Delivery riders became frontline workers who assisted everyone in getting their daily supplies. They transported them to their destinations when the pandemic started, and everyone had to stay home to stop the COVID-19 virus from spreading. Thus, this study explores the experiences, challenges, and coping mechanisms of 15 Female Delivery Riders in Bulacan, Philippines. The study employed Heideggerian Phenomenology and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Further, the following themes arise: (1) The Realist, (2) The Accommodated, (3) The Vulnerable, and (4) The (...) Determined. These themes highlighted the experiences and challenges faced by the participants. Moreover, it is highly suggested that female employees should be given preferential assistance given their physical capabilities and role in the family. Thus, local government units should provide an alternative source of income that will allow them to have quality time with their family, especially their children. (shrink)

Jane Austen normally avoids discussing appearance throughout her works. Persuasion constitutes the exception to the rule, as the story focuses on the premature aging experienced by her protagonist, Anne Elliot, seemingly due to disappointed love. Much has been written about Anne’s “loss of bloom,” but never from the perspective of psychoneuroimmunology, the field that researches the interrelation between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems. In this paper, we adopt a perspective of psychoneuroimmunology to argue that Austen established a (...) connection between psychological distress, specifically lovesickness, and the development of early senescence signs, and vice versa, since the recovery of love is associated with happiness and physical glow. From a gender perspective, we discuss how Austen brightly reflected these interrelationships through the story of Anne, when the latest psychoneuroimmunological research has actually shown that women age earlier than men as a consequence of psychological turmoil. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:I contrast an ecological account of natural agency with the traditional Cartesian conception using recent research in bacterial cognition and cellular decision making as a test case. I argue that the Cartesian conception—namely, the view that agency presupposes cognition—generates a dilemma between mechanism, the view that bacteria are mere automata, and intellectualism, the view that they exhibit full-blown cognition. Unicellular organisms, however, occupy a middle ground between these two extremes. On the one hand, their capacities and activities are too adaptive (...) to count as mere machines. On the other hand, they lack the open-ended responsiveness of cognitive agents to rational norms. An ecological conception of agency as the gross behavioral capacity to respond to affordances, I argue, does not presuppose cognition and allows for degrees of agency along a continuum, from the simplest adaptive agents, such as unicellular organisms, to the most sophisticated cognitive agents. Bacteria, I conclude, are adaptiveagents, hence not mere automata, but notcognitiveagents. (shrink)

The theory of the four stages happens to be a conjectural history with which the evolutionary interpretation of the process of civilization began, especially dynamic in the Scottish Enlightenment. The incidence in England and France of the work of the Jesuit J. de Acosta up to the English and Scottish Enlightenment is addressed, paying special attention first to the English translation by E. Grimstone, based on the French version by R. Regnault. Likewise, the use of Acosta is examined in detail (...) in a French political encyclopedia widespread in Europe, translated into several languages, also by Grimstone into English. Finally, the original components of the theory of the four stages in Acosta and D'Avity are examined, in its three Spanish, French and English versions as precursors of anthropological theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEmotion regulation substantially develops during the childhood years. This growth includes an increasing awareness that certain ER strategies are more appropriate in some contexts than...

El artículo analiza algunos aspectos de la comunicación política tomando como referencia las elecciones generales españolas de 1996, a fin de reflexionar sobre la eficacia de la Comunicación Política aplicada y sus riesgos en una sociedad democrática. Retórica y democracia van juntas por cuanto la retórica es el arte de la palabra y la palabra es consustancial a la democracia. El problema es que la palabra ha de entenderse hoy como el resultado de un uso científicamente programado de la comunicación (...) que afecta profundamente el discurso clásico de la política. (shrink)

