Subjective Elements Research Articles

Bad Faith, Public Policy and Morality: How Open Concepts Shape Trade Mark Protection

The grounds for refusal or invalidity relating to trade marks filed in bad faith or being contrary to public policy or accepted principles of morality are based entirely on undefined concepts and require a value judgement to be made by the adjudicating authorities. This openness has led to the exploration of new lanes for these grounds in case law beyond the traditional scope of their application. This paper examines how the flexibility of the concepts at hand has led to considerable uncertainty in assessing whether a particular mark is registered in bad faith or offends against morality and public policy – and in some cases both. In particular, the objective, consistent viewpoint of the average consumer, which is normally applied in other areas of trade mark law, appears to be exiled from the analysis in these cases. In the case of bad faith, the assessment involves a subjective element, as there is a mandatory requirement that there should be bad faith intent on the part of the applicant. The paper argues that much of the uncertainty as to when bad faith applies could be overcome by adopting an objective viewpoint in its assessment. By contrast, the assessment of the offence against morality remains objective. It is based on the perception of a model member of society with average thresholds of sensitivity and tolerance who does not always overlap with the average consumer of the goods covered by a trade mark application. Infringement of public policy is also objective and is linked with offence against the “top-down” rules laid down by the public authority.

The Impact of Health Insurance on the Well-being of Russian Society: History and Prospects

The article is devoted to the study of the health insurance system as a tool for preserving and strengthening the health of the nation, increasing its well-being. The historical path of the formation of the practice of health insurance throughout the world and in Russian society (from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th centuries to the present) is revealed. The key tasks that were put forward for the insurance system in Russia at different stages of its development are characterized. It is said that in modern Russia the approach to providing medical insurance must have a strictly scientific justification. The purpose of the study is to develop and justify a radical reform of the existing health insurance model in Russia based on a large-scale planned implementation of a scientifically based approach and dynamic research. Well-being in this context is understood as an integral indicator of closely interconnected states, subjective and objective elements that ensure the harmonious existence of a person in the world around him. The main conclusion of the study is the need to provide a scientific approach to the reorganization of the health insurance system in Russia, which would consider multi-modal incoming and outgoing information flows, the needs of all objects of the social and communicative space.

Borderline scenarios of outranking classification based on α-cut variation in fuzzy intervals: Application in police investigations

This paper presents a new method for classifying actions called α-FlowSort, which uses sections of the fuzzy interval to allow vertical and horizontal decision strategies, which consider the decision-maker’s levels of certainty and optimism. α-FlowSort adds to the traditional MCDA FlowSort method the concepts of fuzzy sets with α-cut variation techniques and identification of outranking relations between fuzzy numbers, thus providing the decision-maker with scenarios for adjusting the decision, to add subjective elements at the time of assignment or to use a global recommendation. The decision maker is offered visual evaluation options that enable better identification and definition of the attribution of actions that in a single analysis would be positioned on the border between categories, in addition to which, by aggregating multiple simultaneous evaluations, a single recommendation is offered in a more robust way, even in a fuzzy environment. To demonstrate the results, an application of the new method is presented in the context of distributing resources to support criminal investigations, the results of which were compared with those obtained with the FlowSort and F-FlowSort methods. Simulations and comparisons between the methods were also carried out, using a thousand random alternatives.

Epistimologi Pendidikan Islam Persepektif Naquib Al-Attas

The hegemony of Western knowledge, which has penetrated the whole world, has also unknowingly penetrated the majority of Muslims. They accept it without deep reflection on the epistemology on which modern science is based. The view that modern science is the sole authority of science is slowly eroding the Islamic view of science. This study uses a literature study approach as the main methodology. Specific characteristics that form the basis for the development of knowledge in this study include a focus on data or text presented in the literature, without involving field data or direct observation through eye witnesses. The epistemology of monotheism described by Naquib describes a scientific approach that integrates elements from sensory experience, the spiritual dimension, intellectual capacity, and intuitive insight as a whole, with the aim of gaining knowledge. It also incorporates the various epistemologies that have been used by theologians, philosophers, and metaphysicians, without giving undue prominence to one particular epistemology. For example, this approach links empirical and rational methods, combines deductive and inductive logic, brings together subjective and objective elements, among other things.

