This article will introduce Isaac Newton’s fundamental methodological concepts applied for a solution concerning a question of gravity in his Principia Mathematica. The method of deduction of propositions from phenomena can be described as demonstrative induction. The main aim is to show that this method proposed by Newton explicitly contains a criticism of hypothetico-deductive methodology as an inadequate approach to the study of nature. As opposed to hypothetico-deductive method, demonstrative induction is capable of producing theories with much richer empirical and (...) epistemological value. Delimitation against hypothetically deduced theories is closely connected with criticism of mechanical materialism, most notably in a form proposed by René Descartes. Consequently, it has led Newton to not only reject the universality of mechanical premise but also to certain level of immunization against all competitive hypothetically based theories. (shrink)

While e-commerce has witnessed extensive growth in recent years, so has consumers' concerns regarding ethical issues surrounding online shopping. The vast majority of earlier research on this area is conceptual in nature, and limited in scope by focusing on consumers' privacy issues. This study develops a reliable and valid scale to measure consumers' perceptions regarding the ethics of online retailers. Findings indicate that the four factors of the scale - security, privacy, non-deception and fulfillment/reliability - are strongly predictive of online (...) consumers' satisfaction and trust. The results offer important implications for e-retailers and are likely to stimulate further research in the area of e-ethics from the consumers' perspective. (shrink)

This study investigates the negative influence of consumer’s perceptions of online retailer’s deceptive practices on consumer’s relational variables. Also, the moderating role of product type, consumer’s attitude toward the Internet, and consumer’s demographics in the deception-relational outcomes link is considered. Data from 398 online consumers revealed that satisfaction totally mediated the influence of deception on loyalty. Furthermore, the deception-satisfaction link was moderated by all the hypothesized variables. Interestingly, a direct effect of deception on loyalty was found among more educated consumers, (...) consumers who had a more positive attitude toward the Internet and consumers who had purchased a physical product. Implications for theory and management are discussed. (shrink)

Le maintien des relations parent-enfant en prison représente un véritable défi au regard des différentes formes d’empêchement – véritable mise en suspens de la parentalité – auxquels se trouvent confrontés les parents détenus et les enfants ainsi que leurs accompagnants. Membre d’une recherche inter-disciplinaire (droit et psychologie), menée en France dans trois établissements pénitentiaires en appui sur des questionnaires et la conduite de focus-groups, l’auteur met en évidence, au travers d’une approche clinique psychodynamique, la tension qui s’exerce entre les attentes (...) exprimées par les parents détenus à l’égard de leurs enfants et la disqualification dont leur lien est l’objet, en raison du vécu des conditions de détention et d’accueil des enfants ainsi que de l’accès à la prison des personnes qui, de l’extérieur, sont en mesure de soutenir les relations parent-enfant (conjoint ou ex-conjoint, famille...). (shrink)

Some environmentalists have argued that an effective ecological conscience may be rooted in a perspective that is either anthropocentric or sentiocentric. But, neither seems to have had any substantial effect on the ways in which our species treats nature. In looking to successfully awaken the ecological conscience, the focus should be on extending moral consideration to the land (wherein doing so includes all of the soils, waters, plants, animals, and the collectivity of which these things comprise) by means of coming (...) to love the land. Coming to love the land involves coming to view the land’s interests as our own—and, conferring upon the land a kind of moral patient-hood. In order to perceive the land’s “subjectivity,” and so, to come to love the land, we must relearn the way to look at the land by viewing its personality through the lens of he or she who can already do so, i.e., the nature writer. (shrink)

The development of the vital potential of the drama theater is in a continuous search for new forms of expression. Today, in an attempt to establish itself on the territory of a multicultural environment, as well as in an attempt to gain a unique method of communication with society, the theater as an art sphere expands the boundaries of its purpose. Going beyond the stage space turns out to be an important subject of research from the point of view of (...) the search for the artistic existence of the theater in the conditions of digital reality. This article discusses the issue of finding a place for a drama theater in a digital environment where the energy of human relations is significantly minimized and manifests itself in a specifically different way. The subject of the research for the author was the cultural and creative activity of the Tovstonogov BDT. The St. Petersburg Bolshoi Drama Theater does not need recommendations: it has a great history in the twentieth century, an attractive stage "today" for the audience and, undoubtedly, interesting prospects. In the practice of BDT under the leadership of Andrei the Mighty (2013-2023), there are such turns of dramatic action that are not directly connected with the stage and are almost out of place for the "repertory" theater. The phenomenon of the theater, as if removed from its ancestral roots, leaving the walls breathing tradition, is considered in the article as an experience of cultural and theatrical "exit" to the "stage" of digital reality. Among such experiments, the most significant are the social action "Help the doctors", as well as the experiments of "Minecraft" performances. In addition to the usual comparative historical method for art studies, others will be used, first of all, the formal method, which distinguishes the St. Petersburg school of theater studies. Scientific novelty is determined by the subject of research itself: BDT is considered as a phenomenon of a multi-genre cultural space, in which, as before, a special place is rightfully given to the actor, his role, as well as to the viewer who finds himself in the conditions of a new socio-cultural picture of the world. (shrink)

This article focuses on the issue of social support received by students of music schools in the context of their musical achievements. The theoretical part of this article contains the characteristics of factors related to the musical achievements of students; the support they receive from their environment is essential for their success in the process of musical education and their subsequent artistic career, in addition to their musical abilities and traits of personality. The research part is devoted to detailed analysis (...) of the support level received by music school students and its correlation to their level of musical achievement. Social support is analysed with a view to its structure, distinguishing the following kinds of support: emotional, evaluative, informative and instrumental received from people who are significant to the music school student and indicates the essential presence of support in the process of musical achievement. Moreover, as part of the presentation of the study, the authors introduce their original tool for measuring social support tailored to the realities of music schools - the Scale of Social Support of the Students of Music Schools. This tool may be applied in the work of educational psychologists and teachers in music schools. (shrink)

