scholarly journals Keeping Systems at Work

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antti Silvast ◽  
Mikko J Virtanen

This article discusses the reliability of electricity supply and the management of its uncertainties from a systems theoretical point of view. We begin by outlining recent Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature about energy systems, infrastructures and practices concerning their use and argue that many current discussions hold promise in two directions: one concerns the brittleness and uncertainty of the electricity system that is seen as an ongoing achievement, the other is about broader structuring factors and contexts that should also be acknowledged when researching such systems. With an aim of developing this two-part focus, the paper advances systems theoretical considerations about the electricity infrastructure and proposes an analysis tool to study the necessary reductions of complexity of the infrastructure in two emblematic settings. The sites are infrastructure control rooms on the one hand and households on the other hand. The article concludes by discussing the different reductions of complexity by electricity users and electricity experts through using the theoretical point of view presented in the article.

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 590-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Furley ◽  
Geoffrey Schweizer

The goal of the present paper was to investigate whether soccer referees’ nonverbal behavior (NVB) differed based on the difficulty of their decisions and whether perceivers could detect these systematic variations. On the one hand, communicating confidence via NVB is emphasized in referee training. On the other hand, it seems feasible from a theoretical point of view that particularly following relatively difficult decisions referees have problems controlling their NVB. We conducted three experiments to investigate this question. Experiment 1 (N = 40) and Experiment 2 (N = 60) provided evidence that perceivers regard referees’ NVB as less confident following ambiguous decisions as compared with following unambiguous decisions. Experiment 3 (N = 58) suggested that perceivers were more likely to debate with the referee when referees nonverbally communicated less confidence. We discuss consequences for referee training.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Celestin Messanga Obama

Promotion to high office in the Cameroonian administration, appear to be one of the main topic of political communication in Cameroun. The communitarian claims of appointment put both individuals and communities in competitive situations and are often the source of social conflicts. The problem is to understand the focus of political communication on appointment in the Administration in Cameroon and the possible link that it could have with conflictuality in the country. From a theoretical point of view, each act of appointment can be understood as a message from the President of the Republic whose power of appointment is unlimited. The president’s acts of appointment; on the one hand; and the demands from communities, on the other, appear to be a kind of communication. Data analysis will be guided by the theory of "the actor and the system". From a methodological point of view, we used documentary observation in the national and international press. We also had an in-depth interview with a former minister who, however, requested anonymity. Finally, our 26-year service as an employee gives us the advantage of experience gained through participatory observation. It appeared that appointment, through the numerous and consistent advantages that it confers on the promoted, thus appears to the citizens, as the main means of access to the fortune from which the covetousness of both the individuals and their communities of origin arises. Unfortunately, the state is unable to meet all expectations. However, individual, as well as community, strategies of access to appointments expose the nation to more division than cohesion.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Pfeiffer

AbstractFrom a theoretical point of view, most researchers agree that phraseological modifications are characterized by three key features: 1. occasionality, 2. intentional deviance from conventional use, and 3. context-boundedness. The present paper deals with the feature of occasionality and its operationalization in the context of text-based phraseological research. In text-based studies to date, occasionality has been identified with an absence of lexicographic codification. Phraseological structures and meanings registered in dictionaries have been regarded as conventional, uncodified structures and meanings, as occasional and, eventually, as modifications unless there is clear evidence of an unacceptable and incorrect use of the phraseme. In this paper, however, it is argued that a simple identification of lexicographic codification and conventionality on the one hand and non-codification and occasionality on the other does not permit an adequate distinction between conventional and occasional uses of phraseological units. Instead, in the approach proposed here, it is the relative frequency of the particular phraseological form in the DeReKo corpus (Deutsches Referenzkorpus) that is used as the distinctive criterion to decide upon its status as conventional or occasional.


Author(s):  
Yves Mausen

Abstract The logic of evidence in Bartolistic literature, A reading of the Summa circa testes et examinationem eorum (Ms. Bruxelles, B.R., II 1442, fol.101 ra – 103 rb). – Bartolus teaches how to read testimonies from a logical point of view. On the one hand, the facts that the witness recounts constitute the minor premise of a syllogism, its conclusion being their legal characterization; therefore he is prohibited from pronouncing directly on any legal matter. On the other hand, given that the witness' knowledge of the facts has to stem from sensory perception, the information he provides has at least to constitute the minor premise of another syllogism, making for establishing the causa of his testimony.


