The distinctive security features of the Spanish electronic national identity card, known as Documento Nacional de Identidad electrónico, allow us to propose the usage of this cryptographic smart card in an authentication framework that can be used during the registration and login phases of internet services where the validation of the user’s age and real identity are key elements, as it is the case for example of the so-called social networks. Using this mechanism with NFC-capable devices, the identity and age (...) of the potential user can be determined, allowing or denying the access to the service based on that information. (shrink)

Resumen:En este artículo analizamos las relaciones entre ciencia, técnica y vida en el pensamiento del filósofo francés Michel Henry (1922-2002). Presentamos, primero, el rol que asigna Henry a la ciencia moderna que con su geometrización del mundo ha dejado de lado la vida y la subjetividad y con ello ha dado lugar a la técnica moderna o tecnología. En segundo lugar, siguiendo a Henry, caracterizamos esta técnica moderna como ciencia aplicada, basada en máquinas automáticas que se autonomizan del ser humano; (...) y que constituye la concreción práctica del conocimiento objetivo de la ciencia moderna. Por último, analizamos lo que Henry llama la Técnica original, definida como Cuerpo-apropiación y Praxis de la Subjetividad original y su expresión en los instrumentos y el trabajo humano. Estos análisis permiten vislumbrar una “filosofía de la técnica” en Henry, que consideramos podría inscribirse en la tradición de la “filosofía clásica de la técnica” (en la línea de autores como Heidegger y Ellul).Palabras clave: Michel Henry; ciencia; técnica; tecnología; vida; subjetividad. (shrink)

The online version of the original article can be found under doi:10.1007/s11948-007-9045-2.

In their target article, titled “The Place of Philosophy in Bioethics Today” (Blumenthal-Barby et al. 2022), Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby and colleagues provide a powerful argument for the role of phi...

This paper addresses a variant of the job shop scheduling problem with total tardiness minimization where task durations and due dates are uncertain. This uncertainty is modelled with intervals. Different ranking methods for intervals are considered and embedded into a genetic algorithm. A new robustness measure is proposed to compare the different ranking methods and assess their capacity to predict ‘expected delays’ of jobs. Experimental results show that dealing with uncertainty during the optimization process yields more robust solutions. A sensitivity (...) analysis also shows that the robustness of the solutions given by the solving method increases when the uncertainty grows. (shrink)

En este artículo exponemos algunas mejoras y aportaciones en dos aspectos de los sistemas de gestión de aprendizaje (LMS). El primer aspecto es la seguridad y la autenticación, donde presentamos una modalidad de combinar la autenticación tradicional de contraseña y nombre de usuario con la autenticación por la técnica biométrica de comparación de huellas dactilares. El segundo aspecto es una arquitectura middleware capaz de dar acceso desde los LMS a distintos laboratorios remotos y virtuales (online) de forma que, se evita (...) la duplicación de los servicios proporcionados por ambas y se reutilizan los servicios proporcionados por los LMS en las sesiones prácticas. (shrink)

Since the introduction of a new criterion for determining death (i.e., the brain death criterion) in 1968, the research community has been embroiled in debates about whether this criterion should b...

