Conference Program

This speech aims to reflect on the relationship between algorithms and democracy. The massive use of algorithms leads to threaten democracy even in European Countries. Firstly, a threat to democracy stems from the new forms of communication and political information. Forms of communication and political information increasingly based on social media, tweets or tools that have a strong impact on voters, such as videos or podcasts, live streaming activities, etc. The problem is that the use of algorithms allows user profiling. Thus, the activity of profiling can be used as a tool for political propaganda, not only to orient but also to “manipulate” users’ political opinions and to infringe the right to exercise a free vote. Policy information is selected on the basis of the profiling of the individual who tends to close and isolate itself in the cd. filter bubble (see E. PARISER, The Filter Bubble. What The Internet Is Hiding From You, Londra, 2011) that filters the reality of the facts, prevents the comparison with different points of view and creates an echo effect, amplifying false news. This creates the phenomenon defined as “confirmation bias”, according to which users tend to believe not so much to the true news but to that which confirms their opinions and prejudices. The objective of communication and political information on the web is no longer to inform but to obtain consensus, through the creation of an ad hoc reality. In a media context, political opinions are easily orientable because user profiling can be used. Online misinformation is able to condition and influence the behavior of a user or group of users quickly, creating an emotional involvement that drives them to share the news. This has important consequences not only for freedom of information ― and, more particularly, the right to information ― and the principle of pluralism of information but also, albeit indirectly, for the results of the elections, thus affecting democracy itself. In particular, fake news specially created by politicians, political parties or foreign governments, in order to discredit their opponents and their actions, is a danger to democracy. After all, two important events, such as the vote on Brexit and the American elections show the disruptive impact of information, or rather disinformation, through the web network, in the process of forming public opinion. Equally dangerous for democracy is the personalization of policy where the relationship between politician and voter profiled becomes direct. The direct political-elector contact involve a danger of disintermediation, in which is not relevant information on the activities of political parties but the message or news of the politician. In this context, the web network is often perceived by users as a means of expressing dissent and for destabilize traditional politics, traditional media and intermediate bodies, including political parties. From this point of view, disintermediation is a problem in the Countries based on representative democracy. Moreover, the characteristics of communication and political information lead to a greater degree of online political polarization, distancing the political debate from a rational dimension because users tend to isolate themselves in media environments that remain closed to different positions. Political polarization is possible thanks to the activity of profiling. And indeed, the polarization of political opinions is strengthened among people who strongly identify with the opinions, ideas and prejudices of a political party. Studies show that when users are not exposed to real facts and ideas of people with whom they disagree and they are within their echo chambers their views can also become more extreme. In this context, for example, the themes dear to the most radical right are successful thanks to the emotional impact: nationalism, racism, immigration and the need for strong leadership. Trump’s campaign was a demonstration of this. But there are also some left-wing parties, more or less radical, which spread misinformation in order to have consent. However, the more general tendency on the radical left consists in using social media and web platforms to organize episodic actions and anti-political mobilization such as Occupy Wall Street and the Spanish M-15 Indignados. Beyond these short-lived movements, and few parties like Podemos in Spain, the left seems to have become more engaged with local projects, often celebrating an ethos of direct, deliberative and participatory democracy. However, even in cases where there is no radical left or right parties, there have been profound institutional divisions and political polarization. This happened, for example, with the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, with the rise of the five-star movement in Italy and the victory of Emmanuel Macron in France. Thus, the platforms that use algorithms play an important role in electoral and democratic processes. Secondly, a threat to democracy stems from the role of algorithms in the governance and policy decision process and the implication for citizen rights. On the one side, through the platforms that use the algorithms there is a delegitimization of the representative democracy. Through the creation of fake news, by politicians, political parties, foreign governments, power groups or lobbies, not only public opinion and the vote of the voters are conditioned but also the choices of politicians and government. On the other, algorithms should enhance citizens’ ability to participate in public life. But algorithms should not replace democratic institutions and the democratic system based on indirect democracy. Despite it not being acceptable to have completely automated political decisions, algorithms are increasingly present in the decision-making processes. However, in some countries (e.g. Denmark and India) many public policies are adopted by algorithms with risks on democracy. The problem is that the algorithms are controlled by private corporations and elites and that the lack of transparency of some automated data processing could threaten the rule of law and democracy. Therefore, the challenge for the future will be to govern algorithms and make operating mechanisms more transparent. Otherwise the risk is that the algorithm will replace the policy and the representative democracy.

