En un análisis fenomenológico, la pose aparece como un evento que establece una relación especial entre el cuerpo y la imagen; en dicho evento la intencionalidad se dirige a la resolución del propio cuerpo como imagen. Las distinciones tradicionales entre imagen y esquema corporales, y entre apercepción y apresentación sirven a este estudio para señalar algunos aspectos característicos del acto de posar, pero es el análisis fenomenológico de la recepción y la empatía el que aporta las claves fundamentales.In a phenomenological (...) analysis, the pose appears as an event that establishes a special relationship between body and image; in that event, the intentionality is directed to the resolution of the body itself as an image. The traditional distinctions between body image and body scheme, and between apperception and presentification, serve to point out some characteristic aspects of the act of posing, but it is the phenomenological analysis of reception and empathy that provides the fundamental insights. (shrink)

Parenting stress can influence caregiving behavior negatively, which in turn may harm children’s development. Identifying precursors of parenting stress, preferably beginning during pregnancy and throughout the first year of life, is therefore important. The present study aims to provide novel knowledge on this issue through a detailed examination of the association between maternal attachment style and later parenting stress. Moreover, we examine the role of several additional risk factors, specificially the mothers’ own adverse childhood experiences, as well as infants’ (...) class='Hi'>temperamental characteristics. Data from a community based longitudinal study of 1,036 Norwegian mothers, collected during pregnancy and 12 months after childbirth, were used. Results showed that attachment style in pregnancy predicted parenting stress one year after birth. In addition, it was demonstrated that the mothers’ own adverse childhood experiences predicted postnatal parenting stress, and that attachment style operated as a mediator of this association. A significant association between perceived infant temperament and parenting stress was also found. The study illustrates how important is is to understand the multifactorial antecedents of parenting stress. The results may inform early intervention efforts aimed at supporting mothers and their partners in the potentially difficult transition period around childbirth. (shrink)

This paper explores marital adjustment among couples raising a temperamentally difficult infant. Employing a multiple case study methodology we conducted ten interviews with six couples. The parenting distress these couples experienced meant they were at higher risk of marital maladjustment. Four couples experienced marital crisis, resulting in the separation of one couple. Our analysis suggests that reference to “insufficient father involvement” during the interviews signaled problems with the mother’s satisfaction and marital adjustment. We found that mothers consider four specific (...) aspects of paternal behavior as constituting involvement: 1. the father caring for the child in the mother’s presence, 2. the father caring for the child on his own, 3. the father sleeping in the same room as the mother and baby, and 4. the father being psychologically involved and supportive. (shrink)

The research concerned the determinants of social competencies, which are significant indicators of the quality of interpersonal relations. The aim of the study was to verify the connection between social competencies and temperamental traits. The respondent group included 220 university students of different faculties aged 19-24. Social competencies were measured with the use of a Social Competencies Questionnaire by Anna Matczak, while temperamental traits were measured with The Formal Characteristics of Behaviour-Temperament Inventory, by Bogdan Zawadzki and Jan (...) Strelau. The research proved that activity, emotional reactivity and sensory sensitivity are significant predictors of social competencies. The predictive value of these traits differs depending on the kind of measured competency. (shrink)

The present research examined the connections between temperament, students’ domain- and course-specific motivational appraisals, and performance, in two studies. Study 1 explored the relationships between temperamental sensitivities, motivational appraisals, and task achievement among secondary students in the domain of mathematics, using Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling for the analyses. Study 2 was conducted longitudinally among upper-secondary students during a course in four key school subjects. Subject interest was included alongside the temperamental sensitivities as a predictor of course-specific motivation and (...) course grades, and the data were analysed with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling. Previous achievement was controlled in both studies. The findings showed temperamental sensitivities to be differentially linked with motivational appraisals. Punishment sensitivity in Study 1, and interindividual reward sensitivity in Study 2 were found to have an effect on psychological strain. In both studies, interest and effort were predicted by intraindividual reward sensitivity. In Study 2, subject interest was a consistent predictor of higher course interest and lower strain. In both studies, connections were found between strain and lower performance. The findings suggest individual characteristics may predispose students to certain motivational experiences, and contribute to educational outcomes, in both domain and course contexts and across subject content. (shrink)

