Вивчення історії релігійної культури на українських теренах ранньомодерного часу передбачає ознайомленість, принаймні у загальних рисах, із тогочасним теологічним дискурсом. Загальне впровадження до основних тенденцій, напрямів, особливостей ранньомодерної католицької та протестантської теологій акумульовано у рецензованому «підручному компендіумі», який вийшов друком у рамках відомої серії Оксфордського університету «Oxford Handbook». Упорядниками видання є професор релігійної історії та історичної теології Ульріх Леенер (Університет Маркетта, США), проф. Річард Мюллер (Теологічна семінарія Кальвіна, США) та проф. Ентоні Ґреґ Роебер (Пенсильванський державний університет, США). Особливу увагу привертає проф. (...) Ульріх Леенер, який впродовж останніх років опублікував концептуальні монографії про ченців епохи Просвітництва, монастирські в’язниці ранньомодерного часу та декілька праць, присвячених католицькому Просвітництву. (shrink)

In this thesis, I propose and defend a theory according to which committing oneself to knowing the proposition expressed counts as an assertion of that proposition. A consequence of this view is the knowledge account of assertion, according to which one asserts that p correctly only if one knows that p. In support of this approach, I offer a strategy of identifying an assertion’s “normative consequences”, types of act that normally take place as a result of one’s making an assertion (...) incorrectly. I outline two such phenomena: retraction and disavowal of knowledge. In continuation, I put the theory to test and critically examine four sets of objections against it, arguing that it can convincingly defuse them. Finally, I discuss two related issues: I maintain that by performing “aesthetic assertions” one also normally performs a non-assertoric speech act of recommendation, and argue for the possibility of “non-linguistic assertions”, whose content is expressed by gestures in appropriate contexts. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project is regarded by many as one of the major scientific achievements in recent science history, a large-scale endeavour that is changing the way in which biomedical research is done and expected, moreover, to yield considerable benefit for society. Thus, since the completion of the human genome sequencing effort, a debate has emerged over the question whether this effort merits to be awarded a Nobel Prize and if so, who should be the one to receive it, as (...) no more than three individuals can be selected. In this article, the HGP is taken as a case study to consider the ethical question to what extent it is still possible, in an era of big science, of large-scale consortia and global team work, to acknowledge and reward individual contributions to important breakthroughs in biomedical fields. Is it still viable to single out individuals for their decisive contributions in order to reward them in a fair and convincing way? Whereas the concept of the Nobel prize as such seems to reflect an archetypical view of scientists as solitary researchers who, at a certain point in their careers, make their one decisive discovery, this vision has proven to be problematic from the very outset. Already during the first decade of the Nobel era, Ivan Pavlov was denied the Prize several times before finally receiving it, on the basis of the argument that he had been active as a research manager rather than as a researcher himself. The question then is whether, in the case of the HGP, a research effort that involved the contributions of hundreds or even thousands of researchers worldwide, it is still possible to “individualise” the Prize? The “HGP Nobel Prize problem” is regarded as an exemplary issue in current research ethics, highlighting a number of quandaries and trends involved in contemporary life science research practices more broadly. (shrink)

Розкрито сутність поняття «рейтинг». Доведено значущість рейтингової оцінки для суб’єктів фінансового ринку, зокрема для страхових компаній, потенційних страхувальників, інвесторів та кредиторів.

The stronger the level of economic integration between countries, the greater the need to study the formation patterns of the stock market reaction to the financial information signals. This concerns the Ukrainian stock market, which is now in its infancy, and which reaction to financial information signals is sometimes ambiguous. The research aims to identify the formation patterns of return and volatility indicators of the Ukrainian stock market reaction to the US financial information signals. To assess the direct nature of (...) US financial information signals effect on the PFTS stock index, the GARCH econometric modeling toolkit was applied. The research information base is the PFTS stock index and the Federal Reserve System financial information signals at the discount rate for 2000–2019. The fetch is divided into intervals corresponded to the ascent and decline phases of the financial cycle. It was found that an unforeseen increase in the discount rate at the financial cycle decline phase by 25 basis points decreases the PFTS stock index return, on average by 2.9%. Besides, the hypothesis about the general change stabilizing effect in the discount rate on the Ukrainian stock market volatility at the financial cycle growth phase was confirmed. Nevertheless, for investors, the most essential is the regulator’s monetary signals in the discount rate at the financial cycle decline phases rather than at the ascent phases because there is a more significant increase in the volatility level. (shrink)

