What is considered ugly, grotesque or unpleasant by the fashion world? The first collection presented by Rei Kawakubo in Paris was classified as offensive to Western aesthetic standards, for it questioned the French ideal of beauty and elegance. Through silhouettes covered in frayed, perforated and monochromatic fabrics, Kawakubo disrupted the established notion of the beautiful body, stripping it of the clichés of femininity, explicit sexuality and glamour. Under the lens of Vilém Flusser’s philosophy, the Japanese fashion designer created the new, (...) the beautiful, that which is capable of expanding the parameters of the real. (shrink)

Resumo: A acessibilidade como tema transversal à formação dos egressos da Universidade Federal do Pampa se faz presente tanto no projeto institucional da universidade quanto nos Projetos Pedagógicos dos Cursos. No entanto, embora tal intencionalidade constar nos documentos institucionais, a materialização de tal temática - para além da garantia dos requisitos legais de acessibilidade presentes nos instrumentos de avaliação do ensino superior - se mostra incipiente. No curso de Medicina, apesar do tema da diversidade e, da garantia de equidade sem (...) qualquer tipo de distinção, no atendimento da rede básica, compor as Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a formação dos futuros médicos, a discussão sobre a temática da deficiência é recente, sendo atualmente impulsionada pela demanda de recursos para este público, em específico, na atenção básica de saúde, em função da pandemia da COVID-19. Neste artigo, apresentamos as práticas interdisciplinares que vêm sendo protagonizadas entre o Curso de Medicina e o Programa de Mestrado Profissional em Ensino de Ciências. Dentre estas práticas estão a produção de pranchas em Comunicação Alternativa Aumentativa (CAA) para apoio ao diagnóstico do COVID-19 em pacientes com deficiência; materiais instrucionais acessíveis sobre temas envolvendo a pandemia; curso de CAA para estudantes da área da saúde e formação de profissionais dos serviços de saúde para o atendimento de usuários com deficiência. Estas práticas e suas consequências para a formação dos estudantes de Medicina, constitui o objetivo deste trabalho. Palavras-chave: acessibilidade; formação médica; inclusão; educação especial Medical Education and Inclusive Processes: interdisciplinary teaching practices guided by the knowledge of special education Abstract: The accessibility, as transversal theme to the formation of the Pampa Federal University egresses, is present in the University institutional project as well in the Courses Pedagogical Projects. However, although such intentionality appears in the institutional documents, the materialization of such theme – apart from the guarantee of the accessibility legal requirements present in the evaluation instruments of the university education – is still incipient. Even in the medical course, in spite of the diversity theme and the guarantee of equality without any kind of distinction in the basic system assistance compose the National Curricular Guidelines to the education of the futures doctors, is recent the discussion about the disability theme, being nowadays stimulated by the demand of resources required for this specific type of public in the primary health care, arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we present the interdisciplinary practices that have been executed in the Medical Course and Professional Master’s Degree on Sciences Teaching. Among these practices we have the production of boards in Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) for supporting the COVID-19 diagnosis in disabled patients; accessible instructional materials about themes concerning the pandemic; AAC courses for health area students and training of health services professionals for the assistance of disabled users. These practices and their consequences for the education of Medical students are the objective of the present work. Key-Words: accessibility; medical training; inclusion; special education Educación médica y procesos inclusivos: prácticas docentes interdisciplinarias guiadas por el conocimiento de la educación especial Resumen: La accesibilidad como tema transversal a la formación de los egresados ​​de la Universidad Federal de Pampa está presente tanto en el proyecto institucional de la universidad como en los Proyectos Pedagógicos de los Cursos. Sin embargo, aunque tal intencionalidad está incluida en los documentos institucionales, la materialización de tal tema, además de garantizar los requisitos legales de accesibilidad presentes en los instrumentos de evaluación de la educación superior, es aún incipiente. En el curso de medicina, a pesar del tema de la diversidad y la garantía de equidad sin ningún tipo de distinción, en la atención de la red básica, componiendo los Lineamientos Curriculares Nacionales para la formación de futuros médicos, la discusión sobre el tema de la discapacidad es reciente., siendo impulsado actualmente por la demanda de recursos para este público, específicamente, en la atención primaria de salud, debido a la pandemia de COVID-19. En este artículo presentamos las prácticas interdisciplinarias que se vienen dando entre el Curso de Medicina y el Programa de Maestría Profesional en Enseñanza de las Ciencias. Entre estas prácticas se encuentran la producción de tableros en Comunicación Aumentativa Alternativa (CAA) para apoyar el diagnóstico de COVID-19 en pacientes con discapacidad; materiales educativos accesibles sobre temas relacionados con la pandemia; Curso CAA para estudiantes del área de la salud y formación de profesionales de los servicios de salud para la asistencia a usuarios con discapacidad. Estas prácticas y sus consecuencias para la formación de los estudiantes de medicina, constituyen el objetivo de este trabajo. Palabras-clave: Accesibilidad; entrenamiento médico; inclusión; educación especial. Data de registro: 14/04/2021 Data de aceite: 01/12/2021. (shrink)

