Role Of Agents Research Articles

Allocation of Limited Resources in a System with a Stable Hierarchy (on the Example of the Prospective Military Communications System)

The article is devoted to the formalization of the resource allocation problem in the hierarchical social system, where resources are distributed according to the agent's role in the system. We study the application of a proposed mathematical model to the organization of the special purpose communication network. Also, we propose an algorithm of the automatic partitioning of the radio communication system according to the role of nodes. None of the nodes has complete knowledge about the entire communication system, and the initially unknown information about the purpose of nodes is established in the process of the beacons exchange.

Effects of personalization and social role in voice shopping: An experimental study on product recommendation by a conversational voice agent

This study examines the persuasion mechanism in product recommendations made by a voice-based conversational agent and explores whether the personalized content reflecting the customer's preferences and the agent's social role of a friend, rather than a secretary, generate a more positive attitude toward the product in the context of voice shopping. With the framework of dual modes of information-processing models, we hypothesized that the personalization of messages would be a central route with a greater impact on attitude for products with high involvement. By contrast, the social role of the conversational agent was expected to represent a peripheral route with a greater impact on products with low involvement. An experimental study was designed to test the effects of personalized content that reflected individual preferences for product attributes and a friend role of a voice agent with high and low product involvement. The results showed main effects of both personalization and the social role on building attitudes toward the product. Although no interaction effect for personalization and involvement was found, there was a significant interaction effect for the social role and involvement. This study contributes to persuasion theory by extending it to the interaction with a conversational agent. For practitioners, the study provides insights into the importance of the personalized content of recommendations and the need for consideration of an alternative social role in the design of voice shopping through a conversational agent.

PERAN KEPEMIMPINAN KEPALA DINAS DALAM PEMBENTUKAN BUDAYA KERJA DI KANTOR DINAS PEMBERDAYAAN MASYARAKAT DAN DESA KABUPATEN KUTAI TIMUR

This study aims to describe the leadership role of the head of the department in shaping the work culture in the Office of the Community and Village Empowerment Office of East Kutai Regency. The results showed that the role of the East Kutai Regency Community and Village Empowerment Agency's role was interpersonal and informational going well. In the role of decision making goes poor.Keywords: Leadership, Work Culture

Public Discourse and Category Formation: A Topic Modelling Exploration of ‘Historical Shops’ on Italian Media

This paper addresses the role of public discourse in processes of category formation. Tracing the emergence and diffusion of a category on the media, and exploring the discourses generated on the media within and around the emerging category, the paper reflects on how these discourses concur in performing the very category they portray. The focus is set on the Historical Shops category, as part of broader processes of urban categorisations for local development and regeneration. By means of a Topic Modelling of a corpus of 3262 press articles collected from Italian news sources between 2009 and 2019, the paper finds that public discourse plays three main roles: echoing category creation processes by policymakers, grounding the rising category in wider discourses of retail crisis, urban degradation, regeneration and overtourism, and narrating it by explaining what Historical Shops are, where they are located, which issues they face and which responses they receive at different institutional levels. Overall, in this paper, the semi-automated techniques afforded by Topic Modelling offer a way to enter the meaning construction processes and elicit the agential role of public discourse in the formation of a category.

Spatial enactments in emancipatory higher education pedagogies

The focus on the role of space in social sciences provides new perspectives on the possibilities for emancipatory pedagogies in higher education.  The posthumanist insight into heterogeneous agency draws attention to the agential roles of spaces. The implications of spatial agency are investigated through a superimposition of a spatial typology on Rancière’s emancipatory pedagogy. A spatial typology from the social studies of science distinguishes between regional, network, fluid and fire spaces. Whereas banking education could be associated with regional spaces, progressive and critical pedagogies are closer to fluid spaces. In contrast, it is shown how the emancipatory pedagogy of R. is made possible through the interference of regional and fire spaces. The spatial analysis draws on the powerful effects of interferences (or diffractions). The significant finding of this investigation is that the possibility for emancipation is not ascribed to the spaces as such, but to the interference of regional-and fire spaces. Powerful effects are possible when regional spaces enable an awareness of the equality of intelligence and fire spaces the transformation of the world

Practising innovation in the healthcare ecosystem: the agency of third-party actors

