Normative Conditions Research Articles

Ecological Flood Resilience Index (EFRI) to Assess the Urban Pluvial Flood Resilience of Blue-Green infrastructure: A case from a southwestern coastal city of India

Urban pluvial flood resilience planning must account for the ecological capacity to absorb, adapt, and transform with floods. Research on flood resilience indices highlights resilience as a normative condition, characterized by the return to equilibrium or the recovery time. However, the socio-ecological approach, including adaptive, absorptive, and transformative capacities is often overlooked, and the determinants of these capacities are underexplored. The present study addresses this gap by proposing an impact-based composite index to measure the flood resilience of urban Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI). An eight-step procedure was used for the composite index construction. Statistical correlation and regression analysis established indicator appropriateness, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used for weighing and aggregation. The Ecological Flood Resilience Index (EFRI) was developed and applied to the city of Kochi, India to assess the ability of existing urban BGI to temporarily store, infiltrate, and delay runoff, indicating the capacity of the system to withstand urban flooding. The index was validated using crowd-based data followed by sensitivity analysis. The EFRI Map outlines that the highly urbanized low resilient central areas, marked by poor vegetation and disrupted natural drainage contribute to flooding in various parts of the city. A comprehensive analysis of the 37 % regions of the city that falls within ‘very low’ to ‘extremely low’ resilience is essential to understand the critical factors in flood resilient spatial planning. The proposed composite index is significant for its novelty and theoretical clarity in resilience evaluations, promoting a shift from risk-based to resilience approaches in urban flood management.

Commanding heights: the role of wealthy ‘starchitects’ in city remaking

Censuses of the world’s super-rich now include among their ranks several architects whose personal financial position stems from their status as influential ‘starchitects’. We discuss the economic, political and social forces that concentrate fortunes in the hands of a professional elite who are increasingly also members of a global wealth elite. The rise of such starchitects exemplifies how capital flows are generative of subsidiary but important classes of professional agents who have accumulated significant fortunes as a result of city (re)making. Thus a select few in this field possess the kind of ‘money power’ that is generative of a capacity to direct changes in the built environment. Courted by city administrations and super-rich clients starchitects are increasingly charged with delivering symbolic projects that reinforce expansionary circulations of capital. We develop a concept sketch of how a global cadre of starchitects and their practices are fundamentally aligned with the shift of many cities to plan star-driven vehicles in order to capture capital. We discuss three elements that are crucial in determining the agency of starchitects: first, economic and political constraints or opportunities; second, normative conditions within industry and city institutional contexts; and, third, the important role of professional and power networks.

Crossover in mutation oriented norm evolution

Norms are a coordination mechanism. They control agents’ behavior in a multiagent system (MAS) and need to evolve to cope with changing environments. Mutation oriented norm evolution is a strategies for allowing norms to evolve. However, this strategy simply adds some possible trigger condition constraints on the norms, which means that some agents are unable to perform actions. To address this problem, this paper presents a new strategy for norm evolution based on an improved crossover operator. First, this paper presents a power-set approach to improve the integrity of norm evolution. This approach can help ensure that all possible combinations of norms are considered during the analysis, providing a deeper understanding of how norms interact and evolve within a norm set. Then, to improve the efficiency of norm evolution, a trade-off between efficiency and completeness is proposed. This approach reduces the search space and improves efficiency, as not every power set combination needs to be searched; it also ensures completeness. Finally, the crossover operator in this strategy is improved based on the trade-off approach. Specifically, the triggers and expectations of one mutated norm enrich the triggers and expectations of other norms. All of these factors enrich the normative conditions through the trade-off approach. A MAS can take immediate action to adapt to new requirements or problems encountered, and quickly make normative changes and learn to respond appropriately to a new situation. The MAS is able to more clearly understand and learn about causality in the environment during norm evolution, and understand the connection between behavior and outcomes. The proposed strategy is applied to a case study of an unmanned vehicle system. The experimental results show that the trade-off approach has greater completeness and effectiveness in norm evolution. This strategy achieves a more complete and effective autonomous norm evolution. It helps the system achieve its goals better and reach better performance in terms of adaptability, helping it to function better in complex multiagent environments.

