China – EU’s “Significant Other”?

Following the idea of the “other” in the work of Ernesto Laclau and the perspective of post-foundational discourse analysis, the study focusses on Chinese strategical internal and external pre- and post-Covid-19 political specifics and policies and how they interact (or contradict) with the “European” vision of the world and most importantly itself. As Laclau says, “the notion of “constitutive outside” emphasizes the always present possibility that differential relationship between an entity and its “constitutive outside” turns into antagonism.” For more than three decades, the EC/EU has been steadily building up its foreign relations architecture and has proven its desire to project its ideals and values worldwide. However, during the same period, after “the century of humiliation,” China has also reached a point in its history where it wants to see the world according to its national interests and views. This work attempts to analyze some key features inherent to both the EU and China, such as strategies, relation with other countries, typical governmental architecture, and some aspects of identity, which could help in better understanding the possible contradictions and areas of cooperation in their way of conceptualizing themselves as key players on the world stage. This will reflect the need for greater European civic awareness in the upcoming decades, as suggested by the author.

Non-inverse kinematics of free-floating space robot based on motion planning of sampling

Motion planning is one of the fundamental technologies for robots to achieve autonomy. Free-floating space robots composed manipulators and base satellite that do not actively control its position and attitude has nonholonomic characteristics, and there is a first-order differential relationship between its joint angle and the base attitude. In addition, the planning framework which first converts the goal end-effector pose to its corresponding target configuration, and then plan the trajectory from the initial configuration to the goal configuration still has the following problems: the goal configuration and the initial configuration may not be in the same connected domain. Based on the RRT framework, the motion planning of a free-floating space robot from the initial configuration to the goal end-effector pose is studied. In the algorithm design, in order to deal with the differential constraints of the free-floating space robot, and the requirement that the attitude disturbance of its base cannot exceed its limit, a control-based local planner for random configuration guiding growth of the tree and a control-based local planner for goal end-effector pose guiding growth of the tree that can adjust the attitude of the base when necessary are proposed. The former can ensure the effective exploration of the configuration space, and the latter can avoid the occurrence of singularity while ensuring that the algorithm converges quickly and the base attitude disturbance meets the constraints. The present algorithm does not need to solve the inverse kinematics, can successfully complete the planning task, and ensure that the base attitude disturbance meets the requirements. The simulation verifies the effectiveness of the algorithm.

Moral Concern Toward Different Categories of Animal Species: Using the Animal Moral Concern Scale to Examine Animal-Related Self-Perceptions and Behaviors

Scholars have called for increasing theoretical and empirical attention to the diversity of humananimalrelations, aiming to better understand the psychological mechanisms that underliehumans’ varied perceptions of and interactions with different types of animal species. Employingdata from 1650 adults demographically representative of the United States population, weexplored the factorial structure of individuals’ level of moral concern towards differentcategories of animals; developed a 15-item multidimensional Animal Moral Concern Scale(AMCS), and investigated the relations of AMCS scores with external variables. We found thatmoral concern towards animals can be represented by a bifactor structure where a general factorcaptures “level of concern towards animals in general,” and four specific factors capture theresidualized concern towards “Wild,” “Farm/Food,” “Pest”, and “Companion” animals. Factorscores of the AMCS showed differential relationship with participants’ perceived level of beingan animal lover, diet choices, and engagement with animal welfare support activities.

Differential Relationship of Grip Strength With Body Composition and Lifestyle Factors Between Indian Urban and Rural, Boys and Girls

Grip strength (GS) is used as an index of overall health in children. The objectives of our study were to assess GS, gender differences in GS in 9 -18 year old urban (U) and rural (R) Indian children, study association of GS with body composition (BC) and assess determinants. This was part of a multicentre, cross sectional, school-based study (n=1978, mean age 13.3 ± 2.2 years) from 3 U and R states. Anthropometry, BC, dietary intake, physical activity, sunlight exposure and GS (in Kg) measurements were performed. The mean GS increased with age but plateaued in girls after 12 years; was higher in boys (19.6 ± 9.2) than girls (14.3 ± 5.3) (p < 0.05). Mean GS was higher in U (21.05 ± 9.7) than in R boys (17.8 ± 8.2) (p < 0.05), comparable in U (14.9 ± 5.2) and R girls (13.8 ± 5.5). GS in girls remained lower than boys after adjusting for muscle mass (MM). Difference between boys and girls reduced after body size (BMI) correction, but remained low in girls plateauing after 15 years. MM and age were significant determinants of GS in all children. On addition of lifestyle factors, GS was explained to varied degrees, the least in U girls, followed by R girls and R boys and the most in U boys. Conclusion: In boys, nutrition though body size and composition was largely responsible for the differences in GS and in girls, additionally socio-cultural factors also possibly impact GS.

When personality gets under the skin: Need for uniqueness and body modifications

Do individuals modify their bodies in order to be unique? The present study sought to investigate need for uniqueness (NfU) subcomponents as possible motives for modifying one’s body. To this end, the study obtained information from 312 participants about their NfU (using the German NfU-G global scale and three sub-scales) and their body modifications (tattoos, piercings, and extreme body modifications such as tongue splitting). By analyzing the three subcomponents of NfU, the study was able to investigate the differential relationship of the sub-scales with the outcome measures, which facilitated a fine-grained understanding of the NfU–body-modification relationship. The study found that tattooed, pierced, and extreme-body-modified individuals had higher NfU-G scores than individuals without body modifications. Moreover, it seemed that individuals with tattoos took a social component into consideration while lacking concern regarding others’ reaction toward their tattoos, although not wanting to cause affront. Pierced and extreme-body-modified individuals, contrarily, tended to display a propensity to actively flout rules and not worry about others’ opinions on their modifications. However, although statistically significant, the effect size (d) for the NfU-G differences in the tattooed and pierced participants’ mean scores was small to medium in all three subcomponents. The extreme-body-modified group presented medium and medium to large effects. Further, the study observed that the number of body modifications increased with an increasing NfU in tattooed and pierced individuals. These findings demonstrated multifaceted interrelations between the NfU, its subcomponents, and the three kinds of body modifications investigated in the present study.