This article politicises the discourse of emerging markets in global finance. The black-boxed appearance of credit markets easily obscures the significant amount of subjective evaluation and cultural work that underpins capital flows. This article reveals the colonial, masculine, and racial imagination that informs the articulation of emerging markets as geographies of risk and profit. This brings into view the postcolonial nature of contemporary finance and how colonialism’s regimes of power and knowledge remain crucial for the reproduction of the global political (...) economy. To illustrate this point, the article highlights the sociality of credit practices. Contrary to their mathematical appearance, credit is a relationship with the future, mediated by social imaginations of trust. Focusing on emerging markets as ‘risk-versus-reward’ investments, this article examines the long-term colonial histories embedded in modern investment discourses. The article aims to show the continuing relevance this history plays for emerging market economies in modern financial markets and their political economies. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo abordamos actuaciones administrativas enmarcadas en la Dirección de Espectáculos Públicos (DEP) de la Municipalidad de Córdoba. Particularmente, nos preguntamos por los sujetos encargados de implementar las políticas de esta dirección (inspectores) y la formación que adquieren para el ejercicio de prácticas administrativas de control y fiscalización de “casas de fiestas infantiles” y locales de diversión nocturna (bares, discotecas, bailes). Las preguntas que guían el análisis son las siguientes: ¿Cómo se adquieren los conocimientos necesarios para “ser inspector (...) municipal” y cuáles son los escenarios y modalidades de transmisión? ¿Cuáles son los saberes que circulan, se movilizan y son (re)apropiados en esos espacios? Y, finalmente, ¿qué sujetos se construyen en estos procesos (“inspectores”, “especialistas”, “capacitadores”)? Como fuente de reflexión empírica, consideramos actuaciones administrativas que tienen lugar en la DEP, junto con los cursos de capacitación en “Inspectoría General” ofrecidos a los agentes municipales que se desempeñan en aquella Dirección. Los materiales utilizados en el análisis provienen de registros de observaciones participantes realizadas en la DEP, en un curso de capacitación, y entrevistas a funcionarios e inspectores municipales. Las argumentaciones vertidas a lo largo del artículo pretenden contribuir al estudio de los procesos de formación continua del Estado municipal cordobés, a partir de una indagación etnográfica en torno a actuaciones administrativas y formas de transmisión de conocimientos para determinados ejercicios de poder estatal. (shrink)

Mit der Digitalisierung geht ein fundamentaler, herausfordernder Wandel einher. Durch eine Begriffsbestimmung und Operationalisierung wird in diesem Beitrag der digitale Wandel aus wirtschaftsphilosophischer Sicht vorgestellt. Zunächst werden wirtschaftsphilosophische Grundlagen der Digitalisierung wie die Informationsethik erläutert, gefolgt von einer Diskussion der digitalen Wertschöpfung, die auf Überwachung aufbaut und von einer Überwachungskultur gespeist wird. Schließlich werden Zukunftsperspektiven zum Internet der Dinge, Pricing, Privatheit und der Digitalen Demokratie skizziert.

Recent developments in global business gave rise to innovative forms of digital-exchange, facilitated by a new big data-based infrastructure – the sharing economy platform. SEPs are rapidly expanding, challenging the political-economic order and the classical division of work in society. Against the background of the current sustainability crisis, we discuss the increasingly momentous role of SEPs as a potential driver toward a more sustainable economy and society. Drawing on the theoretical lens of political CSR theory, we first outline how SEPs (...) are applying institutional strategies to gain a competitive advantage, thereby shaping contexts in their favor and triggering an erosion of foundations of social sustainability. However, SEPs also strive for legitimacy by taking over novel social responsibilities via profound digital capacities. Thus SEPs carry the potential to contribute to a more sustainable future economy. Our chapter considers future pathways of platform CSR regimes and a democratization of SEPs building on political CSR theory. (shrink)

This book explores the various ways, ranging over psychology, political philosophy and metaphysics, that both historical women and various conceptualizations of the female help shape Neoplatonism, one of the most influential philosophical schools of late antiquity, at various levels.

