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The aim of this paper is support the use of case study method to study the specific reality of family businesses, beyond what the researches shows with a quantitative approach. The analysis performed on a set of investigations that have applied the case study, permitted to propose the question of why it is a method that seeks to generate significant theories, through answering questions of how and why there are certain events or phenomena, these investigations not provide the elements to support its validity? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology to determine the level of competitiveness of SMEs by identifying areas where the level is the same, considering both internal and external criteria. The method followed in the review of the literature on business competitiveness as well as empirical studies have attempted to measure the same, in order to identify the indicators to be used in the proposed methodology. The result of chis work, allows for easy implementation methodology based on the MAP of Competitiveness iDB includes factors such as strategic planning, production and operations, quality, marketing, accounting and finance, human resources, management and environmental information systems, and supplemented with external indicators based on the systemic competitiveness approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the acceleration of globalization and economic interdependence among countries, companies have faced internationalization processes in the international market, generating uncertainty about the strategies to be used by businesses, especially small and medium-sized, to operate in the international arena. Seeking to resolve this concern, this paper aims at performing an analytical review of the major issues in the internationalization of small and medium enterprises in the world. To fulfill this purpose, we analyze different studies in the European continent and Colombia. As a main conclusion, we propose that the Uppsala Processes theory remains as the internationalization theory most widely used by small businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article starts by reconstructing the reasons for the modern focus on citizenship as a major guarantee for legitimacy -- arguing that citizenship is intricately linked to a republican form of political order. In its second part this paper shows that under the current conditions of globalization citizenships creates or maintains a transnational multi-level order which prevents other persons and polities from realizing (full) citizenship, and even contributes to direct violations of legitimate claims of non-citizens. The third part of the article critically discusses proposals by Archibugi, Owen and Bauböck, how to rethink transnational citizenship or equivalent forms of participation and control. And in its final part it advocates linking the conception of constellational citizenship to a specific form of transnational democracy. With such a link citizenship could continue to be the key factor for legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss two theses that Thomas Pogge derives from his institutional conception of human rights: the thesis of guilt and the thesis of global violation. The thesis of guilt states that citizens who contribute to support an institutional regime that violates human rights without awarding the victims any compensation become themselves human rights violators. The thesis of global violation, on the other hand, states that, by imposing unfair regulations that tend to generate extreme poverty, the current international regime violates the human rights of the world's poor. My intention is to prove that both theses are untenable because both of them are based on wrong assumptions concerning responsibility. This will not lead us, however, to leave the institutional conception of human rights. On the contrary, once debugged of its problems, it can be considered a conception that can help us to think properly about responsibility for human rights in a globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We explore the codes of conduct in order to characterize the responsibility and ethical performance parameters that Colombian oil companies define for themselves. Method: The paper is exploratory and descriptive. We use the method of multiple case study and a model of Gaumnitz and Lere (2004) in order to classify the codes. Results: The codes are grouped into three blocks according to their structure: codes of conduct of multinational companies; codes of conduct of local companies with international ambitions; codes of conduct of small local companies. Conclusions: Codes of global companies are extensive and legalistic. Codes of local companies with international ambitions are short and legalistic. Codes of small local companies are short and missionary. Virtually all codes have their roots in the utilitarian ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the evaluation results of the pilot phase of The Edutainment and Mobilization Platform for Social Change (EE+SM=SC). The purpose was to identify from the perspective of participants, the changes generated in the implementation processes of social mobilization in the municipality of San Juan Nepomuceno (Bolívar). The research used techniques such as qualitative open interviews, document analysis and memory workshops. Among the main results are the ability of the model to integrate and strengthen the dialogue processes and local dynamics, favoring conditions for the generation and qualification of dialogue about sexual and reproductive rights. However, the municipal context, highly involved with similar projects related to the issues of the Strategy, significantly hindered the observation of these changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to identify and characterize, from a historical perspective, "the environmental discourses" that have been created and have circulated on what we now know as National Parks in Colombia, specifically on the PNN Katios National Park. The research argues that such discourses have been constructed, propagated, institutionalized and legitimized as a means and dynamic factor in a broader discourse we have called "development discourse." