Projection Rule Research Articles

The Impact of Judicial Constraints on Government Powers as a Sub-Factor on the Rule of Law: A Study of the World Justice Project Index, 2023

The study investigated the impact of judicial constraints on government powers (JCGP) as a sub-factor of constraints on government powers on the rule of Law (RL) of the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2023, focusing on a sample of 142 countries. Using the regression model approach, we first assessed the impact of JCGP on RL based on the most recent cross-section data of 2023. The results indicated a significant positive effect of JCGP on the RL. Moreover, to capture the evolution of this relationship, the analysis was extended across the period from 2013 to 2023, revealing a strengthening impact over time. Additionally, we conducted a comparative analysis between developed and developing countries and the socio-economic conditions that shape the investigated effects differently. The results indicated that developed countries benefit from more robust institutional frameworks while developing countries face challenges that may limit the effectiveness of JCGP in enhancing RL. Policy implications emphasize the need for targeted strategies to strengthen judicial independence and government accountability. The novelty and originality of this study lie in exploring and improving literature concerning the impact of judicial constraints on government powers on the rule of law.

Contribution of Responsive Governance to Personal Security of Crime Victims in Kenya

This study explored the critical role of responsive governance in enhancing the efficacy of victim assistance programs, with a particular focus on Kenya’s criminal justice system. By examining Kenya's low ranking on the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index and comparing it with other nations such as the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Nigeria, the study highlights significant gaps in the protection of crime victims' rights. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this study investigated how governance impacts victim support by analyzing data from surveys and interviews with victims, government officials, law enforcement, and advocacy groups in Nairobi. The research identified the key principles for successful victim support, including inclusivity, transparency, accountability, and flexibility. It underscores the need for victim-centered approaches that prioritize accessibility, empathy, respect, confidentiality, and empowerment. The findings reveal both successes and challenges in current programs, with issues such as inadequate funding and limited collaboration affecting service delivery. The study advocates for the establishment of a Victim Support Agency (VSA) in Kenya to centralize victim support, enhance transparency, and foster effective stakeholder collaboration. The study recommends a holistic, coordinated, and well-funded approach that includes continuous improvement of victim support programs to address the existing gaps and advance justice and support for crime victims.

The impact of environmental stimuli on the psychological and behavioral compliance of international construction employees.

This study explores the overlooked psychological and behavioral dynamics of employees in compliance management, applying the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework to assess environmental stimuli's impact on employees in international construction projects. A scenario-based survey involving 270 international construction employees was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), focusing on the relationship between environmental stimuli and compliance intentions. Findings categorize environmental influences on compliance into internal and external organizational dimensions, highlighting the significant impact of internal factors on compliance intentions. Key determinants identified for high compliance intention include individual traits and organizational climate, while project pressures, rules and regulations, and cultural differences show variable influence. This study enhances the understanding of the psychological factors driving non-compliant behaviors and introduces a binary micro-ecological approach to compliance management, effectively integrating individual and project organizational elements. In contrast to traditional corporate governance approaches, this strategy emphasizes the role of project organizational micro-ecology in the management of international construction projects. The strategy aims to improve compliance management among international contractors by influencing the psychological and behavioral compliance of frontline employees.

Violence, Democracy and Criminal Justice in five South American countries (2014-2020)

Latin America is the most violent region in the world. Its average rate exceeds 20 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, while the global average rate is 6 per 100,000 and the epidemic limit is 10 per 100,000. No consolidated democracy has uncontrolled rates of homicidal violence, none of them have high impunity and a low rate of rule of law. Our task in this paper will be to relate violence, the level of democracy and criminal justice as a proxy indicator of the rule of law in five representative countries in Latin America. To this end, we use the following as indicators for measuring, classifying and correlating these concepts: democracy indices from The Economist's Democracy Index; UNODC homicide rates per hundred thousand inhabitants as a proxy for violence; and the factor eight criminal justice indices from the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index (2021). Our theoretical argument, or conjecture to be tested, was that the indicators of violence, democracy and criminal justice as a factor of the Rule of Law are associated. In other words, the signs of statistical correlations and crossing data sets from the 2014-2020 time series point to a higher level of democracy when there is a higher level of criminal justice and, in turn, lower levels of violence. Data analysis confirmed our theoretical conjecture and, in the five countries analyzed, violence tends to fall with the improvement of criminal justice indicators (Rule of Law) and reflects a better quality of democracy.

