Environmental judgment in early childhood and its relationship with the understanding of the concept of living beings

The evidence collected concerning the biocentric judgment that young children express when evaluating human actions on the environment leads some scholars to suggest that an essential understanding of the notion of living beings should appear earlier than previously believed. This research project aims to study that assumption. To this end, young children’s choice when they are put in situation of having to compare and choose the most negative option between environmentally harmful actions and the breaking of social conventions are examined. Afterwards, the results are categorized in relation to those obtained from the study of children’s grasp of the distinction between living beings and inanimate entities. The data is analysed according to the individuals’ age and overall, it suggests a lack of relationship between environmental judgment and the understanding of the concept of living beings. The final results are discussed in keeping with recent research in the field of moral development that underscores the role that unconscious emotional processing plays in the individual’s normative judgment.

Stimulation discomfort comparison of asynchronous and synchronous methods with multi-field electrodes

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) is a technique that consists on applying electrical current pulses to artificially activate motor nerve fibers and produce muscle contractions to achieve functional movements. The main applications of FES are within the rehabilitation field, in which this technique is used to aid recovery or to restore lost motor functions. People that benefit of FES are usually patients with neurological disorders which result in motor dysfunctions; most common patients include stroke and spinal cord injury (SCI). Neuroprosthesis are devices that have their basis in FES technique, and their aim is to bridge interrupted or damaged neural paths between the brain and upper or lower limbs. One of the aims of neuroprosthesis is to artificially generate muscle contractions that produce functional movements, and therefore, assist impaired people by making them able to perform activities of daily living (ADL). FES applies current pulses and stimulates nerve fibers by means of electrodes, which can be either implanted or surface electrodes. Both of them have advantages and disadvantages. Implanted electrodes need open surgery to place them next to the nerve root, so these electrodes carry many disadvantages that are produced by the use of invasive techniques. In return, as the electrodes are attached to the nerve, they make it easier to achieve selective functional movements. On the contrary, surface electrodes are not invasive and are easily attached or detached on the skin. Main disadvantages of surface electrodes are the difficulty of selectively stimulating nerve fibers and uncomfortable feeling perceived by users due to sensory nerves located in the skin. Electrical stimulation surface electrode technology has improved significantly through the years and recently, multi-field electrodes have been suggested. This multi-field or matrix electrode approach brings many advantages to FES; among them it is the possibility of easily applying different stimulation methods and techniques. The main goal of this thesis is therefore, to test two stimulation methods, which are asynchronous and synchronous stimulation, in the upper limb with multi-field electrodes. To this end, a purpose-built wrist torque measuring system and a graphic user interface were developed to measure wrist torque produced with each of the methods and to efficiently carry out the experiments. Then, both methods were tested on 15 healthy subjects and sensitivity results were analyzed for different cases. Results show that there are significant differences between methods regarding sensation in some cases, which can affect effectiveness or success of FES.

Humor y comicidad: la aportación freudiana

Presentado en las Jornadas sobre "El humor (y los humores) en el mundo antiguo", organizado por el Departamento de Estudios Clásicos y el Instituto de Ciencias de la Antigüedad de la UPV y celebrado en Vitoria-Gasteiz los días 16 y 17 de octubre de 2007.

Museos, memoria y turismo

Cap. 1. Museos y patrimonio: de la distancia retórica a la interlocución democrática. Iñaki Díaz Balerdi. Cap. 2. Au coeur des conflits entre memoire, histoire et developpement economique, les nouveaux enjeux des musees de société aujourd’hui. François Hubert. Cap. 3. Elites, Instituciones Públicas, identidad cultural y turismo en los orígenes del Museo Municipal de Donostia-San Sebastián. Iñaki Arrieta Urtizberea. Cap. 4. Los orígenes de la museografía etnográfica en Cataluña: el Arxiu-Museu Folklòric de Ripoll. Oriol Beltran Costa. Cap. 5. Museo de la Pesca en Palamós: espacio para la memoria de los pescadores. Miquel Martí i Llambrich. Cap. 6. Arqueología y museos en Gipuzkoa; las experiencias del Centro de Estudios ARKEOLAN (1986-2005). Mª Mercedes Urteaga Artigas. Cap. 7. Penser un Musée des Confluences: un autre discours sur soi et les autres que soi. Thierry Valentin. Cap. 8. Turismo cultural y museos: oportunidades de desarrollo comunes. El caso de Cesis, Letonia. María Fernández Sabau. Cap. 9. La gestión y el uso turístico de los museos: la experiencia de Barcelona. Jordi Juan Tresserras y Juan Carlos Matamala. Cap. 10. Museos, turismo y desarrollo local en el norte de Portugal: el Ecomuseo del Barroso. Xerardo Pereiro. Cap. 11. Turismo y patrimonio cultural en las pequeñas y medianas ciudades: el Barri Vell de Girona y el Museu d’Art de Girona. Josep Manuel Rueda Torres.

Global movements, national grievances. Mobilizing for “real democracy” and social justice

In the ashes of political and socio-economic collapse, social movements sometimes rise like a phoenix. Little more than a year has passed since the Tunisian uprisings, the spark that ignited a series of “mobilizations of the indignant” that spread like wildfire around the world. Many observers have reported on these unprecedented global protests. They have portrayed citizens who declare feeling marginalized if not scapegoated, and who reject the increasing inequalities between rich and poor, the declining mobility of most, and the “disclassment” of many. They have shown, as well, massive protests against governments and politicians that are perceived as indifferent at best, duplicitous at worst, and in any event as blatantly closed to popular concerns. Many journalists have indeed asked what took so long for people to protest given this fatal combination. For the social scientist, however, the questions of who, why and how mobilizes are not so simple. There are specific problematics of mediation between structure, culture and individual or collective agency that need to be addressed.

Horacio: poeta versus filósofo

[EN] The author points out Horace's apparent contradition in Ode 1,10 with his own philosophical ideas. It seems to be more relevant in this poem the poetical feeling than the philosophical one.