Este trabalho apresenta exemplos de emissoras de rádio nas Américas que desempenharam um papel fundamental no processo de resistência ao poder estabelecido em seus territórios, com destaque para relatos de experiências nas quais os elementos não-verbais se mostraram expressivos para os roteiros de programas radiofônicos. Um dos objetivos é traçar um painel histórico das rádios que se opuseram ao poder constituído no século XX.

O trabalho analisa, por meio da cobertura do diário A Tarde, de Salvador, a convivência entre a delegação alemã de futebol e a população local de Santa Cruz Cabrália, no sul da Bahia, que serviu de base para a seleção que conquistou a Copa do Mundo de futebol em 2014. A partir dos critérios de identidade cultural, globalização e seleção jornalística, mostra que a estratégia de aproximação com os moradores marcou a cobertura de A Tarde e criou um clima simpático (...) à seleção alemã. (shrink)

Brain–machine interfaces combining visual, auditory, and tactile feedback have been previously used to generate embodiment experiences during spinal cord injury rehabilitation. It is not known if adding temperature to these modalities can result in discomfort with embodiment experiences. Here, comfort levels with the embodiment experiences were investigated in an intervention that required a chronic pain SCI patient to generate lower limb motor imagery commands in an immersive environment combining visual, auditory, tactile, and thermal feedback. Assessments were made pre-/ post-, throughout (...) the intervention, and at 7 weeks follow up. Overall, high levels of embodiment in the adapted three-domain scale of embodiment were found throughout the sessions. No significant adverse effects of VR were reported. Although sessions induced only a modest reduction in pain levels, an overall reduction occurred in all pain scales at follow up. A high degree of comfort in the comfort scale for the thermal-tactile sleeve, in both the thermal and tactile feedback components of the sleeve was reported. This study supports the feasibility of combining multimodal stimulation involving visual, auditory, tactile, and thermal feedback to generate embodiment experiences in neurorehabilitation programs. (shrink)

According to standard assumptions in semantics, ordinary users of a language have implicit beliefs about the truth-conditions of sentences in that language, and they often agree on those beliefs. For example, it is assumed that if Anna and John are both competent users of English and the former utters ‘grass is green’ in conversation with the latter, they will both believe that that sentence is true if and only if grass is green. These assumptions play an important role in an (...) intuitively compelling picture of communication, according to which successful communication through literal assertoric utterances is normally effected thanks to our shared beliefs about the truth-conditions of the sentences uttered in the course of the conversation. Against these standard assumptions, this paper argues that the participants in a conversation rarely have the same beliefs about the truth-conditions of the sentences involved in a linguistic interaction. More precisely, it argues for Variance, the thesis that nearly every utterance is such that there is no proposition which more than one language user believes to be that utterance’s truth-conditional content. If Variance is true, we must reject the standard picture of communication. Towards the end of the paper I identify three ways in which ordinary conversations can be communication-like despite the truth of Variance and argue that the most natural amendments to the standard picture fail to explain them. (shrink)

Indirect speech reports can be true even if they attribute to the speaker the saying of something weaker than what she in fact expressed, yet not all weakenings of what the speaker expressed yield true reports. For example, if Anna utters ‘Bob and Carla passed the exam’, we can accurately report her as having said that Carla passed the exam, but we can not accurately report her as having said that either it rains or it does not, or that either (...) Carla passed the exam or pandas are cute. This paper offers an analysis of speech reports that distinguishes weakenings of what the speaker expressed that yield true reports from weakenings that do not. According to this analysis, speech reports are not only sensitive to the informational content of what the speaker expressed, but also to the possibilities a speaker raises in making an utterance. As I argue, this analysis has significant advantages over its most promising competitors, including views based on work by Barwise and Perry : 668–691, 1981), views appealing to recent work on the notion of content parthood by Fine :199–226, 2016) and Yablo, and Richard’s : 605–616, 1998) proposal appealing to structured propositions. (shrink)

The propositional view of communication states that every literal assertoric utterance of an indicative sentence expresses a proposition, and the audience understands those utterances only if she entertains the proposition(s) the speaker expressed. According to an important objection due to Ray Buchanan, the propositional view is ill‐equipped to handle meaning underdeterminacy. Using resources from situation semantics and MacFarlane's nonindexical contextualism, this article develops a view of literal communication close to the propositional view which overcomes Buchanan's underdeterminacy considerations while accounting for (...) the kind of indifference that typically characterizes speakers' intentions. (shrink)

