Feature selection is a widely studied technique whose goal is to reduce the dimensionality of the problem by removing irrelevant features. It has multiple benefits, such as improved efficacy, efficiency and interpretability of almost any type of machine learning model. Feature selection techniques may be divided into three main categories, depending on the process used to remove the features known as Filter, Wrapper and Embedded. Embedded methods are usually the preferred feature selection method that efficiently obtains a selection of the (...) most relevant features of the model. However, not all models support an embedded feature selection that forces the use of a different method, reducing the efficiency and reliability of the selection. Neural networks are an example of a model that does not support embedded feature selection. As neural networks have shown to provide remarkable results in multiple scenarios such as classification and regression, sometimes in an ensemble with a model that includes an embedded feature selection, we attempt to embed a feature selection process with a general-purpose methodology. In this work, we propose a novel general-purpose layer for neural networks that removes the influence of irrelevant features. The Feature-Aware Drop Layer is included at the top of the neural network and trained during the backpropagation process without any additional parameters. Our methodology is tested with 17 datasets for classification and regression tasks, including data from different fields such as Health, Economic and Environment, among others. The results show remarkable improvements compared to three different feature selection approaches, with reliable, efficient and effective results. (shrink)

Tremendous agricultural potential in Colombia has gone untapped for decades due to: i) civil strife and the criminal drug trade; ii) uncertain property rights; iii) inadequate infrastructure; iv) lack of innovation and technological development; v) lack of funding, vi) lack of investment; and vii) misallocation of resources within the sector. Proof of this is the relatively lower growth of the value of Colombia’s agriculture versus other countries in the region during the agricultural prices booms (FAO, 2015). This paper analyzes whether (...) Colombia’s weak agricultural performance was due to low productivity growth rather than input accumulation. Using econometric specifications, this paper finds that Colombia’s agricultural productivity grew on average between 0.8% and 1.3% annually from 1975 and 2013. This growth was mainly driven by livestock and poultry productivity, which grew between 1.6% and 2.2%, while crop productivity grew between 0% and 0.8%. Likewise, this paper finds biased technical and scale effects whenever the models are able to test their presence. In addition, it finds evidence that Colombia’s agricultural productivity growth was affected by changing economic circumstances. These results are significant for post-conflict rural investment because they provide information about the returns on future government investment options in the rural sector of Colombia. (shrink)

El texto que presentamos recoge las principales conclusiones que han derivado de los estudios sobre la Colección de documentos árabes del Archivo Histórico Provincial de Granada. Compuesta principalmente por documentos de carácter jurídico, el análisis del contenido de cada uno de ellos en relación con la materialidad del soporte y las tintas así como la coincidencia en el diseño y planificación de la página revelan el uso de idénticos protocolos de ejecución. Esta investigación nos está permitiendo, además, establecer coincidencias relevantes (...) relacionadas con los procesos de elaboración del papel entre los últimos años de permanencia de los árabes en la Península Ibérica y los primeros tras la incorporación del territorio a la Corona de Castilla y, sobre todo, con el modo de ejecutar el documento de archivo en sus formas externa e interna. (shrink)

El texto que presentamos recoge las principales conclusiones que han derivado de los estudios sobre la Colección de documentos árabes del Archivo Histórico Provincial de Granada. Compuesta principalmente por documentos de carácter jurídico, el análisis del contenido de cada uno de ellos en relación con la materialidad del soporte y las tintas así como la coincidencia en el diseño y planificación de la página revelan el uso de idénticos protocolos de ejecución. Esta investigación nos está permitiendo, además, establecer coincidencias relevantes (...) relacionadas con los procesos de elaboración del papel entre los últimos años de permanencia de los árabes en la Península Ibérica y los primeros tras la incorporación del territorio a la Corona de Castilla y, sobre todo, con el modo de ejecutar el documento de archivo en sus formas externa e interna. (shrink)

