This report aims to offer insights into cutting-edge research on digital well-being. Many of these insights come from a 2-day academic-impact event, The Future of Digital Well-Being, hosted by a team of researchers working with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in February 2024. Today, achieving and maintaining well-being in the face of online technologies is a multifaceted challenge that we believe requires using theoretical resources of different research disciplines. This report explores diverse perspectives on how digital (...) well-being can be actively cultivated, while also emphasising the importance of considering individual differences, societal contexts, and nuanced cultural factors. We aim to offer a holistic view of the future of digital well-being, one that will inspire the next generation of designers of online tools, as well as policymakers who will regulate these tools. We start by asking what digital well-being is – how we can best define a concept that is used by diverse stakeholders and researchers from many disciplines in various ways. To do this, we explore the classic ethical theories of well-being, showing how they can give us insights into how the term digital well-being is currently deployed. We then move to look at the existing strategies that have been proposed to actively cultivate digital well-being, exploring the business models that threaten digital well-being and the relative advantages of the digital and non-digital solutions that are currently proposed. On the one hand, digital tools – such as Apple’s Screen Time and app blockers such as Opal and Forest – integrate seamlessly with the digital lifestyles of users. They also create precise metrics for digital well-being, which facilitates their solutions to reduce screen time. On the other hand, non-digital solutions, including mindfulness practices, digital detoxes, and digital well-being coaching, offer a new set of tools to reconnect individuals to their natural rhythms and help to actively promote offline activities. We then move to discuss diversity and how various groups of users have strikingly different digital well-being needs. Embracing neurodiversity in digital well-being is crucial as it strongly impacts the users’ experience of online technologies. When designing for diversity, organisations and designers alike need to prioritise customization for people with physical disabilities, mitigate harmful content for users with mental well-being conditions, address gender stereotypes and online harassment, and be designed in ways that recognize the very real risks of online technologies. This report closes by examining cultural differences. We believe that non-Western conceptions of well-being offer rich sources for enhancing digital well-being insofar as these traditions can inform and inspire the designers of future online technologies. We focus on East-Asian and South-Asian traditions, although in further work we recognise it would be useful to investigate conceptions of well-being that are influential in the Gulf region, Africa, and South America. Each of these areas have ethical frameworks that discuss well-being in depth as well as a rich cultural heritage. In conclusion, this report’s insights underscore the imperative of recognizing diversity in digital well-being, both in terms of cultural contexts and disciplinary perspectives. It emphasises the need for culturally responsive design methodologies and the integration of non-Western philosophical perspectives into current digital well-being research. Embracing this diversity, we believe, offers the best chance to create digital environments that prioritise well-being for users and the societies they live in across the world. Ultimately, we believe that it is not only about designing better online products; it’s about shaping a digital landscape that promotes well-being and flourishing for everyone. (shrink)

The article defines the current state of economic development the territories of Ukraine. Important factors that determine it are macro- and microeconomic. On a national scale, the indicator of gross domestic product is used to determine the results of economic activity. At the regional level, a gross regional product is a general indicator characterizing the level of development the economy. It represents a general indicator of economic activity, performance and characterizes the newly created value (...) of goods and services produced in a certain territory. The geographical structure of the distribution of the gross regional product is presented and its differences are revealed in the regions, among which five are determined: North, South, West, East and Central Ukraine. The leading regions in which the largest share of the gross regional product is produced are investigated. The types of economic activity of some regions are analyzed. It is determined that in today's conditions the industries producing goods are in first place in terms of their relative density. They account for about half of the gross regional product. At the same time, the percentage of industries providing services remains insignificant. The dynamics of the change in the value of the gross regional product per one inhabitant was revealed. It illustrates the threefold difference between the maximum and minimum value in Ukraine. This indicates a significant uneven development of the regions. The directions for increasing the gross regional product are proposed, which consist in increasing the share of industries and services. The need for such reforms is related to the creation of an optimal market infrastructure, scientific and technological progress, the development of banking, insurance, real estate transactions, the restructuring of production, the production of those goods and services that are aimed at the broad demand of the population both in price parameters and quality characteristics. (shrink)

This paper discusses the stability and Hopf bifurcation analysis of the diffusive Kaldor–Kalecki model with a delay included in both gross product and capital stock functions. The reaction-diffusion domain is considered, and the Galerkin analytical method is used to derive the system of ordinary differential equations. The methodology used to determine the Hopf bifurcation points is discussed in detail. Furthermore, full diagrams of the Hopf bifurcation regions considered in the stability analysis are shown, and some numerical simulations of (...) the limit cycle are used to confirm the theoretical outcomes. The delay investment parameter and diffusion coefficient can have great impacts on the Hopf bifurcations and stability of the business cycle model. The investment parameters for the gross product and capital stock as well as the adjustment coefficient of the production market are also studied. These parameters can cause instability in, and the stabilization of, the business cycle model. In addition, we point out that, as the delay investment parameter increases, the Hopf bifurcation points for the diffusion coefficient values decrease considerably. When the delay investment parameter has a very small value, the solution of the business cycle model tends to become steady. (shrink)

China is actively deepening integration into economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement has come into force and China is one of its members. Furthermore, China is applying to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. This study uses the Global Trade Analysis Project model to measure the impact of the RCEP and CPTPP on Gross Domestic Production, import, export, terms of trade, and social welfare of major economies under various scenarios, (...) as well as the competitive effects and complementarity of the RCEP and CPTPP. We found that the CPTPP with China’s accession and the RCEP will complement and strengthen each other and that the members of the two agreements can obtain substantial benefits. If China and the United States join the CPTPP, China’s import growth rate will be higher than its exports. This would transmit growth to other nations and help bridge the trade gap between China and the United States. (shrink)

