Articoli di riviste sul tema "Social sciences – mathematics – problems, exercises, etc"

The article raises one of today problems, which needs to be solved in the conditions of the modern changing development of the Ukrainian society. The basis of this topic is high-quality professional training of future social workers who will be able to effectively interact with the family or its individual members. The authors emphasize that the use of art techniques in social work with the family is a new direction in the social professionals activities, for example, to prevent, diagnose and correct the clients’ perception; their awareness of the importance of the functions of their family and the formation of a valued attitude to the achievements of their kind, etc. The article also notes that through the use of a variety of pictorial, plastic, musical, metaphorical and other means, social professionals have the opportunity to creatively obtain material for research and assistance in solving family problems. The main idea of the training developed by the authors is to reveal the essence of art techniques in the activities of a social worker while working with the family. The presented training material is aimed at solving such tasks as to characterize the type of art techniques for the activities of social workers and social educators; to promote the awareness of future social workers of the value of the family and family relationships; to study the influence of gender on the life of all family members. Among the developed exercises are such art techniques as collage, meditation, work with plastic and paper materials, etc. The presented article emphasizes that art activity in cases of work with families will help to clarify the peculiarities of clients' perception of their own "family portraits", will allow to see the features of "joint activities" of family members and reveal the "world of parent-child relations". The authors take into account that both children and their parents are not often ready to interact with social professionals, feeling ashamed, afraid or just uncomfortable though the process of immersion in the world of creativity and artistic expression is able to implement important for family life therapeutic action and finding ways to solve complex problems.

On the basis of modern approaches, the article substantiates the problems of learning the vocabulary of German social discourse in classes at higher education institutions. The definition of discourse has been clarified according to various theories and approaches. The main aspects of studying the vocabulary of social discourse are highlighted. Based on the systematization and generalization of the theoretical assets of domestic and foreign researchers, as well as through comparative analysis, the main methods of learning social vocabulary were established: 1) use of factual material with a sufficient number of texts on social topics; 2) study of stable phrases and clichés; 3) the possibility of forming language competence with a set of exercises; 4) creation of conditions for independent work of students; 5) use of dictionaries and reference books. The method of working with the book Handbuch Knigge by Birgit Althaus, which is devoted to the rules of behavior and etiquette in various situations of everyday communication, is described. Based on the text, the choice of vocabulary of social discourse for students is substantiated (compound words, established clichés, non-equivalent vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, etc.). It was determined that vocabulary of social discourse has recently become one of the most studied spheres in modern linguistics. A comprehensive approach to the problem of learning social vocabulary stimulates the formation of language competence, which in turn leads to the formation of a holistic view of the culture and language of the German people. According to this, the research of social vocabulary for students with the aim of its further use in some day-to-day situations is promising. Keywords: social discourse; compound noun; stable expression; correct use; background knowledge; language competence; speech situation; mentality.

The principles of typology of scientific illustration can base on the classification system of sciences: natural (anatomy, medicine, botany, zoology, geography, astronomy, etc.), exact, social (regional history, archaeology, heraldry and genealogy). Technical illustration (mathematics, physics, chemistry) and applied graphics, images in works related to body techniques are considered separately. Classification by type of publications, by the ratio of text and visual series is acceptable: treatises, overages, catalogs. Classification by methods of description is possible: scientific work, travelogue, educational publication, illustrated list. Methodological approaches to the analysis of illustration: iconological, visual studies, multidisciplinary - form the research base for the study of scientific graphics.

AbstractThe problem of identification of coefficients and initial conditions for a boundary value problem for parabolic equations that reduces to a minimization problem of a misfit function is investigated. Firstly, the tensor train decomposition approach is presented as a global convergence algorithm. The idea of the proposed method is to extract the tensor structure of the optimized functional and use it for multidimensional optimization problems. Secondly, for the refinement of the unknown parameters, three local optimization approaches are implemented and compared: Nelder–Mead simplex method, gradient method of minimum errors, adaptive gradient method. For gradient methods, the evident formula for the continuous gradient of the misfit function is obtained. The identification problem for the diffusive logistic mathematical model which can be applied to social sciences (online social networks), economy (spatial Solow model) and epidemiology (coronavirus COVID-19, HIV, etc.) is considered. The numerical results for information propagation in online social network are presented and discussed.

This paper has several purposes. We present through a critical review the results from already published papers on the constructive semigroup theory, and contribute to its further development by giving solutions to open problems. We also draw attention to its possible applications in other (constructive) mathematics disciplines, in computer science, social sciences, economics, etc. Another important goal of this paper is to provide a clear, understandable picture of constructive semigroups with apartness in Bishop’s style both to (classical) algebraists and the ones who apply algebraic knowledge.

The penetration of the mathematical apparatus into the economy created the basis for the development of methods of economic analysis, econometrics, mathematical programming, economic statistics, etc. Today, the interpenetration of different branches of knowledge continues, in particular, the application of mathematical methods in the natural and social sciences and in the economic sphere. Among mathematical methods of data processing are polynomial, linear, quadratic, trigonometric, exponential and combined dependencies, differential and algebraic equations. The statistical processing of data from the evaluation of the structure and dynamics of the phenomenon has gone in the direction of correlation analysis and forecasting. The deep penetration of mathematics into specific sciences and the success achieved through a combination of methods from different branches of knowledge is described by many researchers. The possibilities of applying mathematics are increasingly being explored in areas of knowledge where phenomena are poorly structured and characterized by the high complexity of sociology, political science, management and economics. The article presents a retrospective analysis of the development of scientific and applied research concerning the process of mathematics of science and the possibilities of using mathematical methods in economics in particular. Problems and constraints encountered in applying mathematical methods in economic research have been identified. Measures have been identified to ensure the adequacy of the development of economic and mathematical models from the standpoint of approaches to their construction, the improvement of management processes and the improvement of the training of specialists in economic fields.

This article summarized the knowledge obtained from exercises with patients using computer-assisted rehabilitation. Working with a wide base of healthy individuals and patients with various problems yielded the results to summarize. This work utilized several rehabilitation devices using computer games and uncovered positive and negative aspects of contemporary rehabilitation procedures. we conclude in this research computer-assisted rehabilitation is the future of modern rehabilitation, so it is necessary to know all factors affecting patients’ health.

