Conscientious Objection: A Bioethical and Legal ApproachObjeção de consciência: uma aproximação bioética e jurídicaScientific and medical developments, added to our reality in Colombia, demand the training of professionals consistent with ethical principles and clear theoretical concepts on current regulations that are aimed at respect for human life. The country’s current constitutional situation poses a challenge to any professional, beyond the legal or health fields, since fundamental rights such as life and freedom of conscience are being questioned. This paper demonstrates the (...) need and importance of promoting and accessing conscientious objection as a response to the legal landscape of the protection of life in Colombia, which may be an example for other countries in Latin America.Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigo Prieto-Soler MP, Muñoz D, Restrepo OI. Objeción de conciencia: una aproximación bioética y jurídica. Pers Bioet. 2020; 24: 205-17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5294/pebi.2020.24.2.7Publicado: 27/11/2020. (shrink)

En décembre 2007, Jacqueline Hamesse a fêté son 65ème anniversaire, puis a accédé à l’éméritat en 2008. Nombreux sont les collègues et amis qui ont souhaité marquer ces dates en rendant hommage à son dévouement aux études médiévales, que ce soit dans l’enseignement et la recherche ou pour la création et le développement d’institutions internationales dans ce domaine, sans oublier les efforts déployés pour l’édition de nombreux ouvrages collectifs et l’organisation de diverses rencontres scientifiques. Nous avons donc décidé de lui (...) dédier ce volume d’études intitulé «Florilegium mediaevale». L’ouvrage comprend des études concernant l’un des quatre thèmes suivants: les textes philosophiques dans leur contexte et leur support matériel, les instruments travail ainsi que le vocabulaire des textes philosophiques. En effet, ce sont des domaines qui ont surtout retenu son attention depuis de nombreuses années et dans lesquels elle a apporté des contributions significatives à la recherche. Contributions de: L-J. Bataillon (†) et O. Weijers (Paris / Den Haag), F. Bertelloni (Buenos Aires), Ch. Burnett (London), J. Casteigt (Toulouse), J. Celeyrette et J-L. Solère (Lille / Boston), W. Courtenay (Wisconsin-Madison), G. Dahan (Paris), G. Dinkova-Bruun (Toronto), K. Emery Jr. (Notre Dame), Ch. Erismann (Cambridge), B. Faes de Mottoni (Milano), G. Federici Vescovini (Firenze), B. Fernández de la Cuesta (Madrid), R. Friedman et Ch. Schabel (Leuven / Nicosia), D. Gottschall (Lecce), S. Harvey (Jerusalem), I. Heullant-Donat (Reims), R. Hissette (Köln), M. Hoenen (Freiburg i.B.), J. Meirinhos (Porto), O. Merisalo (Jyväskylä), M. Mulchahey (Toronto), M. J. Muñoz Jiménez (Madrid), M. C. Pacheco (Porto), G. Piaia (Padova), R. H. Pich (Porto Alegre), J. Puig Montada (Madrid), R. Ramón Guerrero (Madrid), C. Sirat et M. Geoffroy (Paris), G. Spinosa (Roma), I. Ventura (Louvain-la-Neuve). (shrink)

