Creation of Computer Simulation Model for Ecological Consequences Prognosis of Toxic Chemicals Discharge from Sunken on Baltic Sea Bottom Weapons"

This study summarises all the accessible data on old German chemical weapons dumped in the Baltic Sea. Mr. Goncharov formulated a concept of ecological impact evaluation of chemical warfare agents (CWA) on the marine environment and structured a simulation model adapted to the specific character of the hydrological condition and hydrobiological subjects of the Bornholm Deep. The mathematical model he has created describes the spreading of contaminants by currents and turbulence in the near bottom boundary layer. Parameters of CWA discharge through corrosion of canisters were given for various kinds of bottom sediments with allowance for current velocity. He created a method for integral estimations and a computer simulation model and completed a forecast for CWA "Mustard", which showed that in normal hydrometeorological conditions there are local toxic plumes drifting along the bottom for a distance of up to several kilometres. With storm winds the toxic plumes from separate canisters interflow and lengthen and can reach fishery areas near Bornholm Island. When salt water from the North Sea flows in, the length of toxic zones can increase up to and over 100 kilometres and toxic water masses can spread into the northern Baltic. On this basis, Mr. Goncharov drew up recommendations to reduce dangers for human ecology and proposed the creation of a special system for the forecasting and remote sensing of the environmental conditions of CWA burial places.

The Recent Structure of Wages in the Czech Republic

The project drew on an extensive firm-level sample of employees to describe in detail the recent evolution of the structure of wages in the Czech Republic between 1995 and 1998. The results of the analysis were then compared with information from EU countries. Regression analysis was used to study a number of specific questions, with particular emphasis being paid to proper weighting of the sample. Jurajda first quantified the effects on male and female hourly wages in the Czech Republic of worker age and education, firm size, region, industry and ownership type. He then examined whether these effects have been changing over time and how they differ by gender, and identified those industrial sectors that carry the largest wage premiums not accounted for by worker or firm characteristics, and measured the effect of unemployment on wages. He found a substantial increase in returns on human capital, with the earning differentials for education increasing substantially between 1995 and 1998, with these gains being largely comparable to those in western countries. Overall, the Czech structure of wages is now very responsive to market forces and is converging rapidly on EU-type flexibility in almost every dimension. It is likely, however, that due to the constrained supply of tertiary-educated workers in particular, the returns on education may keep on rising, surpassing levels typical of western economies and potentially reaching the high levels observed in developing countries.

Marginal Man in Modern Russian Literature

This research was focused around the intersection of two discourses: that of marginality and that of ideology. Ponomarev analysed works by Alexander Zinoviev, Vladimir Maximov and Eduard Limonov - three writers representing different groups of Soviet dissidence - from the viewpoint of the concept, drawn from anthropological theory, of marginal man. Using a methodology he describes as ideological analysis, Ponomarev showed that the ideologies of both the writers and their characters are marginal, lying as they do between official Soviet and western democratic ideologies. He showed that the works and the 'creative behaviour' of the three writers did not change after 1991, when their ideas seemed victorious. Marginality is shown to be a permanent characteristic and is linked with the main ideas of the dissident movement in the USSR. On the basis of this marginality, Ponomarev identified some common traits in dissident ideas and drew up a model of dissident ideology. This general model of dissident ideology seems to be one of the special Russian variants of the marginal ideologies of intelligentsia and could be compared to the ideology of Rodon Raskolnikov, the central character in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. The discourse of ideology in the USSR in the 1970s-1980s and in 1990s Russia thus appeared as a process in which the elements of the official Soviet ideology were gradually superseded by those of the dissident ideology linked with the ideology of the underground, the Russian version of the post-modern. Marginal ideologies won and became mainstream but did not lose their basic marginal traits. Ponomarev concludes that the gap between the 'state ideology' and the dissident ideology, taken together with the special Russian version of postmodernity has shaped the current literary process in Russia, making the figure of the marginal man into the main writer type.

