A Misleading Triviality Argument in The Theory of Conditionals

PCCP is the much discussed claim that the probability of a conditional A → B is conditional probability. Triviality results purport to show that PCCP – as a general claim – is false. A particularly interesting proof has been presented in (Hájek, 2011), who shows that – even if a probability distribution P initially satisfied PCCP – a rational update can produce a non-PCCP probability distribution. We argue that the notion of rational update in this argumentation is construed in much too broad a way. In order to make the argumentation precise, we discuss the general rules for modeling conditionals in probability spaces and present formalized version(s) of PCCP and of minimal assumptions concerning the appropriate spaces. Using the introduced apparatus we give a detailed analysis of Hájek’s (2011) triviality proof and show that it is based on an application of revision rules which allow one to construct probability distributions violating not only PCCP, but also fundamental properties of conditionals. This means that they do not really provide arguments against PCCP, properly formalized. We also discuss a Dutch Book argument which shows that the updated belief system is not coherent. This gives an additional, strong argument against accepting the update rules. We also discuss the Converse Dutch Book theorem and argue, that even if the produced probability measure seems to violate it, it cannot serve as the counterexample, as it is not an appropriate model for conditionals. Ultimately, we show that important arguments against PCCP fail

Long Memory on the German Stock Exchange

In this study, the contributors present the results of their investigations into the long-memory properties of trading volume and the volatility of stock returns (given by absolute returns and alternatively by square returns). Their database is daily stock data of German companies in the DAX segment of the German Stock Exchange. The purpose of these investigations is the calculation of memory parameters and to determine whether there exists the same degree of long memory for trading-volume and return-volatility data. Calculations are performed on daily results from January 1994 to November 2005 and in three sub-periods: January 1994 to December 1997, January 1998 to December 2001, and January 2002 to November 2005.DAX 30; trading volume; univariate and bivariate long memory

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Financial Performance of Polish Public Hospitals Owned by Local and Regional Governments

Theoretical background: The COVID-19 pandemic has put a great strain on healthcare systems and hospitals. Although the effects of COVID-19 have affected almost all aspects of the economies and health systems of most countries around the world, relatively little research has been done on the consequences of the pandemic on the financial performance of hospitals around the world. This literature gap is mainly the result of a short research period and difficulties in obtaining reliable and good quality empirical data. The review of the literature shows that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial performance of hospitals is ambiguous. Most of them focused primarily on the first year of the pandemic and were mostly based on fragmentary financial data and sometimes only on the case study method.Purpose of the article: The purpose of this article is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial performance of the largest public hospitals owned by local and regional governments. The research, covering mainly the years 2019–2021, was carried out based on financial statements obtained from 40 public hospitals in the form of independent public healthcare institutions (SPZOZ).Research methods: To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial performance of Polish hospitals, a ratio analysis was carried out. Due to the specificity of public health facilities, ratios included in the Ministry of Health Regulation of 12 April 2017 were used, which refer mainly to independent public healthcare facilities.Main findings: The research revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the deterioration of the financial performance of Polish public hospitals owned by local and regional governments. However, the impact was not dramatic, but only intensified the financial difficulties experienced by Polish hospitals before

Magiczne funkcje słowa w przekazach ustnych z Lubelszczyzny – aspekt pozytywny

The aim of this article is to give an anthropological description of verbal magic. The magical utterances are present in the following areas of traditional culture: folk medicine, family and annual rituals.  They  focus  on  a  formula  which,  in  the  opinion  of  people  expressing  them, have  some magical  powers  which  cause  positive  effects  in  the  real  world.  The  empirical material,  which constitutes  the  basis  for  the  description,  derives  from  the   questionnaire interviews  with inhabitants  of  the  rural  communities  of  Lublin  voivodeship.  The  author focuses on the elements that must be satisfied that the words gained causative power. These elements are situational context (which includes time and place of activity, sender, recipient, symbolic attributes), repeating, fidelity playback, optional confidentiality. The aim of this article is to give an anthropological description of verbal magic. The magical utterances are present in the following areas of traditional culture: folk medicine, family and annual rituals.  They  focus  on  a  formula  which,  in  the  opinion  of  people  expressing  them, have  some magical  powers  which  cause  positive  effects  in  the  real  world.  The  empirical material,  which constitutes  the  basis  for  the  description,  derives  from  the   questionnaire interviews  with inhabitants  of  the  rural  communities  of  Lublin  voivodeship.  The  author focuses on the elements that must be satisfied that the words gained causative power. These elements are situational context (which includes time and place of activity, sender, recipient, symbolic attributes), repeating, fidelity playback, optional confidentiality.

