ABSTRACT Educating in a convulsed political context demands a detailed analysis of the new circumstances of our times, especially the current democracy crisis. According to the latest reports issued by international evaluation organisations, one of the greatest challenges for democratic citizenship is the emergence and rise of authoritarianism within the framework of the so-called post-democracy, and also in the manifestations known as illiberal democracy. Moral and civic education has to respond to this challenge. With this in mind, we propose revitalising (...) a participative and deliberative democracy model, rethinking the basic values in citizens' education, redefining the relation between what is public and what is private, and empowering sensitivity and free creation in the new maker culture. (shrink)

Agricultural engineers’ jobs are especially related to sustainability and earth life issues. They usually work with plants or animals, and the aim of their work is often linked to producing food to allow people to improve their quality of life. Taking into account this dual function, the moral requirements of their day-to-day professional practice are arguably greater than those of other professions.Agricultural engineers can develop their ability to live up to this professional responsibility by receiving ethical training during their university (...) studies, not only by taking courses specifically devoted to ethics, but also by having to deal with moral questions that are integrated into their technical courses through a program of Ethics Across the Curriculum (EAC).The authors feel that a suitable pedagogical technique for achieving this goal is the use of moral dilemmas, following Kohlberg’s theory of levels of morality (1981), with the final objective of attaining a post-conventional level. This paper examines the possibilities and limitations of using moral dilemmas as a pedagogical technique for training agricultural engineers. The cases, discussions, and evaluation used in the Agricultural Engineering Department of the Technical University of Valencia (Spain) are also presented. (shrink)

Agricultural engineers’ jobs are especially related to sustainability and earth life issues. They usually work with plants or animals, and the aim of their work is often linked to producing food to allow people to improve their quality of life. Taking into account this dual function, the moral requirements of their day-to-day professional practice are arguably greater than those of other professions.Agricultural engineers can develop their ability to live up to this professional responsibility by receiving ethical training during their university (...) studies, not only by taking courses specifically devoted to ethics, but also by having to deal with moral questions that are integrated into their technical courses through a program of Ethics Across the Curriculum (EAC).The authors feel that a suitable pedagogical technique for achieving this goal is the use of moral dilemmas, following Kohlberg’s theory of levels of morality (1981), with the final objective of attaining a post-conventional level. This paper examines the possibilities and limitations of using moral dilemmas as a pedagogical technique for training agricultural engineers. The cases, discussions, and evaluation used in the Agricultural Engineering Department of the Technical University of Valencia (Spain) are also presented. (shrink)

Background: Frailty is a common syndrome among older adults and patients with several comorbidities. Grip strength is a representative parameter of frailty because it is a valid indicator of current and long-term physical conditions in the general population and patients with severe mental illnesses. Physical and cognitive capacities of people with SMIs are usually impaired; however, their relationship with frailty or social functioning have not been studied to date. The current study aimed to determine if GS is a valid predictor (...) of changes in cognitive performance and social functioning in patients with type-2 diabetes mellitus and SMIs. Methods: Assessments of social functioning, cognitive performance, and GS were conducted in 30 outpatients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, 35 with major depressive disorder, 42 with bipolar disorder, 30 with schizophrenia, and 28 healthy controls, twice during 1-year, follow-up period. Descriptive analyses were conducted using a one-way analysis of variance for continuous variables and the chi-squared test for categorical variables. Differences between groups for the motor, cognitive, and social variables at T1 and T2 were assessed using a one-way analysis of covariance, with sex and age as co-variates. To test the predictive capacity of GS at baseline to explain the variance in cognitive performance and social functioning at T2, a linear regression analysis was performed. Results: Predictive relationships were found among GS when implicated with clinical, cognitive, and social variables. These relationships explained changes in cognitive performance after one year of follow-up; the variability percentage was 67.7%, in patients with type-2 diabetes mellitus and 89.1% in patients with schizophrenia. Baseline GS along with other variables, also predicted changes in social functioning in major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, with variability percentages of 67.3, 36, and 59%, respectively. Conclusion: GS combined with other variables significantly predicted changes in cognitive performance and social functioning in people with SMIs or type-2 diabetes mellitus. Interventions aimed to improve the overall physical conditions of patients who have poor GS could be a therapeutic option that confers positive effects on cognitive performance and social functioning. (shrink)