In recent years, the concern of the environment and the sustainability of the planet are focusing on the analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, and especially CO2, both from the level of businesses and citizens. In this treatment, aviation companies have played a substantial part, moved over the tons of CO2 they emit. Fed worries about environmental security, the European Union develops the Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), which works on the rule of “limitation and trade”. Within the established legal limit, companies purchase or receive allowances, with which they can deal with each other according to their needs and is reckoned the world’s first international emissions trading system. Carbon pricing has been shown to cut down discharges from installations that lessen under the strategy. In 2016, emissions reductions were 2.9% of the facilities included in the scheme, assuming a decline in the emissions market since the start of the third phase in 2013, while the surplus of allocations had fallen to 1.69 trillion, being the lowest level from the beginning. When we are in a commercial transaction, the process of accounting for the policy of acquiring, selling and delivering the allowances toll-free, which must be reflected in the mandatory financial statements and in another set of supplementing financial information. The accounting problem of greenhouse gases in Spain has changed since 2016, with the entry into force of R.D. 602/2016, of 2 December, amending the General Accounting Plan, among other commercial and accounting regulations, in order to adapt it to DIRECTIVE 2013/34/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 26 June 2013. The accounting operation and its reflection are manifested as a standard of sustainability and environmental security; environmental vision has been comprised into the traditional accounting treatment of organizations. Our research is carried out through the analysis of the Annual Accounts and Strategic Reports, in the years 2017 and 2018, by two large consolidated aviation groups: IAG International Airlines Group and Globalia. The study will complement with the individual analysis of the companies Iberia, Iberia Express and Vueling, of the IAG group, which in 2018 have presented their own annual accounts. Iberia has established itself in 2018 as the first Spanish airline with 58 million passengers. And the Globalia group will analyse Air Europa’s annual accounts, being the group’s main flight operator division. In this way, we will be able to assess and measure whether the financial statements of the companies contribute to generate sustainable information to stakeholders and different stakeholders, under the lens of “Accountability”.

The Mediterranean Economic Model (MEM) corresponds to Southern European Countries (Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain). Together with the Nordic, British and Continental model , this model is part of the European social system . Differences between these systems are dependent on cultural paradigms characterised by specific aspects pertaining to the history of economic thought. Indeed, welfare states in this model do share several broad characteristics. In this regard, Latouche also recognises a Mediterranean tendency to take into account the complexity of socio-economic relations, the diversity of production and ethical and social values. Consequently, three models of capitalism can be identified in the European social system: Civil Economy (for the MEM), Social Market Economy (as stipulated in the Lisbon Treaty for all EU members) and the Anglo-Saxon model. In particular in MEMs public expenditure is based on a low level of social assistance, free higher education, strong labor protection and welfare programs in areas such as human resources development. In this intricate framework, the economic crisis of 2008 (which modified the macroeconomic structure of the global capitalist economy) and the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon (with its restrictive monetary policy) have caused austerity and recession (Gentilucci, 2018) and put pressure on the economies of Mediterranean countries which traditionally apply Keynesian policies to support the welfare state. Accordingly, Ingellis wrote : Both in the European political debate and in the mass media representation of the downturn impact, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain are considered the countries with the worst situation up to the point of being called “PIGS”, in a quite derogative sense”. Through a study of economic thought in the Mediterranean economic model, this study will endeavour to comprehend the distance between this model and other European models of capitalism: the Anglo-Saxon model and Social Market Economy. In fact, the MEM has its foundations in the Greek philosophy of Aristotle and Plato; this influenced Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi in Italy; and from here, the School of Salamanca in Spain. This tradition stands apart from the rest of Europe, which was influenced by the individualistic, austere vision of Luther (Germany) and Calvin (France) and Anglo-Saxon positivism.

The traditional theme of the Romans’ use of the corvus in the 1^st Punic War – as a gadget that at first gave them victory over the more seamanlike Carthaginians, and then later unbalanced their ships badly enough to sink them in bad weather – has become a cliché of ancient maritime history.  Beneath its more obvious points, though, lie a few genuine insights into the early trial and error of development of Roman seamanship, and the way Romans learned to think like sailors. The common assumption is that Rome blundered through the naval side of the war without either a strategy or any intentionally developing maritime skill.  The Senate and the Roman commanders, however seem to have appreciated their need to learn how to fight on and cope with the sea, even in the war’s first few years, and in spite of a few early blunders proved to be quick learners.  The merchant-corsair tradition of Carthage was a formidable challenge.  The corvus, which I understand for the purposes of this study in its most traditional form, did in fact allow quick seizure of enemy vessels in the war’s early naval battles (especially considering the characteristics of the vessels typically involved).  It looked both cheap and ideal as a way to even the odds. The disadvantages of these spiked gangplanks were not all equally obvious.  They made the warships top-heavy and difficult to handle in foul weather or even strong beam winds.  Each ship’s construction became, for a variety of reasons, considerably heavier, and even with the added bulk might have been unable to handle the stresses involved in the new combat tactics – stresses that have seldom been considered in this context.  Quinquiremes were constructed heavier than the old trireme (it is unlikely that any trireme carried a corvus), but not sufficiently to withstand damage caused by a typical successful use of such a device. The most critical disadvantage though, was the effect of the successful corvus on developing Roman maritime strategy and naval seamanship.  Some strategic sense appears to have characterized Roman intentions at the beginning of the war; it is only after the first corvus-assisted victories that the Romans in the western Mediterranean seem to begin “sailing blind”.  The comfort of ‘sea battle fought as a land battle’ thinking meant the rise of a clumsy, un-naval manner of thinking by Roman sea commanders in general. In the end the corvus, which could not cover a ship’s stern and degraded a ship’s performance did its greatest damage as an apparently useful crutch.  To truly begin fighting as successful seamen, the Romans had first to eliminate it from their thinking in ship design and then to enter battle creatively without it as an idea clouding their tactics.