Cognitive and temperamental predictors of field dependence-independence The purpose of the study was to define structures of connections between the temperamental and cognitive factors as predictors of field dependence-independence. It was assumed that both the structure of temperament traits and cognitive mechanisms manifest themselves in tasks used for measuring cognitive styles. 108 participants took part in the experiment. Embedded Figure Test was used as a measure of field dependence-independence; Formal of Characteristics of Behaviour Temperament Inventory /fcb-ti/ for (...) temperament structure, and three computerized tasks as indicators of wide spectrum of attention and working memory functioning. Three hypothetical models in path analysis were verified. The best fit of the results obtained is provided by the model comprising two groups of factors: two energetic temperamental factors: endurance and emotional reactivity, and two cognitive factors: efficiency of selective attention and efficiency of visual-spatial sketch pad. The data was discussed from temperamental, cognitive and developmental perspectives. (shrink)

An evolutionarily informed perspective on parent-infant sleep contact challenges recommendations regarding appropriate parent-infant sleep practices based on large epidemiological studies. In this study regularly bed-sharing parents and infants participated in an in-home video study of bed-sharing behavior. Ten formula-feeding and ten breast-feeding families were filmed for 3 nights for 8 hours per night. For breast-fed infants, mother-infant orientation, sleep position, frequency of feeding, arousal, and synchronous arousal were all consistent with previous sleep-lab studies of mother-infant bed-sharing (...) behavior, but significant differences were found between formula and breast-fed infants. While breast-feeding mothers shared a bed with their infants in a characteristic manner that provided several safety benefits, formula-feeding mothers shared a bed in a more variable manner with consequences for infant safety. Paternal bed-sharing behavior introduced further variability. Epidemiological case-control studies examining bed-sharing risks and benefits do not normally control for behavioral variables that an evolutionary viewpoint would deem crucial. This study demonstrates how parental behavior affects the bed-sharing experience and indicates that cases and controls in epidemiological studies should be matched for behavioral, as well as sociodemographic, variables. (shrink)

J S Mill used the term ‘dead dogma’ to describe a belief that has gone unquestioned for so long and to such a degree that people have little idea why they accept it or why they continue to believe it. When wives and children were considered chattel, it made sense for the head of a household to have a ‘sovereignal right’ to do as he wished with his property. Now that women and children are considered to have the full complement (...) of human rights and slavery has been abolished, it is no longer acceptable for someone to have a ‘right’ to completely control the life of another human being. Revealingly, parental rights tend to be invoked only when parents want to do something that is arguably not in their child's best interest. Infant male circumcision is a case in point. Instead of parental rights, I claim that parents have an obligation to protect their children's rights as well as to preserve the future options of those children so far as possible. In this essay, it is argued that the notion that parents have a right to make decisions concerning their children's bodies and minds—irrespective of the child's best interests—is a dead dogma. The ramifications of this argument for the circumcision debate are then spelled out and discussed. (shrink)

Infant facial characteristics may affect discriminative parental solicitude because they convey information about the health of the offspring. We examined the effect of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) infant facial characteristics on hypothetical adoption preferences, ratings of attractiveness, and ratings of health. As expected, potential parents were more likely to adopt “normal” infants, and they rated the FAS infants as less attractive and less healthy. Cuteness/attractiveness was the best predictor of adoption likelihood.

A prominent hypothesis holds that by speaking to infants in infant‐directed speech (IDS) as opposed to adult‐directed speech (ADS), parents help them learn phonetic categories. Specifically, two characteristics of IDS have been claimed to facilitate learning: hyperarticulation, which makes the categories more separable, and variability, which makes the generalization more robust. Here, we test the separability and robustness of vowel category learning on acoustic representations of speech uttered by Japanese adults in ADS, IDS (addressed to 18‐ to 24‐month (...) olds), or read speech (RS). Separability is determined by means of a distance measure computed between the five short vowel categories of Japanese, while robustness is assessed by testing the ability of six different machine learning algorithms trained to classify vowels to generalize on stimuli spoken by a novel speaker in ADS. Using two different speech representations, we find that hyperarticulated speech, in the case of RS, can yield better separability, and that increased between‐speaker variability in ADS can yield, for some algorithms, more robust categories. However, these conclusions do not apply to IDS, which turned out to yield neither more separable nor more robust categories compared to ADS inputs. We discuss the usefulness of machine learning algorithms run on real data to test hypotheses about the functional role of IDS. (shrink)

