Esta obra está organizada en tres partes, en las que se indaga la plausibilidad del discurso de la Bioética y Teológica. En la primera de ellas, se estudia el vínculo que existe entre esta disciplina científica, el mensaje evangélico y la tradición cristiana, punto de partida y origen de todo este entramado bioético que aspira a sal-vaguardar valores humanos fundamentales. En la segunda, se trata de la relación que debe regir entre esta rama de la Teología y el polifacético mundo (...) científico (biomedicina, bioderecho, etc.). Por su parte, en la tercera, se analiza el estatuto epistemológico que configura a la Bioética Teológica, es decir, sus señas de identi-dad; asimismo, en esta sección, se indaga igualmente acerca del papel que, por derecho propio, corresponde en la vida pública a esta disciplina científica. (shrink)

Bohmian mechanics, a hydrodynamic formulation of the quantum theory, constitutes a useful tool to understand the role of the phase as the mechanism responsible for the dynamical evolution displayed by quantum systems. This role is analyzed and discussed here in the context of quantum interference, considering to this end two well-known scenarios, namely Young’s two-slit experiment and Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment. A numerical implementation of the first scenario is used to show how interference in a coherent superposition of two counter-propagating (...) wave packets can be seen and explained in terms of an effective model consisting of a single wave packet scattered off an attractive hard wall. The outcomes from this model are then applied to the analysis of Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment, also recreated by means of a reliable realistic simulation. Both examples illustrate quite well how the Bohmian formulation helps to explain in a natural way aspects of the quantum theory typically regarded as paradoxical. In other words, they show that a proper understanding of quantum phase dynamics immediately removes any trace of unnecessary artificial wave-particle arguments. (shrink)

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism's effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables and market variables. To test our assertions, we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, and Spain during (...) the period 1995-2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market. (shrink)

The activism of institutional investors tends more and more toward the supervision and control of the behavior of the managers of big companies. In this article, we present a model based on the creation of an activism index that lets us evaluate such activism's effect on the sensitivity of the investment policies of a company in the face of financial variables and market variables . To test our assertions, we analyze firm-level data for United Kingdom , Germany, France, Denmark, and (...) Spain during the period 1995-2004. Our results point to a significant reduction in the sensitivity of company investment decisions in the face of these variables, especially relative to intangible capital, as a result of the neutralizing effect of activism on the high agency costs of free cash flow and on the information asymmetries of the market. (shrink)

In March 2021, the Spanish Congress approved the law regulating euthanasia, that regulates both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In this article, we analyse the Spanish law regulating euthanasia and PAS, comparing it with the rest of the European laws on euthanasia and PAS (Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). Identified strengths of the Spanish law, with respect to other norms, are that it is a law with many safeguards, which broadly recognises professionals’ right to conscientious objection and the specification that it (...) makes on the prior comprehensive care of the patient, including the approach to care dependency. Regarding its shortcomings, the law does not differentiate well between euthanasia and PAS; it barely assigns a role to the healthcare team as a whole (similar to other regulations); it does not clarify the functions of the different professionals involved; it does not detail the specific composition and duration of theevaluation commission; it has not been accompanied by a prior or simultaneous regulation of palliative care; and, lastly, the period of time to implement the law is too short. (shrink)

La mal llamada “Conquista del Desierto” constituyó una serie de campañas militares ocurridas en el actual territorio patagónico argentino entre los años 1878 y 1885 cuyo resultado fue el asesinato, la violación y sometimiento a la esclavitud de diversos pueblos y comunidades indígenas. Este no fue un caso aislado, sino que se suma a una serie de ataques sistemáticos que han sufrido los indígenas en la Argentina. En los últimos años, a raíz del reclamo y las luchas de los pueblos (...) y comunidades indígenas, así como también de las organizaciones de derechos humanos, se han comenzado a juzgar algunos de estos hechos. En particular, la Masacre de Napalpí (1924) y la Masacre de La Bomba (1947) fueron los primeros que lograron respuestas judiciales favorables. En ambos se determinó que el accionar estatal era constitutivo de un genocidio y, por lo tanto, se debía resarcir a las comunidades actuales. Ahora bien, la Campaña del Desierto, al día de hoy, no tiene respuesta por parte del Estado. Teniendo presente este panorama, nuestro objetivo en este trabajo es reconstruir los diferentes problemas que enfrenta la posibilidad del reclamo judicial. Para ello, comenzaremos describiendo en qué consistió la Campaña del Desierto. Luego, explicaremos la noción de genocidio aplicado a hechos de injusticias históricas. Como tercer paso, reconstruiremos los casos jurisprudenciales que se han preocupado por genocidios indígenas ocurridos en el pasado. Con este panorama revelado, nos enfocaremos en los diferentes problemas jurídicos y políticos que surgen en los reclamos de justicia. (shrink)

