The compact and, with \ M\, very massive object located at the center of the Milky Way is currently the very best candidate for a supermassive black hole in our immediate vicinity. The strongest evidence for this is provided by measurements of stellar orbits, variable X-ray emission, and strongly variable polarized near-infrared emission from the location of the radio source Sagittarius A* in the middle of the central stellar cluster. Simultaneous near-infrared and X-ray observations of SgrA* have revealed insights into (...) the emission mechanisms responsible for the powerful near-infrared and X-ray flares from within a few tens to one hundred Schwarzschild radii of such a putative SMBH. If SgrA* is indeed a SMBH it will, in projection onto the sky, have the largest event horizon and will certainly be the first and most important target for very long baseline interferometry observations currently being prepared by the event horizon telescope. These observations in combination with the infrared interferometry experiment GRAVITY at the very large telescope interferometer and other experiments across the electromagnetic spectrum might yield proof for the presence of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The large body of evidence continues to discriminate the identification of SgrA* as a SMBH from alternative possibilities. It is, however, unclear when the ever mounting evidence for SgrA* being associated with a SMBH will suffice as a convincing proof. Additional compelling evidence may come from future gravitational wave observatories. This manuscript reviews the observational facts, theoretical grounds and conceptual aspects for the case of SgrA* being a black hole. We treat theory and observations in the framework of the philosophical discussions about “realism and underdetermination”, as this line of arguments allows us to describe the situation in observational astrophysics with respect to supermassive black holes. Questions concerning the existence of supermassive black holes and in particular SgrA* are discussed using causation as an indispensable element. We show that the results of our investigation are convincingly mapped out by this combination of concepts. (shrink)

El texto plantea la importancia del oikos griego en tanto referente simbólico que puede permitir, en condiciones de adversidad, la construcción de una estética de la existencia que se constituya en una opción para seguir viviendo cuando las condiciones son desfavorables para la existencia de la vida y para la vivencia del hogar, es decir, en escenarios de conflicto como los que actualmente viven muchas personas en condición de refugiados, de inmigrantes, de asilados; así también quienes están secuestrados y aquellos (...) que viven el desplazamiento forzado y ambiental. Tomaremos como referente de la adversidad lo sucedido en el campo de concentración de Auschwitz para relacionar aquellos hechos de crueldad con muchas de las situaciones que acontecen hoy en el panorama global. Todo esto con la idea de proponer la vivencia del oikos como una construcción íntima que manifiesta la vida y que puede convertirse en un refugio en circunstancias difíciles. (shrink)

El Patronato de Misiones Pedagógicas desarrolló una importante labor de recuperación y difusión de la cultura musical, especialmente del folklore musical español, en los primeros años de la II República española, al poner en marcha un servicio de música y un coro que se encargaron de acercar diferentes estilos y géneros musicales a los habitantes de las zonas rurales más deprimidas. En este artículo se presenta un estudio documental sobre el trabajo llevado a cabo por los integrantes del coro y (...) por las personas que se encargaron de custodiar los recursos musicales cedidos por el Patronato y de programar las diferentes actividades musicales en los municipios que gozaron de dichos recursos. A su vez, se recogen diversos testimonios que dan fe del cometido realizado por esta institución y del impacto cultural y musical que supuso en los habitantes de las localidades donde se desarrollaron las diferentes actividades misionales. (shrink)

Las reflexiones en torno a la escritura de acontecimientos traumáticos como fueron las dictaduras chilenas y argentinas genera una serie de aporías que podrían resumirse en las siguientes cuestiones: ¿cómo comprender aquello que sobrepasa toda comprensión?, ¿cómo narrar lo inenarrable?, ¿cómo recomponer los testimonios de acontecimientos desprovistos de testigos? En este ensayo me propongo explorar estos asuntos en relación con cuatro novelas que parten de la ausencia, en tanto el pasado de la dictadura -identificado no solo como irrepresentable, también como (...) incomprensible- origina una falta o carencia de la que emerge la escritura. Concretamente se analizarán las novelas de los hijos, quienes eran aún niños durante la dictadura y por ello la vivieron de manera indirecta a través de sus padres: Formas de volver a casa (2011) de Alejandro Zambra, Una misma noche (2012) de Leopoldo Brizuela, El espíritu de mis padres sigue subiendo en la lluvia (2011) de Patricio Pron y Fuenzalida (2010) de Nona Fernández. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo ofrece una lectura de la pintura renacentista según los principios establecidos por Leon Battista Alberti, uno de los primeros teóricos de la perspectiva en cuyo Tratado de pintura se refiere al cuadro como “una ventana abierta a la historia”. El concepto de historia empleado por Alberti, que se presta a numerosas interpretaciones, es abordado a partir de las reflexiones de Erwin Panofsky en torno a la perspectiva como “forma simbólica”, avanzando hacia una hipótesis en torno al carácter (...) simbólico de la configuración y representación del tiempo en el cuadro-ventana albertiano.This paper offers a reading of the renaissance painting according to the principles established by Leon Battista Alberti, one of the first theorists of perspective in painting which Trattato della pittura define the frame of the painting as “an open window into history”. The concept of history employed by Alberti, which lends itself to many interpretations, is approached from the reflections of Erwin Panofsky about the prospect as “symbolic form”, moving towards a hypothesis about the symbolic nature of the configuration and representation of time in the alberti’s window. (shrink)

