34 research outputs found

    Modelling sustainable ecotourism development on the Coromandel Peninsula in Aotearoa / New Zealand; a holistic systems approach based on the idea of chaos and complexity in a human-activity system

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    This thesis studies ecotourism in the context of sustainable tourism development. The research is based on the premise that ecotourism and sustainable development can be expressed as operational theoretical concepts and as fields of empirical inquiry. Positioned in the realm of applied qualitative research in the social sciences, the study’s leitmotiv is that sustainable ecotourism development can be represented from an integrative perspective by designing a conceptual system model. The field work consists of an empirical inquiry placed in the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand/Aotearoa. By employing a regional case study to test the hypotheses of the thesis, the research attains an insight in the operationalisation of ecotourism and sustainable ecotourism development. It further produces new knowledge regarding the theorisation and conceptualisation of ecotourism and sustainable tourism development. Two main goals drive the study. The first is the exploration of the ontological, epistemological and ideological matrix of a holistic and systemic research perspective. The second goal is the examination of the methodological and practical utility of conceptual system modelling as a research approach. The adopted strategy allows for causal, correlative and teleological interpretations of the spatio-temporal physical and mental phenomena encountered. With reference to critical realism the modelling process is recognised as an abstraction of ‘actual reality’ as opposed to ‘real reality’. Critical realism as an ontology accounts for the different ‘situated knowledges’ and worldviews that are present in the Coromandel Peninsula. The model itself reflects the researcher’s perception of an ‘empirical reality’, which is depicted at three resolution levels. Progressively coupling the different scales, the model design focuses on: (1) The configuration and behavioural patterns of the system as a whole; (2) the attributes of nested subsystems and their influences on each other as well as on the whole system; (3) the properties of individual system constituents, the processes and relationships linking these elements, and their effects on subsets of the system as well as on the system as a whole. Structural and process analyses, as well as an aetiological account of the system’s variables, do justice to the experienced complexity. At each resolution level the research outcome entails two simultaneously developed models. Both show the characteristics of open, complex and adaptive human-activity systems. While the first model reflects the status quo of sustainable ecotourism development in the Coromandel Peninsula, the second one represents an idealised archetype that can be used as a grid for further improvements. Neither model offers a fait accompli. Having identified ecotourism and sustainable tourism development as subjective and dynamic problem areas, answers exist within a continuum of differential interpretations, satisfying changing interests, needs and expectations. Solutions are thus of a suggestive and tentative nature. On a theoretical level, the study utilises ideas derived from ‘general system theory’ and the ‘chaoplexity paradigm’. Conceptually, it expands the philosophical notion of methodological holism into a pluralistic approach. Methodological triangulation is employed to compensate for the anticipated shortcomings of individual methods. In a pragmatic sense ecotourism and sustainable tourism development are viewed as anthropogenic phenomena that emerge at the interface between humans and the natural environment. Human agency is interpreted as the fulcrum of the system’s evolution, which operates in both the mental and physical dimension. Assuming that humans possess ‘free will’, and that rational and irrational as well as emotive and intuitive behaviour are inherent faculties of our nature, the system’s dynamics can not be sufficiently described via linear causalities. Non-linear relations, and a complex combination of multivariate and contingent causation, are interpreted predominantly as a result of human encounter and interaction. Answers to what should be ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in ecotourism practice are based on the adoption of a pluralistic moral stance. This approach allows for competitive as well as cooperative elements as inherent human character traits that drive decision-making processes. Based on the findings, the thesis concludes with a flexible template of systemic indices that can evaluate the environmental performance and development of ecotourism. It is argued that utilising the suggested set of complex indicators in conjunction bears the potential to enhance sustainable ecotourism development. The template’s adaptability to specific situational contexts is viewed as a prerequisite to cater for changing demands and expectations of individuals, local communities and regions

    Multidisciplinary perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the law

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    This open access book presents an interdisciplinary, multi-authored, edited collection of chapters on Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and the Law. AI technology has come to play a central role in the modern data economy. Through a combination of increased computing power, the growing availability of data and the advancement of algorithms, AI has now become an umbrella term for some of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of this age. The importance of AI stems from both the opportunities that it offers and the challenges that it entails. While AI applications hold the promise of economic growth and efficiency gains, they also create significant risks and uncertainty. The potential and perils of AI have thus come to dominate modern discussions of technology and ethics – and although AI was initially allowed to largely develop without guidelines or rules, few would deny that the law is set to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of AI. As the debate over AI is far from over, the need for rigorous analysis has never been greater. This book thus brings together contributors from different fields and backgrounds to explore how the law might provide answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI. An outcome of the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law and its interdisciplinary working group on Law and Artificial Intelligence, it includes contributions by leading scholars in the fields of technology, ethics and the law.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Building bridges for better machines : from machine ethics to machine explainability and back

