Archaea are microorganisms that are distinct from bacteria and eukaryotes. They are prevalent in extreme environments, and yet found in most ecosystems. They are a natural component of the microbiota of most, if not all, humans and other animals. Despite their ubiquity and close association with humans, animals and plants, no pathogenic archaea have been identified. Because no archaeal pathogens have yet been identified, there is a general assumption that archaeal pathogens do not exist. This review examines whether this is (...) a good assumption by investigating the potential for archaea to be or become pathogens. This is achieved by addressing: the diversity of archaea versus known pathogens, opportunities for archaea to demonstrate pathogenicity and be detected as pathogens, reports linking archaea with disease, and immune responses to archaea. In addition, molecular and genomic data are examined for the presence of systems utilised in pathogenesis. The view of this report is that, although archaea can presently be described as non‐pathogenic, they have the potential to be (discovered as) pathogens. The present optimistic view that there are no archaeal pathogens is tainted by a severe lack of relevant knowledge, which may have important consequences in the future. BioEssays 25:1119–1128, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Microbial genome sequencing has entered a new phase, where DNA sequence information is gathered from entire microbial communities (metagenomics or environmental genomics) rather than from individual microorganisms. By providing access to the genetic material of vast numbers of organisms, most of which are organisms that have never been isolated or cultivated, a new level of insight is being gained into the diversity and extent of the microbial processes that are presently occuring in environmental communities. By extending metagenomic‐based approaches to the (...) study of very complex and methodologically recalcitrant soil environments, a recent study has found that ammonia‐oxidizing archaea are more abundant in many soils than bacteria.1 These findings not only highlight the undoubtedly critical yet unknown roles that archaea play in global nutrient cycles but illustrate the importance of genomic studies for informing us about the functional capacity of life on Earth. BioEssays 29: 11–14, 2007. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This review article grapples with the issue of race in Latin American philosophy and Susan Nuccetelli's analysis of it by asking how we grapple with race in Latin American philosophy if race is both an internal factor (in the sense that Latin American philosophy theorizes race) as well as an external factor (in the sense that racism and raciality have significantly determined the production of Latin American philosophy)? It thematizes white supremacy in Latin American philosophy in order to ask to (...) what degree Latin American philosophy can respond to white supremacy in philosophy without questioning its own grounds and relation to white supremacy. (shrink)

Este trabajo describe la vida y escritos de L. Polo hasta 1996. A los 25 años descubrió su método de pensamiento: el abandono del limite mental. Vivió en Madrid, Roma, Granada y Pamplona. Amante de la verdad y de la libertad personal. Entre sus obras más profundas se encuentran las que componen su Curso de teoría del conocimiento y su Antropología trascendental.

We uncover fundamental dimensions of the process through which organizations embed the practice of fraternity through embarking on an organizational journey in the direction of the common good. Building on the latest encyclical of Pope Francis, _Fratelli Tutti_, about fraternal and social friendship, we offer insight into the understanding of what it means to become a fraternal organization and reflect on the key ethical and paradoxical challenges for organizations aiming at collectively contributing to the common good. We add to previous (...) work by characterizing this journey as a process involving unique ethical challenges that emerge from the paradoxes associated with this process and how this might change the nature of the relationships between organizations and others within the organizational landscape. (shrink)

Desde la llegada al poder de Barack Obama, el excepcionalismo americano se ha situado en el centro del debate político en estrecha conexión con el debate en torno al declive internacional de EE.UU. El presente artículo pretende ofrecer un estudio del excepcionalismo tanto desde el punto de vista teórico como desde su impacto más reciente en la política exterior de EE.UU. A tal efecto, procederemos a desentrañar sus principales aspectos conceptuales, analizando las distintas interpretaciones del mismo en el marco de (...) las principales doctrinas de política exterior estadounidense. Sobre esta base teórica, nos detendremos en la influencia de la idea excepcionalista en la práctica de la política exterior de la Administración Obama, denunciada por sus más acerbos críticos como antiexcepcionalista y, por inmediata extensión, como antiamericana. (shrink)

We prove that no restriction of the sine function to any (open and nonempty) interval is definable in $\langle\mathbf{R}, +, \cdot, , and that no restriction of the exponential function to an (open and nonempty) interval is definable in $\langle \mathbf{R}, +, \cdot, , where $\sin_0(x) = \sin(x)$ for x ∈ [ -π,π], and $\sin_0(x) = 0$ for all $x \not\in\lbrack -\pi,\pi\rbrack$.

