We present the system SUBSEXPL used for simulating and comparing explicit substitutions calculi. The system allows the manipulation of expressions of the λ-calculus and of three different styles of explicit substitutions: the λσ, the λse and the suspension calculus. A variation of the suspension calculus, which allows for combination of steps of β-contraction is included too. Implementations of the η-reduction are provided for each style. Other explicit substitutions calculi can be easily incorporated into the system due to its modular structure. (...) The uses of the system include: the visualization of the contractions of the λ-calculus in de Bruijn notation, and of guided one-step reductions as well as normalization via each of the associated substitution calculi. Many useful facilities are included: reductions can be easily recorded as text files, LATEX outputs can be generated and several examples for dealing with arithmetic operations and computational operators such as conditionals and repetitions in the λ-calculus are available. The system can be executed over Emacs using the x-symbol mode in such a way that λ-terms and terms of the explicit substitutions calculi are represented in its natural syntax avoiding the necessity of repeatedly generating LATEX outputs. The system has been of great help for systematically comparing explicit substitutions calculi, as well as for understanding properties of explicit substitutions such as the Preservation of Strong Normalization. In addition, it has been used for teaching basic properties of the λ-calculus such as: computational adequacy, the usefulness of de Bruijn's notation and of making explicit substitutions in real implementations. (shrink)

Mishel Fuco not only influenced the consciousness of modern West, but changed the modus of thinking, the way of perception of many traditional notions, transformed the opinions about the reality, history, person. Philosopher’s principle research programme which attaches the entirety to his works is “archeology of knowledge” programme, the search of human knowledge’s original layers. Let us mark that all Fuco’s works in 1960s are devoted to main aim: to clear up the conditions of historical origin of different mental aims (...) and social institutions in the culture of the Modern Time. Though in the whole this common aim remained for Fuco invariable, but the level on which he realizes his research search is changing constantly and rather logically. Relations of power, and to be more exact,accumulations of power and knowledge, social and cognitive which define all the aggregate of specific possibilities of culture in each given historical period. More than that the philosopher offers the particular prospects of sight of modern society and precisely totality of power relations, its ubiquitous nature and specific productivity which produces itself in each moment in any point or rather in any attitude from one point to another. From Fuco’s point of view the power is everywhere and not because it involves everything but because it comes from everywhere. The power is productive in that degree in which it is not associated with one definite imperious instance but pierces all kinds of activity in society, putting on its indelible stamp, developing under definite angle and due to this factit causes products, produced by them. The power induces and at the same time determines the fact which appears as a result of its inducement. The thirst of supremacy, which surrounds the individual and is focused on it as on the center of its use of force, comes out as a defining sign. It should be noticed that Fuco’s conception of power is not reduced to the understanding it as anonymous impersonal net of relations, piercing all society. It is supplemented by power treatment,coming out in “designed” look of definite imperious structure or imperious institute. (shrink)

This article covers issues illustrating determining significance of philosophy as a theoretical reflection over the utmost bases of culture as well as processes, conditioned by phenomena of alienation and self-alienation of culture, resulting in its integrity, uniqueness and originality demolition. This, in its turn, definitely leads to various kinds of deformation of philosophic reflection. The most important tendency in subduing the crisis of culture and philosophy is to project a new type of philosophizing, represented in the critical philosophy of “Frankfurt’s (...) School”, and other trends, which emphasize ideas of correlation between philosophy, science, art and morality, and transforming its former states into the new stream of philosophizing and questioning. Variety of philosophic trends, originality of its approaches, variety of its ”images” is determined, to a considerable extent, not only by contradiction of philosophic process, but also by the status of culture, its deformations, its former values devastation as well as forming new ones, decaying of its integrity, embodied in the form of alienation and self-alienation of culture.Self-alienation of culture only reveals alienated character of society itself, both its creators and its consumers, dividing and studying cultural values. Transformations of philosophic ideas appear not only in the form of reconsidering for historic and philosophical process achievements, but also in the form of new forms of society and culture reconsidering, appealing to the future in the outline of its humanitarian development. (shrink)