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    Be it nursing robots in Japan, self-driving buses in Germany or automated hiring systems in the USA, complex artificial computing systems have become an indispensable part of our everyday lives. Two major challenges arise from this development: machine ethics and machine explainability. Machine ethics deals with behavioral constraints on systems to ensure restricted, morally acceptable behavior; machine explainability affords the means to satisfactorily explain the actions and decisions of systems so that human users can understand these systems and, thus, be assured of their socially beneficial effects. Machine ethics and explainability prove to be particularly efficient only in symbiosis. In this context, this thesis will demonstrate how machine ethics requires machine explainability and how machine explainability includes machine ethics. We develop these two facets using examples from the scenarios above. Based on these examples, we argue for a specific view of machine ethics and suggest how it can be formalized in a theoretical framework. In terms of machine explainability, we will outline how our proposed framework, by using an argumentation-based approach for decision making, can provide a foundation for machine explanations. Beyond the framework, we will also clarify the notion of machine explainability as a research area, charting its diverse and often confusing literature. To this end, we will outline what, exactly, machine explainability research aims to accomplish. Finally, we will use all these considerations as a starting point for developing evaluation criteria for good explanations, such as comprehensibility, assessability, and fidelity. Evaluating our framework using these criteria shows that it is a promising approach and augurs to outperform many other explainability approaches that have been developed so far.DFG: CRC 248: Center for Perspicuous Computing; VolkswagenStiftung: Explainable Intelligent System

    PSA 2018

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    These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018

    Terrorism and Asylum (RLI Working Paper Series Mini-volume)

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    Contents 31. Introduction (page 1) Guest editor: James C. Simeon 32. Refugees, terrorism and Article 1 of the Refugee Convention (page 6) Patricia Tuitt 33. An introduction to the common security narrative of terrorism and asylum and its influence on Austrian migration law (page 17) Julia Kienast 34. The fight against terrorism and the need for international protection: the Hungarian solution (page 32) Barbara Kőhalmi and Anita Rozália Nagy-Nádasdi 35. Manufacturing fear: The social component of anti-immigration policies in the United States (page 46) Selina March 36. Terrorism and exclusion from asylum in international and national law (page 56) James C. Simeo

    Understanding sustainable tourism development from a complex systems perspective: A case study of the Swan River, Western Australia

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    Tourism does not operate in a predictable and mechanistic environment and is influenced by unpredictable circumstances. Influences include underlying values and perceptions keeping the system unpredictable and dynamic. Tourism that utilises natural resources is exposed to the additional unpredictability of natural changes and activities and/or decisions of other stakeholders. Tourism research generally adopts reductionist approaches and has not effectively understood tourism as a stakeholder within a complex system of stakeholders. Reductionist approaches have led to interpretations of sustainable tourism development being highly focused and sector specific limiting understanding of the complex systems in which tourism operates and resulting in narrow perspectives. To understand underlying elements influencing the system, a new paradigm is required

    Feasibility Analysis of Various Electronic Voting Systems for Complex Elections

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    Signposts to Silence. Metaphysical mysticism

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    Signposts to Silence provides a theoretical map of what it terms ‘metaphysical mysticism’: the search for the furthest, most inclusive horizon, the domain of silence, which underlies the religious and metaphysical urge of humankind in its finest forms. Tracing the footsteps of pioneers of this exploration, the investigation also documents a number of historical pilgrimages from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds. Such mountaineers of the spirit, who created paths trodden by groups of followers over centuries and in some cases millennia, include Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu, Siddhattha and Jesus, Sankara and Fa-tsang, Plato and Plotinus, Isaac Luria and Ibn Arabi, Aquinas and Hegel. Such figures, teachings and traditions (including the religions of ‘Judaism’, ‘Christianity’ and ‘Islam’; ‘Hinduism’, ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Taoism’) are understood as, at their most sublime, not final destiny and the end of the road, but signposts to a horizon of ultimate silence. The hermeneutical method employed in tracking such pioneers involves four steps: • sound historical-critical understanding of the context of the various traditions and figures • reconstruction of the subjective intentional structure of such persons and their teachings • design, by the author, of a theoretical map of the overall terrain of ‘metaphysical mysticism’, on which all such journeys of the spirit are to be located, while providing a theoretical context for understanding them tendentionally (i.e. taking the ultimate drift of their thinking essentially to transcend their subjective intentions) • drawing out, within the space available, some political (taken in a wide sense) implications from the above, such as religio-political stances as well as ecological and gender implications. Continuing the general direction of thought within what the author endorses to be the best in metaphysical mysticism in its historical manifestations, the book aims to contribute to peace amongst religions in the contemporary global cultural situation. It relativizes all claims to exclusive, absolute truth that might be proclaimed by any religious or metaphysical, mystical position, while providing space for not only tolerating, but also affirming the unique value and dignity of each. This orientation moves beyond the stances of enmity or indifference or syncretism or homogenisation of all, as well as that of mere friendly toleration. It investigates the seemingly daunting and inhospitable yet immensely significant Antarctica of the Spirit, the ‘meta’-space of silence behind the various forms of wordy ‘inter’-relationships. It affirms pars pro toto, totum pro parte, and pars pro parte: that each religious, mystical and metaphysical orientation in its relative singularity represents or contains the whole and derives value from that, and that each represents or contains every other. This homoversal solidarity stimulating individual uniqueness is different from and in fact implies criticism of the process of globalisation. While not taking part in a scientific argument as such, Signposts to Silence aims at promoting an understanding of science and metaphysical mysticism as mutual context for each other, and it listens to a number of voices from the domain of science that understand this
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