Since it implies a reduction in the quality and the quantity of the natural resources, environmental degradation is a present day problem that requires immediate solutions. This situation is driving firms to undertake an environmental transformation process with the purpose of reducing the negative externalities that come from their economic activities. Within this context, environmental marketing is an emerging business philosophy by which organizations can address sustainability issues. Moreover, environmental marketing and orientation are seen as valuable strategies to improve a (...) firm's competitiveness. However, the literature that has analyzed the link between environmental strategies and firms' results has been inconclusive and contradictory. In this study, we propose and test a model that analyses how the implementation of ecological issues within a firm's marketing strategy and orientation influences organizational results. Data were obtained through a survey sent to Spanish manufacturing firms. The results show that environmental marketing positively affects firms' operational and commercial performance and this improvement will influence their economic results. Moreover, environmental marketing is revealed as an excellent strategy to obtain competitive advantages in costs and in product differentiation. Thus, this study agrees with the researchers who affirm that environmental strategies positively affect firm's competitiveness while reducing environmental impact. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Filosofía y antropología: interconexiones reúne ensayos en donde ambas disciplinas dialogan sobre cuatro campos vertebrales: conocimiento, lenguaje, política-poder y cultura. Respecto al conocimiento, se articulan las relaciones históricas, sus hermenéuticas y problemas éticos comunes. -/- A propósito del lenguaje, se aborda la construcción simbólica de los artefactos, la pragmática y las implicaciones lógicas en la práctica antropológica. Sobre el poder, se muestran los problemas sobre el pluralismo político, el mal, las feminidades y la transexualidad. En torno a la cultura, se (...) desarrolla la relación entre la arqueología y la estética de la imagen, el sujeto postmetafísico y, finalmente, la revolución y confrontación de la fenomenología en filosofía y antropología. Todos estos temas, recurrentes y emergentes para la antropología, se enriquecen a la luz de los planteamientos filosóficos. -/- El título de este libro busca hacer evidente la relación (las interconexiones) entre dos regímenes de sentido, disciplinas, ciencias, formaciones discursivas y hasta tradiciones académicas que, si bien se distinguen, comparten, no obstante, una zona limítrofe llena de coincidencias. La mayoría de los ensayos aquí reunidos hacen hincapié en la ínter, trans o multidisciplina, en pos de sostener, ilustrar o justificar las interconexiones entre la antropología y la filosofía. -/- El presente volumen resalta estas interconexiones en cuatro áreas específicas: conocimiento, lenguaje, poder y cultura. Destacan tres tipos de interacción posible: 1) respecto de los objetos de estudio; 2) a propósito de los métodos de investigación; y, finalmente, 3) en lo que toca a las diferencias en términos institucionales, donde cada disciplina se distinguiría por el tipo de agregados sociales de profesionales que la integran. (shrink)

