Polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases are genetically inherited neurodegenerative disorders. They are caused by mutations that result in polyQ expansions of particular proteins. Mutant proteins form intranuclear aggregates, induce cytotoxicity and cause neuronal cell death. Protein interaction data suggest that polyQ regions modulate interactions between coiled‐coil (CC) domains. In the case of the polyQ disease spinocerebellar ataxia type‐1 (SCA1), interacting proteins with CC domains further enhance aggregation and toxicity of mutant ataxin‐1 (ATXN1). Here, we suggest that CC partners interacting with the polyQ (...) region of a mutant protein, increase its aggregation while partners that interact with a different region reduce the formation of aggregates. Computational analysis of genetic screens revealed that CC‐rich proteins are highly enriched among genes that enhance pathogenicity of polyQ proteins, supporting our hypothesis. We therefore suggest that blocking interactions between mutant polyQ proteins and their CC partners might constitute a promising preventive strategy against neurodegeneration. (shrink)

El paradigma hermenéutico ha abierto un horizonte amplio a la hora de interpretar y comprender textos, pero ha cerrado las posibilidades existenciales que ya en Ser y tiempo abriera Heidegger. Lo que se intenta aquí es señalar esos presupuestos ontológico-existenciales que indicara acertadamente el filósofo alemán en su momento. El avance que se presenta hace parte del proyecto de investigación “Ontología en América Latina” que lidera el Grupo de Investigación Tlamatinime. La primera parte tiene como objetivo fijar cuatro lineamientos que (...) estructuran la propuesta de una hermenéutica existencial: 1. La disposición afectiva como afectación y responsabilidad. 2. El comprender afectivo. 3. El comprender como interpretación. 4. El sentido. La segunda parte, consiste en presentar lo que se vislumbra por hermenéutica existencial y cuál sería su propósito. (shrink)

Frente a los estudios que situaban los análisis foucaultianos acerca del nacimiento de la prisión en unas coordenadas próximas a los Análisis económicos de la pena, este artículo pretende romper con ese reduccionismo economicista. La prisión y las penalidades modernas aparecen en dichos análisis, directamente influidos por los historiadores marxistas ingleses, como respuesta a motines e ilegalismos que tienen un origen no solo económico sino fundamentalmente moral.

A partir de 1961 tienen lugar las guerras coloniales entre Portugal y los diferentes movimientos de liberación, cuyo objetivo era conseguir la independencia de los territorios africanos que estaban bajo el dominio colonial. La guerra, como último estertor de un Imperio ya anacrónico, se extendió en tres frentes, primero en Angola y después en Guinea y Mozambique. Este articulo analiza las políticas del silencio sobre la guerra y el colonialismo en Portugal, instaladas en una memoria eurocéntrica y sólidamente asentadas, ya (...) sea en una representación imperial, ya sea en los dispositivos de una narrativa eminentemente nacional en la que convergen diferentes imperativos, historias sociales y legados. Se defende que la descentralización crítica de una narrativa benévola sobre las naciones europeas post-imperiales nunca será hecha sin un movimiento que reconozca el protagonismo de los mundos creados a partir de los territorios colonizados. (shrink)

Two recent hypotheses have proposed that non‐green plant colouration evolved as a defence against herbivores, either as protective colouration promoting handicap signals indicating plant fitness or by undermining their crypsis. The handicap hypothesis posits a co‐evolutionary process between plants and herbivores, whereas the anti‐crypsis hypothesis suggests that an arms race between insects and plants is the evolutionary mechanism. Both explanations assume that insects are the evolutionary origin causing plants' colouration. Here, we propose a different hypothesis, termed the “Defence Indication hypothesis”. (...) This idea focuses on the multiple protective functions of anthocyanins and carotenoids as pigments, and suggests that plant colouration evolved primarily in response to various stressors. Because pigments and defensive compounds share a common biosynthesis, the production of pigments also provides elevated defensive strengths against herbivores, a process termed priming. In effect, the Defence Indication hypothesis predicts that pleiotropic effects of the pigments and, more generally, plants' shared defence responses, explain why insects might react to plant colouration. BioEssays 28:65–71, 2006. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

