The introduction of a new analytical method, due fundamentally to François Viète and René Descartes and the later dissemination of their works, resulted in a profound change in the way of thinking and doing mathematics. This change, known as process of algebrization, occurred during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and led to a great transformation in mathematics. Among many other consequences, this process gave rise to the treatment of the results in the classic treatises with the new analytical method, (...) which allowed new visions of such treatises and the obtaining of new results. Among those treatises is the Arithmetic of Diophantus of Alexandria which was written, using the new algebraic language, by the French mathematician Jacques Ozanam, who in addition to profusely increasing the original problems of Diophantus, solved them in a general way, thus obtaining many geometric consequences. The work is handwritten, it has never been published, it has been lost for almost 300 years, and the known references show its importance. We will show that Ozanam’s manuscript was quoted as an important work on several occasions by others mathematicians of the time, among whom G. W. Leibniz stands out. Once the manuscript has been located, our aim in this article is to show and analyze this work of Ozanam, its content, its notation and its structure and how, through the new algebraic method, he not only solved and expanded the questions proposed by Diophantus, but also introduced a connection between the algebraic solutions and what he called geometric determinations by obtaining loci from the solutions. (shrink)

AbstractIn many cultures, interactions between humans and plants are rooted in what is called “relational values”—values that derive from relationships and entail reciprocity. In Mexico, biocultural diversity is mirrored in the knowledge and use of some 6500 plant species and the domestication of over 250 Mesoamerican native crop species. This research explores how different sets of values are attributed to plants and how these influence management strategies to maintain plant resources in wild and anthropogenic environments. We ran workshops in two (...) communities in a highly biodiverse region in western Mexico, to ascertain the values and management activities related to important plant resources. The relationship between values attributed to plants and management activities was examined through redundancy analysis. A total of 180 plant resources were mentioned during the workshops, with a broad spectrum of values attributed to them, including material, non-material, and regulatory dimensions. We divided plant management strategies into three general categories of increasing intensity and complexity. We found that participants in the Indigenous community value and manage more wild plant resources than people in the non-Indigenous community. We also identified relationships between plant resource values and the type of management performed; for example, more intensive forms of management, such as sowing seeds, were used for seasonal plants that had a food value. By valuing and managing different sets of plant resources from forest, agricultural plots, and home gardens, people enabled multi-functional landscapes to form, illustrating a key feature of relational values in agroecosystems, which promotes both conservation and domestication of plants. (shrink)

Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) has been considered as a measure of heart-brain interaction and autonomic modulation, and it is modified by cognitive and attentional tasks. In cognitive tasks, HRV was reduced in participants who achieved worse results. This could indicate the possibility of HRV predicting cognitive performance, but this association is still unclear in a high cognitive load sport such as chess Objective: To analyse modifications on HRV and subjective perception of stress, difficulty and complexity in different chess problem (...) tasks. Design: HRV was assessed at baseline. During the chess problems, HRV was also monitored, and immediately after chess problems the subjective stress, difficulty and complexity were also registered. Method: A total of 16 male chess players, age: 35.19 (13.44) and ELO: 1927.69 (167.78) were analysed while six chess problem solving tasks with different level of difficulty were conducted (two low level, two medium level and two high level chess problems). Participants were classified according to their results into two groups: high performance or low performance. Results: Friedman test showed a significant effect of tasks in HRV indexes and perceived difficulty, stress and complexity in both high and low performance groups. A decrease in HRV was observed in both groups when chess problems difficulty increased. In addition, HRV was significantly higher in the high performance group than in the low performance group during chess problems. Conclusions: An increase in autonomic modulation was observed to meet the cognitive demands of the problems, being higher while the difficulty of the tasks increased. Non-linear HRV indexes seem to be more reactive to tasks difficulty, being an interesting and useful tool in chess training. (shrink)

ABSTRACTCarnap famously argued that there are two kinds of questions and claims concerning the existence or reality of entities: internal and external ones. We focus on Carnapian external ontological claims of the form: ‘Xs really exist’, where ‘X’ stands for some traditional metaphysical category, such as ‘substance’, ‘fact’ or ‘structure’. While Carnap considered them as meaningless, we consider them as faultlessly meaningful. However, in line with an expressivist guise, we do not claim that they have the meaning they have in (...) virtue of representing a certain range of entities in the world or describing pieces of reality. Quite the contrary, we maintain that they are meaningful because they perform a function that is fundamentally expressive, that is, a non-descriptive function. In particular, they may imply a distinctive type of metalinguistic expressive function. Moreover, we avoid accuses of mentalism insofar as we explain the meaning of external ontological claims in terms of the practical commitments to the adoption of certain linguistic forms they express, rather than as expressing some kind of mental state. (shrink)

Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and caused by exposure to excessive and prolonged stress related to job conditions. Moreover, burnout is highly prevalent among health care professionals. The aim of this study is, first, to examine the mediating role of social support over the effect of burnout in health care professionals and, second, to explore potential gender differences. A convenience sample of 1,035 health professionals from Ecuador, including 608 physicians and 427 nurses, was surveyed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, (...) Social Support Survey, and General Health Questionnaire as measures of burnout, social support, and general health, respectively. Social support was found to mediate the negative effects of burnout on health regardless of gender. Differences across the three dimensions of burnout and health are further discussed, along with their implications for designing effective burnout interventions for health care professionals in Ecuador. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore the role of two models of well-being in the prediction of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, namely PERMA and mature happiness. According to PERMA, well-being is mainly composed of five elements: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning in life, and achievement. Instead, mature happiness is understood as a positive mental state characterized by inner harmony, calmness, acceptance, contentment, and satisfaction with life. Rooted in existential positive psychology, this harmony-based happiness represents the result of living in (...) balance between positive and negative aspects of one's life. We hypothesized that mature happiness would be a more prominent protective factor during the present pandemic than the PERMA composite. A total of 12,203 participants from 30 countries responded to an online survey including the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), the PERMA-Profiler, and the Mature Happiness Scale-Revised (MHS-R). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that PERMA and mature happiness were highly correlated, but nonetheless, they represented two separate factors. After controlling for demographic factors and country-level variables, both PERMA Well-being and MHS-R were negative predictors of psychological distress. Mature happiness was a better predictor of stress, anxiety, and general distress, while PERMA showed a higher prediction of depression. Mature happiness moderated the relation between the perceived noxious effects of the pandemic and all markers of distress (depression, anxiety, stress, and total DASS-21). Instead, PERMA acted as a moderator in the case of depression and stress. These findings indicate that inner harmony, according to the mature happiness theory, is an essential facet of well-being to be taken into consideration. The results of this study can also orient policies aimed to alleviate the negative effects of the pandemic on mental health through the promotion of well-being. (shrink)

Este trabajo pretende comprender la ética como un modo específico de sabiduría, distinguiéndola de otros modos de sabiduría, como son la magia, el mito, la técnica, la religión y la filosofía. A su vez, se establece la importancia que tiene la virtud para el planteamiento de Polo de la ética como carácter propio de este modo de sabiduría. A continuación, se intenta establecer algunas similitudes y diferencias entre la antropología de Polocon la de Zubiri referida a la noción de virtud.

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

Damasio, an eminent neuroscientist explores the science of human emotion and what the great Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza can teach of how and why we feel. Damasio shows how joy and sorrow, those most defining of human feelings, are in fact the cornerstones of our survival and culture.

Modernidad y crisis de sentido / Augusto Hortal Alonso / - Fenomenología de las formas ambientales de religión en América Latina / Pedro Trigo / - Cultura y religión paraguaya en transición / Bartoleu Melia / - Filosofía y fenomenología / Paul Gilbert / - De la fenomenología de la religión en América Latina a una filosofía de la religión / Juan Carlos Scannone / - Religión y cultura. Elementos para una filosofía de la religión / Gerardo Remolina / (...) - Experiencia simbólica, experiencia religiosa y experiencia mística. Nuevos ámbitos para el encuentro personal / Jorge R. Seibold / - Etica y filosofía de la religión. Una cuestión de fronteras / Vicente Durán Casa /. (shrink)

From one of the world's leading neuroscientists--a succinct, illuminating, wholly engaging investigation of the phenomenon of consciousness. In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the question of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings in neurobiology, psychology, and AI have given us the necessary tools to solve its mystery. Now, he not only elucidates its myriad aspects, but presents his analysis and insights in a way that is faithful to our own intuitive sense (...) of the experience of consciousness. In the 45 brief chapters of the book, he helps us understand the relation between consciousness and mind; why being conscious is not the same as either being awake or sensing; the essential role of feeling; and the biological brain and development of consciousness. He synthesizes the recent findings of various sciences with the outlook of philosophy, and, most significantly, presents his original research which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behavior. Here is an indispensable guide to understanding consciousness, the fundamental human capacity for informing--and transforming--our experience of the world around us and our perception of our place in it. (shrink)

