This paper provides an analysis of how concepts pertinent to legal contracts can influence certain aspects of their digital implementation through smart contracts, as inspired by recent developments in distributed ledger technology. We discuss how properties of imperative and declarative languages including the underlying architectures to support contract management and lifecycle apply to various aspects of legal contracts. We then address these properties in the context of several blockchain architectures. While imperative languages are commonly used to implement smart contracts, we (...) find that declarative languages provide more natural ways to deal with certain aspects of legal contracts and their automated management. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility research has burgeoned in the past several decades. Despite significant advances, our review of the literature reveals a problematic gap: We know little about how culture, practices, and interactions shape CSR. On further investigation, we discover that limited research utilizes ethnography to understand CSR, which may provide some explanation for this gap. Thus, the purpose of this article is to illustrate the utility of ethnography for advancing business and society research via a multistage framework that demonstrates how (...) three different types of ethnography may be applied to the exploration of CSR. We specifically focus on the alignment between stages in the research process, or methodological fit, as a key criterion of high-quality research. In doing so, we provide researchers embracing different worldviews a tool they may utilize to conduct and evaluate ethnographies in business and society research. (shrink)

It is proved that MacLane''s coherence results for monoidal and symmetric monoidal categories can be extended to some other categories with multiplication; namely, to relevant, affine and cartesian categories. All results are formulated in terms of natural transformations equipped with graphs (g-natural transformations) and corresponding morphism theorems are given as consequences. Using these results, some basic relations between the free categories of these classes are obtained.

It is proved that MacLane's coherence results for monoidal and symmetric monoidal categories can be extended to some other categories with multiplication; namely, to relevant, affine and cartesian categories. All results are formulated in terms of natural transformations equipped with “graphs” (g-natural transformations) and corresponding morphism theorems are given as consequences. Using these results, some basic relations between the free categories of these classes are obtained.

The paper offers a formalization of reasoning about distributed multi-agent systems. The presented propositional probabilistic temporal epistemic logic |$\textbf {PTEL}$| is developed in full detail: syntax, semantics, soundness and strong completeness theorems. As an example, we prove consistency of the blockchain protocol with respect to the given set of axioms expressed in the formal language of the logic. We explain how to extend |$\textbf {PTEL}$| to axiomatize the corresponding first-order logic.

Since in Heyting Arithmetic all atomic formulas are decidable, a Kripke model for HA may be regarded classically as a collection of classical structures for the language of arithmetic, partially ordered by the submodel relation. The obvious question is then: are these classical structures models of Peano Arithmetic ? And dually: if a collection of models of PA, partially ordered by the submodel relation, is regarded as a Kripke model, is it a model of HA? Some partial answers to these (...) questions were obtained in [6], [3], [1] and [2]. Here we present some results in the same direction, announced in [7]. In particular, it is proved that the classical structures at the nodes of a Kripke model of HA must be models of IΔ1 and that the relation between these classical structures must be that of a Δ1-elementary submodel. MSC: 03F30, 03F55. (shrink)

An extension of the notion of dinatural transformation is introduced in order to give a criterion for preservation of dinaturality under composition. An example of an application is given by proving that all bicartesian closed canonical transformations are dinatural. An alternative sequent system for intuitionistic propositional logic is introduced as a device, and a cut-elimination procedure is established for this system.

We study a propositional probabilistic temporal epistemic logic |$\textbf {PTEL}$| with both future and past temporal operators, with non-rigid set of agents and the operators for agents’ knowledge and for common knowledge and with probabilities defined on the sets of runs and on the sets of possible worlds. A semantics is given by a class |${\scriptsize{\rm Mod}}$| of Kripke-like models with possible worlds. We prove decidability of |$\textbf {PTEL}$| by showing that checking satisfiability of a formula in |${\scriptsize{\rm Mod}}$| is (...) equivalent to checking its satisfiability in a finite set of finitely representable structures. The same procedure can be applied to the class of all synchronous |${\scriptsize{\rm Mod}}$|-models. We give an upper complexity bound for the satisfiability problem for |${\scriptsize{\rm Mod}}$|⁠. (shrink)

It is proved that MacLane's coherence results for monoidal and symmetric monoidal categories can be extended to some other categories with multiplication; namely, to relevant, affine and cartesian categories. All results are formulated in terms of natural transformations equipped with “graphs” (g-natural transformations) and corresponding morphism theorems are given as consequences. Using these results, some basic relations between the free categories of these classes are obtained.

