This chapter aims to examine the configuration of the sharing economy in the United Kingdom. The chapter provides an examination of the key opportunities and challenges that this socio-economic model generates in the country. It includes an account of different sharing economy initiatives in the United Kingdom, including crowdfunding projects, tool libraries, timesharing banks, men’s sheds, and shared workspaces, commercial sharing economy services, micro-libraries, community-gardening projects, and paid online peer-to-peer accommodation. Increased consumer choice and economic benefits derived from an extended (...) economy around the sharing economy are identified as key opportunities. Key challenges relate to policymaking and taxation of businesses and participants in the sharing economy, as well as the wider enforcement of health and safety regulations and the impact that the recent pandemic is having on the industry. The chapter also provides an examination of the latest developments and regulations in this area. In addition, the chapter identifies the most pressing issues and possible future directions of research in this context. (shrink)

Electricity is an indicator that shows the progress of a civilization; it is a product that has greatly changed the way we think about the world. Electricity price forecasting became a fundamental task in all countries due to the deregulation of the electricity market in the 1990s. This work examines the effectiveness of using multiple variables for price prediction given the large number of factors that could influence the price of the electricity market. The tests were carried out over four (...) periods using data from Spain and deep learning models. Two different attribute selection methods based on Pearson’s correlation coefficient have been used to improve the efficiency of the training process. The variables used as input to the different prediction models were chosen, considering those most commonly used previously in the literature. This study attempts to test whether using time series lags improves the non-use of lags. The results obtained have shown that lags improve the results compared to a previous work in which no lags were used. (shrink)

An examination of contemporary feminism is an exploration of trajectories. Trajectories across the changing scenarios of women in globalization. In this contextm the question of violence against women as a source of both the legitimsation and the management of the social and the perfecting of workm of affects and of daily life in the era of flexible reproduction become key spheres of the transformation of the technologies of the government of gender. The conflict that incites the various and urgent administrative (...) inventions and the equivalence that feminist action itself maintains with regard to it must itself be submitted to an examination which place at its centre the desiring capacities and the creation of the value of feminism. (shrink)

Résumé L’article insiste sur la place cruciale du travail affectif et de soin ( care ). Dans la société du travail en réseau, l’objet principal du travail n’est plus la matière inanimée mais la vie elle-même. Le travail des infirmières, des travailleuses sociales, etc., présente la caractéristique de reposer sur une activité relationnelle qui, par nature, mobilise affects et intelligence dans la coproduction du service. Il s’agit par ailleurs d’activités fortement féminisées qui s’inscrivent dans l’interstice entre public et privé, sphère (...) domestique et sphère étatique, économie marchande et non marchande. Autre trait marquant : ces nouvelles formes de travail sont de plus en plus assurées dans la sphère marchande par une force de travail immigrée qui, quoique fortement qualifiée, est souvent sous-payée et soumise à un lourd processus de déclassement. Sous l’impulsion des politiques néolibérales, le creusement des inégalités dans la répartition du revenu et l’affaiblissement des garanties du Welfare favorisent l’essor de ce qu’André Gorz appelait la domesticité moderne. La combinaison des inégalités salariales et celles des revenus du patrimoine se trouve ainsi à l’origine d’un dualisme croissant du marché du travail. Nous sommes là en présence d’une tendance forte, menant à la généralisation du modèle anglo-saxon de régulation du capitalisme cognitif, même s’il n’y a rien là d’une logique inéluctable, comme le montre par exemple le modèle nordique de protection sociale et de régulation du marché du travail. (shrink)

The generation of synthetic data is becoming a fundamental task in the daily life of any organization due to the new protection data laws that are emerging. Because of the rise in the use of Artificial Intelligence, one of the most recent proposals to address this problem is the use of Generative Adversarial Networks. These types of networks have demonstrated a great capacity to create synthetic data with very good performance. The goal of synthetic data generation is to create data (...) that will perform similarly to the original dataset for many analysis tasks, such as classification. The problem of GANs is that in a classification problem, GANs do not take class labels into account when generating new data, it is treated as any other attribute. This research work has focused on the creation of new synthetic data from datasets with different characteristics with a Conditional Generative Adversarial Network. CGANs are an extension of GANs where the class label is taken into account when the new data is generated. The performance of our results has been measured in two different ways: firstly, by comparing the results obtained with classification algorithms, both in the original datasets and in the data generated; secondly, by checking that the correlation between the original data and those generated is minimal. (shrink)

In this position paper, we have used Alan Cooper’s persona technique to illustrate the utility of audio- and video-based AAL technologies. Therefore, two primary examples of potential audio- and video-based AAL users, Anna and Irakli, serve as reference points for describing salient ethical, legal and social challenges related to use of AAL. These challenges are presented on three levels: individual, societal, and regulatory. For each challenge, a set of policy recommendations is suggested.