Scientists are rapidly mapping the chemical and physical pathways that constitute biological systems, making the complexity of processes such as inheritance, development, evolution, and even the origin of life increasingly tractable. Through genetics and neuroscience, biological understanding is now being extended deeply into the human sciences and has begun to transform our understanding of behavior, mind, culture, and values. The idea of a science-driven unity of knowledge has reemerged in several forms in both reductionist and nonreductionist frameworks. This volume examines (...) some of the extraordinary empirical discoveries that have caused a revival of this idea and presents theories from thinkers in a variety of disciplines, including E. O. Wilson, Eric Kandel, and Elaine Scarry. (shrink)

Ship-type identification in a maritime context can be critical to the authorities to control the activities being carried out. Although Automatic Identification Systems has been mandatory for certain vessels, if a vessel does not have them voluntarily or not, it can lead to a whole set of problems, which is why the use of tracking alternatives such as radar is fully complementary for a vessel monitoring systems. However, radars provide positions, but not what they are detecting. Having systems capable of (...) adding categorical information to radar detections of vessels makes it possible to increase control of the activities being carried out, improve safety in maritime traffic, and optimize on-site inspection resources on the part of the authorities. This paper addresses the binary classification problem (fishing ships versus all other vessels) using unbalanced data from real vessel trajectories. It is performed from a deep learning approach comparing two of the main trends, Convolutional Neural Networks and Long Short-Term Memory. In this paper, it is proposed the weighted cross-entropy methodology and compared with classical data balancing strategies. Both networks show high performance when applying weighted cross-entropy compared with the classical machine learning approaches and classical balancing techniques. This work is shown to be a novel approach to the international problem of identifying fishing ships without context. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the effect of scoring first on match outcomes in the Chinese Football Super League. A total of 1,116 matches in which at least one goal was scored from the 2014 to 2018 seasons were collected. Match outcomes, absolute goal differences, the minute of the first goal, match locations, and teams’ budgets were analyzed. A team’s budget was measured in terms of a team’s value at the beginning of the season, and teams were (...) clustered into two groups. A descriptive analysis was conducted, and two generalized linear models were applied. The results showed a favorable outcome for the team that scored first both in match outcome and goal difference. Regarding the teams that scored first, 66.31% won their matches, 20.70% achieved a draw, and 12.99% lost. Specifically, home teams were more likely to win and less likely to lose or draw than away teams. Home teams also had a higher likelihood of obtaining a larger goal difference. Higher budget teams were more likely to win and less likely to lose or draw than low-budget teams. Additionally, for each minute, the team scores closer to the end of the match, and the average probability of winning increased by 0.0028. These findings can guide the strategies of coaches in different match scenarios according to the match location and the opponent’s quality. (shrink)

This article integrates previously missing components of government quality into the governance-piracy nexus in exploring governance mechanisms by which global obligations for the treatment of IPRs are effectively transmitted from international to the national level in the battle against piracy. It assesses the best governance tools in the fight against piracy and upholding of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The instrumentality of IPR laws (treaties) in tackling piracy through good governance mechanisms is also examined. Findings demonstrate that: (1) while all governance (...) tools under consideration significantly decrease the incidence of piracy, corruption-control is the most effective weapon; (2) but for voice and accountability, political stability and democracy, IPR laws (treaties) are instrumental in tackling piracy through government quality dynamics of rule of law, regulation quality, government effectiveness, corruption-control, and press freedom. Hence, the need for a policy approach most conducive to expanding development is to implement an integrated system of both IPRs and corollary good governance policies. Moreover, our findings support the relevance of good governance measures in developing countries wishing to complement their emerging IPR regimes. (shrink)

Este repertorio registra los artículos sobre Platón que se encuentran en la Hemeroteca de la Biblioteca Central de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. El listado abarca las publicaciones existentes hasta el primer semestre del año 2000.

