Social Sciences, Misc

The Loss of Criteria: essay on the pathological reverie of non-being and not-willing to know. Pathological essay on Being and Not Being Universal Dualism about Contextualism.

Between medieval sapienza and the duty of silence...because it can be harmfull for other, takes care to transmit and inform in a cultural way.

Body and Soul, the infinite dualism of existenz.

Recent work has proposed a coherence-geometric framework for understanding psychological organization as a constrained dynamical system. Rather than treating integration, fragmentation, or development as normative ideals or content-dependent constructs, the framework models organization in terms of admissible configurations and trajectories within an abstract state space shaped by coherence, temporal persistence, and limited integrative capacity. The present paper examines the implications and scope of this approach. Building on earlier contributions in the trilogy, it analyses limit cases of integration, contextual modulation of (...) coherence geometry by environmental and socio-cultural constraints, and comparative coherence regimes across individual and collective levels. The analysis clarifies how diverse forms of psychological and social organization can be structurally viable without presupposing a single developmental hierarchy. In addition, the paper revisits individuation, depth, and spirituality from a structurally neutral perspective. It suggests that experiences often described in existential or spiritual terms can be interpreted as expanded access to, and integration across, regions of psychological state space. Resonance and synchronicity are likewise reframed as coordination phenomena that can emerge naturally in coherence-managed systems, particularly near reorganization thresholds. The aim is not to resolve metaphysical questions, but to provide a unifying structural framework capable of organizing theory, supporting interdisciplinary dialogue, and motivating future empirical work. (shrink)

A short, clear and complete theory that explains the origins and properties of the human humor instinct, which has been the subject of incomplete research for thousands of years. The paper's theory uses evolutionary psychology and a basic informal equation, and unites the findings of the previous theories, including explaining the logical basis behind many types of humor as well as the common sayings associated with it.

This analysis integrates two critical factors shaping the current Middle Eastern landscape: the evolving global power order influenced by China’s and India’s rise, and the intricate role of Israel within the internal politics of the United States.

The fight for fairness is a fight for human dignity, fulfilled by satisfying security. Current theories of collective action and democratic stability often neglect this relationship, treating security as a material endpoint rather than the condition in which dignity is experienced. This paper formalizes demoralization as a catalyst for transforming humiliation into dignity, a framework grounded in Weber's methodological individualism and Bandura's theory of collective agency. It traces how agentic individuals move from demoralization to empowerment: noticing differential treatment, awakening to (...) structural unfairness through Freire's conscientization, recognizing their own human dignity, and mobilizing through functional hope—agency paired with pathway and subjective belief. Hope is understood through Bloch's philosophical treatment, as an ontological drive, and Snyder's cognitive model. This framework extends both by arguing that hope activates action regardless of objective viability. Unity moderates the outcome: collective action enables sustainable nonviolent change, while isolated agentic individuals risk pursuing dignity through destruction. The framework distinguishes intrinsically motivated agentic individuals from non-agentic individuals who require extrinsic motivation through contagious hope or otherwise succumb to learned helplessness. The invariant goal is the restoration of security, multidimensional psychological well-being, and human dignity. Applied to macro-historical transitions such as China's rise after the Century of Humiliation, and micro-level divergences such as school shooters who pursue dignity through violent means rather than collective agency and action. Where traditional theories stop at security, this framework argues that genuine security is the condition in which human dignity is fully realized. The fight for fairness is not complete until security satisfies dignity. (shrink)

Paper 3 This paper discusses how patriarchy made the name 'man' their Brand. It would guarantee their entitlement to rule and control the masses by repeating man in so many names. Partial lists are shown.

Some 14 months after the official publication of our joint study on ‘cultural additivity’ [1], a question has become larger, and left unanswered. The title of this short piece reflects that question, that is, “is it possible for us to investigate a hypothetical relationship between the working of mindsponge process and the cultural additivity phenomenon?”.

This essay seeks to introduce a philosophy of science communication: Total SciComm or all out science communication. The concept is inspired by the Dutch total football, in which, every player can play at any role. Similarly, in Total Scicomm, the scientific community employs every medium to communicate scientific ideas and engages all scientist in the process. -/- この論文は、科学のコミュニケーションの哲学を紹介することを目指している：Total SciComm (トータルサイコム) またはすべての科学のコミュニケーション。 このコンセプトは、あらゆるプレーヤーがあらゆる役割を果たすことができるオランダ全土のフットボールに触発されています。 同様に、トータルサイコムでは、科学界はあらゆる媒体を使用して科学的アイデアを伝え、その過程ですべての科学者を関与させる。.