El presente trabajo es un estudio teórico que compara los modos de representación documental proporcionados por Bill Nichols, Michael Renov y John Corner. Estos paradigmas corresponden al auge de los estudios sobre el documental de inicios de los años noventa del siglo veinte y han devenido matrices prominentes a partir de las cuales se reinterpreta la estética fílmica y la historia del documental. La revisión crítica que se propone aquí incluye el análisis de algunos ejemplos puntuales del cine documental cubano (...) producidos por el Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos entre 1959 y 1991. Los tres modelos clasificatorios que se siguen identifican fondos teóricos diferentes sobre el que proyectan la imagen del documental, por esa razón, este estudio defiende la triangulación de sus cuerpos categoriales ante el examen de volúmenes significativos de documentales. (shrink)

ResumenEl artículo presenta una sucinta exposición de las principales aportaciones sobre Filosofía Biológica realizadas por diversos autores al desarrollo del pensamiento evolucionista, durante el período histórico transcurrido entre el medievo y la articulación de la teoría darwinista. En particular, expone las contribuciones de diversa índole realizadas por Andrés Vesalio, Andrew Battell, Jacobo Bondt, Nicolás Tulp, Edward Tyson, John Ray, Benoit de Maillet, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Karl von Linneo, Georges Louis Leclerc, Félix de Azara y Jean Baptiste Lamarck.Palabras claveHistoria (...) de la ciencia, historia de la filosofía biológica, evolucionismo predarwinista, orígenes de la primatologíaAbstractThis paper presents a brief exposition of the main contributions about Philosophy of Biology provided by several authors for the development of evolutionist thought, during the historical period elapsed from the Middle Ages to the beginning of Darwinian theory. It particularly presents different kinds of contributions made by Andreas Vesalius, Andrew Battell, Jacob Bondt, Nicolaes Tulp, Edward Tyson, John Ray, Benoit de Maillet, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Karl von Linneo, Georges Louis Leclerc, Félix de Azara and Jean Baptiste Lamarck.KeywordsHistory of science, history of philosophy of biology, predarwinian evolutionary theory, origins of primatology. (shrink)

ResumenEl artículo presenta una sucinta exposición de las principales aportaciones sobre Filosofía Biológica realizadas por diversos autores al desarrollo del pensamiento evolucionista, durante el período histórico transcurrido entre el medievo y la articulación de la teoría darwinista. En particular, expone las contribuciones de diversa índole realizadas por Andrés Vesalio, Andrew Battell, Jacobo Bondt, Nicolás Tulp, Edward Tyson, John Ray, Benoit de Maillet, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Karl von Linneo, Georges Louis Leclerc, Félix de Azara y Jean Baptiste Lamarck.Palabras claveHistoria (...) de la ciencia, historia de la filosofía biológica, evolucionismo predarwinista, orígenes de la primatologíaAbstractThis paper presents a brief exposition of the main contributions about Philosophy of Biology provided by several authors for the development of evolutionist thought, during the historical period elapsed from the Middle Ages to the beginning of Darwinian theory. It particularly presents different kinds of contributions made by Andreas Vesalius, Andrew Battell, Jacob Bondt, Nicolaes Tulp, Edward Tyson, John Ray, Benoit de Maillet, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Karl von Linneo, Georges Louis Leclerc, Félix de Azara and Jean Baptiste Lamarck.KeywordsHistory of science, history of philosophy of biology, predarwinian evolutionary theory, origins of primatology. (shrink)

According to some authors, Latour’s attention to politics during the last decades is the result of his proposing a different approach to politics that entails, with respect to his overall project, one of two situations. Either his epistemological proposal has suffered a “normative turn”—which necessarily breaks with the previous assumptions of Actor-Network Theory (ANT); or, if ANT’s view on technosciences remains valid, his political proposal becomes not possible as a new normative approach. In this paper, I will focus on the (...) critique voiced by John Law, as well as Graham Harman. I will argue that this is a false dilemma because there has not been a change in Latour’s conceptual basis, nor a lack of coherence within his thought that would undermine the democratic commitment of his Political Epistemology. I will justify this by exposing the fact that Latour’s overall project, as part of Science Studies, has not lately followed a “political” but an “ontological” turn, which has been underling his works since the very beginning of ANT. (shrink)

