Abraham Hernandez

Democracies offer a true prospect for freedom to flourish, as long as people hold a correct understanding of what freedom entails. For Alexis de Tocqueville, the relationship between democracy and liberalism is hopefully inseparable, and potentially beneficial. But liberalism would have to be properly understood, in order for democracy to deliver on its genuine salutary potential. Not only would a liberal perspective promote the separation of powers, but it would also need to favor an idea of freedom that is more than a mere affirmation of individual autonomy. Unless a civic component is attached to the notion of freedom, any other conception would eventually result in self-enclosed citizens prone to succumb to new forms of tyranny in the shape, mainly, of administrative centralization. The true meaning and value of freedom, therefore, would have to be learned. Facilitating the conditions for freedom of association to develop is essential to doing so. Taking Tocqueville’s proposal as a starting point, I explore the role that administrative moderation plays in stimulating civic involvement at the most local levels. The latter, along with a committed safeguard of freedom of association, could begin to animate a revival of real sovereignty of the people. And with it, the development of functional pluralistic contemporary societies could be a reality.

Whether public or private, management decision-making within any institution has intrinsically positive or negative externalities. Hence, it is sought that the choice is made at the margin of a more significant benefit and retribution for the institutional body and the exterior. In the university field, assertive leadership is required. It is the ideal feature to work and achieve a balance within the institution that protects the human rights of students, professors and administrative staff. The objective of this chapter is to review the decisions taken by some faculties of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León for the promotion, protection, defence and dissemination of human rights with a gender perspective and inclusion, as well as identifying the assertive decisions that have been taken to generate a culture of human rights protection with a gender and inclusion perspective and their legal linkage to the General Law on Higher Education. The most analysed topics in this chapter were the detailed analyses of press releases and advertising spots published on the official websites of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León and its social networks and the documentary and hermeneutic review of the General Law of Higher Education. A qualitative study was conducted through participatory research in the proactive management of assertive leadership. A brief comparative documentary analysis of scientific publications in Latin America was also made. The main results were significant successes and advances in defending and promoting human rights with a gender perspective and inclusion.

Whether in everyday disagreements, bargaining episodes, or high-stakes disputes, people typically see a spectrum of possible responses to dealing with differences with others, ranging from avoidance and accommodation to competition and aggression. When coming across such circumstances, it is crucial to advocate for oneself –our positions, to achieve personal goals, overcome difficulties, and be determined- but control aggressive impulses without harming the rights and interests of others. This book addresses assertiveness from a human rights perspective, using a mixed methods approach. It explores how assertiveness as a human right promotes human dignity and helps build more just, equitable, peaceful, and inclusive societies. With interdisciplinary contributors working in diverse fields, the collection brings together theoretical and applied research evidence on assertive rights. The collection examines assertive rights as critical factors for developing assertive behavior and as a virtue for personal development, empowerment, and thriving.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was convinced that without a new possibility for transcendence, democracies would be ill-prepared to allow for actual freedom. In Democracy in America, his study of the United States, he explained that when self-interest was enlightened, individuals would tend to identify their personal benefits with the well-being of the community. By transcending their individualistic tendency to self-enclose, they would contribute to forming and maintaining a real sovereignty of the people. However, unless the “doctrine of self-interest well understood” was aided by a higher ideal, by itself it would eventually fall short, thus paving the way for new forms of despotism. Religion, and more specifically, reformed versions of Christianity, seemed to effectively elevate the outlook of the early Americans. As I will argue, however, Tocqueville ultimately held that those versions lacked the profundity and stability required to resist the strong materialistic and individualistic tendencies of people living in a democracy. Tocqueville’s apparent, if anxious-ridden, preference for Catholicism as the more adequate civil religion resonates with important aspects of Augustine’s theory of the Two Cities, the earthly and the heavenly city. For both Tocqueville and Augustine, the Roman Church’s stable doctrine was what could more successfully teach mankind the truth about their limited condition, hence making them more capable of learning the “art of being free.”

Cardiovascular modelling has been a major research subject for the last decade. Different cardiac models have been developed at a cellular level as well as at the whole organ level. Most of these models are defined by a comprehensive cellular modelling using continuous formalisms or by a tissue-level modelling often based on discrete formalisms. Nevertheless, both views still suffer from difficulties that reduce their clinical applications: the first approach requires heavy computational resources while the second one is not able to reproduce certain pathologies.This paper presents an original methodology trying to gather advantages from both approaches, by means of a hybrid model mixing discrete and continuous formalisms. This method has been applied to define a hybrid model of cardiac action potential propagation on a 2D grid of endocardial cells, combining cellular automata and a set of cells defined by the Beeler-Reuter model. For simulations under physiological and ischemic conditions, results show that the action potential propagation as well as electrogram reconstructions are consistent with clinical diagnosis. Finally, the advantage of the proposed approach is discussed within the frame of cardiac modelling and simulation.