The study investigated the influence of campus environmental factors on job commitments. The research design was quantitative descriptive sample survey of ex-post facto type while the population includes both male and female senior non-teaching staff of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State. Multi-stage sampling technique was used in choosing 200 participants selected from nine faculties and one college. A structured and close-ended questionnaire titled ‘Campus Environmental Factors and Job Commitment Questionnaire’ with reliability co-efficient of 0.85 obtained through Cronbach alpha methods was (...) administered. 170 were retrieved from the 200 instruments administered. Data were analysed using frequency count, simple percentage, Pearson Correlation, and t test of significance. The study demonstrated a significant positive influence of campus environmental factors on job commitments of staff in the university. Useful recommendations were also raised. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is an increasingly high‐profile area of research that can be understood as encompassing three broad approaches towards the synthesis of living systems: DNA‐based device construction, genome‐driven cell engineering and protocell creation. Each approach is characterized by different aims, methods and constructs, in addition to a range of positions on intellectual property and regulatory regimes. We identify subtle but important differences between the schools in relation to their treatments of genetic determinism, cellular context and complexity. These distinctions tie into (...) two broader issues that define synthetic biology: the relationships between biology and engineering, and between synthesis and analysis. These themes also illuminate synthetic biology's connections to genetic and other forms of biological engineering, as well as to systems biology. We suggest that all these knowledge‐making distinctions in synthetic biology raise fundamental questions about the nature of biological investigation and its relationship to the construction of biological components and systems. BioEssays 30:57–65, 2008. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to determine the key strategies of philosophical criticism of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, whose achievement is realized in the following tasks: 1) to identify the body of texts that represent the discourse of philosophical criticism of Heidegger notes; 2) to reveal the typological features of the different strategies of interpreting Black Notebooks; 3) to reconstruct a thematic horizon of Heidegger studies, opened up by discussion on published notes. The methodology combines elements of discourse analysis with (...) traditional methods of historical and philosophical criticism. Scientific novelty is expressed in the following: 1) philosophical discourse of the Notebooks’ reception includes texts of narrowly specialized character, as well as reflections of key philosophers 2) basic strategies in philosophical critique of Black Notebooks convey the overall structure of the discourse of interpretation of Heidegger’s legacy, distributed between apologetics and ideological criticism; 3) Black Notebooks have exacerbated the problem of architectonics of Gesammtausgabe and formed the textual basis for the study of "silence" period in philosophical life of Heidegger. Conclusions. The discourse of philosophical critique of Heidegger’s notes proves evidence for ideological charge of philosophizing and justifies socially oriented approaches of historical and philosophical studies examining philosophizing as a special cultural practice, not as a form of sublime creativity. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to determine the key strategies of philosophical criticism of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, whose achievement is realized in the following tasks: 1) to identify the body of texts that represent the discourse of philosophical criticism of Heidegger notes; 2) to reveal the typological features of the different strategies of interpreting Black Notebooks; 3) to reconstruct a thematic horizon of Heidegger studies, opened up by discussion on published notes. The methodology combines elements of discourse analysis with (...) traditional methods of historical and philosophical criticism. Scientific novelty is expressed in the following: 1) philosophical discourse of the Notebooks’ reception includes texts of narrowly specialized character, as well as reflections of key philosophers 2) basic strategies in philosophical critique of Black Notebooks convey the overall structure of the discourse of interpretation of Heidegger’s legacy, distributed between apologetics and ideological criticism; 3) Black Notebooks have exacerbated the problem of architectonics of Gesammtausgabe and formed the textual basis for the study of "silence" period in philosophical life of Heidegger. Conclusions. The discourse of philosophical critique of Heidegger’s notes proves evidence for ideological charge of philosophizing and justifies socially oriented approaches of historical and philosophical studies examining philosophizing as a special cultural practice, not as a form of sublime creativity. (shrink)