Este trabajo se ocupa de una interpolación textual transmitida por sólo dos manuscritos altomedievales en el capítulo que Isidoro de Sevilla dedica al libro de Job en sus Prooemia: Città del Vaticano, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. Barberini 505 y Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Cod. Augiensis Perg. 229. A partir de la transcripción del texto de ambos manuscritos y de la identificación su fuente (un pasaje de los Moralia in Iob de Gregorio Magno), ofrece una reflexión acerca de la semejanza entre los (...) procedimientos exegéticos de Gregorio e Isidoro como elemento que pudo motivar la redacción interpolada del capítulo. (shrink)

On analyse l’interprétation BHK de constantes logiques sur la base d’une prise en compte systématique de Prawitz, résultant en une reformulation de l’interprétation BHK dans laquelle l’assertabilité de propositions atomiques est déterminée par des systèmes de Post. On démontre que l’interprétation BHK reformulée rend davantage de propositions assertables que la logique propositionnelle intuitionniste rend prouvable. La loi de Mints est examinée en tant qu’exemple d’une telle proposition. La logique propositionnelle intuitionniste devrait par conséquent être considérée comme étant incomplète. Nous concluons (...) par une discussion sur l’adéquation de l’interprétation BHK de l’implication. (shrink)

On analyse l’interprétation BHK de constantes logiques sur la base d’une prise en compte systématique de Prawitz, résultant en une reformulation de l’interprétation BHK dans laquelle l’assertabilité de propositions atomiques est déterminée par des systèmes de Post. On démontre que l’interprétation BHK reformulée rend davantage de propositions assertables que la logique propositionnelle intuitionniste rend prouvable. La loi de Mints est examinée en tant qu’exemple d’une telle proposition. La logique propositionnelle intuitionniste devrait par conséquent être considérée comme étant incomplète. Nous concluons (...) par une discussion sur l’adéquation de l’interprétation BHK de l’implication. (shrink)

El artículo sugiere algunas observaciones sobre una antropología darwinista planteada a partir del conocimiento científico disponible. Al efecto, señala la importancia del estudio del genoma humano como fundamento de una reflexión filosófica de segundo grado sobre la naturaleza del ser humano, subrayando las grandes similitudes entre el Homo sapiens y las especies evolutivamente más próximas. Además, a partir del estudio del ADN mitocondrial y del cromosoma Y, centra la atención en el principio de coalescencia evolutiva entre seres humanos, gracias al (...) cual es posible afirmar que todos ellos son miembros consanguíneos de un mismo linaje. Concluye proponiendo algunas inferencias que muestran analogía entre determinados mythos y el logos científico actual. (shrink)

Alternatives to convenience sampling (CS) are needed for HIV/STI surveillance of most-at-risk populations in Latin America. We compared CS, time space sampling (TSS), and respondent driven sampling (RDS) for recruitment of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TW) in Lima, Peru. During concurrent 60-day periods from June-August, 2011, we recruited MSM/TW for epidemiologic surveillance using CS, TSS, and RDS. A total of 748 participants were recruited through CS, 233 through TSS, and 127 through RDS. The TSS (...) sample included the largest proportion of TW (30.7 %) and the lowest percentage of subjects who had previously participated in HIV/STI research (14.9 %). The prevalence of newly diagnosed HIV infection, according to participants' self-reported previous HIV diagnosis, was highest among TSS recruits (17.9 %) compared with RDS (12.6 %) and CS (10.2 %). TSS identified diverse populations of MSM/TW with higher prevalences of HIV/STIs not accessed by other methods. (shrink)

While the very existence of global literary studies as an institutionalised field is not yet fully established, the global turn in various disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences has been gaining traction in recent years. This book aims to contribute to the field of global literary studies with a more inclusive and decentralising approach. Specifically, it responds to a double demand: the need for expanding openness to other ways of seeing the global literary space by including multiple literary (...) and cultural traditions and other interdisciplinary perspectives in the discussion, and the need for conceptual models and different case studies that will help develop a global approach in four key avenues of research: global translation flows and translation policies, the post-1989 novel as a global form, global literary environments, and a global perspective on film and cinema history. Gathering contributions from international scholars with expertise in various areas of research, the volume is structured around five target concepts: space, scale, time, connectivity, and agency. We also take gender and LGBTQ+ perspectives, as well as a digital approach. (shrink)