The great variety of meditation techniques found in different contemplative traditions presents a challenge when attempting to create taxonomies based on the constructs of contemporary cognitive sciences. In the current issue of Consciousness and Cognition, Travis and Shear add ‘automatic self-transcending’ to the previously proposed categories of ‘focused attention’ and ‘open monitoring’, and suggest characteristic EEG bands as the defining criteria for each of the three categories. Accuracy of current taxonomies and potential limitations of EEG measurements as classifying criteria are (...) discussed. (shrink)

Publication date: 28 April 2021 Source: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 90 Author: Zoran Mastilo, Nenad Božović, Dejan Mastilo The paper addresses and evaluates the currency board policy and assesses whether the currency board, as a form of monetary policy, is in the function of development of Bosnia and Herzegovina's national economy. In this context, a hypothesis that the currency board provides the foundation for growth and development of a transition economy is being put to the (...) test. To test the hypothesis, the paper compares the movement of economic growth indicators among the countries of South Eastern Europe with the primary focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina. By comparing the obtained results, as well as by applying the correlation and regression analysis, by means of simple linear regression, it is proven that the currency board does not represent an obstacle to economic growth, but is the basis for establishing the stability of the economy and the basis for sustainable growth and development able to adequately respond to shocks. (shrink)

Publication date: 2 May 2019 Source: Author: Zoran Mastilo Aim of this paper is to, by means of comparative analysis, demonstrate that contemporary pension systems are limitation factors of development of the Republic of Srpska, and that they should be reformed and improved. Ultimately, pension systems should be the basis for development of the Republic of Srpska. They should significantly improve strengthening of financial markets, enhancement of capital markets, higher growth rates of the Republic of Srpska, idecrease of unemployment. (...) Private pension funds are to change the habits and ideas of every future insurance holder, aiming to make the pension rights a matter of concern of every individual, instead being the obligation and ballast of the society. Today, stabile financing of pension systems and their funds is becoming increasingly questionable. A gap is emerging between the area of rights gained by law and financial possibilities for their implementation. Pay-as-you-go systems, i.e. systems of inter-generation solidarityare particularly endangered. Adequate systematization of gathered data, i.e. evidence, should provide conclusions that pension systems are a limitation todevelopment of national economy. This claim is present in underdeveloped and developing countries, with developed economies also facing grave problems. (shrink)

In this paper we propose substructural propositional logic obtained by da Costa weakening of the intuitionistic negation. We show that the positive fragment of the da Costa system is distributive lattice logic, and we apply a kind of da Costa weakening of negation, by preserving, differently from da Costa, its fundamental properties: antitonicity, inversion, and additivity for distributive lattices. The other stronger paraconsistent logic with constructive negation is obtained by adding an axiom for multiplicative property of weak negation. After that, (...) we define Kripke-style semantics based on possible worlds and derive from it many-valued semantics based on truth-functional valuations for these two paraconsistent logics. Finally, we demonstrate that this model-theoretic inference system is adequate—sound and complete with respect to the axiomatic da Costa-like systems for these two logics. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the class of truth-functional modal many-valued logics with the complete lattice of truth-values. The conjunction and disjunction logic operators correspond to the meet and join operators of the lattices, while the negation is independently introduced as a hierarchy of antitonic operators which invert bottom and top elements. The non-constructive logic implication will be defined for a subclass of modular lattices, while the constructive implication for distributive lattices (Heyting algebras) is based on relative pseudo-complements as in (...) intuitionistic logic. We show that the complete lattices are intrinsically modal, with banal identity modal operator. We define the autoreferential set-based representation for the class of modal algebras, and show that the autoreferential Kripke-style semantics for this class of modal algebras is based on the set of possible worlds equal to the complete lattice of algebraic truth-values. The philosophical assumption is based on the consideration that each possible world represents a level of credibility, so that only propositions with the right logic value (i.e., level of credibility) can be accepted by this world, then we connect it with paraconsistent properties and LFI logics. The bottom truth value in this complete lattice corresponds to the trivial world in which each formula is satisfied, that is, to the world with explosive inconsistency. The top truth value corresponds to the world with classical logics, while all intermediate possible worlds represent the different levels of paraconsistent logics. (shrink)