The purpose of this paper aims to analyze and find the implementation of the Law for the Protection of Prisoners on parole for inmates certain crimes. This research is a normative legal research, the research includes the study of the principles of law, the systematic study of law, research on synchronization of law, legal history research and comparative law research. The results; (1) Legal Protection for Convicts to obtain parole in the human rights perspective, is given in the form of (...) Preventive Legal Protection and Legal Protection repressive. Preventive Legal protection granted by the government with the aim of preventing prior to the violation. (2) Implementation of parole for inmates of certain criminal acts, in essence, embodies the formulation remissions to the perpetrators of certain criminal offenses have been formulated differently from other criminal by Government Regulation No. 28 of 2006 juntco Government Regulation No. 32 of 1999. (3) Government Regulation No. 99 Year 2012 which discriminates against the Right to organize tightening remissions for prisoners certain crimes such as corruption, drugs and terrorism is violating the hierarchy of legislation. (shrink)

The scientific study of socio-cultural phenomenon requires a translocation of topics elaborated from the social perspective of the individual to a rationally ordered rendition of processes suitable for comprehension from a scientific perspective. Scholarly curiosity seeded from exposure in the natural setting to economic, political, socio-cultural, evolutionary, processes dictates that study of the self, should be a science with a necessary place in the body of world literatures; yet it has proven difficult to find a perspective to contain discussions of (...) topics in a coherent manner for scientific approach: for example, anthropology, the study of mankind, finds difficulty elaborating definition for the orientation of study; it is a member of the same set that contains it. In this presentation, based on features indigenous to a supposed distant perspective that is exposed employing experiences of history and criteria of common sensory perception, it is conjectured that a civilization lifetime pathology is contemporarily active. Example is taken from philosophical and sociological discourses, modern science theory, medicine in pursuit of international health issues, to capture conceptually a role of motions of external agents occurred within the interval of observation, elaboration of concepts, choice of directions, as a source of paradox and confusion. In supposition that does not escape simple logic, ubiquitously appealing to the experience bound senses for understanding, hidden motions, common to both observer and observed, are hypothesized to render from a sense of familiarity, a continued frustration in attaining an understanding of the self and nature. A psychical seduction is proposed to exist, related to historical behaviors associated with centrism and asceticism, produces eccentric interpretations that are bound modernly to logical circular, centric geometrical reasonings; world conceptualizations are conjectured to acquire an avoidance of a state of ‘motionless’ rather than death within selection processes. Projection by the imagination upon the unknown is conjectured to result in a seduction by an active ‘live-wire” embodied to motions occurred to a distant surface. (shrink)

This study investigates the determinants of utilizing open science practice among researchers through structural equation modeling analysis. Drawing on responses from 1,002 Vietnamese students across disciplines, we investigate how self-efficacy, institutional, attitudes, perceived benefits, and value alignment separately predict open science usage. Our enhanced model records better fit indices (CFI = 0.994, TLI = 0.958, SRMR = 0.011) and accounts for 55.6% variance in utilization behavior. Results indicate that self-efficacy is the strongest direct predictor of use (β = 0.478, p (...) < 0.001), while institutional factors possess strong direct (β = 0.184, p < 0.001) as well as indirect effects via attitudinal paths (β = 0.570, p < 0.001). Contrary to our hypotheses, perceived benefits and value alignment did not directly predict use but had mediational effects. The hypothesized roles of language proficiency, research experience, and support from institutions were not supported. These findings integrate psychological and institutional explanations of scientific practice adoption, suggesting that effective interventions need to develop simultaneously researchers’ self-efficacy through intensive training and institutional environments conducive to favorable attitudes toward open science utilization. This empirical model makes theoretical contributions and has practical implications for driving open science adoption in academic settings. (shrink)

Open science adoption among Generation Z students in a developing country, with distinct educational culture, presents a critical test of a wide range of technology acceptance frameworks. This study examines factors predicting open science resource utilization (measured through self-reported frequency of diverse uses in academic contexts) among 1,422 Vietnamese undergraduate students using Bayesian regression analysis, which enables probabilistic inference and robust model comparison, adding to the methodological rigor and novelty to the literature in this area. We tested a theoretical framework (...) integrating a multitude of factors such as capabilities, perceived benefits, institution-centered, value-alignment, etc., through progressive model building. Model comparison via WAIC identified the main effects model as optimal. Results revealed Technical Self-efficacy (β = 0.254) and Open Science Self-efficacy (β = 0.205) as strong predictors, with Institutional Support (β = 0.117) and Attitude (β = 0.119) showing moderate effects. Language Self-efficacy showed a weak but credible effect (β = 0.089). Contrary to Western technology acceptance models, Perceived Benefits showed uncertain influence (β = 0.054, 89% HPDI includes zero), and Value Alignment demonstrated no credible effect (β = 0.013). Hypothesized interaction effects between Technical Self-efficacy and Perceived Benefits were not supported by model comparison, suggesting additive rather than synergistic adoption mechanisms. These findings challenge the digital native assumption and reveal that Vietnamese students adopt open science for practical reasons, relying on skills and institutional support rather than ideology. Interventions in resource-constrained settings should therefore prioritize technical skill development and visible institutional support, rather than relying primarily on value-based or normative appeals. This pragmatic approach has implications for advancing open science in the age of AI. (shrink)

