ArgumentThis paper analyzes the political dimension of Miguel Masriera's (1901–1981) science popularization program. In the 1920s, Masriera worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich – with Hermann Staudinger, the luminary of polymer chemistry – to later become a lecturer of theoretical and physical chemistry at the University of Barcelona. After living in exile in Paris, at the end of the Civil War he returned to Spain but never recovered his position. Instead, Masriera became an active popular (...) science writer and adapted to the severe constraints of General Franco's military dictatorship (1939–1975). Inspired by the astronomer Arthur Eddington's world view, Masriera wrote and translated popular science books, and published articles in daily newspapers and journals. By examining Masriera's popular works, in particular his program for spreading “atomic culture” in Spain during the Cold War, this paper aims to contribute to the assessment of the role of science popularization in the domestic legitimization of that dictatorial regime and also its use as a vehicle for international recognition abroad. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper analyzes the public fasts of two Italian “hunger artists,” Giovanni Succi and Stefano Merlatti, in Paris in 1886, and their ability to forego eating for a long period (thirty and fifty days respectively). Some contemporary witnesses described them as clever frauds, but others considered them to be interesting physiological anomalies. Controversies about their fasts entered academic circles, but they also spread throughout the urban public at different levels. First, Succi and Merlatti steered medical debates among physicians on the (...) “scientific” explanations of the limits of human resistance to inanition, and acted as ideal mediators for doctors’ professional interests. Second, they became useful tools for science popularizers in their attempt to gain authority in drawing the boundaries between “orthodox” and “heterodox” knowledge. Finally, in the 1880s, Succi and Merlatti’s contest, the controversy around the liquids they ingested, and their scientific supervision by medical doctors, all reinforced their own professional status as itinerant fasters in a golden decade for that kind of endeavor. For all those reasons, Succi and Merlatti can be viewed as useful, epistemologically-active charlatans. (shrink)

From 17 to 22 October 1955, Madrid hosted the UNESCO Festival of Science. In the early years of the Cold War, in a dictatorial country that had recently been admitted into the international community, the festival aimed to spread science to the public through displays of scientific instruments, public lectures, book exhibitions, science writers professional associations, and debates about the use of different media. In this context, foreign visitors, many of whom came from liberal democracies, seemed comfortable in the capital (...) of a country ruled by a dictatorship that had survived after the defeat of fascism in the Second World War and was struggling to gain foreign recognition after years of isolation. This article analyzes the political role of science popularization in Madrid at that time. It approaches the apparently puzzling marriage between UNESCO’s international agenda for peace and democracy and the interests of the Francoist elites. Shared views of technocratic modernity, the fight against communism, and a diplomacy that served Spanish nationalism, paved the way for the alliance. (shrink)

Summary The life and works of John Mercer (1791–1866), a calico-printer from Lancashire, is a good example to illustrate the complexity of the process of printing cottons with natural colours, and the different skills required to obtain a final product able to be sold in the markets in the early years of the nineteenth century. A subtle combination of entrepreneurial dynamism, chemical knowledge, and expertise in the workshop provided a very special sort of ‘artisan-chemist’, who played a key role in (...) the industrial prosperity of the coloured textiles in the early Victorian years. The paper tries to show how, apart from the traditional ‘great luminaries’ of the period (Gay-Lussac, Berzelius, Davy, or Dalton), self-educated provincial chemists such as Mercer also made significant practical and theoretical contributions. (shrink)

Summary Scrutinizing the main activities of the Sociedad Astronómica de Barcelona (SAB), a scientific society that was founded in 1910 and lasted until 1921, this paper analyses how and why its members disseminated astronomy to society at large. Inspired by Camille Flammarion (1842–1925), and with a strong amateur character, the programme of the SAB raised interest among academic scientists, politicians, priests, navy officers, educated audiences, and positivist anticlerical writers. It rapidly conquered the public sphere through well-attended lectures, exhibitions, observations, and (...) publications. In the context of an industrial city, which at that time was suffering serious social tensions, the popularization of astronomy transcended social and cultural boundaries. It created common ground between expert and lay knowledge, science and art, the ‘natural’ and the ‘social’, and between science and religion. In addition, it was considered as one of the only possible ways to raise the scientific level of a country such as Spain, which at that time perceived itself as peripheral, even backward, in terms of mainstream innovations in science and technology. (shrink)

The study of science popularization in dictatorships, such as Franco’s regime, offers a useful window through which to review definitions of controversial categories such as “popular science” and the “public sphere.” It also adds a new analytical perspective to the historiography of dictatorships and their totalitarian nature. Moreover, studying science popularization in these regimes provides new tools for a critical analysis of key contemporary concepts such as nationalism, internationalism, democracy, and technocracy.

