Hostile Objects Research Articles

Topological optimization of ballistic protective structures through genetic algorithms in a vulnerability-driven environment

Reducing the vulnerability of a platform, i.e., the risk of being affected by hostile objects, is of paramount importance in the design process of vehicles, especially aircraft. A simple and effective way to decrease vulnerability is to introduce protective structures to intercept and possibly stop threats. However, this type of solution can lead to a significant increase in weight, affecting the performance of the aircraft. For this reason, it is crucial to study possible solutions that allow reducing the vulnerability of the aircraft while containing the increase in structural weight. One possible strategy is to optimize the topology of protective solutions to find the optimal balance between vulnerability and the weight of the added structures. Among the many optimization techniques available in the literature for this purpose, multi-objective genetic algorithms stand out as promising tools. In this context, this work proposes the use of a in-house software for vulnerability calculation to guide the process of topology optimization through multi-objective genetic algorithms, aiming to simultaneously minimize the weight of protective structures and vulnerability. In addition to the use of the in-house software, which itself represents a novelty in the field of topology optimization of structures, the method incorporates a custom mutation function within the genetic algorithm, specifically developed using a graph-based approach to ensure the continuity of the generated structures. The tool developed for this work is capable of generating protections with optimized layouts considering two different types of impacting objects, namely bullets and fragments from detonating objects. The software outputs a set of non-dominated solutions describing different topologies that the user can choose from.

Resolving Rapprochement Challenges: The Process of Metabolizing Love-Fueling Development, Therapeutic Growth, Reparation, and Healing

ABSTRACT Anni Bergman’s later work regarding rapprochement is briefly considered and then used as a foundation for this reconsideration of rapprochement’s place in development over the lifespan. Resolving rapprochement challenges is seen as the central developmental process whereby one either utilizes or refuses the love and care one receives. A sense of safety in early life leads to the capacity to metabolize love and to the development of a secure attachment followed by libidinal object constancy. This developmental achievement sets the stage for caring relationships and optimal development over the lifespan. A predominant sense of danger in early life, either reality-based or based primarily on internal experience, leads to the development of an insecure attachment. Hostile object constancy, a form of self-regulation based on the anticipation of future danger, leads to the defensive refusal of the actual love and care one receives. Subsequent interference with the capacity for caring relationships leads to pathological development over the course of life. Successful psychological treatment involves helping the patient become open to loving connections. In addition, Anni intended her work to pave the way for a reconciliation of Attachment Theory and Separation-Individuation Theory. This integration is better conceptualized as Attachment-Individuation Theory, which highlights the unique contributions of each to a unified developmental process. This article aims to further this integration.

Transformations in contemporary Quebec nationalism, 1960–2020: A shift in the sources of collective animosities

AbstractThis article is interested in the shift of the object of hostility, which historically fuelled Quebec nationalism. The main targets of discontent have long been the ‘rest of Canada’ and the lower socio‐economic status of Francophones. After the 1995 independence referendum, the feeling of dissatisfaction with Canada, and even resentment, gradually faded. This retreating within Quebec's borders has led many French‐speaking Quebecers to become concerned about the conditions that make possible the preservation of their cultural and linguistic heritage in North America. This shift has meant that the source of concern is now individuals and groups who do not share this heritage rooted in Western Judeo‐Christian values or who are perceived not to adhere to the concerns related to the preservation and development of the French character and the dominant values within the ‘Quebec nation’. The expression of these concerns has manifested itself primarily in debates about the place religion should occupy in public and civic spaces since the mid‐2000s.

Listening for Silences: The Trap of Biased Sources

Listening for Silences: The Trap of Biased Sources

Семантика вражды: обозначения агрессивного субъекта в современной интернет-коммуникации