Resumen. En México, la mercadotecnia promocional se ha erigido como la segunda más grande inversión demercadotecnia, principalmente debido a que las compañías tienden con más frecuencia a subcontratar laresponsabilidad de los aspectos operativos de la mercadotecnia. Las empresas contratantes exigen cada vezmás la garantía de seguridad y certidumbre en la prestación de los servicios, por lo que la calidad de éste seha convertido en un factor determinante en la elección de una agencia de promociones. El presentedocumento técnico busca compartir un (...) caso de estudio relacionado a una empresa de promoción de ventasque enfrenta una alta tasa de deserción de clientes con su consecuente contracción en las ventas, pero quecontradictoriamente está inmersa en un mercado que tiene un crecimiento sostenido del 15 por ciento en losúltimos años. El problema fue abordado desde la perspectiva de la calidad en el servicio y la satisfacción delcliente a través de la aplicación de encuestas Servqual a algunos clientes de la compañía. Dichas encuestaspermitieron: identificar las dimensiones de calidad relevantes en el servicio, detectar las áreas de oportunidadentre el servicio esperado y el servicio real, y la elaboración de un plan de acción que posteriormente fuesistematizado e implementado. Los resultados muestran que la implementación del sistema de calidad redujola deserción de los clientes; además, se descubrió que las dimensiones de calidad del Servqual afectan enproporciones diferentes a la satisfacción del cliente.Palabras Claves. Calidad en el servicio, deserción de clientes, mercadotecnia promocional, promoción deventas, QFD, satisfacción del cliente, Servqual, sistema de calidad.. In Mexico, the promotional marketing has emerged as the second largest marketing investment,mainly because companies tend to outsource most often the operational aspects of marketing. Thosecompanies are increasingly demanding security and certainty in the delivery of services. As a consequence,service quality has become a determining factor in the election of a sales promotion agency. This technicalpaperwork shares a case study related to a sales promotion company facing high customer defection rate withits consequent contraction in sales, but ironically immersed in a market that has a sustained growth of 15 per cent in recent years. Approach of the problem was from quality service and customer satisfaction perspectivethrough the use of Servqual surveys applied to some customers. These surveys allowed: to identify relevantdimensions of quality service, to identify opportunities between the expected service and the actual service,and the development of an action plan which was later systematized and implemented. Results show that theimplementation of the quality system reduced customer desertion. Also, found that the quality dimensions of SERVQUAL affect customer satisfaction in different ways.Keywords. Customer defection, customer satisfaction, quality service, quality system, QFD, sales promotion,Servqual. (shrink)

Although many of the factors that may influence donation have been identified, the timing of the interview in which families are asked for their authorisations seems to be decisive. However, there are few studies that analyse this process when the interview takes place. Qualitative techniques such as Participant Observation could help to better understand this process. One of the most recurring arguments against carrying out this type of study is the difficulty in complying with all the ethical requirements for any (...) research as defined in biomedical research guidelines and committees. This article aims to contribute to a discussion on the ethical viability of conducting an in situ study on family interviewing and proposes a strategy for minimising possible risks in designing a study of these characteristics. (shrink)

Introduction: Physical distancing under the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic had a significant impact on lifestyles, including exercise routines. In this study, we examined the relationship between mental health and addictive behaviors, such as excessive exercise and the use of image and performance enhancing drugs across 12 sport disciplines.Materials and methods: A large cross-sectional sample of the adult population was surveyed. The mean age was 33.09. The number of male participants was 668. The use of IPEDs was assessed in conjunction with (...) psychometric measures such as the Exercise Addiction Inventory and the Appearance Anxiety Inventory. The participants were grouped into activity group and non-activity group according to the presence or absence of their exercise habits. The results were compared between these groups, as well as across sport disciplines, while taking into account the relationship between different psychological measures and IPEDs consumption.Results: The frequency of IPEDs use was higher among AG than NAG, although AG participants reported less history of addictions than NAG. The logistic regression analysis revealed that scores equal to or above cutoff points, in both the EAI and AAI, predicted the IPEDs use. Regarding the differences across the various sport disciplines, those who were involved in practicing Weight Lifting and Cross Fit were found to be more at risk of excessive exercising and more inclined to use a wide range of IPEDs.Conclusions: Although exercise could help to increase well-being and prevent addictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, our results show that those in the AG are particularly vulnerable to excessive IPEDs use. Sport disciplines associated with higher EAI and AAI scores have also shown a higher tendency to excessive IPEDs use. Furthermore, the factor of having above the cutoff scores in EAI or AAI in each sport could indicate larger IPEDs consumption regardless of the discipline. In light of the current findings, it is necessary to better define the “non-excessive” levels of exercise in various sport disciplines and an adequate intake of IPEDs to ensure the safety and well-being of people during a pandemic. (shrink)

