Catholicism has been the hegemonic religion in Brazil. However, in recent decades the country is undergoing a major religious transformation, with a drop of Catholic affiliations and rapid growth of evangelicals, and a increase to a lesser pace, of other religions and no-religion. Hence, there is a growing religious plurality, although Christianity remains widely majority in the country. But within the Christian religion there is a change of hegemony between Catholics and evangelicals. An innovation of the dogma and the evangelical (...) practice occurred in the twentieth century, in the United States, allowed the spread of Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal messages. Brazil, as the largest Catholic country in the world, is highlighted in this process. The state of Rio de Janeiro features as having the smaller proportion of Catholics and the most religiously diverse in the country. Its metropolitan area is the most advanced urban agglomeration in this changing process of hegemony. This paper shows, additionally, that the process of evangelical diffusion follows a spatial pattern that goes along the main roads of the Rio de Janeiro territory having as the focus of diffusion the periphery of the metropolitan area of ​​the State. (shrink)

In this paper I support epistemic norms formulated by utilizing ‘being in a position to know’ against recent detractors. To do so, I employ a pragmatically-informed contextualism for knowledge and deny that obligations for belief agglomerate. Positive epistemic norms are then vindicated.

Introduction. Cities play a key role in the development of countries and regions. The authors of the article emphasize the importance of the largest cities’ development, which is based on an industrial model that has not exhausted its potential. The authors show possibilities of urban development on the basis of the industrial sector effective functioning in order to improve the citizens’ welfare, meet their needs and improve the life quality. In this regard, the authors formulate a hypothesis that the largest (...) Russian cities developing according to the industrial model have and are able to realize their potential in order to improve the life quality, preserve and increase the population on their territory. The authors set a goal: to identify the possibilities for developing industrial-type megalopolises to improve the population’s life quality of the (PLQ). Methods. The authors use the following information base: strategic documents of different levels, statistical data, scientific literature, analytical documents, and expert assessments of the megalopolises’ development. The authors also use an industrial model for developing the largest cities; they determine conditions under which the potential of megacities can be realized to improve the citizens’ life quality and carry out an analysis of the demographic and social situation in the largest Russian industrial cities. The authors evaluate some approaches and theses of the study as exemplified by the following cities with a million-plus population: Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Chelyabinsk, and Omsk and they group the cities according to the signs of growth and decline, which is illustrated by favorable or unfavorable demographic trends. To confirm the identified trends and problems of the largest cities, the authors provide the results of expert assessments on the population’s life quality and the state of the urban environment and emphasize the need for a systemic integrated development of the largest cities of industrial type to improve the life quality of the population of megalopolises. The scientific novelty of the study consists in substantiating the prospects for the socio-economic development of the largest industrial cities of Russia on the basis of an industrial model that provides for the technological transformation of the economy, the use of agglomeration effects, the formation of a friendly urban environment for residents and the achievement of socialization of urban space. Results and conclusions. As a result of the analysis and typology of the largest cities by functional specialization, two groups of cities were identified: one group with signs of demographic growth, the second with signs of decline. The cities of the first group have a greater economic potential, opportunities for agglomeration, provide more comfortable living and consolidation of the population on their territory. On the contrary, cities with signs of decreasing have fewer opportunities (resources), are less diversified, the urban environment in them is less comfortable, which is reflected in the citizens’ life quality and is accompanied by the population’s outflow. At the same time, it was revealed that all analyzed cities actively use digital technologies, realizing, in particular, the concept of a «smart city». At the same time, cities with signs of decreasing show high IQ indicators of cities. Taking into account the identified problems, the authors propose promising directions for the development of industrial megalopolises with signs of decline. (shrink)

Introduction. The article highlights the role and trends of urban development in a single regional space. The authors consider the industrial region, where the economic centers are the cities of monospecialization (metallurgy, mechanical engineering), which form the settlement framework of the regional economic system. At the same time, the connectivity of the regional space was determined by the contacts of cities in infrastructure areas and the possibilities of agglomeration formations. The authors analyze the urban environment of cities in the (...) region, which revealed common problems for them in organizing urban space. It was shown that the competition of cities for a person can be won by offering the population more comfortable working and living conditions, a variety of social services, and the possibility of using agglomeration effects. Scientific novelty of the research. The peculiarity of the author’s research was a new approach to urbanization as an urban way of life, extended to a set of cities of different status and population in the region. At the same time, the zones of attraction and concentration of business and social activity were connected with large cities and centers of agglomerations of the region, which ensure the joint use of resources, transport, and social infrastructure. The purpose of the article is to Identify constraints and opportunities for developing cities in a single regional space, taking into account their connectivity and interaction. Methods. The authors use the information base: statistical data, scientific literature, and expert assessments to clarify the conceptual tools of the research and to analyze the demographic situation in the cities-centers of agglomeration associations of the region. The authors present the assessment of the state of the urban environment, and reveal the disproportions in its organization. The research approaches are tested on the example of the cities of the Chelyabinsk region. (shrink)

Nowadays, around half of the global population lives in urban areas. This rate is expected to increase up to two-thirds by the year 2050. Most studies analyze urban dynamics in wide geographic ranges, focusing mainly on cities. According to them, the global population is spatially distributed in two extremes: large urban agglomerations and rural deserts. However, this remark is excessively general and imprecise. For this reason, it remains essential to analyze these dynamics at other spatial scales. A close-up look in (...) thinly populated regions shows how urban dynamics are also noticeable. In this paper, we analyze spatiotemporal patterns of population distribution in a predominantly rural area by applying a local-scale approach. These patterns are represented by using spatial networks with nodes representing the human settlements and links showing hierarchies between nodes. This case study is conducted in a small municipality located in northwestern Spain. It is a predominantly rural area with a very particular spatial pattern of population distribution. (shrink)

Farmers’ markets, often structured as non-profit or cooperative organizations, play a prominent role in emerging alternative food networks of western Canada. The contribution of these social economy organizations to network development may relate, in part, to the process of regional clustering. In this study we explore the nature and significance of farmers’ market clustering in the western Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, focusing on the possible connection between clustering and a “scaling up” of alternative food networks. Survey and (...) interview results from four regional clusters indicate that in addition to spatial agglomeration, dynamic processes of interaction and knowledge exchange are occurring and are shaped by vendor mobility as well as collaborative and competitive forces. Horizontal and vertical collaborations are resulting in innovative strategies to address challenges of scale, scope, infrastructure, and organizational capacity that are prevalent in alternative food networks. Government support for market clustering has been modest to date but, we argue, could play a more prominent role in facilitating cluster development as part of a broader collaborative strategy involving public, private, and social economy sectors in the scaling up of alternative food networks. (shrink)

У статті розглянуто економічні та правові проблеми управління розвитком міських агломерацій в Україні. Охарактеризовані склад, структура, причини формування міських агломерацій. Систематизовано етапи, чинники й економіко-правові умови розвитку міської агломерації. Виявлено відмінності між управлінням-функціонуванням та управлінням-розвитком міської агломерації. Розглянуто взаємодію територіальних громад щодо розвитку агломерації та її правове забезпечення. Сформульовано комплекс завдань, вирішення яких дозволить подолати економічні, організаційні та правові проблеми управління розвитком міських агломерацій.