El Foro Global de Bioética en Investigación (GFBR por sus siglas en inglés) se reunió el 3 y 4 de noviembre en Buenos Aires, Argentina, con el objetivo de discutir la ética de la investigación con mujeres embarazadas. El GFBR es una plataforma mundial que congrega a actores clave con el objetivo de promover la investigación realizada de manera ética, fortalecer la ética de la investigación en salud, particularmente en países de ingresos bajos y medios, y promover colaboración entre países (...) del norte y del sur.a Los participantes en el GFBR provenientes de Latinoamérica incluyeron a eticistas, investigadores, miembros de comités de ética y representantes de autoridades sanitarias provenientes de Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panamá, Perú, Nicaragua y la República Dominicana. Una legítima preocupación por la protección de las mujeres embarazadas y sus embriones o fetos ha llevado a la mayoría de los países de la Región de las Américas a limitar la realización de estudios con mujeres embarazadas exclusivamente a aquellos estudios específicos sobre el embarazo, y a requerir la exclusión sistemática de las mujeres embarazadas o de las mujeres que quedan embarazadas en el curso del estudio. Ciertamente, a lo largo de la historia de la ética de la investigación, se ha creído erróneamente que proteger a una población es sinónimo de excluirla de los estudios. Se sabe ahora que proceder así implica exponer a riesgos mucho mayores a la población que se busca proteger. El embarazo implica cambios fisiológicos sustantivos e impacta profundamente la manera como el cuerpo metaboliza los medicamentos. Sin embargo, por evitar hacer investigación con mujeres embarazadas, no se ha producido la evidencia científica necesaria para tomar decisiones sobre tratamientos e intervenciones preventivas con dosis eficaces y seguras para ellas y sus embriones o fetos. A manera de ilustración, en el 2001 había en los Estados Unidos apenas más de una docena de medicamentos aprobados para uso en el embarazo (1) y en el 2011 la Food and Drug Administration (FDA) aprobó por primera vez en 15 años un medicamento para su uso en el embarazo (2). Como consecuencia de no haber producido la evidencia necesaria, se pone en riesgo la salud de las mujeres embarazadas cada vez que se les da atención médica. Las mujeres embarazadas se enferman y las mujeres enfermas se embarazan, y no se sabe si los medicamentos que se les da son eficaces o siquiera seguros para ellas y sus embriones o fetos. (shrink)

Fernando García de la Vega fue uno de los profesionales que pusieron en marcha la televisión de nuestro país. Aquellos profesionales eran auténticos pioneros, que inventaban formatos, imaginaban contenidos a la vez que aprendían a utilizar la novedosa tecnología televisiva, y experimentaban con el nuevo lenguaje audiovisual. García de la Vega empezó haciendo todo tipo de programas, especializándose en concursos y musicales. Es uno de los primeros y grandes maestros de la televisión española. El presente trabajo se detiene (...) en algunos de los más emblemáticos programas que creó, guionizó, dirigió y realizó. (shrink)