Philosophy of Technology

The contribution of the philosophy of technology is based on a reflection on the nature of artifacts, their knowledge and the normative conditions linked to their production and use, with a discussion on the realism/anti-realism of artificial classes according to the functional theory and the historical-intentional theory of artifacts. At the same time, questions of functional knowledge and the epistemic privilege of the knowledge that makers have of their products are addressed. Finally, the discussion of artifacts as value-bearers and their normative dimension of technique is analyzed.

My Numerous Detours – Toward Private Law as Society’s Constitution

Abstract The author responds in two ways to the contributions in this special issue dealing with aspects of his scholarly work. In his first, more general response, he traces the influences that various institutions and individuals exerted on him and were reflected in his work on private law theory. In retrospect, he understands both his many years abroad and his involvement with extra-legal disciplines, especially systems theory and sociology of law, as a search for the identity of private law in foreign legal systems as well as in foreign disciplines. At the end of this search stands the concept of societal constitutionalism. The author understands private law as society’s constitution, more precisely: as the legal constitution of the self-governance of a variety of social systems. In a second, more specific response, the author deals with some of the questions raised in the various contributions to the special issue. From the perspective of both sociology of law and legal doctrine, the author addresses problems of society’s constitution that arise, on the one hand, outside the borders of the nation-state in transnational political processes and, on the other hand, outside the institutionalized political sector, in the "private" sectors of world society. They revolve around the theoretical and practical potential of societal constitutionalism: how, in non-state institutions, the new power centers of society, particularly in the emerging socio-digital institutions, private law can set the normative conditions for fundamental rights, the rule of law, democratic participation, and, increasingly today, ecological sensibility.

Agentic misrecognition in world politics

The phenomenon of misrecognition has been analysed under various angles by philosophy, political theory, sociology and lately also by international relations (IR). In IR, (mis)recognition is mainly understood as either status denial (i.e. denial of legal state recognition), inflated honor pretentions (including positive self-images, mythical narratives of the past, Great Power projections and so on), or as a denial of vital conditions necessary for identity, individuality, and freedom. There has been much theoretical work on the problem of inclusion/exclusion or the insider/outsider problem in IR and various empirical studies have shown that misrecognition can contribute to international conflict, international inequalities, (neo)colonialism, masculine domination, and limit the overall rationality of decision-making. However, what has been generally overlooked is the question of agency, the ‘who’ that is seeking and/or entitled to be an object and subject of recognition and how such exclusions and related pathologies result from forms of misrecognition. This introduction to Agentic Misrecognition in World Politics engages with some of the problems related to the question of (mis)recognition and agency in IR, the patterns of excluded recognition, and the normative conditions that pertain to these processes of (mis)recognition. It closes with a summation of the research articles and forum contributions to this volume.

Coevolution of norm psychology and cooperation through exapted conformity.

People willingly follow norms and values, often incurring material costs. This behaviour supposedly stems from evolved norm psychology, contributing to large-scale cooperation among humans. It has been argued that cooperation is influenced by two types of norms: injunctive and descriptive. This study theoretically explores the socialisation of humans under these norms. Our agent-based model simulates scenarios where diverse agents with heterogeneous norm psychologies engage in collective action to maximise their utility functions that capture three motives: gaining material payoff, following injunctive and descriptive norms. Multilevel selective pressure drives the evolution of norm psychology that affects the utility function. Further, we develop a model with exapted conformity, assuming selective advantage for descriptive norm psychology. We show that norm psychology can evolve via cultural group selection. We then identify two normative conditions that favour the evolution of norm psychology, and therefore cooperation: injunctive norms promoting punitive behaviour and descriptive norms. Furthermore, we delineate different characteristics of cooperative societies under these two conditions and explore the potential for a macro transition between them. Together, our results validate the emergence of large-scale cooperative societies through social norms and suggest complementary roles that conformity and punishment play in human prosociality.

Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) trade off defensiveness against periodic mass flight activity.

