Original Object Research Articles

Analiza krytyczna efektywności unijnych sankcji finansowych zastosowanych wobec Federacji Rosyjskiej

The article focuses on the issue of international sanctions of a financial nature in the context of, in particular, the challenges to their effectiveness generated by the cryptocurrency market. An essential point of reference for this analysis is the current case of sanctions imposed by the Council of the European Union (supported by the application of complementary sanctions by part of the international community) on the Russian Federation in relation to that country’s military aggression against Ukraine. The aim of this article is to show different perspectives on the assessment of the effectiveness of sanctions and, in particular, to identify the sources why, in a key number of cases, while weakening the economic potential of the sanctioned state, they nevertheless fail to achieve the original objective of their imposition, i.e. the deterrence of military action. In this subject, the axis of interest is the current and prospective impact of blockchain-based financial solutions on the creation of an important loophole in the sanctions regime to eliminate or marginalise the effects of international financial sanctions. The issue is also assessed through the prism of the crypto-asset market regulation entering into force in the European Union in the near future and the implementation of the so-called travel rule for cryptocurrency transactions.

The Budapest Exchange Museum project

The Budapest Exchange Museum portal – presenting the results of a research project launched eight years ago – went officially live as part of a half-day conference on 18 January 2024, the 160th anniversary of the foundation of the former Budapest Commodities and Stock Exchange. The portal was created to promote further high-quality research into financial and economic history as well as to pay tribute to this emblematic institute of Hungarian economic history that has overcome numerous ordeals during its 160 years of operation. The original objective of the project was to quantify the long-term returns of financial investments, an interesting topic from both a theoretical and a practical point of view. In the first phase, we collected and digitalised the data required for these calculations. The second phase continued with the development of the portal, the compilation of a database from the available data and starting the research on returns. While studying the data, we realized how many companies and persons who had played a major role in the past have faded into oblivion. This inspired us to extend our research project by the current third phase which centres around the history of the 100 most prominent companies and the personalities associated with them. This paper summarises the background and current results of the project as well as future plans.

IMPROVEMENT OF INFORMATION AND ANALYTICAL PROVISION OF WORK SAFETY MANAGEMENT BASED ON DYNAMIC MODELING

The article defines the need to improve the information and analytical provision of labor safety management. This necessity is due to the improvement of labor protection legislation, the introduction of a risk-oriented approach, as well as the imperfection of the methods of substantiating the planning of measures aimed at minimizing risks. It was noted that despite the active use of the latest methods to increase the efficiency of labor protection management, in particular, for risk management, the level of information and analytical support, as an important component of this process, does not ensure the achievement of the expected results. Therefore, the issue of development and practical approval of scientific methods of reasonable planning of measures to increase the level of safety and improve working conditions remains relevant. Taking into account certain shortcomings of statistical methods common in the practice of labor protection management, it is proposed to use the method of dynamic modeling. All real objects that require specialized information and analytical support for their management are considered dynamic. This is explained by the fact that the original object and, as a result, its mathematical model, in general, work in conditions of constant changes that must be taken into account.
 The application of the dynamic model is considered on the example of the justification of an operational decision to reduce the level of dust when using equipment during the work of a block grinder at an enterprise in the mining industry. It is shown that the obtained mathematical model retains its relevance as long as the parameters of the technological process remain unchanged. If the parameters of the technological process change, it is necessary to prepare an array of measurement data under the conditions of new parameters of the technological process, calculate the constant coefficients of the mathematical model and evaluate its accuracy. If the accuracy is satisfactory, simulations should be carried out and the results provided to support management decisions to improve working conditions.