Infant facial characteristics may affect discriminative parental solicitude because they convey information about the health of the offspring. We examined the effect of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) infant facial characteristics on hypothetical adoption preferences, ratings of attractiveness, and ratings of health. As expected, potential parents were more likely to adopt “normal” infants, and they rated the FAS infants as less attractive and less healthy. Cuteness/attractiveness was the best predictor of adoption likelihood.

Colic may allow infants to obtain additional investment from their parents. The lack of clear fitness costs of colic and of differences in condition between colicky and non-colicky infants is inconsistent with the hypotheses that colic is an honest signal of need or vigor. These and other characteristics of colic, however, are consistent with the hypothesis that colic is a manipulative signal.

Infant-directed speech, the particular form of spontaneous language observed in interactions between parents and their infants, is a crucial aspect of the mother-infant interaction and an index of the attunement of maternal linguistic input to her infant communicative abilities and needs during dyadic interactions. The present study aimed to explore linguistic and pragmatic features of IDS during mother-infant interactions at 3-month of infant age. The effects of infant, maternal and dyadic factors on IDS were (...) explored. Results evidenced few differences between the groups on IDS linguistic characteristics. Moreover, observing the interaction of birth status and dyadic co-regulation, full-term mothers varied their IDS pragmatic features according to the quality of co-regulation while preterm mothers did not. Parenting stress was associated to specific linguistic IDS features independently from the birth status. Findings are discussed underling implications for the study of preterm dyads interactions and the importance to consider the interplay of several factors in affecting the quality of IDS. (shrink)

Prelinguistic infants must find a way to isolate meaningful chunks from the continuous streams of speech that they hear. BootLex, a new model which uses distributional cues to build a lexicon, demonstrates how much can be accomplished using this single source of information. This conceptually simple probabilistic algorithm achieves significant segmentation results on various kinds of language corpora - English, Japanese, and Spanish; child- and adult-directed speech, and written texts; and several variations in coding structure - and reveals which statistical (...) characteristics of the input have an influence on segmentation performance. BootLex is then compared, quantitatively and qualitatively, with three other groups of computational models of the same infant segmentation process, paying particular attention to functional characteristics of the models and their similarity to human cognition. Commonalities and contrasts among the models are discussed, as well as their implications both for theories of the cognitive problem of segmentation itself, and for the general enterprise of computational cognitive modeling. (shrink)

SummaryThe menarcheal age and frequency of menstrual disorders in mothers of dizygotic and monozygotic twins born in Denmark in 1984 or 1985 were compared with a control sample of mothers of singleton infants born in the same period. Compared to control mothers, mothers of DZ twins had a lower menarcheal age and a lower frequency of menstrual irregularities—menstrual cycles exceeding 5 weeks duration, varying length of menstrual cycles and episodes of menostasia. Mothers of MZ twins had a higher frequency of (...) intermenstrual bleeding compared to mothers of singletons. All results were adjusted for maternal age and parity. The findings are relevant to the interpretation of aetiological factors leading to twin births and support the hypothesis of differences in sex hormone activity of the mothers of DZ twins in comparison with other women. (shrink)