The giant honeybee Apis dorsata (Fabricius, 1793) is an evolutionarily ancient species that builds its nests in the open. The nest consists of a single honeycomb covered with the bee curtain which are several layers of worker bees that remain almost motionless with their heads up and abdomens down on the nest surface, except for the mouth area, the hub between inner- and outer-nest activities. A colony may change this semi-quiescence several times a day, depending on its reproductive state and ambient temperature, to enter the state of mass flight activity (MFA), in which nest organisation is restructured and defense ability is likely to be suppressed (predicted by the mass-flight-suspend-defensiveness hypothesis). For this study, three episode of MFA (mfa1-3) of a selected experimental nest were analysed in a case study with sequences of >60 000 images at 50 Hz, each comprise a short pre-MFA session, the MFA and the post-MFA phase of further 10 min. To test colony defensiveness under normative conditions, a dummy wasp was cyclically presented with a standardised motion programme (Pd) with intervening sessions without such a presentation (nPd). Motion activity at five selected surveillance zones (sz1-5) on the nest were analysed. In contrast to mfa1,2, in mfa3 the experimental regime started with the cyclic presentation of the dummy wasp only after the MFA had subsided. As a result, the MFA intensity in mfa3 was significantly lower than in mfa1-2, suggesting that a colony is able to perceive external threats during the MFA. Characteristic ripples appear in the motion profiles, which can be interpreted as a start signal for the transition to MFA. Because they are strongest in the mouth zone and shift to higher frequencies on their way to the nest periphery, it can be concluded that MFA starts earlier in the mouth zone than in the peripheral zones, also suggesting that the mouth zone is a control centre for the scheduling of MFA. In Pd phases of pre- and postMFA, the histogram-based motion spectra are biphasic, suggesting two cohorts in the process, one remaining at quiescence and the other involved in shimmering. Under MFA, nPd and Pd spectra were typically Gaussian, suggesting that the nest mates with a uniform workload shifted to higher motion activity. At the end of the MFA, the spectra shift back to the lower motion activities and the Pd spectra form a biphasic again. This happens a few minutes earlier in the peripheral zones than in the mouth zone. Using time profiles of the skewness of the Pd motion spectra, the mass-flight-suspend-defensiveness hypothesis is confirmed, whereby the inhibition of defense ability was found to increase progressively during the MFA. These sawtooth-like time profiles of skewness during MFA show that defense capability is recovered again quite quickly at the end of MFA. Finally, with the help of the Pd motion spectra, clear indications can be obtained that the giant honeybees engage in a decision in the sense of a tradeoff between MFA and collective defensiveness, especially in the regions in the periphery to the mouth zone.

Relations of Lifetime Perceived Stress and Basal Cortisol With Hippocampal Volume Among Healthy Adolescents and Those at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

BackgroundHippocampal volume (HV) is sensitive to environmental influences. Under normative conditions in humans, HV increases linearly into childhood and asymptotes in early adulthood. Studies of humans and nonhuman animals have provided evidence of inverse relationships between several measures of stress and HV. MethodsUsing structural equation modeling, this study aimed to characterize the relationships of age, basal cortisol, biological sex, and lifetime perceived stress with bilateral HV in a sample of healthy adolescents and adolescents at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P) (N = 571, 43% female; age range = 12–19.9 years). This sample included 469 individuals at CHR-P and 102 healthy comparison participants from the combined baseline cohorts of the second and third NAPLS (North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study). ResultsA structural model that constrained the individual effects of basal cortisol and perceived stress to single path coefficients, and freely estimated the effects of age and biological sex in group models, optimized model fit and parsimony relative to other candidate models. Significant inverse relationships between basal cortisol and bilateral HV were observed in adolescents at CHR-P and healthy comparison participants. Significant sex differences in bilateral HV were also observed, with females demonstrating smaller HV than males in both groups. ConclusionsMultigroup structural equation modeling revealed heterogeneity in the relationships of age and biological sex with basal cortisol, lifetime perceived stress, and bilateral HV in individuals at CHR-P and healthy comparison participants. Moreover, the findings support previous literature indicating that elevated basal cortisol is a nonspecific risk factor for reduced HV.

Behavioral responses to natural rewards in developing male and female rats.

