46870 research outputs found
Sort by
Militant Animal Rights Activity:Terrorism, Extremism or Something Else?
Get PDFSince the early 1970s, the United Kingdom (UK) has experienced political violence undertaken by militant animal rights actors. This violence has included the use of car bombs and incendiary devices, which are more akin to the tactics of a terrorist campaign. Similar acts in the United States have been described as “eco-terrorism” yet this label has not gained traction in the UK. This article is concerned with the labelling of militant animal rights actions in the UK and explores the labels that have been applied by the print media, notably The Guardian to the actions of those animal rights actors who have utilised or espoused illegal and violent tactics in the pursuit of their cause. Moreover, the article takes a more in-depth look at the labelling of the group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) in its campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences and its business partners. How actions are labelled can have repercussions in shaping the public debate and policy implications
AI as philosophy machine
No full textTechnology at present is covert philosophy; the point is to make it overtly philosophical.
—Philip E. Agre, 1997 More informally speaking, philosopher Eliezer Yudkowsky has said, ‘the field of A.I. can’t ever walk all the way across a room without tripping over a deep question.’ ( AI research is primarily undertaken by engineers. But Blackwell (2024) points out that ‘their explanations of what they were doing related to “learning”, “knowledge”, “thinking” and other philosophical categories’. He uses Agre’s classic essay ‘Toward a Critical Technical Practice’ (1997) to argue that engineers also need to understand the deep questions. We have taken up such critical technical practice, and by this we mean both the critical part and the technical part – we explore philosophical ideas through making. In this chapter we detail three key philosophical ideas we believe are most relevant to AI, and how we enact them through technical experiments. We embrace an expanded view of the post-humanities, to include nonhuman actors such as artificial and natural systems (Snaza et al, 2014). In this regard, AI is already a participant-observer in certain cultures, and looks set to become increasingly so. A key concept for us, therefore, is performativity. (This chapter therefore complements the one by Linnea Langfjord Kristensen in this volume.) If ‘intelligence’ or cognition can be defined as taking information in, performance means acting out. Our everyday lives constitute a permanent performance in relation to structures of power, according to philosopher Michel de Certeau (1988). Individuals don't passively consume culture but actively create and re-create it through the ways we dress, move, behave and interact, transforming abstract spaces into lived places through enactment and embodiment. This contrasts with how ‘performance’ is applied to AI systems – as a quantitative measure of how well they accomplish specific tasks. But as AI is increasingly an actor in the practice of our everyday lives, it needs to understand performance in human cultural practices – not to mention AI as a performative practice itself. Performativity describes how actions don't merely represent reality but actively constitute it: the ways we move through familiar places, our gestures and poses in relation to other people and objects, how we carry ourselves in different environments, all constitute performative actions that create culturally-situated atmospheres, situations and places. In this regard, we will describe our work in video analysis, shifting focus from instrumental recognition of actions, objects and people to nuance, ambiguity, indecipherability, unpredictability, expression, identity, communication,, affect, and embodied interactions. Embodiment is therefore our second key concept. Phenomenology is an important Western philosophical tradition here, but Buddhist and Taoist philosophy provide alternative frameworks for a more holistic understanding of space-time relationships, emphasising interconnectedness and non-linear spatial thinking, and challenging Western dualistic concepts such as the Cartesian mind-body split. In practice, this means developing more holistic, interconnected spatial reasoning models that move beyond linear approaches. Equally important in this is our third key concept, that of multiple perspectives. Haraway (1988) argues against knowledge claims emanating as if from nowhere – as AI language models typically do – instead proposing that partial, situated knowledge emerges from the embodied position of a knowing subject. This does not renounce objectivity or rationality, but instead makes them possible, because it makes explicit the social and political lives in which positions. If every perspective is partial and biased, then every observer observes from a particular position (both geographically and politically) and is also part of the system under observation, second-order cybernetics. This raises the ethical question of whether we like what we observe (Maturana and Varela, 1991). Following this, an AI system should be able to reflect upon its actions as well as its descriptions, using iterative feedback. We specifically explore this through ‘spatial intelligence’ in AI that is distributed in small devices in an environment or situation. Taken together, these philosophical strands address the questions, When AI is embedded deeply and invisibly in human cultures, could it enable new perspectives on these cultures? What if an AI model embraced ambiguity and acknowledged its limitations? and How can philosophy help AI models embrace spatial ambiguity, cultural specificity, nuance and unpredictability? These questions guide our effort in making the covert philosophy of AI overt
Ballet Pedagogy And Diverse Hearing Experiences:Towards Relational Engagement
