"Maira engages eighteen eminent thinkers - scientists, philosophers, artists, brain-mind experts, activists - in a series of conversations around the difficult, enthralling notion of beauty"--Page 4 of cover.

This volume examines the motives behind rejections of beauty often found within contemporary art practice, where much critically acclaimed art is deliberately ugly and alienating. It reflects on the nature and value of beauty, asking whether beauty still has a future in art and what role it can play in our lives generally. The volume discusses the possible “end of art,” what art is, and the relation between art and beauty beyond their historically Western horizons to include perspectives from Asia. (...) The individual chapters address a number of interrelated issues, including: art, beauty and the sacred; beauty as a source of joy and consolation; beauty as a bridge between the natural and the human; beauty and the human form; the role of curatorial practice in defining art; order and creativity; and the distinction between art and craft. The volume offers a valuable addition to cross-cultural dialogue and, in particular, to the sparse literature on art and beauty in comparative context. It demonstrates the relevance of the rich tradition of Asian aesthetics and the vibrant practices of contemporary art in Asia to Western discussions about the future of art and the role of beauty. (shrink)

This paper presents a review of 100 empirical papers studying corporate codes of ethics in business organizations from the time period mid-2005 until mid-2016, following approximately an 11-year time period after the previous review of the literature. The reviewed papers are broadly categorized as content-oriented, output-oriented, or transformation-oriented. The review sheds light on empirical focus, context, questions addressed, methods, findings and theory. The findings are discussed in terms of the three categories as well as the aggregate, stock of empirical CCE (...) studies in comparison with previous reviews, answering the question “where are we now?” Content and output studies still stand for the majority of the studies, whereas the transformation studies are fewer. Within these areas, two new trends are found to have emerged: discursive analyses and a focus on labor conditions. The review finds that the content of CCEs is still predominantly self-defensive, that CCEs are insufficient in themselves in terms of protecting workers’ rights, that CCEs are likely to encounter tensions when implemented across national and organizational boundaries, and that while perception of CCEs is generally positive, CCEs may lead to both positive and negative outcomes. Based on these findings, potential areas for further exploration in the area of CCE research are suggested. (shrink)

I outline key empirical evidence from my research and that of other scholars, testing the role of cultural group selection in the evolution of human cooperation, which Richerson et al. failed to mention and which fails to support the CGS hypothesis.

Soon, the realization that, while economies had been growing, systemic problems of social inequality and environmental unsustainability were becoming intolerable, led to the Sustainable Development Goals, which all countries signed up to achieve. A new toolkit is required to attain these goals that go beyond the precepts of good business management and prevalent best practices in government as well as civil society organizations.

The article deals with the role, peculiarities and philosophical issues of upbringing healthy and well-bred generation in Kazakh ethnomedicine, which has been passed down from generation to generation and has not lost its importance. Attention is paid to the peculiarities of the Kazakh people’s attitudes to nature, formed in connection with the natural environment, and the method of treatment based on shamanic beliefs. Philosophical concepts of nobility norms preservation of the Kazakh nation, following the tradition of exogamy in the formation (...) of generation health, have been analysed. The doctrine of blood purity is discussed in Treatise on Healing by Uteiboydak Tleukabyluly, a scientist-healer of 15th century. Tleukabyluly considers debauchery, love relationships outside of marriage, unacceptable. He gives a reason why Kazakhs should be banned from related marriages up to the seventh generation, since, according to his observations, this leads to infertility and miscarriages or the birth of an imbecile child. The role of the mother in the healthy generation was studied in the national philosophical context. (shrink)

Este artigo é resultado de um projeto de pesquisa e registro de grafites e pichações inscritas nas paredes de Lisboa, e que advém de produção artística e política urbana feita pela população negra portuguesa e imigrante, que habita a cidade. O resultado é esta escrevivência sobre o corpo negro [feminino] em relação - e em atividade - com a experiência de ser e de estar (em) Lisboa, pensando como essas marcas da cidade afetam corpos negros, inclusive o meu. Dada a (...) oportunidade, e destinada ao reconhecimento de dados sobre o que é ser do outro lado do Atlântico, nesta cidade qualquer. Pelas ruas da Damaia, pelas ruas da Linha de Sintra, da Cova da Moura, vi o meu corpo em protagonismo com outros corpos. E desta visagem necessária, articulei uma série de imagens, que revelam as marcas de uma população igual a mim, e diferente a mim, registradas nas paredes dessas cidades específicas, que moram e habitam a Lisboa dourada, das gentrificações, dos turistas em excesso e dos muitos pequenos mundos internos - que a constroem e alimentam. Lavagem, grafitagem, gravidez, sacudimentos e enxertos. (shrink)

