We present a method to determine the reaction type and kinetic constants for enzyme inhibitors that decreases the number of experimental assays by at least a factor of five. It is based on a new theoretical formalism in terms of concentrations that dismisses the requirement of estimating initial velocities. Expressions for the time evolution of the concentrations of all the reactants are also given.

In this paper, the objects of philosophical reflection are the important lessons learned from a participatory action research program conducted by the Cordillera Studies Center of UP Baguio in Sagada, Mountain Province, in Northern Luzon, Philippines, which ran from March 1997 to February 2001. This research program used the Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) approach. Concepts of philosophy are made to re-describe “second order” concepts of theory, as well as “first order” concepts of community-based natural resource management research, planning, (...) testing, implementation, and monitoring. Concepts used in the context of field work are given philosophical re-descriptions in the form of the ontology of societal totality and nature, ethical thinking applied to land rights and to collective action of marginalized groups, and in the form of epistemological assertions concerning the interaction of indigenous knowledge and the conduct of scientific research itself on community-based natural resource management. (shrink)

The global #MeToo movement has precipitated a reckoning with gendered, sexual, and other forms of harassment and bullying in higher education. In academia, harassment is rooted in the history of re...

Durante los últimos decenios del siglo XX la filosofía de Francisco Suárez fue considerada parte integrante de un movimiento escolástico comúnmente mencionado como escuela tomista. La perspectiva de abordaje, según el mote impuesto, colocaba la posición especulativa del Dr. Eximio más próxima al dominico Tomás de Aquino de acuerdo con los siguientes matices: a. en el ámbito epistémico la figura del Aquinate eclipsaba ampliamente aquella de Suárez, promoviendo una auténtica desconsideración de sus tesis originales; b. el jesuita español fundaba, igual (...) que Tomás de Aquino, la división de las ciencias especulativas en el acto intelectual de abstracción; c. la diferencia entre ambas concepciones metafísicas no implicaba necesariamente una comprensión epistémica distinta. Ahora bien, contra estas interpretaciones aparece en el siglo XXI otra lectura, donde se acentúa la diferencia decisiva de la filosofía del jesuita del siglo XVI, quien, en letras medievales, escribe y piensa en permanente tensión entre la herencia de la filosofía antigua y medieval por una parte, y una neo-escolástica de aires renacentistas por la otra. De acuerdo con ello, si bien su pensamiento discurre por una tradición aristotelizante del saber, la comprensión de las ciencias se asienta, a diferencia de Tomás de Aquino, en clave objetiva. Sobre esta premisa, el siguiente estudio abordará con exclusividad la originalidad epistémica de Suárez según la división de las ciencias especulativas y reales, mostrando el orden, el principio y las relaciones entre las ciencias física, matemática y metafísica. (shrink)

E! artículo analiza e! tema de larelación de! hombre con la naturaleza en e!Hexaemeron de Grossetesste, tratado de teologiabíblica en el que, a partir de la exégesís dei relatode la creación, plantea los principales temas de lafe cristiana procurando concordarlos con losconocimientos científicos de su tiempo. Los ejesfundamentales son: 1. Todas las cosas fueroncreadas por Dios; 2. Las cosas fueron creadosordenadamente según la relativa perfección desus naturalezas; 3. La creación es un sístema"cerrado" y todo lo que en ella se contiene (...) puedeser explicado a la vez por la fe y la razón; 4. E!universo es finito temporal, espacial ycualitativamente. Con estos postulados se fundamentala dignidad dei hombre contenida en sucarácter de "imagen de Dios", que se trasuntaen: aser imagen de Dios Uno y Trino; b. ser un"microcosmos" o compendio de todo lo creado; c.ser necesariamente una sola especie y d. ser elsefiomatural de todas las cosas. (shrink)