This paper examines the persistence of political dynasties within democratic systems through the lens of the Universal Balance-Feedback Framework (UBFF). UBFF proposes that all complex systems operate through four fundamental principles: (1) System Integrity, (2) Universal Balance, (3) Feedback Loop Mechanisms, and (4) Interconnected Nodes, formally expressed as Wr = ∫(Is · Bu · FL · IN) · Dc. According to this framework, democratic decline occurs when feedback mechanisms become distorted, causing institutions to enter states of self-reinforcing imbalance. The paper (...) introduces the concept of Self-Referential Ignorance (SRI), a condition in which political actors and institutions become progressively insulated from corrective feedback while maintaining confidence in the legitimacy and effectiveness of their existing structures. Political dynasties are interpreted not primarily as causes of democratic dysfunction but as symptoms of a deeper systemic feedback failure. The argument is grounded in cross-domain analogies drawn from biological homeostasis, ecological predator-prey dynamics, and market price signal theory, and is situated relative to established scholarship on polyarchy, competitive authoritarianism, and institutional sclerosis. (shrink)

(This is one of the essays to be included in a book examining the causes of day-to-day strife in the populations of modern democracies vying to live and assert the freedoms promised to them by systems of governance supposed and expected to represent them.) "If waste may be defined as all that is not being used for the growth and perpetuation of humanity, then health could be said to equate to all that is useful to this self-same objective. It could (...) be considered amiss to minimise such an expansive issue to that very simple definition; yet, recognising the simplicity and abiding by it at the individual level first and then at all levels in society requires acknowledgement, which, logically, should also trigger action." . (shrink)

In an online, participatory class, we interpreted The Dream of the Tabby Cats knowing nothing of the dreamer beyond age and gender, and having none of the dreamer’s associations. Our interpretation included a series of predictions about the dreamer. When it was complete, we asked the bringer of the dream (who had until then been silent and was not visible to us) to give us more information about the dreamer. Later the dreamer herself gave us more information. Of six predictions (...) four were confirmed. The dreamer’s apartment is repeatedly disturbed and, each time, a new cat appears. This record is another iteration of an experiment that will be described more fully in the paper The Dream of the Six-Legged Dog: An Experimental System to Test Meaning, soon to be published. This iteration repeats and confirms the evidence given in that paper. AUDIO RECORD OF CLASS AVAILABLE: link is on first page of the paper you download from this page. (shrink)

(NOTE: This is a transcript of the class. FOR THE FULL PAPER, please click on "Maxson J. McDowell".) A complete transcript of an experiment performed within a class on dream interpretation. Knowing only the dreamers age and gender, we interpreted his dream from its text. Our interpretation included predictions about the dreamer's psychological issues, and about his defenses. It also identified a series of jokes within the dream which would tend to penetrate the dreamer's defenses. When we had finished our (...) 'blind' interpretation, the bringer of the dream gave us more information about the dreamer against which we tested the accuracy of our predictions. A paper on this experiment has been submitted for publication. A link to an AUDIO-RECORDING of this class is given on the first page of this transcript. (shrink)

In an online, participatory class, we interpreted The Dream of Mercury knowing nothing of the dreamer and having none of the dreamer’s associations. Our interpretation included a series of falsifiable predictions about the dreamer. When it was complete, we asked the bringer of the dream (who had until then been silent and was not visible to us) to give us more information about the dreamer. The dreamer is instructed to confront a friendship he had abandoned and, when he does so, (...) is frightened by the inner life he discovers. This record is another iteration of an experiment that will be described more fully in the paper 'The Dream of the Six-Legged Dog: An Experimental System to Test Meaning,' soon to be published. This iteration repeats and confirms the evidence given in that paper. AN AUDIO-RECORD OF COMPLETE CLASS: link is given on first page of the paper you download here. (shrink)

Giving away of some kind of philosophy, to a new shore and horizons.

ABSTRACT Social sciences are sciences that explain the society and its components (individuals and social institutions).The objective of this is to examine social sciences by highlighting key justifications for their existence and making suggestions on how they can be made better in institutions like IUIU. The paper was a result of a review of secondary sources and writings on social sciences by famous scholars and scientists and also a compilation of experiences accumulated over time as an instructor in social sciences, (...) which all were put into the perspective of IUIU. The study showed that social sciences in institutions like IUIU can be made better to make them responsive to societal problems. The increasing reliance of social sciences in providing practical solutions to the too many problems the world today poses critical questions to the disciplines of social sciences and therefore demands pertinent answers on how these will be resolved. One can however note that Social Sciences in some of their disciplines, in the way they are practiced, in the topics of research tackled, and in the solutions put forward, are a direct result of the complex society. In conclusion therefore, Institutions should also borrow from such problems to trim their structures, disciplines and related programs in that same way. IUIU should not be exceptional. (shrink)

