The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

I argue that quantum optical experiments that purport to refute Bohr’s principle of complementarity fail in their aim. Some of these experiments try to refute complementarity by refuting the so called particle–wave duality relations, which evolved from the Wootters–Zurek reformulation of BPC. I therefore consider it important for my forgoing arguments to first recall the essential tenets of BPC, and to clearly separate BPC from WZPC, which I will argue is a direct contradiction of BPC. This leads to a need (...) to consider the meaning of particle–wave duality relations and to question their fundamental status. I further argue that particle and wave complementary concepts are on a different footing than other pairs of complementary concepts. (shrink)

Background:: Over the past few years, research ethics committees have increasingly demanded explicit consent before archival tissue samples can be used in research projects. Current UK guidance in this area requires an assessment of whether it is “practical” to obtain explicit consent. Ethics committees have little experience or evidence to help them to judge what is “practical” in this context.Methods:: We attempted to obtain general consent for research use of surplus tissue from renal transplant biopsies from the entire patient population (...) of the renal transplant unit in Leicester. The nature of this patient population would be expected to facilitate this task.Results:: A total of 495 letters were sent. Attempts were made to contact non-responders when they attended the outpatient clinic. One year after the initiation of the project, the opinions of 26% of the patients had still not been ascertained.Conclusions:: The results confirm that the vast majority of patients are happy for “surplus” biopsy material to be used for research; the situation does not parallel the use of autopsy tissue. A requirement to obtain explicit consent for the study of archival tissue is likely, however, to block or at least seriously delay research, which is contrary to the public interest and specifically may harm the interests of the patients concerned. In the UK, the problem of tissue being used against the wishes of the donor has now been largely replaced by the problem of prohibition of tissue use against the wishes of the donor. (shrink)

By general agreement, the First USSR Conference on Philosophical Problems of Natural Science, held 12 years ago, was an important event in bringing scholars together for the treatment of problems of world view. In order to stabilize this collaboration, the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences followed up on that conference by adopting a resolution establishing a Learned Council on Philosophical Problems in Natural Science. Approximately one year ago, the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences heard a report on the (...) work of that Learned Council, and its resolution, in condensed form, was published in Voprosy filosofii, 1970, No. 2. (shrink)

The countries of the socialist community are currently undergoing a historical period in their development in which it is especially necessary for them to construct clear and precise ideas about many of the fundamentally new phenomena and trends in social life. However specific the problems may seem to each country, they essentially have much in common.

Science as a social institution today is experiencing a phase of profound transformation. Objects, methods, research technological tools, methods of institutional communication and mechanisms for commercializing new knowledge are changing. The creation of new interdisciplinary communication platforms is more relevant today than ever before. This review pro[1]vides key information about the First Conference «Mind, Body, Intelligence, Language in the Age of Cognitive Technologies». The organizers created an event that brought together IT developers, academic researchers, and business representatives.

The preservation of peace is the central problem of the present day. The peoples have suffered from wars through the ages. No significant period in human history has been without them. Wars have become particularly devastating in the capitalist era, which has seen an improvement of armaments, an increase in the size of warring armies and in the scale of military operations.

In the scientific study of historical processes, the Marxist position that the masses of the people are the agent of history has become a primary truth. As an initial methodological directive it stands opposed to every type of attempt to represent history as a process whose participants divide sharply into two fundamentally different groups - historical figures whose deeds shape the course and results of the historical development of society, and the rest of the people, who are the "passive matter" (...) of history, capable only of inert resistance to the changes that are taking place. (shrink)

Ian Kennedy extols the virtues of self-determination by patients: they should make their own decisions about medical treatment after being given advice by their doctors; for doctors to make such decisions on their patients' behalf is authoritarian and unacceptable (I). I present a case where, despite thorough consultation and counselling, the decisions made by the patient and supported by her doctors were found to be consistently inappropriate to her changing lifestyle.

We consider the compatibility of the Wootters and Zurek development of information theory as applied to the two-slit experiment with the principle of complementarity. We also consider the limitations of aspects of Wootters and Zurek's analysis, and, independently of complementarity, the extent to which Wootters and Zurek's information theory can be considered a fundamental interpretation of the quantum theory (as applied to particle-wave duality). The question of particle-wave uncertainty relations will also be taken up.

Pt. 1. Book of nirvāṇa -- pt. 2. Book of nirvāṇa.

Progressive public opinion has proclaimed 1983 Karl Marx Year. On 5 May of this year, 165 years will have passed since the day of his birth; and a hundred years ago, on 14 March 1883, his mighty heart stopped beating. His intensive work in organizing the international revolutionary movement of the proletariat, the sedulous persecution of him by the authorities, and the constant material need and theoretical concerns that drove him to the point of exhaustion steadily undermined and ultimately destroyed (...) Marx's health. History granted him only sixty-five years of life, but his creative work in those years was the work of a century. (shrink)

Of late, there has been a deep interest in the subject of cultures and group behaviours with large numbers of nations engaging in international trade and other kinds of interactions. While a large body of knowledge in this area is available about other nations, it is only recently that interest in the study of Indian ethos has received attention. This paper is one such attempt to identify the distinctive features of leadership in the Indian ethos and contrast it with the (...) delineation of leadership in the Western ethos. It is suggested that while there are several similarities, the spiritual orientation and non-desire motivated action distinguish leader ship in the Indian ethos from that in the Western ethos. (shrink)