Aristotle ’s claim that we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions raises a familiar problem: How can we perform virtuous actions unless we are already virtuous? I reject deflationary accounts of the answer given in _Nicomachean Ethics_ 2.4 and argue instead that proper habituation involves doing virtuous actions with the right motive, i.e. for the sake of the noble, even though learners do not yet have virtuous dispositions. My interpretation confers continuity to habituation and explains in a non-mysterious way how (...) we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions in the right way. (shrink)

Research has found that both cisgender and transgender androphilic males (i.e., males sexually attracted to and aroused by other adult males) have female-typical occupational preferences when compared with gynephilic males (i.e., males sexually attracted to and aroused by adult females). Moreover, whereas cisgender androphilic males’ occupational preferences tend to be intermediate between those of gynephilic men and androphilic women, transgender androphilic males tend to have occupational preferences that are more similar to androphilic women. No study has directly compared both types (...) of androphilic males within the same culture. The present study investigated occupational preference and its relation to childhood sex-atypical behavior (CSAB), among gynephilic men (_n_ = 208), androphilic women (_n_ = 138), and cisgender (_n_ = 132) and transgender (_n_ = 129) androphilic males from the Istmo region of Oaxaca, Mexico, where androphilic males are recognized as third gender, _muxes_. The study found large sex differences in occupational preferences (_d_ = 2.80). Furthermore, both cisgender _muxe nguiiu_ (_d_ = 2.36) and transgender _muxe gunaa_ (_d_ = 3.44) reported having more sex-atypical occupational preferences compared with men. However, _muxe gunaa_ reported higher female-typical occupational preferences than women (_d_ = 0.59) and _muxe nguiiu_ (_d_ = 0.57), whereas _muxe nguiiu_ and women did not differ (_d_ = 0.08). These findings are consistent with the conclusion that sex-atypical occupational preferences are a cross-culturally universal aspect of male androphilia. Finally, CSAB was associated with sex-atypical occupational preferences among all participants. These findings suggest that a developmental continuity exists between childhood and adulthood sex-atypicality. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to carry out a psychosocial analysis of child-to-parent violence (CPV) in a sample of school adolescents, considering a set of individual variables (psychological distress, problematic use of social networking sites, and perceived non-conformist social reputation) and family variables (open and problematic communication with parents) according to sex. The sample consisted of 3,731 adolescents (54% boys), aged between 14 and 16 years (M = 14.6 years, SD = 0.567), from the state of Nuevo León, Mexico. (...) The scores of the boys and girls were analyzed to check for differences. Also, correlations between all the study variables were calculated. Finally, a multiple stepwise regression analysis was carried out for the total sample and also for boys and girls separately. Results confirmed the important role of individual variables as predictors of CPV in boys and girls. The main difference between boys and girls was observed in the predictive weight of problematic use of social networking sites, which was higher in girls than in boys. Open communication with the father was a significant factor for predicting the decrease of CPV levels in the case of boys, while open communication with the mother predicted the decrease of CPV in girls. Problematic communication with the mother showed similar values in boys and girls when predicting CPV, however, the predictive weight of problematic communication with the father was higher in girls than in boys. These results are interesting and have important implications for the prevention of CPV. (shrink)

Nota crítica a propósito de: Castro, R. y Chamorro, E. _ Para una crítica del neoliberalismo: Foucault y el Nacimiento de la biopolítica_. Madrid: Lengua de trapo. González Sánchez, I. _Neoliberalismo y castigo_. Barcelona: Bellaterra. Villacañas, J. L. _Neoliberalismo como teología política: Habermas, Foucault, Laval, Dardot y la historia del capitalismo contemporáneo_. Barcelona: NED ediciones.

