Creativity and Imagination in the Practice of Philosophy

This paper argues that the exercise of the imagination requires us 1) to attempt to describe features of a certain practice that appear, at first blush, natural and obvious; 2) to understand that that which appears natural and obvious could be otherwise; and 3) to be open to the introduction of changes to that which appears natural and obvious. Imagination, in this sense, is quite different to creativity. The latter works on the basis of the introduction of variations to settled phenomena. This exercise of creativity is important, but ultimately, it contributes principally to the stability and identity of a community and reinforces its most firmly established features. Imagination, on the other hand, is more difficult, for it strikes at the very heart of that which is settled. Changes to that which is settled may not only be resisted, but may also be violently opposed. And yet, it is precisely the very ability and willingness to be open to such changes that may be of the most ethical and political significance. These differences between creativity and imagination are illustrated in the context of the practice of philosophy

Improving prescribing practices in primary care: A randomised trial and economic analysis of a multicomponent intervention showed small, but important, gains

Del Mar discusses the implications of the RaPP trial, a cluster RCT of a multi-component intervention to improve prescribing of antihypertensive and cholesterol-lowering drugs in primary care

Density Functional Study on the Stability and Reactivity of Pt(100) and Pt(111) Surfaces Modified by Ni Atoms

DFT study on the the stability and reactivity of Pt(100) and Pt(111) surfaces modified by nickel UPD monolayer deposition have been carried out. We used the binding energy calculation of bimetallic structures versus the cohesion energy of the bulk adsorbate to quantify the underpotential shift (ΔEupd) to determine the stability of the bimetallic systems. The reactivity of the clean and modified surface was analized by energy levels of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO), softness and local softness. We concluded that the stability of Pt(100)25Ni9 and Pt(111)25Ni10 bimetallic structures cannot be explained by excess of the metal- substrate binding energy but the instability can be explained by structural effects. We found that the modified surfaces are more reactive and the active sites are located in the centre of the cluster which favores the formation of islands of atoms onto these surfaces

Girlhood and Ethics: The Role of Bodily Integrity

Our concern is with the ethical issues related to girlhood and bodily integrity—the right to be free from physical harm and harassment and to experience freedom and security in relation to the body. We defend agency, positive self-relations, and health as basic elements of bodily integrity and we advocate that this normative concept be used as a conceptual tool for the protection of the rights of girls. We assume the capability approach developed by Martha Nussbaum as an ethical framework that enables us to evaluate girls’ well-being and well-becoming in relation to the potential, and often subtle, threats they face. The capability approach can be understood as a theory of justice, and, therefore, as an ethical and political approach. An enriched concept of bodily integrity can help in the design of better policies to address gender biases against girls because it could contribute to seeing them as active agents and valid participant

Urban sign. The polis furnished

Just as the linguistic sign, defined by Saussure, is like a double-sided coin: significant + meaning, so the city can be defined by this dichotomy, that is, on the one hand is composed of matter and, second, to function or content. We travel the city as the baudelairean flâneur as untimely affiliates walkers to the Situationist International, and so we wear away the tread on the asphalt. Politics, associations and media are responsible for our public space is constantly bombarded by private interests with the consequent impact on the development of citizen relations in semi-privatized public space. The Art brings significant strategies of non-urban places and does so through the Public Art as artistic intervention appropriation of public space by the affirmation of ordinary citizens living there, i.e. by an art to the city and citizenship. Exploring the current state of the contemporary city gives us the framework to review part of urban artistic poetics emerged in recent decades.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Warm inflation dynamics in the low temperature regime

Warm inflation scenarios are studied with the dissipative coefficient computed in the equilibrium approximation. Use is made of the analytical expressions available in the low temperature regime with focus on the possibility of achieving strong dissipation within this approximation. Two different types of models are examined: monomial or equivalently chaotic type potentials, and hybrid like models where the energy density during inflation is dominated by the false vacuum. In both cases dissipation is shown to typically increase during inflation and bring the system into the strong dissipative regime. Observational consequences are explored for the amplitude of the primordial spectrum and the spectral index, which translate into constraints on the number of fields mediating the dissipative mechanism, and the number of light degrees of freedom produced during inflation. This paper furthers the foundational development of warm inflation dynamics from first principles quantum field theory by calculating conservative lower bound estimates on dissipative effects during inflation using the well established thermal equilibrium approximation. This approximation does not completely represent the actual physical system and earlier work has shown relaxing both the equilibrium and low temperature constraints can substantially enlarge the warm inflation regime, but these improvements still need further theoretical development.Comment: 13 pages, 2 eps figure