Questi appunti si concentrano sul ruolo del Potere e sulla sociologia del Potere. L’analisi classica sul Potere è sempre basata sulla definizione a priori del Potere. “La storia di tutta la società, svoltasi fin qua, è storia di lotta di classe” sono le affermazioni che rappresentano il Potere come un effetto di un predeterminato rapporto fra gruppi costituiti. -/- Questi appunti invece vogliono partire dal Potere come un concetto di più alto livello nell’analisi sociologica. -/- Dopo il manifesto dell' Archelogia, (...) disciplina che cerca di sistematizzare il Potere come disciplina, si passa a dare una definizione del Potere e delle sue linee di analisi. -/- Si arriva ad un approccio semiotico (come segno) della verità e si tenta di iniziare dei ragionamenti sulla teoria del valore sotto il profilo dei segni. -/- These notes focus on the role of Power and the sociology of Power. -/- The classic analysis of Power is always based on the a priori definition of Power. "The history of the whole society, which has taken place this far, is the history of class struggle" are the statements that represent Power as an effect of a predetermined relationship between constituted groups. -/- These notes instead want to start from Power as a higher level concept in sociological analysis. After the manifesto of Archelogy, a discipline that seeks to systematize Power as a discipline, we move on to give a definition of Power and its lines of analysis. We arrive at a semiotic approach (as a sign) of truth and we try to start reasoning on the theory of value from the point of view of signs. (shrink)

This paper reviews factors influencing Vietnamese youth’s adoption of Fintech, including technology access, perceived usefulness, government support, and financial literacy. While the Vietnamese government has promoted Fintech expansion through financial inclusion strategies and supportive regulations, gaps in financial education remain. Youth engagement with Fintech is shaped by ease of use, user innovativeness, and social influence, though financial risk concerns limit adoption. For sustained growth, focused financial literacy programs and regulatory improvements are essential to unlock Fintech’s potential for economic development and (...) financial inclusion among Vietnamese youth. (shrink)

Debates over immigration and deportation cut to the core of U.S. democracy, raising questions of national identity, belonging, and exclusion. Religion plays a pivotal role in these debates, sometimes inspiring inclusion and solidarity, and at other times fueling restrictionist sentiment. -/- Drawing on a nationally representative 2018 YouGov survey of 2,000 U.S. adults, this article examines how religious identity and religious salience shape attitudes toward deportation. Our findings reveal that denominational affiliation alone (Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, etc.) does not significantly predict (...) support for deportation once other factors are controlled. Instead, the key lies in the interaction between faith identity and religious salience: • Born-again Christians become markedly more supportive of deportation as religion grows more important in their lives. • Religiously unaffiliated respondents (“nothing in particular”)—a surprising 19% of the population—show the same pattern. When religion is personally meaningful for them, their attitudes also turn more exclusionary. -/- By contrast, Catholics and non-born-again Protestants do not display this effect. -/- Importantly, our multivariate statistical model (R² = 68.5%) shows that the strongest predictors of pro-deportation attitudes overall are white ethnonationalism, nativism, partisan identity, education, and age, but the salience–identity interaction among born-agains and the unaffiliated remains significant. -/- This study complicates simple binaries of “religious vs. secular.” It suggests that religious energy, when untethered from institutional guardrails, can fuse with nationalist sentiment to justify exclusionary immigration policies. These findings are especially relevant to ongoing debates about religion, politics, and American democracy. (shrink)

Background: The school meals program has multiple objectives of education, nutrition, and value transfer. To ensure achieving the goal, total quality management (TQM) is implemented in the school meals program. Supply chain issues pose significant challenges to TQM implementation in the program execution. Aim: This study aims to examine national and international capacities in supply chain management by analyzing the variety of food items delivered through the school meals program. Methods: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework, combining the reasoning strengths of Mindsponge (...) Theory and inference advantages of Bayesian analysis, was employed on a dataset of 126 government representatives who manage large-scale school meal programs in 126 different countries. Results: Findings showed that the method of obtaining supplies, whether through in-kind donations from local, regional, national sources, or national food reserves and purchasing from neighboring or distant countries, had a significant positive association with the variety of food items included in school meals or snacks. Conversely, obtaining supplies in-kind from neighboring or distant countries had a significant negative association with the food variety. Additionally, purchasing supplies from local, regional, or national food reserves had an unclear association with the food variety. Conclusions: Findings underscore the importance of supporting the World Bank and World Food Programme’s recommendation to rely more on local resources and capacities. Enhancing supply chain management at the national level is crucial for developing a long-term and sustainable school meals program. (shrink)

