Social bots – partially or fully automated accounts on social media platforms – have not only been widely discussed, but have also entered political, media and research agendas. However, bot detection is not an exact science. Quantitative estimates of bot prevalence vary considerably and comparative research is rare. We show that findings on the prevalence and activity of bots on Twitter depend strongly on the methods used to identify automated accounts. We search for bots in political discourses on Twitter, using (...) three different bot detection methods: Botometer, Tweetbotornot and “heavy automation”. We drew a sample of 122,884 unique user Twitter accounts that had produced 263,821 tweets contributing to five political discourses in five Western democracies. While all three bot detection methods classified accounts as bots in all our cases, the comparison shows that the three approaches produce very different results. We discuss why neither manual validation nor triangulation resolves the basic problems, and conclude that social scientists studying the influence of social bots on communication and discourse dynamics should be careful with easy-to-use methods, and consider interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

IntroductionCardiology is characterized by its state-of-the-art biomedical technology and the predominance of Evidence-Based Medicine. This predominance makes it difficult for healthcare professionals to deal with the ethical dilemmas that emerge in this subspecialty. This paper is a first endeavor to empirically investigate the axiological foundations of the healthcare professionals in a cardiology hospital. Our pilot study selected, as the target population, cardiology personnel not only because of their difficult ethical deliberations but also because of the stringent conditions in which they (...) have to make them. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reconsider clinical ethics and Value-Based Medicine. This study proposes a qualitative analysis of the values and the virtues of healthcare professionals in a cardiology hospital in order to establish how the former impact upon the medical and ethical decisions made by the latter.ResultsWe point out the need for strengthening the roles of healthcare personnel as educators and guidance counselors in order to meet the ends of medicine, as well as the need for an ethical discernment that is compatible with our results, namely, that the ethical values developed by healthcare professionals stem from their life history as well as their professional education.ConclusionWe establish the kind of actions, communication skills and empathy that are required to build a stronger patient-healthcare professional relationship, which at the same time improves prognosis, treatment efficiency and therapeutic adhesion. (shrink)

Supported decision-making has been promoted at a policy level and within international human rights treaties as a way of ensuring that people with disabilities enjoy the right to legal capacity on an equal basis with others. However, little is known about the practical issues associated with implementing supported decision-making, particularly in the context of dementia. This study aimed to understand the experiences of people with dementia and their family members with respect to decision-making and their views on supported decision-making. Thirty-six (...) interviews were undertaken with fifty-seven participants across three states in Australia. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used as the methodological approach, with relational autonomy as a theoretical perspective. We identified two overarching themes relating to participants’ experiences with decision-making: “the person in relationship over time” and “maintaining involvement.” Participant views on the practical issues associated with supported decision-making are addressed under the themes of “facilitating decision-making,” “supported decision-making arrangements,” “constraints on decision-making,” and “safeguarding decision-making.” While participants endorsed the principles of supported decision-making as part of their overarching strategy of “maintaining involvement” in decision-making, they recognized that progressive cognitive impairment meant that there was an inevitable transition toward greater involvement of, and reliance upon, others in decision-making. Social and contextual “constraints on decision-making” also impacted on the ability of people with dementia to maintain involvement. These themes inform our proposal for a “spectrum approach” to decision-making involvement among people living with dementia, along with recommendations for policy and practice to assist in the implementation of supported decision-making within this population. (shrink)

To analyze the concept about scientific fact was the purpose of this work. This concept is a principal element to scientific hypothesis formulation. The properties and characteristics of this must observance were enumerated. Moreover, the concept studied of this work was compared with another.

Desde una hermenéutica ontológica política se hacen visibles y audibles prácticas singulares a partir del punto de vista de los estudios latinoamericanos, los cuales apelan por una perspectiva de afirmación como propone Arturo Escobar respecto a una mirada sobre la diversidad y singularidad de accio..

