The dignity of persons : Kantian ethics and utilitarianism

This work is an attempt to develop a general ethical framework, the product of the synthesis of Kantian ethics and Utilitarianism, giving us a basic account of the dignity of persons and the structure of the moral community. There is a Kantian doctrine of human dignity, and an associated conception of the nature of morality, which together should be taken to provide the basic conceptual framework in ethical theory. However, the conception of morality implicated in the Kantian story recognises not only the dignity of human beings as moral subjects, but also the dignity (the special moral standing) of all sentient beings, who therefore count as persons for moral purposes. This is shown to be the case by means of an argument for Utilitarianism (taken as a technical view in philosophy) being consistent with the basic Kantian framework already in place, argument that involves disassociating Utilitarianism from both Consequentialism and Welfarism and construing it as an Agapist doctrine (i.e. as a philosophy of practical love or rationally-based benevolence)

Una vida en la Universidad de Chile: celebrando al profesor Antonio Bascuñán Valdés

Palabras a nombre del Comité Editorial y del equipo de Coordinadores del libro a cargo de Lucas Sierr

Black carbon radiative forcing derived from AERONET measurements and models over an urban location in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula

This paper provides an account of observed variations in Black carbon (BC) aerosol concentrations and their induced radiative forcing for the first time over Granada a measurement site in Southeastern Iberian Peninsula. Column-integrated BC concentrations were retrieved for the period 2005–2012. Monthly averages of BC concentrations (± one standard deviation) ranged from higher values in January and December with 4.0 ± 2.5 and 4 ± 3 mg/m², respectively, to lower values in July and August with 1.6 ± 1.2 and 2.0 ± 0.5 mg/m², respectively. This reduction is not only observed in the average values, but also in the median, third and first quartiles. The average BC concentration in winter (3.8 ± 0.6 mg/m²) was substantially higher than in summer (1.9 ± 0.3 mg/m²), being the eight-year average of 2.9 ± 0.9 mg/m². The reduction in the use of fossil fuels during the economic crisis contributed significantly to reduced atmospheric loadings of BC. According to our analysis this situation persisted until 2010. BC concentration values were analyzed in terms of air mass influence using cluster analysis. BC concentrations for cluster 1 (local and regional areas) showed high correlations with air masses frequency in winter and autumn. In these seasons BC sources were related to the intense road traffic and increased BC emissions from domestic heating. High BC concentrations were found in autumn just when air mass frequencies for cluster 3 (Mediterranean region) were more elevated, suggesting that air masses coming from that area transport biomass burning particles towards Granada. BC aerosol optical properties were retrieved from BC fraction using aerosol AERONET size volume distribution and Mie theory. A radiative transfer model (SBDART) was used to estimate the aerosol radiative forcing separately for composite aerosol (total aerosols) and exclusively for BC aerosols. The mean radiative forcing for composite aerosol was + 23 ± 6 W/m² (heating rate of + 0.21 ± 0.06 K/day) and + 15 ± 6 W/m² for BC aerosol (heating rate of + 0.15 ± 0.06 K/day). These values of radiative forcing and heating rate for BC aerosol represent about 70% of their values for composite aerosol, which highlights the crucial role that BC aerosols play in modifying the radiation budget and climate.This work was supported by the Andalusia Regional Government through project P12-RNM-2409, by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through projects CGL2013-45410-R and CGL2016-81092-R and by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through project ACTRIS-2 (grant agreement No. 654109). The authors thankfully acknowledge the FEDER program for the instrumentation used in this work. Antonio Valenzuela thanks Universidad de Granada for the award of a postdoctoral grant (“Plan Propio. Programa 8. Convocatoria 2014”). The work is co-funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund, included in the COMPETE 2020 (Operational Program Competitiveness and Internationalization) through the ICT project (UID/GEO/04683/2013) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690. CIMEL Calibration was performed at the AERONET-EUROPE calibration center, supported by ACTRIS (European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 262254. The authors express gratitude to the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) for the HYSPLIT transport and dispersion model (http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT.php). The author acknowledges the funding provided by the Institute of Earth Sciences (ICT), under contracts UID/GEO/04683/2013 with FCT (the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation), and COMPETEPOCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690