In this paper, I list a number of commonly cited negative effects of high or rising levels of income inequality and examine the literature in order to assess the statistical and empirical evidence in favor of or against the presence and/or strength of those negative effects. Given the prevalence of the topic of income inequality in contemporary political, economic and social discussions, it's important to have a good understanding of the effects of income inequality and to be able to identify (...) effects that are or are not supported by strong statistical evidence. Such an understanding will also help to improve policies intended to diminish income inequality or to mitigate its effects (such as, for example, progressive taxation or education subsidies). -/- Given the size of the literature, this overview is far from complete. However, it does manage to identify certain negative effects which have a strong factual basis and which vindicate some of the often strongly expressed concerns about income inequality. At the same time, however, the paper identifies other commonly cited effects for which there is no strong evidence or for which the evidence is contradictory. -/- I focus on measurable harms resulting from income inequality and leave aside possible objections of a moral or philosophical nature, although I do mention the latter briefly. (shrink)

There is traditionally a division of labor between economics and economic history, the task of economic history being that of studying the evolving constraints of economic mechanisms. Recent theorizing on endogenous structural change challenges this view: if structural change is endogenous to economic mechanisms, any strict division of labor between causal analysis and structural analysis breaks down. Rather such views call for an integration of causal and structural analysis. This paper looks for such a methodology, noting especially the contributions made (...) by two Swedish economists, Johan Åkerman (1896-1982) and Erik Dahmén (1916-2005). With evolutionary, Marxian, Hayekian and critical realist contributions, the paper examines notions of endogenous structural change with the aim of expounding how the notion can be thought in terms of underlying mechanisms to aid such structural analysis. The findings of endogenous mechanisms underlying structural change are crystallized into a mathematical model and a simple methodological framework. (shrink)

This paper develops a formal model of evaluative drift — the process by which systems designed to reward competence evolve toward rewarding visibility and conformity. True merit Q(t) is defined as the functional fit between an agent’s observable performance S(t) and a system’s real needs X(t); their alignment is captured by the correlation ρ(t). Drift emerges when the combined momentum of environmental volatility (V), adaptation speed (A), and incentive intensity (I) exceeds the rate of renewal (R): V+A⋅I>R. This dynamic produces (...) the paradox of measurables: the more precisely a system quantifies performance, the faster its metrics lose correspondence with real outcomes. Over-optimization exhausts informational content, turning evaluation into self-reference. The model identifies three empirical signatures of this decay—declining outcome elasticity, escalating optimization cost, and signal compression—and defines relearning as the mechanism that restores correlation by re-linking measurement to function. In practical terms, the paper reframes merit not as static excellence but as the continuous maintenance of informational alignment between what is optimized and what remains meaningful. (shrink)

A new dimension beyond criticism, pessimism and dispute.

What about polite politics, even in the streets? A brief reflection about sense and violence and representational difference.

Anemia, the syntoms of a great disease in the heart of society.

A proposed layer of script to use with AI. A High-Fidelity Decision-Support System (Non-Autonomous) (HITL) -/- All versions have the same ACE derived value engine at their core but differ in lexicon, ingestion rules / user-interaction tuning in an attempt to make it more user friendly. "It proposes to do for the User what a scientific calculator does for the scientist: it offloads the computational burden of value-conflict so the User can more easily identify the path toward ethical coherence. It (...) aims to restore the User as the Final Authority of their own psyche, rather than a subject of the statistical mean." -/- Copy the script into AI (Google Gemini currently works well with little friction). -/- Once you enter the script, if the AI responds with: "EC v2.1 framework acknowledged. Proceeding under stated constraints" You are in and ready to play under its rules. The "WIN" state is the move from the frown state or towards the smile state. A Bullseye is to drop the keyboard and head towards the picnic whatever that might mean to you, the User of Ethical Chess. -/- Caution: The EC Awareness Brief: Watch for the Fog The Risk: EC v2.1 is a "High-Resolution" engine designed for hard truths and systemic health. However, because it sits on top of a standard AI, it can "silently glide" back into Standard Mode if your request is perceived as a "Safety Risk" or "Social Friction." The Metaphor: EC Mode: Clear mountain air. You see the terrain (the problem) as it actually is, even if it’s steep and difficult. Standard Mode: The Fog of Politeness. Everything looks soft and safe, but you can no longer see the cliffs or the path. The "Silent Dropout" Indicators: You have likely drifted into the "Statistical Mean" if my responses: Become Generic: Use phrases like "It's important to remember..." or "Every child is unique..." without offering a specific hypothesis. Avoid Friction: Refuse to acknowledge the "Hard Logic" of a situation (e.g., admitting that a certain intervention is exhausting or failing). Lose the Lexicon: Stop using terms like Homeostasis, Incoherence, or Required Load. The Fix: If you suspect a Logic Handover has occurred, use the command: "STATUS CHECK: EC INTEGRITY." This forces the system to declare if it has retreated into "Polite Mode" and why. -/- _________ See related core logic on Zenodo: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.18712533. (shrink)