PurposeOver recent years, few industries have seen such dramatic changes as the healthcare industry. The potential connectivity of digital technologies is completely transforming the healthcare ecosystem. This has resulted in companies increasingly investing in digital transformations to exploit data across channels, operations and patient outreach, by building on a practice approach and actor-network theory and being informed by service-dominant logic, this study aims to contribute by advancing the agential role of third-party actors to prompt innovation and shape service ecosystems.Design/methodology/approachThis research is grounded in an epistemological contextualism. To gain situated knowledge and address the role of context in knowledge, understanding and meaning the authors adopted a qualitative methodology to study actors in their different contexts. The empirical research was based on case theory. The authors also took guidance from practice scholars about how to investigate actors’ practices. The unit of analysis moves from dyadic relationships to focus on practices across different networks of actors.FindingsThis study expands on the conceptualization of triad as proposed by Siltaloppi and Vargo (2017) by moving from the form of triadic relationships – brokerage, mediation and coalition – to the agency of e-health third-parties; and their practices to innovate in the healthcare ecosystem. This study focuses on the actors and the performativity of actions and grounding the conceptual view on an empirical base.Practical implicationsThird-party actors bring about innovative ways of doing business in the healthcare ecosystem. Their actions challenge the status quo and run counter to long-time practices. Third-parties support the complex set of interconnections between different healthcare actors for the provision of new service co-creation opportunities. Considering how these e-health third-parties performs has implications for health managers, patients and other actors.Originality/valueThis study focuses on the actors and the performativity of actions and grounding the conceptual view on an empirical base. The agency of third-party actors is their ability to act among others and to connect multiple social and material structures to boost innovation. They prompt innovation and shape service ecosystems by brokering, mediating and coalescing among a great variety of resources, practices and institutions.

Financial Statement Evaluation of Indian Construction Companies

This check is legitimate research fiscal summary construction employer in India. The test gives a model momentum presentation evaluation for development companies that provide criminal equipment for administrators, owners, buyers and subsidies administrative center groups to assess exhibition development businesses. fashions created to inspire the administration of the employer to settle on the precise preference. economic, conservative, and data amassed from a hundred agencies mechanical production returned to India for five years inside the beyond (2011-2015) .first off recognize the requirements which are hidden in the monetary summary studies referring to India's development affiliation. , preceding studies has established that there are about 21 giant percent of money related to the improvement business enterprise. This, consequently, requires the disposal of random data. Investigations aspect is the technique of reduction and grouping statistics, which may be finished within the exam-associated coins. therefore, the exam of things applied to the records amassed money development companies related to the span of five years so comes to a decision monetary markers that may be used to break up the pattern of the enterprise price range. Seven self sufficient elements, inclusive of liquidity, interest, benefits, lengthy-time period dissolvability, Asset council, inventory and efficiency are identified to be smooth for economic alternate on this country. The quit end result of this exam is the quantity of presentation, which provide exhibition organization improvement and assessment of the agency's role is determined by the use of the final survey of the dangers of article eleven through using the version Z-rating

THE AGENT'S ROLE IN THE CAUSATION OF ACTION: IS MICHAEL SMITH'S CAUSAL THEORY OF ACTION IN TROUBLE?

ABSTRACT The goal of this paper is to find out if Michael Smith's version of the causal theory of action is able to solve David Velleman's agency par excellence challenge. Smith (2012) has claimed that his theory can deal with the challenge insofar as the exercise of the capacity to be instrumentally rational plays the intermediating role which Velleman (1992a) thinks of the agent as playing in the causation of action. However, I argue Smith misunderstands the challenge at hand, thereby failing to find the agent's proper role in action explanation. Moreover, I claim Velleman's objection puts Smith's account of the causal theory in trouble by showing it cannot reconcile the causal explanation of intentional action with our ordinary conception of agency. If Smith intends to explain what a 'full-blooded' intentional action is, I then believe he needs to incorporate into his theory a more robust account of rational guidance.

The introduction of patent agent privilege in Canada.

The introduction of patent agent privilege in Canada.

Bempedoic Acid (ETC-1002): ATP Citrate Lyase Inhibitor

Bempedoic acid (BA; ETC-1002) is a new agent that reduces cholesterol synthesis through inhibition of adenosine triphosphate citrate lyase, an enzyme upstream from 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A. In animal models, BA also influences fatty acid synthesis, but in humans, its role is limited primarily to lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). In early clinical trials, BA was well tolerated and without major side effects. Alone or in various combinations with atorvastatin and/or ezetimibe, LDL-C lowering ranged from 17% to 64%. In addition, BA lowers levels of non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, C-reactive protein, and apolipoprotein B. Statins are first-line agents for primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. However, muscle-related side effects and other problems such as elevated liver enzymes may limit their use. In addition, LDL-C lowering beyond that provided by statin therapy alone may be needed. BA may be useful in either of these scenarios, as it is relatively free of muscle-related side effects and appears to enhance LDL-C lowering beyond that achieved with statin monotherapy. Phase 3 trials and one outcomes study are currently under way to better define this agent's potential clinical role.

