The Making of Meaning through Dyadic Haptic Affective Touch

Despite the importance of touch in human–human relations, research in affective tactile practices is in its infancy, lacking in-depth understanding needed to inform the design of remote digital touch communication. This article reports two qualitative studies that explore tactile affective communication in specific social contexts, and the bi-directional creation, sending and interpretation of digital touch messages using a purpose-built research tool, the Tactile Emoticon. The system comprises a pair of remotely connected mitts, which enable users in different locations to communicate through tactile messages, by orchestrating duration and level of three haptic sensations: vibration, pressure and temperature. Qualitative analysis shows the nuanced ways in which 68 participants configured these elements to make meaning from touch messages they sent and received. It points to the affect and emotion of touch, its sensoriality and ambiguity, the significance of context, social norms and expectations of touch participants. Findings suggest key design considerations for digital touch communication, where the emphasis shifts from generating ‘recognizable touches’ to tools that allow people to shape their touches and establish common understanding about their meaning.

Who Wants to Grant Robots Rights?

The robot rights debate has thus far proceeded without any reliable data concerning the public opinion about robots and the rights they should have. We have administered an online survey (n = 439) that investigates layman’s attitudes toward granting particular rights to robots. Furthermore, we have asked them the reasons for their willingness to grant them those rights. Finally, we have administered general perceptions of robots regarding appearance, capacities, and traits. Results show that rights can be divided in sociopolitical and robot dimensions. Reasons can be distinguished along cognition and compassion dimensions. People generally have a positive view about robot interaction capacities. We found that people are more willing to grant basic robot rights such as access to energy and the right to update to robots than sociopolitical rights such as voting rights and the right to own property. Attitudes toward granting rights to robots depend on the cognitive and affective capacities people believe robots possess or will possess in the future. Our results suggest that the robot rights debate stands to benefit greatly from a common understanding of the capacity potentials of future robots.

The Demand Side of Democratic Backsliding: How Divergent Understandings of Democracy Shape Political Choice

Why do citizens in democracies fail to punish political candidates who openly violate democratic standards at the ballot box? The bulk of existing research assumes that a common understanding of democracy underpins citizens’ evaluations of different candidates, resulting in a trade-off between undemocratic practices and partisan or economic considerations. We shed doubt on this assumption by showing that divergent understandings of democracy coexist among citizens and affect vote choice. We leverage a novel approach to estimate individual-level citizen commitment to democracy by means of a candidate choice conjoint experiment in Poland, a country experiencing democratic backsliding in a context of deep polarization. We find support for our claim that respondents with less clear-cut liberal democratic attitudes not only tolerate democratic violations more readily, but do so irrespective of a given candidate’s partisan affiliation. Thus, we contend that a lack of attitudinal consolidation around liberal democratic norms explains continued voter support for authoritarian-leaning leaders.

Managing User Integration

The importance of robotics and assistive technologies for healthcare is increasing. For their introduction into practical application, the continuous integration of the user perspective is crucial to ensure acceptance and usability. This can be achieved by the user-centered design approach. In an earlier publication, several problems with its functional implementation within research and development (R&D) projects were pointed out. This chapter discusses possible solutions to promote an effective integration of the user perspective in R&D projects based on six interviews with experts from Germany. The results can be summarized in three main requirements: first, the generation of a common understanding of the target group; second, a scientific research approach considering the context of technology usage; third, projectification, with a focus on efficient resource planning, the development of generic technologies, and technology evaluations with the user group. Leaders of innovative projects can benefit from implementing these strategies in the development process.

CONCEPT OF WALI MUJBIR IN MARRIAGE (LEGAL CRITICISM OF COUNTER LEGAL DRAFT COMPILATION OF ISLAMIC LAW)

Responding to demands from a group of parties to formalize Islamic law, the Counter Legal Draft Compilation of Islamic Law (CLD KHI) team has compiled a pluralist, democratic, humanist, and gender fair Islamic law text.This manuscript reaps pros and cons during society because it is considered not in line with the values contained in the Qur’an and hadith.Because of the discrepancy between the opinions of most jurists in general with the contents of the CLD-KHI, of course, it will result in the absence of legal certainty in the future. The object of this research is only focused on the concept of walimujbir. The method used in this research is a qualitative method with a descriptive approach, data is collected openly according to what is obtained from primary and secondary sources. The results of this study indicate that the presence of a guardian in a marriage is positioned as a pillar of Marriage. In contrast, in the CLD-KHI formulation, a guardian is not required in a marriage. The formulation of Islamic family law reform offered by CLD-KHI is based solely on public logic, local wisdom, and on several perspectives such as democracy, pluralism, human rights, justice, gender equality, and western ideology. In matters of marriage, especially regarding guardians of mujbir, the ideas of CLD-KHI are different and even contradict the common understanding of principles of Islamic teachings and practices.