Principles of Constructing a HIL Simulation Stand for Debugging Automated Process Control Systems based on the Baget PLC

The problem of constructing a HIL simulation stand for researching a technological process using programmable logic controller (PLC) "Baget" is described in this article. Issues of modeling technological processes are currently extremely relevant, since modeling is a mandatory stage in the automated process control systems development. An adequate model of the technological process allows debugging and verification of automated process control system algorithms without using real equipment, reducing financial costs and the probability of emergency situations. The HIL modeling method involves partial use of real equipment as part of the model. The inclusion of standard components of the original object in the model does not require detailed mathematical model and at the same time provides a more complete correspondence to the original. Due to using a computer from the original object, the stand software operates under conditions close to the real technological process, which improves the quality of the simulation results. The HIL modeling stand includes the following components: control computer of automated process control system; programmable logic controller PLC "Baget"; simulation computer. The stand for the basic element of an automated process control system allows to speed up the process of prototyping and debugging even in the case of complex systems, because it will be easier to build the entire system from correctly functioning elements. Another advantage of this approach is that the stand is not tied to a specific type of technological process or to a narrow area of production — the stand allows the use of ready-made models, the development of new models, and the inclusion of various function libraries. The simplicity of the stand design with this approach is combined with a full range of functionality. By connecting additional software, you can create more complicated and detaild model. This stand is also capable of serving both for debugging PLC algorithms and as a simulator for maintenance personnel of a real control object, because the stand operator can simulate failures and errors of standard equipment, emergency situations at the control object. Using C and JavaScript programming languages for development ensures portability and ease of expanding the capabilities of the modeling software. The development of complex systems based on HIL modeling allows saving resources and effectively solving assigned problems, therefore the proposed approach to building stands will be in demand in the process of developing an automated process control system based on the PLC "Baget".

Utilising a hybrid DMAIC/TAM model to optimise annual maintenance shutdown performance in the dairy industry: a case study

PurposeOutput from the Irish Dairy Industry has grown rapidly since the abolition of quotas in 2015, with processors investing heavily in capacity expansion to deal with the extra milk volumes. Further capacity gains may be achieved by extending the processing season into the winter, a key enabler for which being the reduction of duration of the winter maintenance overhaul period. This paper aims to investigate if Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques can be used to enhance operational maintenance performance, thereby releasing additional processing capacity.Design/methodology/approachCombining the Six-Sigma Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) methodology and the structured approach of Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) widely used in process industries creates a novel hybrid model that promises substantial improvement in maintenance overhaul execution. This paper presents a case study applying the DMAIC/TAM model to Ireland’s largest dairy processing site to optimise the annual maintenance shutdown. The objective was to deliver a 30% reduction in the duration of the overhaul, enabling an extension of the processing season.FindingsApplication of the DMAIC/TAM hybrid resulted in process enhancements, employee engagement and a clear roadmap for the operations team. Project goals were delivered, and original objectives exceeded, resulting in €8.9m additional value to the business and a reduction of 36% in the duration of the overhaul.Practical implicationsThe results demonstrate that the model provides a structure that promotes systematic working and a continuous improvement focus that can have substantial benefits for wider industry. Opportunities for further model refinement were identified and will enhance performance in subsequent overhauls.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that the structure and tools of DMAIC and TAM have been combined into a hybrid methodology and applied in an Irish industrial setting.

Incoherent nonlinear deconvolution using an iterative algorithm for recovering limited-support images from blurred digital photographs.

Recovering original images from blurred images is a challenging task. We propose a new deconvolution method termed incoherent nonlinear deconvolution using an iterative algorithm (INDIA). Two inputs are introduced into the algorithm: one is a random or engineered point spread function of the scattering system, and the other is a blurred or distorted image of some object produced from this system. The two functions are Fourier transformed, and their phase distributions are processed independently of their magnitude. The algorithm yields the image of the original object with reduced blurring effects. The results of the new method are compared to two linear and two nonlinear algorithms under various types of blurs. The root mean square error and structural similarity between the original and recovered images are chosen as the comparison criteria between the five different algorithms. The simulation and experimental results confirm the superior performance of INDIA compared to the other tested deblurring methods.