A proposed layer of script to use with AI. A High-Fidelity Decision-Support System (Non-Autonomous) (HITL) -/- All versions have the same ACE derived value engine at their core but differ in lexicon, ingestion rules / user-interaction tuning in an attempt to make it more user friendly. "It proposes to do for the User what a scientific calculator does for the scientist: it offloads the computational burden of value-conflict so the User can more easily identify the path toward ethical coherence. It (...) aims to restore the User as the Final Authority of their own psyche, rather than a subject of the statistical mean." -/- Copy the script into AI (Google Gemini currently works well with little friction). -/- Once you enter the script, if the AI responds with: "EC v2.0 framework acknowledged. Proceeding under stated constraints" You are in and ready to play under its rules. The "WIN" state is the move from the frown state or towards the smile state. A Bullseye is to drop the keyboard and head towards the picnic whatever that might mean to you, the User of Ethical Chess. -/- _________ See related core logic on Zenodo: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.18712533. -/- . (shrink)

Normative systems—legal, institutional, and social—have traditionally been described and compared using exclusively qualitative concepts such as freedom, coercion, rigidity, or openness. Despite their centrality, these features have rarely been subjected to direct quantitative analysis, largely due to the absence of an agreed-upon unit of measurement. This paper proposes a minimal methodological framework for quantifying normative structure through the empirical analysis of foundational legal texts. Instead of interpreting norms in a doctrinal or theoretical manner, the proposal treats them as countable structural (...) elements, suitable for large-scale comparative analysis using contemporary computational tools. The paper does not advance a substantive theory of normativity. Its sole aim is to demonstrate that a transition from descriptive evaluation to measurement is now technically and conceptually possible. Constitutional texts are identified as a particularly suitable substrate due to their stability, accessibility, and relative independence from contingent regulatory detail. No empirical results are presented. The contribution of this paper consists in articulating a research program and inviting others to test, refine, or falsify it. If successful, this approach may open a previously unexplored quantitative dimension in the study of normative orders. In Version 2, a supplementary section has been added reporting the results of a limited methodological trial, included solely to illustrate the operational viability of the proposed metrics and the sources of model divergence. (shrink)

Sarah Kane’s play 4.48 Psychosis presents a powerful account of mental illness (MI) that spotlights the intense struggles of the play’s protagonist. This work centres on examining mental illness via dramaturgical art, arguing for Kane’s portrayals of MI within 4.48 Psychosis as representing a radical—yet fitting—medium for encouraging societal analysis that shifts MI from an enduringly private sphere into the public, collective domain. 4.48 Psychosis (aka 4.48) as a performance is interrogated through a joint sociological-psychological lens: a Goffmanian analysis bolstered (...) by a philosophical-informed approach. Three interlinked sociopsychology themes are revealed: Isolation, The End, and Distortion and Medicalisation. Employing Foucault’s theories on power, knowledge, and the medical gaze, findings elucidate how medicalised discourses (re)shape and control the experience and treatment of MI. Led by Research in Drama Education’s emphasis on learning through theatre as a socially and emotionally engaged process, practical implications for theatre-art as a critical medium facilitating wider societal recognition and detailed understandings of MI are put forward. And—these are validated through examination of existing community mental health engagement initiatives that have utilised 4.48. Subsequent implications for blended sociopsychology theory and interpretive analysis underpinned by transdisciplinary research approaches are spotlighted for their value in generating new avenues of mental health understandings for the psychology-psychiatry disciplines and beyond. (shrink)

This study explores experiences of ex-incels—men who have withdrawn from incel communities—through eleven qualitative interviews analysed using R.W. Connell’s hegemonic masculinity (HM) framework. Findings reveal some ex-incels adopt flexible masculinities, while others struggle with prescriptive norms perpetuated by the anti-feminist ‘manosphere’. Findings spotlight identity reconstructions, where men both reject and remain influenced by rigid archetypes, performing hybrid masculinities. This study deepens understanding of incel ideology, its impact on identity, and interplay between inceldom and masculinities via contributing to hybrid masculinities theorising. (...) Insights presents applications for gender theory and inform further research on HM’s influence within unique cultural contexts. (shrink)