In Contagious Architecture, Luciana Parisi offers a philosophicalinquiry into the status of the algorithm in architectural and interaction design.

According to attention-based theories, to explain organizational attention is to explain organizational behavior. In our study, we test the model of situated attention and firm behavior by examining the effects of attention structures and allocation of attention on organizational outcomes. We hypothesize a positive relationship between attention structures and the allocation of organizational attention that, in turn, has an effect on financial performance. Using a unique data set composed of indicators of social responsibility published by 338 Brazilian organizations between 2001 (...) and 2007, we find support for our hypotheses. Our findings suggest that organizational attention to social issues fully mediates the relationship between attention structures and financial performance. (shrink)

Functional language is ubiquitous in ecology, mainly in the researches about biodiversity and ecosystem function. However, it has not been adequately investigated by ecologists or philosophers of ecology. In the contemporary philosophy of ecology we can recognize a kind of implicit consensus about this issue: while the etiological approaches cannot offer a good concept of function in ecology, Cummins’ systemic approach can. Here we propose to go beyond this implicit consensus, because we think these approaches are not adequate for ecology. (...) We argue that a sound epistemological framework to function in ecology is to be found in organizational approaches. In this line, we define function in ecology as a precise effect of a given constraint on the ecosystem flow of matter and energy performed by a given item of biodiversity, within a closure of constraints. We elaborate on this definition by developing a case study of a bromeliad ecosystem. (shrink)

In Western countries, a social trend toward delaying childbearing has been observed in women of reproductive age for the last two decades. This delay is due to different factors related to lifestyle, such as the development of a professional career or the absence of the right partner. As a consequence, women who defer childbearing may find themselves affected by age-related infertility when they decide to conceive. Fertility preservation techniques are, therefore, proposed as a solution for these women. Among all possible (...) solutions, social freezing is an alternative strongly discussed from a scientific, social and ethical point of view.A survey among 930 female students at the University of Padova (Italy) investigated their knowledge and attitudes on social egg freezing and their potential intentions regarding this procedure. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the level of awareness of age-related infertility in Italian young women and their attitudes regarding acceptable indications for elective oocyte freezing, their potential personal use, the circumstances in which they would then decide to use cryopreserved eggs, and their attitudes towards cost coverage and oocyte donation.Data collected in this study revealed some important points about young women and their knowledge about social oocyte freezing in Italy as compared to other European countries and the United States.Overall, 34.3% of the students reported having heard about the possibility of oocyte cryopreservation for non-medical reasons and being aware of the meaning of this procedure; only 19.5% were in favour of social egg freezing and 48.4% thought that the cost for this procedure should be borne entirely by the woman herself. Regarding egg donation, the majority of students (64.9%) would not accept donating their eggs to a known woman or couple and 42.5% would instead accept donating to a biobank.Our study shows that young Italian women are significantly less aware of age-related decline in fertility and the possibility of using social egg freezing compared to their similarly situated counterparts in other Western countries. (shrink)

Although in Italy there is currently no effective law on physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, Decision No. 242 issued by the Italian Constitutional Court on September 25, 2019 established that an individual who, under specific circumstances, has facilitated the implementation of an independent and freely-formed resolve to commit suicide by another individual is exempt from criminal liability. Following this ruling, some citizens have submitted requests for assisted suicide to the public health system, generating a situation of great uncertainty in the application (...) processes. As a matter of fact, shared and defined procedures are lacking as Decision 242/2019 merely added some principles on which the legislature will have to base its future intervention. This paper analyses the advisory role that the Decision attributes to territorial ethics committees with the aim of stimulating discussions on their role in oversight mechanisms. The proposed conclusion is that the envisaged role does not appear consistent with the functions of these bodies and is ultimately substantially undefined and unjustified. (shrink)

