All Else Being Equal Be Empowered

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com . Copyright Springer DOI : 10.1007/11553090_75The classical approach to using utility functions suffers from the drawback of having to design and tweak the functions on a case by case basis. Inspired by examples from the animal kingdom, social sciences and games we propose empowerment, a rather universal function, defined as the information-theoretic capacity of an agent’s actuation channel. The concept applies to any sensorimotoric apparatus. Empowerment as a measure reflects the properties of the apparatus as long as they are observable due to the coupling of sensors and actuators via the environment.Peer reviewe

Europe: from emancipation to empowerment

Marx is dead. But so is Hayek. With neoliberalism crumbling, Europeans are beginning to wonder what it is that is really wrong with the current European Union. The paper proposes the following answer: To this day, European integration has not been a process of emancipation. This shortcoming, however, is not written on the Union’s face. It requires, pursuant to best psychological traditions, a careful analysis of symptoms. One indication of the absence of emancipation is, indeed, the Union’s rhetorical embrace of empowerment

Session 3-3-A: The ‘Circles Concept’ of Gambling Addiction: An Empowered Framework for Change

The original ‘Circles Concept of (Gambling) Addiction’ was developed by Harry Mayr in 1982, while working as an addictions counsellor in a community-based health centre. It has always been a ‘user friendly’ concept … applicable and understood by people from all cultures, across all ages, and with or without an addiction issue. Years later, people have informed Mr Mayr how they still remember ‘those circles’, and how the concept helped them. The ‘Circles Concept of (Gambling) Addiction’ is therefore a concept remembered as much for its visual cues as its verbal explanation – and thus applicable across languages, cognitive and literacy levels, and ages. Unlike most other problem gambling material, it relies on visual recognition rather than words, and seemingly therefore tends to be remembered more. Since its creation, the ‘Circles Concept of (Gambling) Addiction’ has been used extensively by Mr Mayr in his educational, therapeutic and community development work

Demystifying Emergence

Are the special sciences autonomous from physics? Those who say they are need to explain how dependent special science properties could feature in irreducible causal explanations, but that’s no easy task. The demands of a broadly physicalist worldview require that such properties are not only dependent on the physical, but also physically realized. Realized properties are derivative, so it’s natural to suppose that they have derivative causal powers. Correspondingly, philosophical orthodoxy has it that if we want special science properties to bestow genuinely new causal powers, we must reject physical realization and embrace a form of emergentism, in which such properties arise from the physical by mysterious brute determination. In this paper, I argue that contrary to this orthodoxy, there are physically realized properties that bestow new causal powers in relation to their realizers. The key to my proposal is to reject causal-functional accounts of realization and embrace a broader account that allows for the realization of shapes and patterns. Unlike functional properties, such properties are defined by qualitative, non-causal specifications, so realizing them does not consist in bestowing causal powers. This, I argue, allows for causal novelty of the strongest kind. I argue that the molecular geometry of H2O—a qualitative, multiply realizable property—plays an irreducible role in explaining its dipole moment, and thereby bestows novel powers. On my proposal, special science properties can have the kind of causal novelty traditionally associated with strong emergence, without any of the mystery

Discordant connections

The importance of gender-equality and of women’s work in relation to the environment are considered to be crucial questions for development in ‘third world’ rural societies. ‘Development’ and a certain standard of welfare make these issues appear to be less urgent in a wealthier country like Sweden. In this paper I trace some of the contradictions and connections in the ways in which gender equality is conceptualised in women’s struggles vis á vis environmental issues in rural areas in Sweden and India. The paper throws light on two important insights: first, that in Sweden where gender equality has been actively pursued as the bedrock of modern societal organizing, the space to organize as women in relation to environmental issues was hedged around with ambiguities. Second, development discourses about equality and empowerment of oppressed third world women bear not only on how gender equality is conceptualised and practiced in the South but also shape the space for gender equality in the North. Analysing the two cases in relation to each other reveals the travel of ideas and conversations across distances. While ideas about the independent, empowered woman are used to deny agency to women’s collectives in India, gendered discrimination has taken different forms in Sweden, making it more difficult to contest. Understanding how this takes place opens an opportunity for interruption in an order and in a space that appears to have become narrower under the umbrella of development, welfare, and growth. It brings into question the category of development both in a Southern but especially so in a Northern context where the North and especially Sweden is taken as referent for questions of development and gender equality

Master\u27s Project: Identifying the Variation in Perceptions to Waste and Waste Management Behaviours in Albouystown (Georgetown, Guyana)

Albouystown is a community in Georgetown (Guyana) where the issue of improper waste disposal is so significant that the community oftentimes experiences excessive flooding due to drain networks being clogged with garbage from continuous littering by residents. This project explored how perceptions of and attitudes towards waste management in Albouystown have been shaped by and are rooted in structures, ideologies, dynamics and histories which are unique to the community. The project explored the benefits of promoting dialogue to investigate an existing community issue. Through this process, it became clear that systems of racial oppression and political marginalisation have negatively affected solid waste management systems and wider development in Albouystown. These community conversations have also helped to support the community in acting to overcome these challenges with a desired outcome of empowerment and sustainability for Albouystown

CORBYS cognitive control architecture for robotic follower

In this paper the novel generic cognitive robot control architecture CORBYS is presented. The objective of the CORBYS architecture is the integration of high-level cognitive modules to support robot functioning in dynamic environments including interacting with humans. This paper presents the preliminary integration of the CORBYS architecture to support a robotic follower. Experimental results on high-level empowerment-based trajectory planning have demonstrated the effectiveness of ROS-based communication between distributed modules developed in a multi-site research environment as typical for distributed collaborative projects such as CORBYS

Succeeding Through Collaborative Conflict: The Paradoxical Lessons of Shared Leadership

Facing serious challenges that may dictate the complete overhaul of business mindset and industry must be directed by sound leadership. But is it possible to lead alone or is collaboration necessary to confront these challenges? These authors tackle the well-known idiom “two heads are better than one” and extract from its meaning the inherent dichotomy in shared leadership, mediating differences of direction, and preserving the integrity of individual perspective in this new age