We explore the distinctive characteristics of Mexico's society, politics and history that impacted the establishment of genetics in Mexico, as a new disciplinary field that began in the early 20th century and was consolidated and institutionalized in the second half. We identify about three stages in the institutionalization of genetics in Mexico. The first stage can be characterized by Edmundo Taboada, who was the leader of a research program initiated during the Cárdenas government (1934-1940), which was primarily directed towards improving (...) the condition of small Mexican farmers. Taboada is the first Mexican post-graduate investigator in phytotechnology and phytopathology, trained at Cornell University and the University of Minnesota, in 1932 and 1933, respectively. He was the first investigator to teach plant genetics at the National School of Agriculture and wrote the first textbook of general genetics, Genetics Notes, in 1938. Taboada's most important single genetics contribution was the production of "stabilized" corn varieties. The extensive exile of Spanish intellectuals to Mexico, after the end of Spain's Civil War (1936-1939), had a major influence in Mexican science and characterizes the second stage. The three main personalities contributing to Mexican genetics are Federico Bonet de Marco and Bibiano Fernández Osorio Tafall, at the National School of Biological Sciences, and José Luis de la Loma y Oteyza, at the Chapingo Agriculture School. The main contribution of the Spanish exiles to the introduction of genetics in Mexico concerned teaching. They introduced in several universities genetics as a distinctive discipline within the biology curriculum and wrote genetics text books and manuals. The third stage is identified with Alfonso León de Garay, who founded the Genetics and Radiobiology Program in 1960 within the National Commission of Nuclear Energy, which had been founded in 1956. The Genetics and Radiobiology Program rapidly became a disciplinary program, for it embraced research, teaching, and training of academics and technicians. The Mexican Genetics Society, created by de Garay in 1966, and the development of strains and cultures for genetics research were important activities. One of de Garay's key requirements was the compulsory training of the Program's scientists for at least one or two years in the best universities of the United States and Europe. De Garay's role in the development of Mexican genetics was fundamental. His broad vision encompassed the practice of genetics in all its manifestations. (shrink)

Authors De Marco and colleagues have presented a new model on the concept of invasiveness, redefining both its technical definition and practical implementation.1 While the authors raise valid critiques regarding the discrepancy in definitions, I cannot help but wonder about the purpose of redefining terms for which little confusion, if any, exists? This commentary seeks to scrutinise the rationale supporting the new model in the absence of significant clinical confusion and to explore the implications for clinical practice. Initially, one may (...) notice there is no mention of clinical relevancy, confusion among patients or whether the discrepancy in terms is causing miscommunication. It seems reasonable that some clinical confusion may exist, but so too does a similar imbalance of terms when speaking technically across the specialties; take depression and its definition as a primary example. While I certainly agree with the illustration of non-invasive prenatal testing being compared with venous blood draws as a disparity in terminology, little evidence suggests confusion concerning the nosology.2 The medical community, including both physicians and patients, recognises that the terminology is specifically used within the …. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 6, Page 60-62, June 2011.

Uno de los propositos de Miro Quesada al escribir esta obra fue ofrecer "a todo aquel que se interese por la cultura latinoamericana en particular y sus manifestaciones filosoficas en particular -especialmente profesores y estudiantes- un libro que sirve para orientarlos en la produccion cada vez mas vasta y profusa de la filosofia latinoamericana.".

El objetivo del presente artículo es trazar un recorrido por las principales líneas de la cosmología de Filón de Alejandría tal y como ésta se manifiesta en su obra De Opificio Mundi. Dicha obra es exponente de la síntesis que lleva a cabo el autor entre judaísmo alejandrino y algunas corrientes filosóficas del helenismo tardío. Por eso, estudiar la concepción que de la creación del mundo tiene Filón es estudiar sus influencias filosóficas y religiosas, pero es asimismo estudiar las innovaciones (...) que el alejandrino propone en sus escritos y que suponen un importante paso hacia delante en el camino hacia la formulación de la doctrina de la creatio ex nihilo. (shrink)

El presente artículo pretende rastrear los caminos por los que la noción de belleza ha transitado durante el pensamiento medieval, identificando dos grandes líneas de pensamiento: la belleza ontológica y la belleza formal. Ambos vienen a coincidir en la reflexión de Tomás de Aquino, cuya mirada abrirá el camino hacia una reflexión más autónoma del arte.

The ultimate source of explanation in biology is the principle of natural selection. Natural selection means differential reproduction of genes and gene combinations. It is a mechanistic process which accounts for the existence in living organisms of end-directed structures and processes. It is argued that teleological explanations in biology are not only acceptable but indeed indispensable. There are at least three categories of biological phenomena where teleological explanations are appropriate.