The aim of this work is to discuss "Darwinism: its past, its present, its future", a lecture given in 1875 by Miranda Azevedo as one of the "Popular Lectures of the Gloria Neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro". In this lecture Azevedo elaborates the concepts of evolution, human evolution, progress and the idea of man as the pinnacle of evolution and the master of the selective laws governing nature. We will analyze the article, published in 1876, that contains the full text of (...) Azevedo's lecture. Of particular importance is his affiliation to Haeckel, something already commented on in Brazilian historiography. But, unlike other studies devoted to the theme, I will examine in detail Azevedo's text, attempting to show how he relates hereditary and selective evolutionary processes to thinking about how future Brazilian generations could progress. (shrink)

s book, Hermeneutic Dialogue and Social Science: A critique of Gadamer and Habermas, intends to present an account of debates on objectivity in the social sciences, in stressing the political and epistemological responsibility, in public spheres, to those who want to create a fairer understanding of societies and history, without demonizing natural enterprises or leaving social studies out of acute critical questioning. Key Words: dialogue • hermeneutic • social sciences • natural sciences • method.

The aim of this work is to present the thesis “On the Ontogenetic Evolution of the Human Embryo in its Relations with Phylogenesis,” by Affonso Regulo de Oliveira Fausto, published in Brazil in 1890. To our knowledge, it was one of the first Brazilian academic works focused specifically on evolution. It was also the first doctoral thesis that addressed the topic of recapitulation in order to analyze what was then called the progressive evolution of the human species in tandem with (...) the embryological development of the individuals that would constitute the Brazilian “type.” In the present work, we analyze the author’s thesis in relation to its sources, concepts, as well as the country’s political context at the time of its publication. Fausto’s text, in which he explicitly recognized the influence of Ernst Haeckel’s recapitulation theory, represents a window to understand better a concept of nation based on science and on the idea of inexorable progress that was accepted in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks (FBT) allowed to reduce the age of children who pass the test from the previous 4 years in the standard version to only 15 months or even a striking 6 months in the nonverbal modification. These results are often taken as evidence that infants already possess an—at least implicit—theory of mind (ToM). We criticize this inferential leap on the grounds that inferring a ToM from the predictive success on a false belief (...) task requires to assume as premise that a belief reasoning is a necessary condition for correct action prediction. It is argued that the FBT does not satisfactorily constrain the predictive means, leaving room for the use of belief-independent inferences (that can rely on the attribution of non-representational mental states or the consideration of behavioral patterns that dispense any reference to other minds). These heuristics, when applied to the FBT, can achieve the same predictive success of a belief-based inference because information provided by the test stimulus allows the recognition of particular situations that can be subsumed by their ‘laws’. Instead of solving this issue by designing a single experimentum crucis that would render unfeasible the use of non-representational inferences, we suggest the application of a set of tests in which, although individually they can support inferences dissociated from a ToM, only an inference that makes use of false beliefs is able to correctly predict all the outcomes. (shrink)

We prove the existence of a bound to the number of components of an ∀-definable set in the reals, using Pfaffian functions, and give some applications.

We prove the existence of a bound to the number of components of an $\forall$-definable set in the reals, using Pfaffian functions, and give some applications.

