Our age is trying in many ways to deal with the problem of the survival of ethnic minorities. Being confronted with a centralized political power which destroys cultural differences, many of these minorities have become conscious of their originality (which is often hidden away in folklore) and are in search of a new balance with the dominant culture. They try to achieve this new balance by bringing their basic characteristics up to date or even deliberately entering a phase of counter (...) acculturation and adopting an attitude of political liberation much like that of the formerly colonized peoples. (shrink)

On August 19, 1297, a young man of royal heritage died in the household of the Count of Provence and King of Naples at Brignoles, a short distance from Marseille. The young man was Louis of Anjou, a Franciscan friar and Bishop of Toulouse, who had renounced his inheritance and claim to the Kingdom of Naples to pursue a religious vocation. Only twenty-three years old when he died, Louis nevertheless had long been inspired by Franciscan spirituality, and less than eight (...) months before had realized his dream of professing vows within the Order of Friars Minor at the same time that he submitted to consecration as Bishop of Toulouse. In March of the following year, Peter of John Olivi, a native son of .. (shrink)

Visual cultures are being increasingly discussed in the history of science literature, although relatively very little of that work concerns the nuclear age. In addition, within the discrete yet bourgeoning literature on global nuclear art and culture, Oceania is often overlooked despite its central role in the development of the American, British, and French nuclear weapon capabilities, as well as their associated colonial legacies. This article serves to redress both concerns by examining the visual politics of Maralinga in relation to (...) settler-colonial and Aboriginal experiences, vulnerabilities and presentations. I do so by surveying artworks with a connection to the Australian experience of nuclear colonialism and find that the figure of biological life has been conspicuously left absent from contemporary non-Indigenous Australian depictions of British nuclear testing in Australia. (shrink)

Mereotopology is a theory of connected parts. The existence of boundaries, as parts of everyday objects, is basic to any such theory; but in classical mereotopology, there is a problem: if boundaries exist, then either distinct entities cannot be in contact, or else space is not topologically connected . In this paper we urge that this problem can be met with a paraconsistent mereotopology, and sketch the details of one such approach. The resulting theory focuses attention on the role of (...) empty parts, in delivering a balanced and bounded metaphysics of naive space. (shrink)

Title: Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth-Century BritainPublisher: University of Minnesota PressISBN: 0816660581Author: John W. YoltonTitle: Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to ReidPublisher: University of Minnesota PressISBN: 0816611629Author: John W. Yolton.

Professor Matthew Kramer is one of the most important legal philosophers of our time - even if the label 'legal philosopher' does not do justice to the breadth of his work. This collection of essays brings together esteemed philosophers, as well as junior scholars, to critically assess Kramer's philosophy. The contributions focus on Kramer's work on legal philosophy, metaethics, normative ethics, and political philosophy. The volume is divided into six parts, each focusing on different aspect of Kramer's work. The first (...) part, Rights and Right-holding, contains five essays addressing Kramer's work on rights and right-holding, including the Hohfeldian analysis and the interest theory of right-holding. The four essays in the second part, General Jurisprudence, focus on Kramer's work in general jurisprudence, from the compatibility of legal positivism with universal legal error, to his robust defense of inclusive legal positivism, concluding with reflections on his writings on the rule of law. The third part, General Matters of Ethics, contains two essays addressing Kramer's metaethical work on moral realism as a moral doctrine. The fourth and fifth parts, Freedom and Liberalism, have four essays falling within political philosophy, probing Kramer's work on negative freedom and political liberalism, respectively. The sixth part, Applied Ethics, contains two essays on Kramer's work on capital punishment and freedom of expression. The collection is rounded off by reflections on, and replies to, the contributions by Kramer himself. (shrink)

We prove linear and polynomial growth properties of sets and functions that are existentially definable in the ordered group of integers with divisibility. We determine the laws of addition with order and divisibility.

Schwinger’s algebra of microscopic measurement, with the associated complex field of transformation functions, is shown to provide the foundation for a discrete quantum phase space of known type, equipped with a Wigner function and a star product. Discrete position and momentum variables label points in the phase space, each taking \(N\) distinct values, where \(N\) is any chosen prime number. Because of the direct physical interpretation of the measurement symbols, the phase space structure is thereby related to definite experimental configurations.

Rationale, aims and objectives To compare the pharmacotherapeutic approaches to diabetic hypertension of family physicians (FPs) and general practitioners (GPs). Methods A retrospective prescription-based study was conducted in 15 out of a total of 20 health centres, involving 115 primary care physicians – 77 FPs and 38 GPs, representing 74% of the primary care physicians of Bahrain. Prescriptions were collected during May and June 2000 to comprise a study population of 1266 diabetic-hypertensive patients. Results As monotherapy, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (...) (37.9%) and β-blockers (38.3%) were the most commonly prescribed classes of antihypertensives by FPs and GPs, respectively. Calcium channel blockers (CCBs) were ranked third by both categories of physicians. For two-drug combinations, a β-blocker and an ACE inhibitor was the combination of choice for both physician categories. Patients managed by the FPs were more likely to receive a β-blocker–CCB combination (17.4 vs. 14.9%) or a diuretic–ACE inhibitor combination (16.7 vs. 11.4%) and less likely to receive a β-blocker–diuretic combination (11.8 vs. 16.7%) than those managed by the GPs. The proportion of patients receiving antihypertensive combinations was 40.6 and 38.5% for FPs and GPs, respectively. While the GPs prescribed CCB as a monotherapy to the elderly most often, the FPs choice was a β-blocker. Diuretics were less preferred by both FPs and GPs. β-Blocker–ACE inhibitor was again the most preferred combination of both FPs and GPs. FPs prescribed CCB–β-blocker combinations more often than GPs (P = 0.01), whereas CCB–ACE inhibitor combinations were less preferred (P = 0.09). A trend towards excessive use of short-acting nifedipine as monotherapy for elderly patients, both by FPs and by GPs, was noticed. Glibenclamide, alone or in combination with metformin, was the foremost antidiabetic drug prescribed by FPs and GPs. Middle-aged (45–64 years) patients seen by GPs were more likely to receive glibenclamide than those treated by FPs (P = 0.001) and less likely to receive gliclazide (P = 0.01). Combinations of a β-blocker with either glibenclamide or insulin were prescribed considerably more often by GPs.Conclusions Within the same practice setting, a substantial difference was observed between FPs and GPs in terms of preference for different classes of drugs in the management of diabetic hypertension. The compliance of both FPs and GPs was suboptimal; overall, the compliance of the FPs was closer to the recommended guidelines, however. Educational programmes should specifically address these inadequacies in order to improve the quality of health care. (shrink)

