Every innovation seeks to become a profitable business, with this considered to be the engine for economic prosperity. When an innovation is revolutionary, its long-term consequences can be revolutionary too. The Haber-Bosh process for ammonia synthesis is arguably the twentieth century’s most significant innovation, and its importance to global food production and its impact on the environment are not expected to diminish over the coming decades. The historical case of the ammonia synthesis process invented by Fritz Haber and the ensuing (...) innovation provides an incomparable opportunity to illustrate the interactions across contemporary needs, prominent scientists, political concerns, moral dilemmas, ethics, governance and environmental implications at a time when the concept of sustainability was still in its infancy. Despite its high economic and environmental costs, no cleaner or more efficient sustainable alternative has so far been found, and so replacing this “old” innovation that still “feeds” a large part of the world’s population does not appear to be on the cards in the near future. (shrink)

COVID-19 confinement has supposed a challenge to the whole wide world, especially in athletes that have frustrated their expectations about training programs and competitions. Specifically, competition cyclists during confinement had lot of difficulties to train due to the need to train outside their homes. However, the increase of online training sessions, or virtual training tools could help to overcome training difficulties due to confinement although there are not studies that analyse the effects of using these types of tools in cyclists. (...) This study aims to test how the use of online training tools in competition cyclists during confinement is related to training frequency and duration, and emotions. 329 cyclists filled an online questionnaire about feelings during confinement and the use of online training tools, before and during confinement. Results showed that the use of online training tools was associated with higher frequency and duration of trainings. Moreover, those who used these tools felt more positively about their future and preparation to compete, feeling more energy than those who did not used online tools. In addition, cyclists that started using these online tools (including virtual roller training) during confinement increased the frequency of training. In conclusion the use of online training tools for cycling could be appropriate to maintain training levels and energy and positive feelings about their future. (shrink)

Popper conceived an experiment whose analysis led to a result that he deemed absurd. Popper wrote that his reasoning was based on the Copenhagen interpretation and therefore invalidated it. Many authors who have examined Popper's analysis have found in it various technical flaws which are briefly summarized here. However, the aim of the present article is not technical. My concern is to redress logical flaws in Popper's argument: the terminology he uses is ambiguous, his analysis involves counterfactual hypotheses, and it (...) violates Bohr's complementarity principle. Therefore, the absurdity of Popper's result only confirms Bohr's approach. (shrink)

Athletes who flout doping bans are generally thought to have gained an unfair advantage. In this paper, I critically examine this view. I begin by defending an effort-based account of desert in sport, explaining why it is preferable to the hybrid account that is favoured in the literature. Drawing on the effort-based account, I construct the Unfair Advantage Argument formally, in what I take to be its most plausible form. I then argue that the Unfair Advantage Argument should be rejected, (...) for two main reasons. First, I challenge its assumption that dopers have put in less effort than their opponents. Second, I explain why, even if dopers have put in less effort, they have still exerted a sufficient amount. Though doping is problematic from an institutional perspective, it is not – from a pre-institutional perspective – cause for moral concern. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se sostienen toda una serie de tesis interrelacionadas. En primer lugar, se argumenta que el escepticismo y el pensamiento crítico no gozan de especial buena salud el ámbito de la teoría social. En segundo lugar, se sostiene que esto es también así a nivel social general. En tercer lugar, se discuten algunos mecanismos que pueden permitir explicar por qué el bullshit y el oscurantismo, y no el pensamiento crítico y el escepticismo, proliferan en ambos contextos. En (...) cuarto lugar, se abordan tres ámbitos donde la crisis del pensamiento crítico resulta especialmente grave, tanto a nivel social como académico: a saber, los movimientos ecologista, feminista y antirracista. En este caso, se defiende que no se trata tan solo de que el bullshit y el oscurantismo estén presentes en estos debates tanto en el campo académico como en el político, sino que existe una relación causal entre ambos ámbitos, así como un proceso de falsificación de preferencias que puede ser peligroso tanto para la libertad intelectual, como para la libertad de expresión y la salud de la democracia. Finalmente, el ensayo se cierra con un apartado de conclusiones donde se exploran algunas posibles vías de solución. (shrink)

