Analysis of geographical space included under the denomination of "Caribbean". as ~rella s the cartographic representations which have been given to this regard. arid the legendary image of earthly paradise that was known with The differences while including or not part of the continental territory under the Caribbean term. are related with political interests. because the idea of the Caribbean basin with Islands and continental territories is assumed by the Spanishspeaking inhabitants, while among the English-speaking, that is only including the (...) islands Navigation routes are analized together with atlas of the XVlII century,and results of expl-ditionary and scientific activities undertaken by marine and explorers such as Cosme Cliurruca. Vicente Tofiño, Antonio de Ulloa y Jorge Juan, José Mª Mazarredo, Jose Mª Chacón and Joaquín Fidalgo. (shrink)

Book Description (Blurb): Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds explains the crucial role that human cognition research plays in the design and realization of artificial intelligence systems, illustrating the steps necessary for the design of artificial models of cognition. It bridges the gap between the theoretical, experimental and technological issues addressed in the context of AI of cognitive inspiration and computational cognitive science. -/- Beginning with an overview of the historical, methodological and technical issues in the field of Cognitively-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, (...) Lieto illustrates how the cognitive design approach has an important role to play in the development of intelligent AI technologies and plausible computational models of cognition. Introducing a unique perspective that draws upon Cybernetics and early AI principles, Lieto emphasizes the need for an equivalence between cognitive processes and implemented AI procedures, in order to realise biologically and cognitively inspired artificial minds. He also introduces the Minimal Cognitive Grid, a pragmatic method to rank the different degrees of biologically and cognitive accuracy of artificial systems in order project and predict their explanatory power with respect to the natural systems taken as source of inspiration. -/- Providing a comprehensive overview of cognitive design principles in constructing artificial minds, this text will be essential reading for students and researchers of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. (shrink)

In this paper we identify and characterize an analysis of two problematic aspects affecting the representational level of cognitive architectures (CAs), namely: the limited size and the homogeneous typology of the encoded and processed knowledge. We argue that such aspects may constitute not only a technological problem that, in our opinion, should be addressed in order to build arti cial agents able to exhibit intelligent behaviours in general scenarios, but also an epistemological one, since they limit the plausibility of the (...) comparison of the CAs' knowledge representation and processing mechanisms with those executed by humans in their everyday activities. In the fi nal part of the paper further directions of research will be explored, trying to address current limitations and future challenges. (shrink)

A la hora de pensar lo más inmediato a nosotros mismos es necesario acudir a lo que somos en cuanto Dasein. Sin embargo, la experiencia de lo inmediato tiene la condición de presentarse bajo la forma de un extrañamiento, un «no saber». Se verá que la corporeidad y su extrañamiento abren a la posibilidad de una hermenéutica de nuestra propia condición porque la experiencia de lo Unheimlich es una vía de epojé que «detona» (revienta) la cadena de significaciones habitual y (...) reconfigura la experiencia. Se tomará como punto de referencia cuatro casos icónicos: 1) la convalecencia de Oliver Sacks, 2) el famoso caso Paul Schreber, 3) la referencia al joven esquizofrénico en los Seminarios de Zollikon, e incluso 4) el desfallecimiento de Heidegger entre los años 1945 y 1946, todo esto a la luz del extrañamiento de lo íntimo y la posibilidad que este abre a un «reordenamiento interno». En definitiva, las patologías y lo terrorífico que las acompaña son capaces de generar las condiciones de un vitalismo inusitado, pues solo quien se ha enfrentado a la más radical convulsión de todas sus verdades, podrá «abrirse camino» en medio del exceso de donación que desborda su «realidad». (shrink)

