Abstract“The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas”, usually called “The Book of Secrets” is a codex containing drawings and descriptions of thirty-one artifacts attributed to the engineer Alī Ibn Khalaf al-Murādī, who lived in Andalusia in southern Spain at the beginning of the 11th century. This manuscript is one of the first written testimonies that describe medieval mechanisms with complex precision. The aim of this work is to reconstruct and study from a historical and technological point of view (...) two of the ancient artifacts contained in the “Book of Secrets”, the “Fortress Demolisher” and the “Magic Well”. The “Fortress Demolisher” is a war machine designed to demolish the upper part of the walls or towers and consists of a battering ram mounted on a platform that can be raised several meters above the ground using a scissor mechanism. The “Magic Well” is a mechanism with several pulleys whose purpose is to raise water several meters from the bottom of a well by collecting a small portion of rope. To reconstruct the two artifacts, a digital model and a detailed study of the geometry and operation of the mechanisms, were first carried out. 3D printing, using the Fused Deposition Modelling technology, made the physical reproduction. The digitization and physical reproduction by 3D printing of the mechanisms represent an update of the traditional ways of transmitting knowledge. The use of these new technologies makes the knowledge more accessible, understandable and attractive. (shrink)

The first European settlements in the new world faced technical issues with the help of the XVI century scientific advances. Besides briefly exposing the scientific and technological situation, this paper explores, with the help of reverse engineering, two singular mechanical wits representative of the technological advances introduced in America to overcome different problems. Firstly, a pump, based on an alternative movement system through crankshafts and pistons used against the continuous flooding suffered in the Ciudad de México valley. Although flooding remained (...) a problem (it was solved in the XX century), hydraulic pumps were essential for continuous soil drainage. Secondly, a port crane for handling cannons, military devices, and construction materials during the Lima fortification in the XVII century. For both cases, reverse engineering, through engineering methods, Computer-Aided Design CAD programs, and additive manufacturing, provides virtual and/or tangible mockups that help to analyze and improve our knowledge about the dimensions, materials, and functions of used (and currently lost) mechanical systems during the American colonization. (shrink)

Current frameworks on ethical decision-making process have some limitations. This paper argues that the consideration of moral competencies, understood as moral virtues in the workplace, can enhance our understanding of why moral character contributes to ethical decision-making. After discussing the universal nature of four moral competencies (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance), we analyse their influence on the various stages of the ethical decision-making process. We conclude by considering the managerial implications of our findings and proposing further research.

En el presente trabajo se sostienen toda una serie de tesis interrelacionadas. En primer lugar, se argumenta que el escepticismo y el pensamiento crítico no gozan de especial buena salud el ámbito de la teoría social. En segundo lugar, se sostiene que esto es también así a nivel social general. En tercer lugar, se discuten algunos mecanismos que pueden permitir explicar por qué el bullshit y el oscurantismo, y no el pensamiento crítico y el escepticismo, proliferan en ambos contextos. En (...) cuarto lugar, se abordan tres ámbitos donde la crisis del pensamiento crítico resulta especialmente grave, tanto a nivel social como académico: a saber, los movimientos ecologista, feminista y antirracista. En este caso, se defiende que no se trata tan solo de que el bullshit y el oscurantismo estén presentes en estos debates tanto en el campo académico como en el político, sino que existe una relación causal entre ambos ámbitos, así como un proceso de falsificación de preferencias que puede ser peligroso tanto para la libertad intelectual, como para la libertad de expresión y la salud de la democracia. Finalmente, el ensayo se cierra con un apartado de conclusiones donde se exploran algunas posibles vías de solución. (shrink)

