The structure of Adonis wolgensis Stev. coenopopulation in the conditions of Northern Kazakhstan

The article presents the study results made on the Adonis wolgensis coenopopulation in Northern Kazakhstan (2018–2019). The materials have been gathered in the course of field research taking into account the literary data. The age structure of the coenopopulations is provided on the basis of detailed route studies. There have been studied eight coenopopulations located in Akmola, Pavlodar, and Kostanay regions. A. wolgensis is a short-stem herbaceous polycarpic of Northern Kazakhstan. A. wolgensis coenopopulations are found in three main habitats: steppe, meadow-steppe, and forest communities. The study of A. wolgensis coenopopulations in the latitudinal direction from Ekibastuz in the east to the Kostanay region in the west has revealed a high recovery index in steppe ecotopes. In other coenopopulations it is less than one. It is especially low in forest habitats. Most coenopopulations have a normal character according to the spectrum of age conditions, and they are maturing. This fact proves no negative impact of environmental and anthropogenic factors on the structure of coenopopulations and ensures their recovery and preservation.

Eichmann’s Mistake: The Problem of Thoughtlessness in International Criminal Law

Atrocities are often unprecedented and identifying them therefore may require moral and political judgement, not only the application of legal rules. Consequently, potential defendants charged for perpetrating them may be genuinely unable to recognize the law that prohibits their criminal activity. Starting from its classical treatment in Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, this problem has perplexed scholars who have noted the seemingly normal character of defendants in mass atrocity cases. In disagreement with other scholars in the area, I argue for a recognition of a “mistake of law”? defense in international criminal law. The Article demonstrates the stakes of the claim through three hypothetical international criminal cases with different political underpinnings, all pertaining to burning contemporary concerns: cases against individuals responsible for the enormous risks of climate change; against abusers of migrants in the context of border enforcement; and against individuals responsible for the termination of pregnancies in abortion clinics. I argue for a dual approach: on the one hand, prosecutors and judges must constantly leave open the possibility of a radical departure from extant doctrine and precedent in charging individuals. On the other, they must recognize that defendants may reasonably not be able to recognize the law qua law, especially when such departures occur. The internal tension between these two imperatives sheds light on the predicament of international criminal adjudication. A recognition of the proposed mistake of law defense is but a modest doctrinal solution for a much more fundamental perplexity of the discipline. Yet it is especially crucial today, with an ever-clearer normative divergence among actors in the “international community.”?

VASOMOTOR FUNCTION OF THE ENDOTHELIUM IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE AND HYPERTENSION

Investigation of the functional state of the vascular endothelium contributes to the further study of the mechanisms of development and pharmacological correction, particularly in hypertensive patients with chronic kidney disease. Material and Results. The study involved 172 patients with arterial hypertension (AH) in patients with chronic kidney disease. In the study of vascular-motor response to decompression and test with nitroglycerin in 60% of cases occur reduced vasodilatory and in 12.6% constrictor response. Normal character of vasodilation was 27.4%. Endothelium-independent vasodilation in the brachial artery decompression was reduced by 51.1% compared with the control. The growth of endothelium-independent vasoconstriction in the degree III AH was reduced to a lesser degree than the endothelium dependent - by 6.5% and 19.4% (p<0.01), respectively. Conclusion. Thus impaired endothelium-mediated autoregulation of vascular tone in hypertensive patients with chronic kidney disease is an important element in the pathogenesis of high blood pressure as one of major adaptation mechanisms.

Disability’s Other

The notion of “disability” relies on the concept of “normal.” Like disability, normality has a traceable history as an epistemological category. The mobilization of soldiers during World War II and, to a lesser degree, World War I, meant thousands of minds and bodies could be, and were, measured. A curious obsession with defining “normal” took hold, as doctors, scientists, and anthropologists gathered and applied statistical data to try measure “normal” bodies and describe “normal” character. Enlistees were subjected to psychological testing; sexologists used anthropometric methods to map the “normal” American body; and an interdisciplinary team at Harvard launched a longitudinal study of “normal men.” Taken together, such pursuits of “normality” were inextricable from midcentury anxieties about mental health, embodiment, masculinity, and the nation. By illuminating and gendering the “normal,” such forces functioned both to evoke and then exclude “disabled” bodies from the social body.

