Background: The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shortage of qualified nurses in Spain. As a result, the government authorized the hiring of senior students. Objectives: To explore the ethical dilemmas and ethical conflicts experienced by final-year nursing students who worked during the first outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. Research design: A qualitative exploratory study was conducted using purposive sampling. Semi-structured interviews were carried out using a question guide. Interviews took place via a private video chat (...) room platform. A thematic, inductive analysis was performed of the information gathered. Participants and research context: Eighteen nursing students were recruited from two universities of Madrid, aged between 18 and 65 years old, enrolled in the fourth year of nursing studies and who were hired under a relief contract for health professionals during the pandemic. Ethical considerations: The present study was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the study was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Results: Three specific themes emerged: (a) coping with patient triage, (b) difficulties in providing end-of-life care, and (c) coping with patient death. Nursing students participated in the process of patient selection for resource allocation and ICU bed occupancy. They were shown how to care for patients who were not admitted to the ICU, in their last moments and were faced with the difficulties of applying end-of-life care. Finally, the nursing students were confronted with the death of their patients, in overwhelming numbers and under adverse conditions. Conclusions: These findings can help shed light on the ethical dilemmas and ethical conflicts faced by novice nursing students, incorporated into the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it was described that students may normalize the death due to the exhaustion and overwhelmed routine. (shrink)

The emergence of the term ‘Plebanski’ as a topic trend in the scientific literature is studied as a significant communication event resulting from its use by authors to refer to the relevant aspects of Jerzy Plebanski scientific work in the area of mathematical physics. We searched the ‘Plebanski’ topic included in the titles, abstracts and key words of the papers registered in five databases: ADS/NASA, MathSciNet, SCOPUS, SPIRES and Web of Science. Our results clearly show the evolution of the JP’s (...) scientific work from a cited reference to a recognized term in the indexes of the published literature, then to a nodal concept in the scientific communication process and finally as an eponym in the Latin American scholar literature. (shrink)

El espectáculo cinematográfico Cinerama es un referente en la tecnología de la gran pantalla. Gracias a Fred Waller y Hazard Reeves, Cinerama elevó su popularidad. Este hecho derivó en la creación de pabellones móviles itinerantes. Cinesa inició en España el desarrollo del Cinerama móvil, ante la falta de salas cinematográficas. Recurrieron, en 1966, a Emilio Pérez Piñero para la realización de un pabellón móvil que imitara Cinerama Dome, obra de Welton Becket, que siguió la patente de la cúpula geodésica (...) de Richard Buckminster Fuller. Sin embargo, Piñero diseñó una patente propia conocida como cúpula reticular de directriz esférica. (shrink)

The potential for genetically modified (GM) crops to threaten biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture is substantial. Megadiverse countries and centers of origin and/or diversity of crop species are particularly vulnerable regions. The future of sustainable agriculture may be irreversibly jeopardized by contamination of in situ preserved genetic resources threatening a strategic resource for the world—s food security. Because GM crops are truly biological novelties, their release into the environment poses concerns about the unpredictable ecological and evolutionary responses that GM species (...) themselves and the interacting biota may express in the medium and long term. One of the consequences of these processes may be a generalized contamination of natural flora by GM traits and a degradation and erosion of the commonly owned genetic resources available today for agricultural development. GM plants carrying pharmaceutical and industrial traits will pose even more dangerous risks if released in the environment. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to study Leonardo Polo's conception of the principle of identity. This identity is also called Origin; however, an adequate understanding of that expression requires a careful study of the way man comes to be aware of it.