Morgan has argued that attitudes to the medicalisation of sports are historically conditioned.While the history of doping offers contested versions of when the sports world turned againstconservative forces, Morgan has argued that these attitudes are out of step with prevailingnorms and that the World Anti Doping Agency's policy needs to be modified to better reflectthis. As an advocate of critical democracies in sports, he argues that anti-doping policy mustacknowledge and reflect these shifts in order to secure their legitimacy. In response, (...) wecritically present the World Anti-Doping Agency's policy that incorporates the Prohibited Listof Substances and Methods for athletes. We evaluate the validity of the therapy-enhancementdistinction in relation to its role in both justifying and sustaining the operation of theProhibited List. In particular, we focus on the case of thyroxine, which has been the subjectof controversy in athletic doping. While thyroxine is not currently banned, critics haveclaimed that its use in the absence of a relevant pathology is tantamount to doping. Wechallenge Morgan's claim that a conventionalist defence of the therapy-enhancementdistinction is the best available, and his conclusion that this properly supports a morepermissive stance towards performance-enhancing drug use. Furthermore, we reject hisconventionalist support for democratic line drawing in relation to doping and in particular thestatus of thyroxine with regard to the prohibited list. We offer a modified defence of the statusquo, a qualified, naturalist account of health and disease, where athletes may be prescribeddrugs that are genuine responses to medical necessity that do not, or do not typically, threatenthe goods of athletic excellence. (shrink)

Deterministic models in population dynamics often are really approximations to stochastic models, justified by an appeal to the law of large numbers. It is proposed to call such models pseudodeterministic. Four questions are discussed in this article: (1) What errors may be made by equating deterministically predicted values to expectations? (2) When, and in what sense, may numbers be assumed to be large? (3) How large are the variances, coefficients of variations, etc., as assigned to the variables in the stochastic (...) versions of the models? (4) What role may pseudodeterministic models play in empirical research, where problems of statistical reliability arise?As an example, a modified Nicholson-Bailey model of the interaction between insect parasitoids and their hosts is discussed; the modification consists of assigning a random (density-independent) mortality to the parasitoid population. A stochastic version of this model is discussed. The expectation of the final host density is compared with the value computed from the deterministic model. The latter value is systematically lower than the former. The magnitude of the difference depends on parameter values. The variability to be expected with the stochastic model is characterized by the coefficient of variation of the final host density; its dependence on parameter values and initial conditions is discussed. It is concluded that it is worthwhile in practical applications to estimate parasitoid mortality, and that the coefficient of variation in real situations may be far from negligible. (shrink)

Three remarks, which are sometimes made about Freud's distiction between Ego and Id are discussed: 1. This distinction would have no analogy in other psychological concepts. 2. The essence of the "I" would be misjudged here. 3. It would be the rest of an atomising psychology, not yet arriving at the modern views of totality. Although the common parlance concerning psychic "parts" has indeed analogies in the old atomistic-psychological conceptions, these instances, as well as the conflicting drives are and have (...) been always considered in psychoanalysis as expressions of which the person himself is the subject. Especially the concept "Id" must be looked at as equivalent to the biological total, to the concept: Person-Stern. The concept I or Ego, as a special structure of "figure" within this whole, means no split-off part, but is equivalent to what is called elsewhere "durchstrukturiertes Unterganze". Freud entitles a certain intern organisation with the word "Ich". He that thinks the essence of "the" I herewith misjudged, confuses word and concept -- the word I contains a lot of equivocations. That there are conflicts within the person is a basic matter of fact, which is not to be pushed aside in favour of totalitarian dogmatics, this conflict must be expressed in our terminology in some way or other. Terms, by way of comparison borrowed from material situations cannot always be avoided, and need not give any inconvenience, provided reflecting over the import of the terms is practised sufficiently. (shrink)

A model for the trapping of animals with a circular pitfall is formulated. The model's assumptions are: The animals move independently according to the same Brownian motions. The boundary of the pitfall acts as an absorbing or elastic barrier. Initially a fixed number of animals is independently homogeneously distributed over a finite study area, or the initial positions follow a homogeneous planar Poisson process. The model depends on three free parameters: the motility of the animals, their reaction to the pitfall, (...) the initial density.It appears that the catches in disjoint time intervals are multinomially or independently Poisson distributed. The parameters of these distributions are obtained by solving certain partial differential equations. (shrink)

Suppose that entities composed of two distinct components can be qualitatively ordered in two ways, such that each ordering relation satisfies the axioms of conjoint measurement. Without further assumptions nothing can be said about the relation between the pair of numerical scales constructed for each component. Axioms are stated that relate the two measurement theories, and that are sufficient to establish that the two conjoint scales on each component are linearly related.