The aims of this research were twofold: first, to compare the levels of organisational harmony between family and non-family firms and, second, to study the influence of organisational harmony on family firms’ performance (profitability, longevity and group cohesion). Starting from a definition of organisational harmony as a value and considering the importance of the management of organisational values, we use the main topics indicated by the general literature (organisational climate, trust and participation) to analyse organisational harmony, as well as three (...) other topics for performance (profitability, survival and group cohesion). Results indicate that family firms have higher levels of these three qualities than non-family firms, and that the levels of trust, participation and organisational climate have a positive and significant influence on the performance of family firms. These results can be understood as a consequence of the influence of family social capital on organisational social capital and so on the performance of family businesses. From the perspective of institutionalism, the higher levels of harmony existing in family businesses are a reflection of the pressures that the owning family as an institution exercises on the organisational social capital in its companies. (shrink)

Background: Many studies have explored personal values in nursing, but none has assessed whether the predictions made by the theory of intergenerational value change are true for the different generations of nursing professionals and students. This theory predicts a shift in those personal values held by younger generations towards ones focussed on self-expression. Research question: The purpose of the study was to identify intergenerational differences in personal values among nursing professionals and nursing students and to determine whether generational value profiles (...) fit the predictions made by the theory. Research design: An exploratory comparative design with a cross-sectional survey method was used. Participants and research context: Participants were recruited from four public hospitals and 10 Primary Care Centres in medium-size cities in Spain. A sample of 589 nurses and 2295 nursing students participated in the study. An open survey method was used to collect data that were classified grouping reported values into categories following a method of value lexicon construction and analysed by contingency tables with Pearson’s χ2 and standardized residuals. Ethical considerations: Approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Deans of the nursing schools and the Directors of Nursing of the institutions. Anonymity was guaranteed, participation was voluntary and participants were informed of the purpose of the study. Findings: The results can be synthesized in two age-related trends in the reporting of values among three groups of participants. First, among younger nurses and students, some nursing core values (e.g. ethical and professional) decreased in importance, while other values centred on social relationships and personal well-being increased. Discussion and Conclusion: This study shows intergenerational change in personal values among both nursing students and young nursing professionals. Findings suggest the need to pay more attention to value training and professional socialization during the schooling period. (shrink)

En este artículo se presenta una revisión bibliográfica de la novela Terra nostra, de Carlos Fuentes, y propicia diálogos que evidencian su actualidad y su relación interdisciplinar con la filosofía, la historia, el arte, la sociedad y la cultura. En los criterios estructurales se distinguen estas temáticas: mito e identidad, relaciones con el otro, imagen y memoria, y la reconstrucción de lo que somos y seremos. Se tuvieron en cuenta franjas temporales de ocho años, desde el momento de su publicación, (...) 1975, hasta el año 2015. Los estudios destacan los problemas de la identidad latinoamericana, la intertextualidad, la multiculturalidad y la conquista; revelan su actualidad en el siglo XXI a través del mestizaje, las tradiciones culturales del Viejo y el Nuevo Mundo, y los otros mundos; y expresan, así, la necesidad de reconstruir un nuevo humanismo. (shrink)

El acontecimiento ha tomado diversos roles en el pensamiento de Michel Foucault y ha estado presente a lo largo de sus metodologías de investigación: en torno a la arqueología, a la genealogía y la construcción de la subjetividad. No es posible hablar de poder, de cuerpo, de regímenes de verdad o de ontología de nosotros mismos sin considerar el acontecimiento. El propósito de este escrito es el de ofrecer un marco de lectura para dicho concepto a partir de tres filósofos (...) que influenciarion al autor francés: Nietzsche, de quien se puede rescatar el devenir y la espontaneidad del acontecimiento, luego Heidegger que nos permite pensar en la diferencia y la verdad, finalmente, Kant que nos entrega la importancia histórica del acontecimiento. Estos tres autores comparten con Foucault la relevancia del análisis histórico desde el acontecimiento en la medida en que nos permite una mejor comprensión del presente. (shrink)