В статье рассмотрена деятельность ведущих кредитных рейтинговых агентств (Fitch Ratings, Moody's Investors Service и Standard & Poor's) в контексте снижения информационной ценности кредитных рейтингов, которые они присваивают, и сохранения доминирующих позиций на рынке финансового рейтингования. Целью исследования является рассмотрение деятельности кредитных рейтинговых агентств в измерении социального конструкционизма в процессе осуществления государственной финансовой политики, объясняя сопротивление регулятивной модели их деятельности многочисленным вызовам и переменам. Подход новой институциональной социологии в управлении мы сделали чувствительным к проблематике институциональных изменений во времени. Таким образом, мы (...) высказались за трактовку вопроса о неизменности организации деятельности КРА в соответствии с условиями нового социологического институционализма. То есть, дается приоритет когнитивной основе институтов, служащей поддержкой конкретного проявления социального порядка и дающей отличный способ для его понимания. (shrink)

Обґрунтовано стратегію високочастотної біржової торгівлі (high-frequency trading) акціями. Для цього досліджено особливості та обмеження біржової високочастотної торгівлі, визначено верхню межу прибутку агресивного «шкідливого» високочастотного трейдера, обґрунтовано оптимальну частоту стратегії біржової високочастотної торгівлі акціями, розглянуто емпіричне підтвердження прогнозованості біржових курсів акцій на надкоротких горизонтах інвестування.

Розглянуто природу взаємозв'язку між неправдою та легітимністю в організаційному контексті при здійсненні підприємницької діяльності. Визначено роль, яку відіграє легітимність у конкурентоспроможності суб'єктів підприємництва (особливо новостворених) на ринку, а також представлені стратегії реагування на її дефіцит. Обґрунтовано, що незважаючи на несумісність з фундаментальними основами легітимності, неправда здатна виступати для підприємницьких структур інструментом створення деякої подоби організаційної легітимності, що в свою чергу часто дає змогу заручитися підтримкою зацікавлених осіб (зокрема, інвесторів) та відкрити доступ до необхідних для розвитку бізнесу можливостей і ресурсів.

Відсутність точної відповіді на питання щодо появи тих або інших соціально-етичних норм може частково пояснити чому моделі соціальних переваг часто розглядаються як ad hoc (в тому сенсі, що висновки, які отримуються в рамках таких моделей, безпосередньо ґрунтуються на висунутих в таких моделях особливих припущеннях), а формалізація моделювання процесів економічної поведінки часто співвідноситься з існуванням певної норми економічної поведінки в контексті досягнення рівноважного стану.

The need for innovative development of healthcare institutions is determined by the necessity to increase the efficiency of organizational processes based on the formation of new models of cooperation, which will make it possible to get access to new technologies and knowledge. The goal of the study is to determine the parameters of the impact of innovative open cooperation strategy and the strategy of innovative closed cooperation of healthcare institutions on the effectiveness of their organizational structure in the context of (...) dissemination and the use of knowledge. Simulation modeling was applied to generate the most effective organizational management structure in the context of innovative cooperation and knowledge exchange within the organizational processes “Inside-out” and “Inside-in”. It is substantiated that the strategies of innovative cooperation “Open Innovation/Closed Innovation” have a significant impact on the organizational structure of management of healthcare institutions in terms of the “degree of centralization” (Dci), “degree of mediation” (Dii), and “degree of centralization of powers” (Dpi). The values of the selected criteria range from 25,52% to 61,50% in the case of Dii, and from 34,53% to 52,63% in the case of Dci, which indicates a higher efficiency of organizational knowledge exchange processes in healthcare institutions, which adhere to the Open Innovation strategy of innovative cooperation. Therefore, there are significant differences in the effectiveness of the management’s organizational structure depending on the degree of openness of innovative cooperation of healthcare institutions. The strategy of innovative openness allows increasing the number and quality of connections in the context of knowledge exchange between the subjects (actors, agents) of the organizational structure (in a broad sense, considering internal and external levels of externality) of healthcare institutions, regardless of the distance between them and the level of similarity. (shrink)

