The Meaning of Plurality in Voice and Aspectual Constructions (Based on the Material of the Yakut Language)

The article is devoted to the functional-semantic analysis of the Yakut predicative constructions which are derived from verb stems in the form of comitative-reciprocal voice and frequentative aspect. Yakut verb forms under discussion, when expressing the categories of reciprocity and distributivity, fall into the functional-semantic field of plurality, in connection with which the problem of intersecting fields and of the interaction of semantic categories within a certain field inevitably arises. The analysis demonstrated that the difference between distributive constructions and reciprocal constructions in the Yakut language consists, first of all, in their content: the semantic invariant for the former is the multiplicity of the action itself whereas for the latter type it is the multiplicity of participants in the action. Objective distributive constructions, as a rule, have three arguments: apart from the agent and patient arguments they also contain an additional object argument which denotes the goal of the action. In reciprocal constructions indicating this participant of the situation is not obligatory. Furthermore, reciprocal and distributive constructions are formed on the basis of verbs which belong to different semantic groups. The majority of indicated verbs represent voice forms derived from the same stem and imply action performed on something plural or something consisting of many parts. Herewith, Yakut reciprocal and distributive constructions are characterized by nearly the same set of group arguments. However, the character of the group argument is particularly important for constructions with distributive content, in reciprocal constructions arguments are almost always singular animate objects.

THE OBJECT OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFENSE IN THE QUALIFICATION AND SYSTEMATISATION OF DOMESTIC ADMINISTRATIVE-TORT LEGISLATION ON ROAD TRANSPORT

The article deals with the subject of administrative misconduct in road transport and its role in the rulemaking and enforcement activities. The basic doctrinal approaches to understanding the object of administrative misconduct in road transport are summarized. It is concluded that there is no single vision of their nature and content in domestic administrative law. The necessity to harmonize scientific positions and develop a unified concept of the object of administrative misconduct (including administrative misconduct in road transport) at all levels of its generalization and objectification is substantiated. On the basis of the analysis of modern scientific researches and the current administrativetort legislation the classification of objects of administrative offenses in the road transport is made. The author’s definitions of the concepts of general, generic, species and direct object of administrative offenses in road transport are formulated. Their actual content is specified. The essence of the main and additional object of administrative misconduct is revealed. The polysubjectiveness of the majority of administrative offenses in the road transport is ascertained. The role of the object of administrative misconduct in the structuring and systematization of domestic administrative-tort legislation is investigated. It is determined that the generic object of administrative misconduct is the main criterion for the division of the Special part of the Code of Administrative Offenses into separate Chapters. Topical issues of legal regulation of administrative-tort relations in road transport are highlighted. A set of legislative proposals aimed at harmonizing the structure of the Code of Administrative Offenses, in particular, regarding the regulation of liability for administrative offenses in road transport, has been elaborated.

Is Sider still a perdurantist?

In Writing the Book of the World (2011) Theodore Sider claims that on the fundamental level of reality there are no objects composed of parts, which makes his view a version of mereological nihilism. However, in his previous book entitled Four-Dimensionalism (2001), Sider endorses mereological universalism, the thesis that every class of objects has a mereological fusion, i.e. that there exists an additional object containing those objects as parts, which plays a crucial role in his argument from vagueness in favour of perdurantism, that is the thesis of the existence of temporal parts of material objects. In this paper I will investigate whether Sider can still be a perdurantist in spite of his latest commitment to mereological nihilism.

The Contralateral Delay Activity Tracks the Sequential Loading of Objects into Visual Working Memory, Unlike Lateralized Alpha Oscillations

Visual working memory temporarily represents a continuous stream of task-relevant objects as we move through our environment performing tasks. Previous work has identified candidate neural mechanisms of visual working memory storage; however, we do not know which of these mechanisms enable the storage of objects as we sequentially encounter them in our environment. Here, we measured the contralateral delay activity (CDA) and lateralized alpha oscillations as human subjects were shown a series of objects that they needed to remember. The amplitude of CDA increased following the presentation of each to-be-remembered object, reaching asymptote at about three to four objects. In contrast, the concurrently measured lateralized alpha power remained constant with each additional object. Our results suggest that the CDA indexes the storage of objects in visual working memory, whereas lateralized alpha suppression indexes the focusing of attention on the to-be-remembered objects.

A SIGNIFICANT THREAT TO OTHER INTERESTS AS A CRITERION FOR SUBSTANTIAL HARM AT CRIMINAL LAW

The aim of the article “A significant threat to other interests as a criterion for substantial harm at criminal law” is to examine the problems of understanding the concept of “substantial harm” in criminal law; to analyse whether the “significant threat to other interests” component of substantial harm is properly understood in practice. The lack of understanding of the concept determines the topicality of the article. To reach the goal of the article, such tasks are solved: 1. to consider the historical development of a law framework of “substantial harm”; 2. to get acquainted with the types of substantial harm in criminal law; 3. to compare the court practice with the basic legal doctrine; 4. to make a statement about the content of the concept of “significant threat to other interests” both in the framework of basic and qualifying criminal offenses. The article consists of 5 parts: introduction, understanding concept of other interests protected by law, connection of other interests protected by law with the direct object of the criminal offense, threat of other interests protected by law as qualifying attribute, conclusions. The novelty of the article is related to the lack of research into substantial harm problems in criminal law. The conclusions of the article are about court practice does not correspond to the basic of legal doctrine. In the conclusion of the article, the author expresses the thesis for basic composition of criminal offense: substantially harmed interests are those in the direct object of the criminal offense; as well as those included in additional objects, if specifically designated by the legislator. Regarding the determination of interests in qualifying composition of a criminal offense, the author of the article expresses the following http://dx.doi.org/10.17770/acj.v4i85.3673 thesis: substantial harm as a characteristic of the composition of a qualified criminal offense indicates the threat of an additional object of a criminal offense.

