The percentage of accidental pregnancies, the Pearl pregnancy rate and the life-table method have all been used to study the effectiveness of contraception in Belgium, using data from the Second National Fertility Survey (1971), which covered 3397 Belgian women in the age group 30–34 years. Though all three methods yield generally similar results, it is only by using the third method that we can obtain in an optimum way changes in contraceptive effectiveness by birth order and birth interval.

Розкрито сутність поняття «рейтинг». Доведено значущість рейтингової оцінки для суб’єктів фінансового ринку, зокрема для страхових компаній, потенційних страхувальників, інвесторів та кредиторів.

Like Caesar's Gaul, my essay is divided into three parts, according to the subjects mentioned in the subtitle. The “crisis consciousness” of the main title forms less a subdivision of the essay than a leitmotif accompanying all the parts as well as the whole.

It is not the purpose of this short essay to try the impossible and give an adequate historical survey of the Western image (or rather images) of China. There is, moreover, a vast literature on the subject to which both sinologists and historians of European culture have contributed. The following paragraphs will restrict themselves to two poles in this history: the perception and reception of China in the 17th century (with Leibniz as the most significant and impressive representative of the (...) period)—in other words the image of China as current among the philosophes i.e., the pre-enlightenment, still Christian humanists, none of which was (or could have been) a sinologist properly speaking—and again at the end of the 19th century, when academic sinology began to get into stride. Without in any way detracting from the significance of his great predecessors and contemporaries, especially Marcel Granet, we shall limit our discussion to J.J.M. de Groot (Leiden and Berlin, d. 1921). (shrink)

The problems and the history of contacts between distant continents in bygone ages and long before the age of fast and easy travel, have always fascinated both professional scholars and the interested public. Was ancient history really nothing but the history of co-existing and isolated geographic, cultural and political “islands?” Already at school we learned too much about migrations of peoples, economic contacts, influences on art styles, conquests, and the rise, expansion and fall of empires to believe that. The (highly (...) improbable) theory that certain archaeological finds in America suggest, or even prove, Mediterranean influence (e.g., the arrival of Phoenician ships), or the alleged Viking discovery of America centuries before Columbus, or Thor Heyerdahl's adventurous journey to prove South American influence on remote Pacific islands did not fail to cause widespread interest and even excitement (although many scholars still feel that Heyerdahl's epic adventure, thrilling as it is, failed to prove what it set out to prove). The island of Madagascar is pretty close to the African continent, but its language exhibits more points of contact with Polynesian than with African tongues. And the blow-bellows used by Malagache smiths are similar to those used in Malaysia and unlike those known to African metalworkers. Clearly the Polynesians, those great ancient mariners, sailed further than originally seemed likely. Musicologists studying the cantillation of the Hebrew Bible in the liturgy of the ancient Jewish communities on the Malabar coast in India discovered to their surprise that it was similar to the cantillation not of the Babylonian but of the Yemenite Jews! This surprise was, of course, no surprise to those who knew anything about trade-winds and shipping routes between South Arabia and the Indian coast. Historians of religion, even more than general historians, studying the spread and expansion of religious ideas and movements have realised long ago that the beginning of all wisdom is a basic knowledge of economic geography. (shrink)

A defence of the idea that there are sui generis duties of love: duties, that is, that we owe to people in virtue of standing in loving relationships with them. I contrast this non‐reductionist position with the widespread reductionist view that our duties to those we love all derive from more generic moral principles. The paper mounts a cumulative argument in favour of the non‐reductionist position, adducing a variety of considerations that together speak strongly in favour of adopting it. The (...) concluding section connects this debate with larger issues in moral theory concerning the general idea of obligation. (shrink)

The emerging international biomedical law tends to recognise the right not to know one’s genetic status. However, the basis and conditions for the exercise of this right remain unclear in domestic laws. In addition to this, such a right has been criticised at the theoretical level as being in contradiction with patient’s autonomy, with doctors’ duty to inform patients, and with solidarity with family members. This happens especially when non-disclosure poses a risk of serious harm to the patient’s relatives who, (...) without that vital information, could be deprived of preventive or therapeutic measures. This paper argues, firstly, that individuals may have a legitimate interest in not knowing their genetic make up to avoid serious psychological consequences; secondly, that this interest, far from being contrary to autonomy, may constitute an enhancement of autonomy; thirdly, that the right not to know cannot be presumed, but must be “activated” by the individual’s explicit choice, and fourthly, that this is not an absolute right, in the sense that it may be restricted when disclosure to the patient is necessary in order to avoid a risk of serious harm to third persons. (shrink)

