Sword of Damocles or choosing well. Population genetics sheds light into the future of the COVID-19 pandemic and SARS-CoV-2 new mutant strains

An immense scientific effort has been made worldwide due to Covid-19’s pandemic magnitude. It has made possible to identify almost 300,000 SARS-CoV-2 different genetic variants, connecting them with clinical and epidemiological findings. Among this immense data collection, that constitutes the biggest evolutionary experiment in history, is buried the answer to what will happen in the future. Will new strains, more contagious than the current ones or resistant to the vaccines, arise by mutation? Although theoretic population genetics is, by far, the most powerful tool we have to do an accurate prediction, it has been barely used for the study of SARS-CoV-2 due to its conceptual difficulty. Having in mind that the size of the SARS-CoV-2 population is astronomical we can apply a discrete treatment, based on the branching process method, Fokker-Plank equations and Kolmogoroff’s forward equations, to calculate the survival likelihood through time, to elucidate the likelihood to become dominant genotypes and how long will this take, for new SARS-CoV-2 mutants depending on their selective advantage. Results show that most of the new mutants that will arise in the SARS-CoV-2 meta-population will stay at very low frequencies. However, some few new mutants, significantly more infectious than current ones, will still emerge and become dominant in the population favoured by a great selective advantage. Far from showing a “mutational meltdown”, SARS-CoV-2 meta-population will increase its fitness becoming more infective. There is a probability, small but finite, that new mutants arise resistant to some vaccines. High infected numbers and slow vaccination programs will significantly increase this likelihood.

Liberalism

This chapter analyses the rise of liberalism in terms of the desire to develop a set of normative principles to govern the state that exhibit neutrality with regard to controversial conceptions of the good. It traces the historical development to emphasize that these principles represented not just a solution to a conceptual difficulty but also a way to address a pressing practical problem. The classical formulation of the doctrine emphasized the state’s provision of three “neutral” goods: property, contract, and security. However, the very success of liberal states organized on this basis gave rise to a set of social problems that the doctrine was powerless to resolve. This gave rise, indirectly, to modern liberalism, which reconceptualizes liberal neutrality in terms of a commitment to a set of more abstract principles of efficiency, equality, and liberty.

Acquisition of multi-verb predicates in Nungon

Studies of the acquisition of verbs tend to focus on one-verb predicates of the prevalent English type. But in hundreds of languages around the world, multi-verb predicates like serial verb constructions are widely used. It could be reasoned that children should begin producing simple, single-verb predicates before they are able to produce multi-verb predicates. But alternatively, many multi-verb predicates are idiomatic and could, as chunks, lend themselves to holophrastic acquisition by small children. This article examines early productions of multi-verb predicates in the speech of three children (aged 1;1–2;4, 2;1–3;3, and 2;10–3;3) acquiring the Papuan language Nungon, comparing patterns there with productions in the child-directed speech of their parents, and with the children’s productions of simple, one-verb predicates. The study’s youngest child never produces multi-verb predicates in the study period, but the child studied for the widest age range produces them from age 2;4, when she has still not acquired productive use of all verbal inflections, and both older children show proportionally increasing trends in multi-verb predicate use. Semantically, the earliest multi-verb predicates can be analyzed as describing multidimensional unitary events, with this expanding to events that can be divided into multiple distinct components at later ages. Delays in production of certain other multi-verb predicate types that are robustly present in parental input at all ages cannot be linked to a single factor, but likely relate to a combination of increased phonological or morphological complexity and increased conceptual difficulty.

History, Identity, and the Present

part 4 History, Identity, and the Present Part 4 considers the role of historical consciousness in shaping present-day identity. It is critical of prejudicial ‘Identity History’ while enjoining historians to embrace their roles in historical arguments pertaining to identity. The first section clarifies what falls outside the definition of ‘Identity History’, noting that much excellent scholarship pertains to identity and even serves identity goals without being prejudicial. The second section highlights where historians working on identity matters are likely to fall into conceptual difficulty. Is the relationship between past ‘them’ and present ‘us’ a matter of identity or difference or a bit of both? Identity History is inconsistent here, with different attitudes taken depending on whether that past behaviour was good or bad by present lights. There are consequences for the historian’s engagement with past rights and wrongs, harms and benefits, because claims on these matters constitute stakes in the identity game whose winner gets to decide what is desirable in the here and now. The third section develops such themes and distinguishes between more and less appropriate idioms for characterizing the relationship between contemporary polities and groups on one hand and the deeds of relevant ‘forebears’ on the other hand. It is a mistake to talk of contemporary guilt, or for that matter virtue, in light of what one’s predecessors did, but the language of shame or pride may be appropriate. The fourth section addresses the material legacies of past action, considering matters of compensation and redistribution. The concluding section returns to broader principles.

