Historical Role of the International Communist Movement during the World Anti-fascist War

The relationship between the international Communist movement and the world anti- fascist war constitutes a major historical theme of our times. As a positive force for democracy and peace, the international Communist movement became a solid political cornerstone of the anti-fascist war. Its enormous sacrifices and contributions made it one of the final forces terminating the fascist political order, and its humanity provided mankind with a just direction in the struggle against war terrorism and for peace idealism. It thus became a major force in effectively advancing the development of democracy and peace. Based on the logic of condemnation, the critical reflections upon fascism made by the Communist movement have provided a value dimension for the building of today’s international security system. Based on the logic of construction, the international peace ethics followed by the international Communist movement offer an ideological foundation for the building of the new international order. And based on the logic of development, the new paradigm of world civilization pursued by the international Communist movement has become a political exemplar for the current pursuit of international peace. The political force of the Communist Party of China (CPC), as China’s political backbone and advance guard, cannot be overlooked: it influenced the anti-fascist war, the postwar international Communist movement and the democratization of world order. Of course, both the Soviet Union and the Comintern also offered many historical lessons during the anti-fascist war, lessons that merit profound reflection and consideration.     

Informed Consent and Investigational New Drug Abuses in the U.S. Military

Objective: The focal point of this investigation was to research the ethical issues surrounding the military's requests for informed consent waivers when using investigational drugs, and the recent debate surrounding the anthrax vaccine as an investigational new drug (IND). Design: The military's management of the informed consent process was examined using documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Institutional Review Board (IRB) minutes, consent forms, legal pleadings, and protocols for specific investigational drugs. Results: In December 1990, prior to Operation Desert Storm, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) granted the Department of Defense (DoD) an unprecedented waiver to the federally mandated informed-consent requirement for the use of investigational drugs. However, the waiver approval was conditional, and the FDA insisted on several safeguards. Partially in response to the subsequent Gulf War Syndrome debate, the FDA recently evaluated the military's use of investigational drugs during the Gulf War. The FDA cited the military for significant deviations from the originally approved protocols. Most notably, the military was found to be abusing the IRB process by convening a second IRB when the first IRB concluded that waiving informed consent was unethical. In addition, there was a gross lack of documentation and no monitoring of adverse reactions. The DoD's plan to use the current anthrax vaccine on all 2.4 million troops against inhalation anthrax has kindled an additional investigational drug controversy. The safety and efficacy of the use of the anthrax vaccine as a prophylactic against inhalation anthrax have been questioned by both military and medical organizations. There have never been any published studies of human efficacy or long-term effects for the anthrax vaccine. In addition, the military is not using the vaccine for its intended purpose, and it is also not adhering to prescribed dosing schedules. There is clear evidence to support the claim that, in fact, the military's use of the anthrax vaccine should be considered experimental. Conclusions: I argue that in medical situations, the military is obligated to treat its troops as autonomous persons entitled to basic rights and protections. The DoD is currently using an approved drug, the anthrax vaccine, for an unapproved purpose and in an unapproved manner. In doing so, the DoD is not only violating the FDA's regulations against such practices, it is also violating an executive order which only allows the president to authorize the use of INDs on service members without their consent.     

论对日索取民间战争赔偿的出路与意义

对日索取民间战争赔偿是中国人民的权利,然而目前索赔之路非常艰辛。扼要分析对日民间索赔的障碍,应从营造氛围和加强可操作性两个层面,探讨对日索赔的出路及其意义,首要的应是作好自己的事,这样才能与其它措施形成良性互动和合力,为这一问题的解决提供更多的选择。     

