Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming part of the everyday. During this transition, people’s intention to use AI technologies is still unclear and emotions such as fear are influencing it. In this paper, we focus on autonomous cars to first verify empirically the extent to which people fear AI and then examine the impact that fear has on their intention to use AI-driven vehicles. Our research is based on a systematic survey and it reveals that while individuals are largely afraid of (...) cars that are driven by AI, they are nonetheless willing to adopt this technology as soon as possible. To explain this tension, we extend our analysis beyond just fear and show that people also believe that AI-driven cars will generate many individual, urban and global benefits. Subsequently, we employ our empirical findings as the foundations of a theoretical framework meant to illustrate the main factors that people ponder when they consider the use of AI tech. In addition to offering a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of AI technology acceptance, this paper provides a nuanced understanding of the tension that exists between the fear and adoption of AI, capturing what exactly people fear and intend to do. (shrink)

Analysing time-dependent independent variables requires the use of process-oriented statistical models. Yet social scientists have often had to use data collected at a single point in time, making their task difficult. Making several assumptions about the covariates, the present study uses survival analysis and other statistical techniques to analyse the 1996 South African population census data and examine the effects of selected independent variables on the timing of parenthood in the country. It was found that the onset of parenthood occurs (...) late in South Africa compared with the pattern in most other African societies. While education plays a role in the postponement of parenthood within racial groups, it fails to explain the differences between African and Coloured women on the one hand, and White and Asian women on the other hand, a finding that suggests the existence of two regimes of family formation in South African society. (shrink)

The study acknowledges that though mining has contributed to the development of many economies globally, it comes with unanticipated challenges especially on the people who are directly affected by the mining activities. The study aims to understand the implications of such challenges faced in mining resettled communities and the versatile practices followed to stay in the mist of such livelihood challenges in mining resettlement communities. The study also focuses on the copying strategies adapted to cope with these challenges in mining (...) resettlement communities. Qualitative approach was done to capture the rich essence of the subject matter. The study used focus groups and in-depth interviews as techniques and interviewed members from different households of the mining resettlements communities (Salman, Teleku-Bokazo and Nkroful) including land owners, opinion leaders, chiefs and from the institutional perspectives. As a result, it was found out that the livelihood challenges that clearly manifested itself was in the area of income, employment and morbidity issues. The evidence was shown that in all the challenges, copying measures are in place to enable the people live in their new settlements, but not adequate. (shrink)

Using contemporary physics, narrated at a popular science level, Ransford shows why full nothingness--a nothingness within which even the disembodied laws of mathematics would not exist--cannot possibly exist, and what most likely underpins and enables reality.s reality.

Morbidity of birth asphyxia has been estimated to be 42 million disability-adjusted life years. The study sought to assess the impact of the use and completion of partograph during labour on reducing birth asphyxia at the St Anthony’s Hospital, Dzodze, in the Volta Region of Ghana. A retrospective study design using a quantitative approach was adopted for the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select a total of 200 folders of labouring women who were admitted and delivered (...) at St Anthony’s Hospital, Dzodze, between 1st May 2015 and 30th April 2016. A structured checklist, which was developed by using labour and foetal monitoring parameters based on the standards of the World Health Organization partograph usage, was used to review all the 200 existing maternal records. The findings revealed that partographs were used by midwives at St Anthony’s Hospital with the majority of the maternal folders fully completed. The use and completion of partograph were found to be associated with less non-asphyxiated birth outcomes. Labours which were monitored with partograph were 4.29 times less likely to result in birth asphyxia [AOR 4.29 ], and those that were monitored with a completed partograph were 5.3 times less likely to result in birth asphyxia [AOR 5.31 ]. Midwives used partographs during labour at St Anthony’s Hospital. The use and completion of partograph were significantly associated with a reduced incidence of birth asphyxia at the hospital. Birth asphyxia could be reduced if partographs are used and completed by midwives during labour in all cases. (shrink)

This article examines the technique and legality of induced abortion of one or more fetuses in a multiple pregnancy, where the aim is the destruction of some but not all of the fetuses present (selective reduction of pregnancy). It concludes that since the legal status of the procedure in English law is unclear, it may be a criminal offence to perform selective reduction even where there is an ostensible clinical need. Moreover if the procedure is carried out negligently, and any (...) infant damaged as a result is subsequently born alive, he or she may have a civil claim against the practitioner who carried out the procedure. (shrink)

Tom 1. Rannekhristianskiĭ gnosticheskiĭ tekst v rossiĭskoĭ kulʹture (21 i︠a︡nvari︠a︡ 2011 g.) -- Tom 2. Sudʹby religiozno-filosofskikh iskaniĭ Nikolai︠a︡ Novikova i ego kruga (15-17 okti︠a︡bri︠a︡ 2012 g.).

v. 1. Edinyĭ i︠a︡zyk chelovechestva. --.

Russell’s distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description has been recently re-examined in frequently controversial epistemo-logical contributions. The present essay reflects upon the pertinent papers by D. F. Pears, J. Hintikka, R. Chisholm, W. Sellars, A. J. Ayer, and others, but is pri-marily founded on Russell’s significant formulations from his writings published between 1910 and 1918. By employing an auxiliary device of a late-Wittgen-steinian language game, I explore at first the situation in which human subject is “experiencing” and (...) naming particular objects and later the subject’s acquaintance with universals. The reconstruction of such situations shows that, contrary to Russell’s assumptions, even the “purest” acquaintance cannot function without knowledge by description, i.e. without sta-ting propositions about the object of acquaintance . Then the only “descriptionless” alternative would be a kind of intuitive knowledge of such objects which is difficult to reconcile with the position held by Russell in the 1910s. Whatever the consequences, this topic retains its fundamental epistemological significance. (shrink)

The paper proves that a historical method in Marxism is not identified to a dialectical method. The logic of history and the logic of its analysis in Marxism do not always coincide. The Logical coincides with the Historical only in eternity as it actually occurs in the works by G.V.F. Hegel. Eternity which has already witnessed everything does not know history any more. In the same way, history also begins there where the eternity comes to an end. Therefore, artificial identification (...) of the Logical with the Historical in Marxism led sometimes to actual mistakes. It is no wonder that it has always caused discussions in Marxism. They are mainly explained by the fact that the deductive, abstract-to-concrete method in which the “General” appears before the “Concrete” is an anti-historical method in its Nature. In real human history the “General” which is generalization of many “Concrete” could not appear before the latter in any way. For this reason, the real historical materialism needs an inductive method of knowledge. Only in that case historical materialism will cease to remain the soviet “histmat” and becomes the real form of a new world outlook. The author is of the opinion that the Party spirit of the Soviet philosophy promoted preservation of the anomalies mentioned in Marxism. The open discussion could help to find valid but not inherited from Hegel relation of historical and logical methods in Marxism. (shrink)

We investigate to what extent theorems about quantum mechanical or classical entropy can be generalized to functionals of the type ρ→Tr f(ρ), or ψ→∫f(ψ)dμ, respectively, wheref is an arbitrary concave function.