Formal Point Research Articles

Factors influencing quality nutrition service provision at antenatal care contacts: Findings from a public health facility-based observational study in 21 districts of Bangladesh.

Malnutrition during pregnancy is associated with increased maternal morbidity and mortality and has a long-term negative impact on child growth and development. Antenatal care (ANC) is the formal point of contact for pregnant women to receive preventive health and nutrition services. We assessed the quality of nutrition service delivery during ANC and examined its influencing factors related to the health facility, health care provider (HCP) and client characteristics. We conducted a cross-sectional assessment in 179 facilities, including 1,242 ANC observations and exit interviews of pregnant women from 21 districts in Bangladesh. We considered four essential nutrition services at each ANC contact including maternal weight measurement, anaemia assessment, nutrition counselling and iron-folic acid (IFA) supplement provision. We defined a composite 'quality nutrition service' outcome by counting the number of services (out of four) provided at each ANC from observation data. We explored both the supply-side and the client-level factors of quality nutrition service using multilevel Poisson regression. Overall, only 15% of clients received all four nutrition services. Performance of weight measurement (79%) was higher than IFA provision (56%), anaemia assessment (52%) and nutrition counselling (52%). The multivariable analysis showed that quality nutrition service delivery is positively associated with good logistical readiness of the facilities (aIRR: 1.23, 95% CI: 1.08-1.39), consultation by paramedics (aIRR 1.23, 95% CI: 1.06-1.42) and community health care providers (aIRR 1.32, 95% CI: 1.12-1.57), HCPs' knowledge on maternal nutrition (aIRR 1.04; 95% CI: 1.01-1.08), better HCP-client communication (aIRR 1.14; 95% CI: 1.04-1.26) and use visual aids or ANC card (aIRR 1.18; 95% CI: 1.11-1.27). We found limited associations between HCP training and external supervision with the quality of nutrition services. In conclusion, the quality of nutrition service provision during ANC is suboptimal. Public health nutrition programmers should ensure the facilities' logistical readiness, and revisit and reinforce the content and modality of training and supportive supervision of the HCPs. They should also emphasize positive HCP-client communication and the use of job aids to improve the quality of nutrition service provision during ANC.

The grammaticalization of plurality in the languages of Amdo

Among the categories grammaticalised in the noun phrase, the domain of number shows several formal and functional similarities in genetically distinct languages of Amdo. In most languages of the area, it is grammaticalised in a complex way, with several morphemes expressing distinct plural categories. This paper describes the attested categories and their functional characteristics in order to retrace cases of linguistic copying and show the respective contribution of each language group to this domain. Hence, the paper shows that the grammatical domain of plurality in Amdo, both from a functional and a formal point of view, presents characteristics of linguistic convergence based on multiple model-languages.

IMPORTANCE OF USING DISTANCE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

The theory of distance education can be thought of as a set of meetings and ideas aimed at explaining the educational process in the system of distance learning technology. From a formal point of view, distance learning theory, as the most advanced form for the organization of generalized reliable scientific knowledge, is a system that explains and predicts a certain component of the theoretical object, the activity of the education system. Distance learning technology is a system of forms, methods and teaching aids that ensure the most effective achievement of the goal in the implementation of a given educational content. In addition, the content of the training is considered as a set of tasks that provide the composition and structure of educational information provided to students, as well as the formation of professions, education, skills and abilities, the accumulation of initial professional experience. Therefore, technology is a didactic application of scientific knowledge, analysis of the educational process, scientific approaches to the organization, a tool that characterizes the educational process and achieves learning objectives.

Protection of the Right to Personal Life in the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of Ukraine