The influence of sleep on emotion dysregulation in borderline personality disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and healthy controls

Emotion dysregulation is central to borderline personality disorder (BPD) and exacerbated by sleep disruptions. This study investigated whether homeostatic (i.e., sleep efficiency), circadian (i.e., chronotype), and subjective (i.e., sleep quality) sleep elements predict emotion dysregulation in BPD, healthy controls (HCs), and a generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) group. Participants (N = 120) with BPD, GAD, and HCs completed daily sleep measures for seven days prior to an experiment wherein baseline emotion, emotional reactions to stressors (i.e., reactivity), and the extent to which they can decrease their emotion using mindfulness and distraction (i.e., emotion regulation) were measured across self-reported, sympathetic, and parasympathetic emotion. Across groups, earlier chronotypes and higher sleep quality predicted less self-reported baseline negative emotion, and higher sleep quality predicted better parasympathetic emotion regulation. For HCs, higher sleep efficiency and lower sleep quality predicted higher parasympathetic baseline emotion, and higher sleep efficiency predicted more self-reported baseline negative emotion. Also in HCs, earlier chronotype predicted better sympathetic emotion regulation, and there was a quadratic relationship between sleep efficiency and self-reported emotion regulation. Optimizing sleep quality and improving alignment between chronotype and daily living may improve baseline emotion and emotion regulation. Healthy individuals may be particularly vulnerable to high or low sleep efficiency.

A New Quantitative Evaluation Index System for Disaster-Causing Factors of Mud Inrush Disasters in Water-Rich Fault Fracture Zone

The Yonglian tunnel in China has experienced 15 instances of severe water and mud inrush disasters, resulting in a total volume of 53,000 m3 of gushing water and mud. These disasters have caused irreversible environmental damage, including hilltop collapse and soil erosion. To achieve early warning and early management of such disasters, the paper introduced the Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method into the Analytic Hierarchy Process to establish a new quantitative evaluation index system for the causal factors. As the evaluation method involves expert participation in scoring, it inherently presents certain subjective elements. To further substantiate the validity of our approach, we conducted a series of model tests. Then, the accuracy of the quantitative evaluation indexes was verified through these model tests, indicating that the quantitative evaluation system has important guiding significance for safe tunnel construction, allowing for early warning and management of potential disasters.

중국 파산법상 개별변제 부인권의 성립요건

The individual repayment avoidance right is a key system that reflects the principle of fairness of the Bankruptcy Act, and plays an important role in maintaining the safety of transactions, defending good faith, and ensuring market order. In real life, debtors often reimburse certain creditors, such as relatives, friends, and stakeholders, first during the bankruptcy threshold period, and infringe on the interests of other creditors. The function of the individual repayment avoidance right is to promote fair repayment between creditors. Therefore, it occupies an important position in the bankruptcy law of all countries. As the criterion for judging individual repayment avoidance right, the constitutive elements of legal provisions are the core of avoidance right system. In the Bankruptcy Law of China, the main provisions of individual repayment avoidance right are stipulate in Article 32 of the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law of the People's Republic of China, Article 41 of the Regulations of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone on Personal Bankruptcy and some relevant judicial interpretations. However, china’s legal provisions on the constituent elements of individual repayment avoidance right are relatively simple and problematic. There are many problems such as, the omission of the “insider clause” in the behavior element, inconsistency of the period element, irrationality of the exception element, the proof dilemma of the element of the cause of bankruptcy, and the absence of the provisions on the subjective state element. It is inevitably affecting the normal functioning of the system. Therefore, based on China's bankruptcy system of legislative and judicial reality, the thesis introduces the legislation status of the constitutive elements of the individual repayment avoidance right, and analyzes the loopholes and deficiencies in the legal regulations. Then, aiming at the above problems, the thesis puts forward the improvement plan. It includes adding relevant clauses of “insider” in the behavior element, improving the starting point of the period element, retaining and revising the burden of proof of elements of the cause of bankruptcy, introducing subjective state elements, Optimizing the exception clause and so on. At present, China is in the critical period of revising the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law and implementing the Shenzhen Personal Bankruptcy Regulations. It is urgent and necessary to systematically study the constitutive element so find individual repayment avoidance right. It is hoped that the research in this thesis can promote the further development of the individual repayment avoidance right system in China.

