Journal of Mathematical Logic, Volume 23, Issue 03, December 2023. The aim of this paper is to generalize and improve two of the main model-theoretic results of “Stable group theory and approximate subgroups” by Hrushovski to the context of piecewise hyperdefinable sets. The first one is the existence of Lie models. The second one is the Stabilizer Theorem. In the process, a systematic study of the structure of piecewise hyperdefinable sets is developed. In particular, we show the most significant properties (...) of their logic topologies. (shrink)

A total of 1918 loci, detected by the hybridization of 938 expressed sequence tag unigenes from 26 Triticeae cDNA libraries, were mapped to wheat homoeologous group 4 chromosomes using a set of deletion, ditelosomic, and nulli-tetrasomic lines. The 1918 EST loci were not distributed uniformly among the three group 4 chromosomes; 41, 28, and 31% mapped to chromosomes 4A, 4B, and 4D, respectively. This pattern is in contrast to the cumulative results of EST mapping in all homoeologous groups, as reported (...) elsewhere, that found the highest proportion of loci mapped to the B genome. Sixty-five percent of these 1918 loci mapped to the long arms of homoeologous group 4 chromosomes, while 35% mapped to the short arms. The distal regions of chromosome arms showed higher numbers of loci than the proximal regions, with the exception of 4DL. This study confirmed the complex structure of chromosome 4A that contains two reciprocal translocations and two inversions, previously identified. An additional inversion in the centromeric region of 4A was revealed. A consensus map for homoeologous group 4 was developed from 119 ESTs unique to group 4. Forty-nine percent of these ESTs were found to be homoologous to sequences on rice chromosome 3, 12% had matches with sequences on other rice chromosomes, and 39% had no matches with rice sequences at all. Limited homology was found between wheat ESTs on homoeologous group 4 and the Arabidopsis genome. Forty-two percent of the homoeologous group 4 ESTs could be classified into functional categories on the basis of blastX searches against all protein databases. (shrink)

In this paper we briefly expose a project which could be summed up as ‘doing justice to Mario Pieri’. The main result of the project will be the publication of a book on him, in which we will mainl...

O presente artigo trata da influência exercida pela filosofia kantiana na actualidade a partir da chamada crise da Modernidade ilustrada. Os autores começam por analisar o posicionamento original kantiano, incidindo especialmente na sua concepção do criticismo e do transcendentalismo. Esta análise é feita a partir da perspectiva da aberta pela Kritik der Urteilskraft enquanto marco do sistema da razão, capaz de incorporar a finitude da mesma. Seguidamente são analisadas a recepção e a transformação do pensamento kantiano a partir de duas (...) correntes filosóflcas actuais: o Racionalismo Crítico de Karl Popper e Hans Albert, e a Pragmática Transcendental da linguagem de Karl-Otto Apel. Em ambos os casos se compara o sen modo próprio de incorporar as noções de crítica e transcendentalidade com a concepção original de Kant. /// The article addresses the influence of Kantian philosophy in contemporary thought from the view point of the crisis of illustrated Modernity. The authors start by analyzing the original Kantian position, whereby particular attention is given to his conception of criticism and transcendentalism. This analysis is worked out from the perspective of the Kritik der Urteilskraft as a frame for the system of reason, able to incorporate the finitude of reason itself This is followed by a detailed analysis of the reception and the transformation of illustrated thinking performed by two contemporary philosophical schools: Critical Rationalism (Karl Popper and Hans Albert), and Transcendental Pragmatics of language (Karl-Otto Apel). The authors of the article compare in each case the adoption of the notions of critique and transcendentality with the original use that Kant himself makes of them. (shrink)

This paper shows that, for a large range of parameters, the journal editor prefers to delegate the choice to review the manuscript to the biased referee. If the peer review process is informative and the review reports are costly for the reviewers, even biased referees with extreme scientific preferences may choose to become informed about the manuscript’s quality. On the contrary, if the review process is potentially informative but the reviewer reports are not costly for the referees, the biased reviewer (...) has no incentive to become informed about the manuscript. Furthermore, if the reports are costly for referees but the peer review processes are not potentially informative, the biased reviewers will never become informed. In this paper, we also present a web resource that helps editors to experiment with the review process as a device for information transmission. (shrink)

