The authors report the first Italian experience of a research ethics committee (REC) audit focused on the evaluation of the REC’s compliance with standard operating procedures, requirements in insurance coverage, informed consent, protection of privacy and confidentiality, predictable risks/harms, selection of subjects, withdrawal criteria and other issues, such as advertisement details and justification of placebo. The internal audit was conducted over a two-year period (March 2009–February 2011) divided into quarters to better value the influence of the new insurance coverage regulation (...) that came into effect in March 2010 (Ministerial Decree of 14 July, 2009) and expand the requirements to safeguard participants in clinical drug trials including other critical items as information and consent and the risks to benefits ratio. Out of a total of 639 REC’s opinions and research studies, 316 were reviewed. Regarding the insurance policy requirements, Auditor/REC non-compliance occurred only in one case. The highest number of Auditor/REC non-compliance was in regard to information and consent, which should have incurred a suspended decision rather than a favorable opinion. This internal audit shows the importance and the difficulty of the review process. For this reason, specific courses for members of the research ethics committee and for those who aspire to become auditors will be provided. There may also be efforts to improve the standard operating procedures already in place. (shrink)

Global development, diffusion and implementation of the human-centredness paradigm can be performed at best when supported by a study of our mental activity. By analysing our mental operations, we can understand how human needs, interests, values and creativity take form, what each consists of, how it is possible to expand, modify and generate them. The proposed model of mental activity is based on attentional movement. The new opportunities, both ethical and social, offered by such a study are presented.

In light of the interrelation between motor and cognitive development and the predictive value of the former for the latter, the secular decline observed in motor coordination ability as early as preschool urges identification of interventions that may jointly impact motor and cognitive efficiency. The aim of this study was twofold. It (1) explored the outcomes of enriched physical education, centered on deliberate play and cognitively challenging variability of practice, on motor coordination and cognitive processing; (2) examined whether motor coordination (...) outcomes mediate intervention effects on children’s cognition, while controlling for moderation by lifestyle factors as outdoor play habits and weight status. Four hundred and sixty children aged 5-10 years participated in a 6-month group randomized intervention in physical education, with or without playful coordinative and cognitive enrichment. The weight status and spontaneous outdoor play habits of children (parental report of outdoor play) were evaluated at baseline. Before and after the intervention, motor developmental level (Movement Assessment Battery for Children) was evaluated in all children, who were then assessed either with a test of working memory (Random Number Generation task), or with a test of attention (from the Cognitive Assessment System, CAS). Children assigned to the ‘enriched’ intervention showed more pronounced improvements in all motor coordination assessments (manual dexterity, ball skills, static/dynamic balance). The beneficial effect on ball skills was amplified by the level of spontaneous outdoor play and weight status. Among indices of executive function and attention, only that of inhibition showed a differential effect of intervention type. Moderated mediation showed that the better outcome of the enriched physical education on ball skills mediated the better inhibition outcome, but only when the enrichment intervention was paralleled by a medium-to-high level of outdoor play. Results suggest that specifically tailored physical activity games provide a unique form of enrichment that impacts children’s cognitive development through motor coordination improvement, particularly object control skills, which are linked to children’s physical activity habits later in life. Outdoor play appears to offer the natural ground for the stimulation by designed physical activity games to take root in children’s mind. (shrink)

The publication of this book is an event in the making. All over the world scientists, psychologists, and philosophers are waiting to read Antonio Damasio's new theory of the nature of consciousness and the construction of the self. A renowned and revered scientist and clinician, Damasio has spent decades following amnesiacs down hospital corridors, waiting for comatose patients to awaken, and devising ingenious research using PET scans to piece together the great puzzle of consciousness. In his bestselling Descartes' Error, (...) Damasio revealed the critical importance of emotion in the making of reason. Building on this foundation, he now shows how consciousness is created. Consciousness is the feeling of what happens-our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding to that experience. Without our bodies there can be no consciousness, which is at heart a mechanism for survival that engages body, emotion, and mind in the glorious spiral of human life. A hymn to the possibilities of human existence, a magnificent work of ingenious science, a gorgeously written book, The Feeling of What Happens is already being hailed as a classic. (shrink)