This article proposes a conceptual mapping to outline salient properties and relations that allow for a knowledge transfer from the well-established greenwashing phenomenon to the more recent machinewashing. We account for relevant dissimilarities, indicating where conceptual boundaries may be drawn. Guided by a “reasoning by analogy” approach, the article addresses the structural analogy and machinewashing idiosyncrasies leading to a novel and theoretically informed model of machinewashing. Consequently, machinewashing is defined as a strategy that organizations adopt to engage in misleading behavior (...) about ethical Artificial Intelligence /algorithmic systems. Machinewashing involves misleading information about ethical AI communicated or omitted via words, visuals, or the underlying algorithm of AI itself. Furthermore, and going beyond greenwashing, machinewashing may be used for symbolic actions such as lobbying and prevention of stricter regulation. By outlining diverse theoretical foundations of the established greenwashing domain and their relation to specific research questions, the article proposes a machinewashing model and a set of theory-related research questions on the macro, meso, and micro-level for future machinewashing research. We conclude by stressing limitations and by outlining practical implications for organizations and policymakers. (shrink)

This companion is a cutting-edge primer to critical forms of the posthumanities and the feminist posthumanities, aimed at students and researchers who want to catch up with the recent theoretical developments in various fields in the humanities, such as new media studies, gender studies, cultural studies, science and technology studies, human animal studies, postcolonial critique, philosophy and environmental humanities. It contains a collection of nineteen new and original short chapters introducing influential concepts, ideas and approaches that have shaped and developed (...) new materialism, inhuman theory, critical posthumanism, feminist materialism, and posthuman philosophy. A resource for students and teachers, this comprehensive volume brings together established international scholars and emerging theorists, for timely and astute definitions of a moving target – posthuman humanities and feminist posthumanities. (shrink)

What makes fast, cumulative cultural evolution work? Where did it come from? Why is it the sole preserve of humans? We set out a self-assembly hypothesis: cultural evolution evolved culturally. We present an evolutionary account that shows this hypothesis to be coherent, plausible, and worthy of further investigation. It has the following steps: (0) in common with other animals, early hominins had significant capacity for social learning; (1) knowledge and skills learned by offspring from their parents began to spread because (...) bearers had more offspring, a process we call CS1 (or Cultural Selection 1); (2) CS1 shaped attentional learning biases; (3) these attentional biases were augmented by explicit learning biases (judgements about what should be copied from whom). Explicit learning biases enabled (4) the high-fidelity, exclusive copying required for fast cultural accumulation of knowledge and skills by a process we call CS2 (or Cultural Selection 2), and (5) the emergence of cognitive processes such as imitation, mindreading and metacognition – ‘cognitive gadgets’ specialised for cultural learning. This self-assembly hypothesis is consistent with archaeological evidence that the stone tools used by early hominins were not dependent on fast, cumulative cultural evolution, and suggests new priorities for research on ‘animal culture’. (shrink)

Background:Providing oncological care to children is demanding and ethical issues concerning what is best for the child can contribute to moral distress.Objectives:To explore healthcare professionals’ experiences of situations that generate moral distress in Swedish paediatric oncology.Research design:In this national study, data collection was conducted using the Swedish Moral Distress Scale-Revised. The data analysis included descriptive statistics and non-parametric analysis of differences between groups.Participants and research context:Healthcare professionals at all paediatric oncology centres in Sweden were invited to participate. A total of (...) 278 healthcare professionals participated. The response rate was 89%.Ethical considerations:In its advisory statement, the Regional Ethical Review Board decided that the study was of such a nature that the legislation concerning ethical reviews was not applicable. All participants received written information about the aim of the study and confidentiality. Participants demonstrated their consent by returning the survey.Findings:The two situations with the highest moral distress scores concerned lack of competence and continuity of personnel. All professional groups reported high levels of disturbance. Nurses rated significantly higher frequencies and higher total Moral Distress Scale scores compared to medical doctors and nursing assistants.Discussion:Lack of competence and continuity, as the two most morally distressing situations, confirms the findings of studies from other countries, where inadequate staffing was reported as being among the top five morally distressing situations. The levels of total Moral Distress Scale scores were more similar to those reported in intensive care units than in other paediatric care settings.Conclusion:The two most morally distressing situations, lack of competence and continuity, are both organisational in nature. Thus, clinical ethics support services need to be combined with organisational improvements in order to reduce moral distress, thereby maintaining job satisfaction, preventing a high turnover of staff and ensuring the quality of care. (shrink)