Modern world economy includes more than one hundred regional trade agreements in place and number that is continuously evolving. Recently some countries reconfigure their economic and political interests and priorities to protectionism. From another side, the expansion of the World Trade Organization has created side agreements with other regional groups leading to a web of trade agreements and understandings. The article is considered the features of integration agreements on the example of the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN and Mercosur. The (...) influence of the process of international economic integration on the gross domestic product, employment and incomes of participating countries is examined. It defines dependence of the effects of integration on stages of integration and economic development of members' countries. It is determined that regional integration is changing welfare of population on macro and micro levels. It is defined the degree of integration depends upon the willingness and commitment of independent sovereign states to share their sovereignty. Deep integration that focuses on regulating the business environment in a more general sense is faced with many difficulties. (shrink)

In 1943 Dr J.C.B. Grant, of the University of Toronto, published the first anatomical atlas ever fully produced in North America, An Atlas of Anatomy. Within the history of biomedical teaching, the publication of this textbook is remarkable for at least two reasons, both connected to the themes of animation and automation. The visual narrative of the anatomical body found in Grant’s Atlas encapsulated a paradigmatic shift in gross anatomy from a systemic approach (dividing the body into its systems) (...) to a regional anatomy (dividing the body into areas containing interlocking systems). The contextually contingent reasons for this shift in medical training are represented in the production of this textbook. What is crucial is that anatomy is thus conceived as directly applicable to surgical practice, which intervenes on the bodies of the living, rather than the dead. The second important dimension of Grant’s Atlas was his rigorous, yet invisible, incorporation of photography into the practice of medical illustration. Grant’s Atlas systematically deployed hand-drawn tracings of photographic images in the production of his bestselling textbook to affirm an indexical connection to a ‘real body’. At the same time, this use of photography is erased within the visuals, which rely instead on hand-drawn illustrations (line-drawings and carbon-dusting) to produce this particular pedagogy of the anatomical body. The production of ‘textbook anatomy’ is thus articulated to changes in technical modes of representation (photography) and to the new techniques in print-technologies from the late 19th until the mid 20th century. (shrink)

The paper demonstrates the necessity of introducing innovative approaches in addressing social problems of development. It proves the significance of recruiting investment in the social sphere. The author looks into the usage of social business for handling economic development problems of countries. There are factors promoting social entrepreneurship identified. Spatial social inequality in Ukraine is analyzed, the role of social entrepreneurship in its overcoming demonstrated.

Considering the lack of substantive scientific or theoretical studies about ethics in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Latin America, this paper examines the context of an existent paradox, based upon the perspective of experts and academicians of Latin America and the Caribbean. These countries live different realities, due to their respective European cultural influences, as well as to racial and economic issues. Such facts impact the size and characteristics of their industries. On the other hand, the SMEs face (...) more similarities in the region, so they will be treated as a group in the discussion of ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Latin American SMEs. As this topic has not been sufficiently investigated in this geographic area, the objective of this exploratory study is to offer a contribution for future research. It raises the main dilemmas and intends to explain how legislation and common practices enable and perhaps lead SMEs to choose unethical strategies to survive and compete in the market. These enterprises are growing in number and in job creation, but do not participate in the Gross National Product in the same proportion. Informality, tax evasion and corruption are gradually caused or erode morality in business, but can contribute to corporate social responsibility in the region. The paper tries to show positive and negative aspects of apparently unethical practices and discusses challenging ways to solve complex problems that are common in most Latin America. (shrink)

This article has explored the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 -induced decline in consumer durables and mobility on nitrogen dioxide emission in Europe by providing empirical and graphical justifications based on consumer price index and gross domestic product deflator indexes. The empirical estimations show that carbon dioxide and NOx emission along with other greenhouse gases drastically decreased in the wake of COVID-19-induced lockdowns and decrease in the demand of consumer goods in Europe. This means that COVID-19 improved environment (...) in the European region. However, high cost makes COVID-19 an unstable solution to environmental woes where positive impact of COVID-19 on environment achieved in short run cannot be guaranteed in the long run. Besides environment, COVID-19 drastically curtailed economic activities and exposed them to the risk of economic crisis particularly in case of Europe. (shrink)

This paper discusses the correlation balance of transport as a dynamic system and the economic growth of specific regions and countries expressed in gross domestic product. The contemporary transformation processes of the input resources to the desired outcomes need new intelligent approaches based on new information system techniques. These research determinations are specifically focused on achieving the objective of providing with the analyses concerned with giving a more estimated answer to some of the complex questions related to the (...) economic dynamics, new information technologies, sustainable development, and transport. The assumption is that transport can be considered as one of the most influential and vibrant systems of the economy. Taking into consideration that transport system is a dynamic system which is continually changing in time and space, to maintain functioning and competing level, it should be enabled and followed by the high communication and operation technology. From this assumption, a research an interesting question has arisen: do transport contribution to the GDP increases, of the same is decreasing over time? To answer this answer, a research encompassed the mix research methodology combined with qualitative and quantitative research features. The qualitative research conclusions represent the identified and defined factors which determine the relationship between transport and the economy. The quantitative research is oriented in generating information and knowledge based on statistical data which provide with the evidence about the more realistic relationship between transport and the economy. The main goal of this research paper is to provide decision makers, planners, and academic spectrum with a demanding clarification of the applied relationship between the transport system and the economic development of a country or a region in terms of economic growth expressed in GDP, and to make them aware with regard to the implementation of new technology, new information systems, and smart or intelligence approaches within the field. (shrink)

The ageing society has profound consequences for accumulation in each state and region because pensions represent a claim on future income and output. Today's United States and United Kingdom pension crisis stems from a failing private sector with excessive costs and risk. Public provision using pay-asyou-go payroll taxes has, by contrast, proved highly cost-effective and equitable. However, aging and unequal cohorts create a need for extra resources. Retirement incomes should total 12 to 14 percent of gross domestic product (...) if older people's relative incomes are to be maintained. Raising such a sum solely from payroll taxes would generate the unemployment seen in continental Europe. The alternative is to redistribute capital to a regional network of social funds by requiring each corporation to issue shares equivalent to 10 percent of their profits annually to those funds. The share levy does not subtract from the corporation's cash flow and therefore protects employment and investment, but it does dilute the value of shareholding each year by a small amount. The social funds would not sell their shares but would keep them to generate income for future pensions. The social funds would supply a universal second pension; they could establish criteria of socially responsible governance in their use of shareholder power, and they would be subject to expert and democratic audit. (shrink)

