Automatic Generation Control in modern power systems is getting complex, due to intermittency in the output power of multiple sources along with considerable digressions in the loads and system parameters. To address this problem, this paper proposes an approach to calculate Power System Restoration Indices of a 2-area thermal-hydro restructured power system. This study also highlights the necessary ancillary service requirements for the system under a deregulated environment to cater to large-scale power failures and entire system outages. An abrupt change (...) in consumer load demands and disturbances in any control region of a multiarea system causes severe fluctuations in frequency and interarea power exchanges. However, simple Proportional and Integral controllers are most prevalent in the literature to effectively resolve AGC issues, while its integral gain is smaller due to the larger overshoot in transient performance. Therefore, an attempt has been made with a novel control strategy, known as the pseudoderivative feedforward with feedback controller, is developed to keep the interarea power exchanges and the frequency to the specified limits after load changes. A PDFF controller is designed and implemented using the flower pollination algorithm to obtain optimal dynamic performance for different types of potential power flows in a restructured power system under investigation. The proposed PDFF controller localizes the zero at an optimal place that reduces the rise time of the step-response to reduce the excessive overshoot and gives much better dynamic performances as compared to the PI control structure. The Integral Square Error is considered as a performance criterion to derive the optimized gain of the PDFF control structure using FPA. Different PSRI are computed based on the transient response of the 2-area deregulated multisource system and different restoration measures to be taken are also discussed. The simulation results clearly show that the proposed approach is very powerful in decreasing the frequency and tie-power digressions under different load perturbations. (shrink)

In order to create sustainable health systems, many countries are introducing ways to prioritize health services underpinned by a process of health technology assessment. While this approach requires technical judgments of clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, these are embedded in a wider set of social (societal) value judgments, including fairness, responsiveness to need, non-discrimination and obligations of accountability and transparency. Implementing controversial decisions faces legal, political and public challenge. To help generate acceptance for the need for health prioritization and the resulting (...) decisions, the purpose of this paper is to develop a novel way of encouraging key stakeholders, especially patients and the public, to become involved in the prioritization process. (shrink)

Cet article se concentre sur le contrecoup sociopolitique de la pandémie de Covid-19 et utilise le cadre de la philosophie de Hegel pour l’analyser. Premièrement, l’article étudie les protestations de principe de diverses personnes contre les mesures imposées par l’État pour contrôler la pandémie. Sur la base de l’analyse de Hegel de la double reconnaissance entre l’État et ses membres, sur laquelle reposent les démocraties modernes, on soutient que ces protestataires de principe refusent de reconnaître l’État comme l’effectivité de la (...) liberté publique, soulignant ainsi la fragilité inhérente des États modernes. Pour justifier leurs positions, les contestataires ont argué qu’ils ne se sentent pas reconnus par l’État. Comme solution à ce problème, il est suggéré que l’État doit développer de nouvelles façons d’intégrer ces personnes, non seulement à travers son cadre juridique et institutionnel, mais aussi sur le plan économique et socioculturel. Deuxièmement, l’article réfléchit à l’impact de la pandémie sur les relations interétatiques à l’aide de la thèse de Hegel selon laquelle un lien fédérant les nations européennes pourrait régler pacifiquement les conflits entre les États dans cette région du monde. On avance pour finir que l’impact mondial de la pandémie et de nombreuses autres crises (changement climatique, répartition inégale des richesses, etc.) crée un terrain d’entente, offrant une raison d’étendre l’approche européenne de résolution des crises interétatiques à d’autres parties du globe. (shrink)

Performance and control of upright bipedal posture requires a constant and dynamic integration of relative contributions of different sensory inputs (i. e., sensory reweighting) to enable effective adaptations as individuals face environmental changes and perturbations. Children with gymnastic experience showed balance performance closer to that of adults during and after proprioceptive alteration than children without gymnastic experience when their center of pressure (COP) was analyzed. However, a particular COP sway can be achieved through performing and coordinating different postural movements. The (...) aim of this study was to assess how children and adults of different gymnastic experience perform and control postural movements while they have to adjust balance during and after bilateral tendon vibration. All participants were equipped with spherical markers attached to their skin and two vibrators strapped over the Achilles tendons. Bipedal stance was performed in three 45-s trials in two visual conditions (eyes open, EO, and eyes closed, EC) ordered randomly in which vibration lasted 10 s. Posture movements were analyzed by a principal component analysis (PCA) calculated on normalized and weighted markers coordinates. The relative standard deviation of each principal movement component (principal position, PP-rSTD) quantified its contribution to the whole postural movements, i.e., quantified the coordinative structure. The first (principal velocities, PV-rSTD) and second (principal accelerations, PA-rSTD) time-derivatives characterized the rate-dependent sensory information associated with and the neuromuscular control of the postural movements, respectively. Children without gymnastic experience showed a different postural coordinative structure and different sensory-motor control characteristics. They used less ankle movements in the anterior-posterior direction but increased ankle movements in medio-lateral direction, presented larger hip and trunk velocities, and exhibited more hip actions. Gymnastic experience during childhood seemed to benefit the development of proprioceptive reweighting processes in children, leading to a more mature form of coordinating and controlling posture similarly to adults. (shrink)

