Este texto busca discutir conceitualmente a relação entre olhares e dispositivos nas intervenções urbanas. Parte-se do recorte das obras artísticas que intervêm no espaço urbano pela fotografia para refletir sobre a deflagração de modalidades de olhar. Compreende-se a existência de três modalidades; os “olhares-invisibilidade”, “olhares-emancipação” e “olhares-circulação” que se associam, respectivamente, ao “dispositivo urbano”, “dispositivo artístico” e “dispositivo internet”, deflagrando diferentes formas de experiência.

Bodies of afro descendant women carry not only the historical marks of suffering and dispossession. For they are also told stories of resistance, faith and ancestry, and as social constructions, such bodies are presented as drawings of the cultural diversity that permeates individual and collective identities. Thus, this paper has the approaches around the body beyond the biological and discusses further socio-cultural marks on afro descendant feminist bodies, making allusions and images appear in Brazilian literature and speeches on such bodies.

Neste artigo, articulo três sentidos distintos da expressão “Fins da Arte” - analítico-filosófico, estético e teleológico – para refletir acerca de um movimento importante no cenário da arte da dança, que transformou radicalmente o modo como nossa cultura ocidental compreende o corpo. Refiro-me à dança pós-moderna americana que se desenvolveu principalmente nas décadas de 60, 70 e 80, e tomo como paradigma o trabalho da coreógrafa, bailarina e cineasta Yvonne Rainer, denominado Trio A. Meu argumento é que, neste trabalho coreográfico, (...) Yvonne Rainer coloca, com seu próprio corpo, a questão do “fim da dança” nos sentidos analítico-filosófico e estético, e como consequência promove uma reflexão sobre o “fim da dança” no sentido teleológico. (shrink)

Surrogacy is an increasingly frequent form of family building and allows individuals to become parents despite an infertility diagnosis or a biological impossibility. Positive outcomes for both the surrogacy child and the surrogate mother have been reported, including in cases of same-sex male couples and single persons. There is an on-going debate because remuneration does not necessarily involve undue inducement of the surrogate or transformation of the child into a commodity. The right to regret and the doctors’ autonomy are also (...) addressed in this paper. Nevertheless, literature on surrogacy is scarce, and most of the existing studies have important methodological limitations, so further investigation is much needed. We believe that counselling should be granted for both intended parents and surrogate, in order to prevent the majority of problems. We also agree that parental vetting should be possible, focusing the doctor’s responsibility also in the future child. (shrink)

Background : An enhancement in recall of simple instructions is found when actions are performed in comparison to when they are verbally presented – the subject-performed task effect. This enhancement has also been found with older adults. However, the reason why older adults, known to present a deficit in episodic memory, have a better performance for this type of information remains unclear. In this article, we explored this effect by comparing the performance on the SPT task with the performance on (...) other tasks, in order to understand the underlying mechanisms that may explain this effect. Objective : We hypothesized that both young and older adult groups should show higher recall in SPT compared with the verbal learning condition, and that the differences between age groups should be lower in the SPT condition. We aimed to explore the correlations between these tasks and known neuropsychological tests, and we also measured source memory for the encoding condition. Design : A mixed design was used with 30 healthy older adults, comparing their performance with 30 healthy younger adults. Each participant was asked to perform 16 simple instructions and to only read the other 16 instructions. The test phase included a free recall task. Participants were also tested with a set of neuropsychological measures. Results : The SPT effect was found for both age groups; but even for SPT materials, group differences in recall persisted. Source memory was found to be preserved for the two groups. Simple correlations suggested differences in correlates of SPT performance between the two groups. However, when controlling for age, the SPT and VT tasks correlate with each other, and a measure of episodic memory correlated moderately with both SPT and VT performance. Conclusions : A strong effect of SPT was observed for all but one, which still displayed the expected aging deficit. The correlations and source memory data suggest that the SPT and VT are possibly related in respect to their underlying processes, and SPT, instead of being an isolated process, is in connection with both the episodic memory and executive function processes. Under these circumstances, the SPT seems to contribute to an enhancement of the episodic memory trace, presumably from the multimodality it provides, without involving a separated set of cognitive mechanisms. Future research using more pure measures of other cognitive processes that could be related to SPT is necessary. Keywords : aging; subject performed task; memory for actions; episodic memory Responsible Editor: Mathieu Hainselin, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France. (shrink)