Little has been studied on the relationship between affect and school problems related with attendance. This study aims to identify different affective profiles and to determine whether these profiles differ from each other based on the four functional conditions of school refusal behavior. Participants comprised 1,816 Spanish adolescents aged 15–18 years. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children-Short Form and the School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised for Children were administered. Latent profile analysis revealed five affective profiles: low affective profile, self-fulfilling (...) profile, low positive affect profile, self-destructive profile, and high affective profile. The self-destructive profile revealed the highest average scores in the first three factors of the SRAS-R-C, whereas the high affective profile reached the highest average score in the fourth factor. On the contrary, the self-fulfilling profile obtained the lowest average scores in the first two factors of the SRAS-R-C, whereas the low affective profile revealed the lowest average scores in the last two factors. Findings suggest the relevance of developing more adaptative affective profiles, such as the self-fulfilling profile, which would contribute to diminishing school attendance problems. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to graded model theory, in the context of mathematical fuzzy logic. We study characterizations of classes of graded structures in terms of the syntactic form of their first-order axiomatization. We focus on classes given by universal and universal-existential sentences. In particular, we prove two amalgamation results using the technique of diagrams in the setting of structures valued on a finite MTL-algebra, from which analogues of the Łoś–Tarski and the Chang–Łoś–Suszko preservation theorems follow.

El presente monográfico de Recerca titulado «Los nuevos discursos del management: contribuciones desde una perspectiva crítica», se compone de siete artículos de investigación y dos recensiones. A través de los diferentes escritos se pretende realizar un recorrido por el estado actual de los discursos del management y sus repercusiones no solo en el mundo del trabajo, sino en el grueso de la sociedad desde una perspectiva crítica. Así pues, a lo largo de las siguientes páginas el/la lector/a podrá transitar por (...) los diferentes discursos que hoy en día caracterizan el espacio social. Nos referimos a marcos generales de sentido como el individualismo y la descolectivización de lo social, pero también a cuestiones más concretas como el emprendimiento y la precariedad; todos ellos componentes que conforman el escenario al que nos estamos remitiendo en todo momento, esto es, el del discurso neoliberal o el «nuevo espíritu del capitalismo» (Boltanski y Chiapello, 2002). (shrink)

This volume helps us to understand that the current political disorders in Catalonia have deep cultural roots. It focuses on the rise of Catalan cultural, national and linguistic identity in the 20th century. What is happening in Catalonia? What lies behind its political conflicts? Catalan identity has been evolving for centuries, starting in early medieval ages. It is not a modern phenomenon. The emergence of imperial Spain in the 16 c. and the French Ancien Régime in the 17 c. correlates (...) with a decline of Catalan culture, which was politically absorbed by the Spanish state after the conquest of Barcelona in 1714. However, Catalan language and culture flourished again under the stimulus of the European Romantic Nationalism movement. During the first Dictatorship, the Spanish Civil War, and the long Francoist era, Catalan language and culture were repressed, yet refurbished and reconstructed at the same time. This rise of a plural, complex, and non-homogeneous Catalan identity constitutes the subject matter of this volume. National conflicts that emerged later in the Spanish democratic state leant heavily on the life engagement and vital commitment experienced by the entrenched intellectual movements of the twentieth century in Catalonia, Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands. This book reveals the cultural and literary grassroots of these conflicts. (shrink)

Los diversos retos de cambio para la sostenibilidad de la vida en los espacios rurales atienden a una serie de procesos, dinámicas y políticas públicas que se exponen en este artículo. Se apunta a una serie de procesos como la construcción de un rural cosmopolita, de espacios de intensa movilidad, de proyectos vitales para una juventud con sus propias necesidades y estilos de vida. Contrastamos cómo estas dinámicas de los territorios de baja densidad requieren políticas públicas adecuadas para combatir las (...) desigualdades y los desequilibrios a fin de cerrar las brechas rural-urbanas. Seguidamente, se introducen los materiales que componen este monográfico y que suscitan el debate sobre los pilares que frenan o alientan el fenómeno de la despoblación. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