We define a multi-modal version of Computation Tree Logic ( ctl ) by extending the language with path quantifiers E δ and A δ where δ denotes one of finitely many dimensions, interpreted over Kripke structures with one total relation for each dimension. As expected, the logic is axiomatised by taking a copy of a ctl axiomatisation for each dimension. Completeness is proved by employing the completeness result for ctl to obtain a model along each dimension in turn. We also (...) show that the logic is decidable and that its satisfiability problem is no harder than the corresponding problem for ctl. We then demonstrate how Normative Systems can be conceived as a natural interpretation of such a multi-dimensional ctl logic. (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)

Is helping those whose subsistence needs are not meet a matter of charity or an obligation? What role should ordinary citizens of developed nations play? In a globalized world, the causes, connections, and responsibilities become complicated. Agriculture subsidies that keep food prices low for many in relatively rich countries may, for example, negatively impact poor farmers in developing countries. Students in Ethics/Philosophy 352 report on their project examining whether, and to what extent, a true obligation to aid exists.

Time and communication are important aspects of the medical consultation. Physician behavior in real-life pediatric consultations in relation to ethical practice, such as informed consent (provision of information, understanding), respect for integrity and patient autonomy (decision-making), has not been subjected to thorough empirical investigation. Such investigations are important tools in developing sound ethical praxis.

DNA methylation constitutes one of the pillars of epigenetics, relying on covalent bonds for addition and/or removal of chemically distinct marks within the major groove of the double helix. DNA methyltransferases, enzymes which introduce methyl marks, initially evolved in prokaryotes as components of restriction‐modification systems protecting host genomes from bacteriophages and other invading foreign DNA. In early eukaryotic evolution, DNA methyltransferases were horizontally transferred from bacteria into eukaryotes several times and independently co‐opted into epigenetic regulatory systems, primarily via establishing connections (...) with the chromatin environment. While C5‐methylcytosine is the cornerstone of plant and animal epigenetics and has been investigated in much detail, the epigenetic role of other methylated bases is less clear. The recent addition of N4‐methylcytosine of bacterial origin as a metazoan DNA modification highlights the prerequisites for foreign gene co‐option into the host regulatory networks, and challenges the existing paradigms concerning the origin and evolution of eukaryotic regulatory systems. (shrink)

Corporate governance (CG) can be seen to operate through a 'double agency' relationship: one between the shareholders and corporate management, and another between the corporate management and the firm's employees. The CG and labour management of firms are closely related. A particularly productive way to study how CG affects and is affected by the employment relationship has been to compare CG across countries. The contributions of this paper to that literature are threefold. (1) An integration of aspects of the labour (...) management literature in the CG debate. (2) Based on a sample of about 1000 firms from 31 countries, we find evidence of complementarities between the CG and the labour management of firms. Extreme cases, in general, outperform mixed cases. (3) Firm differences within countries are more important than scholars have assumed so far. We present the results of the study and implications for future research and for practice. (shrink)

Corporate governance (CG) can be seen to operate through a ‘double agency’ relationship: one between the shareholders and corporate management, and another between the corporate management and the firm's employees. The CG and labour management of firms are closely related. A particularly productive way to study how CG affects and is affected by the employment relationship has been to compare CG across countries. The contributions of this paper to that literature are threefold. (1) An integration of aspects of the labour (...) management literature in the CG debate. (2) Based on a sample of about 1000 firms from 31 countries, we find evidence of complementarities between the CG and the labour management of firms. Extreme cases, in general, outperform mixed cases. (3) Firm differences within countries are more important than scholars have assumed so far. We present the results of the study and implications for future research and for practice. (shrink)