Background: Despite a gradual shift in the focus of medical care among terminally ill patients to a palliative model, studies suggest that many children with life-limiting chronic illnesses continue to die in hospital after prolonged periods of inpatient admission and mechanical ventilation.Objectives: To examine the characteristics and location of death among hospitalised children, investigate yearwise trends in these characteristics and test the hypothesis that professional ethical guidance from the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health would lead (...) to significant changes in the characteristics of death among hospitalised children.Methods: Routine administrative data from one large tertiary-level UK children’s hospital was examined over a 7-year period for children aged 0–18 years. Demographic details, location of deaths, source of admission , length of stay and final diagnoses were studied. Statistical significance was tested by the Kruskal–Wallis analysis of ranks and median test , χ2 test and Cochran–Armitage test .Results: Of the 1127 deaths occurring in hospital over the 7-year period, the majority were among infants. The main diagnoses at death included congenital malformations , perinatal diseases , cardiovascular disorders and neoplasms . Most deaths occurred in an intensive care unit environment , with a significant increase over the years . There was a clear increase in the proportion of admissions from in-hospital among the ICU cohort . Infants with congenital malformations and perinatal conditions were more likely to die in an ICU , and older children with malignancy outside the ICU . Children stayed for a median of 13 days on a hospital ward before being admitted to an ICU where they died.Conclusions: A greater proportion of hospitalised children are dying in an ICU environment. Our experience indicates that professional ethical guidance by itself may be inadequate in reversing the trends observed in this study. (shrink)

Background: The division of non-paid labor in heterosexual parents in the West is usually still gender-based, with mothers taking on the majority of direct caregiving responsibilities. However, in same-sex couples, gender cannot be the deciding factor. Inspired by Feinberg’s ecological model of co-parenting, this study investigated whether infant temperament, parent factors (biological relatedness to child, psychological adjustment, parenting stress, and work status), and partner relationship quality explained how first-time gay, lesbian, and heterosexual parents divided labor (childcare and family decision-making) (...) when their infants were four months and 12 months old. We also tested whether family type acted as a moderator. Method: Participants were drawn from [MASKED FOR REVIEW]. Only those who provided information about their biological relatedness (yes or no) to their child (N = 263 parents) were included. When infants were four months (T1), parents completed a password-protected online questionnaire exploring their demographic characteristics including work status and standardized online-questionnaires on task division (childcare and family decision-making), infant temperament, parental anxiety, parental depression, parental stress, and partner relationship satisfaction. When infants were 12-months-old (T2), parents provided information about task division and their biological relatedness to their children. Results: Linear mixed models showed that no factor explained the division of family decision making at T1 and T2. For relative time spent on childcare tasks at T1, biological relatedness mattered for lesbian mothers only: biologically related mothers appeared to spend more time on childcare tasks than did non-related mothers. Results showed that, regardless of family type, parents who were not working or were working part-time at T1 performed more childcare tasks at T1. This was still true at T2. The other factors did not significantly contribute to relative time spent on childcare tasks at T2. Conclusion: We had the opportunity to analyze the division of non-paid tasks in families where parenting was necessarily planned and in which gender could not affect that division. Although Feinberg’s model of co-parenting suggests that various factors are related to task division, we found that paid work outside the home was most important during the first year of parenthood in determining caregiving roles. (shrink)

This article examines cinematographic observational studies of infants conducted by a loosely connected group of female psychologists and physicians in the USA from the 1930s to the 1960s. Largely forgotten today, these practitioners realized detailed and carefully planned research projects about infant behavior in a variety of settings—from the laboratory to the well-baby clinic. Although their studies were in conversation with better-known works, such as John Bowlby's research on attachment and René Spitz's films on institutionalized infants, they differed in (...) a close examination of individual characteristics of babies and a critical attitude toward contemporary notions of ‘pathological mothering’. In closely following the work of several researchers, including but not limited to pediatrician Margaret Fries (1898–1987), the clinical psychologist Sibylle Escalona (1915–96) and her team members—child psychiatrist Mary Leitch (1914–?) and avant-garde photographer Ellen Auerbach (1906–2004)—and psychologist Anneliese Korner (1918–2010), I argue that their cinematographic works shed a more nuanced light on the landscape of infant research and child psychiatry in the mid 20th century, and open a way for alternative readings of gender, psychoanalysis, and scientific observation at that time. (shrink)

