Financial misconduct has come into the spotlight in recent years, causing market regulators to increase the reach and severity of interventions. We show that at times the economic benefits of illicit financial activity outweigh the costs of litigation. We illustrate our argument with data from the US Securities and Exchanges Commission and a case of investment misconduct. From the neoclassical economic paradigm, which follows utilitarian thinking, it is rational to engage in misconduct. Still, the majority of professionals refrain from misconduct, (...) foregoing economic rewards. We suggest financial activity could be reimagined taking into account intrinsic and prosocial motivations. A virtue ethics framework could also be applied, linking financial behavior to the quest for moral excellence and shared flourishing. By going beyond utilitarian thinking and considering alternative models, we offer a fuller account of financial behavior and a better perspective from which to design deterrence methods. (shrink)

The article presents a communication-based analysis of the function of the ‘bez sensu’ [meaningless/ pointless/makes no sense etc.] phraseme. The author discusses the conversational and discursive opportunities for using it. He applies the methodology of communicational grammar, which enables the analysis of communications at the ideational and interactive levels. Within the semantic level, ‘bez sensu’ removes the value of the trivialised semantic standard. In conversations, it is the reaction to scripts which contradict natural logic and the common-sensical cause-and-effect course of (...) things. An important function is the bringing forward of scripts of failure, wastefulness, redundancy, and lack of benefit or expected or actual harm. At the interactive level, the ‘bez sensu’ expression fulfils the function of support for the argumentative power of a communication; it is also a measure of undermining an argumentation – it emphasises the frailty of its premises. In axiological strategies, ‘bez sensu’ is a major component of emotive acts and the building block of the emotional tension between interlocutors. In this instance, it is mostly used to bring forward the experience of a negative emotion. One negative outcome of using the ‘bez sensu’ expression is the introduction distance to interpersonal contact, and in some cases the sense of intellectually debasing the sender of a communication. The article includes several examples of media-based political statements with the ‘bez sensu’ expression, which are used for discrediting political opponents. (shrink)

Research on natural and artificial brains is proceeding at a rapid pace. However, the understanding of the essence of consciousness has changed slightly over the millennia, and only the last decade has brought some progress to the area. Scientific ideas emerged that the soul could be a product of the material body and that calculating machines could imitate brain processes. However, the authors of this book reject the previously common dualism—the view that the material and spiritual-psychic processes are separate and (...) require a completely different substance as their foundation. -/- Reductive Model of the Conscious Mind is a forward-thinking book wherein the authors identify processes that are the essence of conscious thinking and place them in the imagined, simplified structure of cells able to memorize and transmit information in the form of impulses, which they call neurons. The purpose of the study is to explain the essence of consciousness to the degree of development of natural sciences, because only the latter can find a way to embed the concept of the conscious mind in material brains. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 works to convince readers that the emergence of consciousness does not require detailed knowledge of the structure and morphology of the brain, with the exception of some specific properties of the neural network structure that the authors attempt to point out. Part 2 proves that the biological structure of many natural brains fulfills the necessary conditions for consciousness and intelligent thinking. Similarly, Part 3 shows the ways in which artificial creatures imitating natural brains can meet these conditions, which gives great hopes for building artificially intelligent beings endowed with consciousness. Covering topics that include cognitive architecture, the embodied mind, and machine learning, this book is ideal for cognitive scientists, philosophers of mind, neuroscientists, psychologists, researchers, academicians, and advanced-level students. The book can also help to focus the research of linguists, neurologists, and biophysicists on the biophysical basis of postulated information processing into knowledge structures. (shrink)

In mainstream economics the principle of freedom from value judgment (Wertfreiheit) is enforced. This principle has different interpretations. The aim of this paper is to present author's interpretations of the principle of Wertfreiheit. The basic ideas of axiology have been analysed: values, valua- tions, and value judgments, including their application to economic activities and economic researches. Two models of valuations have been presented – the taste model and perception model – as well as points of view of economic researches on (...) those models. The conclusion comprises the author’s interpretation of the principle of Wertfreiheit as that of impartiality and integrity in research activities. (shrink)

An interview with Wiesław Chrzanowski, a member of the Home Army’s “Gustaw” unit. Chrzanowski recounts the political situation in Europe at the time and the Soviet Union’s and Allies’ stance towards the Warsaw Uprising. He is also critical towards the uprising’s commanders, who launched it without adequate preparation.

