General Definition Research Articles

An analytical model for multihop LoRaWAN networks

LoRaWAN is one of the most popular LPWAN technology due to the facility to implement applications that require a low cost, low energy consumption, low data rate, and large coverage area. LoRaWAN is a single-hop star-of-stars topology composed of end-devices that transmit data to be collected by gateways in the coverage area. Multihop networks are receiving the attention of the LoRaWAN community since it allows to extend the coverage area and improve energy efficiency, thus prolonging the network lifetime. In this paper, we propose an analytical model for multihop LoRaWAN networks. The objective of the analytical model is to provide a general and theoretical definition of a multihop LoRaWAN network, considering different device characteristics and network topologies. The analytical model gives new insights into the performance of multihop LoRaWAN networks. We investigate the energy consumption, throughput, delay, and packet delivery ratio of single-hop and multihop relay networks. The results showed that the relay network increases the network performance compared to the regular LoRaWAN network, although there are some limitations on the number of hops and relay characteristics. The development and deployment of multihop LoRaWAN networks are creating new opportunities, and the analytical model presented could be used before real deployments for a better knowledge of limitations and network needs.

Topical Symbols of Kyiv as a Tourism Brand

The attention to branding, from theorists as well as from practitioners, had remained at a very high level for the 2000s and 2010s. Many new branches of branding theory have emerged, and place branding was among them. Actually, place branding has become an umbrella term, a generic definition for three areas of study and practice: nation branding, region branding, and city branding. Every year, new scientific, journalistic, business articles, and books on place branding emerge, there are even several specialized periodicals devoted to this field of branding. This study aims to identify the most relevant and effective symbol of the Ukrainian capital city Kyiv as a tourism brand. Questionnaire surveys and the content analysis of literature and mass media are used. Key segments and sub-segments of the target audience of Kyiv tourism branding are determined, as well as the key factor of influence on the formation of the opinion regarding the tourism symbols of Kyiv. The most common popular symbol is compared with the real resources of the city. Thus, a set of relevances is found appropriate for the development of effective branding of Kyiv.

Memory and monuments – labor on earth. Monumental sculpture

The article provides a detailed analysis of the development of sculpture in works dedicated to the glorification and admiring the beauty of the farmer's work. The authors talk about the problems facing artists in this sphere, give a general definition of this direction, its boundaries and connections with other types of art. The authors claim that the task of the sculpture is not to exhibit, but to live, give the examples of the theme of rural labor used by artists, and glorifying the beauty of work on the land. The paper concludes that it is necessary to preserve both traditional and innovative forms of this type of art closely related to peasant life.

Репрезентация концепта КОМАР в эвенской языковой картине мира

The research is aimed at the complete description of the concept MOSQUITO in the Even language picture of the world. The scientific novelty consists in the description of the concept MOSQUITO in the Evens study with the linguocultural aspect. As a result, it is revealed that the concept MOSQUITO in the ethnic language consciousness is a part of macronomial field of the summer season. The key lexemes-representatives кулин and куличан date back to the Tunguso-Manchurian root кули- and have the general definition ‘insect’. The derivation field of the concept is represented by a small set of verb lexemes. The figurative content of the concept MOSQUITO is identified in the speech of dialect speakers, in the texts of fiction and folklore discourses and is represented with the comparative constructions formalized by the formants -мдас, -гчин, -гичин, the adverb урэчин, the metaphors and methonymic transfers. It is substantiated that the anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, vital, ornithological and subject features are the prevailing figurative conceptual characteristics. Value and assessment components expressed by the lexical units with expressive assessment in the Even language show the world perception and negative attitude of the native speakers towards the nature phenomena MOSQUITO.

Activation of Business Processes in Service Cooperation of Rural Territories of Ukraine

The attention to branding, from theorists as well as from practitioners, had remained at a very high level for the 2000s and 2010s. Many new branches of branding theory have emerged, and place branding was among them. Actually, place branding has become an umbrella term, a generic definition for three areas of study and practice: nation branding, region branding, and city branding. Every year, new scientific, journalistic, business articles, and books on place branding emerge, there are even several specialized periodicals devoted to this field of branding. This study aims to identify the most relevant and effective symbol of the Ukrainian capital city Kyiv as a tourism brand. Questionnaire surveys and the content analysis of literature and mass media are used. Key segments and sub-segments of the target audience of Kyiv tourism branding are determined, as well as the key factor of influence on the formation of the opinion regarding the tourism symbols of Kyiv. The most common popular symbol is compared with the real resources of the city. Thus, a set of relevances is found appropriate for the development of effective branding of Kyiv.