En el marco de una crisis democrática que ha hecho cuestionarnos la forma en que estamos llevando a cabo este sistema de gobierno, la presente investigaciónpretende retomar la vieja noción de la parrhesía griega como el ethos que debiera guiar el debate político, pero también como un principio que debe estar presente en aquellos que hacen filosofía. Un cruce entre la acción comunicativa habermasiana y las palabras de Vattimo acerca del rol de la filosofía nos ayudarán a elucidar cómo abordar (...) esta crisis: desde la discusión política para llegar al consenso, que forzosamente debe estar alineado con este potente concepto de parrhesía. (shrink)

Evaluating the Knowledge and Practice of Limitation of Therapeutic Effort in Health Workers at a Health Care Institution for Cancer Patients in Medellín, 2018Avaliação do conhecimento e da prática da limitação de esforço terapêutico em equipe de atendimento de uma instituição prestadora de serviços de saúde para pacientes oncológicos de Medellín, 2018Limitation of therapeutic effort is any action that involves suspending or not initiating medical treatment or therapeutic measures in patients who will not receive any clinical benefit. In Latin America, (...) some research has proven a lack of familiarization and disagreement with the subject and its practices. The present study tried to objectify the knowledge of LTE of healthcare personnel at an institute in Medellín using a self-administered survey that allowed conducting a cross-sectional descriptive study with non-probabilistic sampling. Within the results, 56.5 % of respondents understood the concept of LTE, and 90 % applied it actively. However, there were discrepancies regarding the core concepts of the definition and practice.Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigoVallejo LI, Palacio AM, Marulanda V, Restrepo A, Yepes LA, Valencia NL, Cruz MA. Evaluación del conocimiento y práctica de la limitación del esfuerzo terapéutico en personal asistencial de una institución prestadora de servicios de salud para pacientes oncológicos de Medellín, 2018. 2020;24:177-87. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5294/pebi.2020.24.2.5Recibido: 19/07/2019Aceptado: 08/08/2020Publicado: 27/11/2020. (shrink)

Traducción del artículo originalmente publicado como Sorgner, S. L. (2017). Immortality as Utopia and the Relevance of Nihilism. En Y. Tuncel (ed), Nietzsche and transhumanism. Precursor or enemy? (pp. 248-261). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Este texto ha sido Publicado con la autorización de Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Agradecemos a Stefan Lorenz Sorgner por autorizarnos a realizar la traducción de este texto.

O objetivo geral deste artigo se concentra em abordar, a partir de uma abordagem holística, as implicações éticas relacionadas ao uso da Inteligência Artificial, doravante IA, na geração de conteúdos acadêmicos. Três elementos-chave são abordados neste artigo: um estado da arte sobre as IA de maior demanda no âmbito acadêmico atual; as implicações éticas vinculadas ao plágio, à originalidade e à fraude; e, por fim, a caracterização das ferramentas de monitoramento de conteúdos acadêmicos gerados por IA. A pesquisa se enquadra (...) dentro de uma abordagem qualitativa, cuja fonte de coleta de informações é documental e, quanto ao nível ou grau de conhecimento gerado, trata-se de uma pesquisa descritiva. A principal conclusão a que esta pesquisa chega consiste em alertar para os benefícios das ferramentas de inteligência artificial na otimização de tarefas acadêmicas e de pesquisa, mas também advertir sobre as implicações éticas desfavoráveis que o uso dessas ferramentas pode acarretar quando não utilizadas de forma responsável, especialmente no campo da pesquisa acadêmica. Existem muitas ferramentas de inteligência artificial que podem auxiliar o pesquisador na realização de tarefas como coleta, sistematização e análise de dados e informações, revisão da escrita, citações e referências, entre outras; porém, também há o risco de perda de originalidade na pesquisa. (shrink)

