Collective Intentionality

In this chapter, we focus on collective action and intention, and their relation to conventions, status functions, norms, institutions, and shared attitudes more generally. Collective action and shared intention play a foundational role in our understanding of the social. The three central questions in the study of collective intentionality are: (1) What is the ontology of collective intentionality? In particular, are groups per se intentional agents, as opposed to just their individual members? (2) What is the psychology of collective intentionality? Do groups per se have psychological states, in particular propositional attitudes? What is the psychology of the individuals who participate in collective intentional behavior? What is special about their participatory intentions, their we-intentions, as they are called (Tuomela and Miller 1988), as opposed to their I-intentions? (3) How is collective intentionality implicated in the construction of social reality? In particular, how does the content of we-intentions and the intentional activity of individual agents create social institutions, practices and structures? We first discuss collective action and shared intention in informal groups. Next we discuss mechanisms for constructing institutional structures out of the conceptual and psychological resources made available by our understanding of informal joint intentional action. Then we extend the discussion of collective action and intention to institutional groups, such as the Supreme Court, and explain how concepts of such organizations are constructed out of the concepts of a rule, convention, and status function. Finally we discuss collective attitudes beyond intention

Increasing The Awareness of Students at Montenegrin Universities About the Importance of Sustainable Development

Today's ecological problems that threaten life on the planet, including global warming, loss of biodiversity, plastic pollution of seas and oceans, are largely unrecognized by individuals and communities. In this sense, scientific institutions should play a key role in developing awareness in the community, especially among students, about the consequences of pollution, the costs of pollution, in such a way as to adopt and promote "green" development policies. Today's "green" universities recognize the importance of this important global topic and develop questions about sustainable development through their studies and extracurricular activities, promote sustainability topics through marketing activities, adopting the very concept of sustainable development in continuity. Courses focused on "green" issues are introduced through the academic curricula. This paper aims to examine the level of awareness of university students in Montenegro about the implementation and level of adoption of "green" policy in university practices and offer ways to improve this concept. The work will represent a good basis for the improvement and adoption of the concept of "green" development at Montenegrin universities

Energy security issues in contemporary Europe

Throughout the history of mankind, energy security has been always seen as a means of protection from disruptions of essential energy systems. The idea of protection from disorders emerged from the process of securing political and military control over energy resources to set up policies and measures on managing risks that affect all elements of energy systems. The various systems placed in a place to achieve energy security are the driving force towards the energy innovations or emerging trends in the energy sector. Our paper discusses energy security status and innovations in the energy sector in European Union (EU). We analyze the recent up-to-date developments of the energy policy and exploitation of energy sources, as well as scrutinize the channels of energy streaming to the EU countries and the risks associated with this energy import. Moreover, we argue that the shift to the low-carbon production of energy and the massive deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) might become the key issue in ensuring the energy security and independency of the EU from its external energy supplies. Both RES, distributed energy resources (DER) and “green energy” that will be based on the energy efficiency and the shift to the alternative energy supply might change the energy security status quo for the EU

The History of Body Contouring Surgery

Body contouring surgery is a rapidly evolving field in plastic surgery. In accordance with improvements in abdominal contour surgery, procedures to improve redundant skin elsewhere on the body were being devised. Initial attempts to correct the anomalies were made in the 1920s by Thorek and his contemporaries and consisted primarily of elliptical excisions of skin. All of the advances made in body contouring, from the original work of Kelly and his contemporaries to the modifications seen every decade, have contributed to a dynamic and evolving specialty. Currently, there is no field within the domain of plastic surgery growing with the same rapidity, and with worldwide obesity continually on the rise, the growth of this field is unlikely to abate in the near future. The contributions of Thorek, Passot, Pitanguy, Baroudi, Grazer, Wise, Regnault, Lassus, Illouz, Klein, Lockwood, and others have provided the necessary armamentarium to approach the post‐weight loss patient knowingly, intently, and adequately equipped to restore pleasing contour to the patients we as surgeons care for. The combination of regional dermolipectomies, lifts, and suction lipoplasty has the potential to restore the elegant human form, to recreate gesture, and to restore appropriate structure

Inside-Out Planet Formation. V. Structure of the Inner Disk as Implied by the MRI