Cyber Warfare: National Security In Dealing With Changing Method of War

The purpose of this research is to identify cyber warfare as a model of War, its position in the perspective of international law, and the steps taken by the state in minimizing losses arising from cyber warfare. This research is normative research using conceptual and statute approaches to answer the problems in this research. The analysis used is content analysis. The study results indicate a need for a common understanding of cyber warfare as a new model of war agreed upon by countries in practice. Normative cyber warfare in international law has to be applied universally. The periodic simulations of cyber defense and artificial intelligence are needed in minimizing the losses caused by cyber warfare. The recommendation is to formulate a definition of cyber warfare universally agreed upon and the state's agreement on the meaning of cyber warfare in international law perspectives.

A System for Measurement and Analysis of Aircraft Noise Impacts

The Metroplex Overflight Noise Analysis (MONA) project seeks to measure, analyze, and archive the ground noise generated by aircraft overflights and to provide accurate and actionable data for a variety of different purposes. On the one hand, experimental datasets collected and processed by the MONA system can serve as an openly-available database for validation and verification (V&V) of improved noise prediction methods. On the other, study conclusions derived from both the experimental and computational data can serve to inform technical discussions and options involving aircraft noise, aircraft routes, and the potential impacts of the FAA’s NextGen procedure changes on overflown communities at varying distances from the airport. Given the complex interdependencies between the noise levels perceived on the ground and the air-traffic patterns that generate the aircraft noise, a secondary goal of the MONA project is to share, through compelling visualizations, key results with broad communities of stakeholders to help generate a common understanding and reach better decisions more quickly. In this paper, we focus on the description of the MONA system architecture, its design, and its current set of capabilities. Subsequent publications will focus on the results we are obtaining though the use of the MONA system.

Language Markers of Leadership in Political Discourse

Leadership as an indispensable element of social relations is an object of research within different schools of thought; however, its common understanding has not been developed yet. Different authors share the opinion that leadership includes authority, ability to lead, take decisions, influence people, organize and structure group interaction, unite people to achieve a goal. In linguistics it is studied in sociolinguistics, political and anthropological linguistics. In the research the authors aim at detecting special language markers of leadership in the speech of a political leader which are verbalized by language means of different language layers, while their choice depends on sociocultural codes shared by the leader, typical of certain linguoculture, age, social, professional group, and stipulated by individual features of the leader’s personality. Considering the existing approaches to linguistic markers analysis, the authors point out at the relevance of sociolinguistic and athropolinguistic approaches, as these markers lie in the area of intersection of social dialect and leader’s idiolect. On the material of the interview of V.V. Putin to NBC journalist the authors attempt to detect, describe and classify markers of leadership in the political leader’ discourse. To define the lexical means of verbalization of leadership the authors employ the theoretical insights of conceptual fields theory. Pragmarhetoric markers are studied through speech acts theory. The research proved the authors’ hypothesis that a leader’s speech contains a multi-level complex of language markers of leadership, i.e. lexical and pragmarhetoric units which express the phenomenon of leadership in the discourse of a political leader.

Understanding Our Power to Harm

We don’t talk to boys about sexual violence with the same intensity and regularity that we talk to girls. It’s no wonder, then, that many grow into men with limited understandings of how to ensure the safety of themselves and their partners. Chapter 7 provides a deeper dive into sexual misconduct policies. It identifies common misunderstandings that boys have of policies and provides some practical tips on how to correct those deficiencies. Particular emphasis is placed on the common understanding that alcohol usage absolves one from fault. The chapter also provides tips on how boys can better navigate a sexual arena where they perceive themselves to have a lot of risk. Chief among these tips is the suggestion that boys are free to hold themselves to standards that exceed what laws and policies expect of them.

Durational Metamorphosis

This chapter examines the phenomenological and aesthetic effects of “durational metamorphoses,” slow movements of incremental change that result in a sense of visual transformation, such as a sunrise or the shape-shifting of clouds. These movements have become hallmarks of “slow cinema” in the last twenty years, but also can be traced back to the non-narrative experiments of structural film such as Fogline (Gottheim, 1970) or the landscape films of James Benning (e.g., Ten Skies, 2004). By analyzing sequences featuring durational metamorphoses across narrative films and video installations such as Silent Light (Reygadas, 2007), The Locked Garden (Viola, 2000), and Cemetery of Splendor (Apichatpong, 2015), this chapter demonstrates how a phenomenology of durational metamorphoses can help rethink the discourse of cinematic slowness, which often treats slowness and stasis as occasions to retreat away from the perception of the screen and toward contemplation. Against this common understanding of slowness, this chapter argues that durational metamorphoses compel perceptual encounters with slowness as a form of movement, one that presents Bergsonian duration in visual form.