Kategoriler’de, iki tür ontolojik yüklemleme ilişkisi ve karşılık gelen iki temel varlık ayrımı karşımıza çıkar. Aristoteles, bir taşıyıcı içinde olma ifadesiyle tözleri ilineklerden, bir taşıyıcı için söylenir olma ifadesiyle de tümelleri, özleri bakımından aynı olan tikellerinden ayırır. Anılan ayrımlar bize Aristoteles’in varlık görüşündeki iki temel prensibi verirler: Var olan çok anlamlıdır ve her zaman belirli bir şeydir. Bu bakımdan Kategoriler, şeylerin hem özlerini hem de ilineklerini açıklama ve böylece ilgili yüklemleme problemlerini çözme iddiasına sahiptir. Bu doğrultuda, metnin kendisinde doğrudan bir (...) atıf bulunmasa da literatürde Kategoriler’in Platoncu formlara yönelik iki temel eleştiri getirdiği sonucuna varılır: (1) Formlar teorisi var olanları tek anlamlı varsayarak şeylerin ilineksel özelliklerini açıklamakta başarısız olur; (2) formlar teorisi ilişkisel bir yüklemleme modeli kabul ettiğinden şeylerin özlerini açıklamakta başarısız olur. Bu yazı, Kategoriler ve Platoncu formlar arasındaki bu eleştirel ilişkinin Metafizik’in A kitabında yer alan bir pasajda (990b22-991a3) açıkça görülebileceği iddiasını taşır. Bilhassa Afrodisyaslı Aleksandros’un şerhi ışığında ele alındığında, pasajda formlar teorisine yöneltilen karşıt argümanların kategoriler kuramını varsaydığı ve argümanlar ile tam da literatürde konu edilen iki eleştirinin yapıldığı görülür. Bunun devamı olarak pasajdan, Kategoriler’in kaçındığı fakat formlar teorisinin yüzleşmek zorunda olduğu bazı ontolojik zorlukları çıkarsamak da mümkündür. Bu yazı ile, anılan pasaj bir kanıt olarak sunulmakta ve böylece Kategoriler’de formlar teorisinin örtük bir eleştirisi bulunduğu yönündeki literatür okumalarına katkıda bulunulması amaçlanmaktadır. Bunun için önce Aristoteles’in bu metinde ortaya koyduğu yüklemleme kuramı açıklanmakta ve ardından anılan pasaj analiz edilmektedir. (shrink)

Antik Yunan felsefesinde “nasıl yaşamalıyız?” sorusuna farklı okullar tarafından verilmiş farklı cevaplar, büyük ölçüde “mutluluk ahlakı” ile ilişkilendirilir. Buna göre, insan yaşamının nihai ereği, merkezinde erdemin yer aldığı mutluluktur. Sokratesçi küçük okullar arasında yer alan ve kendine özgü bir hazcı ahlak anlayışı benimseyen Kirene Okulu ise, haklarındaki sınırlı antik kaynaklardan edindiğimiz tanıklıklar ışığında, bu genel çerçevenin dışında duruyor gözükür. Bu yazı, Okulun ahlak kuramının geleneksel Yunan mutluluk ahlakı ile uyuşmama iddiasını, Okulun benimsediği şüpheci bilgi kuramı ile gerekçelendirmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bunun için, (...) Okulun, bilgi kuramlarına dayanan üç temel fikir kabul ettiği öne sürülmüş ve bu fikirler doğrultusunda mutluluk ahlakı altında yer alan varsayımları reddettiği gösterilmeye çalışılmıştır. (shrink)

Rapid individual cognitive phenotyping holds the potential to revolutionize domains as wide‐ranging as personalized learning, employment practices, and precision psychiatry. Going beyond limitations imposed by traditional lab‐based experiments, new efforts have been underway toward greater ecological validity and participant diversity to capture the full range of individual differences in cognitive abilities and behaviors across the general population. Building on this, we developed Skill Lab, a novel game‐based tool that simultaneously assesses a broad suite of cognitive abilities while providing an engaging (...) narrative. Skill Lab consists of six mini‐games as well as 14 established cognitive ability tasks. Using a popular citizen science platform (N = 10,725), we conducted a comprehensive validation in the wild of a game‐based cognitive assessment suite. Based on the game and validation task data, we constructed reliable models to simultaneously predict eight cognitive abilities based on the users’ in‐game behavior. Follow‐up validation tests revealed that the models can discriminate nuances contained within each separate cognitive ability as well as capture a shared main factor of generalized cognitive ability. Our game‐based measures are five times faster to complete than the equivalent task‐based measures and replicate previous findings on the decline of certain cognitive abilities with age in our large cross‐sectional population sample (N = 6369). Taken together, our results demonstrate the feasibility of rapid in‐the‐wild systematic assessment of cognitive abilities as a promising first step toward population‐scale benchmarking and individualized mental health diagnostics. (shrink)

