Building a Circular Economy Model for Managing Exploitation of Household Used Devices on the Example of Washing Machine Driven by DC Motor Along with Components

In the article, the authors describe, using the example of a selected class of technical means, their concept of replacing the “classical” linear management (exploitation) model with a circular economy (CE) model. An example of an object for which the authors plan to test the feasibility of the concept presented above is a household washing machine driven by a DC motor. The description of this object included in the article considers its complexity and multiplicity of assemblies, sub-assemblies, and elements. The DC electric motor driving the washing machine was considered the most important from the point of view of the created model, especially in terms of the possibility of maintenance and repair. For such an engine, the article presents the maintenance and disposal model as elements of the concept of building a ‘circular’ business model. The authors assumed that the formal basis for such a model would be the so-called circular model. The methodology and plan of the research carried out at Super Asia washing machine company in Pakistan were introduced, and the research results were shown. With the use of these results, an attempt was made to assess the requirements that the application of the CE business model places on manufacturers of a selected class of devices, both in their manufacture, repair, sharing and dematerialization. The concept of further research is described at the end of the article.

Climbing Mount Probable

Chapter 8 provides the formal basis to recognize biases in the introduction of variation as a cause of evolutionary biases. The shifting-gene-frequencies theory of the Modern Synthesis posits a “buffet” view in which evolution is merely a process of shifting the frequencies of pre-existing alleles, without new mutations. Within this theory, mutation is represented like selection or drift, as a “force” that shifts frequencies. Yet, within a broader conception of evolution, a second kind of causal process is required: an introduction process that can shift a frequency upwards from 0, which selection and drift cannot do. Abstract models demonstrate the influence of biases in the introduction process in one-step and multi-step adaptive walks. Such biases do not require mutation biases per se, but may arise from effects of development, and from the differential accessibility of alternative forms in abstract possibility-spaces.

BIM-Based Description of Intelligent Transportation Systems for Roads

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) provide safer, greener, and more convenient mobility, while reducing the impact on the environment. In recent years, simulation platforms have been employed to study ITS applications, mostly focusing on traffic-related simulations. Despite several research studies on ITS applications and simulation platforms, formal semantic descriptions of intelligent transportation systems have not been addressed yet. In this paper, a semantic model describing intelligent transportation systems for roads is proposed. The semantic model is devised to provide a basis for designing ITS simulation platforms. Building upon the semantic model, an extension to an open building information modeling (BIM) standard, i.e., the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema, is presented. The IFC schema extension is verified and validated using a BIM-based simulation scenario of ITS for roads. It is shown that the proposed IFC-compliant description of ITS for roads provides a formal basis for generating BIM-based simulations and hence facilitates ITS infrastructure modeling in BIM projects. It is concluded that the present work represents a cornerstone for designing BIM-based ITS simulation platforms. In future endeavors, potential standardization and formalization efforts may be discussed.

Formal Basis of a Language Universal

Steedman (2020) proposes as a formal universal of natural language grammar that grammatical permutations of the kind that have given rise to transformational rules are limited to a class known to mathematicians and computer scientists as the “separable” permutations. This class of permutations is exactly the class that can be expressed in combinatory categorial grammars (CCGs). The excluded non-separable permutations do in fact seem to be absent in a number of studies of crosslinguistic variation in word order in nominal and verbal constructions. The number of permutations that are separable grows in the number n of lexical elements in the construction as the Large Schröder Number Sn−1. Because that number grows much more slowly than the n! number of all permutations, this generalization is also of considerable practical interest for computational applications such as parsing and machine translation. The present article examines the mathematical and computational origins of this restriction, and the reason it is exactly captured in CCG without the imposition of any further constraints.

