The Russian people are struggling to learn how to create a democracy and a market economy. This paper reviews the results of reform efforts to date and what the Russian people are learning as indicated by changes in answers to public opinion surveys. As a way to continue the social learning process in Russia we suggest the widespread use of process improvement methods in organizations. This paper describes some Russian experiences in using process improvement methods and proposes a strategy for (...) spreading the use of these methods through universities and then through businesses and government agencies. As people use process improvement methods, they gain confidence in their ability to improve the functioning of organizations and society. (shrink)

Group process methods for problem solving and planning are now widely used in organizations in the United States. Such methods, which involve active participation by employees, are not often used in Russia. We believe these methods would help Russia move from a centrally planned, authoritarian style of management to a more participatory, information-sharing style of management. Accordingly, two training sessions were held with faculty members at universities in Irkutsk and Novosibirsk. This article describes how these meetings were arranged, the results (...) of the planning activities, and the implications of participatory methods of decision making for organizations in Russia and in other transitional economies. (shrink)

When courts started publishing judgements, big data analysis within the legal domain became possible. By taking data from the European Court of Human Rights as an example, we investigate how natural language processing tools can be used to analyse texts of the court proceedings in order to automatically predict judicial decisions. With an average accuracy of 75% in predicting the violation of 9 articles of the European Convention on Human Rights our approach highlights the potential of machine learning approaches in (...) the legal domain. We show, however, that predicting decisions for future cases based on the cases from the past negatively impacts performance. Furthermore, we demonstrate that we can achieve a relatively high classification performance when predicting outcomes based only on the surnames of the judges that try the case. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss previous research in automatic prediction of court decisions. We define the difference between outcome identification, outcome-based judgement categorisation and outcome forecasting, and review how various studies fall into these categories. We discuss how important it is to understand the legal data that one works with in order to determine which task can be performed. Finally, we reflect on the needs of the legal discipline regarding the analysis of court judgements.

The Hyperuniverse Program is a new approach to set-theoretic truth which is based on justifiable principles and leads to the resolution of many questions independent from ZFC. The purpose of this paper is to present this program, to illustrate its mathematical content and implications, and to discuss its philosophical assumptions.

El problema de la estetización y la reconfiguración de la experiencia en la filosofía de Walter Benjamin. Resumen de Tesis de Doctorado en Filosofía de Tatiana Staroselsky.

The present study explores discursive constructions of us- and them-groups within the context of the debates on the placement of the US anti-ballistic missile defence system in Central and Eastern Europe. The study is based on the data collected by the authors in the Polish and Russian press. Using the framework that is informed by Critical Discourse Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, the authors define strategies and specific linguistic means used to represent ‘us’ and ‘them’ and provide a picture of (...) chronological transformations that these representations undergo in the investigated newspapers. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the key epistemological ideas of Merab Mamardashvili which form the bridge between his philosophy and phenomenology. He advances four key concepts in his sketch of a natural historical epistemology: the geometry of causal experience, the belonging to a certain time, the chronotype of a subject, and the ‘elaboration’ of the mind by consciousness. The concept of “fruitful tautology” leads Mamardashvili to a new aesthetics of thinking. The semiotics, rightfully included in Russian social sciences, assumes that the symbol (...) is a certain universal first element of psychic reality. (shrink)

Understanding the differences between scientific approaches to cybernetics is difficult because of the very different histories and intellectual traditions in Russia and the West, i.e. the U.S. and Europe. This paper, firstly, describes the peculiarities of the Russian style of scientific thinking, considering as an example Alexander Bogdanov’s theory in context of the Russian intellectual tradition. Secondly, the paper compares Vladimir E. Lepskiy’s and Stuart A. Umpleby’s theories of cybernetics looking at them through the prism of Russian and American intellectual (...) traditions. Western cybernetics of the second order includes biological and social versions. It arose from “experimental epistemology.” The goal was to understand the processes of cognition on the basis of neurophysiological experiments, as a result of which cyberneticians came to the conclusion that the observer cannot be excluded from science. Biological cybernetics is concerned with how the brain creates descriptions of the world. Little attention is paid to the world since it already is included in the perceptions of the observer. Social cybernetics is concerned with how people act in the world. Theories or descriptions are thought to be less important than appropriate actions. The Russian interpretation of second-order cybernetics develops its social version. The paper concludes that the differences described demonstrate the great potential for ideas from Russian and Western scientists to enrich further development of cybernetics and science in East and West. (shrink)