In this paper, we intend to discuss if and in what sense semiosis (meaning process, cf. C. S. Peirce) can be regarded as an "emergent" process in semiotic systems. It is not our problem here to answer when or how semiosis emerged in nature. As a prerequisite for the very formulation of these problems, we are rather interested in discussing the conditions which should be fulfilled for semiosis to be characterized as an emergent process. The first step in this work (...) is to summarize a systematic analysis of the variety of emergence theories and concepts, elaborated by Achim Stephan. Along the summary of this analysis, we pose fundamental questions that have to be answered in order to ascribe a precise meaning to the term "emergence" in the context of an understanding of semiosis. After discussing a model for explaining emergence based on Salthe's hierarchical structuralism, which considers three levels at a time in a semiotic system, we present some tentative answers to those questions. (shrink)

: In this paper, we intend to discuss if and in what sense semiosis (meaning process, cf. C. S. Peirce) can be regarded as an "emergent" process in semiotic systems. It is not our problem here to answer when or how semiosis emerged in nature. As a prerequisite for the very formulation of these problems, we are rather interested in discussing the conditions which should be fulfilled for semiosis to be characterized as an emergent process. The first step in this (...) work is to summarize a systematic analysis of the variety of emergence theories and concepts, elaborated by Achim Stephan. Along the summary of this analysis, we pose fundamental questions that have to be answered in order to ascribe a precise meaning to the term "emergence" in the context of an understanding of semiosis. After discussing a model for explaining emergence based on Salthe's hierarchical structuralism, which considers three levels at a time in a semiotic system, we present some tentative answers to those questions. (shrink)

Harmful but culturally cherished practices often endure in spite of the damages they cause. Meat consumption is increasingly becoming one of such cases and may provide an opportunity from which to observe these phenomena. Growing evidence indicates that current and projected production and consumption patterns are important contributors to significant environmental problems, public health degradation, and animal suffering. Our aim is to contribute to a further understanding of the psychological factors that may hinder or promote personal disposition to change food (...) habits to benefit each of these domains. Drawing from previous evidence, this study explores the proposition that some consumers are motivated to resort to moral disengagement strategies when called upon to consider the impacts of their food habits. Data were collected from six semi-structured focus groups with a sample of 40 participants. Although affirming personal duties towards preserving the environment, promoting public health, and safeguarding animal welfare, participants did not show personal disposition to change their meat consumption habits. Several patterns of response that resonate with the principles of moral disengagement theory were observed while discussing impacts and the possibility of change. Results seem to support the proposition that the process of moral disengagement may play a role in hindering openness to change food habits for the benefit of the environment, public health, and animals, and point towards the relevance of further exploring this approach. (shrink)

Zones of social abandonment are emerging everywhere in Brazil’s big cities—places like Vita, where the unwanted, the mentally ill, the sick, and the homeless are left to die. This haunting, unforgettable story centers on a young woman named Catarina, increasingly paralyzed and said to be mad, living out her time at Vita. Anthropologist João Biehl leads a detective-like journey to know Catarina; to unravel the cryptic, poetic words that are part of the “dictionary” she is compiling; and to trace (...) the complex network of family, medicine, state, and economy in which her abandonment and pathology took form. An instant classic, _Vita_ has been widely acclaimed for its bold fieldwork, theoretical innovation, and literary force. Reflecting on how Catarina’s life story continues, this updated edition offers the reader a powerful new afterword and gripping new photographs following Biehl and Eskerod’s return to Vita. Anthropology at its finest, _Vita_ is essential reading for anyone who is grappling with how to understand the conditions of life, thought, and ethics in the contemporary world. (shrink)

This innovative volume is an extended intellectual conversation about the ways personal lives are being undone and remade today. Examining the ethnography of the modern subject, this preeminent group of scholars probes the continuity and diversity of modes of personhood across a range of Western and non-Western societies. Contributors consider what happens to individual subjectivity when stable or imagined environments such as nations and communities are transformed or displaced by free trade economics, terrorism, and war; how new information and medical (...) technologies reshape the relation one has to oneself; and which forms of subjectivity and life possibilities are produced against a world in pieces. The transdisciplinary conversation includes anthropologists, historians of science, psychologists, a literary critic, a philosopher, physicians, and an economist. The authors touch on how we think and write about contingency, human agency, and ethics today. (shrink)

The article Disagreement lost, written by Martín Abreu Zavaleta, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on 16 September 2020 without open access. The copyright of the article changed on 18 September 2020 to © The Author 2020 and the article is forthwith distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution.