O plano ampliado e reconfigurado dos fluxos de informação na contemporaneidade sugerem novas condições para que a ação da leitura e da interpretação possa ser estabelecida. Com o objetivo de refletir sobre as implicações que fazem parte destas ações desenvolvemos um exame dialético parcial sobre três obras - Ser e Tempo, de M. Heidegger, Investigações Lógicas, Sexta Investigação: Elementos de uma Elucidação Fenomenológica do Conhecimento, de E. Husserl, e Investigações Filosóficas, de L. Wittgenstein - que, embora não tenham tido o (...) objetivo direto de analisar a leitura e a interpretação, parecem oferecer elementos para refletirmos sobre estes fenômenos na contemporaneidade. Ao final, nos posicionamos a favor da interpretação enquanto uma ação social a priori e discorremos, sinteticamente, sobre a configuração dos atuais sistemas de informação, considerando tal condição. ABOUT THE LIMITS AND SCOPE OF INTERPRETATION: REFLECTIONS FROM HEIDEGGER, HUSSERL AND WITTGENSTEIN AbstractThe expanded and reconfigured plan of information's flow in contemporary can suggest new conditions for the action of interpretation be established. In order to reflect on the implications of this action be part of interpreting process, we have developed a partial dialectical examination of three works - Being and time, of M. Heidegger, Logical Investigations, Sixth Research: Elements of a Phenomenological Elucidation of Knowledge, of E. Husserl, and Philosophical Investigations, of L. Wittgenstein - which, although these works had not the direct interest to address the phenomenon of interpretation, seem to offer the necessary elements to reflect on this phenomenon in the nowadays. In the end, we position ourselves in favor of interpretation while social phenomenon placed a priori, and commented above, briefly, about the configuration of current information systems, considering that condition. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente artículo buscaremos analizar los diversos tratamientos que Walter Benjamin ha realizado a lo largo de su obra acerca de la crítica como temática eminentemente filosófica. Para ello abordaremos, en primer lugar, su acercamiento a la poesía del Romanticismo alemán, luego a la poesía barroca y, finalmente, a la obra de Baudelaire con el objetivo de justificar que una comprensión acabada de la crítica implica necesariamente para el filósofo alemán recuperar la actualización como clave de lectura de (...) la historia. En efecto, si actualizar presupone para Benjamin la asunción de la no coincidencia del tiempo consigo mismo, esto es, la supervivencia del pasado en el presente y el potencial significante de sus emergencias, buscaremos mostrar cómo la noción de crítica benjaminiana descansa en ese diferencial temporal y encuentra allí su fuente de sentido.: In this article we intend to analyze the different considerations that Walter Benjamin carried out in his work on the problem of critique as an eminently philosophical subject. To do this, we will address, first, his approach to German romantic poetry, then baroque poetry and, finally, Baudelaire’s work, in order to explain how a full comprehension of critique means, for the German philosopher, to recover the idea of “actualization” as a key for reading History. In fact, if the actualization presupposes, for Benjamin, the assumption of the non-coincidence of time with itself, that is, the survival of the past within the present and its potentiality to signify, we try to show how Benjamin’s notion of criticism rests on that temporal difference and finds there its source of meaning. (shrink)

Nursing research using concept analysis plays a critical role for knowledge development, particularly when concerning to broad and foundational concepts for nursing practice, such as dignity. This study aimed to synthesize research concerning concept analysis of dignity in nursing care. Based on a literature review, electronic databases were searched using the terms “dignity,” “human dignity,” “concept analysis,” and nurs*. Papers in Portuguese or English were included. The research synthesis was conducted independently by two reviewers. A total of 35 citations were (...) identified and seven papers were included. Six studies were elected using Walker and Avant concept analysis methodology while one applied the Beth Rodgers evolutionary model. The concept of dignity has been studied by nurses, and its attributes, antecedents, consequences, and similar concepts were synthesized into a definition. Dignity emerged as a fundamental concept in nursing ethics and the main attributes synthesized were personhood, sociability, respect, and autonomy. The antecedents identified were: facilitators—patient focus care, recognition, education, and ethical competence; threats—vulnerability and organizational environment. The consequences were positive coping, empowerment, and dignity preservation. The synthesis of these seven studies using concept analysis provided a clear definition of dignity. These findings challenge future research and education, particularly for the study of undergraduate and postgraduate nursing education programs to enhance skills for preserving patient dignity in clinical practice. (shrink)

