An analysis of the extension of the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorem to Riemann-Cartan U4 space-times with torsion and spin density is undertaken. The minimal coupling principle in U4 is used to formulate a new expression for the convergence condition autoparallels in Einstein-Cartan theory. The Gödel model with torsion is given as an example.

Teniendo en cuenta que la filosofía es hija de la polis, a primera vista, el tema de la filosofía de la ciudad puede no revelar nada nuevo. De hecho, la filosofía y la ciudad cuentan una historia paralela. Es en el ágora, un espacio privilegiado para el ejercicio de la ciudadanía, donde la filosofía se desarrolla como debate de argumentos. Pero, aunque a lo largo de la historia las ciudades puedan reflejar un deseo civilizatorio, lo cierto es que la ciudad (...) contemporánea refleja muy poco de la realidad política de la polis, de la indiferenciación medieval entre lo público y lo privado o de la racionalidad normativa de la ciudad moderna. Las ciudades en el siglo xx, y especialmente en el siglo xxi, tienen que ver más con las relaciones sociales y económicas de la ciudad industrial y posindustrial. La progresiva mecanización del siglo xix y su extensión, en el siglo xx, a la automatización y a la digitalización, cambian definitivamente la forma en que nos relacionamos, pensamos y trabajamos —en resumen, cómo vivimos—. Con el establecimiento de un capitalismo de orden económico que afecta a todas las dimensiones de la vida de la ciudad, esta queda delimitada por el poder, revela las contradicciones de las sociedades urbanas diseñadas por los mercados y da lugar, según David Harvey, a la apropiación privada de la vida y los espacios. (shrink)

Efforts to promote responsible conduct of research (RCR) should take into consideration how scientists already conceptualize the relationship between ethics and science. In this study, we investigated how scientists relate ethics and science by analyzing the values expressed in interviews with fifteen science faculty members at a large midwestern university. We identified the values the scientists appealed to when discussing research ethics, how explicitly they related their values to ethics, and the relationships between the values they appealed to. We found (...) that the scientists in our study appealed to epistemic and ethical values with about the same frequency, and much more often than any other type of value. We also found that they explicitly associated epistemic values with ethical values. Participants were more likely to describe epistemic and ethical values as supporting each other, rather than trading off with each other. This suggests that many scientists already have a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between ethics and science, which may be an important resource for RCR training interventions. (shrink)

Psychology may have to get seriously political as human aims in living and selfhood itself are increasingly influenced in a deleterious manner by the vicissitudes of living in a neoliberal political economy and one-sided “enterprise culture” (Martin & McLellan, 2013; Sugarman, 2015). This article reviews recent writings of several social critics, including Jackson Lears (2015), Sebastion Junger (2015), Philip Blond (2010), and Christopher Lasch (1995), who richly flesh out the picture of this detrimental state of affairs. We note that many (...) of these critics have little to say about credible alternatives to neoliberalism. The article then seeks to identify resources within theoretical and philosophical psychology, including hermeneutic philosophy and interpretive social science, for helping to overcome neoliberalism. They might help clarify and nurture a renewed democratic populism or engaged democratic politics and contribute to gaining what Lasch termed a much-needed “wisdom of limits” in today’s society. (shrink)