The article presents research results, and highlights the peculiarities of hostile-minded subject naming in Internet communication in the 21 st century. The composition of the paradigmatic subset under consideration is determined, its internal structure, word-formation features, semantics, syntagmatics and functioning of constituents are characterized. The research is carried out through purposeful sampling, semantic, definitional, contextual analysis, some aspects of motivational, word-formation and syntactic analysis, quantitative method. It is shown, that the majority of the new names are borrowed from the English language and derived from Anglicisms. Mental and linguistic representation of a hostile subject reflects such parameters as: the verbal / nonverbal nature of the subject's actions; animate / inanimate object of hostility; the membership of the subject and object of hostility of a certain group; obligatory / optional allies of the subject; the degree of the subjects emotional involvement; the purpose of the actions / needs of the subject. The studied designations differ in the frequency of use in the described network communicative practices and are used to characterize the corresponding phenomenon or class of subjects, a particular member of the Internet community; for the speakers self-presentation; as an evaluative appeal. There is a tendency to romanticize certain classes of the named aggressive subjects. The emergence of new designations of a hostile subject and their functioning are determined by the turn towards intensification, intellectualization, integration and internationalization.

Alienated in Community: A Personal History of Homophobia and Conversion Therapy

In the 1990s, the author—now a transactional analyst, trainer, and supervisor in psychotherapy—became involved in a Christian organization that offered community membership to support sexuality reorientation, also known as conversion therapy. That encounter with alienation compounded the effects of a childhood rife with homophobia. In this essay, the author draws on these lived experiences to identify key cultural and psychological processes that are relevant to his clinical work with clients. He considers the sociological concepts of hostile architecture and callous objects as analogous to the hostile psychosocial environment experienced by LGBTQIA+ children and young people. He proposes that our essential sense of self forms not just in relation to significant others with a deep yearning for acceptance but also requires the challenge of recognizing our fundamental differences from one another. The author argues in favor of a pluralistic philosophy that informs not just professional practice but also the structures we deploy in our broader cultural environment.

Fear and Loathing in Trump's America: The Consequences of Inspiring Hate and Violence

Hate speech has consequences far beyond hurt feelings. Indeed, there are several defining characteristics of hate speech: it is ”directed against a specified or easily identifiable individual or a group of individuals based on an arbitrary and normatively irrelevant feature;” it ”stigmatizes the target group by implicitly or explicitly ascribing to it qualities widely regarded as highly undesirable;” and “the target group is viewed as an undesirable presence and a legitimate object of hostility.” Empirical data reveals the deleterious effects hate speech has on victims, their families, and communities at large. One of these effects is the direction of attitudes and behaviors of society against the targeted group. Such attitudes can result in deep dislike and distrust of the targeted group, and in terms of behavior, it can lead to violence against that group. In the worst of cases, societal behavior can even include genocide. Trump has used incendiary rhetoric to stoke the flames of fear and hatred. He actually introduced his campaign by calling for an end to undocumented immigration with the now infamous statement: “Mexico is not bringing their best; they’re bringing drugs; they’re bringing crime; they’re rapists…” After the election, Trump continued to remind his base of a purported invasion at the Mexican border, using the tool of political rhetoric to create a hateful alarmist xenophobic narrative depicting hordes or masses preparing to overthrow this country. However, the facts demonstrate the purported undocumented immigration problem does not come from those crossing the Southern border. Undocumented immigration is far higher from visa overstays. Nevertheless, Trump continues to use this sort of theater to create nationalistic fervor amongst white U.S. citizens to demonize the so-called Latin American invasion at our southern border. Indeed, Trump’s “us versus them” anti-immigrant political rhetoric likely won him the 2016 presidential election. Thus, this sort of rhetoric can serve as a powerful, if not dangerous, tool.

Eight unedited poems to his friends and patrons by Manuel Philes

Abstract This article presents the critical edition of eight hitherto unpublished poems by Manuel Philes together with a translation and a commentary. The poems are verse letters addressed to various high-ranking individuals. Poem 1 is addressed to the emperor, whose power is emphasised in a request to help Philes escape from his misery. Poem 2 is a fragment likewise addressed to the emperor. Poem 3 is a consolatory poem for a father whose son has died. In poem 4, Philes addresses a patron whose wife hurried to Constantinople after she had become the object of hostility of unknown people. Poem 5 is addressed to the month of August and deals with the return of a benefactor of Philes to Constantinople. In poem 6, Philes writes on behalf of an unnamed banker and asks the megas dioiketes Kabasilas to judge the latter justly. Poems 7 and 8 are tetrasticha including a request for wine.

