Spectroscopy is a scientific topic at the interface between Chemistry and Physics, which is taught at high school level in relation with its fundamental applications in Analytical Chemistry. In the first part of the paper, the topic of spectroscopy is analyzed having in mind the well-known Johnstone’s triangle of chemistry education, putting in evidence the way spectroscopy is usually taught at the three levels of chemical knowledge: macroscopic/phenomenological, sub-microscopic/molecular and symbolic ones. Among these three levels, following Johnstone’s recommendations the macroscopic (...) one is the most useful for high school students who learn spectroscopy for the first time. Starting from these premises, in the second part of the paper, we propose a didactic sequence which is inspired by the historical evolution of spectroscopic instruments from the first spectroscopes invented by Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen in 1860 to the UV–vis spectrophotometers which became common since the 1960s. The idea behind our research is to analyze the conceptual advancements through the history of spectroscopy and to identify the key episodes/experiments and spectroscopic instruments. For each of them, a didactic activity, typically an experiment, is then proposed underlining the relevant aspects from the chemistry education point of view. The present paper is the occasion to reflect on the potentialities of an historical approach combined with a laboratorial one, and to discuss the role of historical instruments and related technological improvements to teach spectroscopy. (shrink)

Human reproductive cloning has become the most palpable example of the globalization of science. Throughout the world, events and conjectures in the media, such as the birth and death in the United Kingdom of the cloned sheep Dolly and projects to clone human beings by Korean scientists, by members of the Canadian-based Raelian cult, and by the Italian physician Antinori in an undisclosed country, have galvanized the political will of individual countries to ban human reproductive cloning.Yet, international attempts to harmonize (...) policies in the area of biomedical ethics and human research, such as the 1997 Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, and most recently, the United Nations’ efforts to adopt an international convention against human reproductive cloning, have been insufficient to trigger a substantial global policy design process on issues relating to these new technologies. (shrink)

In response to the difficult social, economic and political problems that Colombia faces, such as inequality, discrimination, weak civil society—fuelled by illegality and drug trafficking—the Colombian Ministry of Education has embarked on an ambitious citizenship education program, with the hope of strengthening the role of education by establishing alternative solutions. This innovative program attempts to counteract Colombians' recourse to violence as a means of solving the country's endemic problems by developing the competencies of students, teachers and other participants in education. (...) The competencies include sound reasoning, care for others, communication skills, reflection on action, knowledge and active participation in classroom, school and community matters. This six-and-a-half-year-old project has started to create an educational system that takes into account many of the elements and relationships fundamental to the socio-political and moral behaviour of all involved. The paper indicates the horizons that this program opens up and discusses some of the problematic aspects that still need to be addressed for the program to be sustainable. (shrink)

We investigate the interaction between the product of invariant types and domination–equivalence. We present a theory where the latter is not a congruence with respect to the former, provide sufficient conditions for it to be, and study the resulting quotient when it is.

The Argentine Philosopher Hugo Biagini explains in this interview his considered opinions as to the immediate future which Latin America must face, in moments when changes in the paradigm oblige the citizens of this continent to rethink their reality from the historical perspective of a pr..

This chapter surveys essentialist and anti-essentialist theories of sex and gender. It does so by engaging three approaches to sex and gender: externalism, internalism, and contextualism. The chapter also draws attention to two key debates about sex and gender in the feminist literature: the debate about the sex/gender distinction (the distinction debate) and the debate about whether sex and gender have essences (the essentialism/anti-essentialism debate). In addition, it describes three problems that theories of sex and gender tend to face: the (...) Inclusion Problem, the Definition Problem, and the Exclusion Problem. Lastly, the chapter highlights why the division between essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts of sex and gender is not clear. (shrink)

We compute the domination monoid in the theory of dense meet‐trees. In order to show that this monoid is well‐defined, we prove weak binarity of and, more generally, of certain expansions of it by binary relations on sets of open cones, a special case being the theory from [7]. We then describe the domination monoids of such expansions in terms of those of the expanding relations.