This study aims to create an integrated geographical information system database of natural resources represented by mining activities in the Red Sea area in Sudan. GIS is a vital tool to help the decision-makers in managing and classifying these resources in terms of quantity and quality within the concept of sustainable development. The paper extracts some models of investment map indicators. In addition to that, it conducts a study and research aimed at developing a mineral resources management and discovering and (...) identifying the new areas of mineral wealth in GIS database. The motivation of this study stems from the fact that countries with these types of wealth can greatly grow their gross domestic product through the optimum management and governance. Most of the least development countries can focus on the search for alternative natural resources to support their economy. Red Sea region is one of the great regions full of natural and mineral resources, beside its strategic location on the way of most of the global trade transaction path. This paper designs and implements GIS multiple database layers. The multiple layers were modelled to overcome the technical difficulties that result from processing of large quantities of tempospatial information. The database was built by using an Oracle database system due to its capability of multilayer design. (shrink)

The meaning of sustainability is the subject of intense debate among environmental and resource economists. Perhaps no other issue separates more clearly the traditional economic view from the views of most natural scientists. The debate currently focuses on the substitutability between the economy and the environment or between “natural capital” and “manufactured capital”—a debate captured in terms of weak versus strong sustainability. In this article, we examine the various interpretations of these concepts. We conclude that natural science and economic perspectives (...) on sustainability are inconsistent. The market-based Hartwick-Solow “weak sustainability” approach is far removed from both the ecosystem-based “Holling sustainability” and the “strong sustainability” approach of Daly and others. Each of these sustainability criteria implies a specific valuation approach, and thus an ethical position, to support monetary indicators of sustainability such as a green or sustainable Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The conflict between “weak sustainability” and “strong sustainability” is more evident in the context of centralized than decentralized decision making. In particular, firms selling “services” instead of material goods and regarding the latter as “capital” leads to decisions more or less consistent with either type of sustainability. Finally, we discuss the implications of global sustainability for such open systems as regions and countries. Open systems have not been dealt with systematically for any of the sustainability criteria. (shrink)

Bruno Latour once argued that science laboratories actively modify the wider society by displacing crucial actors outside the laboratory into the “field.” This article turns this idea on its head by using the case of geothermal energy utilization to demonstrate that in many cases it is the experimental setup outside the laboratory that is there first, with the activities normally associated with a laboratory setting only being decided upon and implemented post hoc. As soon as the actors involved perceive unknowns (...) and uncertainties, these are relocated to various kinds of closed laboratories to be dealt with in a more controlled environment. This is done, for instance, by inviting stakeholders to laboratory-like settings or by analyzing the geochemical composition of fluids in laboratories. Thus, the risk-laden production of new knowledge by means of real-world experimentation amounts to a practice of relocating the context of discovery in society to laboratories of justification sometimes defined as such post hoc. Experimental processes in society can then be conceptualized as “real” experiments and laboratory activities as merely temporarily subordinated components of the larger experiment. (shrink)

Linguistic intuitions are a central source of evidence across a variety of linguistic domains. They have also long been a source of controversy. This chapter aims to illuminate the etiology and evidential status of at least some linguistic intuitions by relating them to error signals of the sort posited by accounts of on-line monitoring of speech production and comprehension. The suggestion is framed as a novel reply to Michael Devitt’s claim that linguistic intuitions are theory-laden “central systems” responses, rather than (...) endorsed outputs of a modularized language faculty (the “Voice of Competence”). Along the way, it is argued that linguistic intuitions may not constitute a natural kind with a common etiology; and that, for a range of cases, the process by which intuitions used in linguistics are generated amounts to little more than comprehension. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading History: On Jacob Burckhardt as Source-ReaderJürgen GroßeThere is a gap between the reputation Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97) has enjoyed among the educated public and among professional historians—a discrepancy that has become commonplace in the century-long reception of the Swiss cultural historian’s work. 1 Nevertheless, in the light of recent appraisals of Burckhardt as an ancestor of a different—perhaps a new—cultural history, and with the rediscovery of his contributions to (...) the history of art, aesthetics, and historical anthropology, the gap seems to be ever-narrowing. 2 However, let us keep it open in the following few pages.The chasm between assessments of Burckhardt as an historian-writer and as an historian-researcher appears roughly analogous to his above-mentioned respective reputations among laymen and professional scholars. As a historian Burckhardt did not want to be a scientific researcher. From the time he began writing history he admitted that he felt little commitment to the predominating concept of scientific progress as a continuous accumulation of facts and theories. Thus, as an outsider to the profession he had only one option, which was to [End Page 525] attain a place of honor as an esteemed writer of historical books for the educated public—a “master historian.” Yet it is precisely this characterization of Burckhardt that makes a curious fact appear all the more baffling: the act of writing books made Burckhardt feel thoroughly tormented. Throughout his career, he lamented historical authorship as a thankless occupation—a form of “slavery.” Just four years after finishing Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860) Burckhardt wrote to his friend Paul Heyse:I now consider my modest literary career as finally closed, and feel much better and content reading sources, as I only study and make notes for teaching and not for possible book-making. The historical market is tremendously overcrowded as things are, and it will be worse if peace lasts. 3Books like Die Zeit Constantins des Großen, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, and Der Cicerone—works that gained the Basler historian fame that has endured to the present day—were either not prepared by the author for further editions or abandoned for colleagues to revise. Thus, Burckhardt seemed to regard himself neither as a researcher nor as a writer but rather as a reader of history. His dislike of research and authorship deserves our attention not only because it stands in sharp contrast to the mores of the scientific community, both in his and our times; for it might also elucidate yet another interesting paradox: Burckhardt, who celebrated the “reading of sources” and “the insights accessible from sources” as no other nineteenth-century historian, was soon to be charged with failing to meet the accepted standards of source-criticism. This essay examines these problems in terms of a series of questions concerning Burckhardt’s reading of history.Why Burckhardt Prefers ReadingBurckhardt clearly abhorred what he called the “history of the events.” Already as a student, he felt himself confronted with a barrage of events, not so much as matters of real history as rather as products of historical science—the ever-increasing facts that historians produced in relation to actual events. Unlike the humanistic and enlightenment paradigms of history, mainstream nineteenth-century scholarship no longer relied on the eyewitness to guarantee authenticity. The focus had shifted from remembrance to reconstruction; events were now narrated in terms of newly conceived abstractions like “development,” “process,” “spirit of an age,” and “spirit of a nation.” This increasing detachment from eyewitnessed experience paved the way for an endless production of information, [End Page 526] which had become an occupation in its own right. Every newcomer to the study of history now encountered a huge mass of mere historical facts, largely devoid of content—“a desperate prospect at the beginning of the study of history,” according to Burckhardt. Furthermore, the dynamism of modern history itself continued to produce more and more “events,” which were then to be reproduced as “facts.” This mire of facts burdened the reader of historiography even more than the student of history. “Even the most well-meaning of contemporary historians,” Burckhardt... (shrink)

