This article aims to advance the discussion of how multinational companies manage the tension between global integration and local responsiveness in their corporate social responsibility. In particular, it studies the relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries in a transnational CSR strategy and the types of coordination mechanisms used. Building on a qualitative study of a multinational bank, we find that in addition to formal and informal coordination mechanisms, a transnational CSR strategy cannot be fully understood without considering lateral learning and participatory (...) decision making. Further, we suggest that discussions about the transnational approach to CSR should not be disentangled from the question about a company's CSR orientation. Finally, we propose some characteristics of transnational CSR and discuss its theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta os resultados de um estudo de caso clínico que buscou compreender os processos psíquicos associados às manifestações de angústia e do sintoma na infância. Com base na teoria psicanalítica, pretendeu-se identificar a representação do paciente de suas figuras parentais, ass..

This book on the Tripurārahasya, a South Indian Sanskrit work which occupies a unique place in the Śākta literature, is a study of the Śrīvidyā and Śākta traditions in the context of South Indian intellectual history in the late middle ages. Associated with the religious tradition known as Śrīvidyā and devoted to the cult of the Goddess Tripurā, the text was probably composed between the 13th and the 16th century CE. The analysis of its narrative parts addresses questions about the (...) relationships between Tantric and Purāṇic goddesses. The discussion of its philosophical and theological teachings tackles problems related to the relationships between Sākta and Śaiva traditions. The stylistic devices adopted by the author(s) of the work deal uniquely with doctrinal and ritual elements of the Śrīvidyā through the medium of a literary and poetic language. This stylistic peculiarity distinguishes the Tripurārahasya from many other Tantric texts, characterized by a more technical language. The book is intended for researchers in the field of Asian Studies, Indology, Philosophical, Theological or Religious Studies, Hindu Studies, Tantric Studies and South Asian Religion and Philosophy, in particular those interested in Śākta and Śaiva philosophic-religious traditions. (shrink)

Drug resistant epilepsy is one of the most complex, multifactorial and polygenic neurological syndrome. Besides its dynamicity and variability, it still provides us with a model to study brain-behavior relationship, giving cues on the anatomy and functional representation of brain function. Given that onset zone of focal epileptic seizures often affects different anatomical areas, cortical but limited to one hemisphere, this condition also let us study the functional differences of the left and right cerebral hemispheres. One lateralized function in the (...) human brain is emotional prosody, and it can be a useful ictal sign offering hints on the location of the epileptogenic zone. Besides its importance for effective communication, prosody is not considered an eloquent domain, making resective surgery on its neural correlates feasible. We performed an Electronic databases search (Medline and PsychINFO) from inception to July 2017 for studies about prosody in epilepsy. The search terms included “epilepsy,” “seizure,” “emotional prosody,” and “vocal affect.” This review focus on emotional prosody processing in epilepsy as it can give hints regarding plastic functional changes following seizures (preoperatively), resection (post operatively), and also as an ictal sign enabling the assessment of dynamic brain networks. Moreover, it is argued that such reorganization can help to preserve the expression and reception of emotional prosody as a central skill to develop appropriate social interactions. (shrink)

This paper reviews the experience of an integrated approach to CSR in the U.S. electric utility sector. The authors report on the results of Southern Company’s historical definition of CSR as a dynamic model, balancing stakeholder needs through shifting pressures to assure long-term shareholder value, superior customer, price performance, and sustainable economic development. Using financial and utility sector measures, the paper assesses the company’s “balancing” approach to addressing CSR, which weights corporate, environmental, community, and economic factors in driving successful and (...) sustained financial, social, and environmental performance. The paper concludes by suggesting that CSR success in this sector requires, first, that the global warming issue be governed by the same balancing considerations to which all stakeholders and their legitimate interests are subject, and second, an energy policy that embraces both atechnology policy and appropriate regulatory incentives. (shrink)

