Empirical Sense Research Articles

Refinement in the understanding of confinement of concrete

The compressive axial load-deformation curve of a reinforced concrete (RC) member reflects the contributions of the concrete in compression and tension, the longitudinal and transverse reinforcement bars in compression and bending, and the aggregate interlocking in concrete in its dilated state. Together these factors enhance the axial response of RC compared to its plain counterpart. Even though expressions proposed in the past capture the composite response of this confining effect in an empirical sense, none of them separate the said individual contributions. This study provides a mechanics-based method to obtain the axial-load deformation response of a RC member, and thereby the stress-strain curve of confined concrete, by assembling the combined effect from each contributing parameter. The governing contributions are fundamental and physically intuitive; they include contributions of unconfined concrete, transverse reinforcement, longitudinal reinforcement (including buckling), and aggregate interlocking. The stress-strain curves from the proposed method compare well with those obtained from many tests on confined concrete available in the literature, and seem to better estimate the response than two popularly used confinement expressions. Similar comparisons are made with the axial load-deformation curves. A parametric study is undertaken to capture the effects of section geometry, high-strength materials, and area ratio on the confinement of concrete. Finally, a refined understanding is presented of the estimation of strength of confined of concrete.

Article 10bis of the Paris Convention as the common denominator for protection against unfair competition in national and regional contexts

Abstract This article explains the historical development of Article 10bis of the Paris Convention and discusses core concepts underlying the international provision, in particular, the overarching requirement of honest practices in industrial or commercial matters, the question of a competitive relationship and the examples of unfair practices given in Article 10bis. It also sheds light on guidance following from the Model Provisions on Protection Against Unfair Competition which the World Intellectual Property Organization presented in 1996. The analysis shows that the honest practices test need not be understood in a traditional, empirical sense. More modern, functional approaches can be adopted to align the application of Article 10bis with a broader spectrum of policy goals: not only fair play between competitors but also consumer protection and the general public interest in a well-functioning marketplace. Similarly, the requirement of a competitive relationship need not focus on direct competition in the same market segment. An indirect competitive relationship can be deemed sufficient. While the prohibited acts listed in Article 10bis(3) reflect central categories of unfair behaviour and harm, current developments and challenges—ranging from computational advertising, influencer marketing and product recommender systems to questions surrounding data exclusivity and sustainability issues—raise the question whether an update and enrichment of the catalogue of prohibited acts could be necessary to provide guidance at the international level.

SOCIOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN HIGHER EDUCATION:

The paper explores the relationship between the educational environment and pedagogical approaches in contemporary universities. The study emphasizes the need for further research on the contribution of each of these aspects to the dynamism and flexibility of the educational environment, as well as the professionalism of educators. Particular attention is paid to the input of teachers in all areas of education both in the theoretical and empirical sense. The article also highlights the changes that stimulate the interrelation of all spheres of education and focuses on the inner differentiation of the vocational and upbringing aspects. This approach supports the unity of vocational and pedagogical culture in higher education. In addition, the study addresses the sociological perspectives in higher education in the context of its interaction with pedagogy and sociology, emphasizing the role of the latter in personality development. Particular attention is paid to the meaning of upbringing and scientific education in contemporary universities as active instruments affecting conviction in the necessity of education, especially in the light of recent research.

Out of the Contemplation on the Law: An Attempt at Outlining Some Problems

The author addresses the problem of the cognitive role of intellectual processes in the sphere of intellectual objects, which also include the established law. Only by virtue of intellectual processes focused on the law can it be cognitively made available to others. Contrary to conceptualists, and above all Kelsen, it is then necessary to move away from determining the doctrine of law with a conceptual grid, as the basic undertaken means of controlling the legal issues. It cannot be accepted that what is not verifiable in such a grid cannot be treated as a heuristic attitude towards the law. The author distinguishes the so-called high interpretation, which has the characteristic that it consists in the course of the entire law, including the development of legal thought on the law and the consequences of the law. There is no such thing as the development of law in its empirical sense. On the other hand, thinking about it through interpretation, properly combined with interpretation at a high level, contemplating it by combining legal considerations with interpretation at a high level should, in the Author’s opinion, be considered the deepest manifestation of the reflexivity of legal culture.

