The basic hypothesis tested in the article is that the existence of Freedom of Information legislation in a state enhances utilization of evaluation research. The investigation of this research question leads to a tentative rejection of this hypothesis. Factors such as weak Freedom of Information Acts, unsympathetic implementation, and the lack of useful and timely information in agency-sponsored evaluations may discourage legislatures from actively using Freedom of Information provisions to obtain such studies.

Bentham was an influential thinker with an ‘essentially practical mind’. His influence on British social and political reform, however, was indirect, coming largely after his death and largely through the work of his disciples. Bentham's own attempts to put his ideas directly into practice generally had little effect. He came closest to success in the area of penal policy, winning a contract from Pitt's government in the early 1790s to build and manage a penitentiary that was to be organized on (...) the panopticon principle. Bentham saw the penitentiary as the spearhead of prison reform and as a means of effecting a change from transportation to imprisonment as a punishment for serious crime. While Bentham's use of the panopticon principle itself has attracted most attention in the literature, there was more to his scheme than this. The penitentiary proposals were worked out in great detail, they were a conscious application of his theory of punishment, and they were consistent with and an element of his all-embracing plan of social, political, and constitutional reform. (shrink)

The key objectives of this book are to demonstrate the applicability of issues in the philosophy of science to problems in psychiatry and to show how the conceptual issues raised by psychiatry should be considered more closely by philosophers of science. These are worthy aims: the philosophy of psychiatry needs to draw more thoughtfully upon contemporary philosophical debates and stimulating interest within the philosophy of science is a good way to do this.Cooper's book succeeds for both of these desiderata. The (...) first five chapters discuss the central issues in the philosophy of psychiatry: whether mental illness is a disease/natural kind and what follows from this. There is a large literature on these questions, some of which …. (shrink)

The concept of sustainable development considers environmental, social and economic issues in general. And the goals of resource conservation and socio-economic development do not contradict each other, but contribute to mutual reinforcement. The purpose of this study is to build and test an economic and mathematical model for the formation of strategies for the behavior of an economic entity with an increase in the impact of negative environmental factors. The proposed strategies and their models are based on the income-expenditure balance (...) equation, which takes into account both quantitative and qualitative characteristics. The constructed models are considered in the state space. The research methodology is based on building models in the form of linear combinations of functions of a homogeneous external impact and various spatial combinations of economic sources (sinks). The study makes it possible to assess the dependence of the amount of resources used for life support on the chosen adaptive strategy. Within the framework of the proposed model, it was found that the criterion for the effectiveness of the applied strategy can be an indicator of satisfaction with the state, the preservation of which, simultaneously with the preservation of the size of resources used, corresponds to the direction of optimization. This approach is consistent with the concept of sustainable development. (shrink)

At one time, A.J.Toynby regarded as civilizations of the "third generation" three civilizations that were formed during the transition from the Old City to the Middle Ages on the basis of the sociocultural, in particular, the religious, property of the ancient and Middle Eastern peoples: Western Christianity, Eastern Christianity, and Muslim. The first two, as is known, had two spiritual Christians, which resolutely differed only in the middle of the XI century. But at the civilization level, the distinction between the (...) East Christian and Western Christian worlds began with the final antiquity. (shrink)

Philosophers, accounted wise in their generation and even beyond their generation, have enthroned the unchanging and sung the praises of fatality and acquiescence. But there is a voice even more authoritative than that of the sages—the voice of the LifeShaper himself. Perched on the height of the human soul, he has set two watchmen, more sagacious and knowing than the Metaphysicians who weave words “About it and about” in the taverns beneath; their names are Wonder and Surprise. Wonder spies out (...) novelty, and Surprise discerns change. Wonder arises at that which is beyond expectation; Surprise at that which is contrary to expec tation. What could completely surpass expectation save the completely novel? What could so drastically dismantle expectation save the hurricane onset of change? (shrink)