Considerações acerca de certa presença spinozista na obra de Laurent Bove e Mark Fisher

Este artigo pretende abordar as contribuições contemporâneas dos pensadores Laurent Bove e Mark Fisher, os quais, cada um à sua maneira, reivindicam a atualidade e a efetividade de certos conceitos e noções do filósofo seiscentista Benedictus Spinoza (1632 – 1677). Em Laurent Bove, a fundamentação e a disseminação de uma clínica política, ao mesmo tempo singular e social, se desdobram sob a relação entre conatus e liberdade, sempre correspondendo às regras afetivas e intelectuais do projeto autônomo da multidão, tal como formulado por Spinoza. Mark Fisher, por sua vez, partindo do conceito spinozano de entidade, produz uma articulação conceitual entre materialismo gótico e cyberspinozismo que visa à criação de um corpo coletivo, imanente e antagônico à tirania do capitalismo financeiro. Além disso, alicerçado na teoria dos afetos de Spinoza, desenvolve uma análise ética do seu tempo que também pretende ser um chamado à ação política. Finalmente, este trabalho objetiva esclarecer o que há de comum entre os dois autores, a saber, a aposta na ação política como potência que carrega consigo uma força constituinte inalienável, além de discutir como essa característica reafirma a pertinência de mantermos um diálogo sempre atento e vibrante com a filosofia de Spinoza.

Considerações acerca de certa presença spinozista na obra de Laurent Bove e Mark Fisher

This article intends to approach two contemporary contributions, by the theorists Mark Fisher and Laurent Bove, who, each in his own way, claim the actuality and effectiveness of certain concepts and notions of the seventeenth-century philosopher Benedictus Spinoza (1632 – 1677). In Laurent Bove, the foundation and dissemination of a political clinic, at the same time, singular and social, unfolds under the relation between conatus and freedom, always corresponding to the affective and intellectual rules of the autonomous project of the multitude, as formulated by Spinoza. Mark Fisher, in turn, from the Spinozian concept of entity, produces a speculative articulation between Gothic materialism and cyber-Spinozism that aims to create a collective body, immanent and antagonistic to the tyranny of financial capitalism. Furthermore, based on Spinoza’s theory of affects, he develops an ethical analysis of his time that also intends to be a convocation to political action. Finally, the paper aims to clarify what the two authors have in common, namely, their belief in the positivity of political action, and how this characteristic reaffirms the relevance of maintaining an ever attentive and vibrant dialogue with Spinoza’s philosophy.

Social Impact Assessment in Urban Security Management Projects: A Case Study from Pakistan

Public safety and security management projects are devised to reduce crime, fear and calamities by prevailing law and order to reduce the harm in society. In a certain context, social impact assessment is a novel way to reveal the extent of effectiveness for these projects. This case study presents an Expert System based methodology regarding social impact assessment for two urban security management projects in Pakistan. An Expert System, DoctuS is employed as a tool to build a rule-based model tool using social impact attributes (as variables) from literature and expert knowledge (Author’s own insight as being involved in projects). Case-based reasoning (CBR) method is employed for the measurement of the impact of urban security management KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in the two case projects. The empirical findings in this case study approaches the impact assessment by quantitative analysis of crime rates in JMP statistical package and Qualitative Expert knowledge-based model in DoctuS. Thereby, the study evaluates the pre and post ante project situations in order to assess the project’s effectiveness and impact on improved urban safety and security. In the first step, the projects are briefly described, followed by the crime rate analysis under the project jurisdictions and rules between attributes are defined. The second step defines the qualitative rule-based model along with the two cases described, and validated in DoctuS tool. Some attributes and rules have changed, and a new concise model is presented. The Expert System compares the project cases and evaluates the social impact assessment based on the defined KPIs. The Expert system validation presents a novel model for social impact assessment of subject urban security management projects. We propose this methodology and model as useful in investigating social impact assessment of projects specifically dealing with urban safety and security management. However, the generalizability of the findings of this case-study based articles need more sophisticated tests as recommendation for the extension to this study.
 