This volume reviews examples and notions of robustness at several levels of biological organization. It tackles many philosophical and conceptual issues and casts an outlook on the future challenges of robustness studies in the context of a practice-oriented philosophy of science. The focus of discussion is on concrete case studies. These highlight the necessity of a level-dependent description of robust biological behaviors.Experts from the neurosciences, biochemistry, ecology, biology, and the history and the philosophy of life sciences provide a multiplex perspective (...) on the topic. Contributions span from protein folding, to cell-level robustness, to organismal and developmental robustness, to sensorimotor systems, up to the robustness of ecological systems.Several chapters detail neurobiological case-studies. The brain, the poster child of plasticity in biology, offers multiple examples of robustness. Neurobiology explores the importance of temporal organization and multiscalarity in making this robustness-with-plasticity possible. The discussion also includes structures well beyond the brain, such as muscles and the complex feedback loops involved in the peculiar robustness of music perception. Overall, the volume grounds general reflections upon concrete case studies, opening to all the life sciences but also to non-biological and bio-inspired fields such as post-modern engineering. It will appeal to researchers, students, as well as non-expert readers. (shrink)

Convolutional neural networks, which automatically learn features from raw data to approximate functions, are being increasingly applied to the end-to-end analysis of electroencephalographic signals, especially for decoding brain states in brain-computer interfaces. Nevertheless, CNNs introduce a large number of trainable parameters, may require long training times, and lack in interpretability of learned features. The aim of this study is to propose a CNN design for P300 decoding with emphasis on its lightweight design while guaranteeing high performance, on the effects of (...) different training strategies, and on the use of post-hoc techniques to explain network decisions. The proposed design, named MS-EEGNet, learned temporal features in two different timescales in an efficient and optimized way, and was validated on three P300 datasets. The CNN was trained using different strategies and was compared with several state-of-the-art algorithms. Furthermore, variants of the baseline MS-EEGNet were analyzed to evaluate the impact of different hyper-parameters on performance. Lastly, saliency maps were used to derive representations of the relevant spatio-temporal features that drove CNN decisions. MS-EEGNet was the lightest CNN compared with the tested SOA CNNs, despite its multiple timescales, and significantly outperformed the SOA algorithms. Post-hoc hyper-parameter analysis confirmed the benefits of the innovative aspects of MS-EEGNet. Furthermore, MS-EEGNet did benefit from transfer learning, especially using a low number of training examples, suggesting that the proposed approach could be used in BCIs to accurately decode the P300 event while reducing calibration times. Representations derived from the saliency maps matched the P300 spatio-temporal distribution, further validating the proposed decoding approach. This study, by specifically addressing the aspects of lightweight design, transfer learning, and interpretability, can contribute to advance the development of deep learning algorithms for P300-based BCIs. (shrink)

Interleukin‐15 (IL‐15) is a pleiotropic cytokine of the 4 α‐helix bundle family, which binds to a receptor complex that displays common elements with the IL‐2 receptor and a unique high‐affinity α chain. This review focuses on juxtacrine and reverse signaling levels in the IL‐15/IL‐15R system. Specifically, we discuss how agonistic stimulation of membrane‐bound IL‐15 induces phosphorylation of members of the MAP kinase family and of focal adhesion kinase (FAK), thereby upregulating processes including cytokine secretion, cell adhesion and migration. In addition, (...) we explore IL‐15 trans‐presentation and intracellular signaling, and define promising molecular targets for future pharmacological intervention in infectious diseases and immunological disorders. These frontiers in IL‐15/IL‐15Rα research serve as highly instructive examples for key concepts, unsolved problems and therapeutic opportunities in juxtacrine and reverse signaling in general. BioEssays 28: 362–377, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

SPECIAL SECTION: BUILDING UNIVERSES: THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND MATHEMATICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF COSMOLOGY (EIGHTEENTH–TWENTIETH CENTURIES) .

El objetivo del artículo es presentar el diseño y la evaluación de un taller de prevención y sensibilización contra el acoso sexual. En total 286 estudiantes (224 mujeres y 62 hombres) de distintos grados de la Universidad de las Islas Baleares participaron en el taller y mostraron una alta satisfacción con el taller. 197 participantes incluso dieron la máxima puntuación en todos los 9 ítems del cuestionario de evaluación. Estos resultados animan a impulsar su aplicación en otros estudios y también (...) dentro del marco de formación del personal docente e investigador (PDI) y del personal de administración y servicios (PAS). (shrink)

From the seventies onward a large quantity of theoretical and empirical studies have investigated the heuristic principles and cognitive strategies that individuals use to deal with risky and uncertain situations. This research has shown how the explicative and predictive shortcomings of normative risk analysis depend in many respects on undervaluing the continuous interaction between the individual and the environment. There are factors that, day by day, represent significant obstacles to decision making.

