Differences in Common engages in the ongoing debate on ‘community’ focusing on its philosophical and political aspects through a gendered perspective. It explores the subversive and enriching potential of the concept of community, as seen from the perspective of heterogeneity and distance, and not from homogeneity and fused adhesions. This theoretical reflection is, in most of the essays included here, based on the analysis of literary and filmic texts, which, due to their irreducible singularity, teach us to think without being (...) tied, or needing to resort, to commonplaces. Philosophers such as Arendt, Blanchot, Foucault, Agamben or Derrida have made seminal reflections on community, often inspired by contemporary historical events and sometimes questioning the term itself. More recently, thinkers like Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak or Rada Ivekovic—included in this volume are essays by all three—have emphasized the gender bias in the debate, also problematizing the notion of community. Most of the essays gathered in Differences in Common conceive community not as the affirmation of several properties which would unite us to other similar individuals, but as the “expropriation” of ourselves (Esposito), in an intimate diaspora. Community does not fill the gap between subjects but places itself in this gap or void. This conception stresses the subject’s vulnerability, a topic which is also central to this volume. The body of community is thus opened by a “wound” (Cixous) which exposes us to the contagion of otherness. The essays collected here reflect on different topics related to these issues, such as: gender and nation; nationalism, internationalism, transnationalism; nationalism’s naturalization of citizenship and the exclusion of women from citizenship; the violent consequences of a gendered nation on women’s bodies; gendering community; preservation of difference(s) within the community; bodily vulnerability and new politics; community and mourning; community and the politics of memory; fiction, historical truth and (fake) documentary; love, relationality and community; interpretive communities and virtual communities on the Web, among others. Joana Sabadell-Nieto is Professor of Contemporary Spanish Literature (Gender and Feminist Studies) at Hamilton College (USA) and Researcher at the Center for Women and Literature at the University of Barcelona. Marta Segarra is Professor of French and Francophone literature and Gender Studies at the University of Barcelona (Spain), Director of the UNESCO Chair Women, Development and Cultures and co-founder and director of the Center for Women and Literature (2003-2012). (shrink)

Ethical banking, microfinance institutions or certain credit cooperatives, among others, grant socially responsible loans. This paper presents a credit score system for them. The model evaluates social and financial aspects of the borrower. The financial aspects are evaluated under the conventional banking framework, by analysing accounting statements and financial projections. The social aspects try to quantify the loan impact on the achievement of Millennium Development Goals such as employment, education, environment, health or community impact. The social credit score model should (...) incorporate the lender’s know-how and should also be coherent with its mission. This is done using Multi-Criteria Decision Making. The paper illustrates a real case: a loan application by a social entrepreneur presented to a socially responsible lender. The decision support system not only produces a score, but also reveals strengths and weaknesses of the application. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify the relative contribution of individual and contextual predictors to students’ attitudes toward the acceptability of cheating and plagiarism. A group of 324 students from a tertiary institution in New Zealand completed an online survey. The findings indicate that gender, justice sensitivity, and understanding of university policies regarding academic dishonesty were the key predictors of the students’ attitudes toward the acceptability of cheating and plagiarism, both as agents of dishonest conduct and as witnesses (...) of misconduct among their peers. The implications of these findings for the development of policies and initiatives in tertiary institutions are discussed. (shrink)

This study investigates whether employees attribute different motives to their organization's corporate social responsibility efforts and if these motives influence employee performance. Specifically, we investigate whether employees could distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic CSR motives by surveying 229 employee–supervisor dyads from various industries , and the impact of these perceptions on in-role and extra-role performance of subordinates. We found that employee task performance increases when employees attribute both intrinsic and extrinsic motives for CSR. Moreover, when employees perceive that their organization (...) invests in a CSR practice that is both intrinsic and extrinsic, they also tend to exert extra effort in their work. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed alongside future research directions. (shrink)

Microbiome research shows that human health is foundationally intertwined with the ecology of microbial communities living on and in our bodies. This challenges the categorical separation of organisms from environments that has been central to biomedicine, and questions the boundaries between them. Biomedicine is left with an empirical problem: how to understand causal pathways between host health, microbiota and environment? We propose a conceptual tool – environmentality – to think through this problem. Environmentality is the state or quality of being (...) an environment for something else in a particular context: a fully perspectival proposition. Its power lies partly in what Isabelle Stengers has called the efficacy of the word itself, contrasting the dominant sense of the word environment as something both external and fixed. Through three case studies, we argue that environmentality can help think about the causality of microbiota vis-a-vis host health in a processual, relational and situated manner, across scales and temporalities. We situate this intervention within historical trajectories of thought in biomedicine, focusing on the challenge microbiome research poses to an aperspectival body. We argue that addressing entanglements between microbial and human lives requires that the environment is brought into the clinic, thus shortening the conceptual gap between medicine and public health. (shrink)