This article shows the organization of distance learning, particularly the idea of b-learning, combining the accomplishment of classes carried on in the traditional way and via computers. The authors present learning activities related to complementary education herein. Some of these course types may be successfully adapted to an e-learning background. The models and structure of the university virtual environment for distance learning are described. These illustrate a new approach to creating a virtual space for medical and technical studies where e-learning (...) courses are created to be used for distance education, which allows students to be taught more effectively. The projected virtual courses for different groups of students ensure individualization of students’ work, which could be a relevant element for creating the shortest path of development of professional competencies. This paper further includes a brief overview of technologies used to build interactive elements into learning mate- rials. The authors present the use of interactive elements in medical education based on examples of certain selected games and animations. (shrink)

: La democracia es una expresión de la subjetividad de la sociedad y por tanto merece reconocimiento. Hoy en día, sin embargo, la democracia está amenazada con una separación de los valores universales y aliada con el relativismo moral. El resultado de este proceso es la reducción de la democracia a meros procedimientos. Esto puede llevar a la tiranía de la mayoría democrática. Los procedimientos democráticos requieren valores fundamentales que son la base del consenso social, el acuerdo y la cooperación (...) para el bien común. El Cristianismo es una fuente importante de estos valores. Los valores universales están también arraigados en el Evangelio y los Cristianos que participan activamente en los procesos democráticos desempeñan un papel crucial en su transmisión. (shrink)

The source basis of the article is composed of pope John Paul’s II encyclicals – Laborem exercens (1981), Solicitudo rei socialis (1987), Centesimus annus (1991), Fides et ratio (1998), the Apostle’s Letter Tertio Millennio adveniente (1994) as well as the interview with priest cardinal Karol Wojtyla given to Vittorio Possenti on 21st of June 1978 in Mediolan. I shall separate the following issues:1) relations of concepts: social teaching of the Church, social doctrine of the Church and catholic social teaching; 2) (...) relation theory – practice from the point of view of social doctrine of the Church; 3) social doctrine of the Church versus ideology; 4) in what sense may we talk about the historism of social doctrine of the Church?; 5) periodisation of the development of social doctrine of the Church. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of learning effectiveness for the courses “Selected issues in visual rehabilitation” and “Ophthalmology and ophthalmic nursing” taught in the years 2009-2011 at the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland. We compared the effectiveness of traditional and distance learning methods; an e-learning platform was implemented experimentally for the purpose of this study. We assessed the usefulness of online learning in terms of organization, knowledge gained and students’ satisfaction with the course. The study was conducted among 75 second (...) year master degree students in the nursing field in the academic years 2009/2010 and 2010/2011. The students were divided into two groups. For the study group of 39 persons, lectures and seminars took place on an e-learning platform, while 36 persons in the control group attended traditional classes. 80% of students in the e-learning group and 89% of students in the traditional group assessed the organization of both forms of courses positively. The fact that the majority of students in both the e-learning and traditional classes gave positive feedback indicates that for both forms there was a high level of content and technical preparedness. The mean scores of the final exam for both courses were 82% in the e-learning group and 79% in the traditional group in the years 2009- 2011. The above results show that both forms of learning are equally effective. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to prove the result announced by the title.

The purpose of this paper is to present some of the findings (which were reported on more extensively in earlier work) regarding the visibility of gender issues in the literature on selected information and communication technologies (ICTs) with a view to make predictions about potential ethical issues that the application of these ICTs may bring about in the future. On the basis of the analysis of around 100 published sources, which dealt with various aspects of selected ICTs, conclusions have been (...) drawn regarding gender issues and concerns that the applications of these ICTs may cause. The authors' analysis is theoretically informed by critical discourse analysis (CDA) which assumes that texts, both written and spoken, as well as other forms of symbolic representations, are indicative of social practices. Of particular methodological relevance was the survey of methods of text and discourse analysis presented in Titscher et al and especially the application of keyword search as a way to measure the prominence of each investigated method. This approach to literature surveying proved very useful in selecting analytic material: only those published sources on the selected four ICTs have been included in the survey, for which the analysis of keywords, abstracts and indexes of terms indicated authors' interest in gender issues. Findings - First, ICTs such as affective computing, ambient intelligence, and artificial intelligence, have been found to have the potential of positively affecting gender power relations and thus positively affecting gender balance in the areas of labour market related to ICT across EU countries and worldwide. Second, more research on the relationship between gender and ICT design, application and representation is needed, so as to enhance a better understanding of ethical issues resulting from unequal participation of women and men in all aspects of ICT production and implementation, which in itself is an ethical dilemma with which both the ICT business and legislators have to grapple. The paper offers insight into the relationship between the level of attention devoted to particular ICTs by ICT researchers, as evidenced in the reviewed literature, and the likelihood of the application of a particular ICT in the future, which is looked at and assessed from a gender perspective. (shrink)