Some have argued that embryos and fetuses have the moral status of personhood because of certain criteria that are satisfied during gestation. However, these attempts to base personhood during gestation on intrinsic characteristics have uniformly been unsuccessful. Within a secular framework, another approach to establishing a moral standing for embryos and fetuses is to argue that we ought to confer some moral status upon them. There appear to be two main approaches to defending conferred moral standing; namely, consequentialist and (...) contractarian arguments. This article puts forward a consequentialist argument for the conferred moral standing of preembryos, embryos, fetuses, and infants. It states and defends an original version of the commonlyheld view that moral standing increases during gestation. It also explores the implications of this viewpoint for several issues: what is involved in showing ‘respect’ for preembryos; and whether it is permissible to create preembryos solely for research. (shrink)

Postpartum depression is more prevalent in mothers and fathers of preterm infants compared to parents of full-term infants and may have long-term detrimental consequences for parental mental health and child development. The temperamental profile of an infant has been postulated as one of the important factors associated with parental depressiveness in the first months postpartum. This study aimed to examine the longitudinal relationship between depressive symptoms and perceived infant temperament at 3 months corrected age, and depressive symptoms (...) at 6 months corrected age among mothers and fathers of infants born preterm. We assessed 59 families with infants born before the 34th gestational week using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised. We found that mothers’ scores on EPDS and infants’ Orienting/regulation at 3 months corrected age predicted mothers’ EPDS scores at 6 months corrected age. In particular, higher depressive scores were related to higher depressive symptoms at 6 months corrected age, whereas higher infant Orienting/regulation was related to lower depressive symptoms at 6 months corrected age. Due to the low internal consistency of EPDS at 6 months for fathers, we were unable to conduct similar analyses for fathers. Our results point to the importance of considering both early indices of maternal mood as well as mother-reported measures of preterm infant temperament in the attempts to predict levels of maternal depressiveness in later months of an infant’s life. Further studies are urgently needed in order to better understand the associations between depressiveness and infant temperament in fathers, and with more consideration for the severity of the effects of infant prematurity. (shrink)

Differences in infant caregiving behavior between cultures have long been noted, although the quantified comparison of touch-based caregiving using uniform standardized methodology has been much more limited. The Parent-Infant Caregiving Touch scale was developed for this purpose and programming effects of early parental tactile stimulation on infant hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal -axis functioning, cardiovascular regulation and behavioral outcomes, similar to that reported in animals, have now been demonstrated. In order to inform future studies examining such programming effects in India, (...) we first aimed to describe and examine, using parametric and non-parametric item-response methods, the item-response frequencies and characteristics of responses on the PICTS, and evidence for cross-cultural differential item functioning in the United Kingdom and India. Second, in the context of a cultural favoring of male children in India, we also aimed to test the association between the sex of the infant and infant “stroking” in both cultural settings. The PICTS was administered at 8–12 weeks postpartum to mothers in two-cohort studies: The Wirral Child Health and Development Study, United Kingdom and the Bangalore Child Health and Development Study, India. Mokken scale analysis, parametric item-response analysis, and structural equation modeling for categorical items were used. Items for two dimensions, one for stroking behavior and one for holding behavior, could be identified as meeting many of the criteria required for Mokken scales in the United Kingdom, only the stroking scale met these criteria in the sample from India. Thus, while a comparison between the two cultures was possible for the stroking construct, comparisons for the other non-verbal parenting constructs within PICTS were not. Analyses revealed higher rates of early stroking being reported for the United Kingdom than India, but no sex differences in rates in either country and no differential sex difference by culture. We conclude that PICTS items can be used reliably in both countries to conduct further research on the role of early tactile stimulation in shaping important child development outcomes. (shrink)

In this article, I build upon Jean-Albert Vinel’s account of Augustine’s “liturgical argument” against the Pelagians by exploring how and why Augustine uses both the givenness of the practice of infant baptism and its ritual components as evidence for his theological conclusions in opposition to those of the Pelagians. First, I explore infant baptism in the Roman North African Church before and during Augustine’s ministry. Second, I interpret Augustine’s rhetorical adaptation of the custom in his attempt to delineate (...) the defining characteristics of Catholic Christianity in the early fifth century. I show how Augustine mobilizes his belief in the efficacy of the Church’s practice of infant baptism to make explicit a boundary marker of “Catholic” Christianity, which was long implicit in the practice itself. Perceiving the consequences of Pelagianism, Augustine organizes his anti-Pelagian soteriology around the central node of infant baptism, the most theologically and rhetorically strategic means by which he could refute the Pelagian heresy and underwrite what he understood to be the traditional vision of sin and salvation evident in the baptismal rite. (shrink)