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a discussion paper that includes basic coments of Amelia Valcárel latest text: Memory and Forgivness, about a very sensitive issue in societies that have suffered the ravages and consequences of a civil war, an internal conflict or social strain that have severely affected human rights. Build memory is not easy for the victim. This task has a moral imposition of discernment because of the damagaes that are damages are rooted with the humans rights and these are minimum values universal. In this dimension, we analyze how the forgiveness of the victims to their abusers is an issue that can not be framed exclusively in the realm of punishment and penalties. It transcends the law. It is currently the subject of ethics and border policy, under which inhabits its active language. It is in itself very intimate, it's the jurisdiction of the victim, which involves simultaneously cognitive, emotional, behavioral and spiritual aspects. Also involves the collective when attempting to validate decisions that weigh rights and peace, the pacific coexistence and the justice or even in the design of public policies for social healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to describe the degree of knowledge, use and perception citizens have towards two judicial institutions known as equity mediators and judges of peace. In order to assess this, a survey was applied to two different Justice Centers that operate in the city of Barren-quilla: 349 surveys for barrio Simon Bolivar and 301 for La Paz. Findings show that people are more familiar with equity mediators than with Peace Judges but there is a very low degree of usage of both institutions. Local government needs to develop active pedagogy dynamics and create workshops to determine the degree of receptivity the community has towards these institutions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If someone offers you a transaction probably it is a trick, because maybe with better information you could make a better decision, you can choose that reconciliation or go to Iitigation. In this paper, the mode of alternative dispute resolution is questioned, not from the classic analysis of the rules, but a particularly critical since the economic analysis of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the concept gray area, presented by Primo Levi from his testimony proven literary vocation as a survivor of the extermination camps and German, which highlights the conflict between the failure of law and the need to develop a new ethic that is closer to man's actions. The analysis is developed from the proposals presented by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and the political philosopher Hannah Arendt that includes another key element for the development of the gray zone: the banality of evil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On this paper we discuss the affective forms that shape the city of Caracas, from what its citizens tell us. Hence, from a Social Psychology interested in how people make sense on their everyday fife, we have tried to understand from the hermeneutic perspective of Gadamer (1977) and Ricoeur (2000), those aesthetics configurations that emerge in the daily stories about the city. We are committed to understand how the city appears through 15 stories that emerged from the questions: what does Caracas mean for its inhabitants? and how do they tell it? We found primarily a controversial city: The city that suffers and the city that enjoys. In the first one, emerging senses such as chaos, insecurity, boredom, and the cloven city; in the second one, a fight mosaic, the opportunity to feel free, the job security and the revolutionary aesthetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of the results obtained from several studies, the effects of the violent experiences and violent acts exerted on the others in the spread of the armed conflict has been proved, affecting subjects' mental health. We study in this paper this type of link between violent actions or experiences and the psychological trauma and symptoms caused in 36 subjects (20 victims and 16 victimizers), who were listened in psychological counseling through Alta Consejeria para la Reintegraci6n, Defensorias del Pueblo del Atlfintico and MAPP-OEA programmes, in the framework of the 121549326151 investigation project funded by Colciencias. 2 to 7 in-depth interviews were done with each one depending on their interest in going on with the process. Multi-case comparative design and well-founded theory were used linked through an Analysis Matrix called ARIADGE (Immediate Responses Analysis: Acts, Displacement, War and Exceptions). Discursive results were organized in emerging categories and subcategories representing gradual production of knowledge in relation to the way these subjects reported traumatic situations and the effects caused in their psyche because of the armed conflict spread in regions of Magdalena, Atlántico, Bolívar and Cásar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper presents the results obtained during the development of the Project of impact assessment of the quality management processes in liquidity and profitability of the industrial area of Via 40. This is initially a detailed description of evaluation of organizational systems, systems of quality management, liquidity ratios, profitability ratios, the criteria for evaluating the impact of systems of quality management in liquidity and profitability of the Via 40 area and the industrial use ofdiscriminant analysis technique. This was developed through a qualitative and quantitative, descriptive and purposeful perspective. From the discriminant function obtained and the analyzed statistics we can conclude that the ISO 9001 quality certification, positively affects the financial indicators Net Capital (NC) Gross Margin (GM) and Operating Income (EBIT) of the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to show the results of a research project, which aimed at establishing if indeed the medium enterprises in the city of Barranquilla carry out fair selection and recruitment processes, caring the company policies and procedures. We used the information provided by the Chamber of Commerce (2008) and DANE (2005), which enabled us to collect a random sample of 260 companies; we designed two models of survey and one interview model which allowed to appreciate the reality of employment status. Simultaneously the heads of Human Resources of the companies were interviewed and those interviews gave the information base to determine the reality in the selection process. And finally, a representative sample