In order to communicate effectively with a variety of conversation partners and in a variety of settings, bilingual children must develop language control, the ability to control which language is used for production. Past work has focused on linguistic skills as the limiting factor in children’s ability to control their language choice, while cognitive control has been the focus of adult models of language control. The current study examined the effects of both language ability and cognitive control on language control (...) in 4-6 year old Spanish/English bilingual children with a broad range of language skills, including those with low skills in both languages. To measure language control, children participated in an interactive scripted confederate dialogue paradigm in which they took turns describing picture scenes with video partners who presented themselves as monolingual speakers of English or monolingual speakers of Spanish. The paradigm had two conditions: a single-language context, in which children interacted with only one partner, and a dual-language context, in which children needed to switch between languages to address different partners. The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) indexed cognitive control. The findings revealed an overall effect of language ability, such that children with lower language skills were more likely to produce words in the language not understood by their conversation partner. There was also an effect of cognitive control on children’s ability to adjust to the dual-language context. Based on these findings, we suggest that a model of language control in children should consider both linguistic and cognitive factors. However, language ability appears to be the main limiting factor, with cognitive control playing a more restricted role in adapting to a dual-language context. (shrink)

Gross domestic product can well reflect the development of the economy, and predicting GDP can help better grasp the future economic trends. In this article, three different neural network models, the genetic algorithm – back-propagation neural network model, the particle swarm optimization – Elman neural network model, and the bat algorithm – long short-term memory model, were analyzed based on neural networks. The GDP data of Sichuan province from 1992 to 2020 were collected to compare the performance of (...) the three models in predicting GDP. It was found that the mean absolute percentage error values of the three models were 0.0578, 0.0236, and 0.0654, respectively; the root-mean-square error values were 0.0287, 0.0166, and 0.0465, respectively; and the PSO-Elman NN model had the best performance in GDP prediction. The experimental results demonstrate that neural networks were reliable in predicting GDP and can be used for further applications in practice. (shrink)

There is a long tradition of drawing metaphysical conclusions from investigations into language. This paper concerns one contemporary variation on this theme: the alleged ontological significance of cognitivist truth-theoretic accounts of semantic competence. According to such accounts, human speakers’ linguistic behavior is in part empirically explained by their cognizing a truth-theory. Such a theory consists of a finite number of axioms assigning semantic values to lexical items, a finite number of axioms assigning semantic values to complex expressions on the basis (...) of their structure and the semantic values of their constituents, and a finite number of production schemata. The theory enables the derivation of truth-conditions for each sentence of the language: something of roughly the form ‘S is true iff P’.1 The claim that speakers stand in a cognitive relation to such theories is advanced, not as a conceptual analysis of semantic competence or understanding, but rather as an empirical hypothesis about human speakers in particular, one part of a broader empirical account of our linguistic competence and cognition generally. It therefore must mesh with the rest of our theorizing in these areas and whatever relevant data from neighboring inquiries there may be. The precise nature of the cognitive relation a speaker is supposed to bear to a truththeory is a matter of some dispute. I speak of ‘‘cognizing’’ (following. (shrink)

Emotion regulation has the odd distinction of being a wildly popular construct whose scientific existence is in considerable doubt. In this article, we discuss the confusion about whether emotion generation and emotion regulation can and should be distinguished from one another. We describe a continuum of perspectives on emotion, and highlight how different (often mutually incompatible) perspectives on emotion lead to different views about whether emotion generation and emotion regulation can be usefully distinguished. We argue that making differences in perspective (...) explicit serves the function of allowing researchers with different theoretical commitments to collaborate productively despite seemingly insurmountable differences in terminology and methods. (shrink)