Determinism appears as a key concept for science from the moment of its emergence: science is designed to clearly and unambiguously determine the causes of observed phenomena and, on this basis, confidently predict the development of these phenomena. However, more than a century ago, after the emergence of quantum physics and the formulation of the theory of relativity and the principle of uncertainty, the classical understanding of determinism underwent a significant revision in physics, which was considered a model of science. Even more challenges to the concept of determinism have been received in the social sciences and humanities, which address objects that cannot be fully grasped by human experience and tested through experiments. At the same time, it is the social sciences and humanities that are increasingly being turned to for answers to the questions of what the future of society will look like and how to prepare for its challenges. All this led to the need to clarify to what extent the concept of determinism itself has retained its significance for science, as well as to clarify the modern understanding of concepts related to it, such as causality, indeterminism, uncertainty, etc. Important ideas and problems that have not been adequately understood to date were formulated in the classic works of prominent representatives of the natural sciences and humanities, in particular, such as the physicist Werner Heisenberg and the historian and sociologist Raymond Aron. With the development of science, the concept of causality only becomes more complicated and develops as a theoretical justification of the relations of causality, determinism and interdependence, and at the same time as an approximate model of causality as an objective and regular relationship of things, processes and phenomena. A separate task of science is to carry out a public clarification of essential changes in the concept of scientific determinism as an assumption about possible stable repeated connections, without which, however, scientific or even quasi-scientific systematization of knowledge is impossible.

Within the framework of the doctorate in educational sciences of the Universidad de San Buenaventura, Medellín-Colombia, attached to the research line: critical studies on education and curriculum, the present research was developed where some problems were identified in the teaching of mathematics, specifically in the learning environments used in the classrooms that do not favor the development of interesting classes, where students solve exercises in a fictitious way, making it impossible to apply knowledge outside the classroom, specifically within the social context in which students and their families develop. The thesis aimed to determine the incidence that prepared learning environments have on the development of algebraic thinking skills through a didactic proposal that involves the process of mathematization and mathematical modeling supported by the use of technology such as embedded systems and sensors, measuring the impact through an instrument that was designed to measure the first four levels of algebraization categorized in the ontosemiotic approach. A quasi-experiment is implemented by analyzing the data obtained by the control and experimental groups in the pretest and post-test, obtaining as a statistical result, the positive influence of the didactic proposal in levels 1, 2, and 4 of algebrization.

<div><p class="4">In the past decade, the methods and technologies of artificial intelligence (AI) have made great progress. In many cases, they have become part of the usual landscape of solving new or old problems in different fields of human knowledge. In this progress, there are several aspects, especially three aspects: the availability and universality of data in many fields of human activities; a deeper understanding of the mathematics of the basic control algorithm; and the availability and capability of hardware and computing which allows a wide range and a large number of data experiments. Considering these aspects, the key challenge for each problem and application area is to understand how to use these technologies, to what extent they may reach, and what constraints need to be overcome in order to obtain beneficial results (in terms of production cost, value, etc.). This challenge includes identifying data sources and their integration and recovery requirements, the necessity and cost of acquiring or constructing tag data sets, volume data required for measurement, verifying its feasibility, technical method of data analysis task and its consistency with the final application goal, and social and communication sciences are no exception. The knowledge in these fields is related to artificial intelligence, but they do have particularities that define the most appropriate type of artificial intelligence technology and method (i.e. natural language processing). The successful use of AI technology in these disciplines involves not only technical knowledge, but also the establishment of a viable application environment, including the availability of data, the appropriate complexity of tasks to be performed, and verification procedures with experts in the field. This paper introduces the methodology of generating artificial intelligence model, summarizes the artificial intelligence methods and services most likely to be used in social and communication sciences, and finally gives some application examples to illustrate the practical and technical considerations in this regard.</p></div>

The study of Differential equations and Difference equations play animportant and significant role in many sciences. These equations are used as mathematical tool used in solving various problems in modeling,physics, chemistry,biology, anthropology, etc. or even in social studies. Differential equations are used to solve real life problems by approximation of numerical methods. Theory of Differential and Difference equations has been taught at all levels in high schools and at the universities for all students, including students majoring in Mathematics. This is a micro –study in which the research is designed in an exploitative, qualitative, descriptive and analytic framework to analyze the differential-difference equations. In this study, theoretical concepts, descriptive, analytical and numerical methods about differential-difference equations which areclarified by related examples. This research article seeks to study the relationship between them. The finite difference method for solving equations leads to difference equationtheory, developing a parallel between difference equations and differential equations. The first differences are related to the first derivatives. Difference equations are discrete versions of differential equations, and similarly differential equations are continuous versions of difference equations.

Modern society is characterized by permanent challenges that create a situation of the need to preserve the key parameters of social development, taking into account temporary and situational deviations from the strategic direction of this development. The key to understanding the problem of determination in modern science can be the identification of regularities in the development of science itself. On the one hand, there is no doubt about the need to systematize knowledge and adhere to clear scientific criteria – especially in a situation of exponential growth in the volume and variety of knowledge possessed by modern society. On the other hand, science constantly abandons some part of its recent postulates, which turn out to be only partially proven hypotheses that have only partial truth. In the end, only the basic scientific criteria and the instruction for incessant internal criticism and self-improvement of science remain beyond doubts and changes, while the substantive part of science is in a state of permanent transformation and refinement. In a postmodern society, such a methodological and worldview instruction of science receives additional ideological legitimation thanks to postmodern principles of knowledge organization – such as rhizomaticity, discursiveness, narrativism, intertextuality, etc. The signs of science at its current stage of development are: a significant increase in the specific weight of interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research; emergence of new integrated sciences; the use of accurate methods in the study of methodological and epistemological problems of science and the demarcation of knowledge; search for new forms of research adequate to the latest specificity of the subject of the socio-humanitarian disciplinary spectrum; an intensive analysis of the relationships between the epistemological and axiological foundations of socio-humanitarian science. The research approach, which is based on the understanding of the factor of instability, fully meets the modern scientific and social demand for the designation of the content format and problematic challenges of modernity, provides an opportunity to grasp new cognitive horizons and slices of reality, which are characterized by signs of becoming, nonlinearity, uncertainty – that is, almost all attributes of a turbulent society.

The article is devoted to the organisation of educational excursions in the UK and their role in the educational process of secondary schools. The purpose is to analyze the existing experience of organising school trips and to identify opportunities for using this experience in modern education in Ukraine. The historical origins of educational excursions are identified. The results of surveys and other studies conducted in the UK to determine the attitude of teachers to excursions as an element of the educational process, as well as the problems that arise in their organisation, are highlighted. Current experience of conducting excursions in various subjects - history, geography, natural sciences, mathematics, social sciences, computer technology. The article identifies the most popular educational tourism sites in the UK and highlights the methods used to organise school tours (specially designed tours related to the school curriculum, master classes, workshops, etc.) It is noted that special educational and training centers have been set up at certain facilities to conduct training sessions. It is noted that in Britain, excursions to government facilities such as the Parliament, the Royal Palace, the residence of the head of government, and the court have become widespread. It is determined that most museums and other visitor attractions establish preferential conditions for receiving groups of schoolchildren or provide opportunities for free visits. The problems that hinder the development of educational tourism at the present stage of development, in particular, lack of funding, are identified. The role of charitable foundations in the development and support of school excursions and the directions of their activities are highlighted. The experience of involving business structures, in particular Hyundai, in supporting educational tourism is analyzed. The unique experience of parliamentary support for educational tourism through the development of special bills on outdoor education, which are at different stages of consideration by the parliaments of Great Britain, Scotland and Wales, is indicated. The elements of experience that can be used in domestic education are identified.