Logic of proofs LP was introduced by S. Artemov in. It describes properties of the proof predicate “t is a proof of F” formalized by the formula ⟦t⟧ F. Proofs are represented by terms constructed by three elementary recursive operations on proofs. In this paper we extend the language of the logic of proofs by the additional storage predicate x ∋ F with the intended interpretation “x is a label for F”. The storage predicate can play the role of syntax (...) encoding, so it is useful for specification of operations on proofs, especially those that require formula arguments. We give a definition of a specification of an operation on proofs and introduce logics that describe such operations. For a large class of operations we prove the completeness of these logics with respect to the intended semantics. We also study the logic describing the operation of substitution. (shrink)

:This article reexamines the “prostitution objection” to paid surrogacy, and argues that rebuttals to this objection fail to focus on surrogates as embodied persons. This failure is based on the false distinction between “selling one’s reproductive services” and “selling one’s body.” To ground the analysis of humans as embodied persons, this article uses Kant’s late ethical theory, which develops the conceptual framework for understanding human beings as embodied selves. Literature on surrogacy commonly emphasizes that all Kantian duties heed to the (...) categorical prohibition to treat persons as mere means. What this literature leaves out is that this imperative commands us more specifically to engage ourselves and others as embodied persons. This article aims to relate this point to a specific issue in assisted reproduction. It argues that a Kantian account of human beings as embodied persons prohibits paid surrogacy on exactly the same grounds as it prohibits prostitution. (shrink)

Normative case studies are designed to offer richly detailed “worlds of possibility” that invite complex reflection and discussion about authentic ethical dilemmas in education. In this essay, Tatiana Geron and Meira Levinson argue that authors' choices of what details to include in a case are themselves ethical decisions that require significant ethical responsibility. Case details can shape which avenues of ethical inquiry are open to readers, whether and how institutional and structural conditions get considered, whose perspectives are included and (...) legitimized, and what political issues are understood as “open” or “closed.” At its best, case “world-building” can help readers understand the full complexity of ethical decision-making in education. However, for this to occur, case authors must seek out expert and dissenting perspectives, field test the case with diverse audiences, and remain reflexive about their own perspectives and how these shape their world-building decisions. (shrink)

O presente texto tem como propósito, primeiramente, prescrutar a gênese e a particularidade do racismo no modo de produção capitalista, para revelar a conexão íntima existente entre a ideologia do racismo e a ascendência do capital monopolista. Num segundo momento, pretende-se observar como o racismo se constitui como mecanismo fundamental para operar a divisão interna da classe trabalhadora, em que o capital constitui uma espécie de “aristocracia operária” para intensificar suas desumanizações contra os seres humanos racializados. Por fim, justifica-se o (...) protagonismo das táticas combativas do racismo no contexto da predominância do capital mais fetichizado plasmado na história. A pesquisa tem como fundamento a teoria marxiana e as contribuições contrapostas ao racismo desenvolvidas por autores como Eric Williams, René Depestre, Augusto Buonicore, Demétrio Magnoli e Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. (shrink)