El cuerpo, el rostro y la identidad del yo. Apuntes sobre la corporalidad humana en un tiempo de transformaciones

El propósito de este trabajo es formular un concepto de corrupción desde una perspectiva filosófica que permita examinar el tipo de vínculo entre el Estado y los ciudadanos detrás del manejo anómalo de la actividad gubernamental. Así, con fundamento en el pensamiento republicano, se argumenta que la corrupción es una práctica de dominación estatal basada en la interferencia arbitraria de los funcionarios públicos en el diseño y ejecución de las leyes y políticas, lo que socava la legitimidad del poder político y, en consecuencia, las razones de los individuos para adherirse a normas formales. Este enfoque considera las dimensiones valorativas y prácticas del término, y también la forma en que la corrupción coarta la libertad de las personas para definir sus intereses y concretarlos

Joyce’s Dante: Exile, Memory, and Community by James Robinson

Reviewed by: Joyce’s Dante: Exile, Memory, and Community by James Robinson William Franke (bio) JOYCE’S DANTE: EXILE, MEMORY, AND COMMUNITY, by James Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. xi + 233 pp. $99.99. James Robinson’s Joyce’s Dante is a model of a certain kind of scholarship for an elite university press that performs a series of protocols from exhaustively inventorying critical literature to stating explicitly what its original contribution is on every specific question raised. These protocols are necessary to differentiate such scholarship from literary journalism, with which it, in some respects, would otherwise be virtually interchangeable. The effort expended to establish who may have been Joyce’s first and then his second Italian teacher at Belvedere College is a case in point. It risks descending to the level of chitchat, even if it is about a writer as important as Joyce. Everything in any way connected with the hallowed author is treated as having a sacred aura. Yet nothing very significant is at stake in mere questions of fact about an irretrievable past. Such information can stimulate curiosity and is not uninteresting, but it has something of the flavor of gossip. Admittedly, this level of discourse is not at all incompatible with currently sanctioned academic practices of criticism, especially in such heavily trafficked fields as Joyce studies. One can emerge with very rich information about Joyce—as an excuse for a lack of intense focus on enduringly significant intellectual issues. Happily, there is a good deal more in this book than just these polished manners alone. Despite the urbane art of small talk that seems to belong to the [End Page 361] genre of literary criticism as currently pursued by some of its most celebrated practitioners, there is also quite a different kind of intellectual substance here. Robinson’s painstaking reconstructions of the author’s social and cultural milieu compellingly demonstrate how Joyce’s attraction to Dante Alighieri served to help him to “negotiate a heterodox space within a larger orthodoxy” (33). When linked to such tense and momentous issues, the minute detail of contingent facts takes on a wholly different kind of significance. It becomes a means of working in an intricate filigree on otherwise vacuously great and capacious questions. Over the full expanse of the study, this fine-point work of embroidery serves to bring into sharper focus a much larger tapestry of textual connections. Especially interesting and useful for building a wider picture and overview is the sometimes contradictory information concerning the vicissitudes of Dante’s reputation in Joyce’s times and in his specific social and educational milieus. Dante was often treated as a heretical and indexed author, the object of concerted hostility particularly from the Jesuits, by whom Joyce was educated (JJII 109, 59). The Jesuits from their foundation in the seventeenth century were redoubtable defenders of the papacy against all attacks, such as those launched trenchantly by Dante. In addition to numerous direct diatribes and frontal attacks, more subtly and most memorably, Inferno XIX.13–31 divulges the third ditch of the eighth circle of Hell, the Malebolge, as populated by a series of popes stacked one on top of the other in a hole in the ground in a parody of the apostolic succession.1 Their feet burn, smeared with unguent in a burlesque upending of the visitation by the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire on the heads of the apostles at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–31). Such material, however, made it possible to present Dante not only as a religious heretic but also as a secular hero. A certain cult of Dante grew up largely in reaction to the Jesuits’ campaign of defamation of the Italian poet. In an 1818 article in the Edinburgh Review, Ugo Foscolo influentially advocated such a celebratory rehabilitation.2 In the course of the nineteenth century, this countervailing, secular Dante grew into the Risorgimento embrace of him as a figurehead of the national and linguistic unity of Italy.3 The movement culminated in 1870 with the achievement of the political unification of the peninsula. With the end of the temporal political power of the papacy, which converted instead...