In this article we present an advanced version of Dual-PECCS, a cognitively-inspired knowledge representation and reasoning system aimed at extending the capabilities of artificial systems in conceptual categorization tasks. It combines different sorts of common-sense categorization (prototypical and exemplars-based categorization) with standard monotonic categorization procedures. These different types of inferential procedures are reconciled according to the tenets coming from the dual process theory of reasoning. On the other hand, from a representational perspective, the system relies on the hypothesis of conceptual (...) structures represented as heterogeneous proxytypes. Dual-PECCS has been experimentally assessed in a task of conceptual categorization where a target concept illustrated by a simple common-sense linguistic description had to be identified by resorting to a mix of categorization strategies, and its output has been compared to human responses. The obtained results suggest that our approach can be beneficial to improve the representational and reasoning conceptual capabilities of standard cognitive artificial systems, and –in addition– that it may be plausibly applied to different general computational models of cognition. The current version of the system, in fact, extends our previous work, in that Dual-PECCS is now integrated and tested into two cognitive architectures, ACT-R and CLARION, implementing different assumptions on the underlying invariant structures governing human cognition. Such integration allowed us to extend our previous evaluation. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of the combination of prototypical concepts. The proposed logic relies on the logic of typicality ALC + TR, whose semantics is based on the notion of rational closure, as well as on the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics, and is equipped with a cognitive heuristic used by humans for concept composition. We first extend the logic of typicality ALC + TR by typicality inclusions of the (...) form p :: T(C) v D, whose intuitive meaning is that “we believe with degree p about the fact that typical Cs are Ds”. As in the distributed semantics, we define different scenarios containing only some typicality inclusions, each one having a suitable probability. We then exploit such scenarios in order to ascribe typical properties to a concept C obtained as the combination of two prototypical concepts. We also show that reasoning in the proposed Description Logic is EXPTIME-complete as for the underlying standard Description Logic ALC. (shrink)

Summary This paper provides an interpretation of the movement of Arendt's thought in her Denktagebuch, from 1950 to 1973. This movement results in an incipient political philosophy based on new concepts of freedom, equality, and solidarity. As a contribution to debates on the normative foundations of Arendt's political thought, the paper seeks to show that her incipient political philosophy is based on an ethical understanding of the human condition as constituted by its openness to the divine, the worldly, and the (...) (human) Other. Despite its fragmentary nature and its politically problematic indebtedness to theological traditions, Arendt's private thought nevertheless allows us to rethink her place in the history of European ideas. Beyond that, it also provides a powerful alternative to the view that ethical and political thought must remain ?political not metaphysical? (shrink)

This special issue of Human Nature presents selected works from the 2015 and 2017 “Warfare, Environment, Social Inequality, and Pro-Sociability” conferences held at the Center for Cross-Cultural Study in Seville, Spain. These investigations explore the manifestations of indigenous warfare and violence from a host of theoretical perspectives. Topics range from the origins of warfare to the psychological repercussions of combat, the relationship between warfare and status, as well as the documentation of peace processes among warring groups. This issue also examines (...) the effects of militarization and coercive conservation on indigenous peoples. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a computational framework aimed at extending the problem solving capabilities of cognitive artificial agents through the introduction of a novel, goal-directed, dynamic knowledge generation mechanism obtained via a non monotonic reasoning procedure. In particular, the proposed framework relies on the assumption that certain classes of problems cannot be solved by simply learning or injecting new external knowledge in the declarative memory of a cognitive artificial agent but, on the other hand, require a mechanism for the (...) automatic and creative re-framing, or re-formulation, of the available knowledge. We show how such mechanism can be obtained trough a framework of dynamic knowledge generation that is able to tackle the problem of commonsense concept combination. In addition, we show how such a framework can be employed in the field of cognitive architectures in order to overcome situations like the impasse in SOAR by extending the possible options of its subgoaling procedures. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of combining prototypical concepts, an open problem in the fields of AI and cognitive modelling. Our logic extends the logic of typicality ALC + TR, based on the notion of rational closure, by inclusions p :: T(C) v D (“we have probability p that typical Cs are Ds”), coming from the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics. Additionally, it embeds a set of cognitive heuristics for concept (...) combination. We show that the complexity of reasoning in our logic is EXPTIME-complete as in ALC. (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza los cuentos “Ciudadanía” (2011) de Denise Phé-Funchal y “Locaciones” (2014) de Carla Pravisani. El objetivo es revisar la representación de la segregación y el poder biopolítico sobre los cuerpos desde la ironía. Ambos cuentos construyen personajes atravesados por prácticas corporales (Muñiz, 2014) que evidencian un uso de los cuerpos como exhibiciones didáctico moralizantes. Además, estos cuerpos son segregados y excluidos del entorno social, según la mixofobia propuesta de Bauman (2015) para transformarse en prácticas deshumanizantes y biopolíticas propias (...) de un estado de excepción permanente, según lo propuesto por Giorgio Agamben (2014). Así, los textos, a partir de lo que Hutcheon denomina la ironía paródica, evidencian de forma mordaz la deshumanización de las sociedades contemporáneas. (shrink)