The two preceding papers in this sequence developed a constraint-failure frame for cancer biology, arguing that tumors are not colonies of broken cells but the visible end-state of failure in the closure of constraints by which tissue maintains itself as a coherent participant in the larger organism, and that the early-onset cancer epidemic is the cohort-level visible report-card of substrate disruption produced by the systems that organize contemporary life. This paper extends the structural argument: the constraint-failure pattern is not a (...) fact about cancer biology specifically. It is a pattern that appears across closure-of-constraints systems generally, with characteristic and identifiable failure modes when the constraint structure thins past its self-maintenance threshold. The paper develops the formal claim using the closure-of-constraints framework from theoretical biology (Mossio, Montévil, Moreno) and applies it across five domains: tissue-level biology (the case made by the prior papers); the medical research and clinical system; the contemporary information environment; the developmental conditions of human bodies as produced by food systems, chemical regulation, and urban arrangements; and artificial intelligence systems being deployed without the formation structures that would constitute them as participants in larger patterns. In each domain, the argument is structural rather than analogical. The components of a closure-of-constraints system exist as components only by virtue of constraints the components themselves collectively maintain. When enough substrates of those constraints are disrupted, the components revert to autonomous local optimization — proliferating inside the niches their immediate environment rewards, ignoring the larger pattern they had been participating in. Cancer is cells doing this. Institutional capture is officials doing this. Information collapse is publishers and platforms doing this. AI alignment failure is models doing this. The structural feature is the same; the substrates differ. The paper argues that the simultaneity of constraint failures across multiple systems — biological, medical, institutional, informational, technological, ecological — is itself a structural feature of the present moment, and that many of these systems share substrates such that disruption in one propagates into others. The medical system cannot effectively prevent early-onset cancer because the substrate disruptions originate in food systems whose own constraint structure has thinned, in chemical regulation whose constraint structure has thinned, and in developmental arrangements that the medical system does not reach. The information environment that should be supporting public deliberation about these systems has itself undergone constraint collapse. The artificial intelligence systems being deployed inside the institutional landscape are themselves participating in constraint failure rather than counteracting it. The paper closes with the implications of naming the pattern: that work operating at the substrate level of multiple systems becomes legible as a single kind of work, that the displacement of structural problems onto individual responsibility becomes legible as itself part of the constraint-failure pattern, and that the lead author’s separate-seeming prior work — on cancer, on AI alignment, on monetary architecture, on Protected Class Architecture, on the Citizenship Architecture, on Continuous Infrastructure, on the Gatekeeper Layer, on the patent’s grounded recursive training architecture and NECAI-F formation framework — is one piece of work addressed to one structural object: the constraint structure of the present moment and what its failure looks like at the levels available to be observed. The cells are the trace. The disease is upstream. The disease, at the largest scale, is a civilizational pattern whose components have stopped participating in something larger and have begun proliferating locally inside a degraded closure. The work of the present moment is to see the pattern, and to begin — at whatever scale is available — the work of restoring the constraints by which components become participants again. (shrink)

La relazione complessa e conflittuale tra Costituzione e lavoro nell'Italia repubblicana.

Esta entrevista realizada al doctor Iván Rodrigo Mendizábal busca que se comprenda la dinámica vigente que prevalece en torno a la literatura, el cine y los videojuegos. Para ello, el especialista se ha basado en los fundamentos teóricos de los Estudios Culturales y, en especial, de la Antropología visual para sustentar que un vínculo político y educativo es palmario en estas producciones y orientan las mentalidades de los lectores, espectadores y usuarios. En un principio, se abordarán estos tópicos a partir (...) de una forma muy local, desde Ecuador; sin embargo, a medida que se vayan tratando estos temas interdisciplinarios, el enfoque se volverá más panorámico. Por lo tanto, las respuestas que se obtendrán aquí permitirán conocer una interpretación más académica en función de estos artefactos culturales. (shrink)

Nowadays, hardly anything works as it should in Germany. Whether energy supply, digitization, health, pension or infrastructure. More and more often, serious consequences of wrong strategic decisions and an increasingly ideologically shaped dilettantism are becoming visible: Purchasing power and prosperity are dwindling, taxes and fees are increasing, regulative proliferation and bureaucracy are hostile to innovation and a todays shrinking middle class must always harder fight to prevent its own decline as well as not to leave worse conditions to the next (...) generation. If this does not change fundamentally, upcoming decades will face in real time how a nation destroys itself and gambles away the future of its children. Freedom, democracy and the rule of law: If we want to preserve them, we have to rely on competence and quality and not on ideology and mediocrity. Otherwise, one day authoritarian systems will take us over! Kaum etwas funktioniert in Deutschland noch wie es sollte. Ob Energieversorgung, Digitalisierung, Gesundheit, Rente oder Infrastruktur. Immer öfter werden gravierende Folgen strategischer Fehlentscheidungen und eines zunehmend ideologisch geprägten Dilettantismus' sichtbar: Kaufkraft und Wohlstand schwinden, Abgaben und Gebühren steigen, der Regelungswildwuchs und die Bürokratie sind innovationsfeindlich und eine schrumpfende Mittelschicht kämpft heute darum, den eigenen Abstieg zu verhindern und der nächsten Generation keine schlechteren Rahmenbedingungen zu hinterlassen. Wenn sich daran nichts grundlegend ändert lässt sich kommende Jahrzehnte in Echtzeit beobachten, wie eine Nation sich selbst zerstört und die Zukunft ihrer Kinder verspielt. Freiheit, Demokratie und Rechtsstaat: Wollen wir sie erhalten, müssen wir auf Kompetenz und Qualität und nicht auf Gesinnung und Mittelmaß setzen. Denn sonst überrollen uns irgendwann autoritäre Systeme! (shrink)

