The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

On the way of life according to teachings of Islam according to Ahmadiyya sect..

Islamic ethics and Koranic teaching, aspects of Islam.

Plava predavanja -- Plavo i Ultravioletno -- Slovo o Nostalgiji.

In the Netherlands fertility doctors increasingly formulate protocols, which oblige patients to quit their unhealthy lifestyle before they are admitted to IVF procedures. We argue that moral arguments could justify parenting protocols that concern all future parents. In the first part we argue that want-to-be parents have moral responsibilities towards their future children to prevent them from harm by diminishing or eliminating risk factors before as well as during the pregnancy. This is because of the future children's potential to become (...) of a certain type, more specifically: a person that will be the want-to-be parents' child. Want-to-be parents intend to become pregnant and therefore have an additional moral reason to diminish the risks. Also, people who become pregnant unintentionally have the responsibility to prevent their children from harm, unless they become pregnant due to contraception failure. All people not wanting to become pregnant should use contraception methods carefully.In the second part of this paper we translate the want-to-be parents' responsibilities into practice. We distinguish four determinants of risk factors: modifiability, chance, severity and effort. We examine some evidence-based risk factors based on these variables and deduce levels of responsibility.In conclusion, formulating informal requirements for want-to-be parents is morally required and therefore also for want-to-be parents in need of medical assistance. The protocols developed by fertility doctors in the Netherlands could be seen as the precursor for a general, informal Parenting Protocol that could be developed on the basis of an extended and thoroughly debated risk-responsibility analysis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Painting in Tongues:Faith-Based Languages of Formalist ArtKevin Z. Moore (bio)A philosophical problem is created by the incoherence between the earlier state and the later one.—Ian Hacking, Historical OntologyWhatever is happening to evidence-based treatment? When the facts contravene conventional wisdom, go with the anecdotes?—New York Times, "Science Times," February 14, 2006Cephalopods have a visual language that may be considered artful; humans have written and vocalized languages that are sometimes artful; (...) but it is doubtful that there is such a thing as a "language of art," particularly in the sense that twentieth-century formalists and their critics carelessly speak of one or many. Cephalopods flash color-forms on their hides to communicate intents and emotions, maybe even to project plans. They speak in tattooed tongues through neurologically embossed patterns and color field designs displayed on the skin. The large-eyed sea creatures communicate voicelessly in a visual language of pure color-forms, each species perhaps having its own dialect. Though not a full or official language by any means, their color-forms display the ideal that twentieth-century formalist artists sought to graphically realize (referential and conceptual immediacy, emotional coloring, communication via pure, that is, nonpictorial, form). Formalist inspired artists and their critic-expositors describe abstract pattern-painting as though it were a visual language equal to that of the cephalopod. Yet [End Page 40] although we can reasonably imagine cephalopods getting the correct message by observation, we cannot reasonably imagine observers getting any message at all, let alone the intended message, from abstractionist painting. This casts suspicion on the formalists' claims about visual language. Observers cannot and famously do not get anything "out" of formalist pattern paintings, though they do project quite a lot "into" them. The telling difference between octopus and artist? Cephalopods communicate visually—their survival depends on it. Formalists do not, though the survival and flourishing of their art depends upon the belief that they do.Notably, explanations of what exactly a formalist language of art is goes missing from accounts of sense and reference in the relevant literature, where we learn that this or that painting exhibits this or that language of art but never how this or that painting functions as a language of any sort. The "language of art" phrase, it seems, has the same force as mentioning truth or existence: it explains nothing. Talk of a language of art suggests merely that a painting exhibits a communicative intent; it does not explain how that intent is linguistically mediated. The phrase is ostensive and nominal, not descriptive and expository.Prior to the twentieth century there may have been some justification for this language since art was shaped by objective reference, identifiable codes (sign and symbol systems), and recognizable scenes (compositions) that made painting a language-like public media. Observers could see immediately or "read" paintings by observation as though they were reading a language. Images were shaped by observation; reference was fixed by convention. The formalist revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries dismantled the public character of representation in painting. After the revolution, the new art that appeared was a sort of visual humpty-dumptyism, to invoke a language metaphor. Formalist imagery functioned the way words did for Mr. Carroll's Mr. Dumpty: they meant what the artist intended them to mean and not what observation or convention constrained them to mean. Reference and meaning were as arbitrary as the visual forms chosen to bear them. Once a communicative medium, painting became an expressive medium, the values of the latter superseding those of the former wholly or in part. Even when a formalist painting alluded to a conventional arrangement (a landscape or portrait, for example), the composition was as visually parodic of genre as Mr. Carroll's Jabberwocky was verbally parodic of narrative poetry, preserving syntax (form) but not the integrity of the formal agents of communication. Both are forms of nonsense, yet only one intentionally so.Styles of formalism do not facilitate the observation of intended reference; they are not effective forms of communication because they are not languages. If the basic function of a visual art is to communicate a specific... (shrink)

