Decisive Moment Research Articles

Not one inconvenient truth, but many: emergency narratives and climate change

ABSTRACT A crisis is a decisive moment that can provide an opportunity for a change, but also reaffirm power asymmetries. This conceptual article highlights the Janus-faced character of declaring a climate emergency. More than 2,300 municipalities worldwide have done so. On the one hand, climate crisis and emergency narratives imply a disruption in which the dominant economic system is collectively challenged, enabling citizens to exercise power with others for greater sustainability. On the other hand, climate knowledge is often perceived as conclusive, paving the way for greater power over citizens and towards authoritarianism.

O herói improvável e o elixir das concórdias

The reproduction of pleasant myths, the fabrication of heroic predecessors for present political movements and the upkeep of useful lies for the defence of noble causes should not constitute the aim of legal historians. On the contrary, it is their scientific duty to point out the inappropriateness of such conducts and the lack of plausibility of narratives produced this way. Showing how the legal community of São Paulo has reconstructed its memory, the article offers a new interpretation about the path of Goffredo Telles Junior as a political militant and State theorist. Re-examining forgotten remains of such path and reinterpreting the already known sources, we aim at demonstrating that his adhesion to Integralismo, far from having been an insignificant and episodical juvenile whim, was a decisive moment which affected his ideological views along four decades. From the thirties to the hardest times of the Military Dictatorship, his texts abounded with typical elements of the far-right antidemocratic thought: the obsession with corporatism as a supposed antidote against class struggle, the repugnance for liberal democracy, the disdain for the opinions of the average citizen, the strong attachment to hierarchy and to the “Principle of Authority”, the rejection of individualism and the belief that small élites, superior to the “mass”, should show the Nation its way. Obvious as well in the first integralist party as in its postwar successor, Goffredo’s longstanding loyalty to that far-right movement tends to be disregarded by his admirers, thus wiping out decades of the jurist’s political activity.

The MAXLab aggression and bystander intervention scenario set (MAXLab_ABISS): A modular scenario set for studying decision making in situations of interpersonal violence in virtual reality

Abstract Objective This Research Note describes the MAXLab Aggression and Bystander Intervention Scenario Set (MAXLab_ABISS) and provides empirical examples of its applicability. We describe the scenarios, elaborate on the production process, provide technical specifications, and explain how materials can be obtained. Method This modular stimulus set, which is currently available in the English, German and Dutch language, includes 360° videos for studying decision-making in interpersonal violence. It offers researchers a complimentary method to collect data on emotions, perceptions, and reactions to violent situations using immersive technology. Results Analysis from two samples (n = 101 and n = 55) show the immersive scenarios of the stimulus set are effective at evoking targeted emotional experiences at the moment of a crime decision. Conclusion MAXLab_ABISS is a safe and effective tool for studying decision making in real-life, emotion-laden criminogenic settings. We offer insights for how researchers can further use the materials to study decision making related to crime and violence.

Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho’s scientific correspondence: historical connections between oceanography and marine biology from Portugal (1919–1949)

This article presents Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho’s scientific correspondence between 1919 and 1949, both nationally and internationally. It consists of 181 unpublished letters, exchanged with 30 relevant figures belonging to 11 countries, including France, the UK, Croatia, Japan, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Morocco, Belgium and Spain. This correspondence shows a network among different research institutions devoted to the marine sciences. This includes biological stations, such as the Istituto Italo-Germanico di Biologia Marina, laboratories and museums, e. g. the British Museum of Natural History. At the national level, the correspondence between Ramalho and Augusto Nobre represents a historical axis between Lisbon and Porto, involving two of the most relevant scientists in the fields of oceanography and marine biology. At the international level, Ramalho corresponded with personalities such as Henry Gascoyne Maurice and other members of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, including for example the oceanographer Vagn Walfrid Ekman. This correspondence represents an archival discovery of the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere in Lisbon, marking a decisive historical scientific moment for both Portuguese and international contexts in the field of marine sciences. This article aims to reconstruct Portugal’s internal and external networks.