Corporate communication on social media: a case study before and during pandemic COVID-19

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how hotel brands communicate on social media before and during the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in relation to the tourism season.Design/methodology/approachTo gain insights into the communication of Italian hotel brands on social media, this study applies a qualitative methodology. Using the text mining technique, topic modelling was conducted on a sample of 5,032 posts from Italian 5-star hotel brands shared on the hotels' official Facebook pages.FindingsThe results show that hotel brands used essentially the same communication strategy in the tourism seasons before and after the pandemic outbreak, but with a particular focus on trust, safety and cordiality during the pandemic. Hotel brands focussed intensively on brand awareness, customer engagement and special activities that promote memorable and authentic experiences as well as luxury service quality.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the theoretical and empirical sense by bridging the concepts of tourism and hospitality, social media and corporate communication.

Confirmatory factor analysis of the BRIEF2 in a sample of youth with Down syndrome.

The factor structure of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, second edition (BRIEF2) has been widely examined in both typically developing children and specific clinical samples. Despite the frequent use of the BRIEF2 for measuring executive functioning in individuals with Down syndrome, no study has investigated the factorial validity or dimensionality of the BRIEF2 in this population. This study aimed to address this notable gap in the literature. Parents of 407 children and youth with Down syndrome aged 6-18years completed the BRIEF2 as part of different studies led by six sites. Three competing models proposed by previous studies were analysed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis: the theoretical structure of the BRIEF2 where the scales were constrained to load on three factors labelled as Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Regulation, a two-factor correlated model with the merged Behavioral and Emotional regulation, and a single-factor model. The three-factor model provided a better fit than the one- and two-factor models, yet a large correlation was observed between Behavioural and Emotional regulation factors. The results provide meaningful explanatory value for the theoretical structure of the BRIEF2. However, the Behavioral and Emotional regulation factors might be less differentiated and the two-factor structure of the BRIEF2 may also make theoretical and empirical sense. Although more studies are needed to further examine the factor structure of the BRIEF2 in youth with Down syndrome, this investigation provides preliminary support for the interpretation of the three executive function index scores provided by the BRIEF2: Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Regulation.

The Network Capital of the Cossack Youth as an Element of the Social Capital of the Russian Cossacks

Introduction. The article considers the modern Russian Cossacks as a complex social object in the trinity of interpersonal, intragroup and intrapersonal communications. The ethno markers of the Cossacks that influence the perception of “friend or foe” are determined; the problem of the concept of the network capital of the Cossacks is formulated. Methodology and sources. The section formulates the construction of network capital from the point of view of structuring social relations in the network approach, and from the point of view of the culture of interactive communication in the network space. The main approaches to the definition and measurement of network capital are shown, its specificity for the social group of Cossack youth is revealed. The network model of the Cossacks and Cossack youth is described as a whole and its part. The role of state-forming values in the Cossack environment is shown. The largest network Cossack youth organizations from different regions of Russia are presented. Results and discussion. The article describes the methodology for researching network capital, organized at the All-Russian Gathering of Cossack Youth in the fall of 2021 in the city of Krasnoyarsk. On the basis of four groups of values of the Cossack youth, namely social, personal, values of the Cossacks and values of the direct contact environment, a network analysis of positive and negative relationships, as well as relationships in subgroups of values, is carried out. As a comparative analysis, the results of measuring the network capital of students of the IT faculty of the evening department are used, which show a clear professional orientation and belonging to a generalized supranational community of IT specialists and a low team-building potential. The authors conclude that the construction of “network capital” is more often used in an empirical sense to obtain information about the mechanisms of access to resources or some kind of influence through network relations. Conclusion. In general, the theory of “network capital” is in the process of its formation and requires further scientific understanding. In the ongoing process of institutionalization of the Cossacks, contradictions often arise between the traditions and values of modern society, which the Cossack youth seeks to resolve in a compromise way. It is concluded that the network capital of the Cossack youth is in the stage of its active accumulation and continuous transformations.

BEING TOWARD DEATH (THAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED)

The article addresses the Heideggerian notion of being-towards-death and the specific role anxiety plays in Dasein’s transformation from inauthenticity to authenticity vis-à-vis Lacan’s conception of anxiety. Heidegger’s presentation of everyday Dasein’s attitude towards death is mainly focused on Dasein’s inauthentic denial of its possibility of dying, and the tranquility it takes in Das Man’s idle talk which shifts the attention from one’s own possibility of death to the death of the other. Heidegger locates a shift in Dasein’s attitude toward death when Dasein is struck by anxiety which facilitates Dasein’s shift from inauthenticity to authenticity. Yet Heidegger’s account of anxiety raises a lot of difficulties. Is everyday Dasein truly exposed to the radical circumstances which Heidegger outlines in the context of death-anxiety, such as the discovery of one’s own existential singularity in the case of the impossibility of sacrifice? What are the conditions under which such anxiety takes place? In this article I propose a further development of the relation between Dasein and death, based on the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and Lacan. Following Lacan, I argue that death-anxiety could be understood with respect to a prior loss, the loss of the subject or its own signifying disappearance, and hence being-towards-death is first and foremost a relation to the subject’s own division, to what “has already taken place” so to speak, rather than to what is “not yet.” Hence I argue that a subjective relation to death is a relation to one’s lack of being (manque-à-être) rather than to what is yet to come. The article proposes the following claims: (1) being-towards-death is a relation to what has already happened, rather than to a future event; (2) anxiety in the face of death assumes a “familiarity” with a moment of prior loss, which the subject interprets as death, i.e., a signifying disappearance; (3) “what happened” is not an event in the empirical sense, but a void or a lack constitutive of being.