Metaphorical Perceptions of Middle School Students Regarding the Concept of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence and technologies have started to directly affect and steer humanity with the developments in science and technology in recent years. Artificial intelligence is like a living organism that thinks, decides and remembers for humans. The effects and consequences of this situation on individuals and societies are explicitly predicted and observed. However, how these results will affect our future in the long term remains a big question mark. It seems likely that countries will add artificial intelligence and coding literacy skills to their curricula in order to raise awareness of their citizens in the face of these possible questions and problems in the coming years. Nowadays, understanding artificial intelligence is key to using technology effectively. Students’ perceptions of this concept is crucial because of this. This present study aimed to determine the metaphorical perceptions of middle school students about the concept of artificial intelligence. Also, it is a qualitative study with phenomenological design principles. The study group consisted of 86 students studying in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades of a private school affiliated to the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) of the Republic of Turkey. The students were asked to complete the sentence “Artificial intelligence is like... because...”. The data obtained from the research were analyzed by content analysis method. As a result of the research, it was determined that middle school students developed 51 different metaphors about the concept of artificial intelligence. It was found that these metaphors developed by the students were diverse and creative. The most frequently used metaphors are human (10), brain (8), robot (4), technology (3) and scientist (3). The metaphors developed by the students about the concept of artificial intelligence were separated in 4 different categories. These categories are technical/object, human/subject, nature-related and interesting/other. Middle school students perceived the concept of artificial intelligence mostly through human subjective elements. In addition, it was observed that students perceived the concept of artificial intelligence in a very broad perspective.

The Poetics of the Unconscious in The Idiot and Hegel’s Subject of Philosophical History

Abstract The present paper reads The Idiot in the context of Hegel’s philosophy of history and subjectivity and finds that Dostoevsky’s avowed interest in Hegel led to a substantial absorption of Hegel’s thought in his own aesthetics. Dostoevsky’s educated readers of the 1860s saw the novel as a moral history of the age, represented through an eccentric « new subject » (or the « new people »), embodied in marionette-like characters. The present paper explores this view further and finds that these marionette-like characters function as agents of the unconscious (and pre-empt the aesthetics of the theatre of the Absurd), which is the source of all subjectivity. Expressivity is the defining feature of subjectivity and is represented by means of pathological states – lying and self-destructive tendencies of the characters who display a pathological demeanour. Caprice (will power) is the prime mover of this subjectivity, which, in the context of Hegel’s philosophy of history, is the driver of the historical process and a direct expression of « Geist » or spirit of the people. This spirit comes to expression in different types of Russian national discourses, embodied in the myriad of embedded stories narrated by the characters on stage and off stage, and in stories within stories of episodic characters. These embedded episodic narratives, consisting of verbal pictures (or ekphrases), tell the story of Russia’s historical development from Peter Great’s time to Dostoevsky’s present of the 1860s. This is the story of the demise of the old « estate culture » of traditional Russia, with a « new Russia » emerging into history, which is grounded in an indeterminate subject of history, whose « pochva » (« soil ») is the groundless ground of language and an ethics of individual freedom. Both of these elements of subjectivity, which define the « new people », are negativities shaping a new dialectics, which is both form and content of the new self-conscious “world-historical individual” – Hegelian Man - through which spirit (Geist) manifests itself in the “present moment” of Dostoevsky’s Russia.

