This paper is concerned with the combinator representation of numeral systems with logarithmic space complexity of symbols. The principle used is based on the lexicographic ordering of words over a finite alphabet.

Pricing drives three of the most important elements of firm success: revenue and profits, customer behavior and firm image. This book provides an introduction to the basic principles for thinking clearly about pricing. Unlike other marketing books on pricing, the authors use a more analytic approach and relate ideas to the basic principles of microeconomics. Rakesh Vohra and Lakshman Krishnamurthi also cover three areas in greater depth and provide more insight than may be gleaned from existing books: 1) the use (...) of auctions, 2) price discrimination and 3) pricing in a competitive environment. (shrink)

This book challenges the widespread assumption of the incompatibility of evolution and the biological design argument. Kojonen analyzes the traditional arguments for incompatibility, and argues for salvaging the idea of design in a way that is fully compatible with evolutionary biology. Relating current views to their intellectual history, Kojonen steers a course that avoids common pitfalls such as the problems of the God of the gaps, the problem of natural evil, and the traditional Humean and Darwinian critiques. The resulting deconstruction (...) of the opposition between evolution and design has the potential to transform this important debate. (shrink)

This piece outlines concrete cases of benefit sharing that occur in relation to the sharing of human (biological) samples. For example, it surveys Indonesia’s decision, in 2006, to stop sharing virus samples of H5N1 (avian influenza) with the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN). It also outlines some of the ethical issues that arise in these cases.

The author of the article deals with the main issues of Chinese neologisms formation. Language is a complex and dynamically developing system. Vocabulary is one of the most unstable and changeable layers of a language; it is highly sensitive to any changes in the society. In the study, a number of neologisms found in Chinese dictionaries of neologisms published in 2012-2015 is analyzed. The research is based on the concept of linguistic motivation, which distinguishes three levels of motivation of lexical (...) units: phonetic, morphological and semantic. Phonetically motivated lexical units under the examination are phonetic borrowings and homonymous lexical units. On the morphological level, such productive ways of word formation were analyzed as compounding, derivation, and such phenomena as acronyms and lettered words. Special attention is paid to the study of Chinese semantic word-formation where metaphorization plays an important role. The specific feature of Chinese metaphors is that abstract concepts are expressed with the help of concrete words, which is explained by national and cultural peculiarities of the Chinese language. Chinese native speakers perceive the world through concrete images that is conditioned by the Chinese language typology and the hieroglyphics. (shrink)

Intensive developing of computing technologies and the necessity of using them in the educational process ask a modern teacher to possess both skills on a discipline and knowledge of information technologies. The paper analyzes the reasons of using webquests in the process of teaching foreign languages, and focuses on the following formats of webquests like HotList, Treasure Hunt, WebQuest, etc. Pros and cons of using them in the educational process are analyzed as well. The most popular up-to-date webquests are classified (...) starting with the simplest programs like Hotlist and up to the most sophisticated platforms, for example WebQuest. The paper offers a possible review of webquest platforms and programs and explores their educational potential also giving certain examples of efficient using of the web quests either at seminars or during students’ self-work in economic universities. (shrink)

This book is a lucid and readable account of Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, James, and Santayana, not only as contributors to present-day secularism, but as precursors of religious liberalism. Beck traces the theme of "secularism and human values" through these thinkers, though difficulties arise from the fact that they represent a radical divergence of philosophic interests, and in any case would hardly have recognized, much less defended, the particular variety of secularism and religious liberalism that has arisen in recent times, (...) and with which the author associates them.—T. E. V. (shrink)