Los documentos del Concilio Vaticano II tienen profundas consecuencias sociales para la misión evangelizadora de la Iglesia. En el posconcilio, la revista Vida Nueva, especializada en la información social y religiosa, acoge el mensaje conciliar e intenta aplicarlo a las circunstancias de la Iglesia y sociedad de aquel momento. Este estudio analiza los contenidos de los editoriales publicados por Vida Nueva de 1968 a 1975. Los resultados muestran la repercusión del Concilio en el enfoque editorial de una revista que, comprometida (...) con el orden temporal, analiza la actualidad política; fomenta el ejercicio de las libertades; defiende los derechos humanos; presta una atención preferencial a las personas más vulnerables; promueve la libertad y veracidad informativa; apuesta por una actividad económica puesta al servicio de los ciudadanos; aborda temas relativos a la moral de la persona discutidos en el seno de la Iglesia; mantiene una postura dialogante con la cultura, la ciencia y la tecnología; y propone cambios en los derechos, metodología y contenidos del sector educativo. (shrink)

Understanding the changes in our language abilities along the lifespan is a crucial step for understanding the aging process both in normal and in abnormal circumstances. Besides controlled experimental tasks, it is equally crucial to investigate language in unconstrained conversation. I present an information-theoretical analysis of a corpus of dyadic conversations investigating how the richness of the vocabulary, the word-internal structure, and the syntax of the utterances evolves as a function of the speaker's age and sex. Although vocabulary diversity increases (...) throughout the lifetime, grammatical diversities follow a different pattern, which also differs between women and men. Women use increasingly diverse syntactic structures at least up to their late fifties, and they do not deteriorate in terms of fluency through their lifespan. However, from age 45 onward, men exhibit a decrease in the diversity of the syntactic structures they use, coupled with an increased number of speech disfluencies. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se analizan tres piezas de Rodolfo Usigli bajo la perspectiva del chantaje que impulsa la confrontación de dos fuerzas axiológicas que son la verdad y la mentira; sin embargo, no se trata sólo de dos antagonismos que determinan la temática de su teatro, sino además son dos términos cuya confrontación construye la estructura de la mayor parte de sus dramas. Esta confrontación entre verdad y mentira Rodolfo Usigli la maneja desde distintas aristas, como es la desinformación, (...) la obediencia a la autoridad y la gubernamentalidad. (shrink)

Early in animal development, gradients of secreted morphogenic molecules, such as Sonic hedgehog (Shh), Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp family members, regulate cell proliferation and determine the fate and phenotype of the target cells by activating well‐characterized signalling pathways, which ultimately control gene transcription. Shh, Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp signalling also play an important and evolutionary conserved role in neural circuit assembly. They regulate neuronal polarization, axon and dendrite development and synaptogenesis, processes that require rapid and local changes in cytoskeletal organization and plasma (...) membrane components. A key question then is whether morphogen signalling at the growth cone uses similar mechanisms and intracellular pathway components to those described for morphogen‐mediated cell specification. This review discusses recent advances towards the understanding of this problem, showing how Shh, Wnt and TGFβ/Bmp have adapted their ‘classical’ signalling pathways or adopted alternative and novel molecular mechanisms to influence different aspects of neuronal circuit formation. (shrink)

Fodor argue that Darwinism cannot be true on the grounds that there are no laws of selection to support counterfactuals about why traits are selected-for. Darwinian explanations, according to this objection, amount to mere ‘plausible historical narratives’. I argue that the objection is predicated on two problematic assumptions: A nomic-subsumption account of causation and causal explanation, and a fine-grained view of the individuation of selected-for effects. Against the former, I argue that Darwinian explanations are a historical species of mechanistic explanation (...) and that mechanisms are causally productive and counterfactual supporting in the absence of appropriate laws. Once this mechanistic framework is in place, the demand for laws of selection vanishes and the historical cum causal coherence of Darwinism is restored. As for the second assumption, I argue that it is an artefact of the teleosemantic program with no basis in evolutionary biology and that properly understood, Darwinian evolutionary biology shows just why teleosemantics cannot succeed. (shrink)