Although the General education programmes are aimed at developing children’s abilities to understand and communicate with the world of nature and to know the closest environment, the modern educational system devotes scant attention to environmental studies. Theoretically, everyone at school accepts the importance of research on environmental issues, however, practically only the teachers willing to discover something new are involved in such activities. Environmental education becomes more amateur. The believers in environmental research as the most efficient perception method do not have a feeling of disappointment. This is the exact media where social and ethical problems are successfully solved, socialization of children takes place, self-expression is encouraged, an attitude to protect nature is formed and abilities of scientific acquisition are developed. Mathematics is a valuable tool of environmental research in primary school. The author supposes that a right combination of mathematics and environmental studies can help with achieving positive results. Researching the immediate nature is the most efficient way to know it. The children acknowledge the environment through seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and sometimes tasting. Along environment acquisition, the valuable attitudes such as aesthetical perception and the moral culture are acquired. Environmental studies provides information necessary for successful teaching of natural sciences. The environment-centred activities assist the learners in gaining the initial skills at collecting and processing information. In the majority of cases, environmental studies cannot be imagined without mathematics, and therefore an accurate combination of mathematics and environmental education must be performed. In this case, a teacher experiences serious difficulties that can be overcome by the scientists fairly familiar with the methodologies of these subjects. The mother tongue, arts, physical education etc. encounter the same situation. The teachers and class mentors arrange plenty of nature trips, excursions and sightseeing tours. Nevertheless, due to lack of a clear policy and modern methodologies these activities are poorly coherent. Environmental studies are sponsored by private initiatives and thus not always are balanced and suffer from shortage of consistency, purposefulness and continuation. Key words: environmental studies, primary school, environment-centred activities.

Circular economy is a change of views on how human society is interconnected with nature, and is aimed at preventing the depletion of primary resources, reducing the negative impact on the environment, minimizing waste generation. The purpose of this article is to consider and trace the prerequisites for the formation and development of the concept of circular economy, having studied and systematized the approaches of representatives of different economic schools since 1800, in order to identify the circular economy as a new paradigm or not? To analyze ecological and environmental consciousness in the context of philosophical reflections, neoclassical and classical approaches, well-known economists of different times who made a significant contribution to the development and formation of economic science. This article examines and examines the views of such famous economists as A.K. Storch, T. Malthus, J. Mill, T. Veblen, J. Galbraith, A. Pigou, R. Coase, J. Stigler, L.V. Kantrovich, C. Koopmans, K. Boulding, N.P. Fedorenko, Opshur. Differences in their views and judgments on the problems they study. As a result of this study, using the historical method and systematizing various approaches of the authors, it was found that the prerequisites for the formation of a circular economy were laid more than 250 years ago, and theoretical and methodological approaches are not new and combine the results of research by scientists in various fields: philosophy, agriculture, environment, mathematics, economics, environmental management, etc. By the method of comparison and scientific modeling, the role of the circular economy in resource conservation is revealed while simultaneously achieving economic and social, as well as environmental results in order to preserve the environment and reduce the burden on the ecosystem by harmful emissions. This study is a continuation and supplemention of the author's research in the field of circular economy.

Background and study aim. Prerequisites and purpose of the study. Today, philosophical anthropology (in the context of physical culture) occupies an intermediate place between the biological sciences and existential philosophy, elements of which it uses to explain the problems of physical existence. In the deep spheres of the physical state of a man (in the continuum of his/her spiritual-moral, physical, subconscious-rational, irrational and anthrobiological subjectivity) one can find the true foundations of personal physical culture and give them an immanent-subjective expression of human strength (as a creator of culture globalized world). The purpose of the study is to characterize the physical culture of the individual in the context of philosophical anthropology. Material and methods. Sources of information were the authoritative database Web of Science Core Collection, Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine. Extraction of data from documents was carried out by means of a search query. In total, data on 102 documents containing such keywords as philosophy, anthropology, physical culture, sport were removed from the Web of Science Core Collection. Accordingly, 18 documents were found in the catalogues of the Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine. Further analysis was performed with these 120 documents. The results of the search query were recorded in the form of tables and a special text file, which was processed in VOSviewer. The requirements of dialectical logic, comparative method, method of phenomenological reduction, hermeneutic methods are chosen by research methods. Results. The most significant and popular thematic categories, journals, authors, articles, keywords are identified. The connection between the elements of bibliographic description of articles and individual groups of publications has been established. It is established that from the second quarter of the XX century among philosophers there is opposition to the understanding of human nature on the basis of the acceptance of some one of its essence (spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional and volitional, etc.), which determines the existence of any person. This was a denial of the approach to a man, which was called essential (from the Latin essentia – essence). The result of this transformation was to establish an existential understanding of a man (from the Latin existentia - existence). However, a self-contained existential approach is capable of producing a worldview distortion of personal physical culture, especially in conditions of restriction of freedom (for example, during a pandemic, war). Therefore, in modern philosophical anthropology it is necessary to adhere to a balanced combination of essential and existential understanding of a man in general and his/her physical culture in particular. In this way, philosophical anthropology is able to actualize various structures of worldview, including the values of physical culture. Conclusions. From the point of view of modern philosophical anthropology, athletes, in the broadest sense of the term (all those who purposefully engage in physical and sports exercises), are carriers of a set of socio-cultural values (moral and volitional qualities, morpho-functional properties, psychophysical abilities, etc.). These values, in the context of the globalization of civilizational development and the main axiological concepts (quality and standard of living, social order, well-being), should be considered as a means of activating planetary socio-cultural development.