É que nada é mais imutável, nada é mais firme do que um povo unido pela concórdia e que tudo reporta à sua preservação e à sua liberdade. Em tal Estado é facílimo alcançar a concórdia, na qual a todos con­vém a mesma coisa. Da variedade de interesses, quando a cada um agrada uma coisa diferente, nascem as discórdias. (Cícero, Tratado da República, I. 49) Preâmbulo Cícero, uma das figuras incontornáveis da história de Roma, tem sido admirado pelo seu percurso (...) pessoal e profissional, bem como... (shrink)

Grammatical gender processing during language production has classically been studied using the so-called picture-word interference (PWI) task. In this procedure, participants are presented with pictures they must name using target nouns while ignoring superimposed written distractor nouns. Variations in response times are expected depending on the congruency between the gender values of targets and distractors. However, there have been disparate results in terms of the mandatory character of an agreement context to observe competitive gender effects and the interpretation of the (...) direction of these effects in Romance languages, this probably due to uncontrolled variables such as animacy. In the present study, we conducted two PWI experiments with European Portuguese speakers who were asked to produce bare nouns. The percentage of animate targets within the list was manipulated: 0, 25, 50, and 100%. A gender congruency effect was found restricted to the 0% list (all targets were inanimate). Results support the selection of gender in transparent languages in the absence of an agreement context, as predicted by the Gender Acquisition and Processing (GAP) hypothesis (Sá-Leite et al.,2019), and are interpreted through the attentional mechanisms involved in the PWI paradigm, in which the processing of animate targets would be favored to the detriment of distractors due to biological relevance and semantic prioritization. (shrink)

Programa Aventurémonos en Familia, busca generar un espacio para el reconocimiento, la regulación y la recuperación emocional de los niños, niñas, jóvenes y sus familias en medio de la crisis presentada por la Covid-19, y que se encuentran inmersos en contextos de violencia. Es un Programa de educación emocional, orientado a promover la salud mental y la funcionalidad familiar. En el marco de su implementación se desarrolló una investigación mixta con 159 cuidadores y 139 niñas y niñas de los departamentos (...) de Córdoba, Atlántico y Sucre. Los resultados muestran mejoras en la funcionalidad familiar y habilidades emocionales de sus integrantes. (shrink)

A current issue in psycholinguistic research is whether the language difficulties exhibited by children with developmental language disorder [DLD, previously labeled specific language impairment ] are due to deficits in their abilities to pick up patterns in the sensory environment, an ability known as statistical learning, and the extent to which explicit learning mechanisms can be used to compensate for those deficits. Studies designed to test the compensatory role of explicit learning mechanisms in children with DLD are, however, scarce, and (...) the few conducted so far have led to inconsistent results. This work aimed to provide new insights into the role that explicit learning mechanisms might play on implicit learning deficits in children with DLD by resorting to a new approach. This approach involved not only the collection of event-related potentials, while preschool children with DLD [relative to typical language developmental controls] were exposed to a continuous auditory stream made of the repetition of three-syllable nonsense words but, importantly, the collection of ERPs when the same children performed analogous versions of the same auditory SL task first under incidental and afterward under intentional conditions. In each of these tasks, the level of predictability of the three-syllable nonsense words embedded in the speech streams was also manipulated to mimic natural languages closely. At the end of both tasks’ exposure phase, children performed a two-alternative forced-choice task from which behavioral evidence of SL was obtained. Results from the 2-AFC tasks failed to show reliable signs of SL in both groups of children. The ERPs data showed, however, significant modulations in the N100 and N400 components, taken as neural signatures of word segmentation in the brain, even though a detailed analysis of the neural responses revealed that only children from the TLD group seem to have taken advantage of the previous knowledge to enhance SL functioning. These results suggest that children with DLD showed deficits both in implicit and explicit learning mechanisms, casting doubts on the efficiency of the interventions relying on explicit instructions to help children with DLD to overcome their language difficulties. (shrink)