was taken from the working population to compare the information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the present paper is to understand the debate between Descartes and Leibniz about eternal truths as providing the structure of several possible dialogues involving counter-logicals conditionals. According to this analysis the positions of Descartes and Leibniz are understood as constituting dual and dynamic perspectives in relation to the availability of some specific choices that should provide norms of rationality. Each of these dialogues has both a universal, monological aspect (given by the winning strategy) and a contextual, dialogical one (given by the play level). I conclude with the suggestion that a notion of rationality that contains both the universal and the contextual aspects does not yield a specific logic, but rather a frame of normative rationality. The conception of such a frame seems to be closely linked to the notion of a universal perfectible language discussed by Olga Pombo. The central idea is that the Leibniz's notion of rationality is a fondateur de discursivité if we use Marcelo Dascal's quote of Foucault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Havana is a city with a strong maritime condition that holds potentiality for tourism development. This economic sector has experienced significant growth in the last 20 years, and it is estimated that it will keep growing in the future. This paper aims to characterize the tourist activity in the country and in Havana specifically, the most outstanding aspects of the relationship maritime-tourism in this city. Bibliographical revision, the synthetic method and the primary observation in the fieldwork were used. As a result, it contributes to the knowledge of the existing relationship among most of the coastal Cuban settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The massive trade and the intensive use of information and communication technologies, is more likely for consumer or user. This paper considers that the Internet is as difficult to separate advertising from other marketing areas, as the Internet, simultaneously announcing, running the business transaction, technical reports on, the consumer, offering gifts and continued after sales service. This will be determined by the particular nature of publicity and its differences with the offer, will describe the characteristics of the environment is performed (cyberspace) and the risks faced by these people or consumers in e-commerce activity, based on some consumer rights violated in this act of commerce. This will be a literature review and indicate the stages of a real electronic transaction that serves as evidence indicating the impact of publicity on each of them. Concluding, that the influence of publicity on the consumer and the informative character of the same affect the contractual consent from the pre-contractual stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the transformation that has taken place in the family law regime towards the inclusion of same-sex couples, the Constitutional Court has played a central role and perhaps alone. This paper analyzes the main decisions of the Constitutional Court concerning standardization in the field of protection for same-sex couples, drawing from each building elements, most relevant jurisprudence. Thus I argue that through a variety of interpretive tools, the Court has instrumentalized its decisions to exercise political opportunity in the direction of the prevailing view, using the conditioning of the judgments of constitutionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The guarantee of Quality of Service (QoS) is a fundamental aspect in the implementation of Wireless Sensor Networks, particularly in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN). This paper analyzes several QoS metrics in order to guarantee the performance of a WBAN used to monitor patients. Through the definition of an experimental design and using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to analyze the results, we find the configuration of the Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance protocol (CSMA/ CA) that optimizes the performance in terms of energy consumption, packet loss and delay. We focused on the following parameters: traffic load, macMinBE (BE) and macSuperFrameOrder (SO). The experimental design was implemented both in a simulation environment (OMNeT++) and in a real hardware platform. The result analysis showed that the performance of the network is affected by the three variables, and allowed us to find the optimal values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the study and applications of morphing structures with cellular configurations and negative effective Poisson's ratio are of interest for the automotive and aerospace field, as also applications in optical, biological, microelectronic, structural and thermo-mechanical components. These structures have light weight, large shear stiffness and they resist large deformations in the elastic range of the constitutive material, if compared to a solid structure with the same material. This paper presents a numerical study of in-plane static behavior of hexachiral structure with negative effective Poisson's ratio, using the finite element method. The results obtained suggest a better control of the parameters of the structures because the geometrical restrictions of real applications are taken into account, making the design more flexible and reliable by the type of desired [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The valuation of assets based on technology has been gaining momentum as the community; especially universities is interested in transferring their assets derived from the research process to the state and enterprises. This paper aims to present the main methodologies for technology assessment. For this, we conducted a review of important literature through articles and books by renowned authors on these special valuation processes. The conclusion was the importance of addressing these issues in the research community in the area of finance in particular, to promote new proposals that integrate qualitative and quantitative aspects, in keeping with the contextual needs of valued objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to describe the transfer of knowledge at University, from Medellin, Colombia. The methodology linked two components: the application of bibliometric techniques