Consistent Agglomeration says that, when φ and ψ are consistent, ⌜ought φ ⌝ and ⌜ought ψ⌝ entail ⌜ought (φ ∧ ψ)⌝; I argue this principle is valid for deontic, but not epistemic oughts. I argue no existing theory predicts these data and give a new semantics and pragmatics for ought: ought is an existential quantifier over the best partial answers to some background question; and presupposes that those best partial answers are pairwise consistent. In conjunction with a plausible assumption (...) about the difference between deontic and epistemic orderings, this semantics validates Agglomeration for deontics but not epistemics. (shrink)

This chapter discusses that there is thinking conducted by a single person, about how to live. There is also thinking together — a kind of “language infused” shared activity — about how to live together. It clarifies the planning theory of normative judgment — a theory that depends on the pressure to agglomerate plans, a pressure that purportedly parallels the pressure to agglomerate beliefs. It examines the roles of plans in coordinating thought and action over time and socially.

Bart Streumer argues that a certain variety of consequentialism – he calls it ‘semi-global consequentialism’ – is false on account of its falsely implying the possibility of ‘blameless wrongdoing’. This article shows (i) that Streumer's argument is nothing new; (ii) that his presentation of the argument is misleading, since it suppresses a crucial premiss, commonly called ‘agglomeration’; and (iii) that, for all Streumer says, the proponent of semi-global consequentialism may easily resist his argument by rejecting agglomeration.

I start out by reviewing the semantics of ‘seem’. As ‘seem’ is a subject-raising verb, ‘it seems’ can be treated as a sentential operator. I look at the semantic and logical properties of ‘it seems’. I argue that ‘it seems’ is a hyperintensional and contextually flexible operator. The operator distributes over conjunction but not over disjunction, conditionals or semantic entailments. I further argue that ‘it seems’ does not commute with negation and does not agglomerate with conjunction. I then show that (...) the mental states expressed by perceptual uses of ‘seem’ have non-conceptual, yet perspectival contents. In the final part of the paper I argue that while the content of the mental states expressed by perceptual uses of ‘seem’ are non-conceptual, having a mental state of this type requires possessing conceptual abilities corresponding to what the mental state represents. (shrink)

The formation mechanism of innovation networks is one of the core issues in the current research of innovation networks, and proximity plays an important role in the formation and development of innovation networks; however, which proximity is more important and how different proximities interact remain to be further researched. This study conducts a social network analysis and adopts a spatial interaction model to examine innovation networks among 290 Chinese cities. The results reveal that, first, the hierarchical characteristics of Chinese cities’ (...) innovation networks reflect a core periphery structure and the spatial patterns of large dispersion and small agglomeration. Further, bound by the Hu line, the hierarchy is high in the east and low in the west. Second, geographical, institutional, and cognitive proximities positively affect Chinese cities’ innovation networking. Cognitive proximity, particularly, has the highest impact. Geographical proximity reinforces the effect of institutional proximity, and thus, their interactions are complementary. (shrink)

Contrastivists view ought-sentences as expressing comparisons among alternatives. Deontic actualists believe that the value of each alternative in such a comparison is determined by what would actually happen if that alternative were to be the case. One of the arguments that motivates actualism is a challenge to the principle of agglomeration over conjunction—the principle according to which if you ought to run and you ought to jump, then you ought to run and jump. I argue that there is no (...) way of developing the actualist insight into a logic that invalidates the agglomeration principle without also invalidating other desirable patterns of inference. After doing this, I extend the analysis to other contrastive views that challenge agglomeration in the way that the actualist does. This motivates skepticism about the actualist’s way of challenging agglomeration. (shrink)

Formal models of appearance and reality have proved fruitful for investigating structural properties of perceptual knowledge. This paper applies the same approach to epistemic justification. Our central goal is to give a simple account of The Preface, in which justified belief fails to agglomerate. Following recent work by a number of authors, we understand knowledge in terms of normality. An agent knows p iff p is true throughout all relevant normal worlds. To model The Preface, we appeal to the normality (...) of error. Sometimes, it is more normal for reality and appearance to diverge than to match. We show that this simple idea has dramatic consequences for the theory of knowledge and justification. Among other things, we argue that a proper treatment of The Preface requires a departure from the internalist idea that epistemic justification supervenes on the appearances and the widespread idea that one knows most when free from error. (shrink)

Стаття присвячена дослідженню зарубіжного досвіду управління розвитком міських агломерацій. Визначено характеристики європейських та світових агломерацій як головних центрів, що акумулюють економічний потенціал країн та дозволяють підвищити рівень їхньої конкурентоспроможності. Встановлено, що відмінності в розвитку агломерацій у світі і в Україні детермінуються різним баченням головних складових системи управління міськими агломераціями. Систематизовано головні моделі управлінських систем агломерацій у зарубіжних країнах, виявлено їхні негативні та позитивні сторони. Наведено приклади європейського та світового досвіду регулювання розвитку агломерацій. На основі виявлених особливостей моделей управління міськими агломераціями (...) за кордоном обґрунтовано пропозиції з формування та впорядкування національної системи управління міськими агломераціями. (shrink)

