O presente artigo aborda a instituição de órgãos de polícia como representantes do poder e da autoridade do Estado sob a ótica da filosofia, sobretudo no contexto do contrato social, fundamentada em revisão bibliográfica. Ainda que o homem tenha preterido sua liberdade natural em prol de uma liberdade assistida, e sendo a polícia um dos órgãos responsáveis por essa assistência, não há como afirmar que esse trabalho está correspondendo aos anseios da sociedade, sobretudo ao se analisar os índices de violência (...) que a envolvem. Nesse sentido, a sociedade vem questionando a necessidade da existência dessas instituições, muitas vezes, inclusive, pedindo sua extinção. (shrink)

In the last decade Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has started to focus attention on forms of persuasive interaction where computer technologies have the goal of changing users behavior and attitudes according to a predefined direction. In this work, we hypothesize a strong connection between logical fallacies (forms of reasoning which are logically invalid but cognitively effective) and some common persuasion strategies adopted within web technologies. With the aim of empirically evaluating our hypothesis, we carried out a pilot study on a sample (...) of 150 e-commerce websites. (shrink)

The research in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has nowadays extended its attention to the study of persuasive technologies. Following this line of research, in this paper we focus on websites and mobile applications in the e-commerce domain. In particular, we take them as an evident example of persuasive technologies. Starting from the hypothesis that there is a strong connection between logical fallacies, i.e., forms of reasoning which are logically invalid but psychologically persuasive, and some common persuasion strategies adopted within these (...) technological artifacts, we carried out a survey on a sample of 175 websites and 101 mobile applications. This survey was aimed at empirically evaluating the significance of this connection by detecting the use of persuasion techniques, based on logical fallacies, in existing websites and mobile apps. In addition, with the goal of assessing the effectiveness of different fallacy-based persuasion techniques, we performed an empirical evaluation where participants interacted with a persuasive (fallacy-based) and with a non-persuasive version of an e-commerce website. Our results show that fallacy-based persuasion strategies are extensively used in existing digital artifacts, and that they are actually effective in influencing users’ behavior, with strategies based on visual salience manipulation (accent fallacy) being both the most popular and the most effective ones. (shrink)

Persuasive technologies can adopt several strategies to change the attitudes and behaviors of their users. In this work we present some empirical results stemming from the hypothesis - firstly formulated in [3] - that there is a strong connection between some well known cognitive biases reducible to fallacious argumentative schemata and some of the most common persuasion strategies adopted within digital technologies. In particular, we will report how both framing and fallacious-reducible mechanisms are nowadays used to design web and mobile (...) technologies in domains ranging from e-commerce [4] and news recommendations [1] to the jihadist propaganda. We will also show how and to what extent such persuasive strategies have an impact on nudging the choices of the users in digital environments. (shrink)

Resumo: A violência doméstica contra as mulheres é um mal que atinge todo o mundo e que é prati- cado comumente no interior das residências, pelas pessoas de seu convívio íntimo. Apesar da grande subnotificação, as polícias estaduais recebem alta demanda de denúncias dessa natureza. Diante das dificuldades de atuação policial inerentes a essa violência, uma estratégia de prevenção e intervenção a ser considerada é a entrevista motivacional: uma abordagem colaborativa que visa a mudança de comportamento baseada em estímulos com (...) foco na ambivalência. Baseamo-nos na premissa de que essa abordagem vem mudando comportamentos nocivos em várias áreas com resultados promissores, inclusive na violência doméstica, podendo, assim, contribuir para a interrupção do ciclo da violência. Esse artigo, fundamentado em pesquisa bibliográfica de abordagem qualitativa, analisa em que medida a entrevista motivacional pode ser aplicada pela polícia nos casos de violência doméstica contra a mulher. (shrink)

Violence against women is a crime that causes countless victims all over the world. Specially when it occurs within the domestic and familiar environment, usually at home and perpetrated by people who are intimately related to the victims, calling the police might not be an option. Despite that, the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State answers around five thousand calls every month reporting cases of domestic violence against women. But how can the police improve the prevention of such invisible (...) crimes? How to prevent repetition? How to interrupt the cycle of violence? Based on a collaborative approach with stimuli to the behavioral change, the Motivational Interviewing has been broadly used in several areas, including domestic violence. Considering that this approach may contribute to the interruption of the domestic violence cycle, this research how it can be used by the police to tackle and prevent these crimes. Rio de Janeiro State – Brazil, was chosen as the scenario of research considering its leading position in reports of violence against women in the country. The Military Police of this state, is the subject of research, playing an interventive role in the response to emergency calls but also providing the follow-up of the applicable protective measures. (shrink)

The author publishes the initial fragment of an unknown treatise by Leon Battista Alberti on the casting of statues written around 1455 and preserved in cod. Ottob. lat. 1870. The fragment contains a discussion on the nature of light and the element of fire.