毒品犯罪的社会诱因与心理动因分析

我国身处世界两大毒源地包围之中,近年来已经从毒品犯罪的"受害国"发展到"受害国与输出国兼具"的毒品犯罪重灾区。传统的制毒和贩毒犯罪尚未得到有效控制,以化学方法提炼为主导的新型毒品犯罪接踵而至。文化变迁与亚文化传播诱发演艺圈涉毒违法和涉毒犯罪频发,并且在青少年群体中形成严重的负面"模仿"和"从众"心理效应。以犯罪学和心理学的视角透视毒品犯罪的社会诱因和心理动因,可以突破传统"堵源截流"的预防方法,为控制和减少毒品犯罪提供行之有效的对策:重视新型毒品犯罪理论研究和刑事立法工作,适时排除司法环节上的障碍;继续加强国际禁毒合作,有效遏制毒源向境内渗透;全面加强毒品犯罪的社会防控,将毒品犯罪扼杀在萌生状态。     

When practices, promises, profits, and policies outpace hard evidence: the post-menopausal hormone debate

Currently, there is widespread controversy regarding the risks and benefits of hormone therapy for women over 50. The history of hormone therapy provides an excellent example of how different constituencies with competing objectives can produce health practices and policies of questionable benefit. We examine this history from the perspectives of women who now live longer, expecting higher quality of life throughout their later years, healthcare providers who are influenced by the real and perceived needs of their patients as well as information provided by drug manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry which seeks to identify and promote drugs that offer the most promise for both patients and shareholders, and medical researchers —including the National Institutes of Health and the Federal Drug Administration .     

Distinguishing between Positive and Negative Approaches to Peace

The distinction between positive and negative goals is important in the psychology of peace because it affects the way people respond to the threat of nuclear war. An orientation toward the negative goal of avoiding war has been a priority because of the great danger of the nuclear threat and also because negative means and goals, being primarily reactive, more concrete, and more oriented to short-term objectives than positive goals, are more conducive to action. However, there are unfortunate consequences of too exclusive a concentration on avoiding war: inadequate conceptualization of a positive, more easily maintained goal of peace, and increased anxiety resulting in poor-quality thinking about ways to achieve peace. Choosing positive means of working toward peace is consonant with peace as a positive goal, and it compensates for some of the disadvantages of an exclusive focus on avoiding a nuclear confrontation.     

The United States and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895

Abstract

In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the United States claimed to be neutral, but was in fact pro-Japanese. Before the war, it repeatedly refused mediation requests by China and Korea and rejected Britain’s joint mediation proposal while tacitly agreeing to or inciting Japan’s launching a war. During the war, American diplomats, as wartime protectors of both Japanese and Chinese nationals, frequently went beyond the limits of international law to protect Japanese spies in China. As the only mediator between China and Japan, the United States rejected the joint mediation efforts of European powers and helped reduce international pressure on Japan. At the same time, it unilaterally convinced the Qing government to accept Japan’s aggressive demands so as to help Japan achieve its war aims. The main reason for the United States’ bias towards Japan was that it hoped to use Japan to end the tributary relationship between China and Korea in order to further open the door to China while weakening the influence of Britain and Russia in East Asia.     

论诗纬

诗纬为汉代三家诗及毛诗之外的一种《诗经》解释学 ,其基本性格以天人感应为核心 ,具有浓厚的神学色彩。诗纬虽已残佚 ,但其中也不乏一些可取的见解 ,包括对《诗经》的整体理解和对篇义及章句的解释。另外 ,诗纬中也保存了一些有价值的文献 ,以及富含文学性的精警文字。古代因其与经义相悖谬而予排斥 ,近代则以其语涉荒诞多说祥瑞而予否定 ,此皆无助于认识其《诗经》学史上的本来面目     

Debate Pollution rituals in Sweden: the pursuit of a drug-free society

The logic of Sweden's restrictive drug policy has led its advocates to promote increasingly extreme measures. Making the consumption of drugs not only a criminal offence but an imprisonable one has enabled the authorities to subject suspected drug users to urine and blood tests. This extreme policy can be understood as a response by a society so obsessed by health, cleanliness and order that drug use has taken on symbolic significance. In its determination to rid the social body of drugs, the Swedish authorities have shown that they will seek our pollution by whatever measures available. In doing so they are in danger of becoming repressive and intolerant.     

