An essay on msic-systems

A theory of many-sorted implicative conceptual systems (abbreviated msic-systems) is outlined. Examples of msic-systems include legal systems, normative systems, systems of rules and instructions, and systems expressing policies and various kinds of scientific theories. In computer science, msic-systems can be used in, for instance, legal information systems, decision support systems, and multi-agent systems. In this essay, msic-systems are approached from a logical and algebraic perspective aiming at clarifying their structure and developing effective methods for representing them. Of special interest are the most narrow links or joinings between different strata in a system, that is between subsystems of different sorts of concepts, and the intermediate concepts intervening between such strata. Special emphasis is put on normative systems, and the role that intermediate concepts play in such systems, with an eye on knowledge representation issues. In this essay, normative concepts are constructed out of descriptive concepts using operators based on the Kanger-Lindahl theory of normative positions. An abstract architecture for a norm-regulated multi-agent system is suggested, containing a scheme for how normative positions will restrict the set of actions that the agents are permitted to choose from

Sustainability in design: now! Challenges and opportunities for design research, education and practice in the XXI century

Copyright @ 2010 Greenleaf PublicationsLeNS project funded by the Asia Link Programme, EuropeAid, European Commission

Drive at the rhythm of your own heart: a study on Heart Rate Variability, cognitive functioning and driving performance in Ferrari Driving Academy drivers

openRacing driving requires the development of extraordinary sensorimotor skills to deliver high-level peak performances in complex environments characterised by multiple stressors, draining drivers’ physiological and cognitive resources. Although previous research provided evidence in favour of the role played by the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and different cognitive and executive functions in supporting the delivery of a high-level driving performance, further research is needed to deepen our understanding of the exact mechanisms linking physiological and psychological resources to the behavioural outcomes of driving. We adopted an evidence-based theoretical model (i.e., the Neurovisceral Integration Perspective; Thayer and Lane, 2000; Thayer et al., 2009; Thayer et al., 2012) and validated techniques and tools, to investigate, in a sample of elite racing drivers mainly scouted for the Ferrari Driver Academy, the relationship between HRV parameters, indexing the individual availability of physiological resources, and a set of measures of cognitive functions thought to be relevant for driving, including non-executive (simple reaction times) and executive (inhibitory control and WM) ones. We also tried to elucidate whether and how these physiological and cognitive variables can be used to predict driving performance, measured using a very ecological task in a realistic driving simulator. Based on previous research, we hypothesised that: (a) time-domain HRV indices of parasympathetic cardiac control would be positively associated with measures of inhibitory control (i.e., the performance at a Go/NoGo task) and WM (i.e., the performance at an N-Back task), but not with those of general readiness (i.e., the performance at an SRT task); (b) that driving performance (as indexed by the best and average lap times recorded) would be predicted by HRV indices, as well as by measures of inhibitory control. The results showed a significant negative correlation between cardiorespiratory coherence and the percentage of commissions at the Go/NoGo task, a negative correlation between coherence and the lap times recorded by the drivers, and a positive correlation between the latter and the mean reaction times (RTs) at the Go trials of the Go/NoGo task. Finally, linear models including coherence, the percentage of commissions at Go/NoGo and the mean RTs at Go trials as independent variables, proved to be able to explain a significant amount of variance in driving performance. Our results replicated some findings previously reported in psychophysiology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and sport psychology, extending them to the field of motorsport, and provided further support to the Neurovisceral Integration Perspective. Finally, the linear models developed proved to be able to explain a significant amount of variability in peak driving performance in elite racing drivers, providing a useful tool for their assessment and scouting, as well as for future studies in the field.Racing driving requires the development of extraordinary sensorimotor skills to deliver high-level peak performances in complex environments characterised by multiple stressors, draining drivers’ physiological and cognitive resources. Although previous research provided evidence in favour of the role played by the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and different cognitive and executive functions in supporting the delivery of a high-level driving performance, further research is needed to deepen our understanding of the exact mechanisms linking physiological and psychological resources to the behavioural outcomes of driving. We adopted an evidence-based theoretical model (i.e., the Neurovisceral Integration Perspective; Thayer and Lane, 2000; Thayer et al., 2009; Thayer et al., 2012) and validated techniques and tools, to investigate, in a sample of elite racing drivers mainly scouted for the Ferrari Driver Academy, the relationship between HRV parameters, indexing the individual availability of physiological resources, and a set of measures of cognitive functions thought to be relevant for driving, including non-executive (simple reaction times) and executive (inhibitory control and WM) ones. We also tried to elucidate whether and how these physiological and cognitive variables can be used to predict driving performance, measured using a very ecological task in a realistic driving simulator. Based on previous research, we hypothesised that: (a) time-domain HRV indices of parasympathetic cardiac control would be positively associated with measures of inhibitory control (i.e., the performance at a Go/NoGo task) and WM (i.e., the performance at an N-Back task), but not with those of general readiness (i.e., the performance at an SRT task); (b) that driving performance (as indexed by the best and average lap times recorded) would be predicted by HRV indices, as well as by measures of inhibitory control. The results showed a significant negative correlation between cardiorespiratory coherence and the percentage of commissions at the Go/NoGo task, a negative correlation between coherence and the lap times recorded by the drivers, and a positive correlation between the latter and the mean reaction times (RTs) at the Go trials of the Go/NoGo task. Finally, linear models including coherence, the percentage of commissions at Go/NoGo and the mean RTs at Go trials as independent variables, proved to be able to explain a significant amount of variance in driving performance. Our results replicated some findings previously reported in psychophysiology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and sport psychology, extending them to the field of motorsport, and provided further support to the Neurovisceral Integration Perspective. Finally, the linear models developed proved to be able to explain a significant amount of variability in peak driving performance in elite racing drivers, providing a useful tool for their assessment and scouting, as well as for future studies in the field