The inference systems proposed for solving SAT are unsound for solving MaxSAT and MinSAT, because they preserve satisfiability but not the minimum and maximum number of clauses that can be falsified, respectively. To address this problem, we first define a clause tableau calculus for MaxSAT and prove its soundness and completeness. We then define a clause tableau calculus for MinSAT and also prove its soundness and completeness. Finally, we define a complete clause tableau calculus for solving both MaxSAT and MinSAT, (...) in that the minimum number of generated empty clauses provides an optimal MaxSAT solution and the maximum number provides an optimal MinSAT solution. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between the African communitarian conception of personhood and gender. Defenders of this conception of personhood generally hold that an individual is defined in reference to the community, or that personhood is something that is acquired in community. Such characterisations often ignore the role, if any, that gender plays in that conception of personhood. Our aim in this paper is to critically explore the relationship between the two. In doing this we advance a number of claims. (...) First, we point out that the supposed gender-neutrality of the African communitarian idea of personhood is a more general feature of African philosophy that, for instance, evinces a general lack of attention to issues of gender violence and discrimination. Second, we briefly survey the literature on the communitarian idea of personhood in African thought, in particular the views of Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwasi Wiredu. Our aim is to demonstrate our hypothesis that this idea of personhood is often construed as a gender-neutral concept. Third, we argue that the relational and community-based nature of the communitarian idea of personhood indicates that it is in fact a gendered notion. We conclude that the assumed gender-neutrality is in conflict with the gendered nature of the communitarian idea of personhood. Fourth, we explore a probable objection to our claim that the communitarian idea of personhood is gendered and therefore vulnerable to gender inequality, by examining Ifi Amadiume’s position that the notion of gender in traditional African cultures was fluid and indicated complementarity rather than inequality between the sexes. We argue that Amadiume’s case is not convincing. (shrink)

What is the relationship between space and time in the human mind? Studies in adults show an asymmetric relationship between mental representations of these basic dimensions of experience: Representations of time depend on space more than representations of space depend on time. Here we investigated the relationship between space and time in the developing mind. Native Greek‐speaking children watched movies of two animals traveling along parallel paths for different distances or durations and judged the spatial and temporal aspects of these (...) events (e.g., Which animal went for a longer distance, or a longer time?). Results showed a reliable cross‐dimensional asymmetry. For the same stimuli, spatial information influenced temporal judgments more than temporal information influenced spatial judgments. This pattern was robust to variations in the age of the participants and the type of linguistic framing used to elicit responses. This finding demonstrates a continuity between space‐time representations in children and adults, and informs theories of analog magnitude representation. (shrink)

This study intends to contribute to the delimitation of selected offensive language categories based on an analysis of a corpus of contributions to discussion forums in Czech online national newspapers and news platforms called Czech Corpus of Offensive Language (CCOL). It endeavours to study three problematic areas (1) delimitation between the speech acts performed, (ii) lexical realisation of specific properties of the target and (iii) identification and categorisation of implicit offence (e.g. figurative semantic shifts) by exploring contextual cues for the (...) speech act identification, the keywords indicating the properties of the target and the types of semantic shifts in implicit expressions of offence. The findings indicate that annotation systems that do not use context information for the detection of offensive language may face problems with adequate interpretation of the language means under investigation. (shrink)

Expansive body posture is the most commonly studied and widely described in psychological literature. For many years, expansive posture was universally identified as a pose of power, but more recent research has revealed that the link between expansive posture and power may be moderated by gender, culture or even contextual cues. Our findings show that with little variation added to expansive posture it does not necessarily lead to the sense of power, and may actually trigger the opposite effect: a feeling (...) of submissiveness. In three studies, persons assuming their body in a standing-at-attention posture were perceived as being more obedient, thus participants who expanded their body in a standing-at-attention manner displayed greater compliance to requests and declared greater submissiveness toward social norms. We discuss how the cultural and interpersonal context imprinted in specific body posture can modify the feedback of innate and universal body states. (shrink)

Today humanity is in the midst of the massive expansion of new and fundamental technology, represented by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The ongoing revolution of these technologies and their profound impact across various sectors, has triggered discussions about the characteristics and values that should guide their use and development in a responsible manner. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review with the aim of pointing out existing challenges and required principles in AI-based systems in different industries. We (...) discuss our findings and provide general recommendations to be considered during AI deployment in production. The results have shown many gaps and concerns towards responsible AI and integration of complex AI models in the industry that the research community could address. (shrink)