ObjectiveLoss of control eating has been directly related to the core aspects of the psychopathology of eating disorders and to different dimensions of emotion and behavior regulation and self-criticism. This study investigates a model representing the interplay between these dimensions to understand LOC eating among a nonclinical sample.MethodsA total of 341 participants, recruited in a college campus, completed a set of self-report measures assessing LOC eating, weight suppression, psychopathology of eating disorders, depression, negative urgency, emotion regulation difficulties, and self-criticism. Path (...) analysis modeling tested a hypothesized model with 3 paths for LOC eating as follows: psychopathology of eating disorders; emotion and behavior regulation; and interplay between these paths.ResultsWe found goodness-of-fit indexes to our data: χ2 = 17.11, df = 10, Comparative Fit Index = 0.99, Tucker-Lewis index = 0.98, Root Mean Square Error Approximation = 0.045, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual = 0.041, suggesting that: participants with higher weight suppression showed higher degrees of the psychopathology of eating disorders, which was linked to higher levels of LOC eating; self-criticism was a mediator between emotion regulation and depression/negative urgency; self-criticism was a mediator between emotion regulation and disorder eating, which was significantly associated with LOC eating via increased negative urgency.ConclusionOur model shows that LOC eating occurs for individuals with the psychopathology of higher eating disorders who experience depressive symptoms and act rashly under distress for their inability to cope adequately with negative feelings of self-devaluation. These findings point to the importance of negative self-evaluations and feelings of inadequacy or worthlessness to understand LOC eating among college students. (shrink)

This paper analyses the role of foreign and local companies in shaping Brazilian positions on global sustainability. It deals with an empirical investigation of CSR practices of firms from the electronics, food, and personal care sectors in response to pressures of 'market' and 'non-market' stakeholders. The results demonstrate that CSR decisions by foreign and local firms are triggered by organisational considerations and anticipated economic gains. The degree of implementation of CSR activities by foreign firms is more advanced than that of (...) local firms. The survey also confirms the hypothesis that market stakeholders exert pressure on companies and positively influence CSR. Non-market stakeholders seem to have a minor effect on corporate social responsibility decisions. We conclude that the institutional environment is a critical determinant of the extent to which the dialogue between stakeholders and companies leads to the attainment of sustainable development. (shrink)