The human and mouse genomes are complex from a genomic standpoint. Each cell has the same genomic sequence, yet a wide array of cell types exists due to the presence of a plethora of regulatory elements in the non‐coding genome. Recent advances in epigenomic profiling have uncovered non‐coding gene proximal promoters and distal enhancers of transcription genome‐wide. Extension of promoter‐associated H3K4me3 histone mark across the gene body, known as a broad H3K4me3 domain (H3K4me3‐BD), is a signature of constitutive expression of (...) cell‐type‐specific regulation and of tumour suppressor genes in healthy cells. Recently, it has been discovered that the presence of H3K4me3‐BDs over oncogenes is a cancer‐specific feature associated with their dysregulated gene expression and tumourigenesis. Moreover, it has been shown that the hijacking of clusters of enhancers, known as super‐enhancers (SE), by proto‐oncogenes results in the presence of H3K4me3‐BDs over the gene body. Therefore, H3K4me3‐BDs and SE crosstalk in healthy and cancer cells therefore represents an important mechanism to identify future treatments for patients with SE driven cancers. (shrink)

Ciceros Philosophie vermittelte im Rom der ausgehenden Republik vielfältige innovative Impulse - insbesondere zu Fragen der Bildung und Religion. Im vorliegenden Band werden besonders Aspekte griechischer und römischer Bildung in Ciceros Werk aus verschiedenen altertumswissenschaftlichen Perspektiven beleuchtet"--Page 4 of cover.

Twenty-four critical essays, including a substantial introduction, written by the most distinguished international scholars, in honour of Graziella Federici Vescovini.

Negrotti's theory of the artificial is based on the fundamental assumption that the human being cannot select more than one observation level per unit of time. Since this assumption has important consequences for the theory of knowledge — knowledge cannot be synthesised but only further differentiated — its plausibility is tested against two aspects that characterise any theory of knowledge: knowledge production and knowledge application. The way in which the human being produces and applies knowledge is analysed, and a model (...) of mind based on the transitoriness of its elements is proposed. The analysis confirms that only one observation level can be selected per unit of time. (shrink)

Context: Predicting security and trust vulnerabilities and issues is crucial for IoT interconnected systems and ecosystems, especially when integrating new, third-party or open-source components. Objective: One way to ensure timely predictions is by using a smart monitoring framework to continuously verify functional and non-functional property violations during the executions of the systems and their components. Method: This paper presents a set of guidelines for the Smart Monitoring Framework definition and its application process. Results and Conclusion: The paper provides the reference (...) architecture of the Smart Monitoring Framework and its possible implementation to promptly detect suspicious behavior or property violations. The paper also illustrates how the provided implementation satisfies the defined guidelines by design. (shrink)

Background Neuroimaging and lesion studies suggested that the dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices mediate visual metacognitive awareness. The causal evidence provided by non-invasive brain stimulation, however, is inconsistent. -/- Objective/hypothesis Here we revisit a major figure discrimination experiment adding a new Kanizsa figure task trying to resolve whether bilateral continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) over these regions affects perceptual metacognition. Specifically, we tested whether subjective visibility ratings and/or metacognitive efficiency are lower when cTBS is applied to these two (...) regions in comparison to an active control region. -/- Methods A within-subjects design including three sessions spaced by one-week intervals was implemented. In each session, every participant was administered bilateral cTBS to either prefrontal, control or parietal cortices. Two concurrent tasks were performed, a real and an illusory figure task, stabilising objective performance with use of an adaptive staircase procedure. -/- Results When performing the replicated task, cTBS was found insufficient to disrupt neither visibility ratings nor metacognitive efficiency. However, with use of Kanizsa style illusory figures, cTBS over the dorsolateral prefrontal, but not over the posterior parietal cortex, was observed to significantly diminish metacognitive efficiency. -/- Conclusion(s) Real and illusory figure tasks demonstrated different cTBS effects. A possible explanation is the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in the creation of expectations, which is necessary for efficient metacognition. Failure to replicate previous findings for the real figure task, however, cannot be said to support, conclusively, the notion that these brain regions have a causal role in metacognitive awareness. This inconsistent finding may result from certain limitations of our study, thereby suggesting the need for yet further investigation. (shrink)

The theory of the social responsibility of the firm oscillates between two extremes: one that reduces the firm's responsibility to the obtainment of (the greatest possible) profit for its shareholders, and another that extends the firm's responsibility to include a wide range of actors with an interest or "stake" in the firm. The stakeholder theory of the social responsibility of business is more appealing from an ethical point of view, and yet it lacks a solid foundation that would be acceptable (...) to a variety of schools of thought.In this paper I argue that the stakeholder theory could be founded on the concept of the common good. First, I explain the foundations of the theory of the common good, the concept itself, how it relates to the individual good, and its role in the firm. Following that, I explain how the theory of the common good could be applied to the stakeholder theory. Finally, I draw some conclusions. (shrink)