Violence Against Women Act: A Gap in Protection for Children

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization of 2013 was supposed to represent a pivotal moment for American Indian tribes throughout the United States, greatly extending tribal jurisdiction to encompass more than it had in previous decades. The reauthorization would finally allow for legal proceedings to be prosecuted by tribal courts on Indian land, also against non-Indian offenders. However, the reauthorization appears to limit a tribe’s ability to protect American Indian women from violence by strangers, as well as the protection of American Indian children against physical abuse and exposure to domestic violence. Furthermore, it limits a tribe’s ability to hold perpetrators of violence against women and children accountable. This paper focuses on the recommended amendments to improve the protection of American Indian children and expand the prosecutorial powers to hold perpetrators accountable when American Indian children become victims of domestic violence. A new piece of legislation that is currently being discussed is the Native Child Protection Initiative (NCPI), for which the use of both explicit and inclusive language is imperative for the protection of Native children and the safety and future of tribal communities. Another possible recommendation for the VAWA that is supported at a national level asks for the mandatory implementation of Coordinated Community Response Teams for tribal communities to help protect victims of domestic violence and hold offenders accountable

Spanish normative data of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in a community-based sample of adolescents

Background/Objective: The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire self-report (SDQ-S) has been extensively used to assess mental health problems among children and adolescents. However, previous research has identified substantial age and country variation on its psychometric properties. The aim of this study was three-fold: i) to evaluate internal structure and measurement invariance of the Spanish version of the SDQ; ii) to analyze age and gender-specific effects on the SDQ subscales; and iii) to provide Spanish normative data for the entire age range of adolescence. Method: Data were derived from two representative samples of adolescents aged 14 to 19 years old, selected by stratified random cluster sampling years (N = 3378). Results: The reliability of the Total difficulties score was satisfactory, but some subscales showed lower levels of internal consistency. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the original five-factor model. Finally, results revealed that SDQ scores were influenced by the gender and the age of participants; thus, the normative banding scores and cut-off values were provided accordingly. Conclusions: This study validates the Spanish SDQ-S for the entire age range of adolescence. However, more cross-country and cross-age research is needed to better understand the inconsistent findings on SDQ reliability

Inspectores de Trabajo y Seguridad Social (caso práctico)

The analised case study reproducer the same statement that appeared in the forth exercise of the competitive exam for the position of Higher Employment Authority in 2008 official announcement. The case analises the main questions that came from the statement, adding the legal answer to the question.El presente caso práctico reproduce el enunciado del supuesto referido a la actividad de la Inspección de Trabajo y Seguridad Social que se planteó como cuarto ejercicio en la convocatoria de la oposición para el ingreso en el Cuerpo Superior de Inspectores de Trabajo y Seguridad Social correspondiente a 2008. En él se efectúa un análisis de las cuestiones derivadas del planteamiento, incorporando la fundamentación jurídica de la respuesta

Reología y antropología: una invitación a investigar con novedad metafísica la realidad humana

Insatisfechos ante las antropologías filosóficas disponibles, en este artículo proponemos el esbozo de una antropología fundamental e invitamos a continuar la empresa. La crítica a las antropologías tradicionales es común en otros autores y nos ayuda a justificar la elaboración de una nueva antropología que calificamos de “reológica”. Sus primeros objetivos son 1) mostrar que la res humana es “física” y por tanto no “dual” como han creído casi todas las antropologías y 2) mostrar que si hay algo fundamentalmente humano no está en las categorías clásicas de “psique”, “reflexividad”, etc., sino en lo que llamamos “experienciar”, i.e. probar físicamente realidad, algo que no hacen el resto de res. Se trata de una propuesta metafísica y no “psicologista”. Por tanto, explicaremos brevemente qué es reología y, usándola como herramienta, esbozaremos algunas directrices que delimiten una futura investigación reológica de la realidad humana

Aerosol radiative forcing during African desert dust events (2005–2010) over Southeastern Spain