Despite the general agreement that the interdisciplinary model of physical education (PE), based on the incorporation of core academic subjects into the PE curriculum, stimulates the holistic development of students, there is still a lack of methods for its implementation. Therefore, Eduball was created, i.e., a method that uses educational balls with printed letters, numbers, and other signs. Numerous studies have shown that children participating in activities with Eduballs can develop their physical fitness while simultaneously improving their academic performance, particularly (...) in math and language, including some writing skills. However, little is known about the effects of Eduball on children’s graphomotor skills, which are key for the academic performance of students throughout the entire schooling process. Here, we investigate whether 6-month participation in PE with Eduball stimulates graphomotor skills in primary school students, such as drawing prehandwriting letter patterns on unlined or lined paper and rewriting text on unlined or lined paper. Our results show that the Eduball class (N= 28) significantly improved these skills compared to the control class (N= 26) participating in traditional PE. For example, students from the experimental group wrote with a lower pen pressure and better stability of the line, in contrast to those from the control group. Therefore, this study demonstrates that the Eduball method successfully supports teachers in developing graphomotor skills in children. More broadly, our findings make clear once again that there is the need to integrate physical and cognitive development in education, which can be achieved by using an interdisciplinary model of PE. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article aims to defend the dialogical nature of the landscape. Working in between the borders of the Bakhtinian philosophy of language and cultural studies on landscape, we defend that landscape study should not be studied without considering the cultural forms of communication in the different domains of social organization– the speech genres; that landscape is a semiotic encounter with a concrete otherness; that the interpreter who emerges when an area enters a relationship of representation is necessarily characterized as (...) a chronotope; that every landscape is a chronotopic representation; that cultural geography recognizes that the semiotic aspects of the landscape are as material as its morphology. We start from the hypothesis that landscape is a chronotopic representation that is always made possible by means of some speech genre, because it is always a communicative process, and an encounter with another in a situation of socially organized interrelation – it is concrete dialogue. To find the deeper meaning of a landscape, one must recognize and understand its material, historical, geographical, and dialogic nature. RESUMO O artigo objetiva defender a índole dialógica da paisagem. Trabalhando na fronteira entre a filosofia bakhtiniana da linguagem e os estudos culturais da paisagem, defendemos que a paisagem não seja estudada sem considerar as formas culturais de comunicação nos diferentes domínios da organização social – os gêneros discursivos; que toda paisagem é encontro semiótico com uma alteridade concreta; que o intérprete que emerge quando uma área entra em relação de representação é necessariamente caracterizado por um cronotopo; que toda paisagem é representação cronotópica; que a geografia cultural reconheça que os aspectos semióticos da paisagem são tão materiais quanto sua morfologia. Partimos da hipótese de que a paisagem é uma representação cronotópica que sempre se realiza através de algum gênero discursivo, pois sempre é um processo comunicativo e de encontro com o outro em uma situação de inter-relação socialmente organizada – é diálogo concreto. Para adentrar à profundeza de seus sentidos, precisa-se reconhecer e compreender sua índole material, histórica, geográfica e dialógica. (shrink)

Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is one of the most widely used tools to assess economic decision-making. However, the research tradition on aging and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been mainly focused on the overall performance of older adults in relation to younger or clinical groups, remaining unclear whether older adults are capable of learning along the task. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine older adults’ decision-making on the IGT, to test the effects of aging on reversal learning (45 studies) (...) and to provide normative data on total and block net scores (55 studies). From the accumulated empirical evidence, we found an average total net score of 7.55 (± 25.9). We also observed a significant reversal learning effect along the blocks of the IGT, indicating that older adults inhibit the prepotent response towards immediately attractive options associated with high losses, in favor of initially less attractive options associated with long-run profit. During block 1, decisions of older adults led to a negative gambling net score, reflecting the expected initial pattern of risk-taking. However, the shift towards more safe options occurred between block 2 (small-to-medium effect size) and blocks 3, 4, 5 (medium-to-large effect size). These main findings highlight that older adults are able to move from the initial uncertainty, when the possible outcomes are unknown, to decisions based on risk, when the outcomes are learned and may be used to guide future adaptive decision-making. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar implicações subjetivas decorrentes do processo de patologização da educação. Para tanto, foram realizadas entrevistas com duas crianças com diagnóstico de Transtorno de Déficit de Atenção/Hiperatividade, seus pais e professores, observação em sala de aula, avaliação fonoaudiológica individual e pesquisa documental. Os resultados do estudo apontam que os discursos que se instauram em torno do aluno considerado resistente ao que a escola propõe terminam por comprometer a formação da sua subjetividade, uma vez que ele (...) passa a assimilar parte das percepções de seu grupo de convivência. Assumindo os postulados de Bakhtin, de que a autoimagem se constrói em meio ao olhar do outro, conclui-se que a criança pode apresentar sinais de desatenção e hiperatividade a depender da qualidade das interações sociais em que está inserida. ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to analyze subjective implications arising from the process of pathologization of education. Therefore, interviews were conducted with two children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, their parents and teachers, in addition to in-classroom observation, individual speech-language pathology assessment and documentary research. The results of the study indicate that the discourses, established around students considered resistant to what the school proposes, eventually compromise the shaping of his or her subjectivity, since they start to assimilate part of the perceptions of their interactional group. Based on Bakhtin’s postulates that self-image is built in the midst of the other’s gaze, it is concluded that the child may present signs of inattention and hyperactivity depending on the quality of the social interactions in which he/she is engaged. (shrink)