We propose the “grammatical profile” as a means of probing the aspectual behavior of verbs. A grammatical profile is the relative frequency distribution of the inflected forms of a word in a corpus. The grammatical profiles of Russian verbs provide data on two crucial issues: a) the overall relationship between perfective and imperfective verbs and b) the identification of verbs that characterize various intersections of aspect, tense and mood (TAM) with lexical classes. There is a long-standing debate over whether Russian (...) aspectual “pairs” are formed only via suffixation (the Isacenko hypothesis) or whether they are formed via both suffixation and prefixation (the traditional view). We test the Isacenko hypothesis using data on the corpus frequency of inflected forms of verbs. We find that the behavior of perfective and imperfective verbs is the same regardless of whether the aspectual relationship is marked by prefixes or suffixes; our finding thus supports the traditional view. Introspective descriptions of Russian aspect have often connected the use of particular inflectional forms with certain uses of aspect; for example, the use of imperative forms with the imperfective aspect to produce expressions that are very polite. Grammatical profiles make it possible to identify verbs that behave as outliers, presenting unusually large proportions of usage in parts of the paradigm. This analysis both gives substance to and extends previous introspective descriptions by identifying the verbs most involved in certain TAM-category interactions. On a methodological level, this study contributes to current discussions on the use of inflected forms vs. lemmas in corpus studies. Newman (Aiming low in linguistics: Low-level generalizations in corpus-based research: National Chiao Tung University, 2008) finds valuable information at the level of the inflectional form, and Gries (forthcoming) argues that inflectional forms do not necessarily provide a better basis for analysis than lemmas. We agree with them that the appropriate level of granularity is determined by both the language and the linguistic phenomenon under analysis. (shrink)

This chapter provides a brief history of the concept of emancipation and its applications in and relationship with education, starting with the Enlightenment and considering both the continuation and the critique of this tradition that has further shaped the relationship between education and emancipation. The tension between two meanings of emancipation—personal, intellectual emancipation on the one hand, and political emancipation of the oppressed and the entire society on the other—comes into view in the divergence between Kantian and Marxists paths to (...) emancipation. The chapter goes on to consider the ideas by notable classic thinkers who further developed the Enlightenment ideal of emancipatory education by democratizing it (Freire, Habermas, Dewey, Popper), but also outright questioned some of its main aspects (Peirce, Berlin, Rancière). Nevertheless, even the critics of the Enlightenment mentioned here stay faithful to the ideals of equality and freedom that were formulated in the Age of Reason. And here we are, facing “new” and “old” challenges and media. The chapter then presents the content of this volume, commenting on each chapter and reflecting on how the book Rethinking Education and Emancipation tackles the relationship between emancipation and education by considering contemporary struggles and crises, as well as rethinking and recontextualizing the classic ideas (authors), and building on more recent work. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2018 Heft: 225 Seiten: 383-403.

This title covers the movements, concepts and figures associated with European modernism. This Dictionary is the first to gather, delineate and make accessible the literary, artistic, critical, cultural and political practices that we associate with Modernism. It provides a wide ranging resource both to the canon of "High Modernism" and to current theoretical perspectives that have contributed to the renewed interest in Modernism and have lent it renewed range and critical rigour in the early twenty-first century. A team of current (...) experts in the field provide clear and fully contextualised definitions of key terms, concepts, texts, movements, practitioners, as well as influential critical views and legacies. The entries cover Anglophone Modernism as well as giving full attention to significant figures, ideas and movements in European, North and South American culture and to influences from non-Western cultures. The Dictionary can be used either as a companion to the editors' successful Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents or as a stand alone reference work and provides both new researchers and experienced scholars with a thorough and up-to-date guide to this vibrant field. It comprises authoritative entries written by a dedicated team of experts in the field. It is a timely and rich addition to the resources available to students and scholars of a subject currently in great demand throughout the English-speaking world. With its chronological and thematic scope and comprehensive coverage, the Dictionary is set to become the definitive work of reference in the field. (shrink)