Different theoretical models have proposed cognitive and affective components in empathy and moral judgments encompassing compassion. Furthermore, gender differences in psychological and neural functions involving empathic and moral processing, as well as compassionate experiences, have been reported. However, the neurobiological function regarding affective and cognitive integration underlying compassion and gender-associated differences has not been investigated. In this study, we aimed to examine the interaction between cognitive and emotional components through functional connectivity analyzes and to explore gender differences for the recruitment (...) and interaction of these components. Thirty-six healthy participants were exposed to social images in an fMRI session to judge whether the stimuli elicited compassion. The results showed a different connectivity pattern for women and men of the insular cortex, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex, and the cingulate cortex. The integration of affective and cognitive components follows a complex functional connectivity pattern that is different for both genders. These differences may indicate that men largely make compassionate judgments based on contextual information, while women tend to notably take internal and introspective processes into account. Women and men can use different affective and cognitive routes that could converge in similar learning of moral values, empathic experiences and compassionate acts. (shrink)

What happens when we unexpectedly see an attractive potential partner? Previous studies in laboratory settings suggest that the visualization of attractive and unattractive photographs influences the perception of time. The major aim of this research is to study time perception and attraction in a realistic social scenario, by investigating if changes in subjective time measured during a speed dating are associated with attraction. The duration of the dates was variable and participants had to estimate the time that passed. Among other (...) measures, participants also rated the potential partners in terms of their physical attractiveness before and after the dates and reported if they would like to exchange contact with them. Results showed that, in a real speed dating situation, when there is a perception of the partner as being physically more attractive, women tend to overestimate the duration of that meeting, whereas men tend to underestimate its duration. Such changes may reflect evolutionary adaptations which make the human cognitive system more responsive in situations related to reproductive fitness. (shrink)

Drawing on the hypothesis that workplace harassment may be considered a genre of negative communication serving malicious purposes, the purposes of this paper are threefold. In the first place, we consider the difficulties involved in proving workplace harassment before administration or in court. In the second place, we analyse the challenges workplace harassment poses to linguistic analysis, with special reference to genre theory, and suggest ways of making the theory compatible with the new linguistic input the language of harassment provides. (...) Finally, we illustrate the knowledge the expert linguist can offer from the perspective of genre theory in cases involving workplace harassment. In order not to build a castle in the sky, our analysis is grounded in an exemplary case study relating to a specific type of harassment in the workplace that Leymann named « workplace mobbing ». (shrink)

A lo largo de este artículo se va a tratar de analizar la concepción del Romanticismo propuesta por Flaubert. En ella, a raíz del viaje a Oriente entre 1849 y 1851, se produce un cambio que hace constituir a la tarea del literato, artista o filósofo romántico en una tarea en la que la cuestión fundamental de la Estética y del Arte debe mezclarse con la tarea Ética y de pensamiento de la Política para la sociedad del futuro.  .

Irony is acknowledged to be usually critical: the ironic speaker tends to exhibit an apparent positive attitude in order to communicate a negative valuation. The reverse is considered to be also possible though: the ironic speaker can praise by apparent blaming, although it seldom happens. This unbalance between the two sorts of ironic examples is the so-called asymmetry issue of irony. Here I shall deny the possibility of being ironic without criticizing — hence the asymmetry issue is an illusion. By (...) claiming that irony is always critical I suggest an even stronger claim: criticism is what distinguishes irony from the similar phenomenon of metaphor. (shrink)

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the acceptability of downsizing and restructuring measures during a recession. Two hundred and seven participants with various levels of training in economics were presented with a number of realistic scenarios depicting various measures, and were asked to indicate the extent to which they considered them to be acceptable. The scenarios were created by varying three factors likely to have an impact on people’s views: the magnitude of (...) a company’s reduction in net sales, the magnitude of planned downsizing, and the way in which downsizing would be implemented, either through layoffs, job alliances or both. Six qualitatively different personal positions were found. Four of these following positions were expected: never acceptable, mainly depends on the magnitude of downsizing, mainly acceptable and job alliance. Two unexpected positions were also observed: drastic measures and undetermined. (shrink)