En la actualidad, aún se desconoce el verdadero alcance de la vasta cultura de Lope de Vega, pues, aunque se sabe que fue un gran lector, que legó más de 1500 libros, sus títulos se han perdido a lo largo de la historia. No obstante, en sus obras trasciende una serie de textos que contribuyeron a su formación. En el presente trabajo se analiza La Arcadia, considerada la novela pastoril más erudita del Siglo de Oro, desde la perspectiva de (...) los agentes terapéuticos. En esta obra se mencionan remedios de procedencia herbal, de procedencia mineral y también de procedencia animal. Los resultados confirman que Lope de Vega pudo utilizar una serie de textos científicos en sus citas sobre la materia terapéutica. Entre ellos cabe destacar a Andrés Laguna y su Dioscórides y Plinio el Viejo, cuya Historia Natural pudo haber consultado como fuente primaria, a través de alguna traducción comentada, como la de Gerónimo de Huerta o a través de alguna otra obra basada en ella, como el opúsculo de Constantino Castriota, pues, en este último caso, se encuentran párrafos muy similares y, en algunos casos, casi literales. Nowadays, the true extent of the vast culture of Lope de Vega is still largely unknown. Although it is known that he was a great reader, who bequeathed more than 1500 books, his titles have been lost throughout history. However, a series of texts that contributed to his education become known in his works. In the present paper, La Arcadia, considered the most erudite pastoral romance of Spanish Golden Age, is analyzed from the therapeutic perspective. Remedies of herbal origin, of mineral origin and also of animal origin are mentioned in this novel. The results achieved confirm that Lope de Vega was able to use a series of scientific texts in his quotations on the therapeutic subject. Among them, it is worth mentioning Andres Laguna, and Pliny the Elder, whose Natural History could have been consulted as a primary source, through some commented translation, such as that of Geronimo de Huerta, or through some other work based on it, like Constantino Castriota's opuscule. In the latter case, there are very similar and, in some cases, almost literal paragraphs. (shrink)

In a dissonance case, a person sincerely and with conviction asserts that P, while her overall automatic behaviour suggests that she believes that not-P. In contrast with several mainstream views, this paper defends the contradictory-belief view of some relevant dissonance cases and explores its consequences regarding Moorean propositions. The paper argues that in relevant cases, the dissonant person is justified in asserting a Moorean proposition on the grounds of her explicit view on the subject matter and the recognition of her (...) opposing beliefs. The person is irrational in being dissonant, but not in asserting a Moorean proposition. (shrink)

Loyalty is considered central to people’s moral life, yet little is known about how people think about what it means to be loyal. We used a prototype approach to understand how loyalty is represented in Colombia and the United States and how these representations mediate attributions of loyalty and moral judgments of loyalty violations. Across 7 studies (N = 1,984), we found cross-cultural similarities in the associative meaning of loyalty (Study 1) but found differences in the centrality of features associated (...) with loyalty (Study 2) and the latent structure of loyalty representations (Study 3). Colombians represent loyalty in terms of more general moral characteristics, while US participants represent loyalty in terms of interpersonal commitment, both in contrast with current approaches to loyalty. By comparing representations of loyalty and honesty, we establish that difference in loyalty conceptualizations reflect a different way of thinking about loyalty rather than morality more generally (Study 4). Further, Colombians attributed greater loyalty to individuals with general moral characteristics compared to participants from the United States sample (Study 5) and were more likely to classify non-loyal values as loyalty-related (Study 6). While the centrality of prototypical features predicts categorizing norm violations as loyalty-related, differences in prototypical structure account for differences in the severity of moral judgment for such violations (Study 7), which suggests that loyalty representations have similar functions even though these representations differ in structural characteristics. (shrink)

This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens to (...) blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics. (shrink)

In The Grammar of Society, first published in 2006, Cristina Bicchieri examines social norms, such as fairness, cooperation, and reciprocity, in an effort to understand their nature and dynamics, the expectations that they generate, and how they evolve and change. Drawing on several intellectual traditions and methods, including those of social psychology, experimental economics and evolutionary game theory, Bicchieri provides an integrated account of how social norms emerge, why and when we follow them, and the situations where we are (...) most likely to focus on relevant norms. Examining the existence and survival of inefficient norms, she demonstrates how norms evolve in ways that depend upon the psychological dispositions of the individual and how such dispositions may impair social efficiency. By contrast, she also shows how certain psychological propensities may naturally lead individuals to evolve fairness norms that closely resemble those we follow in most modern societies. (shrink)