In recent years, and in close connection with a number of well-known financial malpractice cases, public debate on business ethics has intensified worldwide, and particularly in ethics-unfriendly environments, such as Spain, with many recent fraud and corruption scandals. In the context of growing consensus on the need of balancing social prosperity and business profits, concern is increasing for introducing business ethics in higher education curricula. The purpose is to improve ethical behaviour of future business people, and of accounting professionals in (...) particular. In this study, from a sample of 551 business students at a Spanish university, the importance of accounting ethics is investigated. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we attempt to examine students’ overall perceptions of business ethics in unfriendly environments and, specifically, their views on the importance and goals of accounting ethics education. Second, we intend to investigate whether potential differences in such perceptions depend on previous business ethics courses taken, gender, and age of students. Our results show that those students who have previously taken an ethics course are especially prone to considering that accounting education should include ethical considerations, and show greater interest in further introducing this subject in their curricula. These facts should encourage universities offering business degrees in ethics-unfriendly environments to extend the implementation of ethics courses in their curricula. Besides, significant differences in students’ perceptions on the importance of accounting ethics are found depending on their gender and age. In line with previous research findings, female and older students show more ethical inclinations than, respectively, male and younger students. Thus, ethics-unfriendly environments can be treated as contexts where general trends on students’ ethical attitudes are also clearly visible. This fact, together with the evidenced impact of ethics courses on students’ ethical inclinations, places ethics-unfriendly environments as crucial research settings for further inquiring into the nuances that help explain students’ attitudes towards accounting ethics and the role of ethics courses in business degree curricula. (shrink)

According to an increasing number of authors, the best, if not the only, argument in favour of physicalism is the so-called 'overdetermination argument'. This argument, if sound, establishes that all the entities that enter into causal interactions with the physical world are physical. One key premise in the overdetermination argument is the principle of the causal closure of the physical world, said to be supported by contemporary physics. In this paper, I examine various ways in which physics may support the (...) principle, either as a methodological guide or as depending on some other laws and principles of physics. (shrink)

In this paper we address the question of what determines the content of our conscious episodes of thinking, considering recent claims that phenomenal character individuates thought contents. We present one prominent way for defenders of phenomenal intentionality to develop that view and then examine ‘sensory inner speech views’, which provide an alternative way of accounting for thought-content determinacy. We argue that such views fare well with inner speech thinking but have problems accounting for unsymbolized thinking. Within this dialectic, we present (...) an account of the nature of unsymbolized thinking that accords with and can be seen as a continuation of the activity of inner speech, while offering a way of explaining thought-content determinacy in terms of linguistic structures and representations. (shrink)

The renewed interest in concepts and their role in psychological theorizing is partially motivated by Machery’s claim that concepts are so heterogeneous that they have no explanatory role. Against this, pluralism argues that there is multiplicity of different concepts for any given category, while hybridism argues that a concept is constituted by a rich common representation. This article aims to advance the understanding of the hybrid view of concepts. First, we examine the main arguments against hybrid concepts and conclude that, (...) even if not successful, they challenge hybridism to find a robust criterion for concept individuation and to show an explanatory advantage for hybrid concepts. Then we propose such a criterion of individuation, which we will call ‘functional stable coactivation’. Finally, we examine the prospects of hybridism to understand what is involved in recent approaches to categorization and meaning extraction. 1 The Heterogeneity of Conceptual Representations2 Two Challenges for Hybrid Concepts: Individuation and Explanation2.1 The coordination criterion2.2 Concepts as constituents of thoughts3 Individuating Hybrids: Functional Stable Coactivation4 The Explanatory Power of Hybrid Concepts4.1 Categorization4.2 Meaning extraction4.2.1 Linguistic comprehension and rich lexical entries4.2.2 Polysemy and hybrid concepts5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Although the recent push toward sustainability is certainly generally a positive development in business and society, we can see many problems in the execution of the theory of sustainability. Where the triple bottom line calls on companies to weigh effects on stakeholders and the environment alongside profit, in practice in many cases, sustainability has been perverted to represent sustainable profits. In these cases, environmental impact and effects on people are only important insofar as they positively contribute to a firm‘s future (...) profits. It is not only practitioners who have often espoused this misappropriated view of sustainability but also academics have lent credibility to this view. In this work, we start by criticizing the often espoused current view of sustainability and remind academics of their responsibility to adapt a more critical view of this narrow focus. We provide examples that show how the current system of capitalism has resulted in outcomes for people and the environment that are patently unacceptable. Reasons are given as to why there is much hesitation to change the status quo. We then call on academics to reexamine what the role of businesses should be within society, what obligations business and corporations should have in society, and how we can encourage meaningful change that results in a better world for future generations. (shrink)