Attitudes on populism. A comparative enquiry across countries and parties

Tesis doctoral inédita cotutelada por la Universitá degli Studi di Milano y la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Derecho, Departamento de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales. Fecha de Lectura: 26-11-201

Hawkesbury Harvest : panacea, paradox and the spirit of capitalism in the rural hinterlands of Sydney, Australia

This study presents a phenomenological exposition of Hawkesbury Harvest (Harvest), a community‐based, not‐for‐profit that formed in the year 2000 to address the systemic threats to farming in the Sydney Basin, threats to farm viability, and community health issues related to changes in the food system. Revealed from the perspectives of its four longest‐serving actors and taking a grounded inductive stance within an emancipatory research paradigm, the study documents and interprets Harvest’s archeo‐legacies in the Sydney development dialogue. Within institutional settings there were no linkages between policy and action and the challenges Harvest actors recognized affecting agriculture, food, farming and health. The ‘panacea’ that tourism is promoted to be by government gave Harvest access to neo‐liberal programs of support capable of creating the links, the nexus between Sydney’s future and a future for farming, and so Harvest’s first funded initiative was a Farm Gate Trail. Harvest began a process of communicative action expressed through a range of economic initiatives which created agri‐tourism, open farms, farmer markets and food events. These engaged the wider Sydney community through experiential animations in a critical and paradoxical dialogue about urban development, food, health and farming with a core message that farming in the Sydney Basin needed to be retained and protected, for the sake of both rural community and city dwellers. A repertoire of messages developed that are contingent on a dynamic engagement with Sydney’s development discourse, messages that have evolved and self‐reference Harvest in the prosecution of its dialectic. This phenomenology presents empirical evidence for Harvest as a ‘carrier’ (after Weber) of moral imperatives in support of agriculture in the Sydney Basin. As a place‐based reaction to global forces it made possible the expression of its actors’ personal ‘calling’ into service for a greater good and mobilized discourses about local food systems, regional identity, cultural landscape and local farming mythology as components in its agri‐cultural economic initiatives. This placist dialectic activated and harnessed the classic Weberian conundrum of formal versus substantive rationality, and gave expression to Weber’s own concession about rationality, that without a teleology, a values‐informed rationality, it simply reinforces what he famously described as the Iron Cage of modernity. Harvest’s mechanisms make available the expression of a spirit in capitalism, one Weber believed would be snuffed out in a secularized world, but one which we can still find in the small places that throw up resistance to the Iron Cage in forms like Hawkesbury Harvest

