Search Results (17)

We build on the predictive processing framework to show that intelligent behaviour is adaptive control, driven by accurate prediction and uncertainty reduction in dynamic environments with limited information. We argue that adaptive control arises through a process of re-concretisation, where learned abstractions are grounded in new situations via embodiment. We use this as an explanation of why AI models often generalise at the cost of detail while biological systems manage to tailor their predictions towards specific environments over time. On this basis, we utilise the notion of embodied prediction to provide a new distinction between biological intelligence and the performance illustrated by AI systems. Full article

The post-modern era is characterized by a structural religious pluralism, whereby the public dimension of religion has re-emerged as a prominent feature after the relative obscurity of the modern period. In the context of Christianity, the contribution of religion to the common good has been reflected upon in the extensive and profound field of Public Theology. Since its inception in the 1980s, this vast area of studies has encompassed a wide range of topics, including politics, civil society, economics, social issues, and justice. However, the interreligious dimension of public theology appears to be less developed. This is linked, firstly, to the discovery of the public dimension of neighbouring religions and, secondly, to the clarification of the relationship between this and Christian Public Theology. It is evident that the focus of this discussion is the development of a Comparative Public Theology as Interreligious Public Theology. This is a theology that considers the comparative study of religions in a pluralistic context, with the public aspect as its background. On this basis, the contribution has two main aims. Firstly, to identify the field of interreligious public theology, and secondly to concretise it by exploring the field of education from an interreligious and public perspective, i.e., as a contribution to the common good. Full article

The Holy See is an absolute monarchy, both as a political and as a spiritual entity. The Second Vatican Council indicated, retrieving biblical terms and metaphors, a new way of giving value to the whole people of God, the laity (laos theou), constituted by baptism. Rather than a societas perfecta in a pyramidal system, the intention was to declericalise and in this sense democratise the church and its decision-making, not least seeking to secure its witness in an ever more secular world. Even if a sacramental and ontological difference is maintained, this indicates clergy are no longer a first class of believers against which the laity would be a second class; rather, they are rooted and stand with and within the whole people of God with their specific vocation and ordination. The notion of the royal and universal priesthood of believers, taken from 1 Peter 2:9 and emphasised by Luther and other reformers as they distributed power between ordained and not ordained leaders, was visible in the Second Vatican Council and finds new enactment in the synodality process which culminated in the Ordinary Synod in Rome, in October 2024. Based on his own theology of the people of God, developed during the dictatorship and economic oppression in Argentina, with strong cultural and religious connotations, Pope Francis seeks to further major involvement of the laity and especially of women in the church’s administration and transformation processes. Not surprisingly, this process has been receiving criticism both from those who find it is not going far enough and from those who believe the process has already gone far too far. Based on bibliographical and documental research, the intention of this article is to describe and analyse the notion of the people of God as proposed by Pope Francis and its forms of concretisation including its deficiencies, as well as, in dialogue with ongoing debates on populism, highlight the precariousness of any “people” as a concept and as a reality. A dynamic notion of “people” and a theological accountability of the people and the clergy towards each other, towards God and towards the world can do justice to both the ambiguities and the irreplaceability of the people as citizens of the church as well as the world. Full article

Culture shapes how general principles, rules and knowledge concretise in a specific context. Therefore, broadening the approach to disaster risk management by incorporating cultural variability is a key factor in strengthening resilience in our societies. This article offers a theoretical framework to contextualise the concept of “Safety Culture” in the field of public safety and disaster risk reduction (DRR), with the aim of supporting its understanding and measurement in our communities and finally attaining more disaster-resilient societies. The work discusses the role of cultural dimensions in risk management and DRR. It highlights the relevance of building knowledge and practices based on the consideration of culture and cultural variability in all phases of the risk-management process. After an overview of the safety culture concept, including its origins, developments and applications, the text explores the transferability of this concept to the context of public safety. Then, based on the existing safety culture models, metrics and indicators from other sectors, the paper proposes an original definition of safety culture for the DRR context, shaped by a series of elements and dimensions specifically outlined for this context. Finally, the expected benefits of applying safety culture concepts and techniques for further advances in DRR are discussed. Full article