This study examined the patterns and characteristics of non-parental child care arrangements for Chinese very young children before they enter preschool and the extent to which families’ utilization of non-parental child care influenced parenting stress. A total of 3,842 Chinese parents of infants and toddlers were selected from 10 provinces to participate in this study. The results indicated that Chinese families relied heavily on grandparents to care for their children; a set of family demographics predicted the utilization of non-parental (...) child care arrangements, including parents’ educational level, household income, labor force participation, and maternal age; there existed a clear parental preference for publicly funded, affordable, and high-quality child care services; and families’ use of non-parental child care was generally not linked to parenting stress. These findings shed light on the development of the infant-toddler non-parental child care system in the Chinese sociocultural context. (shrink)

I present my observations of combinatory manipulations by three infant chimpanzees in a series of test tasks. Common characteristics of motor patterns were observed across the tasks between both infant chimpanzees and 1-year-old infants. Based on the results, I point out that comparative approach can illuminate Thelen et al.'s arguments.

It is well documented that the language skills of preschool children differ substantially and that these differences are highly predictive of their later academic success and achievements. Especially in the early phases of children’s lives, the importance of different structural and process characteristics of the home learning environment has been emphasized and research results have documented that process characteristics such as the quality of parental interaction behavior and the frequency of joint activities vary according to the socio-economic status (...) of the family. Further, both structural and process characteristics are associated with children’s language development. As most of the studies focus on single indicators or didn’t take the dynamics of parenting behavior across age into account, the present paper aims to investigate the associations of different characteristics of the home learning environment as well as their potentially changing impact on the language skills of 2-year-old children. Using data of 2.272 families of the infant cohort study of the German National Educational Panel Study, longitudinally assessed process characteristics and structural characteristics were considered. Language skills of the children at the age of two were measured by a standardized and validated parent report instrument. Results showed that all three process characteristics of the home learning environment are associated with the family’s SES; across three assessment waves nearly all process characteristics predicted children’s vocabulary and grammar skills with some process-specific changes across waves; despite separate direct effects of nearly all HLE-process characteristics in each wave, the amount of explained variance in a joint model including the HLE facets from each wave is hardly higher than in the separate models; and socioeconomic background predicted both language facets of the children in each model even when controlling for the assessed process characteristics of the home learning environment. (shrink)

Neoclassical economics assumes that individuals have stable and context-independent preferences, and uses preference satisfaction as a normative criterion. By calling this assumption into question, behavioural findings cause fundamental problems for normative economics. A common response to these problems is to treat deviations from conventional rational choice theory as mistakes, and to try to reconstruct the preferences that individuals would have acted on, had they reasoned correctly. We argue that this preference purification approach implicitly uses a dualistic model of the human (...) being, in which an inner rational agent is trapped in an outer psychological shell. This model is psychologically and philosophically problematic. (shrink)

El presente trabajo aborda el concepto de Transmodernidad bajo dos puntos de vista diferentes. Por un lado, la mirada de Rosa María Rodríguez Magda, la cual nos plantea la Transmodernidad como una tríada dialéctica entre Modernidad-Postmodernidad-Transmodernidad, siendo esta última tanto una continuación como una superación de la Postmodernidad. El otro punto de vista corresponde a Enrique Dussel, el cual nos plantea la Transmodernidad como un proyecto utópico que es transversal a la Modernidad/Postmodernidad; está antes de la Modernidad y a la (...) vez la trasciende, siendo una categoría de exterioridad que pretende sacar la voz propia de las culturas no europeo-norteamericanas, para así poder establecer diálogos interculturales simétricos que llevan consigo características de la propia cultura inconmensurables al proyecto moderno europeo. Así enfrentamos ambas concepciones de la Transmodernidad para destacar sus diferencias y contraposiciones. (shrink)