Constructivist research in Science and Technology Studies is committed to revealing the heterogeneity of technological change and the fluid boundaries between the elements involved. Its major theories, the Social Construction of Technology and Actor Network Theory, have however both been criticized for limiting themselves to the micro-level of cases, impeding a structural analysis of technological systems. This article seeks to bridge any such divides. We research the recent changes in the viticulture of Mendoza, Argentina, which underwent radical changes over (...) the past decades: once governed by low-cost yield maximization, grape production now revolves around “quality.” To show how the particular quality definition developed, we depart from a social-constructivist framework, following the sociotechnical shaping of problem-solution relationships across the wine production system. To include relevant social groups from different settings around the world, we gradually incorporate the ANT concepts of obligatory passage points, enrollment, convergence, delegation, and codes into the analysis. Combined into the concept of “sociotechnical alliance,” our analysis follows the dual process of creating agreement while establishing heterogeneous practices across settings at different levels. It shows that functioning involves alliance building and highlights the hybridity and continuous dynamics of systems at large. (shrink)

In Being and Time and What is Metaphysics? Heidegger made a revolutionary use of the "mood". He said that the mood, and in particular the mood of Anxiety, had ontological significance. Not only is the mood nothing merely "subjective," but it has significance for the understanding of universal being itself. Anxiety is a "moodful experience of Being," a mood in which not one thing or a few things, but the very Being of beings itself, is illuminated and brought into view (...) for "Dasein." In a 1960 review of the third edition of Otto Bollnow's Das Wesen der Stimmungen, Otto Poeggeler reprimanded Bollnow for misunderstanding the genuinely ontological character of Heidegger's investigation, and thus for having reduced it to something anthropological; at the same time Poeggeler called for a recognition of the important place that such an ontological analysis has in the Western tradition. In 1958 Karl Rahner had suggested that the ontological analysis of mood in Heidegger had been anticipated in Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, in the latter's discussion of a "consolation without a preceding cause." De Mendoza's book is an attempt to confirm Poeggeler's criticism of Bollnow and to work out, expand upon, and justify Rahner's thesis. He does this in an elaborately argued work filled with careful textual analyses of the writings of both Loyola and the early Heidegger. The thesis, as De Mendoza points out, is especially provocative in view of the three years which Heidegger spent in Jesuit training, during which time he was thoroughly exposed to Ignatian spirituality. Ignatius may represent another of the long line of religious figures--Augustine, Luther, Kierkegaard--who have influenced Heidegger's thinking in Being and Time.--J. D. C. (shrink)

Around 1716, the French astronomer and academician Joseph-Nicolas Delisle took up a new project: the twinned topics of Chinese chronology and astronomy. Unable to access Chinese sources and not knowing any fellow savants who shared this particular interest, Delisle methodically made extracts and compiled data from the existing European literature. Among Delisle's papers at the Observatoire de Paris still exist the results of this research, including a list of the books he found relevant. This paper develops a close reading of (...) Delisle's notes from this period to stage his journey into a recondite arena of technical and textual analysis, and to examine the scholarly practices and generic conventions through which early modern European savants confronted the Chinese astronomical tradition. (shrink)

In Being and Time and What is Metaphysics? Heidegger made a revolutionary use of the "mood". He said that the mood, and in particular the mood of Anxiety, had ontological significance. Not only is the mood nothing merely "subjective," but it has significance for the understanding of universal being itself. Anxiety is a "moodful experience of Being," a mood in which not one thing or a few things, but the very Being of beings itself, is illuminated and brought into view (...) for "Dasein." In a 1960 review of the third edition of Otto Bollnow's Das Wesen der Stimmungen, Otto Poeggeler reprimanded Bollnow for misunderstanding the genuinely ontological character of Heidegger's investigation, and thus for having reduced it to something anthropological; at the same time Poeggeler called for a recognition of the important place that such an ontological analysis has in the Western tradition. In 1958 Karl Rahner had suggested that the ontological analysis of mood in Heidegger had been anticipated in Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, in the latter's discussion of a "consolation without a preceding cause." De Mendoza's book is an attempt to confirm Poeggeler's criticism of Bollnow and to work out, expand upon, and justify Rahner's thesis. He does this in an elaborately argued work filled with careful textual analyses of the writings of both Loyola and the early Heidegger. The thesis, as De Mendoza points out, is especially provocative in view of the three years which Heidegger spent in Jesuit training, during which time he was thoroughly exposed to Ignatian spirituality. Ignatius may represent another of the long line of religious figures--Augustine, Luther, Kierkegaard--who have influenced Heidegger's thinking in Being and Time.--J. D. C. (shrink)

