The literature on deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive DBS (aDBS) raises concerns that these technologies may affect personality, mood, and behavior. We conducted semi-structured interviews with researchers (n = 23) involved in developing next-generation DBS systems, exploring their perspectives on ethics and policy topics including whether DBS/aDBS can cause such changes. The majority of researchers reported being aware of personality, mood, or behavioral (PMB) changes in recipients of DBS/aDBS. Researchers offered varying estimates of the frequency of PMB changes. A (...) smaller majority reported changes in personality specifically. Some expressed reservations about the scientific status of the term ‘personality,’ while others used it freely. Most researchers discussed negative PMB changes, but a majority said that DBS/aDBS can also result in positive changes. Several researchers viewed positive PMB changes as part of the therapeutic goal in psychiatric applications of DBS/aDBS. Finally, several discussed potential causes of PMB changes other than the device itself. (shrink)

The expansion of research on deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive DBS (aDBS) raises important neuroethics and policy questions related to data sharing. However, there has been little empirical research on the perspectives of experts developing these technologies. We conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with aDBS researchers regarding their data sharing practices and their perspectives on ethical and policy issues related to sharing. Researchers expressed support for and a commitment to sharing, with most saying that they were either sharing their data (...) or would share in the future and that doing so was important for advancing the field. However, those who are sharing reported a variety of sharing partners, suggesting heterogeneity in sharing practices and lack of the broad sharing that would reflect principles of open science. Researchers described several concerns and barriers related to sharing, including privacy and confidentiality, the usability of shared data by others, ownership and control of data (including potential commercialization), and limited resources for sharing. They also suggested potential solutions to these challenges, including additional safeguards to address privacy issues, standardization and transparency in analysis to address issues of data usability, professional norms and heightened cooperation to address issues of ownership and control, and streamlining of data transmission to address resource limitations. Researchers also offered a range of views on the sensitivity of neural activity data (NAD) and data related to mental health in the context of sharing. These findings are an important input to deliberations by researchers, policymakers, neuroethicists, and other stakeholders as they navigate ethics and policy questions related to aDBS research. (shrink)

The capacity of next-generation closed-loop or adaptive deep brain stimulation devices to read and write shows great potential to effectively manage movement, seizure, and psychiatric disorders, and also raises the possibility of using aDBS to electively modulate mood, cognition, and prosociality. What separates aDBS from most neurotechnologies currently used for enhancement is that aDBS remains an invasive, surgically-implanted technology with a risk-benefit ratio significantly different when applied to diseased versus non-diseased individuals. Despite a large discourse about the ethics of enhancement, (...) no empirical studies yet examine perspectives on enhancement from within the aDBS research community. We interviewed 23 aDBS researchers about their attitudes toward expanding aDBS use for enhancement. A thematic content analysis revealed that researchers share ethical concerns related to safety and security; enhancement as unnecessary, unnatural or aberrant; and fairness, equality, and distributive justice. Most researchers felt that enhancement applications for DBS will eventually be technically feasible and that attempts to develop such applications for DBS are already happening. However, researchers unanimously felt that DBS ideally should not be considered for enhancement until researchers better understand brain target localization and functioning. While many researchers acknowledged controversies highlighted by scholars and ethicists, such as potential impacts on personhood, authenticity, autonomy and privacy, their ethical concerns reflect considerations of both gravity and perceived near-term likelihood. (shrink)

The most recent work by Jürgen Habermas tries to revalue religion in today's society. For this he tries to find genealogical connections between secular content and the worldviews that emerged in the Axial Age, including Jewish monotheism. In this article we try to propose that a genealogical approach to monotheism from the perspective of those involved would have to start from the context of undetected origin that constitutes the ethical universalism of Judaism: the Noahide code. To do this, we analyze (...) narrative and conceptual elements of axial and non-axial cultures and show their parallels with the seven laws of the children of Noah as the moral core of humanity. (shrink)

Ce chapitre aborde l’histoire des avocats au Mexique depuis la microanalyse, c’est-à-dire pour en proposer une histoire globale à partir d’une échelle réduite et pendant la période de consolidation de ce qui était considéré comme une administration judiciaire moderne et professionnalisée, à la veille de la Révolution. Sont abordées les questions de leurs origines sociales, leur formation, la concurrence des conseillers juridiques informels, le coût de leurs services, la qualité de leurs relations, parfois houleuses, avec leurs clients. En dernière partie (...) est traité un aspect très particulier de leur histoire : le fait qu’ils constituaient le vivier d’où étaient nommés juges et notaires, violentant ainsi la constitution libérale. Pour cela, ont été mobilisées des sources judiciaires, des lettres adressées ou rédigées par l’Exécutif de l’État de Tlaxcala ainsi que quelques sources notariales. (shrink)