The rapid dynamics of COVID-19 calls for quick and effective tracking of virus transmission chains and early detection of outbreaks, especially in the “phase 2” of the pandemic, when lockdown and other restriction measures are progressively withdrawn, in order to avoid or minimize contagion resurgence. For this purpose, contact-tracing apps are being proposed for large scale adoption by many countries. A centralized approach, where data sensed by the app are all sent to a nation-wide server, raises concerns about citizens’ privacy (...) and needlessly strong digital surveillance, thus alerting us to the need to minimize personal data collection and avoiding location tracking. We advocate the conceptual advantage of a decentralized approach, where both contact and location data are collected exclusively in individual citizens’ “personal data stores”, to be shared separately and selectively, voluntarily, only when the citizen has tested positive for COVID-19, and with a privacy preserving level of granularity. This approach better protects the personal sphere of citizens and affords multiple benefits: it allows for detailed information gathering for infected people in a privacy-preserving fashion; and, in turn this enables both contact tracing, and, the early detection of outbreak hotspots on more finely-granulated geographic scale. The decentralized approach is also scalable to large populations, in that only the data of positive patients need be handled at a central level. Our recommendation is two-fold. First to extend existing decentralized architectures with a light touch, in order to manage the collection of location data locally on the device, and allow the user to share spatio-temporal aggregates—if and when they want and for specific aims—with health authorities, for instance. Second, we favour a longer-term pursuit of realizing a Personal Data Store vision, giving users the opportunity to contribute to collective good in the measure they want, enhancing self-awareness, and cultivating collective efforts for rebuilding society. (shrink)

Although inclusion in formal value chains extends the prospect of improving the livelihoods of rural small-scale producers, such a step is often contingent on compliance with internationally-promoted food safety standards. Limited research has addressed the challenges this represents for small rural producers who, grounded in culturally-embedded food safety conceptions, face difficulties in complying. We address this gap here through a multiple case study involving four public school feeding programs that source meals from local rural providers in the Bolivian Altiplan. Institutional (...) logics theory is used to describe public food safety regulations and to compare them to food safety conceptions in the local indigenous Aymara rural setting. We identify a value-based conflict that leads to non-compliance of formal food safety rules that jeopardizes the participation of small farmers in the market. These include: partial adoption of formal rules; selective adoption of convenient rules; and ceremonial adoption to avoid compliance. Decoupling strategies allow local actors to largely disregard the formal food safety regulations while accommodating traditional cultural practices and continuing to access the market. However, these practices put the long-term sustainability of the farmers’ participation in potentially favorable opportunities at risk. (shrink)

The aim of our research is to analyze how different religions influence business ethics. We develop an index of practices in the field of business ethics, made up of 19 items containing practices related to workers, consumers, products, human rights, management of ethical conflicts, and crime prevention. Also, we consider a wide range of religion affiliations. To undertake this research, we use a panel data sample composed of 11,956 firm‐year observations from 18 countries. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we posit some (...) hypotheses based on the religions considered. The results obtained show that a higher percentage of religious adherents in the country where a company does business usually involve the implementation of more ethical practices in the corporate field. These findings are obtained for Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu religions. In contrast, this does not stand for Buddhist and folk religions. Also, countries where there is no predominant religion do not show a confluence between religion and ethical corporate practices. (shrink)

A metafísica tradicional, conforme Henri Bergson, via de regra, imobiliza o real tendo por fundamento uma concepção estática do ser. Na contramão dos rastros deixados pelo kantismo, e opondo-se curiosamente à tradição, Bergson pretende recriar a metafísica como experiência imediata de um absoluto movente, a duração. De partida nos deparamos com um problema: em suas obras, a concepção de uma única duração reveste-se de uma aparente ambiguidade, afinal sua filosofia é conhecida por tratar de temas como multiplicidade, diferenças de natureza, (...) continuidade, movimento, todos apontando para uma noção peculiar da realidade como criação. O suposto “monismo bergsoniano” guardaria, então, uma série de incompreensões e inconsistências, cujos textos do filósofo não teriam resolvido a contento e a literatura complementar, por sua vez, parece tratar o assunto insuficientemente. Assim, investigar a questão monismo/pluralismo no pensamento bergsoniano é algo central para a compreensão da proposta de uma nova metafísica. A partir da exegese de passagens da obra de 1907, A evolução criadora, discutiremos a compreensão da duração como totalidade, indagando até que ponto esta ideia remeteria ou não a uma visão monista do real. Afinal, uma leitura de Duração e simultaneidade deixou evidente para nós a defesa de uma duração absoluta, e, como vimos em Matéria e memória, para Bergson, até mesmo a matéria dura. Mas até aí não se constata a tese monista, visto que a duração comporta vários fluxos e o próprio ensaio de 1922 se encarrega de esclarecer essa multiplicidade. (shrink)

Andrea Sangiacomo offers a new understanding of Spinoza's moral philosophy, how his views significantly evolved over time, and how he himself struggled during his career to develop a theory that could speak to human beings as they actually are--imperfect, passionate, and often not very rational.