Although virtues have gained a firm presence in the theory and practice of corporate management, humility is not ranked as one the chief virtues in the business world. In spite of this, it is an important virtue, contributing to the manager’s moral and professional quality and the development of the company’s human team. This paper explains the basic traits of humility in general and how they manifest in the manager’s life and profession, and shows, within the ethics of virtues, that (...) it is not just a personal desideratum but a fundamental quality of a good manager and good management. (shrink)

During the last decades, many cognitive architectures (CAs) have been realized adopting different assumptions about the organization and the representation of their knowledge level. Some of them (e.g. SOAR [35]) adopt a classical symbolic approach, some (e.g. LEABRA[ 48]) are based on a purely connectionist model, while others (e.g. CLARION [59]) adopt a hybrid approach combining connectionist and symbolic representational levels. Additionally, some attempts (e.g. biSOAR) trying to extend the representational capacities of CAs by integrating diagrammatical representations and reasoning are (...) also available [34]. In this paper we propose a reflection on the role that Conceptual Spaces, a framework developed by Peter G¨ardenfors [24] more than fifteen years ago, can play in the current development of the Knowledge Level in Cognitive Systems and Architectures. In particular, we claim that Conceptual Spaces offer a lingua franca that allows to unify and generalize many aspects of the symbolic, sub-symbolic and diagrammatic approaches (by overcoming some of their typical problems) and to integrate them on a common ground. In doing so we extend and detail some of the arguments explored by G¨ardenfors [23] for defending the need of a conceptual, intermediate, representation level between the symbolic and the sub-symbolic one. In particular we focus on the advantages offered by Conceptual Spaces (w.r.t. symbolic and sub-symbolic approaches) in dealing with the problem of compositionality of representations based on typicality traits. Additionally, we argue that Conceptual Spaces could offer a unifying framework for interpreting many kinds of diagrammatic and analogical representations. As a consequence, their adoption could also favor the integration of diagrammatical representation and reasoning in CAs. (shrink)

El presente trabajo aborda la noción de seres sintientes, integrada al sistema jurídico por la Corte Constitucional sin un sustento filosófico o epistémico claro. El objetivo general fue analizar el panorama ontológico del ser sintiente como categorización especial para los animales dentro del régimen jurídico de las cosas en Colombia, el cual fue desarrollado mediante una metodología cualitativa con énfasis hermenéutico. Se comprende que la noción de ser, desde sus distintas acepciones, no es un debate netamente teórico, ya que la (...) precisa consolidación de este concepto determina un rumbo para el pensar jurídico, decisivo en el camino a reconocer la calidad de sujetos de derechos a los animales no humanos, dada su capacidad de sintiencia, pues su protección actualmente está condicionada a la moral humana, además, deriva de considerar a los animales parte del ambiente y no individuos cuasi racionales independientes, impidiendo profundizar en posibilidades normativas de protección a éstos. Del análisis, se concluye que el reconocimiento como seres sintientes es un primer paso en las garantías a favor de los animales; el siguiente sería transitar del Estado social de derecho a un Estado socioambiental de derecho, donde se reconozca al ambiente como eje central para definir los parámetros del bienestar humano y animal, teniendo en cuenta una igualdad entre especies, aunada a la responsabilidad de cuidado que conlleva la racionalidad humana. (shrink)