Zones of social abandonment are emerging everywhere in Brazil’s big cities—places like Vita, where the unwanted, the mentally ill, the sick, and the homeless are left to die. This haunting, unforgettable story centers on a young woman named Catarina, increasingly paralyzed and said to be mad, living out her time at Vita. Anthropologist João Biehl leads a detective-like journey to know Catarina; to unravel the cryptic, poetic words that are part of the “dictionary” she is compiling; and to trace (...) the complex network of family, medicine, state, and economy in which her abandonment and pathology took form. As Biehl painstakingly relates Catarina’s words to a vanished world and elucidates her condition, we learn of subjectivities unmade and remade under economic pressures, pharmaceuticals as moral technologies, a public common sense that lets the unsound and unproductive die, and anthropology’s unique power to work through these juxtaposed fields. _Vita’s_ methodological innovations, bold fieldwork, and rigorous social theory make it an essential reading for anyone who is grappling with how to understand the conditions of life, thought and ethics in the contemporary world. (shrink)

Objectivo principal do presente artigo é mostrar até que ponto o evolucionismo darwinista inclui proposições centrais testáveis, para além de várias proposições acessórias também elas testáveis. Nesse sentido, o autor constrói um argumento no sentido de mostrar que as alegações de Karl Popper, segundo as quais não pode ser concedido estatuto de cientificidade ao darwinismo, carecem de fundamento. O autor defende também a necessidade de um questionamento firme em relação a todo e qualquer argumento fornecido pela ciência, pois nem a (...) capacidade de previsão nem a universalidade das leis são garantia de que a ciência, também ela, nunca caia em erro. /// Aim of the present article is to show that the doctrine of evolution defended by Charles Darwin is grounded on propositions that are verifiable, as are verifiable many of its secondary propositions. The author builds up an argument that goes in the direction of showing how the allegations by Karl Popper against the scientific nature of Darwinism are not grounded in reality. The author of the article also defends the necessity of a firm questioning in relation to each and every argument advanced by the practitioners of science, since nor its anticipatory capacity nor the universality of its laws are warrant enough that the science never falls into error. (shrink)

The perception of being located within one’s body is an essential feature of everyday self-experience. However, by manipulating exteroceptive input, healthy participants can easily be induced to perceive themselves as being spatially dislocated from their physical bodies. It has previously been suggested that interoception, i.e., the processing of inner physiological signals, contributes to the stability of body representations; however, this relationship has not previously been tested for different dimensions of interoception and bodily self-location. In the present study, using an advanced (...) automatized setup, we systematically manipulated participants’ perspective of their own body as well as the synchrony of visuotactile stimulation. The malleability of bodily self-location was assessed using a questionnaire targeting in-body and out-of-body experiences. Participants also performed a heartbeat discrimination task to assess their interoceptive accuracy, interoceptive sensibility, and interoceptive awareness. Bodily self-location was significantly influenced by perspective, with third-person perspective being associated with stronger out-of-body experiences compared to first-person perspective. Furthermore, there was a significant perspective × stimulation interaction, with subsequent analyses showing that participants reported out-of-body experiences particularly under third-person perspective combined with synchronous visuotactile stimulation. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that meta-cognitive interoceptive awareness was specifically and negatively related to the exteroceptively mediated malleability of body experiences. These results indicate that the perception of the self being located within one’s body relies on the interaction of exteroceptive input and higher-order interoceptive abilities. This has implications for theoretical considerations about the bodily self in health as well as for the understanding of disturbed bodily self-processing in clinical contexts. (shrink)