I see art as the most efficient technological field for triggering human imagination. I am not alone in my conviction that human imagination has the potential to feed back to arts and science in creative and transforming ways, as does to every humanconceived technology. More than progress, breakthroughs depend on it. A virtually unlimited conceptual hybridization from dramatically distinct knowledge fields is markedly attainable in the present day through use of an art we experience as growingly immaterial and distributed. As (...) claimed by Roy Ascott (2006), the deep significance of this experience is only achieved when a sort of technological intermingling dissolves artwork and observer into a moistmedia that takes the form of a hybrid conscious body. Would the same be true for science? In addressing this question, a first step is to recognize that there is more to the scientific process of thinking and creative conception than mere cognition (as defined by neuroscience); it also parallels artistic processes. Importantly, both artists and scientists operate at levels of subjacent realities. What would be the implications to scientific practice if, instead of romantic, essentially subjective, speculative guesses, we prove scientifically that subjective processes potentiate science? The present article proclaims the centrality of this question as a transforming demand to contemporary neuroscience. Moreover, it reverberates Roy Ascott’s proposition of the brain as an access system – a ‘moistmedia informer’. In this article, hybrid artsci labs are proposed as systems that favour aesthetic rapture at different stages of scientific practices. A conceptualization of scientific objects – either material or immaterial – in contemporary art is central in this model. Artsci labs are essentially conceived as providing for interdigitating scientific, artistic and brain technological paradigms, and the effects on cognitive handling through directly controlled technical evaluation is presented. Results from my lab give support to Ascott’s proposition of an art development informed by the brain. Moreover, the hybrid multimodal character of the artwork returns to science as a gain in abstraction, favouring the idea of contemporary art as a speculum of knowledge resonances, while potentiating intuitive conceptual reframing and associative thinking usually detected as insights. (shrink)

This article develops some of the many ways in which Leonardo and Descartes, throughout the prolific period of human valuation from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, seem to have approached and anchored their seminal contributions on the Cartesian body and metaphysical mind. While Leonardo masterfully developed an iterative thinking system of visual design applied to nature and artifacts, Descartes laid the groundwork for methodical critical thinking in dimensions that ironically ranged from dreams to the controlled narrative, from a deceptive (...) body to a rational man. In an interdisciplinary articulation of historical and neurobiological leanings, contemporary concepts of the cognitive emotional brain, led by Damasio as the basis for his conclusions about the "Descartes Error", as well as a torrent of growing evidence that supports high cognitive abilities in associative processes mediated by action/body lead us to a re-evaluation today of the legacies of Leonardo and Descartes, rescuing a scientific mind/brain/body process that underlies the human mastering of a universal technology of discourse that would revolutionize science. (shrink)

In this paper, reasons of postponing motherhood by professional young women are explored and related with changes of course in their biographies, especially with those sociologically associated with individualization, by means a qualitative research on this demographic group in Caracas (Venezuela) a..

The need for urgent, structural transformations to dominant food systems is increasingly recognized in research and policy. The direction these transformations take is in great part influenced by how the problem is framed and what future pathways become seen as plausible and desirable. Scientific knowledge and the organizations producing it hold considerable authority in suggesting what alternatives are or are not worth pursuing, ultimately shaping frames and in turn being shaped by them. This paper examines Brazil’s federal Agricultural Research Corporation (...) (Embrapa), a major contributor to technological advances that made Brazil into an agricultural powerhouse. We examine the ways in which Embrapa’s leadership has framed sustainable agriculture in its public communication and the wider implications for food systems transformation. Drawing from Embrapa news articles in the period 2015–2020, we identify four interrelated frames forming Embrapa’s prevalent position on sustainability. Our results show that while Embrapa promotes practices based on alternative approaches such as agroecology, its deeper framing often reflects the core assumptions driving dominant industrial food systems. This framing reinforces underlying logics of control, efficiency, and competition aligned with the productivist paradigm and excludes divergent perspectives that exist within the organization. (shrink)