Early embryogenesis is marked by a frail Spindle Assembly Checkpoint (SAC). The time of SAC acquisition varies depending on the species, cell size or a yet to be uncovered developmental timer. This means that for a specific number of divisions, biorientation of sister chromatids occurs unsupervised. When error‐prone segregation is an issue, an aneuploidy‐selective apoptosis system can come into play to eliminate chromosomally unbalanced cells resulting in healthy newborns. However, aneuploidy content can be too great to overcome, endangering viability.SAC generates (...) a diffusible signal to lengthen time spent in mitosis if needed, ensuring correct chromosome segregation, a fundamental factor in the generation of euploid cells. Thus, it remains puzzling what benefit could come from delaying SAC acquisition till later in the development. In this review, we describe what is known on SAC acquisition in distinct species and highlight pending research as well as potential applications for such knowledge. (shrink)

Partimos de unas reflexiones sobre el Racionalismo y el Historicismo como dos enfoques con perfiles epistemológicos claramente diferenciados, que llevan a quien en ellos se sitúe a muy diversos planteamientos respecto a cualquier cuestión de carácter social. Examinamos el alcance y potencial de ambos en su argumentación cuando pretenden dar cuenta del origen de la sociedad política y todo lo que ello representa, instituciones, valores… Esbozada esta cuestión se recala en el análisis jovellanista de la mujer. Jovellanos conoce bien ambos (...) enfoques, sus lecturas de los autores aquí citados están plenamente contrastadas y no son objeto de este trabajo; apuesta por el enfoque historicista inglés para comprender el rol femenino, para situar a las instituciones que le niegan su ingreso en su decurso histórico, y curiosamente convierte el modelo historicista en una vía de análisis y acceso a propuestas de una extraordinaria modernidad. Analizamos desde estos enfoques los planes de estudio en los que estamos inmersos. (shrink)

Science aims to transform the subjectivity of individual observations and ideas into more objective and universal knowledge. Yet if there is any area in which first-person experience holds a particularly special and delicate role, it is the sciences of the mind. According to a widespread view, first-person methods were largely discarded from psychology after the fall of introspectionism a century ago and replaced by more objective behavioral measures, a step that some authors have begun to criticize. To examine whether these (...) views are sufficiently informed by actual scientific practice, we conducted a review of methodological approaches in the cognitive science literature. We found that reports of subjective experience are in fact still widely used in a broad variety of different experimental paradigms, both in studies that focus on subjective experience, and in those that make no explicit reference to it. Across these studies, we documented a diverse collection of approaches that leveraged first-person reports, ranging from button presses to unstructured interviews, while continuing to maximise experimental reproducibility. Common to these studies were subjects acting as sensors, intentionally communicating their experience to the experimenter, which we termed “second-person” methods. We conclude that, despite views to the contrary, first-person experience has always been and is still central to investigations of the mind even if it is not recognized as such. We suggest that the conversation ought to be reframed: instead of debating whether to accept subjects’ first-person knowledge we should discuss how best to do so. (shrink)

Does the interaction between climactic demands, monetary resources, and freedom suggest a more general relationship between the environmental challenges that human societies face and their resources to meet those challenges? Using data on press freedom (Van de Vliert 2011a), we found no evidence of a similar interaction with natural resources (as measured by oil exports) or risk for natural disasters.

Evangelization in the present contemporary context, transmission of faith, and the new architecture of communication are this article’s central axes. Just as interconnected cogwheels, they need to function together to hand on faith appropriately in today’s world. Our society, marked by unprecedented experiences in the field of digital culture, gave rise to a “new person”, who lives and relates within a new architecture of communication altogether. In the communicative process of digital culture, the modality of communication has changed from a (...) unilinear mode of transmission to networked, interactive, collaborative forms of interaction. Based on the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, and in an effort to rethink the present modalities of faith transmission, this study concerns both the convergence and continuity of the Magisterium of the Church on evangelization and the urgency for her to engage in a dialogue between faith and culture. This requires an attitude of courage to consider more deeply the relation between faith, Church life, and the current transformations as experienced today. For in the digital culture, a new perception and understanding of faith has grown and developed. New languages have challenged conventional paradigms and prompted us into a change of mentality and pastoral practice. (shrink)

