In this study the theory of risk factors is discussed. The risk-concept is essential in cardiology and is, furthermore, important not only in medicine in general, but also and particularly in ecology. Since environmental risk factors endanger our health, ecological risks have to be taken as medical problems. If a factor or a set of factors is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a disease we speak of a risk factor or of risk factors. Statistical analysis of risk (...) factors can be performed by multivariate methods. A method which is particularly useful for finding the most important of a set of risk factors, is discriminant analysis. (shrink)

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing. In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to save the (...) good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.". (shrink)