A “ late” (6th or 13th c.) coin hoard discovered at Argos This study is devoted to a monetary hoard uncovered during emergency excavations in Argos in 1998 by the IVth Ephorate of Nafplion. The bulk of this hoard consists of Byzantine coins, along side which are found examples attributed to the Vandals as well as earlier coins, some dating to the Hellenistic period. The presence of a half-follis of Justin II indicates that the hoard was deposited ca 575-580, when (...) Peloponnesus faced several successive Avaro-Slav movements. The possible presence of a 12-13th c. coin of Fauquembergues, which would significantly alter the date and the significance of this deposit, is also discussed. (shrink)

Institutions represent a solid basis to organize and stabilize human life in diferent social contexts. They are external events in the world, but they also have a strong anchorage in the mind and in last years many scholars tried to explore their cognitive ground. Starting from the original attempt of Douglass C. North, who at the end of his career tried to establish a program called “Cognitive Institutionalism”, we discuss the merits and the limits of this approach. First, we show (...) that his statements are cognitively onerous as they imply the notions of mental models and beliefs. Instead, we argue that shared institutions do not require such a convergence and that coordination takes place in the form of social practices and habits. Second, we clarify some aspects of North’s cognitive theory avoiding the ontological reading, i.e. explaining in what sense institutions might depend on the human mind and how people are joined into a practice made possible via institutions. (shrink)

Controversies around large-scale development projects offer many cases and insights which may be analyzed through the lenses of corporate social (_ir_)responsibility (CS_I_R) and business ethics studies. In this paper, we confront the CSR narratives and strategies of _WeBuild_ (formerly known as _Salini Impregilo_), an Italian transnational construction company. Starting from the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas), we collect evidence from NGOs, environmental justice organizations, journalists, scholars, and community leaders on socio-environmental injustices and controversies surrounding 38 large hydropower schemes built (...) by the corporation throughout the last century. As a counter-reporting exercise, we code (un)sustainability discourses from a plurality of sources, looking at their discrepancy under the critical lenses of post-normal science and political ecology, with environmental justice as a normative framework. Our results show how the mismatch of narratives can be interpreted by considering the voluntary, self-reporting, non-binding nature of CSR accounting performed by a corporation wishing to grow in a global competitive market. Contributing to critical perspectives on political CS(I)R, we question the reliability of current CSR mechanisms and instruments, calling for the inclusion of complexity dimensions in and a re-politicization of CS(I)R accounting and ethics. We argue that the fields of post-normal science and political ecology can contribute to these goals. (shrink)

Although virtues have gained a firm presence in the theory and practice of corporate management, humility is not ranked as one the chief virtues in the business world. In spite of this, it is an important virtue, contributing to the manager’s moral and professional quality and the development of the company’s human team. This paper explains the basic traits of humility in general and how they manifest in the manager’s life and profession, and shows, within the ethics of virtues, that (...) it is not just a personal desideratum but a fundamental quality of a good manager and good management. (shrink)

This collection offers a synoptic view of current philosophical debates concerning the relationship between facts and values, bringing together a wide spectrum of contributors committed to testing the validity of this dichotomy, exploring alternatives, and assessing their implications. The assumption that facts and values inhabit distinct, unbridgeable conceptual and experiential domains has long dominated scientific and philosophical discourse, but this separation has been seriously called into question from a number of corners. The original essays here collected offer a diversity of (...) responses to fact-value dichotomy, including contributions from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam who are rightly credited with revitalizing philosophical interest in this alleged opposition. Both they, and many of our contributors, are in agreement that the relationship between epistemic developments and evaluative attitudes cannot be framed as a conflict between descriptive and normative understanding. Each chapter demonstrates how and why contrapositions between science and ethics, between facts and values, and between objective and subjective are false dichotomies. Values cannot simply be separated from reason. _Facts and Values_ will therefore prove essential reading for analytic and continental philosophers alike, for theorists of ethics and meta-ethics, and for philosophers of economics and law. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM) or mentalization is the ability to understand and foresee the behavior referring to one's own and others' mental states (Premack & Woodruff, 1978; Wimmer & Perner, 1983). This capacity, which is considered the most representative mechanism of social cognition, is a multifaceted set of competences liable to influence--and be influenced by--a manifold of psychosocial aspects. Studies on typical and atypical/clinical development during life showed that ToM is frequently delayed (e.g. in deafness) or impaired in many clinical (...) conditions (e.g. Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Schizophrenia, Borderline Personality Disorder, Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease) and, on the other hand, may not be unequivocally a positive experience. It is therefore possible to consider the existence of multiple kinds of Theory of Mind. In fact, ToM may vary along a quantitative and a qualitative continuum. As for the quantitative dimension, the continuum is constituted by the fluctuation between high and low levels of ToM ability in different clinical conditions. Along this continuum, impairment can mean "not enough" ToM (for example in Autism Spectrum Disorder) as well as "too much" ToM (for example in Schizophrenia and Borderline Personality Disorder). The qualitative dimension--highly interrelated with the quantitative one--regards the shift between adaptive (e.g. prosocial, nice ToM) vs. unadaptive (e.g. antisocial, nasty ToM) mental states content. The issue is discussed in light of recent evidence from outstanding researchers working on typical and atypical/clinical populations along the life-span. Findings from the fields of psychology, neuropsychology and neuroscience enrich the research topic argumentation"--Page 2. (shrink)