This book is based on the outcome of the ""2012 Interdisciplinary Symposium on Complex Systems"" held at the island of Kos. The book consists of 12 selected papers of the symposium starting with a comprehensive overview and classification of complexity problems, continuing by chapters about complexity, its observation, modeling and its applications to solving various problems including real-life applications. More exactly, readers will have an encounter with the structural complexity of vortex flows, the use of chaotic dynamics within evolutionary algorithms, (...) complexity in synthetic biology. (shrink)

During recent decades various researchers from health and social sciences have been debating what it means for a person to be disabled. A rather overlooked approach has developed alongside this debate, primarily inspired by the philosophical tradition called phenomenology. This paper develops a phenomenological model of disability by arguing for a different methodological and conceptual framework from that used by the existing phenomenological approach. The existing approach is developed from the phenomenology of illness, but the paper illustrates how the case (...) of congenital disabilities, looking at the congenital disorder called cerebral palsy (CP), presents a fundamental problem for the approach. In order to understand such congenital cases as CP, the experience of disability is described as being gradually different from, rather than a disruption of, the experience of being abled, and it is argued that the experience of disability is complex and dynamically influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Different experiential aspects of disability— pre-reflective, attuned and reflective aspects—are described, demonstrating that the experience of disability comes in different degrees. Overall, this paper contributes to the debates about disability by further describing the personal aspects and experience of persons living with disabilities. (shrink)

At least since Kuhn’s Structure, philosophers have studied the influence of social factors in science’s pursuit of truth and knowledge. More recently, formal models and computer simulations have allowed philosophers of science and social epistemologists to dig deeper into the detailed dynamics of scientific research and experimentation, and to develop very seemingly realistic models of the social organization of science. These models purport to be predictive of the optimal allocations of factors, such as diversity of methods used in science, size (...) of groups, and communication channels among researchers. In this paper we argue that the current research faces an empirical challenge. The challenge is to connect simulation models with data. We present possible scenarios about how the challenge may unfold. (shrink)

The article presents a theoretical discussion and sociological analysis about the tensions in the building of social sex/gender relationships that are at the basis of the exclusion of women within the political field. It shows contents in dispute in the production of politics, considering the weight that categories play in the relations at a global level and in the school, the attributions inside the system sex/gender, the significations in politics, and the modes in which it is subjectified, resisted and confront (...) different logics to understand life and politics, considering the conceptual distinctions between Bíos and Zoé. This discussion allows the analysis of the imaginary institution within systematic difficulties and obstacles of political and legal kind during the post dictatorship in Chile, where based on arguments about the sex/gender system, the exclusion of women from the political field is established, limiting the development of politics that valorizes cultural diversity and human rights, accentuating discrimination and social exclusion. These shape the discussion over the modes in which the political field for women is configured, recovering the possibilities of conflict as an opening of that horizon. El artículo presenta una discusión teórica y análisis sociológico acerca de las tensiones en la construcción social de las relaciones sexo/género, que fundamentan la exclusión del campo político de las mujeres. Se distinguen los contenidos en disputa en la producción de la política, considerando el peso que tienen las categorías en juego en las relaciones a nivel global y en el espacio de la escuela, las atribuciones dentro del sistema sexo/género, las significaciones de la política, y los modos en que se subjetivan, se resisten y se confrontan diferentes lógicas para entender la vida y la política, teniendo como base las distinciones conceptuales entre Bios y Zoé. Esta discusión permite analizar la institución del imaginario en el marco de las dificultades sistemáticas y obstáculos de tipo político y legal durante la post dictadura en Chile, donde sobre la base de argumentos propios del sistema sexo/género, se establece la exclusión del campo político de las mujeres, limitando el desarrollo de políticas que pongan en valor la diversidad cultural y los derechos humanos, acentuando la discriminación y la exclusión social. Estos dan forma a la discusión sobre el modo en que se configura el campo de lo político para las mujeres, recuperando las posibilidades del conflicto como apertura de este horizonte. (shrink)

