Here I present a list of the most important facts related to the approval and implementation of the influenza virus A (HINl) vaccine trial in Costa Rica. I also discuss some of the ethical conflicts involved and suggest some possible solutions.

The assembly of products or components by operators in industries is a complex task with recurring problems. In these processes, operators often make errors that can lead to defective products. Therefore, they need to be inspected later to verify their correct assembly. The main problems are caused by several reasons including high employee turnover, lack of experience in manufacturing specific products or confusion in interpreting instructions to assemble similar components. In this paper, a novel structured language aimed to describe the (...) required actions to manufacture a product in industrial assembly environments is presented. The main contribution is to provide a formal language to feed automatic systems that can verify through visual control whether the actions performed by the operator are carried out following the standard described by this language. In general, the use of this formal language will allow to minimize the negative impact of errors during assembly and to reduce waste in many forms in the industry. (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)

A general mathematical framework, based on countable partitions of Natural Numbers [1], is presented, that allows to provide a Semantics to propositional languages. It has the particularity of allowing both the valuations and the interpretation Sets for the connectives to discriminate complexity of the formulas. This allows different adequacy criteria to be used to assess formulas associated with the same connective, but that differ in their complexity. The presented method can be adapted potentially infinite number of connectives and truth values, (...) therefore, it can be considered a general framework to provide semantics to several of the known logic systems (eg, LC, L3 LP, FDE). The presented semantics allow to converge to different standard semantics if the separation complexity procedure is annulled. Therefore, it can be understood as a framework that allows greater precision (in complexity terms) with respect to formula satisfaction. Naturally, because of how it is built, it can be incorporated into non-deterministic semantics. The presented procedure also allows generating valuations that grant a different truth value to each formula of propositional language. As a positive side effect, our method allows a constructive proof of the equipotence between N and N^n for all Natural n. (shrink)

Este artículo busca demostrar que, a partir de los lineamientos presentes en el capítulo II del reciente _Reprise du donné_ es posible proponer cuatro niveles de hermenéutica que nos permiten resolver algunos de los problemas de la fenomenología marioniana lúcidamente planteados por Christina Gschwandtner.

La llamada _nouvelle phénoménologie_ ¿practica efectivamente una fenomenología? Este artículo se propone demostrar, a partir de un análisis de las propuestas de sus dos autores más representativos: Jean-Luc Marion y Claude Romano, que las obras de estos filósofos constituyen una auténtica fenomenología si se tiene en cuenta el particular estatuto que le otorgan a la instancia antepredicativa.

En el presente trabajo, analizamos el cuento El Inmortal de Borges prestándole principal atención a las situaciones donde se entrelazan, o se tratan sin diferenciar demasiado, cuestiones vinculadas con la animalidad y la divinidad. Sostenemos que esta especie de confusión o falta de precisión al tratar cuestiones que se alejan tanto de la identidad personal y del Yo, como la inmortalidad, no es un elemento casual ni sin fundamento, sino que puede ser analizado filosóficamente adentrándonos la otredad animal. El Inmortal (...) nos manifiesta que la filosofía podría no haber sido lo suficientemente precisa al tratar la otredad, permitiendo que animalidad y divinidad, o más bien ciertas propiedades características de cada una, puedan amalgamarse dentro de los lindes de este concepto. Que el cuento de Borges haga convivir de forma tan característica la inacción con la inmortalidad hace de esta obra un objeto de reflexión obligatorio para todos los interesados en el concepto de otredad. (shrink)

This is the first book-length study of Descartes's metaphysics to place it in its immediate historical context, the Late Scholastic philosophy of thinkers such as Suárez against which Descartes reacted. Jorge Secada views Cartesian philosophy as an 'essentialist' reply to the 'existentialism' of the School, and his discussion includes careful analyses and original interpretations of such central Cartesian themes as the role of scepticism, intentionality and the doctrine of the material falsity of ideas, universals and the relation between sense (...) and understanding, causation and the proofs of the existence of God, the theory of substance, and the dualism of mind and matter. His study offers a picture of Descartes's metaphysics that is both novel and philosophically illuminating. (shrink)