We study 944 shareholder proposals submitted to 343 U.S. firms on climate change issues during 2009–2022. We use logistic and two-stage regression to estimate the propensity for a firm to be targeted or subjected to a vote at the annual general meeting and, for voted proposals, the determinants of that vote. We also examine whether climate-related proposals affect investor returns and how they relate to firms’ future environmental performance and greenhouse gas emissions. Compared to a matched sample, we first find (...) that activists target larger, more carbon-intensive, and less R&D-active firms. Second, voting likelihood is higher for firms with repeated and operations-related proposals and lower pre-proposal environmental ratings. By contrast, disclosure-related proposals are likelier to be negotiated and withdrawn. Third, repeated and operations-related proposals receive higher votes in favor, whereas votes on carbon-intensive firms do not. Fourth, building on the theory that investors act as if they distinguish among the different shareholder proposals based on the expected cost to the firm, we find evidence to support this idea. We find that investors respond negatively to ex-ante costlier proposals, such as those that relate to emissions reduction and target carbon-intensive firms. Fifth, targets’ future environmental performance rating is almost twenty percent higher after a proposal than before compared to the matched sample, whereas emissions do not budge appreciably. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Success and Malaise of CapitalismA Mimetic View of the MarketPablo Díaz-Morlán (bio)INTRODUCTIONThis article seeks to contribute to the knowledge that we have on the market as the central institution of capitalism, according to Girard's perspective. Mimetic theory (MT) can explain both the success and malaise caused by the market. Success is measured by the spread of desire, and malaise by the mimetic resentment caused by this spread (...) of desire.In 1979, Paul Dumouchel and Jean-Pierre Dupuy applied René Girard's mimetic theory for the first time to economics in their book L'Enfer des Choses.1 Both authors defended the need to advance toward the construction of a mimetic economic science placing at the center of the analysis the mimetic nature of the human being. They pointed out that the liberal conception of the individual as a being who makes decisions of maximum utility and autonomously is wrong. In short, the point was that the traditionally accepted homo economicus has been replaced with the homo mimeticus.2 In his contribution [End Page 275] to the book, "L'ambivalence de la rareté," Dumouchel establishes that scarcity emerges or is born as traditional bonds of solidarity are abandoned by members of a society that, until then, had ensured that everyone was assisted in case of need. In primitive human society, reciprocal bonds of solidarity prevailed. There was no scarcity, and this internal solidarity limited violence between the members of the group and expelled it to the outside. Scarcity was invented after the creation of the vicious cycle of individualism and the commercialization of social relations: a social institution established by the modern world after the solidarity mechanisms that protected the group against violence were abandoned.3 For both authors, the market arose as the institution that replaced the sacred, containing the violence, in both senses of the word "contain": On the one hand it held the violence within, and on the other it limited the violence.From its publication, L'Enfer des Choses was adopted as the founding treaty of the mimetic economy, even by Girard himself, who referred to it on several occasions when discussing economic issues.4 Both Dumouchel and Dupuy have gone into greater depth with their findings in other subsequent studies that have taken different courses. Dumouchel has clarified his concept of scarcity and has analyzed the relationship between envy and mimetic resentment through the study of Helmut Schoeck's famous envy theory.5 Meanwhile, Dupuy defends that many developments of modern economic science are merely the evolution of homo economicus to homo mimeticus because the autonomous subject is abandoned, giving rise to one that takes into account the behavior of others (game theory, adaptive expectations theory, speculation theory, etc.). Dupuy insists on the concept of the market as an institution that effectively delays the mimetic conflict. However, he adopts a pessimist position, as capitalism, due to its very evolution, has ended up surpassing its own limits (controlling politics), and as a result, it is increasingly more difficult for capitalism to carry out its function of containing violence.6Using the work of Dumouchel and Dupuy as a base, different authors have made contributions to economics from the perspective of MT. Several studies have been conducted on money, trade, and speculation, highlighting the theory of money of Michel Aglietta and André Orléan.7 Although there are differentiating