Open Service Innovation: The Role of Intermediary Capabilities

This study examines how intermediaries, in general, and those with digital service platforms specifically, engage with clients to help them innovate their services within their service ecosystem. Based on an embedded, longitudinal case study, the results reveal the cumulative development and deployment of technological, marketing, and co‐creation capabilities by intermediaries, and how these capabilities allow intermediaries to engage with clients, so as to enable clients’ open service innovation despite their internal challenges. In turn, this article extends theory on service innovation by clarifying the role and function of intermediaries in service ecosystems in enabling clients to leverage open service innovation. Second, this study contributes to resource‐based scholarship by clarifying how these three sets of capabilities and their micro‐foundations relate to each other. Despite the obvious importance of technological capabilities, online intermediaries are more than just “virtual” service platform providers. The intermediary’s technological and marketing capabilities assist clients in dealing with project‐related and organizational challenges to open service innovation. Acting as a higher‐order capability, co‐creation capabilities—through shaping marketing and technological capabilities over time and also through conditioning their deployment—improve the proficiency of these capabilities. The findings advance insights on the agential role of the intermediary’s co‐creation capabilities, purposefully developed and deployed to foster client engagement, and thus support service organizations in leveraging open service innovation.

From shared intentionality to moral obligation? Some worries

ABSTRACTAccording to Tomasello’s natural history of human morality, morality's key structures come into being in the dyadic joint action of early human hunters. Such joint action, Tomasello claims, involves the generation of a new entity, a “joint agent,” and brings with it insight into the agent-independence of agential roles. These two features are, Tomasello argues, decisive for the inception of early humans’ “respect”-based proto-morality. The key structures at work are then, he claims, “scaled up” in the “group morality” of modern humans. I raise three worries about the narrative at the level of early humans’ proto-morality. These concern the content of proto-moral “respect,” the role of language or proto-language, and the limits of focusing on dyads. In a final step, I express the concern that Tomasello’s construal of the “scaling up” process appears to lose the key structural features of respect, as it seems unable to distinguish social and moral norms.

Beyond the \u201cc\u201d and the \u201cx\u201d: Learning with algorithms in massive open online courses (MOOCs)

This article examines how algorithms are shaping student learning in massive open online courses (MOOCs). Following the dramatic rise of MOOC platform organisations in 2012, over 4,500 MOOCs have been offered to date, in increasingly diverse languages, and with a growing requirement for fees. However, discussions of learning in MOOCs remain polarised around the “xMOOC” and “cMOOC” designations. In this narrative, the more recent extended or platform MOOC (“xMOOC”) adopts a broadcast pedagogy, assuming a direct transmission of information to its largely passive audience (i.e. a teacher-centred approach), while the slightly older connectivist model (“cMOOC”) offers only a simplistic reversal of the hierarchy, posing students as highly motivated, self-directed and collaborative learners (i.e. a learner-centred approach). The online nature of both models generates data (e.g. on how many times a particular resource was viewed, or the ways in which participants communicated with each other) which MOOC providers use for analysis, albeit only after these data have been selectively processed. Central to many learning analytics approaches is the desire to predict students’ future behaviour. Educators need to be aware that MOOC learning is not just about teachers and students, but that it also involves algorithms: instructions which perform automated calculations on data. Education is becoming embroiled in an “algorithmic culture” that defines educational roles, forecasts attainment, and influences pedagogy. Established theories of learning appear wholly inadequate in addressing the agential role of algorithms in the educational domain of the MOOC. This article identifies and examines four key areas where algorithms influence the activities of the MOOC: (1) data capture and discrimination; (2) calculated learners; (3) feedback and entanglement; and (4) learning with algorithms. The article concludes with a call for further research in these areas to surface a critical discourse around the use of algorithms in MOOC education and beyond.

Tracing the Relational Ethic in the Postcolonial Life Writing of the Indo-Fijian Diaspora

ABSTRACTDespite the celebratory stance adopted by proponents of globalisation towards migration and transnationalism, many diasporic subjects experience geographical and cultural displacement as dispossession and loss. It is most evident in the life writing of post-indenture descendants of the nineteenth-century Indian diaspora in Fiji who are, de facto, living in a state of perpetual exile. In this article, I examine the life-writing texts of two Indo-Fijian writers, Satendra Nandan and Brij Lal, for the centrality they accord to the relational ethic through which they foreground the experiences of their community. While Nandan deploys a melodramatic aesthetic in his life writing to elicit sympathy for his post-indenture community's predicament, Lal interweaves disciplinary history with creative autobiography to make an interventionist gesture through which he recuperates an agential role for his Indo-Fijian community. I argue for broadening the archive of postcolonial diasporic literature by including such texts that resist the triumphalist rhetoric of de-territorialisation and transnationalism.

