���t agents cooperate when they both stand to gain? This question ranks among the most fundamental in the social sciences. Explanations abound. Among the most compelling are various configurations of the prisoner���s dilemma (PD), or public goods problem. Payoffs in PD���s are specified in one of two ways: as primitive cardinal payoffs or as ordinal final utility. However, as final utility is objectively unobservable, only the primitive payoff games are ever observed. This paper explores mappings from primitive payoff to utility payoff games and demonstrates that though an observable game is a PD there are broad classes of utility functions for which there exists no associated utility PD. In particular we show that even small amounts of either altruism or enmity may disrupt the mapping from primitive payoff to utility PD. We then examine some implications of these results.

A influ��ncia do capital social e do comportamento de cidadania organizacional na satisfa����o de vida e desempenho no trabalho: um estudo comparativo entre Brasil e Portugal

Desde �� muito, os temas, capital social e comportamento de cidadania organizacional (CCO) t��m sido extensivamente pesquisado e estudados nos EUA, no entanto estes t��m recebido pouca relev��ncia a n��vel de outros contextos internacionais. Se por um lado, a sua import��ncia e infer��ncia na performance dentro do contexto empresarial t��m sido crescente, caracterizando a necessidade de um entendimento cada vez maior por parte das empresas, por outro, o investimento das corpora����es de grande porte, caminham cada vez mais em dire����o dos pa��ses com crescimento exponencial sustentado, como s��o o BRIC, o que cna uma necessidade fomentada de pesquisa nesta ��rea de pesquisa para estas regi��es. Este estudo pretendeu investigar, avaliar e mapear a influ��ncia do capital e do CCO na satisfa����o de vida e desempenho no trabalho do funcion��rio de n��vel superior, no contexto empresarial brasileiro e portugu��s, com o objetivo de identificar quais as diferen��as existentes nestes duas realidade, devido ao investimento crescente do segundo para com o primeiro. Genericamente, encontramos clara influ��ncia das dimens��es do CCO tanto para o desempenho no trabalho como para a satisfa����o de vida do trabalhador, assim como presen��a tamb��m marcada das duas dimens��es do capital Social. Mais especificamente, foi entendido pelo nosso estudo que a realidade empresarial brasileira necessita que as empresas criem mecanismos que fomentem os la��os entre colegas, a conscienciosidade, altru��smo e virtude c��vica dos seus funcion��rios, pois assim aumentar�� o desempenho. J�� para o contexto portugu��s, apenas a conscienciosidade e a virtude apresentaram significativa rela����o. Desta forma, conclui-se que para o investimento das empresas portugu��s no Brasil, estas precisam ter aten����o �� dimens��o estrutural - rela����o com colegas - promovendo-a e �� necessidade patente que os brasileiros t��m de ajudar os seus colegas - comportamento altru��sta - para aumentar o desempenho no trabalho. No que se refere a satisfa����o de vida, que se mostrou estreitamente relacionada com o desempenho, o brasileiro apenas precisa notar confian��a nos colegas, senti-se altru��sta e consciencioso, ao passo que o portugu��s necessita criar fortes la��os com os colegas, mas n��o fomentar o comportamento altru��stico. Desta forma as empresas investidoras apenas precisam ter aten����o mais uma vez a necessidade de prestar ajuda especifica que o brasileiro sente, promovendo workshops com os pr��prios funcion��rios, por forma a estes passarem o seu conhecimento, monitorias, est��gios, entre outros. Estes resultados demonstraram que cada continente, pa��s (possuidor ou n��o da mesma l��ngua) e/ou cultura comporta diferen��as significativas no contexto empresarial, assim tornase dif��cil implementar t��cnicas e comportamentos internacionais e esperar que os resultados sejam exatamente iguais. Este estudo espera dar alguns instrumentos de compara����o para que as empresas portuguesas entendam, a este n��vel, a realidade brasileira.