El objetivo del estudio es evaluar el desempleo juvenil universitario en mujeres de 18 a 30 años, como consecuencia de los efectos de la pandemia en la salud pública. La metodología responde a un estudio de campo con una muestra de 239 casos analizados a través de una encuesta cerrada, basada en 26 ítem, mediante una escala Likert para contrastar las situaciones profesionales y humanas de las encuestadas relacionado a conciliación, igualdad y desarrollo profesional. Los resultados evidenciaron brechas en mujeres, (...) sobre lo cual se requiere fortalecer la participación de la mujer en espacios laborales. (shrink)

En este artículo se planteará, siguiendo a Heidegger, que el nihilismo, lejos de ser una consecuencia devastadora del tiempo de crisis es más bien una donación de este que posibilita realmente el acontecimiento del «pensar». En ese horizonte de significación se examinarán los orígenes de la palabra nihilismo y se abordará el nihilismo como espacio que prepara el acontecimiento del despliegue [Entfaltung] del ser. Por último, se estudiará brevemente la frase de difícil interpretación «solo un dios podrá salvarnos» pronunciada por (...) Heidegger en una entrevista en la revista Spiegel. (shrink)

This paper interrogates the timeliness of Hans Jonas’s thought by reading it in the light of Bruno Latour’s recent work. Latour was both a close reader and one of the most incisive critics of Jonas. Both authors responded to the ecological crisis by developing a metaphysics on which to ground an ethics. In doing so, they broke with the modern principle of autonomy, as well as with dogmatic distinctions between science and metaphysics, nature and society, and facts and values. Though (...) their heterodox work remains marginal in academic circles, it has been of enormous significance for the wider public, as is also reflected in legal developments. Indeed, I argue that we may be living in a Jonasian moment. Not only has the advent of the Anthropocene lent support to his understanding of the Earth as alive and dependent on our care, but the meaning of responsibility has expanded from legal liability to accountability to an ‘infinite responsibility’ for future generations. Still, Jonas’s pitfalls—a problematic conception of nature, authoritarian tendencies, and insufficient attention to politics and the economy—must be avoided. Latour’s work offers a powerful rejoinder and complementary ways to awaken a novel—and urgently needed—sense of responsibility. (shrink)

Este artículo busca avizorar, desde el terreno de las pretensiones del humanismo, la posibilidad de una ética desprovista de «centro» que se asiente en la «compasión». Se buscará comprender la necesidad de abandonar los intentos de retornar al proyecto «humanístico» y se señalará su mayor riesgo: el «cínico ilustrado». Adicionalmente, se considerará «el humanismo» como el solemne destello de una «estrella que murió hace mucho» pero que da señales para la construcción de una ética excéntrica fundada en la compasión y (...) el dolor. Para tales efectos, se presentarán tres secciones: a) el humanista un cínico ilustrado b) mecanismos de evasión. La miseria y el modo de vida burgués y c) la ausencia de centro y la posibilidad de una ética excéntrica. (shrink)