Andrea Falcon's work is guided by the exegetical ideal of recreating the mind of Aristotle and his distinctive conception of the theoretical enterprise. In this concise exploration of the significance of the celestial world for Aristotle's science of nature, Falcon investigates the source of discontinuity between celestial and sublunary natures and argues that the conviction that the natural world exhibits unity without uniformity is the ultimate reason for Aristotle's claim that the heavens are made of a special body, unique (...) to them. This book presents Aristotle as a totally engaged, systematic investigator whose ultimate concern was to integrate his distinct investigations into a coherent interpretation of the world we live in, all the while mindful of human limitations to what can be known. Falcon reads in Aristotle the ambition of an extraordinarily curious mind and the confidence that that ambition has been largely fulfilled. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking book, Andrea R. English challenges common assumptions by arguing that discontinuous experiences, such as uncertainty and struggle, are essential to the learning process. To make this argument, Dr. English draws from the works of two seminal thinkers in philosophy of education - nineteenth-century German philosopher J. F. Herbart and American Pragmatist John Dewey. English's analysis considers Herbart's influence on Dewey, inverting the accepted interpretation of Dewey's thought as a dramatic break from modern European understandings of education.

Multisensory stimulation has been shown to alter the sense of body-ownership. Given that perceived similarity between one’s own body and those of others is crucial for social cognition, we investigated whether multisensory stimulation can lead participants to experience ownership over a hand of different skin colour. Results from two studies using introspective, behavioural and physiological methods show that, following synchronous visuotactile stimulation, participants can experience body-ownership over hands that seem to belong to a different racial group. Interestingly, a baseline measure (...) of implicit racial bias did not predict whether participants would experience the RHI, but the overall strength of experienced body-ownership seemed to predict the participants’ post-illusion implicit racial bias with those who experienced a stronger RHI showing a lower bias. These findings suggest that multisensory experiences can override strict ingroup/outgroup distinctions based on skin colour and point to a key role for sensory processing in social cognition. (shrink)

In this paper, Andrea Fiore sketches the notion of familiarity in Dewey's thought, particularly in its relations with education, aesthetics, and art. The importance of that notion emerges in Dewey's well-known writings such as How We Think, The School and Society, and Art as Experience, where he shows that not only does familiarity play a fundamental role in our lives, but it also constitutes a helpful tool to make our experience deeper and richer. This is particularly evident in two (...) aspects or functions related to familiarity: recognition and interpretation. For Dewey, especially the latter has an educational value through aesthetics and art, because it allows us to activate the peculiar capacity of human beings to transform the quality of experience. (shrink)

Chapter 14. Andrea Timár engages with literary representations of the experience of perpetrators of dehumanization. Her chapter focuses on perpetrators of dehumanization who do not violate laws of their society (i.e., they are not criminals) but exemplify what Simona Forti, inspired by Hannah Arendt, calls “the normality of evil.” Through the parallel examples of Dezső Kosztolányi’s Anna Édes (1926) and Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950), Timár first explores a possible clash between criminals and perpetrators of dehumanization, showing (...) literature’s exceptional ability to reveal the gap between ethics and law. Second, she examines novels focalized through perpetrators and the difficult narrative empathy they provoke, arguing that only the critical reading of these novels can make one engage with the potential perpetrator in oneself. As case studies, Timár examines Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), which may potentially turn its reader into an accomplice in the process of dehumanization, and J.M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986), which puts on critical display the dehumanizing potentials of both aesthetic representation and sympathy as imaginative violence. Third, she reads Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones [Les Bienveillantes, 2006], which can make the reader question, through the polyphony of the voice of its protagonist, the notions of narrative voice and readerly empathy, only to reveal that the difficulty involved in empathizing with perpetrator characters lies not so much in the characters’ being perpetrators, but rather in their being literary characters. Eventually, Timár briefly touches upon the problem of the aesthetic and the comic via Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) to ask whether one can avoid some necessarily dehumanizing aspects of humor. (shrink)