The world of work has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic due to the high instability observed in the labor market, bringing several new challenges for leaders and employees. The present study aims to analyze the role of organizational and job resources in predicting employees’ job insecurity during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, through the mediating role of work engagement. A sample of 207 Portuguese employees participated, of which 64.7% were women. Data was collected using an online (...) survey, including self-report measures of organizational resources, job resources, job insecurity, and work engagement. Data showed that job and organizational resources negatively influenced job insecurity. Moreover, work engagement was a significant mediator of the relation between performance feedback and job insecurity. Findings suggest that investing in job and organizational resources can act as protective factors to minimize feelings of job insecurity. Likewise, leaders should foster work engagement among employees to help them balance the relation between these resources and job insecurity, especially in crisis situations. Overall, this study takes a new, underexplored perspective, theoretically bridging organizational and job resources with job insecurity and work engagement during a time of great uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

This article describes the political practices of a part of the Italian women’s movement that, as of the 1980s, gave way to the sexual difference thought. Through a political analysis of their own experience, which removed any humanist identity assumptions, the women’s movement generated new practices and discourses. With these, women were able to exert self-criticism, and simultaneously to produce new subjectivities articulated around the sexual difference concept. The difference thought helped highlight the limits of institutional policy, renewing the premises (...) of political analysis and redefining the borders of what was deemed to be ‘political’. Intended to foster dialogue with other feminist proposals, the article underlines the situated nature of this political experience and focuses on the method, the political praxis and the process rather than the outcome, the conclusions or the theory. (shrink)

Resumo: Este artigo busca dizer da multiplicidade que povoa a escola: de corpos, de acontecimentos, de vida. Busca com base na leitura Deleuze-Guattariana de instrumentos conceituais de Spinoza, na afirmação da multiplicidade que habita a docência, dar-lhes novos sentidos, nas redes de conversações nas veredas de afetos que atravessam o cotidiano escolar. Utiliza, como metodologia, redes de conversações, modos de dizer das experiências vividas, estabelecidas com professoras em encontros quinzenais realizados em escolas públicas situadas em bairros periféricos. A noção spinozana (...) de afeto nos remete à noção de encontro. Assim, conclui que as conversações apontam para a necessária composição de um corpo múltiplo escolar, onde a criação se faça pela abertura à liberdade; pela superação do dogmatismo, normatização e hierarquização; pelos tempos livres para que os encontros sejam possíveis; enfim, pelo encontro nos entremeios de uma educação que una o inteligível ao sensível e o conhecimento se teça pelos afetos e afecções experimentados. Palavras-chave: Spinoza; Afetos; Docência; Corpos Múltiplos; Cotidiano Escolar. Spinoza and the paths of affection in teaching as multiple bodies in school daily life Abstract: This article seeks to talk about the multiplicity that populates the school: of bodies, of events, of life. Based on Deleuze-Guattarian's reading of Spinoza's conceptual instruments, in the affirmation of multiplicity that inhabits teaching, to give them new meanings, in the networks of conversations in the paths of affections that cross everyday school life. It uses, as a methodology, conversation networks, ways of talking about lived experiences, established with teachers in fortnightly meetings held in public schools located in peripheral neighborhoods. Spinoza’s notion of affection takes us to the notion of encounter. Thus, he concludes that the conversations point to the necessary composition of a multiple school body, where creation takes place through openness to freedom; by overcoming dogmatism, normalization and hierarchization; for free time so that meetings are possible; finally, through the encounter during an education that unites the intelligible with the sensitive and knowledge is woven through the affections and affections experienced. Keywords: Spinoza; Affections; Teaching; Multiple Bodies; School Daily Life. Spinoza y los caminos del afecto em la enseñanza como cuerpos múltiples em la vida escolar cotidiana Résumé: Este artículo busca hablar de la multiplicidad que puebla la escuela: de cuerpos, de acontecimientos, de vida. A partir de la lectura de Deleuze-Guattariana de los instrumentos conceptuales de Spinoza, en la afirmación de la multiplicidad que habita la enseñanza, darles nuevos significados, en las redes de conversaciones en los caminos de afectos que atraviesan la vida escolar cotidiana. Utiliza, como metodología, redes de conversación, formas de contar experiencias vividas, establecidas con docentes en reuniones quincenales realizadas en escuelas públicas ubicadas en barrios periféricos. La noción de afecto de Spinoz nos lleva a la noción de encuentro. Así, concluye que las conversaciones apuntan a la necesaria composición de un cuerpo escolar múltiple, donde la creación se dé a través de la apertura a la libertad; superando el dogmatismo, la normalización y la jerarquización; tiempo libre para que sean posibles los encuentros; finalmente, a través del encuentro en medio de una educación que une lo inteligible con lo sensible y el conocimiento se teje a través de los afectos y afectos vividos. Palabras-clave: Spinoza; Afectos; Enseñanza; Múltiples Cuerpos; Vida Diaria Escolar. Data de registro: 21/04/2024 Data de aceite: 30/10/2024. (shrink)