O presente artigo intenciona realizar uma breve investigação da relação dialética subjetividade-objetividade numa perspectiva emancipatória da classe oprimida. Com efeito, nosso objeto de estudo, a pedagogia do oprimido em Paulo Freire, será analisado numa perspectiva dialógica com o pensamento marxiano, com vistas a encontrar algumas marcas fundamentais da contribuição do filósofo alemão na constituição do ideário crítico freiriano. Destacamos aqui que o problema central da pesquisa, qual seja: a relação mundo e consciência, institui-se como problema indeclinável para o processo de (...) luta histórica e social. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop a brief analysis of spirituality in the Christian perspective from Luke 10.25-37, emphasizing the existing elective affinities between the notion of spirituality expressed in this narrative and the Ethics of Alterity in Emmanuel Levinas. The method used in this research is the literature review. For methodological reasons, this reflection was developed from the historical-critical exegetical process. The considerations found in this research line up to a prospect that the Other/Next assumes a vital place in the (...) spirituality of the Christian faith. Despite of the existing elective affinities between the Philosophy of Alterity and the Christian spirituality, the relationship between spirituality and ethics is a complex and essential drama for the search field of philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Laureado com a designação de patrono da educação brasileira, Paulo Freire foi, seguramente, um icônico humanista cristão e um notável intelectual do século XX. A obra Pedagogia do oprimido desvela, de modo singular, a politicidade da educação. Em que se pese a natureza conceitual do problema, esse escrito se faz irredutível a qualquer forma de especulação impassível e estéril. A proposta pedagógica de Freire consiste numa educação dialógica, participante, problematizadora e emancipatória, na qual o oprimido possa libertar-se a si mesmo (...) das amarras da coisificação, para, assim, exercer sua própria vocação ontológica de “ser-mais”, de ser sujeito cognoscente, autor de sua própria história através da práxis. Com efeito, o projeto freiriano de uma pedagogia contextualizada, i.e., forjada a partir do oprimido, de sua própria linguagem e valores, se funda, necessariamente, na fé nas pessoas. Dito de outro modo, a confiança no povo é uma condição imprescindível para a própria revolução. (shrink)

Las ciencias biomédicas han desarrollado marcos metodológicos para establecer el dolor como objeto de estudio y sobrellevar su alta carga de subjetividad. Sin embargo, estos enfoques auspician un sesgo naturalista que impide la consideración del “dolor” como un fenómeno del sufrimiento. En este sentido, el objetivo del presente artículo es identificar un tipo de sufrimiento que se escapa a la consideración del dolor, desde el enfoque biomédico, porque emerge en el deshilvanamiento de la temporalidad. La tesis del artículo sostiene que, (...) tras la alteración de los tejidos intencionales temporales de la conciencia, se padece un “sufrimiento inmanente”. Con el propósito de abordar estos aspectos, el artículo se estructura en tres secciones: (i) El sufrimiento inmanente. (ii) De la causa al síntoma. Las alteraciones pasivas de la conciencia y sus repercusiones en el cuerpo. (iii) Una experiencia honda de tristeza. Se concluye que el sufrimiento inmanente es el resultado de las alteraciones que alcanzan los tejidos intencionales de la conciencia en sus estadios más primarios y que estremece la existencia misma. La importancia de tematizarlo radica en la posibilidad que se abre para el que lo padece de verbalizar lo que en principio está más allá del uso del lenguaje descriptivo. (shrink)

Gisela Kozak Rovero es una escritora venezolana que ha reflejado en su narrativa las inquietudes y los anhelos de una parte importante de la sociedad de su país. A través de la mirada de la autora, siempre desde posturas comprometidas y feministas, el lector de su obra se encuentra con una Caracas que, al mismo tiempo, se acerca y se aleja de la ciudad a la que hace referencia el título de dos de sus textos literarios más importantes, Latidos de (...) Caracas y Pecados de la capital. El presente artículo, que se apoya en una entrevista en profundidad, pretende un acercamiento, tanto a la persona como a la obra de esta escritora latinoamericana, que enseña literatura en la universidad Central de Venezuela, y cuyos textos científicos y literarios constituyen un referente para la vida cultural de su país. Su ciudad, su necesidad de escribir, sus preocupaciones políticas y sociales, su versatilidad a la hora de construir personajes, y su capacidad para la ironía y la crítica social, son los elementos fundamentales de esta aproximación a su figura literaria. (shrink)