A BRIEF EXPLORATION OF THE ISLAMIZABLE YORUBA ART AND CULTURE

Art and culture it is believed cannot be simply defined. This is based on the complexity of the notions and connotations they both imbibe. A similar difficulty it is faced when determining what is religious, particularly Islamic, in art and culture and what is not. Bearing in mind the complexity of both the definition and the conception, this paper attempts a general definition than can be considered by all sundry and attempts to draw closer some conceptual usages that would not be alleged as taking one beyond the boundary of religion. Islam is both an inclusive and exclusive way of life, and as such is expected to be tolerant in most cases. Art and culture derived from natural instincts would not in any way and form go against Islamic injunctions, if properly dissected and appropriately elucidated. There are many aspects of Yoruba art and culture that are still maintained both during and post adventure of Islam among the Yoruba community. Moreover, Islam has been silent on some others, not giving consent not disproving, due to lack of a direct prohibition from the Shariah law and the Muslim scholars. Art and culture cannot be strictly placed under the category of haram (prohibited acts), and it is the position of this paper that whether we like it or we like it not art and culture are both part of us and so shall we manage them with our ways of life (religion). The paper likes to conclude that the misplacement of the artistic and cultural concepts stem from the misappropriation and misrepresentation of what art and culture are and what they are not. Art and culture are just what they are, and are not what they are not, a water-concept of life that is seldom felt but hard to jettison.

Projective embedding of dynamical systems: Uniform mean field equations

We study embeddings of continuous dynamical systems in larger dimensions via projector operators. We call this technique PEDS, projective embedding of dynamical systems, as the stable fixed point of the original system dynamics are recovered via projection from the higher dimensional space. In this paper we provide a general definition and prove that for a particular type of rank-1 projector operator, the uniform mean field projector, the equations of motion become a mean field approximation of the dynamical system. While in general the embedding depends on a specified variable ordering, the same is not true for the uniform mean field projector. We prove a variety of results on the relationship between the spectrum of the Jacobian for fixed points in the original and in the embedded system. Direct applications of PEDS can be non-convex optimization and machine learning.

Study on A-FNS shielding analysis with variance reduction parameter generation code

Design activities of advanced fusion neutron source A-FNS have been conducted to perform the irradiation tests for fusion reactor materials. It is necessary to evaluate the effective dose rate of the lateral access cell in the A-FNS facility by shielding calculations. In the calculation, a variance reduction method using an effective bias data is necessary to reduce statistical errors. The weight window generation (WWG) function had been used in the analyses with MCNP code and McDeLicious source subroutine. There were some difficulties in the usage of WWG such as many iterative calculations, experiences, and skills required to obtain appropriate bias data. Therefore, the automatic variance reduction parameter generator code ADVANTG has been introduced to the calculation, creating a source description in the general source definition (SDEF) of MCNP for the A-FNS by approximating the neutron and photon generations of the McDeLicious source subroutine. The ADVANTG code was successfully applied to the calculation, and the dose rate of the lateral access cell in the A-FNS was obtained with small statistical errors by a once-through calculation.

Designing attribute-based verifiable data storage and retrieval scheme in cloud computing environment

The cloud computing technology is a novel storage and computing paradigm that enables individuals and organizations to store data, share data with intended group of users and retrieve data when require. It greatly improves peoples’ data storage and sharing, and data retrieval capabilities by providing flexible, less expensive and quality services. For data security and privacy concerns, secure and authenticated data storage, fine-grained access control of encrypted data, secure search for the outsourced data and search results verification are of critical importance. However, achieving the aforementioned functionalities simultaneously is quite challenging. In this paper, for the first time, we propose a secure lightweight Attribute-Based verifiable Data Storage and data Retrieval Scheme (ABDSRS) for cloud environments that attains the following features: (i) lightweight design, (ii) provably secure, (iii) fine-grained data access control, (iv) data owner (DO) anonymity, (v) data and DO authenticity, (vi) keyword policy search over encrypted data, (vii) keyword privacy, and (viii) search results verification. ABDSRS employs attribute-based online-offline mechanism in which only authorized DOs can anonymously upload data to the cloud. And, a data user (DU) can search over encrypted data using keyword policy. ABDSRS enables a DU to verify the correctness of the search results (i.e., the correctness of the operations performed by the cloud) without interacting with any authority. ABDSRS is lightweight in the sense that the heavy computations are offloaded either to the cloud or to offline phase, while only lightweight operations are executed at the DU device. We formalize more general security definitions of ABDSRS by considering various possible adversarial capabilities and present rigorous security analysis. We also conduct experiments to evaluate ABDSRS’s performance.

