Prototetyka St. Lesniewskiego

Streszczenie Prototetyka St. Len'ewskiego jest uogólnieniem dwuwartociowego rachunku zda. Wystpuj w niej obok terminów tego rachunku funktory (zarówno stae jak i zmienne) tych wszystkich kategorii semantycznych, jakie mog by zdefiniowane, gdy punktem wyjcia jest kategor a zda.W pracy zreferowane s trzy systemy prototetyki. Terminem pierwotnym dwu z nich jest implikacja, terminem pierwotnym systemu trzeciego jest równowano. Systemy o terminie pierwotnym implikacji róni s. reguami wnioskowania. W jednym z nich obowizuje regua weryfikacji, w drugim regua ekstensjonalnoci. Pierwsza z tych regu jest uogólnieniem nastpujcej reguy rachunku zda, wzbogaconego o terminy 0 i 1:Wyraenie jest tez systemu, gdy tezami systemu s oba wyraenia powstae z przez podstawienie za pewn jego zmienn symboli 0 i 1.W myl reguy ekstensjonalnoci tezami systemu s prawa ekstensjonalnoci, sformuowane dla funktorów dowolnych kategorii semantycznych wac-wych prototetyce.W pracy podaj dowody równowanoci trzech systemów prototetyki i dowód ich zupenoci.Znaczna cz wyników Leniewskiego, zreferowanych w pracy, nie bya dotd opublikowana. Opracowujc te wyniki opieraem si na notatkach z wykadów Leniewskiego, spisanych przez jego uczniów. Oryginalne notatki Leniewskiego ulegy zniszczeniu w czasie powstania warszawskiego.     

Evaluation of drug toxicity in clinical trials

An increasing number of drugs removed from the market because of unacceptable toxicity raises concerns regarding preapproval testing of drug safety. In the present paper it is postulated that the non-inferiority type of trial should be abandoned in favor of the superiority trial with active controls and less stringent (p<0.1, both for efficacy and toxicity) statistics. This approach will increase sensitivity of detection of drug-induced adverse effects at the expense of increasing false positive results regarding the difference in efficacy between the tested and reference drug. Such a move will increase the protection of future patients. In addition, the proposed design is far more acceptable from the clinical (e.g. no need to specify the statistically expected “unimportant” number of deaths) and ethical points of view, as well as being favored by the strong incentive of involved parties. In the second part of this paper arguments are presented in favor of the hypothesis that placebo (still used in some superiority trials) does not induce adverse effects. The assertion that placebo may induce adverse effects is probably biased by the nature of the clinical experiment. Such a conclusion is supported by studies indicating that placebo-induced adverse effects are disease — and treatment — specific. The modification of clinical trials according to the proposed changes may increase the trials’ sensitivity at detecting adverse effects of drugs. A lecture on the subject of this paper was presented at the 6th International Bioethics Conference on the subject of ‘The Responsible Conduct of Basic and Clinical Research’, held in Warsaw, Poland, 3–4 June 2005.     

Letter visibility and the viewing position effect in visual word recognition

The ease with which printed words are recognized depends on the position at which the eyes initially fixate the word. In this study, we examined to what extent recognition performance for each fixation position depends on the average visibility of the word's constituent letters. Experiment 1 measured recognition performance to single letters embedded in strings of Xs (lengths of 5 and 7) for all combinations of letter position and initial fixation position in the string. In Experiment 2, recognition performance was measured for five-letter and seven-letter words as a function of initial fixation position in the word. Whereas average letter visibility showed a symmetric function in Experiment 1, the word recognition data of Experiment 2 showed the typical asymmetric curve. Combining the letter visibility data with measures of lexical constraint using absolute letter-in-string positions failed to capture the pattern in the word data. An alternative measure of constraint based on relative position coding of letters generated more accurate predictions.     

A processing model for children's sentence comprehension: A discussion of two studies by Janellen Huttenlocher

Huttenlocher and coworkers studied children's comprehension of sentences by looking at the times required by these children to put an object in the place specifiec by the sentence. The explanations offered by these investigators for their data are discussed. A model which assumes that three processing stages are involved in comprehension is proposed to explain Huttenlocher's data. In these stages, the experimenter's sentence is transformed so as to derive an active sentence in which the to-be-moved object is the grammatical subject, and which specifies the relative position to which this object has to be moved. The model yields reaction time predictions which seem to fit the data well.     

The Development of Charismatic Leaders

This paper explores the origins of leadership potential and motivation for leadership, primarily with regard to two types of leaders: personalized and socialized charismatic leaders. Bowlby's attachment theory (1969, 1973) provides a theoretical basis for determining an individual's potential to be in leadership positions. The "internal working model," formed (according to Bowlby) in the course of attachment processes in infancy, has a considerable impact on self-perception, which may later affect the development of "ego resources" required for leadership. The motivation to be a leader is analyzed with the help of various psychodynamic concepts and models.