Emotions are a core factor of learning. Studies have shown that multiple emotions are co-experienced during learning and have a significant impact on learning outcomes. The present study investigated the importance of multiple, co-occurring emotions during learning about human biology with MetaTutor, a hypermedia-based intelligent tutoring system. Person-centered as well as variable-centered approaches of cluster analyses were used to identify emotion clusters. The person-centered clustering analyses indicated three emotion profiles: a positive, negative and neutral profile. Students with a negative profile (...) learned less than those with other profiles and also reported less usage of emotion regulation strategies. Emotion clusters identified through spectral co-clustering confirmed these results. Throughout the learning activity, emotions built a stable correlational structure of a positive, a negative, a neutral and a boredom emotion cluster. Positive emotion cluster scores before the learning activity and negative emotion cluster scores during the learning activity predicted learning, but not consistently. These results reveal the importance of negative emotions during learning with MetaTutor. Potential moderating factors and implications for the design and development of educational interventions that target emotions and emotion regulation with digital learning environments are discussed. (shrink)

In 2002, Luciano Floridi published a paper called What is the Philosophy of Information?, where he argues for a new paradigm in philosophical research. To what extent should his proposal be accepted? Is the Philosophy of Information actually a new paradigm, in the Kuhninan sense, in Philosophy? Or is it only a new branch of Epistemology? In our discussion we will argue in defense of Floridi’s proposal. We believe that Philosophy of Information has the types of features had by other (...) areas already acknowledge as authentic in Philosophy. By way of an analogical argument we will argue that since Philosophy of Information has its own topics, method and problems it would be counter-intuitive not to accept it as a new philosophical area. To strengthen our position we present and discuss main topics of Philosophy of Information. (shrink)

This paper discusses how to define logics as deductive limits of sequences of other logics. The case of da Costa's hierarchy of increasingly weaker paraconsistent calculi, known as $ \mathcal {C}$n, 1 $ \leq$ n $ \leq$ $ \omega$, is carefully studied. The calculus $ \mathcal {C}$$\scriptstyle \omega$, in particular, constitutes no more than a lower deductive bound to this hierarchy and differs considerably from its companions. A long standing problem in the literature (open for more than 35 years) is (...) to define the deductive limit to this hierarchy, that is, its greatest lower deductive bound. The calculus $ \mathcal {C}$min, stronger than $ \mathcal {C}$$\scriptstyle \omega$, is first presented as a step toward this limit. As an alternative to the bivaluation semantics of $ \mathcal {C}$min presented thereupon, possible-translations semantics are then introduced and suggested as the standard technique both to give this calculus a more reasonable semantics and to derive some interesting properties about it. Possible-translations semantics are then used to provide both a semantics and a decision procedure for $ \mathcal {C}$Lim, the real deductive limit of da Costa's hierarchy. Possible-translations semantics also make it possible to characterize a precise sense of duality: as an example, $ \mathcal {D}$min is proposed as the dual to $ \mathcal {C}$min. (shrink)

We analyze axioms and postulates as speech acts. After a brief historical appraisal of the concept of axiom in Euclid, Frege, and Hilbert, we evaluate contemporary axiomatics from a linguistic perspective. Our reading is inspired by Hilbert and is meant to account for the assertive, directive, and declarative components of modern axiomatics. We will do this by describing the constitutive and regulative roles that axioms possess with respect to the linguistic practice of mathematics.

In many real-life applications of logic it is useful to interpret a particular sentence as true together with its negation. If we are talking about classical logic, this situation would force all other sentences to be equally interpreted as true. Paraconsistent logics are exactly those logics that escape this explosive effect of the presence of inconsistencies and allow for sensible reasoning still to take effect. To provide reasonably intuitive semantics for paraconsistent logics has traditionally proven to be a challenge. Possible-translations (...) semantics can meet that challenge by allowing for each interpretation to be composed of multiple scenarios. Using that idea, a logic with a complex semantic behavior can be understood as an appropriate combination of ingredient logics with simpler semantic behaviors into which the original logic is given a collection of translations preserving its soundness. Completeness is then achieved through the judicious choice of the admissible translating mappings. The present note provides interpretation by way of possible-translations semantics for a group of fundamental paraconsistent logics extending the positive fragment of classical propositional logic. The logics PI, Cmin, mbC, bC, mCi and Ci, among others, are all initially presented through their non-truth-functional bivaluation semantics and sequent versions and then split by way of possible-translations semantics based on 3-valued ingredients. (shrink)