The article is devoted to the analysis of futurological research as a scientific method of forecasting the future development of society in general and the educational sphere in particular. The author provides a general description of futurology, reveals the specifics of future research and singles out the methods and technologies used by futurology. The fact is emphasized that unlike astrology or utopian concepts, futurology relies in its forecasts on a set of methods borrowed from other scientific fields. The article emphasizes the importance of analyzing past and present events, developing alternative options for the future development of society in general and education in particular. The author emphasizes the interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity of futurological research and draws a parallel between futurology and educology as scientific directions that aim to predict future social development, determine its trends and specifics. The author pays special attention to the characteristics of the complex of research methods of futurology, as borrowed from the natural sciences, in particular mathematics, physics, cybernetics, etc. The article highlights the trends and directions of education development, which will be the main guidelines for the quality of education in the future. Futurology is a branch of social knowledge that deals with the analysis and development of concepts of the future by extrapolation of existing technological, economic or social trends, as well as substantiating the forecast of the development of future trends. Extrapolation is just one of the methods used by futurists when studying the future. When developing futurology, scientists aimed to create a new science, a kind of «philosophy of the future», which would focus on scientific and theoretical exploration and oppose utopian concepts. Today, futurology is considered as a science that is free from any ideological and socio-utopian doctrines, as a branch of social science, the task of which is to develop concepts of the future of humanity, prospects for the development of social processes. The main problems that modern futurology is interested in: 1) definition and evaluation of future development trends, in particular in the educational sphere. To do this, first, some current development trends are singled out and an attempt is made to characterize them in a certain way, to determine their possible influence on each other, and to describe their possible interaction under various scenarios; 2) identification of regularities among a variety of specific single determinants; 3) coverage of the analysis of the entire system (for example, the educational sphere), based on the identified trends and components of development; 4) forecasting the development of the system in the short-term and long-term perspective, including its development during the century under various possible circumstances; 5) using a combination of instincts and logic during research, and not just rational thinking.

Introduction. In the modern period there is a dynamic introduction of information technology in all spheres of social life. Scientific and applied achievements concerning the development of IT began to be actively used for the rehabilitation of people who became disabled, including those with problems with the musculoskeletal system, muscle atrophy, loss of hearing, vision, etc. Theoretical analysis. Advances in scientific and technological progress, especially in medicine, biomedicine, genetics, bioengineering, mathematics, programming, psychophysiology and neurophysiology, alongside the use of information and communication technologies, are changing the quality of life of people who find themselves in extreme health situations. The “industry of smart devices” is developing, assisting people in restoring the functions of lost organs. The use of “smart” devices raises the problem of ensuring free will and mental privacy, respect for privacy, which is one of the manifestations of individual freedom. In this regard, there is a need for the development of scientific directions that study the legal support for the implementation of neuro-interfaces and other “smart devices”. Results. Emphasis is placed on advances in biomedicine, psychophysiology and neurophysiology and other sciences, which, in interaction with the possibilities of information and communication technologies, contribute to the return of people with disabilities to active and fulfilling life activities. While using “smart” devices, there is a problem of ensuring free will and mental privacy, respect for privacy, which is one of the manifestations of individual freedom. It is emphasized that in the future there will be a need to resolve the dilemma between the benefits that “smart devices” can provide for people and the equality of people. The use of these devices in the absence of objective requirements may lead to inequality between people, creating advantages not conditioned by the natural qualities for some of them. The author puts forward an idea of the need to address the issue of qualification of the actions of those who hacked the neuro-interfaces, which caused death or additional harm to the person who uses it.

The image of Ukrainian geography is formed in the difficult conditions of the establishment of statehood, deep political and economic reforms, and geopolitical and military resistance to russian aggression. Geographical science still does not sufficiently respond to the contemporary demands of society for geographical information and geographical knowledge. The reformation of national science and education presents geographers with many new problems that need to be considered and solved. The latest information technology revolution, along with new technical capabilities, means more and deep complex requests for geographic information. The paper considers the mentioned issues. The authors focus attention on the features of the transformation of the functions of geographical science in the conditions of post-industrial society and new people’s interaction with natural systems. The technological findings created by modern society are a prospect for the implementation of many solutions in the sphere of sustainable economic, social, and ecological development, as well as the transition to new models of production and consumption, and adaptation to climate change. The paper mentioned that geography plays a significant role in the development of organizational plans and business models in EU countries in such areas as regional and local development, urban and community planning and development, emergency risk management, and transition to a circular economy. In Ukraine, unfortunately, geography, like other sciences such as mathematics and physics, is increasingly perceived as part of basic education. Public demand and the market for projects are practically not formed, which causes both gaps in the implementation of numerous EU directives and international standards, as well as the decline of the discipline. Currently, the war with Russia is definitely the one of the bitter phenomena that requires the involvement of geographers. The first reaction of scholars took place as early as 2014, which was reflected in the adjustment of several educational programs, including human geography, political geography, urban geography, landscape ecology, spatial planning and development, cartographic modeling and GIS, geography of transport systems, population settlement, etc. Simultaneously, today Ukrainian geographers talk about large-scale changes in research priorities, focusing on the assessment of losses and the potential for the restoration of territories, the sustainable development of cities and regions, and geostrategization.

The world wide pandemic situation revealed the problems in all spheres of human life which haven’t been faced before. Recently the world has changed greatly as well as the relationship between people and their professional activity. The great bunch of the workload, if basically acceptable, is done with the use of modern innovative technologies. Such problems have not trampled down the sphere of higher education as well. Distance learning, which was previously addressed to only as accompanying possibility of lessons conduct, nowadays is considered to be the only practicable form of conducting lectures, practical lessons, tests, i.e. it has become a usual daily practice for both teachers and students. Among the basic functional requirements to the electronic educational resources in the system of distance learning there are the visualization and interaction principles both when getting familiar with the theoretical material and when completing virtual laboratory and practical tasks. The Microsoft Office documents have become the most widespread elements among the electronic educational resources. That is why there is a pressing need in presenting the electronic MS Excel spreadsheets on the resource web-pages. The simple and convenient way to solve the problem of Excel documents introduction into the electronic resources of the distance learning systems is the use of cloud services. The services help to acquire the access to the information resources of any level and of any capacity with the possibility to allocate the rights of the users belonging to different groups in relation to the resources. For that purpose the availability of the Internet network access and web-browser would be enough \cite{Kravtsova2020}. The cloud calculation technologies introduction allows for the use of the programs that do not require special licensing, update versions monitoring and eliminates the need of software technical support as the provider himself exercises control over the functioning, data saving, antivirus protection and possible cyberassaults.The peculiarities of professional training of navigators require the students to acquire the knowledge of professionally-oriented tasks algorithms as well as the knowledge of technologies that can help to implements them. One of the main routines the officer needs to deal with on the navigational bridge is the use of the information systems of shipboard hardware. But before usage he needs to assure of the systems reliability. That is why it is extremely important to gain during the course of professional training the necessary skills of navigation equipment exploitation reliability assessment by means of Microsoft Office documents and cloud services. So the subject matter of the suggested research is the procedure development for the navigation equipment exploitation reliability assessment by means of modern services use in the course of professional training of future seafarers. The aim of the paper is the solution of the problems of optimum assessment of the information systems of shipboard hardware reliability by means of cloud technologies usage. The following tasks are completed in the course of the research: the peculiarities and characteristics of navigational information processed by the shipboard navigation and information system have been analyzed; the results of the information systems of shipboard hardware usage have been studied; the technological diagram of the basic components structuring of the “Information systems of shipboard hardware” complex for the Master’s degree training course has been created; the effective technology of the program Excel documents processing has been chosen; the system of access and usage of web-services for calculation tables processing in the system of distance learning has been designed;the process of competency formation which will enable students to use cloud services has been suggested.

