Atsakomybės subjekto steigtis technikos amžiuje: Hansas Jonas ir Bruno Latouras

This article opposes the attempts to marginalize ethical issues and defend the thesis of technosphere as an autonomous phenomenon in the Anthropocene. The author points out that by evading the question of ethical perspective and responsibility, the technological activity and its trace are naturalised, and any ethical decision is therefore turned into a technical decision. The comparison of the positions of two philosophers of technology (Hans Jonas and Bruno Latour) enables us to reflect on how technology mediates the constitution of the subject of responsibility in the tension of global and local perspectives. The article shows that Jonas’ “heuristics of fear” leads to the conscious practice of asceticism and the collective control of technical power, while Latour leaves open a possibility of talking about the shared action of a multitude of hybrid actors, in which both the ethical solution is already “contaminated” with the technical and the technical solution retains the trace of the ethical. By using the example of the reverse vending machine, it is shown how ethical motivation is inscribed into technical media, which uses the technological accumulation to link global and local perspectives for environmental purposes.

Admission Control in Home Energy Management Systems Using Theatre and Hybrid Actors

The goal of a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) is that of purposely shaping the cumulative energy consumption curves of domestic appliances by imposing suitable monitoring and control policies. The development of HEMS, like the development of general Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), is challenging, as it requires the exploitation of suitable methodological approaches which are able to deal jointly with the continuous and discrete behaviours of a CPS. In this paper, a methodological approach for HEMS is advocated which relies on the use of the Theatre actor system with hybrid actors. As a key feature, Theatre enables the same actor model to be used during the analysis, design, prototyping and implementation phases of the system. For property assessment, a Theatre model is reduced to Uppaal hybrid timed automata for analysis by statistical model checking. As a significant modelling example, a HEMS is proposed which implements an admission control strategy able to maintain the in-home energy consumption under a given threshold. Instead of reacting to an overload condition, the strategy is able to prevent an overload upfront by predicting the effect that the admission of a new load will have on the consumption curve of the whole system.

ANALYSIS OF THE VULNERABILITIES OF UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES TO CYBER ATTACKS

Recently, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, has increased significantly and the technical advencements in the field have led to new possibilities in several fields, both military and civilian. Air drones help reduce human life risks and costs, and can be used to carry out dangerous and costly missions by replacing human operators. Unmanned aircraft have a wide range of use, from entertainment for enthusiasts to military operations. Large investments, especially in the field of robotics, electronic miniaturization, sensors, network communication, information technology and artificial intelligence help to accelerate and diversify areas of use. The operation of unmanned systems and the applications that use these systems depend, to a large extent, on the cyber systems that are used for data collection, storage, processing and communication. However, these systems also have certain vulnerabilities, which has led various (state or non-state) hybrid actors to develop methods of conducting cyber attacks on drones.

Coexistence of Cooperative Models as Structural Answer to Lock-Ins in Diversification Pathways: The Case of the Walloon Dairy Sector

Drawing on an analysis of the Walloon dairy sector, this paper aims at bringing novel insights on the coexistence issue in agrifood transition studies. Whereas most studies explore the coexistence of farm models, our study focuses on value chains, in particular on cooperatives. In the Walloon Region, new dairy cooperatives emerged, as substitute or as complement to the incumbent vertically integrated dairy cooperatives. This paper focuses on the coexistence of dairy cooperative models as enabler of transition toward product diversification. Dairy cooperatives are hybrid actors: economic agents on the market on the one hand, structure of collective agency on the other hand. Williamson's framework of New Institutional Economics acknowledges that the allocation of resources by cooperatives depends on governance processes and on the wider institutional context in which the cooperatives evolve. Within the broader frame of the Multi-Level Perspective, this approach allows to consider the socio-technical coherence in which the cooperatives evolve, the effects of this coherence on their pathways of development, and the complementarity of the cooperative models. This qualitative analysis builds on semi-directed interviews with actors of the Walloon dairy sector. The results outline distinctions between the new cooperative models and mainstream dairy cooperatives in market approach, definition of milk quality, distribution of added value, governance, and interactions with partners. Both models evolve within a distinct socio-technical coherence, holding, in the case of the mainstream dairy cooperatives, lock-ins to diversification related to the relationship with the farmer-members and the milk they produce in the industrial vertically integrated model. The new cooperative models circumvent these lock-ins through de-integration and externalization of initiatives, remuneration, and risk. They allow specific groups of actors—still related or unrelated to the mainstream dairy cooperative—to explore new market pathways in accordance with their potential, and to mutually agree on criteria qualifying milk. This research draws the picture of a possible reconfiguration of the dairy landscape toward a more diversified ecosystem of actors and invites to consider structures of governance in collective action as a cornerstone issue, because of their significant role in terms of enablement, coexistence, and complementarity throughout the transition process.

Hamas and Hezbollah: hybrid actors between resistance and governance

This analytical review essay discusses five recent books on Hamas and Hezbollah, which see the groups as peculiar yet increasingly important actors in the Middle East and in international relations more broadly. The books illustrate a growing attention to these actors, not merely as armed spoilers, but as legitimate incumbents in national elections and providers of local governance. They also highlight the challenges this approach creates for traditional International Relations (IR) frameworks, in which such actors are not easily situated. Together, the books provide a rich actor-centred perspective on these cases and display various complementary social scientific theories, methods and data with which they can be approached. This review aims to tease out the novel insights these works and cases have to offer for recent debates on norm contestation in IR. Rather than evaluating these actors' discourse and behaviour against western normative frameworks in IR and international politics, the books contribute by exposing a wealth of different norms, and different approaches to interpreting and applying norms, beyond those frameworks.