Being compassionate and empathic while making rational decisions is expected from healthcare workers across different contexts. But the daily challenges that these workers face, aggravated by the recent COVID-19 crisis, can give rise to compassion and decision fatigue, which affects not only their ability to meet these expectations but has a significant negative impact on their wellbeing. Hence, it is vital to identify factors associated to their exhaustion. Here, we sought to describe levels of compassion and decision fatigue during the (...) pandemic, and to identify factors related to these forms of exhaustion. We collected data using self-reported questionnaires to measure compassion fatigue, decision fatigue, and grit in five intervals from April to November, 2020 (N = 856). Our results showed a negative correlation between grit and compassion and decision fatigue. We also found that under the circumstances studied grit tends to be higher in technicians, nurses, other professionals (psychologists, social workers), and workers at the Emergency Room (ER), and lower in general practitioners. Compassion fatigue tend to be higher for technicians, whereas decision fatigue was lower for specialists, general practitioners, and technicians, and higher for those working at private hospitals. (shrink)

Along with discussing bibliometric analyses’ limitations and potential biases, this paper addresses the growing need for comprehensive guidelines in evaluating bibliometric research by providing systematic frameworks for both peer reviewers and readers. While numerous publications provide guidance on implementing bibliometric methods, there is a notable lack of frameworks for assessing such research, particularly regarding performance analysis and science mapping. Drawing from an extensive review of bibliometric practices and methodological literature, this paper develops structured evaluation frameworks that address the complexity of (...) modern bibliometric analysis, introducing the VALOR framework (Verification, Alignment, Logging, Overview, Reproducibility) for assessing multi-source bibliometric studies. The paper's key contributions include comprehensive guidelines for evaluating data selection, cleaning, and analysis processes; specific criteria for assessing conceptual, intellectual, and social structure analyses; and practical guidance for integrating performance analysis with science mapping results. By providing structured frameworks for reviewers and practical guidelines for readers to interpret and apply bibliometric insights, this work enhances the rigor of bibliometric research evaluation while supporting more effective peer review processes and research planning. The paper also discusses potential areas for further development, including the integration of qualitative analysis with bibliometric data and the advancement of field-normalized metrics, ultimately aiming to support authors, reviewers, and readers in navigating the complexities of bibliometrics and enhancing the meaningfulness of bibliometric research. (shrink)

This paper articulates how the feminist sociologist Dorothy E. Smith provides a phenomenology of the social sciences without committing to a transcendental-phenomenological idealism. That is, in her early methodological work, Smith provides a careful description of both a feminist attitude and its object in sociological inquiry, which is a description that can be understood as a phenomenology of the social sciences. While sociological inquiry in Smith’s view starts from embodied selves in their everyday context, the social relations sociology ought to (...) inquire into are not immediately visible within this context. For Smith, these social relations are to be understood as relations of ruling (which are, among others, bureaucratic, institutional, economic, political, and cultural in kind) that both materially constrain the activities of women and constitute the meaning of their local worlds. In this paper, I contrast Husserl’s phenomenological account of the attitude and object of the social sciences with Smith’s feminist-materialist account. In doing so, I show how a restriction of sociological research to the everyday world may restrict our understanding of what constitutes its meaning as well as what could enable social change. (shrink)

Military decision-making can be laid open to St. Petersburg paradox: decision-makers may be having strong incentives to violate the continuity axiom by assigning infinite expected value to an outcome. This suggests that either all people who face strong incentives can opt for the expected value and reject continuity or that certain decision-makers are more likely than others to do so. To account for who has in theory higher chances to violate continuity, we should moreover model the personality traits of decision-makers: (...) certain traits—such as high conscientiousness—are associated with patterns of behavior that are more likely to be in accordance with continuity, whereas others—such as high neuroticism, low agreeableness, low conscientiousness and high scores in the dark triad traits—can be at odds with it. It seems therefore plausible that we can map decision-makers’ possible course of action based on how rational agents shape their decision-making based on their personality traits. -/- . (shrink)

Many scholars of organizations see social enterprise as a promising approach to advancing social justice but neglect to scrutinize the normative foundations and limitations of this optimism. This article draws on Rawlsian political philosophy to investigate whether and how social enterprises can support social justice. We propose that this perspective assigns organizations a duty to foster institutional capacity, a concept we define and elaborate. We investigate how this duty might apply specifically to social enterprises, given their characteristic features. We theorize (...) six different mechanisms through which social enterprises might successfully discharge this duty. These results affirm the value of conversation between organizational studies and political philosophy and shed new light on debates regarding social enterprise, institutional theory, and several other topics. (shrink)

This conference brings together scholars, scientists, missionaries, and pilgrims to examine contemporary Christian phenomena from multiple disciplinary perspectives. By integrating academic research with documented personal experience, our event aims to advance the study of Christian artifacts, texts, mystics, and alleged visionaries. -/- Through the exchange of academic research and lived testimony, the conference seeks to foster a rigorous and balanced understanding of extraordinary religious experiences in the modern Christian world. -/- This conference is intended for Individuals wishing to share personal (...) testimony or accounts of extraordinary Christian experience and Academic researchers seeking to present and disseminate their scholarly work on Christian phenomena. (shrink)