Development of methods to reawaken the semi‐dormant regenerative potential that lies within adult human tissues would hold promise for the restoration of diseased or damaged organs and tissues. While most of the regeneration potential is suppressed in many vertebrates, including humans, during adult life, urodele amphibians (salamanders) retain their regenerative ability throughout adulthood. Studies in newts and axolotls, two salamander models, have provided significant knowledge about adult limb regeneration. In this review, we present a comparative analysis of salamander and mammalian (...) regeneration and discuss how evolutionarily altered properties of the regenerative environment can be exploited to restore full regenerative potential in the human body. (shrink)

In greco antico, i composti che presentino come secondo costituente un sostantivo formato con il suffisso -σις sono molto rari e godono di scarse attestazioni: la maggior parte, infatti, è rappresentata in realtà da derivati da lessemi già composti, soprattutto verbi. Nonostante il significato prototipico dei nomi semplici in -σις sia eventivo, la semantica dei nomi composti in -σις non derivati è perlopiù risultativo-strumentale, per slittamento metonimico; questo fatto è confermato dal comportamento sintattico dei composti in -σις, più vicino a (...) quello dei nomi puri, e quindi generalmente privo di una struttura argomentale. Il secondo costituente di alcuni composti in -σις non è attestato in isolamento, ma l’intero composto è comunque considerabile endocentrico dal punto di vista categoriale. Il suffisso -σις, scarsamente produttivo in composizione, viene sostituito in quest'ambito da suffissi che rientrano nella declinazione tematica, in particolare da -σία, supplendovi invece nella creazione di nomi semplici, in un rapporto analogo a quello che si può evidenziare rispettivamente, nel campo dei nomi d'agente, fra i suffissi -τήρ/-τωρ e -της. (shrink)

Résumé — Le Dialogue sur le sujet de la divinité, publié en 1631 dans les Cinq autres Dialogues sceptiques de La Mothe Le Vayer, se nourrit d’un franc scepticisme et d’un naturalisme « à l’imitation des Anciens », et La Mothe, en disciple de Sextus, adopte une attitude « de philosophe ancien et payen in puris naturalibus ». Dans ce dialogue, axé sur le thème de la diversité des religions, émerge le fidéisme propre à La Mothe et à son écriture (...) « libertine ». S’il est difficile de voir dans ce dialogue l’expression d’un fidéisme sincère et convaincu ou la profession fidéiste d’un controversiste antiprotestant , on retrouve plutôt dans ces pages le scepticisme d’un libertin qui masque son incrédulité et ses doutes religieux par une prudente circonspection et par la soumission à l’autorité extérieure de la religion établie.— The Dialogue sur le sujet de la divinité, published by La Mothe Le Vayer in 1631 as one of the sceptical Cinq autres Dialogues, shows a scepticism and a naturalism derived from the classical philosophy : La Mothe is not only an admirer of Sextus Empiricus, but he also follows the attitude of « philosophe ancien et payen in puris naturalibus ». From this dialogue on the diversity between religions emerges the typical fideism of La Mothe and of his « libertine » writing. It is quite difficult to see in this dialogue the expression of a sincere fideism or the fideism of an antiprotestant controversist ; most probably these pages exhibit the scepticism of a free-thinker that dissimulates his disbelief and his doubts under the authority of the established religion. (shrink)

This paper develops a trivalent semantics for indicative conditionals and extends it to a probabilistic theory of valid inference and inductive learning with conditionals. On this account, (i) all complex conditionals can be rephrased as simple conditionals, connecting our account to Adams's theory of p-valid inference; (ii) we obtain Stalnaker's Thesis as a theorem while avoiding the well-known triviality results; (iii) we generalize Bayesian conditionalization to an updating principle for conditional sentences. The final result is a unified semantic and probabilistic (...) theory of conditionals with attractive results and predictions. (shrink)