Empathy is an emotional response that may facilitate prosocial behavior and inhibit aggression by increasing empathic concern for others. But the vicarious experience of other’s feelings may also turn into personal distress when the person has poor regulation skills and holds stigmatizing beliefs. In thinking about the processes that may trigger the experience of personal distress or empathic concern, research on the influence of psychological flexibility and inflexibility on stigma is showing promising results. Both processes are assessed with the Acceptance (...) and Action Questionnaire–Stigma. The current study sought to carry out a validity study of a Spanish version of the AAQ-S with a sample of adolescents aged 11–17 years. The study included an expanded test of its predictive validity with measures at three times to evaluate the role of psychological flexibility and inflexibility as risk or protective variables for the development of personal distress and/or empathic concern in the stigmatizer. Statistical analyses confirmed a two-correlated-factor solution, the adequate reliability of both factors, and their construct and predictive validity in the expected direction. The stigmatizer’s inflexible reaction to their stigmatizing thoughts predicted the occurrence of personal distress, whereas the stigmatizer’s flexible reaction to their stigmatizing thoughts predicted the occurrence of empathic concern for others. These findings confirm the importance of considering the role of regulatory skills in the experience of empathic concern or personal distress in the presence of stigmatizing thoughts, with possible implications for the promotion of prosocial behavior and the reduction of aggressive behavior among adolescents. (shrink)

The work then develops attempts to present the most relevant aspects of the philosophical thougt of John Stuart Mill in relation to religion. The wor consits in two parts: the first one is relate to theological reflection about the most important aspect on religion, the debate on the arguments that justify the existence of God and similar issues. The second part will focus on aspects about utilitarian morality an de Christian religion.

At least since Burnyeat’s “Aristotle on Learning to Be Good,” one of the most popular ways of explaining moral development in Aristotle is by appealing to mechanisms of pleasure and pain. Aristotle himself suggests this kind of explanation when he says that “in educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain” (Nicomachean Ethics X.1, 1172a21). However, I argue that, contrary to the dominant view, Aristotle’s view on moral development in the Nicomachean Ethics is not mainly (...) about learning to feel pleasures and pains in relation to the right kinds of objects and activities. I show that given Aristotle’s account of the relationships between pleasure and virtuous actions, on the one hand, and between pleasure and virtuous dispositions, on the other, pleasure can only have a supporting role in our learning to be good, and not a guiding one. (shrink)

In this paper I take up the question about the unity of justice in Aristotle and advocate for a robust relationship between lawfulness and equality, the two senses of justice that Aristotle distinguishes in Nicomachean Ethics V. My strategy is to focus on Aristotle’s indication in NE V 2 that “other-relatedness” is the common element shared by the two justices and turn to Aristotle’s discussion of the notion of self-love in EN IX 8 to explain what that means. I argue (...) that the other-relatedness of justice can be characterized in terms of proper self-love. Concretely, the discussion of self-love makes clear that those who are concerned with the well-being of others in their community over their own material gain—i.e., those who are lawful and not grasping or pleonectic—are able to see that their own self-interest is in harmony with acting in benefit of their community. This shows that there is an intimate link between lacking pleonectic inclinations and being able to act for the sake of the common good—and in general, between lacking pleonectic inclinations and being virtuous in relation to others. (shrink)

RESUMEN Las principales ideas del pensamiento de Han se construyen frente a conceptos de la filosofía de Foucault: la psicopolítica como superación de la biopolítica, la transparencia como un panóptico no perspectivista y el cuidado de sí como la técnica de dominación más eficaz, propia de individuos que se someten voluntariamente creyendo que son libres. En este trabajo evalúo dicha lectura subrayando las imprecisiones sobre las que se asienta su lectura de Foucault: no comprende el carácter incitador de la biopolítica (...) y olvida la importancia de la perspectiva en el panóptico y la imposibilidad de escapar de las relaciones de poder. ABSTRACT The main ideas of Han's thought are built against concepts of Foucault's philosophy: psychopolitics as overcoming biopolitics, transparency as a non-perspectivist panopticon and self-care as the most effective technique for dominating individuals who submit voluntarily while believing that they are free. In this paper I evaluate this reading, underlining the imprecisions on which his reading of Foucault is based: he does not understand the inciting character of biopolitics and forgets the importance of perspective in the panopticon and the impossibility of escaping from power relations. (shrink)

