Insulin is a member of a family of hormones, growth factors and neuropeptides which are found in both vertebrates and invertebrates. A common ‘insulin fold’ is probably adopted by all family members. Although the specificities of receptor binding are different, there is possibility of co‐evolution of polypeptides and their receptors.

In recent analytic metaphysics, the view that ‘ordinary inanimate objects such as sticks and stones, tables and chairs, simply do not exist’ has been defended by some noteworthy writers. Thomasson opposes such revisionary ontology in favour of an ontology that is conservative with respect to common sense. The book is written in a straightforward, methodical and down-to-earth style. It is also relatively non-specialized, enabling the author and her readers to approach problems that are often dealt with in isolation in a (...) more unified way.Thomasson's arguments are mainly counter-attacks on six ‘eliminativist’ arguments against ordinary objects. A causal redundancy argument espoused by Trenton Merricks holds that to suppose that there are ordinary objects is to suppose that these objects have distinctive causal powers. However, the casual efficacy of a baseball, for example, is exhausted by that of some suitably arranged …. (shrink)

Purpose. The dynamics and pace of social and economic transformations that are characteristic of modern society, lead to an increase in tension and the destruction of habitual stereotypes – ideals, values, norms, patterns of behaviour that unite people. These moments encourage us to rethink the understanding of "security" essence, in particular, psychological, which emphasizes the urgency of its study in the philosophical and sociocultural coordinates. Theoretical basis of the research is based on the philosophical methodology of K. Jaspers, E. Fromm (...) and the A. Maslow’s psychological approach to understanding of a person. Originality. Psychological security is considered at different levels: first and foremost, society is a characteristic of social security, that is an analysis of how today’s social technologies, social changes affect the quality of life of the country’s population; secondly, the social environment – the family, the immediate environment, reference groups, training teams; thirdly, a person is an experience of his own security-insecurity, when it is possible to talk about the manifestations of psychological violence, when certain behavioral acts contribute to the violation of the security of the other or to self-destruction. It is found out that the knowledge of psychological security is closely connected with the socio-historical conditions of being, with the level of development of material and spiritual culture, with the interests and values prevailing in society, which determines its ontological, epistemological and axiological features. The presented issue is considered in the correlation of psychological security with types of scientific rationality – classical, nonclassical and post-nonclassical approaches, within the framework of which various perspectives, aspects, forms and types of psychological security are studied. Conclusions. The concept of security requires a systematic description of its manifestations, types, levels, concepts: security as the absence of dangers ; security as a certain activity to ensure or to prevent any threats or dangers ; security as a conscious necessity, the value of the individual. The study systematizes various ideas about psychological security in accordance with the logic of scientific knowledge: in the mainstream of classical, non-classical and post-nonclassical approaches. (shrink)

This is my reply to McLeod’s reply (2015a) to my (2015) paper commenting on his (2011) interpretation of Wang Chong 王充 as an alethic pluralist.

In (2011) McLeod suggested that the first century Chinese philosopher Wang Chong 王充 may have been a pluralist about truth. In this reply I contest McLeod's interpretation of Wang Chong, and suggest "quasi-pluralism" (albeit more as an alternative to pluralism than as an interpretation of Wang Chong), which combines primitivism about the concept of truth with pluralism about justification.

. This paper examines the association between long-term compensation and corporate social responsibility for 90 publicly traded Canadian firms. Social responsibility is considered to include concerns for social factors and the environment, 564-578; Kane, E. J., 341-359). Long-term compensation attempts to focus executives efforts on optimizing the longer term, which should direct their attention to factors traditionally associated with socially responsible executives. As hypothesized, we found a significant relationship between the long-term compensation and total CSR weakness as well as the (...) product/environmental weakness dimension of CSR. In addition, we found a marginally significant relationship between long-term compensation and total corporate responsibility. Our findings are that executives long-term compensation is associated with a firms environmental actions, and that firms that utilize long-term compensation are more likely to mitigate product/environment weaknesses than those that do not. Implications for practice and research are discussed. (shrink)

This book stakes out a position in the area of metaphysics that deals with modality. But is this even a legitimate area of inquiry? Chapter 1 begins by confronting scepticism on this score. Some hold that the logical positivists sharpened “Hume’s fork”— either “relations of ideas” or “matters of fact”—and thereby discredited metaphysics in general. Others hold that Wittgenstein discredited the specific metaphysical position known as essentialism. But both readings of the record are mistaken, McLeod argues. Hume did not (...) himself oppose metaphysics in general; he affirmed the value of “abstruse metaphysics”, and considered himself a practitioner. Positivist elaborations of Hume’s fork moreover were not enough to indict metaphysics in general. As for Wittgenstein, he himself engaged in essentialist speculation in the Tractatus. His question there was what about the world explains that the world is capable of being represented. The only answer possible must point to what the world by nature is like. (shrink)

Junior researchers can be abused and bullied by unscrupulous senior collaborators. This article describes the profile of a type of serial abuser, the White Bull, who uses his academic seniority to distort authorship credit and who disguises his parasitism with carefully premeditated deception. Further research into the personality traits of such perpetrators is warranted.