In Norms in the Wild, distinguished philosopher Cristina Bicchieri argues that when it comes to human behavior, social scientists place too much stress on rational deliberation. In fact, she says, many choices occur without much deliberation at all. Two people passing in a corridor automatically negotiate their shared space; cars at an intersection obey traffic signals; we choose clothing based on our instincts for what is considered appropriate. Bicchieri's theory of social norms accounts for these automatic components of coordination, (...) where individuals react automatically to cues that focus their attention on what the norm is in that situation. Social norms thus act as rules for making choices in a social world where people expect others -- often unconsciously -- to follow the same rule. Some norms enable seamless social co-operation, while others are less beneficial to human flourishing.Bicchieri is famous for her interdisciplinary work on game theory and most recently her work on social norms, and Norms in the Wild represents her latest challenge to many of the fundamental assumptions of the social sciences. Bicchieri's work has broad implications not only for understanding human behavior, but for changing it for better outcomes. People have a strongly conditioned preference for following social norms, but that also means that manipulating their expectations can cause major behavioral changes. Bicchieri has been working recently with UNICEF and other NGO's to explore the applicability of her views to issues of human rights around the world. Is it possible to change social expectations around forced marriage, genital mutilations, and public health practices like vaccinations and sanitation? If so, how? What tools might we use? This short book explores how social norms work, and how changing them - changing preferences, beliefs, and especially social expectations - can potentially improve lives all around the world. It will appeal to an unusually broad range of readers including philosophers, psychologists and others in behavioral sciences, and anyone involved in public policy or at NGOs. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the concept of attentional scaffolds and show the resemblance between social media platforms and slot machines, both functioning as hostile attentional scaffolds. The first section establishes the groundwork for the concept of attentional scaffolds and draws parallels to the mechanics of slot machines, to argue that social media platforms aim to capture users’ attention to maximize engagement through a system of intermittent rewards. The second section shifts focus to the interplay between emotions and attention, revealing (...) how online attentional capture through emotionally triggering stimuli leads to distraction. The final section elucidates the collective implications of scaffolding attention through social media platforms. The examination of phenomena such as emotional contagion and the emergence of group emotions underscores the transition from individual experiences to shared collective outcomes. Employing online moral outrage as a case study, we illustrate how negative emotions serve as scaffolds for individuals’ attention, propagate within social groups, and give rise to collective attitudes. (shrink)

In the business ethics literature, the growing interest in social entrepreneurship has remained limited to the assumption that pursuing a social mission will clash against the pursuit of associated economic achievements. This ignores recent developments in the social entrepreneurship literature which show that social missions and economic achievement can also have a mutually constitutive relation. We address this gap adopting the notion of shared value for an ethical inquiry of social entrepreneurship. Using a sensemaking framework, we assume that the emergence (...) of SV propositions can be captured through the analysis of how social entrepreneurs make sense of events of change, selecting the journey of three exemplar cases for an inductive empirical inquiry. From our findings, we propose three themes for further examination. First, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV are mostly shaped by idiosyncratic imperatives that inform both social mission and economic gain from the onset. Second, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV will be likely operationalised as a filtering device, which allows for resilience as well as potentially detrimental blind spots. And third, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV are expressed through ongoing transparency. Whilst there are agendas, these are not necessarily hidden but instead are likely put on show for the scrutiny of markets and communities. We hope that this evidence can add more light to our still modest understanding of the ethical groundings of social entrepreneurship. (shrink)

The paper presents a simulation of the dynamics of impersonal trust. It shows how a “trust and reciprocate” norm can emerge and stabilize in populations of conditional cooperators. The norm, or behavioral regularity, is not to be identified with a single strategy. It is instead supported by several conditional strategies that vary in the frequency and intensity of sanctions.

We consider the first-order finite-difference expression of the commutator between d / dx and x. This is the appropriate setting in which to propose commutators and time operators for a quantum system with an arbitrary potential function and a discrete energy spectrum. The resulting commutators are identified as universal lowering and raising operators. We also find time operators which are finite-difference derivations with respect to the energy. The matrix elements of the commutator in the energy representation are analyzed, and we (...) find consistency with the equality \. We apply the theory to the particle in an infinite well and for the Harmonic oscillator as examples. (shrink)

The enthymeme is essential because it reflects what humans do when they think. It provides an effective pedagogical approach to the analysis and synthesis of ideas in the classroom. In this volume, such an approach is applied to various areas of content for the purpose of helping students prepare themselves for the challenges of modern life.

The paper presents a simulation of the dynamics of impersonal trust. It shows how a "trust and reciprocate" norm can emerge and stabilize in populations of conditional cooperators. The norm, or behavioral regularity, is not to be identified with a single strategy. It is instead supported by several conditional strategies that vary in the frequency and intensity of sanctions.