Using the method of Descriptive Experience Sampling, some subjects report experiences of thinking that do not involve words or any other symbols [Hurlburt, R. T., and C. L. Heavey. 2006. Exploring Inner Experience. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Hurlburt, R. T., and S. A. Akhter. 2008. “Unsymbolized Thinking.” Consciousness and Cognition 17 : 1364–1374]. Even though the possibility of this unsymbolized thinking has consequences for the debate on the phenomenological status of cognitive states, the phenomenon is still insufficiently examined. This paper analyzes (...) the main properties of unsymbolized thinking and advances an explanation of its origin. According to our analysis, unsymbolized thoughts appear as propositional states, that is, they are experienced as compositional conceptual phenomena, with semantic and syntactic features analogous to those of the contents of utterances. Based on this characterization, we hypothesize that UT is continuous with the activity of inner speech, in particular, it i... (shrink)

We very often discover ourselves engaged in inner speech. It seems that this kind of silent, private, speech fulfils some role in our cognition, most probably related to conscious thinking. Yet, the study of inner speech has been neglected by philosophy and psychology alike for many years. However, things seem to have changed in the last two decades. Here we review some of the most influential accounts about the phenomenology and the functions of inner speech, as well as the methodological (...) problems that affect its study. (shrink)

A fundamental tension exists between Rawls's ideal Kantian conception of justice as fairness (JAF), which requires respecting people as ends, and his realistic non-Kantian consequentialist conception of a supreme emergency in a just war. By justifying the targeting of objectively innocent noncombatants during a supreme emergency exception, Rawls allows for treating them as means only. Hence, his appeal to a supreme emergency is insufficient to avoid this tension. First, since for him JAF is ideal but also practical, one might argue (...) that his fictional people in the original position must reflect on the justification for using force on behalf of JAF. And second, since Rawls justifies targeting objectively innocent people during a supreme emergency exemption, he justifies what one might conceive of as emergency terrorism. Emergency terrorism, however, treats people as means only. Therefore, Rawls's Kantian conception of JAF is in tension with his consequentialist justification of a supreme emergency in a just war and hence with emergency terrorism. (shrink)

Physicalism is the claim that that there is nothing in the world but the physical. Philosophers who defend physicalism have to confront a well-known dilemma, known as Hempel’s dilemma, concerning the definition of ‘the physical’: if ‘the physical’ is whatever current physics says there is, then physicalism is most probably false; but if ‘the physical’ is whatever the true theory of physics would say that there is, we have that physicalism is vacuous and runs the risk of becoming trivial. This (...) article has two parts. The first, negative, part is devoted to developing a criticism of the so-called via negativa response to Hempel’s dilemma. In the second, more substantial, part, I propose to take the first horn of Hempel’s dilemma. However, I argue for a broad construal of ‘current physics’ and characterize ‘the physical’ accordingly. The virtues of the broad characterization of ‘the physical’ are: first, it makes physicalism less likely to be false; and second, it ties our understanding of ‘the physical’ to the reasons we have for believing in physicalism. That is, it fulfills the desideratum of construing our theses according to the reasons we have to believe in them. (shrink)