Dona Isabel, infanta de Aragão (filha de Pedro III) e rainha de Portugal (mulher de Dom Dinis), nasceu, segundo a tradição, no ano de 1271 e foi santificada pelo papa Urbano VIII a 25 de Maio de 1625. Pelo caminho, deixou o testemunho material de uma vida dedicada às boas obras, na figura de clarissa de que fez dotar o seu moimento, marcando, com grande significado, uma intenção bem determinada de deixar de si a memória de uma fiel devota. Acompanhando (...) de muito perto a feitura do seu lugar último (realizado provavelmente cerca de 1330, portanto ainda em vida da rainha, falecida em 1336), Dona Isabel de Aragão revelou-se promotora de uma iconografia de marcada originalidade, quer porque, no seu modelado considerado típico de Mestre Pêro, lhe coube inaugurar uma nova fase na escultura tumular coimbrã, quer pelo carácter ostensivamente religioso da sua representação, conseguido inclusivamente pela adopção de caracteres iconográficos de considerável inovação. Aos atributos, apesar de tudo, mais divulgados do Livro de Horas, dos anjos e do baldaquino (conformador também de um certo sentido de sagrado), o jacente de Dona Isabel acrescenta o hábito de clarissa (numa proposta verdadeiramente original, embora repetida noutros jacentes posteriormente), a esmoleira à cintura com a concha de Santiago e o bordão de peregrina, identificadores das virtudes cristãs da caridade e da peregrinatio – todos estes elementos articulando-se com outros de uma representação tipificada da nobreza feminina trecentista (a realeza simbolizando-se apenas pelo uso da coroa) para dar à imagem última de Isabel de Aragão o sentido pleno de uma rainha de santidade. (shrink)

The fascination with brain research is widespread, and school teachers are no exception. This growing interest, usually noticed by the increased supply of short-term training or books on how to turn the brain more efficient, leads us to think about their basic training and outreach resources available. Little is known about what the official Initial Teacher Training offers concerning the brain literature and if it meets scientific standards. Also, what are the science communication materials that teachers can access to learn (...) about the developing brain remain undiscussed. First, we examined the ITT courses taught in Portuguese Higher Education, both in public and private institutions, to identify the syllabus with updated neuroscientific knowledge. Second, we searched for the neuroscience-related books published in the last 6 years through the National Library of Portugal database. Thirty ITT courses and 35 outreach publications were reviewed through a rapid review methodology. Our results showed an absence of curricular units indicating in their programs that brain research, and its relationship with learning, would be taught in a representative and updated way. In contrast, the number of brain-related books for educators increased in Portugal, corroborating the demand for this field of study by these professionals. Based on the literature that shows how misunderstandings about the brain have increased in school contexts, our discussion recognizes that science outreach could be a way to increase the scientific literacy of school teachers with the research community working more in this direction, but, since a previous problem seems to be unsolved, there is an urgent need for specialized attention to the development of training curricula for future kindergarten and elementary school teachers. (shrink)

Cada concepción de la persona responde a un modelo antropológico determinado. Sin embargo, todas confluyen como mínimo, en dos aspectos: todas las personas son receptoras de su vida y todas comparten un anhelo último de felicidad. Pero, ¿qué implicaciones tiene esto en la búsqueda del éxito del hombre? ¿Es compatible con la vinculación al otro? ¿Qué implica ser altruista y qué rol desempeña esta conducta en la consecución del éxito? ¿Es el ser humano altruista de forma innata? De este modo, (...) se pretende analizar el fenómeno del altruismo, su origen y su sentido en la persecución del éxito de la persona desde las dimensiones biológica, psicológica y antropológica que conforman a la persona. (shrink)

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the legitimacy of bonuses for senior executives. Two hundred eight participants, with various levels of training in economics, were presented with a number of concrete scenarios depicting the circumstances in which senior executives have received bonuses of variable amounts, and they were asked to indicate the extent to which such bonuses may be considered as legitimate. The scenarios were created by varying four factors likely to have (...) an impact on people’s views: the extent to which the objectives fixed by the company have been met or not, the global economic context in which the company has performed, the availability of experienced senior executives in the sector under consideration, and the amount of money that has been awarded, in terms of both the euros and multiples of the average worker’s pay. Five qualitatively different personal positions were found. The most common positions were that executive bonuses were either never legitimate or not very legitimate. People without any background in economics were more likely to hold these views than people with a background in economics. The remaining 45 % of the participants supported the awarding of bonus, but their support was conditional, and the main condition was the extent to which the company’s objectives were met. Thus for most participants, the practice of awarding extra pay to senior executives was either never legitimate, or legitimate only when the company’s objectives have been attained, or legitimate only when, even in a time of economic crisis, the company’s objectives have been surpassed. (shrink)

Law 49/2018, of August 14, created the Portuguese legal regime of the assisted decision-making (capacity), thus eliminating the legal institutes of interdiction and disqualification, provided for in the Civil Code (CC). The aim of this legal regime was to embed a new vision of disability based on a model of rights, that grants people with disabilities an independent and autonomous life and reflects the acceptance of the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) guidelines. This paper intends (...) to discuss the ‘new’ Portuguese legal system regarding the legal capacity of persons with disabilities and its role in valuing the expression of the real will of people with disabilities. (shrink)