The thesis of mental fragmentation has recently attracted increased attention as a way of explaining facts about mind and language. This volume provides an accessible introduction and essays on foundations and applications of fragmentation.

La Constitución dogmática Lumen gentium ha rescatado desde la tradición cristiana la expresión Iglesia doméstica para referirse a la familia. Dicha expresión posee en sí misma una riqueza incalculable al momento de descubrir el misterio de la esencia y misión de la familia cristiana, por lo que aporta elementos fundamentales para la elaboración de una teología de la familia. Es por este motivo que la presente investigación pretende levantar una propuesta de lectura eclesiológica de la Iglesia doméstica, a partir de (...) cuatro claves de lectura: cristológica, sacramental, pneumatológica y escatológica. The dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium has rescued from Christian tradition, the expression Domestic Church referred to the family. Such expression possess in itself an invaluable richness considering that discovers the essence and the mission of Christian family. That´s why it contributes with fundamental matters to the elaboration of a Theology of the Family. For this reason, this research pretends to raise a proposal of ecclesiological reading of Domestic Church, based in four key reading points: Christological, sacramental, pneumatological and eschatological. (shrink)

Cristina Lafont draws upon Hilary Putnam's work in particular to criticize the linguistic idealism and relativism of the German tradition, which she traces back to the assumption that meaning determines reference.

We present five studies investigating the effects of approach and avoidance behaviours when individuals do not enact them but, instead, learn that others have performed them. In Experiment 1, when participants read that a fictitious character (model) had approached a previously unknown product, they ascribed to this model a liking for the object. In contrast, they ascribed to the model a disliking for the avoided product. In Experiment 2, this result emerged, with a smaller effect size, even when it was (...) clear that the behaviours followed specific instructions from a third party. The model had been a mere executor instead of behaving autonomously. Finally, in Experiments 3, 4, and 5, we showed, with direct and indirect measures of attitudes, that reading that the model had approached vs avoided products was sufficient to create preferences in the participant for the approached one, regardless of whether it was explained that the model was a mere executor. This research highlights the largely unexplored effects of vicarious approach/avoidance behaviours. Theoretical and practical implications and possible developments of this line of research are discussed. (shrink)

We report the results of an experiment designed to determine the effects of psychological proximity—proxied by awareness of pain and friendship—on moral reasoning. Our study tests the hypotheses that a moral agent’s emphasis on justice decreases with proximity, while his/her emphasis on care increases. Our study further examines how personality, gender, and managerial status affect the importance of care and justice in moral reasoning. We find support for the main hypotheses. We also find that care should be split into two (...) components, one related to protection and the other to the preservation of relationships. Although gender does not affect moral reasoning directly, we find that it does so indirectly via personality, controlling for age, professional status, and professional background. We do not find a significant effect of managerial status on ethics of justice, but do find that holding a managerial position has a negative impact on ethics of care. Regarding personality, we detect significant positive effects of conscientiousness on ethics of justice and of neuroticism on ethics of care. (shrink)

This article builds on the notion of legal tolerance and analyzes the scope of its definition. It situates the notion in the complex set of relations occurring between the major systems of society. Generally, legal tolerance, as a concept, is understood in light of the possibilities of the legal system of influencing other major systems? responses. On the other hand, tolerance is also the response of the legal system in respect to other major systems? communications. Although there is a common (...) understanding of tolerance as ?under punishing bias? in criminology or as political tolerance in political science, 1 the focus of this article is different. The central points here are, first, the analysis of legal tolerance as part of systemic communications and, second, the historicity of the transformations of the nation-state in its ability to cope with the growth of separate, distinct and partial systems of society. Tolerance seems relational and raises questions such as: ?How much can the legal system tolerate?? And also, ?Which societal topics belong to the social system's domain-matter?? These questions are relevant given that the concept of legal tolerance depends on the possibilities of a given system to steer, to direct or to influence other major systems? behavior, or to resist, respond or to address other systems, which are in its environment. The concept of legal tolerance requires an analysis of a cluster of related definitions to assess the implications of the concept. These definitions are the following: (1) The concepts that result from the historical process of structuration and that explain the emergence of social systems. (2) The definition of reflexivity and its relation with the ?second order cybernetics dilemma.? This is the place where heuristic and epistemological problems are found. Such problems result from both the problem of representation and from the ontological status of the real. This analysis will show why reflexivity is a key concept to explaining the transformations suffered by such systems. Then, legal tolerance is a newer development in respect to the idea of planning. As an alternative to hard planning, legal tolerance creates a fostering environment. Instead of a single system directing other systems, legal tolerance is relational and created collectively by the organizational national state using its (limited) power of legal creation. Legal tolerance also stems from the concerned subsystems of the society (economy, law, politics, science, along with others) by means of a variety of legislative products, public policies, alliances, and legal and other scientific communications that emerge as coordinating mechanisms among the alluded major subsystems. (shrink)