Economic Geography is the most complete, up-to-date textbook available on the important new field of spatial economics. This book fills a gap by providing advanced undergraduate and graduate students with the latest research and methodologies in an accessible and comprehensive way. It is an indispensable reference for researchers in economic geography, regional and urban economics, international trade, and applied econometrics, and can serve as a resource for economists in government. Economic Geography presents advances in economic theory that explain why, despite (...) the increasing mobility of commodities, ideas, and people, the diffusion of economic activity is very unequal and remains agglomerated in a limited number of spatial entities. The book complements theoretical analysis with detailed discussions of the empirics of the economics of agglomeration, offering a mix of theoretical and empirical research that gives a unique perspective on spatial disparities. It reveals how location continues to matter for trade and economic development, yet how economic integration is transforming the global economy into an economic space in which activities are performed within large metropolitan areas exchanging goods, skills, and information. Economic Geography examines the future implications of this evolution in the spatial economy and relates them to other major social and economic trends.Provides a complete introduction to economic geography Explains the latest theory and methodologies Covers the empirics of agglomeration, from spatial concentration measurement to structural estimations of economic geography models Includes history and background of the field Serves as a textbook for students and a resource for professionals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 325 Recapitulations: Essays in Philosophy. By THOMAS PRUFER. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1993. Pp. 112. $34.95 (cloth). Re-reading and pondering this little volume, it is hard not to remember John Milton's commendation of a good book as "the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." This is, indeed, the distillation of a life's intense reflection (...) on the central issues of philosophy, parceled out misleadingly in a collection of essaysmisleadingly, because (as the preface asserts) the collection is not a heap. It is not a heap or agglomeration, despite the essays having been published over a period of thirty years, partly because the author gathered them together, organized, and revised them before his untimely death, and partly because they are unified by the pervasiveness and centrality of the careful reflection on the inflections that philosophers have effected in the sense of the word "being" and the word "nature." Indeed, it might have been entitled Nature and Being or Physis kai Einai. The essays are arranged chronologically, from ancients to modems. In tracking their philosophical themes, the author is constantly and perceptively attentive to the form of the language in which thought comes to expression: to the form (and genre) of the texts and to the ways in which language is troped into philosophical uses. So the first essay is on "The Dramatic Form of Plato's Phaedo," and deals with the way the dialogue's narrative framework interacts with the dramatic discussion. And the last essay deals with the relation between structure and story in Waugh's Brideshead Revisited ("The Death of Charm and the Advent of Grace"). In between these are eleven essays on Oedipus and the Poetics, Aristotle, solitude and creation, nature in Epicurus and Hobbes, Augustine's Confessions, comparisons of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Leo Strauss, and studies of Hume, Husserl, and Heidegger. Most of them are brief: dense because condensed, shipped to essentials. They demand attentive reading, but they repay it. Three philosophers are foci or axes: Aristotle, Aquinas, and Heidegger. Aristotle serves as a foil, a reference point for the inflections that-in particular -Aquinas and Heidegger bring to the senses of "nature" and "being." In addition, Husserl serves as a foil for Heidegger, so that each illuminates the other. For Aristotle, although separate being-the noesis noeseos-is primary being, it is necessary that it not be the only sense of "being." It is necessary that "being" mean being in common to many and being in common with many. Separate being is part of the whole of what is. But, for Aquinas, although it is true that God is not the only sense of "being," it is meaningful 326 BOOK REVIEWS (though false) to say that "being" means not God and others but God alone. God cannot not be, but for creatures-even necessary creatures, those with no intrinsic potentiality not to be-their being is a gift, an act ofliberality and generosity by God. That means that God's necessity is utterly different from the necessity of necessary creatures, which not only can be annihilated but which form a whole with all other creatures, which are complemented and completed by other created beings. A greater whole is formed by what complements, but as Aquinas wrote: "Created good added to uncreated good does not result in something greater." Moreover, God's necessary nature, unlike that of the necessary nature of separate being, is not opposed to, does not exclude, the freedom to create. Nor is that freedom to create (or not to create) an indeterminacy or arbitrariness in God's nature. God does not act in order to gain what He lacks or does not have, but as willing to communicate what He has. As Prufer summarizes: For Aquinas the superahundant and therefore necessary and self-sufficient goodness of God is His freedom,... freedom that is free-of-and-for whether or not there be many others, freedom that is free.to be generous because, being self-sufficient, it need not be generous. One of the most interesting essays reflects on this understanding of God... (shrink)

This thesis is about the moral reasons we have to do less than best. It consists of six chapters. Part I of the thesis proposes, extends, and defends reasons to do less than best. In Chapter One (“The Conditional Obligation”) I outline and reject two recent arguments from Joe Horton and Theron Pummer for the claim that we have a conditional obligation to bring about the most good. In Chapter Two (“Agglomeration and Agent-Relative Costs”) I argue that agent-relative costs (...) can justify permissions to less than best in a far greater range of decisions contexts than we currently believe. In Chapter Three (“Risk and Aggregation”) I discuss how anti-aggregative moral theories deal with risk, whilst proposing an argument in favour of ex-post moral theories. In Part II of the thesis, I discuss longtermism, presenting a series of reasons to believe we have both significant permissions and obligations to prioritise those in the short-term. In Chapter Four (“Listening to Future People”) I criticise a recent argument presented by Andreas Mogensen for the claim we cannot have obligations grounded in the wellbeing of future people. I then show that, even permitting the existence of obligations to future people, we still have significant reasons to resist longtermism on the grounds of partiality. In Chapter Five (“The Complaints of Future People”) I argue that scepticism about aggregation is inconsistent with an obligation, or indeed even a permission, to help far future people. In Chapter Six (“Leaving the Present Behind”) I explore the moral significance of “dooming”, whilst arguing that we have a pro tanto reason of fairness to prioritise aiding those currently in existence. (shrink)