Relationships between degree/area of academic formation and religious and Darwinian views are controversial. This study aimed to compare the religious beliefs and acceptance of Darwinian evolution between two contrasting South American scientific communities (Chile and Colombia), accounting for different degrees and areas of academic formation. In 2018, 115 last year bachelor students (surveyed as freshmen in 2014 for a previous study) from Chile, and 283 first/last year bachelor students, graduate students, and professors from Colombia, all belonging to biology, chemistry, or (...) physics, were surveyed. Chilean students/faculty were significantly more agnostic/atheist, more accepting of Darwinian evolution, and less creationist than their Colombian counterparts. Academic degree and area differently affected these views in both countries, as only in Chile there was a clear tendency among biologists and physicists with higher degrees to hold less religious and creationist views. Marked differences between the history, socioeconomic contexts, and especially in high school and university curricula of both countries might explain these results. (shrink)

Retrieval practice, relative to further study, leads to long-term memory enhancement known as the “testing effect.” The neurobiological correlates of the testing effect at retrieval, when the learning benefits of testing are expressed, have not been fully characterized. Participants learned Swahili-English word-pairs and were assigned randomly to either the Study-Group or the Test-Group. After a week delay, all participants completed a cued-recall test while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The Test-Group had superior memory for the word-pairs compared to the Study-Group. (...) While both groups exhibited largely overlapping activations for remembered word-pairs, following an interaction analysis the Test-Group exhibited differential performance-related effects in the left putamen and left inferior parietal cortex near the supramarginal gyrus. The same analysis showed the Study-Group exhibited greater activations in the dorsal MPFC/pre-SMA and bilateral frontal operculum for remembered vs. forgotten word-pairs, whereas the Test-Group showed the opposite pattern of activation in the same regions. Thus, retrieval practice during training establishes a unique striatal-supramarginal network at retrieval that promotes enhanced memory performance. In contrast, study alone yields poorer memory but greater activations in frontal regions. (shrink)

Innovation and sustainability are postulated as key variables for the future of large commercial distribution. In addition, the development of Information and Communication Technologies solutions, and especially those related to Artificial Intelligence and digitization, are particularly relevant factors in the current pandemic scenario in which retail companies operate. These tools are essential to face the derived changes in commercial relations, especially between companies and consumers. For all these reasons, this work aims to examine the effect of ICT, as a driving (...) factor for innovation and its direct and indirect impact on sustainability in retailing. Furthermore, this study takes into account the eventual differences in these relationships according to the types of store formats. To achieve the aforementioned objective, a theoretical model is proposed that is tested through an empirical study carried out on a sample of 510 consumers of three store formats of grocery retail formats in Spain. For the analysis of the data obtained, the partial least squares regression technique and the Multigroup Analysis were used. The results obtained confirm the direct and indirect effect of ICT on innovation and sustainability in grocery retailing. In addition, the results indicate that consumers unequally perceive the technological progress of companies. These differences are greater between discount stores versus hypermarkets and supermarkets. The larger the size of the store format, the higher the incidence of ICT in relation to innovation. Therefore, it is vital to take ICT into consideration, where Artificial Intelligence is imperative for the growth and development of sustainable competitive advantages in retail companies. (shrink)

The World Health Organization, in its last review of its International Classification of Diseases, established a new classification for chronic pain. Among the principal categories, of particular interest is chronic primary pain as a new type of diagnosis in those cases in which the etiology of the disease is not clear, being termed as chronic primary visceral pain when it is situated in the thorax, abdomen, or pelvis. Due to the novelty of the term, the objective of the systematic review (...) was to examine the psychopathological and neuropsychological disorders associated with chronic primary visceral pain. We carried out a search of the scientific literature following the PRISMA directives using the Pubmed, Medline, PsycInfo and Scopus databases. A total of 33 articles were selected after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The analysis of the studies showed that most persons with chronic primary visceral pain suffer from at least one psychological disorder; the most prevalent being anxiety, depressive or somatoform disorders. The most frequent psychopathological symptoms are anxiety, depression and somatization. Similarly, the findings are insufficient to determine the existence of deficits in the domains of executive functioning, memory and intelligence. However, the existence of attention biases does seem to be clear. This review supposes a starting point for conceptualizing chronic primary visceral pain. It is necessary to continue further research so as to obtain a better understanding of this pathology and the disorders associated. (shrink)

The animal entertainment industry includes different practices. Some consist in torturing an animal to death, as in bullfighting and countless other popular traditions, while others involve watching an animal in captivity, which can be another form of torture. Perhaps the most profitable practice is forcing very intelligent animals to perform the same routine several times daily in zoos and aquariums containing marine mammals, or in circuses containing terrestrial mammals. These businesses then present the animals in whatever way that makes the (...) practice appear less immoral, claim to have education and conservation as their mission, and present their entertainment businesses as altruistic charities. Disseminating their misleading discourse is unethical. (shrink)

The poem collections Calamina and Amarillo crepúsculo show spaces and landscapes that acquire materiality in poetic language. Despite their clear differences, both texts configure space from a materiality crossed by modernity and its residues. The relation between landscape and poetry is studied using the concept of geo-poetics coined by Michel Collot in Pour une geographie litterair. The article purposes that the poetic subjects of these poems pose their looks on the landscapes’ memory understood as a ruin, instead of exercising the (...) romantic contemplation of the sublime. (shrink)

How do we build up our institutional reality? What do we need in order to construct such things as universities, law firms, banks, retail stores, factories, leg.