Розглянуто теоретико-методологічні основи прогнозування валютних курсів на ринку Forex. Визначено особливості діяльності на ринку Forex та його переваги і недоліки серед інших валютних ринків. Розкрито сутність прогнозування в цілому та основні проблеми у прогнозуванні. Розглянуто основні методи прогнозування валютних курсів на ринку Forex та ступінь їх використання.

Визначено специфіку постмодерністського споживача продуктів культури у процесі досвіду споживання та можливостей для бізнесу. Встановлено, що постмодерністського споживача доцільно розглядати як вільну особистість із фрагментованою ідентичністю, яка створює цінність та отримує досвід, а також здатна залучати ресурси та навички для конкретних ситуацій споживання продуктів культури. Обґрунтовано важливість застосування концепції пережитого досвіду, щоб підкреслити ключову роль споживача у спільному із суб’єктом підприємництва формуванні цінності будь-якого досвіду споживання продуктів культури. Обґрунтовано, що досвід споживання має місце не лише до, під час і після (...) споживання продукту культури, але також може розглядатися в контексті великої кількості мікродослідів, що поєднують спільне та/або послідовне використання віртуальних та реальних пристроїв. (shrink)

Здійснено спробу з’ясувати «читацький канон» та охарактеризувати книжкову культуру православних монастирів ранньомодерного часу київської традиції на прикладі чотирьох обителей Львівської єпархії — Крехівської, Львівської Святоонуфріївської, Підгорецької та Теребовельської. Вибір цих монастирів зумовлено станом джерельної бази, а основними джерелами слугували «списки книг», що їх зазвичай подавали в інвентарних описах. Усі досліджені книжкові зібрання були невеликими за обсягом порівняно з тогочасними католицькими кляшторами, зокрема, найбільше з-поміж відомих, крехівське, налічувало лише бл. 100 томів. Lectio Orthodoxorum монахів Львівської єпархії XVII ст. — це, окрім (...) богослужбових книг, своєрідна «тріада»: святоотцівська духовно-аскетична спадщина, житійна (агіографічна) та проповідницька література. Практично немає античної спадщини — творів давньогрецьких та давньоримських авторів, на вивченні яких базувалась гуманістична система освіти, у тому числі в церковних релігійних закладах. Це опосередковано говорить або про освітній рівень ченців, або, можливо, про відсутність «практичної» потреби у такій лектурі — на відміну від обителей, при яких діяли навчальні осередки. Чи це може бути одним зі свідчень того, що для насельників досліджуваних монастирів основним залишалось молитовне життя, а не «інтелектуальна» праця? Чи такий склад і невеликі обсяги книжкових зібрань можуть виступати одним із арґументів для розгляду цих монастирів як місць, де панував lex orandi, натомість інтелектуальна діяльність, зокрема анґажованість у читання, не видавалася необхідною? Відповідь на ці питання вимагає подальших досліджень. (shrink)

The Ukrainian PFTS stock index volatility reaction as a whole and its constituent economic sectors (“Basic Materials”, “Financials”, “Industrials”, “Oil & Gas”, “Telecommunications”, “Utilities”) to seven non-monetary US information signals (“Consumer price index”, “Personal spending”, “Unemployment rate”, “Gross domestic product”, “Industrial production”, “Consumer confidence”, “Housing starts”) was carried out for the period 2000–2017 on the basis of closing stock quotations in the trading day format. To assess the “surprise” component direct influence nature of the USA selected non-monetary information signals on (...) the PFTS stock index, an AR-GARCH econometric modelling device was used. The results achieved clearly indicate the presence of some PFTS stock index economic sectors heterogeneous reaction to the United States individual non-monetary information signals announcement. For example, such economic sectors as “Basic Materials”, “Financials”, and “Oil & Gas” volatility response to the US non-monetary information signal “Consumer price index” “surprise” components the opposite of the overall PFTS stock index reaction. It can also be concluded that the United States non-monetary information signals influence on the Ukrainian stock market volatility depends not only on the financial cycle phase and data frequency, but also on the PFTS stock index economic sector. (shrink)