The present research examines how children’s time spent online is associated with their perceived life satisfaction accounting for their age, gender, socio-economic status, emotional problems, country, and family environmental factors. This article is based on the data of the large scale cross-sectional EU Kids Online survey from 16 European countries with nationally representative samples of children aged 9–17. The results indicated that the time children spent online appeared to have no considerable negative effect on their self-reported life satisfaction. Comparatively, the (...) positive effects of children’s SES and family environment accounted for 43% of the overall 50% of the variance in children’s SRLS scores. Considering that children’s SES alone accounted for 42% of the variance, children’s emotional problems, country of residence, and enabling parental mediation accounted for the remaining 3, 4, and 1% of the variance, respectively. In line with previous studies that urge caution when discussing the negative influence of time spent online on children’s mental health and overall wellbeing, the current findings suggest that social-ecological characteristics and how children use the Internet, need to be examined further. (shrink)

. A paraconsistent logic is a logical system that attempts to deal with contradictions in a discriminating way. In an earlier paper [Notre Dame J. Form. Log. 49, 401–424], we developed the systems of weakening of intuitionistic negation logic, called and, in the spirit of da Costa's approach by preserving, differently from da Costa, the fundamental properties of negation: antitonicity, inversion and additivity for distributive lattices. Taking into account these results, we make some observations on the modified systems of and, (...) and their paraconsistent properties. (shrink)

A transdisciplinary account of the polemical vocabularies of sovereignty, democracy, self-determination, constituent power, and constitutionalism, this book is a pioneering attempt to systematically envision these ideals and polemical concepts, not just as the objects of scholarly inquiry, but also as products of theoretical imaginations.

Development of biopharmaceuticals is a challenging issue in bioethics. Unlike conventional, small molecular weight drugs, biopharmaceuticals are proteins derived from DNA technology and hybrid techniques with complex three dimensional structures. Immunogenicity of biopharmaceuticals should always be tested in clinical settings due to low predictive value of preclinical animal models. However, non-human primates and transgenic mice could be used to address certain aspects of immunogenicity. Substantial efforts have been made to reduce NHP use in biopharmaceutical drug development, e.g. study design improvements (...) and changes in regulatory policy. In addition, several expert groups are active in this field. Despite that, there is an increasing trend of use of NHP in preclinical safety testing of biopharmaceuticals, especially regarding monoclonal antibodies. Other potential bioethical issues related biopharmaceutical drug development are their cost/effectiveness ratio, clinical safety assessment, production of biosimilars, and comparison of their efficacy with placebo in countries without intention to market. Identification of the human genome has opened many new bioethical issues. Development of biopharmaceuticals is an important bioethical issue for several reasons. It connects all aspects of contemporary bioethics: bio?medicine, animal welfare and the most recent ad?vances in biotechnology. In particular, biopharmaceutical drug development is a challenging issue regarding treatment of rare diseases. Razvoj biofarmaceutika predstavlja izazov u bioetici. Za razliku od uobicajenih lekova male molekulske mase, biofarmaceutici su proteini kompleksne trodimenzionalne strukture koji se dobijaju tehnologijom rekombinantne DNK i tehnikom hibridoma. Imunogenost biofarmaceutika treba uvek proveriti u klinickim studijama zbog male prediktivne prednosti pretklinickih animalnih modela. Medjutim, primati i transgeni sojevi miseva mogu se upotrebiti da bi se naznacili neki aspekti imunogenosti. Znacajni napori su ucinjeni u cilju smanjenja upotrebe primata u razvoju biofarmaceutika, npr. poboljsanja dizajna istrazivanja i promene u zakonskoj regulativi. Osim toga, u ovoj oblasti su aktivne i pojedine ekspertske grupe. Uprkos tome, postoji rastuci trend upotrebe primata izuzev coveka u pretklinickom ispitivanju bezbednosti biofarmaceutika, posebno kada su u pitanju monoklonska antitela. Druga bioeticka pitanja koja se mogu dovesti u vezu sa razvojem biofarmaceutika su odnos njihove cene i efikasnosti, procena bezbednosti u klinickim uslovima, proizvodnja bioloski slicnih lekova i uporedjivanje njihove efikasnosti sa placebom u zemljama u kojima ne postoji namera o plasmanu. Upoznavanje humanog genoma otvorilo je mnoga bioeticka pitanja. Razvoj biofarmaceutika je vazno bioeticko pitanje iz vise razloga. Ono povezuje sve aspekte savremene bioetike: biomedicinu, dobrobit zivotinja i najnovija dostignuca u biotehnologiji. Posebno, razvoj biofarmaceutika je izazov kada je u pitanju lecenje retkih bolesti. (shrink)