 Received: 31 May 2023 / Accepted: 19 November 2023 / Published: 5 January 2024

A vector projection similarity-based method for miRNA-disease association prediction

[S U M M A R Y] Many miRNA-disease association prediction models incorporate Gaussian interaction profile kernel similarity (GIPS). However, the GIPS fails to consider the specificity of the miRNA-disease association matrix, where matrix elements with a value of 0 represent miRNA and disease relationships that have not been discovered yet. To address this issue and better account for the impact of known and unknown miRNA-disease associations on similarity, we propose a method called vector projection similarity-based method for miRNA-disease association prediction (VPSMDA). In VPSMDA, we introduce three projection rules and combined with logistic functions for the miRNA-disease association matrix and propose a vector projection similarity measure for miRNAs and diseases. By integrating the vector projection similarity matrix with the original one, we obtain the improved miRNA and disease similarity matrix. Additionally, we construct a weight matrix using different numbers of neighbors to reduce the noise in the similarity matrix. In performance evaluation, both LOOCV and 5-fold CV experiments demonstrate that VPSMDA outperforms seven other state-of-the-art methods in AUC. Furthermore, in a case study, VPSMDA successfully predicted 10, 9, and 10 out of the top 10 associations for three important human diseases, respectively, and these predictions were confirmed by recent biomedical resources.

A coding scheme for (dis)approval-relevant events involving the direct social sanctioning of problematic behavior in informal social interaction

This manual introduces a conversation analytically informed coding scheme for episodes involving the direct social sanctioning of problem behavior in informal social interaction which was developed in the project Norms, Rules, and Morality across Languages (NoRM-aL) at the Leibniz-Institute for the German Language. It outlines the background for its development, delimits the phenomena to which the coding scheme can be applied and provides instructions for its use.The scheme asks for basic information about the recording and the participants involved in the episode, before taking stock of different features of the sanctioning episode as a whole. This is followed by sets of specific coding questions about the sanctioning move itself (such as its timing and composition) and the reaction it engenders. The coding enables researchers to get a bird’s eye view on recurrent features of such episodes in larger quantities of data and allows for comparisons across different languages and informal settings.

Accelerated Bregman projection rules for pseudomonotone variational inequalities and common fixed point problems

Let E be a p-uniformly convex and uniformly smooth Banach space, which is more general than Hilbert space. Let VIP and CFPP represent a variational inequality problem and the common fixed point problem of a Bregman relatively asymptotically nonexpansive mapping and a finite family of Bregman relatively nonexpansive mappings in E, respectively. In this paper, we put forward two accelerated Bregman projection algorithms with linesearch process for solving the two pseudomonotone VIPs and the CFPP. With the help of suitable assumptions, we prove weak and strong convergence of the suggested algorithms to a common solution of the two pseudomonotone VIPs and the CFPP, respectively. In the end, an illustrated instance is provided to back up the viability and performability of our proposed rules.

Finite-Time Anti-Saturated Formation Tracking Control of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Performance Tuning Way

A highly effective control method is very important to guarantee the safety of the formation of flying missions for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), especially in the presence of complex flying environments and actuator constraints. In this regard, this paper investigates the formation tracking control problem of multiple UAVs in the presence of actuator saturation. Firstly, a brand-novel finite-time anti-saturated control scheme is proposed for multiple UAVs to track the desired position commands, wherein the tracking performance is tuned by introducing a logarithmic function-based state-mapping policy. Then, an adaptive scheme based on projection rules is devised to compensate for the negative effects brought by the actuator saturation. Based on the proposed formation tracking controller, the finite-time formation tracking performance tuning and control saturation problems can be addressed simultaneously with a comparatively allowable system robustness. Finally, three groups of illustrative examples are organized to verify the effectiveness of the proposed formation tracking control scheme.