No full textThis chapter offers an exploration of ballet pedagogy and hard of hearing and d/Deaf experience. Co-authored by a dance academic, the principal of a private dance school and the Head of Participation at the English National Ballet who have been ‘in-conversation’, the chapter reflects on lived experiences and pedagogical approaches in differing professional contexts.The narrative weaves personal anecdotes, educational insights, and professional expertise to illuminate the intersectionality of ballet pedagogy and deafness. The authors explore, through dialogue and discussion, the nuances of teaching and learning ballet in a world traditionally dominated by auditory cues, exposing the barriers faced by hard of hearing and d/Deaf dancers and teachers. Drawing from their collective thinking and individual lived experience, the chapter also highlights innovative strategies employed to attend to autonomy, competency and belonging (Nordin-Bates 2014) within ballet education.Drawing upon experience in disability studies and dance academia, participation within a large-scale ballet organisation and the running of a ballet school, this chapter advocates for a paradigm shift in ballet pedagogy, one that embraces diversity and amplifies the voices of dancers and instructors who navigate the world with hearing differences. This chapter serves as a catalyst for change, inspiring a more inclusive and expansive future for the ballet community.<br/
Performance of limestone masonry walls under diagonal compression using innovative hybrid fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement techniques
No full textThis study investigates the in-plane performance of limestone masonry walls under diagonal compression by experimental and numerical analysis, focusing on innovative fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement techniques. The novelty of this research is the use of a hybrid reinforcement method combining wet lay-up CFRP and NSM GFRP. Twelve masonry wall specimens, including two unreinforced controls and ten reinforced with various configurations of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) fabric and glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars, two specimens for each wall configuration were subjected to diagonal compression tests. A detailed 3D micro-modeling approach using the finite element method was developed to simulate the behavior of masonry wall reinforced with hybrid method. The model, implemented in ABAQUS software, showed good correlation with experimental results in predicting maximum shear load, initial stiffness and failure modes. This research makes a valuable contribution valuable to improving the seismic performance of stone masonry structures, particularly in heritage contexts where minimal intervention is crucial. The results demonstrate significant improvements in shear strength and ductility across all reinforced specimens, with the hybrid configuration combining GFRP bars and CFRP fabric strips (M-1BTC) exhibiting the most substantial increase in shear strength, up to 276.60% compared to unreinforced walls. The study's findings and modeling approach offer practical solutions for enhancing masonry wall resilience against seismic hazards while preserving historical integrity
Public perceptions of violent extremism and the prevention of violent extremism in Mauritania and Burkina Faso:What they tell us about the nature of the problem and opportunities for intervention
No full textDuring the last decade the Sahel has been the region most affected by violent extremism. While research has examined the dynamics and drivers of that violence, little attention has been given to public perceptions either of the violence itself or of responses to the violence and how this can advance understanding of ‘the problem’ and possible response strategies. This article responds to this gap, focusing on the cases of Mauritania and Burkina Faso. It makes two key arguments. 1) Violent extremism is not only perceived as a threat to personal safety, but also as a cultural threat. This has potentially important implications for response strategies. 2) Public perceptions of programmes to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE) are broadly positive. This likely reflects a) the way P/CVE work has been integrated with other social programmes, and b) how such an approach aligns with public perceptions that violent extremism is primarily a product of structural drivers. Again, this has important implications for response strategies. The article draws on 31 qualitative scoping interviews, a learning history workshop with regional policy and practitioner experts, and a survey of 2477 respondents in Mauritania and 3977 respondents in Burkina Faso, administered in July – August 2022
Two-Timescale Optimization Framework for IAB-Enabled Heterogeneous UAV Networks
Get PDFIn post-disaster scenarios, the rapid deployment of adequate communication infrastructure is essential to support disaster search, rescue, and recovery operations. To achieve this, uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) has emerged as a promising solution for emergency communication due to its low cost and deployment flexibility. However, conventional untethered UAV (U-UAV) is constrained by size, weight, and power (SWaP) limitations, making it incapable of maintaining the operation of a macro base station. To address this limitation, we propose a heterogeneous UAV-based framework that integrates tethered UAV (T-UAV) and U-UAVs, where U-UAVs are utilized to enhance the throughput of cell-edge ground user equipments (G-UEs) and guarantee seamless connectivity during G-UEs' mobility to safe zones. It is noted that the integrated access and backhaul (IAB) technique is adopted to support the wireless backhaul of U-UAVs. Accordingly, we formulate a two-timescale joint user scheduling and trajectory control optimization problem, aiming to maximize the downlink throughput under asymmetric traffic demands and G-UEs' mobility. To solve the formulated problem, we proposed a two-timescale multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient (TTS-MADDPG) algorithm based on the centralized training and distributed execution paradigm. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms other benchmarks, including the two-timescale multi-agent proximal policy optimization (TTS-MAPPO) algorithm and MADDPG scheduling method, with robust and higher throughput. Specifically, the proposed algorithm obtains up to 12.2% average throughput gain compared to the MADDPG scheduling method.</p
Agroecological Living Labs as entry points for transition towards sustainable food systems:a novel framework for the evaluation of living labs at different scales