Intimate mobilities—International (transnational) marriage and migration: Japanese marriage migrants floating between Japan and Korea

AbstractIn the past decade, intense mobility within Asia has led to increased international marriage (kokusai kekkon) in the region. A growing number of scholars have explored this phenomenon—called the intimate part of Asia—with a focus on foreign brides from emerging economies. Concerning international marriage between Japanese and Koreans, most research focuses on the Korean wives of Japanese husbands who reside in Japan, and little research has been conducted on the Japanese wives of Korean husbands. In this study, the postmigration experiences of Japanese marriage migrant women in South Korea are explored. Semistructured interviews were conducted in Korea with 13 participants. Drawing on the interview data, this article elucidates the trajectories of Japanese marriage migrants, focusing on subjective elements. The participants' accounts demonstrate that their experiences were intertwined with the media, politics, gender roles, parenting ideologies, and family relations. Their various emotional responses underline the ways such factors have shaped their lives.

Representation of Travel Writing in Gabriel García Márquez’s Un Métier De Rêve: Carl Thompson’s Travel Writing Study

Abstract. Travel writing, a subgenre of literature, depicts a writer's journey in visiting unfamiliar places. The author experienced negotiation between himself and the others about similarities or differences. In the travel writing, a reality is a reference emphasized the most, rather than mere imagination or fiction. This study aims to examine the representation of travel writing in Un Métier de Rêve by Gabriel García Márquez and to uncover the influence of the narrator's personal perspective (the self) on his view of Europeans (the others). The story in short story Un Métier de Rêve is one of Gabriel García Márquez's travel stories included in Douze Contes Vagabonds. This type of research is descriptive-analytic research using literature studies. The data collection technique involves reading, noting, and sorting. In analyzing the data, which includes words, phrases, dialogues, monologues, feelings, and behavior of the characters, the researcher conducted data interpretation by proving or debating a matter through valid evidence using Carl Thompson's travel writing theory, which consists of three concepts, namely: Reporting the World, Revealing the Self, and Representing the Other. The results of the study on Gabriel García Márquez's Un Métier de Rêve show that Márquez seeks to portray the world he encountered rationally and objectively, even the subjective element found in the short story still appears to be objective. As a result, there is an ambiguity found that is uncovered due to the contestation between fact and fiction in travel writing. In addition, the influence of the ideology of the former colonial state apparently provides a particular emphasis on Márquez's strategy in writing his travel stories. Keywords: Gabriel García Márquez, Travel Writing, Literatur

Skull-vibration-induced nystagmus test in patients who are candidates for intratympanic gentamicin injection

This study aims to evaluate the utility of the skull-vibration-induced nystagmus test (SVINT) in the selection of patients with Ménière's disease (MD) for intratympanic injection of gentamicin. To date the indications for this treatment have been based only on subjective elements. A retrospective study was performed in 20 patients diagnosed with unilateral MD. SVINT were performed monthly and the evoked responses were evaluated. After 6 months, the results from patients who were candidates for gentamicin treatment (G group) were compared with those who did not need it (nG group). Correlation with Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI) score was evaluated. 120 tests were performed. Positive SVINTs were identified in 52 cases (43.3%) and included excitatory nystagmus in 18 (34.7%), inhibitory nystagmus in 28 (53.8%), and atypical pattern in 6 cases (11.5%). A significant increase excitatory nystagmus was recorded in group G (p = 0.00001). Moreover, there was a significant increase in the DHI score in group G compared with the nG group (p < 0.0001) and in patients with evoked excitatory nystagmus. The finding of excitatory nystagmus during SVINTs performed on several occasions in the follow-up prior to intratympanic injection of gentamicin strengthens this therapeutic choice.

Sustainability Assessment Techniques and Potential Sustainability Accreditation Tools for Energy-Product Systems Modelling

