Non-religiosity, Secularism, and Civil Society

2021 ◽  
pp. 221-249
Author(s):  
David E. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Religious Attendance ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Civic Activity ◽  
Conscious Effort ◽  
High Level ◽  
Different Levels

Understanding the secular population requires differentiating between people who are not religious (defined by what they are not) and those who are secular (defined by what they are). Non-religiosity is measured as the absence of the usual markers of religiosity—no religious affiliation, no religious attendance, and so on. Secularism is defined with new measures that reflect whether someone has a secular identity, receives guidance from secular sources, and has a secular worldview. Distinguishing between nonreligious and secular Americans reveals that they have very different levels of civic engagement. The former are civically disengaged, while the latter are often engaged in civic activity. Since both religionists and secularists share a high level of participation in civil society, it suggests the possibility of building bridges between them. But making such social connections will require conscious effort to overcome mutual suspicion.

scholarly journals The trust as a social capital of civil society in contemporary Russia

2018 ◽  
Vol 212 ◽  
pp. 10004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Maximova ◽  
Oksana Noyanzina ◽  
Daria Omelchenko ◽  
Margarita Maximova
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Social Economic Status ◽  
Material Condition ◽  
Civic Activity ◽  
The People ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
High Level ◽  
Commercial Organizations

Sociological analysis of indexes of institutional trust and indexes of development of civil society (structured interview, n = 2400, age of participants 18-70 years in six regions of Russia revealed the condition, problems and tendencies of development of the trust in regions, different by social-economic status. The generalized trust of Russian citizens corresponds to average level and less important than trust to surroundings and readiness to help to the people. We note in particular high level of the trust of Russians and potential cooperation with non-commercial organizations. During the research we revealed a number of factors influencing all types of the trust – generalized one, trust to the institutes of civil society – gender (women more often demonstrated trust, than men), type of place of residence (level of trust higher among rural inhabitants), material condition (rich respondents gave significantly higher values in all types of trust). Representations about importance of civic self-organization, sense of belonging to national, regional and local communities and sense of responsibility are positive characteristics of development of civil society. However, the level of civic activity is not so high (45%) and often reduces to one-time charity actions or membership in professional or local territorial unions. Values of indexes, connected with levels of the trust and civic activity considerably differ in different in social and economic status Russian regions.

scholarly journals Aircraft Requirements for Sustainable Regional Aviation

Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Dominik Eisenhut ◽  
Nicolas Moebs ◽  
Evert Windels ◽  
Dominique Bergmann ◽  
Ingmar Geiß ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systems Engineering ◽  
System Level ◽  
Policy Initiative ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Calculation Methods ◽  
Figures Of Merit ◽  
Performance Requirements ◽  
High Level ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
The Eu

Recently, the new Green Deal policy initiative was presented by the European Union. The EU aims to achieve a sustainable future and be the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. It targets all of the continent’s industries, meaning aviation must contribute to these changes as well. By employing a systems engineering approach, this high-level task can be split into different levels to get from the vision to the relevant system or product itself. Part of this iterative process involves the aircraft requirements, which make the goals more achievable on the system level and allow validation of whether the designed systems fulfill these requirements. Within this work, the top-level aircraft requirements (TLARs) for a hybrid-electric regional aircraft for up to 50 passengers are presented. Apart from performance requirements, other requirements, like environmental ones, are also included. To check whether these requirements are fulfilled, different reference missions were defined which challenge various extremes within the requirements. Furthermore, figures of merit are established, providing a way of validating and comparing different aircraft designs. The modular structure of these aircraft designs ensures the possibility of evaluating different architectures and adapting these figures if necessary. Moreover, different criteria can be accounted for, or their calculation methods or weighting can be changed.

scholarly journals Mutual Impact between Clock Gating and High Level Synthesis in Reconfigurable Hardware Accelerators

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Francesco Ratto ◽  
Tiziana Fanni ◽  
Luigi Raffo ◽  
Carlo Sau
Keyword(s):  
Low Power ◽  
Integrated Circuit ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Hardware Acceleration ◽  
High Level Synthesis ◽  
Clock Gating ◽  
Technology Application ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
High Level ◽  
Different Levels

