In order to design and implement electronic institutions that incorporate norms governing the behavior of the participants of those institutions, some crucial steps should be taken. The first problem is that human norms are (on purpose) specified on an abstract level. This ensures applicability of the norms over long periods of time in many different circumstances. However, for an electronic institution to function according to those norms, they should be concrete enough to be able to check them run time. A (...) second problem is that norms describe which behavior is desirable and permitted, but not how this is achieved in an institution. In the “real world" regulations often indicate procedures for implementing and enforcing the law. Likewise we should devise means to annotate the norms with practical aspects such as enforcement mechanisms, sanctions, etc. in order to get requirements for an institution that will enforce norms (by either constraining behavior within the norms or reacting to violation of the norms). The choice of which kind of mechanism is chosen is not a normative one, but usually based on criteria of efficiency and/or feasibility of the mechanism. In this paper we present our view on how to approach these problems and other related issues to be solved in order to develop e-institutions capable to operate in complex, highly regulated scenarios. (shrink)

Research traditions on cognition and depression focus on relatively unconnected aspects of cognitive functioning. On one hand, the neuropsychological perspective has concentrated on cognitive control difficulties as a prominent feature of this condition. On the other hand, the clinical psychology perspective has focused on cognitive biases and repetitive negative patterns of thinking for emotional information. A review of the literature from both fields reveals that difficulties are more evident for mood-congruent materials, suggesting that cognitive control difficulties interact with cognitive biases (...) to hinder cognitive switching, working memory updating, and inhibition of irrelevant information. Connecting research from these two traditions, we propose a novel integrative cognitive model of depression in which the interplay between mood-congruent cognitive control difficulties, cognitive biases, and rumination may ultimately lead to ineffective emotion-regulation strategies to downregulate negative mood and upregulate positive mood. (shrink)

Los estudios recientes sobre Hobbes han puesto una gran atención en el uso de las imágenes. Permanece, sin embargo, una objeción seria y factible: se podría argumentar que Hobbes no relaciona su producción de imágenes, ni a su política, ni a su teoría de la percepción y que, por tanto, no tenemos razón para creer que sus imágenes son una aplicación de esta doctrina. El propósito de este trabajo es mostrar que Hobbes de hecho sí vincula — de un modo (...) implícito — la construcción de imágenes y su teoría psicológica al orden político. Primero, el artículo reconstruye la teoría hobbesiana de la percepción y sus implicaciones. Segundo, se muestra que el Leviathan establece encubiertamente el vínculo entre la teoría de las imágenes y las imágenes políticas, incluyendo, por consiguiente, las creadas por el propio Hobbes. Tercero, se muestra que el Leviatán de Hobbes rara vez descubre su rol como dispositivo para ver, para hacer que el lector vea imágenes que él considera necesarias. Finalmente, se discuten las consecuencias de este descubrimiento para nuestra comprensión de Hobbes y de la visualidad y las imágenes en el pensamiento político. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se analizará, en primer lugar, la importancia de incorporar la dimensión social al análisis jurídico a partir de un enfoque interdisciplinario riguroso que permite articular las exigencias metodológicas de cada ciencia y así evitar el sincretismo (I). Luego, se desarrollará cómo la sociología de los valores de Nathalie Heinich puede resultar un marco teórico-conceptual relevante para dotar de racionalidad al discurso jurídico cuando se incorporan argumentos de naturaleza social (II). Finalmente, se planteará que lo expuesto en (...) el punto anterior permite incorporar una herramienta relevante al momento de argumentar y de justificar la decisión de casos difíciles, dificilísimos y estructurales en los cuales, entre otros aspectos, deben emplearse principios jurídicos (III). (shrink)

Nowadays, the quality standards of higher education institutions pay special attention to the performance and evaluation of the students. Then, having a complete academic record of each student, such as number of attempts, average grade and so on, plays a key role. In this context, the existence of missing data, which can happen for different reasons, leads to affect adversely interesting future analysis. Therefore, the use of imputation techniques is presented as a helpful tool to estimate the value of missing (...) data. This work deals with the academic records of engineering students, in which imputation techniques are applied. More specifically, it is assessed and compared to the performance of the multivariate imputation by chained equations methodology, the adaptive assignation algorithm based on multivariate adaptive regression splines and a hybridization based on self-organisation maps with Mahalanobis distances and AAA algorithm. The results show that proposed methods obtain successfully results regardless the number of missing values, in general terms. (shrink)

