This article analyzes a deliberative forum on nanotechnologies, organized in Portugal within the scope of the research project DEEPEN—Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies. This event included scientists, science communicators and members of the “lay public”, and resulted in a position document which summarizes collective aspirations and concerns related to nano. Drawing upon our previous experience with focus groups on nanotechnologies—characterized by methodological innovations that aimed at suspending epistemological inequalities between participants—this paper delves into the performativity of the (...) deliberative event, exploring some of the tensions and power/knowledge asymmetries generated by the forum. Recognizing that the design of participatory assemblages matters, we reflect on our role as facilitators and explore the difficulties in organizing exercises of upstream engagement with emerging technologies. (shrink)

The concept of assisted death includes a heterogeneous variety of practices, whose common denominator is to guarantee citizens their right to participate in decisions related to their own death process, to make it as consistent with their preferences as possible. It’s one of the most controversial and discussed topics in recent decades, both in the academic field and in public opinion. This paper examines the two main justifications for its legalization: to guarantee individual autonomy as in other areas of life, (...) and to avoid unnecessary suffering to the dying. It will be argued that, although both are related and both tie the ethics of care with the autonomy of the subject, the justification for autonomy is stronger and resists better the objections of those opposed to the legalization of this right. (shrink)

During the last few decades we have witnessed a proliferation of exercises dealing with the public participation of citizens in various different dimensions of their societies, including issues of science and technology. On the one hand, these mechanisms provide more robust forms of public engagement with matters that were traditionally dealt with by experts; on the other hand, they raise concerns relating to their design, efficiency or potential for the empowerment of citizens. As part of the EC-funded project DEEPEN (Deepening (...) Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies) a research team in Coimbra, Portugal, was put in charge of identifying the ethical and social “impacts” of emerging nanotechnologies, transforming the traditional focus groups through the incorporation of two methodological innovations: the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the Theatre of the Oppressed. This article reflects on the outcomes and complexities of the introduction of these two methodologies. Since the participants had little or no information on nanotechnologies, we reflect on the politics of these focus groups by exploring how issues of intervention, subjectivity, representation and agency were interconnected during this exercise of public participation in Science and Technology, analyzing the role of social sciences in developing nanoethics. (shrink)

Vico e Wittgenstein apresentam concepções diferentes a respeito da relação entre linguagem e mundo. Essa diferença resulta no modo como julgam a possibilidade da ética ser tratada dentro da linguagem, portanto, de possuir sentido. Enquanto Wittgenstein, no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, apresenta uma concepção da relação linguagem-mundo pautada no isomorfismo da forma lógica das sentenças com a forma lógica dos fatos, Vico, na Ciência Nova, a concebe por meio das experiências e condições de existência humanas, na qual a linguagem diz do mundo (...) através de relações metafóricas que estabelecem ligações entre o diverso. Por conta disso, o primeiro julga que sentenças éticas seriam desprovidas de sentido, pois não refletem a forma lógica de fato algum. Já o segundo, ao notar que elementos como as fábulas contribuem para dispor os homens favoravelmente para a vida civil, julga que cumprem efetivamente uma função ética. (shrink)

Comentaremos neste trabalho sobre o ecossistema do Círio de Nazaré, com base na Teoria dos Sistemas Complexos, para isso utilizarei quatro autores relevantes, Edgar Morin (2018), Ettore Bresciani Filho (2008), Eunice Quilici Gonzalez (1998) e Michael Debrun (1998), sobre os conceitos de sistemas, sistemas complexos, organização, auto-organização e atratores. No livro Introdução ao Pensamento Complexo de Edgar Morin (2008), o autor discute as noções de complexidade, sistemas, organização e auto-organização. Trabalharemos os primeiros capítulos do livro, utilizando-o como base para explicar (...) o ecossistema que ocorre no Círio de Nazaré. Mostraremos a complexidade em relação ao feedback e à desordem que surgem durante a jornada como atratores, fatores intrínsecos do fenômeno da autoorganização. (shrink)