The theme of visual representations in science was already central to our research when we aended the 6th European Spring School on History of Science and Popularization in Menorca, Spain, in 2011. As discussed in the review of this conference by Ignacio SuayMatallana and Mar Cuenca-Lorente (245), many participants not only described the particulars of the generation of individual images, but also broader issues surrounding the constitution of visual domains. We were impressed by the range of scholarship surrounding the production, (...) circulation, and interpretation of a wide variety of images, yet a nagging question remained: what issues unite this diversity of research and compel us to investigate such representations? Beyond their novelty, why study scientific images at all? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Being Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged BuddhismRita M. GrossBeing Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged Buddhism. By Sallie B. King. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. 291 pp.This discussion of the social ethics of Engaged Buddhism is organized into chapters on four basic issues: the relationship between individual and society, human rights, nonviolence and its limits, and justice/reconciliation. Setting the context for these issues are an introduction, (...) a chapter on how Engaged Buddhist social ethics is built from Buddhist tradition, and another surveying Engaged Buddhist [End Page 174] ethical theory. The author's conclusions and evaluations of the movement, for the most part, are found in the last chapter, the book's eighth.In her preface, King explains a crucial decision she made regarding the extent of her analysis of Engaged Buddhism. She realized that an important question about Engaged Buddhism concerns its relationship with Western thought and decided that she could better focus on that question and "avoid muddying the waters" (p. xii) by not including Western Engaged Buddhist thinking in her survey. She further justifies this decision by claiming that Western Buddhists are still largely students of Asian Buddhists who need to overcome familiar cultural habits "to clearly perceive the otherness of Buddhism and what it has to offer" (p. xii). This decision makes sense in its own context, and I agree that many Western Buddhists seem to not understand that the spiritual and philosophical foundations of Buddhism are quite different from those of Western religions. Unfortunately, the decision to not include Western Engaged Buddhists also furthers a view that Buddhism is "foreign," and, therefore, not directly relevant to Westerners or to the issues that most occupy Westerners in our day. Many Western Buddhists are at pains to undercut precisely that view of Buddhism. However, I do concede that including Western Engaged Buddhists in her analysis would have complicated her task enormously.King's concerns about the relationship between Engaged Buddhist thinking and Western thinking have more to do with refuting the claim made by "traditional" Buddhists, both Asian and Western, that the Engaged Buddhist movement is merely the product of Western influences and, therefore, not truly Buddhist. She refutes this claim by demonstrating that the most influential Asian Engaged Buddhist leaders are intelligent, well-educated people who are unlikely to meekly adopt foreign ideas. Cogently, she argues that Western influences on Engaged Buddhism do not make Engaged Buddhism "the product of Western influences" and that the claim that Engaged Buddhism is the result of Western cultural imperialism denies what it is trying to protect: "the subjectivity and agency of the Engaged Buddhist leaders themselves" (p. 3). She demonstrates that Asian Engaged Buddhist leaders are selective about which Western concepts they include in their discussions of social ethics and that their thinking about social ethics has deep consonance with utterly basic Buddhist concerns, such as interdependence, the Four Noble Truths, anatman (lack of independent abiding self), the enlightenability of human beings, the importance of compassion, the importance of varied self-transformative practices, and nonviolence.Before delving into Engaged Buddhism's major concerns in depth, King provides a lengthy chapter in which she outlines Engaged Buddhist ethical theory. She does not claim that Engaged Buddhists have worked out a systematic ethical philosophy, but rather that certain ideas and claims underlie their recommendations and actions, although not all of them are used by every Engaged Buddhist or in every situation. Natural law ethics, which claims that ethical requirements are not culturally relative because they stem from the nature of reality itself, not human invention, is an important element in Engaged Buddhist thinking, she [End Page 175] claims. (King, however, does not discuss the difficulty that the different religions have very different analyses of the nature of reality.) Engaged Buddhists also use a developmental perspective, recognizing that, as individuals develop, ethical understanding also develops. That developmental perspective implies that ethics is more about principles than about rules. Engaged Buddhist ethics are holistic, in that intellect and emotion are not thought of as at odds with each other in ethical decision making, but are well integrated with each other. A nonadversarial stance is critical... (shrink)

Scientific discovery and scientific progress are made by scientists, not philosophers. Philosophers sometimes overlook this fact. It appears to be completely ignored by those who call themselves feminist philosophers of science. A favored claim among them is that the production of a feminist epistemology, or of a feminist society, or of both together, will produce something called ‘feminist science’. Feminist science will be different, they say, from the science we now have. One leading proponent of this view, Sandra Harding, writes: (...) “[t]he sciences that gain world ascendancy in the future are unlikely to be so distinctively Western and androcentric as are the dominant tendencies today.” But just how will they differ? Like all utopians these feminists are short on specifics and we are never told what such a science as science would look like, even in outline, much less in detail, nor how it is likely to differ as science from swnh. (shrink)

The evidence of culture’s impact on corruption and its consequences is still inconclusive despite several investigations: Sometimes, theory is lacking and causes and consequences seem exchangeable. Based on psychological research on the distribution and use of power, we predicted that a steeper distribution of power induces more corruption and elaborated its negative consequences in a complex causal model. For measuring power distribution, pervading national culture, we augmented Hofstede’s ‘Power Distance’ with three additional indicators into a reversed, more reliable and valid (...) culture composite called “Power Balanced Freedom”. Instead of the usual regression and instrument approaches, which cannot estimate multiple causal chains including causal feedback, a non-recursive path analysis was employed with data from 85 nations. PBF predicted less national Corruption, with positive effects on Gross Domestic Product and Inequality Adjusted Human Development. The often expected reverse effect of GDP on Corruption was not significant. Contrary to influential authors from economics, culture variables are the most important predictors of corruption and its consequences. Nonetheless, our extended model supports the main thrust of their ideas and adds more precision. Our conceptual distinction of the uses of power and our empirical measure PBF reflect Kant’s ethical imperative: freedom and autonomy for everyone. Widely shared life chances as measured by IHDI reflect utilitarian, consequentialist ideas. These different ethical approaches are connected in the confirmed causal model, in line with Rawls’ first and second principle of justice. (shrink)