Political integration has been part of the European project from its very beginnings. As far back as the early seventies there was concern in Brussels that an ingredient was missing in the political integration process. ‘Output legitimacy’ – the permissive consensus citizens grant to a government that is ‘delivering’, even if they do not participate in setting its goals – could not sustain unification indefinitely. Such a lacking ingredient – or ‘soul’ – has been labelled ‘European identity’ (EI) in an (...) abundant and growing academic literature. According to Aristotle, ‘polity’ is a specific ‘constitution’ (regime or politeia) of a ‘city’ (or polis): a (‘political’) community composed of ‘citizens’ (politai). No polis can exist unless the politai come together to form it and sustain it. But what will gather and keep them united? Citizens can be very diverse regarding their language, history, religion or economic activity. In absence of a motivation, diversity of itself will make each member of a community go their own way. What kind of bond is required among very diverse European citizens to keep their polis (the EU) – their political community – together? In this paper I analyse several responses – culture, deliberation, welfare, power, multiplicity. Then I attempt a synthesis suggesting that the answers might be referring to different aspects of a single notion – rather than exhaustive explanations of it. Finally I mention three issues regarding the concept of EI that require further study. (shrink)

Political integration has been part of the European project from its very beginnings. As far back as the early seventies there was already concern in Brussels that an ingredient was missing in the political integration process. ‘Output legitimacy’ – the permissive consensus citizens grant to a government that is ‘delivering’, even if they do not participate in setting its goals – could not sustain unification indefinitely. Such a lacking ingredient – or ‘soul’ – has been labelled ‘European identity’ (EI) in (...) an abundant and growing academic literature. According to Aristotle, a ‘city’ (polis) is a community composed of ‘citizens’ (politai). No polis can exist unless the politai form it and sustain it. But what will keep them united? They can be very diverse regarding their language, history, religion or economic activity. In absence of a motivation, diversity of itself will make each member of a community go their own way. What kind of bond is required among very diverse European citizens to keep their political community (the EU) together? In this paper I analyse several responses – culture, deliberation, welfare, power, openness. Then I suggest that elements of those responses could be combined in a single notion. Finally I mention issues regarding EI that require further study. (shrink)

Postnationalists like Habermas have suggested EU citizenship as a way to overcome nationalisms, grounding political belonging on the body of laws that members of the postnational polity generate in the public sphere. Cosmopolitan communitarianist like Bellamy think that EU citizens should form a mixed-commonwealth, with political belonging based on their nations. I will argue that the second option is more desiderable and submit the analogical character of the ensuing ideas of the citizenship, identity and polity. Cosmopolitan communitarianist citizenship promises to (...) better foster the great richness of European national cultural, religious, historical, political, legal and linguistic diversity while still maintaining a certain unity to form a "mixed" polity. (shrink)

This essay reflects on my academic work and personal experience as a bonsai enthusiast. Specifically, I plan to point out how Deleuzian theory informs my bonsai practice. First, I situate bonsai gardening as an encounter with the vegetal world. Then I consider this encounter as a form of Deleuzian becoming. Becoming reifies a transformation of the two species to become another version of itself—one that occurs between a bonsai and its carer. As a bonsai carer myself, I find becoming as (...) a precise illustration of my relationship with bonsais; hence, a vegetal encounter in the making. (shrink)

This paper makes a conceptual prescription: it argues that judges and lawyers should adopt a positivist concept of law, on normative grounds. The positivist view, I will argue, is more consistent with reasonable disagreement and majority rule than nonpositivist views, offers a better view of law’s moral standing, and is more consistent with what Dworkin called ‘integrity’ than non-positivism. As the paper explains, this is an argument about what I call the ‘operative’ concept of law. As such, the argument avoids (...) potential problems for conceptual prescription, and shows why even those who adopt non-positivist views about the nature of law might accept it. (shrink)

La digitalización en la educación, acelerada por el reciente confinamiento por COVID-19, muestra que una alta proporción del aprendizaje está fuera de las aulas y que no es posible un retorno pos-pandémico a un estado anterior en el proceso de enseñanza - aprendizaje. Así, siendo el objetivo documentar cómo el avance de la tecnología educativa cambió la docencia, se propone: (i) llevar el constructo de modalidades educativas por plan de estudios a un proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje híbrido: con mediación digital y (...) mediación docente; (ii) y para ello, los participantes deberán asumir responsabilidades en la conducción de la nueva realidad educativa. (shrink)