The daily (24 h) averages of the aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) at the surface and the top of the atmosphere (TOA) were calculated during desert dust events over Granada (southeastern Spain) from 2005 to 2010. A radiative transfer model (SBDART) was utilized to simulate the solar irradiance values (0.31–2.8 μm) at the surface and TOA, using as input aerosol properties retrieved from CIMEL sun photometer measurements via an inversion methodology that uses the sky radiance measurements in principal plane configuration and a spheroid particle shape approximation. This inversion methodology was checked by means of simulated data from aerosol models, and the derived aerosol properties were satisfactorily compared against well-known AERONET products. Good agreement was found over a common spectral interval (0.2–4.0 μm) between the simulated SBDART global irradiances at surface and those provided by AERONET. In addition, simulated SBDART solar global irradiances at the surface have been successfully validated against CM-11 pyranometer measurements. The comparison indicates that the radiative transfer model slightly overestimates (mean bias of 3%) the experimental solar global irradiance. These results show that the aerosol optical properties used to estimate ARF represent appropriately the aerosol properties observed during desert dust outbreak over the study area. The ARF mean monthly values computed during desert dust events ranged from −13 ± 8 W m−2 to −34 ± 15 W m−2 at surface, from −4 ± 3 W m−2 to −13 ± 7 W m−2 at TOA and from +6 ± 4 to +21 ± 12 W m−2 in the atmosphere. We have checked if the differences found in aerosol optical properties among desert dust sectors translate to differences in ARF. The mean ARF at surface (TOA) were −20 ± 12 (−5 ± 5) W m−2, −21 ± 9 (−7 ± 5) W m−2 and −18 ± 9 (−6 ± 5) W m−2 for sector A (northern Morocco; northwestern Algeria), sector B (western Sahara, northwestern Mauritania and southwestern Algeria), and sector C (eastern Algeria, Tunisia), respectively. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test revealed that daily {ARF} values at TOA for sector A were significantly different from the other two sectors, likely as a result of the lower values of single scattering albedo obtained for sector A. The mean values of aerosol radiative forcing efficiency at surface (TOA) were −74 ± 12 W m−2 (−17 ± 7 W m−2) for sector A, −70 ± 14 W m−2 (−20 ± 9 W m−2) for sector B, and −65 ± 16 W m−2 (−22 ± 10 W m−2) for sector C, and thus comparable between the three sectors in all seasons.This work was supported by the Andalusia Regional Government through projects P08-RNM-3568 and P10-RNM-6299, by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through projects CGL2010-18782, CSD2007-00067 and CGL2011-13580-E/CLI; and by EU through ACTRIS project (EU INFRA-2010-1.1.16-262254). The authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources, technical expertise and assistance provided by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. ALFA database computation was partly supported by RES (Spanish Supercomputation Network) computing resources (projects AECT-2009-1-0012, AECT-2011-3-0016)

Periodical reactivation under the effect of caffeine attenuates fear memory expression in rats

In the last decade, several studies have shown that fear memories can be attenuated by interfering with reconsolidation. However, most of the pharmacological agents used in preclinical studies cannot be administered to humans. Caffeine is one of the world’s most popular psychoactive drugs and its effects on cognitive and mood states are well documented. Nevertheless, the influence of caffeine administration on fear memory processing is not as clear. We employed contextual fear conditioning in rats and acute caffeine administration under a standard memory reconsolidation protocol or periodical memory reactivation. Additionally, potential rewarding/aversion and anxiety effects induced by caffeine were evaluated by conditioning place preference or open field, respectively. Caffeine administration was able to attenuate weak fear memories in a standard memory reconsolidation protocol; however, periodical memory reactivation under caffeine effect was necessary to attenuate strong and remote memories. Moreover, caffeine promoted conditioned place preference and anxiolytic-like behavior, suggesting that caffeine weakens the initial learning during reactivation through counterconditioning mechanisms. Thus, our study shows that rewarding and anxiolytic effects of caffeine during fear reactivation can change the emotional valence of fear memory. It brings a new promising pharmacological approach based on drugs widely used such as caffeine to treat fear-related disorders