Resumen: Este trabajo analiza el libro Fuerzas Especiales en cuanto a cómo ciertos elementos claves de la novela, a saber: hacinamiento, pobreza y violencia circunscriben las subjetividades de sus protagonistas generando una inmutable tensión. Se examina el lenguaje utilizado por Eltit en referencia a las figuras retóricas utilizadas y cómo estas constituyen un discurso letal y violento cuya lectura se ve desplazada hacia territorios oscuros e intrincados. Estos territorios son dominados por un Estado cuya esencia se devela por medio de (...) una retórica que es social y políticamente alegorizada por medio de un lenguaje físico y simbólico -la retórica de la represión- que conmina a sus personajes a ser parte de una dialéctica que encarcela y confina sus vidas y almas pero que, de igual forma, abre la posibilidad de resistir estoicamente una ideología segregadora que vigila y restringe todo atisbo de emancipación.: This work analyzes the book Fuerzas Especiales regarding how some specific elements, namely: overcrowding, poverty and violence restrict the subjectivities of the main characters, creating an unchanging tension. Likewise, it examines the language that has been used by Eltit as for the use of rhetorical figures and how these ones make up a deadly discourse whose reading is shifted toward dark and abstruse territories. These territories are dominated by a nation whose essence is unveiled through a rhetoric that socially and politically is allegorized by way of a physic and symbolic language -the rhetoric of repression- that compels its characters to become part of a dialectic that locks up and confines their lives and souls; however, it opens up a possibility to stoically resist a segregating ideology that surveils and limits any glimmer of emancipation. (shrink)

La ciencia procura siempre alcanzar la máxima objetividad del sujeto como investigador, pero éste en realidad no puede escapar a su subjetividad, y por lo tanto, de pensar de manera abstracta la realidad en que están inmersos el “objetoobservado” y el “sujeto-observador”. Durante el siglo XX, algunos filósofos de la ciencia, tales como Karl R. Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos y Paul Feyerabend, influenciaron las distintas aproximaciones epistemológicas a la ciencia hasta la fecha de hoy. En este escrito, se describe (...) la propuesta que Imre Lakatos planteó, como aproximación a la verdad científica, a través de lo que él denominó “la Metodología de los Programas de Investigación Científica”, tratando de demostrar cómo ésta surgió a partir de las corrientes de pensamiento de su época, ya que Lakatos intenta solucionar quién tiene razón: si Karl Popper que afirma un método hipotético deductivo con limitaciones, pero de uso universal, o Thomas Kuhn que afirma que lo que los científicos fundamentalmente hacen es estar aferrados a paradigmas o crear nuevos paradigmas, y que cada enfoque está bien propuesto para el contexto sociológico y temporal-espacial, y por lo tanto no existe un método científico universal. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda desde una perspectiva crítica la relación entre las categorías de democracia y ciudadanía en la ciudad de Valparaíso durante la última década de postdictadura. El principal supuesto del texto considera la imposibilidad de un análisis conceptual acerca de la democracia que no incluya en su discusión la tensión entre la posición y ejercicio de la ciudadanía implicada y demandante en este proceso. El análisis propuesto confronta los imaginarios hegemónicos instituidos en la postdictadura con los imaginarios instituyentes que (...) emergen de los movimientos secundarios por la defensa de la educación pública en la ciudad de Valparaíso. Estos imaginarios se expresan en formas de organización en la esfera pública, por medio de la función que ejerce el imaginario radical, que impugnan la construcción de una ciudadanía capturada y una democracia tutelada. This article focuses on the relationship between the categories of democracy and citizenship in Valparaíso during the last post-dictatorship decade from a critical perspective. The main assumption of the text relates to the impossibility of conceptual analysis on democracy without including in its discussion the tension between the position and the exercise of the demanding, involved citizenship in this process. The proposed analysis brings face to face the hegemonic imaginaries established during the post-dictatorship period and the establishing imaginaries that arise from the secondary school movements for defending public education in Valparaiso. These imaginaries are expressed in forms of organization within the public circle, through the role that plays the radical imaginary, which challenge the construction of a captured citizenship and a democracy under custody. (shrink)