In this paper we analyze some of the major difficulties of informed consent. We consider insufficient to base IC on the principle of autonomy. We must not forget that the patient may be in a situation of extreme vulnerability and the good doctor should assume a degree of commitment and responsibility with his/her decisions. Our aim is to introduce the ethics of responsibility of Levinas in practice and theory of IC in order to generate a beneficent medical practice in which (...) the supervision and overseeing of the patient do not undermine his/her autonomy. (shrink)

Stakeholder Theory combines the pursuance of business goals and responsibility toward a firm’s stakeholders. Despite the wealth of research on Stakeholder Orientation, we still have much to learn about specific measurements for several related constructs. In this study, we draw on two samples of 129 and 151 Spanish firms, respectively, to investigate CEOs’ perceptions on Stakeholder Integration (SI), leading to the identification of three dimensions of the construct. In this respect, our study suggests that Knowledge of Stakeholders, Interactions between a (...) firm and its stakeholders, and the adaptation of a firm’s behavior to stakeholders’ demands constitute the main dimensions of SI. This construct has the potential to connect the stakeholder and strategy literatures. (shrink)

This contribution explores disability rights protection in Inter-American States within the framework of the OAS and in the context of the obligations established under the CIADDIS and the CRPD. Following the classical division between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ rules,3 the contribution first sketches key regulatory initiatives in the area of disability rights and second considers compliance and enforcement mechanisms. Along these lines, the first section illustrates similarities and differences between the CIADDIS and the CRPD and, within this framework, essential regional regulatory (...) initiatives. The second section assesses disability rights in select countries, based on periodic reports under the CIADDIS and CRPD. The section examines the four largest countries by population in the region, notably, the United States of America (‘US’), Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.4 The third section explores the enforcement of disability rights via key cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (‘IAComHR’) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (‘IACtHR’). The purpose is to provideing a comprehensive understanding of disability rights in the region and identifying key regulatory problems and ways forward. (shrink)

En los escenarios universitarios cada vez resulta menos extraño toparse con investigaciones que indagan por la escritura filosófica proveniente de centros no hegemónicos de producción de conocimiento. Nosotros, que hemos tenido la oportunidad de acercarnos al pasado del ejercicio de la filosofía en el actual territorio colombiano, quisimos hacer una convocatoria pública de escritos dedicados a identificar temas, preguntas y formas en que la variopinta comunidad de la filosofía local está escribiendo su propia historia.

Este estudio analiza el artículo 146 del Código Orgánico Integral Penal (COIP) de Ecuador, esta trata sobre el homicidio culposo por práctica profesional equivocada. La mala praxis médica es un problema grave en el sistema de salud de Ecuador, y la interpretación inadecuada de este artículo ha generado confusión en los procesos legales relacionados. El objeto de la investigación es analizar la normativa del artículo 146 del COIP y las lagunas de interpretación jurídica para determinar la culpabilidad o inocencia de (...) los profesionales de la salud. Para ello, se emplearán métodos comparativos e históricos, que incluyen revisión bibliográfica, análisis de contenido del artículo 146. Los resultados esperados son demostrar las dudas razonables en la prueba del delito de mala praxis, resaltar la importancia de la bioética en los procedimientos legales. Este estudio busca contribuir a una mejor comprensión del marco legal y brindar ideas para la resolución de casos de mala praxis y homicidio culposo en Ecuador. (shrink)

Andrea Bréard Même si aucune source métadiscursive sur les mathématiques elles-mêmes n’a été transmise de la Chine ancienne et prémoderne, des réflexions ont été menées sur les objets mathématiques et sur la boîte à outils des praticiens. Cet article montre comment elles sont insérées dans les traités mêmes en prenant en particulier l’exemple d’un domaine de la théorie des nombres qui a évolué en Chine du premier à la fin du xixe siècle. Ces réflexions sont dispersées entre textes, paratextes (...) et diagrammes tout en empruntant des concepts et des figures iconiques d’autres contextes de nature philosophique. (shrink)