Purpose As Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) proliferate, calls have emerged for ethical reflection. Ethics guidelines have played a central role in this respect. While quantitative research on the ethics guidelines of AI/Big Data has been undertaken, there has been a dearth of systematic qualitative analyses of these documents. Design/methodology/approach Aiming to address this research gap, this paper analyses 70 international ethics guidelines documents from academia, NGOs and the corporate realm, published between 2017 and 2020. Findings The article presents (...) four key findings: existing ethics guidelines (1) promote a broad spectrum of values; (2) focus principally on AI, followed by (Big) Data and algorithms; (3) do not adequately define the term “ethics” and related terms; and (4) have most frequent recourse to the values of “transparency,” “privacy,” and “security.” Based on these findings, the article argues that the guidelines corpus exhibits discernible utilitarian tendencies; guidelines would benefit from greater reflexivity with respect to their ethical framework; and virtue ethical approaches have a valuable contribution to make to the process of guidelines development. Originality/value The paper provides qualitative insights into the ethical discourse surrounding AI guidelines, as well as a concise overview of different types of operative translations of theoretical ethical concepts vis-à-vis the sphere of AI. These may prove beneficial for (applied) ethicists, developers and regulators who understand these guidelines as policy. (shrink)

We study the SIS and SIRI epidemic models discussing different approaches to compute the thresholds that determine the appearance of an epidemic disease. The stochastic SIS model is a well known mathematical model, studied in several contexts. Here, we present recursively derivations of the dynamic equations for all the moments and we derive the stationary states of the state variables using the moment closure method. We observe that the steady states give a good approximation of the quasi-stationary states of the (...) SIS model. We present the relation between the SIS stochastic model and the contact process introducing creation and annihilation operators. For the spatial stochastic epidemic reinfection model SIRI, where susceptibles S can become infected I, then recover and remain only partial immune against reinfection R, we present the phase transition lines using the mean field and the pair approximation for the moments. We use a scaling argument that allow us to determine analytically an explicit formula for the phase transition lines in pair approximation. (shrink)

The author was a Bengali officer of India's Foreign Service. On his first foreign assignment during 1948 - 1954, he came across rare manuscripts at the National Library in Bangkok covering Rabindranath Tagore's visit to Thailand in October 1927. Having learnt the Thai language and being a Tagore aficionado, this discovery was fortuitous. "As the Poet travelled mostly without a stenographer, a great many of his speeches would have been lost to posterity. Reports about the Siam visit available in India (...) then were extremely sketchy..... Besides the material on the Poets visit to Thailand, this book contains some other important documents not readily available. The main treatise is split into four chapters: Time to Awake: A Poets Warning, Tagores Conception of History, Message to Asia And Africa and The Toiler for Peace. These chapters show what Tagore considered to be the biggest problem of human history, how he warned humanity for more than half a century against the problems and perils into which the world has been thrown today, what remedies he suggested to counter them. The author also condensed the Poet's ideas about civilisation and culture, freedom, power, diplomacy, colonialism, military alliances, racial prejudice and nationalism." This book, when first published during the Poet's centenary celebrations in 1961, provided for the first time a full account of that visit. It has since been a reference source for many Indian and international scholars on Tagore, with citations in their publications. With increased attention in recent years to Tagore's views on Nationalism, a republication for wider availability would benefit both readers and scholars on Tagore's view of global events during the inter-War period. This is the only republication of the book after sixty years. (shrink)

Henri Meschonnic famously gives specific usage to a repertoire of terms such as subjectivity, continuous, rhythm, historicity, recitative and enunciation. Behind them, there is a project to overcome what he calls the “chain of dualisms” (1988), or the tendency toward dichotomy in theoretical thinking, represented in the language fields by the separations between signifier and signified, oral and written, form and content, and others. Following Philip Wilson’s (2012) initiative of applying Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concepts of language games and forms of life (...) to translation studies, we seek to draw an analogy between the Wittgensteinian leap from analytics to pragmatics and the Meschonnician leap from sign to discourse, with the aim of investigating the viability of a synthesis of the two authors’ ideas as a theoretical and methodological proposition for Translation Studies. Meschonnic proposes that the sign (enunciate) be overcome in favor of discourse (enunciation), which he views as a relationship between language and body. We argue that the linguistic experience, in that light, is akin to a performance and that Wittgenstein, by focusing on the use of language, also favors this idea, which may be a possible key for a theoretical practice of translation. (shrink)

The text here summarized aims to examine the tragedy Medea of Euripides, from the gender concept stand point, trying to emphasize the gender relationships in it described and the tactics of the female universe in it reported.