En este trabajo se defiende la existencia de un lugar específico para las decisiones de política educativa. Las decisiones de política educativa se presentan como un tipo de decisión ubicado entre la decisión técnica y la decisión moral. La racionalidad política, situada entre la racionalidad moral y la racionalidad científico-tecnológica, tiene una especial relevancia en el ámbito de la educación. Las decisiones de política educativa que no se confunden con la teoría interpretativa denominada Política de la Educación, ni con la (...) teoría práctica denominada Política Pedagógica, usan el conocimiento de la educación. En el trabajo se analiza con detenimiento la posibilidad de los hechos y las decisiones pedagógicas. El carácter axiológico de los hechos hace posible hablar de la orientación de la acción con fundamento en el conocimiento del propio proceso. Se mantiene que la decisión técnica es específica de la Pedagogía y su techo superior es el ámbito de la decisión moral. A su vez, las decisiones de política educativa se estudian en su especificidad y se concluye que los dos grandes errores en la polémica "ciencia-moral-política" son el reduccionismo del proceso al ciencismo o la subsunción de toda decisión en la decisión moral. El trabajo concluye que las peculiaridades de la decisión de política educativa, obligan a considerar que las finalidades no son criterios de decisión externos al sistema, sino constantes aceptadas provisionalmente en los procesos de planificación. Esta posición va más allá del esquema causal medios-fines y de la concepción taylorista de la organización, para defender frente a las largas cadenas de derivación de fines la formación de subsistemas de toma de decisiones. /// This article is engaged in upholding the appropiate place for decisions in Educational Politics and Policy. All that inside the knowledge of Education. Political decision making in the educational arena has got a place between technical decisions and moral decisions. That one has increasedy its relevance in educational forum. On the other point of view, this kind of decision must mot be understood as a result of the discipline "Politics of Education" or as a consequence of practical theories which are known like "Politica Pedag6gica" (Pedagogy into Politics). Decisions in educational policy are applied knowledge of Education but they are not made only with pedagogical facts and technical decisions. It's posible to think of technical decisions as the ones which come not only from the process, but from the knowledge of the process in its own. Pedagogy as a discipline of education let you make technical decisions. Upper these ones, we find the moral decision. To study the special characteristics of political decisions shows two bigs mistakes into the controversy "Science-Moral-Politics": scientism and moral subsunction of Political decision in that. In the last pages, this work goes beyond the causal relation between "means-ends". The authors suggest, for the field of goals, to make subsystem levels for decision making, in stead of using the taylorist model in order to organize several stages of goals. (shrink)

La educación es un ámbito de realidad susceptible de ser conocido. En el conocimiento de la educación se utilizan actualmente, teorías filosóficas, teorias prácticas, investigaciones aplicadas y se han generado ya términos propios con significación intrínseca a la educación. El conocimiento de la educación ha crecido a través dei tiempo. Se ha convertido en un conocimiento especializado. En este trabajo se aborda la distinción entre los conocimientos especializados de cada área cultural que se enseña y el conocimiento específico dei estúdio (...) de la educación como objeto de conocimiento. Además, se estudian diversos modelos de evolución dei conocimiento de la educación, enfatizando el interés y utilidad dei modelo de crecimiento. El trabajo insiste en la importancia del estudio de la relación teoría-práctica para obtener el conocimiento especializado y específico de la educación: el conocimiento pedagógico. Por último se establece una relación entre significación y conocimiento de la educación por medio de la capacidad de resolución de problemas para la intervención, y se debate su estructura y utilidad para la intervención a través de la relación teoría-práctica en cada mentalidad pedagógica (marginal, subalternada y autónoma). /// Education is a real area that people can know in a differents ways. Several types of knowledge and rationality are usefull for making knowledge of education. Philosophical theories, Practical theories, Applied research, let them built it. Even more, Knowledge of education has already made particular and specific concepts. Along the historical events, knowledge of education has grown. Actualy this knowledge is a specialized and specific one. Discusion wether education is a discipline, as Fisics or History has been not closed yet. This article set the state of art in that question in a different position: every way of getting knowledge of education has the same posibility for problem solving in pedagogical intervention? what kind of relation are there among the three following items: theory-practice conection; knowledge of education; pedagogic intervention?. This study stablish differences between knowledge of education and knowledge of disciplines which are used in teaching process. Besides, it enphasizes and upholds the "Educational Knowledge Growth Model". The second half of this work is carrying on to explain the different possibilities that each type of Knowledge of Education has in order to solve the problems which arise in the pedagogical intervention. All that has been maden by focussing the discussion about the theory-practice conection in three differents pedagogical mentalitys (Weltanschaaung or backgrounds): marginal, subalternated and autonomons one. (shrink)

Norms have been widely enacted in human and agent societies to regulate individuals’ actions. However, although legislators may have ethics in mind when establishing norms, moral values are only sometimes explicitly considered. This paper advances the state of the art by providing a method for selecting the norms to enact within a society that best aligns with the moral values of such a society. Our approach to aligning norms and values is grounded in the ethics literature. Specifically, from the literature’s (...) study of the relations between norms, actions, and values, we formally define how actions and values relate through the so-called value judgment function and how norms and values relate through the so-called norm promotion function. We show that both functions provide the means to compute value alignment for a set of norms. Moreover, we detail how to cast our decision-making problem as an optimisation problem: finding the norms that maximise value alignment. We also show how to solve our problem using off-the-shelf optimisation tools. Finally, we illustrate our approach with a specific case study on the European Value Study. (shrink)