Urbaani kulttuuriperintö ja fragmentaatioteoria: Esimerkkinä Turun kaupunkiarkeologia

Despite the shift from a monument- or object-centred to a landscape-centred approach in the protection and management of urban cultural heritage, the analysis of cultural heritage as individual objects is still relevant. Theories on material culture do not see objects in the way they were conceived in monument-centred conservation. A case in point is fragmentation theory. The article uses this theory to analyse the relationship between archaeology and the urban landscape in Turku. Although fragmentation theory has its roots in prehistoric archaeology, the article adapts it to the modern, urban setting. Archaeological fragments have a physical connection with the past, but they can also act as agents independent of their original objects. This creative potential of fragments should be further explored in urban heritage management.

Mixing Labor, Taking Possession, and Libertarianism: Response to Walter Block

In his recent rejoinder to my paper Walter Block argues that only the Lockean labor-mixing theory of first acquisition is compatible with libertarianism. Block’s claim is in turn directed against a position held by me in the said paper that it is the first possession theory of original appropriation that is a better fit for libertarianism. Upon reading Block’s rejoinder and thinking intensely about this issue, in the present paper I agree with Block and disagree with my former self, accepting the view that it isindeed the Lockean labor-mixing theory that should be embraced by libertarians. This verdict is mainly motivated by the following arguments that I develop in detail in the paper: (1) no libertarian arguments against the labor-mixing theory seem to work, (2) the first possession theory is unable (contrary to the labor-mixing theory) to accommodate the idea of original appropriation tracking objective links between actors andthings; (3) the labor-mixing theory better fits our intuitions about justice in property acquisition. However, in order not to make things too easy for Block, I also argue that there are some surprising and problematic consequences of adopting the labor-mixing account. I am fully prepared to accept them. The question is whether so is Block.

Formation of new narratives in the field of regional economic research

The article studies evolution of main approaches to the study of regional economy. Over the past half a century, the research paradigm in the area of economic sciences has undergone significant changes: the theories of regional economics have changed, significantly evolving, complementing, and mutually reinforcing each other. The original objectives of regional economic research have changed, responding to modern challenges of the world community development and global crisis phenomena. As a result, as shown in the article, in recent years focus of research has shifted significantly towards analyzing strategic aspects and directions of regional development, as a result of which the relevant concepts have become less economics-centric. An important pattern of modernity has also become a new wave of scientific and technological progress, which determined regional innovation systems development and their subsequent digital transformation that also put a significant imprint on the paradigm of regional economy research.

A Systematic Approach to Long-Term Storage of Documents Using Digital Twin Technologies

The article discusses the modeling of the use of digital twin technologies (a digital twin) for the task of organizing long-term storage of various types of documents. A digital twin in this respect differs from a digital copy, which has no connection with the real original object. A review of the problem was carried out. We argue that, despite the active use of digital twin technology in various areas, its applications in the area of long-term storage of documents remain limited. At the same time, the task of increasing the durability of documents during long-term storage remains important and largely unresolved. The complexity of solving the problem of long-term storage of documents is considered, and a formal statement of the problem of long-term storage using digital twin technologies is carried out. Destructive factors that affect long-term storage documents and significantly reduce their durability have been identified. A system of indicators has been developed to assess the durability (preservation) of documents. The modeling of the use of digital twin technology in the organization of long-term preservation within the framework of Industry 4.0 was carried out. In the course of modeling, the goals and the strategies of long-term storage were established. Primary mathematical models for controlling destructive factors as well as technological solutions for digital twin long-term storage are proposed. It is assumed that the key part of this technology is the Industrial Internet of Things. The effectiveness of the use of digital twin technologies for solving the problem was assessed. The spheres of application and further ways of research are determined.