Astract Sex investigates the impact of advances in contemporary science and information technology on conceptions of sex. Evolutionary theory and the technologies of viral information transfer, cloning and genetic engineering are changing the way we think about human sex, reproduction and the communication of genetic information. Abstract Sex presents a philosophical exploration of this new world of sexual, informatic and capitalist multiplicity, of the accelerated mutation of nature and culture.

Kristen Ghodsee continue avec cet ouvrage la récupération de l’héritage historique de l’activisme international des femmes du bloc de l’Est, thème qu’elle avait lancé en 2015 avec The Left Side of History: World War II and the Unfulfilled Promise of Communism in Eastern Europe. Elle y ajoute un nouveau volet : l’expérience de l’Afrique postcoloniale et la lutte de ses militantes politiques pour les droits des femmes pendant la Décennie des Nations Unies pour la femme, 1975‑1985. K. Ghodsee co...

O discurso funcional é tanto ubíquo quanto central na ecologia contemporânea, principalmente no contexto das pesquisas sobre biodiversidade e funcionamento ecossistêmico, que emergiram nos anos 1990 em meio à crise da biodiversidade. Entretanto, a despeito dessa forte presença na ecologia, o discurso funcional ainda não tem sido investigado de maneira adequada nesta ciência, na medida em que muitos problemas fundamentais a respeito do tema ainda permanecem sem respostas claras. Por um lado, os ecólogos que lançam mão de explicações funcionais parecem (...) simplesmente tomar como dado ou autoevidente o conceito de função. Contudo, ele nada tem de trivial, tendo em vista os problemas filosóficos suscitados pela linguagem funcional ou teleológica nas explicações biológicas, pelo menos desde Aristóteles. Por outro lado, poucos filósofos da ciência têm se mostrado especialmente interessados nos problemas epistemológicos associados ao discurso funcional em ecologia. Tomando essa situação como ponto de partida, nossa abordagem neste artigo se dá em três etapas. Inicialmente, procedemos a uma análise conceitual de função na ecologia atual, com ênfase nos estudos que relacionam a biodiversidade às propriedades ecossistêmicas. Esboçamos três significados principais do conceito, mostrando os pressupostos e as implicações associados a cada um deles. Num segundo momento, procedemos a uma análise das razões que levam a suspeitas ou objeções contra a linguagem funcional na ecologia. Por fim, num terceiro momento, lançamos algumas sugestões sobre como fundamentar ou dar mais clareza ao discurso funcional na ecologia contemporânea. (shrink)

Public health emergencies such as pandemics can put health systems in a position where they need to ration medical equipment and interventions because the resources available are not sufficient to meet demand. In public health management, the fair allocation of resources is a permanent and cross-sector issue since resources, and especially economic resources, are not infinite. During the COVID-19 pandemic resources need to be allocated under conditions of extreme urgency and uncertainty. One very problematic aspect has concerned intensive care medicine (...) and age discrimination has been among the most hotly discussed issues, as age has been touted as a probable criterion for selection. In this paper we analyse some documents originating from scientific societies and medical associations, mainly related to EU sphere and available in English, French, Spanish and Italian, concerning the criteria for admission to the intensive care units. We highlights how, in most of these documents, it is explicitly stated that “age itself” is not a criterion for patient selection. Our conclusion is that these criteria should be defined in advance of a crisis situation and be grounded in clinical indicators. Establishing “cut-off” policies with regard to criteria such as age or chronic disability is definitely an unjustifiable form of discrimination even in the context of a public health emergency. (shrink)

Historicamente os estudos da informação se relacionam diretamente com os estudos da linguagem. Recentemente, entra nesse cruzamento, a tecnologia. Procurando identificar caminhos que possam servir aos estudos informacionais para refletir e construir suas estruturas de linguagem para mediação do conhecimento, é desenvolvido um ensaio sobre qual seria o lugar da linguagem na obra “Ensaio sobre a origem dos conhecimentos humanos” (1746), de Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715 – 1780). Procura-se, ao final, defender as perspectivas do filósofo como um dos pontos (...) de partida prévios que poderiam também ser assumidos pela Ciência da Informação para distinguir aquilo que atualmente concebemos como linguagem, conhecimento e uso da informação. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe social marketing campaign is a value-laden communicative process aiming to change individual behavior and public policy. Due to its normative nature and implications, this process has t...