Hepatocellular carcinoma represents the third leading cause of cancer-related death. Because HCC is multicentric with time, excluding the few transplanted patients, sooner or later it becomes untreatable with loco-regional therapies and, until some years ago, it was not responsive to systemic therapies. In 2005 a randomized trial indicated the efficacy of a product containing stem cell differentiation stage factors taken from zebrafish embryos during the stage in which the totipotent stem cells are differentiating into the pluripotent adult stem cells. In (...) such a trial the patients, with “intermediate” and “advanced” HCC according to Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer/American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases guidelines, presented benefit in terms of performance status and objective tumoral response, with some cases of complete response, that is, sustained disappearance of the neoplastic areas or blood supply therein, accompanied by normalization of alpha-fetoprotein... (shrink)

Acknowledgments I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Jakob Amstutz for his continual feedback during my writing of this work. ...

The purpose of this essay is to show that the version of epistemological infinitism defended by Peter Klein is externalistic in character. I present the most important questions infinitism is supposed to resolve and also present the fundamental difference regarding internalism and externalism in epistemology. I conclude with an indication of what would be the best way to understand infinitism and how to evade the problems that emerge from Klein’s externalist infinitism.

The chapter 'Of power' of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a very fine discussion of agency and a very complex piece of philosophy. It is the result of the superimposition of at least three layers of text (those of the first, second and fifth editions of the Essay), expressive of widely differing views of the same matters. The argument concerning agency and free will that it puts forward (as it now stands, reporting Locke's last word on the subject) is (...) thus beset with problems, and even inconsistencies. But these textual and analytical difficulties should not hide from us the relevance and, in a way, the deep coherence of Locke's philosophy of action. In what follows, I will attempt to cast some light on this complicated interpretive and conceptual matter, by a careful reading of some parts of Locke's discussion. The first section shows how accounting for the evaluation and choice of remote goods, in terms of their real value and in preference to smaller, nearer ones, is a crucial problem for Locke's philosophy of action. The second section reads Locke's move from an internalist to an externalist view of motivation as a first, conceptually complex step towards such an account; and shows how this is linked to a change in the concept of will. The third and fourth sections reconstruct Locke's account (a pattern of suspension and examination of occurrent desire); discuss the role of the motivational and normative concept of happiness; and cast some doubt on the consistency of Locke's position. (shrink)

A central issue of cognitive neuroscience is to understand how a large collection of coupled neurons combines external signals with internal memories into new coherent patterns of meaning. An external stimulus localized at some input spreads over a large assembly of coupled neurons, building up a collective state univocally corresponding to the stimulus. Thus, the synchronization of spike trains of many individual neurons is the basis of a coherent perception. Based on recent investigations of homoclinic chaotic systems and their synchronization, (...) a novel conjecture for the dynamics of single neurons and, consequently, for neuron assemblies is formulated. Homoclinic chaos is proposed as a suitable way to code information in time by trains of equal spikes occurring at apparently erratic times. In order to classify the set of different perceptions, the percept space can be given a metric structure by introducing a distance measure between distinct percepts. The distance in percept space is conjugate to the duration of the perception in the sense that an uncertainty relation in percept space is associated with time-limited perceptions. This coding of different percepts by synchronized spike trains entails fundamental quantum features which are not restricted to microscopic phenomena. It is conjectured that they are related to the details of the perceptual chain rather than depending on Planck's action. (shrink)

O problema do conhecimento fácil tem sido definido na literatura epistemológica contemporânea com um problema que nasce de duas formas distintas. O propósito deste ensaio é mostrar que essas supostas maneiras diferentes de gerar o mesmo problema em verdade originam dois problemas distintos, que requerem respostas distintas. Um deles está relacionado à aquisição fácil (inaceitável) de conhecimento de primeira-ordem e o outro à aquisição fácil (inaceitável) de conhecimento de segunda-ordem. Além disso, é apresentada a maneira como o infinitismo, a teoria (...) epistêmica segundo a qual as razões que justificam uma opinião devem ser infinitas em número e não-repetidas, pode lidar com cada um desses problemas. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay presents the chief reasons for making a distinction between propositional and doxastic justification and, also, points out two things: no theory of propositional justification implies a theory of doxastic justification; infinitism is, essentially, a theory of propositional justification. Additionally, this paper tries to shed some light on the three conjointly sufficient conditions for a proper infinitist view of propositional justification.

