The long-standing vision of universities as the “alma mater” of students and graduates is a demonstration of its role as sustaining the person, the expert/professional, and the citizen. This role has persisted in the face of rising global challenges such as the emergence of new learning spaces, the growing diversity of publics, the call for productivity and performativity, and the hope for a significant engagement with the community and the public good. These sometimes conflicting tendencies have also stimulated higher education (...) institutions to further pedagogical strategies that articulate in novel ways the classical elements of learning: action/experience and reflection/theory. In this context, service learning received a new impetus, particularly in the post-Bologna European Higher Education Area, as universities were looking for ways in which to articulate the social dimension of HEI and their “third mission” as institutions not only committed to addressing and solving societal problems, but also committed to fostering public-minded alumni through powerful experiences of engagement for both the students and the community.This paper is based on the experience of Erasmus+project ESSA, a service earning based project focused on University social responsibility (USR). ESSA engaged four groups of students from three European universities (Edinburgh, Porto, and Kaunas) in conducting a 1-week on-site USR audit based on an ecologic and situated concept of social responsibility. We will consider the perceived impact of ESSA on 44 students through a thematic analysis of focus group discussions and student self-assessment reports produced during and after their participation in the USR audit. (shrink)

Resumen La repercusión que el mito de Antígona ha tenido en la teoría feminista es comparable a la que ha tenido en la historia de la cultura y del pensamiento occidental. Pero, ¿cómo llega la figura de Antígona, una ficción indudablemente masculina, a convertirse en insignia feminista?, ¿podría perder sus reflejos de masculinidad y entrar a formar parte de una genealogía femenina? Atadas, como estamos, a una representación y lenguaje masculinos, se impone la necesidad de sacarla del mundo y lógica (...) edípicos para leerla bajo una perspectiva más cercana a la figura central, aunque invisible, de Yocasta.The impact that the myth of Antigone has had on feminist theory is comparable to the one it has had on the history of Western culture and thought. But how does the figure of Antigone, an undoubtedly masculine fiction, become a feminist badge? Could it lose its reflections of masculinity and become part of a female genealogy? Tied as we are to a masculine representation and language it becomes necessary to take it out of the Oedipal world and logic, to read it in keys that bring it closer to the central yet invisible figure of Yocasta. (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)

En el artículo se elabora una comparación sobre la libertad en Sartre y en Ricœur a partir de la lectura que ambos realizan de los textos cartesianos. En «La liberté cartésienne», Sartre sostiene que la libertad creadora que Descartes ve en Dios no es otra cosa que la auténtica libertad del hombre. En Lo voluntario y lo involuntario, Ricœur determina a partir de la generosidad cartesiana que «querer no es crear». Se argumenta que, valorado en su conjunto, el planteamiento de (...) Descartes se asemeja más a las tesis del consentimiento de Ricœur que a las del existencialismo de Sartre. (shrink)

Business ethics is one of the most significant demands made by institutional and individual investors, who usually require the participation of the board of directors in the planning and implementation of ethical behaviour in corporations. This is done by drawing up an ethics code and then monitoring its fulfilment. This study has a dual objective: first, to analyse the role played by the composition of the board of directors, and by that we mean its independence and the diversity of its (...) members, on the implementation and scope of an EC, and, second, to detect whether the corporate governance system moderates the level of involvement of the board in ethical issues. The findings obtained from a data panel sample made up of 760 listed companies from 12 countries for the years 2003–2009 show that the largest companies with large-sized and diverse boards implement the most developed ECs. Nevertheless, the extent of involvement of the independent directors is conditioned by the level of shareholder orientation characteristic of the system of CG in the corporation’s country of origin. (shrink)

The sexual assault of persons with mental disabilities occurs at alarmingly high rates worldwide. These assaults are a form of gender-based violence intersecting with discrimination based on disability. Our research on the treatment of such cases in the Canadian criminal justice system demonstrates the systemic barriers these victims face at the level of both substantive legal doctrine and trial procedure. Relying on feminist legal theory and disability theory, we argue in this paper that abuses of trust and power underlie most (...) sexual assaults of women with mental disabilities. We argue that existing Criminal Code provisions in Canada are inadequate to address this type of exploitation because courts have consistently failed to recognize that such abuses of power and trust are fundamentally inconsistent with any notion of voluntary consent. (shrink)

This book highlights some of the most pressing safety, ethical, legal and societal issues related to the diverse contexts in which robotic technologies apply. Focusing on the essential concept of well-being, it addresses topics that are fundamental not only for research, but also for industry and end-users, discussing the challenges in a wide variety of applications, including domestic robots, autonomous manufacturing, personal care robots and drones.