Una riflessione, a 400 anni dalla morte di Giovan Battista Della Porta Napoletano, uno dei grandi geni del Rinascimento.

La fantasia popolare è stata sempre affascinata dalla possibilità che tra le pagine di antichi manoscritti si celassero arcani segreti, la cui rivelazione potesse conferire poteri occulti. Libri costati enormi sacrifici, che erano stati per i loro autori una ragione di vita e, al tempo stesso, la fonte di mille pericoli. La “Magia Naturalis” di Giovan Battista Della Porta fu uno dei testi più diffusi fra XVI e XVII secolo. Attorno ad esso ruotò per decenni un ampio dibattito, che (...) spaziava dalla magia alla scienza, dalla filosofia alla teologia. -/- Popular imagination has always been fascinated by the possibility that arcane secrets were hidden among the pages of ancient manuscripts, the revelation of which could confer occult powers. Books that required enormous sacrifices, which had been a reason for living for their authors and, at the same time, the source of a thousand dangers. Giovan Battista Della Porta's “Magia Naturalis” was one of the most widespread texts between the 16th and 17th centuries. A wide debate revolved around it for decades, ranging from magic to science, from philosophy to theology. (shrink)

The Renaissance architect, moral philosopher, cryptographer, mathematician, Papal adviser, painter, city planner and land surveyor Leon Battista Alberti provided the theoretical foundations of modern perspective geometry. Alberti’s work on perspective exerted a powerful influence on painters of the stature of Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci and Piero della Francesca. But his Della pittura of 1435–36 contains also a hitherto unrecognized ontology of pictorial projection. We sketch this ontology, and show how it can be generalized to apply to representative devices (...) in general, including maps and spatial and non-spatial databases. (shrink)

This essay develops a critical interpretation of Gadamer’s account of Renaissance painting. My point of departure is a brief reference in Truth and Method to Leon Battista Alberti, the Italian Renaissance humanist who developed an influential mathematical theory of perspective in painting. Through an explication of Gadamer’s critique of Alberti and of perspective generally, I argue that what is ultimately at stake in Gadamer’s confrontation with Alberti is Gadamer’s opposition to relativism and subjectivism and his downgrading of the importance (...) of the artistic medium for evaluating the truth-claim of an artwork. Against the theory of perspective, Gadamer contends that artworks make substantive claims to truth to which we interpretatively respond. By emphasizing this theme, our discussion resonates with contemporary “hermeneutical realism.”. (shrink)

This paper is written on the occasion of the celebration of the gift of femininity. In this paper, I argue philosophically, as to what may be taken as a framework for what it means to be a female. While I am aware of the various attendant positions and orientations that are wont to accompany such a discussion, I maintain that a female is essentially, a human being with certain biological configurations, and other cultural descriptions. While this definition may be reductionist (...) at first approximation, the fact that the female is a human being means that the female is, in the words of Battista Mondin, a bundle of possibilities that can neither be understood in entirety, or reduced to a definite range. -/- Ce papier est écrit à l'occasion de la célébration du don de la féminité. Dans cet article, je discute philosophiquement de ce qui peut être considéré comme un cadre pour ce que signifie être une femme. Bien que je sois conscient des différentes positions et orientations qui accompagnent habituellement une telle discussion, je maintiens qu'une femme est essentiellement un être humain avec certaines configurations biologiques et d'autres descriptions culturelles. Bien que cette définition puisse être réductionniste en première approximation, le fait que la femme soit un être humain signifie que la femme est, selon les mots de Battista Mondin, un faisceau de possibilités qui ne peuvent ni être comprises dans leur intégralité, ni réduites à une gamme définie. (shrink)

This is a review of Survey of the State of the Art in Human Language Technology, [editorial board: Ronald Cole (editor-in-chief), Joseph Mariani, Hans Uszkoreit, Annie Zaenen, Victor Zue], Cambridge University Press (Studies in Natural Language Processing) and Giardini Editori e Stampatori in Pisa (Linguistica Computazionale, volumes XII-XII1), managing editors: Giovanni Battista Varile and Antonio Zampolli, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

The fascinating Journey of the Renaissance Medicine.

Un viaggio nell'arte medica del Rinascimento.