D. D. Martin

Purpose of the article is to present the way of application of methodology of environmental metrics within the total environmental assessment framework. An inevitable part of sustainable development initiatives is sustainable measurement metrics. This kind of metrics is being represented by three sets of indicators: Environmental, Social and Economic. Sustainability measurement metrics tends to measure environmental safety, social responsibility and economic efficiency. Studying behaviour of companies in sustainability measurement metrics application, using another scientific method is well welcomed. Methods used in article are synthesis, analysis, deduction and comparative analysis. We are synthesizing those methods in a presented model which examines quality of environmental improvements across departments of selected organization. In other words, the model is able to quantify an extent how individual managerial decision contributed towards overall improvement in environmental performance of whole organization. Model works with and additive elements. In order to derive results using multiplicative elements, we are using logarithmic method in a model. Scientific aim of the article is to synthesize scientific methods aimed at environmental performance measurement into unified and universal model usable by managements of small and medium-sized enterprises. The background of this mission is to ensure that environmental performance will be correctly reported, data delivered by various companies will be benchmarkable and consequently, Corporate Social Responsibility concepts worked out by individual organizations will be trustable. In the article, we are discovering that use of proposed universal model has marketable outcomes. Thanks to an existence of thriving markets valuating triple bottom line of sustainability, results delivered by the model helped to a company PintInox, S. p. A. to succeed at such kind of market. Conclusions the article delivers are pointing out an importance of interdisciplinary cooperation within field of sustainable development.

Cardiovascular diseases present the leading cause of death worldwide. Over the last decade, their preventio has become not only a central medical and public health issue but also a matter of political concern as well as a major market for pharma, nutrition, and exercise. A preventive assemblage has formed that integrates diverse kinds of knowledges, technologies, and actors, from molecular biology to social work, to foster a specific healthy lifestyle. In this article, the authors analyze this preventive assemblage as a heterogeneous engineer, that is, as an attempt to order complex everyday life into an architecture of modernism. This article draws on research conducted as part of the interdisciplinary research cluster ‘‘preventive self’’ bringing together analyses from social anthropology, history, linguistics, sociology of knowledge, and medicine. The authors report here primarily from ethnographic investigations into biomedical research, primary care, and educational practices in kindergartens. The authors conclude that the preventive assemblage largely fails to install any kind of singular order. Instead, it is translated into existing orderings producing heterogeneity of a different nuance.

Head stabilization is fundamental for balance during locomotion but can be impaired in elderly or diseased populations. Previous studies have identified several parameters of head stability with possible diagnostic value in a laboratory setting. Recently, the ecological validity of measures obtained in such controlled contexts has been called into question. The aim of this study was to investigate the ecological validity of previously described parameters of head stabilization in a real-world setting. Ten healthy subjects participated in the study. Head and trunk movements of each subject were recorded with inertial measurement units (IMUs) for a period of at least ten hours. Periods of locomotion were extracted from the measurements and predominant frequencies, root mean squares (RMSs) and bout lengths were estimated. As parameters of head stabilization, attenuation coefficients (ACs), harmonic ratios (HRs), coherences and phase differences were computed. Predominant frequencies were distributed tightly around 2 Hz and ACs, HRs and coherences exhibited the highest values in this frequency range. All head stability parameters exhibited characteristics consistent with previous reports, although higher variances were observed. These results suggest that head stabilization is tuned to the 2 Hz fundamental frequency of locomotion and that previously described measures of head stability could generalize to a real-world setting. This is the first study to address the ecological validity of these measures, highlighting the potential use of head stability parameters as diagnostic tools or outcome measures for clinical trials. The low cost and ease of use of the IMU technology used in this study could additionally be of benefit for a clinical application.