Source: Author: Ahamed Lebbe Mohamed Aslam Nowadays, policy makers believe that the tourism is a positive tool for economic growth of nations because which helps to economies of countries by several ways. In Sri Lankan experience it was not statistically confirmed. The aim of this study was to test the nexus between the tourism earnings and the gross domestic product in Sri Lanka. To test this nexus this study used time series data during the period of 1970 to (...) 2014, and employed the multiple regressions model. In this study, the gross domestic product in constant price was used as dependant variable and exchange rate, foreign remittance, tourism earning, and inflation rate were considered as independent variables. Based on the regression outcomes, this study found that the tourism positively maintained the nexus on the gross domestic product in Sri Lanka at five percent significant level. ]]>. (shrink)

Experiments are generally thought of as actions or operations undertaken to test a scientific hypothesis in settings detached from the rest of society. In this paper a different notion of experiment will be discussed. It is an understanding that has been developed in the classical tradition of the Chicago School of Sociology since the 1890s, but has so far remained unexplored. This sociological understanding of experiment does not model itself strictly on the natural sciences. Rather, it implies a process of (...) societal self-experimentation without a fixed setting of a sociological experimenter. The paper discusses this notion of experiment in relation to the recursive dependency of the application and the production of sociological knowledge. It is contended that this concept of a self-experimental society offers theoretical insights that could well prove fruitful for a sociological concept of experiment beyond the realm of the laboratory. (shrink)

National scientists have elaborated the reform's gist, approaches, stages and consequences in the Ukrainian agricultural sector during the XX - XXI centuries. These studies have been conducted by N. Zhulkanych, S. Zhyvora, M. Zyza, M. Lendiel, E. Mazur, O. Malyarchuk, V. Nechytailo and many others. The paper aims to perform the comprehensive study of general trends and peculiar features of the agricultural development of the Ukrainian SSR in 1963-1990 and to define actual advances and drawbacks on the basis of analysis (...) of historical records and scientific literature. The object of research is agriculture as part of socialist economy in the USSR. The subject of research is the implementation features of agricultural policy of the Soviet power in the Ukrainian SSR, using the Western region of the Republic as an example. The economic strategy of the Soviet power involved a long-term industrialization of the agricultural sector. A distinguishing feature of the industrialization process was the use of systems of machinery in all branches of agriculture. The technological chain had to embrace the process from the sporadic application of machinery to the overall mechanization and automation of crop and livestock farming. The industrial background of production predetermined the implementation of the system of machinery with extensive power consumption, i.e. with the new technical bases. The resolutions of the March Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee defined the economic priorities and capacity development of the Republic. Capital investments were the economic basis for the increase of production potential of collective and state farms, solution of social problems in rural regions. The land productivity was increased mainly by means of land reclamation and production chemization, use of organic and mineral fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, etc. The supply of mineral fertilizers increased, but most of them were of low quality, non-concentrated and unbalanced in nutritional ingredients. In its turn it caused irreparable damage to the environment and polluted agricultural products with chemicals. The chemization undermined the population health and disrupted the ecological balance. Despite ultimate achievements in the rise of the industrial level of agriculture of the Ukrainian SSR, it didn't meet the needs of collective and state farms. A great number of labour-intensive processes in animal and crop farming were performed manually. In state farms, contrary to collective farms, the stock of tractors was newer, but much smaller. For many years the USSR was in the top ten countries of the world in terms of consumption of energy and proteins, contained in food products per capita. However, the food patterns were inconsistent with the scientifically grounded norm. Structural imbalance of the food ration was the manifestation of the food crisis in the USSR. To meet primary needs of Soviet citizens in food products the May Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee adopted the "Food Program of the USSR for the Period until 1990 and Measures of Its Implementation". The main issue of the Food program was to increase grain harvest. Grain production was the basis for food and fodder supply of the country. Alongside with a substantial increase in food products output in public economy the attention was given to the development of subsidiary individual holdings and fruit-and-vegetable cooperatives. The cooperatives and subsidiary holdings produced a great number of dairy and meat products, vegetables and fruits both for their own needs and for sale in collective farm markets. The state food program predetermined the solution of agricultural problems by means of formerly used methods. The major problem of agriculture had to be solved by means of increase in the gross grain harvest. Thus, the implementation of agricultural policy of Soviet power in the Ukrainian SSR lead to great changes in agricultural production. At that time there appeared such new branches of economy specialized in services to agricultural production as waterworks and land reclamation, feed mill industry, farm building, machine engineering for animal farming and fodder production, procurement of agricultural products and agricultural processing. The study of this policy implementation proves that the average annual rates of agricultural production increased but they were inconsistent with high investments. On the one hand, the Food program testified the "food crisis in the USSR", demonstrating the lag of the world socialist community from capitalist states. On the other hand, it had to increase the level of food self-sufficiency, decrease the procurement of agricultural products from abroad and promote the solution of the world food problem in general. (shrink)

We raise three issues concerning the Eichenbaum, Otto & Cohen (1994) model. (1) We argue against the strict division of labor that Eichenbaum et al. attribute to neocortical and limbic regions. (2) We raise the possibility that the anterior and posterior portions of the hippocampus may be important for different types of information processing. (3) We argue that, rather than reflecting relational processing, different neural responses to “match” and “nonmatch” trials may relate to different required spatial responses.

How does evolution grow bigger brains? It has been widely assumed that growth of individual structures and functional systems in response to niche-specific cognitive challenges is the most plausible mechanism for brain expansion in mammals. Comparison of multiple regressions on allometric data for 131 mammalian species, however, suggests that for 9 of 11 brain structures taxonomic and body size factors are less important than covariance of these major structures with each other. Which structure grows biggest is largely predicted by a (...) conserved order of neurogenesis that can be derived from the basic axial structure of the developing brain. This conserved order of neurogenesis predicts the relative scaling not only of gross brain regions like the isocortex or mesencephalon, but also the level of detail of individual thalamic nuclei. Special selection of particular areas for specific functions does occur, but it is a minor factor compared to the large-scale covariance of the whole brain. The idea that enlarged isocortex could be a a by-product of structural constraints later adapted for various behaviors, contrasts with approaches to selection of particular brain regions for cognitively advanced uses, as is commonly assumed in the case of hominid brain evolution. (shrink)