Synthography: A term for synthetically created photo-realistic images

With the advent of AI-generated photorealistic images in easily accessible online resources, synthetic imaging suddenly is widely discussed, obscuring the quiet revolution that has transformed image-making in the digital realm over the last decades. ‘The decisive moment’ has been taken out of the photographer’s hands a long time ago and the numerous automatic mechanisms integrated into the apparatus and the editing pipeline question the idea of sole authorship. This reassessment and re-evaluation of photographic images demands for a precise, differentiated description for images that are not produced by optical means. Therefore, the term synthography determines the essence and origin of the photorealistic, artificially created image.

Dynamic scheduling of hybrid flow shop problem with uncertain process time and flexible maintenance using NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies

AbstractA hybrid flow shop is pivotal in modern manufacturing systems, where various emergencies and disturbances occur within the smart manufacturing context. Efficiently solving the dynamic hybrid flow shop scheduling problem (HFSP), characterised by dynamic release times, uncertain job processing times, and flexible machine maintenance has become a significant research focus. A NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) algorithm is proposed to minimise the maximum completion time. To improve the NEAT algorithm's efficiency and effectiveness, several features were integrated: a multi‐agent system with autonomous interaction and centralised training to develop the parallel machine scheduling policy, a maintenance‐related scheduling action for optimal maintenance decision learning, and a proactive scheduling action to avoid waiting for jobs at decision moments, thereby exploring a broader solution space. The performance of the trained NEAT model was experimentally compared with the Deep Q‐Network (DQN) and five classical priority dispatching rules (PDRs) across various problem scales. The results show that the NEAT algorithm achieves better solutions and responds more quickly to dynamic changes than DQN and PDRs. Furthermore, generalisation test results demonstrate NEAT's rapid problem‐solving ability on test instances different from the training set.

FOLK THINKING AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOL FOR THE REGULATION OF ETHNIC BEHAVIOR

The article refers to the verbal formulaic structures that strengthen the self-composition of a person in extreme situations, which have been crystalized and perceived by the people over time, becoming a unique tool for self-defense. Speech practices are very important from the point of view of the preservation of the given ethnos and as embodiments of clarification of thought, they are reflected in the decisive moments in the life of the nation or people, especially in the context of great psychological tension (natural disaster, flood, disaster, war, etc.). We see the formation of a verbal saying as a unique result of the perceptive experience of the eternal mind or as a type of oral tradition that arose on the basis of archetypal thinking. The phrases in question have accompanied the humankind through history and have been conceived by practices over the centuries, being accepted as traditional behaviors in the given community, they influence the behavior of ethnocrats and provide super-orienting references. Stable phrases awaken stronger voice than our own: the speaker with folk oral thinking speaks with a thousands of voices, captivates and humbles, elevates what is described from the singular and temporary to the realm of eternal existence. In an extreme state, we implement the forms and content of speech that our mental world needs and that correspond to the content of our life.

Crisis

Owing to its prominence in everyday life, media, culture, economy and politics, we follow the lead of Marie Moran in taking a keywords-as-method approach to ‘crisis’. In doing so, we explore its changing meaning from a decisive moment to something more permanent. We argue this change is because of the proliferation, proximity and visibility of numerous interlocking, converging crises that are being experienced by a greater number of people across a range of spatiotemporal scales which produces a political imagination defined by incipience. Taken together, these illuminate how the changed meaning of ‘crisis’ is both a response to, and constitutive of the material conditions of lived experience, as well as our social, cultural and political imaginaries in the contemporary moment.

Impulsive thrust strategy for orbital pursuit-evasion games based on impulse-like constraint

This paper proposes a novel impulsive thrust strategy guided by optimal continuous thrust strategy to address two-player orbital pursuit-evasion game under impulsive thrust control. The strategy seeks to enhance the interpretability of impulsive thrust strategy by integrating it within the framework of differential game in traditional continuous systems. First, this paper introduces an impulse-like constraint, with periodical changes in thrust amplitude, to characterize the impulsive thrust control. Then, the game with the impulse-like constraint is converted into the two-point boundary value problem, which is solved by the combined shooting and deep learning method proposed in this paper. Deep learning and numerical optimization are employed to obtain the guesses for unknown terminal adjoint variables and the game terminal time. Subsequently, the accurate values are solved by the shooting method to yield the optimal continuous thrust strategy with the impulse-like constraint. Finally, the shooting method is iteratively employed at each impulse decision moment to derive the impulsive thrust strategy guided by the optimal continuous thrust strategy. Numerical examples demonstrate the convergence of the combined shooting and deep learning method, even if the strongly nonlinear impulse-like constraint is introduced. The effect of the impulsive thrust strategy guided by the optimal continuous thrust strategy is also discussed.