Pouco antes de falecer, Jorge Luís Borges determinou que sua esposa, Maria Kodama, não pu­blicasse seus livros regionalistas de juventude em suas obras completas, que assim ficariam incompletas, uma decisão tipicamente borgiana. A viúva preferiu não cumprir a determinação e as obras editadas se tornaram completas, na medida em que possam ser descobertos manuscritos ainda inéditos. Elas revelam um amplo arco, correspondendo à sua longa vida, da juventude muito argentina e profundamente bonaerense, do seu país e cidade natal Buenos Aires, (...) ao mun­do. Os seus artigos, publicados mais em revistas literárias que jornais, desde cedo revelam esta vocação universal. Jorge Luís Borges escreveu com freqüência sobre autores estrangeiros. Depois, os próprios temas dos livros vão mudando dos regionalismos e até localismos, rumo às dúvidas e ambigüidades intrinsecamente humanas de todas as partes do mundo, onde ele as imaginariamente situa. Ao fim e ao cabo, Jorge Luís Borges – traduzido e homenageado em muitos países – preferiu morrer em Genebra e lá ser sepultado, onde estudara na adolescência, quando fora muito feliz na descoberta inicial de outras culturas. Elas demoraram a nele predo­minarem, mas terminaram acontecendo. Mesmo assim, ele no íntimo nunca deixou de todo a argentinidade. Crescentemente cosmopolita, o nacionalismo jamais abandonou por completo o espírito de Jorge Luís Borges. Sua atitude pró-britânica, durante a própria Guerra das Malvinas, pode ser interpretada como protesto e advertência diante de uma derrota próxima. (shrink)

Los Colegios profesionales, corporaciones de derecho público, tienen como fines esenciales la ordenación del ejercicio de las profesiones, la representación exclusiva de las mismas, y la defensa de los intereses profesionales. El cambio social ha impulsado tres aspectos: la calidad del servicio, el necesario aprendizaje “a lo largo de la vida profesional” y su certificación. Ejemplos de acreditación profesional son los Abogados del Turno de Oficio, el EURO-PSY y el Certificado Europeo de Experto en Psicoterapia de la EFPA. Se describen (...) el contenido y las fases del currículum, el Desarrollo Profesional Continuo (DPC) y el Certificado de Acreditación de Psicólogos Especialistas en Psicoterapia. (shrink)

La relación de la matemática con la realidad es una cuestión que ha interesado desde siempre a los matemáticos y a los profesores de matemáticas, unas veces se establece esta relación desde la historia, otras para motivar a los alumnos (y responder a la famosa cuestión "para qué sirven las matemáticas") o para situar la construcción de conceptos matemáticos y sus significado en experiencias concretas y en conexión con otras disciplinas y, otras veces, a través de los estudios internacionales comparativos (...) de evaluación. (shrink)

"(...) As experiências do período de Dom João VI, Carlota Joaquina e sua Corte no Rio de Janeiro, foram a fase mais decisiva do período colonial português no Brasil, ao aceitar a Independência – popular, porém numa cuidadosa e competente engenharia de política interna e externa (...)".

It has often been noted that Leo Strauss developed his understanding of political philosophy through a critical engagement with Heidegger. Yet most analyses focus on Strauss’s American works while neglecting his earlier response during the crisis years of the Weimar Republic. The article seeks to overcome this limitation by ‘deconstructing’ Strauss’s American definitions of political philosophy in light of both his Weimar understanding of politische Wissenschaft and his 1922 discovery of Heidegger’s Aristotle. I argue that Strauss’s conception of political philosophy (...) originated in Heidegger’s subversion of the traditional distinction between theory and praxis. I thus propose a way to read Strauss from the start following his own changing views of that distinction. (shrink)

Among the great philosophers of the twentieth century, only one, perhaps, shared Leo Strauss’s understanding of “ideas” as fundamental problems: his teacher Husserl. Throughout his work, Strauss heeded Husserl’s call to return to the “things themselves” and “the problems connected with them.” I argue that “natural right” is one such phenomenon or problem which Strauss seeks to recover—and reactivate—from centuries of sedimented interpretations. I further propose that “natural right” may be a “sense-formation” analogous to Husserl’s “geometry.” If this is true, (...) Natural Right and History may be modeled on Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences. (shrink)