Three essays on local demand for public services

Local provision of public services has the positive effect of increasing the efficiency because each locality has its idiosyncrasies that determine a particular demand for public services. This dissertation addresses different aspects of the local demand for public goods and services and their relationship with political incentives. The text is divided in three essays. The first essay aims to test the existence of yardstick competition in education spending using panel data from Brazilian municipalities. The essay estimates two-regime spatial Durbin models with time and spatial fixed effects using maximum likelihood, where the regimes represent different electoral and educational accountability institutional settings. First, it is investigated whether the lame duck incumbents tend to engage in less strategic interaction as a result of the impossibility of reelection, which lowers the incentives for them to signal their type (good or bad) to the voters by mimicking their neighbors��� expenditures. Additionally, it is evaluated whether the lack of electorate support faced by the minority governments causes the incumbents to mimic the neighbors��� spending to a greater extent to increase their odds of reelection. Next, the essay estimates the effects of the institutional change introduced by the disclosure on April 2007 of the Basic Education Development Index (known as IDEB) and its goals on the strategic interaction at the municipality level. This institutional change potentially increased the incentives for incumbents to follow the national best practices in an attempt to signal their type to voters, thus reducing the importance of local information spillover. The same model is also tested using school inputs that are believed to improve students��� performance in place of education spending. The results show evidence for yardstick competition in education spending. Spatial auto-correlation is lower among the lame ducks and higher among the incumbents with minority support (a smaller vote margin). In addition, the institutional change introduced by the IDEB reduced the spatial interaction in education spending and input-setting, thus diminishing the importance of local information spillover. The second essay investigates the role played by the geographic distance between the poor and non-poor in the local demand for income redistribution. In particular, the study provides an empirical test of the geographically limited altruism model proposed in Pauly (1973), incorporating the possibility of participation costs associated with the provision of transfers (Van de Wale, 1998). First, the discussion is motivated by allowing for an ���iceberg cost��� of participation in the programs for the poor individuals in Pauly���s original model. Next, using data from the 2000 Brazilian Census and a panel of municipalities based on the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) from 2001 to 2007, all the distance-related explanatory variables indicate that an increased proximity between poor and non-poor is associated with better targeting of the programs (demand for redistribution). For instance, a 1-hour increase in the time spent commuting by the poor reduces the targeting by 3.158 percentage points. This result is similar to that of Ashworth, Heyndels and Smolders (2002) but is definitely not due to the program leakages. To empirically disentangle participation costs and spatially restricted altruism effects, an additional test is conducted using unique panel data based on the 2004 and 2006 PNAD, which assess the number of benefits and the average benefit value received by beneficiaries. The estimates suggest that both cost and altruism play important roles in targeting determination in Brazil, and thus, in the determination of the demand for redistribution. Lastly, the results indicate that ���size matters���; i.e., the budget for redistribution has a positive impact on targeting. The third essay aims to empirically test the validity of the median voter model for the Brazilian case. Information on municipalities are obtained from the Population Census and the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court for the year 2000. First, the median voter demand for local public services is estimated. The bundles of services offered by reelection candidates are identified as the expenditures realized during incumbents��� first term in office. The assumption of perfect information of candidates concerning the median demand is relaxed and a weaker hypothesis, of rational expectation, is imposed. Thus, incumbents make mistakes about the median demand that are referred to as misperception errors. Thus, at a given point in time, incumbents can provide a bundle (given by the amount of expenditures per capita) that differs from median voter���s demand for public services by a multiplicative error term, which is included in the residuals of the demand equation. Next, it is estimated the impact of the module of this misperception error on the electoral performance of incumbents using a selection models. The result suggests that the median voter model is valid for the case of Brazilian municipalities.