La problematización de la pobreza, la criminalización, encierro, reclusión y disciplinamiento de los pobres constituyen factores fundamentales para poder explicar con éxito el nacimiento del primer capitalismo. En este artículo queremos mostrar de qué forma la pobreza, que durante toda la Edad Media había sido naturalizada como una parte más de un orden divino, se convierte, a partir del siglo XVI, en una cuestión problemática que protagoniza apasionados debates. En esta nueva problematización de la pobreza encontraremos los mimbres con los (...) que posteriormente se tejerá toda una tupida red punitiva y disciplinaria que tendrá como propósito la creación de un ejército de trabajadores sumisos en condiciones de miseria. (shrink)

La descripción detallada de un hallazgo considerable de dirhames y fragmentos de dirhames realizado en las proximidades de Iznalloz (Granada) nos lleva a plantear una serie de cuestiones acerca de la trascendencia del reinado de `Abd al-Rahmán II en la historia numismática de al-Ándalus, sobre todo, lo relativo a la posible existencia de más de una ceca emisora.

Several philosophers have expressed concerns with some recent uses of the term ‘cognition’. Underlying a number of these concerns are claims that cognition is only located in the brain and that no compelling case has been made to use ‘cognition’ in any way other than as a cause of behavior that is representational in nature. These concerns center on two primary misapprehensions: First, that some adherents of dynamical cognitive science think DCS implies the thesis of extended cognition and the rejection (...) of representation, and second, that cognition is mistakenly equated with behavior. We make three points in response to these claims: First, there is no thoroughly entrenched conception of cognition as distinct from behavior that is being illegitimately disregarded. Second, we present Shapiro’s exposition of dynamical systems theory as revealing a misunderstanding of the way that dynamical models are used in explanations of cognition and related phenomena. Accordingly, a proper conception of DCS’s methods facilitates an appreciation of extended cognition as a legitimate phenomenon of scientific investigation. Finally, we demonstrate that practicing cognitive scientists and psychologists are far more pluralistic in the phenomena they apply ‘cognition’ to than is suggested by some. At the heart of our disagreement with these concerned folks is that although we think it likely that some cognitive phenomena are representational, non-extended, and only in-between the ears, we also think there are good conceptual and empirical reasons to believe that many cognitive phenomena are non-representational, extended, and not confined to the brain. (shrink)

En medio del constante replanteo que la filosofía y las ciencias humanas en general han venido haciendo de nociones básicas como la de 'existencia', un horizonte de planteo intercultural permitirá acoger mejor las demandas de las sociedades contemporáneas cruzadas por diferentes centros histórico-culturales y por el fenómeno común de los movimientos sociales exigiendo cada uno reconocimiento de sus propios derechos. Se concibe tal planteo como una 'odisea de la libertad', ya que intenta perseguir el difícil camino de la libertad -en (...) tanto poder ser- hacia la realización de sí mismo, en relación al reconocimiento de sí y de los otros, en el ámbito comunitario y político. Sin olvidar la buena relación con la naturaleza y el cosmos y con lo que trasciende a cada realidad, en tanto abrigo de infinitud en el ámbito artístico y religioso. Se advierte entonces que el camino a la libertad atraviesa todo tipo de dificultades. Amid the constant reconsideration of basic notions such as "existence" by philosophy and human sciences, an intercultural proposal will give a better response to the demands of contemporary societies, which are crossed by different historical-cultural centers and by the common phenomenon of social movements claiming for their own rights. Such proposal is conceived as "an odyssey of freedom", since it pursues the hard path of freedom-as possibility to be-towards his own realization and regarding his own and others' acknowledgement in the community and political sphere, not forgetting the good relationship with nature and the cosmos and with what transcends each reality, as a shelter of infinity in the artistic and religious field. It is then noticed that the path to freedom undergoes all kinds of difficulties. (shrink)