Reply to Arthur Gould: "Pollution rituals in Sweden: the pursuit of a drug-free society"

Sweden's policy on psychoactive drugs has the objective of creating a society free of drug misuse in which drug misuse remains socially unacceptable and marginalized conduct. A drug-free society is a vision that expresses an optimistic and positive view of people. The spread of drugs can be stopped and drug misuers can be rehabilitated through social measures that ensure that the drug problem is not reduced to a question of individual responsibility. Since it is difficult to rehabilitate people once they have started misusing drugs, society's preventive efforts must begin as early as possible. During periods in which public opinion is more rejective of drug misuse, recruitment of new misusers declines, which is a reasonable argument for maintaining a negative societal attitude towards the use of drugs. Sweden has a well functioning drug policy with strong public support that is an integral part of Sweden's general social policies, and there is no reason to abandon this policy.     

The Mentality of the Russian Officer : Challenges of the Twenty-First Century

The CPSU Program states that the party poses the task of assuring the uprooting of all violations of law and order, the elimination of crime, and the removal of all its causes. Socialist society is, as a matter of fact, in a position to resolve this problem. However, it cannot be resolved by legal means alone. The best laws cannot by themselves guarantee the elimination of crime. In societies based on exploitation, war has been waged against crime for centuries and millennia on the basis of legal norms by the use of punishments, and crime continues to exist.     

A decision theoretic model of the American war in Vietnam

This paper presents a decision theoretic model of the American side of the Vietnam war. That is, we only consider the U.S. government declared objectives and assign them utilities from that point of view. We assume that the involvement of the U.S. in this war was the outcome of a deliberate decision and, moreover, that this decision was taken on the basis of a careful weighing of goals and means. Hence decision theory is applicable in this case - and probably it was applied. We make hypotheses on the utilities of the goals and on those of the negative side effects. We also assess the probabilities of the four main possible courses of action available to achieve those goals: total war, advising, negotiating, and staying out. The total efficiencies of these turn out to be -0.30, -0.20, +0.51, and -0.11 respectively. This result explains why neutrality was not tried and why the advisory policy was eventually given up. But it does not explain why war, which has been not just inefficient but countereffective, was preferred over negotiating from the start or keeping neutral. Unless of course one assumes that the strategists either (a) paid no attention to any decision theoretic models or (b) used models that had fatal flaws. If the first alternative is discarded because of the prestige enjoyed by decision theory amongst American executives, we must conclude that the decision theoretic models employed by the U.S. high command had either of the following defects: (a) they ignored or underrated the negative side effects accompanying the implementation of every goal, or (b) they were not supplemented by mathematical models of the decisions likely to be made by the other side. In either case the decision to adopt the strategy with minimal expected utility was, at best, rational but extremely ill informed. It may have been one more victory of ideology over science.     

首脑智慧的深层较量——《三国演义》用人之道比较谈

《三国演义》是一部历史小说 ,却提供了有关人才问题的理性思考。作为首脑人物的曹操、刘备、孙权在人才大战中的观念、政策及个人魅力之得失 ,呈现为以下一些规律性涵义 :不拥有经天纬地的人才 ,难以确立改天换地的路线 ,难以实现惊天动地的目标。政策的全方位开放 ,吸引着足成赢家的忠勇智慧之士 ;政策的偶现失误 ,则招致无可弥补的历史性憾恨。说到底 ,是首领人物个人魅力的公开透明的竞赛 ,用人者的风神气度直接作用于人才走势     

教化的终站：“成为你自己”--尼采哲学对现代教育的启示

在工业社会背景下,现代教育日益被功利化的社会目标绑架并显示出短暂性和单一化的弊端。尼采哲学中关于教育的思想从阐释教育的现代趋势入手,分析了“扩大规模”和“缩小内涵”所导致的教育短命的后果,提出教化的目标应当是使人学会反思性观察和个体性思考。他认为人应当依据自身的崇高精神品质和内心的召唤来提出真正的教育需要,教育的终极意义不在于得到丰厚的物质回报,而在于寻获个体的真实心性并“成为你自己。”     