In response to Ferrario _et al_’s 1 work entitled ‘Ethics of the algorithmic prediction of goal of care preferences: from theory to practice’, we would like to point out an area of concern: the risk of artificial intelligence (AI) paternalism in their proposed framework. Accordingly, in this commentary, we underscore the importance of the implementation of safeguards for AI algorithms before they are deployed in clinical practice. The goal of documenting a living will and advanced directives is to convey personal (...) preferences regarding the acceptance of therapies, including life support, for future use in case of losing one’s capacity. This is standard practice in the care of incapacitated critically ill patients as it is considered to extend the individual’s autonomy. Notably, most of the documents that intensivists encounter in clinical practice are written in a generic fashion and lack context. This problem usually leads to the reliance on... (shrink)

We respond in this paper to various counter arguments advanced against our stance on conscientious objection accommodation. Contra Maclure and Dumont, we show that it is impossible to develop reliable tests for conscientious objectors' claims with regard to the reasonableness of the ideological basis of their convictions, and, indeed, with regard to whether they actually hold they views they claim to hold. We demonstrate furthermore that, within the Canadian legal context, the refusal to accommodate conscientious objectors would not constitute undue (...) hardship for such objectors. We reject concerns that refusing to accommodate conscientious objectors would limit the equality of opportunity for budding professionals holding particular ideological positions. We also clarify various misrepresentations of our views by respondents Symons, Glick and Jotkowitz, and Lyus. (shrink)

Any plausibly just market exchange must balance two conflicting moral considerations: non-worseness (Wertheimer, 1999) and euvoluntariness (true voluntariness; Munger, 2011). We propose an analytical theory of just market exchange that partly resolves this conflict.

Este estudo pretende discutir as relações existentes entre mídia e educação, analisando as políticas públicas que influenciaram a criação da TV Pendrive, identificando a percepção dos professores acerca da mesma. Justifica-se pelo fato de que no ano de 2007 o governo federal criou o Programa Nacional de Tecnologia Educacional (ProInfo), com o objetivo de informatizar o ensino, buscando promover uma educação com maior qualidade. Nesse contexto, a Secretaria de Estado da Educação do Paraná, com vistas à inclusão e ao acesso (...) de alunos e professores da rede pública estadual às novas tecnologias, criou o projeto TV Pendrive. Para a concretização desse estudo, foram realizadas pesquisas e análises bibliográficas, bem como um levantamento com professores da educação básica pública estadual da cidade de Londrina/PR, visando a identificar a percepção dos mesmos em relação à TV Pendrive. Como resultado, constatou-se que as políticas públicas, especialmente as voltadas à educação, parecem ser implantadas pelo governo sem a anuência dos educadores. (shrink)

Ubico indicios de mitos nacionales analizando obras narrativas (de Borges y algunos otros autores), y dichos acerca de Borges, centrándome en cómo se verifica, en la narrativa de Borges, (y también en sus intervenciones públicas y en lo que se dice sobre su figura) la irrupción del peronismo. Propongo un cambio de escala: sin intentar interpretar los grandes momentos constitutivos entendiéndolos como mitos de origen, intento constituir series, de características cuasi-míticas, a partir de poner en relación a breves sintagmas que (...) se reiteran en distintas unidades narrativas. Elementos transversales, que van de un relato a otro. Sintagmas que se analizan tomando al conjunto de la obra de Borges como paradigma, y no sólo relatos aislados. En primer término, exploro ciertas constantes en algunos relatos del período 1945-54. Luego me detengo en una serie de versiones contemporáneas sobre un Borges ciego a quien un joven peronista ayuda a cruzar la calle. En tercer lugar. el tema de la aparición de relatos oníricos, literariamente enunciados, sobre personas con garra de pájaro, vinculándolos a los dilemas morales de la élite intelectual en los tiempos del primer peronismo. En tanto estos conjuntos tienen mucho en común con los mitos al ser reelaboraciones sucesivas de un elemento narrativo, podrían ser abordadas con métodos de análisis míticos propios de la antropología estructural. No obstante, el material utilizado tiene diferencias con las mitologías clásicas: a) tiene versiones orales, pero también escritas; b) hechos ficcionales, pero también históricos; c) admiten un orden cronológico verificable. Por lo tanto, arriesgo aquí una exploración metodológica y teórica más bien experimental, aunque deudora de Lévi-Strauss. Concluyo que en estos dos conjuntos se verifica el funcionamiento un sistema ideológico, que es el de la formación nacional argentina, con sus tensiones y crisis. (shrink)

