An Ontology Based Approach for Regulatory Compliance of EU Reg. No 995/2010 in Greece

Illegal logging has always been considered as a major environmental and social global concern, as it is directly associated with deforestation and climate change. Nowadays, EU Regulation No 995/2010 has been successfully enforced to impede the placement of illegally produced timber within the EU market and therefore to efficiently enhance sustainable forest management and restore ecosystem balance. However, EU 995 regulatory compliance and enforcement itself is quite complex, since it requires long-term conformity, on a common basis for various heterogeneous groups and communities of stakeholders, in a global, even beyond EU, rule regulation framework. To make things worse, such a framework must be applied to the entire supply distribution chain and a wide variety of wood products, ranging from paper pulp to solid wood and flooring. Hence, in such complex and multivariate information environments, an ontological approach can more efficiently support regulatory compliance and knowledge management, due to its openness and richness of semantics for representing, analyzing, interpreting and managing such kind of information. In this paper, a rule-based regulatory compliance ontology is proposed, which fully captures EU Regulation No 995/2010 concepts and compliance rules and guidelines, as well as Greek legislations governing wood trade. The proposed ontology can be the basis for a computerized system providing automated support for illegal wood trade and monitoring EU regulation information provision and audit information storage and analysis.

Culture and the Common European Framework for Languages: A Comparative Corpus Analysis of 2001, 2018 and 2020 Texts

In order to provide “a common basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe”, The Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR) was published in 2001 by the Council of Europe. It has affected the way languages are taught, learnt and assessed and also how foreign language proficiency levels are defined all around the world. The CEFR adopts an intercultural approach to foreign language, and the main purpose is to protect cultural diversity and to give importance to cultural activities rather than being a part of foreign language education. For this reason, culture is at the very core of the CEFR. In 2018 and 2020, two Companion Volumes were published to complement the CEFR. The present paper offers a comparative corpus analysis of these three texts focusing on the occurrences of culture-related items using n-gram tool of Sketch Engine (Lexical Computing, n. d.), which creates frequency lists of sequences of tokens. Based on the findings, it is suggested according to the CEFR that rather than focusing on the national culture of the native speakers of the target language, foreign language education should focus more on the “new culture” formed by the encounters of people coming from different cultures.

Comparison of Road Noise Policies across Australia, Europe, and North America

Developing innovative noise policies that build on international best practices is difficult when policies around the world differ along many dimensions, ranging from different sources covered to different levels of governance involved. This is particularly critical in the context of road traffic, identified as one of the main culprits leading to noise-associated complaints and health issues. In this article, we document the wide range of specifications observed in road traffic policies and propose a methodology to compare noise limits across noise policies. First, we present the responsibilities of administrative governments according to the scope (e.g., emission vs. exposure). Second, we compare noise limits by scope and geographic areas by separating acoustic indicators (overall and event indicators). Third, we convert overall outdoor noise limits into a common basis using the method described by Brink and his associates (2018) and compare them with the World Health Organization (WHO)’s recommendations (2018). Finally, measurement protocols are also compared across outdoor noise policies. This paper shows that road noise is managed at several administrative levels using approaches that are either centralized or decentralized. We also observed disparities in the associated noise limits across geographic areas. The converted outdoor noise limits generally exceeded the WHO’s recommendations (2018). Finally, this paper outlines how outdoor measurement protocols vary across geographic areas. However, similarities were identified between state and provincial noise policies within the same country.

Future-proofing estate landscapes

Climate change and urbanization have substantial ramifications for the management and protection of cultural-historical landscapes. This is especially true for historical estate landscapes – landscapes whose character is defined by several historical castles, country houses (along with their gardens and parks), and landed estates – where climate change adaptation constitutes a major task. Issues of concern include an excess or shortage of water and changes to vegetation as a result of rising temperatures. That pressure is compounded by increasing urbanization and the associated recreational needs. These landscapes are also susceptible to spatial fragmentation due to urbanization, changes in ownership, changes in function, and so on. Combatting these pressures calls for a future-oriented design approach that deals sensitively with historically valuable landscape characteristics. It involves safeguarding the spatial quality of estate landscapes by striking a new balance between utility value (economic exploitation), amenity value (identity and familiarity), and future value (ecological sustainability). Such is the complexity of the task that a regional perspective is required in order to fully comprehend the cohesion and systemic relations between individual country estates and to develop a common basis for collaboration. This article proposes a landscape-based regional design approach aimed at understanding and designing future-proof estate landscapes. It details a preservation-through-development strategy based on spatial development in sympathy with historical landscapes structures in a process of meaningful stakeholder involvement. Key to this process is collaboration and co-creation with owners, experts, policy advisers and others. Design-based research is employed as a method for addressing the complex spatial tasks facing estate landscapes in an integrated and creative manner. Spatial design, at every level of scale, becomes a instrument for working out development strategies and principles for context-specific landscape formation. But also for highlighting possible solutions that can contribute to the protection and development of historical estate landscapes. In other words, this is not about opposing change or locking up the existing landscape, but about creating new landscape qualities through well-designed new developments. This coincides with a collaborative process in which stakeholders jointly weigh the pros and cons, learn and come up with solutions. The combination of substance, involvement and process makes the landscape-based regional design approach a powerful method for increasing the resilience and adaptability of the estate landscape and in so doing making this landscape future-proof.