Tolerance and Critical Thinking

Post-soviet countries are in the process of transformation from a totalitarian order to a democratic one, a transformation which is impossible without a profound shift in people's way of thinking. The group set themselves the task of determining the essence of this shift. Using a multidisciplinary approach, they looked at concrete ways of overcoming the totalitarian mentality and forming that necessary for an open democratic society. They studied the contemporary conceptions of tolerance and critical thinking and looked for new foundations of criticism, especially in hermeneutics. They then sought to substantiate the complementary relation between tolerance and criticism in the democratic way of thinking and to prepare a a syllabus for teaching on the subject in Ukrainian higher education. In a philosophical exploration of tolerance they began with relgious tolerance as its first and most important form. Political and social interests often lay at the foundations of religious intolerance and this implicitly comprised the transition to religious tolerance when conditions changed. Early polytheism was more or less indifferent to dogmatic deviations but monotheism is intolerant of heresies. The damage wrought by the religious wars of the Reformations transformed tolerance into a value. They did not create religious tolerance but forced its recognition as a positive phenomenon. With the weakening of religious institutions in the modern era, the purely political nature of many conflicts became evident and this stimulated the extrapolation of tolerance into secular life. Each historical era has certain acts and operations which may be interpreted as tolerant and these can be classified as to whether or not they are based on the conscious following of the principle of tolerance. This criterion requires the separation of the phenomenon of tolerance from its concept and from tolerance as a value. Only the conjunction of a concept of tolerance with a recognition of its value can transform it into a principle dictating a norm of conscious behaviour. The analysis of the contemporary conception of tolerance focused on the diversity of the concept and concluded that the notions used cannot be combined in the framework of a single more or less simple classification, as the distinctions between them are stimulated by the complexity of the realty considered and the variety of its manifestations. Notions considered in relation to tolerance included pluralism, respect and particular-universal. The rationale of tolerance was also investigated and the group felt that any substantiation of the principle of tolerance must take into account human beings' desire for knowledge. Before respecting or being tolerant of another person different from myself, I should first know where the difference lies, so knowledge is a necessary condition of tolerance.The traditional division of truth into scientific (objective and unique) and religious, moral, political (subjective and so multiple) intensifies the problem of the relationship between truth and tolerance. Science was long seen as a field of "natural" intolerance whereas the validity of tolerance was accepted in other intellectual fields. As tolerance eemrges when there is difference and opposition, it is essentially linked with rivaly and there is a a growing recognition today that unlimited rivalry is neither able to direct the process of development nor to act as creative matter. Social and economic reality has led to rivalry being regulated by the state and a natural requirement of this is to associate tolerance with a special "purified" form of rivalry, an acceptance of the actiivity of different subjects and a specification of the norms of their competition. Tolerance and rivalry should therefore be subordinate to a degree of discipline and the group point out that discipline, including self-discipline, is a regulator of the balance between them. Two problematic aspects of tolerance were identified: why something traditionally supposed to have no positive content has become a human activity today, and whether tolerance has full-scale cultural significance. The resolution of these questions requires a revision of the phenomenon and conception of tolerance to clarify its immanent positive content. This involved an investigation of the contemporary concept of tolerance and of the epistemological foundations of a negative solution of tolerance in Greek thought. An original soution to the problem of the extrapolation of tolerance to scientific knowledge was proposed based on the Duhem-Quine theses and conceptiion of background knowledge. In this way tolerance as a principle of mutual relations between different scientific positions gains an essential epistemological rationale and so an important argument for its own universal status. The group then went on to consider the ontological foundations for a positive solution of this problem, beginning with the work of Poincare and Reichenbach. The next aspect considered was the conceptual foundations of critical thinking, looking at the ideas of Karl Popper and St. Augustine and at the problem of the demarcation line between reasonable criticism and apologetic reasoning. Dogmatic and critical thinking in a political context were also considered, before an investigation of critical thinking's foundations. As logic is essential to critical thinking, the state of this discipline in Ukrainian and Russian higher education was assessed, together with the limits of formal-logical grounds for criticism, the role of informal logical as a basis for critical thinking today, dialectical logic as a foundation for critical thinking and the universality of the contemporary demand for criticism. The search for new foundations of critical thinking covered deconstructivism and critical hermeneutics, including the problem of the author. The relationship between tolerance and criticism was traced from the ancient world, both eastern and Greek, through the transitional community of the Renaissance to the industrial community (Locke and Mill) and the evolution of this relationship today when these are viewed not as moral virtues but as ordinary norms. Tolerance and criticism were discussed as complementary manifestations of human freedom. If the completeness of freedom were accepted it would be impossible to avoid recognition of the natural and legal nature of these manifestations and the group argue that critical tolerance is able to avoid dismissing such negative phenomena as the degradation of taste and manner, pornography, etc. On the basis of their work, the group drew up the syllabus of a course in "Logic with Elements of Critical Thinking, and of a special course on the "Problem of Tolerance".