The article by Academician P. L. Kapitsa published below is devoted to problems of the utmost importance, which have come to be termed "global." The Twenty - fifth Congress of the CPSU pointed to the need to study them scientifically and solve them practically, emphasizing that they touch on the interests of humanity as a whole and will exercise an increasingly marked influence on the lives of every people and on the entire system of international relations. In their social philosophical (...) aspects they have been discussed more than once in the pages of Voprosy filosofii. Discussions of these problems took place at the round tables entitled "Man and His Environment" [See translation in our Fall-Winter 1974 number. — Ed., Soviet Studies in Philosophy], "Social Philosophy Problems of Demography," and "Science and Global Problems of Our Time," and numerous articles have been published in such series as "Science and Social Progress," "The Peace Program and the Dialectics of International Relations" [See translation in our Fall 1975 issue. — Ed., Soviet Studies in Philosophy], and "Man — Society — Nature." The editors of the journal, guided by the directives of the Twenty-fifth Party Congress on the need for further investigation of such global problems of our time, are inclined to continue the discussion of them in the future; another round table devoted to these problems is being planned now. The article by Academician P. L. Kapitsa, it seems to us, will provide fruitful stimuli for discussion at this round table, which will probably be published in several installments. As the author himself emphasizes, certain positions in his article are debatable and require discussion. The journal invites philosophers, demographers, economists, and representatives of the natural sciences to take part in discussions of the problems posed. Certain questions examined in Kapitsa's article are also treated in articles by Howard L. Parsons, A. D. Ado, and Iu. A. Kirshin published in this issue of the journal. (shrink)

The heme‐containing cytochromes P‐450 are a ubiquitous family of monooxygenase isozymes responsible for the oxidative metabolism of a wide variety of endogenous as well as exogenous compounds. Many of the compounds metabolized by this enzyme system are effectively detoxified and converted to derivatives more easily eliminated from the organism. However, some compounds can be activated to reactive species capable of eliciting a cascade of toxic lesions, including cancer. Since its discovery nearly 30 years ago, the cytochrome P‐450 enzyme system has (...) received a great deal of attention, particularly in the areas of their mechanisms of metabolism, range of substrate specificity, the purification and characterization of the multiple isozymes and, more recently, the regulation of expression of specific forms. This review will discuss current notions concerning the expression of at least one cytochrome P‐450 isozyme and future directions that should lead to a more complete understanding of cytochrome P‐450 gene expression in general, particularly as it impacts upon biochemical pharmacology. (shrink)

This book examines the relationship between law and scientific advancement, with a particular focus on the theory of evolution and medical innovation. Historically, the law has struggled to keep pace with modern medical advances. The authors demonstrate that the laws that govern human behaviour must evolve in response to such advances."--Provided by publisher.

Note by the Editor of Voprosy filosofii: The presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences has decided to hold, in Moscow in December 1980, the Third USSR Conference on Philosophical Problems of Contemporary Natural Science, dedicated to the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin, and has established an organizing committee headed by P. N. Fedoseev, vice-president of the Academy, to prepare and conduct the conference.

The relation of the conformal group to various earlier proposed relativistic quantum mechanical dynamical groups (and other related groups) is studied in the framework of projective geometry, by explicitly constructing the contractions of the six-dimensional coordinate transformations. Five-dimensional realizations are then derived. An attempt is made to improve our physical insight through geometry.

We look at a hierarchical arrangement of ideals in an MV -algebra. The principal classes of ideals studied are the maximals, the primes, the local and perfect ideals and the semi-locals. Beyond these special classes of ideals are the general ideals. Herein we study some relationships among these classes and, more specifically, the products of ideals of these classes. Among the results obtained are the square of a prime ideal is a local ideal, the finite product of prime ideals is (...) a semilocal ideal. We also show that the set of local ideals shares many of the properties of the class of prime ideals, as the Lying Over Theorem and the Going Up Theorem. (shrink)

Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa, world-renowned physicist, often turns to themes that at first glance seem far removed from the sphere of his basic scientific interests. He is the author of numerous articles and papers on problems of the development of science and the organization of scientific work . Many have read with interest his remarkable recollections of Rutherford, published in Novy mir.