Our romantic lives are influenced, to a large extent, by our perceptions of physical attractiveness – and the societal beauty standards that shape them. But what if we could free our desires from this fixation on looks? Science fiction writer Ted Chiang has explored this possibility in a fascinating short story – and scientific developments might, in the future, move it beyond the realm of fiction. In this paper, I lay out the prudential case for using “attraction-expanding technology,” and then (...) consider it from a moral point of view. Using the technology would, in one respect, be morally good: it would benefit those whom prevailing beauty standards marginalize. But attraction-expanding technology also raises a moral concern – one that can be cast in non-harm-based and harm-based terms. I argue that the non-harm-based objection should be rejected, because it is incompatible with a moral principle central to queer rights. And the harm-based objection, I argue, is outweighed by the benefits of attraction-expanding technology, and undermined by the prerogative you have over your personal romantic choices. I conclude by considering whether, from the perspective of society, the development of attraction-expanding technology would be desirable. (shrink)

Se realizó una investigación en sistemas y servicios de salud de tipo descriptiva transversal, con el objetivo de elaborar un sistema de acciones de capacitación para el profesional de la enfermería comunitaria en la prevención del embarazo en la adolescencia. Se aplicaron métodos teóricos y empíricos propios de la investigación científica. El universo lo constituyeron 20 profesionales de enfermería que laboran en consultorios del Área Salud "Tula Aguilera". La muestra quedó conformada por los 12 profesionales que aceptaron participar en el (...) estudio. El criterio de exclusión fue la libre decisión de cada individuo para participar o retirarse de la investigación. Se aplicó una encuesta estandarizada, previo consentimiento informado, para determinar el nivel de conocimientos sobre salud reproductiva en la adolescencia. Los resultados constatados reflejaron que la mayoría de los encuestados tenían criterios estrechos, no fundamentados científicamente ni actualizados sobre el tema, por lo que se diseñó un sistema de acciones de capacitación basado en conocimientos científicos actualizados, pertinentes y contextualizados. Cada actividad se propuso demostrar la factibilidad e importancia de utilizar técnicas participativas y la fundamentación de las ventajas de su uso en diferentes actividades comunitarias, encaminadas a enfatizar en la organización, movilización, concientización y capacitación a los diferentes sujetos sociales involucrados en la prevención del embarazo en la adolescencia, para que estos se conviertan en transformadores de su propia realidad, en correspondencia con sus necesidades y demandas sociales. A descriptive transversal study was carried out on health systems and services aiming at designing a system of training actions for the community professional nurses in order to prevent pregnancy in adolescence. Theorical and empirical methods were applied. The universe was made up of twenty professionals who consented to participate in the study. The inclusion criterion was the free decision of each individual on either participating or not in the investigation. A standard survey was applied -with a previous informed consent , to determine the knowledge about reproductive health in adolescence. The results revealed that most of the surveyed people had narrow criteria with no updated scientific grounds on the issue, thus a system of training actions based on updated scientific pertinent contextualized information was designed Each activity aimed at demonstrating the feasibility study of using participative techniques as well as the reasons for the advantages of their use in a variety of community activities to emphasize the organization and understanding of the different social subjects involved in the prevention of pregnancy in adolescence. (shrink)

In fascinating recent work, some philosophers have argued that it would be morally permissible and prudentially rational to sign up for cryonics—if you can afford the price tag of the procedure. In this paper I ask: why not share the elixir of extended life with everyone? Should governments financially support, positively encourage, or even require people to undergo cryonics? From a general principle of beneficence, I construct a formal argument for cryonics promotion policies. I consider the objection that a subset (...) of these policies would violate autonomy, but I argue that—to the contrary—considerations of autonomy weigh in their favour. I then consider objections based on cost and population, but argue that neither is fatal. Finally, I raise the objection that I believe poses the most serious challenge: that those who revive the cryonically preserved might inflict suffering upon them. (shrink)

A philosophical argument for more TikTok dancing.

A universal basic income (UBI) would be a guaranteed income floor for both the employed and the unemployed, from which economic theory predicts a gain in bargaining power and a disincentive to work. For high earners, the increase in taxes necessary to fund this program would decrease their motivation to earn. To assess these aspects, we conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment at a State Employment Service office in Spain. The unemployed participants received either an initial unconditional endowment, framed under the logic (...) of the solidarity condition of UBI (UBI treatment) – to examine the taxes’ effect – or as a participation fee (FEE) or no initial endowment (NONUBI). Subsequently, they faced one default randomized task from a set of four paid real-effort tasks. To study bargaining power, they could change the task up to three times and/or skip all tasks and conclude the experiment. In the FEE treatment, they yielded the highest earnings. While we did not find a statistically significant difference in earnings between the FEE and the NON-UBI treatments, the UBI differed from the NON-UBI and FEE. A likely reason could be a crowding-out of motivation by the pressure to reciprocate without believing in other participants’ deservingness of the UBI. In addition, the results reveal that females change tasks more frequently than males. (shrink)