En este ensayo se plantea un abordaje temático al concepto de “problematización” en la filosofía tardía de Foucault. La aprehensión de este concepto repercute no solamente en el modo en que se comprenden los planteamientos de sus trabajos tardíos, sino también en el modo en que se conciben en general los usos de la filosofía del autor. En este sentido se plantea que la lectura del concepto de problematización debe hacerse al respecto del concepto de polémica, deteniéndose en lo que (...) Foucault llama “ontología crítica”. A partir de todo ello, se puede comprender el concepto de problematización en su dimensión verbal y sustantiva, sin que ello suponga caracterizarlo como una síntesis de la totalidad de su proyecto filosófico. (shrink)

This paper explores the scope and limits of rational consensus through mutual respect, with the primary focus on the best known formal model of consensus: the Lehrer–Wagner model. We consider various arguments against the rationality of the Lehrer–Wagner model as a model of consensus about factual matters. We conclude that models such as this face problems in achieving rational consensus on disagreements about unknown factual matters, but that they hold considerable promise as models of how to rationally resolve non-factual disagreements.

In this paper I analyze four so-called “principles of expertise”; that is, good epistemic practices that are normatively motivated by the epistemological literature on expert judgment. I highlight some of the problems that the four principles of expertise run into, when we try to implement them in concrete contexts of application (e.g. in science committees). I suggest some possible alternatives and adjustments to the principles, arguing in general that the epistemology of expertise should be informed both by case studies and (...) by the literature on the use of experts in science practice. (shrink)

The concept of evidence has gone unanalysed in much of the current debate between proponents and critics of evidence-based medicine. In this paper I will suggest that part of the controversy rests on an understanding of the word “evidence” that is too broad, and therefore contains the contradictions that allow both camps to defend their position and charge their adversaries. I will argue that reconciling the different meanings of the word ‘evidence’ in “evidence-based medicine” should help put EBM in its (...) rightful place. (shrink)

Some philosophers claim that perception immediately and prima facie justifies belief in virtue of its phenomenal character (Huemer, Skepticism and the veil of perception. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2001; Pryor, There is immediate justification. In: Steup M, Sosa E (eds) Contemporary debates in epistemology. Blackwell, London (2014), pp. 181–202, 2005). To explain this special justificatory power, some appeal to perception’s presentational character: the idea that perceptual experience presents its objects as existing here-and-now (Chudnoff, Intuition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013; Berghofer, (...) Husserl Stud 34(2):145–170, 2018). As some philosophers have noted, if perception justifies in virtue of its presentational character alone, the kind of content perception has should not matter for perceptual justification; more precisely, it should not matter whether perceptual content is propositional or not (e.g., Smithies, The epistemic role of consciousness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019; Kriegel, Australas J Philos, 2021). However, most philosophers tend to resist this conclusion, holding that perception must be propositional in order to justify, on the ground that all our model of justification are propositional (e.g., Gauker, Philos Perspect 26(1):19–50, 2012). This paper challenges this claim. The paper consists of a negative and a positive part. In the negative part, I discuss and reject the master argument for the propositionality of perception; the conclusion is that propositional content is neither sufficient nor necessary to explain perception’s justificatory power. In the positive part, I take this conclusion seriously and outline an objectual model of perceptual justification. I define objectual attitudes as mental states whose content is not a full proposition, but a sub-propositional representational item, such as the representation of objects, properties, and kinds (Grzankowski and Montague, Non-propositional intentionality. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018), and show that it is plausible that some perceptions and some beliefs are attitudes of this kind. I then argue that objectual perceptual experiences have the right kind of phenomenal character and the right kind of structure to serve for immediate prima facie justification. I conclude by defending my objectual model from three objections. (shrink)