Desde el retorno a la democracia, la apropiación de niños y niñas ha sido uno de los pocos delitos juzgados de forma ininterrumpida por el Poder Judicial. Sin embargo, en estas causas, las apropiadoras han recibido sistemáticamente condenas menores que los apropiadores. Partiendo del interrogante acerca de por qué varones y mujeres obtuvieron distintas condenas frente a los mismos crímenes, el artículo analiza los modos en que los discursos maternalistas y los roles de género fueron esgrimidos por las apropiadoras en (...) sus declaraciones públicas. De este modo, se estudia con perspectiva de género los discursos de estas mujeres con el fin de examinar qué imagen buscaron construir ante el Poder Judicial, así como las intervenciones de los/las jueces/juezas en relación a la palabra de las apropiadoras y la cuestión de género. (shrink)

We investigated the feasibility of a short intervention using the Method of Loci, a well-known visuospatial mnemonic, to improve episodic memory recall performance in schizophrenia. The MoL training protocol comprised encoding and recall of two lists of items, a training session and practice with MoL. Then, participants had the opportunity to put into practice the newly learned MoL and were instructed to encode and recall two new lists of items using. This approach was first validated with healthy individuals. Subsequently, five (...) individuals with schizophrenia completed the protocol. Improvement in healthy individuals was observed for the word list. No significant memory improvement was denoted in the schizophrenia group, possibly due to participants' difficulties using the method efficiently and due to fatigue. The MoL seems to require episodic memory, working memory monitoring and executive functions, making it suboptimal for a population with impairments in all those domains. Future research should examine the use of other strategies, better suited for individuals with cognitive impairments like those found in schizophrenia. (shrink)

Francis Galton coined the word eugenics in the late nineteenth century in England to characterize the “noble heritage” and the “well-born.” Its statistical approach leads to biometry as the quantitative study of populations. As an organized movement, its main purpose was to apply the available knowledge on inheritance in order to shape the characters of the future generations. Since then, eugenistic studies mingled science with the social values of the ruling classes, distorting scientific practice. The early twentieth century gave rise (...) to human genetics with strong eugenistic roots, assuming the role to prevent the “social degeneration” in modern industrial societies. This negative eugenistic movement developed into mandatory sterilization laws in several European countries and in the United States, and has its most dramatic achievement in the racial cleaning program of National Socialist Germany. (shrink)