The best-interests standard is a widely used ethical, legal, and social basis for policy and decision-making involving children and other incompetent persons. It is under attack, however, as self-defeating, individualistic, unknowable, vague, dangerous, and open to abuse. The author defends this standard by identifying its employment, first, as a threshold for intervention and judgment (as in child abuse and neglect rulings), second, as an ideal to establish policies or prima facie duties, and, third, as a standard of reasonableness. Criticisms of (...) the best-interests standard are reconsidered after clarifying these different meanings. (shrink)

1. Hŏryŏng, t'ŏng piŏ yŏnghwarhan maŭm -- 2. Ajik tŭrŏnaji anŭn maŭm esŏ chigak i kanŭng han'ga -- 3. Mibal kwa kijil ŭn ŏttŏn kwan'gye in'ga -- 4. Umjiginŭn maŭm kwa koyohan maŭm -- 5. Chigak ŭi sŏnggyŏk kwa kŭ yŏnwŏn e kwanhan munje.

Peace is a hallmark of human societies. However, certain ant species engage in long-term intergroup resource sharing, which is remarkably similar to peace among human groups. We discuss how individual and group payoff distributions are affected by kinship, dispersal, and age structure; the challenges of diagnosing peace; and the benefits of comparing convergent complex behaviours in disparate taxa.

Recalcitrant disputes among health care providers and patients or their families may signal deep cultural differences about what interventions are needed or about clinicians’s professional duties. These issues arose in relation to a mother’s request for hymenoplasty or revirgination for her minor daughter to enable an overseas, forced marriage and protect her from an honor killing. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology committee recommends against members performing a hymenoplasty or other female genital cosmetic surgeries due to a lack of (...) data concerning their safety and efficacy. A key issue in such cases is how to determine what is in the minor’s best interest and the scope of health care moral or professional’s duties. The Best Interests Standard can serve as a powerful moral tool for resolving cross-cultural disputes and identifying needed policy. (shrink)

In their environment, plants are continuously submitted to natural stimuli such as wind, rain, temperature changes, wounding, etc. These signals induce a cascade of events which lead to metabolic and morphogenetic responses.In this paper the different steps are described and discussed starting from the reception of the signal by a plant organ to the final morphogenetic response. In our laboratory two plants are studied: Bryonia dioica for which rubbing the internode results in reduced elongation and enhanced radial expansion and Bidens (...) pilosa for which the response occurs at distance, hence pricking the cotyledon of a plantlet induces the growth inhibition of both the hypocotyl and the axillary bud of the pricked cotyledon. (shrink)

The Papers In This Volume, Presented At A Seminar Organised By The Gurukula Kangri Viswavidyalaya, Offer A Kaleidoscopic View Of Myriad Aspects Of Himalayan Eco-System Like Causes Of Its Degradation, Impact Of Hydroelectric To Deforestation And Role Of Wild Life. The Deliberations Also Highlight The Relevance Of Vedic Philosophy In Conserving The Fragile Himalayan Eco-System.

There is a popular hypothesis that performance on implicit and explicit memory tasks reflects 2 distinct memory systems. Explicit memory is said to store those experiences that can be consciously recollected, and implicit memory is said to store experiences and affect subsequent behavior but to be unavailable to conscious awareness. Although this division based on awareness is a useful taxonomy for memory tasks, the authors review the evidence that the unconscious character of implicit memory does not necessitate that it be (...) treated as a separate system of human memory. They also argue that some implicit and explicit memory tasks share the same memory representations and that the important distinction is whether the task (implicit or explicit) requires the formation of a new association. The authors review and critique dissociations from the behavioral, amnesia, and neuroimaging literatures that have been advanced in support of separate explicit and implicit memory systems by highlighting contradictory evidence and by illustrating how the data can be accounted for using a simple computational memory model that assumes the same memory representation for those disparate tasks. (shrink)

A Papyrus commentary on Alcman published in 19571 brings us news of a poem in which Alcman “physiologized”. The lemmata and commentary together witness to a semi-philosophical cosmogony unlike any other hitherto known from Greece. The evidence is meagre, but it seems worth while to see what can be made of it; for it is perhaps possible to go a little farther than has so far been done.