In Older Adults (OAs), Electroencephalogram (EEG) slowing in frontal lobes and a diminished muscle atonia during Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM) have each been effective tracers of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), but this relationship remains to be explored by non-linear analysis. Likewise, data provided by EEG, EMG (Electromyogram) and EOG (Electrooculogram)—the three required sleep indicators—during the transition from REM to Non-REM (NREM) sleep have not been related jointly to MCI. Therefore, the main aim of the study was to explore, with (...) results for Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) and multichannel DFA (mDFA), the Color of Noise (CN) at the NREM to REM transition in OAs with MCI vs. subjects with good performances. The comparisons for the transition from NREM to REM were made for each group at each cerebral area, taking bilateral derivations to evaluate interhemispheric coupling and anteroposterior and posterior networks. In addition, stationarity analysis was carried out to explore if the three markers distinguished between the groups. Neuropsi and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were administered, as well as other geriatric tests. One night polysomnography was applied to 6 OAs with MCI (68.1 ± 3) and to 7 subjects without it (CTRL) (64.5 ± 9), and pre-REM and REM epochs were analyzed for each subject. Lower scores for attention, memory and executive funcions and a greater index of arousals during sleep were found for the MCI group. Results confirmed that EOGs constituted significant markers of MCI, increasing the CN for the MCI group in REM sleep. The CN of the EEG from the pre-REM to REM was higher for the MCI group vs. the opposite for the CTRL group at frontotemporal areas. Frontopolar interhemispheric scaling values also followed this trend as well as right anteroposterior networks. EMG Hurst values for both groups were lower than those for EEG and EOG. Stationarity analyses showed differences between stages in frontal areas and right and left EOGs for both groups. These results may demonstrate the breakdown of fractality of areas especially involved in executive functioning and the way weak stationarity analyses may help to distinguish between sleep stages in OAs. (shrink)

Although it is commonly believed that the concept of brain death was developed to benefit organ transplants, it evolved independently. Transplantation owed its development to advances in surgery and immunosuppressive treatment; BD owed its origin to the development of intensive care. The first autotransplant was achieved in the early 1900s, when studies of increased intracranial pressure causing respiratory arrest with preserved heartbeat were reported. Between 1902 and 1950, the BD concept was supported by the discovery of EEG, Crile’s definition of (...) death, the use of EEG to demonstrate abolition of brain potentials after ischaemia, and Crafoord’s statement that death was due to cessation of blood flow. Transplantation saw the first xenotransplant in humans and the first unsuccessful kidney transplant from a cadaver. In the 1950s, circulatory arrest in coma was identified by angiography, and the death of the nervous system and coma dépassé were described. Murray performed the first successful kidney transplant. In the 1960s, the BD concept and organ transplants were instantly linked when the first kidney transplant using a brain-dead donor was performed; Schwab proposed to use EEG in BD; the Harvard Committee report and the Sydney Declaration appeared; the first successful kidney, lung and pancreas transplants using cadaveric donors were achieved; Barnard performed the first human heart transplant. This historical review demonstrates that the BD concept and organ transplantation arose separately and advanced in parallel, and only began to progress together in the late 1960s. Therefore, the BD concept did not evolve to benefit transplantation. (shrink)

Membership in voluntary organizations is associated with individual and social benefits. Due to the negative consequences of the global pandemic on older people, and the governmental challenges posed by population aging, voluntary membership is of great importance to society. To effectively promote volunteering among older people, it is necessary to understand the determinants of voluntary membership. This study analyses the influence of individual values—secular/traditional and survival/self-expression–on voluntary membership among European adults. Specifically, it examines which values orient two age groups, as (...) well as men and women toward a certain type of association. The sample of 31,985 comprises 60% of adults aged 50–64 and 40% aged 65–79; of which 56% are women and 44% men. The empirical estimation considers different levels of data aggregation: individual, national and welfare system, therefore multilevel analysis is used as an analytical strategy. Individual-level variables from the Integrated Values Survey and national-level variables from the World Bank and Eurostat are used. The results indicate that traditional and self-expression values promote membership in voluntary organizations in general more than secular and survival values. However, there are differences according to the type of organization. Furthermore, values are found to moderate the effect of age and gender on voluntary membership. (shrink)

American artist Man Ray spend the most productive years of his career, during the 1920s and 1930s, in Paris.

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

The doctrine of the Image of God which is to be found in humankind is usually based by the Scholastic tradition in the human intellect and will. Bañez, a commentator of St. Thomas Aquinas, takes the further step of basing this Image in the personal act of being. In this way the Image of God as found in the created human being is never lost. The Image of God in the "recreated" human being (in the order of grace) can be (...) lost, however, due to the vicious use of one's freedom. (shrink)

From as early as 1839, artists began exploring photography's enormous potential for storytelling and often went to great lengths to create pictures for the camera.

Se pretende mostrar la contradicción existente entre el carácter plural e interdisciplinar de la bioética y la figura del bioeticista o experto. Las éticas aplicadas, de las que la bioética es una rama muy desarrollada, surgen a finales del siglo XX para confrontar los retos de las nuevas tecnología.

