A Primer on ACTA What Europeans Should Fear about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

The European Commission recently published the first official draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The article describes the institutional background of the negotiations on ACTA and its relationship to the existing legal framework. The civil enforcement provisions and the Internet chapter are compared with the international and European instruments in the field. For the most part, ACTA will not oblige EU member states to enact rules that go beyond the already established European standards. But stricter rules could be implemented regarding injunctions against non-infringing intermediaries, strict liability rules for damages, and ex parte measures in preliminary proceedings. According to the published draft, the termination of user accounts in the case of repeated intellectual property infringement will not be mandatory for member ACTA states.

Virtual Reality as a Support Tool for Ergonomic-Style Convergence

The competitive industrial context compels companies to speed-up every new product design. In order to keep designing products that meet the needs of the end user, a human centered concurrent product design methodology has been proposed. Its setting up is complicated by the difficulties of collaboration between experts involved inthe design process. In order to ease this collaboration, we propose the use of virtual reality as an intermediate design representation in the form of light and specialized immersive convergence support applications. In this paper, we present the As Soon As Possible (ASAP) methodology making possible the development of these tools while ensuring their usefulness and usability. The relevance oft his approach is validated by an industrial use case through the design of an ergonomic-style convergence support tool.

A Concept of Semantics Extraction from Web Data by Induction of Fuzzy Ontologies

Traditionally, ontologies describe knowledge representation in a denotational, formalized, and deductive way. In addition, in this paper, we propose a semiotic, inductive, and approximate approach to ontology creation. We define a conceptual framework, a semantics extraction algorithm, and a first proof of concept applying the algorithm to a small set of Wikipedia documents. Intended as an extension to the prevailing top-down ontologies, we introduce an inductive fuzzy grassroots ontology, which organizes itself organically from existing natural language Web content. Using inductive and approximate reasoning to reflect the natural way in which knowledge is processed, the ontology’s bottom-up build process creates emergent semantics learned from the Web. By this means, the ontology acts as a hub for computing with words described in natural language. For Web users, the structural semantics are visualized as inductive fuzzy cognitive maps, allowing an initial form of intelligence amplification. Eventually, we present an implementation of our inductive fuzzy grassroots ontology Thus,this paper contributes an algorithm for the extraction of fuzzy grassroots ontologies from Web data by inductive fuzzy classification.

There is more than "more is up": Hand and foot responses reverse the vertical association of number magnitudes

Recent research in cognitive sciences shows a growing interest in spatial-numerical associations. The horizontal SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect is defined by faster left-sided responses to small numbers and faster right-sided responses to large numbers in a parity judgment task. In this study we investigated whether there is also a SNARC effect for upper and lower responses. The grounded cognition approach suggests that the universal experience of "more is up" serves as a robust frame of reference for vertical number representation. In line with this view, lower hand responses to small numbers were faster than to large numbers (Experiment 1). Interestingly, the vertical SNARC effect reversed when the lower responses were given by foot instead of the hand (Experiments 2, 3, and 4). We found faster upper (hand) responses to small numbers and faster lower (foot) responses to large numbers. Additional experiments showed that spatial factors cannot account for the reversal of the vertical SNARC effect (Experiments 4 and 5). Our results question the view of "more is up" as a robust frame of reference for spatial-numerical associations. We discuss our results within a hierarchical framework of numerical cognition and point to a possible link between effectors and number representation.