Bioethics is best viewed as both a second-order discipline and also part of public discourse. Since their goals differ, some bioethical activities are more usefully viewed as advancing public discourse than academic disciplines. For example, the “Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights” sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization seeks to promote ethical guidance on bioethical issues. From the vantage of philosophical ethics, it fails to rank or specify its stated principles, justify controversial principles, clarify key (...) terms, or say what is meant by calling potentially conflicting norms “foundational.” From the vantage of improving the public discourse about bioethical problems and seeking ethical solutions in the public arena, however, this document may have an important role. The goals and relations between bioethics as a second-order discipline and public discourse are explored. (shrink)

Background Moral sensitivity and academic integrity discernment hold paramount importance for healthcare professionals. Owing to distinct undergraduate educational backgrounds, nurses and physicians may exhibit divergent moral perspectives, academic integrity cognisance, and moral sensitivity within clinical environments. A limited number of studies have investigated the disparities and congruencies pertaining to moral sensitivity and academic ethical awareness among nursing and medical students. Objective The study compares moral sensitivity and academic ethical awareness of undergraduate nursing and medical students with and without clinical exposure. (...) Research design A self-administered cross-sectional survey conducted from January to February 2022 was used to collect data from a medical school in Hong Kong. Participants and research context A total of 545 respondents, including 137 nursing students and 408 medical students, completed the questionnaire. Ethical consideration Ethics approval of the study was obtained. Written consent was waived to maintain anonymity because completing the questionnaire was considered implied consent. Findings Both groups of undergraduates demonstrated a high level of bioethics knowledge. In terms of academic integrity, medical students were found to have a less concerned attitude towards punctuality, attendance, and skipping classes. Regarding moral sensitivity, senior medical students with clinical experience put less emphasis on decision-making involving patient participation, while senior nursing students were more hesitant in withholding treatment for incompetent patients who refused treatment. Both nursing and medical students showed decreased moral sensitivity in the ‘conflicts’ domain with increased clinical exposure. Conclusion Study findings contribute to the discussion comparing the ethical attitudes of nursing and medical students. More effort should be made in nursing and medical education to promote practices in line with high academic integrity and to develop the ability to be morally sensitive in professional settings. (shrink)

In this aricle, I argue that Descartes can be seen as a occupying a distinct middle ground between ancient music theory, which was being revived in the Renaissance, and eighteenth-century aestheticians. Descartes’ approach to music had its roots in humanist thought but, even from the start, it wasn’t simply another humanist theory of music. The views Descartes begins to develop in his early years, in the Compendium musicae (1618), is continuous with the views he articulates near the end of his (...) life in the Passions of the Soul (1649). And the position on the effects of music is an interesting and important one, bridging humanist thought with the new philosophy. Unlike the humanists, Descartes will be unwilling to identify particular musical proportions as intrinsically connected with pleasure or other affects, but he will nevertheless develop an objective account of aesthetic value. (shrink)

This edition of Giraldus Odonis' Logica for the first time gives access to an important and original treatise, which has unduly been neglected since the author's death. It is also important in that it gives evidence of interesting achievements in the field of logic outside the anti-metaphysical circle surrounding Ockham.

In the long section of anapaests with which they make their entry, the old men of Argos methodically deliver three essential messages to the audience: 40–71. It is the tenth year of the Trojan War. 72–82. We are men who were too old to go and fight in it. 83–103. Some new situation seems to be indicated by the fact that Clytemnestra is organizing sacrifices throughout the town.

Purpose. Based on the study of philosophical anthropological concepts, to highlight the project of personality in different historical periods, to reveal the meaning of humanistic issues in the postmodern epoch, to identify the essential features of the image of human of the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. Theoretical basis. The methodological basis of the article is the principles of historicism, integrity, objectivity regarding the mastery of the issue of person’s image in postmodernism. The research (...) applied comparative-historical, culturological, analytical, axiological approaches to reveal the problem of individuality in the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. The theoretical basis of the article consists of scientific works in the field of philosophical anthropology, history, cultural studies, and aesthetics. Originality. The author revealed the peculiarities of transformation of the personality model from antiquity to postmodernism, specified the image of man of the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. Conclusions. The analysis of anthropological ideas of Western philosophy of different ages shows the variety of views about understanding the nature of the person, its complexity and ambiguity. In the epoch of postmodernism humanistic issues are of particular relevance, which is connected with social and political uncertainty, domination of mass consciousness, loss of national and cultural identity. The image of a person of this period is deprived of a solid foundation, it is blurred and relative. The destruction of faith in the absolute in the context of the second half of the twentieth century contributed to the formation of confidence in the interdependence of all things, raised the problem of the personality image to a new ontological level. Orientation in the achievements of European civilization, perception of its anthropological experience, intercultural dialogue contribute to the productive use of the achievements of mankind in order to understand the modern person and to form its adequate image. In its essence, postmodernism does not set the goal to realize a retrospection of subject type. However, separating from the cultural memory the excerpts of ideas about a person, by certain styles and directions, it builds on their formations its own eclectic image of the individual. (shrink)