In recent years, after various scandals, the role of auditors has been called into question, even casting doubt on whether their reports reliably reflect the true financial situation of the auditee, especially when this situation is not good. Normative changes in the way auditors have to rate certain questions provide a good opportunity to study this problem. These changes have acquired great relevance among the factors involved in studying audit quality. Thus, the present study analyzed the effect of the normative (...) change that took place in Spain in December 2010, related to opinions modified for going-concern uncertainties. Until that date, the auditor’s uncertainty about the company’s going-concern status led to a qualified opinion. However, under the new regulation, it became an opinion that included an explanatory paragraph stating the reasons for concern, which was considered less serious. In all, 152 small- and medium-sized enterprises that had begun bankruptcy proceedings were studied. Expert systems were used for their analysis, based on classification trees assembled through boosting and bagging. In addition, the logistic regression was used as baseline to compare previous methods. The main result obtained was that a change in the norm that catalogs the going-concern issue as less serious made auditors more likely to report this situation, thus questioning the audit quality. (shrink)

In recent years, character traits in general and virtue-related concepts in particular have been of considerable interest to philosophers, psychological researchers, and practitioners in the business ethics field. Three approaches to character traits can be used to incorporate ethics into organizations: virtues, character strengths, and competencies. The aim of this article is to clarify the concept of character traits, or virtues, and provide a unified operational version of it for incorporation into management. To this end, we first discuss the analogy (...) among virtues, character strengths, and competencies. Then, we propose a list of moral competencies that can be implemented in competency-based human resource management. (shrink)

This research aims to fill a major gap in the relevant literature on small businesses in developing countries, specifically concerning the development of models to better explain economic and environmental performance as a result of environmental compliance, thus moving toward an explanation of the sustainable behavior of these businesses. Data from 186 pottery craft businesses located in three Mexican states (Oaxaca, Puebla and Tlaxcala) reveal that environmental compliance significantly influences economic and environmental performance, with the mediating role of environmental innovation, (...) confirming the Porter hypothesis in the context of small businesses in an emerging economy. Environmental compliance is an important factor in improving the economic and environmental performance of small businesses in emerging economies. (shrink)

This study focuses on the influence of the quality of services received by thalassotherapy customers on their global satisfaction and the relationship between this and the word of mouth. This study uses a hybrid SEM—classification tree analysis. The empirical findings reveal a significant relationship between the quality of each offered service and global satisfaction. This study contributes to identify tourist’s satisfaction or delight on received thalasso services through a proposed methodology. The main contribution of this work consists of the proposal (...) of a methodology to identify objectively through the opinion of tourists if they were satisfied or had reached delight. This work demonstrates, confirming what has been found in previous literature, that global satisfaction is related to the different experiences provided by the service. Thus, all hypotheses are accepted, supporting the hypotheses that relate the pool, the staff, the treatments, and the environment to satisfaction. In addition, the hypotheses that link satisfaction with the word of mouth are also supported. This theoretical implication has important practical implications for managers of the type of facilities such as those studied in this paper, since it shows that it is not enough to do well in one of the services provided if the environment or the interaction with the staff is not right. (shrink)

Se trata de la Presentación al libro Coordenadas Epistemológicas para una estética en construcción, obra publicada por la Colección La Fuente y coeditada entre el Cuerpo Académico de Estética y Arte de la BUAP y el Instituto de Filosofía de Cuba. En la presentación se describen los contenidos básicos de las tres partes que componen el libro: Parte I. Una estética en construcción; Parte II: El arte en el discurso de la estética; Parte III: Espectacularidad y seducción. Miradas estéticas a (...) la socialidad contemporánea. También se hace referencia al papel jugado por la Dra. Alicia Pino en la concepción, contenido y estructura de este libro, a cuya memoria se dedica. (shrink)