El presente artículo se basa en la teoría de la creatividad artística de Jon Elster para tratar de ofrecer un esbozo de definición del concepto de arte, así como las bases para una teoría del valor artístico. Se sostiene que una obra de arte es una creación humana realizada con la intención de provocar una experiencia estética, así como que el principal valor de una obra de arte radica en su capacidad para producir emociones estéticas y no estéticas. Dicha concepción (...) pone en dificultades a algunas importantes formas de arte contemporáneo, como el arte conceptual. (shrink)

The translation process constitutes an essential part in every translator’s professional training. Translation students should be familiarised with several textual genres of different difficulties. The aim of this study is to show the importance of including semi-specialised texts in general translation subjects. To do so, a selection of semi-specialised texts was included together with more general topics. Thanks to this, translation students can learn how to deal with general and semi-specialised documents by giving their critical views in a cooperative environment. (...) They additionally improved in the correct use of translation techniques in both types of text. (shrink)

This paper publishes for the first time 132 conjectures by Nicolaus Heinsius on Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1‒4. The value and possible motivations of each proposal are briefly assessed.

La evidencia empírica disponible señala de manera unánime que las nuevas políticas de tráfico y seguridad vial aplicadas en España desde 2004, y en particular la introducción del carné por puntos y la reforma del Código Penal, han tenido una fuerte incidencia positiva en la reducción de la siniestralidad. De dichos resultados se deriva que las nuevas políticas han tenido también un efecto positivo sobre la conducta de los conductores, de modo que ha sido esa mejora en la conducta al (...) volante la que finalmente se ha traducido en una reducción de la siniestralidad. No obstante, hasta el momento, los investigadores han descuidado el análisis directo de los datos sobre cumplimiento. En el presente trabajo se analizan todos los datos disponibles que ofrecen información sobre el cumplimiento de la normativa de tráfico y seguridad vial. (shrink)

Esports have transformed playing video games into a competitive activity that bears similarities to sports and the processes of sportization. Taking as a starting point the concept of sports as competitive games, the objective of this work is to analyse the sportization of esports, as well as the impact of esports on the concept of sports and their implications on sports in the immediate future. Sports and esports are two different realities that interact with each other. This is a conceptual (...) problem for sports, and it also defines a practical challenge in the immediate future of sports. The virtual environment offers new possibilities in sports, such as broadening the possibilities of confrontation and competition development, contributing to reducing the environmental impact of certain sports, improving safety and maintaining the physical integrity of athletes, and increasing social justice and equality of chances in sports competitions. The challenge, therefore, is to try to bring esports and sports closer together, even moving toward hybrid sports, as addressed throughout this article. (shrink)

Lately, nanotechnology has become one of the main topics in the debates regarding what has been called the _Next Industrial Revolution_ within what are known as _emergent technologies_. This paper contains a comparative analysis of the different philosophical groundings, arguments and principles invoked in the official ethical approaches proposed by each of two of the main Western communities. By _official ethical approaches_ or _official positions_ we mean the opinions officially expressed by the government institutions about how ethical considerations prompted by (...) nanotechnologies should be tackled. The analysis is based, then, on the official points of view, expressed through two documents, namely two official releases issued by governmental offices or institutions in both communities, Europe and the United States of America, and considered by the authors as representative of the official opinions of the governmental institutions in each society. (shrink)

The confinement that COVID-19 has brought about has had a negative influence on people’s psychological health. However, this impact is not widespread throughout the population, and men and women may be affected differently and it is not known what protective factors may exist. In this sense, physical activity has classically been shown to be a habit associated with psychological health. The study aimed to analyze the impact of confinement on psychological health, taking into account gender, and perceived changes in physical (...) activity. After the project was approved by the University’s Ethics Commission, the participants, after signing the informed consent, completed the online questionnaires during the days from 6 to 20 April, the time when, in Spain, confinement was in place and the highest peak of deaths and infections from COVID-19 occurred. A total of 457 Spanish participants were evaluated in psychological well-being, in its adaptation to Spanish, in coping, with the Spanish adaptation of the COPE Inventory, in daily habits and difficulties and the level of physical activity they had was recorded. Besides, the perceived change in physical activity due to confinement was recorded. The results showed that perceived emotions, difficulties for certain routines, psychological well-being, and coping differed according to sex. On the other hand, depending on the change in physical activity habits, it was observed that participants who increased their physical activity responded differently in the perception of emotions, and difficulties for routines and in psychological well-being. Finally, differences were also observed in most variables between sedentary, active, and federated participants. Results are discussed highlighting the importance of physical activity as a moderating factor of the impact of confinement. (shrink)