As engineering applications require management of ever larger volumes of data, ontologies offer the potential to capture, manage, and augment data with the capability for automated reasoning and semantic querying. Unfortunately, considerable barriers hinder wider deployment of ontologies in engineering. Key among these is lack of a shared top-level ontology to unify and organise disparate aspects of the field and coordinate co-development of orthogonal ontologies. As a result, many engineering ontologies are limited to their scope, and functionally difficult to extend (...) or interoperate with other engineering ontologies. This paper demonstrates how the use of a top-level ontology, specifically the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), greatly facilitates interoperability of multiple engineering-related ontologies. We constructed a system of formal linked ontologies by re-engineering legacy ontologies to be conformant with BFO and developing new BFO-conformant ontologies to capture knowledge in the engineering design, enterprise, human factors, manufacturing, and application domain of additive manufacturing. The resulting Integrated Framework for Additively Manufactured Products (IFAMP), including the body knowledge instantiated on its basis, serve as the basis for a proposed Design with Additive Manufacturing Method (DWAM), which we believe can support the design of innovative products with semantically enhanced ideation tools and enhanced access to application domain knowledge. The method and its facilitation through the ontological framework are demonstrated using a case study in medicine. (shrink)

Regional planning for improved agricultural capacity to supply produce, legumes, and whole grains has the potential to improve population health as well as the local food economy. This case study of Waterloo Region (WR), Canada, had two objectives. First, we estimate the quantity of locally grown vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains needed to help meet the Region of Waterloo population’s optimal nutritional requirements currently and in 2026. Secondly, we estimate how much of these healthy food requirements for the (...) WR population could realistically be produced through local agriculture by the year 2026. Results show that a shift of approximately 10% of currently cropped hectares to the production of key nutritious foods would be both agriculturally feasible and nutritionally significant to the growing population. We supplement our findings with some agronomic considerations and community-level strategies that would inform and support such change. The methodology of this study could be applied to other regions: more such analyses would create a broader picture of the diverse qualitative and quantitative agricultural shifts that could synchronize optimal land use with dietary recommendations, thus informing coordinated policy and planning. (shrink)

This book is a wide-ranging exploration of regions in the new world order. The author - one of the leading international figures in the field - explores the economic logic and political meaning of regions. Exploring developments from Silicon Valley to Hong Kong, he makes the case for the growing importance of regions as against the sovereign state in the `borderless world' of the 21st century.

For more than 40 years, the Kingdom of Bhutan has eschewed evaluating its socio-economic status in terms of Gross Domestic Product and has instead done so under the heading of ‘Gross National Happiness’. As part of the upswing in international interest in well-being as the proper final end of development, it would be apt to critically explore the approach that has been in use for several decades. In this article I expound the central elements of Gross (...) National Happiness and discuss their strengths and weaknesses from a moral-philosophical perspective. I conclude that while Gross National Happiness covers many blind spots missed by influential Western indices with which readers are likely to be more familiar, the latter also have corrections to offer the former, inviting a fascinating cross-cultural exchange about how to understand the nature of well-being for purposes of public policy. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to trace the integration of education, science and production through the development of regional cluster policy. At the present stage of development of postindustrial society in the global economy, the processes of globalization and specialization of national markets significantly increase competition between countries, between regions and between producers within the country. In these circumstances, the state authorities of the Russian Federation, while maintaining global leadership in the energy sector, define as long-term development goals (...) of the country, the creation of a competitive economy based on knowledge and high technologies. Following this doctrine in the Russian regions in the period from 2012 to 2014 cluster policy is implemented on the basis of Federal and regional innovation strategies. An important role in this process belongs to the activities of leading higher educational institutions - national research universities, which contribute to stimulate an active scientific activity of students and the introduction of scientific achievements into production. One of the pilot cluster projects, funded by the Federal budget became the territorial cluster ‘ Pharmaceutics, medical technology and information technology ‘ formed in the Tomsk region with a unique starting opportunities for the development of sustainable regional innovation system is a developed scientific and educational complex, small and medium-sized innovative enterprises with the latest technological developments in pharmaceuticals and medical technology. In two years, the activity cluster, implemented with the financial support of public authorities, has been successful. In the future, there are plans to expand the range of pharmaceutical products and the collaboration with other clusters Tomsk. Cluster policy contributes to the emergence of stakeholders and large economic enterprises, thus providing a close relationship between science, business and regional authorities. (shrink)

Plant production is diverse in the Asir region, and there are many methods of analysis. Perhaps factor analysis is one of the most important statistical methods through which productive power can be measured in various geographical regions. In this study, factor analysis was used to measure the developments of plant production in the agricultural sector in the Asir region, Saudi Arabia. The factor analysis showed the presence of three main factors that together explained about %86.55 of the total variation in (...) the development of plant production in the governorates of the Asir region. The study showed three mathematical algorithms that can measure the development of plant production in the Asir region according to the three main factors: First factor equation λ1=44.250%=-0.521*X_1 0.810*X_2+0.78*X_3+0.842*X_4+0.755*X_5 Second factor equation λ2=24.960%-0.228*X_1+0.352*X_2+0.936*X_3-0.226*X_4-0.380*X_5 The third factor equation λ3=17.344%0.796*X_1+0.291*X_2+0.104*X_3+0.339*X_4-0.153*X_5 -The study classified the governorates of the Asir region, based on the results of the analysis, into three groups, according to negative and positive 0.933-0.975 and includes Bisha - Abha - Ahad Rafaida - Khamis Mushait - in Al-Furn - Al-Barak, while the second group represents the category of 0.897-0.548 and includes the governorates of Mahayel, Asir - Tanmomah - Al-Namas - Tathleeth. The third group includes the category of 0.255--0234 and includes the governorates Sarat Ubaidah - Al-Majadra and Bariq - Tareeb - Dhahran Al-Janoub and Al-Harajah - Rijal Almaa. (shrink)