En este trabajo realizo un examen crítico del reciente libro de Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo sobre la crítica de Aristóteles a la teoría platónica de las Ideas. El libro de Di Camillo es un trabajo muy serio cuya lectura recomiendo ampliamente. Sin embargo, considero que cuatro de las principales tesis que la autora defiende tienen varias dificultades y mi objetivo aquí es presentar argumentos detallados en contra de ellas: la interpretación de la distinción entre argumentos más y menos rigurosos del (...) tratado Sobre las Ideas; la tesis de que la separación es el blanco esencial de las críticas aristotélicas a las Ideas; la interpretación de las opciones que Platón tiene para responder al argumento del tercer hombre, y la tesis de que la separación de las Ideas debe entenderse como homonimia. In this paper I examine Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo's recent book on Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of Ideas. Di Camillo's book is a very serious work that I highly recommend. Nevertheless, I consider that four of the main theses that the author defends face several difficulties and my aim here is to offer detailed arguments against them: the interpretation of the distinction between more and less accurate arguments of the treatise On Ideas; the thesis that separation is the essential target of Aristotle's criticisms against Plato's Ideas; the interpretation of the options available to Plato to reply to the third man argument; and the thesis that the separation of Ideas should be understood as homonymy. (shrink)

Castillos de Teruel. Historia y Patrimonio. Actas de las I Jornadas Castillos de Teruel:de la puesta en valor a la didáctica. Mora de Rubielos, 2018 Teruel: Asociación para la Recuperación de los Castillos Turolenses, Qualcina. Arqueología, Cultura yPatrimonio, y Acrótera Gestión del Patrimonio 201895 págs. 21 x 15 cm.ISBN: 978-84-948836-1-3.

The economic crisis in Europe exposes the European Union’s political fragility. How a polity made of very different states can live up to the motto “Europe united in diversity” is difficult to envisage in practice. In this paper I attempt an “exegesis”—a critical explanation or interpretation of a series of published pieces (“the Series”) which explores, first, if European unity is desirable at all. Second, it presents a new methodology—analogical hermeneutics—used throughout the Series to approach the problem of unity. Third, (...) it conceptualises the source of unity as political identity. Fourth, it advances that the vehicle to share such identity is an analogical language: the political culture of human rights. Fifth, it submits the conditions under which such political culture could ground political identity through an open public sphere. Finally, it presents a way in which solidarity can grow as the increasingly diverse citizens of the European Union interact with each other. Even though the economic crisis can be solved by means of sound economic strategy (which is not the main object of my work), any successful economic strategy requires—as a precondition—a certain degree of political unity (the central concern of my research). (shrink)

I offer an explicit account of the underdetermination thesis as well as of the many challenges it poses to scientific realism; a way to answer to these challenges is explored and outlined, by shifting attention to the content of theories. I argue that, even if we have solid grounds (as I contend we do) to support that some varieties of the underdetermination thesis are true, scientific realism can still offer an adequate picture of the aims and achievements of science.

Norman et al. reported that participants exposed in succession to two artificial grammars could be able to learn implicitly about them, and could apply their knowledge strategically to select which string corresponds to one of these two grammars. In this commentary, I identify an artifact that could account for the learning obtained not only in this study, but also in some previous studies using the same procedures. I claim that more methodological control is needed before jumping to conclusions on the (...) kind of strategic control that could be achieved unconsciously. (shrink)