O utopianismo científico de Neurath é a proposta para que as ciências sociais se envolvam na elaboração, desenvolvimento e comparação de cenários contrafactuais, as ‘utopias’. Tais cenários podem ser entendidos como peças centrais de experimentos de pensamento científicos, isto é, em exercícios da imaginação que não apenas promovem a revisão conceitual, mas também estimulam a criatividade para lidar com problemas vivenciados, já que utopias são esforços para imaginar como o futuro poderia ser. Ademais, experimentos de pensamento utópicos podem oferecer conhecimento (...) científico para informar debates e decisões políticas, contribuindo para formatar a sociedade. Este ensaio reconstrói um evento histórico como um exemplo da metodologia utopianista de Neurath. No final dos anos 1970 e início dos anos 1980, uma comissão científica e política designada pelo parlamento da Alemanha Ocidental inventou e comparou quatro cenários para políticas energético-econômicas futuras. Conclusões da comissão informaram decisões políticas que puseram a Alemanha Ocidental (e depois reunificada) em um caminho para se tornar uma potência industrial verde. Uma parte fundamental do trabalho da comissão envolveu um apelo à imaginação, permitindo a caracterização sob a metodologia de Neurath. (shrink)

Авторами розглянуто вплив провідних світових кредитних рейтингових агентств на фінансову безпеку емітентів цінних паперів. Обґрунтовано перформативний характер діяльності кредитних рейтингових агентств з позицій моделі «Les economies de la grandeur» нового соціологічного французького інституціоналізму, що дає змогу розв’язати протиріччя щодо сильної опозиції стосовно їх функціонування з одночасним збереженням діючої системи нормативного використання кредитних рейтингів.

Авторами рассмотрены основные подходы к моделированию процесса принятия финансово-экономических решений в контексте учета поведенческого фактора соблюдения принятых социальных норм, что позволяет выйти за рамки классического представления о мотивации экономических агентов.

Авторами рассмотрены основные подходы к моделированию процесса принятия финансово- экономических решений в контексте учета поведенческого фактора соблюдения принятых со- циальных норм, что позволяет выйти за рамки классического представления о мотивации экономических агентов. Ключевые слова: социальная норма, моральные эмоции, экономико-математическое моделирование, процесс принятия решений, «теория игр».

Авторами рассмотрены основные подходы к моделированию процесса принятия финансово- экономических решений в контексте учета поведенческого фактора соблюдения принятых социальных норм, что позволяет выйти за рамки классического представления о мотивации экономических агентов. Ключевые слова: социальная норма, моральные эмоции, экономико-математическое моделирование, процесс принятия решений, «теория игр».

In this paper we seek to take notice of the evolution and continuity of Jan Patočka’s phenomenology on the topic of the world and human existence’s relationship with it. We believe that this problem underlies and stimulates Patočka’s whole phenomenological research and we think that it is a key element to understand the ensemble of his thought.