This book highlights some of the most pressing safety, ethical, legal and societal issues related to the diverse contexts in which robotic technologies apply. Focusing on the essential concept of well-being, it addresses topics that are fundamental not only for research, but also for industry and end-users, discussing the challenges in a wide variety of applications, including domestic robots, autonomous manufacturing, personal care robots and drones.

This exploratory study is part of a post-doctoral project investigating how Brazilian and Portuguese textbooks present slavery and the slavery trade, as well as how Portuguese students interpret these issues, particularly when they use the sources in their textbooks. A group of 8th-grade students (aged 13–14) from a school in northern Portugal was asked to reflect on the meaning of slavery and its potential consequences for Brazil and Portugal, drawing on evidence related to the slave trade and labour during the (...) 16th century, as presented in their textbooks. The students’ responses were analysed inductively, and the findings are discussed in terms of (a) the specific analytical process employed and (b) the insights gained regarding the relationship between textbook representations and students’ perceptions, framed within the context of situated learning. This framework suggests that prior knowledge, personal experience, and the specific task at hand may influence students' ideas and outcomes. (shrink)

Critical aspects in the field of education are currently related to low levels of socioemotional competences and high rates of school dropouts. However, there are no standard practices or guidelines for helping countries to assess and train social and emotional competences. To overcome this limitation, the project Learning to be (L2B) aims to propose a comprehensive model of the assessment and development of social and emotional competences that bring together policymakers, researchers, teachers, school authorities and learners from different participating countries: (...) Finland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain. The project attempts to create an international framework for regulating activities and supporting teachers working on the social and emotional competences of the students and to provide tools which can be used across countries. The aim of the paper is to describe how L2B has been developed in Spain by analyzing the contributions of the international framework and extracting the specific needs in the Spanish context. Specifically, we describe two products of the project: a) the process for creating a toolkit, a tool focused on creating activities and materials for helping teachers develop social and emotional competences of students and b) the results of an exploratory study in Spain in which social and emotional competences are assessed and compared to the international framework. First, we explain the definition of social and emotional competences used for creating the toolkit. Second, we analyze responses of Spanish students to questionnaires administered before applying the toolkit in the schools. The paper describes social and emotional competences in Spain and evaluates the overlap between relevant variables in Spain and those used for developing the toolkit, the international tool. Specific needs in Spain are discussed, as well as the contribution of the project for promoting the improved development of students’ social and emotional competences, improving learning outcomes and stronger social cohesion in schools and local communities, as well as the utility of the results for creating new educational policies. (shrink)

The present paper stems from the biosemiotic modelling of individual artificial cognition proposed by Ferreira and Caldas (2012) but goes further by introducing the concept of Umwelt Overlap. The introduction of this concept is of fundamental importance making the present model closer to natural cognition. In fact cognition can only be viewed as a purely individual phenomenon for analytical purposes. In nature it always involves the crisscrossing of the spheres of action of those sharing the same environmental bubble. Plus, the (...) incorporation of that concept is vital to understand the complex semiosis that sustains collective tissues, societies, regulating collective cognition and consequently cooperative action. The concept of Umwelt Overlap broadens the range of applicability of the previous model to several distinct domains allowing for example for its application to multi-agent cooperative autonomous systems. In this paper a Middle Size League RoboCup soccer team is used as an example of a possible application. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the race to find an effective vaccine or treatment saw an ‘extraordinary number’ of clinical trials being conducted. While there were some key success stories, not all trials produced results that informed patient care. There was a significant amount of waste in clinical research during the pandemic which is said to have hampered an evidence-based response. Conducting trials which could have been predicted to fail to answer the research question (e.g. because they are not large enough (...) to provide a definitive result) is not only a waste of resources but also a breach of research participants’ trust and a violation of research ethics. The issues seen in COVID-19 clinical trials are symptomatic of a wider trial design crisis where many trials do not provide informative results. This paper examines the roles of key stakeholders in delivering ethical and informative trials and whether guidance published by ‘The Good Clinical Trials Collaborative’ could be used to align key stakeholder groups and enable a joined-up approach to improve clinical trial design. (shrink)