Conviene subrayar en la época de la ciencia, cuando las prácticas más aberrantes y las especulaciones más desaforadas compiten por arrogarse el título de ciencias, que la filosofía no es una ciencia, ni necesita serlo para ejercer sus funciones críticas. No obstante, mantiene una relación íntima y constante con las ciencias desde sus orígenes hasta nuestros días (relación histórica), utiliza el mismo instrumento metodológico, la razón crítica (relación metódica) y recorre el mismo ámbito de la experiencia cognoscitiva humana (relación sistemática). (...) En ese sentido, la filosofía no se arredra ante el discurso postmoderno de la deslegitimación —Lyotard, Baudrillard, Vattimo, etc.—. Aunque las soluciones filosóficas son legitimadoras, no se reducen a mera ideología, ni tecnocrática ni progresista. (shrink)

Corporate governance (CG) can be seen to operate through a 'double agency' relationship: one between the shareholders and corporate management, and another between the corporate management and the firm's employees. The CG and labour management of firms are closely related. A particularly productive way to study how CG affects and is affected by the employment relationship has been to compare CG across countries. The contributions of this paper to that literature are threefold. (1) An integration of aspects of the labour (...) management literature in the CG debate. (2) Based on a sample of about 1000 firms from 31 countries, we find evidence of complementarities between the CG and the labour management of firms. Extreme cases, in general, outperform mixed cases. (3) Firm differences within countries are more important than scholars have assumed so far. We present the results of the study and implications for future research and for practice. (shrink)

A partir del análisis de la obra La belleza ideal de Esteban de Arteaga se muestra cómo el autor representa, en el pensamiento español, un momento de enlace entre la estética del siglo XVIII y la del siglo XIX. Inmerso en un ambiente y tradición que interpreta racionalmente el gusto, pasará no obstante, a una comprensión subjetiva que se basa en el sentimiento. La obra se nos presenta, así, como un compendio de todos los problemas que se planteaban y debatían (...) en el siglo XVIII, tratados además de forma amena e interesante; al mismo tiempo que, intrínsecamente, es un intento de dar solución a esos problemas. Refleja también esas peculiares posiciones del exjesuita respecto a las cuestiones de su tiempo y, lo que puede ser más importante, con respecto a cuestiones aún no planteadas por su siglo que indican una sensibilidad próxima a tiempos posteriores a él. (shrink)

The empirical relationship between a firm’s social performance and its financial performance is still not well established in the literature. Despite more than 30 years of research and more than 100 empirical studies on the issue, the results are still mixed. We argue that the heterogeneous results found in previous studies are not due exclusively to problems related with the measurement instruments or the samples used. Instead, we posit that a more fundamental problem related with the endogeneity of social strategic (...) decisions could be driving most of the empirical findings. We show that, using a panel data of 658 firms from 1991 to 2005, how some of the results found in previous research change, and some are even reversed when endogeneity is properly taken into account. (shrink)

Esta investigación retoma la obra de Gabriel García Márquez, Noticia de un secuestro (1996), con la volición de cuestionar la idea de Estado nación que está inmersa en el libro. Para ello, es necesario entender que la naturaleza del texto exige un conocimiento amplio al lector o al intérprete, puesto que su contenido revela datos multidisciplinarios. Además, es insoslayable realizar un análisis discursivo de la historia de ese contexto y cotejar con pasajes del mismo libro. Para facilitar esta labor, (...) la extrapolación de conceptos del teórico Luis Rodríguez Manzanera será de utilidad, ya que él despliega definiciones de Criminología, un tema frecuente en la obra. Verbigracia, la macrocriminalidad, una noción que él postula, permite que se comprenda la complexión del periodo histórico finisecular del siglo XX en Colombia, etapa que le corresponde a Noticia de un secuestro. Por otro lado, es menester dilucidar que este estudio no se reduce a lo literario, lo histórico y lo criminológico, sino que abarca distintas disciplinas, por lo que la exigencia en la consolidación epistemológica e interpretativa estará demostrada consuetudinariamente, sin obviar la inmanencia de la obra. Este tipo de análisis interdisciplinarios ya ha sido trabajado desde los Estudios Culturales, tal como se constata en las investigaciones de Richard Johnson (2000) o Néstor García Canclini (1997). De igual modo, el intento de establecer lineamientos y conexiones entre disciplinas como las de Literatura y Derecho ya ha sido desarrollado por Stanley Fish (1986), Faustino Martínez (2005), Carlos Pérez (2006) y Denise Schalet (2014). A diferencia de estos abordajes ya estudiados, el objetivo de esta investigación es detectar y fundamentar cómo se articula una propuesta ideológica desde una configuración que reanuda elementos históricos y literarios. En específico, lo que se busca es argumentar por qué fracasó implícitamente un proyecto sociopolítico de democracia y progreso, a partir de un panorama de violencia, narcoterrorismo, corrupción, negociaciones ilícitas, transgresión a los derechos humanos e inseguridad ciudadana. Con todo ello, esta tesis de maestría terminará siendo fructuosa para análisis postremos de discursos que tienen como esencia un soporte multidisciplinario. (shrink)