There have been growing calls within Australia and beyond to defer medical interventions for children born with variations in their sex characteristics. These calls are increasingly grounded in the claim that such interventions when performed on infants and young children are a violation of their human rights. This paper examines the basis for this claim. It also examines the differences between the principles-based approach to medical ethics which has tended to dominant decisions regarding the treatment of children born with (...) variations in their sex characteristics, relative to the adoption of a rights-based approach. It identifies the points of complementarity between these two discourses but suggests that a rights-based approach offers some unique and differing insights into several issues concerning children born with variations in their sex characteristics. (shrink)

This note replies to a comment by Daniel Hausman on our paper ‘Preference purification and the inner rational agent: a critique of the conventional wisdom of behavioural welfare economics’. We clarify our characterisation of behavioural welfare economics and acknowledge that Hausman does fully endorse this approach. However, we argue that Hausman’s response to our critique, like behavioural welfare economics itself, implicitly uses a model of an inner rational agent.

Este escrito tiene como objetivo describir los principales enunciados que gravitaron a la hora de analizar el contenido de varias obras literarias que describían sucesos propios del siglo XX en Colombia. Esto con el fin de reconocer las representaciones, las prácticas y los sentidos de la sociedad a lo largo del siglo, así pues, el artículo está orientado en gran medida a responder a la posibilidad de poner en diálogo el estudio de la corriente historiográfica de la historia cultural y (...) su relación con la literatura. (shrink)

After viral entry into the cell, the nuclear envelope poses a major cellular barrier that needs to be overcome upon adaptation of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV) to the new host. To ensure efficient viral transcription and replication in the nucleus of the host cell, the viral polymerase complex of avian influenza viruses needs to switch from recognition of avian to mammalian components of the nuclear import machinery. Recent evidence suggests that influenza viruses have evolved different mechanisms to utilize (...) importin‐α isoforms as components of this machinery, bridging pre‐ and post‐nuclear import on both sides of the nuclear envelope. (shrink)

Ernst Bloch's work reflects on the revolution and the need to take advantage of cultural legacy content with an emancipatory sense. In Heritage of our times, written during the period of the Weimar Republic, the author places special emphasis on three aspects of cultural heritage to reconsider. Namely: the genuine concept of the Third Reich, the epic theater of Brecht and expressionism. This article examines the three mentioned aspects of reconsideration of heritage by Bloch. La obra de Ernst Bloch reflexiona (...) sobre la revolución y la necesidad de aprovechar contenidos del legado cultural emancipadoramente. En Herencia de esta época, texto escrito durante el periodo de la República de Weimar, el autor incide en tres aspectos de la herencia cultural a reconsiderar. A saber: el concepto genuino de Tercer Reich, el teatro épico de Brecht y el expresionismo. Este artículo examina los tres citados focos de reconsideración del concepto de herencia por parte de Bloch. La obra de Ernst Bloch reflexiona en torno a la revolución y a la necesidad de aprovechar contenidos del legado cultural con un sentido emancipador. En Herencia de esta época, escrito llevado a cabo durante el periodo de la República de Weimar, el autor hace especial hincapié en tres aspectos de la herencia cultural a reconsiderar. A saber: el concepto genuino de Tercer Reich, el teatro épico de Brecht y el expresionismo. Este artículo examina los tres citados focos de reconsideración de la herencia por parte de Bloch. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay performs an anticolonial and poetic methodology of combining Black and Native feminists' deconstruction of metaphor and metaphysics in order to argue for the centrality of colonial metaphor to colonial metaphysics. I combine their analyses of the separate gendered metaphors of Blackness and Indianness and the centrality of these metaphors to the development of a global metaphysics as well as the transference of the terms of metaphysics to whiteness. I then apply this method of combined terms and readings to (...) white colonial writing that compares Black and Native America, which transforms both communities not only into individually potent, gendered metaphors but into an essential poetic pairing, a poetic couplet. Drawing on the work of Black and Native feminists, I further argue that when we take this paired model to evaluate the political concerns of Black and Native America, we come to a more complete and global understanding and refutation of whiteness. The creation, connection, and comparison of the gendered metaphors and archetypical figures of the "African Slave" and "Indian Savage" are important to each other and to the creation of a Western conception of the globe. Colonialism uses gender to compound metaphor's ability to create, by combining metaphors of gender with metaphors of race and colonialism to develop new symbolic amalgamations. This gestalt of metaphors comes together in order to create a fictive European metaphysics used to ameliorate white fears of the diversity of life on planet Earth and to satisfy white desires to control it. In this coupled metaphoric form, Blackness and Indianness are not connected by analogy but by the open-ended cut, the caesura, of poetry and the violence of slavery and conquest. I offer this anticolonial and poetic pairing as a model for political imagining between Black and Native theory. (shrink)