Delusions are one of the most classical symptoms described in schizophrenia. However, despite delusions are often emotionally charged, they have been investigated using tasks involving non-affective material, such as the Beads task. In this study we compared 30 patients with schizophrenia experiencing delusions with 32 matched controls in their pattern of responses to two versions of the Beads task within a Bayesian framework. The two versions of the Beads task consisted of one emotional and one neutral, both with ratios of (...) beads of 60:40 and 80:20, considered, respectively, as the “difficult” and “easy” variants of the task. Results indicate that patients showed a greater deviation from the normative model, especially in the 60:40 ratio, suggesting that more inaccurate probability estimations are more likely to occur under uncertainty conditions. Additionally, both patients and controls showed a greater deviation in the emotional version of the task, providing evidence of a reasoning bias modulated by the content of the stimuli. Finally, a positive correlation between patients’ deviation and delusional symptomatology was found. Impairments in the 60:40 ratio with emotional content was related to the amount of disruption in life caused by delusions. These results contribute to the understanding of how cognitive mechanisms interact with characteristics of the task in the context of delusional thinking. These findings might be used to inform improved intervention programs in the domain of inferential reasoning. (shrink)

El desarrollo de la tecnología y de la inteligencia artificial provocan desde hace años preguntas éticas y antropológicas. La Suma Teológica de Santo Tomás permite categorizar términos tecnológicos y establecer ontologías en clave filosófica. Con esta metodología de la Suma se va a estudiar aquí el término “metaverso” y sus implicaciones éticas. El artículo aporta además una revisión sistemática de literatura científica para elaborar un mapa de conocimiento desde un punto de vista cualitativo y cuantitativo que visibilice el impacto de (...) esta terminología emergente en la investigación. (shrink)

El propósito, sistematizar la estrategia pedagógica de formación y evaluación de la investigación, orientada a estudiantes de pregrado vinculados a un semillero virtual, que conduce a la comunicación y divulgación académica-científica. Se utilizó una metodología cualitativa a partir del modelo para la sistematización de experiencias que describe cinco momentos (planeación; diseño; implementación; tutorización y seguimiento evaluativo). Demostró que la formación para la investigación requiere de la gestión del conocimiento aspectos relacionados con: personas, pedagogía, didáctica, recursos tecnológicos, procesos, técnicas e instrumentos (...) de evaluación alternativa y herramientas cognitivas, integradas a un entorno virtual de aprendizaje (EVA). Estos constituyen Indicadores de calidad. (shrink)

Eva María Rosa Martínez y David Martínez Rubio Facultad de Psicología, Magisterio y Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad Católica de … Read More →.

Eva María Rosa Martínez y David Martínez Rubio Facultad de Psicología, Magisterio y Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad Católica de … Read More →.

A partir de las deficiencias detectadas en la evaluación de los objetivos educativos en la asignatura Morfofisiología I de la carrera de Estomatología, determinadas en un estudio previo realizado en la Facultad de Estomatología de Camagüey, se diseñó una metodología para facilitar a los docentes indicadores que les permitan considerar los objetivos educativos dentro de la evaluación final de los estudiantes. Se incluyen etapas, procedimientos y pasos para la instrumentación de la misma. Se considera que la misma facilitará un juicio (...) de valor más objetivo respecto al cumplimiento de los objetivos educativos. Starting from the analysis of the difficulties found in the evaluation of the educative objectives of the subject Morphophysiology I in the dental career, the findings were taken from a previous study carried out in the dental faculty in Camagüey a methodology was designed to give teacher's parameters to include the educative objectives within the final evaluation of the students. Stages, procedures and steps have to be followed to put it into practice. Its implementation is considered to give a better judgment in the fulfillment of the educative objectives. (shrink)

The Blackwell Guide to Feminist Philosophy is a definitive introduction to the field, consisting of 15 newly-contributed essays that apply philosophical methods and approaches to feminist concerns. Offers a key view of the project of centering women’s experience. Includes topics such as feminism and pragmatism, lesbian philosophy, feminist epistemology, and women in the history of philosophy.