This paper develops a puzzle about non-merely-verbal disputes. At first sight, it would seem that a dispute over the truth of an utterance is not merely verbal only if there is a proposition that the parties to the dispute take the utterance under dispute to express, which one of the parties accepts and the other rejects. Yet, as I argue, it is extremely rare for ordinary disputes over an utterance’s truth to satisfy this condition, in which case non-merely verbal disputes (...) are extremely rare. After examining various responses to the puzzle, I outline a solution using the framework of truthmaker semantics. (shrink)

An overcomplete logic is a logic that ‘ceases to make the difference’: According to such a logic, all inferences hold independently of the nature of the statements involved. A negation-inconsistent logic is a logic having at least one model that satisfies both some statement and its negation. A negation-incomplete logic has at least one model according to which neither some statement nor its negation are satisfied. Paraconsistent logics are negation-inconsistent yet non-overcomplete; paracomplete logics are negation-incomplete yet non-overcomplete. A paranormal logic (...) is simply a logic that is both paraconsistent and paracomplete. -/- Despite being perfectly consistent and complete with respect to classical negation, nearly every normal modal logic, in its ordinary language and interpretation, admits to some latent paranormality: It is paracomplete with respect to a negation defined as an impossibility operator, and paraconsistent with respect to a negation defined as non-necessity. In fact, as it will be shown here, even in languages without a primitive classical negation, normal modal logics can often be alternatively characterized directly by way of their paranormal negations and related operators. So, instead of talking about ‘necessity’, ‘possibility’, and so on, modal logics could be seen just as devices tailored for the study of (modal) negation. This paper shows how and to what extent this alternative characterization of modal logics can be realized. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar una reconstrucción de la teoría de los grupos dereferencia. La teoría, desarrollada por Robert K. Merton, ha sido largamente utilizada enlos más variados campos de las ciencias sociales, aunque con escasa o nula consideraciónmetateórica hasta ahora. La reconstrucción atenderá a la presentación que de la misma serecoge en sendos artículos de su libro Social Theory and Social Structure, de 1968, a saber:“Contributions to the theory of reference group behavior” y “Continuities in the theory (...) ofreference groups and social structure”. Para presentar esta reconstrucción me apoyaré en elinstrumental de la Metateoría Estructuralista. Después de una consideración informal de lateoría, serán presentados sus modelos potenciales, modelos, modelos potenciales parciales,sus aplicaciones intencionales y algunos comentarios acerca de la noción de “grupo de referencia”en lo que respeta su carácter relacional y disposicional. (shrink)

Say that an audience understands a given utterance perfectly only if she correctly identifies which proposition (or propositions) that utterance expresses. In ideal circumstances, the participants in a conversation will understand each other’s utterances perfectly; however, even if they do not, they may still understand each other’s utterances at least in part. Although it is plausible to think that the phenomenon of partial understanding is very common, there is currently no philosophical account of it. This paper offers such an account. (...) Along the way, I argue against two seemingly plausible accounts which use Stalnaker’s notion of common ground and Lewisian subject matters, respectively. (shrink)

This paper raises a new form of speaker error objection to the analysis of disputes as metalinguistic negotiations in cases in which disputants reject that analysis. It focuses on an obvious but underexplored form of speaker error: speakers’ misattribution of contents both to others and to themselves. It argues that the analyses of disputes that posit this type of speaker error are uncharitable in three different ways: first, by portraying speakers as mistaken interpreters of their interlocutors; second, by portraying speakers (...) as uncharitable interpreters of their interlocutors; third, by portraying speakers who retract their claims as mistaken interpreters of their own prior utterances. Taken together, these unfavorable consequences weigh significantly against the plausibility of this type of analysis for the cases in question. (shrink)

What is the fundamental insight behind truth-functionality ? When is a logic interpretable by way of a truth-functional semantics? To address such questions in a satisfactory way, a formal definition of truth-functionality from the point of view of abstract logics is clearly called for. As a matter of fact, such a definition has been available at least since the 70s, though to this day it still remains not very widely well-known. A clear distinction can be drawn between logics characterizable through: (...) (1) genuinely finite-valued truth-tabular semantics; (2) no finite-valued but only an infinite-valued truthtabular semantics; (3) no truth-tabular semantics at all. Any of those logics, however, can in principle be characterized through non-truth-functional valuation semantics, at least as soon as their associated consequence relations respect the usual tarskian postulates. So, paradoxical as that might seem at first, it turns out that truth-functional logics may be adequately characterized by non-truth-functional semantics . Now, what feature of a given logic would guarantee it to dwell in class (1) or in class (2), irrespective of its circumstantial semantic characterization? (shrink)