Decisive Moments at Emerald Lawns: Manoj Joshi’s Dilemma

Manoj Joshi, the central character in this case, is the driving force behind Emerald Lawns. Emerald Lawns’ story unfolds in the unique context of Mollem, an emerging market characterized by rich natural resources and abundant biodiversity. Joshi’s venture leveraged these factors while adhering to the principles of sustainability. However, after a decade of growth and adaptation, Joshi faces a pivotal decision. He finds himself at a crossroad, questioning whether the resort has strayed from its original vision. This dilemma centers on the challenge of balancing the diverse demands of attracting dedicated birding enthusiasts, who value the resort’s focus on niche wildlife experiences, with the needs and expectations of pleasure-seeking tourists. In navigating this complex terrain, Joshi must remain true to his social entrepreneurial values while ensuring the financial sustainability of Emerald Lawns. In this context, the case provides a thought-provoking exploration of organizational management decisions and the dilemmas that can arise in an emerging market, of balancing commercial interests with personal passion for nature.

Fifty years of Spinozism in Spain

The purpose of this paper is to give an account of the journey that Spinoza’s philosophy made in the last fifty years through Spain, from the final years of the Franco regime till today. Our aim is to show the foundational role played by Spinoza’s philosophy during the decisive moments of the transformation of Spanish society and the Spanish university. We start by addressing the revival of Spinoza’s philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) during the final years of the Franco regime (1966-1975). We then divide the last fifty years of Spinozism in Spain into three periods: (1) the consolidation and the institutionalization of Spinozism (1975-1990); (2) the expansion of Spinoza’s influence through the University of Castilla-La Mancha, the Seminario Spinoza and the first three International Spinoza Conferences (1990-2000); (3) the diverse and manifold Spinoza of the third millennium (2000-2023). In the appendix we briefly address the state of Spinozism in Latin America and its relations with Spinozism in Spain.

Social selection analysis reveals limited effect of neighbors' traits in Tree swallows.

Social interactions are ubiquitous in nature and can shape the fitness of individuals through social selection. This type of selection arises when phenotypes of neighbors influence the fitness of a focal individual. Quantifying social selection is crucial to better characterize the overall selective landscape. For example, if intraspecific competition is strong, traits that are beneficial for an individual could be detrimental to competitors. In this study, we quantified social selection acting on three key ecological traits (body mass, wing length, and laying date) in wild Tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) females. We used reproductive success measured at three stages throughout the breeding season as fitness proxies to assess selection acting at those decisive moments. We also quantified the effects of environment on selection using measures of conspecifics' density, type of agricultural landscape, and presence of interspecific competitors. Overall, we found no strong evidence of social selection on these traits in our study system, although there were marginally nonsignificant selection gradients suggesting the positive effect of larger neighbors. Environmental variables affected reproductive success but did not strongly affect social selection gradients. Our study calls for more social selection estimates to be reported across environments to better understand its importance in wild populations.

Transcending Transcendence in Jim Jarmusch's Paterson

Abstract Building on Paul Schrader's thesis in Transcendental Style in Film that immanence and transcendence clash, this article explores a departure from this binary in Jim Jarmusch's 2016 film, Paterson. Although Paterson follows the formula of transcendental cinema, it lacks Schrader's prerequisite “Decisive Moments” for transcendence. I contend that films can evoke transcendence without distinct release moments, as exemplified by Paterson. To support this, Paterson is contrasted with Yasujiro Ozu's 1953 masterpiece, Tokyo Story, identified by Schrader as quintessentially transcendental and a key influence on Jarmusch. Introducing the concept of “immanent transcendence” to describe Paterson's unique position, I argue that transcendence and immanence can coexist. I challenge traditional notions of transcendental cinema, shedding light on cinematic experiences that bridge immanence and transcendence.