Desde la certidumbre del sentido necesariamente inacabado, nómada y abierto de sus propuestas, el presente volumen de la Colección La Fuente da cuentas del esfuerzo de un grupo de investigadores del Instituto de Filosofía de La Habana (IF) y de la Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) por esbozar, más que respuestas, aquellas interrogantes sociales, culturales y artísticas que, desde constelaciones cambiantes de conceptos y reflexiones estéticas, puedan ser emplazadas en sus respectivas realidades. El presente libro es el tercero de la (...) serie Redes, dedicada a plasmar los principales resultados del trabajo de colaboración del Cuerpo Académico de Estética y Arte de la BUAP con otros grupos de investigación. La coordinación de esta entrega contó con la sapiencia y laboriosidad académica de la doctora Alicia Pino Rodríguez (1954-2017), investigadora del IF, integrante del Consejo de la Colección, coordinadora de su segundo volumen y parte esencial de este, dedicado a su memoria. (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza la película Los olvidados, de Luis Buñuel, de acuerdo con la filosofía trágica de Clément Rosset. Mi investigación se centra en discutir el concepto de ‘crueldad’ y su conexión con lo trágico, así como desgranar los elementos que permiten leer la película como una tragedia en el sentido clásico. El trabajo sugiere cómo el retrato realista que Buñuel realiza sobre los jóvenes de los suburbios de Ciudad de México sigue el principio de crueldad acuñado por el filósofo, (...) según el cual una obra artística debe ser cruel y representar la verdad sin atenuantes, sin tomar partido por ninguna clase de moral. Se acomete un análisis de la crueldad como categoría estética clave en la consecución de la tragedia y se ponen en relación con la película términos clave del concepto de lo trágico. (shrink)

Resumen En este trabajo se explora el problema del cuerpo vivo en la fenomenología trascendental de Edmund Husserl y el entrelazamiento que tiene con la conciencia trascendental. Para ello se exploran diversas capas o momentos del tema. Primero: la justificación de la ausencia de un tratamiento del cuerpo en Ideas I debido a su enfoque estático. Segundo: el problema propiamente dicho de la constitución del cuerpo vivo en Ideas II desde una fenomenología genética. Tercero: la posibilidad de una ética de (...) la corporalidad a partir del análisis de las ubiestesias y la constitución de ciertos valores. Cuarto: que el cuerpo representa un problema metafísico o que su tratamiento puede ser enfocado desde la metafísica, ya que se trata del cuerpo y la subjetividad trascendental como factum del mundo.In this work, we explore the problem of the living body in the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and the interlacing that it has with transcendental conscience. To do this, we present several layers or moments of the theme. First, the justification of the absence of body in Ideas I due to their static approach treatment. Second, the problem of the constitution of the living body in Ideas II from a genetic phenomenology. Third, the possibility of an ethic of physicality from analysis of the ubiestesias and the constitution of the values. Quarter, that the living body represents a metaphysical problem, because the living body and the transcendental subjectivity are facts factum) in the world. (shrink)

Drug misuse is a complex social and health problem. People who use drugs have very specific profiles according to their life cycle and sociocultural circumstances. For this reason, contextualized approaches are needed in addiction interventions that take on board the particularities of consumption patterns and their circumstances. The storytelling technique as a narrative communication strategy can serve as the main methodological intervention component that enhances this contextualized approach.

En este trabajo se expone el debate entre Neurath y Horkheimer como ejemplo de recuperación de los aspectos políticos del Círculo de Viena, olvidados en la visión tradicional, que ayudarán a tener una mejor comprensión de las diversas posiciones de los miembros del Círculo. Se intenta mostrar que gran parte del debate se debe a las diferencias políticas entre los contendientes y a sus diferentes concepciones sobre la filosofía, la ciencia y la razón, pero no a la falta de intereses (...) políticos de Neurath y del Círculo de Viena. In this work we will summarize the Neurath-Horkheimer debate as an example of the recovery of the Vienna Circle's political aspects that were forgotten in the traditional view, so as to achieve a better understanding of the different positions assumed by the Circle's members. Our intention is to show that much of this debate stems from their political differences and the contenders' diverse conceptions of philosophy, science and reason, but not from the lack of political interests in Neurath and the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

El artículo estudia el fragmento de una carta de Prisciliano recogida en el "Commonitorium de errore priscillianistarum et origenistarum" de Pablo Orosio, para recolocar el fragmento en el contexto orosiano. Posteriormente se estudia el fragmento en el contexto de las fuentes priscilianas, para ver si se puede hacer un acercamiento con las ideas de los "Tratados de Wurzburg", y las de E.-Ch.Babut y E. Spät principalmente.