We extend meet-combination of logics for capturing the consequences that are common to both logics. With this purpose in mind we define meet-combination of consequence systems. This notion has the advantage of accommodating different ways of presenting the semantics and the deductive calculi. We consider consequence systems generated by a matrix semantics and consequence systems generated by Hilbert calculi. The meet-combination of consequence systems generated by matrix semantics is the consequence system generated by their product. On the other hand, the (...) meet-combination of consequence systems generated by Hilbert calculi is the consequence system generated by their interconnection. We investigate preservation of several properties. Capitalizing on these results we show that interconnection provides an axiomatization for the product. Illustrations are given for intuitionistic and modal logics, Łukasiewicz logic and some paraconsistent logics. (shrink)

Our present moral traits are unable to provide the level of large-scale co-operation necessary to deal with risks such as nuclear proliferation, drastic climate change and pandemics. In order to survive in an environment with powerful and easily available technologies, some authors claim that we need to improve our moral traits with moral enhancement. But this is prone to produce paradoxical effects, be self-reinforcing and harm personal identity. The risks of moral enhancement require the use of a safety framework; such (...) a framework should guarantee practical robustness to moral uncertainty, empirical adequacy, correct balance between dispositions, preservation of identity, and be sensitive to practical considerations such as emergent social effects. A virtue theory can meet all these desiderata. Possible frameworks incorporate them to variable degrees. The social value orientations framework is one of the most promising candidates. (shrink)

This paper provides an exploratory comparative assessment of the institutional pressures influencing corporate social responsibility in a developed country, UK, vs. a developing country, Brazil, based on a survey of different actors. Information on sustainability concerns, organizational strategies and mechanisms of pressure was collected through interviews with environmental regulatory agencies, financial institutions, media and non-governmental organizations. Our results confirm that the more advanced awareness and CSR responsiveness in the UK is a consequence of a predominance of coercive and normative forces (...) on the organizational field. The institutional forces tend to build a Brazilian organizational field that is relational based and risk intensive. The findings lend support to the view that CSR responses are unlikely to be easily transformed into uniform standardized practices across the globe. This paper contributes to a collective understanding of the organizational field and a common template for CSR in the context of developed and developing countries. (shrink)

We say that things happen accidentally when they do indeed happen, but only by chance. In the opposite situation, an essential happening is inescapable, its inevitability being the sine qua non for its very occurrence. This paper will investigate modal logics on a language tailored to talk about essential and accidental statements. Completeness of some among the weakest and the strongest such systems is attained. The weak expressibility of the classical propositional language enriched with the non-normal modal operators of essence (...) and accident is highlighted and illustrated, both with respect to the definability of the more usual modal operators as well as with respect to the characterizability of classes of frames. Several interesting problems and directions are left open for exploration. (shrink)

O artigo tenta reconstruir alguns elementos acerca da passagem da Lógica da essência para a Lógica do conceito, da necessidade para a liberdade, na Ciência da Lógica hegeliana. No contexto da publicação dos duzentos anos dessa obra filosófica, a explicitação dessa passagem é referencial para a compreensão da Ciência da Lógica e de todo o pensamento hegeliano. O artigo procura sustentar que o binômio necessidade/contingência, um dos pares categoriais da Lógica da essência, não é adequado para a articulação da filosofia (...) hegeliana. Como Hegel afirma reiteradas vezes, é preciso superar a dura necessidade para dar lugar à lógica da liberdade. Para a discussão da problemática, a confrontação entre algumas categorias da essência, tais como substancialidade, necessidade, contingência e causalidade, e algumas categorias do conceito, tais como universalidade, particularidade e singularidade é o foco da exposição. Dessa discussão brota a noção hegeliana de liberdade e a sua relação com o sistema. (shrink)