Philosophy and Kafka is a collection of original essays interrogating the relationship of literature and philosophy. The essays either discuss specific philosophical commentaries on Kafka’s work, consider the possible relevance of certain philosophical outlooks for examining Kafka’s writings, or examine Kafka’s writings in terms of a specific philosophical theme, such as communication and subjectivity, language and meaning, knowledge and truth, the human/animal divide, justice, and freedom.

Health systems that provide for universal patient access through a scheme of prepayments—whether through taxes, social insurance, or a combination of the two—need to make decisions on the scope of coverage that they secure. Such decisions are inherently controversial, implying, as they do, that some patients will receive less than comprehensive health care, or less than complete protection from the financial consequences of ill-heath, even when there is a clinically effective therapy to which they might have access.Controversial decisions of this (...) sort call for a public justification for covering or not covering a given treatment. Priority-setting agencies play a key role in providing such a justification. A recent... (shrink)

A letter to The Times of London, May 9, 1992 protesting the Cambridge University proposal to award an honorary degree to M. Jacques Derrida.

L’article part de l’observation que la recherche sur les théories du complot est actuellement en plein développement, mais qu’elle est également fragmentée. En particulier, il y a une division croissante entre les disciplines aux approches culturelles et qualitatives, telles que l’histoire, les études culturelles et l’ethnologie, et les disciplines aux approches quantitatives et empiriques telles que la psychologie et la science politique. L’article affirme que ce « grand fossé » doit être comblé pour que la recherche arrive à une compréhension (...) authentique des théories du complot. Comme première étape dans ce processus de rapprochement, l’article examine, du point de vue des études américanistes, des recherches conduites de l’autre côté du « grand fossé », en psychologie et science politique. Il résume les travaux conduits dans ces domaines et en fait une évaluation critique, se centrant sur la méthodologie, les hypothèses considérant les croyances conspirationnistes comme dysfonctionnelles, les arguments parfois circulaires, le centrage sur les aspects individuels plutôt que sociaux et collectifs, l’indifférence quant à la définition du phénomène et l’ignorance des différences culturelles et historiques. L’article conclut en présentant des recommandations pour de futurs projets de recherches en collaboration. (shrink)

_Yanomami_ raises questions central to the field of anthropology—questions concerning the practice of fieldwork, the production of knowledge, and anthropology's intellectual and ethical vision of itself. Using the Yanomami controversy—one of anthropology's most famous and explosive imbroglios—as its starting point, this book draws readers into not only reflecting on but refashioning the very heart and soul of the discipline. It is both the most up-to-date and thorough public discussion of the Yanomami controversy available and an innovative and searching assessment of (...) the current state of anthropology. The Yanomami controversy came to public attention through the publication of Patrick Tierney's best-selling book, _Darkness in El Dorado,_ in which he accuses James Neel, a prominent geneticist who belonged to the National Academy of Sciences, as well as Napoleon Chagnon, whose introductory text on the Yanomami is perhaps the best-selling anthropological monograph of all time, of serious human rights violations. This book identifies the ethical dilemmas of the controversy and raises deeper, structural questions about the discipline. A portion of the book is devoted to a unique roundtable in which important scholars on different sides of the issues debate back and forth with each other. This format draws readers into deciding, for themselves, where they stand on the controversy’s—and many of anthropology’s—central concerns. All of the royalties from this book will be donated to helping the Yanomami improve their healthcare. (shrink)

One rationale policy-makers sometimes give for declining to fund a service or intervention is on the grounds that it would be ‘unaffordable’, which is to say, that the total cost of providing the service or intervention for all eligible recipients would exceed the budget limit. But does the mere fact that a service or intervention is unaffordable present a reason not to fund it? Thus far, the philosophical literature has remained largely silent on this issue. However, in this article, we (...) consider this kind of thinking in depth. Albeit with certain important caveats, we argue that the use of affordability criteria in matters of public financing commits what Parfit might have called a ‘mistake in moral mathematics’. First, it fails to abide by what we term a principle of ‘non-perfectionism’ in moral action: the mere fact that it is practically impossible for you to do all the good that you have reason to do does not present a reason not to do whatever good you can do. And second, when used as a means of arbitrating between which services to fund, affordability criteria can lead to a kind of ‘numerical discrimination’. Various attendant issues around fairness and lotteries are also discussed. (shrink)