Background: The search for genetic variants between racial/ethnic groups to explain differential disease susceptibility and drug response has provoked sharp criticisms, challenging the appropriateness of using race/ethnicity as a variable in genetics research, because such categories are social constructs and not biological classifications.Objectives: To gain insight into how a group of genetic scientists conceptualise and use racial/ethnic variables in their work and their strategies for managing the ethical issues and consequences of this practice.Methods: In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a (...) purposive sample of 30 genetic researchers who use racial/ethnic variables in their research. Standard qualitative methods of content analysis were used.Results: Most of the genetic researchers viewed racial/ethnic variables as arbitrary and very poorly defined, and in turn as scientifically inadequate. However, most defended their use, describing them as useful proxy variables on a road to “imminent medical progress”. None had developed overt strategies for addressing these inadequacies, with many instead asserting that science will inevitably correct itself and saying that meanwhile researchers should “be careful” in the language chosen for reporting findings.Conclusions: While the legitimacy and consequences of using racial/ethnic variables in genetics research has been widely criticised, ethical oversight is left to genetic researchers themselves. Given the general vagueness and imprecision we found amongst these researchers regarding their use of these variables, they do not seem well equipped for such an undertaking. It would seem imperative that research ethicist move forward to develop specific policies and practices to assure the scientific integrity of genetic research on biological differences between population groups. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on the modularity of visual functions in the human visual cortex, that is, the specific problems that the visual system must solve in order to achieve recognition of objects and visual space. The computational theory of early visual functions is briefly reviewed and is then used as a basis for suggesting computational constraints on the higher-level visual computations. The remainder of the paper presents neurological evidence for the existence of two visual systems in man, one (...) specialized for spatial vision and the other for object vision. We show further clinical evidence for the computational hypothesis that these two systems consist of several visual modules, some of which can be isolated on the basis of specific visual deficts which occur after lesions to selected areas in the visually responsive brain. We will provide examples of visual modules which solve information processing tasks that are mediated by specific anatomic areas. We will show that the clinical data from behavioral studies of monkeys (Ungerleider and Mishkin 1984) supports the distinction between two visual systems in monkeys, the 'what' system, involved in object vision, and the 'where' system, involved in spatial vision. (shrink)

What should be the content of a package of health care services that we would want to guarantee to all Americans? This question cannot be answered adequately apart from also addressing the issue of fair health care rationing. Consequently, as I argue in this essay, appeal to the language of "basic," "essential," "adequate," "minimally decent," or "medically necessary" for purposes of answering our question is unhelpful. All these notions are too vague to be useful. Cost matters. Effectiveness matters. The clinical (...) circumstances of a patient matters. But what we must ultimately determine is what we mutually agree are the just claims to needed health care of each American in a relatively complex range of clinical circumstances. Answering this question will require a public moral conversation, a fair process of rational democratic deliberation aimed at defining both just claims to needed health care and just limits. (shrink)

This article critically evaluates the central claims of the various feminist responses to new reproductive arrangements and technologies. Proponents of a “progressivism” object to naive technological optimism and raise questions about the control of such technology. Others, such as the FINRRAGE group, raise concerns about the potentially damaging consequences of the new technologies for women. While a central concern is whether these technologies reinforce harmful biologically determinist stereotypes of women, it may be that these critiques function with a devastating gender (...) blindness that puts women at risk in other, heretofore unnoticed, ways. (shrink)

There are practically no sincere and consistent "Westernizers" left in our country after the almost universal "Westernist" euphoria at the end of the eighties. This applies equally to active politicians of all camps and to the predominant moods in society.