Los recientes acontecimientos económicos y su trascendental repercusión a nivel mundial, tienen entre alguna de sus más notables consecuencias la caída generalizada en los niveles de consumo. Paralelamente otro de los fenómenos cuasi-globales, el consumo masivo de objetos, se caracteriza cada vez más por la frugalidad de dichos objetos de consumo y la necesidad de sustituirlos por otros que aporten alguna novedad; lo que implica que el consumidor no pueda descansar en sus ansias consumistas. A partir de la unión de (...) estos dos aspectos, crisis económica y consumo posmoderno, se plantea un análisis social de algunos de los aspectos que caracterizan a la sociedad de consumo española en el momento presente y su repercusión en la distribución del gasto. (shrink)

The origin of eukaryotes is one of the major challenges of evolutionary cell biology. Other than the endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria and chloroplasts, the steps leading to eukaryotic endomembranes and endoskeleton are poorly understood. Ras‐family small GTPases are key regulators of cytoskeleton dynamics, vesicular trafficking and nuclear function. They are specific for eukaryotes and their expansion probably traces the evolution of core eukaryote features. The phylogeny of small GTPases suggests that the first endomembranes to evolve during eukaryote evolution had secretory, (...) and not phagocytic, function. Based on the reconstruction of putative roles for ancestral small GTPases, a hypothetical scenario on the origins of the first endomembranes, the nucleus, and phagocytosis is presented. BioEssays 25:1129–1138, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The cilium/flagellum is a sensory-motile organelle ancestrally present in eukaryotic cells. For assembly cilia universally rely on intraflagellar transport (IFT), a specialised bidirectional transport process mediated by the ancestral and conserved IFT complex. Based on the homology of IFT complex proteins to components of coat protein I (COPI) and clathrin-coated vesicles, we propose that the non- vesicular, membrane-bound IFT evolved as a specialised form of coated vesicle transport from a protocoatomer complex. IFT thus shares common ancestry with all protocoatomer derivatives, (...) including all vesicle coats and the nuclear pore complex (NPC). This has major implications for the evolutionary origin of the cilium. First, it reinforces the tenet that duplication and divergence of pre-existing structures, rather than symbiosis, were the major themes during cilium evolution. Second, it suggests that the initial step in the autogenous origin of the cilium was the establishment of a membrane patch with transmembrane proteins transported by the ancestral vesicle-coating IFT complex. We propose a scenario for how the initial membrane patch gradually protruded to enhance exposure to the environment, then started to move, and finally compartmentalised to render receptor signalling and ciliary beating more efficient. BioEssays 28: 191–198, 2006. © 2006 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