As the planet’s largest ecosystem, oceans stabilise climate, produce oxygen, store CO2 and host unfathomable biodiversity at a deep time-scale. In recent decades, scientific assessments have indicated that the oceans are seriously degraded to the detriment of most near-future societies. Human-induced impacts range from climate change, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, eutrophication and marine pollution to local degradation of marine and coastal environments. Such environmental violence takes form of both ‘spectacular’ events, like oil spills and ‘slow violence’, occurring gradually and (...) out of sight. The purpose of this paper is to show four cases of coastal and marine forms of slow violence and to provide counter-accounts of how to reinvent our consumer imaginary at such locations, as well as to develop what is here referred to as ‘low-trophic theory,’ a situated ethical stance that attends to entanglements of consumption, food, violence, environmental adaptability and more-than-human care from the co-existential perspective of multispecies ethics. We combine field-philosophical case studies with insights from marine science, environmental art and cultural practices in the Baltic and North Sea region and feminist posthumanities. The paper shows that the oceanic imaginary is not a unified place, but rather, a set of forces, which requires renewed ethical approaches, conceptual inventiveness and practical creativity. Based on the case studies and examples presented, the authors conclude that the consideration of more-than-human ethical perspectives, provided by environmental arts and humanities is crucial for both research on nature and space, and for the flourishing of local multispecies communities. This paper thus inaugurates thinking and practice along the proposed here ethical stance of low-trophic theory, developed it along the methodological lines of feminist environmental posthumanities. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a cutting-edge area of research that holds the promise of unprecedented health benefits. However, in tandem with these large prospective benefits, synthetic biology projects entail a risk of catastrophic consequences whose severity may exceed that of most ordinary human undertakings. This is due to the peculiar nature of synthetic biology as a ‘threshold technology’ which opens doors to opportunities and applications that are essentially unpredictable. Fears about these potentially unstoppable consequences have led to declarations from civil society (...) groups calling for the use of a precautionary principle to regulate the field. Moreover, the principle is prevalent in law and international agreements. Despite widespread political recognition of a need for caution, the precautionary principle has been extensively criticized as a guide for regulatory policy. We examine a central objection to the principle: that its application entails crippling inaction and incoherence, since whatever action one takes there is always a chance that some highly improbable cataclysm will occur. In response to this difficulty, which we call the ‘precautionary paradox,’ we outline a deliberative means for arriving at threshold of probability below which potential dangers can be disregarded. In addition, we describe a Bayesian mechanism with which to assign probabilities to harmful outcomes. We argue that these steps resolve the paradox. The rehabilitated PP can thus provide a viable policy option to confront the uncharted waters of synthetic biology research. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to enhance accessibility to results of protein (...) research. PRO (http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro) is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. (shrink)

Cultural evolution depends on both innovation (the creation of new cultural variants by accident or design) and high-fidelity transmission (which preserves our accumulated knowledge and allows the storage of normative conventions). What is required is an overarching theory encompassing both dimensions, specifying the psychological motivations and mechanisms involved. The bifocal stance theory (BST) of cultural evolution proposes that the co-existence of innovative change and stable tradition results from our ability to adopt different motivational stances flexibly during social learning and transmission. (...) We argue that the ways in which instrumental and ritual stances are adopted in cultural transmission influence the nature and degree of copying fidelity and thus also patterns of cultural spread and stability at a population level over time. BST creates a unifying framework for interpreting the findings of otherwise seemingly disparate areas of enquiry, including social learning, cumulative culture, overimitation, and ritual performance. We discuss the implications of BST for competing by-product accounts which assume that faithful copying is merely a side-effect of instrumental learning and action parsing. We also set out a novel “cultural action framework” bringing to light aspects of social learning that have been relatively neglected by behavioural ecologists and evolutionary psychologists and establishing a roadmap for future research on this topic. The BST framework sheds new light on the cognitive underpinnings of cumulative cultural change, selection, and spread within an encompassing evolutionary framework. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I discuss my personal experience of the issues that can arise when adopting critical realism in academic contexts dominated by irrealist methodological approaches. I draw inspiration for my analysis from the concept of Gramscian hegemony and the concept of ‘authenticity’. These concepts are related because hegemonic processes prevent individuals from freely expressing themselves. In my case, academic hegemony has resulted in social pressure to sacrifice my authentic critical realist self in order to achieve academic success. I also (...) discuss groupthink dynamics, suggesting that they are a mechanism by which hegemony – and denial of individual authenticity – can be achieved. This paper is meant to be a theoretical and reflexive discussion, which could be the starting point for empirical studies investigating the situation of a critical realist in a hegemonic academic context. (shrink)