The persistent educational challenges that fractions pose call for developing novel instructional methods to better prepare students for fraction learning. Here, we examined the effects of a 24-session, Cuisenaire rod intervention on a building block for symbolic fraction knowledge, continuous and discrete non-symbolic proportional reasoning, in children who have yet to receive fraction instruction. Participants were 34 second-graders who attended the intervention (intervention group) and 15 children who did not participate in any sessions (control group). As attendance at the intervention (...) sessions was irregular (median = 15.6 sessions, range = 1–24), we specifically examined the effect of the number of sessions completed on their non-symbolic proportional reasoning. Our results showed that children who attended a larger number of sessions increased their ability to compare non-symbolic continuous proportions. However, contrary to our expectations, they also decreased their ability to compare misleading discretized proportions. In contrast, children in the Control group did not show any change in their performance. These results provide further evidence on the malleability of non-symbolic continuous proportional reasoning and highlight the rigidity of counting knowledge interference on discrete proportional reasoning. (shrink)

De Interpretatione is among Aristotle's most influential and widely read writings; C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system. He shows that De Interpretatione is not a disjointed essay on ill-connected subjects, as traditionally thought, but a highly organized and systematic treatise on logic, argument, and dialectic.

El presente trabajo explora la postura bergsoniana en torno a la imagen, toda vez que es constituida, de fondo, por la pregunta ¿qué se puede conocer? A propósito del tema Bergson se ubica en un punto intermedio entre el idealismo y el realismo, considera que la imagen es aquello que es más que una representación pero menos que la cosa en sí que el realismo pretende mostrar como objeto de conocimiento. La comprensión de la imagen no sólo lleva a escenarios (...) epistemológicos, también posibilita observar que ahí donde hay una perspectiva ocurre un enfoque interesado de cierto tema. De tal forma que la relación objeto-sujeto se ve trastocada por la implementación de la imagen, como disposición afectiva del mundo que rodea al humano. Si sólo se conocen imágenes, la pertinencia de las distintas ramas científicas cambia según estas estudien imágenes interiores o exteriores. Para nada la actividad mental, puede ser el propiciador de las imágenes mentales, únicamente es una imagen más del conjunto de imágenes. En lo subsecuente, habrá un desarrollo del conocimiento de las imágenes, una propuesta teórica que ofrece una posibilidad distinta a la científica, pero que no es contradictoria. Palabras clave: Bergson - Imagen - Conocimiento - Idealismo - Realismo - Percepción. (shrink)

In her book, The Ethics and Mores of Race, Naomi Zack offers her readers a critical and historical examination of philosophical ethics. This comprehensive and illuminating examination of philosophical ethics concludes by yielding twelve requirements for an ethics of race. While these twelve requirements are not in-themselves an ethics of race, the hope is that these requirements will be sufficient to finally allow us to explicitly engage in ethical treatments of race. My view is that Zack’s argument is basically on (...) solid footing, but that her exposition she does not pay enough attention to the issue of immigration. This is not to say that Zack ignores the issue completely, but to say that, much like the issue of slavery (although very different in many important ways), immigration has historically played an important role in the construction of “whiteness,” in particular in the establishment of “white privilege,” and in the perpetuation of “white supremacy.” So similar to the way slavery is specifically prohibited by requirement 8, I believe that the issue of immigration merits its own specific “requirement of content” within the lager set of requirements for an ethics of race. (shrink)

El presente trabajo desarrolla una breve introducción a la ausencia u obscurecimiento de la doctrina epistémica de Francisco Suárez bajo una triple restricción especulativa: 1. se referirá exclusivamente a las investigaciones contemporáneas sobre el pensamiento de Suárez, donde se observarían sugerencias y consideraciones generales sobre su epistemología; 2. a las Disputaciones Metafísicas, y a los filósofos y teólogos allí consignados, y en derredor de ello, a la conflictiva relación doctrinal con Tomás de Aquino y su vinculación con Duns Escoto. A (...) su vez tales consideraciones quedarán expuestas al modo de una pesquisa siempre inconclusa, en la medida en que es imposible dar cuenta de la significativa investigación actual en todos sus matices. (shrink)