In this paper, I shall examine the functions of burials and their purpose in the Homeric afterlife. I shall argue that it is unclear if the burials and burial rites Homer describes in the Iliad and the Odyssey affects the deceased in Hades. In this, I shall examine three specific cases where burials are said to play an important role in the appearance of the deceased in the afterlife. First, I shall examine Anticleia’s cremation and her lack of physical substance in the Odyssey 11.218-222. Scholars have cited this passage as an example that the ghosts lack physical substance once their corpses have been cremated.  I shall, however, argue that the cremation plays no such role in making the ghosts lack substance. First, Homer presents the unburied ghosts, Patroclus and Elpenor, as immaterial. For example, he describes the former evaporating into the ground,  and says the latter is an εἴδωλον,  a physically “insubstantial image.”  Second, I shall suggest that Anticleia does not, in fact, say there is a cause and effect relationship between cremation and the lack of physical substance. Rather, she suggests that the two are separate and unrelated events. Second, I shall analyse the role of the blood sacrificial ritual for the dead in the Odyssey Book XI. When Odysseus journeys to the underworld, Circe instructs him to sacrifice animals and pour their blood into a pool, from which the dead can drink.  Scholars have argued that the difference between the buried and unburied dead is that the former need to drink from a pool of blood to communicate and regain consciousness, whilst the latter do not need to because they are unburied and neither living nor dead in the Homeric epic.  I shall, however, argue that the dead’s burial status does not affect their ability to communicate or regain consciousness in Homer. After all, the ghost of Achilles, a buried member of the dead,  and the unburied ghosts of Elpenor and Patroclus,  all have the ability to recognise and speak with the living without relying on drinking from the blood.  Third, I shall also discuss the role of burial as a means to access the underworld. Scholars have suggested that burials are necessary, in Homer, to gain access to the other world.  Many have based this interpretation on the ghost of Patroclus’ description that he cannot pass the gates of Hades until Achilles buries him.  I shall, however, argue that this function of the burial is unclear since Patroclus gives other descriptions which suggest he is already in Hades despite his lack of burial.

Gods, Goddesses, Heroes and other mythical figures from religious mythologies have made continued appearances in Hollywood films since the 20^th century, with many of them reflecting the times and era of their production in the guise of depicting the “ancient” world and dealing with “sacred” themes in a secular manner. While a cinematic text invites us to identify with the hero, the antagonist is imbued with qualities that require judgement from the hero. This paper seeks to undertake a character study of the Greek God Hades from Clash of the Titans (2010) and the Egyptian God Set from Gods of Egypt (2016) to understand the ways in which the cinematic imagination constructs them as antagonists and condemns their ways. While the hero and his masculinity is generally propagated as a form of “ideal” masculinity, the villain forms a more complex characterization as he may embody qualities possessed by the hero himself and yet be termed “unheroic”. Reading the texts as embodiments of popular culture, and thus, as sites for interrogating contemporary socio-political and cultural concerns, the paper would like to explore the construction of villainous and “non-ideal” masculinities in the figures of Hades and Set. Utilizing a textual reading of the films, the analysis would be supported by theories derived from Masculinity Studies and Film Studies.

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During the economic crisis in Greece the Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) gradually evolved as one of the most challenging structural deficiencies of the Greek banking system. At the end of March 2018, NPLs have reached 92.4 billion euros, or 42% of the total loan portfolio of the Greek banks, being one of the largest in the Euro area zone and affecting most of the Greek economy’s sectors. Particularly regarding tourism, although the sector thrives attracting year after year record number of tourists, it is at the same time negatively affected by a significant size of NPLs of hotel businesses. The objective of this study is to examine, first what portion of the hotel industry is associated with NPLs, and second what is the status of the hotel loans compared to the rest of the Greek economy.

