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Bretzke, James T. Moral Debates in Contemporary Catholic Thought: Paradigms, Principles, and Prudence
No full textHow do we navigate a morally complex world? How do we know how to do the right thing, especially when so many voices are clamoring for our attention, telling us that they have the full truth of just what the “right thing” is, and what it requires of us? James T. Bretzke, S.J., one of most lucid interpreters of the Catholic tradition writing today, helps students morally analyze a wide range of controversial and contested issues in society today through the use of principles, paradigms, and the cardinal virtue of prudence.
After introducing the approach of principled prudence, drawing on Thomas Aquinas, Catholic Social Teaching, and other sources, Bretzke engages a range of moral considerations in the following chapters: the death penalty, abortion, gender, immigration and border security, welfare, economics, and faithful citizenship.
In the concluding chapter, Bretzke surveys our current political landscape, and its attendant culture wars, and suggests a possible path forward drawing on the central moral concept of the common good
A hospital-at-home care model innovation: An exploratory study
No full textThis study assessed the impact of a hospital-at-home program compared with a traditional inpatient hospitalization on acute care outcomes, including 30-day readmission rates and length of stay, for similar populations of patients diagnosed with COVID-19
Fiscal Crisis
No full textAn indispensable and exemplary reference work, this Encyclopedia adeptly navigates the multidisciplinary field of critical political science, providing a comprehensive overview of the methods, approaches, concepts, scholars and journals that have come to influence the discipline’s development over the last six decades
EXAMINING QUANTITATIVE HONEST SIGNALING IN APOSEMATIC TRAITS OF THE GREEN AND BLACK POISON FROG DENDROBATES AURATUS FROM COSTA RICA
Full text linkA COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BIOCRUSTS ON GYPSUM AND NON-GYPSUM SOILS IN THE NORTHERN CHIHUAHUAN AND EASTERN MOJAVE DESERTS, USA: BIOCRUST MOSSES RESPOND TO SOIL, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND CLIMATIC CONDITIONS
Full text linkBiological soil crust communities (biocrusts) growing on gypsum soils have been well- documented for their prolific appearance and rich diversity of lichens and bryophytes. However, studies characterizing gypsum biocrusts have primarily occurred outside of the U.S., most of which lack comparisons to other soil types. We conducted intensive field surveys to evaluate the cover and frequency of biocrust functional groups and moss species on gypsum and non-gypsum soils in the U.S. regions with the most extensive gypsum outcrops, the northern Chihuahuan and eastern Mojave Deserts. We employed canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) to relate the observed differences in biocrust abundance and composition across soil types to distinct environmental and soil variables. Additionally, we assessed species richness of biocrust mosses on gypsum versus non-gypsum soils, as well as in the Chihuahuan versus Mojave Deserts. Our results support previous observations that biocrusts are especially abundant on gypsum soils but that these differences are likely due to gypsum’s profuse dark algal (predominantly cyanobacteria-forming) rather than lichen and moss biocrusts. Biocrust functional groups did not exhibit associations with environmental and soil variables. However, moss species appear to be strongly influenced by environmental variables and exhibited differential preferences for substrate parent material. Moss species richness was greater on gypsum soils and, surprisingly, in the hottest and driest North American Desert, the Mojave. Differences in species richness across deserts was strongly correlated to mean annual and seasonal temperatures, as well as mean winter precipitation. Overall, our data suggest that soil, environmental, and climate conditions all play important roles in the ecology of biocrusts, specifically moss diversity and distribution, in the northern Chihuahuan and eastern Mojave Deserts of the U.S. More importantly, we emphasize that gypsum soils of the U.S. are unique refugia for moss-forming biocrusts
Four Novel Species of Kastovskya (Coleofasciculaceae, Cyanobacteriota) from Three Continents with a Taxonomic Revision of Symplocastrum
Full text linkStudies performed in North America, Africa, and South America have led to the isolation of four new species of Kastovskya, a filamentous cyanobacterial genus that before this manuscript had only one species, Kastovskya adunca from Chile. Kastovskya nitens and K. viridissima were isolated from soils on San Nicolas Island, K. sahariensis was isolated from hypolithic habitats from the Sahara Desert in Algeria, and K. circularithylacoides was isolated from hypolithic habitats in Chile. The molecular analyses are corroborated by morphological data, morphometric analysis, and ecological and biogeographical considerations for robust polyphasic descriptions of all taxa. The peculiar transatlantic distribution of this genus bears similarity to other taxa in recently published studies and is in agreement with a hypothesis suggesting that cyanobacteria in Africa may disperse to the Americas on dust particles during windstorms. This work is unusual in that species in a single rare cyanobacterial genus with a disjunct distribution are described simultaneously from three continents. The 16S rRNA gene analyses performed for this study also revealed that another recent genus, Arizonema, is clearly a later synonym of Symplocastrum. This issue is resolved here with the collapsing of the type species Arizonema commune into Symplocastrum flechtnerae
Confessions: The Autobiography of Pedro de Ribadeneira and Other Writings
No full textPedro de Ribadeneira, S.J. (1526–1611), the biographer of the first three superiors general of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), Diego Laínez (1512–65), and Francis Borgia (1510–70), had an enormous impact on how subsequent generations understood the founder and the early history of the Jesuits. His biography, his relationship with Ignatius and other early Jesuits over many decades, and his varied responsibilities in the Society of Jesus made him, in effect, one of the earliest and most authoritative historians of the order. This volume presents three of Ribadeneira’s works not previously translated into English that shed further light on his life and that of the early Society. Not long before his death, Ribadeneira wrote an autobiography titled Confesiones in reference to Augustine of Hippo’s famous autobiography to which his secretary added additional biographic material. In the autobiography, he presents his own contribution to the early history of the Society and himself as a faithful disciple of Ignatius. During his life as a Jesuit, Ribadeneira engaged in significant debate over the Society’s organization and development. As a Spanish Christian of converso origin, he was intensely interested in debates over whether men of Jewish origin should still be permitted to enter the Society as Ignatius himself had allowed. He also participated in debates over the structure of the Society and the authority of the Superior General that convulsed the Jesuits in the late sixteenth century. His memoranda on these two issues are also translated and published here