William Norris Clarke, S.J., one of the leading Thomist scholars in the United States, came to the Philippines recently and delivered a series of lectures in the Ateneo de Manila University and the University of Santo Tomas on various philosophical topics inspired by the thought of St. Thomas. Fr. Clarke is now a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy in Fordham University. He was co-founder and editor (l961-85) of the International Philosophical Quarterly and is the author of some 60 articles, plus the (...) following books: The Philosophical Approach to God, The Universe as Journey, Person and Being, Explorations in Metaphysics: Being—God—Person, and The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (Fall, 2000).He continues to fulfill his mission of propagating the thoughts of St. Thomas—-the “creative retrieval of St. Thomas,” as he puts it—-in and out of the U.S.An brief excerpt from this interview was originally published in Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture1/3, 1997. (shrink)

El presente escrito se propone mostrar por qué Heidegger, luego del fracaso de su proyecto inicial, presenta la obra de arte como lugar en el que se esencia la verdad. Más específicamente, propone descubrir por qué el arte permite la superación de la idea de mundo propia de la filosofía moderna y de la ciencia. Para esto, se mostrará por qué la noción de tierra es crucial, como sustracción ocultante, y que es neurálgica para que la verdad se esencie, y (...) posibilite, así, la superación de la idea de mundo como objeto. (shrink)

Este artículo es un estudio piloto para una comparación sistemática entre el texto árabe y latino del Qānūn fī aṭ-Ṭibb de Avicena. Con este propósito, ofrecemos una edición preliminar de un pasaje del Tercer Libro de esta gran enciclopedia médica en la traducción latina preparada por Gerardo de Cremona en Toledo en la segunda mitad del siglo XII. El análisis de este fragmento nos permite describir con rigor aspectos clave de la técnica de traducción de Gerardo de Cremona, al mismo (...) tiempo que pone de relieve problemas interpretativos vinculados a la difícil exégesis de las teorías médicas árabes sobre la enfermedad conocida como frenitis o frenesí. (shrink)

The paper is about the connotations of the philosophical novel. It explores the question of whether and how the philosophical novel can become functional model for philosophical praxis. I argue that the philosophical novel is a tool for activating a relational process whereby the concept of “situated relationship” becomes clear and is enhanced in conjunction with the activation of philosophical praxis. A “situated relationship” is identified as a relational practice which is contextualized and exerted in and between thinking, language and (...) action, within the framework of an educational process which becomes a dialogue-oriented research through relational networks. This form of thinking is not only Logos, but also Pathos and Ethos, inasmuch as the interconnection of thinking, language, meaning and behavior is made manifest, recognized and practiced in thinking and with thinking. By fostering awareness of the cognitive and affective dimensions, this form of thinking can extend such awareness to the relational dimension, interpersonal and intrapersonal, within a constant circular form of complementarity. (shrink)

We study the monoid of global invariant types modulo domination-equivalence in the context of o-minimal theories. We reduce its computation to the problem of proving that it is generated by classes...

This article examines the impact of gender on the relative economic success of microentrepreneurs, their contributions to family income, and the impact of gender ideology and income on household decision making. The concept of economic success is problematized by examining how these businesses, even those of limited assets and income generation, offer women increased autonomy in household budgetary matters and decision making. The analysis draws on data from a representative survey of 201 male and female microentrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic. (...) The findings show that household decision making is influenced by variations in economic power but that gender ideologies structure the direction and extent of this influence, reflected in distinct “gender thresholds,” or the point at which income contributions start to matter. (shrink)

Ethical issues about children’s rights in respect of matters concerning resource allocation or treatment opportunities are now a matter for public consumption and concern. Alongside this exists a long-frustrated desire by children’s nurses to promote children’s health. Long-held assumptions about the legal and moral status of children within the health care system in this country are now rightly scrutinized and challenged. Those of us who claim to represent children now possess an opportunity to exploit public attention for the benefit of (...) these children. This article will explore selected major relevant legal and moral concepts that relate to children with the aim of making transparent some of the important and often confusing information available. It is anticipated that debates about the legal and ethical status of children may be stimulated and fuelled from the following discussion. It is strongly recommended that entering into dialogue with families and children about their perceived needs will go a long way towards advancing thoughtful nursing care of individual children, their families and the general population. (shrink)