By any standard, nonrationality is an undertheorized concept in sociology. This paper attempts to open a discussion on nonrationality by analyzing one of the most fruitful theorizations of the concept: Simmel's. Simmel developed a theory that placed nonrationality on the same plane with rationality and attributed to the former a role as fundamental as the latter's in the foundations of action, and as central as the latter's in the generation of existential meanings. The gradual eclipse of the nonrational elements of (...) life in the expanses of a modern, highly rationalized world imply, then, an impoverishment of being. I argue that Simmel's theory of the nonrational can serve as a model capable of enriching our understanding of society and of the person and can, in this sense, serve as a counterpoint to current sociological theories that emphasize the rational elements of life and conceive the person in primarily rational terms. (shrink)

The Leslie matrix model (Leslie, 1945) for discrete population growth has been modified and used several times in population dynamics. A review is given of the basic model (n t + 1 = An t) and of its principal modifications. The modifications relating to the influences of internal or external factors to the population are studied with greater detail. The same applies to models where the population is divided in stages rather than in age classes.In the same line, Hadjibiros (1975, (...) 1976) studied a more general model, where the transition matrix corresponds to a population divided in stages of unequal duration, and where the time varying influences of the internal or external factors are included. This model offers the possibility of computer simulation of the population dynamics of a natural population represented by a demographic vector. (shrink)

This article provides a comprehensive review of the rather intricate relationship between contemporary environmental ethics, understood as a philosophical branch, and ancient philosophy. While its primary focus is on Western philosophy, it also includes some brief yet crucial considerations about the influence of Eastern traditions of thought on environmental ethics. Aside from the introduction in the first section, the discussion is organised into three main sections. In the Reception: Ancient philosophy in environmental ethics section, I review the initial reception of (...) ancient philosophy in contemporary environmental ethics. Next, in the Reaction: Environmental ethics in ancient philosophy scholarship section, I examine how the scholarship in AP responded to this early reception. I conclude, in the final section, with some constructive suggestions for future research. (shrink)

In this work, we discuss the failure of the principle of truth functionality in the quantum formalism. By exploiting this failure, we import the formalism of N-matrix theory and non-deterministic semantics to the foundations of quantum mechanics. This is done by describing quantum states as particular valuations associated with infinite non-deterministic truth tables. This allows us to introduce a natural interpretation of quantum states in terms of a non-deterministic semantics. We also provide a similar construction for arbitrary probabilistic theories based (...) in orthomodular lattices, allowing to study post-quantum models using logical techniques. (shrink)

RESUMENLa idea de la filosofía sostenida por Heidegger en sus primeros cursos puede ser caracterizada por las notas que Karl Jaspers utiliza para describir a los profetas de la comunicación indirecta. El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar la influencia de la labor metodológica de Søren Kierkegaard en el joven Heidegger.PALABRAS CLAVEHEIDEGGER, KIERKEGAARD, COMUNICACIÓN INDIRECTA,INDICACIÓN FORMAL, ÉTICA DEL MÉTODOABSTRACTThe idea of philosophy held by Heidegger in his early courses can be characterized by the features that Karl Jaspers uses to describe (...) the prophets of indirect communication. The aim of this article is to show the influence of Søren Kierkegaard’s methodological work on the young Heidegger.KEY WORDSHEIDEGGER, KIERKEGAARD, INDIRECT COMMUNICATION,FORMAL INDICATION, ETHICS OF METHOD. (shrink)