The aim of this research is to analyze the effects of innovation strategies, Total Quality Management dimensions, and internationalization strategies that Higher Education Institutions might adopt, and their effects on their organizational performance. Due to globalization and the constant changes and demands that have taken place today, HEIs are forced to seek new quality assurance instruments in higher education, to ensure greater competitiveness in the markets and their survival. To examine the association between the independent variables, namely, TQM dimensions, innovation (...) strategies, and internationalization strategies with the dependent variable, that is organizational performance of HEIs, we have chosen to use multiple linear regression analysis. A nine-predictor multiple linear regression model was proposed. The nine predictor variables are Communication, Involvement/teacher empowerment, Development/Teacher training, Continuous improvement, Leadership/Administration’s Commitment, Data analysis/Measurement of results, Focus on students, Innovation Strategies, and Internationalization strategy. We conclude that some TQM variables have a significant association with the organizational performance of HEIs, namely, Involvement/teacher empowerment, and Development/teacher training. On the other hand, also the Innovation strategies and Internationalization strategy have a significant association with the organizational performance of HEIs. This research is of enormous importance for the study of HEIs, considering their role in the development of any country and its impact on society as creators of knowledge and science. Since these institutions increasingly must deal with extremely competitive market environments, knowledge of the factors that can assist in increasing the organizational performance of HEIs is of great relevance. (shrink)

A expressão “o Messias sou eu” aplica-se à relação ética como primeiro acontecer do messias. Subjetividade mesma do sujeito. Através de comentários rabínicos do Talmude, Lévinas traz uma hermenêutica que faz recurso à ética como proximidade e responsabilidade inalienável e insubstituível por outrem. Nesse sentido, as noções hebraicas de messianismo e dizer profético , lidas no midraxe da hermenêutica rabínica, permitem avançar na ideia da linguagem religiosa em seu sentido original: ética. Tais noções habitam uma ordem metafórica que permite ao (...) pensamento desdizer-se e a querer dizer outramente. Nos comentários do Talmude não há lugar para o entusiasmo religioso ou para o arrebatamento de uma experiência mística, mas hermenêutica rigorosa e ininterrupta à procura de sentido que está sempre mais além. Tal maneira de ler a experiência religiosa abandona o sagrado numinoso para se chegar à transcendência como ética. Trata-se do pensamento marcado pela experiência do homem refém de todos os outros. Esse homem é necessário aos outros homens, visto que, sem ele, a moral não começaria em parte alguma. É homem messiânico contemporâneo, eleito e profético. Em Lévinas, o Messias sou eu . Palavras-chave : Hermenêutica. Religião. Ética. Messias.The expression "I am the messiah" applies to the ethical relationship as the first task of the messiah: the subjectivity of the own subject. Through rabbinic commentaries from the Talmud, Levinas brings us a hermeneutic that understands ethics as proximity and responsibility, irreplaceable and inalienable by others. In this sense, the Hebrew notions of messianism and prophetic words, taken from the midrash within the rabbinic hermeneutics, allow us to advance on the idea of religious language in its original sense: ethics. Such notions are metaphors that take the thought to reveal itself in other ways. In the comments of the Talmud there is no place for religious enthusiasm or for any sort of rapture of mystical nature. But, there is indeed, a place for a rigorous hermeneutic that it is in permanent search for a kind of meaning that is always beyond. This way of understanding the religious experience leaves the sacred numinous and understands transcendence as ethics. In this sense the thought appears marked by the experience of the man who is seen as hostage to each other. This man is necessary to the other man, since without him the moral would never start anywhere. Within Levinas perspective, ‘I am’ this contemporary and elected messiah. Keywords : Hermeneutic. Religion. Etic. Messiah. (shrink)

The hypothalamus is a specialized area in the brain that integrates the control of energy homeostasis. More than 70 years ago, it was proposed that the central nervous system sensed circulating levels of metabolites such as glucose, lipids and amino acids and modified feeding according to the levels of those molecules. This led to the formulation of the Glucostatic, Lipostatic and Aminostatic Hypotheses. It has taken almost that much time to demonstrate that circulating long‐chain fatty acids act as signals of (...) nutrient surplus in the hypothalamus. Moreover, pharmacological and/or genetic inhibition of fatty acid synthase, AMP‐activated protein kinase and carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 results in profound decrease in feeding and body weight in rodents. The molecular mechanism behind these actions depends on changes in the cellular pool of malonyl‐CoA and fatty acyl‐CoAs. Current evidence also suggests that this pathway may play a major role in the physiological regulation of feeding, by integrating hormonal and nutrient‐derived signals in the hypothalamus. Here, we summarize what is known about hypothalamic fatty acid metabolism and feeding control and provide future directions for research. Understanding these molecular mechanisms could provide new targets for the treatment of obesity and related disorders. BioEssays 29: 248–261, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