Цель. Работа посвящена определению характерных особенностей влияния экономических информационных сигналов США посредством каналов трансмиссии на компоненты декомпозиции избыточной доходности украинского рынка акций (на примере репрезентативного фондового индекса ПФТС). Методика. Для выявления параметров изменений избыточной доходности биржевого рынка акций Украины в реакциях на экономические информационные сигналы было применено векторное авторегрессионное моделирование. Выбор модели VAR (3) был обоснован согласно информационным критериям AIC и SIC. Результаты. В работе установлено, что лишь переменная избыточной доходности (с лагом 3) позволяет прогнозировать определенную долю будущих изменений доходности (...) фондового индекса ПФТС. Тем не менее, коэффициент R² показывает, что задействованные переменные могут объяснить лишь около 7% изменения избыточной доходности фондового индекса ПФТС, что подтверждает достаточно низкую прогнозируемость украинского рынка акций. На основе декомпозиции избыточной доходности фондового индекса ПФТС за период 2000-2017 гг. (формат торгового дня) было выявлено, что рынок акций Украины является чувствительным к информационным сигналам по будущей избыточной доходности, поскольку более 89% от общего ее изменения можно объяснить влиянием непосредственно через канал премии за риск. Также установлено наличие влияния макроэкономического информационного сигнала США «Индекс доверия потребителей» на избыточную доходность украинского фондового индекса ПФТС через канал премии за риск, что подтверждает предположение о том, что «эффект неожиданности» макроэкономических сигналов США может быть фактором риска для рынка акций Украины. Научная новизна. Получил свое развитие методический подход по определению параметров реакции компонент избыточной доходности фондового индекса ПФТС на «эффект неожиданности» информационного содержание макроэкономических сигналов США. Практическая значимость. Использование приведенного методического подхода позволит улучшить точность финансового прогнозирования параметров реакции ценовых котировок отечественного рынка акций на обнародование макроэкономических информационных сигналов США, что даст возможность инвесторам (частным и институциональным) повысить доходность собственных инвестиционных стратегий. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss a recent attempt of justifying democracy and its authority. It pertains to recently published papers by Niko Kolodny, which complement each other and taken together practically assume a form of a monograph. It could be said that Kolodny's approach is a non-standard one given that he avoids typical ways of justifying democracy. Namely, when a justification of democracy is concerned, Kolodny maintains that it is necessary to offer a kind of an independent justification. It (...) is not so much that he insists that the usual approaches are wrong as much as that an independent justification is necessary in order to discern what it is that gives them their significance. Kolodny's independent justification of democracy is based on the idea of social equality. In this paper I will try to reconstruct and critically assess Kolodny's approach by paying special attention to the question of democratic authority. (shrink)

Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments.

I argue that an analogy between pains and sounds suggests a way to give an objective account of pain which fits well with a naïve perceptualist account of feeling pain. According to the proposed metaphysical account, pains are relational physical events with shared qualitative nature, each of which is constituted by tissue damage and the activation of nociceptors. I proceed to show that the metaphysical proposal is compatible with platitudes about pains being animate, private, and self-intimating states.

Neurath’s scientific utopianism is the proposal that the social sciences should engage in the elaboration, development, and comparison of counterfactual scenarios, the ‘utopias’. Such scenarios can be understood as centerpieces of scientific thought experiments, that is, in exercises of imagination that not only promote conceptual revision, but also stimulate creativity to deal with experienced problems, as utopias are efforts to imagine what the future could look like. Moreover, utopian thought experiments can offer scientific knowledge to inform political debates and decisions, (...) contributing to the shaping of society. This essay reconstructs a historical event as an example of Neurath’s utopianist methodology. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a scientific and political commission appointed by the Western German Parliament devised and compared four scenarios for future energetic-economic policies. Conclusions of the commission informed political decisions that put Western (later reunified) Germany in a route towards becoming a green industrial power. A fundamental part of the commission’s work involved an appeal to imagination, allowing for the characterization under Neurath’s methodology. (shrink)

The phenomenon of self-love elicits conflicting reactions. Some believe it is the key to happiness, while others are skeptical. This essay defines self-love as wholehearted concern for one's well-being, argues that it does not imply selfishness, arrogance, or vanity, discusses reasons to value self-love, and describes ways Logic-Based Therapy can be used to help people love themselves.