Histamine is a multifunctional biogenic amine with relevant roles in intercellular communication, inflammatory processes and highly prevalent pathologies. Histamine biosynthesis depends on a single decarboxylation step, carried out by a PLP-dependent histidine decarboxylase activity (EC 4.1.1.22), an enzyme that still remains to be fully characterized. Nevertheless, during the last few years, important advances have been made in this field, including the generation and validation of the first three-dimensional model of the enzyme, which allows us to revisit previous results and conclusions. (...) This essay provides a comprehensive review of the current knowledge of the structural and functional characteristics of mammalian histidine decarboxylase. BioEssays 27:57–63, 2005. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This research aims to analyses Leibniz’ Monadologic Ontology and his theory of expression as opposed to those readings of Leibniz’ work that define monads as isolated entities that lack that all possible relation. The analysis will also show that, beyond his notion of Personal Identity, underlies a logic of Otherness able to dialogue with contemporary Personalism. This logic of otherness, if our reading of Leibniz is right, it is especially ostensible in the ‘spirits’, which expressive nature establish not only a (...) systematic bond with the totality of beings that integrate the world, but also a notion of Personal Identity. Such notion allows that otherness acquires a prescriptive character: to place us in other’s situation and thus understand their needs and, through this, acknowledge our place in the cosmos. In order to achieve this we will carry four tasks: first, we will analyze in depth the application of his theory of expression to Monadologic ontology and his notio completa. Second, we will appreciate what implicatures have both for the specific case of spirits, emphasizing the communitarian nature of these rational monads. Third, we will rebuild a Leibnizian theory of Personal Identity and finally, we will compare the results with the main Personalists’ body of thesis. (shrink)

Drug trafficking in Mexico has been inspired by corridos, novels, telenovelas, films, new religious images, in general of a change of imaginary that is not only reflected in the number of dead, but in a lack of Values coming from policausal factors and that is leading vertiginosa to insensibility. The study is aimed at drug trafficking literature. The first part defines the background, the theorys fundamentals ; The second is dedicated to the methodology indicating the corpus to be treated and (...) the analysis of the literary discourse. The third to the results obtained and finally offer some reflections as proposals. (shrink)

El artículo se pregunta por el problema del Otro en América Latina, considerando la reflexión de Lévinas y de Ortega y Gasset a partir de la fenomenología de Husserl. El examen recae en dos figuras paradigmáticas de la modernidad barroca: la así denominada Malinche y Juana Inés de la Cruz, teniendo como telón de fondo el debate entre Ginés de Sepúlveda y Bartolomé de las Casas acerca de la humanidad o animalidad de los así llamados indígenas. Se le presta especial (...) atención a las perspectivas adoptadas por Tzvetan Todorov, Leopoldo Zea, Octavio Paz y Bolívar Echeverría sobre las figuras mencionadas. (shrink)

How is it possible that "socialism" is today a living idea? How does it push us to a review of its complex heritage and to a research into its perspectives? What is the old and the new that socialism implies for the 21st century? After decades of neoliberal counterrevolution, the twilight of "really existing communism", the stories about the "end of history" and the entry into a "post-political" and "post-ideological" era, it may be surprising that the questions with which we (...) open this review continue to constitute theoretical problems of prime importance. And yet they are. (shrink)

Psychometric g—a statistical factor capturing intercorrelations between scores on different IQ tests—is of theoretical interest despite being a low-fidelity model of both folk psychological intelligence and its cognitive/neural underpinnings. Psychometric g idealizes away from those aspects of cognitive/neural mechanisms that are not explanatory of the relevant variety of folk psychological intelligence, and it idealizes away from those varieties of folk psychological intelligence that are not generated by the relevant cognitive/neural substrate. In this manner, g constitutes a high-fidelity bridge model of (...) the relationship between its two targets and, thereby, helps demystify the relationship between folk and scientific psychology. (shrink)