We argue against the claim that the employment of diagrams in Euclidean geometry gives rise to gaps in the proofs. First, we argue that it is a mistake to evaluate its merits through the lenses of Hilbert’s formal reconstruction. Second, we elucidate the abilities employed in diagram-based inferences in the Elements and show that diagrams are mathematically reputable tools. Finally, we complement our analysis with a review of recent experimental results purporting to show that, not only is the Euclidean diagram-based (...) practice strictly regimented, it is rooted in cognitive abilities that are universally shared. (shrink)

El presente trabajo trata de demostrar que a la luz del concepto de ‘hombre entero’o ‘personalidad’ de Simmel se revela cierto isomorfismo estructural entre el hombre éticokantiano y el hombre económico moderno. Para ello, se analiza en primer lugar la críticaque Simmel dirige desde dicho concepto contra la concepción antropológica presupuesta enla ética de Kant. En segundo lugar, se examina la relación que se genera entre el hombre yla cultura como consecuencia del desarrollo de la economía monetaria y de lo (...) que Simmeldenomina ‘tragedia de la cultura’, tratando de demostrar que dicha relación produce untipo de individualidad que, sobre el trasfondo del hombre entero, se evidencia equivalentea la presupuesta en la ética de Kant. Por último, se confrontan los modos de valoración dela ética kantiana y de la economía monetaria con el tipo de normatividad que conviene alhombre entero. (shrink)

En este artículo nos proponemos dar cuenta del régimen temporal propio del capitalismo tardomoderno y sus consecuencias tanto sociológicas como ontológicas. Para ello, partiremos de las tesis de Hartmut Rosa acerca de la aceleración y la alienación. Posteriormente daremos paso a la indagación ontológica de la mano de Heidegger y la psicología existencial. De ese modo, mostraremos que los análisis sociológicos no pueden prescindir de un estudio ontológico de la cuestión. Por último, concluiremos con el rastreo de los modos temporales (...) de la Grecia clásica aplicada al mundo actual mediante la ontología de Gilles Deleuze, quien, junto a Felix Guattari, tuvo la virtud de analizar el capitalismo como movimiento de axiomatización. Nuestra reflexión quedará atravesada por la necesidad de un diagnóstico de las patologías individuales y colectivas que conectan con los estudios sobre el totalitarismo. (shrink)

Fundamentación: el desarrollo de la cultura profesional docente colaborativo se sustenta en los postulados vigotskianos, donde se concibe al profesor como un sujeto comprometido con las demandas y exigencias de la sociedad. Objetivo: socializar las categorías de análisis que se deben tener en cuenta en un colectivo docente para el desarrollo de una cultura profesional colaborativa en el proceso de formación del profesional de la educación superior. Método: se realizó un estudio etnográfico en la Universidad José Martí Pérez, de (...) Sancti Spíritus, apoyada en la metodología cualitativa y un grupo de técnicas posibilitó la recogida de la información. Resultados: se obtuvieron las categorías de análisis que están estrechamente asociadas al deber ser de un docente universitario, portador de esta cultura. Conclusiones: a partir de la coincidencia de criterios sobre los aspectos teóricos y la reflexión colectiva emergieron elementos indispensables en un colectivo para lograr la cultura profesional docente colaborativa a la cual se aspira, elaborados al tener en cuenta su estructura de contenido y forma. Background: the development of collaborative professional teaching culture is based on Vigotskian statements, where the teacher is seen as an individual compromised with the demanding and needs of the society. Objective: Socialize the analytical categories that should be taken into consideration in a teaching staff for the development of collaborative professional teaching culture in the process formation of the professional of higher education. Method: an ethnographic study was carried out in the University José Marti Pérez, from Sancti Spiritus, based on a qualitative methodology and a group of techniques that make data collection possible. Results: The analytical categories obtained were closely linked to the requirements of a university teacher that has this culture. Conclusions: starting from common criteria about theoretical aspects and group reflection, vital elements emerged in the teaching staff to get the collaborative professional teaching culture that is needed, elaborated taking into account its structure of content and form. (shrink)

