This study examines the family environments and hormone profiles of 316 individuals aged 2 months-58 years residing in a rural village on the east coast of Dominica, a former British colony in the West Indies. Fieldwork was conducted over an eight-year period (1988–1995). Research methods and techniques include radioimmunoassay of cortisol and testosterone from saliva samples (N=22,340), residence histories, behavioral observations of family interactions, extensive ethnographic interview and participant observation, psychological questionnaires, and medical examinations.Analyses of data indicate complex, sex-specific effects (...) of family environment on endocrine function. Male endocrine profiles exhibit greater sensitivity to presence of father than do female endocrine profiles. Father-absent males tend to have (a) low cortisol levels during infancy, (b) high or abnormal cortisol profiles during childhood and adolescence, and (c) high cortisol and low testosterone levels during adulthood compared with those of males raised with a resident father. These results indicate that early family environment has significant effects on endocrine response throughout male life histories. (shrink)

This article provides ethical guidance on using race in health research as a variable or in defining the study population. To this end, a plain, non-exhaustive checklist is provided for researchers and research ethics committees, preceded by a brief introduction on the need for justification when using race as a variable or in defining a study population, the problem of exoticism, that distinctions pertain between race, ethnicity and ancestry, the problematic naming of races, and that race does not serve well (...) as a presumed biological construct in genetic research. (shrink)

Mathematical methods and physical ideas developed by Bogolubov are intensively used in the theory of the atomic nucleus. The variational Hartree-Fock-Bogolubov method and the self-consistent field method found wide application in calculating nuclear spectra and nucleus-nucleus interactions. The development of these methods led to the formulation of the quasiparticle-phonon nuclear model for calculating the properties of nuclear states at low, intermediate, and high excitation energies.

In the article art forms of utopian ideas embodiment in the novels of the Scottish writer I. Banks are considered. Utopian narratives are found both in the science-fiction cycle devoted to the civilization of Culture and in the novel "Business". Art modeling of the fundamental strategies of the society development characteristic for the New time, reveals their internal inconsistencies. Preindustrial, patriarchal living forms are offered instead. Novels by I. Banks visually demonstrate the feature of modern public consciousness and the absence (...) of ideal future representations. In the article fantastic and realistic I. Banks’ novels are compared from the point of this utopian ideal. (shrink)

In the final analysis, sustainable agriculture must derive from applied ecology, especially the principle of the regulation of the abundance and distribution of species (and, secondarily, their activities) in space and time. Interspecific competition in natural ecosystems has its counterparts in agriculture, designed to divert greater amounts of energy, nutrients, and water into crops. Whereas natural ecosystems select for a diversity of species in communities, recent agriculture has minimized diversity in favour of vulnerable monocultures. Such systems show intrinsically less stability (...) and resilience to perturbations. Some kinds of crop rotation resemble ecological succession in that one crop prepares the land for successive crop production. Such rotations enhance soil organic processes such as decomposition and material cycling, build a nutrient capital to sustain later crop growth, and reduce the intensity of pest buildup. Species in natural communities occur at discrete points along the r-K continuum of reproductive maturity. Clearing forested land for agriculture, rotational burning practices, and replacing perennial grassland communities by cereal monocultures moves the agricultural community towards the r extreme. Plant breeders select for varieties which yield at an earlier age and lower plant biomass, effectively moving a variety towards the r type. Features of more natural landscapes, such as hedgerows, may act as physical and biological adjuncts to agricultural production. They should exist as networks in agricultural lands to be most effective. Soil is of major importance in agroecosystems, and maintaining, deliberately, its vitality and resilience to agricultural perturbations is the very basis of sustainable land use. (shrink)

Монография посвящена изучению рефлексии с позиций культурно-исторической и диалогической парадигм (М. М. Бахтин, Ю. М. Лотман, Л. С. Выготский и др.). В соответствии с принятой нами методологией был осуществлен анализ философско-методологических основ.

Ch. 1. Metodologicheskie problemy sot︠s︡ialʹno-gumanitarnogo poznanii︠a︡ -- ch. 2. Metodologicheskie problemy istorii filosofii i ėstetiki.

Издание сдержит: Специфика изучения научного и философского наследия Е. И. Рериха и Н. К. Рериха. Духовная революция в России и космическое мышление; Дух как объективная реальность и познавательная сила и др.