ABSTRACT Objective: To describe how local research ethics committees (LRECs) consider and apply research ethics in the evaluation of biomedical research proposals. Design: A qualitative study was conducted using purposeful sampling, focus groups and a grounded theory approach to generate data and to analyse the work of the LRECs. Setting and participants: 11 LRECs of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS). Results: LRECs considered ethics to be implicit in all types of research, but that ethics reviews were only necessary (...) for projects that included the direct participation of human beings. The LRECs appeared to understand the importance of consent, as in the completion of a consent form, but did not emphasise the importance of the process of acquiring ‘informed’ consent. The committees considered their main roles or functions to be: (a) to improve the methodological quality of research and to verify – if applicable – the ethical aspects; (b) to encourage personnel to undergo research training; (c) to follow‐up research to oversee the adherence to norms and compliance with a specified research timetable. Conclusions: This study provides a valuable insight into how these LRECs understand the ethical review process. The emphasis of the committees was on rules, regulations, improving research methodology and research training, rather than a focus on efforts to protect the rights and well being of research subjects. The results encourage further normative and descriptive lines of investigation concerning education and the development of LRECs. (shrink)

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), especially large language models (LLMs), has fueled debates on whether these technologies genuinely emulate human intelligence. Some view LLM architectures as capturing human language mechanisms, while others, from a posthumanist and a transhumanist perspective, herald the obsolescence of humans as the sole conceptualizers of life and nature. This paper challenges, from a practical philosophy of science perspective, such views by arguing that the reasoning behind equating GenAI with human intelligence, or proclaiming the “demise (...) of the human,” is flawed due to conceptual conflation and reductive definitions of humans as performance-driven semiotic systems deprived of agency. In opposing theories that reduce consciousness to computation or information integration, the present proposal posits that consciousness arises from the holistic integration of perception, conceptualization, intentional agency, and self-modeling within biological systems. Grounded in a model of Extended Humanism, I propose that human consciousness and agency are tied to biological embodiment and the agents’ experiential interactions with their environment. This underscores the distinction between pre-trained transformers as “posthuman agents” and humans as purposeful biological agents, which emphasizes the human capacity for biological adjustment and optimization. Consequently, proclamations about human obsolescence as conceptualizers are unfounded, as they fail to appreciate intrinsic consciousness-agency-embodiment connections. One of the main conclusions is that the capacity to integrate information does not amount to phenomenal consciousness as argued, for example, by Information Integration Theory (ITT). (shrink)

On 11 September 2019, the verdict was read in the first prosecution of a doctor for euthanasia since the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act of 2002 was installed in the Netherlands. The case concerned euthanasia on the basis of an advance euthanasia directive (AED) for a patient with severe dementia. In this paper we describe the review process for euthanasia cases in the Netherlands. Then we describe the case in detail, the judgement of the (...) Regional Review Committees for Termination of Life on Request and Euthanasia (RTE) and the judgement of the medical disciplinary court. Both the review committees and the disciplinary court came to the conclusion there were concerns with this case, which mainly hinged on the wording of the AED. They also addressed the lack of communication with the patient, the absence of oral confirmation of the wish to die and the fact that the euthanasia was performed without the patient being aware of this. However, the doctor was acquitted by the criminal court as the court found she had in fact met all due care criteria laid down in the act. We then describe what this judgement means for euthanasia in the Netherlands. It clarifies the power and reach of AEDs, it allows taking conversations with physicians and the testimony of the family into account when interpreting the AED. However, as a practical consequence the prosecution of this physician has led to fear among doctors about prosecution after euthanasia. (shrink)

La Constitución Española establece para la ciudadanía el derecho a las prestaciones de la Seguridad Social en su artículo 41 y el derecho a la protección de la salud en el artículo 43. Ambos derechos se garantizan mediante el desarrollo de sendos sistemas públicos, el de la Seguridad Social y el Nacional de Salud, que desde sus inicios hasta el momento actual han sido factores principales en la redistribución de la riqueza, la cohesión social y la eficacia productiva y social. (...) Las prestaciones de asistencia sanitaria, incluidas en la acción protectora de la Seguridad Social y, en su origen, financiadas con cargo a su presupuesto, adquirieron la extensión universal.…. (shrink)