There is cost-effective reasoning for designing a leagile supply chain (SC) strategy which refers to the synchronized application of both lean and agile approaches. Leagile strategy has been suitably applicable to manufacturing and has also been adopted by organizations in the optimization of deliveries of prefabricated building projects1,2. Companies equally embrace leagile strategy towards improving their competitiveness and realizing success3. Objective: This paper is an empirical study that examines the Supply Chains of Construction Companies to determine how Leagile Strategy impacts Competitive Advantage. Methodology: From a population of 4,015, stratified and simple random sampling procedure was employed to obtain a sample of 323 construction companies located in Nairobi-Kenya which were surveyed vide a cross-sectional approach. Diagnostic tests were conducted which revealed the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Using structured questionnaires formulated in a five-point Likert Type scale to collect data, inquiries were directed to 323 respondents who were Supply Chain Managers and Directors or their representatives obtaining response from 260. Analysis of information was done vide Statistical software for social sciences version 22, generating both descriptive and inferential statistics. Correlation, and a linear regression model were used to test the hypothesis. Findings: This study found that leagile strategy influences competitive advantage in the construction companies’ supply chains. The findings further showed that other additional factors besides leagile strategy influence competitive advantage. Conclusion: A major conclusion was drawn that competitive advantage is significantly influenced by leagile strategy in construction companies’ supply chains. It was further concluded that through leagile strategy implementation, construction companies improved their competitiveness, outperformed competitors and alleviate the various problems hindering survival. Furthermore, the study established that besides leagile strategy, there are other factors which are contributing to competitive advantage. Implications: There is an exposition of the existence of a significant influence on competitive advantage by leagile strategy. The finding enhances conceptual understanding on the association between those two variables and increases knowledge in strategic management. There is fresh literature on the fact that leagile strategy vide its attributes such as waste removal, TQM, strategic planning, flexibility, responsiveness, IT systems, economies of scale, etc. impacts on competitive advantage. Additionally, leagile strategy has the capabilities of attaining competitive advantage by reducing costs, differentiating products, enhancing customer service level and shortening the lead times. The study also compliments knowledge concerning methodology in terms of the use of stratified sampling procedure, diagnostic tests which ensure research instrument’s reliability and validity as well as the Statistical software for social sciences version 22 to confirm how leagile strategy influences competitive advantage. Limitations: However, major limitations such as the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic hindered the smooth data collection process and may have affected the response rate. This study recommends that construction companies should embrace leagile strategy to improve their competitiveness, outperform competitors and survive in the tumultuous business environment. This can be done through the implementation of practices which focus on reducing costs, differentiating products, increasing customer service level and shortening lead times. This research proposes that future studies should be conducted across other multiple industries and sectors using different methodologies from the current study.

Language skills are significant predictors of early academic and social-emotional outcomes of children and are important predictors of school readiness. This study aims to improve children's language skills through the application of mind mapping learning methods. This classroom action research used Kemmis and Taggart's cycle model. The research subjects were 12 children in group B consisting of eight boys and four girls. The data was collected through observation, interviews, and documentation with the validity of the data using source triangulation and method triangulation. This research uses data analysis techniques in the form of data condensation, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results showed that the children's language skills through the application of the mind mapping method in the first cycle were 75%, and in the second cycle had increased to 92%. Based on the results of teacher observations in the implementation of cycle I, the children's language skills obtained a percentage value of 61.5%, and in cycle II increased to 92.3%. While the results of observations of children's activities in the implementation of the first cycle obtained a percentage of 54%, and in the second cycle, it increased to 85%. This study found that the teacher's assessment of this mind mapping method was an easy method to understand so that it was easy to apply in classroom learning. The implication of this research is that it is necessary to carry out further research on the application of the mind mapping method for other aspects of development. Keywords: Early Childhood, language Skills, Mind Mapping Learning Methods References: Abi-El-Mona, I., & Adb-El-Khalick, F. (2008). The influence of mind mapping on eighth graders’ science achievement. 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<p style='text-indent:20px;'>These lecture notes address the controllability under state constraints of reaction-diffusion equations arising in socio-biological contexts. We restrict our study to scalar equations with monostable and bistable nonlinearities.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>The uncontrolled models describing, for instance, population dynamics, concentrations of chemicals, temperatures, etc., intrinsically preserve pointwise bounds of the states that represent a proportion, volume-fraction, or density. This is guaranteed, in the absence of control, by the maximum or comparison principle.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>We focus on the classical controllability problem, in which one aims to drive the system to a final target, for instance, a steady-state. In this context the state is required to preserve, in the presence of controls, the pointwise bounds of the uncontrolled dynamics.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>The presence of constraints introduces significant added complexity for the control process. They may force the needed control-time to be large enough or even make some natural targets to be unreachable, due to the presence of barriers that the controlled trajectories might not be able to overcome.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>We develop and present a general strategy to analyze these problems. We show how the combination of the various intrinsic qualitative properties of the systems' dynamics and, in particular, the use of traveling waves and steady-states' paths, can be employed to build controls driving the system to the desired target.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>We also show how, depending on the value of the Allee parameter and on the size of the domain in which the process evolves, some natural targets might become unreachable. This is consistent with empirical observations in the context of endangered minoritized languages and species at risk of extinction.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>Further recent extensions are presented, and open problems are settled. All the discussions are complemented with numerical simulations to illustrate the main methods and results.</p>

The current article discusses the main problems of human and machine translations, as well as introduces a new lexical description in machine translation for faster and more accurate translation. The new method uses so-called field indicators or the Field Indices to facilitate the MT search engine for words by marking these words with special components creating a semantic field, and allowing the MT devices to search for the word according to its usage in the text. The Field Index system covers the semantic description of the following main spheres: scientific field, public or social field and humanitarian field. These three spheres contain subfields that usually mingle with the parent index through a dash, with the parent index being with the first one. The scientific field includes such aspects as geography, mathematics, chemistry, physics, economy, medicine, etc., with related subfields like diseases and biological terms (for medicine), names of drugs (as a separate filed), finance and accounting (as part of economy), etc. Applied Sciences Index contains miscellaneous words used by other subfields of the same scientific sphere: e.g., computer, telephone, function and many others, and plays a crucial part in distinguishing polysemantic words such as mouse (hardware), root (in mathematics), etc. The public or social field contains subfields that narrow the meaning of words to a specific one and includes aspects as art, agriculture, law, education, religion, housing utilities, time, transportation, people, etc.i+iT Ss the widest semantic field containing a lot of subfields specifying words that belong to such groups as colours, architecture, games, music, sport, etc. (for art index), clothing, beverages, food and production (for agriculture index). Notions of time, people, professions and terms for religion and items used in household are present in this group due to its wide usage within the society. The humanitarian sphere deals mostly with terms used in languages, literature, manuscripts and libraries. These subfields help identify polysemantic words between nations and languages, book titles and ordinary words and phrases, and literary styles (documentaries, fairy tales, dramas, etc.). In turn, these can be further defined as prose or a poem. All formulae proposed in the project consider the presence of the Field Indices and its position at the end of the description of the word. Depending on the target language, the translated version should be identical with the source following this very principle.