Planear una "estética plural de la naturaleza" es darle a la obviedad del enunciado que se trata de explorar algo parecido a un impulso haciéndolo avanzar por el camino de la complejidad. Esto en primer lugar. Después, hay que pararse a pensar que la articulación de estos términos, arte y naturaleza, no sólo implica enlazar la actividad relativa al primero con una imagen o arsenal de imágenes en las que esta segunda se representaría; también es vincularla a un concepto que (...) la significa. ¿Cuál? Lógicamente, la imitación, la mímesis. Aunque dadas las variaciones que ha sufrido dicho concepto a lo largo de la historia, parece necesario valorar la necesidad de comprender su objeto, la naturaleza, en lo que llamaría su dinamismo temporal. En otras palabras, habría que intentar una "historia de la naturaleza", cuya oportunidad aconsejaría mantenerla en paralelo con la "historia del arte". Y si este paralelismo -desde luego estético- del arte y la naturaleza implica en sus respectivas trayectorias temporales aquella parte de la reflexión estética que explora cada momento histórico con una atención especial en el "arte como mímesis", entonces el objetivo de dicha reflexión será también la naturaleza, que toca ir a buscar allí donde se encuentra efectivamente: en el pensamiento de la época. Tendríamos así los términos Arte, Naturaleza, Mímesis. Y de este último, la Mímesis, ya sabemos que no es la representación fiel de entidades o configuraciones naturales. ¿Qué es entonces? La proyección en una obra de Arte de unos contenidos mentales que tienen por objeto la Naturaleza. Quedan vinculados así los tres términos barajados en este libro. (shrink)

Classical propositional logic plays a prominent role in industrial applications, and yet the complexity of this logic is presumed to be non-feasible. Tractable systems such as depth-bounded boolean logics approximate classical logic and can be seen as a model for resource-bounded agents whose reasoning style is nonetheless classical. In this paper we first study a hierarchy of tractable logics that is not defined by depth. Then we extend it into a modal logic where modalities make explicit the assumptions discharged in (...) propositional proofs, thereby expressing blueprints for proofs. A natural deduction system is provided that permits to reason about and manage such proof blueprints. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é examinar a crítica ao psicologismo de Edmund Husserl paraavaliar sua posição no que diz respeito à psicologia empírica. Procurarei mostrar, em primeirolugar, que Husserl, em Investigações lógicas, tem como alvo o psicologismo lógico e umadeterminada forma de psicologismo epistemológico. Em segundo lugar, buscarei mostrar quea fundamentação epistemológica da lógica pura, como ciência teórica, implica em uma teoriada subjetividade. Um dos objetivos de Husserl em Investigações lógicas é empregar afenomenologia, entendida como forma peculiar de psicologia descritiva, (...) para elaborar umanova teoria da subjetividade, por meio de uma análise descritiva das vivências envolvidas naobtenção do conhecimento teórico. Depois irei discutir o lugar que a psicologia empírica passaa ocupar depois da crítica ao psicologismo em Investigações lógicas. (shrink)

The Purūravac-cakkiravartti-katai, “The Story of Emperor Purūravas,” is a pre-modern Tamil folk telling of the ancient Urvaśī-Purūravas legend. The classical narrative of King Purūravas of the Lunar Dynasty tells about his love affair with the celestial nymph Urvaśī, their tragic separation, and final reunion. The PCK follows the classical narrative closely, but interposes a long account of other exploits of Purūravas, which do not appear in any of the Sanskrit tellings of the story. In this supplement, which I call “The (...) Tamil Life of Purūravas,” Purūravas faces a tragic chain of unavoidable events, but eventually restores his former status through meditation and devotion. A comparative examination of the two parts of the text, that is, the classical narrative and the Tamil Life, shows that the latter generates an inverted mirror image of the fundamental notions implied in the classical narrative. The outcome of this structure is a shift in the ideological tendencies of the narrative toward a local ethos and popular religious notions. The PCK is thus shown to be a field of cultural negotiations, in which opposing ideologies contend for superiority, and its structure can be regarded as a transformative mechanism applied by local and popular cultural forms to enable appropriation of classical narrative traditions. (shrink)