Closing the Legal-Technical Gap in Digital Trade

As digital trade continues to reshape the global economic landscape, the key objective of this study is to bridge a significant Legal-Technical gap characterized by the discord between rapid technological advancements and slower-evolving legal frameworks. This paper delves into the complexities of this gap and emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to understand and address the multifaceted challenges it presents to businesses, policymakers, and the broader international trading system. This research offers a novel theoretical foundation for exploring and bridging the legal-technical gap in digital trade. Initially, it discusses the integration of legal and technical knowledge systems, which leads to the emergence of specific transdisciplinary knowledge as described by Andrew Sage's Theory of Systems. Subsequently, it explores the acquisition of universal knowledge about these systems through Herman Dooyeweerd's multi-aspectual philosophy. Furthermore, it proposes the development of a transdisciplinary knowledge representation using Fritz Zwicky's Morphological Method. Our analysis reveals that focusing on lingual, social, economic, and aesthetic aspects enables the prioritisation of critical factors essential for enhancing legal-technical functionality

Distributed Evolutionary Design: Island-Model-based Optimization of Steel Skeleton Structures in Tall Buildings

This paper presents results of a study on distributed, or parallel, evolutionary computation in the topological design of steel structural systems in tall buildings. It describes results of extensive experimental research on various parallel evolutionary architectures applied to a complex structural design problem. The experiments were conducted using Inventor 2003, a networkbased evolutionary design support tool developed at George Mason University. First, a general introduction to evolutionary computation is provided with an emphasis on recent developments in parallel evolutionary architectures. Next, a discussion of conceptual design of steel structural systems in tall buildings is presented. Further, Inventor 2003 is briefly introduced as well as its design representation and evolutionary computation characteristics. Next, the results obtained from systematic design experiments conducted with Inventor 2003 are discussed. The objective of these experiments was to qualitatively and quantitatively investigate evolution of steel structural systems in tall buildings during a distributed evolutionary design process as well as to compare efficiency and effectiveness of various parallel evolutionary architectures with the traditional evolutionary design approaches. Two connectivity topologies (ring topology and fully-connected topology) have been investigated for four populations of structural designs evolving in parallel and using various migration strategies. Also, results of the initial sensitivity studies are reported in which two ways of initializing distributed evolutionary design processes were investigated, using either arbitrarily selected designs as initial parents or randomly generated ones. Finally, initial research conclusions are presented

Special issue : The Key to Progress in Technology and Society

158 p

Sustainable Energy Development: The Key to a Stable Nigeria

This paper proposes the use of sustainable energy systems based on solar and biomass technologies to provide solutions to utility challenges in Nigeria and acute water shortage both in rural and urban areas of that country. The paper highlights the paradoxes of oil-rich Nigeria and the stark reality of social infrastructure deprivations in that country. Perennial power outages over many years have translated to the absence of or poorly-developed basic social infrastructures in Nigeria. The consequences of this lack have been an increase in abject poverty in rural and urban communities as well as the erosion of social order and threats to citizen and their property. This paper proposes the adaptation of two emerging technologies for building sustainable energy systems and the development of decentralized and sustainable energy sources as catalyst for much-needed social infrastructure development through the creation of Renewable Energy Business Incubators, creative lending strategies, NGO partnerships and shifting energy-distribution responsibilities. These changes will stimulate grassroots economies in the country, develop large quantities of much needed clean water, maintain acceptable standards of sanitation and improve the health and wellbeing of Nigerian communities. The proposed strategies are specific to the Nigerian context; however, the authors suggest that the same or similar strategies may provide energy and social infrastructure development solutions to other developing countries as well

2006. Bio-inspiration: Learning creative design principia

Abstract. Reusing or modifying known design concepts cannot meet new challenges for engineering systems. However, engineers can find inspiration outside their traditional domains in order to develop novel design concepts. The key to progress and knowledge acquisition is found in inspiration from diverse domains. This chapter explores abstract knowledge acquisition for use in conceptual design. This is accomplished by considering body armor in nature and that developed in Europe in the last Millennium. The research is conducted in the context of evolution patterns of the Directed Evolution Method, which is briefly described. The focus is on conceptual inspiration. Analysis results of historic and natural body armor evolution are described and two sets of acquired creative design principia from both domains are presented. These principia can be used to stimulate the human development of novel design concepts. In this case, creative design principia, abstract design intelligence, combined with human creativity, may lead to revolutionary changes, rather than merely evolutionary steps, in evolution of engineering systems.

Sustainable Energy Development: The Key to a Stable Nigeria

This paper proposes the use of sustainable energy systems based on solar and biomass technologies to provide solutions to utility challenges in Nigeria and acute water shortage both in rural and urban areas of that country. The paper highlights the paradoxes of oil-rich Nigeria and the stark reality of social infrastructure deprivations in that country. Perennial power outages over many years have translated to the absence of or poorly-developed basic social infrastructures in Nigeria. The consequences of this lack have been an increase in abject poverty in rural and urban communities as well as the erosion of social order and threats to citizen and their property. This paper proposes the adaptation of two emerging technologies for building sustainable energy systems and the development of decentralized and sustainable energy sources as catalyst for much-needed social infrastructure development through the creation of Renewable Energy Business Incubators, creative lending strategies, NGO partnerships and shifting energy-distribution responsibilities. These changes will stimulate grassroots economies in the country, develop large quantities of much needed clean water, maintain acceptable standards of sanitation and improve the health and wellbeing of Nigerian communities. The proposed strategies are specific to the Nigerian context; however, the authors suggest that the same or similar strategies may provide energy and social infrastructure development solutions to other developing countries as well.sustainable energy; social infrastructure; solar energy; bio-energy; OPEC; NGO; Renewable Energy Business Incubators

Empirical Performance Comparison of Two Symbolic Learning Systems Based on Selective and Constructive Induction

The paper provides results of a perfonnance comparison study of two symbolic learning programs, both based on the AQ15c learning algorithm. The first program uses the single representation space while the second one utilizes constructive induction learning, which incorporates changes in the representation space. The performance of the compared systems was analyzed using the overall empirical error rates determined using the leave-one-put and hold-out sampling methods. Both system's performance was calculated for individual stages in a multi-stage knowledge acquisition process, and learning curves and their envelopes were prepared. The study was conducted using the set of 384 optimal designs of wind bracing in steel skeleton structures of tall buildings. Key words: structural engineering, learning design rules, selective and constructive induction, performance comparison of learning systems, empirical error rates, learning curves and envelopes.