The central value of constitutionalism is human rights, the process of their protection is one of the most important elements of the legitimization of state power. The article examines the practice of the Constitutional Court, the ECHR on the protection of human rights to private life. The features of the protection of the constitutional right to privacy are highlighted taking into account the fact that the process of constitutional protection of human rights is considered both from a formal point of view through the analysis of specific constitutional norms, and in the context of how real they are, how effective their protection is in everyday legal life.
 The article draws the following conclusions. The positions of the Constitutional Court also correspond with the established legal positions of the ECHR regarding the fact that guaranteeing obliges the state not only to proclaim, declare theoretical or illusory rights and freedom, but also to ensure the practicality and effectiveness of rights, the possibility of their implementation. Accordingly, the main objectives of the ECHR are to ensure and develop the ideals and values of a democratic society, to ensure real, practical, effective human rights, respectively, in this con- text of the constitution, the basic laws of European states should first of all express a balanced distribution of powers between the holders of power and their positive and negative responsibilities to ensure human rights.
 The ECHR still does not give a clear definition of «private life», deliberately avoiding attempts of this kind, only identifies certain aspects of the concept and prefers (as a rule) focusing on a specific issue. Similarly, the CCU notes the impossibility of defining absolutely all types of behavior of an individual in the spheres of personal life, since personal rights are part of natural human rights, which are not exhaustive.
 The article proves that, taking into account the Ukrainian constitutional doctrine, the legal positions of the Con- stitutional Court and the ECHR, firstly, it is advisable to interpret the content of constitutional human rights not through the letter of the law, but through its spirit; consideration of the process of constitutional protection of human rights in the context of reality, practicality and efficiency. Secondly, such an independent method of protection as the termination of an action that violates the right is not sufficient to protect the constitutional right to privacy, the principle of respect for privacy must necessarily include the need for adequate compensation in the event that such violation (interference) occurs arbitrarily or contrary to the law.

Knowledge representation for explainable artificial intelligence

Alongside the particular need to explain the behavior of black box artificial intelligence (AI) systems, there is a general need to explain the behavior of any type of AI-based system (the explainable AI, XAI) or complex system that integrates this type of technology, due to the importance of its economic, political or industrial rights impact. The unstoppable development of AI-based applications in sensitive areas has led to what could be seen, from a formal and philosophical point of view, as some sort of crisis in the foundations, for which it is necessary both to provide models of the fundamentals of explainability as well as to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different proposals. The need for foundations is also linked to the permanent challenge that the notion of explainability represents in Philosophy of Science. The paper aims to elaborate a general theoretical framework to discuss foundational characteristics of explaining, as well as how solutions (events) would be justified (explained). The approach, epistemological in nature, is based on the phenomenological-based approach to complex systems reconstruction (which encompasses complex AI-based systems). The formalized perspective is close to ideas from argumentation and induction (as learning). The soundness and limitations of the approach are addressed from Knowledge representation and reasoning paradigm and, in particular, from Computational Logic point of view. With regard to the latter, the proposal is intertwined with several related notions of explanation coming from the Philosophy of Science.

Byzantine and Gothic Side-by-side: Stylistic Diversity under a Single Roof in the Churches of Late-medieval Transylvania

This essay analyzes the cases of coexistence within the same church of mural decoration displaying both (Post-)Byzantine and Gothic styles, which occurred during the 14th and 15th centuries on the territory of the Voivodate of Transylvania and the south-eastern border counties of the Kingdom of Hungary. This phenomenon of stylistic diversity under the same roof occurred at different stages during the larger and cumulative projects of church decoration, and the reasons for such occurrences varied. Orthodox patrons proved to be more conservative and very attached to their own cultural, religious, and visual traditions, and subsequently commissioned Western painters with the decoration of their churches only when the artists belonging to their own cultural and religious traditions were unavailable (e.g., Hălmagiu and Strei). In contrast with the Orthodox, Catholic patrons had a flexible artistic taste and were more prone to embrace the alternative aesthetic solutions proposed to them by traveling artists with Byzantine training (e.g., Buneşti, Dârlos, Sântămăria-Orlea, Şmig, Valea Lungă, and probably Deva and Târgu Mureş). A special situation of stylistic diversity under a single roof is represented by those cases, which occurred when Romanian Orthodox patrons—despite their belonging to a different confession—exercised their legal right of patronage over those Catholic churches found on their estates (e.g., Sântămăria-Orlea and Remetea). The Orthodox patrons’ strong attachment to their own religious and visual traditions led to the coexistence within the same Catholic church not only of murals displaying Gothic and (Post-)Byzantine formal features, but also of inscriptions in the liturgical languages of the two Churches (i.e., Latin and Church Slavonic). Since this essay approached the phenomenon of aesthetic diversity strictly from a stylistic or formal point of view, its devotional implications will be analyzed on a different occasion, when it will be contextualized together with other transcultural phenomena, such as those of linguistic diversity under the same roof, cross-credal artistic patronage, and shared devotion of Catholic saints by the Eastern-rite Christians. The results of the project Models of Representation of the Past in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period carried out within the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2019 are presented in this work.