O presente ensaio pretende analisar o Cooperativismo Educacional no estado de São Paulo, em suas formas institucionais, agora voltados para a organização escolar a partir de 1980. O cooperativismo educacional ocupou um lugar de destaque, com um discurso aparentemente renovador, pois tanto pretendia formar o indivíduo integralmente, afirmando superar a ética da competição pela ética da cooperação, de modo a superar a tradição administrativa hierárquica da escola pública e privada e, apresentar, inclusive, supondo desencadear disposições políticas emancipatórias para todos os (...) envolvidos no processo de ensino aprendizagem. Tendo como referencial teórico Dermeval Saviani, na análise da organização da escola e os pressupostos filosóficos e políticos dessa trajetória, e de Antonio Gramsci, ao relacionar as transformações do trabalho e a questão da educação, pretendemos descrever a expansão do cooperativismo educacional e analisar os seus princípios pedagógicos, organizacionais e políticos. This essay aims to analyze the Cooperative Education in São Paulo in its institutional forms, now facing the school organization since 1980. The cooperative education occupied a prominent place, with a refreshing speech apparently because both wanted to form the whole person, claiming to overcome the ethics of competition for the ethics of cooperation, in order to overcome the administrative tradition of hierarchical public and private schools, and provide even emancipatory political arrangements for all involved in teaching and learning. The theoretical framework Dermeval Saviani, the analysis of school organization and the philosophical and political assumptions that trajectory, and Antonio Gramsci, to relate changes in work and the issue of education, we intend to describe the expansion of cooperative education and analyze the pedagogical principles , organizational and political. (shrink)

O consagrado livro de Benedito Nunes sobre Clarice Lispector, cuja versão definitiva (e expandida) foi publicada em 1989, teve duas edições anteriores: a primeira publicada em 1966, com o título de O mundo de Clarice Lispector, e a segunda em 1973, intitulada Uma leitura de Clarice Lispector. A primeira versão, de 1966 chamou a atenção do filósofo Vilém Flusser, que escreveu e publicou no Suplemento Literário do Estado de São Paulo, em sua edição de 25/06/1966, uma entusiasmada resenha sobre (...) o livro, na qual transparece o reconhecimento, por Flusser, de sua tese da proximidade possível entre a filosofia analítica da linguagem e o pensamento existencial. Nessa resenha, o filósofo tcheco-brasileiro avalia a contribuição de Nunes e de Lispector importante em nível mundial, declarando a necessidade de que a obra do filósofo belenense fosse traduzida para outros idiomas, de modo a alcançar um público mais amplo. (shrink)

El artista menorquín Pascual Calbó Caldés, autor de una enciclopedia científica que ha llegado hasta nosotros con el nombre de Obras didácticas, pintó en el salón de la Casa Vidal una cenefa en la que aparecen representaciones alegóricas de la escultura, pintura, arquitectura, astronomía, música, literatura, matemáticas y agricultura. En este artículo mostramos algunos detalles relativos a las alegorías de las matemáticas y la astronomía que pueden escapar al ojo del observador común. Palabras clave: Pascual Calbó, Matemáticas, Pintura, Menorca, (...) Siglo XVIII. ABSTRACT The artist from Menorca Pascual Calbó Caldés, author of a scientific encyclopedia which has been preserved under the title of Obras didácticas, painted in the living room of the Casa Vidal a frieze in which we can find allegorical representations of sculpture, painting, architecture, music, literature, mathematics and agriculture. In this paper, we present some details regarding the allegories of mathematics and astronomy that may scape the eye of the common observer. Keywords: Pascual Calbó, Mathematics, Painting, Minorca, 18th century. (shrink)

To begin with -- Genealogy of the cerebral subject -- Disciplines of the neuro -- Cerebralizing distress -- Brains on screen and paper -- Up for grabs.