Quantum Holonomy Fields

We investigate lattice and continuous quantum gauge theories on the Euclidean plane with a structure group that is replaced by a H-algebra. H-algebras are non-commutative analogues of groups and contain the class of Voiculescu's dual groups. We are interested in non-commutative analogues of random gauge fields, which we describe through the random Holonomy that they induce. We propose a general definition of a Holonomy Field with symmetries displaying the structure of a H-algebra and construct such a field starting from a quantum Lévy process on a H-algebra in the category of probability spaces. We call them Quantum Holonomy Fields. We also consider the more abstract case of an H-algebra in a given algebraic category. This yields the notion of a Categorical Holonomy Field. As an application, we define higher dimensional generalizations of the so-called Master Field on the plane.

Narratives of Post-Truth: Lyotard and the Epistemic Fragmentation of Society

In recent years, the post-truth phenomenon has dominated public and political discourse. This article offers a functional analysis of its mechanisms based on the category of narrative. After providing a brief definition of post-truth as a conceptual foundation, I trace the meaning of the term ‘narrative’ in the works of Jean-François Lyotard, focusing on the elusive category of small narrative. Utilizing terms and concepts of contemporary narrative theory, I propose a general definition of cultural narrative and reconceptualize Lyotard’s petit récit as a particular case of this superordinate category. Drawing on Lyotard’s phrase linguistics as set out in The Differend, I develop the category of epistemic sphere to analyze Donald Trump’s MAGA movement as an example of post-truth politics, the rise of populism and the epistemic fragmentation of society.

Concepts of good mental health and wellbeing in people with intellectual disability: Study protocol for a systematic review.

Good mental health is an indispensable aspect of good general health and different definitions of good mental health have been developed for the general population. However, it is not clear how these definitions can be applied to people with intellectual disabilities (ID), as they may have difficulties in many facets encompassed in existing definitions. Yet, people with ID can be mentally healthy or mentally ill just as people without ID. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize existing concepts, definitions, and measurement approaches of good mental health and wellbeing for people with ID. A comprehensive, systematic literature review will be conducted in 11 databases, including ASSIA, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, ERIC, MedRxiv, OSF preprints, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. By including preprints and theses servers in the search strategy, we will also consider grey and unpublished literature. The quality of included studies will be rated using standardized checklists. All steps of the literature search, data extraction, and quality rating will be performed independently by two trained researchers. Disagreements will be resolved through discussion between these researchers and, if required, by consulting a third team member. In a narrative synthesis, existing approaches to good mental health and wellbeing for people with ID will be systematically described and linked to current research in mental health for people with and without ID. The findings of this study will provide researchers and practitioners with an evidence-based overview of current approaches to good mental health and wellbeing of people with ID. We will explore and discuss the individual facets of the definitions, concepts, and measurement approaches and identify possible gaps which need to be addressed. This will strengthen future research on this topic and focus research activities on important and unresolved themes that need to be targeted to promote health equity for people with ID.