Children with complex communication needs (CCN) regularly have barriers to express and discuss emotions, and have fewer opportunities to participate in emotional conversations. The study explores and analyzes the changes after a training program focused on offering an interactive home learning environment that encouraged and modeled emotion-related conversations between a parent and a child with CCN within storybook-reading contexts. An observational design (nomothetic/follow-up/multidimensional) was used to explore and analyze the changes in the communicative interaction around emotions between mother-child. Augmentative and (...) alternative communication (AAC) technologies were used to provide the child access to emotion-related vocabulary. The training program resulted in the mother providing more opportunities to engage her child in emotional conversations, suggesting that when opportunities and resources to talk about emotions were promoted, the child showed more engagement in emotion-related conversations using his AAC system. The mother–child communicative patterns and behavioral relationships observed during the phases are also presented. This case study illustrates the importance of a primary communication partners’ role in facilitating emotional conversations, and the promising efficacy of a training program implemented in a storybook interactive learning environment to promote conversations about emotion-related events while encouraging children with CCN to learn, explore, express, and discuss emotions. (shrink)

La primera parte de este artículo expone la interpretación praxeológica del concepto noológico de “acto”. En la segunda, se muestra la crítica que Antonio González Fernández hace de esta. Su objeción consiste en que los actos no pueden ser considerados cosas reales, sino solo el surgir de estas. A partir de dicha observación a la noología, González Fernández no solo da surgimiento a su praxeología (también conocida como hiparqueología), sino que su sistema filosófico comienza a ser cuestionado por no explicar (...) qué son, en el mundo de los hechos, los actos, más allá de la suposición de que ellos están ahí a pesar de ser invisibles. En la tercera y última sección se presentan algunas hipótesis para procurar solucionar ciertas objeciones al concepto praxeológico de “acto”, tales como el anteriormente mencionado y las aparentes circularidades y posibles contradicciones que hay al interior del sistema praxeológico. (shrink)

Several studies have explored differences between North American and European doctor patient relationships. They have focused primarily on differences in philosophical traditions and historic and socioeconomic factors between these two regions that might lead to differences in behaviour, as well as divergent concepts in and justifications of medical practice. However, few empirical intercultural studies have been carried out to identify in practice these cultural differences. This lack of standard comparative empirical studies led us to compare differences between France and the (...) USA regarding end-of-life decision-making. We tested certain assertions put forward by bioethicists concerning the impact of culture on the acceptance of advance directives in such decisions. In particular, we compared North American and French intensive care professional's attitudes toward: (1) advance directives, and (2) the role of the family in decisions to withhold or withdraw life-support. (shrink)

I. WINCHESTER and K. BLACKWELL (eds.), Antinomies and paradoxes. Studies in Russell's early philosophy. Hamilton, Ontario: McMaster University Library Press, 1989. 248 pp. No price stated.

This chapter is a discussion of Class and Resemblance Nominalism. According to the traditional versions of these theories, properties are classes of particulars. Thus, the property of being red is the class of red particulars, and the property of being square is the class of square particulars. Several objections have been advanced against these theories, and one of the most powerful of such objections is the so-called Coextension Difficulty, according to which Class and Resemblance Nominalism have to wrongly identify distinct (...) but coextensive properties. After discussing the nature of Class and Resemblance Nominalism, some problems of these theories and how they can be deal with, the superiority of Class and Resemblance Nominalism over other theories of properties and the superiority of Resemblance Nominalism over Class Nominalism, I concentrate on the Coextension Difficulty. With respect to this I argue that Class and Resemblance Nominalism can be developed in such a way that they admit properties without identifying them with classes, and this allows them to avoid the Coextension Difficulty, since such versions of these theories are not forced to wrongly identify distinct but coextensive properties. Thus the Coextension Difficulty is not a lethal problem for Class and Resemblance Nominalism. (shrink)

In this article I try to show the philosophical continuity of Russell's ideas from his paradox of classes to Principia mathematica. With this purpose, I display the main results (descriptions, substitutions and types) as moments of the same development, whose principal goal was (as in his The principles) to look for a set of primitive ideas and propositions giving an account of all mathematics in logical terms, but now avoiding paradoxes. The sole way to reconstruct this central period in Russell (...) is to resort to unpublished manuscripts, which show the publications of these years to be the extremities of one same iceberg. Thus the logical problems (doubts about propositions, matrices and functions) are parallel to the ontological (the searching for genuine logical subjects) and methodological ones (the status of eliminative reduction). Paradoxes were the cause that the kind of (constructive) definition already applied by Russell, as an inheritance of Moorean analysis, obtained a new trait: ontological elimination, which, beginning with a ?no classes theory? and the theory of descriptions, led to a new theory of judgment (already present in manuscripts from 1906), ?incomplete symbols, and logical constructions. (shrink)