Личностные диспозиции насильственного экстремизма

The paper presents the differences in the nature of extremism and radicalism, and the necessity of introducing the concept of "violent extremism." It is shown that the ideology is the explanation of extremist behavior, rather than its cause. The ideology of extremism often eclectic, contradictory and can easily be transformed by changing the object of hostility, depending on the situation. For the description of the psychological causes of extremism it is proposed to use the concept of personal disposition. Disposition is the preferred way to subjective interpretation of reality and reflects both the specific needs of a person as well the typical social situations where it realized and personal experience. Considered the following dispositions of violent extremism: the Cult of force and aggression, Intolerance, Out-group hostility Conventional coercion, Social pessimism and destructiveness, Mystical, Fighting and overcoming, Nihilism to law, Anti-subjectivism. It is proposed to use these dispositions as diagnostic criteria and for preventing and correcting.

A study on the effect of hostile object on the player’s immersion in a horror game played using HMD

A study on the effect of hostile object on the player’s immersion in a horror game played using HMD

Optimal Search for Hidden Targets by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles under Imperfect Inspections

Assume that a target is hidden or lost in one of several possible locations and is to be found by the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). A target can be either a hostile object or missing personnel in remote areas. Prior probabilities of target locations are known. Inspection operations done by the UAVs are imperfect, namely, probabilities of overlooking the hidden target and probabilities of false alarms exist for any possible location. The UAV has to sequentially inspect the locations so that to find the target with the minimum loss or damage incurred by the target before it is detected subject to a required level of confidence of target identification. A fast (polynomial-time) priority-based algorithm for finding an optimal search strategy is developed.

The Radicalization of Contention in Northern Ireland, 1968-1972: A Relational Perspective

This article investigates the radicalization of contention in Northern Ireland between 1968 and 1972 using a relational perspective and methodological approach. Two arenas of contention, movement-countermovement interactions and the structure of political opportunities and threats, are examined to understand the outbreak of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. The evolution of radical contention is explored through Quantitative Narrative Analysis (QNA), an innovative method that systematically records social actors and their interactions within an event. Relying on computer-assisted story grammars [the Subject (S) - Action (A) - Object (O) sequence and their modifiers] to parse narrative data, 6,035 semantic triplets were stored in a relational database. Sequential network models are used to analyze the database and reconstruct the nature and evolution of the interactions among the main political actors involved in the Troubles. Four distinct phases of the conflict are unveiled through network models of violence, indicating how and when the conflict radicalized, and how actors shifted their strategies of contention. Archival data are used to specify how mechanisms of radicalization, such as hostile counter-mobilization, repression, object shift and boundary activation, engendered the conflict.

The eye and the fist: Optimizing search and interdiction

Interdiction operations involving search, identification, and interception of suspected objects are of great interest and high operational importance to military and naval forces as well as nation’s coast guards and border patrols. The interdiction scenario discussed in this paper includes an area of interest with multiple neutral and hostile objects moving through this area, and an interdiction force, consisting of an airborne sensor and an intercepting surface vessel or ground vehicle, whose objectives are to search, identify, track, and intercept hostile objects within a given time frame. The main contributions of this paper are addressing both airborne sensor and surface vessel simultaneously, developing a stochastic dynamic-programming model for optimizing their employment, and deriving operational insight. In addition, the search and identification process of the airborne sensor addresses both physical (appearance) and behavioral (movement pattern) signatures of a potentially hostile object. As the model is computationally intractable for real-world scenarios, we propose a simple heuristic policy, which is shown, using a bounding technique, to be quite effective. Based on a numerical case study of maritime interdiction operations, which includes several representative scenarios, we show that the expected number of intercepted hostile objects, following the heuristic decision policy, is at least 60% of the number of hostile objects intercepted following an optimal decision policy.

Paranoid Modernism in Joyce and Kafka

This essay considers the work of Joyce and Kafka in terms of paranoia as interpretive delirium, the imagined but internally coherent interpretation of the world whose relation to the real remains undecidable. Classic elements of paranoia are manifest in both writers insofar as their work stages scenes in which the figure of the artist or a subjective equivalent perceives himself as the object of hostility and persecution. Nonetheless, such scenes and the modes in which they are rendered can also be understood as the means by which literary modernism resisted forces hostile to art but inherent in the social and economic conditions of modernity. From this perspective the work of both Joyce and Kafka intersects with that of surrealists like Dali for whom the positive sense of paranoia as artistic practice answered the need for a systematic objectification of the oniric underside of reason, “the world of delirium unknown to rational experience.”