The paper focuses on the manifestations of structural and symbolic violence against women during the communist regime by addressing the most important mechanisms and embedded beliefs that allowed the proliferation of spousal violence in communist Romania, in what I see as a continuation of the interwar patriarchal state, and a bridge to the new discriminatory policies developed by the democratic structures, after 1990.

Ao lado das imagens já conhecidas de Nietzsche como “precursor do nazismo”, “racista”, “pós-moderno”, “pensador perigoso e irracionalista”, em tempos recentes acrescentou-se à imagem de “precursor do transhumanismo”. Ao apresentarmos aqui alguns elementos do transhumanismo, em especial aqueles ligados às mais recentes biotecnologias, bem como alguns conceitos do pensamento de Nietzsche, em especial o além-do-homem e a ontologia da imanência do vir-a-ser, visamos ampliar esse debate, enfatizando que, para Nietzsche, o ideal transhumanista não seria mais do que um sintoma do (...) ideal ascético, tão presente ainda na nossa contemporaneidade. (shrink)

As machines have become increasingly smart and have entangled human thinking with artificial intelligences, it seems no longer possible to distinguish among levels of decision-making that occur in the newly formed space between critical reasoning, logical inference and sheer calculation. Since the 1980s, computational systems of information processing have evolved to include not only deductive methods of decision, whereby results are already implicated in their premises, but have crucially shifted towards an adaptive practice of learning from data, an inductive method (...) of retrieving information from the environment and establishing general premises. This shift in logical methods of decision-making does not simply concern technical apparatuses, but is a symptom of a transformation in logical thinking activated with and through machines. This article discusses the pioneering work of Katherine Hayles, whose study of the cybernetic and computational infrastructures of our culture particularly clarifies this epistemological transformation of thinking in relation to machines. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta un análisis de las obras testimoniales de Jorge Alberto Taiana, Miguel Bonasso y Juan Manuel Abal Medina. El objetivo es observar las diferentes operaciones memorísticas que los autores ponen en juego a la hora de reconstruir la figura y el rol de Juan Domingo Perón durante el proceso abierto con la apertura electoral de mayo de 1971 hasta la muerte del viejo líder tres años después.

This article deals with public manifestations of Catholic religious officials, members of the hierarchy and recognized laity, in the context of the discussion of the National Education Plan - PNE. The focus of the analysis is a condemnation of what they call "gender ideology", present in the proposal document. Such manifestations are the reaffirmation of a conception of human beings as subject to the inexorable "laws of nature" that determine a social order marked by the rigid distinction of roles assigned (...) to women and men. The texts published at the time reveal changes and continuities in the Catholic discourse in its reference to "nature", understood in its biological materiality, as an unswerving fact of human reality, consisting in two sexes must unite under the "natural order". Gender theories are blamed by family disintegration, for providing support to new understandings of humanity, no longer based on bipolarity: men / women. A non extensive dossier of these texts formed the basis for the proposed analyzes. (shrink)

En este artículo se analiza la doctrina kantiana de la definición. Se estudia el desarrollo de esa doctrina en las lecciones de lógica del período precrítico, a partir de su comparación con la teoría de las definiciones de Meier. Se sostiene que Kant organiza su estudio a partir de los aspectos escogidos por Meier, pero es crítico de sus tesis.