Purpose. Based on actualization of gender discursive features, the current piece aims to clarify and accentuate the manifestation of gender-philosophical ideas interaction: feminism in the framework of objectivism. The source material for the current article is a novel by Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged", which is a philosophical work on objectivism. Theoretical basis. The development of the gender discourse, in particular the discourse of feminism is researched from the retrospective angle. This piece is an attempt to underline peculiarities of female artistic (...) images representation in Rand’s work and the way Rand’s novel influenced the logical development of feminist discourse. Discourse of feminism is a rather peculiar notion for Objectivism, where the notion of gender is, theoretically, annihilated as far as gender is irrelevant for both personal and professional growth, however, practically, gender representation and actualization is ubiquitous in Rand’s philosophy. Originality. The distinctive features of gender discourse in Objectivism are highlighted in this piece; the results are based on the application of comparative analysis. It is argued that philosophy itself may well be perceived through a literary work of fiction, thus making artistic images prototypes of philosophy functionaries. Conclusion. "Atlas Shrugged" is not merely a literary fiction, but rather a philosophical treatise on Objectivism, which is a philosophy of individual struggle and achievement. The main female protagonist of "Atlas Shrugged", Dagny Taggart, is a staunch supporter of Objectivism. In Rand’s opinion Dagny Taggart is a prototype of a true woman of utopian American capitalist society, and it is her artistic image that was misinterpreted by supporters of feminist movement ideas and Dagny Taggart became an icon of feminism, whereas in reality Dagny’s discourse is rather a discourse of femininity, for Dagny despises everything that is connected with feminist ideas and practices, and, it is an error to weave her discourse into a much wider feminist discourse. (shrink)

This book is the thirty-third volume in the "Philosophy of Russia of the first half of the 20th century" series. It traces the life and intellectual trajectories of three European thinkers with Russian roots: A. Koyré, A. Kojève, and I. Berlin. It explores their methodological strategies, explains the cultural and existential premises of their thinking styles that enabled them to succeed and gain recognition as European philosophers, traces their intellectual links with Russia, and reflects on the importance of Russian intellectual (...) culture for these thinkers and for twentieth-century European philosophy as a whole. The book is addressed to a wide range of readers interested in philosophy, social and political thought, and the intellectual history of the Russian exiles of the first half of the 20th century. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is the integrity of nature over time—‘diachronic integrity’. The argument of the parer is that any serious attempt to address conservation problems—the kinds of problems faced by environmental managers the world over, needs to operate with an eye to some principle of diachronic integrity. Whilst acknowledging that applying the principle is largely a matter of experience and judgement, we argue that it applies equally both to human and to natural history.

The use of with the future indicative is admittedly rare in post-Homeric Greek. In the passages concerned many deny the usage completely and either omit the particle or resort to emendation, or dismiss the construction as a mere ana-colouthon. In an instructive article in the Classical Quarterly, xl , Moorhouse argues in favour of retaining many of the readings, and it is only his interpretation that is in question here. His main thesis is that in Homeric Greek, where the usage (...) is common enough, κ or with the future means either ‘in that case’ or ‘probably’ . The latter usage, however, he regards as sometimes assuming a tone of dogmatic certainty , and this ‘emphatic future’ came to be the regular and literal meaning of the later idiom, without any irony being involved. (shrink)

Localised configurations of the free electromagnetic field are constructed, possessing properties of massive, spinning, relativistic particles. In an inertial frame, each configuration travels in a straight line at constant speed, less than the speed of lightc, while slowly spreading. It eventually decays into pulses of radiation travelling at speedc. Each configuration has a definite rest mass and internal angular momentum, or spin. Each can be of “electric” or “magnetic” type, according as the radial component of the magnetic or electric field (...) vanishes in the rest frame, and each has an “antiparticle.” Any such configuration, of electric or magnetic type, is characterized in part by a set of labels (κ, ω0, σ,l, m), where ω0 is the mean of the angular frequencies of the plane waves making up the configuration, σ is the variance of those frequencies, κ is a positive constant with dimensions of action, andl, m are angular momentum “quantum numbers” withl a positive integer andm an integer such that ‖m‖≤l. The rest energy of the “particle” is κω0, its spin is κ ‖m‖, and its lifetime is of the order of 1/σ. Its antiparticle has ω0 replaced by −ω0. (shrink)