Collection and classification of influence parameters for safety effectiveness of ADAS

Virtual scenario-based testing has become an acceptable method for evaluating safety effectiveness of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Due to the complexity of the ADAS operating environment, the scenarios that an ADAS could face are almost infinite. Therefore, it is crucial to find critical scenarios to improve the efficiency of testing without compromising credibility. One popular method is to explore the parameterized scenario space using various intelligent search methods. Selecting parameters to parameterize the scenario space is particularly important to achieve good coverage and high efficiency. However, an extensive collection of (relevant) influence parameters is missing, which allows a thorough consideration when selecting parameters regarding specific scenarios. In addition, the general importance definition for individual influence parameters is not provided, regarding the potential influence of their variations on the safety effectiveness of ADAS, which can also be used as a reference while selecting parameters. Combining knowledge from different sources (the published literature, standardized test scenarios, accident analysis, autonomous vehicle disengagement, accident reports, and specific online surveys), this paper has summarized, in total, 94 influence parameters, given the general definitions of importance for 77 influence parameters based on cluster analysis algorithms. The list of influence parameters provides researchers and system developers a comprehensive basis for pre-selecting influence parameters for evaluating the safety effectiveness of ADAS by virtual scenario-based testing and helps check whether certain influence parameters can be a meaningful extension for the evaluation.

Electric polarization and magnetization in metals

A feature of the “modern theory” is that electric polarization is not well-defined in a metallic ground state. A different approach invokes the general existence of a complete set of exponentially localized Wannier functions, with respect to which general definitions of microscopic electronic polarization and magnetization fields, and free charge and current densities are always admitted. These definitions assume no particular initial electronic state of the crystal, and the set of microscopic fields satisfy the usual relations of classical electrodynamics. Notably, when applied to a trivial insulator initially occupying its T=0T=0 ground state, the expressions for the unperturbed polarization and orbital magnetization, and for the orbital magnetoelectric polarizability tensor obtained from these different approaches can agree. However, the “modern theory of magnetization” has been extended via thermodynamic arguments to include metals and Chern insulators. We here compare with that generalization and find disagreement; the manner in which the expressions differ elucidates the distinct philosophies of these approaches. Our approach leads to the usual electrical conductivity tensor in the long-wavelength limit; in the absence of any scattering mechanisms, the dc divergence of that tensor is due to the free current density and the finite-frequency generalization of the anomalous Hall contribution arises from a combination of bound and free current densities. As well, in the limit that the electronic ground state is that of a trivial insulator, our expressions reduce to those expected for the unperturbed polarization and magnetization, and the electric susceptibility.

Door de bomen het bos leren zien – en door het bos de bomen: Het Nederlandse Case Studies Project Geestelijke Verzorging

Learning to see the forest for the trees and the trees for the forest: the Dutch Case Studies Project in Chaplaincy Chaplaincy/spiritual care is a young profession whose multiple and multicolored practice has so far hardly been explored and analyzed through empirical research. In our research, we have partly mapped the practice using case studies. In doing so, we made a number of methodological choices, such as soliciting case studies of care practices in various fields of chaplaincy, attending to context, requesting member checks, working in research communities with a detailed format for the case studies, all in a four-year process. We offer here a motivation for our methodological choices, followed by an evaluation. A common thread running through the choices and evaluation is the tension between the concreteness of the practices and general definitions of what chaplaincy/spiritual care is.

The Representation of Royal Majesty in Ceremonies at the Early Modern Habsburg Courts

Understanding the court ceremonial of early modern times is one of the basic prerequisites for an understanding of the meaning of the existence of the institution of the imperial court, the hierarchical arrangement of the court as an organism and the ranking of its members, with the sovereign at their head. The present study therefore maps the development of research on the courts of the Habsburg emperors in the 16th-18th centuries from the perspective of Czech and Central European historiography. In the first part, the authors attempt to provide a general definition of ceremonial on the threshold of modern times. They devote special attention to the semantic significance of period terms associated with ceremonial, and note the contemporary typology of celebrations at the court of the sovereign. They go on to analyse the historiographic development of research into the imperial court and the ceremonies closely associated with it at the early modern courts of the Habsburgs, especially in the last two decades

How can policy and policymaking foster climate justice? A qualitative systematic review