AbstractTriggered by advances in data gathering technologies, the use of statistical analyzes, predictions and modeling techniques in sports has gained a rapidly growing interest over the last decades. Today, professional sports teams have access to precise player positioning data and sports scientists design experiments involving non-standard data structures like movement-trajectories. This special issue on statistics in sports is dedicated to further foster the development of statistics and its applications in sports. The contributed articles address a wide range of statistical problems such as statistical methods for prediction of game outcomes, for prevention of sports injuries, for analyzing sports science data from movement laboratories, for measurement and evaluation of player performance, etc. Finally, also SARS-CoV-2 pandemic-related impacts on the sport’s framework are investigated.

The article is devoted to the methodology of legal research: instrumental foundations. The article, which is a continuation of the material presented by the author in the previous issue of the journal on the conceptual, structural and philosophical-ideological foundations of the methodology of legal research, reveals the instrumental foundations of the latter. Such foundations are the three levels of methodological knowledge (groups of methods): general philosophical (universal), general scientific and special. The general philosophical (universal) level is represented by such methods as dialectical and formal-logical, where the first allows disclosing the internal content of constantly changing social and legal relations, the other contributes to the logical ordering of the research process and mental design of its results. Inside the group of general scientific methods, the special attention is paid to the system method, because it is a cognitive tool for comprehensive study of certain aspects of the multilevel hierarchically constructed outside world based on the system. One of the most important subsystems of the social system as a whole is law, which in a certain “static” plan is cognized by means of a structural method, and in a certain “dynamic” plan - by means of a functional method. In some cases, institutional, synergetic and hermeneutic methods are added to them. The most numerous is the group of special cognitive methods, which is divided into two subgroups: a) special methods of legal science and b) special methods borrowed from other sciences. The main method of jurisprudence is a legal (formal-dogmatic) method, by means of which the study of a certain legal phenomenon is carried out on the basis of dogmatic perception of the information contained in the legal act. This method is objectively used most in the study of certain problems of specific branches of law (constitutional, administrative, criminal law, etc.), resulting in a certain legal model - the stable statutory system of norms that should regulate certain social relations. These legal models are not always adequately manifested in practice and therefore in the cognition of state-legal phenomena cannot be limited to the formal-dogmatic method, and in order to avoid one-sided results, it is necessary to use other methods - those that allow taking into account the practice of social life of the studied phenomena. Among such methods: hermeneutic, comparative legal (comparative) method, as well as special methods of other sciences: political science, history, sociology, psychology, mathematics, etc. Involvement of the last-mentioned methods is a sign of the current stage of development of science studies and a necessary condition for the development of any science, including law. The expansion and complication of the subject of jurisprudence requires from a researcher an “interdisciplinary” approach to his knowledge, the use of not the method itself (in generalized form) of one or another science, but some of their research tools.

The relevance of the study is conditioned by many historical and modern aspects. In particular, by revealing the issues of creating an international organisation, it is possible to understand what functions the organisation had, and the purpose of the organisation's existence against the background of historical events and modernity. The purpose of the study is to highlight the prerequisites and history of the creation of the International organisation Group of Seven (also known as G7), to investigate the influence and significance of this organisation, both in the past and in the context of modern international relations. The scientific approach is based on methods of systematic analysis of other studies and publications, and analysis of documents, in particular, international treaties, memoranda, etc. In addition, historical and comparative, historical and system methods were used, which allowed determining the place of the organisation in the general historical process. The main results of scientific research should be considered the definition of both the prerequisites for the establishment of the Group of Seven and its results, namely: the activities and significance of the organisation, and the definition of the role of an international organisation in historical and modern contexts. Practical application of the results obtained in the course of research is possible as a tool for solving a number of both historiographical and political science problems. In particular, the study can help solve the problem of interstate relations between developed countries and developing countries, the problem of the political and economic unity of developed countries, the problem of relevance and loss of influence of Western countries, and the growth of influence of developing countries, the problem of the relevance of the G7 format and its replacement with the G20 format, etc.