and analysis of discussion groups, formed by researchers, managers, professors and managers of social projects The results showed that the community is a natural recipient of knowledge, with the same status that the State and companies have in Triple Helix Model, and that public procurement is another mechanism by which social innovation can be encouraged, in conclusion, guiding the transfer in terms of the problems of social context and values such as quality of life, should be another challenge for universities to even generate an economic return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to describe some general and historical characteristics of globalization and the role that it has played in Multinational Enterprise (MNE) evolution. It seeks to demonstrate that the process of globalization and the development of MNEs are parallel. In other words, there is a close relationship between one phenomenon and the other. They need each other and they are strongly correlated, which implies that the characterization of globalization depends to a large extent on the form or nature the MNE, which is transformed and adapted to changes in globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to study the preconditions of business exchange to facilitate investment in mechanisms for knowledge transfer and its effects on performance in customer-supplier relationships. The results show how companies engaged in learning manage to achieve performance goals as the supplier provider of the customer is able to learn through investments in mechanisms to transfer knowledge. To be effective, these investments require prior knowledge of the client firm and a strategic perception of the relationship of learning by the receiver of knowledge, acting as a supplier in terms of trade. The study found that investment in mechanisms for sharing knowledge and the knowledge receiver's commitment to learning have a positive influence on learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are intended to develop, maintain and administrate information using computer systems, communication networks, portable dispositives, etc. In addition to that, this paper deals with ICT's power to create new contexts: what is called digital ambiences. According to the author the design and even the concept of these intelligent ambiences has problems that have to do both with the use of reasoning and the display of inferential and interpretative processes to interact with the social context in an individual or a collective way. Solving these philosophical problems could guide the development and implantation of ubiquitous and embodied technologies that would be able to amplify the cognitive and motive capacity of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I try to show that Heidegger develops in Being and Time an ethics of the authenticity, which doesn't consist in the prescription of rules of action, but in a certain attitude, which the Dasein has to adopt toward his own mortality. In relation to this aim I will consider the problems of the state of Verfallenheit, the anxiety and the death as an own possibility. These themes are analyzed from the point of view of the dichotomy that Heidegger establishes between the authentic existence and the unauthentic existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper presents and approach in the debate regarding the relevance of control and tracking of resources and the results obtained on the effectiveness of International Development Cooperation (IDC). We discuss the public and private sectors, as well as civil organizations and donors. Using an international viewpoint and the current Colombian Legislation, our analysis allows us to identify and define the latent risks of inadequate management of resources of IDC in Colombia. In particular, we point out some weakness of financial, legislative and technical nature. With the analysis presented we are able to propose several improvement in financing process involving the IDC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how the Colombian Constitutional Court in its jurisprudence includes references to case law of the European Court of Human Rights, in exercising its constitutional oversight and review of protection measures, analyzed from the incorporation of the principle of human dignity, which is considered a social foundation of our state and founding principle of the law. With this aim we present first, all referents concerning legal, doctrinal and jurisprudential universal and regional human rights protection systems; secondly, the constitutional development given in Colombia to the human rights issue and finally we analyze the sentences in which the Constitutional Court refers to the European Court on the scope of the principle of human dignity Statements that specifically refer to the protection of prison population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to show, based on two cases --one taken from past history and another from recent history, both examples of racial and sex segregation--, how theoretical advances and academic efforts that have been made to overcome and, if possible, eliminate those evils from sociocultural world, are still far from being real. This is evidenced by most daily news showing events of exclusion and repudiation of the other, behavior visible both in civilized world and in countries in which moral and material progress still advance with shy steps. This exercise, and the analysis of the presented cases, want to show how the problem of racial and sex segregation is expressed. For sustaining those reviews, revisions of central concepts of analysis, the other, exclusion and gender, were made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author presents some considerations concerning the doctrinal debate introduced in Colombia in connection with contractual nature of companies and the criteria to which we must turn to qualify as civil or commercial. From corresponding legislative reforms he argues that it is now more accurate to refer to corporate legal business than to partnership agreement, since it supports the existence of a sole proprietor. It also lists the criteria used in Colombia to qualify commercial companies showing the way by which the regime has become corporate in this country, from the Code of 1971 to Act 1258 of 2008 on society by simplified stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I shall organize and explain some of the answers that Chilean legal