Student performance and its evaluation remain a serious challenge for education systems. Frequently, the recording and processing of students’ scores in a specific curriculum have several flaws for various reasons. In this context, the absence of data from some of the student scores undermines the efficiency of any future analysis carried out in order to reach conclusions. When this is the case, missing data imputation algorithms are needed. These algorithms are capable of substituting, with a high level of accuracy, the (...) missing data for predicted values. This research presents the hybridization of an algorithm previously proposed by the authors called adaptive assignation algorithm, with a well-known technique called multivariate imputation by chained equations. The results show how the suggested methodology outperforms both algorithms. (shrink)

The company at the service of today's society is reinventing itself to satisfy people's needs in a more efficient and adapted way. Globalization and digitization promote increasing interaction and new forms of economic organization such as collaborative economy. However, can it be understood that this new business model, more than others, has as its raison d'être in the search for the “common good”? A first approach suggests the presence of values related to collaboration between equals aiming at a common good. (...) However, the possible existence of a profit motive and the labor relations framework in which certain activities are carried out have created a debate on their ethical qualification. In this context, considering 278 companies in the collaborative economy sector, the relationship between the concept of “common good” and the collaborative economy is analyzed, while examining whether these new realities have an explicit ethical intention (of search for goods for people). According to the results, it is not possible to assert that these platforms have an ethical concern, but it is observed that they are in line with the common good and implicitly contribute to the service of society. (shrink)

Assessing physical fitness has emerged as a proxy of the health status of children and adolescents and therefore as relevant from a public health point of view. DAFIS is a project included in Plan Galicia Saudable of the regional government of Galicia. DAFIS consists of an on-line software devoted to record the results of a standard physical fitness protocol carried out as a part of the physical education curriculum. The aims of this study were: to obtain normative values of physical (...) fitness of the Galician school population evaluated in the DAFIS project, and to identify a reduced number of components and tests able to capture a significant amount of the variability in the physical fitness of children and adolescents. From an initial sample of 27784 records, 15287 cases were considered after filtering. Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape were used for obtaining percentile curves and tables for each sex. Furthermore, a principal components analysis was performed, selecting the number of components by applying the Kaiser’s rule and selecting a subset of variables considering the correlation between each variable and the components. Percentile curves and normative values are reported for each test and sex. Physical fitness was better in boys than in girls throughout age groups, except for flexibility that was consistently higher in girls. Two main components were detected throughout age groups: the first one representing body composition and partially cardiorespiratory fitness and the second one muscular fitness. For boys and girls, waist to height ratio had the highest correlations with the first component in four out of six age groups. The highest correlation with the second component, was most frequently observed for the handgrip test both in boys and girls. This study provides evidence about the utility of school community actions like DAFIS aimed to track the health-related fitness of children and adolescents. The results suggest that fat mass distribution and muscular performance concentrate a high proportion physical fitness variance. (shrink)

La mirada hacia atrás que propicia el libro de Francisco Vázquez “La filosofía española: herederos y pretendientes. Una lectura sociológica (1963-1990)” entraña indudables riesgos, pero ninguno comparable a la desmemoria acerca de lo acontecido, sea para bien o para mal, con nuestra transición filosófica a lo largo de aquellos años; y se trata de una mirada imprescindible si queremos, pese a la insalvable incertidumbre, aprender a mirar hacia adelante.