Although the majority of literature has shown undistinguishable attentional effects when eye-gaze and arrows are used as cues, recent research has found that whereas eye-gaze selectively orient attention to the specific location or part of the object looked at, arrows unselectively direct attention towards parts of the environment. However, it is unclear whether this dissociation between gaze and arrow cues is related to social cognitive mechanisms such as the attribution of mental states (Theory of Mind, ToM). We aimed at replicating (...) the dissociation between gaze and arrow cues and investigating sex differences in attentional object selection triggered by these two types of stimuli. While we replicated the arrow-gaze dissociation, this was equivalent in the male and female population. This finding seems to run counter the intuition that theory of mind abilities can account for the dissociation observed between gaze and arrow cues since greater ToM abilities have been generally shown in females. However, this conclusion it must be interpreted with caution since no differences in ToM abilities and autistic quotient scores were observed between male and female in our sample. Further research is needed to shed light on this issue. (shrink)

This work documents the ethical dilemmas faced by anthropologists and researchers in general when investigating Amerindian communities.

En estos últimos años es reconocida la influencia de la dimensión emocional en el desarrollo del aprendizaje en el aula. Sin embargo, parece necesario un mayor desarrollo de los descriptores básicos: actitudes, emociones, creencias y valores en disciplinas concretas. El artículo aborda el tema de los valores y actitudes de las Matemáticas y de forma específica el valor de la belleza. Se argumenta sobre la importancia del juicio estético como una componente importante en el buen resolutor de problemas, explicitando sus (...) implicaciones para la educación matemática de los estudiantes. (shrink)

El tema vertebrador como se indica en el título es el sentido de la vida. Se ofrece una serie de reflexiones sobre la relación de la persona con la matematización de la cultura. El conocimiento científico del mundo no es banal, sino que a partir de él la persona en su «voluntad de sentido» mira a esa realidad con la que interactúa. Adentrarnos en el significado de algunos fenómenos matemáticostecnológicos relacionados con la inteligencia artificial, captar los mensajes sociales que se (...) producen y penetrar en su sentido profundo puede ofrecernos claves para la comprensión (y auto-comprensión) de la persona en su estar en la sociedad actual. (shrink)

IntroductionStress is associated with disease and reduced leukocyte telomere length. The objective of this research is to determine if self-perceived stress is associated with telomere length in Costa Rican adults and the gender differences in this association. Findings may help explain how some populations in apparent socioeconomic disadvantage and with limited access to specialized medical services have a remarkably high life expectancy.MethodologyData come from the pre-retirement cohort of the Costa Rican Longevity and Healthy Aging Study, a population based survey conducted (...) in the households to 2,327 adults aged 53 to 66 years. The DNA to measure LTL was extracted from blood cells in laboratories of the University of Costa Rica whereas the Blackburn laboratory at the University of California performed the telomere length measurement applying the quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The relationship between telomere length and perceived stress was measured using least-squares multiple regression. Perceived stress was measured by a set of questions about family, job, finances and, health reasons to be stressed. Models included the control variables: age and sex of the participant, whether he or she resides in the Nicoya area, a “blue zone” known for its high longevity, and the aforementioned sociodemographic, health and lifestyles characteristics.ResultsStress perception and LTL are significantly different by sex. Women perceived higher stress levels than men in almost all aspects studied, except work. Women have significantly longer telomeres. Shorter telomeres are significantly associated with caregiving stress in men and with parental health concerns in women. Counter-intuitive telomere lengthenings were observed among women who feel stressed about caring for family members; and among men who feel stressed due to their family relationships as well as concerns about their own health.DiscussionResults confirm that people with self-perceived stress due to caregiving or health issues have shorter telomeres. The relationship between stress and telomere length differs between men and women. Gender relations exert a strong modifier effect on the relationship between stress and LTL: gender is related to perceived stress, telomere length, and apparently also to the way stress and LTL are related. (shrink)