This paper develops the idea that valid arguments are equivalent to true conditionals by combining Kripke’s theory of truth with the evidential account of conditionals offered by Crupi and Iacona. As will be shown, in a first-order language that contains a naïve truth predicate and a suitable conditional, one can define a validity predicate in accordance with the thesis that the inference from a conjunction of premises to a conclusion is valid when the corresponding conditional is true. The validity predicate (...) so defined significantly increases our expressive resources and provides a coherent formal treatment of paradoxical arguments. (shrink)

On the basis of the evidence that tumor development is suppressed by the embryonic microenvironment, some experiments using the factors taken from Zebrafish embryo at precise stages of cell differentiation were made. These experiments demonstrated a significant growth inhibition on different tumor cell lines in vitro. The observed mechanism of tumor growth inhibition is connected with the key-role cell cycle regulation molecules, such as p53 and pRb, which are modified by transcriptional or post-translational processes. Research on apoptosis and differentiation revealed (...) that treatment with these factors induces caspase-3 with a p73 apoptotic-dependent pathway activation and a concurrent significant normalization of e-cadherin and beta-catenin ratio. Other experiments found a synergistic effect on the colon cancer proliferation curve after the concurrent treatment with these factors and 5-fluorouracil. Finally, a product prepared for human therapy demonstrated 19.8% regression and 16% stable disease in an... (shrink)

Experiments carried out on different tumor cell lines showed a significative growth reduction of all treated lines due to the administration of zebrafish embryo extracts withdrawn at different stem cells differentiation stages. Research conducted in order to establish which molecular events were involved in control and downregulation of cancer cell lines demonstrated a transcriptional regulation of the key cell cycle onco-supressor gene, like p53 and a post-translational modification of molecules, like pRb. Research on apoptosis and differentiation processes showed that stem (...) cells differentiating factors induce caspase-3 activation, mainly through E2F-1 gene regulation, thus hyper expressing c-Myc and activating a p73-dependent apoptotic pathway. Moreover, we demonstrated a concurrent and significative normalization of the e-cadherin/β-catenin expression, with an e-cadherin rise. Administration of SCDF in an open clinical randomized clinical trail conducted on 179 patients affected by interme... (shrink)

Discussions about dispositional and categorical properties have become commonplace in metaphysics. Unfortunately, dispositionality and categoricity are disputed notions: usual characterizations are piecemeal and not widely applicable, thus threatening to make agreements and disagreements on the matter merely verbal—and also making it arduous to map a logical space of positions about dispositional and categorical properties in which all parties can comfortably fit. This paper offers a prescription for this important difficulty, or at least an inkling thereof. This will be achieved by (...) comparing pairs of positions and exploring their background metaphysics to discover where alleged agreements and disagreements concerning dispositionality and categoricity really lie; more specifically, the Pure Powers view and the Powerful Qualities view will be under scrutiny. Over this background, the prescription functions by isolating a successful identity-based characterization of categoricity, while abandoning the correspondent identity-based characterization of dispositionality. On the contrary, according to this prescription a property is dispositional if and only if it is solely in virtue of possessing that property that its bearer is assigned a certain dispositional profile. A crucial consequence of this prescription is that, while supporters of the Pure Powers view often characterize their position as an essentialist one, the dispositionality of properties needn’t always be a matter of essence. (shrink)

The discussion about the relationship between tone at the top and financial reporting practices has been primarily focused on the oversight role played by the board of directors and other structural elements of corporate governance. Another relevant determinant of tone at the top is the corporate narrative language, since it is a fundamental way in which the chief executive officer enacts leadership. In this study, we empirically explore the association between financial reporting aggressiveness and five thematic indicators capturing different traits (...) of ethical leadership from 535 annual letters to shareholders. We find that aggressive financial reporting is positively associated with CEO letters using a language which is resolute, complex, and not engaging. Our empirical findings highlight the importance of examining discretionary corporate narratives for the auditing process and the role of tone at the top in influencing accounting practices. (shrink)