This article explores the connections between the construct of sexism and other sociodemographic and attitudinal variables, such as internalized homonegativity and heteronormative resistances, among psychology students. Both unrefined and inferential analyses were used with a representative sample of 841 psychology students from public universities in Madrid. Results showed higher levels of sexism, internalized homonegativity and low resistances to heteronormativity among groups of men, heterosexuals and conservatives. Interactions were found that showed a higher degree of hostile sexism in: heterosexual people with (...) respect to LGB and heterosexual men with respect to heterosexual women. Also, interactions were found to show a greater degree of heteronormative resistance in: LGB people with respect to heterosexuals and left-wing women with respect to right-wing women. Correlations with sexism varied according to gender identity and sexual orientation. In addition, heteronormative resistances correlated negatively with sexism, while some components of internalized homonegativity correlated positively. Political affiliation was the most frequent predictor of sexism. The results highlight the need for an intersectional approach to understanding the phenomenon of sexism. (shrink)

This work analyzes and characterizes the spread of the COVID-19 disease in Mexico, using complex networks and optimization approaches. Specifically, we present two methodologies based on the principle of the rupture for the GC and Newton's law of motion to quantify the robustness and identify the Mexican municipalities whose population causes a fast spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Specifically, the first methodology is based on several characteristics of the original version of the Vertex Separator Problem, and the second is based (...) on a new mathematical model. By solving VSP, we can find nodes that cause the rupture of the giant component. On the other hand, solving the NLM can find more influential nodes for the entire system’s development. Specifically, we present an analysis using a coupled social network model with information about the main characteristics of the contagion and deaths caused by COVID-19 in Mexico for 19 months. This work aims to show through the approach of complex networks how the spread of the disease behaves, and, thus, researchers from other areas can delve into the characteristics that cause this behavior. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease pandemic fundamentally disrupted humans’ social life and behavior. Public health measures may have inadvertently impacted how people care for each other. This study investigated prosocial behavior, its association well-being, and predictors of prosocial behavior during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and sought to understand whether region-specific differences exist. Participants from eight regions clustering multiple countries around the world responded to a cross-sectional online-survey investigating the psychological consequences of the first upsurge of lockdowns in spring 2020. Prosocial behavior (...) was reported to occur frequently. Multiple regression analyses showed that prosocial behavior was associated with better well-being consistently across regions. With regard to predictors of prosocial behavior, high levels of perceived social support were most strongly associated with prosocial behavior, followed by high levels of perceived stress, positive affect and psychological flexibility. Sociodemographic and psychosocial predictors of prosocial behavior were similar across regions. (shrink)

Background The birth plan is a tool that allows the self-learning and thoughtful analysis of the women during the birthing process, facilitating their making of decisions and participation, in agreement with the bioethical principles of autonomy and no malfeasance. Goal: To understand the perception and satisfaction of women who presented a birth plan. Methodology: Qualitative, descriptive, observational, retrospective and cross-sectional study. The population of the study was composed of 21 women who presented a birth plan regulated in a Hospital ever (...) since the recording of the presentation of the birth plan was started (2011) until 2015. Place: Cartagena (Murcia, Spain). Techniques/methods: Semistructured interview. Results-Discussion: Most women considered the plan as a useful self-learning tool on the meaning of the birthing process, as it favored the communication between the expectant mothers/health professionals. Our informants sought information related to the birthing process from informal sources; most perceived a level of respect of their wishes during the process of giving birth. The use of the birth plan did not imply the perception of loss of the degree of control during the birth, although attention to the written document could be improved. Conclusions The use of the birth plan is a very satisfactory and useful experience for their involvement in their self-care, although in some cases, the births did not proceed according to their plans. Nevertheless, the prevalence of the principle of Non-Malfeasance over Autonomy was evidenced. (shrink)