A discussion of egoism and altruism as related both to ethical theory and moral psychology. Williams considers and rejects various arguments for and against the existence of egoistic motives and the rationality of someone motivated by self-interest. He ultimately attempts to give a more Humean defense of altruism, as opposed to the more Kantian defenses found in Thomas Nagel, for example.

When looking at a scene, observers feel that they see its entire structure in great detail and can immediately notice any changes in it. However, when brief blank fields are placed between alternating displays of an original and a modified scene, a striking failure of perception is induced: identification of changes becomes extremely difficult, even when changes are large and made repeatedly. Identification is much faster when a verbal cue is provided, showing that poor visibility is not the cause of (...) this difficulty. Identification is also faster for objects mentioned in brief verbal descriptions of the scene. These results support the idea that observers never form a complete, detailed representation of their surroundings. In addition, results also indicate that attention is required to perceive change, and that in the absence of localized motion signals it is guided on the basis of high-level interest. (shrink)

The problem of creativity institutionalization at the university entails an identification and building a model of interrelated socio-epistemic structures, functionally ensuring creative activities of a heterogeneous subject of cognition in line with the university’s academic missions. The paper gives a socio-philosophical analysis of transformation of the creative-type cognitive relationship in the process of University 3.0 historical development. The author classifies the approaches to the definition of creative spaces and outlines the main provisions of the author’s concept of creativity institutionalization in (...) a modern university. It is shown that the creative function of a modern university develops under the influence of public expectations, economic conditions and new technologies that call for effective educational environments, innovative learning methods, new forms of literacy. The author distinguishes four historical stages in the University 2.0, which differ in types of creative activity of a subject of cognition with respect to learning and research: education as the comprehension of truth, conjunction of research and teaching, conjunction of research and learning, learning through scientific researches. It is shown that University 3.0 takes its origin at the end of the 20th century as a result of commercialization of scientific researches, where scientific- and socialentrepreneurial creativities are added to various types of educational and scientific-research creativity. The paper presents the approaches to conceptualization of creative spaces at the University: environment model, model of cognitive processes, complex “environment as a mode of cognition” model. The concept of generativity is a core element of the author’s model of creative space, which is applied as a social-epistemological characteristic to the processes of learning and the environment of cognition. The creative space is deemed as a cognitive-generative system that interconnects creative-type cognitive processes with the cognitively active environment. (shrink)

A model representing isotope separation during water evaporation in plants was constructed. The model accounts for substance diffusion, convective transfer and evaporation from the surface of the leaves. The dependence of the system’s separation and enrichment coefficients on various parameters was determined. A comparison was made between the enrichment coefficients calculated from experimental data from different plants and those based on the model. Qualitative agreement between the experimental and theoretical values was obtained for the case of $$\frac{uh}{D} {\gg} 1$$ uh (...) D ≫ 1, where u is the average velocity of water in the plant, h is the height of the plant, and D is the diffusion coefficient of the substance. (shrink)

Vagueness in law leads to indeterminacies in legal rights and obligations in many cases. The book defends that claim and explains its implications for legal theory. Vague language is the book's focus, but vagueness is not merely a linguistic feature of law. Law is necessarily vague. That fact seems to threaten the coherence of the ideal of the rule of law. The book defends a new, coherent articulation of that ideal.

Greek literature embodies a number of instances of the optative in main clauses that are acknowledged either definitely or probably to have a reference to past time. These are mostly well known, but the object of this article is to reconsider them and to attempt an explanation. They are certainly commonest in the Homeric period, but later examples are by no means wanting.