Semantic and soritical paradoxes display remarkable family resemblances. For one thing, several non-classical logics have been independently applied to both kinds of paradoxes. For another, revenge paradoxes and higher-order vagueness—among the most serious problems targeting solutions to semantic and soritical paradoxes—exhibit a rather similar dynamics. Some authors have taken these facts to suggest that truth and vagueness require a unified logical framework, or perhaps that the truth predicate is itself vague. However, a common core of semantic and soritical paradoxes has (...) not been identified yet, and no explanation of their relationships has been provided. Here we aim at filling this lacuna, in the framework of many-valued logics. We provide a unified diagnosis of semantic and soritical paradoxes, identifying their source in a general form of indiscernibility. We then develop our diagnosis into a theory of paradoxicality, which formalizes both semantic and soritical paradoxes as arguments involving specific instances of our generalized indiscernibility principle, and correctly predicts which logics can non-trivially solve them. (shrink)

In this study, we explore the sincerity of the rhetorical tone of 664 annual letters to shareholders (CEO letters). Prior studies adopt Impression Management theory to predict that firms obfuscate failures and emphasize successes to unfairly enhance their image and maintain organizational legitimacy. Yuthas et al. (J Bus Ethics 41:141–157, 2002) challenged such a view, showing that firms reporting earnings surprises engage in ethical discourse with shareholders. We adopt the methodology of Yuthas et al. (J Bus Ethics 41:141–157, 2002) to (...) explore the association between firm performance and the rhetorical features of CEO letters in a large sample of Fortune 500 firms in the wake of the global economic crisis. In contrast to most prior research, we find that optimistic tone is congruent with both past and future performance. We conclude that under tough macroeconomic conditions, incentives to distort public information strategically are low. Rather, firms tend to engage in communicative action aimed at dialoguing with shareholders through sincere disclosure. However, in our conclusions, we warn about the impact of accounting and rhetorical manipulation on the congruence between optimistic tone and financial performance. (shrink)

The axiom of dependent choice ( $\mathsf {DC}$ ) and the axiom of countable choice ( ${\mathsf {AC}}_\omega $ ) are two weak forms of the axiom of choice that can be stated for a specific set: $\mathsf {DC} ( X )$ asserts that any total binary relation on X has an infinite chain, while ${\mathsf {AC}}_\omega ( X )$ asserts that any countable collection of nonempty subsets of X has a choice function. It is well-known that $\mathsf {DC} \Rightarrow (...) {\mathsf {AC}}_\omega $. We study for which sets and under which hypotheses $\mathsf {DC} ( X ) \Rightarrow {\mathsf {AC}}_\omega ( X )$, and then we show it is consistent with $\mathsf {ZF}$ that there is a set $A \subseteq \mathbb {R}$ for which $\mathsf {DC} ( A )$ holds, but ${\mathsf {AC}}_\omega ( A )$ fails. (shrink)

A la hora de plantearse la realización de actividades relacionadas con la enseñanza de los aspectos astronómicos, se presentan problemas prácticos evidentes que no ayudan a desarrollar una adecuada actividad científica escolar. Las TIC son un instrumento de gran utilidad para sortear estas dificultades, dado que permiten reproducir los fenómenos celestes y experimentar con ellos. El objetivo de este artículo es, en concreto, reflexionar sobre la utilidad de las simulaciones informáticas para la enseñanza de los aspectos histórico-astronómicos. Como muestra de (...) sus posibilidades se presentan simulaciones que pueden realizarse para visualizar diversos fenómenos astronómicos descubiertos por Galileo Galilei. (shrink)

A long philosophical tradition has claimed the fact that the concepts of physis and techne should remain radically distinct. But an equally important tradition has instead considered the question in less abstract terms. What can encourage us to rethink the question of hylomorphism is the radical rethinking of the terms at stake. How should the relationship between matter and form be thought? How should the distinction between natural form and artificial form be considered? The attempt that is proposed here is (...) to consider art as the conceptual mediator that holds together a morphological determination of nature and a technical determination of art. ‘Artificiality’ should not be understood as the opposite of ‘naturalness’: art here means the possibility of thinking of techne already at work in nature, justifying the sense of a coming hylomorphism. (shrink)