A caring approach to knowledge production has been portrayed as epistemologically radical, ethically vital and as fostering continuous responsibility between researchers and research-subjects. This article examines these arguments through focusing on the ambivalent role of care within the first large-scale experimental beagle colony, a self-professed ‘beagle utopia’ at the University of California, Davis (1951–86). We argue that care was at the core of the beagle colony; the lived environment was re-shaped in response to animals ‘speaking back’ to researchers, and ‘love’ (...) and ‘kindness’ were important considerations during staff recruitment. Ultimately, however, we show that care relations were used to manufacture compliancy, preventing the predetermined ends of the experiment from being troubled. Rather than suggesting Davis would have been less ethically troubling, or more epistemologically radical, with ‘better’ care, however, we suggest the case troubles existing care theory and argue that greater attention needs to be paid to histories, contexts, and exclusions. (shrink)

This qualitative case study examines early career social studies educators’ knowledge of the role of emotion in teaching and learning. More specifically, we examine how our efforts to expand social studies educators’ understanding of emotion, shifted their perception of the role of emotion in learning social studies content and how they can use this knowledge to plan instruction. Prior to beginning their “emotion education,” all participants described the role of emotion in teaching and learning as important for relationship-building and as (...) something to be carefully managed. They focused their efforts in the classroom on creating a welcoming environment for their students and managing their students’ emotions. Though they described their classrooms as emotional spaces, none had explicitly considered the role of emotion in learning content.As they learned about the role of emotion in cognitive processes like memory and problem-solving, participants began to recognize the need to rethink their pedagogical choices. However, none of the participants embraced or accepted an expanded view of emotions as social and political forces. Reluctant to consider how emotions shape our identities, our communities and our politics, these social studies educators did not meaningfully engage in a critical examination of how social studies curriculum can contribute to “schooling” students’ emotions. Findings from this initial study suggest it is important to engage social studies educators in critical awareness of their own emotions and critical examination of what emotions “do” in the world and how the social studies content we teach can contribute to the “schooling” of our students’ emotions. (shrink)

This article tries to display some of the postulations that the German psychologist Rudolf Arnheim sketched out in his 1959 text Form and the consumer. It’s sustained that these postulations conclude that the artistic form is widely implicated in the confrontation of culture and a particular time, so if a crisis in form is to be taken as true, what is to come is an epochal twilight produced by a destabilization in its sense. Throughout this writing, the idea of a (...) crisis in culture is to be confronted with the apparent symbolic crisis of art, examining the consequent question about the loss of a narrative in the work of art. (shrink)

The ethical frameworks of consequentialism and formalism predict moral awareness and behavior in individuals, but current measures either do not treat these frameworks as independent or lack sufficient theoretical underpinnings and statistical dependability. This paper presents the development and validation of a new scale to measure consequentialism and formalism that is well grounded in prior research. The Ethical Standards of Judgement Questionnaire is validated via six studies. Measurement items are developed in the first three studies, which also confirm the need (...) to eliminate a unidimensional measure and evaluate these frameworks separately. The fourth study addresses discriminant validity and the two remaining studies provide insight into how consequentialism and formalism predict the degree to which behaviors are deemed acceptable by individuals in the context of consumer beliefs and religious beliefs. Suggested uses for the scale in both academia and organizations are presented. (shrink)

