Where next for PSMs - a grass-roots revolution?

Over the last 30 years, the field of problem structuring methods (PSMs) has been pioneered by a handful of 'gurus'—the most visible of whom have contributed other viewpoints to this special issue. As this generation slowly retires, it is opportune to survey the field and their legacy. We focus on the progress the community has made up to 2000, as work that started afterwards is ongoing and its impact on the field will probably only become apparent in 5–10 years time. We believe that up to 2000, research into PSMs was stagnating. We believe that this was partly due to a lack of new researchers penetrating what we call the 'grass-roots community'—the community which takes an active role in developing the theory and application of problem structuring. Evidence for this stagnation (or lack of development) is that, in 2000, many PSMs still relied heavily on the same basic methods proposed by the originators nearly 30 years earlier—perhaps only supporting those methods with computer software as a sign of development. Furthermore, no new methods had been integrated into the literature which suggests that revolutionary development, at least by academics, has stalled. We are pleased to suggest that from papers in this double special issue on PSMs this trend seems over because new authors report new PSMs and extend existing PSMs in new directions. Despite these recent developments of the methods, it is important to examine why this apparent stagnation took place. In the following sections, we identify and elaborate a number of reasons for it. We also consider the trends, challenges and opportunities that the PSM community will continue to face. Our aim is to evaluate the pre-2000 PSM community to encourage its revolutionary development post-2006 and offer directions for the long term sustainability of the field.

Getting along with others:an examination of the ethnomethodological roots of perference organization and its relationship to complimenting

The well-established sociolinguistic literature on complimenting claims that compliments are formulaic (Manes and Wolfson 1981). The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that the claim is invalid, to describe an alternative approach to the study of compliments, and to draw on an extensive collection of compliments in order to show that complimenting is a diverse, interactive process. A prerequisite for such work is a means of deciding whether a given utterance is a compliment, but this issue is neglected in the literature. The conversation analytic notion of preference appeared capable of providing this criterion, but research revealed that it was too ill-defined to serve such a purpose. The thesis was, therefore, obliged to clarify the notion of preference before applying it to a study of compliments. The necessary clarification was found in the enthnomethodological roots of conversation analysis, and the thesis provides a clear and consistent means of determining whether utterances are preferred to dispreferred. The criteria used in the determination of preference are applied, in the final chapter, to the study of compliments. The results of the study contrast markedly with those of the sociolinguistic researchers, and they provide significant grounds for rejecting the claim that compliments are formulaic.

FLQ, the Fastest Quadratic Complexity Bound on the Values of Positive Roots of Polynomials

In this paper we present F LQ, a quadratic complexity bound on the values of the positive roots of polynomials. This bound is an extension of FirstLambda, the corresponding linear complexity bound and, consequently, it is derived from Theorem 3 below. We have implemented FLQ in the Vincent-Akritas-Strzeboński Continued Fractions method (VAS-CF) for the isolation of real roots of polynomials and compared its behavior with that of the theoretically proven best bound, LM Q. Experimental results indicate that whereas F LQ runs on average faster (or quite faster) than LM Q, nonetheless the quality of the bounds computed by both is about the same; moreover, it was revealed that when VAS-CF is run on our benchmark polynomials using F LQ, LM Q and min(F LQ, LM Q) all three versions run equally well and, hence, it is inconclusive which one should be used in the VAS-CF method.

Generalization of Ehrlich-Kjurkchiev Method for Multiple Roots of Algebraic Equations

In this paper a new method which is a generalization of the Ehrlich-Kjurkchiev method is developed. The method allows to find simultaneously all roots of the algebraic equation in the case when the roots are supposed to be multiple with known multiplicities. The offered generalization does not demand calculation of derivatives of order higher than first simultaneously keeping quaternary rate of convergence which makes this method suitable for application from practical point of view.

On Arrangements of Real Roots of a Real Polynomial and Its Derivatives

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 12D10.