Information Retrieval systems benefit from the use of long queries containing a large volume of search-relevant information. This situation is not common, as users of such systems tend to use very short and precise queries with few keywords. In this work we propose a modification of the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) technique using data from the document collection and its vocabulary for a better representation of short queries. Additionally, a study is carried out on how the modification of the proposed (...) LDA weighted vectors increase the performance using relevant documents as feedback. The work shown in this paper is tested using three biomedical corpora (TREC Genomics 2004, TREC Genomics 2005 and OHSUMED) and one legal corpus (FIRE 2017). Results prove that the application of the proposed representation technique, as well as the feedback adjustment, clearly outperforms the baseline methods (BM25 and non-modified LDA). (shrink)

The discrepancy between children’s actual amount of viewing time and parents’ accounts of their concerns, rules, and parental mediation choices has been documented in empirical research, and typically interpreted through the lens of the Uses and Gratifications theory – showing how parents change their attitudes towards screen media in order to satisfy their own needs. Based on a qualitative longitudinal research project, including app-based media diaries, with 20 families with at least one child aged eight or younger, we aim to (...) make two contributions to the literature. With regard to theory, we aim to highlight the heterogeneous and contingent ways of balancing the place of digital media in children’s lives that arise from parents navigating screen time discourses, social pressures, and daily schedules. With regard to methods, we argue for the combination of qualitative data and app-based media diaries to contextualise and interpret potential discrepancies between reported screen time and parental anxieties or hopes about digital media. (shrink)

De Bie et al. (2023) introduces a framework to conceptualize ethical issues based on four different domains, but the problem lies in the domains being falsely bounded. Apart from the step from doma...

Empathy is the phenomenal experience of mirroring ourselves into others. It can be explained in terms of simulations of actions, sensations, and emotions which constitute a shared manifold for intersubjectivity. Simulation, in turn, can be sustained at the subpersonal level by a series of neural mirror matching systems.

A central aim of the original Bologna Declaration in 1999 was to give the opportunity of advancement in education to every European citizen. According to the Declaration, this goal is worth achieving not simply in order to provide better-qualified workers within the European Union, rather, the aim of higher education within the European Union is understood in a holistic sense as a prerequisite for the composition of a well-functioning European civil society. How can such an ambitious goal be achieved? In (...) this article, we propose that the core capability at stake is that of empathy which, for this reason, should be central to programmes of European higher education. Empathy is not regarded as just a property of specific individuals but as an attribute which must be ascribed to specific forms of civil intercourse. Therefore, what is needed in European higher education is the provision of a social environment for students which allows for civil-cultivation, and for processes of self-cultivation. Self-cultivation, as described here, means more than a refinement of manners; rather, it refers to the development of a civil mode for approaching others: a mode that is sensitive and self-aware at the same time, and which can be regarded as arising out of a shared European heritage interconnecting rhetoric and sociability. (shrink)

Actualmente son necesarias propuestas educativas que promuevan la sostenibilidad mediante activismo digital. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar la movilización de competencias digitales docentes a través de la creación de storytellings sobre la Fast Fashion. Su análisis mostró cómo estas experiencias pueden propiciar el desarrollo de capacidades de comunicación y colaboración, como son la participación para la creación de contenidos, la participación ciudadana en línea o la capacidad para compartir contenidos. Los vídeos creados relacionan las acciones cotidianas con las (...) consecuencias socioambientales y llaman a la transición hacia formas de consumo conscientes, mostrando su potencial creativo e inspirador. (shrink)

Folk-economic beliefs may be regarded as “evidential fictions” that exploit the natural tendency of human cognition to organize itself in narrative form. Narrative counter-arguments are likely more effective than logical debunking. The challenge is to convey sound economic reasoning in narratively conspicuous forms – an opportunity for economics to rethink its role and agency in public discourse, in the spirit of its old classics.

