Protection of human participants is a fundamental facet of biomedical research. We report the activities of a health service research study in which there were three institutional review boards (IRBs), three legal departments and one research administration department providing recommendations and mandating changes in the study methods. Complying with IRB requirements can be challenging, but can also adversely affect study outcomes. Multiple protocol changes mandated from multiple IRBs created a research method that was not reflective of how substance use screening (...) would be performed in a clinical setting. There was direct conflict between the IRBs' perceptions of participants' protection with the researchers' need to use research methodology that assures the clinical relevancy of results. (shrink)

We consider structural completeness in modal logics. The main result is the necessary and sufficient condition for modal logics over K4 to be hereditarily structurally complete: a modal logic λ is hereditarily structurally complete $\operatorname{iff} \lambda$ is not included in any logic from the list of twenty special tabular logics. Hence there are exactly twenty maximal structurally incomplete modal logics above K4 and they are all tabular.

While specifications and verifications of concurrent systems employ Linear Temporal Logic , it is increasingly likely that logical consequence in image will be used in the description of computations and parallel reasoning. Our paper considers logical consequence in the standard image with temporal operations image and image . The prime result is an algorithm recognizing consecutions admissible in image, so we prove that image is decidable w.r.t. admissible inference rules. As a consequence we obtain algorithms verifying the validity of consecutions (...) in image and solving the satisfiability problem. We start by a simple reduction of logical consecutions of image to equivalent ones in the reduced normal form . Then we apply a semantic technique based on image-Kripke structures with formula definable subsets. This yields necessary and sufficient conditions for a consecution to be not admissible in image. These conditions lead to an algorithm which recognizes consecutions admissible in image by verifying the validity of consecutions in special finite Kripke structures of size square polynomial in reduced normal forms of the consecutions. As a consequence, this also solves the satisfiability problem for image. (shrink)

One of the main problems in effective model theory is to find an appropriate information complexity measure of the algebraic structures in the sense of computability. Unlike the commonly used degrees of structures, the structure degree measure is total. We introduce and study the jump operation for structure degrees. We prove that it has all natural jump properties (including jump inversion theorem, theorem of Ash), which show that our definition is relevant. We study the relation between the structure degree jump (...) (in the sense of Soskov) and the jump degrees of a structure (in the sense of Jockusch) and give necessary and sufficient conditions for their existence in the terms of structure degrees. We show some properties, distinguishing the structure degrees from the enumeration degrees. (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)

In this article, cognitivism is understood as the view that the engine of human action is the intentional, dispositional, or other mental capacities of the brain or the mind. Cognitivism has been criticized for considering the essence of human action to reside in its alleged source in mental processes at the expense of the social surroundings of the action, criticism that has often been inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy. This article explores the logical extent of the critique of cognitivism, (...) arguing that by positing collectively shared knowledge of criteria as the engine of human action many such critiques themselves display latent cognitivism. (shrink)

Although research into the biosemiotic mechanisms underlying the purposeful behavior of brainless living systems is extensive, researchers have not adequately described biosemiosis among neurons. As the conscious use of signs is well-covered by the various fields of semiotics, we focus on subconscious sign action. Subconscious semiotic habits, both functional and dysfunctional, may be created and reinforced in the brain not necessarily in a logical manner and not necessarily through repeated reinforcement. We review literature that suggests hypnosis may be effective in (...) changing subconscious dysfunctional habits, and we offer a biosemiotic framework for understanding these results. If it has been difficult to evaluate any psychological approach, including hypnosis, this may be because contemporary neuroscience lacks a theory of the sign. We argue that understanding the fluid nature of representation in biological organisms is prerequisite to understanding the nature of the subconscious and may lead to more effective of treatments for dysfunctional habits developed through personal experience or culture. (shrink)

To base oneself upon a scientific philosophy is often of great importance in framing and solving major problems in natural science, including the science of the universe at large. Moreover, one's approach to the solution of specific problems arising in natural science depends to an extent upon one's philosophy. This situation points the way to the elimination of certain preconceived notions and erroneous convictions of researchers, that is, those due to an inadequate knowledge of philosophy or to the influence of (...) a weak philosophy. (shrink)

The article describes the application of the cassette method of passenger transportation, taking into account the dynamics of passenger traffic during the day by means of an intelligent transport system based on unmanned electric vehicles. The calculation of the required number of electric cars for the cassette for a one-time fulfillment of the delivery plan is presented.