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)“Let us not doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.” (C. S. Peirce) Introduction Doubting has always had a somewhat bad name. A “doubting Thomas” is a pejorative term for one who doubts what he or she has not witnessed first-hand, a saying which derives originally from Thomas the Apostle’s doubting of the resurrected Christ. That doubt is the opposite of faith or conviction seems to cast doubt in a bad light. There is also the saying “He has the strength of his convictions” which seems to imply we ought correspondingly to say, “He has the weakness of his doubts”. One might recall that Socrates was likened to an electric eel because his peculiar form of questioning had the power to stun his interlocutors by crushing their pet convictions and cherished beliefs under the weight of the wise man’s reasonable doubts. Despite this bad press, however, doubting is a rational activity motivated by a vitally important concern for the truth, for getting things right. And our capacity to nurture reasonable doubts and to take them seriously is now more important than ever. Consider these examples: 1) In the modern world we are relying more and more on the veracity of the Internet’s enormous and growing mass of data often without much thought about its epistemic credentials or provenance. But who or what underwrites its status as information, its presumption of truth? 2) The global financial crisis depended upon the fact that economists and bank analysts placed unbounded confidence in being able to give mathematically precise models for risk, chance and decision-making under conditions of unavoidable ignorance and uncertainty. Why weren’t these models doubted before the crisis? 3) The CIA helped build the case for war in Iraq by not taking properly into account the scant and often contradictory evidence that Saddam Hussain’s regime had weapons of mass destruction. The neat alignment of US neo-conservative policy and CIA “intelligence” ought to have raised serious doubts that might have derailed the justification for war and its inevitable casualties and costs. (See Burns in this issue — Eds.) 4) On the other hand, it is quite likely that corporations that stand to lose large sums of money are fuelling unreasonable doubts about climate change—to what extent we are responsible for it, what the chances are of mitigating its effects, etc.—through misinformation and misdirection. In this paper I want to go a step beyond these specific instances of the value of appropriate doubt. Learning how to doubt, when to doubt and what to doubt is at the heart of a powerful pragmatist approach to philosophy—understood as reflective thinking at its best. After considering two ways of thinking about doubt, I shall outline the pragmatist approach and then briefly consider its bearing on the problems of dogmatism and bullshit in contemporary society. Two Notions of Doubt It is important to distinguish doubts about beliefs from doubts about certainty. That is, in everyday parlance the term “doubt” seems to have two connotations depending on which of these notions it is contrasted with. First of all, doubt can be contrasted with belief. To doubt a belief is to be in “twosome twiminds” as James Joyce aptly put it: a state of neither believing nor disbelieving but hovering between the two, without committing oneself, undecided. To doubt in this sense is to sit on the fence, to vacillate over a truth commitment, to remain detached. In this context doubt is not disbelief but, rather, un-belief. Secondly, doubt can be contrasted with certainty, the absence of doubt. To doubt something that we thought was certain is not to doubt whether it is true or reasonable to believe. If someone asks what the colour of my car is and I say it’s painted blue they might then say, “How do you know that someone has not painted it red in your absence?” This is, of course, possible but it is not at all likely. Even if it causes me to be very slightly doubtful—and, as we shall see, pragmatism offers reasons to block this step—it would not lead me to actually doubt what the colour of my car is. To be less than fully certain is consistent with continuing to believe and doing so for good (even overwhelming) reasons. Of course, some forms of belief such as religious faith may require certainty, in which case to doubt them at all is tantamount to undermining the required attitude. There is also a notion of absolute certainty, meaning the impossibility of doubt. Descartes inaugurates modern philosophy by employing a method of extreme and radical doubting in order to discover absolutely certain (i.e. indubitable) truths. His Meditations involves solipsistic doubts about whether there is an external world, including one’s own body and other people, since perhaps its all a myriad of one’s own subjective experiences. Clearly such philosophical doubt concerns matters that are not ordinarily doubted or even seen as open to doubt. As we shall see, pragmatism sides with common sense here. A Pragmatist Perspective on Doubt With this preliminary distinction in place we can now list four pragmatist insights about doubt that help to reveal its fruitfulness and importance for critical reflection in any field, including philosophy itself: 1) Genuine doubts require reasons. Genuine doubts, doubts we are required to take seriously, arise from particular problematic situations for definite reasons. One does not doubt at will just as one does not believe at will. I cannot believe that I am the Wimbledon tennis champion just by willing to believe it. So, too, I cannot doubt what I believe just by willing to doubt it. I cannot doubt that it is a sunny day if everything speaks in favour of its being so: I’m outside, seeing the sun and clear blue skies etc. Some philosophers think that the mere conceivability or possibility of error is enough to generate a live doubt but pragmatists contest this. For example, is knowledge of what I see before me now undermined because I am not able to rule out the possibility that my brain is being artificially stimulated to induce experiences, as seen in The Matrix? Such brain-in-a-vat doubts are not genuine for the pragmatist because they do not constitute a legitimate reason to doubt. Why? For one thing we have no actual machine that can create an artificial temporally extended “world image” through brain stimulation. These are merely conceivable or “paper” doubts, unliveable paradoxes that we think about in the study but do not take seriously in everyday life. Of course, if we did have such a machine—and it is not clear that this is even technically possible today—this situation would no doubt change. 2) There are no absolute certainties (guaranteed indubitable truths). As we have seen, ordinarily the term “certainty” stands for the actual absence of doubt. That is what we might call subjective certainty since where I am free of doubt another might be doubtful. Subjective certainty is the common state of most people most of the time about many things such as what their name is, where they live, who their family and friends are, what they like to eat etc. There is also Descartes’s notion of what cannot be doubted under any circumstances, which we might call absolute certainty. Traditional philosophy believed it could discover absolute certainties by means of reason alone, these truths being called a priori. At the heart of pragmatism are doubts about all propositions that were previously regarded as absolute certainties. That is, there are no a priori truths in the traditional sense according to the pragmatist. Nothing is guaranteed to be true come what may, even the truths of logic or mathematics which we currently cannot imagine being false. It was at one time thought to be a necessary truth that two straight lines both perpendicular to another straight line never meet… that was, until the nineteenth century discovery of Riemannian geometry. What was supposedly a necessary a priori truth turned out to be false in this context. That anything can be doubted does not mean that everything can be doubted all at once. The attempt to doubt all one’s worldly beliefs presumably includes doubting that one knows the meaning of the words one uses in raising this very doubt (since one doubts the meaning of the term “doubt” itself)—or doubting whether one knows the contents of one’s thoughts—in which case one would undermine the sense of one’s doubts in the very attempt to doubt. But that makes no sense. The moral is that if doubt is to make sense then it might be wide-reaching but it cannot be fully universal. The human desire for absolute certainty is probably inescapable so the lessons of fallibilism need to be hard won again and again. Anything can be doubted—in so far as it makes sense to do so. This is the pragmatist doctrine of fallibilism. It is the position one gets by making room for doubt in one’s system of beliefs without lapsing into complete skepticism. 