Health science students frequently experience ethical dilemmas on clinical placements, yet ethics education rarely prepares students with the ethical leadership skills required. The Leadership in Ethical Practice (LEP) program is an ethics education resource designed to enhance health science students’ knowledge and skills in ethical leadership to prepare them for clinical placements and future professional practice. This qualitative study aimed: to explore the nature of students’ ethical leadership goals; determine whether a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) format was (...) an effective tool for students to create ethical leadership goals; and identify any changes in students’ pre- and post-self-ratings of ethical leadership knowledge following the LEP program. Eighty-two diagnostic radiography students from the University of Sydney participated in the study. Inductive and deductive qualitative content analysis (Elo & Kyngas, 2008) were used to explore students’ goals. Descriptive statistics were used to investigate students’ pre- and post-self-ratings. Four themes emerged from students’ goals: initiative, competence, and courage in ethical reasoning; communicating ethical stories through listening, questioning, and connecting; reflecting and growing as an ethical leader; and safe practice and person-centred outcomes. SMART goal format elements were evident in 61% of students’ goals. Students' ethical leadership self-ratings showed positive changes after participating in the LEP program. Findings indicated students planned to further develop ethical leadership skills during clinical placements and future professional practice. This study demonstrated the ethics education approaches used within the LEP could assist health science students to apply ethical leadership in future clinical practice. (shrink)

This paper presents the discovery of a skirting board panel decorated with knotted fretwork painted in red iron oxide. It was discovered during the recent excavations in the Cathedral of Seville. The design is organized in four sections divided by twisted ribbons. The free spaces in the design are filled with eight-pointed stars. Parallels in the Patio del Yeso in the Reales Alcázares and in a site in the CaUe Imperial in Seville show that the design dates to the mid-twelfth (...) century. The skirting board must have pertained to a house demolished in 1172 to build the Almohad Congregational mosque. (shrink)

This translated volume by Andrea Borghini and Elena Casetta (original title: _Filosofia della biologia_) introduces a wide spectrum of key philosophical problems related to life sciences in a clear framework and an accessible style, with a special emphasis on metaphysical questions.

In this volume, Andrea Borghini and Elena Casetta introduce a wide spectrum of key philosophical problems related to life sciences in a neat framework and an accessible style, with a special emphasis on metaphysical issues. The volume is divided into three parts. The first addresses the two main questions stemming from life sciences: what is life, and what is the correct understanding of the theory of evolution? The second part looks at metaphysical questions concerning biological entities: environments, species, organisms, (...) and biological individuals. The third part focuses on theoretical questions of particular ethical and political significance: sex and gender, the biotechnological revolution, and the evolution of behavior and culture. Each chapter is followed by a list of further readings. (shrink)

In this book, Andrea Clausen intends to reconcile Kripke's point according to which conceptual content has to be considered as being constituted by social, normative practice - by a process of mutual assessments - with the view that the content of empirical assertions has to be conceived as objective. She criticizes approaches that explicate content-constitutive practice in non-normative terms, namely in terms of sanctioning behavior (Haugeland, Pettit, Esfeld). She also rejects a pragmatist reading of Heidegger that proceeds from thoroughly (...) normative but pre-conceptual practice. She develops and defends a particular reading of an approach that conceives normative, conceptually articulated practice - giving and asking for reasons - as primitive (Brandom, McDowell). (shrink)

La evolución de la filosofía krausista, a partir de 1875, al entrar en contacto con las nuevas corrientes del pensamiento procedentes de Europa va a dar lugar a un movimiento denominado "krausopositivismo", en el que se sintetizan armónicamente dos tendencias en principio opuestas: la idealista, defensora del método especulativo-abstracto, y la positivista, partidaria del método experimental. Iniciado dicho movimiento por Nicoláss Salmerón, tiene en su discípulo urbano González Serrano al representante más cualificado dentro de la psicología y la sociología, propiciando (...) junto con Giner, Posada, Sales y Ferre, Azcárate y otros el desarrollo de las ciencias sociales en España. (shrink)

The most popular work of Francisco Sánchez, Quo nihil scitur (1581), transmits an absolutely sceptic thought. However, other writings like Carmen de Cometa anni M.D.LXXVII (1578), offer us different ideas about how Sánchez considers possible the scientific knowledge like, for example, his idea about the casual relations between natural objects.