Participatory research (PR) has been analyzed and documented from different points of view, with emphasis on the benefits generated for farmers. The effect of PR on organizational learning has, however, received little attention. This paper analyzes the interaction between a research and a development institution, the International Potato Center (CIP) and CARE in Peru, respectively, and makes the case that PR can contribute to creating a collaborative learning environment among organizations. The paper describes the evolution of the inter-institutional collaborative environment (...) between the two institutions for more than a decade, including an information-transfer period (1993–1996), an action-learning period (1997–2002), and a social-learning period (2003–2007). Several lessons learned from each period are described, as are changes in institutional contexts and stakeholders’ perceptions. The case shows that research and development-oriented organizations can interact fruitfully using PR as a mechanism to promote learning, flexibility in interactions, and innovation. Interactions foster the diffusion of information and the sharing of tacit knowledge within and between organizations, which in turn influences behavior. However, the paper also argues that long-term inter-organizational interactions are needed to facilitate learning, which can be used to influence the way organizations implement their interventions in a constantly changing environment. (shrink)

Science progresses through debate and disagreement, and scientific controversies play a crucial role in the growth of scientific knowledge. However, not all controversies and disagreements are progressive in science. Sometimes, controversies can be pseudoscientific; in fact, bogus controversies, and what seem like genuine scientific disagreements, can be a distortion of science set up by non-scientific actors. Bogus controversies are detrimental to science because they can hinder scientific progress and eventually bias science-based decisions. The first goal of this paper is to (...) elucidate the distinction between bogus and genuine scientific controversies and provide a qualitative methodology, based on the literature on expertise, for distinguishing between the two. We will illustrate six epistemic criteria for distinguishing bogus from genuine scientific debates in science and medicine. This heuristic strategy applies directly to scientific reports, and it relies mostly on the social structure of science. We will then apply the above criteria to a case study: the controversy over statins, which are widely prescribed drugs for reducing the level of cholesterol and preventing cardiovascular disease. (shrink)

Nurse clinician‐scientists are increasingly expected to show leadership aimed at transforming healthcare. However, research on nurse clinician‐scientists' leadership (integrating researcher and practitioner roles) is scarce and hardly embedded in sociohistorical contexts. This study introduces leadership moments, that is, concrete events in practices that are perceived as acts of empowerment, in order to understand leadership in the daily work of newly appointed nurse clinician‐scientists. Following the learning history method we gathered data using multiple (qualitative) methods to get close to their daily (...) practices. A document analysis provided us with insight into the history of nursing science to illustrate how leadership moments in the everyday work of nurse clinician‐scientists in the “here and now” can be related to the particular histories from which they emerged. A qualitative analysis led to three acts of empowerment: (1) becoming visible, (2) building networks, and (3) getting wired in. These acts are illustrated with three series of events in which nurse clinician‐scientists' leadership becomes visible. This study contributes to a more socially embedded understanding of nursing leadership, enables us to get a grip on crucial leadership moments, and provides academic and practical starting points for strengthening nurse clinician‐scientists' leadership practices. Transformations in healthcare call for transformed notions of leadership. (shrink)

Is subjective expert judgment a source of evidence in economics? In this paper, I will argue that it is, on a par with other sources like modeling, statistics, experimental, etc. I will also argue that it is not derivative, that is, reducible to the previous ones. But what is exactly the role of experts in economics? The contribution to the current methodological debate that I propose not only takes the role of expertise in economics as indispensable, but also suggests a (...) need for a methodology associated with that role. I defend an indispensability argument, and indirectly David Colander's plea for refocusing the methodological debate on the lost art of economics. Finally, I indicate where to look for guidelines in formulating a methodology of economic expertise. (shrink)