Проблеми аксіології сучасного судового дискурсу

The article examines the peculiarities of modern court discourse. The most general concept for communication processes in the legal sphere is the concept of legal discourse. It was determined that court discourse is a verbal and symbolic expression of the process of communication during the court process, which is considered in a socio-historical, national-cultural, specific situational context, taking into account the characteristics and intentions of the communicators. It is emphasized that the main text of the document from a formal point of view is divided into three structural elements: introduction, main part, conclusion. The analysis of court decisions most often confirms the following information: violations of laws, offenses, crimes, statements that qualify the character and personal qualities of the plaintiff from a negative point of view. The issue of the structure of court decisions is revealed. The discursive approach to the analysis of the texts of court decisions allowed us to consider, first of all, situations of language-legal conflict in terms of all extralingual factors. In order to prevent or eliminate terminological and stylistic errors, to develop language recommendations for the correct use of legal terms.

Postępowanie dowodowe na rozprawie apelacyjnej w sprawach karnych

The subject of this study is to present the evidence collecting proceedings at the hearing of appeal in criminal matters. The key considerations in this regard have been preceded by a presentation of the Polish model of appeal proceedings, which can be described as a revisory. At the further stage of the study one can find the presentation of the classification of the means of conducting evidence by a judicial body in the form of the free and strict proof. Bearing in mind the extent of matter, in the further course of the consideration the focus is placed on the proceedings carried out at the hearing of evidence, with no look taken into the evidence issues carried out at the meeting. From the formal and structural point of view, the hearing of evidence at the trial before the court of appeal can be divided as follows: III. Taking of evidence on the merits as the free proof (Article 437 Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Code of Criminal Procedure) 1) which resulted in the non-change of facts 2) which resulted in the change of facts III. Taking of evidence on the merits in the form of the strict proof (Article 452 Code of Criminal Procedure): 1) which resulted in the non-change of facts 2) which resulted in the change of facts III. Taking of evidence as to the circumstances which are outside the essence of the matter: 1) in the form of the free proof 2) as the strict proof. The rest of the study aims at clarifying the issue what is the subject of proof in the appeal proceedings. In this regard, it was assumed that the subject of proof, regardless of what stage or type of case it is referred to, is the fact of the existence or nonexistence of a certain circumstance which is to be demonstrated in the chain of the evidence proving. Article 452 Paragraph 2 of Code of Criminal Procedure governs the strict proving process of the merit substance at the appeal hearing. However, if the court of higher instance does not utilize this possibility and merely reads the files, the free proving process on the merit substance is conducted as a result. In turn, beyond the “merit substance” in this sense are issues referring only to correctness of carrying out penal proceedings of the court a quo and the incidentally occurring issues taking shape before the court of higher instance. In relation to these issues, the Process Act does not express the type of proving, which means that both the strict and free chain of proving can be conducted. It should be noted that the “merit substance” as a collective category of the item of evidence on appeal, covers the circumstances surrounding the defendant’s legal liability (criminal and civil), in particular, to commit the offense, culpability, the legal act and the circumstances surrounding the imposition of criminal sanctions. Art 452 Paragraph 2 of Code of Criminal Procedure designates a legally acceptable limit on the taking of evidence as to the strict merits of the case at the hearing before the court of appeal. It provides for an exception to this general prohibition of Paragraph 1, and therefore, in its explanation the intensive interpretation shall not be carried out. Further on the content discusses the conditions in the taking of evidence by the court of appeal in accordance with Art 452 Paragraph 2 of Code of Criminal Procedure. Another issue that needed to be considered was whether the taking of evidence or evidences under this provision is – in the event of use of its circumstances – mandatory or optional. The study comes to an end with reflections on the changes regarding the admissibility of factual findings by the court of second instance without any evidence, and after close review at the hearing, in particular the impact of that evidence to alter the findings.