In June 1995, the Italian code of medical ethics was revised in order that its principles should reflect the ever-changing relationship between the medical profession and society and between physicians and patients. The updated code is also a response to new ethical problems created by scientific progress; the discussion of such problems often shows up a need for better understanding on the part of the medical profession itself. Medical deontology is defined as the discipline for the study of norms of (...) conduct for the health care professions, including moral and legal norms as well as those pertaining more strictly to professional performance. The aim of deontology is therefore, the in-depth investigation and revision of the code of medical ethics. It is in the light of this conceptual definition that one should interpret a review of the different codes which have attempted, throughout the various periods of Italy's recent history, to adapt ethical norms to particular social and health care climates. (shrink)

We define proof nets for cyclic multiplicative linear logic as edge bi-coloured graphs. Our characterization is purely graph theoretical and works without further complication for proof nets with cuts, which are usually harder to handle in the non-commutative case. This also provides a new characterization of the proof nets for the Lambek calculus (with the empty sequence) which simply are a restriction on the formulas to be considered (which are asked to be intuitionistic).

The Orthodox clergy of Volhynia played one of the major roles in the religious, cultural and political life of the region as part of the Second Commonwealth. Sacred authority, high educational attainment, and material support made him an influential social group. Depending on the corporate consciousness of the stratum, it would depend on whose ally it would act and whether it would promote a social progress, spiritual and national self-identification of the voivodship population. It should be borne in mind that (...) in the interwar period, the Volyn Orthodox clergy came in with appropriate ideological baggage and evolved over the course of twenty years. (shrink)

Велика заслуга у дослідженні людської особистості належить феноменологічній філософії. Однією з найвідоміших представниць персоналістичного напрямку у феноменології є Е. Штайн – учениця та асистентка Е. Гуссерля. Вихідною точкою для неї є те, що людина є вільною і завдяки своїй духовності відповідальною за своє життя. Головним завданням особи є «реалізація самої себе». Для цього вона має пізнати свою індивідуальність. Штайн досліджує структуру особи, яка характеризується наявністю тіла, «ядра особи», існуванням Я, душі як субстанції, духа. Вона підкреслює, що розвиток та існування духовної (...) особи пов’язані з пошуком цінностей, які перебувають у найглибших шарах душі. Всі «елементи» особи між собою стисло пов’язані, творять цілісність і доповнюються взаємно. Тіло не існує без душі і духа, дух без тіла і душі, а душа без духа і тіла. (shrink)

We study quasi-characterizing inference rules (this notion was introduced into consideration by A. Citkin (1977). The main result of our paper is a complete description of all self-admissible quasi-characterizing inference rules. It is shown that a quasi-characterizing rule is self-admissible iff the frame of the algebra generating this rule is not rigid. We also prove that self-admissible rules are always admissible in canonical, in a sense, logics S4 or IPC regarding the type of algebra generating rules.

It was my good fortune to work on the journal Voprosy filosofii for five and a half years, from mid-1962 to the end of 1967. I underscore "good fortune" because this was an interesting and, as it became clear later on, quite an important period in the journal's history; the team on which I worked was full of life, active, industrious, full of good will, and did everything to make Voprosy filosofii a truly professional philosophical journal; and, finally, all of (...) us who worked at that time on the editorial staff were thirty-five years younger than we are now. (shrink)

Maʼamar "Hatsileni mi-pezur ha-nefesh": a praḳṭishe hilf far meḥankhim, elṭern, mener un froyen ... -- Derashat hitḥazḳut be-ʻinyan "ahavat ḥaverim" -- Yalḳuṭ igrot u-mikhtavim : liḳuṭ amarim u-khetavim, ratsuf be-tokham niṭfe ḥizuḳ ... .