Contemporary research offers a more compelling account on the complex emotion of envy than the traditional view of envy as simply something bad. This essay explains how Logic-Based Therapy can use this account to coach individuals struggling with negative species of envy. Given that jealousy and envy are often equated, the essay differentiates the two; explains the conditions that make the four species of envy possible; identifies cardinal fallacies associated with negative species of envy; proposes counteractive virtues, and describes ways (...) to help people struggling with negative species of envy acquire these virtues. (shrink)

Since political polarization significantly impacts contemporary politics and democracy, much of the research in the social sciences is dedicated to this topic. In recent times, philosophers joined the discussion related to the research on political polarization, primarily in the fields of political philosophy and political epistemology. The main aim of this paper is philosophical analysis of some dominant explanations of political polarization, but also to propose solutions for a way out of political polarization from the perspective of political philosophy. In (...) a nutshell, to find solutions for a way out of political polarization, I will be looking in the direction of boosting epistemic rationality and fostering communication in conditions of tolerance and equality. (shrink)

A critique of popular astrology. The critical examination outlines a number of serious concerns with the theory underlying astrology.

We consider Baars’ "Global Workspace" theory of consciousness and discuss its possible representation within a model of intelligent agents. We first review a particular agent implementation that is given by an abstract machine, and then identify the extensions that are required in order to accommodate the main aspects of consciousness. According to Baars’ theory, this amounts to unconscious process coalitions that result in the creation of contexts. These extensions can be formulated within a reified virtual machine encompassing a representation of (...) the original machine as well as an additional introspective component. This computational framework is illustrating throughout using a simple working example. (shrink)

As historically acknowledged in the Reasoning about Actions and Change community, intuitiveness of a logical domain description cannot be fully automated. Moreover, like any other logical theory, action theories may also evolve, and thus knowledge engineers need revision methods to help in accommodating new incoming information about the behavior of actions in an adequate manner. The present work is about changing action domain descriptions in multimodal logic. Its contribution is threefold: first we revisit the semantics of action theory contraction proposed (...) in previous work, giving more robust operators that express minimal change based on a notion of distance between Kripke-models. Second we give algorithms for syntactical action theory contraction and establish their correctness with respect to our semantics for those action theories that satisfy a principle of modularity investigated in previous work. Since modularity can be ensured for every action theory and, as we show here, needs to be computed at most once during the evolution of a domain description, it does not represent a limitation at all to the method here studied. Finally we state AGM-like postulates for action theory contraction and assess the behavior of our operators with respect to them. Moreover, we also address the revision counterpart of action theory change, showing that it benefits from our semantics for contraction. (shrink)

Philosophers often focus on topics such as death and old age, and much less on other stages of life. The British-American philosopher Kienan Setiya (2017) has recently taken on the topic of middle age from a philosophical perspective and offered suggestions for dealing with the angst often associated with mid-age. His suggestions are based on both his own experiences and practical thoughts based on his readings of other philosophers during their mid-life periods. My own contribution is to describe his thoughts (...) and add a few observations of my own. (shrink)

The study aims at determining the role and significance of such moral emotions as nobility, gratitude, admiration for the socially significant behavior of a person in society. That involves identifying a close relationship between those emotions and personality’s social behavior and that they can be one of the main incentives for socially significant behavior – theoretical basis. The importance of ethical emotions with positive valence when making decisions with their implementation in society determines the research’s theoretical and methodological basis. Those (...) are studied in the cognitive dimension of human social activity, considering their subjective experience and objectification. The authors determined that ethical emotions with positive valence, pleasant emotions stimulate a person to experience them again and behave socially desirable as such behavior allows reliving those emotions and self-actualizing. Emotions with a positive valence are most desirable for a person and are the essential behavior incentives in society. A person can act actively to achieve them, to experience them repeatedly, which is the basis of motivation for socially desirable and meaningful behavior. From exclusively subjective experiences, those emotions move into objectification, i.e., those motivated to act in conditions of a definite or indefinite social continuum. In due time, these socially crucial actions acquire normative content, sometimes even a form, since they serve as a model for others. Moral emotions with positive valence, empathy, rule-making, high culture, and responsibility to oneself and others form a good way of a person’s self-realization through positive social behavior. Furthermore, moral emotions with positive valence are the most important incentive for such behavior. (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to politi- cal economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many (...) uses of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dys- topias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neur- ath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowl- edge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We con- clude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discus- sion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