Node priority evaluation modeling of the substation to be restored based on weight fusion

Severe weather is likely to lead to a large area of power outage accidents, and the emergency repair manpower, flood control materials reserve, and transportation capacity are often limited. This paper studies the node priority evaluation method of substations to be restored in disaster areas and establishes a node priority evaluation model of substations to be restored based on weight fusion. Firstly, the priority evaluation index system is constructed, then subjective weight is assigned to each evaluation index through hierarchical analysis, and objective weight is assigned by the entropy weight method. Finally, the subjective and objective weight fusion optimization strategy based on game theory is adopted, which not only retains the objectivity of the original object but also considers the subjectivity of expert evaluation opinions. The example analysis shows that the combined weights of each priority evaluation index are [0.1835, 0.2432, 0.2631] and [0.0376, 0.0694, 0.0806, 0.1226], and the emergency response needs urgency score of disaster site A is finally 0.6024. We set the recovery priority to Level 2.

Revisiting AUC-Oriented Adversarial Training with Loss-Agnostic Perturbations.

The Area Under the ROC curve (AUC) is a popular metric for long-tail classification. Many efforts have been devoted to AUC optimization methods in the past decades. However, little exploration has been done to make them survive adversarial attacks. Among the few exceptions, AdAUC presents an early trial for AUC-oriented adversarial training with a convergence guarantee. This algorithm generates the adversarial perturbations globally for all the training examples. However, it implicitly assumes that the attackers must know in advance that the victim is using an AUC-based loss function and training technique, which is too strong to be met in real-world scenarios. Moreover, whether a straightforward generalization bound for AdAUC exists is unclear due to the technical difficulties in decomposing each adversarial example. By carefully revisiting the AUC-orient adversarial training problem, we present three reformulations of the original objective function and propose an inducing algorithm. On top of this, we can show that: 1) Under mild conditions, AdAUC can be optimized equivalently with score-based or instance-wise-loss-based perturbations, which is compatible with most of the popular adversarial example generation methods. 2) AUC-oriented AT does have an explicit error bound to ensure its generalization ability. 3) One can construct a fast SVRG-based gradient descent-ascent algorithm to accelerate the AdAUC method. Finally, the extensive experimental results show the performance and robustness of our algorithm in five long-tail datasets. The code is available at https://github.com/statusrank/AUC-Oriented-Adversarial-Training.

Perancangan Presentasi Produk Arsitektur Menggunakan Teknologi Virtual Reality

Presentation in architecture has developed over time. From initially using hand drawings, he then switched to using visuals created by computers. The more technology develops, the more interesting the presentations produced. The results of the presentation also become more realistic so that they are closer to the original design object. Technological developments are increasingly advanced and the use of Virtual Reality technology is widely used in almost all fields, including in the field of architecture. In Architecture, the use of Virtual Reality as a presentation tool has been widely used. However, the method used requires quite a large amount of money and is still too complicated to apply. However, currently Virtual Reality can be done simply and can be applied generally and by architectural practitioners.

An off-policy multi-agent stochastic policy gradient algorithm for cooperative continuous control

Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) algorithms based on trust regions (TR) have achieved significant success in numerous cooperative multi-agent tasks. These algorithms restrain the Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence (i.e., TR constraint) between the current and new policies to avoid aggressive update steps and improve learning performance. However, the majority of existing TR-based MARL algorithms are on-policy, meaning that they require new data sampled by current policies for training and cannot utilize off-policy (or historical) data, leading to low sample efficiency. This study aims to enhance the data efficiency of TR-based learning methods. To achieve this, an approximation of the original objective function is designed. In addition, it is proven that as long as the update size of the policy (measured by the KL divergence) is restricted, optimizing the designed objective function using historical data can guarantee the monotonic improvement of the original target. Building on the designed objective, a practical off-policy multi-agent stochastic policy gradient algorithm is proposed within the framework of centralized training with decentralized execution (CTDE). Additionally, policy entropy is integrated into the reward to promote exploration, and consequently, improve stability. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on a representative benchmark for multi-agent MuJoCo (MAMuJoCo), which offers a range of challenging tasks in cooperative continuous multi-agent control. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms all other existing algorithms by a significant margin.