Aristotle’s restriction of intellect to humans raised the problem of how animals are able to react to and learn from their environment if they lack the ability to recognize classes of objects, an ability supposedly conferred by intellect. Aristotle’s delineation of the internal senses into the common sense, imagination, and memory did not include a locus for the cleverness or prudence that he found animals to possess in varying degrees. Avicenna supplemented Aristotle’s internal senses by adding the estimative power, which (...) allowed animals to recognize the value of a perceived object in terms of its potential benefit or harm. Albert the Great, who showed more interest than most medieval philosophers in the problem of animal behavior, adopted the estimative power and began his inquiry by considering pygmies, which he judged to be the highest form of animal. This inquiry led Albert to weaken but in the end to retain the distinction based on intellectual abilities between animals and humans. (shrink)

It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred (...) to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters. Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals. Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely lifelogging and self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vital signs, emotional state recognition, food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, activity and personal assistance, gesture recognition, fall detection and prevention, mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed. (shrink)

NINE Morality and Prospection -- TEN Prospection Gone Awry: Depression -- ELEVEN Creativity and Aging: What We Can Make With What We Have Left -- Afterword -- Author Index -- Subject Index.

As health policy-makers around the world seek to make progress towards universal health coverage, they must navigate between two important ethical imperatives: to set national spending priorities fairly and efficiently; and to safeguard the right to health. These imperatives can conflict, leading some to conclude that rights-based approaches present a disruptive influence on health policy, hindering states’ efforts to set priorities fairly and efficiently. Here, we challenge this perception. We argue first that these points of tension stem largely from inadequate (...) interpretations of the aims of priority setting as well as the right to health. We then discuss various ways in which the right to health complements traditional concerns of priority setting and vice versa. Finally, we set out a three-step process by which policy-makers may navigate the ethical and legal considerations at play. (shrink)

For the past several years patients have been expected to play a key role in their recovery. Self management and disease management have reached a hype status. Considering these recent trends what does this mean for the division of responsibilities between doctors and patients? What kind of role should healthcare providers play? With findings based on a qualitative research project of an innovative practice for people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) we reflect on these questions. In-depth interviews conducted with (...) people with COPD, physiotherapists and a pulmonologist show that shifting responsibilities require a supportive attitude from healthcare providers and a dialogical communication between patients and professionals. Our findings show more is needed in order to motivate people with COPD to take responsibility and become co-owners in a process of recovery. The case example illustrates that people with COPD need support from fellow patients to learn to accept their disabilities. Awareness that COPD is more than just a lack of air, that mind and body interact, is a first step to investigate other potential problems and to enhance one’s quality of life. (shrink)

Abstract This paper reviews the connection claimed to exist between magic, witchcraft, and parapsychology. Special attention is given to issues raised by the late Prof. Peter Bodunrin of Nigeria, including the demand that knowledge gained by psychic means be grounded in beliefs justified by good reasons and convincing experimental evidence. In contrast, I argue for a more inclusive view of both knowledge and the scientific enterprise that recognizes the importance of non-experimental evidence and the influence of social trends on the (...) choice of research orientations. (shrink)

Coming Back to the Absurd is a celebration of the enduring significance and impact of Albert Camus's first philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus. This collection of essays, from some of the world's leading Camus scholars, examines Camus's unique contribution to philosophy through The Myth since its publication.

In a serial reaction time task, procedural memory was examined in Dissociative Identity Disorder . Thirty-one DID patients were tested for inter-identity transfer of procedural learning and their memory performance was compared with 25 normal controls and 25 controls instructed to simulate DID. Results of patients seemed to indicate a pattern of inter-identity amnesia. Simulators, however, were able to mimic a pattern of inter-identity amnesia, rendering the results of patients impossible to interpret as either a pattern of amnesia or a (...) pattern of simulation. It is argued that studies not including DID-simulators or simulation-free memory tasks, should not be taken as evidence for amnesia in DID. (shrink)

The argument of this article is that the Albert Memorial acted as a catalyst for some of Collingwood's most well known ideas in the philosophy of history and aesthetics. It was not, however, the exclusive source of those ideas, and indeed they had philosophical expression elsewhere. One may view his contemplations, then, as work in progress. For example, the logic of question and answer promoted by the Memorial was also prompted by Collingwood's reading of Bacon and Descartes. This was (...) a reflection of his determination to depart from the realism of his philosophical teachers. Similarly, the Memorial directs Collingwood's thought forward. The Memorial acts as a facilitator of his thought on history, which in the course of its formulation undergoes many transformations. The logic of question and answer also finds a place in Collingwood's early thinking about art, but even here it is in the process of constant transition. Collingwood's reaction to the Memorial helps us to conclude that there is nothing ironic about the fact that Collingwood loathed the structure that was also the instigator of one of his most influential philosophical doctrines. (shrink)