This study aims to point out the disfunction produced in the application of organic law 10/ 2007, which regulates the police base of identifiers obtained from DNA, in relation to the police obtaining biological samples of detained persons. Because of the compulsory and authomatic nature of the registration of DNA database of suspected, detained or charged reached in the investigation of the crimes predetermined by law, it has been derived a similar automatism in the obtaining of biological samples from the (...) same subjects to obtain the registrable genetic profile, which mainly affects people who are detained. This action could lead to a distortion of the requirements related to informed consent for such obtaining, with infringement of the fundamental right to the protection of data or to informational self determination. (shrink)

Novelty is a key concept to understand creativity. Evaluating a piece of artwork or other creation in terms of novelty requires comparisons to other works and considerations about the elements that have been reused in the creative process. Human beings perform this analysis intuitively, but in order to simulate it using computers, the objects to be compared and the similarity metrics to be used should be formalized and explicitly implemented. In this paper we present a study on relevant elements for (...) the assessment of novelty in computer-generated narratives. We focus on the domain of folk-tales, working with simple plots and basic narrative elements: events, characters, props and scenarios. Based on the empirical results of this study we propose a set of computational metrics for the automatic assessment of novelty. Although oriented to the implementation of our own story generation system, the measurement methodology we propose can be easily generalized to other creative systems. (shrink)

Spain’s Roma community has its own cultural and moral values. These values influence the way in which end-of-life decision-making is confronted. The objective of this study was to explore the perspective of Roma women on end-of-life decision-making. It was a qualitative study involving thirty-three Roma women belonging to groups for training and social development in two municipalities. We brought together five focus groups between February and December 2012. Six mediators each recruited five to six participants. We considered age and care (...) role to be the variables that can have the most influence on opinion regarding end-of-life decision-making. We considered the discussion saturated when the ideas expressed were repeated. Data analysis was carried out according to five steps: describing, organizing, connecting, corroborating/legitimating, and representing the account. The main ideas gleaned from the data were as follows: the important role of the family in end-of-life care, especially the role of women; the large influence of community opinion over personal or family decisions, typical of closed societies; the different preferences women had for themselves compared to that for others regarding desired end-of-life care; unawareness or rejection of advance directives. Roma women wish for their healthcare preferences to be taken into account, but “not in writing.” The study concluded that the success of end-of-life healthcare in Roma families and of their involvement in the making of healthcare decisions depends upon considering and respecting their idiosyncrasy. (shrink)

Since March 14, 2020, Spanish citizens have been confined to their homes due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating in musical activities has been associated with reduced anxiety and increased subjective wellbeing. The aim of this study is to analyze how Spanish citizens used music during the lockdown period. We also study perceptions of the impact music has in everyday life, in particular examining the respondents’ insights into the effects of listening to music in situations of isolation. The (...) study was conducted using the MUSIVID19 questionnaire administered to a total of 1868 Spanish citizens. The results indicate that during lockdown, respondents perceived an increase in the time they devoted to musical activities such as listening, singing, dancing or playing an instrument. The participants also reported using music to cope with the lockdown, finding that it helped them to relax, escape, raise their mood or keep them company. The findings suggest an improvement in their perception of the value of music in personal and social wellbeing during the lockdown. However, the study reveals significant differences in the use and perceptions of music according to respondents’ personal situations. Age and feelings of vulnerability may lead to more conservative uses of musical practice and to more moderate perceptions of the positive values of music. (shrink)

Últimamente, y en especial a partir del enfoque de capacidades y funcionamientos de Amartya Sen, se han cuestionado las mediciones de pobreza donde se tiene en cuenta sólo una dimensión del bienestar, como es el ingreso, y se ha dado creciente importancia a la medición de la pobreza desde una perspectiva multidimensional. La propuesta de medida de pobreza de tiempo e ingreso LIMTIP toma el trabajo no remunerado invisibilizado como punto de partida para establecer un umbral de requerimientos de tiempo. (...) Si el ingreso del hogar alcanza para compensar el valor de estos déficits de tiempo, entonces serán pobres de tiempo pero no de ingreso ajustado. Si el ingreso no alcanza para comprar sustitutos de este déficit de tiempo, entonces las personas y los hogares en que habitan serán pobres de tiempo e ingresos. La medida de pobreza de ingreso y tiempo LIMTIP corrige medidas de pobreza absoluta a las que estamos acostumbrados para hacerlas más fieles a sus supuestos. Este trabajo incorpora la dimensión temporal a la medición de pobreza utilizando la metodología LIMTIP sobre datos de la Encuesta de Uso de Tiempo y Voluntariado realizada en la ciudad de Rosario en 2010. (shrink)