It would surely have been better to entitle this work ‘Reflexions on ethical theories’, for it cannot in any true sense of the word be called a study, a scientific study which entails detailed analysis and positive criticism. In fact Professor Mackinnon presents us with a series of considerations, highly personal and at times indeed penetrating and instructive, on the moral theories of certain British and continental philosophers—of the 19th century utilitarians ; of Kant, Hegel and their followers; of the (...) theologianphilosopher bishop of Durham, Joseph Butler; of Russell, Moore and others. The impression left on one after a careful perusal of the work is that it is no more than an agglomeration of ‘mights’ and ‘perhaps’, never a clear–cut judgment. The chief general defect of the book and the cause of much obscurity is certainly this: the absence of any welldefined distinction between exposé and critique. As often as not one does not know what the opinion of the author is as distinct from his interpretation of the authors he is studying. This defect would seem to be characteristic of a great part of the ethical writing produced by the Scottish and British schools, when they do not reduce ethical theory to anything better than semasiology, to a study of ethical language or linguistic usage. Prof. Mackinnon has certainly not freed himself from the ‘present confused state of moral philosophy in this country’, which he so rightly condemns. I had thought that all philosophers, of whatever ilk, were agreed that ethical science or moral philosophy was nothing more than the study of the human being on its way towards completeness in human being, from an initial embryonic stage, as it were, to the full flowering of human perfection, manifested in perfect human being and perfect human life—a journey or precess directed and controlled by the human subject itself, fully conscious of the end to be achieved and conscious too of the steps or means towards it. I would have thought too that if we are to set up moral science as distinct from mere semasiology, or from psychology, biology, zoology or botany, then all were agreed that we have to do with the domain of free activity, of voluntary conscious activity, which obviously brings with it the order of responsibility and willed subjection to a given objective order of things, that is, of human nature itself and human perfection. I would have taken for granted too that one could study all this field of the free development of the human being towards its ultimate perfection either with a view to the acquisition of knowledge and nothing more, or precisely with a view to being in a position to direct oneself and others towards that fullness of being. That would give us two distinct modes of moral or ethical theory, the speculative or theoretical and the practical and normative, the resolutive and the compositive. I am not so sure that Professor Mackinnon is ready to admit these presupposita. He speaks of the ‘curious and almost silly claim that we are free’, and at the same time he can write about the ‘frankly metaphysical reality of freedom’, or its ‘near–metaphysical reality’. This, in the language of the author, is just another way of proclaiming that human freedom is no more than a myth, lacking all substance and reality. Moral science as distinct from all other sciences, one would think, presupposes that the moral subject be conscious of itself and its activity, that is, that it fully and clearly know that its life and its activity is its own. It must be master of its own actions, and in that sense truly master of its own destiny. Then and only then are we in the order of moral activity. However, we are warned by Professor Mackinnon that “to know that an action is mine is a very strange sort of knowledge, quite different from knowing that an apple or a book is mine: to use the word ‘know’ in such a context is a venture fraught with intellectual peril”. I sincerely think it would have been better had the author denied straight out the possibility, not just of metaphysics, but of ethical theory tout court; for he denies often enough the existence of the moral subject, namely, man freely and deliberately ordaining himself towards human consummation. Had he done that at the outset he would have been spared the trouble of writing his book. All in all, one gets the distinct impression that the author is just not sure of his ground and has no really sound criterion whereby to judge of various ethical theories. In fact the book ends with a big question–mark: ‘If we speak and write thus, do we speak and write sound and fury signifying nothing?’. Reluctantly I am constrained to answer in the affirmative. And I should like to add, so as not to appear completely destructive, but in some way constructive: if, instead of dismissing Aristotle and his followers, ancient and modern, as mere ‘intuitionists’, Professor Mackinnon would only study them seriously he would first of all find out how unjustified is his condemnation of them and then, I venture to suggest, he would acquire a light to guide him surely through the maze of ethical theory with which he grapples aimlessly and would thus be enabled to extricate himself from ‘the present confused state of moral philosophy’ in Britain. (shrink)

Since ancient Greece’s “megalopolis,” the concept of vast cities has loomed in the urban discourse. A century ago, English planner Patrick Geddes warned about a growing imbalance between traditional society and ever-larger conurbations, an anxiety that Lewis Mumford later invoked to predict that urban hubris would inevitably collapse of its own weight. In 1961, by contrast, the geographer Jean Gottman surveyed the interconnected agglomeration stretching from Washington, D.C. up the east coast of the United States to the cities of (...) southern New England, and more optimistically highlighted this new urban form’s governance potential. Today, the question is not whether urbanism will arrive at the scale that so concerned Geddes and Mumford yet engaged Gottman—it already has. Commentators and scholars increasingly recognize that vast polycentric urban regions are displacing cities and metropolitan areas as the locus of modern growth and development. Eleven distinct urban-centered megaregions, for example, concentrate the bulk of the population and economic activity in the United States, and similar clusters are coalescing globally, from Greater Tokyo, Beijing, and the Pearl River Delta, to the arc from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, to the European urban spine running from London to Milan. Grappling with the phenomenon’s legal-institutional dimensions—whether and how to formalize governance to match this scale—requires more than transposing the descriptive and normative discourse on metropolitanism. Crosscurrents around fragmentation, efficiency, inequality, and democratic legitimacy refract, but there are distinct arguments for fostering governance—and equally particular concerns to anticipate—with the rise of the megalopolis. (shrink)

The fear that the border municipalities would be overwhelmed by the larger entity of the central city of Ghent was countered by a number of accompanying measures such as the stimulation of organised activities, the offering of opportunities for participation, and the provision of decentralised services. The equitable representation of the sub-municipalities in the new administrative organs and the opportunities for contact that derived therefrom reassured the residents of the outskirts. The effortwas made with the reorganisation of the municipal apparatus (...) to achieve a balance between external decentralisation and internal centralisation. In spite of an increasingly difficult financial situation, Ghent has succeeded 'up till now in maintaining a balanced budget. The amalgamation certainly had a negative impact in this regard, probably primarily because of the increased personnel costs. The amalgamation of the Ghent agglomeration can, however, be considered a success. The preparatory time for such a profound reorganisation was too brief, however. An adequate administrative model, rationalisation of the financial situation, application of the municipal law, and implementation of modern working methods are factors that loom large for the optimisation of the developmental chances of an amalgamated large city. (shrink)

Previous research studies of traffic networks are mainly based on planar networks and less considered the influence of multilayer networks, which illustrate and represent different appropriate urban traffic modes. Development of rail and road networks is inseparable from the development of a prosperous urban area; thus, research on multilayer networks has scientific potential and fulfils a real need. In this paper, a framework of complex network based integrated multilayer urban growth and optimisation model is proposed, to analyse the complex relationships (...) between the traffic network structure, the population growth, and the urban land-use. The innovation of this paper is the combination of the traffic complex multilayer networks and the “Four Step Model”. With the multiobjective, multilayer network coevolution and optimisation model, a more efficient traffic network layout was generated based on different land-use, population density, and travel speed scenarios. Then, this paper has proved that the proposed CNIMUGOM can save the traffic network construction investment, reduce the travel cost, make the urban traffic network more efficient, and decrease the total traffic flow amount. This research has connected the recent complex multilayer network related study and traditional urban economic model based study. The findings of the study afford to improve the current land-use and traffic integrated models and can provide traffic network planning suggestions for urban agglomeration development. (shrink)