Cette étude, à partir du cas colombien, présente une théorie globale novatrice du trafic des drogues, qu'elle présente comme le symptôme de la situation générale de l'homme contemporain confronté aux problèmes de la mondialisation. Elle pose ainsi le problème du trafic des drogues comme la rencontre entre des subjectivités et les productions des grands systèmes économiques, politiques et juridiques, dans une perspective sociale et anthropologique critique.

The Internet has been identified in human enhancement scholarship as a powerful cognitive enhancement technology. It offers instant access to almost any type of information, along with the ability to share that information with others. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the enhancement potential of the Internet. We argue that unconditional access to information does not lead to cognitive enhancement. The Internet is not a simple, uniform technology, either in its composition, or in its use. We will (...) look into why the Internet as an informational resource currently fails to enhance cognition. We analyze some of the phenomena that emerge from vast, continual fluxes of information–information overload, misinformation and persuasive design—and show how they could negatively impact users’ cognition. Methods for mitigating these negative impacts are then advanced: individual empowerment, better collaborative systems for sorting and categorizing information, and the use of artificial intelligence assistants that could guide users through the informational space of today’s Internet. (shrink)

Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain the collective irrationality of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, such as partisanship and ideology, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories or the effectiveness of public messaging. This paper presents a complementary explanation to epistemic accounts of collective irrationality, focusing on the moral reasons underlying people’s decisions regarding vaccination. We argue that the moralization of COVID-19 risk mitigation measures contributed to the polarization of groups along moral values, which ultimately led to the emergence of collective irrational (...) behaviors. Collective irrationality arises from groups explicitly or implicitly endorsing values that ultimately harm both themselves and those around. The role of social media platforms in amplifying this polarization and contributing to the emergence of collective irrationality is also examined. Finally, potential strategies for addressing the moral sources of collective irrationality are discussed. (shrink)

Providing people with information is considered an important first step in encouraging them to behave sustainably as it influences their consumption beliefs, attitudes and intentions. However, too much information can also complicate these processes and negatively affect behaviour. This is exacerbated when people have accepted the need to live a more sustainable lifestyle and attempt to enact its principles. Drawing on interview data with people committed to sustainability, we identify the contentious role of knowledge in further disrupting sustainable consumption ideals. (...) Here, knowledge is more than just information; it is familiarity and expertise or how information is acted upon. We find that more knowledge represents a source of dilemma, tension and paralysis. Our data reveal a dark side to people’s knowledge, leading to a ‘self-inflicted sustainable consumption paradox’ in their attempts to lead a sustainable consumption lifestyle. Implications for policy interventions are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to enhance our understanding about the processing of implicit and explicit temporal chronological relations by investigating the roles of temporal connectives and verbal tenses, separately and in interaction. In particular, we investigate how two temporal connectives (ensuiteandpuis, both meaning ‘then’) and two verbal tenses expressing past time (the simple and compound past) act as processing instructions for chronological relations in French. Theoretical studies have suggested that the simple past encodes the instruction to relate events sequentially, (...) unlike the more flexible compound past, which does not. Using an online experiment with a self-paced reading task, we show that these temporal connectives facilitate the processing of chronological relations when they are expressed with both verbal tenses, and that no significant difference is found between the two verbal tenses, nor between the two connectives. By means of an offline experiment with an evaluation task, we find, contrary to previous studies, that comprehenders prefer chronological relations to be overtly marked rather than implicitly expressed, and prefer to use the connectivepuisin particular. Furthermore, comprehenders prefer it when these relations are expressed using the compound past, rather than the simple past. Instead of using thecontinuityhypothesis (Segal et al. 1991,Murray 1997) to explain the processing of temporal relations, we conclude that a more accurate explanation considers a cluster of factors including linguistic knowledge (connectives, tenses, grammatical and lexical aspect) and world knowledge. (shrink)

