ABSTRACT By means of the high ratings that they awarded to subprime mortgage‐backed bonds, the three major rating agencies—Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch—played a central role in the current financial crisis. Without these ratings, it is doubtful that subprime mortgages would have been issued in such huge amounts, since a major reason for the subprime lending boom was investor demand for high‐rated bonds—much of it generated by regulations that made such bonds mandatory for large institutional investors. And it is (...) even less likely that such bonds would have become concentrated on the balance sheets of the banks, for which they were rewarded by capital regulations that tilted toward high‐rated securities. Why, then, were the agencies excessively optimistic in their ratings of subprime mortgage‐backed securities? A combination of their fee structure, the complexity of the bonds that they were rating, insufficient historical data, some carelessness, and market pressures proved to be a potent brew. This combination was enabled, however, by seven decades of financial regulation that, beginning in the 1930s, had conferred the force of law upon these agencies' judgments about the creditworthiness of bonds and that, since 1975, had protected the three agencies from competition. (shrink)

The primary sequence of two subunits of the rod and one subunit of the cone cGMP-gated channel have been described, but describing how structure determines function is only just beginning. The discovery that the affinity of the rod channel for its agonist can be modulated indicates that the relationship between intracellular cGMP and the channel's open probability (current) during the course of the photoresponse may be more complex than previously thought.

Introduction.--Aristotle.--The seventeenth century.--The eighteenth century.--Biology.--Nature.--Evolution.--The problem.--The three elements.--The teleological order.--Appendix: Clerk Maxwell on determinism and free will. Fechner on the tendency to stability.

Aurélien Drezet has attempted in Found. Phys. 54(1), 5 (2023) to defend Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) against our recent critique, entitled Relational Quantum Mechanics is incompatible with quantum mechanics, published in Quantum 7, 1015 (2023). Drezet not only misrepresents our work, but he also misconstructs the very theory (RQM) that he claims to defend.

Revision of thesis (Ph. D.)--U.C.L.A., 1982?Includes index. Bibliography: p. 151-156.

Aquinas’s Five Ways are not to be understood as demonstrative proofs, successful or not, for the existence of God. Rather, they provide a necessary step towards supplying licensable surrogates for the essential predications that cannot logically be drawn from the incomprehensible nature of God, yet would seem needed for the Summa’s declared genre of argued theology. (Predication secundum analogiam provides surrogates for non-relational accidental predications, likewise unavailable.) What Aquinas is proving in arguing deum esse in ST I.2.3 is not God’s (...) actual existence (see ST I.3.4 ad 2) but an alternative interpretation of “God’s being something” where “God is something” is a placeholder for, say, “God is prime mover” or, more explicitly, for such (necessary) identities as “The prime mover is the necessitated necessitator,” an identity whose necessity depends at more than one place on the assumption of God’s existence from faith, not on demonstrative proof of God’s existence. (shrink)

Different socioeconomic backgrounds and barriers to education have contributed to low­er educational achievement among blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans, compared to American whites and Asians. The failure of legal integration to close the racial achieve­ment gap is the result of prejudice on the part of teachers, as well as a scarcity of cultur­ally relevant curricula materials for nonwhite children. As a plausible solution to these problems, recent studies show that poor children do better in classes where middle-class children are also (...) present. Middle-class children already have habits and values that sup­port success in the educational system. Integrated schools are not sufficient, because they are often divided in “tracks” that reproduce racial segregation. Racial diversity in the K-12 classroom is fruitful preparation for civic engagement in a pluralistic society made up of citizens from diverse backgrounds. (shrink)

Many philosophers assume that the principle of double effect (PDE) is meant to cover trolley cases. In fact, trolley cases come from PDE’s critics, not its defenders. When philosophers stretch PDE to explain intuitions about trolley cases, they define intended effects too broadly. More importantly, trolley cases make poor illustrations of PDE because they focus attention away from the agent and onto the victim. When philosophers lose sight of the agent, some intuitions that fit PDE survive, but the rational basis (...) of these intuitions collapses. I avoid these problems by defending a minimalist, agent-based version of PDE. My version is minimalist because I do not try to turn PDE into a complete checklist that explains intuitions about every case. It is agent-based because I consider the agent’s perspective to define intentions and to make moral judgments. (shrink)

This book develops and defends a new understanding of Kant's account of perceptual representation, showing that it underlies the main doctrines of the Critique of Pure Reason. Intuitions consist of formal unifications by the schematized categories that projectively represent both time and external objects and enable synthetic a priori knowledge.

Approaching the eternal question of God's existence from a realistic standpoint, the author presents a substantial amount of scientific evidence that has recently become available supporting God's existence. The inherent philosophical questions regarding God's existence are also addressed with the objective of determining an answer. The presentation is supported by the quotes of scientists and scholars on the subject plus a compendium of source material that supports the author's conclusion.

RNA editing is a newly described genetic phenomenon. It encompasses widely different molecular mechanisms and events. According to the specific RNA modification, RNA editing can be broadly classified into six major types. Type II RNA editing occurs in plants and mammals; it consists predominantly in cytidine to uridine conversions resulting from deamination/transamination or transglycosylation, although in plants other mechanisms have not been excluded. Apolipoprotein B mRNA editing is the only well‐documented editing phenomenon in mammals. It is an intranuclear event that (...) occurs posttranscriptionally, coincident with splicing and polyadenylation. Recent observations indicate that the tissue‐ and sequence‐specific process is mediated by an enzyme that has separate domains for editing and sequence recognition. The presence of apolipoprotein B mRNA editing activity in tissues that do not produce the protein suggests that other RNAs may be edited and RNA editing may be a genetic phenomenon of general biological importance to the cell. (shrink)

This paper advances reasons why lucid dreaming is considered problematic to the psychoanalytic venture. It is shown that the conscious thought mechanism of lucid dreaming is obstructive and in opposition to the repressed and therefore conflictual within the unconscious parameters. A negative value is attached to the mechanism of lucid dreaming which is presented as an ill-advised endeavor that undermines meaning through its promotion of conscious interference and ego inhibition of dream symbolism. Viewed as a deterrent to self-knowledge and the (...) interpretative process of working through, lucid dreaming does not advance an authentic inner presentation and is therefore of no interest to the betterment of the psyche. At the core of the argument is the significance of the willful autonomy of an ego-conscious presence on the continuance of the dream schematic. (shrink)

Approaches bioethics on the basis of a conception of life and what is needed for the affirmation of its quality in the most encompassing sense. Johnson applies this conception to discussions of controversial issues in bioethics including euthanasia, abortion, cloning and genetic engineering. His emphasis is not on providing definitive solutions to all bioethical issues but on developing an approach to coping with them that can also help us deal with new issues as they emerge. The foundation of this discussion (...) is an extensive examination of the nature of the self and its good and of various approaches to ethics. His bioethic is integrally related to his well-known work on environmental philosophy. The book also applies these principles on an individual level, offering a user-friendly discussion of how to deal with ethical slippery slopes and how and where to draw the line when dealing with difficult questions of bioethics. (shrink)

Both John Henry Newman and Vincent Gasser offered influential interpretations of the First Vatican Council’s teaching on infallibility. In contrast to many of theircontemporaries, Gasser and Newman placed papal infallibility alongside episcopal infallibility and the infallibility of the Catholic faithful. After exploring the views of Gasser and Newman, this essay compares their views to the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on infallibility in Lumen Gentium and concludes that even though Lumen Gentium cited Gasser, its theology is closer to Newman’s.