In actuarial parlance, the price of an insurance policy is considered fair if customers bearing the same risk are charged the same price. The estimate of this fair amount hinges on the expected value obtained by weighting the different claims by their probability. We argue that, historically, this concept of actuarial fairness originates in an Aristotelian principle of justice in exchange (equality in risk). We will examine how this principle was formalized in the 16th century and shaped in life insurance (...) during the following two hundred years, in two different interpretations. The Domatian account of actuarial fairness relied on subjective uncertainty: An agreement on risk was fair if both parties were equally ignorant about the chances of an uncertain event. The objectivist version grounded any agreement on an objective risk estimate drawn from a mortality table. We will show how the objectivist approach collapsed in the market for life annuities during the 18th century, leaving open the question of why we still speak of actuarial fairness as if it were an objective expected value. (shrink)

We defend, from a contractarian perspective, that the fair price of an insurance policy is the amount that the contracting parties agree when they are both equally uncertain about the insured event. Drawing on the approach developed by R. Sugden in _The Community of Advantage_, we answer two standard objections raised against contractarianism in the actuarial sciences: (1) people are not wise enough to assess their actuarial risks; (2) they are not rational enough to decide which insurance policy suits them (...) better. We show under which circumstances people can make fair actuarial agreements, without presupposing any objective risk or rationality benchmarks. (shrink)

The cases of corruption reported by the media tend almost always to involve a private party (a citizen or a corporation) that pays, or promises to pay, money to a public party (a politician or a public official, for example) in order to obtain an advantage or avoid a disadvantage. Because of the harm it does to economic efficiency and growth, and because of its social, political and ethical consequences, private-to-public corruption has been widely studied. Private-to-private corruption, by contrast, has (...) been relatively neglected and only recently has started to receive the attention it deserves. The purpose of this paper is to offer some thoughts on the nature and importance of private-to-private corruption; the legal treatment it receives in some of the world''s leading countries; and the measures that companies can take to combat it, with special consideration of its ethical aspects. (shrink)

Today, values hold a prominent place both in business ethics and in organization theory. However, there persists considerable confusion about what these values are and what role they play in these theories and, therefore, how they can be developed both within the individual and within the organization. Therefore, this paper seeks to define a conception of values based on a theory of human action that can provide a basis for an organization theory, and to propose a series of ideas about (...) how personal and organizational values can be fostered. (shrink)

Provisto de procedimientos que proceden de la filosofía y de la poesía, la filología y el psicoanálisis, la religión, el cine o la antropología, Antonio Lastra inscribe su "ecología de la cultura" en una vertiente político ...

Various kinds of observations show that the ability of human beings to both consciously relive past events – episodic memory – and conceive future events, entails an active process of construction. This construction process also underpins many other important aspects of conscious human life, such as perceptions, language and conscious thinking. This article provides an explanation of what makes the constructive process possible and how it works. The process mainly relies on attentional activity, which has a discrete and periodic nature, (...) and working memory, which allows for the combination of discrete attentional operations. An explanation is also provided of how past and future events are constructed. (shrink)

Machine consciousness is not only a technological challenge, but a new way to approach scientific and theoretical issues which have not yet received a satisfactory solution from AI and robotics. We outline the foundations and the objectives of machine consciousness from the standpoint of building a conscious robot.

This article serves as an introduction to the collection of papers in this monographic issue on "What the European tradition can teach about Corporate Social Responsibility" and presents the rationale and the main hypotheses of the project. We maintain that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an ethical concept, that the demands for socially responsible actions have been around since before the Industrial Revolution and that companies have responded to them, especially in Europe, and that the content of CSR has evolved (...) over time, depending on historical, cultural, political, and socio-economic drivers and particular conditions in different countries and also at different points in time. Therefore, there is not — and probably cannot be — a unique, precise definition of CSR: one global standard for CSR is unlikely. (shrink)