We examine the expressive power of probabilistic context free grammars (PCFGs), with a special focus on the use of probabilities as a mechanism for reducing ambiguity by filtering out unwanted parses. Probabilities in PCFGs induce an ordering relation among the set of trees that yield a given input sentence. PCFG parsers return the trees bearing the maximum probability for a given sentence, discarding all other possible trees. This mechanism is naturally viewed as a way of defining a new class of (...) tree languages. We formalize the tree language thus defined, study its expressive power, and show that the latter is beyond context freeness. While the increased expressive power offered by PCFGs helps to reduce ambiguity, we show that, in general, it cannot be decided whether a PCFG removes all ambiguities. (shrink)

We examine the expressive power of probabilistic context free grammars (PCFGs), with a special focus on the use of probabilities as a mechanism for reducing ambiguity by filtering out unwanted parses. Probabilities in PCFGs induce an ordering relation among the set of trees that yield a given input sentence. PCFG parsers return the trees bearing the maximum probability for a given sentence, discarding all other possible trees. This mechanism is naturally viewed as a way of defining a new class of (...) tree languages. We formalize the tree language thus defined, study its expressive power, and show that the latter is beyond context freeness. While the increased expressive power offered by PCFGs helps to reduce ambiguity, we show that, in general, it cannot be decided whether a PCFG removes all ambiguities. (shrink)

The CRISPR-Cas9 system is a genetic editing technology that, in addition to expanding the possibilities for scientific research, promotes reflections associated with human dignity, biological control, therapy, and genetic improvement. Bioethical discussions on the challenges and repercussions of the CRISPR-Cas9 system are reviewed. As a result, bioethical questions tend to problematize the application to non-human organisms, primary research, and the human somatic and germline. In brief, it is necessary to increase the levels of safety and effectiveness so that the benefits (...) outweigh the risks, while reducing bioethical concerns and increasing the credibility of the technique. (shrink)

En un tiempo de profundas transformaciones, conflictos y resistencias, desde una aproximación filosófico-política, pondremos el foco en la emergencia de la Naturaleza como sujeto de derechos, de los pueblos indígenas y de las mujeres indígenas en los procesos de lucha, negociación y representación, como nuevos sujetos políticos en los distintos niveles de la esfera pública. Desde esta perspectiva, examinaremos la incorporación de la Naturaleza como sujeto de derechos en la Constitución de Ecuador en 2008 y las luchas y métodos del (...) Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku (Ecuador), a nivel nacional e internacional, frente al extractivismo petrolífero, atendiendo al papel que desempeñan las mujeres, a su interpretación del Sumak Kawsay (Buen Vivir) y del Kawsak Sacha (Selva Viva), y a sus aportaciones para la resolución de los conflictos ecológicos y políticos. Además de dar a conocer y presentar Sarayaku como un caso ejemplar, se concluye afirmando que la irrupción de estos «nuevos sujetos» nos sitúan ante un nuevo y complejo escenario, interpelándonos desde el Sur Global. (shrink)

En este artículo pretendo argumentar de qué manera el lenguaje es conformador de la experiencia estética y, en especial, cómo el argot involucrado en las vivencias estéticas es indisociable de estas, al operar como uno de sus factores constituyentes. A través del análisis de ejemplos de jerga estética popular, procedentes en su mayor parte del lenguaje juvenil, señalo algunos de los modos en que el argot conforma experiencias estéticas que no existirían sin su intervención. En este análisis recurro a algunas (...) ideas sobre la relación entre el lenguaje y la experiencia de autores como Wittgenstein, Vigotsky o Searle. (shrink)