A unique multilevel perspective-structural social psychology-is explicated to help build theoretical bridges between micro and macro levels of analysis in sociology. The perspective portrays actors (human or corporate) as having minimal properties of purposiveness and responsiveness, encounters as interaction episodes between multiple actors, microstructures as local patterns of interaction emerging from and subsequently influencing encounters, and macrostructures as networks of social positions. These levels of analysis are connected via mutually contingent processes. Applying these assumptions, we illustrate the ability of the (...) framework to strengthen the macrosociological import of micro theories of power, status, and justice. We argue that structural social psychology is an important metatheoretical strategy for developing testable connections between individual and collective units of sociological analysis. (shrink)

In this article, the authors assess the still limited literature on domestic violence among immigrant women in major receiving countries so as to begin delineating a framework to explain how immigrant-specific factors exacerbate the already vulnerable position—as dictated by class, gender, and race—of immigrant women in domestic violence situations. First, a review of this scholarship shows that the incidence of domestic violence is not higher than it is in the native population but rather that the experiences of immigrant women in (...) domestic violence situations are often exacerbated by their specific position as immigrants, such as limited host-language skills, isolation from and contact with family and community, lack of access to dignified jobs, uncertain legal statuses, and experiences with authorities in their origin countries. The authors then examine the various responses at the national and local community levels to this issue in receiving countries. (shrink)

A frequent justification in the literature for using stated preference methods (SP) is that they are the only methods that can capture the so-called total economic value (TEV) of environmental changes to society. Based on follow-up interviews with SP survey respondents, this paper addresses the implications of that argument by shedding light on the construction of TEV, through respondents’ perspective. It illuminates the deficiencies of willingness to pay (WTP) as a measure of value presented as three aggregated themes considering respondents’ (...) unintentionality, their retraction once they understood that their WTP could be decisive in cost-benefit analysis and the inherent incompleteness of WTP. We discuss why the TEV discourse persists, how it conceals rather than reveals broader notions of value and in what ways our results support the development of alternative approaches that truly endorse plurality in environmental valuation and decision-making. (shrink)

Los teóricos que defienden las técnicas de modificación genética sin algún conservadurismo argumentan que éstas aumentarán nuestras capacidades y, también, evitarán el dolor innecesario junto con algunos tipos de sufrimiento humano. Autores transhumanistas como Nick Bostrom, Natasha Vita-More y Max More, no sólo minusvaloran los riesgos del uso de biotecnología –así como la técnica CRISPR-CAS9–, sino que asumen que vivir una vida humana plena se relaciona en proporción directa con el pleno gozo de nuestras habilidades físicas e intelectuales y con (...) la ausencia de dolor o sufrimiento. No obstante, la visión de algunos teóricos sobre la discapacidad como Fiona Campbell, Elizabeth Barnes y Bárbara Arneil, insisten en que las limitaciones humanas no deberían ser vistas de manera trágica o como una desgracia; al contrario, argumentan que es posible vivir plenamente desde la diversidad funcional (o discapacidad). Por tanto, en este artículo ponemos a prueba ambos supuestos, a partir de la idea de discapacidad y, así, mostraremos si es que la felicidad depende fuertemente de la funcionalidad del cuerpo humano. (shrink)

El artículo se propone examinar la tensión entre la lengua castellana y la gramática en la novela El cuervo blanco, escrita por el controvertido escritor colombiano Fernando Vallejo, hoy radicado en México. Se trata de un texto híbrido que explora el pensamiento y la biografía del célebre filólogo Rufino José Cuervo. El libro indaga en sus papeles, cartas y libros; documentos en donde recoge sus conversaciones filosófico-filológicas con lingüistas europeos a propósito de las modalidades y formas idiomáticas que adquiere el (...) castellano en Colombia y Latinoamérica. La característica de este libro es su forma de narración, ya que más que darle primacía a los acontecimientos se preocupa de los tropos, giros, citas y efectos gramaticales que construyen la lógica de los documentos relacionados con la lengua de Estado. A nivel metafórico, Rufino José Cuervo es presentado como un “pájaro negro de alma blanca que tiene el don de la palabra”, es decir un “Cuervo blanco”, cuyo color es un índice de su excepcionalidad, nombre con el que lo identifica en una de sus cartas el lingüista alemán August Friedrich Pott, pero que el narrador convierte en el título de este curioso libro. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the perspective of Hannah Arendt on the relationship between politics and singularity as a way to counteract the fall in the control and predictability of humanity by the totalitarian and commercial companies.The question about the meaning of human singularity highlights the postmetaphysical character of human identity and the distinction to include women, this make more complex the Arendt's conception about the public space that changes from agonist to associative.