Background: Climate change research has established a clear requirement for policy and policymaking: (1) transformational changes in policy and policymaking to foster (2) ‘climate justice’, including a ‘just transition’ (a movement towards environmental sustainability with equitable processes and outcomes). However, there is a major gap between these requirements and actual policies and policy processes. We identify how researchers use policy theories to understand this gap. Methods: We conducted a qualitative systematic review (2022) to identify peer reviewed journal articles on climate change, policy, justice, and equity in three databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Proquest). Each article had to provide a non-trivial reference to policymaking. We used an immersive and inductive approach to identify key themes and show how the use of policy theories informs climate change research. Results: A total of 108 texts meet the inclusion criteria (with some bias towards Global North research since all texts are in English). Most provide general definitions of climate justice, require fair outcomes and processes, and list what is required to meet those aims. However, they also identify unjust processes and outcomes in relation to who is recognised, gets to define the problem, and wins or loses from solutions. Researchers contrast their preferred social justice approach (informing ‘civic environmentalism) to a dominant neoliberal approach (corresponding to weak ‘ecological modernization’). Conclusions: Researchers focus on what they need from policy and policymaking to produce climate justice. Few engage meaningfully with policy theories to describe how policymaking actually works. More engagement would help to set meaningful expectations regarding policy change and avoid a needless tendency to treat policymaking like a ‘black box’.

Linguistic Conceptualization of Spatial Prepositions: Romanian ʺînʺ and Polish ʺwʺ ‒ A Comparative Approach

"Linguistic Conceptualization of Spatial Prepositions: Romanian “în” and Polish “w” – Comparative Approach. The Romanian preposition ""în"" corresponds to the Polish preposition ""w"". Both express the spatial relationship that consists of placing an object in a limited space; they indicate the interior of the space where something is located. In addition to this general definition in both languages, the preposition acquires other semantic functions that may be convergent, rendered directly by the pair Rom. în = Pol. w. Furthermore, representation of some linguistic relations can be different: for a Romanian speaker, the space relation could be reflected by preposition representing a closed space – în, but for a Polish speaker, it reflects an open space or a surface coralated to the Polish preposition – na. The main objective of this article is to analyze the differences that, first, result from the distinctive conceptualization of space reflected in the language using prepositions and, secondly, result from heterogenous grammatical system (Roman vs. Slavic). The analysis is based, among other things, on the frequent mistakes in the use of prepositional structures that Polish speakers make when learning Romanian. The wrong structures appear especially at the level of abstract language, in phrases or verbs, when the regime imposes prepositions or cases that do not correspond functionally to the native ones; however, the linguistic image of the space is also different and difficult to identify in the metaphorical or abstract structures. The cognitive approach allows the delineation of some image schemes that represent the core meaning of the preposition. The comparative study of the preposition in the Romanian and Polish languages shows that the prepositional system in the Romanian language is more developed and richer than the Polish one, and the latter presents a much stronger and more direct attachment to the feature of ""interiority"" expressed by the preposition ""w / în"" than in the Romanian language. Keywords: prepositions, Romanian as a Foreign Language, linguistic conceptualization, prepositional structures, polish language "

Exergy of an open continuous medium.

Exergy is a very important thermodynamic quantity in several fields such as economy, engineering, and ecology and yet it has attracted little attention in pure physics. One of the main problems of the currently used definition of exergy is its dependence on an arbitrarily chosen reference state, which is the thermodynamic state of a reservoir the system is supposedly in contact with. In this paper, starting from a very general definition of exergy, a formula is derived for the exergy balance of a general open continuous medium without any reference to an external environment. A formula is also derived for the most suitable thermodynamic parameters of the Earth atmosphere when seen as an external environment in the usual exergy applications.

Digital Twins for the Future Power System: An Overview and a Future Perspective

The inevitable transition of the power system toward a sustainable and renewable-energy centered power system is accompanied by huge versatility and significant challenges. A corresponding shift in operation strategies, embracing more intelligence and digitization, e.g., a Cyber-Physical System (CPS), is needed to achieve an optimal, reliable and secure operation across all system levels (components, units, plants, grids) and by the use of big data. Digital twins (DTs) are a promising approach to realize CPS. In this paper, their applications in power systems are reviewed comprehensively. The review reveals that there exists a gap between available DT definitions and the requirements for DTs utilized in future power systems. Therefore, by adapting the current definitions to these requirements, a generic definition of a “Digital Twin System (DTS)” is introduced which finally allows proposing a multi-level and arbitrarily extendable “System of Digital Twin Systems (SDTSs)” idea. The SDTSs can be realized with an open-source framework that serves as a central data and communication interface between different DTSs which can interact by “Reporting Modules” and are regulated by “Control Modules” (CMs). Exemplary application scenarios involving multiple system levels are discussed to illustrate the capabilities of the proposed SDTS concept.