doctrine has provided when introducing the distinction between the duty of reasonable care and the duty to achieve a certain result in order to decide cases of medical liability. For that purpose I employ an analytical method, focusing on the law of evidence and developing its substantive and procedural aspects. Basically I shall argue that article 1547 of the Chilean Civil Code (equivalent to article 1608.3 of the Colombian Civil Code) does not include a general principle that presumes guilt in all cases of contractual obligations. Furthermore, because it is not applicable to the type of obligations where some degree of care is required it is not an obstacle to the introduction of the distinction between the duty of reasonable care and the duty to achieve a certain result and its most controversial effect, the changes in the burden of proof of the degree of guilt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the analysis of industrial property management in the context of joint ventures in Cuba, as the main form of foreign investment. We describe the assumptions that can come into this business, on industrial property. The different scenarios are addressed from the doctrinal, legislative perspectives and enriched with the author's assessment criteria based on practical experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetic retinopathy early is not usually perceivable in patients with diabetic. Their first signs, like micro-aneurysms, often are unnoticed in preliminary test due to its difficult detection by means specialists. In addition, its presence is necessarily not directly related to diabetic retinopathy, since there are others pathologies that may also cause those. Until the detection of the presence of exudates, a specialist can deduce the presence of diabetic retinopathy. This paper presents a method to assist the identification and differentiation of exudates on color retinal images based on a variety of k-nn filters. The proposed method proved to be a sensitive and specific detection of bright lesions, able to determine with sufficient certainty, a possible injury, with a specificity of 99%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a review based in the most relevant scientific works of radio-over-fiber technology. The most important issues of the state-of-the-art evolution are exposed. We show a description of the main devices and the most recent experimental tests that suggest the integration between wired and wireless networks, and the convergence in heterogeneous networks. In this review, we identify a trend toward the increase of the radiofrecuency-carrier in the millimeter-wave bands (75-100 GHz), which show that the next generation of radio-over-fiber system will operate in this band of large capacity available. The challenge consisting of reaching multi-Gbps wireless transmissions in these systems very soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of this paper were to describe the prevalence of self-defined sexual orientation, and to predict its presence or absence with the second National Survey of the Youth (ENJUVE, 2005) data. In a probability sample of 25,630 Mexicans of 12 to 29 year-old women and men, the prevalence of the non-heterosexual identity was 2.5% men and 1.1% women. The non-heterosexual identity was predicted by masculine gender, homosexual intercourses, falling in love with a person of the same gender and absence of religious adscription, that is, facilitating factors that imply the greater impulse of the masculine sexuality, to integrate the own homosexual behavior, to recognize their homosexual desire, and to free themselves from the moral condemnation that endures the Judeo-Christian conception of the homosexuality. The data show a reality to be listened to and respected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to establish the applicability of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI). To this end, a systematic literature review which found 21 articles that met the inclusion criteria of research in 2000-2010. Is a constant use of the instrument, where there is strong evidence of its use, both to investigate personality traits in different populations such as the psychometric properties of the test. It discusses the use made of the evidence and its various factors, it is also recommended to extend the period of time for inclusion of articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution stems from a personal interest in expanding Minority Language Media research into the Latin American context. It also arises from a desire to present some of the achievements of Communication for Social Change in Latin America to a European media studies community not acquainted with them. In order to do this, the paper begins by presenting the common ground between the two areas of studies. It draws attention to the fact that language is but one of many cultural aspects under which indigenous and ethnic communities are marginalised from and by the main media outlets in Latin America. Because of this, research into Latin American Minority Language Media needs to have a contextual approach that studies the processes of identity negotiation and participatory agency defined under the concepts of hybridity and convergence. It also demands for research to increase participation of its subjects of inquiry, as consistently requested by practitioners of Communication for Social Change. Finally, both of these aspects, a contextual approach of hybridity and convergence, and the encouragement for more participatory research, are presented as the fundamental dialogue to expand Minority Language Media studies to Latin America and to provide feedback for its further advances in Europe [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indigenous Justice System of Quintana Roo, was created and implemented by the local government more than ten years ago, and it has not been sufficiently investigated. The aim of this paper is to analyze its performance from the legal sociology point of view, using the law reports of the traditional judges. Today, and thanks to their actions, the Mayan traditional judges are socially legitimized into the indigenous communities, although they were created "from the outside of the communities" by state authorities a little bit more than a decade ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the philosophy of contemporary democracy it is common to find positions that understand the dawn of modern constitutionalism