What has philosophy become after computation? Critical positions about what counts as intelligence, reason, and thinking have addressed this question by reenvisioning and pushing debates about the modern question of technology towards new radical visions. Artificial intelligence, it is argued, is replacing transcendental metaphysics with aggregates of data resulting in predictive modes of decision-making, replacing conceptual reflection with probabilities. This article discusses two main positions. While on the one hand, it is feared that philosophy has been replaced by cybernetic metaphysics, (...) on the other hand it is claimed that only the coconstitution of philosophy and automation challenges modern transcendental reason and colonial capital. As Donna Haraway pointed out, cybernetic circuits of communication have constructed counterfactual ontologies against the master narrative of the human. This article addresses recent attempts at redeveloping a critique of natural philosophy that explains cybernetic metaphysics beyond the universal master narratives of mechanicism and vitalism. This article suggests that the recursive system of nature and technology also needs to account for the problem of philosophical decision, which will be explored in terms of mediatic thinking, instrumentality, and automation. This article follows insights from the movie Get Out (2017) to argue that the model of philosophical decision relies on a servomechanic understanding of the medium of thought, based on the colonial abstraction of value in the prosthetic extension of the slave-machine. It explores the nonphilosophical envisioning of automation in terms of a counterfactual theorisation of the negative negation of the medium and argues for a nonoptical darkness entering the space of thinking. Philosophy and automation are neither coupled nor set in opposition as if in a ceaseless mirroring. Instead, both philosophy and automation must transform their self-determining axiomatics in order to host the heretic activities of machine propositions. (shrink)

This essay is an occasion to discuss the critical trajectories of a now common field of enquiry concerned with the impact of biomediatic technologies on politics and culture. Thacker's book The Global Genome importantly sits between debates about biopower as the governance of life and biopolitics as the transformation of what life can be. In particular, the book advances the hypothesis that as information produces `life itself', so it has become central to a political economy of excess and surplus value. (...) In other words, information does not dematerialize biology. Bioinformatics and biotech informationalize the living and rematerialize biology. As biotech becomes central to biopower, the global genome comes to reigning profit, labour, racism, biocolonialism, biosecurity, and bioart. However, Thacker's reliance on a bio-ontology of life grounding all relations of power leaves no space for process-events to break the chain of life's perpetual reproduction. (shrink)

1. The fact that Brazil, land of parrots and coffee, is also, by antonomasia, that of cannibals, is a commonplace that we find in the writings of foreigners and natives from the early years of the conquest up until our era of advanced civilization, at the level of anthropological reality (we should like to say anthropophagic) and at that of metaphor. As though, forgetful of the general accusation of anthropophagy launched by the first explorers against the various indigenous peoples of (...) America, beginning with the Caribs/Cannibals of Columbus, the colonizing and evangelizing Old World wanted to transfer to Vera Cruz and its inhabitants the exclusive rights to these “savage customs of a people without justice and law” that the first Western ethnographer, Herodotus, had attributed, in the Eurasia of his time, to the peoples of the Far North, at the other side of the extensive desert lying beyond the land of the Scythians—those who were called the Androphagi. And as if, of all the peoples and communities accused, in various latitudes and epochs of history, of having anthropophagic practices, the Brazilians were the only ones to not just defend themselves against the infamous accusation but to flaunt it as a symbol of their autonomy and originality when confronted with the menace of religious and cultural colonization. (shrink)

The remarks which follow arise from the daily and simultaneous consulting of two literatures and, in a larger sense, of two cultures, Portuguese and Brazilian, both expressed in the same language, Portuguese. They also arise from an attempt to describe and define by categories which are “internal” to literature the differences which exist between the two bodies of writing under discussion. But they are equally inspired by a desire to isolate in the corpus of the texts which conventionally constitute a (...) national literature those thematic and stylistic recurrences which may serve as starting points for an attempt at formalization. (shrink)

In congenitally or prelingually deaf childrencochlear implantation is open to seriousethical challenge. The ethical dimension ofthis technology is closely related to both asocial standard of quality of life and to theuncertainty of the overall results of cochlearimplantation. Uncertainty with regards theacquisition of oral communicative skills.However, in the western world, available datasuggest that deafness is associated with thelowest educational level and the lowest familyincome. Notwithstanding the existence of aDeaf-World, deafness should be considered as ahandicap. Therefore, society should provide themeans for the (...) fulfilment of a deaf child'sspecific needs.For the time being there is no definitiveanswer with regard the best way to rehabilitatea particular deaf child. Therefore,communitarian values may be acceptable. If thedeaf child parents' decide not to implant,their decision should be respected. Guardiansare entitled to determine which standard ofbest interest to use in a specificcircumstance. They are the proper judges ofwhat (re)habilitation process is best for theirdeaf child. However, most deaf children areborn to two hearing parents. Probably, theywill not be acculturated in the Deaf-World. Itfollows that cochlear implantation is awelcomed (re)habilitation technology.If auditory (re)habilitation will in the futureprovide the necessary communicative skills, inparticular oral language acquisition, customs,values and attitudes of the hearing worldshould be regarded as necessary to accomplish adeaf child's right to an open future. Ifcochlear implantation technology will provideall deaf children with the capacity to developacceptable oral communicative skills –whatever the hearing status of the family andthe cultural environment – then auditory(re)habilitation will be an ethical imperative. (shrink)