The study of the motion of the magnetic top—a classical spherical top which carries magnetic moment proportional to its angular momentum, is motivated and inspired by the quantum mechanical relation between spin angular momentum and spin magnetic moment. Inversely, the magnetic top, taken to be the classical model of quantum spin, implies the description of spin states by probability amplitudes of the top orientation angles, instead of by Pauli spinors. This opens new possibilities for the interpretation of many interesting spin (...) experiments which serve as tests of basic principles of quantum mechanics and of the postulates of the quantum theory of measurement. (shrink)

In his paper, ‘The Aroma of Coffee’, H. O. Mounce wants to expose what he takes to be a deep prejudice in philosophy, one which is at work in our culture more generally. Philosophers are reluctant to admit that there is anything which passes beyond human understanding. Of course, they are quite ready to admit that there are plenty of things that they fail to understand but this they would say simply happens to be the case. It does not mean (...) that what they fail to understand is something which is beyond human understanding. Thus even when they fail to understand something, that ‘something’ remains, in principle, within the reach of their understanding. For Mounce this prejudice flies in the face of what is platitudinously obvious: that there is much that passes beyond human understanding. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre''s position on religion has traditionally been reduced to variations of his well-known atheism. This is a result of collapsing the distinction between religion and theism, as both critics and supporters of Sartre have commonly done. Consequently, attention to Sartre''s persistent and pervasive concern with religious ideas, symbols, and experiences has been neglected. While the religious implications of Sartre''s thought have mostly been considered in relation to Christian theology, other newer areas of religious studies suggest additional avenues for considering (...) Sartre. Sartre''s possible connections to four such areas are discussed: 1) Eastern religions; 2) Jewish studies; 3) feminist theology, and 4) the psychoanalysis of religion. (shrink)

Routledge is proud to reissue these nine pivotal titles from the acclaimed series Studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion. Including key works by Ahern, Beardsmore, Pike, and others, these books are essential for all serious collections. Available as single volumes or as a nine-volume set, the titles in this collection were originally published between 1950-1960 by Routledge and Kegan Paul: Volume 1: The Problem of Evil M.B. Ahern Hb: 0-415-31841-6 Volume 2: Moral Reasoning R.W. Beardsmore Hb:0-415-31842-4 Volume 3: (...) Theology and Intelligibility Michael Durrant Hb: 0-415-31843-2 Volume 4: Humanism and Ideology James R. Flynn Hb: 0-415-31844-0 Volume 5: The Five Ways: St.Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God's Existence Anthony Kenny Hb: 0-415-31845-9 Volume 6: Moral Practices D.Z. Phillips Hb: 0-415-31846-7 Volume 7: God and Timelessness Nelson Pike Hb: 0-415-31847-5 Volume 8: Without Answers Rush Rhees Hb: 0-415-31848-3 Volume 9: Morality and Purpose J.L. Stocks Hb: 0-415-31849-1. (shrink)

Today, unfortunately, we can not speak about the presence of one entire world philosophy. It is connected with the fact that the history of world philosophy is investigated from the position of eurocentrism, and what we consider as world philosophy actually is the West-European philosophy. In world philosophy, Eastern philosophy is represented only by three blocks: classical Chinese, Indian and Arabian philosophies. Even when we speak about Eastern philosophy, frequently it is examined as a marginal part of world philosophy which (...) has not played a significant role in its development. Thus concerning the question of development of world philosophy as a whole, the above given facts and other historical items of information prove: there is an entire world philosophy and it is a synthesis of East and West. So it is necessary to substantiate new methodological principles in studying world philosophy. (shrink)