Problems of Systemic Penalization (Using the Example of Differentiating Criminal Liability for Crimes with Many-Object Corpus Delicti)

The author examines the issues of differentiating criminal liability in connection with an additional object in corpus delicti. It is shown that each modern criminal law has its own penological system, i.e. an interconnected system of sanctions in the Special Part of criminal law and the criminal law institutes of punishments, other criminal law measures, the exemption from criminal liability and from punishment. When constructing the sanctions of some criminal law norm, the lawmaker should keep it in mind that this is an element of the criminal law’s penological system, and that its introduction or change will have an impact on the system as a whole. Besides, it is necessary to observe the methodological principle of systemic balance, which presupposes the mutual relativity of the strictness of sanctions and the influence which the institutes of punishment, other criminal law measures, the exemption from criminal liability and from punishment have on the actual strictness of criminal liability. The author demonstrates the principle of systemic balance using the example of penalizing multi-object crimes with aggravating circumstances. Special attention is paid to the methodology that would be appropriate for the assessment of the systemic character of multi-object crimes. Besides, it is recommended to use such numeric parameters as the median of punishment, the increase coefficient of the median of punishment and the increase coefficient for criminal liability. The author uses special methodology to calculate the increase coefficients for criminal liability in all the cases of differentiating liability based on the features that determine the multi-object character of crime. The method of mathematical statistics is used to analyze the obtained coefficients: to determine the scope of their variation for crimes with a single attribute, and to calculate the range, arithmetic mean, median and mode of the values in the number series of coefficients for each of the attributes. The author concludes that a cross-cutting analysis of liability’s differentiation without taking into account the homogeneity of key corpus delicti of crimes makes it possible to state, with a certain margin of error, the existing public assessment of the degree of public danger of each of the aggravating attributes that determine the multi-object character of crime; to identify the cases of gross violations of the systemic principle for the differentiation of liability in the current legislation; to model the approximate guidelines for differentiating liability when criminal law norms are changed or a new criminal law is adopted. Scaling the coefficients for raising the level of criminal liability and studying their dynamics could be used as one of the methods for monitoring the criminal law policy of the Russian Federation.

Issue of Teamwork in the Context of Theoretical Discourse

In recent decades teamwork has become not only a popular topic for public discussion, but also the focus of numerous scientific insights. The abundance of publications on this subject suggests that organizing teamwork has become one of the phenomena of organi‑ zational activity. On the other hand, based on his numerous research, the author of the paper raises the question of whether the concept of teamwork analysed in such publications is studied within the framework of scientific concepts. For instance, some authors believe that the only distinguishing feature of a team is an efficiently working group; the formation of the team is a long‑term process and to achieve this the group needs to undergo several stages of development (Hersey, Blanchard, Tuckman, Jensen, Katzenbach, Smith, Liker, Kasiulis, Barvydienė, Savanavičienė, Šilingienė, Gražulis); other authors use these concepts as synonyms (Boddy, Peiton) and analyse them in the context of formal and informal sta‑ tus. Thus, the concept of effective and ineffective teams has become the additional object of the research. Numerous researchers limit their research to the analysis of functional roles within well‑established teams (Benne, Sheats), at the same time neglecting the impact of personality traits on the activity of the work group. Specialists do not agree on the team size (Manz, Sims, Miller, Stoner et. al.), purpose (Meskon, Katzenbach, Smith, Sakalas et. al.), and periodically arising constraints on the team development and the like. As a result, scholars and practitioners perceive the issues of team work differently, thus they often talk at cross purposes. The author of the paper believes that it is expedient to consider the information collected up to now on the topic of teamwork within the overall context of the development of management science, which at the same time would provide for the development of conceptual theoretical proposals for scientific teamwork models (systems).

Towards the Maturity of Object-Relational Database Technology: Promises and Reality

Object-relational technology provides a significant increase in scalability and flexibility over the traditional relational databases. The additional object-relational features are particularly satisfying for advanced database applications that relational database systems have experienced difficulties. The key factor to the success of object-relational database systems is their performance. This paper aims to review the promises of Object-Relational database systems, examine the reality, and how their promises may be fulfilled through unification with the relational technology. To investigate the performance implications of using object-relational relative to relational technology, the query-oriented BUCKY benchmark has been previously applied to an early object-relational database system, i.e., Illustra 97. This paper presents the results obtained from implementing and running the BUCKY benchmark on Oracle 10g. The results acquired from the work described in this paper are compared with the results obtained in BUCKY benchmark. This study throws light on the functionality of object-relational databases, where object-relational technology has made improvements but some limitations are identified as well. In general, the performance of relational supersedes that of object-relational database system.