It is often suggested that when opinions differ among individuals in a group, the opinions should be aggregated to form a compromise. This paper compares two approaches to aggregating opinions, linear pooling and what I call opinion agglomeration. In evaluating both strategies, I propose a pragmatic criterion, No Regrets, entailing that an aggregation strategy should prevent groups from buying and selling bets on events at prices regretted by their members. I show that only opinion agglomeration is able to (...) satisfy the demand. I then proceed to give normative and empirical arguments in support of the pragmatic criterion for opinion aggregation, and that ultimately favor opinion agglomeration. (shrink)

In “The possibility of morality,” Phil Brown considers whether moral error theory is best understood as a necessary or contingent thesis. Among other things, Brown contends that the argument from relativity, offered by John Mackie—error theory’s progenitor—supports a stronger modal reading of error theory. His argument is as follows: Mackie’s is an abductive argument that error theory is the best explanation for divergence in moral practices. Since error theory will likewise be the best explanation for similar divergences in possible worlds (...) similar to our own, we may conclude that error theory is true at all such worlds, just as it is in the actual world. I contend that Brown’s argument must fail, as abductive arguments cannot support the modal conclusions he suggests. I then consider why this is the case, concluding that Brown has stumbled upon new and interesting evidence that agglomerating one’s beliefs can be epistemically problematic—an issue associated most famously with Henry Kyburg’s lottery paradox. (shrink)

Potential perspectivism is the view that what an agent ought to do (believe, like, fear, … ) depends primarily on facts that are potentially available to her. I consider a challenge to this view. Potentially accessible facts do not always agglomerate over conjunction. This implies that one can fail to have relevant access to a set of facts as a whole but have access to proper subsets of it, each of which can support different incompatible responses. I argue that potential (...) perspectivism has no unproblematic answer to the question of what the agent ought to do (believe, like, fear, … ) in such circumstances. (shrink)

When it comes to the duty of beneficence, a formidable class of moderate positions holds that morally significant considerations emerge when one's actions are seen as part of a larger series. Agglomeration, according to these moderates, limits the demands of beneficence, thereby avoiding the extremely demanding view forcefully defended by Peter Singer. This idea has much appeal. What morality can demand of people is, it seems, appropriately modulated by how much they have already done or will do. Here we (...) examine a number of recent proposals that appeal to agglomeration. None of them, we argue, succeeds. (shrink)

Cranston argued that scarcity makes universal welfare rights impossible. After showing that this argument cannot be avoided by denying scarcity, I consider four challenges to the argument which accept the possibility of conflicts between the duties implied by rights. The first denies the agglomeration principle; the second embraces conflicts of duties; the third affirms the violability of all rights-based duties; and the fourth denies that duties to compensate are overriding. I argue that all four challenges to the scarcity argument (...) are unsuccessful. I then discuss Eddy’s recent challenge, which makes welfare rights context dependent, but I argue that this also fails because it makes rights unknowable. I conclude that the scarcity argument, restated in the light of the discussion, shows that universal welfare rights, as ordinarily understood, are impossible and I explain the philosophical and practical significance of this conclusion. (shrink)

Speaking generically of crafts from an economic point of view means referring to a field that encompasses different sectors and professions, an agglomeration of very different activities in terms of economic structure, performance and needs. This paper, however, aims to analyse only some of the artisan worlds, i.e. traditional trades, art & crafts which, even if manifesting themselves today in new ways, interest us more than others because of the genius loci they have subsumed. This is because this is (...) the main feature that allows us to count on their survival in a present and in a future in which even large industries are looking with great interest at limited and customized production, and where not only major companies but also local and regional entities are rediscovering activities closely related to the “sense of place”, such as crafts, and including them in their identity branding policies. After an introductory look at the role of craftsmanship today in the “creative economy”, the paper describes the problems facing this productive and cultural sector today and outlines the challenges for the near future. (shrink)

In biosemiotics, some oppose the study of sign relations to empirical work on bio-mechanisms. Urging consilience between these views, we show the value of Alain Berthoz’s concept of simplexity. Its heuristic power is to present molecules, cells, organisms and communities as using tricks to self-fabricate by agglomerating ‘simplex’ bio-mechanisms. Their properties enable living systems (including observers) to self-sustain, adapt and, at best, to thrive. But simplexity also empowers agents to engage with their surroundings in novel ways. Life thus not only (...) generates know-how but also social organisation. With languaging, people can act and inhibit: they can also simplexify. As a result, we can see a fruit as ripe, feel when things are awry or behave in ways likely to be judged to be apt. While all living beings make situated use of the historical and the local, humans also bind these with the use of both practices and artifacts. As a result, brains come to emulate what occurs in-between persons and their surroundings. In pursuing the basis for our powers, we focus on inhibition. This simplex trick enables a plant to use dormancy, a bird to learn, and a person to mesh languaging with other aspects of action/perception. Indeed, inhibition enriches human style phenomenology as impersonal resources are used to expand our epistemic horizons. Experience links a self-fabricating body, ancient bio-mechanisms, community-based concerns and epigenetically derived know-how. (shrink)

Metaphysics here refers to that indispensable part of philosophy linked to the search for the foundation of reality and the definition of the relationship between reality itself and the subjects who know it. Transhumanism and posthumanism as philosophical movements also have their own metaphysics, which are rooted in contemporary naturalism, characterized by a materialistic and immanent vision of reality, in which the unity and autonomy of the human subject comes to lose all consistency, reducing itself to a mere mass or (...) agglomeration of parts. The main risk of this loss of the subject’s autonomy is the loss of any real importance of concepts such as “intelligence” and “responsibility”. This chapter invites transhumanists and posthumanists to be open to dialogue on the metaphysics of authors such as Bruno and Leibniz and to recover the autonomy of intelligence considered as a principle and as a basis for the autonomy of the subject. At the same time, I intend to promote the importance of a metaphysical mythopoeia also equipped with its own characteristic conceptual instruments (“individual”, “parts-whole relationship”, “vagueness”), with the aim of keeping pace with contemporary scientific-technological progress and to satisfy the eternal human demands for narratives of life and death. (shrink)