The great task of cognitive science is to explain the phenomenal, first-person experience through the brain’s biophysical processes. This articles takes up this challenge by presenting the theory of how to reconcile the distinguishable properties of a material and mental processes. For this purpose, I describe how knowledge representations arise and how they can correlate with the emotions that accompany their formation. These associations can lead to first-person sense impressions, that is, qualia, which are the gist of phenomenal awareness. I (...) hypothesize that perception and consciousness and their causal role can only be explained by pointing to two aspects of consciousness: The event reporting aspect responsible for being aware of what is happening and the executive aspect responsible for the body’s actions and bodily responses. Both of these aspects are functionally accomplished by two separate neural mechanisms. Explaining the stream of consciousness required diversification of the concept of consciousness and the distinction of “executive” and “reporting” consciousness, respectively. Impression of feeling, a stream of consciousness, and a train of thought felt as conscious perception are the effect of stimulation of the lower sensory fields of the brain by feedback stimuli from upper cerebral areas. Subjectively perceived sequences of such recreated images only accompany brain processes but do not affect them directly. However, they are not objectively epiphenomenal since they modify the neural representations of knowledge embedded in memory and thus influence future states of consciousness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Celem pracy jest wskazanie na podstawowe procesy neurologiczne i biofizyczne konstytuuj ące kompleksowy model umysłu świadomego. Przedstawiono zarówno model obliczeniowy działania neuronowych pól tworzących mentalne reprezentacje rzeczywistości, jak i biologiczne koncepcje realizacji tych funkcji mózgu. Wyjaśniono motywacje ludzkiego i zwierzęcego działania. Przedstawiono koncepcje, jak powstaje świadomość oraz jak rozpoznajemy, że jesteśmy świadomi, co objaśnia także problem samoświadomości. Wskazano, że zrozumienie fenomenu świadomości usuwa antynomię teleologicznego i przyczynowego charakteru natury ludzkiej, co niweluje dualizm cielesnego i duchowego charakteru substancji tworzącej nasze umysły. (...) W części pierwszej przedstawiono ograniczenia koncepcji obliczeniowego modelu rozpoznawania poprzez porównywanie i poszukiwanie podobieństw wzorców według Perlovsky’ego oraz wskazano na sposób rozwinięcia tej koncepcji poprzez uwzględnienie morfologii i biologicznych funkcji sieci neuronowej mózgów naturalnych. Pokazano, że neuronowe pola synaptyczne o strukturze hierarchicznej impresjonów w rozumieniu hipotezy Vadakkana mogą spełniać role neuronowych pól modelujących zaangażowanych w gówne procesy psychiczne. Zauważono, że rozszerzony w ten sposób poziom analizy funkcji mózgu w dalszym ciłgu nie pozwala na wyjaśnienie fenomenu świadomości i konieczne jest przeanalizowanie podłoża biochemicznego i molekularnego tych procesów, co zostanie przedstawione w następnych częściach pracy. (shrink)

W części III przedstawiono motywacje do aktywności autonomicznego systemu inteligentnego w postaci bólu i przyjemności. Wskazano, ze kształtowanie zaawansowanych stanów świadomości takiego systemu wymaga innego rodzaju motywacji w postaci ciekawości i potrzeby zrozumienia. Przedstawiono neuronalne podłoże tych motywacji. Zaproponowano kompleksowy model umysłu świadomego, obejmujący wszystkie poziomy przetwarzania informacji. Przedstawiony model wyjaśnia główne cechy ludzkiej psychiki. Wyjaśnia, jak się tworzy świadomość refleksyjna i samoświadomość, jak umysł formułuje sens i cel swego istnienia, a także sens istnienia otaczającego go świata, w jaki sposób (...) uzyskuje wolną wolę i jak może skutecznie działać dla dobra swojego i dobra świadomości osadzonej w neuronowych polach modelujących. Wyjaśnia, jak potrzeba rozumienia i potrzeba harmonii może tworzyć dobro i inne wartości etyczne. Jakie emocje kierujące umysłem mogą wyzwolić uczucia empatii i altruizmu. Wyjaśnia też, że dla spełnienia tych funkcji, dla nauczenia się wszystkiego, co dobre i moralne, niezbędne jest ciało i możliwość postrzegania oraz oddziaływania na otoczenie. To bezpośredni dowód na konieczność zjednoczenia ciała i ducha aby zaistniały intencjonalnie moralne byty samoświadome. (shrink)