In Catalonia, the largest group of immigrants is that of Moroccan origin. Some Moroccan women are conditioned by a traditional family model that is concretised by the spatial separation between men and women in all spheres of society, a fact that influences the socialisation of these women and that, in a migratory context, may have an impact on their early abandonment of formal second language courses. Accordingly, this study aims to analyse the importance of accounting for the culture and gender factors in language teaching in a migratory context. We conducted semi-structured interviews with eight teachers of Catalan and Spanish as a second language, as they are the link between the institution and the students. The results suggest that providing instruction to segregated groups might grant women who are unable to participate in mixed-gender language classes the opportunity to increase their second language proficiency and thus facilitate their integration into the corresponding host territory. Offering gender-specific courses is a particular challenge for public L2 schools, where groups are organised according to the learners’ levels and not according to characteristics linked to origin and gender, as the latter practice may be at odds with the criteria of equality that guide public education in the host territory. Full article

In contrast to “experience” (Erfahrung), the concept and phenomenon of perception is still underexposed in systematic theology. Aesthetics in the sense of aisthesis illuminates perception as an independent mode of existence and cognition and not merely as a preliminary stage of Erfahrung. This is made clear by the differentiations and concretisations on aesthetics by the philosopher Wolfgang Welsch. His work on aesthetics is valuable for systematic theology on an epistemological level on the one hand and is based on contemporary questions about a good life in an “experience society” (Erlebnisgesellschaft, Gerhard Schulze) and the ecological crisis on the other hand. As a result, cornerstones of a perception-sensitive theology become visible. Full article

Background: The digital transformation towards Industry 4.0 has become a necessity for businesses as it makes them more flexible, agile and responsive. Logistics is no exception, as it is constantly undergoing a significant transformation supported by revolutionary Industry 4.0 technologies that are fundamentally changing logistics processes and operations. Methods: In the construction of the paper, the following classical scientific methods were used: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy, specification and comparison. Among the special scientific methods, the method of classification, concretisation, graphical methods, questionnaire survey and statistical methods were used. Results: The analysed enterprises perceive digital transformation in logistics. In the analysed enterprises in Slovakia, the Industry 4.0 strategy is implemented in logistics. Industry 4.0 in logistics has the largest representation in production logistics in each enterprise category. In implementing Industry 4.0 in logistics, enterprises confront the biggest barrier, namely, investment costs. Conclusions: Through one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson’s correlation coefficient, several significant relationships were confirmed. The significant relationship between manufacturing logistics and selected Industry 4.0 technologies was demonstrated. The significant relationship between procurement logistics and selected Industry 4.0 technologies was also demonstrated. The statistical analysis also confirmed a significant relationship between distribution logistics and the selected Industry 4.0 technologies. Full article

The COVID-19 crisis is unique in that it is caused by a pandemic and has created a special context for entrepreneurship in 2020. The motivation for this study is, firstly, to concretise and accurately quantify the impacts of the pandemic on entrepreneurship. Secondly, to clearly identify the specific business risks emerging or intensifying in the context of the pandemic; and thirdly, to distinguish between the impact of the economic crisis and the pandemic on entrepreneurship. This paper aims at studying the risks of entrepreneurship amid the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis. The paper’s sample consists of the top 10 countries that are leaders by the COVID-19 case rate in the world, starting 22 October 2020 up to 22 February 2022. The method of trend analysis is used to find and quantitatively measure the manifestations of the pandemic (case rate and mortality) on the entrepreneurial risks. Economic and mathematical modelling, with the help of correlation and regression analysis, showed that healthcare factors—the COVID-19 case rate and mortality—are not the key reasons for high entrepreneurial risks in 2020 and have a small influence on them. This paper’s contribution to the literature consists in specifying the cause-and-effect links between the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis and entrepreneurial risks. The theoretical significance of the results obtained consists in their proving the uniqueness of the COVID-19 crisis from the position of entrepreneurial risks. The paper’s originality consists in specifying the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurial risks, explaining—thoroughly and in detail—the essence of these risks, and opening possibilities for highly-effective risk management. Full article

The framework of energy transition poses significant challenges in subtransmission network development, where the increased renewable energy generation is collected, in order to efficiently convey power production, avoiding limitations in a range of operating conditions. In this paper, a method to evaluate possible margins for further renewable penetration due to electric network development is assessed, by means of scenario evaluation for the concretisation of renewable initiatives, combined producibility analysis, and load flow studies, accounting for operation islands in subtransmission network organisation, carried out in N and N-1 conditions. The method is applied to a provisional model of the southern part of the Italian power system. Full article