La telenovela es un género dramático y visual, de gran popularidad en países de habla hispana y con una audiencia en amplio crecimiento en otros como Estados Unidos. A pesar del enorme mercado televisivo, y del reconocimiento mediático de sus actores, las producciones de telenovela han sido objeto de una crítica condescendiente y paternalista por muchos académicos, quienes las restringen o bien a ser meros instrumentos para adoctrinar a la sociedad a escapar de sus problemas y conformarse con sus circunstancias (...) vitales, o a ser acompañamientos del ocio femenino y diversión de la clase más popular y trabajadora. No obstante, críticos menos reduccionistas como Trejo Silva, Martínez Zarandona, Guerra, Martín Barbero o Tufte han señalado el efecto transformador y educativo de su temática más reciente, centrándose especialmente en el cambio producido en la evolución de los personajes y las situaciones. "Por ella soy Eva" (mejor telenovela de 2013 por los premios TVyNovela de México), ilustra nuevas situaciones de género menos asfixiantes para la mujer y aborda, con clara intención crítica, el machismo existente en la sociedad mexicana. A través del concepto de entretenimiento educativo, esta telenovela augura un futuro revitalizador para un género que para muchos se había estancado como trasunto del folletín decimonónico. (shrink)

En este artículo defendemos la necesidad de reformular los conceptos de constreñimiento del desarrollo y variación considerando trabajos empíricos y teóricos recientes, principalmente sobre genes Hox, estado filotípico y morfogénesis. Argumentamos que la noción de variación isotrópica e ilimitada asociada con las teorías darwinianas y neodarwinianas deben ser reconsideradas a la luz de los aportes recientes de la biología del desarrollo. En esta visión, la variación estaría constreñida y sesgada. Esta reforma del concepto de variación coincide con la reformulación del (...) de constreñimiento, los cuales serían entendidos como un factor causal positivo en la evolución, en contraposición a como suelen ser entendidos en biología. (shrink)

Contrary to the widespread concern about over-treatment at the end of life, today, patient preferences for palliative care at the end of life are frequently respected. However, ethically challenging situations in the current healthcare climate are, instead, situations in which a competent patient requests active treatment with the goal of life-prolongation while the physician suggests best supportive care only. The argument of futility has often been used to justify unilateral decisions made by physicians to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment. However, (...) we argue that neither the concept of futility nor that of patient autonomy alone is apt for resolving situations in which physicians are confronted with patients' requests for active treatment. Instead, we integrate the relevant arguments that have been put forward in the academic discussion about ‘futile’ treatment into an ethical algorithm with five guiding questions: (1) Is there a chance that medical intervention will be effective in achieving the patient's treatment goal? (2) How does the physician evaluate the expected benefit and the potential harm of the treatment? (3) Does the patient understand his or her medical situation? (4) Does the patient prefer receiving treatment after evaluating the benefit-harm ratio and the costs? (5) Does the treatment require many resources? This algorithm shall facilitate approaching patients' requests for treatments deemed futile by the physician in a systematic way, and responding to these requests in an ethically appropriate manner. It thereby adds substantive considerations to the current procedural approaches of conflict resolution in order to improve decision making among physicians, patients and families. (shrink)

Science is fundamentally devoted to generating original knowledge, and therefore concepts of scientific originality are keys to understanding its very essence. Scientific originality has long been thought of as discovery, but new studies of the humanities and social sciences have shown that other, discipline-specific concepts of originality are used in these fields of study. Does this finding also hold for disciplines in the natural science, medicine, and engineering? Are concepts of originality scientifically grounded or do they instead reflect extrascientific modes (...) of originality? These questions lie at the heart of research proposals responding to an initiative explicitly calling for original scientific projects. The proposals undergo a two-step analysis based on grounded theory[Per style, reference citation is not allowed in abstract section. Hence, we have deleted Charmaz, 2006. Please approve.]. First, three empirically identified modes of scientific originality are described: temporal, partially different, and revolutionary. The three modes of originality are consistent with extrascientific ones such as those in art and fashion. Second, six disciplines—two each in the natural science, medical, and engineering—are analyzed for ways the three modes of originality are used and for their associated disciplinary characteristics in order to identify discipline-specific concepts of originality. (shrink)

Revision of the author's thesis--Frankfurt am Main, 2009.