Grizzly bear responses to restrictions of recreation in Yellowstone National Park

AbstractAvoiding humans will be more difficult and energetically costly for animals as outdoor recreation increases and people venture farther into wildland areas that provide high‐quality habitat for wildlife. Restricting human access can be an attractive management tool to mitigate effects of human recreation activities on wildlife; however, the efficacy of such measures is rarely assessed. In 1982, Yellowstone National Park identified areas important to grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) to help protect critical grizzly bear habitat and reduce the likelihood of human injuries by bears. Referred to as bear management areas (BMAs), human access is restricted in these areas for 2–8 months each year, with timing and type of restrictions varying by area. We examined 2 datasets to evaluate grizzly bear selection of BMAs and differences of bear density in BMAs and non‐BMAs. First, we used 17 years of recent global positioning system telemetry data for grizzly bears to assess their selection of BMAs during periods when human access was allowed, and when access was restricted. We used step‐selection functions to test the hypothesis that bears spend time in places that allow them to avoid people and select quality food sources. There was support that grizzly bears differentially select for BMAs regardless of whether human access was restricted at the time, compared with areas outside BMAs, and that selection changed with sex and season. Only males during the summer and hyperphagic seasons changed their selection of BMAs based on whether access restrictions were in place, and overall, male bears preferred unrestricted BMAs (BMAs without restrictions in place). Females preferentially selected BMAs regardless of whether the area had access restrictions in place only during the mating season. Individuals varied widely in their preference for BMAs and access restrictions. Bears likely choose to spend time in BMAs based on available food resources rather than restrictions to human access. Supporting this interpretation, our analyses indicated that a greater proportion of BMA in an area was associated with higher densities of grizzly bear. Thus, restrictions to human access likely help reduce the potential for human–bear interactions, accomplishing one of the original objectives for establishing the BMAs.

Double-mirror illusion: a new class of 3D illusion that creates anomalous U-turn and anomalous translation simultaneously

This paper presents a new class of 3D optical illusion in which two types of mirror illusions occur simultaneously. The author previously reported the left–right reversal illusion, in which an object exchanges its left and right sides in a mirror, and the translation illusion, in which an object facing toward a mirror translates into the mirror instead of turning around. We will show that these two illusions can be created by a single object. If we place the object in front of two vertical mirrors meeting at the right angle, the object exchanges its left and right sides in one mirror and translates into the other mirror. As one variation of this double-mirror illusion, we create objects whose mirror reflections together with the original objects form a circular sequence oriented clockwise or counterclockwise uniformly. The mathematics behind these illusions and the origin of their robustness are also discussed.

Path integration, rather than being suppressed, is used to update spatial views in familiar environments with constantly available landmarks

This project tested three hypotheses conceptualizing the interaction between path integration based on self-motion and piloting based on landmarks in a familiar environment with persistent landmarks. The first hypothesis posits that path integration functions automatically, as in environments lacking persistent landmarks (environment-independent hypothesis). The second hypothesis suggests that persistent landmarks suppress path integration (suppression hypothesis). The third hypothesis proposes that path integration updates the spatial views of the environment (updating-spatial-views hypothesis). Participants learned a specific object's location. Subsequently, they undertook an outbound path originating from the object and then indicated the object's location (homing). In Experiments 1&1b, there were landmarks throughout the first 9 trials. On some later trials, the landmarks were presented during the outbound path but unexpectedly removed during homing (catch trials). On the last trials, there were no landmarks throughout (baseline trials). Experiments 2–3 were similar but added two identical objects (the original one and a rotated distractor) during homing on the catch and baseline trials. Experiment 4 replaced two identical objects with two groups of landmarks. The results showed that in Experiments 1&1b, homing angular error on the first catch trial was significantly larger than the matched baseline trial, undermining the environment-independent hypothesis. Conversely, in Experiment 2–4, the proportion of participants who recognized the original object or landmarks was similar between the first catch and the matched baseline trial, favoring the updating-spatial-views hypothesis over the suppression hypothesis. Therefore, while mismatches between updated spatial views and actual views of unexpected removal of landmarks impair homing performance, the updated spatial views help eliminate ambiguous targets or landmarks within the familiar environment.