Sociotype is a concept that allows a more comprehensive understanding about biosociology of undiagnosed rare diseases (URD). Sociotype is related to a genotype and a phenotype and it is an expression of the individual life world in society. In this paper, semiotic and hermeneutic analysis of papers published and selected about URD is developed. Te perspective followed in this research is aligned with the works of Barbieri and Peirce. Papers with the most social content have been selected and those with (...) a more biomedical content have been rejected. Te semiotics analysis has been divided in genotypic, phenotypic and sociotypic, and related to the hermeneutical perspective. It has been possible to understand the basis of semiotics elements of URD. Te general conclusion is that URD is a particular sociotype with a determined set of social characteristics. Tis paper opens research on the biosemiotic and hermeneutic perspective about URD. (shrink)

Historians and philosophers of science generally conceptualize scientific progress to be dichotomous, viz., experimental observations lead to scientific laws, which later facilitate the elaboration of explanatory theories. There is considerable controversy in the literature with respect to Mendeleev’s contribution to the origin, nature, and development of the periodic table. The objectives of this study are to explore and reconstruct: a) periodicity in the periodic table as a function of atomic theory; b) role of predictions in scientific theories and its implications (...) for the periodic table; and c) Mendeleev’s contribution: theory or an empirical law? The reconstruction shows that despite Mendeleev’s own ambivalence, periodicity of properties of chemical elements in the periodic table can be attributed to the atomic theory. It is argued that based on the Lakatosian framework, predictions play an important role in the development of scientific theories. In this context, Mendeleev’s predictions played a crucial role in the development of the periodic table. Finally, it is concluded that Mendeleev’s contribution can be considered as an “interpretative” theory which became “explanatory” after the periodic table was based on atomic numbers.Author Keywords: Periodic table; Mendeleev’s contribution; Theory; Empirical law; Interpretative theory. (shrink)

La «démythologisation» est une herméneutique philosophique forgée par Hans Jonas au début de son itinéraire intellectuel, afin d'interpréter existentiellement les récits mythologiques ainsi que les textes théologiques et philosophiques de l’Antiquité tardive. Il s’agissait d’abord d’une méthodologie d’objectivation et subjectivation pour comprendre l’expérience existentielle de l’homme gnostique face à la divinité et l’être dans le monde. Dans la suite, Jonas a développé l’herméneutique de la démythologisation par l’objectivation et la subjectivation par rapport aux textes néotestamentaires. Le mot démythologisation (Entmythologisierung) est (...) utilisé par lui pour la première fois en 1930 dans une étude philosophique, «Sur la structure herméneutique du dogme», pour comprendre le problème existentiel de la liberté chrétienne. Quelques années plus tard, il a développé une phénoménologie herméneutique, également par l’objectivation et la subjectivation, afin de comprendre l’être vivant et la particularité de l’homme dans la nature. Entre-temps, Hans Jonas a aussi utilisé l’herméneutique de la démythologisation par l’objectivation et la subjectivation pour critiquer la philosophie de Martin Heidegger et la théologie de Rudolf Bultmann dans plusieurs articles philosophiques par rapport au gnosticisme, à la théologie et à la démythologisation bultmannienne, ainsi que pour rédiger Le Concept de Dieu après Auschwitz. (shrink)

This book deals with the topic that has been understudied of what Bioethics of Displacement is and what are their implications, subverting the anthropocentric moral view for the resulting loving, knowing and experiencing from the displaced ones, those who have lost their center and offering a case study from the Salvadorian humanitarian crises that will shed a new light on how political decision-making works.

Sophists were active participants in ancient discussions about being or what-is at the most general level. This chapter discusses the contributions of Gorgias, Protagoras, Xeniades, and Lycophron in the context of the Eleatic philosophers Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus. All of these figures share a serious commitment to ontological inquiry as well as a concern with the problems that arise when discussing being or what-is. They also share an approach to these problems that is at times paradoxical and self-undermining. -/- The (...) chapter begins with a brief discussion of Parmenides’ poem, a work that serves as an important backdrop for later ontology. It then covers Gorgias’ On Not-Being, a response to the Eleatics and a unique contribution in its own right. Gorgias’ work is then compared with that of Zeno and Melissus. Finally, the more limited evidence we have of Protagoras, Xeniades, and Lycophron’s ontological theorizing is discussed. (shrink)