Mentioning products or brands on Facebook enables individuals to display an ideal self to others through a form of virtual conspicuous consumption. Drawing on conspicuous donation behaviour literature, we investigate ‘conspicuous virtue signalling’, as conspicuous consumption on Facebook. CVS occurs when an individual mentions a charity on their Facebook profile. We investigate need for uniqueness and attention to social comparison information as antecedents of two types of CVS–self-oriented and other-oriented. We also explore the relationship between CVS and self-esteem, and offline (...) prosocial and unethical behaviour intentions. Data from two studies, a college survey and an adult survey via MTurk, were analysed using structural equation modelling. Results indicate that NFU predicts both forms of CVS, while ATSCI influences both forms of CVS for adults and other-oriented CVS for students. Self-esteem is enhanced by self-oriented CVS. Self-oriented CVS predicts donation intention whereas other-oriented CVS significantly reduces donation intention for both samples. Furthermore, a significant relationship between CVS and purchase intention of counterfeit luxury goods is revealed. Findings provide insights into conspicuous virtue signalling and the relationship between CVS on Facebook and offline behavioural intentions. (shrink)

Emotions are the fundamental pillar of neuromarketing, the perception of hedonic, utilitarian value, the emotions experienced by customers during the buying process and the effect the behavior of each stage is seen from the brain structures of the mind. The sample selected for the study was 354 real customers of supermarkets in the city of Riobamba and the sample of 8 participants with the use of eye tracking glasses in the store tour during this process. The results, in three stages (...) of the process system (inputs, processes and results) with the emotions involved in each stage. Stage I are: uncertainty, joy, anger/anger/anxiety, happiness, curiosity. The emotions in stages II and III are joy, surprise, satisfaction, security, and confidence and the emotions felt in the Evaluation Stage are satisfaction, exhaustion, demotivation, joy, and anger/anger/anxiety. There are hormones and neurotransmitters that are involved with emotions at different stages of the buying process. The right brain hemispheres are activated in negative emotions, left in positive emotions in all stages of the buying process. Brain structures are also activated at each stage of the buying process. The results of the Eye tracking in the comparative analysis analyzed Meditation, Attention and Blinking in the stages of the purchase process. It is concluded that repurchase and recommendation intentions are determined by positive emotions which, in turn, are determined by the hedonic and utilitarian value of the product and services that reduce negative emotions. (shrink)

La Femvertising ha aparecido con fuerza en los últimos años como una estrategia de comunicación persuasiva que intenta eliminar los estereotipos de género al tiempo que trabaja por el empoderamiento de las consumidoras. Sin embargo, el carácter esencialmente comercial de la publicidad plantea dudas sobre sus verdaderos fines. Si bien deberían tender al cambio social, siempre emerge la sospecha ante la posible instrumentalización del feminismo en función de objetivos comerciales. El presente artículo pretende contribuir a paliar la escasez de bibliografía (...) especializada sobre Femvertising, por lo que comienza por ofrecer antecedentes de este tipo de publicidad, plantea luego los nudos teóricos que deben abordarse desde la filosofía feminista y, finalmente, construye una metodología para analizar o diseñar publicidad que genere feminismo (Advertising Profem o Publicidad Profem), enfoque más adecuado para los intereses de género que la definición como publicidad feminista.‘Femvertising’ has gained relevance in the last few years as a strategy of persuasive communication that tries to eliminate gender stereotypes while promoting the empowerment of female consumers. However, the essentially commercial quality of advertising raises doubts about its actual aims. Although ‘femvertising’ is supposed to tend towards social change, there is always some suspicion about its instrumentalization of feminism for commercial purposes. This paper tries to fill a gap within the specialized bibliography on ‘femvertising’. In order to do so, it revises its origins, it explores its main theoretical keys from the point of view of feminist philosophy and, finally, it elaborates a method to analyze or design a type of ‘advertising that generates feminism’, which we have dubbed ‘profem advertising’, taking an approach that seems to be more useful for gender-based interests than the more problematic definition of ‘feminist advertising’. (shrink)