This examination of the often-inaccessible work and semiotics of George Herbert Mead focuses first on his pivotal ideas of Sociality, Consciousness, and Communication. Mead’s insight of sociality as forced relatedness, or forced semiosis, appearing early in evolution, or appearing in simple systems, guarantees him a foundational place among biosemioticians. These ideas are Mead’s exemplar description of multiple referentiality afforded to social organisms (connected to his idea of the generalized other), thus enabling passing from one umwelt to another, with relative ease. (...) Although Mead’s comprehensive semiosis is basically sound, and in concordance with modern and contemporary semiotics (and biosemiotics), it nevertheless lacks a satisfactory explanation of how conscious organisms achieve passing into new frames of reference. Semiotic Matrix Theory (SMT), its pansemiosis, describes falsifiable existential and cognitive heuristics of recognizing Energy requirements, Safety concerns and Possibility or Opportunity as “passing” functions. Finally, another type of emergence, ecoethics, isan embedded constant in biosemiosis. Not all semiosis is good semiosis, not all text is good text. Because our species is moving away from ancient biosemiosisand interrelatedness, this historicity, even ductile enough to invent synthetic semiosis or capricious umwelten, is facing the ecological reality and consequences of an overly anthropocentric text. (shrink)

This article examines Aristotle's views concerning the possibility of friendship between human beings and nonhuman animals. The suggestion that he denies this possibility is rejected. I reassess the textual evidence adduced by scholars in support of this reading, while adding new material for discussion. Central to the traditional reading is the assumption that animals, in Aristotle's view, cannot be friends in virtue of their cognitive limitations. I argue that Aristotle's account of animal cognition is perfectly consistent with the possibility of (...) friendship between human beings and nonhuman animals. (shrink)

We draw from upper echelons theory to investigate whether the presence of a chief sustainability officer (CSO) is associated with better corporate environmental performance in highly polluting industries. Such firms are under strong pressure to remediate environmental damage, to comply with regulations, and to even exceed environmental standards. CSOs in these firms are likely to be hired as legitimate agents to lead and successfully implement environmental strategy aimed at reducing pollution levels. Interestingly and contrary to our expectations, we found that (...) the presence of a CSO is associated with higher levels of pollution emissions. Nonetheless, we found that the CSO has a positive influence on a firm’s environmental performance if faced with strict environmental regulations. We argue that the enforcement of environmental regulations enhances monitoring and accountability of pollution emissions. The sample for this study comprised all the S&P 500 firms required by the Environmental Protection Agency to annually report their toxic emissions to the Toxic Release Inventory. Data were collected for a 6-year period from 2006 to 2011. We used a panel data regression and employed propensity score matching to correct for potential endogeneity problems. (shrink)

Resumen Me propongo aclarar la noción de “fenómeno” de Jean-Luc Marion y su relación con la categoría de “fenómeno saturado”. Para ello discutiré las interpretaciones de algunos comentaristas que advierten tensiones entre la primera y la segunda tópica del fenómeno.I aim to clarify Jean-Luc Marion’s notion of “phenomenon” and its relationship with the category of “saturated phenomenon”. To this end I discuss the interpretations of some commentators who point out tensions between the first and the second topic of the phenomenon (...) presented. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo examinaré las observaciones críticas que se presentan en este volumen a las ideas que he defendido en mi libro Teoría Analítica del Derecho (en adelante TAD). Carla Huerta Ochoa ha controvertido algunos puntos de mi enfoque sobre la caracterización del derecho. María Beatriz Arriagada, por su parte, ha formulado interesantes interrogantes sobre mi caracterización de las normas, la normatividad de las reglas constitutivas y mi reconstrucción de los conceptos jurídicos básicos. Mauricio Maldonado Muñoz ha refinado algunas (...) de mis observaciones sobre conflictos normativos y discutido algunos puntos sobre jerarquías normativas. Sebastián Agüero-San Juan ha relevado mi reconstrucción de la dinámica jurídica y puntualizado diferencias sobre el concepto de sistema dinámico, la operación de reforma de normas y el criterio de lex specialis. Finalmente, María Gabriela Scataglini ha planteado cuestionamientos a mi enfoque del dilema del seguimiento de reglas y la derrotabilidad del derecho. Trataré aquí de responder sus comentarios centrales. (shrink)