This article presents a discussion about using one’s body – in its several occurrences, forms and meanings – for sex, affection and money transactions, within and beyond the scope of prostitution. It results from research carried out with young women involved in prostitution in two Brazilian north-eastern towns. The women’s views, conceptualisations and experiences reveal a prolific construction of discursive differentiation categories, which are linked to a set of moralities within local/regional economies and within notions of family. Through the women’s (...) personal narratives and experiences, our study demystifies the persistent idea of victimisation; it aims at understanding the young women prostitutes in their own contexts – loci that are highly stigmatised and seen as needing to be controlled or ‘developed’. We collected data that allows us to build a counter-discourse to oppose the ever-present attempts at weakening these voices and effacing their meaning-making. Within this context of knowledge production, our research is meaningful and purposeful in addressing the situation of young women in contexts of prostitution. Our main argument is that in certain contexts, such as those studied in this project, sex, affection and kinship are structured as normative – rather than exceptional – ways for women to have access to money. (shrink)

This work begins by proposing the need for exploring the mode of being of mental disorders. It is a philosophical study in an Aristotelian perspective, with special emphasis on the anthropological–cultural dimension. It is difficult for such an inquiry to be carried out from within psychiatry or clinical psychology, committed as these fields are to their own logic and practical conditions. The issues are, in any case, more ontological than strictly clinical in nature. We therefore turn to Aristotle, and specifically (...) his doctrine of the four “causes,” to flesh out the social and cultural dimensions of mental disorders. In accordance with the present analysis, the material cause of disorders would be found in the contingencies of life; the formal cause would pertain primarily to the way clinical conditions themselves can serve as models of ‘being ill’ in our society; the efficient cause would correspond to the patients themselves, understood as active (albeit less than fully conscious) agents as well as to the pharmaceutical industry and the mass media; the final cause would be found in different adaptive functions served by the disorder. We conclude that the “mode of being” of most (if not all) mental disorders—in particular, their status as mental disorders—can often have more to do with cultural forms than with biological factors. (shrink)

Inception module is one of the most used variants in convolutional neural networks. It has a large portfolio of success cases in computer vision. In the past years, diverse inception flavours, differing in the number of branches, the size and the number of the kernels, have appeared in the scientific literature. They are proposed based on the expertise of the practitioners without any optimization process. In this work, an implementation of population-based incremental learning is proposed for automatic optimization of the (...) hyperparameters of the inception module. This hyperparameters optimization undertakes classification of the MNIST database of handwritten digit images. This problem is widely used as a benchmark in classification, and therefore, the learned best configurations for the Inception module will be of wide use in the deep learning community. In order to reduce the carbon footprint of the optimization process, policies for reducing the redundant evaluations have been undertaken. As a consequence of this work, an evaluation of configurations of the inception module and a mechanism for optimizing hyperparameters in deep learning architectures are stated. (shrink)