This paper gives an implicit characterization of the class of functions computable in polynomial space by deterministic Turing machines – PSPACE. It gives an inductive characterization of PSPACE with no ad-hoc initial functions and with only one recursion scheme. The main novelty of this characterization is the use of pointers to reach PSPACE. The presence of the pointers in the recursion on notation scheme is the main difference between this characterization of PSPACE and the well-known Bellantoni-Cook characterization of the polytime (...) functions – PTIME. (shrink)

A common approach for measuring the effectiveness of an education system or a school is the estimation of the impact that school interventions have on students’ academic performance. However, the latest trends aim to extend the focus beyond students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills, and to consider aspects such as well-being in the academic context. For this reason, the 2015 edition of the international assessment system PISA incorporated a new tool aimed at evaluating the socio-affective variables related to the well-being (...) of students. It is based on a definition focused on the five dimensions proposed in PISA theoretical framework: cognitive, psychological, social, physical and material. The main purpose of this study is to identify the well-being components that significantly affect student academic performance and to estimate the magnitude of school effects on the well-being of students in OECD countries, the school effect being understood as the ability of schools to increase subjective student well-being. To achieve this goal, we analyzed the responses of 234,000 students from thirty-five OECD countries to PISA 2015 questionnaires. Specifically, we considered non-cognitive variables in the questionnaires and student performance in science. The results indicated that the cognitive well-being dimension, composed of enjoyment of science, self-efficacy and instrumental motivation, as well as the test anxiety all had a consistent relationship with student performance across countries. In addition, the school effect, estimated through a two-level hierarchical linear model, in terms of student well-being was systematically low. While the school effect accounted for approximately 25% of the variance in the results for the cognitive dimension, only 5-9% of variance in well-being indicators was attributable to it. This suggests that the influence of school on student welfare is weak, and the effect is similar across countries. The present study contributes to the general discussion currently underway about the definition of well-being and the connection between well-being and achievement. The results highlighted two complementary concerns: there is a clear need to promote socio-emotional education in schools, and it is important to develop a rigorous framework for well-being assessment. The implications of the results and proposals for future studies are discussed. (shrink)

"Meaning, the complex phenomenon of individuation and the definition of identity are the core theme of this work. Grounded on a theoretical framework that gives particular emphasis to the semiotic process common to all forms of cognition, human cognitionis conceived here as specific of organisms that, in the course of their interactions, produce symbolic forms, defining the specific physical, social and cultural environments in which they evolve. Individuation, inherent to that semiotic process, is complex and double-sided. It involves, on one (...) hand, the definition of semantic identities and their acknowledgment as world objects naming; on the other hand, it comprehends the specific lexical and morphosyntactic strategies different languages have found todesignate particular entities referring. The definition of world objects and its symbolic translation presents variations from language to language. In the second part of the book, we define what we have called a 'structure-motivated ontology' to represent how this symbolic translation is accomplished in English and European Portuguese. Plus, we try to show how the nature of this symbolic translation affects structural realisation, namely the individuation of reference and the construal of 'one-off referring' expressions."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the role of several consumers’ cognitive and psychographic traits in their perceptions of retailers’ deceptive practices and the different effects on perceived deception associated with online vis-à-vis in-store shopping. Building on theoretical models of persuasion in consumer behavior, we hypothesize that the antecedents of perceived deception in traditional settings are the same as those on the Internet, while the intensity of the impact of these antecedents differs between the online and the offline environment. Results suggest (...) that the effects of individual’s cognitive traits and risk aversion on perceived deception are more relevant when consumers shop online than when they purchase from traditional stores. Conversely, psychographic traits play a more important role in explaining perceived deception in the traditional shopping context as compared to the online channel. Several theoretical and managerial implications are derived from these findings. (shrink)