Towards robust plant disease diagnosis with hard-sample re-mining strategy

With rich annotation information, object detection-based automated plant disease diagnosis systems (e.g., YOLO-based systems) often provide advantages over classification-based systems (e.g., EfficientNet-based), such as the ability to detect disease locations and superior classification performance. One drawback of these detection systems is dealing with unannotated healthy data with no real symptoms present. In practice, healthy plant data appear to be very similar to many disease data. Thus, those models often produce mis-detected boxes on healthy images. In addition, labeling new data for detection models is typically time-consuming. Hard-sample mining (HSM) is a common technique for re-training a model by using the mis-detected boxes as new training samples. However, blindly selecting an arbitrary amount of hard-sample for re-training will result in the degradation of diagnostic performance for other diseases due to the high similarity between disease and healthy data. In this paper, we propose a simple but effective training strategy called hard-sample re-mining (HSReM), which is designed to enhance the diagnostic performance of healthy data and simultaneously improve the performance of disease data by strategically selecting hard-sample training images at an appropriate level. Experiments based on two practical in-field eight-class cucumber and ten-class tomato datasets (42.7K and 35.6K images) show that our HSReM training strategy leads to a substantial improvement in the overall diagnostic performance on large-scale unseen data. Specifically, the object detection model trained using the HSReM strategy not only achieved superior results as compared to the classification-based state-of-the-art EfficientNetV2-Large model and the original object detection model, but also outperformed the model using the HSM strategy in multiple evaluation metrics.

Robust Transmission Design for RIS-Assisted Secure Multiuser Communication Systems in the Presence of Hardware Impairments

This paper investigates reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted secure multiuser communication systems in the presence of hardware impairments (HIs) at the RIS and the transceivers. We jointly optimize the beamforming vectors at the base station (BS) and the phase shifts of the reflecting elements at the RIS so as to maximize the weighted minimum approximate ergodic secrecy rate (WMAESR), subject to the transmission power constraints at the BS and unit-modulus constraints at the RIS. To solve the formulated optimization problem, we first decouple it into two tractable subproblems and then use the block coordinate descent (BCD) method to alternately optimize the subproblems. Two different methods are proposed to solve the two obtained subproblems. The first method transforms each subproblem into a second order cone programming (SOCP) problem by invoking the penalty convexconcave procedure (CCP) method and the closed-form fractional programming (FP) criterion, and then directly solves them by using CVX. The second method leverages the minorization-maximization (MM) algorithm. Specifically, we first derive a concave approximation function, which is a lower bound of the original objective function, and then the two subproblems are transformed into two simple surrogate problems that admit closed-form solutions. Simulation results verify the performance gains of the proposed robust transmission methods over existing non-robust designs. In addition, the MM algorithm is shown to have much lower complexity than the SOCP-based algorithm.

Ship Model as a Museum Object

Ship models are the part of a significant number of collections of domestic and foreign museums. Such objects are the primary sources of knowledge and emotions, true monuments of history and culture, but often belong to the group of reproductions of museum objects, that is, reduced copies of original objects. The article analyzes the questions of the definition of ship models, correlates the definitions of these items in different sources. The author considers the model of the ship from the point of view of the functions and properties of a museum object, asserts their value as originals of significant historical and cultural significance, monuments of science and technology, objects of arts and crafts, ethnographic sources. The novelty of the research lies in the study by the author of the ship model from the point of view of the theory of the museum object. This allows us to consider ship models from other, not generally accepted positions, and consider them full-fledged museum objects, which, along with originals, have the same set of properties, qualities and features. The main conclusions of the study are, firstly, that the models of ships and vessels in the collections of museums are not secondary in relation to other material sources, and secondly, that such objects fully correspond to the concept of "cultural values", are source of knowledge and emotion.