¿Cuál es la relación entre política y verdad? ¿Es la verdad la realización de la política o más bien su negación? ¿La política sólo puede aspirar a tener un contenido ético si persigue y proclama la verdad? ¿Si no existe tal cosa como la Verdad, la política es entonces una pura lucha egoísta por el poder? ¿O cabe pensar que la inexistencia de la Verdad es el requisito de la democracia, el pluralismo y el carácter creativo e imaginativo de la (...) política? Estas preguntas son las que guían las reflexiones de este libro sobre el complejo y largamente discutido vínculo entre política y verdad. A través de sus páginas, distintos autores muestran cómo ha sido pensado el problema de la verdad en la historia de la teoría política occidental y cómo puede ser pensado en la actualidad, recorriendo un camino que va de Platón a Derrida, pasando por Kant, Weber, Schmitt, Strauss, Arendt, Berlin y Habermas. (shrink)

This book seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the relationships between the objective and subjective aspects of time. It discusses the existence of fluent time, a controversial concept in many areas, from philosophy to physics. Fluent time is understood as directional time with a past, a present and a future. We experience fluent time in our lives and we adopt a temporal perspective in our ways of knowing and acting. Nevertheless, the existence of fluent time has been debated (...) for both philosophical and scientific reasons, thus creating a rift between the subjective and objective aspects of time. Starting from the basic notion of points of view, or perspectives, this book explores the relationships between objective or external time, as it has been conceptualized by science, and subjective or internal time, which is involved in our lived experiences. It establishes a general framework encompassing the nature, structure and mode of existence of points of view, in which the objective and subjective aspects of time can be integrated. The book mainly addresses researchers and postgraduates in philosophy and logic. Additionally, it offers inspiration for physicists and computer scientists involved in the modeling and simulation of complex behaviors for which the representation of internal time should be considered together with the notion of objective, external time. (shrink)

A fundamental question in biology is whether phenotypes can be predicted by ecological or genomic rules. At least five cases of convergent evolution of the crab‐like body plan (with a wide and flattened shape, and a bent abdomen) are known in decapod crustaceans, and have, for over 140 years, been known as “carcinization.” The repeated loss of this body plan has been identified as “decarcinization.” In reviewing the field, we offer phylogenetic strategies to include poorly known groups, and direct evidence (...) from fossils, that will resolve the history of crab evolution and the degree of phenotypic variation within crabs. Proposed ecological advantages of the crab body are summarized into a hypothesis of phenotypic integration suggesting correlated evolution of the carapace shape and abdomen. Our premise provides fertile ground for future studies of the genomic and developmental basis, and the predictability, of the crab‐like body form. (shrink)

Microbial ecology is flourishing, and in the process, is making contributions to how the ecology and biology of large organisms is understood. Ongoing advances in sequencing technology and computational methods have enabled the collection and analysis of vast amounts of molecular data from diverse biological communities. While early studies focused on cataloguing microbial biodiversity in environments ranging from simple marine ecosystems to complex soil ecologies, more recent research is concerned with community functions and their dynamics over time. Models and concepts (...) from traditional ecology have been used to generate new insight into microbial communities, and novel system-level models developed to explain and predict microbial interactions. The process of moving from molecular inventories to functional understanding is complex and challenging, and never more so than when many thousands of dynamic interactions are the phenomena of interest. We outline the process of how epistemic transitions are made from producing catalogues of molecules to achieving functional and predictive insight, and show how those insights not only revolutionize what is known about biological systems but also about how to do biology itself. Examples will be drawn primarily from analyses of different human microbiota, which are the microbial consortia found in and on areas of the human body, and their associated microbiomes (the genes of those communities). Molecular knowledge of these microbiomes is transforming microbiological knowledge, as well as broader aspects of human biology, health and disease. (shrink)

Since the publication of Universals and Scientific Realism (Armstrong 1978a, b) until Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics (Armstrong 2010), via Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (Armstrong 1989), a World of States of Affairs (Armstrong 1997), and Truth and Truthmakers (Armstrong 2004), David Armstrong has developed one of the most influential theories of instantiation in contemporary analytic metaphysics (see, for example, Lewis, in Aust J Phil 61(4), 343–377, 1983; Baxter in Aust J Phil, 79, 449–464, 2001; Forrest, in Aust J Phil, 83, (...) 213–228, 2006). Instantiation has been advocated by Armstrong to give a solution to what he has called the “pressing problem” of “the multiple location of property universals” (Armstrong, in Universals: An opinionated introduction. University Press, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 89–90). Here I argue that Armstrong’s theory of instantiation fails to solve the problem because it involves two kinds of instantiation to account for particulars “having” and “sharing” universals. As a viable alternative to Armstrong’s theory, I propose a theory of instantiation capable of accounting for both phenomena in a univocal way. (shrink)