1928 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 665-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy J. Jackson

It is well known that in many orders of typically winged insects species occur which in the adult stage are apterous or have the wings so reduced in size that flight is impossible. Sometimes the reduction of wings affects one sex only, as in the case of the females of certain moths, but in the majority of cases it is exhibited by both sexes. In many instances wing dimorphism occurs irrespective of sex, one form of the species having fully developed wings and the other greatly reduced wings. In some species the wings are polymorphic. The problem of the origin of reduced wings and of other functionless organs is one of great interest from the evolutionary point of view. Various theories have been advanced in explanation, but in the majority of cases the various aspects of the subject are too little known to warrant discussion. More experimental work is required to show how far environmental conditions on the one hand, and hereditary factors on the other, are responsible for this phenomenon. Those species which exhibit alary dimorphism afford material for the study of the inheritance of the two types of wings, but only in a few cases has this method of research been utilized.


Diogenes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitko Momov

Rosemberg (1991) has made a critical review of a long-standing discussion between Eastern philologists and Buddhist philosophers. The discussion is centered around the translation of the doctrine on the one hand, and its philosophical systematization on the other hand. When scientific-philological translation prevails, the literal meaning of Buddhist terminology is declared to be its basis. The young scholar, who had specialized in Japan, studied Buddhism from Japanese and Chinese sources and collected lexicographic material from non-Hindu sources. After comparing them, he encountered inaccuracies in the translation. In an attempt to overcome them, he preferred the point of view of the philosophy of Buddhism. The conclusion that he has drawn in the preface of this edition is that the study should begin with a systematization of antiquity.


Author(s):  
Anna D. Bertova ◽  

Prominent Japanese economist, specialist in colonial politics, a professor of Im­perial Tokyo University, Yanaihara Tadao (1893‒1961) was one of a few people who dared to oppose the aggressive policy of Japanese government before and during the Second World War. He developed his own view of patriotism and na­tionalism, regarding as a true patriot a person who wished for the moral develop­ment of his or her country and fought the injustice. In the years leading up to the war he stated the necessity of pacifism, calling every war evil in the ultimate, divine sense, developing at the same time the concept of the «just war» (gisen­ron), which can be considered good seen from the point of view of this, imper­fect life. Yanaihara’s theory of pacifism is, on one hand, the continuation of the one proposed by his spiritual teacher, the founder of the Non-Church movement, Uchimura Kanzo (1861‒1930); one the other hand, being a person of different historical period, directly witnessing the boundless spread of Japanese militarism and enormous hardships brought by the war, Yanaihara introduced a number of corrections to the idealistic theory of his teacher and proposed quite a specific explanation of the international situation and the state of affairs in Japan. Yanai­hara’s philosophical concepts influenced greatly both his contemporaries and successors of the pacifist ideas in postwar Japan, and contributed to the dis­cussion about interrelations of pacifism and patriotism, and also patriotism and religion.


1886 ◽  
Vol 3 (8) ◽  
pp. 359-367
Author(s):  
J. H. Collins

My argument that at Porthalla there is a “passage” from hornblende-schist to serpentine; or rather that some beds of a common series have been changed into serpentine, others into hornblende-schist, and others again into a substance of intermediate character, is, I think, much strengthened by the fact that many such “apparent passages” are admitted to exist by all those who have examined the Lizard Coast with any degree of detail. De la Beche's description of that seen near the Lizard Town is as follows, and it would apply equally well to the others. “The hornblende slate,” he says, “supports the great mass of the Lizard serpentine with an apparent passage of the one into the other in many places—an apparent passage somewhat embarrassing,” that is, from his point of view; from mine it is perfectly natural. He goes on to say: “Whatever the cause of this apparent passage may have been, it is very readily seen at Mullion Cove, at Pradanack Point, at the coast west of Lizard Town, and at several places on the east coast between Landewednack and Kennick Cove, more especially under the Balk … and at the remarkable cavern and open cavity named the Frying-Pan, near Cadgwith.” At Kynance some of the laminse of serpentine are not more than one-tenth of an inch in thickness for considerable distances.


The investigation of development described in a previous communication was extended by the application of microscopic methods. The fact that both the silver haloid and the resulting silver are distributed through the film in the form of particles of minute but measurable size, allows us in this way to detect finer qualitative differences in, and to draw independent deductions on the processes of exposure and development. The size of the grain is important, both from the practical point of view and from the theoretical: in the one case as bearing on spectroscopical and astronomical photography, in the other on account of the great importance of the degree of surface-extension for heterogeneous systems. The method has been used previously by Abney, Abegg, Kaiserling, Ebert, and others, but by far the most systematic and important inquiry is that of K. Schaum and V. Bellach.


Philosophy ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Moore

The author begins with an outline of Bernard William's moral philosophy, within which he locates William's notorious doctrine that reflection can destroy ethical knowledge. He then gives a partial defence of this doctrine, exploiting an analogy between ethical judgements and tensed judgements. The basic idea is that what the passage of time does for the latter, reflection can do for the former: namely, prevent the re-adoption of an abandoned point of view (an ethical point of view in the one case, a temporal point of view in the other). In the final section the author says a little about how reflection might do this.


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