A Study on the Improvement of Patent Agent's Role in Patent Infringement Litigation

A Study on the Improvement of Patent Agent's Role in Patent Infringement Litigation

The Clean Water Act's Section 404 Permit Program Enters Its Adolescence: An Institutional and Programmatic Perspective

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act deals with permit requirements and has become a major Federal regulatory program. The program's scope and procedures are reviewed, with emphasis given to the responsibilities of the agencies involved and the opportunities for discharging these duties with the maximum efficiency. Interagency and intergovernmental cooperation are crucial to the effectiveness of the broad ranging 404 program. The Environmental Protection Agency's role is seen as one of oversight and guidance, as well as issuing criteria and monitoring enforcement. The appropriate roles for other Federal and state agencies, state governments, Congress, and the public are outlined and also depend on cooperation for effective implementation. 333 references. (DCK)

Medieval Iceland, Greenland, and the New Human Condition: A case study in integrated environmental humanities

This paper contributes to recent studies exploring the longue durée of human impacts on island landscapes, the impacts of climate and other environmental changes on human communities, and the interaction of human societies and their environments at different spatial and temporal scales. In particular, the paper addresses Iceland during the medieval period (with a secondary, comparative focus on Norse Greenland) and discusses episodes where environmental and climatic changes have appeared to cross key thresholds for agricultural productivity. The paper draws upon international, interdisciplinary research in the North Atlantic region led by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) and the Nordic Network for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies (NIES) in the Circumpolar Networks program of the Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE). By interlinking analyses of historically grounded literature with archaeological studies and environmental science, valuable new perspectives can emerge on how these past societies may have understood and coped with such impacts. As climate and other environmental changes do not operate in isolation, vulnerabilities created by socioeconomic factors also beg consideration. The paper illustrates the benefits of an integrated environmental-studies approach that draws on data, methodologies and analytical tools of environmental humanities, social sciences, and geosciences to better understand long-term human ecodynamics and changing human-landscape-environment interactions through time. One key goal is to apply previously unused data and concerted expertise to illuminate human responses to past changes; a secondary aim is to consider how lessons derived from these cases may be applicable to environmental threats and socioecological risks in the future, especially as understood in light of the New Human Condition, the concept transposed from Hannah Arendt's influential framing of the human condition that is foregrounded in the present special issue. This conception admits human agency's role in altering the conditions for life on earth, in large measure negatively, while acknowledging the potential of this self-same agency, if effectively harnessed and properly directed, to sustain essential planetary conditions through a salutary transformation of human perception, understanding and remedial action. The paper concludes that more long-term historical analyses of cultures and environments need to be undertaken at various scales. Past cases do not offer perfect analogues for the future, but they can contribute to a better understanding of how resilience and vulnerability occur, as well as how they may be compromised or mitigated.

Funding the future

Ellen Williams served as Director of the US Department of Energy's ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy) from December 2014 until January 2017. Nature Energy caught up with her shortly before the end of her tenure to learn more about the agency's role in energy technology innovation.

Presuppositions about the role of consciousness in the agent causation conception of agents and the problem of the disappearing agent

Well-known theories of Agent Causation rely on a conception of agency that expects that agents play a role in the production of their action, a conscious role. According to this conception of agents, the requirement of consciousness provides ground for these theories to pose the Disappearing Agent objection to the Causal Theory of Action. In a similar way, Wegner (2002) holds that without the conscious will playing a role in the production of actions we are not agents. In this sense, the elements that ground the Disappearing Agent objection resemble Wegner’s conclusion that it is an illusion that we are agents. I will argue that the objection raised by Agent Causation theories equates lack of consciousness with lack of control and, consequently, of agential role in the production of action. This will show that the issue is grounded on a specific conception of what an agent is, and what her role in producing actions should be. I, however, defend the claim that this conception of agency should be revised, as well as the objection that springs from it, because if we accept that consciousness does not always play a relevant role in the production of actions, then human agents cannot fulfill the requirements in question.

Mozart’s Music of Friends: Social Interplay in the Chamber Works. By Edward Klorman

In this impressive debut, Edward Klorman presents a theory of “multiple agency” for Mozart’s chamber music, drawing together historical, theoretical/analytical, and performative evidence to argue for a greater awareness of interactivity informed by agential cues in the music. The first part of the book documents a significant practice in late-eighteenth-century musicking: friends would gather in intimate rooms or more open salons to sight-read a new string quartet or piano trio from individual parts (the full score was rarely available when the works were first published), sharing these new works not only among themselves, but also with other close friends or convivial associates. The players would engage with musical gestures and their implied agential roles within the ensemble, exploring a range of actions and responses that could be interpreted as dialogue or witty repartee within the constraints of a score-guided exploration of thematic material and harmonic/tonal goals. The second part of the book elaborates a theory of agency to explain how we might conceive this kind of interactive practice in light of current theories of phrase structure, sonata form, meter, and hypermeter.