Still, it is but fair for me to point out that several of the mainstays of the present proposal owe very little to the influence of the philosophers whose epistemological views have attracted me most — or for that matter to that of other analytical philosophers. I am referring to my acknowledging degrees of truth and existence and, consequently, degrees of knowledge, too.

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the presence and current situation of the game of skittles throughout the northern route of the Camino de Santiago. Thus, we considered its current practice, modalities, where it is played, and its different manifestations as an informal and formal game, comparing it with other traditional games on this pilgrimage route. To do this, a mixed qualitative-quantitative study was designed with 89 participants, constituting an informant for each municipality through which the Northern (...) Way passes. An ad hoc questionnaire was used for the data collection, which was processed through content analysis by expert judges and by using the IBM-SPSS statistical package. The results of the study show notable skittles activity on the Northern Camino, reflected in the number of skittles alleys, the number of clubs, associations, and peñas participating in federated leagues, and the wide range of varieties of skittles currently active on the Camino. The relationship between skittles and local culture, both symbols of identity in these northern Spanish regions, made it possible to preserve the traditional heritage in these places, keeping it alive today, despite the push toward new and more attractive leisure and sport trends. (shrink)

There are two competing accounts for a theory for human action proposed by Catholic theologians working within the received moral tradition today: a hylomorphic account and an intentional account. In this article, the author compares each of the rival theories for its ability to explain both the structure and morality of the human acts surrounding the elective termina­tion of the pregnancy of a woman with pulmonary arterial hypertension. This scenario of PAH is a superb test case to compare the explanatory (...) power of the two rival action theories. The author’s analysis reveals that the hylomorphic account is the superior account, which can explain better not only the norma­tive conclusions of the Catholic moral tradition but also our lived experience as acting persons in a world governed by cause-and-effect relationships. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.3 (Autumn 2011): 503–518. (shrink)

This collection provides English readers with a critical update on current debates on biopolitics in and around Italian thought. More than a decade after the publication of seminal books such as Agamben’s _Homo Sacer_ and Hardt and Negri’s _Empire_, the names of, among others, Roberto Esposito, Paolo Virno, Christian Marazzi, and Andrea Fumagalli have recently been brought to the attention of Anglophone scholars and political activists. Several authors have rightly emphasised the evanescent character of biopolitics, and the difficulty in providing (...) a definition of it that could embrace all the conflicting theories of its most celebrated critics and supporters. The present collection is structured around the basic contention that bio-economy, human nature, and Christianity are the three visible contemporary manifestations of the theoretical object/problem of biopolitics in, respectively, Italian post-workerist economics, post-Marxist philosophical anthropology, and post-structuralist ontology. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Angelaki_. (shrink)

À l’origine de ce recueil, un double colloque international, l’un à Lyon, l’autre à Naples, a réuni des spécialistes de philosophes du XVIIe siècle et du XVIIIe siècle pour traiter de l’apport des courants dits "libertins" et, plus largement, de la libre pensée à ceux qu’une historiographie traditionnelle, mais encore vivace, reconnaît comme seuls "philosophes": Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Pascal, Bayle, Leibniz, Kant... Il s’agit donc, d’une part, de reconnaître l’apport de la libre pensée à l’évolution des idées et, d’autre part, (...) de mettre les grands penseurs en dialogue avec le contexte historique qui fut le leur. L’ensemble des interventions met remarquablement en évidence l’importance des arguments de la pensée critique et de la libre pensée à l’âge classique, qu’ils soient acceptés, refusés ou réutilisés, tout en montrant la complexité d’une époque où, malgré la censure régnante, les idées progressent à travers et grâce à un dialogue constant, qu’il soit paisible ou conflictuel, entre les penseurs plus ou moins religieux. --. (shrink)

Topology of fear : psychoanalysis, urban theory, and the space of phobia -- Pasolini and the ugliness of bodies -- Wounds of testimony and martyrs of the unconscious : Lacan and Pasolini contra the discourse of freedom -- A theater of subtractive extinction : Bene without Deleuze -- Giorgio Agamben's Franciscan ontology -- Christianity or communism? Zizek's Marxian Hegelianism and Hegelian Marxism -- The body of structural dialectic :Badiou, Lacan, and the "human animal".