Artykuł jest prezentacją najważniejszych rysów teologii apofatycznej Mistrza Eckharta, która jest mocno zakorzeniona w myśli Pseudo-Dionizego Areopagity. Autor ukazuje swoistą dialektykę poznawalności i niepoznawalności Boga, ilustrując to obficie przykładami z Eckhartowych Kazań. W tekście został poruszony także inny, niezwykle istotny problem, a mianowicie relacji zakorzenionej w neoplatonizmie henologicznej wizji rzeczywistości Eckharta do chrześcijańskiej nauki o Trójcy Świętej. Autor przytacza tu opinię Marie-Anne Vannier, że Eckhart jest „wirtuozem teologii trynitarnej”, ale dodaje, że zawsze pozostawia on tu miejsce dla przeżywania Tajemnicy.

W artykule porusza się kwestię standardów dziennikarskich ukazanych w krzywym zwierciadle. Taki sposób prezentacji problemów czy zjawisk jest charakterystyczny dla rodzaju wypowiedzi zwanej „komiksem”, łączącej w sobie zwykle grafikę z tekstem pisanym. Nieprzypadkowo więc to właśnie cechy gatunkowe przekazu uczyniono paradygmatem rozważań nad problemem przedstawionym w tytule artykułu. Sięgnięto przy tym do metody analizy tekstu oraz elementów metody biograficznej.

We present some equivalent conditions for a quasivariety \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {K}}$$\end{document} of structures to be generated by a single structure. The first such condition, called the embedding property was found by A.I. Mal′tsev in [6]. It says that if \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${{\bf A}, {\bf B} \in \mathcal {K}}$$\end{document} are nontrivial, then there exists \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${{\bf C} \in \mathcal{K}}$$\end{document} (...) such that A and B are embeddable into C. One of our equivalent conditions states that the set of quasi-identities valid in \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{K}}$$\end{document} is closed under a certain Gentzen type rule which is due to J. Łoś and R. Suszko [5]. (shrink)

The guarded fragment with transitive guards, [GF+TG], is an extension of the guarded fragment of first-order logic, GF, in which certain predicates are required to be transitive, transitive predicate letters appear only in guards of the quantifiers and the equality symbol may appear everywhere. We prove that the decision problem for [GF+TG] is decidable. Moreover, we show that the problem is in 2E. This result is optimal since the satisfiability problem for GF is 2E-complete 1719–1742). We also show that the (...) satisfiability problem for two-variable [GF+TG] is N-hard in contrast to GF with bounded number of variables for which the satisfiability problem is E-complete. (shrink)

The paper discuss the early age of forming social and economic catholic teaching in XIV–XVI. Appearing of economy from the area of theology was discussed as phenomenon of school from Salamanca and the influence scholastic on Adam Smith. The separation of economy and theology on the contrary was discussed as phenomenon of liberal project of state and market economy. The conclusion is, that economics as a science of separated aspects of human life is a subsidiary discipline of social catholic teaching.

We present three examples of countable homogeneous structures whose automorphism groups are not universal, namely, fail to contain isomorphic copies of all automorphism groups of their substructures.Our first example is a particular case of a rather general construction on Fraïssé classes, which we call diversification, leading to automorphism groups containing copies of all finite groups. Our second example is a special case of another general construction on Fraïssé classes, the mixed sums, leading to a Fraïssé class with all finite symmetric (...) groups appearing as automorphism groups and at the same time with a torsion-free automorphism group of its Fraïssé limit. Our last example is a Fraïssé class of finite models with arbitrarily large finite abelian automorphism groups, such that the automorphism group of its Fraïssé limit is again torsion-free. (shrink)

Argues that the key distinction between human and nonhuman social cognition consists in our complex, diverse and flexible capacities to shape each other's minds in ways that make them easier to interpret.