En este artículo me propongo abordar el problema del tiempo en las sociedades contemporáneas desde un diálogo entre las construcciones teóricas de Moishe Postone y Hartmut Rosa y el trabajo de Michel Foucault. Los dos primeros se han centrado en explicar cómo la temporalidad se ha convertido en un tipo de dominación abstracta, impersonal y cuasiobjetiva a partir de conceptos como la densificación temporal, la aceleración o la hibridación. Foucault, en cambio, concibe el tiempo bajo el prisma de la racionalidad (...) política neoliberal, por la cual el tiempo pasa a ser un recurso que debe gestionarse por los sujetos en términos empresariales y que termina por configurar una ética neoliberal de la administración del tiempo. Este diálogo ejemplifica de manera privilegiada la tensión entre la coacción o la presión temporal y la administración estratégica del tiempo propia de las sociedades contemporáneas. (shrink)

The paper presents and discusses an example, namely a version of heterogeneous frrst-order logic and uses the classical theorem of Herbrand-Schmidt-Wang about the reduction of heterogeneous first-order logic to homogeneous first-order logic, in order to obtain two transformations between heterogeneous and homogeneous frrst-order logic which are different from the institution morphisms defined by Goguen and Burstall. Moreover, by considering a type of 2-cell among institution morphisms it is obtained a 2-category and also a 2-functor from this to another 2-category.

ResumenEn este artículo se presenta el pensamiento de Hamann en dos aspectos principales. Por una parte, se analiza su relación crítica con el movimiento ilustrado (entendido como discurso dominante en su época) y se destaca su relación con Kant. Por otra parte, se investigan las líneas fundamentales de su concepción del lenguaje, considerada como un núcleo básico de su crítica a la Ilustración. La identificación entre razón y lenguaje permite considerar a Hamann más como un ilustrado radical que como un (...) irracionalista, al tiempo que lo convierte en iniciador de un «giro lingüístico y hermenéutico» en el siglo XVIII.Palabras claveHamann, Ilustración, Filosofía del lenguaje, racionalidadAbstractHamann’s thought is presented in this paper through two main aspects. On the one hand, we analyze his connexion with the Enlightenment –which is understood as the dominant discourse of his time– together with his relationship with Kant. On the other hand, we study the basic trends of his conception of language, considered as a basic nucleus of his critic to Enlightenment. The identification between reason and language makes us consider Hamman a radical man of the Enlightenment rather than an irrationalistic, as well as the founder of a “linguistic and hermeneutic turn” in the 18th century.KeywordsHamann, Enlightenment, Philosophy of language, rationality. (shrink)

The development of Information and Communication Technologies has favored access to technological resources in adolescents. These tools provide access to information that can promote learning. However, they can also have a negative effect against people, as they can be used with other functionality, in which cyberbullying situations are caused during the interactions that arise when using social networks. The objective of this study was to determine the predictive value of the role of cyberbullying victims based on variables related to other (...) roles involved in cyberbullying and bullying, as well as personal characteristics, contextual characteristics and positive teamwork habits.. Information was collected from 227 students of the educational stages of Primary Education and Secondary Education, aged between 11 and 15 years, in a city with a high index of cultural diversity. The step-by-step technique was used to build the regression model. The results indicate that the model has a good goodness of fit coefficient. The role of cyberbully is the most important predictive variable of the role of the victim in cyberbullying and, to a lesser extent, the role of the witness in cyberbullying, the role of the witness in bullying, and the role of the victim of bullying. The role of the bullying aggressor and the variables sex, age, type of educational center, and teamwork habits are excluded in the predictive model. (shrink)

Cet article fait une brève synthèse des difficultés de traduction dans le domaine de la santé telles qu'elles ont été mises en évidence dans deux publications du CRTT. Après avoir rapidement défini ce qu'il faut entendre aujourd'hui par mots de la santé, on tente de relever des points communs dans les résultats de la recherche des auteurs concernant les équivalences interlinguistiques dans le domaine de la médecine et la prise en compte des identités culturelles dans le processus de traduction des (...) mots de la santé.This article is a brief summary of translation problems in the field of health as they have been identified in two publications CRTT. After quickly defined what is meant by words today health, attempts to address commonalities in the results of the authors' research on interlingual equivalents in the field of medicine and taking into account cultural identities in the process of translating words health. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe social marketing campaign is a value-laden communicative process aiming to change individual behavior and public policy. Due to its normative nature and implications, this process has t...