Зомби биовласти: устарела ли концепция сегодня?

The article is devoted to the discussion about what the concept of biopower, developed within the framework of the postmodern critical theory, means in the context of the modern world, both in general theoretical and empirical sense. According to the author’s conclusion, although this concept remains significant for Political Science, it is largely outdated and could turn into a scientific zombie idea. Giorgio Agamben, one of the classics of Political Philosophy, who denied the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic on the basis of the methodology of biopolitics, is case in point. Another evidence comes from the fact that researchers from different countries, including Russia, increasingly look for new approaches and tools of the biopolitical analysis, and try to saturate the concept with new ideas and data. This article proposes three ways how to make biopolitical research more relevant today. One way is to rethink the normative/moral foundations of biopower, to reject an implicitly negative assessment of the concept. Another way is to expand the historical framework, to pay greater attention to historical cases that allow us to trace different stages of the evolution of biopolitical patterns, to focus on the analysis of specific manifestations of biopower in concrete situations. The third way is to move towards the synthesis of critical biopolitics and evolutionary biopolitics, which draws data from the natural sciences. According to the author, these efforts together will make it possible to move from the unidirectional asymmetric link “the political influences the bio logical” to a more complex scheme of mutual reflective influence of the political and the biological.

An empirical investigation of the role of lean six sigma practices on quality performance in medical device manufacturing industry

PurposeWith the growing pressure to gain optimum level of quality and speed, Lean Six Sigma (LSS) practices have drawn considerable attention as a viable alternative for process improvement. However, previous studies revealed that there is very little systematic and rigorous research to validate the claims. In this regard, this paper aims to empirically examine the effect of LSS practices on quality performance in the medical device manufacturing industry.Design/methodology/approachFor this study, partial least square–based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to empirically examine the effect of LSS practices on quality performance in Malaysian medical device manufacturing industry.FindingsThe findings of this paper revealed that LSS practices have a significant and positive effect on quality performance in the medical device manufacturing industry.Practical implicationsThis paper will serve as a valuable implication for industry practitioners in providing them with a clearer managerial direction to exploit the strength of LSS practices to achieve company’s quality goals. Moreover, this study will serve as a basis for future LSS scholars, providing them with valuable insights and directions for future research.Originality/valueThis paper develops a conceptual LSS framework that captures the integrated nature of two methodologies and provides empirical evidence that supports the positive influence of LSS practices on quality performance; hence, it contributes to the growing body of LSS literature in both theoretical and empirical sense.

Anthropocentricity as a Principle of Translation: Faust by K. A. Ivanov

The tragedy’s translation is studied as a result of more than 38 years of work by the last gymnasium headmaster in Tsarskoye Selo, the man of “Faust’s culture”. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that each translation of a tragedy allows one to grasp into new cultural meanings and influences poetic practices and translator’s representation, as well as understanding of Christianity. The problem of the research is to identify the multifunctional concept of “anthropocentricity” on specifics of Ivanov’s translation in cultural-historical, confessional and linguistic aspects. The translation was published in 2006, but there isn’t any research on it in the academic field yet. The essence of the scientific hypothesis is that the principle of Ivanov’s translation is anthropocentricity. Ivanov avoided dogmatic dependence on the terminological system and believed that the term was losing its metaphorical energy. He gave no nomination for the concept, explaining it in an empirical sense. According to Ivanov, it is real events that are the basis for interpretations and conclusions. Comprehension of one’s own experience is an unconditional characteristic of anthropocentrism. The translator also offered a kind of retrospective exhibition, recalled like-minded people, amateurs and connoisseurs of Goethe. They encoded values that are connected in the mind of the translator with the name of Goethe and his characters. The unity of anthroponyms acquiring cultural meanings forms Ivanov’s anthropocentric code. In this article, an integrative interdisciplinary method is used, which has an epistemological capacity. The author of the article came to the following conclusions. Ivanov did not raise the issue of expedience of establishing several translations for one poetical work. A good translation is possible only in the context of a great literary tradition, the predecessors’ experience. Poetic “inner men” complement each other by the rules of palimpsest. The fold participates in the poetic events, such as: the image’s creation, the selection of intonations, that determined the uniqueness and autobiographical subtext of the translation. The translation of the Ivanov’s tragedy is perceived as a manifestation of educational intentions. Ivanov assumed that there is a natural pedagogy of the classical example in Goethe’s work and included this in his project of public education. The translation carries obvious time features: the prewar and revolutionary eras. External chaotic life events were contrasted with internal regeneration of the previous cultural discipline. Ivanov was looking for analogues of the work, such as style, themes in Russian literature.