Lived experiences of matrilocal husbands in Filipino marriage patterns: a phenomenological inquiry

Marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together as husband and wife. Hence, determining a community's rules or rules of residence in marriage has long been established as an essential requirement in understanding the social system. Moreover, in-residence practices are the first family pattern to exhibit change and cause subsequent change; thus, they warrant attention. Meanwhile, when couples marry, they usually live in or near the home of the man's parents. However, sometimes, this wasn't practiced because of the preeminence of the bride's family. Hence, unlike the more common patrilocal marriage, the groom resides with the bride's parents. A phenomenological qualitative study was utilized to understand the lived experiences of matrilocal husbands in Filipino marriage patterns. The researcher identified four major themes from the transcripts using Colaizzi's phenomenological data analysis procedure. Reasons for becoming a matrilocal husband are primarily based on the socioeconomic status of the couple. The participants expressed that there were moments of self-adjustment and set-aside decisions. They expressed a need to socialize, particularly with his in-laws. This study can be used for policy-making, specifically for the local government unit, to extend activities to cater to the personal, social, and psychological impacts of being a matrilocal husband. It can also be integrated into gender and society courses in college.

Consciousness is a Contradictory Attribute of Humanity

Introduction. The question of consciousness is one of those which comprehension makes it possible to gain confidence that the human existence is necessary, that the earth human civilization had to have arisen in the Universe. The interaction of concepts about the essence and the origin of consciousness asserts the importance of human life, human activity, human dignity as well the validity of the emergence and development of culture. Theoretical Basis. Methods. At the same time, the process of “pure” self-knowledge in which consciousness explores consciousness reveals many contradictions and even threats generated by the mind to itself. The desire to identify patterns of consciousness allows the hope of increasing of the effectiveness of self-knowledge to get a higher degree of self-control, to achieve better mutual understanding between people. Results. The result of the analysis was the conclusion that the quality of consciousness is the most important sign of the measure of the human, cultural component of the subject of social relations, and also that the level of awareness of social activity directly affects the safety and viability of any social system. For Russia, at a turning point in world history, at the turn of the first and second quarters of the 21st century this is especially true. Discussion and Conclusion. A decisive moment has come in the destinies of Russia and the world. This makes it necessary to effectively master one’s own consciousness.

Why now? Late-life divorce timing process: Dyadic and individual perspectives

Late-life divorce is increasing in the Western world, including among family-oriented societies like Israel in which the most common family status for older adults (age 60 years and older) is being in a heterosexual long-term marriage with adult children. Within a life-course framework, we use both dyadic and individual interview analysis to explore the process that led to the timing of late-life divorce. Understanding this process from dyadic and individual perspectives could strengthen knowledge regarding this expanding phenomenon in family-oriented societies and could contribute to developing targeted interventions and policies for such couples. Semi-structured interviews were conducted separately with 44 heterosexual ex-spouses comprised of 10 dyads ( n = 20) and 24 individuals ( n = 13 women; n = 11 men). The divorces were mostly after age 60 and followed a long-term marriage with children. Two themes emerged from the analysis: the long-term phase of divorce delay despite longstanding motivations, and the moment of final decision with its various background accelerators. The discussion addresses intersections between personal time, family time, and social/cultural time related to divorce, and between intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects. Implications for family gerontology are presented.

Leibniz as a virtue ethicist

AbstractIn this paper I argue that Leibniz's ethics is a kind of virtue ethics where virtues of the agent are explanatorily primary. I first examine how Leibniz obtained his conception of justice as a kind of love in an early text, Elements of Natural Law. I show that in this text Leibniz's goal was to find a satisfactory definition of justice that could reconcile egoism with altruism, and that this was achieved through the Aristotelian virtue of friendship where friends treat each other as “other selves.” Following this decisive moment, Leibniz adopted an Aristotle‐inspired ethical framework where the virtuous agent is central for moral evaluations. I then show that, despite certain developments, Leibniz's ethics retained this essential feature throughout his career. In Leibniz's later writings, God constitutes the foundation of the moral realm, and the fundamental moral endeavor of human beings consists in the imitation of God.