Reward deficits are a hallmark feature of multiple psychiatric disorders and often recapitulated in rodent models useful for the study of psychiatric disorders, including those employing early life stress. Moreover, rodent studies have shown sex differences during adulthood in response to natural and drug rewards under normative conditions and in stress-based rodent models. Yet, little is known about the development of reward-related responses under normative conditions, including how these may differ in rats of both sexes during early development. Comparing reward-related behavioral responses between developing male and female rats may be useful for understanding how these processes may be affected in rodent models relevant to psychiatric disorders. To this end, we tested behavioral responses to natural rewards in male and female rats using sucrose consumption, sweet palatable food intake and social play tests at two timepoints (peripuberty, adolescence).Our results suggest comparable responses to consummatory and social rewards in male and female rats during peripuberty and adolescence as no sex differences were found for sucrose preference, chocolate candy intake or a subset of play behaviors (dorsal contacts, pins). These findings suggest that sex differences in response to these natural rewards emerge and may be more robust during adulthood.

Institutional Operability: Outward Rule-Following, Inward Role-Playing

Abstract Institutional operability refers to the normative conditions governing the exercise of power of office that makes an institution work. Because institutional action occurs by the interrelated actions of the officeholders, a focus on institutional operability requires the analysis and assessment of the officeholders’ conduct in their institutional capacity. This article distinguishes two perspectives on operability: ‘outward’ and ‘inward.’ The outward view emphasizes predefined instructions for efficient execution, focusing on rule-following to achieve institutional purposes. The inward perspective highlights role-playing and reflective engagement among officeholders to uphold an institution’s raison d’être. The inward perspective brings to the fore the relational aspect of institutional life and officeholders’ interrelated responsibility for guiding institutional action.

The Development of Dry Extract Technology from Callus Culture Biomass of <i>Scutellaria baicalensis</i>

Introduction. Plant biologically active substances (BAS) are valuable for drug development in view of their pharmacological effects and metabolic proximity to the human body. As an example of a useful herbal raw material, the roots of Scutellaria baicalensis, which contain species-specific flavonoids, baicalin and scutellarin, possess the potency of creating antiviral drugs and functional nutrition systems with antioxidant and adaptogenic properties. In order to levelling the existing limitations of using intact plant in pharmaceutical practice, we proposed a nature-saving and ergonomic approach of cultivation of S. baicalensis cells under in vitro conditions. This technology allows to extract active substances of S. baicalensis without causing damage to the environment and contributes to the reduction of the time required to produce the necessary amount of plant material with an increase in the efficiency of production processes.Aim. The development of dry extract technology from S. baicalensis callus biomass.Materials and methods. The object of the study – biomass of S. baicalensis cells obtained from callus culture. Functional characteristics (friability, Hausner’s coefficient, Carr’s index, fractional composition, as well as porosity and hygroscopicity) of S. baicalensis biomass and dry extract on its basis were determined according to the methods of the EAEU Pharmacopoeia. Extraction of plant material was carried out by maceration method with heating in a water bath with reflux condenser. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of BAS in the dry extract was carried out by spectrophotometry and high-performance liquid chromatography. Quality indicators and functional characteristics of the finished product were evaluated in accordance with pharmacopeial requirements.Results and discussion. The functional characteristics of the S. baicalensis biomass were evaluated and the possibility of obtaining a dry extract on its basis was confirmed. We selected parameters of BAS extraction process, established the presence of baicalin in the biomass extract and carried out a comparative evaluation of aglycone profile in the extract based on callus culture and roots of intact plant. The properties of the finished product were evaluated for compliance with regulatory requirements, as well as technological characteristics.Conclusion. The quality indicators of the dry extract of the S. baicalensis biomass satisfy the normative conditions. The technological characteristics of dry extract are suitable for the utilisation as a phytosubstance for the development of medicines of combined type and dietary supplements.