This article takes a critical view on austerity policy and examines its social and economic consequences for the case of Greece. By introducing the concept of “growthless employment” it demonstrates that the implementation of internal devaluation policies had a substantial impact on the Greek society that needs to be addressed. Within a decade, household disposable income was reduced to an unprecedented level while the labour market was extensively deregulated as several indicators can display. The seemingly paradoxical case of employment without growth—hence, growthless employment—can be interpreted as the consequence of the intensity of the mix of austerity policies that was imposed as “one-size-fits-all” without taking the peculiar structure of the Greek economy into account. A descriptive examination of this idiosyncratic state of affairs is offered, providing new insights on how the level of depreciation can be better assessed. It is argued that the overall severity of the crisis is better captured by the level of disposable income whereas a modified measurement of poverty and income depreciation is introduced for the same purpose. Lastly it is maintained that Greece has suffered by an enormous outflow of its productive-aged population in the aftermath of the crisis. All the above concretise the idea of growthless employment in Greece. Full article

Accountability is a value often mentioned in the debate on intelligent systems and their increased pervasiveness in our society. When focusing specifically on autonomous systems, a critical gap emerges: although there is much work on governance and attribution of accountability, there is a significant lack of methods for the operationalisation of accountability within the socio-technical layer of autonomous systems. In the case of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles or drones—the critical question of how to maintain accountability as they undertake fully autonomous flights becomes increasingly important as their uses multiply in both the commercial and military fields. In this paper, we aim to fill the operationalisation gap by proposing a socio-technical framework to guarantee human oversight and accountability in drone deployments, showing its enforceability in the real case of military surveillance drones. By keeping a focus on accountability and human oversight as values, we align with the emphasis placed on human responsibility, while requiring a concretisation of what these principles mean for each specific application, connecting them with concrete socio-technical requirements. In addition, by constraining the framework to observable elements of pre- and post-deployment, we do not rely on assumptions made on the internal workings of the drone nor the technical fluency of the operator. Full article

The article analyses Frank Gehry’s insistence on the use of self-twisting uninterrupted line in his sketches. Its main objectives are first, to render explicit how this tendency of Gehry is related to how the architect conceives form-making, and second, to explain how Gehry reinvents the tension between graphic composition and the translation of spatial relations into built form. A key reference for the article is Marco Frascari’s ‘Lines as Architectural Thinking’ and, more specifically, his conceptualisation of Leon Battista Alberti’s term lineamenta in order to illuminate in which sense architectural drawings should be understood as essential architectural factures and not merely as visualisations. Frascari, in Eleven Exercises in the Art of Architectural Drawing: Slow Food for the Architects’s Imagination, after having drawn a distinction between what he calls ‘trivial’ and ‘non-trivial’ drawings—that is to say between communication drawings and conceptual drawings, or drawings serving to transmit ideas and drawings serving to their own designer to grasp ideas during the process of their genesis—unfolds his thoughts regarding the latter. The article focuses on how the ‘non-trivial’ drawings of Frank Gehry enhance a kinaesthetic relationship between action and thought. It pays special attention to the ways in which Frank Gehrys’ sketches function as instantaneous concretisations of a continuous process of transformation. Its main argument is that the affective capacity of Gehry’s ‘drawdlings’ lies in their interpretation as successive concretisations of a reiterative process. The affectivity of their abstract and single-gesture pictoriality is closely connected to their interpretation as components of a single dynamic system. As key issues of Frank Gehry’s use of uninterrupted line, the article identifies: the enhancement of a straightforward relationship between the gesture and the decision-making regarding the form of the building; its capacity to render possible the perception of the evolution of the process of form-making; and the way the use of uninterrupted line is related to the function of Gehry’s sketches as indexes referring to Charles Sanders Peirce’s conception of the notion of ‘index’. Full article

Gamification corresponds to the use of game elements to encourage certain attitudes and behaviours in a serious context. When applied to enterprise teamwork, gamification can lead to negative side-effects which compromise its benefits. For example, applying competitive elements such as leaderboard may lead to clustering amongst team members and encourage adverse work ethics such as intimidation and pressure. Despite the recognition of the problem in the literature, the research on concretising such gamification risks is scarce. There is also a lack of methods to identify gamification risks and their management strategies. In this paper, we conduct a multi-stage qualitative research and develop taxonomy of risks, risk factors and risk management strategies. We also identify the modalities of application of these strategies, including who should be involved and how. Finally, we provide a checklist to help the risk identification process as a first step towards a comprehensive method for eliciting and managing gamification risks to teamwork within enterprises. Full article