This paper presents some modern and interdisciplinary concepts about creativity and creative processes specially related to problem solving. Central publications related to the theme are briefly reviewed. Creative tools and approaches suitable to support problem solving are also presented. Finally, the paper outlines the author’s experiences using creative tools and approaches to: Facilitation of problem solving processes, strategy development in organisations, design of optimisation systems for large scale and complex logistic systems, and creative design of software optimisation for complex non-linear (...) systems. (shrink)

AbstractIn this article, I examine the pedagogical practices of La Red de Semillas Libres de Colombia, a grassroots national organization that works towards the construction of seed sovereignty. Using participant observation and interviews, I show the epistemic, territorial, and gender dimensions of these practices. I draw from extant scholarship on seed struggles, decolonial feminism, and feminist political ecology to analyze two specific practices: experimentation and demonstration and, visual technology creation, including drawings. I demonstrate how these practices organize territories through collective (...) epistemic gendered labor around seeds. These territories are spaces for community-based power creation that have the potential to advance agrarian and environmental agendas from below. However, they also reflect and embody the enduring character of patriarchy and the challenges it presents to achieve systemic transformations in the Colombian countryside. (shrink)

The tensorial relativistic quantum mechanics in (1+1) dimensions is considered. Its kinematical and dynamical features are reviewed as well as the problem of finding the Dirac spinor for given finite multivectors. For stationary states, the dynamical tensorial equations, equivalent to the Dirac equation, are solved for a free particle, for a particle inside a box, and for a particle in a step potential.

Since the 19th century, and despite tremendous progress in science, the topic of 'brain and sex' remains a matter of misleading interpretations, far beyond the field of science. The media are not solely responsible for this situation. Some scientific circles still actively promote the ideology of biological determinism in their attempt to explain differences in behaviour and cognitive abilities between men and women. Experimental data from brain imaging studies, cognitive tests or the discovery of new genes are often distorted to (...) serve deterministic ideas. As biotechnologies and genetic engeneering represent today a new economic and lucrative challenge, the question of what is innate and what is acquired is becoming more and more significant, requiring vigilant scrutiny from us all. (shrink)

We prove, by using the concept of schematic interpretation, that the natural embedding from the category ISL, of intuitionistic sentential pretheories and i-congruence classes of morphisms, to the category CSL, of classical sentential pretheories and c-congruence classes of morphisms, has a left adjoint, which is related to the double negation interpretation of Gödel-Gentzen, and a right adjoint, which is related to the Law of Excluded Middle. Moreover, we prove that from the left to the right adjoint there is a pointwise (...) epimorphic natural transformation and that since the two endofunctors at CSL, obtained by adequately composing the aforementioned functors, are naturally isomorphic to the identity functor for CSL, the string of adjunctions constitutes an adjoint cylinder. On the other hand, we show that the operators of Lindenbaum-Tarski of formation of algebras from pretheories can be extended to equivalences of categories from the category CSL, respectively, ISL, to the category Bool, of Boolean algebras, respectively, Heyt, of Heyting algebras. Finally, we prove that the functor of regularization from Heyt to Bool has, in addition to its well-known right adjoint (that is, the canonical embedding of Bool into Heyt) a left adjoint, that from the left to the right adjoint there is a pointwise epimorphic natural transformation, and, finally, that such a string of adjunctions constitutes an adjoint cylinder. (shrink)

Collective memory is neither spontaneous nor random, but the result of a series of selective practices. It establishes group identity and sets power relations between groups. The author considers the process of selection through a case study of the transformation of Franco’s regime in Spain into a democracy. Collective memory of the time is shown to be organized around an event (the Munich Coalition or contubernio) and around the democratic transition. The author traces two opposing notions, negationist (denying any importance (...) to Munich) and the pro-democratic, and concludes that the memory of the transition is only the memory of those who won the civil war, who were also those who engineered the transition itself. (shrink)

There is an argument by M. Dummett about the relative priority of language as a social phenomenon. The first step is to explain how the speaker and the hearer have to know the same language, ceteris paribus. The second step is to show how the speaker's idiosyncratic beliefs depend on his knowledge of common language; the last step is to appeal to Quine's principle of translation between languages in order to have a language at all.