This paper traces the concept and phenomenon of generosity from Aristotle to Emannuel Levinas and beyond. The question motivating this investigation is: must the generous act be restricted by a rational calculation of correct, or prudent, giving? Answers to this question vary. Aristotle and Kant would answer in the affirmative, while Emerson and Levinas would not. The bulk of this paper is dedicated to Levinas's characterization of excessive generosity as a condition for the fundamental ethical relation, namely, the generous welcome (...) of the Other. I end by considering the phenomenon of generosity from the point of view of the mid‐20th century Mexican philosopher, Emilio Uranga. (shrink)

Let G be a finite group. We explore the model-theoretic properties of the class of differential fields of characteristic zero in m commuting derivations equipped with a G-action by differential fie...

In a previous essay we demonstrated that quantum mechanical formalism is incompatible with some necessary principles of the mechanism conception still dominant in the physicist’s community. In this paper we show, based on recent empirical evidence in quantum physics, the inevitability of abandoning the old mechanism conception and to construct a new one in which physical reality is seen as a representation which refers to relations established through operations made by us in a world that we are determining. This change (...) is profound and radical, with immediate consequences on both Ontology and Epistemology. This work is our contribution to try to make more concrete how this new conception of the world might be. (shrink)

Aberrations introduced by the atmospheric turbulence in large telescopes are compensated using adaptive optics systems, where the use of deformable mirrors and multiple sensors relies on complex control systems. Recently, the development of larger scales of telescopes as the E-ELT or TMT has created a computational challenge due to the increasing complexity of the new adaptive optics systems. The Complex Atmospheric Reconstructor based on Machine Learning is an algorithm based on artificial neural networks, designed to compensate the atmospheric turbulence. During (...) recent years, the use of GPUs has been proved to be a great solution to speed up the learning process of neural networks, and different frameworks have been created to ease their development. The implementation of CARMEN in different Multi-GPU frameworks is presented in this paper, along with its development in a language originally developed for GPU, like CUDA. This implementation offers the best response for all the presented cases, although its advantage of using more than one GPU occurs only in large networks. (shrink)

El presente trabajo parte del paralelo antitético establecido en torno al par amigo-enemigo que aparece en el “Concepto de lo político” de C. Schmitt para, a continuación, analizar las interesantes propuestas que llevan a cabo distintos autores, entre otros, H. Blumenberg, a las que añadiremos como contrapunto los representantes de la Escuela de J. Ritter, W. Böckenförde y H. Lübbe. En especial señalamos el tránsito que se produce de la neutralidad a la neutralización, a partir de la nueva consideración de (...) la temporalidad que se produjo a comienzos del Siglo XVI. Sin embargo, de esta paradójica constitución surgirán una serie de mitos correlativos a la neutralización que la refuerzan, por lo que nos referimos, finalmente, al status quo y al regreso, que constituyen los ecos metáforicos del moderno binomio progreso-regreso. (shrink)

A processualistic approach is offered in the study of that thinking giving rise to modernism from the historical cultural context in which the phenomenon has arisen and evolves. Built upon two opposing forces, it has collapsed after various centuries of development. Modernism is thus called to heroism and must regenerate, availing itself of its best of qualities: critical thinking, reflection and rational dialogue.

This paper shows that, for a large range of parameters, the journal editor prefers to delegate the choice to review the manuscript to the biased referee. If the peer review process is informative and the review reports are costly for the reviewers, even biased referees with extreme scientific preferences may choose to become informed about the manuscript’s quality. On the contrary, if the review process is potentially informative but the reviewer reports are not costly for the referees, the biased reviewer (...) has no incentive to become informed about the manuscript. Furthermore, if the reports are costly for referees but the peer review processes are not potentially informative, the biased reviewers will never become informed. In this paper, we also present a web resource that helps editors to experiment with the review process as a device for information transmission. (shrink)

For a standard Finsler F on a manifold M, the domain is the whole tangent bundle T M and the fundamental tensor g is positive-definite. However, in many cases, these two conditions hold in a relaxed form only, namely one has either a psuedo-Finsler metric or a conic Finsler metric. Our aim is twofold. First, we want to give an account of quite a few subtleties that appear under such generalizations, say, for conic pseudo-finsler metrics. Second, we aim to provide (...) some criteria that determine when a pseudo-Finsler metric F obtained as a general homogeneous combination of Finsler metrics and one-forms is again a Finsler-metric -- or, more precisely, that the conic domain on which g remains positive-definite. Such a combination generalizes the known -metrics in different directions. Remarkably, classical examples of Finsler metrics are reobtained and extended, with explicit computations of their fundamental tensors. (shrink)

Las emociones son sin duda un campo de creciente interés y estudio. Sin embargo, son experiencias complejas que incluyen diferentes problemas. Precisamente esta variedad de perspectivas exige mantener el equilibrio de los enfoques y, sobre todo, su orden. La fenomenología ilumina ese orden mediante la descripción de las experiencias emotivas.