Para Gadamer, «el ser que puede ser comprendido es lenguaje», afirmación que implicaría que toda comprensión se da en la lingüisticidad. Por otra parte, afirma que si hay lingüisticidad, hay interpretación. Ahora bien, la cuestión que queda en entredicho en su obra es si esto implica que dicha lingüisticidad es concomitante con la comprensión, es decir, si en toda comprensión hay una mediación lingüística. El presente artículo busca indagar en el análisis de la palabra poética y la filosófica, para desde (...) tal análisis ver las posibilidades de resolución de la relación entre comprensión e interpretación. (shrink)

En el libro Affect, Gender and Sexuality in Latin America, editado por Cecilia Macón, Mariela Solana y Nayla Luz Vacarezza, los/as autores/as ensayan y piensan sobre género y sexualidades en América Latina mediante una apuesta particular: los afectos y las emociones. Sobre este foco destaco tres retos de los varios señalados en su introducción: 1) la necesidad de descomponer la distinción razón/pasión para pensar conjuntamente cognición/sentimientos/emociones, así como la relación íntima entre afectos y política para intentar entender su inconmensurabilidad; 2) (...) el deseo de deconstruir las relaciones norte-sur y la circulación, traducción y apropiación de propuestas teóricas del norte global, develando que no es un puro gesto mimético o de simple aplicación a lo “local” sino un ejercicio translocal y multiespacial que interrumpe las lógicas de autenticidad o pureza en la producción de conocimientos y intentan un gesto singular: el de develar en travestismo y poner en tono con nuestras invenciones también impuras; y 3) la pertinencia de pensar, desde la mirada de los afectos, un contexto de avances feministas y neofascistas que disputan lo político, el orden de género y las claves de las sexualidades, antagonismos que requieren de una mirada que sepa leer y olfatear los ritmos, atmósferas y estéticas de configuraciones temporales y materiales diversas para problematizar nuestros tiempos. Me detengo en tres elementos que maravillan del libro y que aluden a estos desafíos: 1) la inmanente relación entre temporalidades y materialidades; 2) las metodologías (o juegos) y estéticas; y 3) el nudo del poder. (shrink)

The paper offers an interpretation of the role the concept of nationality plays in John Stuart Mill’s thought. To that purpose, I consider not only his best-known writings, but also those less frequently studied in the academic literature on that issue. The argument benefits from Quentin Skinner’s methodological insights into the study of the history of political thought. In that sense, I focus on Mill’s System of Logic textual revisions. In doing so, I briefly examine Mill’s intellectual and personal relationship (...) with Auguste Comte and hence the influence of positivism on Mill’s social and political thinking. (shrink)

During the course of his long life, John Henry Newman made many friends—among them people to whom he was extremely devoted for decades. Maria Rosina Giberne was a family friend, whose friendship with Newman continued for over half a century. The present article looks at the development of this friendship as revealed in Newman’s correspondence for a decade and a half.

Chicanas and Mexican women share a history of colonialism that has (a) sustained oppressive constructions of gender roles and sexuality, (b) produced and reproduced them as racially inferior and as able to be silenced, conquered, and dominated physically and mentally, and (c) contributed to the exploitation of their labor. Given that colonialism has also come to shape the way young women of Mexican heritage learn in mainstream US schools, informal education from everyday women's conviviality and solidarity becomes a pivotal context (...) in which they can learn how to reconstitute colonial legacies. We examine how a group of Mexican working-class immigrant women at home and in a sweatshop fashion a girl named Ana, the main character in the popular film Real Women Have Curves, into a confident young woman who engages in what Pérez (1999, 2003) refers to as empowering and dynamic decolonial ways of seeing, knowing, doing, being, and reconstituting. In spite of its contradictions that, at times, assist in reproducing Ana as an oppressed laborer, it is their doing that helps produce her as a woman who engages in decolonial practices by facilitating her to deftly negotiate an oppressive economic and patriarchal space, a mainstream feminist space, and a space where their embodiments and creative cultural discourse, practices, and beliefs shine. As such, the film provides a powerful counterstory (Delgado 1989) that disrupts the chokehold of the logic of colonialism and how it seeks to classify, stereotype, and control young women like Ana. (shrink)