We argue that thoughts are structures of concepts, and that concepts should be individuated by their origins, rather than in terms of their semantic or epistemic properties. Many features of cognition turn on the vehicles of content, thoughts, rather than on the nature of the contents they express. Originalism makes concepts available to explain, with no threat of circularity, puzzling cases concerning thought. In this paper, we mention Hesperus/Phosphorus puzzles, the Evans-Perry example of the ship seen through different windows, and (...) Mates cases, and we believe that there are many additional applications. (shrink)

In the ancient Arabic dictionaries, the root “ḍ-r-r” has three main meanings: “to harm”, “to gather” and “strength”. In the course of history, many words have been derived from these root meanings and have acquired various meanings. In the present article, the words derived from the root “ḍ-r-r” are semantically analyzed. First, the etymological origins of the root as well as its compounds and their meanings in early Arabic dictionaries are analyzed. In this context, it was aimed to determine the (...) literal and figurative meanings they acquired over time. In doing so, Arabic poetry of the Jahiliyyah period and hadiths were also utilized. Afterwards, in order to determine the semantic meaning pattern of the root “ḍ-r-r” and its compounds, words containing antonymous and proximate meaning relations with this root were included and their semantic relations were compared. While words have “essential meanings” that they always carry and do not lose no matter which system they enter, there are also “relative meanings” that do not originate from the root of words but arise from the system of relations they are in. For this reason, in the next stage, it was aimed to determine the relative meanings of the related words in the Qur’anic context by including the uses of the root “ḍ-r-r” and its derivatives in the Qur’an. Finally, various uses of words that have a semantically antonymous or proximate relationship with the root “ḍ-r-r” and its de-rivatives in the Qur’an were presented and their semantic pattern was tried to be determined. (shrink)

‘Mysticism means to isolate the eternal from the originated.’ This is not my definition of the word ‘mysticism’ but that of the founder of the ‘orthodox’ school of Muslim mysticism, Al-Junayd of Baghdad who flourished in the ninth century a.d . In actual fact it is not a definition of mysticism at all but of the Arabic word tawḥīd which means primarily ‘the affirmation of unity’; and that surely is an essential ingredient of any form of mysticism: it is the (...) affirmation through personal experience of unity either absolutely or in some qualified sense. (shrink)

As everyone knows, since the end of the Second World War there has been a sensational revival of interest in the non-Christian religions particularly in the United States and in this country. The revival has taken two forms, the one popular, the other academic. The first of these has turned almost exclusively to Hindu and Buddhist mysticism and can be seen as an energetic reaction against the dogmatic and until very recently rigid structure of institutionalised Christianity and a search for (...) a lived experience of the freedom of the spirit which is held to be the true content of mysticism, obscured in Christianity by the basic dogma of a transcendent God, the ‘wholly Other’ of Rudolf Otto and his numerous followers, but wholly untrammelled by any such concept in the higher reaches of Vedanta and Buddhism, particularly in its Zen manifestation. On the academic side the picture is less clear. There is, of course, the claim that the study of religion, like any other academic study, must be subjected to and controlled by the same principles of ‘scientific’ objectivity to which the other ‘arts’ subjects have been subjected, to their own undoing. But even here there would seem to be a bias in favour of the religions of India and the Far East as against Islam, largely, one supposes, in response to popular demand. (shrink)

The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation on 19 October 2005 is an important step in the search for global minimum standards in biomedical research and clinical practice. As a member of UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, I participated in the drafting of this document. Drawing on this experience, the principal features of the Declaration are outlined, before responding to two general charges that have been levelled at UNESCO’s bioethical activities (...) and at this particular document, are outlined. One criticism is to the effect that UNESCO is exceeding its mandate by drafting such bioethical instruments—in particular, the charge is that it is trespassing on a topic that lies in the responsibility of the World Health Organization. The second criticism is that UNESCO’s reliance on international human rights norms is inappropriate. (shrink)