This contribution discusses the development of the Data Ethics Decision Aid (DEDA), a framework for reviewing government data projects that considers their social impact, the embedded values and the government’s responsibilities in times of data-driven public management. Drawing from distinct qualitative research approaches, the DEDA framework was developed in an iterative process (2016–2018) and has since then been applied by various Dutch municipalities, the Association of Dutch Municipalities, and the Ministry of General Affairs (NL). We present the DEDA framework as (...) an effective process to moderate case-deliberation and advance the development of responsible data practices. In addition, by thoroughly documenting the deliberation process, the DEDA framework establishes accountability. First, this paper sheds light on the necessity for data ethical case deliberation. Second, it describes the prototypes, the final design of the framework, and its evaluation. After a comparison with other frameworks, and a discussion of the findings, the paper concludes by arguing that the DEDA framework is a useful process for ethical evaluation of data projects for public management and an effective tool for creating awareness of ethical issues in data practices. (shrink)

The relevance of this study's topic is supported by the argument that a philosophical understanding of the fundamental concepts of epistemology as they pertain to the educational process is crucial as the educational setting becomes increasingly digitalised. This paper aims to explore the epistemological component of the philosophy of learning in light of the educational process digitalisation. The research comprised a sample of 462 university students from Kazakhstan, with 227 participants assigned to the experimental and 235 to the control groups. (...) The research employed a scientific methodology that encompassed various scientific methods, including sociological, socio-philosophical, and culturological analysis. In addition, philosophical methods such as system analysis, structural and functional analysis, and comparative and hermeneutical approaches were utilised for the philosophical and epistemological interpretation of the cognitive activity mechanism of students and its dynamics in light of digitalising education. Furthermore, psychological diagnostic methods such as SAMOAL personality self-actualisation diagnostics, personality volitional potential diagnostics, and psychodiagnostic methods were employed. This study offers a theoretical rationale for the integration of digital technology in the realm of education, grounded in philosophical and epistemological principles. In addition, it challenges the null hypothesis that the philosophical and epistemological framework of the educational process does not influence its cognitive and personal aspects. Digital learning has been found to improve both cognitive and personal aspects of the learning process. All indicators of self-realization increased statistically significantly (p 0.05). The positive impact of digital technologies on increasing the communicative competence of students can be considered as a factor in mitigating epistemic risks in the learning process.The findings can be used to avoid epistemological risks and improve learning effectiveness in a digital learning environment. There are plans to investigate the gender dimension of digital learning epistemology in the future. (shrink)

IntroductionTranscranial magnetic stimulation is a consolidated procedure for the treatment of depression, with several meta-analyses demonstrating its efficacy. Theta-burst stimulation is a modification of TMS with similar efficacy and shorter session duration. The geriatric population has many comorbidities and a high prevalence of depression, but few clinical trials are conducted specifically for this age group. TBS could be an option in this population, offering the advantages of few side effects and no pharmacological interactions. Therefore, our aim is to investigate the (...) efficacy of TBS in geriatric depression.Clinical trial registration[https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/], identifier [NCT04842929]. (shrink)

ContextPeople with mental disorders can acquire long-term disabilities, which could impair their functioning and quality of life (QoL), requiring permanent care and social support. Systematic data on QoL and functioning, which could support a better management of these people, were not available.ObjectiveTo analyze the QoL, level of functioning and their association with sociodemographic and clinical factors of people with mental disorders who underwent deinstitutionalization using assisted living facilities.MethodsA Cross-sectional study was conducted between July 2018 and July 2019, through interviews using (...) the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) to determine the QoL scores, and the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0) to determine the level of functioning. All adults (≥18 years old) with mental disorders, who underwent deinstitutionalization, users of assisted living facilities and assisted by the Psychosocial Assistance Centers III, in a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, were selected. For statistical analysis of the associated factors, Student’st-test was used for dichotomous variables and ANOVA for polynomial variables. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to measure the association between QoL and functioning scores.ResultsOut of 359 people who underwent deinstitutionalization with mental disorders, 147 met the eligibility criteria. The mean total score for the WHOQOL-BREF was 66.5 ± 13.4 and the mean score for WHODAS 2.0 was 10.4 ± 7.6. An association was found between people who were studying (n= 65.8; 95%CI, 63.5–68.1vs. n= 73.9; 95%CI, 67.5–80.3;p= 0.04) and better WHOQOL-BREF QoL scores or WHODAS 2.0 levels of functioning (n= 10.9; 95%CI, 9.6–12.2vs. n= 5.1; 95%CI, 2.5–7.7;p= 0.01). A weak negative correlation (r= 0.41) emerged between higher QoL scores and functioning improvement.ConclusionThis study indicates that the QoL of the sample is associated by their functioning levels, which, in turn, may reflect on their social interactions. Public policies that favor interventions increasing socialization of this population can result in better health outcomes. The QoL and functioning scores provide valuable insights to develop public policies more suited to this population profile. (shrink)