In the context of the free will debate, both compatibilists and event-causal libertarians consider that the agent’s mental states and events are what directly causes her decision to act. However, according to the ‘disappearing agent’ objection, if the agent is nothing over and above her physical and mental components, which ultimately bring about her decision, and that decision remains undetermined up to the moment when it is made, then it is a chancy and uncontrolled event. According to agent-causalism, this sort (...) of problem can be overcome if one realizes that the agent herself, as an irreducible substance, is the true originator of her actions. I’ll present arguments that favor this view. Event-causalists have countered that if the agent identifies with some of the inner states that play the self-determining causal role in bringing about the action, then it is as though the action was directly caused by herself. I’ll object that this is not a distinctive aspect of free agency. Agent-causalism has been criticized from most naturalistically inclined fronts, and it must address risks of implausibility, contradiction and unintelligibility. Even though I’ll acknowledge these challenges, I’ll still argue that libertarian free will cannot be defended by any reductionist alternative, and that agent-causalism does not conflict with contemporary science but only with some of its unproven assumptions. (shrink)

It has been proposed that individuals with autism spectrum disorder struggle both with response initiation and with response inhibition, both of which are functions of the executive system. Experimental tasks are unlikely pure measures of a single cognitive domain, and in this study we aim at understanding the contributions of response initiation difficulties to possible deficits in inhibitory control in autism. A sample of adults diagnosed with ASD and a control sample participated in this study. To participants it was asked (...) to perform a sentence-completion task with two different condition: Part A—targeting response initiation and Part B—engaging inhibitory processes. Importantly, we have analyzed the B-A latencies that have been proposed for the removal of the response initiation confound effect. Results show that no differences between the groups were found in accuracy measures, either in Part A nor Part B. However, in both conditions autistic participants were significantly slower to respond than the group of participants with typical development. Critically, we show that when subtracting the response times of Part A from Part B no group differences attributable to inhibitory processes remained. With this study we corroborate the existence of difficulties with response initiation in autism and we question the existence of troubles in inhibition per se. (shrink)

AimThe aim of our study was to analyze physical activity levels, sitting time, physical fitness, and their relationship with depressive symptoms after home confinement in previously active older adults.MethodsThis cross-sectional study sample comprised 68 older adults from a community-based exercise program conducted in Porto, Portugal. After home confinement, participants were assessed in person for lower-body strength, cardiorespiratory fitness, agility/dynamic balance, handgrip strength, and anthropometry. Telephone interviews were performed to evaluate depressive symptoms with the Geriatric Depression Scale – 15 items and (...) physical activity levels through the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Individuals were also asked to self-report changes in their physical activity levels and time spent sitting.ResultsNinety percent of older adults self-reported a decrease in overall physical activity levels, and nearly 65% increased daily sitting time during the home confinement. However, previously active older adults still presented high levels of physical fitness after 11 weeks of home confinement. Overall, 52.9% of participants scored 5 or more points on GDS-15, which is suggestive of depression. Higher levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness were found in the non-depressed group compared with the depressed group. Finally, results from multiple regression analysis revealed that MVPA was negatively associated with depression. This model explained 16.4% of the variability seen in depression score, controlled for age, gender, and education.ConclusionEven reporting a decline in physical activity, older adults who previously participated in a formal exercise program, still presented high levels of physical fitness after 11 weeks of home confinement. However, MVPA, but not physical fitness, seems to be an associated depression score in previously active older adults. These results reinforce the importance of older adults to remain physically active, since higher levels of MVPA may have a protective effect on depressive symptoms and, therefore, mitigate the negative impact of home confinement on mental health. Future longitudinal research studies are needed to ascertain these results. (shrink)

The transition and adaptation of students to higher education involve a wide range of challenges that justify some institutional practices promoting skills that enable students to increase their autonomy and to face the difficulties experienced. The requirements for this adaptation were particularly aggravated by the containment and sanitary conditions associated with coronavirus disease 2019. With the aim of promoting academic success and preventing dropout in the first year, a support program was implemented for students enrolled in two courses in the (...) area of education at a public university in northern Portugal during the first semester of 2020/2021. Three sessions of 50/60 min were implemented, namely, the first session focused on the verbalization of the demands, challenges, and difficulties of the transition, and the second and third sessions focused on the difficulties of academic adaptation and academic performance. Data from a dropout risk screening instrument and from the activities performed during sessions were analyzed. The main results point to student satisfaction with the content and the activities of the sessions and their usefulness. Students report not only high satisfaction levels with HE attendance, but also some emotional exhaustion due to academic activities. The continuity of the program is recommended with some improvements in its planning to ensure a more definitive version of the program in the next two years. (shrink)