Realism figures in current debates as the view that knowledge of the meanings of statements concerning a particular subject matter requires knowledge of their truth conditions, regarded as possibly transcending verification. Appealing to Wittgenstein's dictum that meaning is use, Michael Dummett has influentially argued that realistically-conceived truth conditions can play no role in an account of linguistic understanding. The present essay argues that, when such truth conditions are correctly understood, it will be seen that they are in fact indispensable to (...) any acceptable theory of meaning. The second part of the essay develops this conclusion with reference statements about other minds. (shrink)

Synchronization of neural activity in oscillatory neural networks is a general principle of information processing in the brain at both preattentional and attentional levels. This is confirmed by a model of attention based on an oscillatory neural network with a central element and models of feature binding and working memory based on multi-frequency oscillations.

For any choice of initial state and weak assumptions about the Hamiltonian, large isolated quantum systems undergoing Schrödinger evolution spend most of their time in macroscopic superposition states. The result follows from von Neumann’s 1929 Quantum Ergodic Theorem. As a specific example, we consider a box containing a solid ball and some gas molecules. Regardless of the initial state, the system will evolve into a quantum superposition of states with the ball in macroscopically different positions. Thus, despite their seeming fragility, (...) macroscopic superposition states are ubiquitous consequences of quantum evolution. We discuss the connection to many worlds quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Transformácia politického systému -- Aktuálne problémy a riešenia -- Alternatívy súčasného kapitalizmu -- Cynizmus ako princíp -- Appendix o školstve.

La preocupación ecológica es hoy uno de los signos de los tiempos. Es también un desafío a la responsabilidad humana, a las políticas sociales y al compromiso cristiano. El autor nos presenta en este estudio un decálogo en el que subraya los fundamentos de una ética del medio ambiente. Y resume también los puntos fundamentales de una Ecoética cristiana, en los que se evoca la seriedad de la fe, el dinamismo de la esperanza y la generosidad del amor.

Databases play a fundamental role in today’s world, being used by most companies, especially those that offer services through the Internet. Today there is a wide variety of database models, each adapted for use according to the specific requirements of each application. Traditionally, the relational models with centralized architectures have been used mostly due to their simplicity and general-purpose query language, which made relational systems suitable for almost any application. However, with the growth of the Internet in recent decades, both (...) in the number of users and in the amount of information, those centralized models began to suffer availability and scalability issues. To address those issues, the use of decentralized architectures and alternative database models began to arise, eventually replacing relational databases and centralized architectures when the requirements on availability and scalability are high. Those database models alternative to the traditional relational model are grouped under the name of NoSQL. In this article, we present a NoSQL database developed as an end of degree work, with a flexible data model based on documents and a fully decentralized architecture based on the Gossip protocol for node discovery and a distributed hash table, in particular the rendezvous hashing algorithm, used to distribute and replicate the data across all the nodes. The main goals of the system are to achieve high availability and high scalability. High availability is achieved thanks to the replication of the data, while high scalability is achieved by its decentralized architecture, which allows multiple entry points from the requests, and the data distribution, effectively increasing the database capacity by increasing the number of nodes. (shrink)

У статті аналізуються причини, особливості та наслідки трансформації традиційного гендерного ладу. Стверджується, що в наш час відбувається надзвичайно потужна трансформація культурної парадигми. Одним із наслідків цієї трансформації є зміна звичного гендерного ладу та гендерної ідентичності. Автор доводить, що трансформація традиційного (патріархального) гендерного ладу здійснює вагомий вплив на соціальне буття людини, зокрема, на самоідентифікацію сучасної людини. Філософським підґрунтям трансформації традиційного гендерного ладу є відмова від універсалізму, «визнання іншого» та відхід від концепції «маскулінного характеру культури». Найбільш соціально значущий наслідок трансформації гендерного ладу (...) – поступове вирівнювання гендерних ролей чоловіка та жінки. Аналізуючи український контекст проблеми гендерних відносин, автор робить висновок, що українське суспільство значною мірою є ще патріархальним, про що свідчить домінування патріархальної культури та патріархальних стереотипів і цінностей. (shrink)

Translated excerpts from works by various authors; original titles and names of the translators given in captions.

In this paper, I offer a model of ethical choice based on the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), multiattribute utility theory (Baron, 2000), and moral emotions (Haidt, 2003) that is an alternative to and provides more detail than the moral judgment process that is within Rest’s model. I suggest this ethical choice model better describes the ethical judgment process by incorporating compensatory judgment, specifying the use of deontological and teleological reasoning, and accounting for the influence of moral emotions. In (...) doing so it represents an improved understanding of ethical choice in business. (shrink)

In The Course of Recognition, Paul Ricœur pays special attention to Honneth’s social theory, on the one hand, because it is devoted to the important issue of the struggles for recognition and, on the other hand, because Axel Honneth proposes a convincing neo-Hegelian conception of social justice. However, while adhering to Honneth’s project, Ricœur establishes a dialectical relationship between love and justice, in order to correct an inherent defect of Anerkennung. The reference to agápē would provide the only way out (...) of the endless struggle, by demonstrating that human beings are capable of mutual recognition through the social practice of gift/counter-gift. Ricœur presents agápē as a simple add-on to the Honnethian project. The present paper returns to this assertion, and demonstrates that, on the contrary, the use of agápē alters the struggles for recognition, and does not help us to arrive at a conception of social justice, which is capable of revealing experiences of injustice and combatting them. (shrink)