Jackson has ellaborated an argument to show that our experiences or qualitative states gather information which cannot be obtained in any other way. Functionalists reject in many ways that experience may bring new information. The point of this paper is to argue that, if func-tionalism is right, if experiences or "qualia" are not informative, then functionalism cannot report about them. The functionalist criticism of Jackson's argument makes it impossible for any functionalist theory to know experience.

This article deals with public manifestations of Catholic religious officials, members of the hierarchy and recognized laity, in the context of the discussion of the National Education Plan - PNE. The focus of the analysis is a condemnation of what they call "gender ideology", present in the proposal document. Such manifestations are the reaffirmation of a conception of human beings as subject to the inexorable "laws of nature" that determine a social order marked by the rigid distinction of roles assigned (...) to women and men. The texts published at the time reveal changes and continuities in the Catholic discourse in its reference to "nature", understood in its biological materiality, as an unswerving fact of human reality, consisting in two sexes must unite under the "natural order". Gender theories are blamed by family disintegration, for providing support to new understandings of humanity, no longer based on bipolarity: men / women. A non extensive dossier of these texts formed the basis for the proposed analyzes. (shrink)

Both scientific evidence and folklore have suggested that madness is associated with creativity, especially in the arts. Recently, more rigorous studies have confirmed to some extent these previous observations. The current view is that it is not severe and acute insanity that is related to heightened creativity, but the personality roots and soft manifestations of both schizophrenic and bipolar psychoses. The affective and cognitive peculiarities associated with schizotypic and hypomanic personalities may be preferentially related to different kinds of creative endeavours, (...) such as the sciences and arts, respectively. The connection between personality traits and creativity is produced because they share some biological-cognitive-personality features, such as cognitive disinhibition. Additionally, it has been shown that the genetic liability for both bipolar and schizophrenic psychoses is related to creativity. A prevailing hypothesis is that creativity may be one type of 'compensatory advantage' for those carrying the genes for psychosis. (shrink)

Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is defined as the conscious, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The greater the level of evidence the greater the grade of recommendation. This pioneering explicit concept of EBM is embedded in a particular view of medical practice namely the singular nature of the patient-physician relation and the commitment of the latter towards a specific goal: the treatment and the well being of his or her client. Nevertheless, (...) in many European countries as well as the United States, this integration of the best evidence from systematic research with clinical expertise and patient values appears to be re-interpreted in light of the scarcity of healthcare resources. The purpose of this paper is double. First, to claim that from an ethical perspective EBM should be a guideline to clinical practice; and second, that in specific circumstances EBM might be a useful tool in macro-allocation of healthcare resources. Methodologically the author follows Norman Daniels' theory of democratic accountability to justify this assumption. That is, choices in healthcare must be accountable by democratic procedures. This perspective of distributive justice is responsible for the scope and limits of healthcare services. It follows that particular entitlements to healthcare — namely expensive innovative treatments and medicines —may be fairly restricted as long as this decision is socially and democratically accountable and imposed by financial restrictions of the system. In conclusion, the implementation of EBM, as long as it limits the access to drugs and treatments of unproven scientific results is in accordance with this perspective. The use of EBM is regarded as an instrument to facilitate the access of all citizens to a reasonable level of healthcare and to promote the efficiency of the system. (shrink)

En este trabajo se reconstruye la idea de consenso en la filosofía de K. O. Apel. Partiendo del origen de este concepto en Ch. S. Peirce, fundador del pragmatismo americano, se muestra su papel de puente entre cuestiones filosóficas de tipo teórico y práctico. Esta es una de las razones por las que la idea de “consenso” ocupa un lugar central en el pensamiento del filósofo alemán This paper reconstructs the idea of “consensus” in K.-O. Apel´s philosophy. Starting from the (...) origin of this concept in Ch. S. Peirce, founder of American pragmatism, his role as bridge between theoretical and practical philosophical question is shown. This is one of the reasons why the idea of “consensus” occurs a central place in the thinking of the German philosopher. (shrink)