Neurosteroid 17 beta-estradiol (E2) is a steroid synthesized de novo in the nervous system that might influence neuronal activity and behavior. Nevertheless, the impact of E2 on the functioning of those neural systems in which it is slightly synthesized is less questioned. The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) adaptation, may provide an ideal arena for investigating this issue. Indeed, E2 modulates cerebellar parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synaptic plasticity that underlies encoding of VOR adaptation. Moreover, aromatase expression in the cerebellum of adult rodents is (...) maintained at very low levels and localized to Purkinje cells. The significance of age-related maintenance of low levels of aromatase expression in the cerebellum on behavior, however, has yet to be explored. Our aim in this study was to determine whether E2 synthesis exerts an effective and persistent modulation of VOR adaptation in adult male rats. To answer this question, we investigated the acute effect of blocking E2 synthesis on gain increases and decreases in VOR adaptation using an oral dose (2.5 mg/kg) of the aromatase inhibitor Letrozole in peri-pubertal and post-pubertal male rats. We found that Letrozole acutely impaired gain increases and decreases in VOR adaptation without altering basal ocular-motor performance and that these effects were similar in peri-pubertal and post-pubertal rats. Thus, in adult male rats neurosteroid E2 effectively modulates VOR adaptation in both of the periods studied. These findings imply that the adult cerebellum uses E2 synthesis for modulating motor memory formation and suggest that low and extremely localized E2 production may play a role in adaptive phenomena. (shrink)

Dans Adv. math., X, 216-218, Sextus Empiricus rapporte une mystérieuse doctrine d' « Énésidème selon Héraclite » d'après laquelle le temps est identifié à un corps. L'hypothèse défendue ici est que cette formule exprime une théorie à usage dialectique et critique, construite par Énésidème afin d'inserer la thèse d' Héraclite dans un débat fictif où interviennent d'autres positions dogmatiques. Alors que la plupart des historiens de la philosophie nient l'authenticité héraclitéenne de ce témoignage, dans ses Leçons sur l'histoire de la (...) philosophie Hegel l'accepte sans réticence, aussi bien du point de vue historique que du point de vue théorique et y voit l'anticipation de sa propre notion du temps comme première forme du devenir. In Adv. Math., X, 216-218, Sextus Empiricus recalls a mysterious doctrine of a so-called « Enesidemus according to Heraclitus » according to which time is identified to a body. The hereby sustained hypothesis goes to saying that such a saying expresses some kind of theory meant to be used both dialectically and critically. It is said to have been erected by Enesidemes so as to be able to insert Heraclitus' thesis into a fictitious debate in which other dogmatic positions may interplay. Whereas most historians of philosophy deny the Heraclitean authenticity of such a testimony, Hegel, in his Lessons on the History of Philosophy, accepts it without any form of reticence, both on the historical point of view and on the theoretical point of view, thus viewing in it the foresight of his own concept of time as first form of the becoming. (shrink)

El debate que se gestó alrededor del concepto de existencia en manos de Willard Van Orman Quine y Rudolf Carnap, dio al siglo XX un cúmulo de aportes significativos a la ontología. La postura realista, con algunas variantes, de Quine y el criterio anti-realista de Carnap, otorga insumos para pensar de mejor forma cómo se intenta dar descripciones acerca del inmobiliario del mundo. Conocer este debate es importante, ya que, se expone los alcances y limitaciones que implican las explicaciones ontológicas (...) acerca de la realidad que deben ser tenidas en cuenta en la actualidad. Este trabajo cumple esa función, la de explicar sintéticamente uno de los debates más importantes para la ontología. (shrink)

This essay focuses on recent proposals to confer decisional status upon deliberative minipublics such as citizen juries, Deliberative Polls, citizen’s assemblies, and so forth. Against such proposals, I argue that inserting deliberative minipublics into political decision-making processes would diminish the democratic legitimacy of the political system as a whole. This negative conclusion invites a question: which political uses of minipublics would yield genuinely democratic improvements? Drawing from a participatory conception of deliberative democracy, I propose several uses of minipublics that could (...) enhance the democratic legitimacy of political decision-making in current societies. (shrink)