Razvoj biofarmaceutika predstavlja izazov u bioetici. Za razliku od uobicajenih lekova male molekulske mase, biofarmaceutici su proteini kompleksne trodimenzionalne strukture koji se dobijaju tehnologijom rekombinantne DNK i tehnikom hibridoma. Imunogenost biofarmaceutika treba uvek proveriti u klinickim studijama zbog male prediktivne prednosti pretklinickih animalnih modela. Medjutim, primati i transgeni sojevi miseva mogu se upotrebiti da bi se naznacili neki aspekti imunogenosti. Znacajni napori su ucinjeni u cilju smanjenja upotrebe primata u razvoju biofarmaceutika, npr. poboljsanja dizajna istrazivanja i promene u zakonskoj regulativi. (...) Osim toga, u ovoj oblasti su aktivne i pojedine ekspertske grupe. Uprkos tome, postoji rastuci trend upotrebe primata izuzev coveka u pretklinickom ispitivanju bezbednosti biofarmaceutika, posebno kada su u pitanju monoklonska antitela. Druga bioeticka pitanja koja se mogu dovesti u vezu sa razvojem biofarmaceutika su odnos njihove cene i efikasnosti, procena bezbednosti u klinickim uslovima, proizvodnja bioloski slicnih lekova i uporedjivanje njihove efikasnosti sa placebom u zemljama u kojima ne postoji namera o plasmanu. Upoznavanje humanog genoma otvorilo je mnoga bioeticka pitanja. Razvoj biofarmaceutika je vazno bioeticko pitanje iz vise razloga. Ono povezuje sve aspekte savremene bioetike: biomedicinu, dobrobit zivotinja i najnovija dostignuca u biotehnologiji. Posebno, razvoj biofarmaceutika je izazov kada je u pitanju lecenje retkih bolesti. (shrink)

It is argued that the so-called “absolute space-time theory” is inconsistent, in disagreement with some astronomical observations, and improperly titled.

U nacrtu ovog projekta raspravlja se o izazovima pred kojim se nalazi nacionalna drzava u dinamicnim procesima globalizacije. Prvo se nastoji odrediti pojam globalizacije kao decentralizovani proces kondenzacije i homogenizacije prostora i vremena a zatim se ukazuje na ambivalentnu strukturu diskursa o globalizaciji - njegovu semanticku i pragmaticku dimenziju. Potom se izlaze neoliberalno glediste o eroziji i slabljenju nacionalne drzave usled premoci globalnog kapitalistickog pogona, kako u pogledu njenih tradicionalnih funkcija tako i u pogledu njenog internog i eksternog suvereniteta. Protiv (...) neoliberalne teze o eroziji nacionalne drzave izneseni su mnogi uglavnom empirijski argumenti. Neki od njih su prezentovani u ovom tekstu. Poenta ove argumentacije sastoji se u generalnom stavu da izmedju erozije nacionalne drzave i procesa globalizacije ne postoji jaka veza. U skladu sa prezentovanom kritickom argumentacijom tvrdi se da u uslovima globalizacionih procesa samo ona drustva iza kojih stoji jaka i stabilna drzava imaju izglede na uspeh. Politika a ne ekonomija i dalje dominira medjunarodnim odnosima. Naglasavanje momenta drzavne politike otvara novu perspektivu u razmatranju procesa globalizacije. Tekuci globalizacioni procesi ne mogu se razumeti nezavisno od geopolitickih interesa i promene balansa svetske moci. Tekst se zavrsava ukazivanjem na ideologicnost neoliberalnog diskursa o globalizaciji propitivanjem druge bazicne i nereflektovane pretpostavke ovog diskursa po kojoj su procesi globalizacije u isto vreme i procesi emancipacije. Osporavanjem nuzne veze izmedju globalizacije i emancipacije gradi se pozicija sa koje je moguca normativna kritika tekucih procesa. (shrink)

Rafael Malach is currently a professor in the department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. His current research is aimed at understanding how the neuronal circuitry in the human brain translates a stream of sensory stimuli into meaningful perception. Rafael Malach received his PhD in physiological optics from UC Berkeley and did his post-doctorate research at MIT. Originally doing research on the organization of neuronal connections in the primate brain, his focus has recently shifted to the study of (...) the human cerebral cortex using fMRI. Professor Malach has begun this research at Massachusetts General Hospital, exploring a new object-related region called the lateral occipital complex. Since then he expanded this research, studying the human visual cortex using a variety of methods, including adaptation paradigms, backward masking, and more recently naturalistic stimuli--all aimed at deciphering the intriguing link between perceptual experience and brain activity. (shrink)