On the impossibility of prisoner's dilemmas in adversarial preference games

Why don't agents cooperate when they both stand to gain? This question ranks among the most fundamental in the social sciences. Explanations abound. Among the most compelling are various configurations of the prisoner��s dilemma (PD), or public goods problem. Payoffs in PD��s are specified in one of two ways: as primitive cardinal payoffs or as ordinal final utility. However, as final utility is objectively unobservable, only the primitive payoff games are ever observed. This paper explores mappings from primitive payoff to utility payoff games and demonstrates that though an observable game is a PD there are broad classes of utility functions for which there exists no associated utility PD. In particular we show that even small amounts of either altruism or jealousy may disrupt the mapping from primitive payoff to utility PD. We then examine some implications of these results �� including the possibility of conflict inducing growth.

Fertility and the value of Life

The value of life methodology has been recently applied to a wide range of contexts as a means to evaluate welfare gains attributable to mortality reductions and health improvements. Yet, it suffers from an important methodological drawback: it does not incorporate into the analysis child mortality, individuals��� decisions regarding fertility, and their altruism towards offspring. Two interrelated dimensions of fertility choice are potentially essential in evaluating life expectancy and health related gains. First, child mortality rates can be very important in determining welfare in a context where individuals choose the number of children they have. Second, if altruism motivates fertility, life expectancy gains at any point in life have a twofold effect: they directly increase utility via increased survival probabilities, and they increase utility via increased welfare of the offspring. We develop a manageable way to deal with value of life valuations when fertility choices are endogenous and individuals are altruistic towards their offspring. We use the methodology developed in the paper to value the reductions in mortality rates experienced by the US between 1965 and 1995. The calculations show that, with a very conservative set of parameters, altruism and fertility can easily double the value of mortality reductions for a young adult, when compared to results obtained using the traditional value of life methodology.

The spenders-hoarders theory of capital accumulations, wealth distribution and fiscal policy

This paper proposes a simple OLG model which is consistent with the essential facts about consumer behavior, capital accumulation and wealth distribution, and yields some new and surprising conclusions about fiscal policy. By considering a society in which individuais are distinguished according to two characteristics, altruism and wealth preference, we show that those who in the long run hold the bulk of private capital are not so rnuch motivated by dynastic altruism as by preference for wealth. Two types of social segmentation can result with different wcalth distribution. To a large extcnt our results seem to fit reality better than those obtained with standard optimal growth models in which dynastic altruism ( or r ate o f impatience) is the only source of heterogeneity: overaccumulation can appear, public debt and unfunded pensions are not neutra!, estate taxation can improve the welfare of the top wealthy.

A rela����o de amizade nas redes sociais de estudantes universit��rios de Natal/RN

The basis of sociability in humans is based on cooperation. The relationship of friendship is vital to the social, emotional and cognitive development of an individual and can be understood as a consequence of selection for reciprocal altruism in humans. The period of adulthood is considered very suitable and appropriate for the investigation of the relations of friendship, but the Brazilian literature on friendship in adults is still nascent. Therefore, the objective was to characterize the relationship of friendship among college students. The study gathered 500 students from higher education institutions in the city of Natal-RN, Brazil, and 250 women (average age 24.1 �� 7.66 years) and 250 men (mean age 26.77 �� 9.64 years). Two questionnaires anonymously and individual were applied: a sociodemographic questionnaire and the other with the desired characteristics in idealized friends. Study 1 assessed the degree of importance of characteristics in the process of choosing a friend of the same sex and opposite sex of the participant. Study 2 investigated the relationship between patterns of idealization of friends and self-assessment of participants. Overall, were the preferred characteristics "Companionship" and "Sincerity" to idealized friends. We also found the influence of sex on the characteristics attributed to an female ideal friend, with emphasis on men for "Beauty/Good looks" and "Intelligence" and women to "Companionship" and "Sincerity". Finally, we observed a positive correlation between participants' self-assessment and preferences for the characteristics of the friends devised. This study revealed important elements for understanding the relationship of friendship, specifically the process of choosing friends. The results reinforce the importance of studying the relationship of friendship to a better understanding of human social behavior.