Drawing on the success of his Lindahl lectures, Edward Glaeser provides a rigorous account of his research and unique thinking on cities. Using a series of simple models and economic theory, Glaeser illustrates the primary features of urban economics including the concepts of spatial equilibrium and agglomeration economies. Written for a mathematically inclined audience with an interest in urban economics and cities, the book is written to be accessible to theorists and non-theorists alike and should provide a basis for (...) further empirical work. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is a preface paradox for intention. The preface paradox for intention shows that intentions do not obey an agglomeration norm, requiring one to intend conjunctions of whatever else one intends. But what norms do intentions obey? I will argue that intentions come in degrees. These partial intentions are governed by the norms of the probability calculus. First, I will give a dispositional theory of partial intention, on which degrees of intention are the (...) degrees to which one possesses the dispositions characteristic of full intention. I will use this dispositional theory to defend probabilism about intention. Next, I will offer a more general argument for probabilism about intention. To do so, I will generalize recent decision theoretic arguments for probabilism from the case of belief to the case of intention. (shrink)

There are two kinds of quantum fluctuations relevant to cosmology that we focus on in this article: those that form the seeds for structure formation in the early universe and those giving rise to Boltzmann brains in the late universe. First, structure formation requires slight inhomogeneities in the density of matter in the early universe, which are then amplified by the effect of gravity, leading to clumping of matter into stars and galaxies. According to inflation theory, quantum fluctuations form the (...) seeds of these inhomogeneities. However, these quantum fluctuations are described by a quantum state that is homogeneous and isotropic, and this raises a problem, connected to the foundations of quantum theory, as the unitary evolution alone cannot break the symmetry of the quantum state. Second, Boltzmann brains are random agglomerates of particles that, by extreme coincidence, form functioning brains. Unlikely as these coincidences are, they seem to be predicted to occur in a quantum universe as vacuum fluctuations if the universe continues to exist for an infinite (or just very long) time; in fact, they are predicted to occur over and over, even forming the majority of all brains in the history of the universe. We provide a brief introduction to the Bohmian version of quantum theory and explain why in this version Boltzmann brains, an undesirable kind of fluctuation, do not occur (or at least not often), while inhomogeneous seeds for structure formation, a desirable kind of fluctuation, do. (shrink)

The research is focused on the problems of transforming a complex heterogeneous spatial system, urban agglomeration with a unique natural complex. The paper touches upon the following issues: restrictions on spatial development, zoning of territories, transformation of the settlement framework, social transformations, and integration of the most significant city-forming objects. To predict transformations in such a system, a complex multilevel model is considered — “the biosphere core vs. urban environment”. Forming such a model to analyze the prospective development of (...) the territory involves updating the methodology aimed at the systemic socio-ecological-economic analysis of developing heterogeneous spatial systems, integration of cartographic and digital information, adaptation of IT visualization technologies, including the “neogeography” toolkit. In the study the authors analyze the main prospects for the spatial territory development as exemplified by developing the urban environment of the Chelyabinsk agglomeration with a unique “green zone” (Chelyabinsk urban forest), complex multi-level socio-economic system. The main research results create the prerequisites for a significant expansion of the possibilities for analyzing the prospects for sustainable socio-ecological-economic development of complex spatial systems with unique natural objects and effective management of regional development. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to establish that, For an important class of moral judgments, The claim that there are moral dilemmas is false. The judgments are the judgments an agent committed to morality makes as the conclusion of deliberation about what, All things considered, He or she morally ought to do in some situation. The argument is that these judgments are prescriptive, In the sense of implying an intention to act, And that it is implausible to think there (...) are dilemmas involving such prescriptive judgments. Some of the import of this argument is shown in the fact that it supports a common objection to moral dilemmas, That they are incompatible with the principles of "agglomeration" and "'ought' implies can'." for these principles are plausible from a prescriptivist standpoint. At the end of the paper, It is suggested that there is another class of moral judgments, Nonprescriptive in their use, Concerning which there remains a substantial issue about moral dilemmas. (shrink)

У статті визначено особливості функціонування житлово-комунального господарства міських агломерацій, виокремлено їхні конкурентні переваги, що сприяють активізації процесів реформування й розвитку сфери життєзабезпечення, узагальнено сучасні економіко-правові проблеми, які перешкоджають використанню наявного потенціалу комунальної інфраструктури міських агломерацій України, а також обґрунтовано ключові напрями розвитку житлово-комунального господарства агломерацій.

With the demand for “counter-knowledge” in the social movements of the 1970s and 1980s, “counter-experts” became an integral part of politics. In the field of environmental activism, counter-experts were particularly well represented in regions and agglomerations with high levels of industrial pollution. This essay argues that awareness correlated with a mode of knowledge production that was typical for the environmental sciences in the twentieth century. The history of the environmental sciences throughout that period was shaped by regional epistemologies, often emerging (...) in the context of large-scale infrastructural projects. Many counter-experts therefore had strong ties with the field of the environmental sciences. The article traces three influential counter-experts in the Frankfurt Main region by 1980: the pastor Kurt Oeser; scientific green activist Jutta Ditfurth; and the project of a “social natural science” related to the Darmstadt philosopher Gernot Böhme. (shrink)

e-commerce has promoted the application of the Internet by traditional enterprises. While this phenomenon has deepened industrial embeddedness, it has also profoundly affected the development of traditional manufacturing and retail industries. Based on the embeddedness theory, this paper takes the e-commerce industrial chain in Xiong’an New Area of China as an example, uses location entropy method and local spatial autocorrelation to analyze its spatial characteristics and influencing factors, and also discusses the features of embeddedness from each dimension of industrial chains. (...) The results show the following: ① The supply chain of industry-dependent e-commerce is dominated by production wholesalers, and suppliers with cost advantages and commercial traditions are embedded in local characteristic industries; the e-commerce value chain is dominated by production and processing activities, and the spatial orientation of the business model is affected by regional industrial functions; the e-commerce enterprise chain is dominated by B2B enterprises, the high-level agglomeration of which reflects the absolute scale advantage provided by the e-commercialization of traditional industry. ② The distribution of the e-commerce industrial chains of Xiong’an New Area is characterized by spatial heterogeneity and has obvious spatial agglomeration. The industrial chains are concentrated in Xiong County, followed by Rongcheng County, and Anxin County has the weakest agglomeration. ③ The main factors that cause the uneven distribution of the e-commerce industrial chains in Xiong’an New Area include three aspects: transportation location advantages, traditional industrial foundation, and government policy regulation. Research can provide a scientific reference for accurately identifying the spatial development characteristics of the industrial chains from various perspectives and promoting the sustainable development and e-commercialization of traditional industries. (shrink)