Giuseppe Franco hat mich mit süditalienischer Liebenswürdigkeit dazu eingeladen, einen kleinen Beitrag zum vorliegenden Hommage-Band zu schreiben, in dem ich von meiner „intellektuellen Beziehung“ zu Dir und „von der Bedeutung des Kritischen Rationalismus“ für meinen „eigenen Denkweg“ berichte. Kennengelernt haben wir einander vor inzwischen 53 Jahren kurz nach Deinem Dienstantritt an der Mannheimer Wirtschaftshochschule. Ich studierte damals in Wien, vor allem bei Bela Juhos, der in einer Art Dachkammer der Alten Universität seine Seminare, z. B. eines über „Wissenschaftstheorie und Quantenmechanik“ (...) mit maximal zehn älteren Studenten und bereits habilitierten Wissenschaftsphilosophen abhielt, sowie beim Altmeister Victor Kraft, dessen Privatissime-Veranstaltungen in seiner Wohnung in der Walfischgasse von noch weniger, handverlesenen Geistesschaffenden besucht wurden. (shrink)

There are two discourses that are used in connection with the provision of good healthcare: a rights discourse and a beneficial design discourse. Although the logical force of these two discourses overlaps, they have distinct and incompatible implications for practical reasoning about health policy. The language of rights can be interpreted as the ground of a well-designed healthcare system stressing the values of equality and inclusion, but it has less application when dealing with questions of cost-effectiveness. This difference reflects the (...) distinction between the deontological status of rights claims and a teleological approach presupposed in the language of beneficial design. However, the value of the separateness of persons contained in the discourse of rights can impose constraints on the adoption of a simple maximizing principle when thinking about the allocation of healthcare resources within a social contract for health. Throughout these issues are discussed by reference to the work of Peter Jones. (shrink)

Inhalt: I. AUSEINANDERSETZUNG MIT GRUNDPOSITIONEN DER KRITISCHEN GESELLSCHAFTSTHEORIE DER FRANKFURTER SCHULE. Hans ALBERT: Dialektische Denkwege. Jürgen Habermas und der Kritische Rationalismus. William D. FUSFIELD: Some Pseudoscientific Features of Transcendental-Pragmatic Grounding Projects. Evelyn GRÖBL-STEINBACH: Reflektierte versus naive Aufklärung? Kritische Theorie und Kritischer Rationalismus - Versuch einer Bestandsaufnahme. Kurt SALAMUN: Befriedetes Dasein und offene Gesellschaft. Gesellschaftliche Zielvorstellungen in Kritischer Theorie und Kritischem Rationalismus. II. DAS LEIB-SEELE-PROBLEM UND DIE KONZEPTION DER OFFENEN GESELLSCHAFT. Volker GADENNE: Ist der Leib-Seele-Dualismus widerlegt? Arpad SÖLTER: Der europäische (...) Sonderweg zur offenen Gesellschaft. Miroslav PROKOPIJEVIC: Justice in the "Open Society". Wojciech DOMALEWSKI: Zwei Toleranzbegriffe. III. VON DER TOTALITÄREN DER OFFENEN GESELLSCHAFT IN DER EHEMALIGEN SOZIALISTISCHEN LÄNDERN. Dieter WITTRICH: Alltagserfahrung als Politikum. Dariusz ALEKSANDROWICZ: Die sich öffnende Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde. Andreas PICKEL: Schocktherapie als rationale Reformstrategie? Eine Kritik der theoretischen Grundlagen radikaler Marktkonzepte und ein Plädoyer für Reformgradualismus. IV. METHODISCHE PROBLEME DER GESELLSCHAFTSWISSENSCHAFTEN. Herbert KEUTH: Sozialwissenschaften, Werturteile und Verantwortung. Michael SCHMID: Die Logik institutioneller Analyse aus der Sicht des Kritischen Rationalismus. Peter V. ZIMA: Framework ist kein Mythos. Zu Karl R. Poppers Thesen über wissenschaftliche Kommunikation. (shrink)

In his biography of Gerhard Gentzen, Eckart Menzler-Trott includes an extract from a letter written by Jean Cavaillès to his friend and fellow philosopher of mathematics Albert Lautman on 3rd Septe...

(2012). Introduction: The value and limits of rights: essays in honour of Peter Jones. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 15, The Value and Limits of Rights: Essays in Honour of Peter Jones, pp. 387-394. doi: 10.1080/13698230.2012.699394.