Based on a deliberative democracy, this book uses a hermeneutic-critical methodology to study bibliographical sources and practical issues in order to analyse the possibilities, limits and consequences of the digital transformation of democracy. Drawing on a two-way democracy, the aim of this book is intended as an aid for thinking through viable alternatives to the current state of democracy with regard to its ethical foundations and the moral knowledge implicit in or assumed by the way we perceive and understand democracy. (...) It is intended to stimulate reflection and discussion on the basis that, by addressing what we understand as democracy, we can inevitably influence the reality known as democracy. Democracy’s evident regression in today’s world makes this all too apparent: it has become a hostage to all kinds of autocracies and technopopulisms, which are supported to a greater or lesser extent by the current algorithmic revolution. (shrink)

El presente artículo busca profundizar las formas en que migrantes peruanos en Chile habitan su espacio privado desde una perspectiva de cultura material, a través del análisis de las posesiones del hogar y la comida. La cultura material del hogar encarna tanto su experiencia y trayectoria migratoria como el proceso de integración en la sociedad chilena, representando el continuo proceso de ajuste que deben enfrentar en términos culturales, sociales y materiales. Los resultados muestran que las formas de habitar y apropiarse (...) del hogar están relacionadas con los procesos de integración, pues a través de la cultura material se negocia cotidianamente la pertenencia entre dos mundos, el de origen y destino, generando la ambivalencia de estar aquí y allá simultáneamente. Sus hogares se convierten en transnacionales, donde emerge un sincretismo cultural entre ambos mundos que cohabitan: Perú se refleja en la fotografía y la comida, que permite reactualizar su pertenencia e identidad originaria, y Chile es representado por objetos tecnológicos, que materializan su trabajo sacrificado y coraje, y les permite sentirse parte de la sociedad de destino. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This chapter shows that reflecting on Hidden Mickeys can take people at least part of the way to a solution to the problem of divine hiddenness. Here is the basic idea: it is often ambiguous whether some constellation of shapes is a Hidden Mickey, and similarly, it is often ambiguous whether some experience is an experience of God's presence and love. In order to develop this idea, the chapter steps away from Hidden Mickeys in order to develop the problem of (...) divine hiddenness in a bit more detail. There is a crucial disanalogy between the problem of divine hiddenness and Hidden Mickeys. One way to bridge the divide is to try out the idea that God simply cannot make his existence as apparent to people as the Disney corporation can make it apparent that it is run by agents acting intentionally. (shrink)

There seems to be a distinction between primary and secondary properties; some philosophers defend the view that properties like colours and values are secondary, while others criticize it. The distinction is usually introduced in terms of essence; roughly, secondary properties essentially involve mental states, while primary properties do not. In part because this does not seem very illuminating, philosophers have produced different reductive analyses in modal terms, metaphysic or epistemic. Here I will argue, firstly, that some well-known examples fail, and (...) also that there are deep reasons why such approaches should do so. Secondly, I will argue that it is acceptable to remain satisfied with the non-reductive account in terms of essence. To that end, I will indicate how such an explication could be put to use to support the claim that properties like colours and values are secondary. In a series of recent writings, Kit Fine has argued that essence cannot be reductively analysed in modal terms. Fine offers some examples to motivate his claim. I suggest that the primary/secondary distinction constitutes a philosophically interesting illustration. (shrink)

Chucho is an Andean bear who had lived most of his life in semicaptivity in a nature reserve in Manizales, Colombia. After his sister’s death, he became severely depressed, so the environmental authority transferred him to Barranquilla Zoo. A local lawyer filed a writ of habeas corpus based on Chucho’s right as a sentient being to live in his natural habitat. This writ has triggered a complex debate on nonhuman animal legal personhood and animal rights between two of the highest (...) courts in the country: the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Court. (shrink)

En las unidades de cuidados intensivos el equipo de salud utiliza todas las medidas posibles para preservar la vida de sus pacientes. No obstante, cuando las terapias son fútiles, se decide limitar el esfuerzo terapéutico. Este artículo tiene como objetivo describir los factores que pueden llevar a enfermería a deshumanizar sus cuidados en pacientes en LET en UCI. Revisión de la literatura en bases de datos, con las palabras clave: critical care, intensive care unit, limitation of therapeutic effort, end of (...) life care, humanized/human care, nursing. Los hallazgos fueron agrupados en seis categorías que pueden influir en la deshumanización del cuidado en UCI. Se concluye que en el cuidado humanizado se destacan los roles de enfermería como defensora de los intereses del paciente y como agente comunicador. (shrink)