The large population of Earth to super-Earth sized planets found very close to their host stars has motivated consideration of $in$ $situ$ formation models. In particular, Inside-Out Planet Formation is a scenario in which planets coalesce sequentially in the disk, at the local gas pressure maximum near the inner boundary of the dead zone. The pressure maximum arises from a decline in viscosity, going from the active innermost disk (where thermal ionization of alkalis yields high viscosities via the magneto-rotational instability (MRI)) to the adjacent dead zone (where the MRI is quenched). Previous studies of the pressure maximum, based on $\alpha$-disk models, have assumed ad hoc values for the viscosity parameter $\alpha$ in the active zone, ignoring the detailed physics of the MRI. Here we explicitly couple the MRI criteria to the $\alpha$-disk equations, to find steady-state (constant accretion rate) solutions for the disk structure. We consider the effects of both Ohmic and ambipolar resistivities, and find solutions for a range of disk accretion rates ($\dot{M}$ = $10^{-10}$ - $10^{-8}$ ${\rm M}_{\odot}$/yr), stellar masses ($M_{\ast}$ = 0.1 - 1 ${\rm M}_{\odot}$), and fiducial values of the $non$-MRI $\alpha$-viscosity in the dead zone ($\alpha_{\rm {DZ}} = 10^{-5}$ - $10^{-3}$). We find that: (1) A midplane pressure maximum forms radially $outside$ the inner boundary of the dead zone; (2) Hall resistivity dominates near the midplane in the inner disk, which may explain why close-in planets do $not$ form in $\sim$50% of systems; (3) X-ray ionization can be competitive with thermal ionization in the inner disk, because of the low surface density there in steady-state; and (4) our inner disk solutions are viscously unstable to surface density perturbations.Comment: 34 pages, 28 figures, 3 appendices. Accepted by the Astrophysical Journa

High power modular converters for grid interface applications

Scientists at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) are currently conducting feasibility studies for the Compact linear collider (CLIC); their proposed next experimental setup for gathering information on the fundamental particles of matter. This experiment will involve the simultaneous pulsing of 1300 klystron modulators to produce a 140us, 39GW pulse with a 50 Hz repetition rate. This proposal presents many demands for the connected power system as an effort is made to "hide" this pulse from the local distribution network - instead drawing only the constant average power of approximately 300MW. This challenge is considered in this work. In order to understand the optimal approach both the power system architectures and power electronics interfaces must be considered simultaneously. An approach to the optimisation of the power system architecture is described in this thesis. It is clear from this exercise that the optimum power converter topology for the interface between the electricity distribution network and the klystron modulators is the Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC). This converter is mainly used in modern HVDC transmission circuits as a result of its high efficiency and ability to produce high quality AC waveforms. Pulsing of the klystron modulators does however create further challenges for the inner control loops of an MMC. The placement of the pulse can create imbalances in the DC capacitors of the MMC submodules which may result in tripping of the converter if not corrected. This thesis proposes three arm balancing solutions to be applied together with the decoupled AC and DC side controller designed for the specified application. These proposed solutions to the aforementioned problems are successfully validated using simulation work in PLECS and using data from a laboratory scale prototype of one of the MMC interface power converters

The moderating roles of resilience and coping strategy on well-being of victimized forensic workers

Previous research on workplace victimization has often disregarded forensic psychiatric populations and not yet been extended to the coronavirus pandemic. The present study expected the isolation of the government-issued lockdown to increase aggressive behavior in forensic patients, ultimately decreasing the general well-being of victimized forensic workers. Possible buffering protective factors (resilience and active coping) and enhancing risk factors (avoidant coping and passive coping) were investigated with the intention of optimizing the general well-being of at-risk forensic workers. The valid sample (N = 311) consisted of Dutch and Belgian forensic workers (74.6% females) with at least 9 hours of weekly patient contact, and with a mean age of 37.99 (SD = 12.20). Participants reported the number of violent incidents in the past 2 months, as well as completed a questionnaire battery including measures of well-being, resilience, and coping strategies. A significant increase of victimization during the lockdown compared to after it was lifted was found, however, the study did not find evidence to support that this negatively influenced the worker’s general well-being. Active coping was found to be a significant moderator and protective factor for the general well-being of victimized forensic workers. In contrast, resilience, avoidant and passive coping were not significant moderators in this association. The present study has valuable clinical implications that could lead to preparatory and preventative measures for forensic workers at risk of being victimized. Future research may investigate constructs such as life satisfaction and post-traumatic growth, as well as be broadened into prison populations

A questionnaire for assessing fear of radiotherapy in oncology patients

© 2018, University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Science. All rights reserved. Radiotherapy is a frequently prescribed and highly effective form of treatment of oncology patients. However, many patients feel rational or irrational fear of the application of radiotherapy, which may provoke mental and physical stress, anxiety, growing anger and hostility, thus reducing quality of life. The aim of this study was to develop, reliability test and validate a questionnaire for assessing the level of fear of radiotherapy in oncology patients. We performed a prospective qualitative study based on the development, validation and reliability testing of the questionnaire developed for assessing radiotherapy-caused fear in oncology patients treated in the Centre for Oncology and Radiology, Department of Radiotherapy, Clinical Centre Kragujevac. The study included 154 patients and the final version of the questionnaire integrated 15 questions. After the elimination of inappropriate questions the Cronbach coefficient α was 0.946. The questionnaire consists of two factors which represent 57.423% and 6.925%, making a total of 64.348% of the variance of the questionnaire. The results of our study show that the questionnaire used is a unique, reliable and valid instrument for assessing the level of fear of radiotherapy in oncology patients the application of which will allow us to identify patients with elevated levels of fear of radiotherapy

System architecture design

International audienc