Ateísmo y panteísmo son sistemáticamente rechazados por Hegel a lo largo de su obra. Testimonio paradigmático de este rechazo es la Anm. del § 573 de la Enz., en la que el filósofo critica duramente el panteísmo, a la vez que se desmarca netamente del ateísmo. Ello no ha impedido que los más afines a su filosofía vieran en su crítica de la religión una declaración de ateísmo, ni tampoco que su idealismo absoluto apareciera a ojos de los más críticos (...) como una suerte de panteísmo soterrado, sospechosamente afín a lo que Heine llamaba «la religión secreta de Alemania». El propósito de este artículo es mostrar los malentendidos que subyacen a estas interpretaciones, analizando los pasajes que han contribuido a suscitarlas, de entre los que destaca el célebre elogio a Spinoza de las Lecciones berlinesas, erróneamente tomado como una declaración de fe panteísta. El comentario de este conocido pasaje evidenciará que tras el mencionado elogio no se esconde ni el “ateísmo” ni el “panteísmo” supuestamente spinozianos, sino cierta forma de “acosmismo” y de “monoteísmo filosófico” que Hegel considera precursor del idealismo. (shrink)

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo plantear una interpretación desacostumbrada sobre el concepto poético de lo “abierto” que Rainer Maria Rilke presenta en la octava elegía de sus Elegías de Duino. Para ello, en primer lugar, trataré de deshacer una de las lecturas más clásicas que se han realizado desde la filosofía sobre concepto de lo abierto rilkeano: su rigidez metafísica. En segundo lugar, apuntaré que la interpretación que realiza Martin Heidegger sobre lo abierto no tiene en cuenta aspectos relevantes (...) de la octava elegía que cuestionarían la idea, defendida por Heidegger, de que para Rilke el ser humano no tiene ninguna posibilidad para lo abierto. En tercer y último lugar, reinterpretaré lo abierto de la mano de Judith Butler y de sus conceptos “aprehensión” y “reconocimiento” con el fin de apuntar que lo abierto se presenta para el ser humano en la forma de un rompimiento continuo entre la construcción y el desmoronamiento. (shrink)

The systematic importance of the eidetic account of phantasy for Husserlian phenomenology in general is undisputed, but whether this account can be relevant for Aesthetics has often been put into question. In this paper I argue that Husserl’s rich phenomenology of phantasy, and in particular his account of perceptual phantasy, can nevertheless significantly enhance our understanding of how we recognize and imaginatively participate in artistic fictions. Moreover, I show how Husserl’s peculiar formulation of a non-intuitive phantasy at stake in artistic (...) representation anticipates some uses of the imagination in Aesthetics suggested by Ernst Gombrich and Kendall Walton. (shrink)

Comencemos por los derechos. No me detendré en el vidrioso problema de su fundamentación. Solo daré por supuesto, y un tanto dogmáticamente, que existen dos concepciones extremas que me parecen insostenible. Una es la que afirma, en tradición añeja, los derechos naturales. La otra, más actualizada, los reduce a algo puramente fáctico, positivo. Los primeros cometen el error de confundir las convenciones que creamos voluntariamente los humanos en el reino de la cultura con las regularidades que, de hecho, se dan (...) en el reino de la naturaleza. Y los segundos eliminan un aspecto esencial de la racionalidad humana: la crítica y modificación de aquello que no está suficientemente justificado. En nuestros días, el lenguaje de los derechos se ha extendido de tal manera que lo cubre todo, rozando así casi con el ridículo. [Fragmento]. (shrink)

Diferenciamos en este articulo entre problemas externos y problemas internos de la democracia. Los primeros los ejemplificamos en el teorema de Arrow, en el conflicto entre derechos fundamentales y principio de elección y en la paradoja de la derogación. Los problemas externos, en cuanto insolubles, no son responsabilidad nuestra. Los segundos sí lo son. De ahí que es un deber moral ensanchar al máximo la democracia. Lo contrario seria reducirla a su simple y avalorativa utilidad, quedarse en un academicismo que,escolásticamente, (...) se limita a pequeñas distinciones y confundir, además, ciencia política con filosofía política. (shrink)