Ethical conflicts (ECs), dilemmas auditors face when personal values or professional obligations clash with their actions, pose significant challenges to the auditing profession, potentially influencing turnover intention (TI). This study addresses a knowledge gap in the related research by focusing on two critical EC triggers: workload (WL) and perceived auditor ethical failure (PAEF: ethical sensitivity), which refers to auditors’ perceptions of ethical violations within their profession. Grounded in role theory and ethical climate theory, our study investigates the impact of WL (...) and PAEF on ECs and explores how these conflicts mediate the relationship between PAEF/WL and TI. Additionally, we examine the moderating role of organisational ethical climate (EtC) in these relationships. Using a survey of auditors and employing partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), our results reveal that both WL and PAEF increase ECs, thus escalating TI. The findings suggest that a firm’s perceived EtC can negatively moderate the relationship between PAEF and ECs. The study underlines the importance of fostering a strong EtC to manage ECs effectively and provides valuable implications for professionals, regulators, and academics seeking to improve ethical practices within auditing firms and to reduce auditor turnover. (shrink)

Recently, many philosophers and psychologists have claimed that the explanation that grounds both passivity phenomena in the cognitive domain and passivity phenomena that occur with respect to overt actions is, along broad lines, the same. Furthermore, they claim that the best account we have of such phenomena in both scenarios is the “comparator” account. However, there are reasons to doubt whether the comparator model can be exported from the realm of overt actions to the cognitive domain in general. There is (...) a lingering worry concerning such explanations of thought insertion: the "What is compared to what?" problem. Here I examine two ways to tackle this problem. First: thought insertion consists of the misattribution of strings of inner speech which are not attenuated (thought insertion is thus another name for auditory verbal hallucinations). Second: thought insertion is misattributed inner speech which exhibits the same phenomenological characteristics as normal inner speech. After explaining the types of problem that each of these potential solutions faces, I conclude with a set of open questions that the comparator theorist has to tackle. (shrink)

According to a model defended by some authors, dispositional concepts can be legitimately used in causal explanations, although such a use is not necessary. I argue, however, that there is a kind of use of dispositions in explanations that does not fall within this model: we will miss some explanations if we forsake dispositional concepts and explanations.

This article deals with the relationship between language and thought, focusing on the question of whether language can be a vehicle of thought, as, for example, Peter Carruthers has claimed. We develop and examine a powerful argument—the "argument from explicitness"—against this cognitive role of language. The premises of the argument are just two: (1) the vehicle of thought has to be explicit, and (2) natural languages are not explicit. We explain what these simple premises mean and why we should believe (...) they are true. Finally, we argue that even though the argument from explicitness shows that natural language cannot be a vehicle of thought, there is a cognitive function for language. (shrink)

En la actualidad, la situación sociolingüística de la ciudad de Ceuta es propicia para el estudio de la interacción lingüística entre el árabe vernáculo y la variedad del español hablados en la ciudad. Esta realidad no es nueva ya que su localización geográfica ha permitido que durante siglos haya sido punto de encuentro de diferentes lenguas y culturas. En época medieval, Ceuta formó parte del territorio conocido como al-Andalus y, gracias a ello, las huellas lingüísticas del árabe andalusí en la (...) zona fueron importantes. Pero, además, la población autóctona vecina hablaba una variedad del árabe marroquí o del bereber que pudieron ejercer alguna influencia adstrática en la variedad andalusí. El objetivo de este trabajo es llevar a cabo un estudio de dialectología comparada para determinar la posibilidad de la existencia de dos variedades vernáculas diferentes en época medieval en el entorno del estrecho de Gibraltar: el árabe andalusí y el árabe marroquí. Para ello, nos centraremos en una obra literaria que data de la segunda mitad del siglo XII y la compararemos con los datos de otras fuentes andalusíes. Los datos con los que disponemos nos muestran cómo en el siglo XII el árabe marroquí y el andalusí eran dos variedades árabes muy similares pero con diferente evolución dentro del tipo magrebí, y cómo la ciudad de Ceuta era, igual que lo es hoy, el principal territorio donde interaccionan las influencias lingüísticas llegadas de Marruecos y de la península ibérica. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