The relationship between urban expansion and population density changes is complex and plays a fundamental role in urban sustainable development research. This relationship has been studied in multiple large cities. However, there is no report of the relationship of the two factors mentioned above in urban agglomeration in a particular region of China. Ten cities located in the central-southern region of Liaoning province are selected as research samples in this study. The spatial growth rate and urban compactness index of (...) the sample cities were calculated using the land use and population data of these cities in three time phases: 1995, 2005, and 2015. Then, the geographical growth features, the population density changes, and the link between these two in the sample cities were investigated at these three periods. Our results revealed that the studied cities of central-southern Liaoning province expanded at the three time phases under the driver of positive population density growth, but the effects of urban population change on urbanization growth modes across time were uneven across different periods. Our study showed a trend that active transition of different urbanization growth modes was associated with decreased population density. (shrink)

The logic of an ought operator O is contranegative with respect to an underlying preference relation if it satisfies the property Op & (¬p)(¬q) Oq. Here the condition that is interpolative ((p (pq) q) (q (pq) p)) is shown to be necessary and sufficient for all -contranegative preference relations to satisfy the plausible deontic postulates agglomeration (Op & OqO(p&q)) and disjunctive division (O(p&q) Op Oq).

A simple Weberian agglomeration is developed and then extended as an innovative fixed-charged, colocation model over a large set of locational possibilities. The model is applied to cases in which external economies (EE) arise due to colocation alone and also cases in which EE arise due to city size. Solutions to the model are interpreted in the context of contemporary equilibrium analysis, which allows Weberian agglomeration to be interpreted in a more general way than in previous analyses. Within (...) that context, the Nash points and Pareto efficient points in the location patterns derived in the model are shown to rarely coincide. The applications consider agglomeration from two perspectives: one is the colocation behavior of producers as the agents of agglomeration and the other is the interaction between government and those agents in the interest of agglomeration policy. Extending the analysis to games, potential Pareto efficiency and Hicks optimality are considered with respect to side payments between producers and with respect to appropriate government incentives toward agglomeration. (shrink)

Knowledge of the patterns of location of retail stores in urban areas supports the development of effective urban planning and the reasonable allocation of commercial facilities. Using point of interest data and consumer survey data in three main commercial districts in Changchun, China, this study investigates the spatial structures of commercial districts and the patterns of distribution of retail stores to assess the determinants of the development of retail stores in commercial districts. Kernel density estimation, nearest neighbor index, and Pearson’s (...) correlation analysis were used for this study. The following conclusions are drawn. The spatial distribution of retail stores in Changchun commercial districts generates the coexistence of a concentration in the core area and diffusion in the peripheral area. The emergence of shopping malls has challenged the traditional single-center structure, resulting in the transformation of commercial districts from single-center to multicenter layouts, while also producing a hierarchical trend in development. The Chongqing Road and Hongqi Street commercial districts have a relatively high spatial concentration of retail stores. Retail stores in Guilin Road exhibit distinct characteristics, namely, stores selling textiles, clothing, and daily necessities show the highest concentration, and food, beverage, and tobacco outlets as well as integrated stores show the lowest concentration. The selected locations of the differing categories of stores on Chongqing Road strongly correlate, and textile, clothing, and daily necessity stores show a high correlation with other retail categories. Four main factors affect the development and spatial layout of retail in the commercial districts. First, the interaction between consumer behavior and location choice in retail stores promotes the evolution of retail formats and trends in the development of comprehensive, specialized, and hierarchical retail commercial spaces. Second, the retail format determines the spatial layouts and the historical inheritance of the format. Third, governmental planning and policies lead to the agglomeration and diffusion of commercial activities in different areas. Fourth, such spatial clustering effects are an external driving factor for integration and aggregation among retail formats. (shrink)

Das Ruhrgebiet ist eine polyzentrisch strukturierte Agglomeration und obwohl die Region in ihrer Außenwirkung als zusammenhängende Einheit wahrgenommen wird, verstehen sich ihre Bürger:innen primär als Einwohner:innen von unterschiedlichen Städten. Keine andere Region weltweit hat den tiefgreifenden Umbau so sozialverträglich über einen „verhandelten“ Strukturwandel gelöst. Allerdings hat die Transformation auch soziale Spaltungsprozesse nicht verhindern können. Das Ruhrgebiet wird in neueren Rankings nicht mehr nur als Absteiger gesehen, sondern einzelne Städte verzeichnen Wachstumserfolge (insbesondere hat sich die Region durch den Aufbau einer (...) breit gefächerten Hochschullandschaft profiliert). Die Transformation in Richtung einer ökologisch ausgerichteten Wissensregion wird weitrergehen, bedarf aber einer noch intensiveren Kooperation aller beteiligten Akteure und gemeinsamer „Vorwärtserzählungen“. (shrink)

In the amalgamation of the agglomeration of Charleroi the attempt was made to achieve political representation of each sub-municipality both in the municipal council and on the municipal executive board. As regards service provision, the principle of decentralisation was honoured in order not to lose contact with the people. Administrative bodies to be newly established were necessarily decentralised because of infrastructural problems, which complicate the concentration. As far as personnel matters are concerned, the old staf! was kept in its (...) familiar places. The administrative task expansion required more qualified personnel, a problem that was resolved to a large part by training of the existing personnel.Organisationally, the amalgamation required an expansion and implementation of a number of facilities to assure communication. Financially, the amalgamation was doomed to fail because of the non-adjustment of the Municipal Fund, the bad economic situation of the region, and the failure of the national authorities to live up to the obligations they had agreed upon. (shrink)