What is natural selection? I address this question by exploring the relation between two debates: Is natural selection a mechanism? Is natural selection a causal or a statistical theory? I argue that the first can be assessed only relative to a model and that, following the second, there are two fundamentally different and independent kinds of models, Modern-Synthesis and Darwinian models. MS-models, I argue, are not mechanistic even if they are causal. D-models, in contrast, are mechanistic. A causal-mechanistic interpretation of (...) D-models is thus compatible with a statistical interpretation of MS-models. Natural selection, I conclude, lacks a single, unifying nature. (shrink)

The COVID-19 outbreak has ravaged all societal domains, including education. Home confinement, school closures, and distance learning impacted students, teachers, and parents’ lives worldwide. In this study, we aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19-related restrictions on Italian and Portuguese students’ academic motivation as well as investigate the possible buffering role of extracurricular activities. Following a retrospective pretest–posttest design, 567 parents reported on their children’s academic motivation and participation in extracurricular activities. We used a multi-group latent change score model to (...) compare Italian and Portuguese students’: pre-COVID mean motivation scores; rate of change in motivation; individual variation in the rate of change in motivation; and dependence of the rate of change on initial motivation scores. Estimates of latent change score models showed a decrease in students’ motivation both in Italy and in Portugal, although more pronounced in Italian students. Results also indicated that the decrease in students’ participation in extracurricular activities was associated with changes in academic motivation. Furthermore, students’ age was significantly associated with changes in motivation. No significant associations were found for students’ gender nor for parents’ education. This study provides an important contribution to the study of students’ academic motivation during home confinement, school closures, and distance learning as restrictive measures adopted to contain a worldwide health emergency. We contend that teachers need to adopt motivation-enhancing practices as means to prevent the decline in academic motivation during exceptional situations. (shrink)

In this study we examined whether parents’ perceptions of students’ anxiety as well as perceived support from both teachers and classmates were predictive of changes in students’ academic motivation during the first wave of COVID-19. To this end, we used a retrospective pretest-posttest design together with a latent change score model to analyze our data. From April to May of 2020, 394 Portuguese parents of students in grades 1–9 participated in this study. Our results showed that students’ anxiety and teachers’ (...) social support, as perceived by parents, were highly significant predictors of academic motivation changes. Specifically, we found a negative effect of anxiety and a positive effect of teachers’ social support on students’ academic motivation. Our results did not show, however, a significant predictive role of classmates’ social support. This study provides an important contribution to further understand the intrapersonal and interpersonal factors that are associated with the decline of students’ academic motivation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pivotal role of teachers in sustaining students’ academic motivation and other relevant educational implications for the ongoing pandemic are discussed. (shrink)

Dynamic Theodicy (DT) is a broad concept we bring up to designate some modern Philosophical Theology attempts to reconcile the necessary and perfect existence of God with the contingent characteristics of human life. In this paper we analyze such approaches and discuss how they have become incomprehensible because the metaphysical assumptions implicit in these explanations have lost their intrinsic relation to the natural human desire for salvation. In the first part we show Charles Hartshorne's DT-model, arising from the modal logic (...) of perfection, and the modern rational problems of this position in making infinite-necessary Being (God) and finite-contingent being (human) compatible. We note that at the heart of the contradictions in this DT account is a dialectical mode of thinking that makes it difficult to find a correct solution to this dichotomy, and to assume a human desire that could be considered related to lifelong goals. In the second part, supported by the proposal of Hans Urs von Balthasar's DT, we develop the concepts of bodily vulnerability, corporeal intentionality, and natural desire for salvation, which come from an Aristotelian-Thomistic thought. This theory is established in order to build an argument, following Alasdair MacIntyre’s ethical framework, on how to make possible the recovery of a metaphysical and anthropological desire that transcends natural aging and goes beyond death. We conclude that both human dependence and the virtues that arise naturally when human beings decide to seek the good of their transcendent condition, make it possible to recover the natural desire for salvation through divine and human love. (shrink)