The foundations of Horkheimer’s rational society are based on the premise that social philosophy could be a choice for the Critical Theory. Therefore [1] a dialectic interpretation of the social issue is developed between philosophy and social sciences theories, using the category of interdisciplinary materialism. [2] Characterizing an age in a state of indigence begins with the definition of Enlightenment as a process of disenchantment with the world that reduces human reality under the sign of domination. The liberator course of (...) the Enlightenment was marred from the beginning and ended up being a process of alienation and reification. [3] Hence, the moral sentiments of compassion and politic solidarity get to the stage in order to addressing a new ethical perspective in which it is posible to define an existential imperative that can view the human misery and the searching of happiness, in the purpose of overcoming the conditions and realities of the present age in state of indigence. (shrink)

The author deals with philosophical ethos in its practical function. After the First World War Husserl not only considers the structure but also the function of phenomenology. A meditation on this function, with regard to the history of philosophy, is his primal task in the Freiburg years. Thus the possibility of developing a rigorous phenomenology of practical reason becomes the basis of phenomenology. The importance of Husserl’s characterization of life in terms of striving is stressed as a key motive in (...) the turn from static to genetic phenomenology. It is argued that instinctive life is inserted in a cultural development that shapes a theoretical side providing content to our primal tendencies as well as the identity of individuals. A decisive point in genetic phenomenology is the passage from instinctive animality to human life. This development rests on a pretheoretic affectivity that colors life as a sort of subconsciousness underlying all our activities. It is the originary stratum through which we approach the world. The article goes on to high-light the importance of Husserl’s concept of culture and specifically of his practical concept of culture which is made up of life-regulations and without which an ideal and a technical culture are devoid of a ground. Finally, the author considers life-regulations as a key problem to be dealt with by phenomenology first in the emotional and then in the practical level. (shrink)

El artículo compara el abordaje de las memorias colectivas en las obras de Jean Paul Sartre y Walter Benjamin. Se sostiene que pueden ser interpretados a partir de un contraste polar, en el que el primero da cuenta de una definición de lo simbólico subordinada al anclaje práctico y, en cambio, el segundo exhibe un predominio opuesto. De esta manera, el estudio de sus textos permite reconocer los efectos teórico-metodológicos de la interpretación de memorias a partir de prácticas o de (...) otras simbologías. (shrink)

Reseña del libro El nihilismo mexicano, de Mario Teodoro Ramírez.

El estudio que aquí se ofrece tiene por objetivo dar respuesta a dos temas, a saber: ¿son el catolicismo y el espiritualismo compatibles y complementarios en sus fundamentos y prácticas? ¿En las categorías de la Lógica (como uso armónico de razonamiento válido) es compatible el adoctrinamiento simultáneo en el catolicismo y en el espiritualismo? Este análisis se sitúa dentro del contexto religioso brasileño, donde tradiciones como el Espiritismo y la Umbanda, que combinan elementos cristianos con espiritualistas, juegan un papel significativo. (...) El artículo reconoce esta diversidad y propone una reflexión que toma en cuenta estas realidades, buscando comprender cómo diferentes cosmovisiones influyen en la práctica religiosa y en la visión del mundo de los fieles. Al confrontar estas distintas realidades en su esencia y lenguaje, la metodología adoptada propone una síntesis de los conceptos clave, clarificando las diferencias entre ambas tradiciones. Además, el estudio se propone ofrecer respuestas concretas a las cuestiones centrales, como la posibilidad de conciliación entre la resurrección y la reencarnación, y cómo estas creencias modelan la comprensión humana sobre la vida, la muerte y lo que viene después. (shrink)