SCALE-FREE NETWORK THEORY IN STUDYING THE STRUCTURE OF THE ROAD NETWORK IN POLAND

This paper discusses the issue of statistical analysis of traffic flow in different regions of Poland. Such analysis allows us to identify “valuable (sensitive) areas” whose damage or blockage may provoke considerable disturbances or even a stoppage of traffic flow in the examined road network. The results of the studies indicate that the road network in Poland has the properties of a scale-free network. The distribution of the examined variables does not have a normal character, whereas the relationship between the number of nodes and the number of connections is a power-law feature.

BIAS ERRORS IN STUDIES ON SEDIMENT – LADEN FLOW IN SHORT EXPERIMENTAL CHANNELS / SISTEMINGOSIOS PAKLAIDOS, TYRINĖJANT NEŠMENIS PLUKDANČIAS TĖKMES PER TRUMPUOSE EKSPERIMENTINIUOSE LATAKUOSE / CИСТEМНЫE ПОГРЕШНОСТИ В ЭКСПЕРИМЕНТАЛЬНЫX ИCCЛEДOВAНИЯХ ВЗВECEНЕСУЩИХ ПОТОКOВ В КOPOТКИX ЛАБОРАТОРНЫХ ЛОТКАХ

For the further development of suspension flow theory extensive researches are performed in many hydraulic laboratories, as the up-to-date theory is not able to solve many practical problems yet. However, the recent methods of laboratory investigations and experimental equipment are not quite complete for successful scientific development yet. Analysis of published data of sediment-laden flow investigations revealed, that in many cases the experimental channel length was not sufficient for stabilization of sediment distribution along the water depth of flow, giving rise to bias errors. Unusual and unexplained deviations of experimental dependences from their normal character were detected in experimental dependences of sediment concentration, flow velocities and their fluctuations. These deviations were not similar to accidental measurement failures, as they were regular and the experimental points did not significantly disperse. It seemed as if they arose under the influence of certain unknown factors, which could reduce the quality, and reliability of experimental data and further conclusions. Therefore, it was necessary to establish the reasons for their occurrence. In the paper, these reasons and ways of eliminating these errors are considered. Santrauka Gausūs eksperimentiniai turbulentinių srautų struktūrų tyrimai atliekami daugelyje hidraulinių laboratorijų. Tiriant skendinčiujų nešmenų pasiskirstymą tėkmėse siekiama toliau plėtoti teoriją bei ją geriau pritaikyti praktiniams uždaviniams spręsti. Deja, turima eksperimentinė įranga ir tyrimų metodai vis dar nėra pakankamai tobuli, todėl dažnai būdavo gaunamos nemažos sistemingosios paklaidos. Įvairių tyrėjų moksliniuose straipsniuose pateiktų duomenų analizė tai patvirtino. Daugeliu atvejų tyrimams naudojamų eksperimentinių latakų ilgis buvo nepakankamas skendinčiųjų nešmenų pasiskirstymui stabilizuoti. Tai ir buvo tų paklaidų, o kartais ir neteisingų išvadų, priežastis. Analizuojant tyrimų duomenis pastebėta sunkiai paaiškinami nešmenų koncentracijos, tėkmės greičių bei turbulentinių pulsacijų nukrypimai nuo įprastinių. Šie nukrypimai nebuvo matavimų paklaidos ar netikslumai, nes jie reguliariai kartojosi, o eksperimentinių kreivių taškų sklaida buvo maža. Akivaizdu, kad jie atsirado dėl kažkokių dar nenustatytų veiksnių, kurie savaip formavo turbulentinės tėkmės sūkurių struktūrą atliekamų matavimų pjūvyje. Darbo tikslas – nustatyti tos struktūros formavimosi eksperimentiniuose latakuose eigą ir rasti būdų išvengti nešmenų matavimo sistemingujų paklaidų. Резюме Для дальнейшего развития теории взвесенесущего потока многочисленные экспериментальные исследованияпроводятся во многих гидравлических лабораториях мира, так как современная теория еще не в состоянии решитьмногие практические задачи. Однако ни современное лабораторное оборудование, ни методы исследования неявляются достаточно совершенными. Анализ результатов опубликованных исследований показал, что во многихслучаях длина экспериментальных лотков была недостаточной для стабилизации вертикального распределениявзвешенных наносов в потоке воды. Это приводило к существенным систематическим ошибкам, а иногда и к неправильным выводам. Наблюдались трудно объяснимые отклонения получаемых экспериментальных зависимостей от их обыкновенного характера. Они не могли быть объяснены погрешностями измерений, так как былирегулярны, а экспериментальные точки не были слишком разбросаны. Повидимому, они возникли под влияниемеще не установленных факторов. Было необходимо установить причины этих явлений и пути устранения появляющихся ошибок, что и стало целью работы, излагаемой в настоящей статье.