Semiotics of the pornographic face: From traditional porno to Beautiful Agony

Today’s pornography constitutes a semiotic laboratory capable of meticulously describing some characteristics of the cultures from which it comes and for which it is intended. In it, the role of the face is preeminent and assumes relevance both from a diegetic and a formal point of view. A face which makes itself a sign and is articulated in a dialectic between the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic axis, finding expression as an aspectual device, establishing a peculiar semiotic procedure of absentia in praesentia, and highlighting an eminently enunciative dimension of the textual genre. Thus a facial semiotics of pornography becomes to all effects a cultural semiotics, which through the exploration of a transversal genre – both in its mainstream and more niche actualizations – produces significant results in defining how cultures of the face, including extrapornographic ones, delineate themselves. The aim of this article is to verify this peculiar facial semiotics through a case history that stretches from traditional to contemporary pornography, also analysing the “facial pornography” website beautifulagony.com and the visual works of some contemporary artists.

THE CONCEPT OF „EMPLOYMENT LAW” IN THE LIGHT OF THE COMPETENCES OF THE STATE LABOUR INSPECTORATE

The aim of the work was to present the factual competence of the State Labour Inspectorate and its analysis against the concept of „employment law”. This issue was presented on the basis of the classification of positions of the doctrine regarding „employment law” presented by B.M. Ćwiertniak. The review was carried out from the Act of 1981, which was a model solution for the „classical” labour law of the industrial era, to the current state based on the Act of 2007 and its amendments. The analysis has shown that this body is currently engaged in the control and supervision of „work” in its broadest sense. This is related to the fact that the material competence covers not only issues related to the employment relationship, but also the legality of employment, remuneration from the civil law relationship, social security obligations, bans on trade on Sundays and public holidays carried out regardless of the legal basis of employment. Therefore, from a formal point of view, the creation by the legislator of a possibly new branch of law - ‚employment law’ - would not require changes in the competences of the State Labour Inspectorate.

Improvement of state control of food safety taking into account the requirements of the legislation of the European Union

The article is devoted to the issues of improving the legal basis of state control of food safety in the context of harmonisation of national legislation of Ukraine with the relevant legislation of the European Union. The relevance of the study is due to the need to improve the effectiveness of state control of food safety to guarantee European standards for the protection of human health. The purpose of the study is to clarify the structural features of legislation related to state control of food safety, identify practical issues of legal regulation of state control of food safety and develop ways to solve them. The methodological basis of the research consists of the comparative legal method, historical-legal and dialectical methods, methods of analysis and synthesis, system-structural and formal-legal methods. It was found that food legislation and feed legislation have a common goal of legal regulation – the protection of human health, although from a formal point of view they are different areas of law. Insufficient legal certainty of such grounds for unscheduled inspections as reasonable suspicion of non-compliance with legal requirements is due to different approaches to the formulation of powers of regulatory authorities in Ukraine and the European Union. In order to avoid corruption factors during state control of food safety, it is better to introduce information and communication technologies, and not resort to incomplete harmonisation of the legislation of Ukraine with the legislation of the European Union. The introduction of the European concept of food fraud in Ukraine requires its coordination with criminal and administrative legislation, as well as the creation of the necessary organisational and legal conditions for identifying relevant offenses during state control of food safety

Musical Representation of The Religious Message in Zoltán Gárdonyi’s Három Nagyheti Kép (Three Holy Week Events)

"Zoltán Gárdonyi (1906-1986) composed his work entitled Három Nagyheti Kép (Three Holy Week Events) in 1966. At that time, he was a professor at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, in Budapest. He composed the work for organ and a string ensemble (1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, cello, double bass). The work has three movements, as the title Három Nagyheti Kép (Three Holy Week Events) suggests. This paper analyses the work in question in detail, from a harmonic and formal point of view. Keywords: Gárdonyi Zoltán, Három Nagyheti Kép, Three Holy Week Events, organ, strings, harmony, forms, structure, religious message "

The Extended Family

After World War II, Polish nobility was commonly considered an obsolete social group because of the post-1945 confiscation of their properties and the decline of their legal and political privileges. From a formal point of view, the Polish nobility had ceased to exist. However, this group did not simply vanish. For this reason, we should not speak of the disintegration of the former noble milieu but rather its reorganization. To expand deliberation on these “reorganization strategies” with the use of appropriate sociological tools, this article analyzes major social actors in contemporary Poland who use their noble legacies in their collective identity-building practices.