On 5 August 1968, publication of the Harvard Committee’s report on the subject of “irreversible coma” established a standard for diagnosing death on neurological grounds. On the same day, the 22nd World Medical Assembly met in Sydney, Australia, and announced the Declaration of Sydney, a pronouncement on death, which is less often quoted because it was overshadowed by the impact of the Harvard Report. To put those events into present-day perspective, the authors reviewed all papers published on this subject and (...) the World Medical Association web page and documents, and corresponded with Dr A G Romualdez, the son of Dr A Z Romualdez. There was vast neurological expertise among some of the Harvard Committee members, leading to a comprehensible and practical clinical description of the brain death syndrome and the way to diagnose it. This landmark account had a global medical and social impact on the issue of human death, which simultaneously lessened reception of the Declaration of Sydney. Nonetheless, the Declaration of Sydney faced the main conceptual and philosophical issues on human death in a bold and forthright manner. This statement differentiated the meaning of death at the cellular and tissue levels from the death of the person. This was a pioneering view on the discussion of human death, published as early as in 1968, that should be recognised by current and future generations. (shrink)

This paper proposes to reconstruct Boaventura de Sousa Santos' conception of "epistemologies of the south" both (a) as a critical theory aiming at denouncing the impoverishment of the epistemic field entailed by the normative imposition of a certain model of knowledge (what we call "the monoculture of reason"), and (b) as a long-term political project of a harmonic coexistence of different epistemologies ("an ecology of knowledges").

The aim of this article is to advance the idea according to which the Cartesian Cogito, the ground of modern philosophy and the source of the notion of thinking subject, is tributary of a certain method whose legitimation is grounded in western history. According to this hypothesis, there is a certain tool that plays a fundamental role in the production of this new philosophical notion: the dream. The argument will be developed in four parts. We will first proceed to (i) (...) an analysis of the role of the hypothesis of the dream in the formulation of the notion of res cogitans, what will bring us to (ii) an exploration of the conception of private world supposed by such a hypothesis so as to (iii) clarify the specificity of the Cartesian notion of knowledge, a knowledge that must be acquirable in a dream; in conclusion (iv) we will indicate in a schematic way the historic-cultural anchor of the Cartesian dream where the subject is originated. (shrink)

This article advances the hypothesis that the Fichtean enterprise of grounding all possible experience in a fundamental principle has to fail in order to succeed one of its most important tasks: reformulating the very idea of subjectivity. In order to ground this hypothesis, the paper will be divided in four parts: (i) the first one will analyze the starting point of the work where Fichte lays the foundations of his philosophical project (Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre) so as to show that (...) its first principle contains a fundamental ambiguity. We will then (ii) suggest that this very ambiguity reveals itself in the Anstoß, the conceptual tool through which Fichte intends to get rid of the Kantian notion of thing-in- itself. In a third moment (iii), we will explore the effects of this abandonment of the thing-in-itself on the relation between the finite and the infinite, what will bring us to the notion of failure. Finally (iv), we will propose to interpret this failure as a positive driving force of a permanent calling into question of the subject and its language. (shrink)

This paper explores the contrast between two meanings of thinking: (i) one implied by the Cartesian and Kantian philosophy, the two thinkers that have arguably the deepest influence on the constellation of Western philosophical problems and (ii) another implied by the philosophical-anthropological project of the Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. The thesis here defended is that, in the Cartesian and Kantian philosophy, thinking is related to ruling and legislating over the experience through concepts, while in Viveiros de Castros' theoretical (...) enterprise, thinking is rather to explore the limits of conceptual constructions when confronted with the experience of alterity. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the peculiarity of what Aristotle named practical wisdom or practical knowledge. Pivot to our analysis is the first thesis of the Nicomachean Ethics, where the philosopher appears to state a fallacy when he argues that, given that all actions aim at some good, good is that which every action aims to. We argue that the inference is non-fallacious because of the peculiarity of the practical domain, which manifests itself in the identity of (...) the good and the end. This identity is in the origin of what we would call, as an hypothesis, practical significance. (shrink)