O artigo aborda a produção historiográfica sobre a presença de escravos em Portugal. Começa por destacar o facto de os primeiros trabalhos realizados sobre este tema, contemporâneos do movimento abolicionista do século XIX, terem sido motivados pela preocupação de demonstrar a universalidade da escravatura, defendendo o país da acusação de ter iniciado a escravidão moderna. Refere-se também à renovação, operada já nas últimas décadas de Novecentos, dos estudos sobre os escravos, que acompanhou a própria actualização da historiografia portuguesa sob a (...) influência científica de outros países, mas que foi também favorecida pela sua libertação da necessidade de justificar o comportamento luso, após a implantação do regime democrático e o fim do império colonial. Procura igualmente sintetizar a historiografia mais recente sobre esta matéria. (shrink)

Most scholars study postrevolutionary Mexico as a period in which cultural production significantly shaped national identity through murals, novels, essays, and other artifacts that registered the changing political and social realities in the wake of the Revolution. In Biocosmism, Jorge Quintana Navarrete shifts the focus to examine how a group of scientists, artists, and philosophers conceived the manifold relations of the human species with cosmological forces and nonhuman entities (animals, plants, inorganic matter, and celestial bodies, among others). Drawing from (...) recent theoretical trends in new materialisms, biopolitics, and posthumanism, this book traces for the first time the intellectual constellation of biocosmism or biocosmic thought: the study of universal life understood as the vital vibrancy that animates everything in the cosmos from inorganic matter to living organisms to outer space. It combines both analysis of unexplored areas--such as Alfonso L. Herrera's plasmogeny--and innovative readings of canonical texts like Vasconcelos's La raza cósmica to examine how biocosmism produced a wide array of utopian projects and theorizations that continue to challenge anthropocentric, biopolitical frameworks.--Back cover. (shrink)

La opera flotante de John Barth tiene varias puertas de acceso para el análisis. Una de ellas nos lleva a indagar sobre el tema que circunda la obra: el suicidio. Para ello, en el presente trabajo vamos a contrastar las posibles características apocalípticas del personaje principal, Todd Andrews, con determinados postulados de la filosofía existencialista de Jean Paul Sartre. La propuesta estará centrada en revisar puntos de divergencia y de afinidad en ambas cosmovisiones.

Recientemente, en la literatura sobre neuroética se ha analizado la integración entre neurotecnologías y ser humano desde la teoría de la mente extendida. La discusión se ha centrado en buscar dimensiones para evaluar la integración de los dispositivos en las funciones cognitivas de sus usuarios. Este enfoque ha tenido un relativo éxito en conceptualizar la paridad ética de los dispositivos respecto del cuerpo orgánico. Sin embargo, esta integración presenta al menos tres desafíos que no han sido abordados y requieren un (...) nuevo marco conceptual. El primero, concierne a la distinción entre paciencia y agencia moral. El marco actual aborda solo el primero de estos aspectos. Los otros dos se desprenden en parte de este. El segundo, se relaciona con la distinción entre las dimensiones fenoménicas de los mencionados aspectos, esto es, el sentido de pertenencia corporal y el sentido de agencia. El foco en la paciencia moral descuida aspectos fenoménicos fundamentales de la integración con la neurotecnología. Finalmente, la posibilidad de que el dispositivo actúe coercitivamente sobre nuestros centros cognitivos constituye una forma de integración problemática que no puede abordarse adecuadamente desde los enfoques actuales. Proponemos que estos tres desafíos pueden ser estudiados explorando un nuevo abordaje sobre la identidad personal que enfatiza dichas dimensiones. (shrink)