Including empirical examples and theoretical clarifications on many of the analytical issues raised in his recently published Down to Earth, this conversation with Bruno Latour and his collaborator, Danish sociologist Nikolaj Schultz, offers key insights into Latour’s recent and ongoing work. Revolving around questions on political ecology and social theory in our ‘New Climatic Regime’, Latour argues that in order to have politics you need a land and you need a people. This interview present reflections on such politics, such (...) land and such people, and it ends with a call for a sociology that takes up the task of connecting the three by investigating what he and Schultz call ‘geo-social classes’. The interview was conducted by Jakob Stein in Paris in November 2018. (shrink)

In this chapter we argue for biophilosophy as a queerfeminist and posthumanities methodology that attends to the question of life by focusing on multiple differences and transformations, materiality and processuality, as well as relations, intra-actions, and disconnections. By combining both the ontological and ethical concerns that go beyond what is conventionally seen as “life”, biophilosophy offers a critical and innovative approach to the issues of death, extinction, (un) liveability, terminality, and toxicity, among others, which all form the backbone of the (...) environmental crises and changing conditions of life on Earth, often framed as the Anthropocene. In what follows, we first discuss select theorisations and implications of the “life/death” coupling as an ethico-political question; subsequently we elaborate the concept of biophilosophy as a methodology; and finally, we propose two examples where we test biophilosophy as a framework that allows us: (1) to engage with the enmeshment of life and death through the concept of the non/living, and (2) to explore the concept of toxic embodiment as an onto-ethical condition we all (human and non-human) are differentially immersed in. (shrink)

In the late eighteenth century, Adam Smith significantly shaped the modern world by claiming that when people individually pursue their own interests, they are together led towards achieving the common good. But can a population of selfish people achieve the economic common good in the absence of moral constraints on their behavior? If not, then what are the moral conditions of market interaction which lead to economically efficient outcomes of trade? Answers to these questions profoundly affect basic concepts and principles (...) of economic theory, legal theory, moral philosophy, political theory, and even judicial decisions at the appellate level. Walter Schultz illustrates the deficiencies of theories which purport to show that markets alone can provide the basis for efficiency. He demonstrates that efficient outcomes of market interaction cannot be achieved without moral normative constraints and then goes on to specify a set of normative conditions which make these positive outcomes possible. (shrink)

Nuestra hipótesis consiste en considerar la alegría como fruto del dinamismo interpersonal entre Dios y el hombre bajo la figura de la nupcialidad, cuyas notas de reciprocidad, exclusividad, intimidad y fecundidad especifican esta dimensión particular de vida teologal. Al desplegarse en la historia, la nupcialidad adquiere una tensión escatológica pues el diálogo amante de libertades intensifica la presencia recíproca de Dios y el hombre hasta desembocar en una radicalidad que puede conducir al martirio. Tales fueron los casos de dos místicos (...) y mártires contemporáneos, Christophe Lebreton y Edith Stein, cuyos textos testimonian que la alegría se manifiesta como un fruto visible de la entrega definitiva de sus cuerpos. Our hypothesis is to consider joy as a result of the interpersonal dynamics between God and man under the figure of marriage, whose traits of reciprocity, exclusivity, intimacy and fecundity give a distinctive specifity to this particular dimension of theological life. As it unfolds in history, nuptiality develops an eschatological tension, as the loving dialogue of freedoms intensifies God and man's mutual presence, leading to a radicality which can usher into martyrdom. Such were the cases of two contemporary mystics and martyrs, Christophe Lebreton and Edith Stein, whose texts testify that joy is manifested as a visible fruit of the final offering of their bodies. (shrink)