Reflete-se aqui sobre o papel da Universidade na atual sociedade capitalista. Elateria a capacidade de difundir a concepção de mundo das classes trabalhadoras, contribuindo para a construção de uma outra sociedade, ou ela seria mais um instrumento de reprodução das sociedades capitalistas Existe um conflito contínuo entre essas duas propostas, que se tenta apresentar com base na discussão gramsciana sobre seus conceitos fundamentais, buscando-se compreender a realidade brasileira atual neste contexto. Procura-se também abordar o debate sobre a Universidade no Brasil, (...) analisando-se em que medida seria possível uma atuação transformadora da realidade social por parte desta instituição.This article presents a reflection on the University in a capitalist society. It would have the capacity to spread out the conception of world of the diligent classrooms, contributing for the construction of one another society, or it would be an instrument of reproduction of the capitalist society? There’s a conflict between these two distinct proposals, and I try to present this movement by using the Gramsci’s concepts, understanding the current Brazilian reality in this context. I also try to present the current debate on the University in Brazil, trying to understand if it’s possible to the University to transform the social reality. (shrink)

Conflicts regarding family and workplace obligations often lead to frustration, dissatisfaction and lower levels of happiness. Taking into account the current low fertility rates in many European countries, the subjective well-being of women seems to be a crucial factor in population growth strategy. The rather low reproduction level underlies the analysis of women’s subjective well-being in respect to their employment and maternity status in Europe. How much do the European countries differ in terms of females’ subjective well-being? Does employment protection (...) legislation explain these differences through mothers’ employment patterns? This paper shows a significant negative association between the subjective well-being of women aged 17–54 and the rigidity of labor protection regulations. The conclusion stems from a multilevel model based on the European Value Study of 2008. The results showed that the subjective well-being of working mothers is higher in countries with liberal labor legislation while it is significantly lower in countries with strict employment protection legislation. (shrink)

This study uses a psychobiographic research method as a means to explore and describe the life of lyricist, Anthony Kiedis. Kiedis’s history is investigated through the lens of Erik Erikson’s theory of identity development. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a means to platform the psychobiographic methodology, this study explores Kiedis’s creativity and writing as intrinsic aspects of his identity. In addition, the analysis attempts to understand how Kiedis resolved his identity crises, and puts forward a presentation of Kiedis’s subjective (...) experiences of his identity development. Through this in-depth analysis, the study concludes that Kiedis is engaged in an infinite moratorium, and in so doing demonstrates the value of using the combined methods of IPA and psychobiography to understand the human condition. (shrink)

The article deals with the little-studied but actual problem of loneliness of an outstanding creative personality as a consequence of stereotypical understanding of his works and activity. The cultural and philosophical meaning of Ivan Turgenev’s motif of loneliness is that he was a lone creator, recognized by Russian critics and historians of literature only in the context of the activities of other recognized great writers: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov. The problem of loneliness is revealed through the paradoxical statement by (...) Turgenev on the question about strange loners and aggressive crowd. The paper presents the loneliness of I.S. Turgenev as a rejection of the understandable and normality among the non-understandable and weirdness. In Russian literatury critical and historico-cultural tradition, during the discussion of Russian classics, the general opinion has been formed: Turgenev is apparently non-Russian author, moreover he is not a classic writer indeed. (shrink)

The new industrial paradigm Industry 4.0, or smart industry, is at the core of contemporary debates. The public debate on Industry 4.0 typically offers two main perspectives: the technological one and the one about industrial policies. On the contrary, the discussion on the social and organizational effects of the new paradigm is still underdeveloped. The article specifically examines this aspect, and analyzes the change that workers are subject to, along with the work organization, smart digital factories. The study originates from (...) an empirical survey conducted by the author together with a multidisciplinary research group between 2014 and 2015 in some of the largest Italian factories.In particular, the article analyzes the links between digital society, digital culture and Industry 4.0, focusing on the issue of people’s participation in the process of change, within a specific case study from the railway sector.Many elements of the Industry 4.0 paradigm are widespread outside the factory, in society; they are not only technological elements but also cultural. One of the key aspects of the analysis is the question of participation and the “person-centered” culture. The subject is addressed critically by presenting both the RE-personalization processes and the new processes of DE personalization caused by digital automation. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