This article analyses the concept of people in language, as a collective identity and as a subject of political representation in the crisis of the Hispanic monarchy from 1808 and throughout the constituent process that culminated in the promulgation of the Constitution of 1812. Based on the discursive uses of pueblo in chronicles, essays on political philosophy, press articles and parliamentary speeches, it points out the relevance of the semantics of pueblo in the political language of the time until its (...) displacement by that of nation. This semantic shift is related to the problems of constitutional engineering derived from the crisis of the privileged nobility in the context of the Napoleonic invasion. The view reinterprets the urban juntas of 1808 by stressing changes in the foundations of sovereignty, and puts into question the conventional characterisation from social history. It also traces the persistence of a rhetoric about the people in the wake of the Cadiz Constitution. Finally, the proposal claims the need to recover the category of people for the narrative of contemporary history. (shrink)

El artículo es una aportación al estudio de la antropología política del protohumanismo florentino, centrado en la obra y la figura del maestro de retórica de Dante, el notario Brunetto Latini. Nos ocupamos de exponer la conexión existente entre el desarrollo del gobierno comunal en la península italiana del Duecento y la difusión de una prosa marcadamente pragmática, extendida especialmente entre jueces y notarios, que preconiza la prelacía de la filosofía práctica con respecto a la teoría y la teología. Se (...) toman también en consideración aquellos factores que manifiestan la ruptura del Convivio y de la Commedia de Dante con los supuestos doctrinales de Latini, subrayando la apuesta de Alighieri por una teología poética, que contrasta con la forma de vida inmanente proyectada por la visión enciclopédica del notario, recogida en sus escritos retóricos y políticos. (shrink)

This study examines personal and emotional metaphors of prospective economics teachers about the roles they themselves as teachers and their pupils would play by analysing their drawings and responses to open questions. This is a longitudinal study that analyses the evolution of future instructors using two periods: before and after their teaching practicum. Metaphors are categorised into four classes: behaviourist/transmissive, cognitivist/constructivist, situative/socio-historical, and self-referential. The categories for emotions are primary or social and positive, negative, or neutral. The results show that (...) the highest percentage of metaphors for the teacher’s role in both questionnaires were cognitivist/constructivist. Comparison of the findings before and after the teaching practicum revealed no changes in most of the participants’ metaphors and associated models. The analysis also reveals that among those who change, the tendency is to evolve towards more pupil-centred metaphors and associated models. The most common pupil metaphors are behaviourist and cognitivist, increasing after the practicum. Finally, most of the emotions expressed are positive and social, also increasing after the practicum. (shrink)

Neoliberal Techniques of Social Suffering: Political Resistance and Critical Theory from Latin America and Spain is the result of the critical and political commitment of various Latin American and Spanish philosophers who share a critical approach to the global “stealth revolution” in recent decades, where neoliberalism has forced the well-being and reproduction of life to adapt to a system devastating for both humans and non-humans. The authors voice the shared concern of contemporary Spanish and Latin American societies to build new (...) conceptions of the public and the common through mobilizing affects usually disavowed in political theory. If, in Ancient Greece, the idea of strengthening the most vulnerable and weakest was deplored as the art of sophists, this collection edited by Laura Quintana and Nuria Sánchez Madrid explores the other side of our social world to revive grassroots strategies of resistance and emancipation, which are able to bring about new distributions of power, welfare, and discursive legitimation and to extend our goal of creating a radically democratic world. (shrink)

Apresentação do n.1 da Revista Filosfia e Educação, dedicado à temática Educação e epistemologias. A organização deste número temático contou com a colaboração do Prof. Dr. Marcelo Donizete da Silva da |Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto. A seleção de trabalhos inclui nove artigos diretamente relacionados com a temática proposta e que compõem a seção do dossiê e seis artigos da seção de fluxo contínuo da revista Filosofia e Educação.