A principios de 2018, fueron presentados varios proyectos de ley con el objeto de regular el acceso gratuito a los servicios públicos de salud y de educación superior de aquellos migrantes internacionales que no revistieran la condición de “residentes permanentes” sobre la base de criterios de “reciprocidad”. Durante casi dos semanas, los proyectos concentraron gran parte de la atención mediática, instalándose como tema prioritario de la agenda pública. A través del análisis de dichos proyectos y de su tratamiento en la (...) prensa digital hegemónica, este trabajo propone una exploración de las narrativas que circularon en relación al acceso gratuito de la población migrante a la salud, para posteriormente indagar sobre los efectos simbólicos que produce la hipervisibilización de una determinada posición política sobre el tema. Se aplicó una metodología cualitativa centrada en los análisis de discurso y de contenido con el objetivo de analizar la articulación entre el discurso jurídico y el discurso mediático e indagar el modo en que las narrativas que circulan a través de los medios hegemónicos instituyen y son instituidas por el imaginario social sobre la gratuidad del acceso a la salud para la población migrante. Como resultado, fue posible identificar tres operaciones discursivas: (a) el desplazamiento de la idea de salud como derecho a la salud a un objeto de negociación diplomática basada en la reciprocidad; (b) la asociación del desborde de los servicios de salud con la demanda de atención por parte de los migrantes, lo que oculta el carácter estructural de las deficiencias del sistema de salud, vinculadas a la regresividad de las políticas neoliberales en lo que respecta al reconocimiento de derechos sociales básicos, como la salud; (c) la negación de estos otros bajo el mecanismo del chivo expiatorio, representándolos como una “amenaza social” y como los “no merecedores” de la gratuidad. (shrink)

DISCURSOS DE LA SUBJETIVIDAD: LA CRÍTICA DE LOS ESCRITORES.

We argue for a conception of ‘philosophy of biology before biology’ which is neither internalist study of biological doctrines, nor a reconstruction of the role philosophical concepts might have played in the constitution of biology as science, but rather a kind of interplay between metaphysical and empirical issues. This should have an impact both on our present understanding of philosophy of biology, given that it is necessarily conditioned by a very specific history and historiography, and on our understanding of how (...) biology as a science of life became unified. (shrink)

Background: The prevalence of anxiety and depression in young students is associated with biosocial factors and scholastic stress. However, few studies have evaluated emotional-affective symptoms that are related to the immune system and antioxidant parameters in young individuals without diagnoses of affective disorders.Aim: This study aims to assess the relationship between emotional-affective symptoms and glutathione concentrations and CD4 and CD8 lymphocyte counts in college students.Methods: College students completed standardized psychometric instruments, including the Perceived Stress Scale, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Beck Depression (...) Inventory, Familiar Social and Friends Support Scale, and Rosenberg Scale. Blood samples were biochemically analyzed. Analyses of variance were conducted between four groups according to symptom severity.Results: A considerable prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms was observed and negatively correlated with self-esteem and socio-familiar support. Perceived stress was sexually dimorphic. Although biochemical parameters were within reference ranges, glutathione, CD4, and CD8 tended to be lower in participants with anxiety and depression symptoms, which may be of predictive value.Conclusion: The relationship between antioxidant/immune parameters and socio-affective scores is latent in undiagnosed college students who might develop affective disorders. The findings suggest that during the initial development of affective disorders, stress management strategies should be implemented to help college students cope with the academic load and monitor negative changes in their physiological state. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo, abordamos la obra de Friedrich Nietzsche con el objeto de analizar el modo en que su temprana crítica a las instituciones educativas alemanas y, específicamente, a la filosofía universitaria de su tiempo deriva de manera progresiva en los esbozos de una concepción tardía de la filosofía, fundada en la vida misma como medio de conocimiento a través del “experimento”. El diagnóstico nietzscheano es crítico y su resolución, un gran desafío para los futuros pensadores, a quienes les (...) demanda vivir experimentalmente sus palabras más allá de los libros. La cultura del ensayo emerge como horizonte final para esta praxis filosófico-experimental. (shrink)

This report is divided into two main parts, devoted to the Aristoteles Latinus and to the Editions of Latin Commentaries on Aristotle. The report on the Aristoteles Latinus sheds light on recent research on medieval Latin translations of Aristotle’s works. Among other things, it discusses the editions published in the context of the Aristoteles Latinus , and some recent studies and collective volumes on individual texts and translators. The report on Editions of Latin Commentaries on Aristotle gives information for each (...) edition of a commentary on Aristotle that has been published in the last five years and on those editions that are about to be published or are in preparation or are planned to start within the next five years. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO; http://proconsortium.org) formally defines protein entities and explicitly represents their major forms and interrelations. Protein entities represented in PRO corresponding to single amino acid chains are categorized by level of specificity into family, gene, sequence and modification metaclasses, and there is a separate metaclass for protein complexes. All metaclasses also have organism-specific derivatives. PRO complements established sequence databases such as UniProtKB, and interoperates with other biomedical and biological ontologies such as the Gene Ontology (GO). PRO relates to (...) UniProtKB in that PRO’s organism-specific classes of proteins encoded by a specific gene correspond to entities documented in UniProtKB entries. PRO relates to the GO in that PRO’s representations of organism-specific protein complexes are subclasses of the organism-agnostic protein complex terms in the GO Cellular Component Ontology. The past few years have seen growth and changes to the PRO, as well as new points of access to the data and new applications of PRO in immunology and proteomics. Here we describe some of these developments. (shrink)