De maneira reconhecida ou não, a presença de Górgias, e suas teses, no corpus platônico transcende os limites da presença da personagem Górgias nos sete diálogos em que este é mencionado por Platão. Diante de uma influência multifacetada – que abarca desde questões relativas à linguagem, passando pela metafísica, política e estatuto da arte – faz-se necessário um recorte para melhor evidenciar a apropriação e reelaboração platônica do quadro conceitual gorgiano. A pretensão é fazer uma releitura de alguns momentos do (...) texto platônico por meio de um destaque às referências, diretas e indiretas, que nele estão contidas, tanto da sofística de um modo geral, como de Górgias de Leontinos de modo específico. A tese que se pretende defender é a de que as principais hipóteses teóricas apresentadas pelos sofistas, e por Górgias de modo proeminente, devem ser consideradas imprescindíveis para a construção da filosofia platônica – ainda que esta constitua-se como reação ou apropriação seletiva daquelas. Assim, a indústria platônica não se constitui apenas em desqualificar o edifício filosófico gorgiano, a fim de erguer suas teses sobre as ruínas deste, mas também utilizar alguns conceitos da empresa filosófica de Górgias como vigas-mestras da nova perspectiva reflexiva que o discípulo de Sócrates comprometeu-se a desenvolver. Palavras-chave: Górgias; Platão; Sofística; Platonismo; Discurso. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty decía que nuestra relación con el mundo se sitúa en el orden del «misterio insoluble». Es la invisibilidad de los dioses lo que garantiza la visibilidad del mundo. Este verso invisible –«le Dieu caché», «Dieu insondable», «Être muet», «arrière-silence», «membrure cachée», en términos merleau-pontianos– es la textura misma del recto visible. En el cine extremo o visionario este lenguaje aparentemente antitético no está menos presente para expresar eso que excede a toda visibilidad. Voyance (Merleau-Ponty) que emerge de los légamos (...) de lo invisible pero que no es lo contrario de la vista: «vision [est] ek-stase...», una visión en la que el mudo Ser revela su propio sentido. Así pues, lo invisible no es lo opuesto absoluto de lo visible sino más bien, como dice Merleau-Ponty, su «contrapartida secreta» sin la cual no podría existir la visibilidad. Asimismo, según Derrida, la imagen cinematográfica tiene una estructura fantasmática, está suspendida entre la presencia y la ausencia, pues la invisibilidad determina la lógica de las imágenes. El cine es un ojo, pero sólo ve bien cuando también se relaciona con ese ojo interior que es el de la «visión» de los visionarios. Igualmente, para Jean-Luc Godard, uno de los cineastas más relevantes del cine contemporáneo, la imagen real es la que no vemos. Lo que se ve en el filme tiene menos importancia que lo invisible. Violencia del mirar, desvelamiento de otra luz, que restituye la imagen de lo sagrado. (shrink)

Polysemy seems to be a relatively neglected phenomenon within philosophy of language as well as in many quarters in linguistic semantics. Not all variations in a word’s contribution to truth-conditional contents are to be thought as expressions of the phenomenon of polysemy, but it can be argued that many are. Polysemous terms are said to contribute senses or aspects to truth-conditional contents. In this paper, I will make use of the notion of aspect to argue that some apparently wild variations (...) in an utterance’s truth conditions are instead quite systematic. In particular, I will focus on Travis’ much debated green leaves case and explain it in terms of the polysemy of the noun; and in particular, in terms of the as-it-is and the as-it-looks aspects associated with kind words. (shrink)

The problem this paper deals with is the problem of how dispositional properties can have causal relevance. In particular, the paper is focused on the question of how dispositions can have causal relevance given that the categorial bases that realise them seem to be sufficient to bring about the effects that dispositions explain. I show first that this problem of exclusion has no general solution. Then, I discuss some particular cases in which dispositions are causally relevant, despite of this exclusion (...) problem. My claim is that dispositions have causal relevance in selection or recruitment processes, when they are converted into teleological functions. (shrink)

According to the thesis of semantic underdetermination, most sentences of a natural language lack a definite semantic interpretation. This thesis supports an argument against the use of natural language as an instrument of thought, based on the premise that cognition requires a semantically precise and compositional instrument. In this paper we examine several ways to construe this argument, as well as possible ways out for the cognitive view of natural language in the introspectivist version defended by Carruthers. Finally, we sketch (...) a view of the role of language in thought as a specialized tool, showing how it avoids the consequences of semantic underdetermination. (shrink)