En el canto XIII del Inferno, en el bosque de los suicidas, Pier della Vigna dice que, al momento de su muerte, él, que era justo, se volvió injusto contra sí mismo. Esta afirmación da lugar a la pregunta de si el suicida puede ser injusto consigo mismo y cómo Dante puede afirmarlo. En este artículo, se investiga esto desde: 1) la caracterización de la justicia en el tratado filosófico de Dante, Convivio, 2) algunos pasajes del Purgatorio en los que (...) Dante desarrolla su teoría de la acción, y 3) un pasaje de la Ética nicomáquea de Aristóteles en el que se cuestiona si el suicida es injusto consigo mismo. (shrink)

Mathematics is a critical part of much scientific research. Physics in particular weaves math extensively into its instruction beginning in high school. Despite much research on the learning of both physics and math, the problem of how to effectively include math in physics in a way that reaches most students remains unsolved. In this paper, we suggest that a fundamental issue has received insufficient exploration: the fact that in science, we don’t just use math, we make meaning with it in (...) a different way than mathematicians do. In this reflective essay, we explore math as a language and consider the language of math in physics through the lens of cognitive linguistics. We begin by offering a number of examples that show how the use of math in physics differs from the use of math as typically found in math classes. We then explore basic concepts in cognitive semantics to show how humans make meaning with language in general. The critical elements are the roles of embodied cognition and interpretation in context. Then, we show how a theoretical framework commonly used in physics education research, resources, is coherent with and extends the ideas of cognitive semantics by connecting embodiment to phenomenological primitives and contextual interpretation to the dynamics of meaning-making with conceptual resources, epistemological resources, and affect. We present these ideas with illustrative case studies of students working on physics problems with math and demonstrate the dynamical nature of student reasoning with math in physics. We conclude with some thoughts about the implications for instruction. (shrink)

Cet article explore un parallèle entre deux innovations fondatrices des épistémès contemporaines, celles de Marx et de Saussure, en constatant l’isomorphisme entre les concepts de valeur d’usage et de signifiant. Après un rapide repérage de l’emploi du terme « valeur d’usage » dans la tradition marxiste, on examine la valeur d’usage comme corps, plutôt que comme besoin ou fonction utile. En considérant le concept de valeur d’usage au prisme de celui de signifiant, on met à preuve les questions de l’arbitraire, (...) de l’indivisible, du versatile. L’auteur observe que les deux concepts désignent des moments d’une activité : maillons d’une chaîne. Les chaînes signifiantes auraient un rôle fondamental, comme automatisme de répétition, dans la reproduction sociale. (shrink)

At a time when democracy appears to be universally acclaimed as the only acceptable form of government, it is all the more necessary to be clear about what democracy means. _Democracy: A Reader_ provides a range of pivotal statements on this important topic from supporters and defenders as well as critics and skeptics.

Since the advent of a post-structuralist ethos, the assertion of a notion of truth, conceived as an infallible point d’appui from which a given social order could be evaluated as ideological or non-ideological, seems no longer possible. As Rorty has pointed out ‘[we can now] see ourselves as never encountering reality except under a chosen description as…making worlds rather than finding them’. However, we could still legitimately ask whether or not an inevitable condition of the ‘post-modern world’, that is, a (...) world deprived of a manifest intrinsic meaning, is the renouncement of the assumption of a certain notion of an objective truth for a critique of ideology. I will suggest in this essay that a way to respond to this question is by revisiting Habermas's theory of communicative action, viewed through the lens of the theory of ideology formulated by Slavok Žižek. Furthermore, the main thesis of this work is that by using the notion of the Real or ‘primordial repressed’ taken from a Žižekian reading of Lacan, it would allow the production of a critique of ideology in which the truth — the unmasking of the extra-ideological place — becomes possible as a hypothetical objective category. (shrink)

When an English translation of Being and Event appeared in 2005, Alain Badiou took the opportunity to reminisce about the initial French publication some twenty years before: “at that moment I was quite aware of having written a ‘great’ book of philosophy.” He located that greatness in four “affirmations” and one “radical thesis.”.