En el presente estudio se analizará la especie de presencia desempeñada por el ente no visible en “La mígala”, cuento de Juan José Arreola en el que la voz narrativa es afectada por los sucesos y no-sucesos. Tomando como base las propuestas de Jacques Derrida y Paul Ricoeur, se estudió la razón ausencia-presencia en los acontecimientos del lenguaje expuestos en el relato. De ello surge la resolución de la huella y el cogito, nociones descubiertas en este trabajo cuyo valor reside (...) en la deconstrucción del estar-no-estar de la mígala. (shrink)

The finding of fractal scaling (FS) in behavioral sequences has raised a debate on whether FS is a pervasive property of the cognitive system or is the result of specific processes. Inferences about the origins of properties in time sequences are causal. That is, as opposed to correlational inferences reflecting instantaneous symmetrical relations, causal inferences concern asymmetric relations lagged in time. Here, I integrate Granger-causality with inferences about FS. Four simulations illustrate that causal analyses can isolate distinct FS sources, whereas (...) correlational techniques cannot. I then analyze three simultaneous sequences of responses from a database of word-naming trials. I find that two, or perhaps three, distinct sources account for the presence of FS in these sequences, but FS is not a general property of the system. This suggests that FS arises due to the properties of a limited number of identifiable psychological and/or neural processes. Finally, I reanalyze a previously published dataset of acoustic frequency spectra using the new tools. The causality/criticality combination introduced here offers a new important perspective in the study of cognition. (shrink)

The Central Dogma of molecular biology, which holds that DNA makes protein and not the other way around, is as influential as it is controversial. Some believe the Dogma has outlived its usefulness, either because it fails to fully capture the ins-and-outs of protein synthesis (Griffiths and Stotz, 2013; Stotz, 2006), because it turns on a confused notion of information (Sarkar, 2004), or because it problematically assumes the unidirectional flow of information from DNA to protein (Gottlieb, 2001). This paper evaluates (...) an underexplored defense of the Dogma, which relies on the assumption that the Dogma and the Inheritance of Acquired Traits, a principle which dates as far back as Jean Baptiste-Lamarck, are incompatible principles (Smith, 1993; Judson, 1979; Dawkins, 1970; Cobb, 2017; Wilkins, 2002; Graur, 2018). By appealing to empirical evidence in molecular science, I argue that this apparent incompatibility is indeed merely apparent. I conclude by briefly demonstrating how these considerations bear on the topic of conceptual pluralism in the philosophy of science (Stencel and Proszewska, 2018; Lu and Bourrat, 2018). (shrink)

There is no denying the Central Dogma’s impact on the biological sciences. Since the Dogma’s formulation by Francis Crick in 1958, however, many have debated the Dogma’s empirical adequacy. My aim is to move beyond these discussions, and instead consider the Central Dogma’s significance to contemporary biological practice. To do this, I consider four distinct approaches for determining the non-descriptive methodological significance of a scientific principle. I argue that these approaches fail to vindicate the Central Dogma, and that, under many (...) of these approaches, the Dogma amounts to a triviality. (shrink)

We point out the need to clarify some of the ideas related to the connection between development and sustainability in the Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development. In particular, the meaning of ‘sustainable’ is not clear when applied to specific areas of human activity. A more detailed explanation of the kind of equality sought for in the proposal is also needed. Because of potential conflicts between goals, we miss some considerations on the impact (...) of population increase both on development and on sustainability. A distinction is made here between two kinds of goals included in the Report. Some of the proposed 17 goals can then be seen as ends in themselves, whereas others seem to be means for the first set. The two sets thereby established should be seen in theory and dealt with in practice in a differentiated manner. (shrink)