When considering external assistive systems for people with motor impairments, gaze has been shown to be a powerful tool as it is anticipatory to motor actions and is promising for understanding intentions of an individual even before the action. Up until now, the vast majority of studies investigating the coordinated eye and hand movement in a grasping task focused on single objects manipulation without placing them in a meaningful scene. Very little is known about the impact of the scene context (...) on how we manipulate objects in an interactive task. In the present study, it was investigated how the scene context affects human object manipulation in a pick-and-place task in a realistic scenario implemented in VR. During the experiment, participants were instructed to find the target object in a room, pick it up, and transport it to a predefined final location. Thereafter, the impact of the scene context on different stages of the task was examined using head and hand movement, as well as eye tracking. As the main result, the scene context had a significant effect on the search and transport phases, but not on the reach phase of the task. The present work provides insights into the development of potential supporting intention predicting systems, revealing the dynamics of the pick-and-place task behavior once it is realized in a realistic context-rich scenario. (shrink)

Avoiding whinges from various and potentially conflicting stakeholders is a major challenge for sustainable development and for the identification of sustainability scenarios or policies for biodiversity and ecosystem services. It turns out that independently complying with whinge thresholds and constraints of these stakeholders is not sufficient because dynamic ecological-economic interactions and uncertainties occur. Thus more demanding no whinge standards are needed. In this paper, we first argue that these new boundaries can be endogenously exhibited with the mathematical concepts of viability (...) kernel and viable controls. Second, it is shown how these no whinge kernels have components, such as harvesting of resources, that should remain within safe corridor while some other components, in particular biodiversity, have only lower conservation limits. Thus, using radar charts, we show how this no whinge kernels can take the shape of a tree that we name viability tree. These trees of viability capture the idea that the unbounded renewal potential of biodiversity combined with a bounded use of the different ecosystem services are crucial ingredients for the sustainability of socio-ecosystems and the design of no whinge policies reconciling the different stakeholders involved. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende mostrar las aportaciones del pensador francés Michel de Certeau, sobre el proceso de surgimiento de las instituciones sociales. Para ello he analizado, en el marco de la antropología certeauniana del creer, su texto Une politique de la langue, en el que Certeau aborda el proyecto del Abbé Gregoire para imponer el francés sobre los patois a finales del siglo XVIII. Puede concluirse, tras este análisis, que las instituciones se fundan siguiendo un proceso en tres fases: la definición (...) clara de las creencias básicas o principios rectores de la institución ; el desplazamiento de los principios alternativos con los que compite ; y la lucha contra la resistencias que ofrecen las antiguas creencias. (shrink)

The focus of this article is the life and work of the French thinker Michel de Certeau, here presented as a philosopher of special interest for nursing. Although in some countries he is relatively unknown, international authors from scientific disciplines regard his texts as a fundamental source in the opening of new intellectual perspectives on current global problems. Some nurses have also considered his ideas as a useful aid for reflecting on their professional activities, and their most important research is (...) cited. Over these pages, we also examine how Certeau's work can enrich nursing philosophy in regard to three specific issues: resistance practices in nursing in the face of pressure from health institutions; the social configuration of nursing knowledge; and the importance of the body in current nursing practice. (shrink)

The current situation in which the humanities are disparaged affects all university disciplines, including nursing, in whose historical evolution the humanities have always been present in one form or another. Looking beyond this disrepute, this study proposes that nursing renew its attention to classical philosophy. Specifically, it invites a close reading of Xenophon's Anabasis and Plato's Meno, to get three related goals: to show how the use of ancient texts are very valuable tools for the philosophical initiation of nursing students (...) and can help them reflect on their choice of nursing as a practical activity; to reflect on the problem of virtue and the nature of the good life; and to show how the interaction with ancient texts allows students to reflect on questions and issues of life, theirs and others, that are not open to investigation through a purely scientific method. Consequently, both Anabasis and Meno readings strengthen the intellectual relationship between philosophy and nursing, enabling the latter to delve deeper into the key questions of its own thought as a discipline. (shrink)