Self-Acquaintance and Three Regress Arguments

The three classic regress problems (the Extensive Regress of states, the Intensive Regress of contents, and the Fichte-Henrich-Shoemaker Regress of de se beliefs) related to the Self-Awareness Thesis (that one’s conscious states are the ones that one is aware of being in) can all be elegantly resolved by a self-acquaintance postulate. This resolution, however, entails that consciousness has an irreducibly circular structure and that self-acquaintance should not be conceived of in terms of an independent entity bearing an external or mediated relation to itself but rather in terms of a realized relation-instance relating to itself as well as to something other than itself. Consciousness, on this account, has a categorially curious status. It is like a relation-particular hybrid. This can be formalized in terms of the theory of hypersets, which in turn can be used to elucidate the problem of individuality, one source of the conceptual difficulty with adequately characterizing de se content.

Epilogue: On the Current and Future State of Historical Writing

This epilogue argues that historians ought to be able to produce a universal history, one that would ‘cover’ the past of humankind ‘as a whole’. However, aside from the always increasing difficulty of mastering the factual material that such an undertaking requires, there exists another difficulty: the coherence of universal history always presupposes an initial decision not to write about the human past in all its multiplicity, but to focus on one aspect of that past. Nevertheless, the lure of universal history will persist, even in the face of its practical and conceptual difficulty. Certainly, it is possible to imagine a future ideological convergence among humans that would enable them to accept, as authoritative, one history of humankind.

The Use of Terminological Lexicon in Making Phraseological Units

Terminological lexicon can be found in everyday life, depending on the situation and the speakers. The question that arises is: How can we use technical and scientific terms when the terminological lexicon belongs to a certain language for specific purposes and the specialists of specific fields can use to communicate among themselves by using this lexicon. The use of terms in this form of communication can have various specific lawyers, thus conceptual difficulty. Based on this conclusion we must take into consideration that terminological lexicon is an integral and inseparable part of general lexicon because composites are made from this lexicon, borrowing are taken and structural and semantic calques are made, despite being one-word or multi-word raising them to the level of term and giving them the accuracy and monosemy. Technical and scientific terms depending on the development of the various fields of study, are not used only in communication among specialists but in other fields. This ‘cooperation’ is present in almost all information, data, textbooks and extracurricular books, written press, conversations etc.

Experimentation of Java Software of Geometrical Optics JSGO during the geometrical construction of the virtual image

This work aims to study the impact of using Java Software of Geometrical Optics JSGO on the geometrical construction success of the virtual image among the pupils in the first year of Baccalaureate, option: Experimental Sciences (ES).To examine this impact, we realized an experiment towards the end of the school year 2012/2013 among a group of learner consisting of 43 pupils. These pupils took a pretest using the traditional method, followed by a formation on how to use JSGO and finally they set for a posttest using the mentioned software.The analysis of the results of our study “evolution of the nature of geometrical constructions produced” confirms that using JSGO does not induce, in any case, the pupils to make an error in the construction of the virtual image.By analyzing the results concerning “pupils’ conceptual difficulties” we have scored the presence of the conceptual difficulty associated with an incorrect status that about 32 % of learners attribute to the construction ray extension. The use of JSGO provides a useful tool to overcome this conceptual difficulty. This analysis also indicates that, despite the interactive character of JSGO, about 12 % of pupils still face the conceptual difficulty related to the correspondence image object (punctual and global) and also to the conceptual difficulty related to the minimum number of rays departing from the same point of the luminous object.Finally, the study of “pupils’ perceptions about using JSGO” showed that the participants are very satisfied with using this computer wizard.

Virtual image and pupils’ conceptual difficulties in the first year of Baccalaureate Experimental Sciences

This paper presents a research on the pupils’ conceptual difficulties in the first year of Baccalaureate Experimental Sciences (ES) during the geometrical construction of the virtual image.The experimentation realized in this research takes into account the reality of the teaching in the classroom. It was conducted towards the end of the school year 2012/2013 among a group of learners consisting of 54 pupils. These pupils must only use the traditional method paper, pencil, ruler and protractor for doing tests.By analyzing the conceptual difficulties proven in the false geometrical constructions produced by the pupils, we have marked that the first variant sub-tests do not allow the emergence of the conceptual difficulty associated with the tracing of the construction ray extension. The construction of the virtual image through the second variant sub-tests has shown that about 32 % of pupils face against this conceptual difficulty, which is related to an incorrect status that the pupil attributes to the construction ray extension.After checking the conceptual difficulty related to the correspondence image object (punctual and global) and the conceptual difficulty associated with the minimum number of rays departing from the same point of the luminous object and also the difficulty in tracing a construction ray, it seems that the both variants don’t allow the emergence of these conceptual difficulties.