Were the Enabling Conditions for Sino-US Rapprochement Unique or Could Better Relations Today be Built on Similar Conditions and Foundations?

The relationship between the United States and China has been a topic of great interest and concern for many decades. The history of US-China relations is marked by periods of both cooperation and conflict. A decisive moment in this transformation occurred at the end of 1978 with the normalisation of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Ping-Pong diplomacy was a stunning success that not only paved the way for Nixon's trip but also caused a sensation around the world (CCP Politburo's report on the US-China summit, 1971). However, in recent years, tensions between the two countries have risen significantly. Just as Nixon predicted during this low moment, his biographer, Richard Reeves, recounted how Nixon told him that the interests between China and the U.S. were fundamentally different over the long term and the clash between them "was inevitable" (Nixon, 1978). This essay takes the position that the conditions for rapprochement are unique and that building a stronger US-China relationship cannot be achieved by relying on similar conditions and foundations as those that enabled rapprochement in the 1970s.

An Iterative Sample Scenario Approach for the Dynamic Dispatch Waves Problem

A challenge in same-day delivery operations is that delivery requests are typically not known beforehand, but are instead revealed dynamically during the day. This uncertainty introduces a trade-off between dispatching vehicles to serve requests as soon as they are revealed to ensure timely delivery and delaying the dispatching decision to consolidate routing decisions with future, currently unknown requests. In this paper, we study the dynamic dispatch waves problem, a same-day delivery problem in which vehicles are dispatched at fixed decision moments. At each decision moment, the system operator must decide which of the known requests to dispatch and how to route these dispatched requests. The operator’s goal is to minimize the total routing cost while ensuring that all requests are served on time. We propose iterative conditional dispatch (ICD), an iterative solution construction procedure based on a sample scenario approach. ICD iteratively solves sample scenarios to classify requests to be dispatched, postponed, or undecided. The set of undecided requests shrinks in each iteration until a final dispatching decision is made in the last iteration. We develop two variants of ICD: one variant based on thresholds, and another variant based on similarity. A significant strength of ICD is that it is conceptually simple and easy to implement. This simplicity does not harm performance: through rigorous numerical experiments, we show that both variants efficiently navigate the large state and action spaces of the dynamic dispatch waves problem and quickly converge to a high-quality solution. Finally, we demonstrate that the threshold-based ICD variant achieves excellent results on instances from the EURO Meets NeurIPS 2022 Vehicle Routing Competition, nearly matching the performance of the winning machine learning–based strategy. History: This paper has been accepted for the Transportation Science Special Issue on DIMACS Implementation Challenge: Vehicle Routing Problems. Funding: This work was supported by TKI Dinalog, Topsector Logistics, and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2023.0111 .

Human movement avoidance decisions during Coronavirus disease 2019 in Japan

Understanding host behavioral change in response to epidemics is important to forecast the disease dynamics. To predict the behavioral change relevant to the epidemic situation (e.g., the number of reported cases), we need to know the epidemic situation at the moment of decision, which is difficult to identify from the records of actually performed human mobility. In this study, the largest travel accommodation reservation data covering half of the existed accommodations in Japan was analyzed to observe decision-making timings and how it responded to the changing epidemic situation during Japan’s Coronavirus Disease 2019 until February 2023. To this end, we measured mobility avoidance index proposed in Ito et al., 2022 to indicate people's decision of mobility avoidance and quantified it using the time-series of the accommodation booking/cancellation data. We observed matches of the peak dates of the mobility avoidance and the number of reported cases, and mobility avoidance changed proportional to the logarithmic number of reported cases. We also found that the slope of mobility avoidance against the change of the logarithmic number of reported cases were similar among the epidemic waves, while the intercept of that was much reduced as the first epidemic wave passed by. People measure the intensity of epidemic by logarithm of the number of reported cases. The sensitivity of their response is established during the first wave and the people's response became weakened after the first experience, as if the number of reported cases were multiplied by a constant small factor.