Eating locally continues to be promoted as an alternative to growing concerns related to industrialized, global, corporate agriculture. Buying from local famers and producers is seen as a way to promote a healthier diet, reduce environmental impacts, and sustain communities. The promotion of the local food movement presents the question: is it possible to feed a community primarily from the foods produced locally? We conducted a systematic analysis comparing the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) recommended dietary requirements for the (...) estimated 2008 population with annual local agricultural production for the years 2004–2008 within the counties of the Willamette Valley growing region. Our results indicate that current agricultural production in this highly fertile region does not meet the dietary needs of the local inhabitants for any of the USDA’s six food groups: grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meat and beans, and oils. In the most recent year of our analysis, 2008, Willamette Valley agriculture production met 67% of annual required grains, 10% of vegetable needs, 24% of fruits, 59% of dairy, 58% of meat and beans, and 0% of dietary oil requirements. Over the past 5 years there have been significant fluctuations in crop production, particularly in 2006 when grain yields dropped to 29% of needs met. Additionally, many of these commodities are exported as cash crops, thus not contributing to meeting local food needs. We discuss these results as well as areas of potential for increasing production of edible crops for local consumption in the region. (shrink)

A well-developed perspective in the study of urban systems is that cities are complex systems that manifest as networks of interdependent economic units. These units might be occupations, industries, labor skills, patent technologies, etc. Much research has focused on describing the nature of these networks, quantifying their links, and suggesting applications for policymakers. In this paper, we examine the US skill network, focusing on the relationship between network centrality and economic performance. Here, nodes are represented by individual labor skills, and (...) edge weights are derived from the colocation pattern of skill pairs among 384 US metropolitan statistical areas. The centrality of skills, using three centrality measures, is then aggregated to the occupational and metropolitan level. We find that occupations with higher skill centrality are associated with greater annual salaries, and metropolitan areas with higher skill centrality have higher productivity rates. Overall, these results suggest that the application of traditional network metrics to this view of cities as complex networks can offer new insights into the dynamics of regional economies. (shrink)

The global market for biologics and biosimilar pharmaceutical products is experiencing rapid expansion, primarily driven by the continuous discovery of new molecules. However, information regarding Latin America’s biological market remains limited.

Green growth aims to achieve economic growth while preventing environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and unsustainable use of natural resources. It decouples the effects of economic activities from environmental activities, thus seeking to make investing in the environment an engine of economic growth. Energy is one of the most critical inputs in all economic activities. It is an essential driver of economic development, and energy supply and efficiency of its use are crucial for green growth. Conventional sources of energy cause an (...) increase in both greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and regional air pollution. They also influence water quality and land use. There is a call for increased use of renewable energy sources to tackle climate change and energy security problems. Thus, countries worldwide should progress towards more energy-efficient technologies and provide consumers with more energy-efficient goods and services. This paper aims to assess the performance of EU countries in energy productivity using a synthetic measure (based on Hellwig’s taxonomic measure of development) of the following indicators: energy productivity, energy intensity, total primary energy supply, renewable energy supply, and renewable electricity. The results show that although there has been progress in energy productivity in EU countries on average, there are still some disparities. Although the EU has adopted a common policy towards boosting energy efficiency by implementing the European Green Deal, some countries are still lagging behind. On average, western EU economies have a higher level of energy productivity; however, the rate of increase is higher in central and eastern EU countries, which may indicate a convergence process in EU economies. (shrink)

This paper critiques Rothbard’s concept of gross investment. Rothbard introduced the concept in order to demonstrate his point that it is not consumer spending that primarily drives the economy, like the mainstream Keynesian view maintains, but the capitalists’ spending. In this paper, it is argued that, contrary to Rothbard’s opinion, the amount of gross investment as he defines it does not contain significant information concerning the question as to whether the capital structure of a society can be upheld (...) or not. Instead, it is an arbitrary figure that depends on the length of the different stages of production. This problem has not been recognized by Rothbard because his exposition rests upon the assumption of an equal time length for all stages. Apparently, he has been led astray by his intention to find arguments against the importance of consumer spending in the determination of output. (shrink)

Charting significant growth in science production over the 20th century in four European Union member states, this neo-institutional analysis describes the development and current state of universities and research institutes that bolster Europe’s position as a key region in global science. On-going internationalization and Europeanization of higher education and science has been accompanied by increasing competition as well as collaboration. Despite the policy goals to foster innovation and further expand research capacity, in cross-national and historical comparison neither the level of (...) R&D investments nor country size accounts completely for the differential growth of scientific productivity. Based on a comprehensive historical database from 1900 to 2010, this analysis uncovers both stable and dynamic patterns of production and productivity in Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Measured in peer-reviewed research articles collected in Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded, which includes journals in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Health, we show the varying contributions of different organizational forms, especially research universities and research institutes. Comparing the institutionalization pathways that created the conditions necessary for continuous and strong growth in scientific productivity in the European center of global science emphasizes that the research university is the key organizational form across countries. (shrink)

Cet article s’intéresse aux ateliers régionaux de production céramique de Chypre à l’époque géométrique. À partir de l’analyse détaillée de la céramique, qui constitue la documentation primaire pour cette époque, et suivant une méthode rigoureuse, on tentera d’identifier et de définir le caractère régional de la production céramique. Cela nous permettra de cerner des modes de développement spécifiques et différenciés selon les régions de l’île. En l’absence de sources écrites pour l’époque chypro-géométrique, cette démarche est susceptible d’éclairer les processus de (...) constitution des royaumes chypriotes du Ier millénaire av. J.-C. (shrink)

The paper considers the role of universities as actors in regional development, and the implications for approaches to knowledge, including knowledge construction. The new role for universities requires the production of knowledge, which relates to the needs of the region. Particular attention was given to the Agder region of Norway, and Agder University College.