En la serie de cuadernos del seminario de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, “Modernidad: versiones y dimensiones”, dirigido por Marta Lamas y que ha sido coordinado anteriormente por Raquel Serur y por su fundador Bolívar Echeverría, Andrés Luna Jiménez, un joven historiador, ha publicado un libro notable: Figuras de la crítica: la (de)formación del sujeto como problema histórico en Marcuse, Foucault y Butler. El libro contiene virtudes difíciles de alcanzar en la academia actual: muestra una clara voz autoral; un (...) hilo argumental sostenido, profundo y, a la vez, pedagógico; y actualiza con sutileza los debates, los enfrenta y los coloca bajo una perspectiva abierta a la investigación filosófica contemporánea. (shrink)

The authors present a case study involving truth telling responsibilities in the setting of nonepileptic seizures. Specifically, over the course of several suspected nonepileptic seizures, a patient’s seizures stopped after he received a saline flush meant to precede the administration of anti-seizure medication. The patient and his surrogate believed he had received the medication each time, and the team wondered whether they should disclose the truth. Some worried that disclosure would reinforce the suspected psychogenic behavior, exacerbating the patient’s condition. In (...) this way, the case study presents a twist on the traditional truth telling archetype. While most truth telling cases center on navigating cultural differences or worries about emotional harm, this case presented concerns about medical harm in the form of exacerbating the patient’s condition. The authors describe the complex patient-family-team dynamic that preceded this ethical dilemma, describe the case, analyze the ethical issue, and describe the outcome. (shrink)

This study provides a thorough exegesis of the names of metaphysics according to the proem of the Disputationes metaphysicae by Francis Suarez. The key to its consideration lies in the simultaneous unity between this science and the names assigned to it mainly by Aristotle. Due to the scant attention devoted to this work, this study emphasizes that the epistemic unity of metaphysics is given beforehand –prior to the final consideration and determination of its proper object, which is the entity insofar (...) real entity– by the complementarity of the different perspectives each name of metaphysics denotes. (shrink)

Background No studies have been conducted in Mexico to ascertain what ethical problems doctors working at hospitals deal with. This article aims to describe the ethical conflicts most commonly identified by Mexican internists and the importance they attribute to each of these conflicts. Methods Voluntary survey to the members of the Internal Medicine Association of Mexico. Results Responses were submitted by 347 internists. Half of those face ethical conflicts almost always or frequently. The most commonplace and relevant conflicts are those (...) resulting from the clinical relationship (communication, confidentiality, informed consent, assessment of mental capacity, decisions involving incapacitated patients, and conflicts with family members), and secondly those problems related with the end of life (palliative care, withholding or withdrawing treatment, and “No CPR orders”). To resolve conflicts they seek support through protocols, Institutional Ethics Committees (IECs), and consultations with colleagues and, occasionally, with bioethics experts. Protocols and IECs are the tools most in demand among them. Conclusions 1) the most frequent and relevant conflicts are those caused by the clinical relationship, above all those due to doctor–patient communication, and secondly those due to problems which arise at the end of life; 2) though nearly all of them have doubts about how to resolve conflicts, the vast majority are satisfied with the way in which they do so; 3) to deal with conflicts, they seek support mainly in protocols, IECs, and consultation with colleagues; and 4) in order to resolve them better, what they most demand are protocols and IECs, but also bioethics consultants. (shrink)

In the mid-1940s, Argentina was partially isolated and ruled by a military regime. The political confrontation between the military and the scientific community as well as international pressures played a major role in the failure of the first attempts to cope with nuclear development. Only after the relationship between the military and local scientists was readjusted and control of atomic energy was placed in the hands of the Navy, and Argentina's international relations restored, did nuclear development begin to take off. (...) This paper examines the traumatic process of creating the political and institutional conditions for the reception of nuclear technology in a peripheral context. The key to shaping future policies was the decision made by Argentina's Atomic Energy Commission in April 1957 to construct its first research nuclear reactor instead of buying it as other countries such as Spain and Brazil were doing at the time. (shrink)