I found Shpet's article "A Work on Philosophy" [Rabota po filosofii], which we present to the reader's attention, in the Shpet archives stored in the Lenin State Library and passed it on to the editorial board of the journal Logos, where it was published by I. Chubarov. The small circulation of that journal makes it appropriate to republish this text, which is of major importance for an understanding of Shpet's philosophical position and provides a good clarification of the subsequent logic (...) of development of his conception. Although the article is unfinished, there is no reason to lament this fact, since all of its basic ideas and their logical development were realized by Shpet in subsequent publications. A whole series of his works is devoted to grounding and affirming so-called positive philosophy, the basic features of which I would like to clarify. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Spiritual Experience and Psychopathology”Francis G. Lu (bio), David Lukoff (bio), and Robert P. Turner (bio)Jackson and Fulford have written an impor-tant paper which addresses an area of increasing interest in the United States—the relationship between religious/spiritual experiences and psychopathology. Using primarily the Present State Examination as the diagnostic framework, the authors describe in rich clinical detail three patients where certain phenomena lead to a possible diagnosis (...) of schizophrenia. However, the patients’ outcomes were uniformly positive—how can this be? The authors argue persuasively for the importance of a contextual assessment “in which psychotic phenomena themselves are embedded in the values and beliefs of the person concerned.” In this commentary, we will first present innovations in the DSM-IV relevant to cultural and religious/spiritual issues, which complement the authors’ conclusions, and then comment upon the paper from this perspective.In the DSM-IV Introduction (1994), a section entitled “Ethnic and Cultural Considerations” provides a rationale for innovations in DSM-IV that better enables its use with culturally diverse individuals: “A clinician who is unfamiliar with the nuances of an individual’s cultural frame of references may incorrectly judge as psychopathology those normal variations in behavior, belief, or experience that are particular to the individual’s culture. For example, certain religious practices or beliefs (e.g., hearing or seeing a deceased relative during bereavement) may be misdiagnosed as manifestations of a Psychotic Disorder” (xxiv). In the introduction, three types of information are cited: 1) sections entitled “Age, Gender and Cultural Considerations” in the text of ninety diagnostic categories discuss clinical variations due to these factors; 2) an Outline for Cultural Formulation designed to assist the clinician in systematically evaluating and reporting the impact of the individual’s cultural context; and 3) a Glossary of Culture-Bound Syndromes. These innovations, based on recommendations of the NIMH Workgroup on Culture, Diagnosis and Care to the Task Force on DSM-IV, are described in extensive detail in an important recent book (Mezzich, Kleinman, Fabrega, and Parron 1996).As an example of the importance of the Age, Gender, and Cultural Consideration section relevant to religious and spiritual experiences, consider the section in the text describing schizophrenia, where the following appears: “Clinicians assessing the symptoms of Schizophrenia in socioeconomic or cultural situations that are different from their own must take cultural differences into account. Ideas that may appear to be delusional in one culture (e.g., sorcery and witchcraft) may be commonly held in another. In some cultures, visual or auditory hallucinations with a [End Page 75] religious content may be a normal part of religious experience (e.g., seeing the Virgin Mary or hearing God’s voice)” (281). Secondly, in the analogous section of the text describing Brief Psychotic Disorder, the following appears: “It is important to distinguish symptoms of Brief Psychotic Disorder from culturally sanctioned response patterns. For example, in some religious ceremonies, an individual may report hearing voices, but these do not generally persist and are not perceived as abnormal by most members of the person’s community” (303).The Outline for Cultural Formulation provides the clinician a concise tool to specify the following information concerning the cultural context that is relevant to clinical care: cultural identity of the individual, cultural explanations of the individual’s illness, cultural factors related to psychosocial environment and levels of functioning, cultural elements of the relationship between the individual and the clinician, and overall cultural assessment for diagnosis and care. Religion is explicitly mentioned in the third section so as to encourage the assessment of “the role of religion... in providing emotional, instrumental, and information support” (1994, 844). This outline for cultural formulation is more fully explicated in a recent chapter by Lu, Lim, and Mezzich (1995).A major innovation in DSM-IV relevant to this topic is the new diagnostic category entitled Religious or Spiritual Problem defined as follows: “This category can be used when the focus of clinical attention is a religious or spiritual problem. Examples include distressing experiences that involve loss or questioning of faith, problems associated with conversion to a new faith, or questioning of spiritual values that may not necessarily be related to an organized... (shrink)

Lead shot deposited in fields and woodlands near shooting rangesand intense, upland, hunting adds an enormous tonnage of lead toenvironments, worldwide. This contamination is not remedied bybanning lead shot use only for waterfowl hunting. Lead pelletsdisintegrate extremely slowly, during which time they may beingested from the soil by wild birds, livestock, or silage-makingmachinery, and cause sublethal or fatal lead poisoning. Leadpellet corrosion products contaminate soil, surface waters, andground waters, often exceeding permissible levels. Plants do notconcentrate much lead from the soil, (...) except when grown in acidicsoils of heavily-contaminated shooting ranges. Inheavily-contaminated sites, earthworms ingest leadcompounds which are bioaccumulated in higher consumersof food webs. Non-toxic substitutes made from steelor bismuth are available internationally and areeffective for all types of hunting and targetshooting. Many nations are slow to require their use,despite the marked awareness of the problems of leadshot contamination and toxicosis. This is due tohunters and international sport shooting organizationsopposing the use of non-toxic substitutes and overtemphasis by government agencies on the burden ofscientific proof for every situation, rather thantaking preventative action according to thePrecautionary Principle. The ethical approach ofDenmark and The Netherlands, which banned all uses oflead shot, is advocated as a precedent for othernations to adopt. (shrink)

Книга рассчитана на тех, кто по своей специальности занимается философией техники и в дальнейшем углубят свои знания в этом вопросе, а также для широкого круга читателей.

The paper addresses the use of heterogeneous ensembles of intelligent unmanned vehicles in such a perspective field of innovations as an unmanned fishery. The issues of joint activity of unmanned vehicles of different types in fishing operations based on intelligent technologies are investigated. The “smart fishing” approach based on the joint fishing operation model is proposed. The operational framework that includes missions, roles, and activity scenarios embedded in the discretized spatial model is presented. The scenario activities are considered as the (...) sequences of pentad that determine executing specific functions concerning the specified waypoint, timepoints, and the states of vehicles. The definition of the plan as the scenario prototype that needs adjusting to the conditions of the situational context is proposed. The coordination problem regarding the joint activities of the unmanned vehicles and their scenarios is defined and the coordination framework based on the distributed common board model and coordination primitives is presented. The prototype of the intelligent scenario-based system including the implementation of both operational and coordination frameworks developed for the control of unmanned vehicles is described. This system makes unmanned vehicles capable to absorb all the latest advances in intelligent technologies to perform smart fishing operations jointly in a large heterogeneous group. The proposed approach to smart fishing using intelligent technologies makes it possible to detach fishermen from the fishing activities dangerous to their life and health, to reduce significantly poaching and illegal fishing, to increase the overall efficiency of fishing operations, and even to save the marine ecosystem. (shrink)