A new formulation involving fulfillment of all the Kolmogorov axioms is suggested for acomplete probability theory. This proves to be not a purely mathematical discipline. Probability theory deals with abstract objects—images of various classes of concrete objects—whereas experimental statistics deals with concrete objects alone. Both have to be taken into account. Quantum physics and classical statistical physics prove to be different aspects ofone probabilistic physics. The connection of quantum mechanics with classical statistical mechanics is examined and the origin of the (...) Schrödinger equation is elucidated. Attention is given to the true meaning of the wave-corpuscle duality, and the incompleteness of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is explained. (shrink)

The “special state” understanding of the measurement process is presented, namely there is no “measurement process,” only unitary time evolution. However, in contrast to the many worlds interpretation, there is only one world. How this can be accomplished and how statistical mechanics is changed as a result are also discussed. The focus though is on experimental tests of this theory and the in-principle realization that this can give rise to feasible experimental tests. Those tests rely on the particular feature of (...) having only one world, so that any change in the wave function must have a proximate cause, and it is the detection of that cause that constitutes the test. In a companion article there is further exploration concerning the details of the test. In addition, in the present article, the special state theory is extended theoretically through evidence of the uniqueness of the Cauchy distribution as well as explicit recognition of the role of entanglement. (shrink)

The increasing demand for horticultural products for nutritional and economic purposes by lesser developed countries (LDC's) is well-documented. Technological demands of the LDC's producing horticultural products is also increasing. Pesticide use is an integral component of most agricultural production, yet chemicals are often supplied without supplemental information vital for their safe and efficient implementation. Illiteracy rates in developing countries are high, making pesticide education even more challenging. For women, who perform a significant share of agricultural tasks, illiteracy rates are even (...) higher than for men. The dilemma exists of how a developing country can improve its nutritional and economic situation without giving consideration to social and environmental consequences. (shrink)

Some problems relating to the probabilistic description of a free particle and of a charged particle moving in an electromagnetic field are discussed. A critical analysis of the Klein-Gordon equation and of the Dirac equation is given. It is also shown that there is no connection between commutativity of operators for physical quantities and the existence of their joint probability. It is demonstrated that the Heisenberg uncertainty relation is not universal and explained why this is so. A universal uncertainty relation (...) for canonically conjugate coordinates and momenta is suggested. (shrink)

The period of the mid-1920s to the mid-1980s was a portentous period for Soviet psychology. As this period recedes into the past, the figure of L. S. Vygotskii rises more and more before us. Vygotskii died of tuberculosis when not quite 37 years old. He was a psychologist for only 10 years, and it was only in the last 6 of these that he did the work we now associate with his name. During those brief years Vygotskii wrote over 120 (...) works, including more than 10 large books. His was a short life — filled with inspired, indefatigable, and heroic work. A significant part of his written work has remained unpublished and indeed much of it remained unfinished. A seven-volume collection of Vygotskii's work is currently underway, and even this will not contain everything he wrote. The final volume of this collection will include his articles "The Sense of the Psychological Crisis" and "Spinoza's Theory of the Passions.". (shrink)

The emergence of macroscopic variables can be effected through coarse graining. Despite practical and fundamental benefits conveyed by this partitioning of state space, the apparently subjective nature of the selection of coarse grains has been considered problematic. We provide objective selection methods, deriving from the existence of relatively slow dynamical time scales. Using a framework for nonequilibrium statistical mechanics developed by us, we show the emergence of both spatial variables and order parameters. Although significant objective criteria are introduced in the (...) coarse graining, we do not provide a unique prescription. Most significantly, the grains, and by implication entropy, are only defined modulo a characteristic time scale of observation. (shrink)

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)

It has been more than sixty years since R. D. Collison Black published his Economic Thought and the Irish Question, a book which ever since has been widely regarded as a classic in the history of e...

General regularities related toLagrangian andHamiltonian equations are revealed. Probability distributions for functions ofHamiltonian random variables are considered. It is shown that all probability distributions of this kind are fully determined by the probability distributions for the random variables satisfying the corresponding Lagrangian equations. Some formulas related tocanonically conjugate operators are given. The similarity of these formulas to those related to Hamiltonian random variables is demonstrated. The “quantum approach” to the treatment of Hamiltonian random variables is discussed, and the origin of (...) some peculiarities related to this approach is elucidated; it is explained, in particular, why it is impossible to form the joint probability density for canonically conjugate random variables when using this approach. The peculiarities revealed prove to be common for any objects possessing Hamiltonian random variables, irrespective of the nature of the objects, and coincide, therefore, with those in quantum mechanics. The existence of joint probability distributions for canonically conjugate random variables in the general case is demonstrated through the calculation of the corresponding joint mathematical expectations in an illustrative example. This proves, in particular, that joint probability distributions for canonically conjugate coordinates and momenta exist indeed in the case of mechanical microsystems. The results obtained prove once again that the pecularities of quantum mechanics are not related to the specificity of the measurements of physical quantities for microsystems. (shrink)