Puppets between human, animal and machine: towards the modes of movement contesting the anthropocentric view of life in animation

In this PhD thesis, I challenge animation studies’ conventional notion that animation can bring something inanimate to “life”. This emphasis on animation’s capacity to make a figure appear to move on screen has led to the problematic notion that movement has a synonymous relationship with life. Contesting these discourses, I show in this thesis that not every animated figure suggests the impression of life. In order to prove this, I put forward as a critical focus the puppet-as-puppet figure, that is, the figure of a puppet depicted as a puppet per se in the film diegesis, which problematises the impression of life even if appearing to move on screen. A related focus in my thesis is the mode of movement which functions as a visual and physical parameter in order to analyse what an animated (or static) figure is intended to look like, instead of reducing it to a question of life. Through case studies of these puppet-as-puppet figures, which I classify into four groups, I examine the varying ways in which they are depicted as inanimate or sub/nonhuman, even when in human form, in contrast to human or (anthropomorphic) animal figures, both in terms of their mode of movement as well as their appearance. Examining how these depictions demonstrate anthropocentric views of puppets, I consider religio-philosophical, scientific and aesthetic discourses on puppets and human/animal simulacra. Further, I explore a selection of puppet-as-puppet figures as alternatives to these anthropocentric conventions, examining their defamiliarisation of the animating human subject’s mastery over the animated non/subhuman object, and the non-anthropocentric sensations which their movements arouse on screen in the relationship between humanity and materiality

With a Little Help From my Friends : The Role of Personality in the Relationship between Social Support and Adolescent Depression

Relationships provide young people with a sense of integration and personal worth. The ability of adolescents to acquire and maintain support from their social networks is of clinical interest as inadequate social support is posited to be a primary causal factor in the onset of adolescent depression. The literature analysing adolescent depression has been extensive and has suggested that depressed young people are less rewarding for social contact, which results in a reduction of their social networks and support systems. The current thesis argues that traditional interpersonal theories of adolescent depression have failed to take into account the intersection between normative and atypical development, the continuous transition between young people and their environments, as well as the long term effect of an episode of depression on personality formation. The current work suggests that an integrated interpersonal theory of adolescent depression needs to investigate potential mechanisms for the onset, maintenance and consequences of youth depression. Two studies explored the relationship between the main variables using the three interacting pathways presented by the cognitive vulnerability transactional stress model (CVTSM). The model posits firstly that cognitive vulnerability and stressors are predictors of depressive symptoms (vulnerability model), secondly, that depressive symptoms and cognitive vulnerabilities are predictors of stressors (stress generation model). Finally, that depressive symptoms and stressors as predictors of future vulnerabilities (consequence model). Study one provides insight into the relationship among the main variables and their relationship to adolescent depression. The study demonstrated that the relationship between neuroticism and stress was the most robust risk factor for depression. The small protective effect of social support is also discussed as well as additional pathways to depression. Study two demonstrated that initial depression resulted in heightened levels of stress two years later. This relationship was apparent even when depression was in remission, and independent of personality, suggesting that stress generation which stems from depression may be potential mechanism for relapse. The results were consistent with pathway one and two of the CVTSM, however no support was found for the third pathway. The manner in which the results support the CVTSM and interpersonal theories of depression is explored as well as the theoretical and practical implications of the research. It is concluded that personality vulnerabilities, stress and depression have a reciprocal relationship which transacts to provide insight into the onset and maintenance of youth depression

Citizens\u27 Corruption Tolerance in Peru: A Behavioral Approach

Thesis (Master of International Area Studies) -- University of Tsukuba, 2013.