Civic Identity: Diversity of Meanings and Achievement of Solidarity

The concept of identity reflects the ongoing shifts in political theories when external parameters that did not previously fall into the optics of political research become a part of political reflection and political analysis. Emphasizing sociocultural issues captures not only the departure from the linear normativity of political theory and pragmatics but also the search for modern explanatory models that cannot be reduced merely to institutional determinism. The controversy and ambiguity of the civic identity concept are imposed on the need for interpreting the formation of civic communities in the newly emerged independent countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union (on the example of Russia and Armenia), including the possibilities of protest and project identity. Methodologically the article is based on the perception that the construction of civic identity cannot be reduced to the normative understanding only. The authors bring out the causal complexes that predetermine the construction of civic identity, while also highlighting the differences in how civic communities and their value focuses are perceived and constructed in Russia and Armenia. The authors also define the general features of civic identity, which can be described as a common basis of solidarity, the removal of particularity and a shared vision of the future.

The Correlates of Panethnic Identification: Assessing Similarities and Differences among Latinos and Asians in the United States

Latinos and Asian-Americans constitute the largest recent immigrant groups in the United States. Upon arrival, immigrants from these groups generally identify with their national origin despite being categorized as “Asian” or “Latino” for state enumeration. While both are racialized and excluded from mainstream identities, they differ in their internal linguistic and religious diversities, socioeconomic status, and immigration experiences. Sociologists theorized that Asian-American panethnicity is based on structural commonalities while Latino panethnicity is built upon cultural commonalities. We elaborate the theoretical understanding of contexts associated with this identification and find alternative underpinnings that shape both groups’ panethnic identification. We find generation since immigration is a common basis for elevated likelihood of panethnic identification for both groups. However, among Asian-Americans, we find English proficiency and age increase people’s odds of identifying with a panethnic identity over a national origin term, whereas for Latinos, political affiliation and religiosity increase these odds.

Nietzsche’s early concept of culture

The aim of this paper is to analyze and elucidate Nietzsche’s early definition of culture in Untimely Meditations. In Nietzsche’s early work the concept of culture refers to a shared world, and his idea of culture is concerned with the question of how the shared world is formed. I argue that in his early ideas in relation to this question, Nietzsche believes language and art are significant as the basis for a shared world, and this is reflected in his definition of culture as ‘unity of artistic style in all the expressions of the life of a people’. It is my argument that language is the common basis for a shared world of a people, and art is what shapes the shared world, giving it form or style, and making it richer.

Exploring Neural Signal Complexity as a Potential Link between Creative Thinking, Intelligence, and Cognitive Control

Functional connectivity studies have demonstrated that creative thinking builds upon an interplay of multiple neural networks involving the cognitive control system. Theoretically, cognitive control has generally been discussed as the common basis underlying the positive relationship between creative thinking and intelligence. However, the literature still lacks a detailed investigation of the association patterns between cognitive control, the factors of creative thinking as measured by divergent thinking (DT) tasks, i.e., fluency and originality, and intelligence, both fluid and crystallized. In the present study, we explored these relationships at the behavioral and the neural level, based on N = 77 young adults. We focused on brain-signal complexity (BSC), parameterized by multi-scale entropy (MSE), as measured during a verbal DT and a cognitive control task. We demonstrated that MSE is a sensitive neural indicator of originality as well as inhibition. Then, we explore the relationships between MSE and factor scores indicating DT and intelligence. In a series of across-scalp analyses, we show that the overall MSE measured during a DT task, as well as MSE measured in cognitive control states, are associated with fluency and originality at specific scalp locations, but not with fluid and crystallized intelligence. The present explorative study broadens our understanding of the relationship between creative thinking, intelligence, and cognitive control from the perspective of BSC and has the potential to inspire future BSC-related theories of creative thinking.

Assessment of Airborne Disease Transmission Risk and Energy Impact of HVAC Mitigation Strategies

The COVID-19 pandemic has focused renewed attention on the ways in which building HVAC systems may be operated to mitigate the risk of airborne disease transmission. The most common suggestion is to increase outdoor-air ventilation rates so as to dilute the concentrations of infectious aerosol particles indoors. Although this strategy does reduce the likelihood of disease spread, it is often much more costly than other strategies that provide equivalent particle removal or deactivation. To address this tradeoff and arrive at practical recommendations, we explain how different mitigation strategies can be expressed in terms of equivalent outdoor air (EOA) to provide a common basis for energy analysis. We then show the effects of each strategy on EOA delivery and energy cost in simulations of realistic buildings in a variety of climates. Key findings are that in-duct filtration is often the most efficient mitigation strategy, while significant risk reduction generally requires increasing total airflow to the system, either through adjusted HVAC setpoints or standalone disinfection devices.