Why have theories of evolution become now a matter of concern for critically rethinking sex and sexual difference? Why after years of deconstructing the ontologies of sex rooted in biological discourses and metaphysics of identity has critical thought turned to biology, physics, and mathematics? One way to tackle this new turn toward scientific thought may be derived from the reaction against an overused method of textual critique, which has come short of engaging with the reality of matter. If sexuality and (...) sex are material forms of irreducible difference, then one needs a window into the material processes that lead to such forms. (shrink)

The health sector is facing many challenges, and there is a need to maintain the delivery of high‐quality health‐care. Issues related to equity and access to health‐care have emerged in a context of an economic recession in which the sustainability of the health system depends on everyone, including the actions and decisions of professionals. Therefore, nurses and their skills may be the answer to ethical, professional and community health management, but this recession could lead to major problems in the education (...) of nurses in daily health‐care practice. Due to the limited availability of resources, nurses are increasingly taking leadership positions, continuing to develop their critical abilities and thinking skills, and considering sciences such as deontology and ethics. The main goals of this study were to reflect on the economic recession and its impact on health‐care and to demonstrate the contribution of nursing to the sustainability of health‐care and in the promotion of individuals' dignity. The authors conclude that health‐care depends on economic redistribution and, in this context, needs to be equitable and fair. Nurses have the responsibility to develop their profession according to the underlying sciences and can therefore strategically help the healthcare system. (shrink)

Neste texto analisamos blogs da Internet como espaços educativos nos quais se produzem/constroem as identidades juvenis de indivíduos que buscam se inserir no grupo cultural conhecido como nerd/geek. Inseridos nos Estudos Culturais, na sua vertente pós-moderna e pós-estruturalista, valemo-nos da noção de Representação Cultural para analisar como as identidades são constituídas com a escrita/leitura de blogs disponibilizados na web. Destacamos que a forma como se dá o agrupamento dos jovens que escrevem/leem os blogs é efêmera e espontânea, baseada no prazer (...) de estar junto, no consumo de alguns itens e no estabelecimento de alguns laços afetivos momentâneos. Tal compartilhamento tem semelhança com outras “tribos” urbanas deste início de século XXI. Destacamos, também, que não estamos associando a juventude a uma faixa etária particular, mas, isto sim, a um estilo de vida fortemente ligado ao lazer e ao consumo. Os blogs analisados, ao colocarem em circulação representações de identidades nerd/geek, contribuem para a produção discursiva dessas mesmas identidades em função dos modos como os/as integrantes desse grupo partilham formas de apropriar-se de saberes diversos, de utilizar equipamentos tecnológicos, de consumir produtos comerciais e textos midiáticos. (shrink)

This article tackles an old, classical problem, which is acquiring a new epochal relevance with the techno-aesthetic processing of form and substance, expression and content. The field of digital architecture is embarked in the ancient controversy between the line and the curve, binary communication and fuzzy logic. Since the 1990s, the speculative qualities of digital architecture have exposed spatial design to the qualities of growing or breeding, rather than planning. However, such qualities still deploy the tension between discrete spaces and (...) continual curving. In this context, the article suggests the computational coexistence of discrete coding with continual morphing, defying any easy resolution for an aesthetic of continuity or discontinuity, the superiority of the analog or the meta-logic of the digital. The metaphysical dimension of such coexistence needs to include the abstract capacities of experiencing the transition from one state to another as the registering of algorithmic processing. Computation is intrinsic to microperceptions, incomputable quantities deploying the infectious property of the digital code. The article draws on the digital architecture of Greg Lynn to explore whether the computational nature of the digital calculus has the potential to challenge the bifurcation between the biological and the mathematical, the physical and the mental. (shrink)