In this article we present symmetric diffusion networks, a family of networks that instantiate the principles of continuous, stochastic, adaptive and interactive propagation of information. Using methods of Markovion diffusion theory, we formalize the activation dynamics of these networks and then show that they can be trained to reproduce entire multivariate probability distributions on their outputs using the contrastive Hebbion learning rule (CHL). We show that CHL performs gradient descent on an error function that captures differences between desired and obtained (...) continuous multivariate probability distributions. This allows the learning algorithm to go beyond expected values of output units and to approximate complete probability distributions on continuous multivariate activation spaces. We argue that learning continuous distributions is an important task underlying a variety of real‐life situations that were beyond the scope of previous connectionist networks. Deterministic networks, like back propagation, cannot learn this task because they are limited to learning average values of independent output units. Previous stochastic connectionist networks could learn probability distributions but they were limited to discrete variables. Simulations show that symmetric diffusion networks can be trained with the CHL rule to approximate discrete and continuous probability distributions of various types. (shrink)

The two eminent metaphysicians Armstrong and Grossmann exchanged letters for ten years in which they discussed crucial points of their respective ontologies. They have a common basis. Both do metaphysics proper and not linguistic philosophy. Both advocate universals and acknowledge the key position of the category of states of affairs. However, they differ on the simplicity of universals and the nature of states of affairs. There is also a fundamental methodological disagreement between them. Armstrong accepts only the evidence of natural (...) science and has a materialist view on mind while Grossmann is a dualist and grants also the same evidential status to the phenomenological data of perception and introspection. The letters are grouped into three phases. The first is the issue of universals, the second the ontological analysis of laws of nature and the third the ontology of numbers. The book contains also longer comments and reviews, partly not published until now. (shrink)

La ciencia de la política en el siglo veinte ha llegado a una difícil situación. La vida ha sufrido convulsiones inesperadas mientras que la ciencia que debía entender lo sucedido ha quedado apresada por la perplejidad y pos sus fracasos en la predicción y explicación de los acontecimientos. En tono crítico, el autor mantiene que "una ciudadanía de hombres y mujeres vigilantes es un dogma nuevo que no debe pasar desapercibido". La emancipación colonial, el holocausto, la caída del muro de (...) Berlín y las transformaciones vertiginosas de la tecnología han arrastrado a la ciencia política y a sus investigadores a una situación comprometida. En este libro, el autor reconstruye la teoría política del siglo veinte a través de sus grandes maestros y reclama un saber que no se separe de los hombres y mujeres que dan vida a la política cotidiana y real. (shrink)

From XIX Century, the controversy over the authenticity of the Metaphysics’ Kappa has been a constant in the context of studies on the Metaphysics. In regard to the redaction of the aporias of K 1-2, the differences in style and content are remarkable. However, after analyzing the differences, we can assert quite safely that the author of K 1-2 is Aristotle. Indeed, K 1-2 do not contains non-Aristotelian philosophy in approach of the aporias nor in the doctrines involved in them. (...) In this sense, the differences may be explained by the renewed interest of Aristotle for the supersensible, in the face of its research on Λ 6-10. Secondly, with respect to the redaction of aporias, researches on style and morphometry show that the use of some expressions change significantly from one work to another, so differences in style, use of particles and unusual expressions in K 1-2 can be understood as normal. (shrink)

Este artículo es una breve exposición de la formación discursiva de la biopolítica propuesta por Michel Foucault en la década de los setenta. El propósito es presentar el estatuto teórico original del mencionado concepto como una tecnología de doble faz, establecida en los siglos XVII, XVIII y XIX que interviene y establece controles reguladores sobre la vida biológica en dos formas que no son antitéticas. La primera, se centra en el cuerpo como máquina: anatomopolítica del cuerpo humano. La segunda, se (...) enfoca en el cuerpo-especie: es la biopolítica de la población. La metodología utilizada es un análisis de tipo documental que agrupó los cursos: Defender la sociedad; Seguridad, territorio y población y Nacimiento de la biopolítica, así como el libro Historia de la sexualidad 1, para conocer de manera sintética y reflexionar la idea y el sentido original del término como una tecnología de conducción de conductas individuales y colectivas. (shrink)

Evidence has shown that negative distracting stimuli are most difficult to control when we are focused in a relevant task, while positive and neutral distractors might be equally overcome. Still, r...