The modelling of complex technological systems serves as the foundation for enhancing process performance, including sustainability features (triple-bottom line). The European Green Deal, proposed in 2019, aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and foster a resource-independent economy. Such a change must be carefully planned. Comprehensive sustainability protocols and guidelines are necessary to describe the standardized methodological procedure, the environmental certification procedures that allow market comparability and identification of the best solutions, the databases, the calculation tools and software, and the benchmark and target with which to make comparison. Policies and regulatory or incentive instruments promote the broad adoption of these approaches and ensure that policies reduce environmental, economic, and social impacts. This paper consists in an overview of sustainability assessment tools’ role in energy policy and short- and long-term modeling of more eco-friendly energy-product systems. Additionally, the paper explores these methods’ pros and cons in planning, analyzing, and optimizing energy/product systems, also according to the circular economy paradigm. All of these strategies aim to help the decision-maker make more consistent judgments by taking into consideration essential objective, such as end user or stakeholder demands, and minimizing subjective elements. An extensive listing of Sustainability accreditation and communication tools is provided. Sustainability assessment is an evaluation and optimization method that promotes sustainable development in all political planning and decision-making. It examines the social, economic, and environmental effects, finds conflicting goals, and recommends early optimization. Potentially, sustainability assessment should be integrated into the political planning process and depend on domain-specific research and assessments that currently exist or are planned, such as in combination with decision-making. Sustainability assessment is not designed to be an extra analytical tool. A sector-specific environmental or economic study from a strategic environmental analysis or regulatory effect analysis may be crucial to a sustainability assessment.

How interesting and coherent are the stories generated by a large‐scale neural language model? Comparing human and automatic evaluations of machine‐generated text

AbstractEvaluation of the narrative text generated by machines has traditionally been a challenge, particularly when attempting to evaluate subjective elements such as interest or believability. Recent improvements in narrative machine text generation have been largely driven by the emergence of transformer‐based language models, trained on massive quantities of data, resulting in higher quality text generation. In this study, a corpus of stories is generated using the pre‐trained GPT‐Neo transformer model, with human‐written prompts as inputs upon which to base the narrative text. The stories generated through this process are subsequently evaluated through both human evaluation and two automated metrics: BERTScore and BERT Next Sentence Prediction, with the aim of determining whether there is a correlation between the automatic scores and the human judgements. The results show variation in human evaluation results in comparison to modern automated metrics, suggesting further work is required to train automated metrics to identify text that is defined as interesting by humans.

Subjective and intangible factors in migration decision-making: A review of side-lined literature

Migration is much more than a linear journey from a country of origin to one of destination. Quite the opposite, the contours of migration journeys fade into, on the one side, the mental processes preceding it and, on the other, the seemingly never-ending settling and integration phases in the new place of residence (Çağlar 2016). All throughout this process, tangible and intangible elements alike shape up, motivate, and direct migrants’ own decisions on whether or not to migrate, how, when, through which channels, and whether to migrate onwards or return. This literature review springs from the observation that, while the analysis of tangible factors is well established in the literature, the study of intangible ones is still a niche topic. Yet, a range of diverse research has pointed out that subjective and intangible factors do matter in migration decision-making. Our aim is thus to rebalance this relation by systematically (1) pointing out the importance of subjective and intangible elements in every aspect of migration decision-making and (2) revealing their complexity and constant overlapping with each other and with tangible elements, through a review of this body of literature.

The Nature and Limits of Theology: A Response to Rowan Williams

AbstractTheology is both a human endeavor and something of Divine origin, insofar as it is a human attempt to make sense of certain Divinely revealed propositions. How does one reconcile these two elements? One attempt to do so was on the part of the Anglican theologian Rowan Williams. In sections I and II of chapter 1 of his work ‘On Christian Theology’, Williams speaks of the nature of authentic theological discourse, that is, theological discourse that has integrity. In his work on theological integrity, Williams explores how human intentions or hidden agendas can potentially warp our attempt to make sense of the truths contained within Divine Revelation. He then goes on to speak of how to avoid such pitfalls. In this article, I will respond to the epistemological implications of William's thoughts on this topic. I will use various ideas from Catholic theology, including the development of doctrines and the notion that faith has both a subjective and objective element, to explore both the strengths and weaknesses of Williams's thought.

Factors influencing the perceived value of travel time in European urban areas

This research aims at expanding the scope of travel satisfaction by incorporating subjective elements in the evaluation of worthwhileness of travel time proposed by the H2020 MoTiV project, using a European-wide mobility dataset collected in 2019. Trip characteristics, mood, socio-demographic characteristics, experience factors, travel activities and weather were analysed to explore their influence on travellers’ perception of worthwhileness of travel time. The analysis was performed separately for five different transport mode categories using Structural Equation Models. The empirical analysis of this research indicates the high significance of enjoyment in terms of making a trip worthwhile for all transport modes. The results also revealed mode-specific experience factors that play an important role in shaping travel experience which could be addressed to improve the quality of travel time. It is expected that these results can support a shift towards a more human-centric approach in urban mobility plans as well as pave the way for more inclusive transport policies.