As in other countries, the public in Argentina became aware of the existence of something called “the theory of relativity” only after November 1919. Although the news of Arthur Eddington's eclipse expedition, which provided the first confirmation of Einstein's theory, was poorly reported in the newspapers, by the end of 1920 Einstein had become a household name for the educated middle class of Buenos Aires, the capital city of the country. This was in great measure the result of the activity (...) of a few enthusiastic lecturers. Significantly, none of them belonged to the prestigious Institute of Physics of the University of La Plata, which during the decade of the 1910s was considered the most important center of physical research in Latin America. Between July and August 1920 the Spanish physicist Blas Cabrera – perhaps the greatest popularizer of Einstein's theory in Spain – visited Argentina and talked about relativity. In September Georges Duclout, a French engineer who had graduated from the Zurich Polytechnic and by then was professor of applied mechanics at the School of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, also gave a series of conferences on the subject. That same month José Ubach, a Jesuit astronomer trained at the Ebro Observatory in Spain, and established in Buenos Aires, lectured on relativity at the Colegio del Salvador. (shrink)

El presente texto es la traducción íntegra del latín al español del proemio de Alejandro de Hales a la Metafísica de Aristóteles. Las breves páginas que lo componen manifiestan un claro conocimiento del corpus aristotelicum y una división particular de las ciencias. Tal introducción a la metafísica aristotélica fundamenta las bases de la ciencia del ente en cuanto ente mostrando su dignidad y regencia sobre los demás saberes.

Thomas Aquinas summarizes almost exclusively the attribute of knowledge in God in Q. D. De Veritate II: De scientia Dei. The absence of confrontation, in its substance, between this text and contemporary studies, referring primarily to the Sacred Doctrine or Theology as science, are treated in this paper integrally with those investigations. However, the approaches differ substantially. In those studies the metaphysical question for theology as a science is prioritized; in this work, however, the essence of God as a science (...) is highlighted. (shrink)

Este artículo intenta desarrollar una deducción del concepto de sumo bien kantiano: esto es, intenta demostrar, de acuerdo con la interpretación de Dieter Henrich acerca de la deducción, que el sumo bien es un fin a la vez que un deber. Apelo a los rasgos de la razón práctica que constituyen la legitimidad de los hechos, la premisa que cualquier deducción debe tener. De acuerdo con Kant, el sumo bien consiste en la felicidad, la virtud y sus relaciones de proporcionalidad (...) y causalidad, tal que la felicidad es proporcional a, y causada por, la virtud. Sostengo, utilizando las nociones kantianas aceptadas, que Kant tiene razones convincentes para concluir que el sumo bien es, de hecho, un fin a la vez que un deber. Si esto es correcto, entonces este argumento ofrece la deducción prometida en mi título. This paper attempts a deduction of Kant's concept of the highest good: that is, it attempts to prove, in accordance with Dieter Henrich's interpretation of the notion of deduction, that the highest good is an end that is also a duty. It does this by appealing to features of practical reason that make up the legitimating facts that serve as the premises that any deduction must possess. According to Kant, the highest good consists of happiness, virtue, and relations of proportionality and causationbetween happiness and virtue, such that happiness is proportional to and caused by virtue. I argue, by drawing on accepted Kantian notions, that Kant had compelling reasons for concluding that the highest good is in fact an end that is also a duty. If correct, then this argument provides the deduction promised in my title. (shrink)

The development and use of large and dynamic health data repositories designed to support research pose challenges to traditional informed consent models. We used semi-structured interviewing to elicit diverse research stakeholders' views of a model of consent appropriate to participation in initiatives that entail collection, long-term storage, and undetermined future research use of multiple types of health data. We demonstrate that, when considering health data repositories, research stakeholders replace a concept of consent as informed with one in which consent is (...) engaged. In engaged consent, a participant's ongoing relationship with a repository serves as a substitute or adjunct to information exchange at enrollment. We detail research stakeholders' views of the risks of engaged consent and suggest questions for further study about engagement and consent procedures in initiatives that aim to store data for future unspecified research purposes. (shrink)