With the diffusion of cyber-physical systems and internet of things, adaptivity and low power consumption became of primary importance in digital systems design. Reconfigurable heterogeneous platforms seem to be one of the most suitable choices to cope with such challenging context. However, their development and power optimization are not trivial, especially considering hardware acceleration components. On the one hand high level synthesis could simplify the design of such kind of systems, but on the other hand it can limit the positive effects of the adopted power saving techniques. In this work, the mutual impact of different high level synthesis tools and the application of the well known clock gating strategy in the development of reconfigurable accelerators is studied. The aim is to optimize a clock gating application according to the chosen high level synthesis engine and target technology (Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) or Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)). Different levels of application of clock gating are evaluated, including a novel multi level solution. Besides assessing the benefits and drawbacks of the clock gating application at different levels, hints for future design automation of low power reconfigurable accelerators through high level synthesis are also derived.

scholarly journals Application of an Artificial Neural Network to Automate the Measurement of Kinematic Characteristics of Punches in Boxing

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1223
Author(s):  
Ilshat Khasanshin
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Artificial Neural Network ◽  
Kinematic Parameters ◽  
Constant Control ◽  
Measurement Units ◽  
Artificial Neural ◽  
Artificial Neural Network Ann ◽  
Effective Development ◽  
High Level ◽  
Different Levels

This work aimed to study the automation of measuring the speed of punches of boxers during shadow boxing using inertial measurement units (IMUs) based on an artificial neural network (ANN). In boxing, for the effective development of an athlete, constant control of the punch speed is required. However, even when using modern means of measuring kinematic parameters, it is necessary to record the circumstances under which the punch was performed: The type of punch (jab, cross, hook, or uppercut) and the type of activity (shadow boxing, single punch, or series of punches). Therefore, to eliminate errors and accelerate the process, that is, automate measurements, the use of an ANN in the form of a multilayer perceptron (MLP) is proposed. During the experiments, IMUs were installed on the boxers’ wrists. The input parameters of the ANN were the absolute acceleration and angular velocity. The experiment was conducted for three groups of boxers with different levels of training. The developed model showed a high level of punch recognition for all groups, and it can be concluded that the use of the ANN significantly accelerates the collection of data on the kinetic characteristics of boxers’ punches and allows this process to be automated.

scholarly journals Model-Driven Architectural Framework towards Safe and Secure Nuclear Power Reactors

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5136
Author(s):  
Bassem Ouni ◽  
Christophe Aussagues ◽  
Saadia Dhouib ◽  
Chokri Mraidha
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Nuclear Reactors ◽  
System Development ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Case System ◽  
Architectural Framework ◽  
Performance Check ◽  
High Level ◽  
Different Levels

Sensor-based digital systems for Instrumentation and Control (I&C) of nuclear reactors are quite complex in terms of architecture and functionalities. A high-level framework is highly required to pre-evaluate the system’s performance, check the consistency between different levels of abstraction and address the concerns of various stakeholders. In this work, we integrate the development process of I&C systems and the involvement of stakeholders within a model-driven methodology. The proposed approach introduces a new architectural framework that defines various concepts, allowing system implementations and encompassing different development phases, all actors, and system concerns. In addition, we define a new I&C Modeling Language (ICML) and a set of methodological rules needed to build different architectural framework views. To illustrate this methodology, we extend the specific use of an open-source system engineering tool, named Eclipse Papyrus, to carry out many automation and verification steps at different levels of abstraction. The architectural framework modeling capabilities will be validated using a realistic use case system for the protection of nuclear reactors. The proposed framework is able to reduce the overall system development cost by improving links between different specification tasks and providing a high abstraction level of system components.

scholarly journals A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Voluntarism in the United States

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theda Skocpol ◽  
Marshall Ganz ◽  
Ziad Munson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Institutional Form ◽  
Current Discussion ◽  
Institutional Origins ◽  
Membership Associations

We challenge the widely held view that classic American voluntary groups were tiny, local, and disconnected from government. Using newly collected data to develop a theoretically framed account, we show that membership associations emerged early in U.S. history and converged toward the institutional form of the representatively governed federation. This form enabled leaders and members to spread interconnected groups across an expanding nation. At the height of local proliferation, most voluntary groups were part of regional or national federations that mirrored the structure of U.S. government. Institutionalist theories suggest reasons for this parallelism, which belies the rigid dichotomy between state and civil society that informs much current discussion of civic engagement in the United States and elsewhere.

Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society: India and Beyond

2001 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashutosh Varshney
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
The People

Scholars have worked either on civil society or on ethnic conflict, but no systematic attempt has yet been made to connect the two. In an attempt to explore the possible links, this article makes two interconnected arguments. First, interethnic and intraethnic networks of civic engagement play very different roles in ethnic conflict. Because they build bridges and manage tensions, interethnic networks are agents of peace. But if communities are organized only along intraethnic lines and the interconnections with other communities are very weak (or do not exist), ethnic violence is then quite likely. Second, civic networks, both intra- and interethnic, can also be broken down into two other types: associational forms of engagement and everyday forms of engagement. This distinction is based on whether civic interaction is formal or not. Both forms of engagement, if robust, promote peace: contrariwise, their absence or weakness opens up space for ethnic violence. Of the two, however, the associational forms turn out to be sturdier than everyday engagement, especially when confronted with attempts by politicians to polarize the people along ethnic lines. Both arguments have significance for theories of ethnic conflict and social capital.

Levels of modeling of mechanisms of visually guided behavior

1987 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Arbib
Keyword(s):  
Neural Circuits ◽  
Neural Circuitry ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Visuomotor Coordination ◽  
Prey Recognition ◽  
High Level ◽  
Organizational Principles ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Dextrous Hands

AbstractIntermediate constructs are required as bridges between complex behaviors and realistic models of neural circuitry. For cognitive scientists in general, schemas are the appropriate functional units; brain theorists can work with neural layers as units intermediate between structures subserving schemas and small neural circuits.After an account of different levels of analysis, we describe visuomotor coordination in terms of perceptual schemas and motor schemas. The interest of schemas to cognitive science in general is illustrated with the example of perceptual schemas in high-level vision and motor schemas in the control of dextrous hands.Rana computatrix, the computational frog, is introduced to show how one constructs an evolving set of model families to mediate flexible cooperation between theory and experiment. Rana computatrix may be able to do for the study of the organizational principles of neural circuitry what Aplysia has done for the study of subcellular mechanisms of learning. Approach, avoidance, and detour behavior in frogs and toads are analyzed in terms of interacting schemas. Facilitation and prey recognition are implemented as tectal-pretectal interactions, with the tectum modeled by an array of tectal columns. We show how layered neural computation enters into models of stereopsis and how depth schemas may involve the interaction of accommodation and binocular cues in anurans.

scholarly journals Saliency Detection by Multilevel Deep Pyramid Model

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai Wang ◽  
Lei Dai ◽  
Yingfeng Cai ◽  
Long Chen ◽  
Yong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Background Noise ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Saliency Detection ◽  
Saliency Map ◽  
Multiple Features ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Pyramid Model ◽  
High Level ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Better Than

Traditional salient object detection models are divided into several classes based on low-level features and contrast between pixels. In this paper, we propose a model based on a multilevel deep pyramid (MLDP), which involves fusing multiple features on different levels. Firstly, the MLDP uses the original image as the input for a VGG16 model to extract high-level features and form an initial saliency map. Next, the MLDP further extracts high-level features to form a saliency map based on a deep pyramid. Then, the MLDP obtains the salient map fused with superpixels by extracting low-level features. After that, the MLDP applies background noise filtering to the saliency map fused with superpixels in order to filter out the interference of background noise and form a saliency map based on the foreground. Lastly, the MLDP combines the saliency map fused with the superpixels with the saliency map based on the foreground, which results in the final saliency map. The MLDP is not limited to low-level features while it fuses multiple features and achieves good results when extracting salient targets. As can be seen in our experiment section, the MLDP is better than the other 7 state-of-the-art models across three different public saliency datasets. Therefore, the MLDP has superiority and wide applicability in extraction of salient targets.

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