We examined how the cultural dimension of universalism–particularism influences managers’ attitudes toward relational favoritism. Paradoxically, we found in a survey study that Brazilian and Chinese managers perceived more negative consequences of relational favoritism than did American managers—even though the Brazilians and the Chinese perceived stronger particularistic cultural norms in their countries than Americans did in the United States. We attribute this pattern of results to “cultural reflexivity”—the ability of people from transforming economies to be culturally self-critical during a period of (...) dramatic societal change. This pattern of results also emerged in a scenario study in which we asked these same Brazilian, Chinese, and American participants to assess managerial succession decisions made by a General Manager. We varied the scenarios so that the promoted manager was either a colleague with no pre-existing relation with the GM or a colleague who was a relative, a close friend, from the same town, or from the same school. Consistent with the results of the survey study, we found that perceived cultural norms of particularism were negatively related to perceptions of fairness. In other words, Brazilians and Chinese, even while living in more particularistic cultures, were more harsh in judging relational favoritism. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of these paradoxical relationships. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:U.S. Organizational Sentencing Guidelines provide firms with incentives to develop formal ethics programs to promote ethical organizational cultures and thereby decrease corporate offenses. Yet critics argue such programs are cosmetic. Here we studied bank employees before and after the introduction of formal ethics training—an important component of formal ethics programs—to examine the effects of training on ethical organizational culture. Two years after a single training session, we find sustained, positive effects on indicators of an ethical organizational culture (observed unethical behavior, (...) intentions to behave ethically, perceptions of organizational efficacy in managing ethics, and the firm’s normative structure). While espoused organizational values also rose in importance post-training, the boost dissipated after the second year which suggests perceptions of values are not driving sustained behavioral improvements. This finding conflicts with past theory which asserts that enduring behavioral improvements arise from the inculcation of organizational values. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:U.S. Organizational Sentencing Guidelines provide firms with incentives to develop formal ethics programs to promote ethical organizational cultures and thereby decrease corporate offenses. Yet critics argue such programs are cosmetic. Here we studied bank employees before and after the introduction of formal ethics training—an important component of formal ethics programs—to examine the effects of training on ethical organizational culture. Two years after a single training session, we find sustained, positive effects on indicators of an ethical organizational culture (observed unethical behavior, (...) intentions to behave ethically, perceptions of organizational efficacy in managing ethics, and the firm’s normative structure). While espoused organizational values also rose in importance post-training, the boost dissipated after the second year which suggests perceptions of values are not driving sustained behavioral improvements. This finding conflicts with past theory which asserts that enduring behavioral improvements arise from the inculcation of organizational values. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Con un'impostazione che coniuga la fedeltà testuale e l'approfondimento critico, il percorso di questo libro mira a ricondurre l'edificazione kierkegaardina - spesso considerata mera esortazione spirituale - allo spessore autenticamente filosofico d'una via soggettiva alla verità. Un modello antioggettivistico di filosofare senza perdere di vista né l'esercizio del dubbio né la dimensione della fede. Attraverso l' interpretazione kierkegaardiane di C. Fabro si è giunti all'esposizione e ai lineamenti descrittivi fondamentali della nozione del singolo. Il singolo viene presentato dallo stesso Kierkegaard (...) come la mia categoria. Sta di fatto che si può intendere l'intera produzione kierkegaardiana come un pensare soggettivamente il singolo. Pensiero etico carico di conseguenze pratiche, giacchè il danese non pretendeva fondare una scuola filosofica ma soltanto rendere attenti, svegliare le coscienze. (shrink)

La encarnación del Verbo de Dios, que culmina en el misterio pascual de la muerte y resurección de Jesucristo, es el hecho fundamental y la novedad radial del Cristianismo. En la encarnación del Verbo, el Dios infinito y creador se autocomunica amorosamente a lo otro creado, para redención y divinización del hombre, para recapitulación del cosmos.

This paper is part of a project that is based on the notion of a dialectical system, introduced by Magari as a way of capturing trial and error mathematics. In Amidei et al. (2016, Rev. Symb. Logic, 9, 1–26) and Amidei et al. (2016, Rev. Symb. Logic, 9, 299–324), we investigated the expressive and computational power of dialectical systems, and we compared them to a new class of systems, that of quasi-dialectical systems, that enrich Magari’s systems with a (...) natural mechanism of revision. In the present paper we consider a third class of systems, that of p-dialectical systems, that naturally combine features coming from the two other cases. We prove several results about p-dialectical systems and the sets that they represent. Then we focus on the completions of first-order theories. In doing so, we consider systems with connectives, i.e. systems that encode the rules of classical logic. We show that any consistent system with connectives represents the completion of a given theory. We prove that dialectical and q-dialectical systems coincide with respect to the completions that they can represent. Yet, p-dialectical systems are more powerful; we exhibit a p-dialectical system representing a completion of Peano Arithmetic that is neither dialectical nor q-dialectical. (shrink)

Self-confidence is associated with many positive outcomes, and training programs routinely seek to build participants’ self-efficacy. In this article, however, we consider whether self-confidence increases unethical behavior. In a series of studies, we explore the relationship between negotiator self-efficacy—an individual’s confidence in his or her negotiation ability—and the use of deception. We find that individuals high in negotiator self-efficacy are more likely to use deception than individuals low in negotiator self-efficacy. We also find that perceptions of the risk of deception (...) mediate this relationship. By identifying negotiator self-efficacy as an antecedent to unethical behavior, our findings offer important theoretical and empirical insights into the use of deception, the role of individual differences in ethical decision making, and the broader consequences of self-confidence in business and society. (shrink)