This paper seeks to characterize how the study of nutrition processes contributed to revisit the problem of vital organization in the late eighteenth century. It argues that focusing on nutrition leads to reformulate the problem of the relation between life and organization in terms of processes, rather than static or given structures. This nutrition-centered approach to life amounts to acknowledge the specific strategic role nutrition played in the development of a materialist approach to the generation of vital organization. The paper (...) proposes a clarification of the multiple meanings of the concept of organization in the context of Enlightenment physiology and nascent biology, before focusing on the century long analogy between nutrition and generation. It shows how, by contrasting different uses of this analogy, nutrition was employed as a key vital phenomenon in the development of epigenetic theories of generation, i.e. how a nutritive modeling of generation was used in the undermining of preformationism. To this purpose I contrast two seemingly opposite theories of generation, Buffon’s and Bonnet’s, and show that despite the obvious metaphysical discontent, their views of generation share a common mechanical conceptual frame in which nutrition is conflated with growth and repair. I then turn to the role nutrition played in the epigenetic conception of generation in C. F. Wolff’s embryology and analyze this rival understanding of nutrition as an organizing process. (shrink)

RESUMEN Introducción: la implementación del sistema de gestión de la calidad en el Centro de Inmunología y Productos Biológicos no ha producido los resultados esperados. Objetivo: exponer factores que afectan la implementación del mismo. Métodos: se realizó un estudio descriptivo exploratorio a través de encuesta de enero a mayo de 2018 en el Centro de Inmunología y Productos Biológicos de la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas Carlos J. Finlay de Camagüey, Cuba. El universo de las personas involucradas fue de 31, a (...) estos se les realizó un cuestionario de 16 preguntas estructuradas. Esta encuesta fue analizada con los métodos test re-test y Alpha de Cronbach. Resultados: las respuestas a la encuesta reflejaron que no se ha logrado integrar en el sistema de gestión de la calidad a todas las actividades del centro, no se logra la motivación intrínseca y extrínseca para su implementación, se evidenció liderazgo de ordeno y mando, persistía la opinión de que con los manuales de organización y una estructura jerarquizada se lograrían los resultados esperados, los directivos no aportan todo su potencial a este trabajo, los beneficiarios no se han convertido en participantes ni han constituido redes rizomas con alta comunicación entre sí y estilo de trabajo auto-organizado y no se han sistematizado actividades participativas en busca de consenso de equipo. Conclusiones: se identificaron factores que afectan la implementación del sistema de gestión de la calidad y se propone un cambio de paradigma hacia la integración de saberes para lograr de manera sustentable los cambios deseados. ABSTRACT Introduction: The implementation of the system of management of the quality in the Center of Immunology and Biological Products has not produced the expected results. Target: to exhibit factors that affect the implementation of the system. Methods: An exploratory descriptive study was carried out through a survey from January until May, 2018 in the Center of Immunology and Biological Products of the University of Medical Sciences of Camagüey, Cuba. The universe shaped by 31 persons to whom there was applied a survey, which was analyzed by the methods of test re-test and Alpha of Cronbach. Results: The answers to the survey reflected that all the activities of the center have not been integrated to the system of management of the quality, the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is not achieved for its implementation. It was demonstrated leadership of order and control and it persisted the opinion that with the manuals of organization and a hierarchical structure would achieve the expected results. The managers do not contribute all their potential to this work, the beneficiaries neither have turned into participants nor have constituted networks rhizome with high communication among themselves and style of self-organized work and participative activities have not been systematized in search of team consensus. Discussion: There were identified factors that affect the implementation of the system of management of the quality and a change of paradigm is proposed towards the knowledge integration to achieve sustainably the wished changes. (shrink)