Machine learning‐based prediction of the seismic response of fault‐crossing natural gas pipelines

AbstractHerein, we utilized machine‐learning (ML) and data‐driven (regression) techniques to tackle a critical infrastructure engineering problem—namely, predicting the seismic response of natural gas pipelines crossing earthquake faults. Such a 3D nonlinear problem can take up to 10 h to solve by performing finite element analysis (FEA), considering the length of the pipeline and a large number of pipe and soil elements. However, the ML and data‐driven techniques can learn the projection rule of input‐output and predict the pipeline response instantaneously given a set of input features. In addition, the well‐trained ML model can be implemented for regional‐scale risk and rapid post‐event damage assessments. In this study, the input for ML comprised approximately 217K nonlinear FEAs, which covered a wide range of combinations of soil, structural and fault properties and yielded critical pipe strain responses under fault‐rupture displacements. We adopted various regression models and physics‐constrained neural networks, which can accurately and rapidly predict the tensile and compressive strains for a broad range of probable fault‐rupture displacements. Performances of various ML and conventional statistical models were systematically examined. Not surprisingly, neural networks exhibited the best performance for this multi‐output regression problem, in whichR2 > 0.95 was achieved for a wide range of fault displacement (FD) levels. Further, we used the trained neural network with 14.5 million Monte‐Carlo‐generated input samples to predict the maximum tensile and compressive strain curves of pipelines. This new dataset aimed at filling the missing input‐output points from the 217K FEAs, and improved the accuracy of the prediction of probability of failure for natural gas pipelines under FD hazards.

The Complexity of Semantic Components in Linguistic Era

In Section One, a brief account is made to describe how a semantic theory explains and shows the interpretative ability of speakers. Any lexical item in a given sentence is supplied with more senses, by a dictionary, than it can bear. The task of the projection rules is to select the most suitable sense of each item in that sentence. The semantic components discussed according to the phonological and semantic representation of sentence which is the basic concern of Section Two, are associated with a linguistic description of a natural language proposed the specification of the interconnections between the three components: syntax, phonology and semantics to be of mutual dependency. Section Three advocates another split from the Standard Theory which is called Generative Semantics: a theory developed by Lackoff, McCawley, Ross and others has found its way since 1968 as a strong opponent to the Extended Theory. We also, in Section Four discuss the semantic acceptability in linguistics through drawing a distinction between grammaticality (a property belonging to a competence) and acceptability (a property identical in performance).

Leadership and institutional design in collaborative government digitalisation: Evidence from Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, and the UK

Large-scale government digitalisation projects require collaborative approaches for their successful development and implementation. To shed light on these collaboration dynamics, the interplay between two integral parts of collaborative projects: the project rules, procedures, and structures (collectively known as institutional design) and the leaders managing these projects is studied. In doing so, the paper provides empirically grounded insights into the management of collaborative government digitalisation projects. Taking an institutional perspective, and the strategic-relational approach (SRA), we examine the extent to which institutional design constraints leadership behaviours, and under what conditions leaders begin to adjust and/or challenge these design features adding to the knowledge of managing digitalisation of government. To this end, we present a five-country case study of national digitalisation projects across Europe. Our results show that while clear institutional design features such as established rules, project structures, and standard operating procedures are essential at the initial stages of the projects, leaders' skills in understanding and tailoring these features are critical to handle project-related problems and moving forwards towards implementation. This underscores the importance of examining projects taking an SRA approach and the need to understand leadership behaviour in the context of the structures in which it is embedded.

An Analysis of PubMed Abstracts From 1946 to 2021 to Identify Organizational Affiliations in Epidemiological Criminology: Descriptive Study.