MMPI and Rorschach Characteristics of Individuals Approved for Gender Reassignment Surgery

Results of past empirical studies utilizing the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Rorschach Inkblot Test (Rorschach) have tended to be equivocal regarding the level and nature of psychopathology associated with samples of individuals requesting gender reassignment surgery. The present study compared the MMPI-2 basic scale T scores from a gender reassignment applicant sample (56 male-to-female transsexuals and 56 female-to-male transsexuals) to T scores obtained from a general psychiatric adult inpatient sample ( n = 112) and T scores obtained from a normal adult sample ( n = 112). The comparison groups were matched to the gender reassignment sample on the variables of biological gender and age. Rorschach data obtained from the gender reassignment sample were also compared to frequency data reported by Exner for normal, character disorder, and schizophrenic adults. Apart from a clinical range elevation on Scale 5, the gender reassignment candidates produced a normal range mean MMPI-2 profile. In contrast, the Rorschach findings suggested that reassignment candidates produce a high frequency of invalid protocols and manifest various psychological problems that are characteristic of individuals with personality disorders. These findings are discussed in terms of salient methodological and theoretical issues as well as promising directions for future research.

The Personality in Psychomotor Epilepsy Compared with the Explosive and Aggressive Personality

Amark (1951, p. 154) discovered a high frequency of ixoid and ixothymic personality traits resembling those encountered among epileptics in a clinical material (49.5 per cent), and institutional material (38.0 per cent) and a material from the Temperance Board (37.1 per cent). Amark's description of these ‘epileptoid’ personality traits (1951, p. 151)) which also covers normal character variations, is fairly wide and includes a tendency to perseveration, adhesiveness, explosions or dysphoric states of dejection, querulousness and paranoid reactions. In a previous study (Kristianson, 1970, p. 173) it was suggested that Amark probably overestimated the frequencies of ixoid and ixothymic personalities, because alcoholics are so often explosive. But this quite unspecific pattern of behaviour is not sufficient for the diagnosis of ‘epileptoid’ traits, if this concept is to have a reasonable definition. Explosive aggressiveness is scarcely a primary personality trait, but is one of the symptoms of a deterioration in the chronic alcoholic's mental condition. However, it is important to differentiate these explosive aggressive reactions caused by chronic alcoholism from the adequately defined personality traits of epileptics. This problem of differentiation will be analysed in greater detail in this study.

Statistical analysis of recent fault-plane solutions of earthquakes

The large number of fault-plane solutions at present available in the literature permit one to calculate several statistical averages that have an important bearing upon geotectonics. The present paper represents a continuation of earlier work in this direction: 101 new fault-plane solutions are listed and the ratio of pressure to tension, strike slip to dip slip, and the average slip angle have been calculated for nine earthquake areas. Some of the older results are thereby corroborated, viz., that the “normal” character of earthquakes is to represent strike-slip faulting, and that the central Asian regions constitute an exception to this rule. In addition, it is now possible to make a breakdown with regard to depth. In this, a peculiar situation is found at 0.03 R depth, where the slip angle reaches a maximum. If the relationship between shallow and deep earthquakes be considered for any one area, however, it turns out that they are on the whole of the same character. Thus, whatever it is that causes earthquakes, acts in a similar fashion at all depths in any one area, but differs from one area to another.

FURTHER STUDIES OF THE INFECTIOUS UNIT OF VACCINIA

A study has been made of the comparative virulence of several strains of vaccine virus for a number of hosts, and wide variation in animal susceptibility has been demonstrated. The results obtained in experiments with a chick-embryo-adapted strain are interpreted as indicating that the particles of virus are of essentially uniform virulence. Results of statistical analyses are presented which indicate that as the virulence of a strain of virus increases the number of elementary bodies per infectious unit approaches 1, and at that limit the chance of infection is governed primarily by the presence or absence of virus in the inoculum. With lower virulence the chance of a lesion following inoculation of virus is still described by the binomial theorem, but the actual distribution is primarily of susceptible cells not of viral particles. It is postulated that with regard to the proportion of cells available for parasitism, differences exist between different animals of a species, and that this distribution is of a normal character.