O problema do critério é um dos mais importantes da epistemologia. A resposta que se dá a ele definirá um aspecto fundamental das teorias do conhecimento. Neste ensaio, o problema do critério é apresentado e algumas das conseqüências geradas pela aceitação de exigências metaepistemicas são analisadas. Em especial, essas conseqüências são avaliadas em relação ao infinitismo – a teoria epistemológica segundo a qual as razões que sustentam nossas crenças devem ser infinitas em número e não-repetidas. Ao final, sustenta-se que cláusulas (...) que exigem que a metajustificação seja necessária para o conhecimento não apenas tornam as teorias epistemológicas mais plausíveis, mas também que a ausência de tais exigências acaba criando problemas muito difíceis, como o assim chamado “problema do conhecimento fácil”. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Infinitismo. Problema do critério. Metajustificação. Conhecimento. Metaconhecimento. Ceticismo. ABSTRACT This essay discusses the Problem of the Criterion, one of the most important problems in Epistemology. The answer given to this problem will shape a fundamental aspect of theories of knowledge. It also analyzes some of the consequences epistemological theories may face in accepting metaepistemological requirements. These consequences are given special consideration with regard to Infinitism, the epistemological theory according to which the reasons that support our beliefs must be infinite and non-repeating. Finally, this essay claims not only that those propositions that require metajustification make any theory, even Infinitism, more plausible, but also that the absence of such requirements creates difficult problems, such as the so-called “Problem of Easy Knowledge.” KEY WORDS – Infinitism. Problem of the Criterion. Metajustification. Knowledge. Metaknowledge. Skepticism. (shrink)

Entification is now displayed in its nude and native state, and serves to explain the constant mental process, and the true nature of the representations of ...

This chapter contains section titled: Direct Passions Pleasure and Desire Reason and Passion References Further Reading.

It is an intimate experience for us to think, to understand and to perceive things as being identical to themselves, and to suppose, consequently, that things are truly “what” they are. Something is always conceived as itself. The given is given full of itself in all its modifications. For instance, I can think or perceive partially some lips, I can see them almost in their whole or in some of their aspects, or just see them disappear. But it does not (...) seem to be possible to think or to perceive a given as almost itself, as an aspect or as part of itself. It is the aim of this work to study the assumptions and conditions for the original position of sameness in experience, just as it occurs in the synthesis of the datum singular and distinct. The polarization of single tone (einstimmig) intentional rays in an αvτó already contains the aporiae peculiar to the experience of the identical, whose revelation shall lead us, on the one hand, to one of the nuclei of the analysis of passive synthesis, and, on the other hand, to point up how critical revision of the numerical or extensional model of self-identity is for the unity of meaning. Then, it will be a question of pointing out the reasons why in a phenomenology of identity, the renunciation of the phenomenological legitimacy of the αvτó as a guarantee for the different positions of identity must be observed. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-3464-4_13 . (shrink)

This article identifies a double allusion to the tragic characters of Phaedra and Eriphyle in Amm. Marc. 14.1.3 and considers its possible meanings. In combination, these allusions evoke the double nature of the story of Eriphyle, therefore functioning as a reference to the double nature of Caesar Gallus’ depiction in Ammianus. The double allusion consequently forms part of Ammianus’ tragic style throughout Book 14. Having identified the presence of this double allusion, the article illuminates its possible meaning by connecting Ammianus’ (...) passage to the Virgilian rewriting of the description of Eriphyle in Homer. (shrink)

On the one hand, much has been written on Theodosius Dobzhansky’s central role in the development of the field of population genetics and modern evolutionary theory, as well as on his sociopolitical worldview in the middle of the Twentieth Century. On the other hand, much has also been written on Dobzhansky’s role in the institutionalization of genetics in Brazil, where he spent a considerable amount of time. Unfortunately, these literatures developed without any points of intersection or cross-reference. This article places (...) Dobzhansky’s work in Brazil in the broader contexts of the science and politics of its historical period. (shrink)

O presente volume reune quase uma trintena de artigos com temas culturais, de consagrados autores portugueses e brasileiros, que assim pretenderam homenagear o Professor. oordenada por Joaquim Gonçalves, a obra é estruturada em 4 partes. As três primeiras agrupam as intervenções, consagrando-se a quarta à vida e obra do homenageado.

We state and comment our recent results on the incompleteness of elementary real analysis and their relevance for the axiomatized sciences.

The study of conscious experience per se has not kept pace with the dramatic advances in PET, fMRI and other brain-scanning technologies. If anything, the standard approaches to examining the 'view from within' involve little more than cataloguing its readily accessible components. Thus the study of lived subjective experience is still at the level of Aristotelian science, leading to a widespread scepticism over the possibility of a truly scientific study of conscious experience. Drawing on a wide range of approaches -- (...) from phenomenology to meditation -- The View From Within examines the possibility of a disciplined approach to the study of subjective states. The focus is on the practical issues involved. (shrink)