The heterogeneity of information sources can syntactic or semantic. The former can be due, for example to platform mismatches and different Database Management Systems, and, the latter to different database schemas and ontological mismatches [1]. Syntactic heterogeneity is catered for by middle-ware components known as wrappers, which provide a relational view of the data stored in the sources....

I address questions about values in model-making in engineering, specifically: Might the role of values be attributable solely to interests involved in specifying and using the model? Selected examples illustrate the surprisingly wide variety of things one must take into account in the model-making itself. The notions of system (as used in engineering thermodynamics), and physically similar sys...

The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third partie...

The Hippocratic oath which I have just administered to myself before you in all solemnity—an oath which was never administered to me at any stage of my career. None of you too, I guess, has ever been subjected to this or any such oath. Although the Hippocratic oath may look out of place in our midst, the noble sentiments and high ideals expressed therein, the guiding principles for doctors arc ...

By Leo P. Kadanoff1 February 2002, page 10 Games of chance are often used as conceptual models of random processes in nature. For example, an exhibit on the heart in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry includes a kind of pinball machine. After the balls bounce somewhat randomly through this machine, they fall into bins symbolizing the different states of health of one’s heart. One can bias...