What counts as an intuitively plausible set theoretic content (notion, axiom or theorem) has been a matter of much debate in contemporary philosophy of mathematics. In this paper I develop a critical appraisal of the issue. I analyze first R. B. Jensen's positions on the epistemic status of the axiom of constructibility. I then formulate and discuss a view of intuitiveness in set theory that assumes it to hinge basically on mathematical success. At the same time, I present accounts of (...) set theoretic axioms and theorems formulated in non-strictly mathematical terms, e.g., by appealing to the iterative concept of set and/or to overall methodological principles, like unify and maximize, and investigate the relation of the latter to success in mathematics. (shrink)

This paper argues that the impact of individual higher education institutions’ strategies on system diversity should be explored. By looking at how universities respond strategically to governmental policies as well as to the actions of other (competing) institutions, our understanding of determinants of diversity can be enriched. A conceptual framework focusing on institutional positioning is explained using the dimensions deliberateness of organizational actions versus environmental influence, on the one hand, and differentiation versus compliance, on the other. We posit institutional positioning (...) as the mechanism through which organizational and environmental levels are linked. Our model features multiple dimensions and relations reflecting how higher education institutions locate themselves in specific niches, i.e. positions where they are able to gather the necessary resources for their core activities. The implications for research on diversity and for policymaking are discussed. (shrink)

The relevance of the topic of research of humanitarian capital as a set of values of social sciences today plays an exceptional role, because human capital is a great character and its goal is the process of mastering the world through the development of humanistic knowledge and methods of cultural education, aimed at personality formation. The Central problem for modern conditions is management education with a view that human capital formed by all humanist-oriented sciences, must be directed to the development (...) and fulfillment of personality. The main task of higher school is the identification, preservation and effective use of human knowledge as a set of humanistic values, which together constitute the human capital needed to ensure a comprehensive and creative personality. The article explains the essence, objectives and main directions of human capital with the aim to form comprehensive and creative personality, based on cultural development of man as his self-development and self-actualization. Objectives of the study are the conceptualization of human capital as a set of humanitarian values, which are implemented in practice of educational process of higher school. The methodological basis for the formation of humanitarian capital in the information society is a synergetic methodology aimed at revealing the intellectual and creative personality, which incorporates all the values of the Humanities, presented by specific synergistic tools. Conclusions – management of education in modern conditions should be directed on formation of mechanisms of human capital as a set of values created by mankind and implemented by social sciences and disciplines. (shrink)

In social interactions, emotional biases can arise when the emotional state of oneself and another person are incongruent. A person’s ability to judge the other’s emotional state can then be biased by their own emotional state, leading to an emotional egocentric bias (EEB). Alternatively, a person’s perception of their own emotional state can be biased by the other’s emotional state leading to an emotional altercentric bias (EAB). Using a modified audiovisual paradigm, we examined in three studies (n = 171; two (...) online & one lab-based study) whether emotional biases can be considered traits by measuring two timepoints within participant and relating empathy trait scores to emotional biases, as well as the electrophysiological correlates of emotional biases. In all studies, we found a congruency effect, reflecting an EEB and EAB of small size. Both biases failed to correlate significantly within participants across timepoints and did not display significant relationships with empathy trait scores. On the electrophysiological level, we did not find any neural emotional bias effects in the time–frequency domain. Our results suggest that EEB and EAB effects are strongly task sensitive. Caution is warranted when studying interindividual differences in emotional biases using this paradigm, as they did not show significant test-retest reliabilities. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes the American intervention in Nazi-oppressed Europe during World War II and the way in which this intervention is represented in film. Examining the visual and cinemati...

The paper deals with the historical and systematic aspects of psychologism. The historical aspect is examined on the background of the rise of psychology as an independent science. The systematic-analytical aspect, on the other hand, is seen as connected with normativity and the empirical contingency of facts. These issues are analyzed with regard to the so called Psychologismusstreit in German post-Kantian philosophy. The comeback of psychology is rendered as related to the project of naturalized epistemology. The paper also points out (...) to the challenges, which philosophy faces due to the claims of cognitivism. (shrink)