The idea of amalgamation for the Brussels municipalities is already an old one. In addition to the numerous parliamentary attempts to return to the situation of before 1795, when eight Brussels municipalities formed an administrative unit, there were also the Holvoet Report of 1936 and the establishment of the State Commissariat for the Large Agglomerations during the Second World War. In 1942, «Gross Brüssel» was created, but it was dissolved after the liberation. Except for the proposals of the Union of (...) Cities, things remained rather quiet until the first amalgamation operation of 1971. Brussels was not involved in these amalgamation operations primarily because of the complexity of the Brussels problem over which the Flemish and the French speaking groups could not come to an agreement. The recent proposals can be placed into three categories : a complete amalgamation of the 19 municipalities into one entity, a partial amalgamation of 3 to 10 entities, the status quo. Since the amalgamation means an increase in the municipal expenses because of equalisation of the services in the sub-municipalities at a higher level, integral amalgamation of the present 19 municipalities offers no solution for the financial difficulties besetting these municipalities. In addition,this integral amalgamation solution generales negative reactions from the people of Brussel, who see in it a demand of the Flemish Movement. (shrink)

Several proponents of the knowledge-first programme have argued that one has an obligation to believe that p if one is in a position to know that p. I argue that this is false since obligations agglomerate but being in a position to know does not. Moreover, I demonstrate that if one is obligated to believe that which one is in a position to know, then self-reflective subjects are practically always obligated to believe p and obligated to believe that they do (...) not know that p. Finally, I suggest that this argument generalizes to many candidate positive epistemic obligations. (shrink)

Extensive urbanization is one of the most significant demographic and geopolitical phenomena of our time. Yet, with few exceptions, constitutional theory has failed to turn its attention to this crucial trend. In particular, the burgeoning constitutional literature aimed at addressing phenomena such as democratic backsliding, constitutional retrogression, and populist threats to judicial independence and the rule of law has failed to respond to the significance of place as an emerging cleavage in contemporary politics. An alarming disconnect has emerged between constitutionalism's (...) overwhelmingly statist (or Westphalian) outlook and the reality of geographically localized concentration of worldviews, policy preferences, and political identities. In this essay, I identify urban agglomeration and the accompanying resurgence of the urban-rural divide as posing a critical challenge to liberal constitutional democracy, and argue that the time is ripe to pay closer attention to the spatial dimension of constitutional governance and its impact on the rise of anti-establishment political resentment. To that end, in the essay's final part I identify several areas of constitutional law and theory that appear to hold some intellectual promise in thinking creatively about mitigating the urban-rural divide, and about the mounting urban challenge more generally. (shrink)

Political power in Brussels is not distributed randomly over its area. There is hardly any political power situated in districts with a very low socio-economic status, white there is an overconcentration of political power in districts with a high SES in relation to their population. The residents of very low SES districts are deprived in two ways : almost no power is situated in their districts and the office bolders who do live in them are generally among the least powerful.It (...) is noted that the power of the Dutch-language parties is distributed over the Brussels agglomeration in another way than the French-language parties. The power of the Dutch-language parties is situated primarily in low SES districts, while French-language parties have their power mainly in districts with a high SES.The lack of political power of very low SES districts is not new. Since World War II, there has never been much power located in the zones where the part of the population that occupies the base of the production process lives. Democracy is still not able to prevent the formation of areas within the Brussels agglomeration in which the residents have a very small share in the power of the political parties. (shrink)

In this volume, John Horty brings to bear his work in logic to present a framework that allows for answers to key questions about reasons and reasoning, namely: What are reasons, and how do they support actions or conclusions?

Science is very difficult system which for a lot century. It was formed and in this process agglomerate knowledge, structure, tradition, special language and institutional elements. Today the science is not limited by the scope of one paradigm and even can communicate «through the paradigm». Many philosophers, scientists consider this form of science is transdisciplinary. Structure and information of science become more and this process must developing, perfecting, founding special approach for interpretation of scientific knowledge. Understanding of interaction between the (...) subject and the object of the cognitive process, interpretation of it performs a special role in this process. This problem should consider one of the fundamental because it always «shows itself» since the time when it has begun classical science and philosophy. Absolutely scientific conceptions and categories were reinterpreted, role of the subject in cognitive process and interpretation were modified. In philosophy some methodological tradition was formed that helps to carry out hermeneutical analysis process of legalization knowledge’s of subject in objectivity form. However, we don’t speak about traditional hermeneutics which fixed on Schleiermacher’s and Gadamer’s philosophy as well as sense of the ancient Greek notion ερμηνεύειν which is famous «give an interpretation». In the field of Humanities and Social Science became denote interpretation of a text or principal of philosophical approach make scientifically knowledge such as intellectual activity of the subject. This subject can interpret reality in form of actuality. The classical science and philosophy (methodology of science) appeared in XVII-XVIII centuries and together with it aroused a new problem. This problem is explain the reality in a science and philosophy (understanding it such as actuality). It`s a necessity to know which one of notions make guidelines of this Scientific’s knowledges. The subject (person) related together with notion of rationality, logic, systematic, objective and this notions don`t work separately. Science is the system, which interpreted knowledge, and this assumption is attribute of modern scientific paradigm. In this paradigm knowledge is available as positive, exact, significant. Another information about actuality, which was outside positivity, is interpreted as not being knowledge. This situation was normative untill the XX century. The foundation of modern interpretation of knowledge and function system of knowledge was made a long time before Auguste Comte. The notion «objectivity» in opinion of modern philosopher didn’t need reasoning or special status. This discourse indicated evidence, impartiality and separation between subject and object. So it is precision of displayed in gained under the knowledge. It was based on classical universal science methodology and modern philosophy. Then the methodological of specific science take part in it. Einstein’s theory changed the pace of science. The quantum mechanics played a special role in this process. The subject has large influence on objectivity. The problem of understanding by subject or explorer of object is difficult because the rule of rationality can allowable by being. This is faith in intelligibility of reality and accordance of structure of reality to structure of psychics (brain based on mathematical principals explains the nature process). The mathematics is considered to guaranty status of «objectivity” of subject. The subject did not make mathematics. Scientist was opened the mathematic. However, the mathematic without notion of «time», «space» and «mater» is not important in science. This notion doesn’t have meaning outside people’s understanding. Only mind and intellect can unite mathematic with fundamental imaginaries about reality in science. Key words: subject, object, cognition, paradigm, interpretation, reality. (shrink)