This work examines the concept of the "philosophical life" by looking at Socrates and his relationships to his interlocutors.

El autor describe la línea de renovación de la filosofía italiana, que inaugura con Vico y Rosmini, "dos pensadores de envergadura", a pesar del hecho contrastado de que Vico no es uno de los autores más usados por Rosmini. Tal renovación da origen a una metaffsica antropológica integral que nutre el "pensar en grande" y que, por tanto, debería traspasar las fronteras de la Italia de ambos pensadores y contribuir a la regeneración de la civilización contemporánea.The author describes the Italian (...) philosophy’s renewing line, which begins with both Vico and Rosmini, "wo well-established thinkers", though Vico might not be one of Rosmini’s most mentioned authors. Such a renovated current gives rise to an anthropological all-out metaphysics, which nourishes the so called "big-deep thinking" and is expected to cross the Italian borders and make a significant contribution to the renewal of civilization. (shrink)

Este livro poderia de facto definir-se também "Razão e Lógicas da Totalidade do Real na filosofia africana contemporânea". Quatro objectivos, por assim dizer, se vislumbram logo duma leitura atenta deste texto: antes de mais a preocupação dos autores de propor nos nossos dias, uma leitura transversal da filosofia africana moderna e contemporânea a partir, diríamos, do conceito da "razão". Trata-se, neste caso, de introduzir os leitores não na história da filosofia africana como tal, mas somente, como especifica Ezio Bono, de (...) delinear "algumas questões principais que consideram ser mais significativas e recorrentes no actual debate" da filosofia africana moderna e contemporânea e a sua "traversée" (Bidima), por assim dizer, no âmbito moçambicano (José Castiano). Este texto, cuja vocação principal é transformar-se, "grosso modo", numa espécie de "Humanidades Clássicas Africanas" (Cheikh Anta Diop), se quer sintético e ao mesmo tempo panorâmico. Ele é sintético, pois os autores partem duma leitura temática (a razão). Ele é também panorâmico, já que partindo deste focus temático, eles oferecem uma visão global desta matéria, do ponto de vista histórico, teorético, epistemológico, cultural, panafricano (Procesi) e particular moçambicano (Bono e Castiano). (shrink)

Las Relaciones Geográficas son textos escritos en español con el fin de obtener descripciones fiables del dominio colonial. Investigaciones anteriores con repertorios muy diferentes han establecido que la heterogeneidad léxica es una tendencia común a toda la producción escrita colonial. El objetivo de esta investigación es comprobar si un repertorio más concreto como las relaciones de la gobernación de Yucatán representa un conjunto homogéneo o heterogéneo en la incorporación del préstamo indígena. Con una metodología cuantitativa y cualitativa se analiza la (...) potencial pluralidad léxica de estos textos asociada a determinados factores. Las conclusiones corroboran la heterogeneidad léxica a pesar de ser un corpus uniforme y muestran tres tendencias a la hora de incluir los prehispanismos en los documentos españoles. Relaciones Geográficas are texts in Spanish that aim at obtaining reliable descriptions from the colonialism period. Previous research with very different repertoires have established that lexical heterogeneity is a common trend in the entire colonial written production. The objective of this research is to check whether a particular repertoire, such as relations of the Government of Yucatán represents a homogeneous or heterogeneous body of indigenous loans incorporation. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies are used to analyse the potential lexical plurality of these texts which are associated with certain specific factors. The findings corroborate that lexical heterogeneity is present, despite being a uniform corpus, and show three different trends when including prehispanic concepts in Spanish documents. (shrink)