Secular Trends in Substance Use: The Conflict and Young People in Northern Ireland

The resolution of political conflict has led some to suggest that Northern Ireland will now face a range of social problems that have been ignored or suppressed by the Troubles. One such area is adolescent drug use. In this article, a review of a range of data sources shows that drug use, with few exceptions, has increased since the emergence of the ongoing peace process. Social and political changes and enhanced paramilitary involvement in the drugs trade appear to have somehow created an environment where drug use has flourished. In reviewing current drug policy and practice, the article highlights the lack of prevention, treatment, and harm reduction services established in Northern Ireland as a cause for concern .     

Eliminating the U.S. drug lag: Implications for drug safety

An increase in new drugs first launched in the U.S. and shorter lags between first global drug launch and U.S. approval indicate that the U.S. drug lag has declined. This paper examines the impact of these changes on drug safety using adverse drug reaction data for FDA-approved drugs in 1990 to 2004. Results show two different effects. First, drugs having longer U.S. launch lags (more foreign market experience) have fewer post approval drug risks compared to drugs with shorter launch lags. This result implies that foreign market experience prior to U.S. entry provides information to help alleviate drug-related risks for U.S. patients. Second, drugs that are first launched in the U.S. have fewer serious drug reactions compared to those that were first launched abroad. This result is surprising, and may suggest that first U.S. drug launch signals information about unobserved application quality, which translates into lower post approval drug risks.     

Reciprocity, Altruism, Solidarity: A Dynamic Model

Reciprocity is a decisive behavioural rule resulting in successful co-operation or deterrence. In this paper, a dynamic model is proposed, where reciprocity is described by changes in altruistic (or malevolent) ties. Multiple steady states may exist in one of which there may be general cooperation (solidarity) and the other being one of universal malice (war of each individual against all other individuals). We apply our theory to a number of examples, illustrating that the agents’ initial preferences determine whether a steady state of solidarity, selfishness or malice will emerge.     

立法价值效益优先论

立法价值是指立法能够满足社会主体的需要和利益的属性 ,它本身是一种多重的体系。其本质及其意义都内在地表征了效益的价值目标。在我国现阶段的立法中 ,应把立法的效益价值放在优先的地位。立法效益价值的实质在于立法是一种稀缺的资源 ,它本身要耗费一定的成本并且以取得立法收益为目的。要实现立法的效益价值需要确立立法效益价值观、优化配置各种立法资源并要考虑社会对立法的接受能力     

西安事变中周蒋会谈之真相考证

西安事变期间,周蒋曾会面两次,一次在12月24日晚上10时许,一次在25日上午10时许。前者由宋美龄、张学良陪同,后者由宋美龄、宋子文陪同。前次会面因时间已晚,仅简单寒暄了几句,再次会谈蒋介石作出了“停止剿共,联红抗日,统一中国”的承诺。周蒋会谈在政治上并没有什么交换条件,也没有更加隐秘的内情,从而廓清了周蒋会谈的历史真相。     

Towards a critical discourse analysis of New Zealand security policy in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

Rather than ask why New Zealand supported the intervention, this paper focuses on how representations of New Zealand and the international terrorist threat resulted in public acquiescence to a pre-emptive strike by the world's sole superpower against one of the poorest, most war-torn countries in the world. The paper concludes that legitimacy was achieved through the blending of themes of terrorism and war, national interest and democracy, rule of law and human rights, to produce an ambiguous ‘international campaign against terrorism’ that allowed for picking and choosing of the most convenient position on different matters. The alternative—to refuse moral and material support for the United States-led ‘war on terror’—was to risk New Zealand's membership of the United States-led international community and a ‘seat at the table’ in future international trade and security negotiations. As such, any campaign benefits appear to have accrued to New Zealand rather than Afghanistan or the Afghan people, especially given the parlous state of that country in 2018. A wide-ranging debate within New Zealand on the purpose of such interventions is needed before similar commitments are made in the future.