Several proof-theoretic notions of validity have been proposed in the literature, for which completeness of intuitionistic logic has been conjectured. We define validity for intuitionistic propositional logic in a way which is common to many of these notions, emphasizing that an appropriate notion of validity must be closed under substitution. In this definition we consider atomic systems whose rules are not only production rules, but may include rules that allow one to discharge assumptions. Our central result shows that Harrop’s rule (...) is valid under substitution, which refutes the completeness conjecture for intuitionistic logic. (shrink)

El desafío del cambio climático ha impulsado un cambio de paradigma en las políticas europeas. Uno de los principales pilares de actuación son las políticas de movilidad sostenible enfocadas a la reducción del uso del vehículo privado. Este artículo argumenta que los debates actuales en torno a la movilidad sostenible se centran en lo urbano, relegando a las áreas rurales a una posición secundaria o periférica. Se indaga en los límites que pueden tener las lógicas de movilidad urbana sostenible aplicadas (...) sobre entornos rurales altamente dependientes del vehículo privado y con déficit de servicios públicos de transporte. Para ello se analizan, por un lado, las principales políticas de movilidad y transporte europeas y españolas y, por otro, los discursos y las prácticas de la población local en una ruralidad remota. Una línea de investigación que necesita ser reforzada para diseñar políticas de movilidad ajustadas a las necesidades de las poblaciones rurales. (shrink)

This report analyses the aplicability of the principles of consciousness developed in the ASys project to three of the most relevant cognitive architectures. This is done in relation to their aplicability to build integrated control systems and studying their support for general mechanisms of real-time consciousness. To analyse these architectures the ASys Framework is employed. This is a conceptual framework based on an extension for cognitive autonomous systems of the General Systems Theory (GST). A general qualitative evaluation criteria for cognitive (...) architectures is established based upon: a) requirements for a cognitive architecture, b) the theoretical framework based on the GST and c) core design principles for integrated cognitive conscious control systems. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to reinforce some of the affirmations made by Vera Lucia Raposo in a recent paper published by the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. According to her, germline gene editing does not violate human dignity at all. This article offers some complementary ideas supporting her statement. In particular, four main arguments are stressed. Firstly, not only is the idea of human dignity unclear, but the idea of the human genome suffers from a general lack of (...) concreteness, which has dramatic consequences for the debate. Secondly, it is highlighted that if we believe that the immutability of the human genome underpins human dignity, then it should be our duty to use the tools of genetic modification to reverse any accidental changes that occur in nature. Thirdly, it is showed that if the alteration of germline constitutes an attack on human dignity, then we should also refrain from performing medical practices such as chemotherapy, which cause precisely this effect. Finally, we argue that modification of germline is not contrary to human dignity but an excellent expression of our autonomy. (shrink)

We present PhrasIS, a benchmark dataset composed of natural occurring Phrase pairs with Inference and Similarity annotations for the evaluation of semantic representations. The described dataset fills the gap between word and sentence-level datasets, allowing to evaluate compositional models at a finer granularity than sentences. Contrary to other datasets, the phrase pairs are extracted from naturally occurring text in image captions and news headlines. All the text fragments have been annotated by experts following a rigorous process also described in the (...) manuscript achieving high inter annotator agreement. In this work we analyse the dataset, showing the relation between inference labels and similarity scores. With 10K phrase pairs split in development and test, the dataset is an excellent benchmark for testing meaning representation systems. (shrink)

The functional capabilities that consciousness seems to provide to biological systems can supply valuable principles in the design of more autonomous and robust technical systems. These functional concepts keep a notable similarity to those underlying the notion of operating system in software engineering, which allows us to specialize the computer metaphor for the mind into that of the operating system metaphor for consciousness. In this article, departing from these ideas and a model-based theoretical framework for cognition, we present an architectural (...) proposal for machine consciousness, called the Operative Mind. According to it, machine consciousness could be implemented as a set of services, in an operative system fashion, based on modeling of the own control architecture, that supervise the adequacy of the system architectural structure to the current objectives, triggering and managing adaptativity mechanisms. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the extension of AGM that allows change for a belief base by a set of sentences instead of a single sentence. In [FH94], Fuhrmann and Hansson presented an axiomatic for Multiple Contraction and a construction based on the AGM Partial Meet Contraction. We propose for their model another way to construct functions: Multiple Kernel Contraction, that is a modification of Kernel Contraction, proposed by Hansson [Han94] to construct classical AGM contractions and belief base contractions. This construction (...) works out the unsolved problem pointed out by Hansson in [Han99, pp. 369]. (shrink)