Este artigo explora as relações entre história e literatura considerando a literatura um testemunho que pode ser lido, desconstruído e submetido ao mesmo escrutínio ao qual os historiadores submetem outras fontes que lhes permitam ter acesso à compreensão de redes e tensões sociais mais amplas. Nele são utilizadas poesias publicadas no cancioneiro Trovador: coleção de modinhas, recitativos, árias, lundus, etc.., com o objetivo de mostrar como seus autores estabeleceram um diálogo entre si e com seus leitores acerca de um assunto (...) candente do seu tempo - o progresso e seus desdobramentos para o cotidiano da sociedade – utilizando-se da literatura como instrumento de intervenção na realidade. A partir desses pressupostos, a experiência histórica vivida por escritores é considerada condição básica de análise, bem como texto e contexto são percebidos como dimensões indissociáveis de um fenômeno mais amplo que é ao mesmo tempo, cultural, econômico, social e político devendo ser abordados em conjunto levando-se em conta suas conexões recíprocas. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate a Curry-Howard interpretation of the intersection and union type inference system for Combinatory Logic. Types are interpreted as formulas of a Hilbert-style logic L, which turns out to be an extension of the intuitionistic logic with respect to provable disjunctive formulas (because of new equivalence relations on formulas), while the implicational-conjunctive fragment of L is still a fragment of intuitionistic logic. Moreover, typable terms are translated in a typed version, so that --typed (...) combinatory logic terms are proved to completely codify the associated logical proofs. (shrink)

This essay argues that despite of the feminist critique of Merleau-Ponty his phenomenology can be positively appropriated to the theory of sexual difference. It focuses on three issues: the first one is closely linked to the Phenomenology of Perception and introduces a concept of "difference as differentiation". The second one is concerned with the intersubjective dimension of sexuality and will be called a "sexual syncretism". Finally, I’m referring to Merleau-Ponty's notion of "chiasm" in his late work The Visible and the (...) Invisible in order to apply it to the theory of sexual difference. At this point, the difference between sexual beings will be conceptualized as "chiasmatic intertwining". In doing so, I hope to show that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology is a helpful resource for philosophical research that is mainly concerned with the questions of sexuality and sexual difference. (shrink)

Pluralist mathematical realism, the view that there exists more than one mathematical universe, has become an influential position in the philosophy of mathematics. I argue that, if mathematical pluralism is true (and we have good reason to believe that it is), then mathematical realism cannot (easily) be justified by arguments from the indispensability of mathematics to science. This is because any justificatory chain of inferences from mathematical applications in science to the total body of mathematical theorems can cover at most (...) one mathematical universe. Indispensability arguments may thus lose their central role in the debate about mathematical ontology. (shrink)

In two studies, children's concepts of various types of ordinarily unobservable entities were examined. Study 1 confirmed earlier findings in showing that children aged 4–9 years are confident of the existence of scientific entities such as germs as well as religious beings such as God. At the same time, both age groups are skeptical of the existence of various mythical beings such as mermaids. In Study 2, older children aged 10–12 years were probed for their concepts of religious as compared (...) to scientific phenomena. Despite considerable confidence in each type, older children differentiated between them, both with respect to their level of confidence and their pattern of justification. (shrink)

Can art, religion, or philosophy afford ineffable insights? If so, what are they? The idea of ineffability has puzzled philosophers from Laozi to Wittgenstein. In Ineffability and its Metaphysics: The Unspeakable in Art, Religion and Philosophy, Silvia Jonas examines different ways of thinking about what ineffable insights might involve metaphysically, and shows which of these are in fact incoherent. Jonas discusses the concepts of ineffable properties and objects, ineffable propositions, ineffable content, and ineffable knowledge, examining the metaphysical pitfalls involved (...) in these concepts. Ultimately, she defends the idea that ineffable insights as found in aesthetic, religious, and philosophical contexts are best understood in terms of self-acquaintance, a particular kind of non-propositional knowledge. Ineffability as a philosophical topic is as old as the history of philosophy itself, but contributions to the exploration of ineffability have been sparse. The theory developed by Jonas makes the concept tangible and usable in many different philosophical contexts. (shrink)