Epidemiological criminology refers to health issues affecting incarcerated and nonincarcerated offender populations, a group recognized as being challenging to conduct research with. Notwithstanding this, an urgent need exists for new knowledge and interventions to improve heath, justice, and social outcomes for this marginalized population. To better understand research outputs in the field of epidemiological criminology, we examined the lead author's affiliation by analyzing peer-reviewed published outputs to determine countries and organizations (eg, universities, governmental and nongovernmental organizations) responsible for peer-reviewed publications. We used a semiautomated approach to examine the first-author affiliations of 23,904 PubMed epidemiological studies related to incarcerated and offender populations published in English between 1946 and 2021. We also mapped research outputs to the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index to better understand whether there was a relationship between research outputs and the overall standard of a country's justice system. Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark) had the highest research outputs proportional to their incarcerated population, followed by Australia. University-affiliated first authors comprised 73.3% of published articles, with the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) being the most published, followed by the University of New South Wales (Australia). Government-affiliated first authors were on 8.9% of published outputs, and prison-affiliated groups were on 1%. Countries with the lowest research outputs also had the lowest scores on the Rule of Law Index. This study provides important information on who is publishing research in the epidemiological criminology field. This has implications for promoting research diversity, independence, funding equity, and partnerships between universities and government departments that control access to incarcerated and offending populations.

The Relational Dissolution of the Quantum Measurement Problems

The Quantum Measurement Problem is arguably one of the most debated issues in the philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, since it represents not only a technical difficulty for the standard formulation of the theory, but also a source of interpretational disputes concerning the meaning of the quantum postulates. Another conundrum intimately connected with the QMP is the Wigner friend paradox, a thought experiment underlining the incoherence between the two dynamical laws governing the behavior of quantum systems, i.e the Schrödinger equation and the projection rule. Thus, every alternative interpretation aiming to be considered a sound formulation of QM must provide an explanation to these puzzles associated with quantum measurements. It is the aim of the present essay to discuss them in the context of Relational Quantum Mechanics. In fact, it is shown here how this interpretative framework dissolves the QMP. More precisely, two variants of this issue are considered: on the one hand, I focus on the “the problem of outcomes” contained in Maudlin (1995)—in which the projection postulate is not mentioned—on the other hand, I take into account Rovelli’s reformulation of this problem proposed in Rovelli (2022), where the tension between the Schrödinger equation and the stochastic nature of the collapse rule is explicitly considered. Moreover, the relational explanation to the Wigner’s friend paradox is reviewed, taking also into account some interesting objections contra Rovelli’s theory contained in Laudisa (2019). I contend that answering these critical remarks leads to an improvement of our understanding of RQM. Finally, a possible objection against the relational solution to the QMP is presented and addressed.

A taxonomy of non-dictatorial unidimensional domains

Non-dictatorial preference domains allow the design of unanimous social choice functions (henceforth, rules) that are non-dictatorial and strategy-proof. On a class of preference domains called unidimensional domains, we show that the unique seconds property (introduced by Aswal et al., 2003) characterizes all non-dictatorial domains. Subsequently, we provide an exhaustive classification of all non-dictatorial, unidimensional domains, based on a simple property of two-voter rules called invariance. The domains constituting the classification are semi-single-peaked domains (introduced by Chatterji et al., 2013) and semi-hybrid domains (introduced here) which are two appropriate weakenings of single-peaked domains and shown to allow strategy-proof rules to depend on non-peak information of voters' preferences; the canonical strategy-proof rules for these domains are projection rules and hybrid rules respectively. As a refinement of the classification, single-peaked domains and hybrid domains emerge as the only unidimensional domains that force strategy-proof rules to be determined completely by preference peaks.

Heart Failure Association/European Society of Cardiology Atlas second edition: new insights into understanding the burden of heart failure.

The Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) is committed to improving the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure (HF) and maintaining the networks of centres dedicated to its management, education, and research. Working in alliance with the National Heart Failure Societies (NHFS), this activity of the HFA has resulted in significant initiatives over the past decade, which together have given important insights into the main differences in HF management across Europe. One of these pivotal projects is the HFA/ESC Atlas, developed in collaboration and under the rules of the whole ESC Atlas project, of the European Heart Institute in Brussels. This project is intended to provide a contemporary insight into HF epidemiology, management resources, reimbursement of guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) and the activities of NHFS in the ESC member countries. The first edition of the HFA Atlas survey was conducted in 2018–2019 in 42 ESC member countries.1 It covered the geographical area of Europe, Mediterranean, Middle East and some of the former Soviet Union countries, comprising a total population of over 800 million people.2 According the first edition results, the median incidence of HF was 3.20 cases per 1000 person-years and a median HF prevalence of 17.20 cases per 1000 people was reported. The median number of HF hospitalizations was 2671 per million people annually, with the median length of hospital stay of 8.5 days. Diagnostic and management resources for HF varied, with high-income ESC member countries spending substantially more resources on HF compared with middle-income countries. The survey revealed a scarcity of HF centres, since the median number of hospitals with dedicated facilities and protocols for HF management was only 1.16 per million people. At the time the survey was conducted, nearly all countries reported full or partial reimbursement of standard GDMT, except ivabradine and sacubitril/valsartan. In addition, almost all countries reported having NHFS or working groups, and almost a 50% had HF patient organizations. The first edition of the HFA-ESC Atlas underlined a heterogeneity in the epidemiology of HF, the resources available for its management and the quality of care across the ESC member countries.

The Crucial Conditions and Attributes of Domestic Subcontract in Malaysian Construction Industry

The duties and responsibilities of the parties signing a contract are governed by the previously agreed terms of the contract. General conditions are a standardized form of pre-printed contract which specifies the general project rules and relevant commercial terms. The contracts are developed and published by various associations and professional bodies and are widely used in the construction industry. In the Malaysian construction industry, there are several standard forms of main contracts and nominated subcontracts. However, for a domestic subcontract, the main contractor prefers to use a bespoke contract, which results in contract disputes. Drafting a complex contract can be time-consuming and expensive. It also requires the involvement of the legal team to provide legal opinions and advice on its content. Hence, this study intends to identify domestic subcontract attributes and critical conditions to overcome the major issue of unclear terms and conditions for the domestic subcontract. A set of attributes and critical conditions have been established through a detailed review and analysis of twenty-two (22) bespoke contracts collected from the industry and an extensive literature review from published articles. Content analysis was done on leading academic journals in construction engineering and management. Clarity, consistency, parties, risk, language, and format of the domestic subcontract are some of the attributes. Meanwhile, payment, liquidated damages, delay, subcontract sum, termination, variation order, practical completion and defect liability period, commencement and completion, and safety provision are the most crucial conditions discovered through extensive review and content analysis of the bespoke contracts. The advantage of establishing these characteristics and critical conditions is that they serve as a prerequisite for the development of a domestic subcontract framework

How are institutions included in Integrated Conservation and Development Projects? Developing and testing a diagnostic approach on the World Bank’s Forest and Community project in Salta, Argentina

The opportunities and challenges of ensuring participation and success of Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) have been fairly studied. However, it is not often well-established which institutional mechanisms explain the failure in meeting participatory and project goals. To fill this gap, we develop a telecoupling-inspired diagnostic approach to assess the level of institutional distance and opportunity for collective decision-making in ICDPs by looking at project information flows, project asset flows, and rules and regulation flows between project actors. We construct three management archetypes based on the direction and directness of such flows: decoupled management, telecoupled management and collaborative management. The archetypes are applied to a case study of a World Bank-financed ICDP in Argentina, drawing on qualitative data collected from individual interviews with project actors. Our findings challenge the notion that a project becomes participatory if the project design provides guidelines for participatory implementation. We find that our diagnostic approach helps to concretize the call for inclusion of local project actors across the project cycle, which is needed to make projects collaborative, relevant, and socially just. Finally, we advocate future project assessments to build on this approach and map the practical institutional relationships between project actors to provide transparency on the de facto level of project collaboration. This article is relevant for both academics and practitioners designing and implementing conservation and development projects.