as the twilight of democracy and the return to an elitist and aristocratic model of in which the last word will always be held by a select group of lawyers, even though their decision is openly against the majority and, therefore, in his view, anti-democratic. In that sense, this paper will aim to expose some of the contemporary readings in relation to the tensions between democracy () (people) and Constitution (Constitutional Court), taking into consideration what today are perhaps the most influential theories in the global academy. Here will be discussed the theory of constitutional limits Elster, Popular Constitutionalism Kramer, Waldron, and Tushnet, and the theory of the Open Society Interpreters Peter Häberle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is drawing an interpretation around the idea of philosophy understood as thought's liberation, just based on the work of José Gaos. We think that this is possible because in our author's work at least two mentions to this sense of emancipation of the philosophy can be found. The first one has to do with the collapse of the spirit of system as the only form and unique way of philosophical thinking. Likewise, the second mention to this emancipation is fulfilled when, through hypostatization of historical consciousness, the author sketches the horizon for the liberation of the individual existence and thinking, under the pretext of an immanentist philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My aim in this paper is first to develop the question raised by Habermas concerning the possibilities of a history of philosophy oriented to praxis. This line of analysis will let see the internal connection between theory and praxis within the framework of a materialistic understanding of philosophy. Secondly, I will show how this question becomes a reconstruction of historical materialism in the context of an analysis of the processes which characterise social transformations. With this background Habermas moves from the paradigm of production to that of language seeking a foundation and a principle of legitimacy for his Theory of Communicative Action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents Amartya Sen's critique of the anthropological model that underlies the conception of neoclassical economics (especially in its utilitarian and rational choice versions), in order to present the conception of subject offered by the abilities approach and then the notion of development as freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a structural damage detection system. Variations in elasticity module are used as a damage condition in a structural finite element model. This deviation alters vibration natural frequencies and shape modes; which is the fault indicator in this proposal. Noise and incomplete data are used to emulate real conditions in a beam and truss in different fault scenarios. Simulations show satisfactory performance in all cases studied. Therefore, this system can be used as suitable structural damage detection system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper solves the optimization problem of communication networks by cable using a multi objective algorithm. The mathematical model is solved using a methodology based on the Non-dominated Sorting Algorithm (NSGAII). The mathematical model uses two objective functions, one is the investment costs and the other is an indicator related to the network operation. The problem solution is a Pareto front that consider information about the network design, showing a set of network configuration with minimum cost and minimum requirements of signal levels in the costumer connection nodes. For that, a real life test system is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to determine the degree of implementation of the knowledge management process in two selected groups of companies of the states of Carabobo (Venezuela) and Tamaulipas (Mexico). A non-experimental research was developed, with a transactional - correlational design, in which a questionnaire was used as instrument for recollection of information and it was applied to executives of the area of human resources or administration of 20 companies of the great industry which formed part of a nonprobabilistic sample. From the obtained results, it can be affirmed that the various activities of the KM process are present in the administrative practice of the selected companies, and with almost no difference it can be concluded that the Venezuelan companies have more homogenous answers and develop more activities of knowledge management than do the Mexican ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the aim is to reconstruct the rationale of moral autonomy in Hermann Cohen's ethics. In order to achieve this aim, I consider the complexity of the concept of moral autonomy at its four levels. Mi hypothesis is that Cohen's argumentation goes from the formal abstraction of the self-legislation to the concrete moment of the selfpreservation. I analyze then Eggert Winter's critic of Cohen's concept of moral autonomy, who questions the integration of the levels of the particularity and the universality in this fundamental moment of the theory. Against Winter I argue that Cohen's process of argumentation succeeds in connecting the different levels of the concept of moral autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the current crossroads of the interpretation of the most famous novel by Gabriel García Márquez accounting for, on one hand, a tradition of interpretation that, from a certain idea of "national", relates the meaning of the work to an exhaustion of history and, on the other hand, proposing the conditions of possibility for another interpretation, namely, another tradition of interpretation from which to read the novel in order to find in it another meaning in relation to history. The argument is based on principles of the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a review of the brain evolution process in the last four million years, and focuses, in the second part, on the brain modularity concept, the role of language, working memory and cognitive fluency, through the path of the primitive mind to the modern mind. It refers to the executive functions and the theory of mind. It is based upon the complexity theory which explains that mind is emergent as an interaction property, in this case, due to the brain neural interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]