In a recent book onThe Publics of Science; Experts and Laymen Through History, Agustí Nieto-Galan introduced his subject of a (mostly Western) history of public science, covering the times from the Scientific Revolution to the twenty-first century, with reference to Sigmund Freud. In one of his essays of cultural critique, Freud had, so to speak, put culture itself on his couch, and this session also featured talk about science and technological application.Civilization and Its Discontentsidentified a factor of disillusionment (...) in the progress of science and technology, which gave rise to “The Uneasiness in Culture” (the literal translation of the title of Freud's German essayDas Unbehagen in der Kultur), and this uneasiness tainted a great deal of the happiness science and technology were intended to cultivate (Nieto-Galán 2011; Freud 1930). New technology and inventions like telephones, ocean liners, or drugs, Freud argued, were mostly remedies for negative developments technology had just created; for instance, without modern transportation people would stay close to each other and not need any telephone. (However, he did not address the issue of whether scientific knowledge itself may have provided some satisfaction.) The modern individual, as analyzed by Freud, was therefore constantly ill at ease with modern scientific and technological culture. (shrink)

This study examines the impact that research and development (R&D) intensity has on corporate social responsibility (CSR). We base our research on the resource-based view (RBV) theory, which contributes to our analysis of R&D intensity and CSR because this perspective explicitly recognizes the importance of intangible resources. Both R&D and CSR activities can create assets that provide firms with competitive advantage. Furthermore, the employment of such activities can improve the welfare of the community and satisfy stakeholder expectations, which might vary (...) according to their prevailing environment. As expressions of CSR and R&D vary throughout industries, we extend our research by analysing the impact that R&D intensity has on CSR across both manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. Our results show that R&D intensity positively affects CSR and that this relationship is significant in manufacturing industries, while a non-significant result was obtained in non-manufacturing industries. (shrink)

«Així doncs, qualsevol activitat que emprenem, la nostra acció més quotidiana, ens demana un esforç de la voluntat. En la consagració de les nostres forces a véncer totes les dificultats que se’ns presenten a diari ens determinen a nosaltres mateixos. Solament hem de vigilar de no cedir en el nostre afany de superació. Perquè si el treball que tenim per davant al llarg d’una existència el deixàvem de colp algun dia per algun motiu sobtat, això seria com una mort en (...) vida, com una rendició. Però no podem renunciar a ser nosaltres mateixos, sinó que ens hem de guanyar pas a pas, dia a dia». (shrink)

I refer to the social embodiment of creative intelligence as creative democracies. Today’s world pose great challenges and serious threats to human life and cannot be faced by just having new ideas or more knowledge and thoughts. Today’s world requires the power to face the unknown, a key feature of intelligence. Hence the urgent need of societies to mutate into creative democracies. We need to begin with a strong base. We need an understanding and development of human life from its (...) foundations and the simplicity of its origin in the creative freedom of reality and its intra-active intelligence, the power of all humans in our global world to meet and share meaning and interests. This essaysuccinctly highlights their foundations, prefaced by three cautionary reflections. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

In this paper I argue against the thesis defended by Michael Giudice, who claims that it is possible to provide a concept of law by determining the necessary conditions of its essence. My main thesis is: 1) that this goal can exclusively be reached with certain kind of concepts: those satisfying what I propose to call:“Golden Standard of Concepts with Necessary Conditions” and 2) that the concept of “Law” is not such a concept. Therefore I defendmethodological pluralism in opposition to (...) methodological monism embraced by some contemporary legal philosophers.Resumen:En este artículo contiendo la tesis defendida por Michael Giudice en la cual sostiene que es posible elaborar un concepto de derecho mediante la determinación de las propiedades necesarias de su esencia. Mis tesis principales son: 1) que sólo para cierto tipo de conceptos puede alcanzarse ese objetivo y 2) que el concepto de “Derecho” no es uno de ellos. Defiendo un pluralismo metodológico contra el monismo metodológico suscrito por algunos filósofos del derecho contemporáneos. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es proporcionar razones a favor de la teoría jurídica computacional como una nueva área de la teoría jurídica contemporánea. El trabajo inicia con una breve panorámica de la historia de la inteligencia artificial con el fin de contar con una estantería que permita ubicar los distintos acercamientos que pueden darse en el terreno de la inteligencia artificial aplicada al derecho (IAD): los correspondientes al enfoque top-down y al bottom-up. Después de una enunciación de los temas (...) de interés por parte de la comunidad internacional de IAD se exponen algunos desarrollos con referencia especial a los realizados en el Laboratorio de Constructivismo Jurídica del Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas de la Universidad NacionalAutónoma de México en los que se resalta el papel de la teoría jurídica computacional: los proyectos EXPERTIUS I, EXPERTIUS II y el Sistema inteligente para la configuración y visualización del derecho globalizado como una red adaptativa compleja emergente. El artículo finaliza con algunas reflexionessobre los potenciales beneficios y riesgos de la inteligencia artificial en el nuevo derecho que está a punto de emerger. (shrink)

Although many of the factors that may influence donation have been identified, the timing of the interview in which families are asked for their authorisations seems to be decisive. However, there are few studies that analyse this process when the interview takes place. Qualitative techniques such as Participant Observation could help to better understand this process. One of the most recurring arguments against carrying out this type of study is the difficulty in complying with all the ethical requirements for any (...) research as defined in biomedical research guidelines and committees. This article aims to contribute to a discussion on the ethical viability of conducting an in situ study on family interviewing and proposes a strategy for minimising possible risks in designing a study of these characteristics. (shrink)

Apoptosis is now widely recognized as a common form of cell death and represents a mechanism of cell clearance in many physiological situations where deletion of cells is required. Peptide growth factors, initially characterised as stimulators of cell proliferation, have now been shown to inhibit death in many cell types. Deprivation of growth factors leads to the induction of apoptosis, i.e. condensation of chromatin and degradation in oligonucleosomesized fragments, formation of plasma and nuclear membrane blebs and cell fragmentation into apoptotic (...) bodies which can be taken up by neighbouring cells. Here we discuss the mechanism(;s) by which growth factors may inhibit apoptosis. (shrink)