НЕСКОЛЬКО ЗАМЕЧАНИЙ О САМОМ ВАЖНОМ ЭЛЕМЕНТЕ МЕТРОЛОГИИ – ЧЕЛОВЕКЕ

The article deals with the description of a person as an element of metrology. Its functional responsibilities and specifi c actions are not taken into account. The metrologist is simply presented as a two-phase system, including two phases of the life cycle, the fi rst cycle of which is a phase of concentration – work for eff ect, and the second cycle – a phase of chaos, consisting in restoration of spent energy in order to continue the fi rst phase again. A formal model of a human metrologist is given. The optimal duration of inter-verifi cation period and average number of object’s repairs for one year are determined. With the help of real model, the average age of human-operator, in terms of maximum availability coeffi cient, with and without prophylactic periods is determined. In the formal and real models of man-operator the distribution of human life time is determined by the extreme in statistics Weibull distribution law. From the formal point of view “chaos environment” is characterized by a probability distribution function, opposite to the distribution function of “concentration environment” by P. Levy. A quantitative relationship between the stages is defi ned and a formal way of realizing this relationship is proposed. A simple example of calculation of initial concentration phase resource recovery is given.

Thématisation, prolepse, complément de propos

In this paper, I study the relationship between topicalization and prolepsis in Berber. I first identify the notion of topicalization from privileged syntactic structures. Once the phenomenon has been defined from a formal point of view, I describe the behavior of the emphasis morpheme d and the preposition i in specific contexts where they seem to function as topic markers. The preposition i, in particular, which has a vague, polysemous meaning, presents a range of varied uses resulting in comparisons with Japanese (wa) and Korean (nun). Then I consider prolepsis as a particular case of topicalization in dependent verbal syntagms and in some subordinate clauses. This enables me to explain the special use of French dont or English whom as circumstantial adjuncts naming what is the subject of the following speech.

Retail banking concept from a formal perspective

Expressions like “retail banking”, “retail banking products”, “retail banking services” have become very widespread in recent years in the banking environment, the media, the scientific literature, etc. In addition, such phrases are more and more often found in normative acts. However, there is no definite understanding of those terms. In literature, in order to define the phenomenon, various general and evasive features are used. At the same time, for accounting, taxation, reporting, statistics, but especially for prudential regulation, an exact delimitation of retail banking is necessary. This article is dedicated to an overview of the existing views on the notion of “retail banking” and its clarification from a formal point of view.

The Lunette with St. Thomas Becket at the Sacro Speco in Subiaco: An Unexpected Presence?

The painting with St. Thomas Becket, St. Stephen and St. Nicholas of Bari that decorates one of the lunettes in the so-called lower church at the Sacro Speco in Subiaco is an enigma from an art-historical point of view, for two reasons. First, on an iconographical level, the lunette interrupts the flow of the story of Benedict’s life unfolding systematically on all the walls of the lower church. Second, from the formal point of view, the fresco clearly presents more archaic features than the surrounding Stories of St. Benedict, dating to the end of the thirteenth/beginning of the fourteenth century, and was therefore probably executed in a phase prior to the cycle of Benedict. In the paper, therefore, I will analyse the motivations that led to the preservation of this painting when the hall was renovated and later redecorated in the late thirteenth century, and discuss the hypotheses surrounding patronage. Both aspects will help to better contextualize the reasons for the presence of the image of St. Thomas Becket in a pre-eminent position in the sanctuary of Benedict in Subiaco, a papal bulwark on the borders of the Kingdom.