The epistemological tradition set up by Plato has been permanently reading as a ‘way of doing philosophy’ in which the dualisms: reality versus illusion, on the one hand, and individual versus the social, on the other, would present not only in an explicit and incommensurable opposition to modern co..

Since the advent of a post-structuralist ethos, the assertion of a notion of truth, conceived as an infallible point d’appui from which a given social order could be evaluated as ideological or non-ideological, seems no longer possible. As Rorty has pointed out ‘[we can now] see ourselves as never encountering reality except under a chosen description as…making worlds rather than finding them’. However, we could still legitimately ask whether or not an inevitable condition of the ‘post-modern world’, that is, a (...) world deprived of a manifest intrinsic meaning, is the renouncement of the assumption of a certain notion of an objective truth for a critique of ideology. I will suggest in this essay that a way to respond to this question is by revisiting Habermas's theory of communicative action, viewed through the lens of the theory of ideology formulated by Slavok Žižek. Furthermore, the main thesis of this work is that by using the notion of the Real or ‘primordial repressed’ taken from a Žižekian reading of Lacan, it would allow the production of a critique of ideology in which the truth — the unmasking of the extra-ideological place — becomes possible as a hypothetical objective category. (shrink)

Relational Quantum Mechanics is an interpretation of quantum theory based on the idea of abolishing the notion of absolute states of systems, in favor of states of systems relative to other systems. Such a move is claimed to solve the conceptual problems of standard quantum mechanics. Moreover, RQM has been argued to account for all quantum correlations without invoking non-local effects and, in spite of embracing a fully relational stance, to successfully explain how different observers exchange information. In this work, (...) we carry out a thorough assessment of RQM and its purported achievements. We find that it fails to address the conceptual problems of standard quantum mechanics—related to the lack of clarity in its ontology and the rules that govern its behavior—and that it leads to serious conceptual problems of its own. We also uncover as unwarranted the claims that RQM can correctly explain information exchange among observers, and that it accommodates all quantum correlations without invoking non-local influences. We conclude that RQM is unsuccessful in its attempt to provide a satisfactory understanding of the quantum world. (shrink)

El trabajo analiza el vínculo entre afectos y manipulación tal como ha sido concebido por uno de los abordajes canónicos sobre el fenómeno peronista –el de Gino Germani– y por la teoría del populismo de Ernesto Laclau. En ese marco, se ofrece una serie de precisiones conceptuales que sitúan distintos aspectos de los debates suscitados por ambas obras e interrogan el estatuto conceptual de la afectividad en los procesos de subjetivación. Asimismo, se repasan ciertas premisas del pensamiento de Jacques Lacan (...) al revisar críticamente no solo aquellas perspectivas que explican al populismo como lo otro de la democracia debido a la supuesta dimensión manipuladora del líder, sino también a las propias reflexiones de Laclau, cuya ponderación de los afectos como vía de explicación de las identidades colectivas parece implicar la disolución de la singularidad de los sujetos, reabriendo así la conexión entre autoritarismo y populismo. (shrink)

Desde Patterson, Estados Unidos, Génova, Italia, Buenos Aires, Argentina o Santiago de Chile, desafiando hasta cientos de miles de kilómetros de distancia, más de medio millón de mujeres tejen porfiadamente, cotidianamente, lazos de amor y cuidado con sus hijos e hijas en Perú. El hilo con que hilvanan estas nuevas formas de ser y hacer familias, transformando el mundo y transformándose, es el cable telefónico. Un nuevo cordón umbilical por el que van y vienen los afectos y cuidados, los enoj..