The Ordering of Things: Allure, Access, and Archives

Responding to recent theoretical discussion of the archive as both alluring and an object of hostility, this article examines this hostility towards the archive (evidenced in the work of Helen Freshwater in particular), claiming for workers in the archive a degree of awareness of theoretical critiques of archive use that shows an understanding both of the agency of the archive worker and of the implications that agency holds. It also draws upon the author's personal experience as a curator in order to discuss the presence of Shakespeare in the Theatre & Performance department of London's Victoria & Albert Museum (formerly the Theatre Museum): the largest of its kind in the world. By acknowledging the inherent ephemeral nature of performance, the essay centralises the role of the archive worker as an active agent in the archive's creation process, as well as its literal and metaphorical protector, offering insight into the mediated relationship between archive worker and researcher. By way of response to the notable absence of Shakespeare scholars from the V&A's archive, the article also seeks to highlight the breadth and depth of the collections' Shakespeare holdings by offering a brief survey of some of the archive's most interesting and esoteric items relating to Hamlet.

Discrete Markov ballistic missile defense system modeling

Expected value is a common and useful baseline used to compare different multi-layered missile defense strategies or fire doctrines (number of interceptors fired at one target). However, expected value by itself does not render enough information to the military or national security researchers regarding the probability distribution of the effectiveness of the entire missile defense system. The objective of this paper is to provide relevant probability distribution functions (pdf) for ballistic missile defense (BMD) planning and cost-effective analyzing. To achieve this goal, discrete time Markov process is utilized to model multi-layered BMD system. Most issues of the multi-layered BMD system are covered in this model, including multi-reentry vehicles, discrimination probabilities and accompanying risk and waste of defensive resources, probability to engage all of the hostile objects, and required inventory levels. The effectiveness of a multi-layered BMD system is expressed in the pdf form of the number of warheads or missiles penetrating the BMD system. This paper also suggests that by changing fire doctrines and comparing the resulting effectiveness against cost the BMD system might be optimized. Since Markov process modeling requires initial state, military intelligence and information will be necessary to generate the initial state.

Market Failure and Non-Standard Contracting: How the Ghost of Perfect Competition Still Haunts Antitrust

Modern antitrust policy has a ‘love hate’ relationship with non-standard contracts that can overcome market failure. On the one hand, courts have abandoned various per se rules that once condemned such agreements outright, concluding that many non-standard contracts may produce benefits that are cognizable under the antitrust laws.1 The prospect of such benefits, it is said, compels courts to analyze these agreements under the Rule of Reason, under which the tribunal determines whether a given restraint enhances or destroys competition.2 At the same time, courts, scholars, and the enforcement agencies have embraced methods of rule of reason analysis that are unduly hostile to such agreements.3 In particular, courts and others are too quick to view such agreements and the market outcomes they produce as manifestations of market power. This article seeks to explain why these agreements are still the object of undue hostility.

Sexual sadism.

Definitions of sexual sadism in ICD-10 and DSM-IV will be presented as well as the historical routes of the concept. Today studies on differently selected clinical samples reveal a different distribution of sexual sadism versus masochism with masochism prevailing in general especially outpatient psychiatric facilities, and sadism prevailing in forensic settings, thus corroborating the concept of two separated diagnoses sadism versus masochism. In forensic settings the diagnosis of a sadistic character disorder (sadistic personality disorder [SPD] according DSM-III-R) is found to a much higher degree than in other clinical samples (50-fold). Our own follow-up study on a forensic sample implies that sadism as a paraphilia is of relevance for relapse-rates of sex-offenders. Symptoms of SPD can be combined with sexual sadism, or occur independently. This may corroborate arguments in favor of a dimensional concept of sexual sadism. Symptoms of SPD may then be a sign of generalization of sadistic traits at least in some cases. A concept of two factors contributing to sadistic pleasure is suggested, one taking the aspect of bodily gratification by sexual-aggressive stimuli as decisive, and the other taking inner representation of hostile objects into consideration (stressing the antisocial-anger-rage aspect).