ISSUES OF COPYRIGHT FOR OBJECTS CREATED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Abstract. The paper substantiates the problem of recognising artificial intelligence as the author of intellectual property objects. The conditions of copyrightability and the possibility of compliance of copyright objects created by AI with such requirements are given. The article contains answers provided by artificial intelligence at our request. The article issues of types of objects that AI can create are being studied. Authors paid attention to problems of compilation and plagiarism in things made by AI. The research proves that objects created by AI can meet all copyrightable requirements. The authors emphasised that the only exception is the normative condition that only a human can be the author. It was concluded that the impossibility of recognising AI as the work's author is an artificial limitation. The authors emphasised that such a paradigm will change in the future. The authors suggest that the current state of AI is very close to the stage of deterministic understanding of human free will. AI is a surrogate representation of human intelligence with similar properties for analysis, self-improvement, and decision-making.

Industry Volatility and Employment Extreme Risk Transmission: Evidence from China

China’s socio-economic growth path aims to achieve full and sustainable employment, which requires an in-depth understanding of the linkages between employment and different industrial sectors within the economic system. The objective of this study is to examine the heterogeneous transmission effects of industry fluctuations on the distribution of employment, with special attention to the transmission effects of industry fluctuations on employment under extreme conditions. The research methodology of this paper is to systematically examine the risk spillover effects between industry sectors and employment distribution using the quantile risk spillover model. The results show that industry volatility significantly affects employment volatility in China. The impact of industry volatility is stronger under extreme conditions, both more adverse and favorable than that of under normative conditions. Among labor-intensive industries, the employment impact of skilled labor-intensive and integrated labor-intensive industries is relatively small compared to that of the relatively large impact of manual labor-intensive industries. The results suggest that traditional indicators of the spillover effect, such as the mean-based indicator, cannot accurately capture the source and real effect of risk transmission, leading to unemployment fluctuations, underscoring the need to focus on the heterogeneity of the distribution of employment fluctuations. The findings also present the evolution of the risk transmission structure of employment in China, which provides implications for policymaking on full and sustainable employment.

THE CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW ОF THE FUNNEL OF CAUSALITY

The problem of legitimacy of political institutions and institutions of state power is considered. Various approaches to determining the legitimacy of government are analyzed, but the main emphasis is on the level of trust and what exactly reduces the level of trust in government institutions Emphasis is placed on the factors that affect the fall of trust and lead to crisis phenomena in the political environment and destabilize society in general. The points of view of M. Weber, R. Dworkin and A. Buchann on legitimacy are compared, which give rise to different views on political obligations and normative conditions. A crisis of legitimacy is a situation in which the legality of the existing social order is questioned and distrust of the existing government is openly expressed, which demonstrates the inability of the government to assure society of the necessity and optimal functioning of existing state institutions. The reasons for the delegitimization of power are determined (the lack of proper representation of the interests of social groups and sufficient vertical mobility in the political system in combination with social inequality), which ultimately lead to the radicalization of attitudes in society, the strengthening of the opposition and, in general, distrust of state institutions The methodology of the “Funnel of Causality allows to combine different levels of society and take into account the effects of the environment. First of all, the macro level (economic development, the influence of geopolitical actors, historical traditions,national mewntality etc.), radical economic changes, the development of civil society, the political activity of various social groups, the growth of crisis phenomena, as a result of radical transformation. Due to the fluctuating nature of the country's political development during the years of independence, revolutionary situations arose, and the very legitimacy of the government, even at the macro level, was called into question.

What would it be like for prelinguistic communication to be Gricean?

It is often claimed that infant communication is premised on the recognition of Gricean communicative intentions. This picture rests on an equivocation between features of communication and features of cognition. Following Bart Geurts, I argue that the notion of common ground is best conceptualised as a normative condition. The overtness of a communicative act is the publicity inherent to shared commitments, and since commitments can be shared unknowingly, communicative intentions are not necessary for communicating. I discuss two key experiments with infants and I argue that, for the prelinguistic case, giving a commitment-based interpretation is always possible, and so communicative intentions are here explanatorily dispensable. Therefore, there is no obvious way of proving experimentally that infant communication is Gricean.