The role of venture capitalists in an organised innovation ecosystem: evidence from the USA

In the knowledge-based economy (KBE), knowledge and innovation are key drivers of economic growth. However, they have become increasingly complex. In this context, some scholars underlined the importance of the financial system in KBE. This paper has a dual aim: to understand the specific support of informal investors in the USA and to analyse the different behaviour of informal investors in this innovation ecosystem. The first part is a descriptive analysis of the investment characteristics of these operators. In the second part, we discuss the empirical sense in which possible associations of the US actions are best understood. The main results are: 1) venture capitalists activity in the USA are focused in a few states; 2) venture capitalists present a positive correlation between the number of deals and amount invested; 3) small venture capitalists (thinkers) have a strategic approach to innovative firms more defined in comparison with the big VCs (gamblers).

The role of venture capitalists in an organised innovation ecosystem: evidence from the USA

In the knowledge-based economy (KBE), knowledge and innovation are key drivers of economic growth. However, they have become increasingly complex. In this context, some scholars underlined the importance of the financial system in KBE. This paper has a dual aim: to understand the specific support of informal investors in the USA and to analyse the different behaviour of informal investors in this innovation ecosystem. The first part is a descriptive analysis of the investment characteristics of these operators. In the second part, we discuss the empirical sense in which possible associations of the US actions are best understood. The main results are: 1) venture capitalists activity in the USA are focused in a few states; 2) venture capitalists present a positive correlation between the number of deals and amount invested; 3) small venture capitalists (thinkers) have a strategic approach to innovative firms more defined in comparison with the big VCs (gamblers).

Nōn and Tīd: Computus Calculations and Ancestral Time in Beowulf

The early medieval English computus—or science of the calendar—and its impact on early English perceptions of time offer a new context for the study of Beowulf. This context brings new ideas to bear on the epic poem, which, though it concerns Scandinavians from the Migration Age, is presented by a Christian narrator to an early medieval, English, Christianized audience. The vocabulary of hours and timekeeping in the poem communicates an antiquarian perception of time for an early medieval English audience. The nouns for small units of time, such as the flexible hours of tīd and the monastic hours of nōn (nones) and ūhta (matins, dawn), are in a dialectic relationship that does not contradict the paganism of the characters but provides the poem with a liturgical backdrop. Outside of Beowulf, nōn can only be found in liturgical texts and ūhta occurs only once in nonreligious poetry. Both nouns give a hagiographical resonance to the monster-fighting. Tīd, however, is attached to meaningful moments rather than hours of a fixed arithmetical duration. This is symptomatic of the complementarity in early medieval England between mathematical and observational time perceptions. In Beowulf, both time perceptions are tied to ideological and theological overtones. Nōn represents learned time reckoning, embodied by the Church computus, and tīd represents experiential time, based on Germanic empirical observation. While the narrator announces a Germanic, empirical sense of time in the opening of the poem, there are subtextual allusions to the perception of time as mathematical and bound to the disciplines of the quadrivium.

Remembering: Epistemic and Empirical

The construct “remembering” is equivocal between an epistemic sense, denoting a distinctive ground for knowledge, and empirical sense, denoting the typical behavior of a neurocognitive mechanism. Because the same kind of equivocation arises for other psychologistic terms (such as believe, decide, know, judge, decide, infer and reason), the effort to spot and remedy the confusion in the case of remembering might prove generally instructive. The failure to allow these two senses of remembering equal play in their respective domains leads, I argue, to unnecessary confusion about memory externalism, the possibility of episodic memory in non-human species, and the thesis of memory continuism. By distinguishing these equivocal senses of remembering, we thus gain leverage on understanding how the distinctive epistemic norms that define many of our psychologic terms are more plausibly related to the capacities studied by empirical science, given that neither identity nor elimination are possible.