We argue that it is fundamentally impossible to recover information about quantum superpositions when a quantum system has interacted with a sufficiently large number of degrees of freedom of the environment. This is due to the fact that gravity imposes fundamental limitations on how accurate measurements can be. This leads to the notion of undecidability: there is no way to tell, due to fundamental limitations, if a quantum system evolved unitarily or suffered wavefunction collapse. This in turn provides a solution (...) to the problem of outcomes in quantum measurement by providing a sharp criterion for defining when an event has taken place. We analyze in detail in examples two situations in which in principle one could recover information about quantum coherence: (a) “revivals” of coherence in the interaction of a system with the measurement apparatus and the environment and (b) the measurement of global observables of the system plus apparatus plus environment. We show in the examples that the fundamental limitations due to gravity and quantum mechanics in measurement prevent both revivals from occurring and the measurement of global observables. It can therefore be argued that the emerging picture provides a complete resolution to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Does the board of directors influence cost of debt financing? This study of a sample of Spanish listed companies during the period 2004-2007 provides some evidence about the question. The results suggest that two board attributes - director ownership and board activity - appear to influence in the risk assessment of debtholders because of their ability to reduce agency cost and information asymmetry. We also find a non-linear relationship between board size and cost of debt, suggesting that from certain levels (...) the benefits of large boards may be outweighed by the cost of poorer communication and increased decision-making time. (shrink)

Motivation in schizophrenia has been a key research aim for several decades. Motivation is a very complex process underlying negative symptoms that has been assessed and identified using very different instruments and terminologies. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the growing literature production and highlights an extensive set of variables to better understand the study of motivation. Electronic databases were searched in order to compile relevant studies of motivation in individuals with schizophrenia. The initial search identified 3,248 potentially interesting (...) records, and of these, 161 articles published between 1956 and 2017 were finally included. Information such as year of publication, journal, country, and number of authors was codified. Variables related to sample characteristics, methodological aspects, and motivational terms were also extracted. The results revealed a significant growth trend in literature production, especially since the 2000s, with reward as the main term studied. In addition, questionnaires were identified as the preferred instrument to assess motivation in patients with schizophrenia. Other aspects such as country of publication, authors, journals of publication, and co-citation network analysis were also examined. The discussion offers recommendations for future research. (shrink)

Casa Editrice Dott. Antonio Milani, 1958. viii, 145 pp. 1500 lire.--This is the first volume of a series directed toward the preparation of teachers of secondary school. It presents elements of logic, general considerations on the logical organization of a science, and the postulates of arithmetic.--R. D. G.

As an alternative to linear and unidimensional perspectives focused mainly on either organic or psychological processes, the enactive approach to life and mind—a branch of 4-E cognitive theories—offers an integrative framework to study mental disorders that encompasses and articulates organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective dimensions of embodiment. These three domains are deeply entangled in a non-trivial manner. A question remains on how this systemic and multi-dimensional approach may be applied to our understanding of mental disorders and symptomatic behavior. Drawing on Gilbert (...) Simondon’s philosophy of individuation, we provide some enactive conceptual tools to better understand the dynamic, interactive, and multi-dimensional nature of human bodies in mental disorders and psychopathological symptoms. One of such tools cursiva is sense-making, a key notion that captures the relational process of generating meaning by interacting with the sociomaterial environment. The article analyzes five aspects related to sense-making: temporality, adaptivity, the multiplicity of normativities it involves, the fundamental role of tension, and its participatory character. On this basis, we draw certain implications for our understanding of mental disorders and diverse symptoms, and suggest their interpretation in terms of difficulties to transform tensions and perform individuation processes, which result in a reduction of the field of potentialities for self-individuation and sense-making. (shrink)

Recent investigations have explored how large-scale systems in the brain operate in the processes of retrieving knowledge for words and concepts. Much of the crucial evidence derives from lesion studies, because word retrieval and concept retrieval can be clearly dissociated in brain-damaged individuals. We discuss these findings from the perspective of our neurobiological framework, which is cited in Pulvermüller's target article.