RESUMEN Los años setenta son el período más explícitamente militante en la trayectoria de Foucault. Un concepto clave en la primera mitad de estos años y que resultará fundamental, tanto para entender el nacimiento de la prisión como el de la delincuencia, es el de los ilegalismos. El propósito de este artículo es el de rastrear la influencia que, en el desarrollo de este concepto de ilegalismos, tuvieron las lecturas de la obra de E.P. Thompson por parte de Foucault, el (...) diálogo silencioso que se establece entre ambos autores en torno a dos conceptos: el motín de subsistencia y los ilegalismos. Así como el análisis de la distinta significación y objetivo que va adquiriendo este concepto en la obra de Foucault. ABSTRACT The seventies are the most explicitly militant period in Foucault's career. A key concept in the first half of these years, and one that will prove fundamental, both in understanding the birth of prison and of crime, is that of illegalities. The purpose of this article is to trace the influence that readings of E.P. Thompson's work by Foucault had on the development of this concept of illegalisms, the silent dialogue established between the two authors around two concepts: the subsistence riot and illegalisms. As well as the analysis of the different meaning and objective that this concept is acquiring in Foucault's work. (shrink)

Basílio Teles foi um dos ideólogos e pensadores mais importantes do republicanismo português finissecular Todavia, representou, como nenhum outro, uma corrente ideológica autoritária ainda pouco conhecida e estudada entre nós, quanto à sua gén.

In Opacidad y relativismo. La situacionalidad del conocimiento en tensión entre Merleau-Ponty y Foucault, Claudio Cormick introduces Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s and Michel Foucault’s philosophies as attempts to face two possible obstacles for human knowledge : on the one hand, the opacity of consciousness with regard to the foundations of its own positions; on the other, the relative, non-absolute character of our claims to truth, inasmuch as they are formulated within concrete social and historical conditions.

El objetivo del artículo es revisitar el concepto de gran prosa elaborado por Merleau-Ponty para señalar la importancia del lenguaje literario en el problema de la expresión de la verdad. Para ello, expondremos las tesis principales del curso dictado por Merleau-Ponty en el año académico 1953-1954, titulado Le problème de la parole. Esto nos permitirá caracterizar al lenguaje literario y su capacidad de llevar a la expresión el sentido de la percepción. Por último, se considerará la necesidad de la incorporación (...) de la expresión literaria en la elaboración de una filosofía de lo sensible. (shrink)

In this paper, we use a pseudo-algorithmic procedure for assessing an AI-generated text. We apply the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA) in evaluating the arguments produced by an Artificial Intelligence text generator, GPT-3, in an opinion piece written for the Guardian newspaper. The CAPNA examines instances of argumentation in three aspects: their Process, Reasoning and Expression. Initial Analysis is conducted using the Argument Type Identification Procedure (ATIP) to establish, firstly, that an argument is present and, secondly, its specific (...) type in terms of the argument classification framework of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA). Procedural Questions are then used to test the acceptability of the argument in each of the three aspects. The analysis shows that while the arguments put forward by the AI text generator are varied in terms of their type and follow familiar patterns of human reasoning, they contain obvious weaknesses. From this we can conclude that the automated generation of persuasive, well-reasoned argumentation is a far more difficult task than the generation of meaningful language, and that if AI systems producing arguments are to be persuasive, they require a method of checking the plausibility of their own output. (shrink)

Despite the implied critical stance of dystopian narratives, there is a strand of beautiful, aesthetically pleasant dystopias—inherently ambivalent texts that are—both fascinating and horrifying. Drawing from examples in literature and television, this article argues that “beautified dystopias” generate a surplus of aesthetic enjoyment, harboring a mystifying potential in tension with the critical-satirical potential of dystopias. In a rereading of Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, this article first examine how D-503's aestheticizing voice—although undeniably constructed for a satirical effect—fosters a degree of fascination toward (...) the dystopian world in excess of Zamyatin's intentions. Second, taking Black Mirror's “Fifteen Million Merits” as an example of contemporary televisual dystopias, this article argues that the supposedly ironic construction of beautified cinematic mise-en-scènes deepens and complicates the underlying ambivalence of “beautified dystopias.” The author's assumption is that this is not an exceptional case, but rather an integral part of the current dystopian structure of feeling. (shrink)