Intelligent Transportation Systems are expected to automate how parking slots are booked by trucks. The intrinsic dynamic nature of this problem, the need of explanations and the inclusion of private data justify an agent-based solution. Agents solving this problem act with a Believe Desire Intentions reasoning, and are implemented with JASON. Privacy of trucks becomes protected sharing a list of parkings ordered by preference. Furthermore, the process of assigning parking slots takes into account legal requirements on breaks and driving time (...) limits. Finally, the agent simulations use the distances, the number of trucks and parkings corresponding to the proportions of the current European Union data. The performance of the proposed solution is tested in these simulations with three different distances against an alternative with complete knowledge. The difference in efficiency, the number of illegal breaks and the traveled distances are measured in them. Comparing the results, we can conclude that the nonprivate alternative is slightly better in performance while both alternatives do not produce illegal breaks. In this way the simulations show that the proposed privacy protection does not impose a relevant handicap in efficiency. (shrink)

This text goes as a reflection on the uses of the concept of mimesis as the core of Adorno’s thought. It starts with the proposals of the Dialectic of the Enlightenment, and then refers them to the way in which they reappear in the Aesthetic Theory, distinguishing the role of mimesis in he process of the production of the work and in that of its reception, both in art as in mass culture. Finally, it points to the possibility of enriching (...) the concept by connecting it with Benjamin. Adorno, mimesis, reception, culture industry, Benjamin. Resumen El texto se presenta como una reflexión en torno a los usos del concepto de mímesis como núcleo del pensamiento de Adorno. Se parte de los planteamientos de la Dialéctica de la Ilustración, para luego remitirlos a la manera en que reaparecen en la Teoría estética, distinguiendo el papel de la mímesis en el proceso de la producción de la obra y en el de su recepción, tanto en el arte como en la cultura de masas. Finalmente, se apunta a la posibilidad de enriquecer el concepto conectándolo con Benjamin. (shrink)

The words ―Rights,‖ ―Trust,‖ ―Human Dignity,‖ and even ―Government‖ have widely varying meanings and connotations, differing across time, languages and cultures. Concepts of rights, trust, and human dignity have been examined for centuries in great depth by ethicists and other philosophers and by religious think-ers, and more recently by social scientists and, especially as related to information, by information scientists. Similarly, discussions of government are well documented in writings back to Plato and Aristotle, with investi-gations of electronic government dating back (...) only to the early 1990s with the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web. At first e-government was described in glowing, positive terms. Little, if any, attention was paid to two critical questions: 1) Will people trust e-government? and 2) How will cultural differences affect individuals‘ trust in government and their perceptions of govern-ment‘s effect of their human dignity? Examinations of trust and distrust by individuals within organizations have addressed questions of motives and intentions, expectations of behavior, protection of interests, confi-dence in accuracy and reliability of information, vulnerability, and reciprocity, among other complex topics. Establishing e-government services often requires going through several phases: 1) publish , 2) interact transact transform . Building and maintaining trust in e-government require developing an understanding both of the many levels of interactions where trust must be earned and of cultural differences. Another challenge in developing such a framework is that e-government, itself, is very dynamic, changing rapidly over time. Trust in content or a system available one day may not carry over when the content and/or system changes dramatically. Components of a framework must include the follow-ing dimensions: conceptual domains, cultural dimensions, information content dimensions, and system di-mensions. Of course, these dimensions must be considered within the context of rapidly changing govern-ments, ICT services, the digital divide, and other factors. This paper provides a very brief overview of some of the notions of trust and distrust, concentrating on those concerning trust as it relates to notions of power, trust in organizations, and trust in information and information systems as one part of a framework to ad-dress the question of trust in e-government. It also makes a few recommendations for how to build citizen-centric e-government to ensure information rights through a focus on human dignity, fundamental human rights, and earning trust. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate about the meaning of lexical words, i.e., words that contribute with content to the meaning of sentences. This debate has coincided with a renewal in the study of polysemy, which has taken place in the psycholinguistics camp mainly. There is already a fruitful interbreeding between two lines of research: the theoretical study of lexical word meaning, on the one hand, and the models of polysemy psycholinguists present, on the other. In this paper I aim at (...) deepening on this ongoing interbreeding, examine what is said about polysemy, particularly in the psycholinguistics literature, and then show how what we seem to know about the representation and storage of polysemous senses affects the models that we have about lexical word meaning. (shrink)