(التشخيص في شعر غازي القصيبي) Diagnosis in Ghazi Al-Qosaibi poetry

کانت ملکة التشخيص عند الشاعر غازي القصيبي قد ظهرت بشکلي جلي، مما أتاح للباحث دراستها والغوص في عالمها، فقد استخدم الشاعر غازي القصيبي ظاهرة التشخيص کثيرا في شعره، وکان حريا بالباحث أن يتنبه لمثل ذلک، ومما لا يدع مجالا للشک بأن الشاعر قد مر بظروف أجبرته على التخفي خلف هذا المصطلح ليستخدم التشخيص کما قال جرجاني إنک لترى بها الجماد حيا ناطقا فقد ظهرت في شعره بشکل أکبر وتم تعريف التشخيص لغة واصطلاحا في هذه الدراسة، مع العلم بأن تعريفها من الناحية الاصطلاحية کان بدارسة أجنبية کـ -تشارلتن -، وبذلک تمت دراسة هذا المصطلح على مبدأ المقايسة على ما جاء في تراثنا النقدي من تعريفات مشابهة له،کالاستعارة المکنية، أو المقابلة أو المعاضلة، سواء عند القدماء من العرب أو ممن سبق العرب من القدماء مثل أرسطو . ثم تم التطرق لحياة الشاعر غازي القصيبي. ومن ثم قام الباحث بتطبيق هذا المصطلح على شعر غازي القصيبي من خلال الدارسة التحليلية التشخيصية لقصيدة (حديقة الغروب) کأنموذج للشاعر، على النهجين : الحسي, والمعنوي، ومن ثم الوصول لأهم النتائج والتوصيات التي وصل إليها الباحث من خلال هذه دارسته . The poet Ghazi Al-Qusaibi's diagnostic talent had evidently emerged, which enabled the researcher to study and dive into his world, the poet Ghazi Al-Qusaibi used the diagnostic phenomenon a lot in his poetry, the researcher should have taken care of such a matter, it leaves no room for doubt that, the poet has gone through circumstances that forced him to hide behind this concept in order to use the diagnostic, as Jerjani said You can see inanimate objects alive and speaking, as the diagnosis appeared more in his poetry. Diagnostic was defined in this research, knowing that it was defined from a formal point of view in a foreign study, such as Charlton's. Thus, this concept has been studied on the principle of analogy based on what came in our critical heritage of concept similar to it, such as the metaphor, the corresponding orweak analogy either among the ancient Arabs or among those who preceded the ancient Arabs, such as Aristotle. It was subsequently written about the life of the poet. Then the researcher applied this concept to the poetry of Ghazi Al-Qusaibi through the analytical and diagnostic study of the poem (The Garden of the Sunset) as a model for the poet, on the two approaches: tangible and intangible, and then access to the most important findings and recommendations reached by the researcher through this study.

Los condicionamientos pragmáticos del uso de los deícticos de tiempo en español

The objective of this study is to reflect on the Spanish time expressions that function as deictic elements. Deixis is a phenomenon strictly related to aspects of a pragmatic nature since it depends on the situational context in which the participants of the communicative act are. We want to search, discover and describe the pragmatic conditioning that determines the appearance and operation of this type of element in Spanish. Our idea is to demonstrate that in time deictic expressions the semantic content is not enough for speakers to use these expressions properly. It is necessary to resort to information that exceeds the level of meaning and find guidelines for the good interpretation of the expression in the situational and personal context. The group of time deictics is not heterogeneous from the formal point of view. It includes simple elements (for example, adverbs) and more or less complex elements (noun and prepositional phrases). We will focus on this second group and, above all, on the nominal constructions that include determinants and temporal adjectives since in this type of structure each constituent element performs a different semantic-pragmatic function and only the combination of these allows us to discover the definitive value of the set.

Algorithmic Decision-Making When Humans Disagree on Ends

Which interpretive tasks should be delegated to machines? This question has become a focal point of “tech governance” debates. One familiar answer is that while machines are capable of implementing tasks whose ends are uncontroversial, machine delegation is inappropriate for tasks that elude human consensus. After all, if human experts cannot agree about the nature of a task, what hope is there for machines? Here, we turn this position around. When humans disagree about the nature of a task, that should be prima facie grounds for machine delegation, not against it. The reason has to do with fairness: affected parties should be able to predict the outcomes of particular cases. Indeterminate decision-making environments—those in which human disagree about ends—are inherently unpredictable in that, for any given case, the distribution of likely outcomes will depend on a specific decision maker’s view of the relevant end. This injects an irreducible dynamic of randomization into the decision-making process from the perspective of non-repeat players. To the extent machine decisions aggregate across disparate views of a task’s relevant ends, they promise improvement on this specific dimension of predictability. Whatever the other virtues and drawbacks of machine decision-making, this gain should be recognized and factored into governance. The essay has two parts. In the first, we draw a distinction between determinacy and certainty as epistemic properties and fashioning a taxonomy of decision types. In the second part, we bring the formal point alive through a case study of criminal sentencing.