We generalize two well-known model-theoretic characterization theorems from propositional modal logic to first-order modal logic. We first study FML-definable frames and give a version of the Goldblatt–Thomason theorem for this logic. The advantage of this result, compared with the original Goldblatt–Thomason theorem, is that it does not need the condition of ultrafilter reflection and uses only closure under bounded morphic images, generated subframes and disjoint unions. We then investigate Lindström type theorems for first-order modal logic. We show that FML has (...) the maximal expressive power among the logics extending FML which satisfy compactness, bisimulation invariance and the Tarski union property. (shrink)

We show that the c.e. Q1,N\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${Q_{1,N}}$$\end{document}-degrees are not an upper semilattice. We prove that if M is an r-maximal set, A is an arbitrary set and M≡Q1,NA\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${M \equiv{}_ {Q_{1,N}}A}$$\end{document}, then M≤mA\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${M\leq{}_{m} A}$$\end{document}. Also, if M1 and M2 are r-maximal sets, A and B are major subsets of M1 and M2, respectively, and M1\A≡Q1,NM2\B\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} (...) \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${M_{1}{\setminus} A\equiv{}_{Q_{1,N}}M_{2}{\setminus} B}$$\end{document}, then M1\A≡mM2\B\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${M_{1}{\setminus}A\equiv{}_{m}M_{2}{\setminus} B}$$\end{document}. If M1 and M2 are r-maximal sets and M10,M11\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${M_{1}^{0},\,M_{1}^{1}}$$\end{document} and M20,M21\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${M_{2}^{0},\,M_{2}^{1}}$$\end{document} are nontrivial splittings of M1 and M2, respectively, then M10≡Q1,NM20\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${M_{1}^{0} \equiv{}_{Q_{1,N}}M_{2}^{0}}$$\end{document} if and only if M10≡1M20\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${M_{1}^{0} \equiv{}_{1}M_{2}^{0}}$$\end{document}. From this result follows that if A and B are Friedberg splitting of an r-maximal set, then the Q1,N\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${Q_{1,N}}$$\end{document}-degree of A contains only one c.e. 1-degree. (shrink)

Marcia Baron has offered an illuminating and fruitful discussion of extra-legal excuses. What is particularly useful, and particularly important, is her focus on our excusatory practices—on the ways and contexts in which we make, offer, accept, bestow and reject excuses: if we are to reach an adequate understanding of excuses, their implications and their grounds, we must attend to the roles that they can play in our human activities and relationships—and to the complexities and particularities of those roles. However, I (...) want to focus my comments less on the details of Baron’s discussions of excuses in extra-legal contexts than on the implications of her discussion for our understanding of excuses in the criminal law. What light (if any, a sceptic might add) can such analyses of our extra-legal concepts and practices throw on legal concepts and doctrines? (shrink)

An algebraic semantics, based on factor algebras, for one-way and two-way implicative verbs is proposed. Implicative verbs denote elements of filters or of ideals generated by identity functions in factor algebras. This semantics explains in particular the problem of implicational equivalence raised by two-way implicative verbs, and shows that the negation necessary to establish the implicativity of these verbs is the negation which preserves the presuppositions of sentences with implicative verbs. In addition, it follows from the proposed semantics that any (...) two implicative verbs denoting in the same algebra but belonging to different categories, are semantically related. (shrink)

In response to Lawrence Solum's advocacy of a ‘virtue–centred theory of judging’, I argue that there is indeed important work to be done in identifying and characterising those qualities of character that constitute judicial virtues – those qualities that a person needs if she is to judge well (though I criticise Solum's account of one of the five pairs of judicial vices and virtues that he identifies – avarice and temperance). However, Solum's more ambitious claims – that a judge's vice (...) necessarily corrupts her decisions, and that in at least some contexts we must define a legally correct decision as one that would be reached by a virtuous judge – should be rejected: we can undermine the former by attending to the requirements of due process, and the latter by attending to the ways in which a judge would try to justify her decision. (shrink)

In this article we show that it is possible to completely classify the degrees of r.e. bases of r.e. vector spaces in terms of weak truth table degrees. The ideas extend to classify the degrees of complements and splittings. Several ramifications of the classification are discussed, together with an analysis of the structure of the degrees of pairs of r.e. summands of r.e. spaces.