Joule’s Energy Conservation Law was the first “meta-law”: a general principle that all physical equations must satisfy. It has led to many important and useful physical discoveries. However, a recent analysis seems to indicate that this meta-law is inconsistent with other principles—such as the existence of free will. We show that this conclusion about inconsistency is based on a seemingly reasonable—but simplified—analysis of the situation. We also show that a more detailed mathematical and physical analysis of the situation reveals that (...) not only Joule’s principle remains true—it is actually strengthened: it is no longer a principle that all physical theories should satisfy—it is a principle that all physical theories do satisfy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFacial features that resemble emotional expressions influence key social evaluations, including trust. Here, we present four experiments testing how the impact of such expressive features is qualified by their processing difficulty. We show that faces with mixed expressive features are relatively devalued, and faces with pure expressive features are relatively valued. This is especially true when participants first engage in a categorisation task that makes processing of mixed expressions difficult and pure expressions easy. Critically, we also demonstrate that the impact (...) of categorisation fluency depends on the specific nature of the expressive features. When faces vary on valence, trust judgments increase with their positivity, but also depend on fluency. When faces vary on social motivation, trust judgments increase with their approachability, but remain impervious to disfluency. This suggests that people intelligently use fluency to make judgments on val... (shrink)

The disciplinary differentiation of sciences attracted Leibniz’s attention for a long period of time. From nowadays prospects it looks very well grounded as soon as in Leibniz’s manuscripts a modern scholar finds clue ideas of any research field which would tempt him to consider Leibniz as one of the founders of this particular discipline. We argue that this is possible only in retrospection and would significantly distort the essence of Leibniz’s epistemology. Our approach implies, in contrary, the investigation of the (...) Leibniz doctrine of signs on the background of the related philosophical problem, that of expression. The choice of semiotics is justified by the fact that it took a central place in his theoretical constructions, both those of natural sciences and of philosophy. In Leibniz system of knowledge the concept of notes (notae) and sings (signa) served a theoretical foundation of his most important and long-life aspiration to build up practical science of universal characteristics (characteristica universalis). In his eyes this practical science was the science of sciences (Scientia scientiarum), and we can consider it as the matrix for all possible scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Modern science is so much specialised that it seems utopic to try to follow it all at once. This new book is aimed at crossing the gap between specialists and a common understanding of 'modern science'. It would seem desirable that all educated people would know something from the humanities, literature, art but also the newest developments of natural sciences. One aim of this book is to point out the main messages of certain scientific fields, and what is really new (...) and beyond the average educational level, in order to broaden our horizons. Therefore, at the end of the chapters each scientific field possible future contributions and and ethical concerns, if any, are elaborated. (shrink)

Resumen:El texto tiene como inspiración el tratamiento que hiciera Humberto Giannini (1997) de los llamados “pecados capitales” en su negatividad, en tanto “espíritus del mal”, a partir de los sentidos de la tradición cristiana. Daremos cuenta de la interpretación que hace de esos “espíritus del mal”, centrándonos en los “pecados” de la lujuria y la gula, poniendo esta interpretación en relación con otros meandros de interés propio que hacen sentido para una reflexión sobre el placer, de la que siempre estaremos (...) en deuda por ser este esquivo a su comprensión recortada, dadas sus posibilidades relacionales ilimitadas que sobrepasan la experiencia o la imaginación particulares y restringidas que cada cual tiene.Palabras clave: apetito; vicios; mal; bien; transgresión; placer; gula; lujuria. (shrink)

In this article we examine commodification and marketisation of genetic testing by companies offering direct-to-consumer genetic testing to the general public through online platforms in Hong Kong. Recently, offers of genetic testing have expanded from scientific and clinical genetic settings to general medicine and non-medical domains. The wider availability of tests, however, has raised concerns about the currently available scientifically proven utility of these tests. Using theme-oriented discourse analysis, we analyse the specific discursive modalities through which the DTC companies in (...) Hong Kong make inflated claims about the value of genetic tests to pursue their marketing agenda. We show that in this way the companies are selling ‘more’ than specific products to consumers: they are selling ‘hope’ and ‘increased autonomy’, that is, an opportunity to buy commodities online that promise consumers control of their health and wellbeing. (shrink)