We collaborate with everyone, but with some more than others: evidence of stakeholder collaboration among internal security professional higher education institutions

The aim of this article is to identify the main stakeholders of institutions of professional higher education in the field of internal security in selected countries, and the most important collaboration practices, and the factors that affect collaboration. Within the framework of a qualitative phenomenographic study, interviews were conducted with representatives of Estonian, German, Finnish, and Norwegian institutions of professional education in the field of internal security. The results showed that institutions of professional higher education differ from traditional universities in prioritizing their main stakeholders, putting employers first, and not students. In addition, the ministries under whose government they operate, and other higher education institutions were named as the main stakeholders. Collaboration with stakeholders is mostly based on common interests and personal relationships (e.g., mediation, networking, joint reputation building, collaboration councils), on some kind of formal basis (e.g., feedback system, collaboration councils) or subordination (e.g., execution of orders and instructions, trading). The aspects most influencing collaboration were considered to be the aspects related to trust and professionalism, and in particular informal collaboration was valued. The results of this study enabled the author to supplement a framework from a previous study, which originally described the theoretical collaboration of the stakeholders of an institution of higher education in the field of internal security; this was supplemented by adding the dimension of collaboration diversity.

ASSESSMENT OF THE FREQUENCY AND RATIONALITY OF PRESCRIBED MEDICINES IN PATIENTS WITH LIVER CIRRHOSIS

The aim. Assessment of the dynamics of prescribing drugs to patients with liver cirrhosis (LC, K 74), in terms of real clinical practice by methods of clinical and economic analysis. Materials and methods. 355 medical cards of inpatients with cirrhosis of the liver, which were divided into 4 groups depending on the period of stay of patients in the hospital. Methods: compatible retrospective ABC-frequency analysis, which ranked drugs consumed by patients in real clinical practice, according to the frequency of appointment using ABC-segmentation according to the Pareto principle (A – 80 % of drugs appointments: B – 15 %: C – 5 %); VEN-analysis, which divides the consumed drugs on a formal basis depending on the presence / absence of a particular drug in the regulations: vital (Vital or V), necessary (Essential or E) and secondary (Non-essential or N). Results. Cirrhosis of the liver in recent years has been on the 10th - 11th place among the causes of death in the world. The analysis of prescribed drugs to patients with LC in real clinical practice in Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine revealed that over the years doctors prescribed fewer drugs on average per patient (11.4 drugs → 8.8 drugs), which can be considered a positive fact. Among the prescribed drugs, drugs of group A – “Drugs that affect the digestive system and metabolism” prevailed, the share of which increased and was the highest in 2019 – 2020 (2007–2009 – 44.6 %; 2012–2013 – 46.6 %; 2015–2016 – 48.1 %; 2019–2020 – 48.55 %); the share of dietary supplements also increased from 1.65 % to 6.52 %. Conclusions. Combined ABC-frequency and VEN-analyzes showed that the leaders in the years of hospital stay were the following drugs: Sodium chloride, Ademetionine, Pantoprazole, Spironolactone, Thioctic acid, Ornithine, Asparaginate K-Mg, Torasemide, Furosemide. However, the vital class V included only 9–11 % of drugs from the whole set of prescribed drugs, which requires systemic correction in accordance with European recommendations.

Classical Mathematical Integrated Information Theory

This paper is an attempt to give mathematical structure to classical integrated information theory by Masafumi Oizumi, Larissa Albantakis, Giulio Tononi, using the definition provided by Giulio Tononi and making few assumptions like the mechanisms are open subset of set of elements and system is the topology of the set of elements. This would make IIT accessible to a wide audience, with more formal basis who can then apply it to non-biological objects too.

Analysing Norm-Based Advocacy Strategies to Address Asylum on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Europe

Whether and under what circumstances forced migrants can claim asylum on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI) are questions that have received much attention in recent years as issues of human security are increasingly considered by scholars, civil society organization (CSO) practitioners, and the international community. Although there is an international institutional framework in place that establishes the bases for claiming asylum, SOGI is not explicitly mentioned, resulting in institutional gaps that potentially expose survivors of SOGI-related human rights violations to the risk of being denied international protection. At the regional level, individual member states within the European Union (EU) can interpret international legislation differently, resulting in inconsistencies in terms of who is granted protection. This situation has mobilized many CSOs to take action and work to create normative change. This article analyses how specific norm-based strategies for change that have been identified in advocacy work addressing other social and political issues are currently being applied to advocate for SOGI as a formal basis for claiming international protection in Europe. The analysis draws upon CSO documents, writings, and discourse in order to identify the norms they criticize and attempt to weaken, and to uncover the alternative norms they promote. Because norms are a key component of both formal and informal institutions, the article sheds light on how CSOs can use norm-based strategies as powerful mechanisms for advancing political and social change.