TUTORING – PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION IN PROFESSIONAL AND PEDAGOGICAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

The article is devoted to the theoretical substantiation of the expediency of introducing tutoring technology as a type of pedagogical innovation in the professional and pedagogical training of a teacher at a higher education institution. It was found that professional and pedagogical training is an important normative condition within the framework of the pedagogical master's degree in higher education in the preparation of future teachers of the institution of higher education. Due to the considered psychological and pedagogical concepts, which are related to the concept of "individual education", we managed to outline the technology of individualization of education. This made it possible to generalize that professional-pedagogical activity can be implemented in a higher education institution within the framework of a pedagogical master's degree as one of the types of pedagogical innovation based on an individualized approach to learning - tutoring technology. Tutoring is able to fully implement the professional and pedagogical training of a teacher of a higher education institution based on acmeological, humanistic, personal-activity, context-competence approaches. At the same time, ensure flexibility, variability and practical orientation of professional and pedagogical training at various stages of educational and scientific activity.

Скептицизм и моральная ответственность

Skepticism about moral responsibility is one of the most elaborated approaches to this important moral phenomenon in contemporary philosophical literature. In this paper, I use the skeptical approach in general, and specific skeptical arguments in particular, to clarify the connections between the conditions of an appropriate attribution of moral re­sponsibility and the structural elements of this attitude. A distinction is made between moral dogmatism and a critical approach to morality, and a classification is given of the possible outcomes of the latter: skepticism proper, illusionism, and revolutionary ap­proach. The difference between general moral skepticism and skepticism about moral re­sponsibility is defined, and a classification of the types of skepticism about moral respon­sibility is proposed on the basis of which the elements of the structure of attribution of re­sponsibility are questioned. Galen Strawson’s Basic argument, Gideon Rosen’s argument from epistemological regress, and his alethic conception of moral responsibility are ana­lyzed. It is shown that Strawson’s argument unreasonably reduces moral responsibility to a so-called true moral responsibility. It is argued that the epistemic condition of responsi­bility to which the argument from regress is directed can be reduced to a normative con­dition, and thus regress can be avoided. The connection between responsibility and retri­bution, which Rosen postulates, is problematized. It is argued that the control condition binds the moral agent and the agent’s moral factor; the normative condition binds the agent’s moral factor and its moral value. It is argued that the connection between a moral factor and moral value cannot be the object of skepticism about moral responsibility.

Out of balance? Understanding resident-municipality relations in rural peripheries through ascriptions of responsibility

Rural governance increasingly involves a broad range of political agents – but whom do rural dwellers consider responsible for creating and maintaining local opportunity structures? Focusing on the issue of places to socialise, our paper investigates resident-municipality relations in peripheralised rural regions of Czechia and eastern Germany. We draw from problem-centred resident interviews using an actor-centred, multimodal concept of responsibility. Analysing residents’ ideals of active citizenship, mutuality, and municipal care, we find that despite the considerable differences in the ways rural dwellers conceptualise the relationship between the municipality and its residents, the provision of local opportunities to socialise represents a realm in which they perceive the local state as both powerful and responsible for taking action. We conclude that a multimodal understanding of responsibility can provide insights into the normative conditions on which local attributions of responsibility are based. We further argue that research on rural facilities should take into account the symbolic and political meaning that third places have for rural residents.

Jazz Standard as Archive

The jazz standard remains an enduring part of the tradition of jazz performance and pedagogy. Contemporary jazz scholarship has tended to focus on improvisation as a practice and jazz-as-lived-experience and, while the jazz standard repertoire has occasionally been the subject of study the relationship between the standard repertoire and the ‘language’ or style of jazz has not been theorised. In this article I argue that the distinctive style of jazz improvisation is at least in part, determined by the characteristics of its shared repertoire and the statements that have accrued around that repertoire. I borrow Foucault’s conception of the archive to propose a reexamination of the historical progression of ideas that troubles the narrative of the individual creative genius and of jazz as the normative condition of improvisation. In this genealogical context, the jazz standard is positioned as an archive of a particular body of thought, a way of organizing and understanding the transmission, evolution and connection of ideas over time. The intended effect is to provide an alternative perspective on creativity in jazz, and a theorisation of an idea that is already implicit in jazz pedagogy and practice.