nuances among the authors, they all assume that the money and market institutions are essentially violent and sacrificial. Other examples of this school of thought are Andrew Lascaris (1987), Erich Kitzmüller (1995), Anthony W. Bartlett (2002), John Daniels (2008), and Daniel M. Bell, Jr. (2012).8 Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber have successfully applied MT to the study of financial bubbles in an economic history study, with promising results.9 And in the criticism of the market system in his book À Charge de Revanche, Mark R. Anspach [End Page 276] favors the need to overcome the perverse logic of revenge that defines both war and the market, transforming it into a positive reciprocity based on gifts.10 Except for Hobart and Huber, the cited authors overwhelmingly and explicitly reject... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Hypothesis on the Origin of TradeThe Exchange of Lives for Sacrifice and SexPablo Díaz-Morlán (bio)introductionThe primary objective of this study is to propose a hypothesis regarding the origin of trade that will help to solve the enigma of why human groups, normally each other's enemies, stopped exchanging blows in order to exchange things. The complexity of this crucial step forward in the relationships between hostile primitive groups (...) can be summarized as follows. In order for an exchange to take place, both parties must take part in it voluntarily because they see a mutual benefit in doing so. In turn, both parties should be aware that in order to obtain what interests them, which is closely guarded by the other party, in return, they must hand over what the other party is interested in. The perception of the interest of the other plays a crucial role in trade, both today and in its origins. The next step to be taken after a successful initial exchange was its consolidation, after it had been proved that it mutually benefited groups who had, until then, been enemies. Once established, this pacific exchange would have diversified considerably and its complexity would have increased significantly. An added [End Page 165] advantage, which was unexpected but real, was that its subsequent usefulness in curbing violence contributed to its growing expansion. The emergence of a comparative advantage in the groups that adopted trade would have guaranteed their future progress with respect to those that continued to systematically adopt violent conduct toward their neighbors.1Throughout this study, we will come across the old idea that the market prevents war. Without a doubt, trade and war between individuals and groups are closely connected, but the boundaries between them are fuzzy and their demarcation has proven elusive to researchers. Albert Hirschman studied the intellectual climate in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in favor of trade and the express declaration of Montesquieu that "peace is the natural effect of trade."2 Since then, this idea has gained ground among researchers of economics and other fields of knowledge. In L'enfer des choses and subsequent works, Jean-Pierre Dupuy and Paul Dumouchel defend that the economy (the market) is a substitute for the sacred, containing violence through violent means. The market contains violence in the two senses of the term contain: It holds it and curbs it; it is both the poison and the remedy. The consumer society makes all objects available to everyone and in this way deactivates mimetic rivalry, deferring violent conflicts. But it is only a temporary remedy. In the words of Girard, "It is always necessary to find new toys."3Following the path initiated by Dumouchel and Dupuy, with their criticism of the free market economy and their proposal for a new notion of scarcity, in his text The Empire of Value, André Orléan claims that money is at the origin of the market. My analysis alludes to a moment prior to that established by Orléan. He maintains that he does not contemplate the historical origin of money but instead uses the expression "the conceptual origin of money." In fact, when he defends the essential monetary base of the market, he refers to an already developed market system, that is, an economic system for which the operation is structured around the institution of the market.4 Mark R. Anspach also criticized the market system in his book À Charge de Revanche. This author proposes the transcending of the perverse logic of vengeance that defines both war and the market that transforms it into a positive reciprocity based on the gift. This constitutes a type of shift away from looking at the past (settling old accounts) to looking toward the future, embracing gratitude, which gives rise to the initial gesture of giving.5 This study analyzes a time prior to that examined by Orléan and Anspach. It was the moment of hominization, that is, mimicry, the subsequent violence that threatened the survival of human groups and, as we will seek to explain, the market as an institution that has accompanied humankind since its conformation as a species... (shrink)