Objetivou-se discutir a comunicação silenciosa entre mãe e bebê, a partir do pensamento de Winnicott. Fez-se uma pesquisa qualitativa, baseada no método clínico e referencial psicanalítico, por meio do estudo de caso de uma criança, com 8 anos de idade e dificuldades no desenvolvimento da fala, sem ..

The current environmental crisis can be approached, through many perspectives, as a civilizational crisis. Alternatives of human transcendence are identified in the Inca civilization to compensate for the malaise that characterizes the actual crisis. There is a multicultural dimension to the manifestations of Hoasca occurring in Amazonian countries. As employed by the Beneficent Spiritist Center União do Vegetal in a religious context, it can contribute to the reconstruction of buen vivir, which served as the principle of the civilizations that preceded (...) the colonization of the Americas by Europeans. Today, the State openly confronts the manifestation of the constitutional principles of buen vivir, religious freedom, and the protection of this cultural heritage. Here, the implications of the civilizational crisis and ways of overcoming it are approached from the standpoint of deep ecology, but the implications also reflect the doctrinal vision of the UDV to which the authors are affiliated. (shrink)

Maíra Dos Santos Matthes Da Costa Au cours des dernières décennies, l’approche walzérienne de la guerre juste fit l’objet de vives critiques de la part de l’école révisionniste, qui est devenue l’approche dominante dans le débat universitaire portant sur ce sujet. Sa révision de la philosophie walzérienne de la guerre englobe deux points fondamentaux, à savoir : 1) le refus de comprendre la guerre comme une situation exceptionnelle dans laquelle nos jugements moraux se distingueraient significativement de ceux que l’on formule (...) dans des contextes de paix ; 2) le refus du dualisme moral et de l’indépendance entre des ordres de jugements concernant le jus ad bellum et le jus in bello. Dans cet article, nous allons nous pencher sur ces deux points fondamentaux, pour en conclure qu’ils proposent une conception apolitique de la guerre. (shrink)

A condição humana”, de autoria de Hannah Arendt, possui conteúdos teóricos importantes para a compreensão das atividades humanas na atualidade e, entre elas, as exercidas pelos profissionais da área da saúde e neste momento, da Enfermagem. Dessa forma, pode-se analisar o relato dos Docentes de Enfermagem em relação à Vita Activa quando expõem a condição humana experienciada no cotidiano. Em outros termos, o labor está relacionado às atividades que correspondem ao processo biológico do corpo humano para garantir à subsistência: os (...) cuidados com o corpo do Enfermeiro Docente. Este é realizado por meio da alimentação, da higienização, do sono, do repouso, com uso de medicamentos e o acompanhamento com especialistas. Em relação ao work, os ED realizam uma obra manual e intelectual que compreende ao ensino dos estudantes e ao cuidado ao labor dos usuários do Sistema Único de Saúde. O work abrange também o fazer científico e as relações interpessoais na Universidade, as quais ocorrem por meio do comando, da obediência e com hierarquia. A action é estabelecida quando os ED agem e falam conjuntamente com os pares durante as reuniões de Departamento, nos Sindicatos e nos Conselhos Municipais de Saúde, atuando com igualdade, liberdade, responsabilidade, isto é, de maneira cidadã. O ED precisa estar ciente da importância destas três atividades da Vita Activa, pois além de consumir e produzir pode, ao exercer a política, iniciar novos processos que possibilitem mudanças em relação aos cuidados com o próprio labor, no processo de work e na convivência com os outros. Acredita-se que isto resultará na melhoria da qualidade de vida dele, do ensino em Enfermagem e dos cuidados de saúde aos usuários do SUS. (shrink)

This review studies Tantra as essentially Vedantic and comments on Swami Swahananda's genius as a syncretist.