Varios enfoques teóricos y disciplinas se han comprometido con el problema de nuestra relación cognitiva con los animales (e incluso entre ellos). De qué forma lograr el mejor acercamiento es aún un tema controversial. En este trabajo, analizamos algunas de las posibilidades presentadas en los últimos años. Cuando el acceso cognitivo al psiquismo animal se realiza por vía naturalista, abierta a la psicología, una de las alternativas brindadas es la llamada Teoría de la Mente (ToM). La Teoría de la mente, (...) también conocida como lectura de la mente, mentalización o atribución de estados mentales, sería la capacidad de atribuir a otros sujetos estados mentales, como deseos y creencias, lo que supondría que el sujeto en cuestión dispone de algo así como una “teoría” de la mente del otro. En 2008 Call y Tomasello revisaron la pregunta que lanzó la investigación de ToM tres décadas antes: “¿Tiene el chimpancé una teoría de la mente?”. 10 años antes, había un consenso considerable de la literatura experimental de que la ToM sería una propiedad exclusiva de los humanos. Call y Tomasello concluyeron en 2008 que las cosas habían cambiado: varias tareas evidenciaron que los simios eran sensibles a las metas e intenciones que subyacen en las acciones de los demás simios. Para este enfoque, es crucial decidir si el comportamiento, que es una variable observable, es un fiel reflejo de lo que está pasando al nivel mental. Presentamos el simulacionismo como una alternativa a la ToM. La primera persona es la perspectiva desde la cual trabajan los simulacionistas, ya que a partir de los datos observacionales y actitudes que “el otro” aporta, pueden “ponerse en su sitio” para así, simular y comprender sus estados mentales. La ToM y el simulacionismo suelen caracterizarse dentro del mismo enfoque (teorías mentalistas). Sin embargo, los simulacionistas niegan la implicación de cualquier tipo de teorización, ya sea personal o subpersonal, al producirse el acceso cognitivo. Cuando el estudio de la mente se realiza mediante disciplinas científicas, psicología, neurociencias, etc., los métodos utilizados por las ciencias positivas deben enfrentarse al problema de la subdeterminación teórica por parte de la evidencia empírica. Tales limitaciones pueden ser sorteadas si nos acercamos al tema a través de la psicología animal o la fenomenología y no desde un enfoque que tome como modelo epistemológico principal a la física. Mostramos que los enfoques empáticos, y las perspectivas de segunda persona son ejemplos de este tipo de acercamiento. Debido al problema de la subdeterminación teórica, dado un conjunto finito de “hechos empíricos”, existen muchas teorías rivales que son corroboradas por tal conjunto. Esto implica que no podremos decidirnos por una de las teorías rivales contando sólo con el cuerpo evidencial en cuestión. El análisis de los casos presentados muestra que el problema de la subdeterminación teórica pocas veces es considerado por los científicos que tratan el comportamiento animal. Concluimos que las discusiones presentadas muestran una complejidad que invita a un acercamiento multidisciplinar, y que aún estamos lejos de llegar a un consejo general sobre la cuestión. (shrink)

The present article reassesses Aristotle's views on the relationship between ethical character and the natural environment. The standard reading, to the effect that Aristotle endorsed environmental determinism, is rejected. The discussion invites a more careful examination of Aristotelian texts commonly adduced to support the orthodox reading, while also providing a clear account of what environmental determinism is. I argue that the textual evidence presented by defenders of the standard reading does not match that account. All in all, I conclude, we (...) are not authorized to invoke Aristotle's views on the relationship between natural environment and human beings in order to discredit his ethical and political project. (shrink)

Some partitions of Natural Number set are built through recursive processesgenerating in this manner countable examples of countable and disjoint sets whose unionis a set also countable. This process is constructive, so the Axiom of choice is not used.We provide a PC program that generates one of these special partitions and shows howto generate infinite of them. This line of reasoning can have multiple applications in Settheory and Model theory. We proved that the number of ways to make these partitionsof (...) natural numbers is not countable, there are more of these partitions (named doublycountable) than natural numbers. For each natural number greater than 1, we show aneffective procedure that generates these partitions -/- . (shrink)

And how are the answers to these questions affected by the Black and Latino experience in the United States"-From the Preface This collection of new essays explores the relation between race and ethnicity and its social and political ...