To maximize brain plasticity after stroke, several rehabilitation strategies have been explored, including the use of intensive motor training, motor imagery, and action observation. Growing evidence of the positive impact of virtual reality (VR) techniques on recovery following stroke has been shown. However, most VR tools are designed to exploit active movement, and hence patients with low level of motor control cannot fully benefit from them. Consequently, the idea of directly training the central nervous system has been promoted by utilizing (...) motor-imagery (MI) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). To date, detailed information on which VR strategies lead to successful functional recovery is still largely missing, and very little is known about how to optimally integrate BCI and VR paradigms for stroke rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a BCI-VR system using a MI paradigm for post-stroke upper limb rehabilitation on functional assessments, and related changes in MI ability and brain imaging. To achieve this, a 60 years old male chronic stroke patient was recruited. The patient underwent a 3-week intervention in a clinical environment, resulting in 10 BCI-VR training sessions. The patient was assessed before and after intervention, as well as on a one-month follow-up, in terms of clinical scales and brain imaging using functional MRI (fMRI). Consistent with prior research, we found important improvements in upper extremity scores (Fugl-Meyer) and identified increases in brain activation measured by fMRI that suggest neuroplastic changes in brain motor networks. This study expands on the current body of evidence as more data are needed on the effect of this type of interventions not only on functional improvement but also through brain imaging to study the effect of the intervention on plasticity. (shrink)

While ethics in publishing has been increasingly debated, there seems to be a lack of a theoretical framework for making sense of existing rules of behavior as well as for designing, managing and enforcing such rules. This letter argues that systems-oriented disciplines, such as complexity science and human factors, offer insights into new ways of dealing with ethics in publishing. Some examples of insights are presented. Also, a call is made for empirical studies that unveil the context and details of (...) both retracted papers and the process of writing and publishing academic papers. This is expected to shed light on the complexity of the publication system as well as to support the development of a just culture, in which all participants are accountable. (shrink)

O jornal Tribuna Criciumense foi o único impresso publicado na cidade de Criciúma no período deste escrito. Fundado em 1955, ele passou por três fases. Na primeira, produziu um discurso anticomunista, mas de maneira um pouco tímida. Na segunda fase, com curta duração, o impresso passou a valorizar a ideologia comunista e, ao mesmo tempo, a defesa do presidente João Goulart. A última fase foi marcada por ataques violentos contra o comunismo, em defesa do golpe civil-militar e da ditadura (...) implantada. Analisar essas fases e como os discursos anticomunista e pró-comunismo reverberaram no jornal se configura no objetivo deste escrito. (shrink)

If Amelia utters ‘Brad ate a salad in 2005’ assertorically, and she is speaking literally and sincerely, then I can infer that Amelia believes that Brad ate a salad in 2005. This paper discusses what makes this kind of inference truth-preserving. According to the baseline picture, my inference is truth-preserving because, if Amelia is a competent speaker, she believes that the sentence she uttered means that Brad ate a salad in 2005; thus, if Amelia believes that that sentence is true, (...) then she must believe that Brad ate a salad in 2005. I argue that this view is not correct; on pain of irrationality, normal speakers can’t have specific beliefs about the meaning of the sentences they utter. I propose a new account, relying on the view that epistemically responsible speakers utter sentences assertorically only if they believe all the propositions which they think those sentences might mean. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the rules that should underlie a computer program that is capable of revising its beliefs or opinions. Such a program maintains a model of its environment, which is updated to reflect perceived changes in the environment. This model is stored in a knowledge base, and the program draws logical inferences from the information in the knowledge base. All the inferences drawn are added to the knowledge base. Among the propositions in the knowledge base, there are (...) some in which the program believes, and there may be others in which the program does not believe. Inputs from the outside world or reasoning carried out by the program may lead to the detection of contradictions, in which case the program has to revise its beliefs in order to get rid of the contradiction and to accommodate the new information. (shrink)

One of the central aims of the neo-mechanistic framework for the neural and cognitive sciences is to construct a pluralistic integration of scientific explanations, allowing for a weak explanatory autonomy of higher-level sciences, such as cognitive science. This integration involves understanding human cognition as information processing occurring in multi-level human neuro-cognitive mechanisms, explained by multi-level neuro-cognitive models. Strong explanatory neuro-cognitive reduction, however, poses a significant challenge to this pluralist ambition and the weak autonomy of cognitive science derived therefrom. Based on (...) research in current molecular and cellular neuroscience, the framework holds that the best strategy for integrating human neuro-cognitive theories is through direct reductive explanations based on molecular and cellular neural processes. It is my aim to investigate whether the neo-mechanistic framework can meet the challenge. I argue that leading neo-mechanists offer some significant replies; however, they are not able yet to completely remove strong explanatory reductionism from their own framework. (shrink)