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The religious concept related to one God has followed the evolution of mankind from every side, either the social organization or the growth of thought and language and consequently of mental development. Religion has also been valued from two sides: 1) as an instinctive human predisposition towards something supernatural (Müller), 2) or as a form of urgent need of social aggregation (E. Durkheim). The two great races – the Aryan and the Semites, have given birth to religious feelings which, only superficially, appear totally different. Furthermore, up to “a certain point (eighth century B.C.) the progress of society was much alike in the East and in the West, and the progress of religion, … followed that of society in general.”. In fact, “while in Greece and Rome the early period of the kings lies in the far background of tradition, and only forms the starting-point of the long development with which the historians of these countries is mainly occupied, the independent evolution of Semitic society was arrested at an early stage” (W. R. Smith: 34). The monotheistic idea of one only God seems to have developed following various stages, which started worshipping at first only natural elements (plants, animals, objects – fetichism), then the forces of nature (fire, sun, moon, etc.), then various gods with human shape, each without negating the others (Polytheism), and finally Khathenotheism: “The consciousness that all the deities are but different names of one and the same godhead” (M. Müller: 65). Society, by developing cultural data, helped to build up notions linked to time and space, while language also introduced new words in order to be able to describe new concepts linked to a more sophisticated knowledge. In conclusion, since “no positive religion that has moved men has been able to start with a tabula rasa,” (W.R. Smith), in order to really understand dogmas as well as theological disputes, we have to examine carefully the first steps of religious thoughts by starting from totemism (Durkheim), to move towards naturism and animism up to the analysis of the ancient texts of the Vedas. Thus, both Aryan and Semitic people have gone through polytheistic stages before achieving a monotheistic faith: “if we consider the abundance of synonymes into which all ancient languages burst out at their first starting – if we remember that there were hundreds of names for the earth and the sky, the sun and the moon – we shall not be surprised at meeting with more than one name for God both among the Semitic and the Aryan nations” (Müller).

Education appears to be an economic issue according to the system efficiency. This statement leads us to consider that the education system is perceived as a social project that should satisfy a set of both financial and scientific constraints. On the one hand, the conception of the education system is a domain belonging to the responsibility of educational specialists, and on the other hand the involvement of the various socio-economic actors is essential insofar as it makes it possible to carry out the most accurate possible evaluation of the performance of the system developed. Among many researchers, Jacqueline S. Golberg (2002) explains: “More recently, education leaders have begun to organize the potential for Total Quality Management applied to educational organization”. Indeed, research on this theme has highlighted the value of the quality approach in measuring and monitoring the effectiveness of education systems, and has shown the benefits, particularly for higher education. However, some authors also point out the limits of this approach insofar as it can undermine the respectful development of each individual. Thus, we can note that the quality approach first developed in the commercial industrial sectors and then has been used in other professional activities, including the education field. In general, this concept is applied in the world of business, economics and production. The multiplicity of its uses means that “the notion of quality seems vague and its meaning differs according to the political, sociological and economic contexts” (Alazzaoui, 2005: 13). This concept has undergone several changes since the beginning of the twentieth century, which implies a diversity of definitions. While the concept of quality was first invented in the engineering sciences, later on, the use of this concept conducted to precise its epistemological outlines and facilitate its implementation into the human sciences and more particularly to the educational sciences. Crosby (1979) defined quality as “compliance with specifications”. This definition indicates that the quality of the producer is limited according to objective standards to the principle of the least damage. In addition, Juran (1986) associates quality with “employability”. According to him, quality is what can help the producer to serve what the customer wants. For Ishikawa (1985), quality is customer satisfaction. Thus, the ultimate objective of quality is to satisfy the customer’s needs. From this perspective, the student enrolled in a university or college is considered as a “client”. The student is considered as such because he pays for his studies to be trained. Consequently, he claims a quality of service provided by the university, which is considered here as a service provider. We see here that two very different models are coming into tension about the aims of education. One, centred on a pragmatic approach of associating economic needs with training programmes, postulates a strong dependence of the education system on the political and economic field. In this first model, the logic of quality and evaluation leads to strong coherence. The other, based on a very different philosophical orientation, suggests an independence of the educational field from the logic of commodification of education in order to foster the emergence of a subject that is ultimately quite close to the ideal standard of the citizen advocated by the Enlightenment. In the second case, the adequacy of the recommending quality approaches becomes more problematic, since the indicators usually used refer essentially to the first model. On these bases, we would like to question this tension between both models and we will analyze to what extent it is possible to envisage a quality process that could lead to discuss dialectically this tension and to overcome it.

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