The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was there (...) a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress. (shrink)

This paper offers an interpretation and a defense of Aristotle’s view of history. According to a common reading of the Poetics, the philosopher intends to establish a dichotomy between history and poetry. On this view, the former speaks only of particulars because it relates events that are accidentally related to one another, whereas the latter speaks of universals because it organizes events according to causal relations of probability and necessity. A careful reading of the relevant passages of the Poetics and (...) the analysis of his conception of historia as a preliminary inquiry that leads to the philosophical investigation of causes and principles, however, show that Aristotle did not confine history to the realm of particulars. Rather, he acknowledged that it has some connection with universality, and to that extent, that it partakes in the philosophical nature of poetry. At the same time he provided valid indications to the effect that, despite their affinity, historia and poiêtikê differ in kind, because they are defined by different functions (erga). (shrink)

The existence of fundamental moral disagreements is a central problem for moral realism and has often been contrasted with an alleged absence of disagreement in mathematics. However, mathematicians do in fact disagree on fundamental questions, for example on which set-theoretic axioms are true, and some philosophers have argued that this increases the plausibility of moral vis-à-vis mathematical realism. I argue that the analogy between mathematical and moral disagreement is not as straightforward as those arguments present it. In particular, I argue (...) that pluralist accounts of mathematics render fundamental mathematical disagreements compatible with mathematical realism in a way in which moral disagreements and moral realism are not. 11. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se analizan las transformaciones que, a partir del siglo IV, experimentan los obispos cristianos por su estrecha vinculación con el poder imperial: si en un principio Constantino quiso ponerlos a su servicio como estrechos colaboradores en la administración del Imperio, pronto algunos de ellos, con gran personalidad, se sirvieron de los honores y privilegios adquiridos para reclamar una independencia allí donde — a diferencia de lo que sucederá en Constantinopla a partir de Teodosio I— su elección (...) no dependía del emperador. (shrink)

I argue that recent attempts to deflect Access Problems for realism about a priori domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, and modality using arguments from evolution result in two kinds of explanatory overkill: the Access Problem is eliminated for contentious domains, and realist belief becomes viciously immune to arguments from dispensability, and to non-rebutting counter-arguments more generally.

Puts leading Italian thinkers into conversation with established Continental philosophers concerning the future of the nature of the human, technology, metaphysical foundations, globalization, and social and political oppression.

When a patient with a serious mental illness expresses a desire for children, mental health professionals are faced with an ethical dilemma. To date, little research has been conducted into their strategies for dealing with these issues.

Y a-t-il un rapport entre l’idée adéquate de Spinoza et la pensée inconsciente chez Freud? Nous pouvons en effet envisager la fin de l’analyse comme un parcours entre les différentes structures cliniques : névrose, psychose et perversion. Le schizophrène arrive d’emblée à réaliser ce parcours : il traverse la limite entre les structures, en affirmant simultanément leurs différences. Le problème se pose au niveau du lien social, où le schizophrène est blâmé et mis à l’écart : son dire reste en (...) dehors de tout discours établi, écrit Lacan dans L’étourdit. Comment penser alors la force politique du corps sans organes du schizophrène? Et en quoi relève-t-il, selon notre hypothèse, du troisième genre de connaissance? (shrink)

A remarkable number of philosophies of laughter center their research on explosive laughter. When it comes to 20th century philosophers of laughter, this is true for Henri Bergson, Sigmund Freud, Hélène Cixous and Helmuth Plessner among others. What those approaches share is the assumption that in explosive laughter people are rendered powerless. Others, as for example Georges Bataille speak of the entire loss of intentionality. But how far does the loss of intentionality and power really go? From this starting-point a (...) reconsideration of the so-called loss of power seems to be at stake. I will discuss selected theories of laughter from the phenomenological tradition in order to show that the loss of power cannot be claimed to be total. With the help of Plessner’s phenomenology of the body in Laughing and Crying and Merleau-Ponty’s concept of “operative intentionality” from his Phenomenology of Perception, I will argue that a certain form of intentionality is a precondition for the act of laughter. In general, the paper aims at clarifying the phenomenon of explosive laughter and expounding on the debate over intentionality vs. non-intentionality from the perspective of phenomenology. (shrink)