Maturity Models for Testing and Calibration Laboratories: A Systematic Literature Review

Currently, testing and calibration laboratories are undergoing organizational restructuring in view of technical and regulatory requirements. To assist these laboratories, maturity models (MMs) can be used for the implementation and maintenance of management systems. The use of fuzzy logic is often found in association with the construction of MMs. Fuzzy logic helps in the construction of these models, removing subjective elements from the maturity assessment. Therefore, the objective of this study was to perform a systematic literature review (SLR) using the Methodi Ordinatio focused on MMs built with fuzzy logic that aim to evaluate the degree of maturity of testing and calibration laboratories that have implemented ISO/IEC 17025 for their quality management systems (QMSs). This analysis was performed with articles published between 2012 and 2022 in several databases using keywords such as “maturity model”, “fuzzy” and “ISO 17025” and resulted in 18 articles, which made up the bibliographic portfolio. After analyzing the content of these studies, it was possible to conclude that, although no study specifically discussed this MM, the discovered articles were important for presenting ideas and suggestions for future research.

Brazilian Circular Economy Pilot Project: Integrating Local Stakeholders’ Perception and Social Context in Industrial Symbiosis Analyses

This paper aims to analyze organisations’ behaviour in the Industrial Symbiosis implementation process in the Circular Economy Pilot Project, in Brazil from the actors’ perception. We conducted an exploratory and descriptive study with a qualitative approach to attain the research objective. The data collection involved in depth interviews with eighteen actors. Data were analyzed using the Content Analysis technique. The study results in show a still incipient industrial symbiosis network, with few connections between industrial actors, based on bilateral exchanges of materials, water and energy. From the analysis, it was possible to identify the elements that influence the behaviour of organisations. When it comes to exogenous elements, it is clear that laws and sanctions are the ones that most determine organisational action. However, this pressure is still focused on the traditional and unidirectional model of production processes. Economic viability was identified as a primary factor for the objective elements of organisational action. Regarding the subjective elements, it was found that there was already an interaction before the project between some companies, especially those from automotive sector. With the project’s initiative, this social interaction was intensified, including between companies from different sectors. Regarding the barriers, we found the absence of governmental actions, unavailability of time and involvement of the managers to fully participate in the project, high cost of waste disposal versus the cost of investment and, discontinuity of actions. Overall, the study indicates that the project increased the institutional capacity of the region to develop industrial symbiosis, as it advanced in sharing new knowledge, promoted more significant interaction between organisations and identified business opportunities for companies. However, it appears that the project’s continuity will be conditioned to improve some aspects of the governance structure, regulatory framework and collective engagement. These results can be helpful for researchers studying this topic and managers in Brazil and other emerging countries in Latin America, as well as, policymakers involved in public policies aimed to enable the transition to a circular e more sustainable model.

Business as the new doxa in education? An analysis of edu-business events in Finland

The trend towards seeing education as a commodity and part of a global industry has transformed the field of education. We argue that these transformations are reducing the autonomy of the field of education as it has incorporated business rhetoric, logic and practice. We examine this through an analysis of discursive formations manifested in two major international edu-business events in Finland – Dare to Learn and XcitED. The performativity existing in these events, combining actions and interactions, objective and subjective elements and materialized and symbolic interests and outcomes, enables convergences between business and education. In Finland, where education is overwhelmingly public, there is a subtle marketization, increasingly integrating business rationales and attitudes in education. We employed event ethnography and discourse analysis to examine points of diffraction between education and business. A transversal movement between the field of education and the field of business is enabled by symbolic power. Dare to Learn and XcitED discursive formations reveal the penetration of business in education, which reframes the field of education and fosters the global education industry in Finland and abroad, challenging notions and practices of democracy and citizenship in education.