In this article we present a conjecture regarding the biology of subjectivity and feeling, based on biophysical and phenomenological considerations. We propose that feeling, as a subjective phenomenon, would come to life as a process of resistance to variance hypothesized to occur during the unfolding of cognition and behaviours in the wakeful and emoting individual. After showing how the notion of affect, when considered from a biological standpoint, suggests an underlying process of resistance to variance, we discuss how vigilance, emotional (...) arousal and attentional behaviours reflect a dynamics of controlled over-excitation related to cognitive integration and control. This can be described as a form of resistance to variance. We discuss how such a dynamics objectively creates an internal state of tension and affectedness in the system that could be associated with subjective states. Such a dynamics is shaped by the system's need to cope with its own inertia, to engage in intentional behaviours, attend, preserve coherence, grapple with divergent cognitive, emotional and motivational tendencies, and delayed auto-perturbations of the brain-body system. More generally, it is related to the need to respect the hierarchy of the various influences which affect its internal dynamics and organization. (shrink)

This study tested a structural model of cognitive-emotional explanatory variables to explain performance in mathematics. The predictor variables assessed were related to students’ level of development of early mathematical competencies (EMCs), specifically, relational and numerical competencies, predisposition toward mathematics, and the level of logical intelligence in a population of primary school Chilean students (n = 634). This longitudinal study also included the academic performance of the students during a period of four years as a variable. The sampled students were initially (...) assessed by means of an Early Numeracy Test (ENT), and, subsequently, they were administered a Likert-type scale to measure their predisposition toward mathematics (EPMAT) and a basic test of logical intelligence (TILE). The results of these tests were used to analyse the interaction of all the aforementioned variables by means of a structural equations model. This combined interaction model was able to predict 64.3% of the variability of observed performance. Preschool students' performance in EMCs was a strong predictor for achievement in mathematics for students between 8 to 11 years of age. Therefore, this paper highlights the importance of EMCs and the modulating role of predisposition toward mathematics. Also, this paper discusses the educational role of these findings, as well as possible ways to improve negative predispositions toward mathematical tasks in the school domain. (shrink)

La finalidad de este artículo es explicar, mediante algunos testimonios significativos, de qué manera penetra en España el aristotelismo y cómo esta penetración del nuevo pensamiento aristotélico en Europa pone de manifiesto un permanente conflicto entre Edad Media y Renacimiento, fundamentalmente en España, donde el redescubrimiento y uso de las autoridades antiguas constituye a menudo un importante problema teórico. El autor muestra alguna de estas dificultades en varios dominios (filosofía, ciencia, literatura).

In contrast to most Western countries, routine offer of prenatal screening is considered problematic in the Netherlands. The main argument against offering it to every pregnant woman is that women would be brought into a moral dilemma when deciding whether to use screening or not. This paper explores whether the active offer of a prenatal screening test indeed confronts women with a moral dilemma. A qualitative study was developed, based on a randomised controlled trial that aimed to assess the decision-making (...) process of women when confronted with a test offer. A sample of 59 women was interviewed about the different factors balanced in decision-making. Participants felt themselves caught between a need for knowledge and their unwillingness to take on responsibility. Conflict was reported between wishes, preferences and ethical views regarding parenthood; however, women did not seem to be caught in a choice between two or more ethical principles. Participants balanced the interests of the family against that of the fetus in line with their values and their personal circumstances. Therefore, we conclude that they are not so much faced with an ethical dilemma as conflicting interests. We propose that caregivers should provide the opportunity for the woman to discuss her wishes and doubts to facilitate her decision. This approach would help women to assess the meaning of testing within their parental duties towards their unborn child and their current offspring. (shrink)

Esports, including virtual football, are a worldwide phenomenon. Yet, little is known about the physical activity levels of individuals engaged in virtual football game play. Therefore, we aimed to perform a preliminary evaluation of the levels of physical activity, sedentarism, and habits of physical training of adults engaged with virtual football in Portugal. This was a cross-sectional investigation based on a structured online survey using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and a set of questions regarding habits of physical training. The (...) participants reported spending a median of 5,625 MET-min⋅week−1 being physically active. Still, the participants spent 320 min/day sitting, and 150 min/day practicing virtual football. According to the IPAQ scores, high physical activity levels were reported by 84.5% of the participants, and 87.1% were considered physically active considering the WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behavior. Overall, 60.0% of the participants reported planning their own physical training. Maintaining or improving overall physical health was one of the main reasons for doing physical training, with only 6.1% responding being active to improve virtual football performance. Overall, the results showed that virtual football players accomplished the standard recommendations for physical activity, with high levels of physical activity, and encompassing regular physical training focused mostly on health promotion, rather than improved virtual football performance. (shrink)

An introduction to propositional logical and first-order logic.