The paper offers a detailed investigation of select passages from the Vita II Sancti Remacli, a hagiographic text produced in the diocese of Liège in the last decades of the tenth century. The purpose of this investigation is threefold. First, to illustrate the point that the tenth-century Latin hagiographic texts produced in the diocese of Liège did not display quotations from classical and patristic authors only as petrified forms of frozen ancient wisdom with a merely decorative function, but rather as (...) raw gems which were polished and adjusted to fit seamlessly into a new framework. Thus, they could enhance both the form and contents of texts closely connected to their age’s political and intellectual realities. Second, to show that nineteenth- and twentieth-century editions of such texts can act as distorting mirrors to modern readers and researchers, since, due to an editorial strategy that privileged classical material over its medieval context, the editors sometimes completely neglected how quotations from ancient authors were re-worked by the tenth-century hagiographer following the stylistic requirements of rhymed prose. Third, to suggest as a necessary corrective to this distorting approach a new way of reading and consequently editing these types of texts, which places classical and patristic quotations in their proper context, by paying due attention to manuscript evidence, to the stylistic requirements of their new context, and to the complex functions they play in their new textual environment. (shrink)

Graças ao singular prestígio de que gozava o Portugal quatrocentista na Europa de então, era lógico que as filhas e parentes próximas dos nossos reis fossem pretendidas como esposas de infantes e de príncipes estrangeiros; não seria excepção D. Joana, filha de D. Afonso V e irmã de D. João II. Os seus traços fisionómicos estão patentes na pintura guardada no Museu Nacional de Aveiro, que talvez se possa datar de 1471, ou pouco antes; de um autor anónimo, obedeceu aos (...) princípios da escola do pintor Nuno Gonçalves. Nos séculos XVI e XVII, surgiram diversas figurações pictóricas que representam a princesa vestida com o hábito dominicano.Como seria de prever, logo após a beatificação (1693), em Aveiro surgiu a lembrança de que fosse esculpida em madeira uma imagem de Santa Joana para o culto litúrgico. Posteriormente, ao lado de muitas publicações biográficas, multiplicaram-se as representações de Santa Joana, mesmo além-fronteiras. Refiro especialmente as duas que estão patentes em Roma na igreja de Santo António dos Portugueses.Para abreviar este esboço, detenho-me nos últimos decénios da centúria novecentista. Sobretudo a partir de 1938, deparamos com dezenas e dezenas de representações da Princesa Santa Joana, em diferentes materiais e processos, devidas sobretudo à concepção e à arte de aveirenses; até há barcos moliceiros a vogar na ria, que a ostentam garbosamente nas proas. Para finalizar, refiro uma das estátuas que se erguem no perímetro da cidade de Aveiro; trata-se daquela que se encontra no largo fronteiro à Sé e ao antigo Mosteiro de Jesus, inaugurada em 2002. O seu escultor, Helder Bandarra, exprimiu-a com determinação, perseverança e decisão para viver e anunciar Jesus Cristo. (shrink)

Il saggio segue la metamorfosi dell’immagine edificante dello spettacolo della natura, metafora della pietade illuminata nell’opera dell’Abate Pluche e segno di un relativismo umanistico e prospettico negli Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes del Fontanelle, fino a circoscrivere lo scenario del Dialogo di un Folletto e di uno Gnomo, che dà luogo a un originalissimo ribaltamento dell’immagine dello spettacolo. Le forme di tale torsione insieme poetica e di pensiero, che coinvolge l’orizzonte del sapere naturalistico leopardiano nella rappresentazione desolata e straniante (...) di una cruda verità cosmica, attestata dalla scienza e dalla filosofia naturale, sono descritte con l’adesione a puntuali riferimenti testuali, nella trama di letture giovanili richiamate da Leopardi nella produzione matura. (shrink)

A forgotten document by the young Leopardi: the Disputatio and its relation to the Dissertazioni filosofiche - In this essay we look at the Disputatio, a forgotten document by the young Leopardi. It consists of a list of sixty questions, thirty written in Latin and thirty in Italian. These were the questions that Leopardi had to answer in his last public examination, held on the 20 July 1812. In the first part, the authors and sources used by Leopardi in the (...) preparation of the exercise will be studied and compared with the text of the Disputatio. The second part is a comparison between the text of the Disputatio and that of the Dissertazioni filosofiche of 1811-1812. This comparison and consideration of the order in which the subjects are presented reveal that the Dissertazioni filosofiche were written when the poet was preparing for the above-mentioned examination, and that in the Disputatio there are thinkers and subjects, such as La Mettrie and Holbach, that were important for the development of Leopardi’s mature philosophy. (shrink)