On a Stratification Defined by Real Roots of Polynomials

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 12D10

On realizing the principles of Gaudium et spes in a post-communist country: Searching for christian entrepreneurs and roots of individuals in Hungary at the time of globalization

Due to the communist regime in Hungary the values and principles of the Second Vatican Counsil could hardly achieve their goal in the region and the situation is almost the same even today. This paper examines two levels of society where the thoughts of Gaudium et spes might have appeared: we have explored that there are Christian companies existing about 15 years since the political transition in 1990 and we made a research among individuals in rural environment, how could they preserve their human wholeness described in GS, in other words, how could they keep their social, cultural, natural, religiuos and local roots amongst the consumer society that has been developped in Hungary at the time of capitalism. Regarding the Christian companies our research could produce a positive result: we have explored that although the Christian companies survayed hardly know the Church’s social doctrine, they live and operate according to it. At the same time in the realm of individuals we cannot tell good news of this kind. Most of the persons interviewed have already lost or are near to loose their roots, that is their human wholeness. Our final conclusion is that our hope for preserving even strenghtening the values of GS in the Hungarian society is in the communities, be it work communities, as John Paul II. mentioned in his encyclical Sollicitudo rei Socialis. The paper presents the details and conclusions of our researches.

Scenarios and roots of climate change

There have been more and more words about climate change and global warming in the last few decades. But what do we really understand them? Is it logic that the climate change derived by human behaviour or is it an independent process of nature that occurs no matter how we try to stop it? Is the climate change a global warming or global cooling method? We know for sure that something is changing around us and we heard a million times that if we exhaust the resources of the Earth than we will cause permanent and irreversible damage. In the first part of this chapter we will see the facts. There will be a few different perspectives from a few different institutions publication about the methodology of measurement on climate change. In the second part of the chapter we shall distinguish how big part of the changes may be the results of the human activities, or is it even possible to distinguish what causes the climate change. In the last part of this chapter the IPCC’s scenario will be explained on the case if the process of the climate change can not be stopped, or if human kind does not do anything for mitigation.

The roots of "Western European societal evolution". A concept of Europe by Jenő Szűcs

Jenő Szűcs wrote his essay entitled Sketch on the three regions of Europe in the early 1980s in Hungary. During these years, a historically well-argued opinion emphasising a substantial difference between Central European and Eastern European societies was warmly received in various circles of the political opposition. In a wider European perspective Szűcs used the old “liberty topos” which claims that the history of Europe is no other than the fulfillment of liberty. In his Sketch, Szűcs does not only concentrate on questions concerning the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Yet it is this stream of thought which brought a new perspective to explaining European history. His picture of the Middle Ages represents well that there is a way to integrate all typical Western motifs of post-war self-definition into a single theory. Mainly, the “liberty motif”, as a sign of “Europeanism” – in the interpretation of Bibó’s concept, Anglo-saxon Marxists and Weber’s social theory –, developed from medieval concepts of state and society and from an analysis of economic and social structures. Szűcs’s historical aspect was a typical intellectual product of the 1980s: this was the time when a few Central European historians started to outline non-Marxist aspects of social theory and categories of modernisation theories, but concealing them with Marxist terminology.

The roots of "Western European societal evolution"

Jenő Szűcs wrote his essay entitled Sketch on the three regions of Europe in the early 1980s in Hungary. During these years, a historically well-argued opinion emphasising a substantial difference between Central European and Eastern European societies was warmly received in various circles of the political opposition. In a wider European perspective Szűcs used the old “liberty topos” which claims that the history of Europe is no other than the fulfillment of liberty. In his Sketch, Szűcs does not only concentrate on questions concerning the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Yet it is this stream of thought which brought a new perspective to explaining European history. His picture of the Middle Ages represents well that there is a way to integrate all typical Western motifs of post-war self-definition into a single theory. Mainly, the “liberty motif”, as a sign of “Europeanism” – in the interpretation of Bibó’s concept, Anglo-saxon Marxists and Weber’s social theory –, developed from medieval concepts of state and society and from an analysis of economic and social structures. Szűcs’s historical aspect was a typical intellectual product of the 1980s: this was the time when a few Central European historians started to outline non-Marxist aspects of social theory and categories of modernisation theories, but concealing them with Marxist terminology.