Let ‘semantic relevance’ be the thesis that the wide semantic properties of representational mental states (like beliefs and desires) are causally relevant to behavior. A popular way of arguing for semantic relevance runs as follows: start with a sufficient counterfactual condition for causal or explanatory relevance, and show that wide semantic properties meet it with respect to behavior (e.g., Loewer & Lepore (1987,1989), Rescorla (2014), Yablo (2003)).This paper discusses an in‐principle limitation of this strategy: even the most sophisticated counterfactual criteria (...) systematically misclassify irrelevant properties as relevant when they stand in certain kinds of modal co‐variation or ‘entanglement’ relations to genuinely relevant properties. This entanglement problem, I argue, is more general and more serious than proponents of the counterfactual strategy have recognized: it threatens recent interventionist arguments for semantic relevance, and is not easily solved by appeal to proportionality or naturalness. I end by suggesting that proponents of semantic relevance may need to shift their attention from patterns of counterfactuals to the lawful psychological generalizations that explain them. (shrink)

Background: The field of voice and speech analysis has become increasingly popular over the last 10 years, and articles on its use in detecting neurodegenerative diseases have proliferated. Many studies have identified characteristic speech features that can be used to draw an accurate distinction between healthy aging among older people and those with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Speech analysis has been singled out as a cost-effective and reliable method for detecting the presence of both conditions. In this research, (...) a systematic review was conducted to determine these features and their diagnostic accuracy.Methods: Peer-reviewed literature was located across multiple databases, involving studies that apply new procedures of automatic speech analysis to collect behavioral evidence of linguistic impairments along with their diagnostic accuracy on Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment. The risk of bias was assessed by using JBI and QUADAS-2 checklists.Results: Thirty-five papers met the inclusion criteria; of these, 11 were descriptive studies that either identified voice features or explored their cognitive correlates, and the rest were diagnostic studies. Overall, the studies were of good quality and presented solid evidence of the usefulness of this technique. The distinctive acoustic and rhythmic features found are gathered. Most studies record a diagnostic accuracy over 88% for Alzheimer's and 80% for mild cognitive impairment.Conclusion: Automatic speech analysis is a promising tool for diagnosing mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. The reported features seem to be indicators of the cognitive changes in older people. The specific features and the cognitive changes involved could be the subject of further research. (shrink)

The intuitive distinction between natural and unnatural properties (e.g., green vs. grue) informs our theorizing not only in fundamental physics, but also in non-fundamental domains. This paper develops a reductive account of this broad notion of naturalness that covers non-fundamental properties: for a property to be natural, I propose, is for it to figure in a law of nature. After motivating the account, I defend it from a potential circularity charge. I argue that a suitably broad notion of lawhood can (...) be defined independently of naturalness, if we help ourselves to the notion of a fundamental physical property. I end by showing how the notions of naturalness and lawhood that my account delivers help illuminate a number of other important philosophical notions, like causation, reference/meaning, and rational induction. (shrink)

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved.Cell walls of grasses, including cereal crops and biofuel grasses, comprise the majority of plant biomass and intimately influence plant growth, development and physiology. However, the functions of many cell wall synthesis genes, and the relationships among and the functions of cell wall components remain obscure. To better understand the patterns of cell wall accumulation and identify genes that act in grass (...) cell wall biosynthesis, we characterized 30 samples from aerial organs of rice at 10 developmental time points, 3-100 d post-germination. Within these samples, we measured 15 cell wall chemical components, enzymatic digestibility and 18 cell wall polysaccharide epitopes/ligands. We also used quantitative reverse transcription-PCR to measure expression of 50 glycosyltransferases, 15 acyltransferases and eight phenylpropanoid genes, many of which had previously been identified as being highly expressed in rice. Most cell wall components vary significantly during development, and correlations among them support current understanding of cell walls. We identified 92 significant correlations between cell wall components and gene expression and establish nine strong hypotheses for genes that synthesize xylans, mixed linkage glucan and pectin components. This work provides an extensive analysis of cell wall composition throughout rice development, identifies genes likely to synthesize grass cell walls, and provides a framework for development of genetically improved grasses for use in lignocellulosic biofuel production and agriculture. (shrink)