El presente artículo, refiere una investigación de carácter cualitativo, desarrollada con el propósito de interpretar los significados construidos por los docentes sobre la evaluación en sus prácticas, se contextualiza en la escuela primaria del Núcleo Escolar Rural N°323 en el estado Falcón, Venezuela, llevada a cabo en el año escolar 2016-2017. Asumido este quehacer como multireferencial, cíclico, emergente, co-construido y cambiante, fue abordado con una metódica orientada por la fenomenología social. Para la sistematización de la información se realizaron intercambios y (...) entrevistas en profundidad, mientras que los registros fueron realizados haciendo uso del diario del investigador y equipos tecnológicos como recursos. Los datos fueron analizados siguiendo los procesos de categorización y triangulación de fuentes, con la finalidad de ampliar el fenómeno estudiado para su comprensión. En el contraste, integración e interpretación de los significados se consideraron tres categorías medulares alusivas a la evaluación como proceso complejo, los nudos críticos en las prácticas evaluativas y la evaluación como componente curricular. Los hallazgos develados dan cuenta de los significados construidos por los docentes sobre la evaluación, quienes la plantean como un proceso auténtico, con el propósito de facilitar la mejora del proceso de aprendizaje. (shrink)

One of the main differences between countries within the international community is their degree of development. In fact, the breach between developing countries and developed countries is constantly growing. However, there is not a clear definition of what a developing country is, thus sometimes hindering the classification of countries in this category. The lack of such a definition may be due to the heterogeneity of developing countries. Nevertheless, we can found developing countries subcategories and legal effects of their establishment.

Classifications are useful and efficient. We group things into kinds to facilitate the acquisition and transmission of important, often tacit, information about a particular entity qua member of some kind. Whilst it is universally acknowledged that classifications are useful, some scientific classifications (e.g. chemical elements) are held to higher epistemic standards than folk classifications (e.g. bugs). Scientific classifications in terms of ‘natural kinds’ are considered to be more reliable and successful because they are highly projectible and support law-like and inductive (...) generalisations. What counts as a natural kind is, however, controversial: according to essentialists (e.g. Putnam, Kripke, Ellis) natural kinds are mind-independent and possess essential characteristics; according to promiscuous realists (e.g. Dupre ) there are ‘countless legitimate, objectively grounded ways of classifying objects in the world’; and according to scientific realists (e.g. Boyd, Psillos) natural kinds are grounded in the ‘causal structure of the world’. More specifically, realism about kinds can be understood as a commitment to the existence of natural divisions (kinds) in the world that we come to know as a result of mature scientific investigation into the nature of such kinds. Realism about natural kinds is supported and articulated in terms of three main arguments, metaphysical, semantical, and epistemological. In the first part of my thesis I offer a sustained and systematic investigation of these three main arguments, with their respective promises and prospects for the viability of realism about kinds and I find them wanting, whilst in the second part of the thesis I pursue an unexplored line of inquiry regarding natural kinds and propose a mild realism about natural kinds via the ontology of real patterns. (shrink)

We welcome the critical appraisal of the database used by the behavioral sciences, but we suggest that the authors' differentiation between variable and universal features is ill conceived and that their categorization of non-WEIRD populations is misleading. We propose a different approach to comparative research, which takes population variability seriously and recognizes the methodological difficulties it engenders.

Stress has been being pointed as the evil of the current world and can affect as much adults as children. The disorders associated with stress are varied, and people who suffer from it frequently present physical and psychological problems, influencing their behavior and social environment. The care..

La creciente competencia profesional, la incorporación de la mujer al mundo laboral y la crisis económica actual, son aspectos que han cambiado nuestro estilo de vida y nuestros valores. Estas variables y otras muchas hacen que el día a día el fenómeno del estrés sea objeto de atención en centros de salud, siendo una de las principales causas de las bajas laborales tramitadas. La familia, la pareja, el tiempo de ocio y el entorno social también se ven afectados, creando dinámicas (...) poco saludables y/o conflictivas difíciles de gestionar. Por todo ello, es importante reflexionar sobre qué provoca estrés, qué es lo que nos hace más resistentes a él o si podemos elegir entre estresarnos o no introduciendo ciertos cambio en nuestra filosofía de vida. (shrink)