Abstract:This article presents a new interpretation of Wang Guowei's concept of jingjie understood as his creative response to Kant and European aesthetics addressing concerns recently elaborated also in Gernot Böhme's new aesthetic theory, based on a non-standard interpretation of Kant's aesthetic theory through his concept of atmosphere. The convergence of both authors is explored in their efforts to overcome the dualism of subject and object in their explorations of the aesthetic experience and response, further exemplified by means of another current (...) term, Bence Nanay's distributed attention. (shrink)

This volume presents discussions on a wide range of topics focused on eco-phenomenology and the interdisciplinary investigation of contemporary environmental thought. Starting out with a Tymieniecka Memorial chapter, the book continues with papers on the foundations, theories, readings and philosophical sources of eco-phenomenology. In addition, it examines issues of phenomenological anthropology, ecological perspectives of the human relationship to nature, and phenomenology of the living body and the virtual body. Furthermore, the volume engages in a dialogue with contemporary behavioral sciences on (...) topics such as eco-alienation, sustainability, and the human relationship to the earth in the context of the cosmos. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Gperhard Heinzmann, Rédacteur en chef La philosophie est la mère des sciences. Il faut avoir une bonne mémoire pour se le rappeler. Quel bonheur lorsque ce rappel vient d’une collègue qui ne l’a pas appris, mais qui éprouve la nécessité de questionner sa pratique scientifique et actualise ainsi l’ancienne métaphore! C’était le cas de Catherine Dufour. On se connaissait vaguement depuis l’école maternelle des Trois Maisons que fréquentaient nos enfants. Je fus donc très heureux de découvrir,...

Los asesinatos de los estudiantes universitarios Cabral y Bello durante las protestas ocurridas a mediados de mayo de 1969 fueron un punto de inflexión en las crecientes manifestaciones estudiantiles que, unidas a las de otros sectores, desembocarían el 29 de mayo en el Cordobazo.

Regularization may be used as an alternative to dimensionality reduction when the number of variables in a model is much larger than the number of available observations. In a recent study from our group regularized regression was employed to quantify brain functional connectivity in a sample of healthy controls using a brain parcellation and resting state fMRI images. Here regularization is applied to evaluate resting state connectivity abnormalities at the voxel level in a sample of patients with schizophrenia. Specifically, ridge (...) regression is implemented with different degrees of regularization. Results are compared to those delivered by the weighted global brain connectivity method, which is based on averaged bivariate correlations and from the non-redundant connectivity method, a dimensionality reduction approach that applies supervised principal component regressions. Ridge regression is able to detect a larger set of abnormally connected regions than both GBC and NRC methods, including schizophrenia related connectivity reductions in fronto-medial, somatosensory and occipital structures. Due to its multivariate nature, the proposed method is much more sensitive to group abnormalities than the GBC, but it also outperforms the NRC, which is multivariate too. Voxel based regularized regression is a simple and sensitive alternative for quantifying brain functional connectivity. (shrink)

This article presents the results of lead isotope analysis of ten Byzantine seals from the sigillographic collection of Robert Feind. The report is preceded by an overview of pre-existing studies on lead use in the Byzantine Empire and a presentation of the investigated seals datable to the Early Byzantine, Middle Byzantine and Late Byzantine period. Three seals are of imperial issue. The results of the analysis of lead are compared against the results of isotope analysis of other silver and lead (...) artefacts from Late Antiquity and the Late Byzantine period. The isotop analysis leads to the following conclusions: Many of the seals have isotope ratios consistent with Aegean-Bulgaria-Western Turkey sources; Reused lead was also employed in the manufacture of seals; There appear to be significant chronological and regional differences in the lead used for casting blanks in the eastern Mediterranean. The number of lead seals subjected here to analysis is admittedly too small for the results to be fully representative; still, they provide a starting point for more similar studies which will preferably include excavation finds with known and secure provenance. (shrink)