¿Què se avizora para el ser humano cuando se piensa en un tema tan existencial como lo es el de sus derechos? ¿Predomina la incertidumbre, la desazòn, los diagnòsticos interminables sobre los males por los cuales la especie humana agonizarà inexorablemente? ¿O por el contrario, se vislumbra con optimismo un futuro de posibilidades siempre abiertas? La cuestiòn de los derechos humanos remite a reflexiones muy profundas en torno a la Identidad y a la Alteridad. Ambas nociones aparecen como supuestos implicitos (...) o explicitos en las diversas estrategias empleadas para el abordaje de un tema tan complejo. El fondo cultural desde el que emergen acompaña las perspectivas teòricas de interpretaciòn y las politicas que las ponen en pràctica. En ambos planos surge con frecuencia la palabra tolerancia aunque en occasiones es utilizada con un significado muy ambiguo. La tolerancia requiere de seres razonables para alcanzar sociedades autènticamente democràticas. La razonabilidad a su vez se logra en la medida en que se estimule el desarrollo del pensamento critico. En este contexto, los aportes de la epistemologia de la complejidad de Edgar Morin, (la cual surgiò como alternativa frente a las epistemologias cerradas), posee una especial relevancia para la reflexiòn de los derechos humanos en el contexto històrico-cultural latinoamericano. En esa misma linea se ubica la teoria general de los sistemas sociales de Niklas Luhmann y las reflexiones sobre la identidad del sociòlogo polaco Zygmunt Baumann. En esta ponencia se busca mostrar la estrecha interrelaciòn entre esos autores con respecto al modo de interpretar la identidad y la alteridad, bases ineludibles para la construcciòn del respeto por los derechos del otro en cuanto tal. (shrink)

Resumen:En la historia de la filosofía, las referencias a la tragedia y los motivos trágicos configuran un ámbito de pensamiento. En la filosofía moderna, tras los estudios de Goethe, Schlegel, Schiller, Hegel, Hölderlin, Schopenhauer o Nietzsche, se instauró una “filosofía trágica” (Rosset 2010), y un “sentido trágico” (De Unamuno 1984; Gentili; Garelli 2015) como principio explicativo de la “trágica experiencia política moderna” (Williams 2014; Eagleton 2011). Inscrito en el registro de una filosofía de “lo trágico”, el presente texto propone un (...) estudio genealógico de la relación entre tragedia y democracia griega, mediante el examen de la categoría de stásis.Palabras clave: Tragedia; Democracia; Státis; Krátos; Demos; Pólemos. (shrink)

El presente artículo hace mención de los pasos metodológicos que se debiera tener en consideración para realizar una planificación estratégica energética, en función del espacio geográfico estudiado y de la herramienta SIG.

The article analyzes the information on the Internet of Things, based on Evgeny Morozov's approach, and in genome studies, on Paula Sibilia's approach, identifying the main characteristics of the information, critically and reflexively relating them to the freedom that is derived from it, mainly, in its link with the market, surveillance and control, and with the disembodiment and depoliticization inherent in it.

In this paper the influence of John Duns Scotus’s thought in Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition is outlined, centering the analysis in the concepts of “univocal being” and “intrinsic mode”. The novelty of this work lies on its effort to accurately locate the thesis of the univocity of being and the theory of intrinsic mode that goes along with it in the work of Duns Scotus. Subsequently, an attempt is made to determine the horizon of appropriation and the conceptual displacement (...) operated by Gilles Deleuze in his own work. (shrink)

This article opens with a brief analysis of key features of the Mexican semi-authoritarian regime. It then moves to a discussion of the critical realist positions and features that inform the strategic-relational approach. Attention is paid to social interactions and causal relations that enable the SRA to trace patterns of punctuated evolution and to highlight the processes of transformation. Since ideal types serve to highlight key characteristics in specifc phenomena, processes and actors, some features of ideal types of the state (...) and of the transition from one type to another are also discussed. In particular, attention is paid to the Keynesian welfare national state and to the Schumpeterian workfare post-national regime ideal types elaborated by Jessop. For it is contended that the specific features of these ideal types could be of great help in broadening the debate on economic restructuring and political reforms in countries such as Mexico. Moreover, the SRA approach provides an insight into the endogenous features of social change and stresses the importance of networking for a strategic agenda as well. For the never-static dynamics of the processes of change the role of situated agents in context is fundamental, as it injects intentionality and acknowledges the contingency of the conditions that surround them. (shrink)