The article investigates the main characteristics of the financial stability of Ukrainian banks, their risk profile, structure of assets, liabilities, income, expenses based on the monthly reporting data for 2004-2020 (number of observations – 3 813). The Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM) toolkit is used to form homogeneous groups of banks based on a large number of financial indicators. The selected toolkit provides a convenient visualization of the results. Each bank occupies a specific place on the SOM. The close location of (...) banks on the map indicates that these banks have many common characteristics. This study is called the method of structural and functional groups of banks. The study formed stable groups of banks with the same characteristics of business models and risk profile. The formation of consecutive maps for each reporting period allows to obtain the characteristics of each bank separately and the banking system as a whole. The trajectory of an individual bank’s activity during the observation period characterizes the development of its business strategy. The migration of a large number of banks between groups reflects the objective changes in the conditions of banking. Increasing groups of high-risk banks indicate systemic problems. The results show that after a significant reduction in the banking system of Ukraine in 2014-2016, the business models of banks have changed significantly. The resource base relies on unstable sources of current funds with no set term of use. In the assets of banks, a significant portion is invested in government securities – government bonds. Bank loan portfolios have declined and have a higher proportion of non-performing assets (NPL). Many banks have increased currency risk. Concerns are raised about the state of large state-owned banks that hold a separate high-risk group. Thus, the conducted research allows to distinguish groups of banks with specific characteristics of business models and to observe changes of risk profile inherent to these groups. For each structural-functional group, changes in the values of financial indicators are investigated and migration between groups is studied. The proposed methodology is useful for studying both macro and macro levels. (shrink)

Matija Vlačić Ilirik was one of the pillars of Luther’s Reformation. In a special way, he dedicated himself to one of its most important issues – the understanding of the Scriptures, and can, therefore, be considered a significant instigator of the founding of modern hermeneutics. As an excellent connoisseur of classical languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin) he recognized the importance and dealt with many issues of language, grammar, logic, and dialectic, as essential prerequisites for understanding everything which exists, and hence (...) of the written text also. In this connection, his skepticism towards philosophy is apparent, since the main source of theological cognition, for him, is revelation, and not the human reason, which was principally destroyed by Original Sin. He found the confirmation of his ideas in the current debates with both proponents and opponents of the Reformation, as well as in his research into church history, wherein he incessantly tried to find the witnesses of the truth, as he perceived it. (shrink)

La description en langue naturelle est l’artefact permettant de débuter un processus d’automatisation. La tâche principale de l’ingénieur du logiciel, c’est de combler le clivage entre langue naturelle et langue de la machine. Après avoir présenté quelques ontologies définies pour les processus d’automatisation, quelques pour et quelques contre l’emploi d’ontologies dans le génie logiciel sont présentées. Des indications pour dépasser cette simple opposition sont ensuite décrites. Des évaluations sur le réductionnisme dans les ontologies en ce qui concerne les possibles interactions (...) entre humains, machines et réalité muette terminent la présentation. (shrink)

Traditionally, consistency is the only criterion for the quality of a theory in logic-based approaches to reasoning about actions. This work goes beyond that and contributes to the meta-theory of actions by investigating what other properties a good domain de- scription should satisfy. Having Propositional Dynamic Logic (PDL) as background, we state some meta-theoretical postulates concerning this sore spot. When all pos- tulates are satisfied, we call the action theory modular. We point out the problems that arise when the postulates (...) about modularity are violated, and propose algorith- mic checks that can help the designer of an action theory to overcome them. Besides being easier to understand and more elaboration tolerant in McCarthy’s sense, mod- ular theories have interesting computational properties. Moreover, we also propose a framework for updating domain descriptions and show the importance modularity has in action theory change. (shrink)

This is a transcript of a conversation between P F Strawson and Gareth Evans in 1973, filmed for The Open University. Under the title 'Truth', Strawson and Evans discuss the question as to whether the distinction between genuinely fact-stating uses of language and other uses can be grounded on a theory of truth, especially a 'thin' notion of truth in the tradition of F P Ramsey.