The impact of emotion on executive functioning is gaining interest. It has led to the differentiation of “cool” Executive Functioning processes, such as cognitive flexibility, and “hot” EF processes, such as affective flexibility. But how does affective flexibility, the ability to switch between cognitive and affective information, vary as a function of age and sex? How does this construct relate to “cool” executive functioning and cognitive-emotion regulation processes? In this study, 266 participants, including 91 adolescents and 175 adults, completed a cognitive–affective switching task with specific unpredictable switches, as well as measures of inhibition, attention, and cognitive-emotion coping strategies. We expected cognitive to affective switching to be more costly than affective to cognitive switching in females versus males, as well as higher switch costs in adolescents. Using linear mixed modelling, we analysed the effect of age, sex, and types of switching on reaction time. Results show that adolescents are slower switchers than adults, and demonstrate that females, although faster switchers than males, are slower when switching from cognitive to affective content than when they are switching from affective to cognitive content. Multiple regression analyses revealed age-specific associations between cognitive-affective switching and inhibition. These results converge with reported developmental and gender specificities in EF and emotion processing, respectively. Additionally, affective flexibility could relate to differences in vigilance and inhibition.

Central to Kierkegaard’s account of religious existence is his critique of speculative reason. This critique begins with the distinction between subjective and objective reflection. Its most radical aspects appear in Kierkegaard’s discussions of the paradox. In spite of Kierkegaard’s frequent comments on this notion, it is not readily understood. I want to argue against a common reading of this notion and propose an alternative reading. This alternative reading allows for a conceptually quite plausible account of the manner in which the paradox presents reason with a boundary, in virtue of its relation to objective reflection and to subjective reflection as well. Because of this boundary, reason points beyond its own achievements to a domain of contemplation and appropriation. This is a domain that reason itself identifies in connection with the paradox. It both surpasses rational achievements and integrates them into itself.

Social relationships are essential for humans; neglecting our social needs can reduce wellbeing or even lead to the development of more severe issues such as depression or substance dependency. Although essential, some individuals face major challenges in forming and maintaining social relationships due to the experience of social anxiety. The burden of social anxiety can be reduced through accessible assessment that leads to treatment. However, socially anxious individuals who seek help face many barriers stemming from geography, fear, or disparities in access to systems of care. But recent research suggested digital behavioral markers as a way to deliver cheap and easily accessible digital assessment for social anxiety: As earlier work shows, players with social anxiety show similar behaviors in virtual worlds as in the physical world, including tending to walk farther around other avatars and standing farther away from other avatars. The characteristics of the movement behavior in-game can be harnessed for the development of digital behavioral markers for the assessment of social anxiety. In this paper, we investigate whether implicit as well as explicit digital behavioral markers, proposed by prior work, for social anxiety can be used for predicting the level of social anxiety. We show that both, explicit and implicit digital behavioral markers can be harnessed for the assessment. Our findings provide further insights about how game-based digital behavioral markers can be used for the assessment of social anxiety.

The public is largely innumerate, making systematic mistakes in estimating some politically relevant facts, such as the share of foreign-born citizens. In two-step or multistep flow models, such mistakes could be corrected if better-informed citizens were able to convince their peers, in particular by using good arguments citing reliable sources. In six experiments, we find two issues that dampen the potential power of this two-step flow process. First, even though participants were more convinced by good than by poor arguments, many did not change their minds, even when confronted with good arguments. Second, participants are not inclined to spontaneously generate arguments that cite reliable sources, even when they have just been influenced by such arguments. Both issues should put a significant brake in the spread of political numeracy through the two-step flow process, in particular in non-dialogic contexts.

The aim of this paper is to present the way in which the Nicholas of Cusa understands the nature, scope and limits of papal power in the two considerations of the Priesthood in De concordantia catholica. Thus, the treatment of the Petrine office is presented separately from a monarchical perspective and from a conciliarist one. This will make it possible to clarify some common problems among the interpreters of the political thought of Nicolás de Cusa that affect the coherence of the ecclesiological project.

This collection of essays explores the questions of what counted as knowledge in Victorian Britain, who defined knowledge and the knowledgeable, by what means and by what criteria. During the Victorian period, the structure of knowledge took on a new and recognizably modern form, and the disciplines that we now take for granted took shape. The ways in which knowledge was tested also took on a new form, with oral examinations and personal contacts giving way to formal written tests. New institutions of knowledge were created: museums were important at the start of the period ; by the end, universities had taken on a new prominence. Knowledge exploded and Victorians needed to make sense of the sheer scale of information, to popularize it, and at the same time to exclude ignorance and error - a role carried out by encyclopaedias and popular publications. The concept of knowledge is complex and much debated, with a multiplicity of meanings and troubling relationships. By studying the Victorian organization of knowledge in its institutional, social, and intellectual settings, these essays contribute to our consideration of these wider issues.