Behavioral risk profile of marathon runners

Although long distance running clearly has benefits--as witnessed by its popularity--it also has risks of injury and death. Little is known, however, about the prevalence of potentially dangerous training habits in long distance runners, although anecdotal information suggests that many runners have erroneous beliefs about risks and benefits of marathon running. We conducted a cross-sectional survey to estimate the prevalence of 19 potentially dangerous training habits (risky behaviors) among marathon runners. A 66-item self-administered questionnaire was mailed to a stratified random sample of runners who finished of the 1992 Houston-Tenneco Marathon and were 21-71 years of age. Responses were obtained from 508 runners (83%) with approximately equal representation in four age-gender groups: men $<$40 years, men $\ge$40 years, women $<$40 years, and women $\ge$40 years.^ Prevalences of risky behaviors were high. 50% or more ran in dangerously hot and humid conditions, did not cool down or stretch after running, did not wear proper running gear, or ran when injured or ill; 25-49% did not warm up, ran on dangerous surfaces, did not drink sufficient water during training, increased weekly mileage too quickly, and ran during lightning storms; 10-24% ran daily, ran in areas with high pollution, ran in the same direction as traffic, did hard runs frequently, ran more than 60 miles per week, or ran against the advice of a physician.^ Positive associations were found between the practice of risky behaviors and self-reported prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries, heat-related injuries, noncompliance with recommendations for preventive health examinations, and noncompliance with positive health habits.^ These results indicate that many marathon runners engage in training habits that may increase risk of substantial injury or illness. Further studies are needed to explore the association of risky training behaviors on the incidence of injuries, and to determine reasons for noncompliance with recommendations from sports medicine specialists. ^

Flora y vegetación del centro urbano de Luján de Cuyo : Mendoza (Argentina)

Se analizó la flora y vegetación del centro urbano de Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. Florísticamente se reconocieron 20 familias, 54 géneros y 61 especies. Estas últimas son mayormente introducidas (68.8 %) y el resto, nativas y endémicas (31.2 %); son más numerosas las perennes (54.0 %) que las anuales (42.7 %) y bienales (3.3 %). Estructuralemente dominan las terófitas (44.3 %) sobre las hemicriptófitas (26.2 %), geófitas (16.4 %), caméfitas (9.8 %) y nanofanerófitas (3.3 %). Se reconocieron 15 comunidades vegetales y 2 clases fitosociológicas: Stellarietea mediae y Molinio-Arrhenatheretea. La primera de las clases contiene las comunidades dominadas por Sisymbrium irio, Malva parviflora, Bromus catharticus y Sonchus oleraceus, que son las de mayor cobertura y representación en el área.

Ontología y estéticas post-representación : problemas de la filosofía del arte de Arthur Danto

El artículo analiza la filosofía del arte expuesta por Arthur Danto, procurando, conjuntamente, problematizar el principio de representación estética en su figuración dominante en la tradición del pensamiento filosófico sobre el arte. Comprendiendo las valiosas indagaciones de Danto respecto a las “vanguardias intratables" del siglo XX y a las metamorfosis en la estructuración del mundo del arte, así como respecto a la propia filosofía que indaga sobre las obras de arte, el presente análisis se interroga, a su vez, acerca de las consecuencias problemáticas que el pensamiento de Danto abre y que en muchos casos permanecen en discusión y disputa teórica.

Crisis de representación política en Argentina a fines de los '90 : Algunas vías de análisis

La crisis de representación política en Argentina a fines de los noventa es abordada en esta tesina desde diversas vías de análisis. Se presentan las contradicciones propias de la democracia en un sistema representativo que limita la posibilidad del llamado "gobierno del pueblo", así como los dilemas de la relación entre representante y representado. Los cambios políticos, la crisis del Estado de Bienestar y las transformaciones de los partidos ofrecen el marco general para el análisis de las distintas interpretaciones sobre el problema de la crisis en Argentina. Las teorías utilizadas en este estudio ofrecen una amplia mirada sobre el tema, desde las que consideran que se trata de un problema de representatividad de los partidos hasta las que tratan otras dimensiones tales como el Estado, el régimen político, los políticos, la ciudadanía, los liderazgos, entre otros. Los niveles de análisis abordados permiten configurar el estado de situación del problema de la crisis de representación, se incluyen cuestiones de la democracia per se y se relacionan los problemas políticos generales que han afectado a varios países con aquellos específicos de la crisis de representación en Argentina.

La representación política en la España peninsular entre el final de la dinastía Habsburgo y el comienzo de la era Borbónica

Este trabajo propone abordar el problema de la representación política, expresada en la vecindad y la naturaleza, entre el fin de la dinastía de Habsburgo y los primeros años del reinado de Felipe V. Los decretos de Nueva Planta impulsados por Felipe V proponían la desaparición del criterio locativo para la definición de la naturaleza y conllevaban una innovación de las relaciones Rey-súbdito. Esto suponía la supresión de las naturalezas particulares de todos los reinos en favor de una naturaleza común