The community of values in the European Union from the perspective of Article 90(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland

Akcesja do Unii Europejskiej dokonana na podstawie art. 90 ust. 1 Konstytucji RP była w sferze wartości zgodna z celem tego przepisu i spełniała warunki jego zastosowania. Także później, w okresie członkostwa w Unii Europejskiej, polska praktyka ustrojowa nie odbiegała od unijnych standardów aksjologicznych. Sposób rozumienia demokratycznego państwa prawnego, o którym mowa w art. 2 Konstytucji, był bowiem spójny z treścią wartości wspólnych państwom członkowskim, stanowiących zgodnie z art. 2 TUE ustrojową podstawę Unii. Istotą systemu tych wspólnych wartości jest to, by realizowanie przez organy władzy publicznej woli obywateli wyrażonej w wolnych wyborach następowało z poszanowaniem zasad państwa prawnego, na które składają się przede wszystkim: podział władzy, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem niezależności sądów i niezawisłości sędziów, pluralizm polityczny, ochrona praw jednostki, respektowanie praw mniejszości. Nieprzestrzeganie wartości, o których mowa w art. 2 Konstytucji oraz w art. 2 TUE, podważyłoby cel i treść art. 90 ust. 1 Konstytucji, a w świetle wiążącego RP prawa unijnego – mogłoby narazić Polskę na objęcie jej mechanizmem kontroli przewidzianym w art. 7 TUE.In the field of values, the accession to the European Union carried out pursuant to Article 90(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland was in line with the purpose of this article and met the conditions for its application. Also later, already during membership in the European Union, Polish political practice did not differ from EU axiological standards. The understanding of a democratic state governed by the rule of law as referred to in Article 2 of the Constitution was consistent with the content of values common to the Member States, which, in accordance with Article 2 of the TEU, constituted the political foundation of the Union. The essence of the system of these common values is that the fulfilment by public authorities of the citizens’ will expressed in free elections is carried out with respect for the principles of the rule of law. These principles include mainly: the separation of powers, with particular regard to the independence of courts and the independence of judges, political pluralism, protection of individual rights and respect for minority rights. Failure to observe the values referred to in Article 2 of the Constitution and Article 2 of the TEU would undermine the purpose and content of Article 90(1) of the Constitution. According to the Constitution, and in the light of EU law binding for Poland, it could expose Poland to the control mechanism provided for in Article 7 TEU

Learner features in a New Corpus-based Swahili dictionary

As far as traditionally published Swahili language dictionaries are concerned, throughout the long history of Swahili lexicography, most new dictionaries were based on their predecessors. Thus far the only innovative traditionally printed corpus-based dictionary has been published by Finnish scholars (Abdulla et al. 2002). This dictionary takes advantage of the Helsinki Corpus of Swahili (HCS 2004) and was an inspiration for the new Swahili–Polish dictionary project described in this paper. The Swahili–Polish language pair, which without doubt can be called less resourced, does not have many lexicographical antecedents on which a new dictionary could be based. Therefore, the new dictionary relies on data from the Swahili corpus. In this paper, we present a new, corpus-based Swahili–Polish dictionary that has been pub-lished online and printed. The paper introduces the resources used to build the dictionary, its learner-oriented features and grammatical assumptions, with a focus on the idea of the visualisa-tion of derivational hierarchies.Keywords: Swahili, Polish, Bilingual Lexicography, Dictionary Project, Corpus-Based Lexicograph

Endangered languages in public outreach: Lessons for linguists

Linguists who collaborate with communities of speakers of endangered languages emphasize that it is often very practical matters such as the availability of resources or the political conditions in which they conduct fieldwork that influence their work the most. This article shows that linguists acting for the sake of endangered languages in a totally different environment, i.e. at European schools with students and teachers who usually are not familiar with the topic of language endangerment, may face similar challenges. I report on the results of a public outreach project aimed at raising awareness of language endangerment among secondary school communities in four European countries, and focus on Poland in particular. Three parallels with linguistic fieldwork are drawn in this article which are to illustrate that similarly to language documentation and revitalization projects, in public outreach enterprises the goals and views of external linguists may be radically different from those of the non-linguist parties involved. Mundane as they may seem, issues such as teachers’ working conditions need to be understood and properly addressed by linguists who wish to effectively bring their message about endangered languages across to the general public

Nietzsche's Philosophy of Religion - recenzja

Recenzja książki: Julian Young, Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Religion, New York 2006, Cambridge University Press, 230 pp., ISBN 978-0-521-68104-

Zapożyczenia leksykalne z języka polskiego w gwarach pskowskich i nowogrodzkich

The author analyses 273 words borrowed from Polish to the Pskov dialect and 48 words to the Novgorod dialect. The analysis comprises the stock of loanwords, periods of borrowing, ways and directions in which the words were borrowed. The majority of loanwords are words describing material culture, such as objects of everyday use, tools, clothing and people’s names. A substantial group is formed by words describing a variety of actions and abstract concepts

Some remarks on Hartry Field's notion of “logical consistency”

In this article the notion of “logical consistency” in the sense introduced by Field in [Field 1991] is discussed. Field argues, that it is possible to introduce the notion of “logical consistency” as a primitive metalogical notion, which is independent from model-theoretical and proof-theoretical notions. In this article I want to indicate some difficulties of this standpoint, and to identify some hidden presuppositions. I also would like to show, that introducing this concept (at least in the form considered by Field) does not really support Field’s argumentation against realism. I confine myself to the analysis of Field’s standpoint, and will not discuss the more general issue, whether it is possible to treat the notion of “logical consequence” as a primitive notion