Economic Crises, Crisis of Labour Law? Lessons from Weimar

AbstractLabour law has been thrown into turmoil in many large industrialized countries with democratic tradition and market economies. In fact, rapid economic globalization resulted in an irremediable decline in collective bargaining in most of the states that entered into the sphere of Anglo‐Saxon capitalism. On a first reading, the financial crisis of 2008 exacerbated this retreat of labour law back to its initial individualist and contractual forms. In analysing the contemporary crisis of labour law, the historical‐comparative method can be highly fruitful, especially if one considers the precedent of the economic crisis of 1929. On this basis, I first consider an influential text by Hugo Sinzheimer on the ‘crisis of labour law’ in Weimar Germany and a study by Otto Kahn‐Freund on the changing function of labour law in the same context. These works can be connected to the concept of the ‘labour constitution’, which Max Weber notably developed in an empirical sense, and which finds its extension in the later works of Thilo Ramm, a labour scholar of international reputation.

Multiculturalism and (Neo)liberalism

Questions related to the politics and practice of multiculturalism remain hotly debated, even though it is unclear what generally is meant by the term “multiculturalism” and how multiculturalism fits into the politics of liberalism. To many proponents of identity politics movements, ‘normative multiculturalism’ represents an unquestioned good, and collective identities are seen as a primary subject of democratic deliberation and national policy. Liberal activists, however, may be justifiably concerned that this interpretation of multiculturalism impinges on the foundations of liberalism itself, including the core value of perfect equality between autonomous rights-bearing subjects.We respond to these concerns by interrogating the philosophical nature of liberalism and multiculturalism, respectively, and fleshing out the complex relationship that exists between these concepts. Using discourse analysis we find that the discourse of normative multiculturalism corresponds to the broader concept of liberalism – neoliberalism. We argue that the discourse of neoliberalism integrates the model and empirical sense of the classical concept of liberalism and that the goal – normative neutrality towards cultural and other identities – is more efficiently achieved..

SIMILARITY OF ATTITUDES AND INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION: A NEW LOOK AT A CLASSICAL PROBLEM

Relevance. Research into the factors determining attraction between people is the most generally accepted paradigm in modern social psychology. The principal innovation of this study is its differentiation of the factor of the similarity of attitudes (both positive and negative), which was not introduced in previous works, either theoretical or empirical. At the same time, it seems apparent that “similarity of attitudes” is too global a characterization and requires further discrimination. Distinguishing between positive and negative attitudes makes obvious empirical sense: To what extent is similarity in some negative attitudes more important than in positive ones? Objective. To determine the impact of coinciding negative and positive attitudes on attraction to strangers in women. Methods. The study involved two stages. The sample at the first stage comprised 162 women, at the second there were 47; the average age of the participants was 19 years. The main methodological technique was a modified version of D. Byrne’s “fake stranger”. Statistical processing of the data included one-way analysis of variance and subsequent assessment of the significance of the differences in the dynamics of the attraction obtained by introducing additional information in the form of positive and negative attitudes corresponding to respondents’ own attitudes. Results. The introduction of additional information about attitudes that coincide with those of the respondent had a significant impact on attraction. The differences between the coincidence of the so-called positive and negative attitudes were analyzed. The authors propose a number of interpretations of the results in line with concepts relevant to modern socio-psychological science, relating to various theoretical orientations (psychoanalysis, cognitivism, interactionism, etc.). Conclusion. In the case of coinciding negative attitudes, the increase of the resulting attraction to the object is more significant than in the case of coinciding positive attitudes.

Summaries

Summaries

China in a World of Orders: Rethinking Compliance and Challenge in Beijing's International Relations

Many scholars and policymakers in the United States accept the narrative that China is a revisionist state challenging the U.S.-dominated international liberal order. The narrative assumes that there is a singular liberal order and that it is obvious what constitutes a challenge to it. The concepts of order and challenge are, however, poorly operationalized. There are at least four plausible operationalizations of order, three of which are explicitly or implicitly embodied in the dominant narrative. These tend to assume, ahistorically, that U.S. interests and the content of the liberal order are almost identical. The fourth operationalization views order as an emergent property of the interaction of multiple state, substate, nonstate, and international actors. As a result, there are at least eight “issue-specific orders” (e.g., military, trade, information, and political development). Some of these China accepts; some it rejects; and some it is willing to live with. Given these multiple orders and varying levels of challenge, the narrative of a U.S.-dominated liberal international order being challenged by a revisionist China makes little conceptual or empirical sense. The findings point to the need to develop more generalizable ways of observing orders and compliance.