Este artículo busca analizar y revalorizar el aburrimiento como concepto a través de la crítica cultural de Mark Fisher alrededor del consumo de estímulos y de algunos de los desarrollos de las teorías sociales de Byung-Chul Han (particularmente su teoría de la sociedad positiva). Se pretende con esta relación dar base a una propuesta teórica en el campo de la estética que permita sugerir una revalorización del aburrimiento como un tratamiento al consumo de estímulos y como una condición necesaria para (...) la vida de los seres humanos. Para ello, este texto se dividirá en cinco partes: (i) presentación a las condiciones actuales de consumo de estímulos; (ii) historia del aburrimiento a través del pensamiento occidental; (iii) caracterización y la revalorización del aburrimiento en la actualidad; (iv) propuesta del aburrimiento como un tratamiento estético y (v) conclusión. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo constituye un estudio sobre el concepto de determinación trascendental temporal expuesto por Kant en el marco del esquematismo trascendental kantiano en KrV. Con este objeto, se exponen las razones de la preminencia de la definición de esquema como transzendentale Zeitbestimmung, frente a otras asociadas a la interpretación estática del esquematismo y, fundamentalmente, frente aquella donde se presenta como un proceso de subsunción o de aplicación de las categorías a las intuiciones puras, reconstruyendo a su vez el (...) alcance de dicha noción a partir del análisis del estatuto de la determinación temporal en otras obras del corpus kantiano. Abstract: In this paper, I focus on the concept of transcendental time-determination exposed by Kant in relation with the transcendental schematism in KrV. With this aim, I discuss why the definition of "schema" as transzendentale Zeitbestimmung is more relevant than other kinds of definitions: the one derived from a static interpretation of the schematism and the one where the schematism is understood as a process of subsumption or application of categories to pure intuitions. Finally, I reconstruct the role of the schema through an analysis of the time-determination as it is developed in the rest of Kant's corpus. (shrink)

: Development studies is concerned with two issues: the development of normative theories of development and justice, and the empirical study of the effects of interventions and their impact on the global policy context. These distinct theoretical aims of the discipline lead to epistemological difficulties in practice. In this paper I argue that development studies suffer from two main conceptual deficiencies. The first one corresponds to an analytical incapability for providing a definitive version of social justice that is simultaneously impartial (...) and plural. The second weakness involves an empirical deficiency related to development discourse and current policies and practices. Identifying both epistemic deficiencies inherently embedded into what development has traditionally been about, may help to shed light on its analytical and technical boundaries and thus its ability to truly carry out its stated goals. To that end, this paper focuses on highlighting the consequences of these two epistemic oversights. I conclude that the field of development has no other alternative than turning to its epistemic roots to adequately review the very essence of its conceptualization and effects. (shrink)

Los coordinadores honoran la memoria del catedrático y amigo nuestro Javier Hernández-Pacheco, que falleció en Sevilla en la mañana del 17 de noviembre de 2020, y le dedican los frutos de la monografía. * * * Cuarenta años atrás Moses I. Finley editó The Legacy of Greece: A New Appraisal en Oxford. Desde entonces, se han editado varios volúmenes al respecto. Con el pasar de las décadas, las armonías entre la sapientia de la Antigua Grecia y la filosofía clásica alemana (...) han ganado terreno reclamando la atención que merecen. Se levantan cada vez más puentes sobre ambos períodos y a diario se publican estudios que desgranan detalles fascinantes. La enorme influencia que tuvieron los antiguos sobre los filósofos idealistas, la mirada de los poetas que anhelaban ese ancestral esplendor, las ideas del pasado y su vigencia en el presente son algunas de las cuestiones estudiadas sobre la Grecia Antigua y la filosofía clásica alemana. ¿Por qué, entonces, surgió la idea de una monografía relacionada con la naturaleza? (shrink)

Since the instauration of the parliamentary democracy in Spain in the second half of the seventies, the monarchy is an essential part of the system. As both the attitude and the behaviour of Juan Carlos I in the dramatic events of February 23th, 1981 and the Constitution as well, point out, the king has to watch attentively over public affairs and has to protect the basic values of the system.He is also the arbitrator who has to handle cleverly, inventively and (...) carefully the marginal cases which the legislator cannot foresee. The king furthermore, is a symbol. Both the function of arbitrator and the symbolic function have to be taken into account to fully understand the monarchy in the Spanish parliamentary system. (shrink)