Para la construcción teórica que permitirá el análisis de Noticia de un secuestro (1996), me baso en el establecimiento del carácter sociológico que poseen las disciplinas de la Literatura y la Criminología (la manera de organizar la sociedad, mediante determinadas leyes y normas), además de poseer otras similitudes (dimensiones artística, interpretativa y escrita), tal como las señala Pérez (2006). El modo de articular estas propuestas resulta algo problemático, pues no hay un nexo interdisciplinario que esté total e intelectualmente elaborado, (...) según lo sostienen Nelson, Treichler y Grossberg: dificultad que no permitiría contextualizar, teorizar y cuestionar las bases con las que se trabajan. Por tal motivo, los Estudios Culturales tienen una funcionalidad necesaria: su metodología no cuenta con garantías sobre el privilegio que se les otorga a las estructuras internas de lo interdisciplinario. Para ello, he desarrollado dos orientaciones que explican ese fenómeno: los abordajes literario y criminológico. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Defending a Phenomenological–Behavioral Perspective: Culture, Behavior, and ExperienceMarino Pérez-Álvarez (bio), José M. García-Montes (bio), Adolfo J. Cangas (bio), and Louis A. Sass (bio)KeywordsBehavior, contextual phenomenology, culture, experienceWe should like to express our sincere thanks to all the authors for their commentaries on our articles. Given the restrictions of space (a limitation they too had to contend with), we can only respond to a few aspects of their (...) interesting remarks. We shall reply of course on the basis of our own approach—an approach that sets out to integrate culture, behavior, and experience, and that might be termed contextual phenomenology, phenomenological behaviorism, or perhaps most accurately (albeit more awkwardly), the phenomenological–behavioral perspective.In her commentary, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008), referring to the target articles “Phenomenology and behaviorism” (Pérez-Álvarez, Sass, and Cangas 2008) and “The role of superstition in psychopathology” (García-Montes et al. 2008), wonders whether our maintaining of the spirit of Skinner, as well as our recourse to phenomenology, might not themselves represent forms of superstitious behavior. She points out that it is not always a good idea to put new wine in old barrels. For her, the new wine and new barrels would be represented by social constructivism, of which she is reminded by some aspects of our work. But in making her own case, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008) reveals certain common prejudices concerning behaviorism, prejudices that have apparently persisted even after reading our article. Thus, for example, she does not see operant behavior as incorporating intentionality (what, in the target article, is presented in terms of final causality), because she assumes that intentionality would necessarily imply a mentalist and dualist notion involving a supposed internal mental entity that causes behavior. Skinner (1974) himself noted and rejected this very assumption in a passage that clearly distinguishes his own approach from what he calls a “stimulus-response formula”: “Possibly no charge,” he wrote,is more often leveled against behaviorism or a science of behavior than that it cannot deal with purpose or intention. A stimulus-response formula has no answer, but operant behavior is the very field of purpose and [End Page 281] intention. By its nature it is directed toward the future: a person acts in order that something will happen, and the order is temporal.(pp. 55–6)The place Skinner gives to intentionality and purpose is elaborated in our target article.Furthermore, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008) assumes that, on methodological grounds, Skinner rejects all that is not observable, or at least that cannot be operationalized. This, however, is simply incorrect, at least as regards Skinner’s radical behaviorism. As the reader may recall, radical (as opposed to methodological) behaviorism is neither operationalist nor does it reject private or subjective events because of their unobservability. Indeed, Skinner specifically acknowledges that such events are in fact observable—at least for one person: the subject him- or herself. The question for Skinner is to understand how the part of the world that is only observable and experiential for oneself is constructed or formed. In the end, it turns out that radical behaviorism is more radical, in the Aristotelian ontological sense (see Pérez-Alvarez, Sass, and García-Montes 2008), than post-modern constructionism. Indeed, as we remarked, radical behaviorism can still surprise us today. Similarly, phenomenology is starting to be missed in the clinical context (Andreasen 2007). We believe that radical behaviorism and phenomenology, mutually readjusted, are in fact excellent wines for the times we live in—if only we knew how to appreciate them.In their commentary on “Phenomenology and behaviorism: A mutual readjustment,” Fletcher and Hayes (2008) argue that the philosophy and theory of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)/Relational Frame Theory (RFT) already contain the salutary aspects of phenomenology that we highlight in our target article. Their insistence on reducing the affinities we find between phenomenology and behaviorism to ACT/RFT consists, in our view, in a scientific–technical argument that is more scientistic than strictly philosophical in nature. Their insistence on the scientific–technical argument itself implies an unclarified philosophical assumption. On what grounds do experimental data constitute the last word? Has... (shrink)

This article attempts to show the importance of the concept of superstition in understanding a range of psychological problems. With this aim, we critically analyze several constructs that, without actually using the term “superstition,” concern this phenomenon and its role in the development of mental disorders. First we discuss “Thought–Action Fusion” and “magical thinking,” two concepts from the cognitive tradition that view superstition as basically an ideational phenomenon. Second, we look at “Experiential Avoidance,” a post-Skinnerian concept that understands superstition as (...) a type of avoidance behavior for certain private events. Third, we discuss superstition as an emotional phenomenon, in particular, Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenological analysis of emotions as magical operations. Finally, we review a cultural approach to superstition and its influence on psychopathology. In this perspective, superstition is seen as a cultural form linked to the historical–social context, which is fostered by certain social practices or institutions, including (perhaps surprisingly) certain features of modernity. (shrink)