En 1941, deux ans après la fin de la guerre civile, le gouvernement espagnol a signé un accord avec le St-Siège par lequel le Chef de l’État, le Général Francisco Franco, intervenait directement dans la nomination des évêques et des archevêques diocésains. L’accord a été inclus dans le Concordat de 1953, qui a scellé les relations de coopération entre les deux États. Après le Concile Vatican II, le pape Paul VI a personnellement demandé au Général de renoncer à ce privilège, (...) mais Franco refusa, subordonnant son renoncement à une révision totale du Concordat. Le Roi Juan Carlos Ier a renoncé à ce privilège quelques mois après son couronnement ; ainsi les relations Église-État, compliquées pendant les dernières années du franquisme, se sont normalisées.In 1941, two years after the end of the civil war, the Spanish government signed an accord with the Holy See under which the Head of State, General Francisco Franco, intervened directly in the nomination of diocesan Bishops and Archbishops. The accord was included in the Concordat of 1953, which cemented cooperative relations between the two States. After Vatican Council II, Pope Paul VI personally asked the General to renounce the privilege, but Franco refused, linking his renouncement to a total revision of the Concordat. King Juan Carlos I renounced the privilege a few months after his coronation, thus normalizing Church-State relations, complicated during the last years of Francoism.1941, zwei Jahre nach dem Ende des Bürgerkrieges, unterzeichnete die spanische Regierung ein Abkommen mit dem Heiligen Stuhl, durch das der Staatschef, General Francisco Franco, direkt an der Ernennung der Diözesanbischöfe und -erzbischöfe beteiligt wurde. Die Übereinkunft wurde in das Konkordat von 1953 eingefügt, das die Kooperationsbeziehungen zwischen den beiden Staaten besiegelte. Nach dem Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil hat Papst Paul VI. den General persönlich gebeten, auf dieses Privileg zu verzichten, doch Franco lehnte ab und ordnete seinen Verzicht einer umfassenden Revision des Konkordats unter. König Juan Carlos I. hat schon wenige Monate nach seiner Krönung auf dieses Privileg verzichtet, so dass sich die in den letzten Jahren des Francoregimes schwierig gewordenen Beziehungen zwischen Kirche und Staat normalisierten. (shrink)

This chapter draws parallels between Leopoldo Zea and Stanley Cavell's thought. It forms the basis of this argument in their thought on circumstantialism. Cavell and Zea both reflect on the American circumstance, a circumstance conditioned by the discovery, colonizations, and nationalization of Americas, together with the American people's heroic desire to connect, continuously and urgently, with themselves and their destiny as Americans.

Derrida’s thought is a dynamic dimension, a movement beyond any attempt of conclusive definition. However, is there any possibility to grasp this task of endless destabilization? This paper brings up the proposal of reading Derrida’s work from the close but at the same time aporetical relation between place and space. In this sense, we question the common understanding of space as uniform and empty continuum where place would be just a ‘limit’, a perimeter. In order to do so, we will (...) pay attention to the particular Topology that ‘translation’ illustrates in Derrida’s work, just as the reality of the spectre and mourning, stating these two dimensions as examples of Derrida’s strategy. In this sense, through translation and mourning, we manage to make out that Derrida’s work, even though cannot be summarized in a single object or idea, it might be understood as the endless question about the place of and for deconstruction, that is, about place as deconstruction of space. Thus, Derrida’s Topology may constitute a new and radical way to read not only his own work, but to question ourselves. (shrink)

Drawing on sixteenth-century Protestant discourse on marriage and sexuality, this essay examines the anxieties permeating Spenser’s two poetical celebrations of his courtship and wedding with Elizabeth Boyle. Though the Reformers’ departure from Rome included an embrace of clerical marriage and an advocacy for the virtues of companionate marriage, revulsion at the sinfulness of sex remained. Through the sonnets of the Amoretti and the stanzas of the Epithalamion, an idea of mutual love is disrupted by a Protestant-tinged sense of innate and (...) pervasive depravity. Special attention is given to sonnets #58 and #84, and to the Epithalamion passages on Maia and Alcema. (shrink)

Organ transplantation offers many people who suffer from organ failure a chance to live longer. The Catholic Church, which has endorsed organ donation if it is practiced in an ethically acceptable manner, requires that unpaired vital organs be donated only after the donor is certainly dead. In an effort to increase the number of viable organs, a procedure called donation after cardiac death was introduced in the 1990s. This procedure violates the Roman Catholic moral teaching on the dignity of human (...) life because it violates the dead donor rule and undermines the dignity of the dying person. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.1 (Spring 2012): 55–65. (shrink)

Genetic studies of present human populations are very useful to understand the history of modern Human migrations throughout the world, especially when the results are compared with the information provided by historical linguistics and archaelogy. However, an inaccurate methodology is commonly applied to the analysis of the most recent molecular data and may lead to some erroneous conclusions on our first origins.