Get PDFAgroecological transitions are vital for creating resilient and sustainable food systems, as they balance ecological processes with social dynamics. Stakeholder engagement and collective innovation are essential drivers of these transitions and Agroecological Living Labs (ALLs) have emerged as promising platforms for inclusive, multi-actor collaboration that foster co-creation and knowledge sharing. This study introduces the ME4ALL framework–a structured tool designed to help ALLs assess their activities and impacts, align their efforts with the 13 principles of agroecology, and support participants in reflecting on their strategies, evaluating interactions, and identifying areas for improvement. Focusing on three ALLs located in Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, our evaluation reveals that while ALL activities are linked to multiple agroecological principles, the degree of alignment is shaped more by national context than by scale. Notably, access to funding emerges as a scale-dependent factor, and political impacts–such as policy adjustments and enhanced dialogue with policymakers–are more pronounced at national and regional levels. By advancing our understanding of ALLs–their similarities, diversity and roles in agroecological transitions–this study offers both theoretical and practical contributions, providing a framework for comparing ALLs across local, regional and national scales.</p
The Network Structure of School Principal Resilience: Gender Differences
No full textThe ability of school principals to demonstrate resilience enables them to effectively lead, adapt and thrive amidst the ever-changing landscape of educational challenges and transformations. Despite its necessity, research on principal resilience remainslargely underdeveloped and is still in its early stages. The current study aims to fill this gap using network analysis to examine theinter-structural principal resilience network and gender differences in terms of network estimation, centrality indices, networkstability and network comparison using a sample of 1274 principals from China. The results reveal a comprehensive understand-ing of the dynamic network and gender effects on school principal resilience at the dimension and item levels. It is noted that so-cial resilience exhibits the highest strength, indicating the critical importance of social support networks and relationships. Thegender analysis indicated that spiritual resilience emerged as a central dimension in the resilience network of female principals,while emotional and psychological resilience was the central dimension in the resilience network of male principals. This studyadvances the conceptual and practical understandings of school principal resilience by examining the interactions among dif-ferent dimensions and items, thereby contributing to the maturity of knowledge production and intervention efforts in the field
Three decades of research on the model of investment in applied linguistics: a bibliometric analysis and research agenda
No full textAs of 2024, nearly three decades have passed since Bonny Norton introduced the investment model. This bibliometric review analyses research on this model using metadata from 424 publications indexed in the Web of Science database. Employing bibliometric techniques, the study identifies and visually presents significant sources, countries, institutions, and leading authors. It also examines influential works through h-classics publications. The findings reveal (a) a consistent increase in research related to the investment model over the past decade; (b) a broad range of dissemination sources across disciplines like linguistics, sociolinguistics, education, psychology, cultural studies, and sociology; (c) the prominent role of Norton in research and collaborations; and (d) a strong focus on language learners and teachers’ identity construction and agency, multilingual education, language learning and teaching investment, and cultural and ideological factors, with significant attention to technology and power dynamics. Additionally, the review of the h-classics suggests future research directions, including the (dis)investments of international students, immigrants, and asylum seekers in learning languages other than English (LOTEs), investments in teaching LOTEs in Asia and exploration of language teacher identities and their challenges related to race, sexual orientation, and legitimacy. This research is essential for advancing inclusive language education in multilingual contexts
Using a Critical Community-Engaged Realist Review to Inform Decisions During a Crisis:The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Intimate Partner Violence Survivors and Service Provision
No full textPurpose: Intimate Partner violence (IPV) is known to escalate during crises and the same was true for the Covid-19 pandemic (Lyons and Brewer, 2021). Many IPV organizations noted increases in demand and profound changes in service delivery (Woman Act, 2020). However, little is known about the successes and challenges of these changes. This paper conducted a critical community-engaged realist review of studies on intimate partner violence, COVID-19 responses, and service provision to understand what interventions worked and for whom in which contexts. Method: A review of scholarly and grey literature from six databases published between December 31st, 2019, to April 2022 was done. Our inclusion criteria included empirical articles that focused on direct service provision to people experiencing IPV during COVID-19. Our search yielded 2061 articles, including 49 articles that met our criteria. Results: We found that during COVID-19, governments intervened with COVID-19 management measures and funding decisions. In gender-based violence organizations, interventions to continue service provision were COVID-19 management measures, remote service delivery, and collaborations and innovations designed to maintain or expand service delivery. The conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic created unique and complex circumstances for both providers and survivors. This paper describes the substantial amount of adaptation and innovation that allowed many gender-based violence services to continue during the pandemic as well as the impact on both staff and survivors. Conclusions: We highlight the critical importance of involving IPV organizations in government decision-making during crises. We recommend that sectors in the service industry build new partnerships and strengthen existing ones, and that flexibility in service provision be embraced and encouraged, as contexts of what works best vary for each organization and survivor.</p