O texto apresentado a seguir é uma traduçáo da conferência intitulada “The Burden and Blessing of Mortality” ( The Hastings Center Report , 22, n. 1, jan-fev. 1992, p. 34-40), que foi apresentada à Fundaçáo do Palácio Real [The Royal Palace Foundation], em Amsterdam, no dia 19 de março de 1991. Esta conferência foi traduzida para o alemáo por Reinhard Löw e revisada pelo próprio Jonas, aparecendo com o título “Last und Segen der Sterblichkeit” em Scheidewege 21, 1991/92, p. 26-40, (...) e mais tarde em um livro do próprio Jonas: Philosophische Untersuchungen und metaphysische Vermutungen [Investigações Filosóficas e Suposições Metafísicas] . Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1992, p. 81-100. Por sua vez, o texto original, em inglês, veio ainda a fazer parte de uma coletânea de ensaios de Jonas, editada por Lawrence Vogel ( Mortality and Morality : a search for good after Auschwits. Ed. Lawrence Vogel. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1996, p. 87-97). (shrink)

Roughly, the Central Dogma of molecular biology states that DNA codes for protein, not the other way around. This principle, which is still heralded as an important element of contemporary biological theory, has received much critical attention since its original formulation by Francis Crick in 1958. Some have argued that the principle should be rejected, on the grounds that it fails to fully capture the ins-and-outs of protein synthesis, while others have argued that the Dogma is predicated on notions of (...) information that are simply implausible. Yet, despite all this criticism, there is much about the Dogma that has not been said. Existing discussions, for example, gloss over the many distinct, logically independent readings of the Central Dogma that have been defended in the philosophical and biological literature, making it difficult to see which dogma is being criticized. Additionally, this oversight makes it unclear what the overall upshot of these discussions should be taken to be. My aim in this paper is to fix this. (shrink)

Nationalism seems a persistent ideology in academia as much as in politics; despite the fact that it has been shown that nationalism is deeply unjust for minorities. A case for national identity is often invoked to supplement liberalism regarding the inner difficulties that liberal theories have to explain their membership, assure stability and produce endorsement. So, it seems that national identity may also be required for justice. While this controversy continues, I argue that a different approach is available. We can (...) define a conception of legitimacy independently from a conception of justice, and then ask what legitimacy requires from our national allegiances. If everything goes well, much of the controversy from justice disappears as we find that the case for cultural nationalism may be illegitimate for liberal democracies. (shrink)

Despite the increase in the research field of ethics in artificial intelligence, most efforts have focused on the debate about principles and guidelines for responsible AI, but not enough attention has been given to the “how” of applied ethics. This paper aims to advance the research exploring the gap between practice and principles in AI ethics by identifying how companies are applying those guidelines and principles in practice. Through a qualitative methodology based on 22 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups, (...) the goal of the current study is to understand how companies approach ethical issues related to AI systems. A structured analysis of the transcripts brought out many actual practices and findings, which are presented around the following main research topics: ethics and principles, privacy, explainability, and fairness. The interviewees also raised issues of accountability and governance. Finally, some recommendations are suggested such as developing specific sector regulations, fostering a data-driven organisational culture, considering the algorithm’s complete life cycle, developing and using a specific code of ethics, and providing specific training on ethical issues. Despite some obvious limitations, such as the type and number of companies interviewed, this work identifies real examples and direct priorities to advance the research exploring the gap between practice and principles in AI ethics, with a specific focus on Spanish companies. (shrink)

Edith Stein (1891-1942) is a clear example of a philosopher, since she dedicated her entire life and effort to the conquest of Truth, of Being. The path she follows begins with her personal experience and her desire to find an answer to the existence of man. In phenomenology, she will find a means of confronting reality, free of prejudices. During her intellectual and existential journey, she meets a God that becomes living experience and quenches her thirst for Truth. She completes (...) her contemplation of the philosophical being by means of a mystic contemplation of Being. Her philosophical activity is a road that leads “from finite being to eternal being”. (shrink)