Primary headaches are highly prevalent and represent a major cause of disability in young adults. Neurofeedback is increasingly used in the treatment of chronic pain; however, there are few studies investigating its efficacy in patients with headaches. We report the results of a cross-over sham-controlled study on the efficacy of neurofeedback in the prophylactic treatment of tension-type headache. Participants received ten sessions of infra-low frequency electroencephalographic neurofeedback and ten sessions of sham-neurofeedback, with the order of treatments being randomized. The study (...) also included a basic psychotherapeutic intervention — a psychoeducational session performed before the main study phases and emotional support provided throughout the study period. The headache probability was modeled as a function of the neurofeedback and sham-neurofeedback sessions performed to date. As a result, we revealed a strong beneficial effect of neurofeedback and no influence of the sham sessions. The study supports the prophylactic use of infra-low frequency neurofeedback in patients with TTH. From a methodological point of view, we advocate for the explicit inclusion of psychotherapeutic components in neurofeedback study protocols. (shrink)

The decline in live social contact during the Covid-19 pandemic is driving an increase in the demand for social media communication. This study is an in-depth continuation of an earlier study on the topic of self-esteem and value orientations of youth. A survey was conducted and helped to determine the values ​​of life that are broadcast on social media profiles and are actively welcomed by students in Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tik Tok: independence, high aspirations, health and beauty, material (...) values. The high level of activity of the respondents in social networks was investigated and the medium level of Internet addiction was determined. The respondents revealed the level of conformity and individual-typological personality traits. The students are characterized by a high level of anxiety and tension. The conformity level helps to identify the individuals who are most vulnerable to the effects of social media. The terminal and instrumental values ​​of students are investigated: health and beauty, material values, entertainment, family life, self-confidence, love, freedom, rationalism, Irreconcilability to shortcomings, independence, self-control and high claims. Correlation links were found in the indicators of conformism / nonconformism / Internet addiction and value orientations of the individual. Work in groups was carried out with the aim of abandoning a set of social masks, selected taking into account the expectations of others. The work is based on the metaphor of diminution from Slavic myths and fairy tales. (shrink)

Taking the example of the Basel carnival Fasnacht, the paper shows in what way ritual can maintain the impression of being traditional and unchanging, and yet be open to changes and innovations. As the basic conceptual framework we use the notion of liminality, which Victor Turner identified as the creative moment of ritual. In Fasnacht, this liminal dimension appears in two degrees. The carnival as such represents a reflexive liminal counterpart to the standard social structure, yet it is itself also (...) highly structured and bound by conservative traditional rules. As a reaction to this, there arises within Fasnacht a second-order liminality in the form of the so-called wild Fasnacht, which turns the official antistructural Fasnacht rules upside down once again, testing their validity. While the carnival structure offers a regulated opportunity for questioning everyday social behaviour, wild Fasnacht questions even this regulated manner of questioning as such, opening space for its reflection and modification. We use detailed examples to demonstrate how the subtle dialectics of structure and antistructure keeps the tradition of Basel’s Fasnacht alive and allows it to evolve without destroying its aura of traditionality. (shrink)

A nation cannot exist without national culture and national self-consciousness. These concepts are decisive in the development of the nation. Values are the priorities of any nation, determined by its culture and self-awareness. The national cool is the basis for the formation and development of national self-consciousness. The aim is to analyze the influence of national culture on the formation of national consciousness. Justify their objective and subjective factors of formation, which are based on the motivational core of personality behavior. (...) National culture and national self-consciousness are the main features of a nation, without which it cannot exist and develop as a whole. National culture and national self-consciousness are one whole of the spiritual world of nations and nationalities. The development of national culture and national self-consciousness is an objective regularity. Naturally, contradictions in this process will exist and demand their resolution or escalate into conflicts. With a timely solution, they will play the role of an indicator of national development. (shrink)