3) Inquiry is the fallibilistic removal of doubt. Doubt is an unsettled state of mind and “the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion” (Peirce, "Fixation" 375). We are, by nature, epistemically conservative and retain our body of beliefs, or as many of them as possible, in the face of positive reasons for doubt. A doubt stimulates us to an inquiry, which ends by dissolving the doubt and, perhaps, a slight readjustment of our network of beliefs. Since this inquiry is a fallible one nothing is guaranteed to be held fast: there are no eternal truths or indispensable methods. Ancient Pyrrhonian skeptics developed techniques for doubting whether we have any reason to believe one thing rather than another. A famous argument-form they explored is called Agrippa’s Trilemma. If we ask why we should believe any given belief then we must give another belief to serve as a reason. But then the same question arises for it in turn and so on. If we are to avoid the looming infinite regress of reasons for reasons we seem to only have two unpalatable options: either to argue viciously in a circle; or to simply stop at some arbitrary point. The argument thus seems to show that nothing we believe is justified. Pragmatism blocks this trilemma at its origin by arguing that our beliefs conform to a default-and-challenge structure. Current beliefs have the status of default entitlements unless or until specific challenges to them (real doubts) are legitimately raised. On this conception we can be entitled to the beliefs we actually have without requiring reasons for them simply because we have them and lack any good reason for doubt. In an image owed to Otto Neurath, we rebuild our wooden ship of beliefs whilst at sea, replacing planks as need be but, since we must stay afloat, never all planks at once (Quine). Inquiry demands the removal of all actual doubt, not all possible doubt. A belief is, as Charles Peirce conceives it, a habit of action. To doubt a belief, then, is to undermine one’s capacity to act in the relevant respect. The ancient philosopher, Pyrrho, was reputed to need handlers to stop him putting his hands into fire or walking off cliffs because, as a radical skeptic, he lacked the relevant beliefs about fire and falling to make him aware of any danger. The pragmatist, oriented towards action and human practices, does not rest content with his doubts but overcomes them in favour of settled beliefs by way of “a continual process of re-experimenting and re-creating” (Dewey 220) 4) Inquiry requires a democratic ethics. The pragmatist conception of inquiry rehabilitates Plato’s analogy between self and society: the norms of how one is to conduct one’s inquiries are the norms of democratic society. Inquiry is a cooperative human interaction with an environment not, as in the Cartesian tradition, a private activity of solitary a priori reflection. It depends on a social conception of (fallible) reason—understood as intelligent action— which conforms to the democratic ethical principles of the fair and equal right of all to be heard, an invitation and openness to criticism, the toleration of dissenting voices, and instituting methods to help cooperatively resolve disagreements, etc. We inquire in medias res (in the middle of things)—that is, from the midst of our current beliefs and convictions within a community of inquirers. There is no need for a Cartesian propaedeutic doubt to weed out any trace of falsity at the start of inquiry. From the pragmatist point of view we must learn to live with the ineliminable possibility of error and doubt, and of inevitable shortcomings in both our answers and methods. Problems can be overcome as they arise through a self-correcting experimental method of inquiry in which nothing is sacred. A key feature of this conception of inquiry is that it places reasonable doubt at its centre: 1) a sustained doubting of old “certainties” of traditional authorities (e.g. religious, political) or of traditional a priori reason (philosophy); 2) a constant need to distinguish genuine or live doubts from philosophical or paper doubts; 3) and the idea that genuine doubts are both the stimulant to a new inquiry and, when dissolved, signal its end. Dogmatism The importance of the pragmatist conceptions of inquiry and doubt can be appreciated by seeing that various pathologies of believing—pathologies of how to form and maintain beliefs that—are natural to us. Of particular note are dogmatism and fanaticism, which are forms of fixed believing unhinged from rational criticism and sustained without regard to such matters as evidential support, reasonableness and plausibility within the wider community of informed inquirers. Since they divide the world into us and them, fellow-believers and the rest, they inevitably lead to disagreements and hostility. Dogmatists and fanatics loom large in the contemporary world as evidenced by the widespread and malevolent influence of religious, ideological and political dogmas, confrontational forms of nationalism, and fanatical “true believers” in all shapes and forms from die-hard conspiracy theorists to adherents of fad diets and the followers of self-appointed gurus and cult-leaders. The great problem with such forms of believing is that they leave no room for reasonable doubts, which history tells us inevitably arise in matters of human social life and our place in the world. And as history also tells us we go to war and put each other to death over matters of belief and disbelief; of conviction and its lack. Think of Socrates, Jesus, the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Oscar Romero to name only a small few who have been killed for their beliefs. A great virtue of pragmatism is its anti-authoritarian stance, which is achieved by building doubt into its very methodology and by embracing a democratic ethos that makes each person equally answerable to reasonable doubt. From this perspective dogmatists and fanatical believers are ostracised as retaining an outmoded authoritarian conception of believing that has been superseded in the most successful branches of human inquiry—such as the natural sciences. Bullshit To bullshit is to talk without knowing what one is talking about. Harry Frankfurt has observed, “one of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit” (117); and he goes on to argue that bullshitters are “a greater enemy of truth than liars are” (132). Liars care about the truth since they are trying to deceive others into believing what is not true. Bullshitters may say what is true but more often exaggerate, embellish and window-dress. Their purposes lies elsewhere than getting things right so they do not really care whether what they say is true or false or a mixture of the two. Politicians, advertising agents, salesmen and drug company representatives are notorious for bullshitting. Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman” is a famous example of political bullshit. He said it for purely political reasons and when he was found to have lied (the evidence being the infamous unwashed dress of Monica Lewinsky) he changed the lie into a truth by redefining the word “sex”—another example of bullshit. The bullshitter can speak the truth but what matters is always the spin. The bullshitter need not (contra Frankfurt) hide his own lack of concern for the truth. He plays at truth-telling but he can do this more or less openly. The so-called bullshit artist may even try to make a virtue out of revealing his bullshit as the bullshit it is, thereby making his audience complicit. But the great danger of bullshit is not so much to others, as to oneself. Inveterate bullshitters are inevitably tempted to believe their own bullshit leading to a situation in which they do not know their own minds. Only one who knows his own mind is aware of what he is committed to, and what he takes responsibility for in the wider community of inquirers who rely on each other for information and reasonable criticism. Doubting provides a defence against bullshitters since it blocks their means: the doubter reaffirms a concern for the truth including the truth about oneself, which the bullshitter is wilfully avoiding. To doubt is to withhold a commitment to the truth through a demand not to commit too hastily or for the wrong reasons. A concern for the truth, for getting things right, is thus central to the practice of reasonable doubting. And reasonably doubting, in turn, depends on knowing one’s own mind, what truths one is committed to, and what epistemic responsibilities one thus incurs to justify and defend truths and to criticise falsehood. Democracy and fallibilist inquiry were borne of doubts about the benevolence, wisdom and authority of tyrants, dictators, priests and kings. Their continued vitality depends on maintaining a healthy skepticism about the beliefs of others and about whether we know our own minds. Only so can we sustain our vital concern for the truth in the face of the pervasive challenges of dogmatists and bullshitters. References Descartes, R. “Meditations on First Philosophy.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Vols. I-III. J. Cottingham et. al., eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985/1641. Dewey, J. The Middle Works, 1899-1924 Vol 12. Ed. Jo Ann Boydston. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982. Dewey, J. The Middle Works, 1899-1924 Vol 14. Ed. Jo Ann Boydston. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983. Frankfurt, H. “On Bullshit.” The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1988. Joyce, J. Finnegan’s Wake. Penguin: London, 1999/1939. Peirce, C.S. “Some Consequences of Four Incapacities.” 1868. In The Essential Peirce.———. “The Fixation of Belief.” 1877. In The Essential Peirce. ———. “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.” 1878. In The Essential Peirce. ———. The Essential Peirce: Vol. 1. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. ———. The Essential Peirce: Vol. 2. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. Quine, W.V. Theories and Things. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981. Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Scepticism. Trans. J. Barnes & J. Annas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Wittgenstein, L. On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell, 1969.

Complex systems are an invention of the universe. It is not at all clear that science has an a priori primacy claim to the study of complex systems. (Galanter 5) Introduction In popular dialogues, describing a system as “complex” is often the point of resignation, inferring that the system cannot be sufficiently described, predicted nor managed. Transport networks, management infrastructure and supply chain logistics are all often described in this way. In socio-cultural terms “complex” is used to describe those humanistic systems that are “intricate, involved, complicated, dynamic, multi-dimensional, interconnected systems [such as] transnational citizenship, communities, identities, multiple belongings, overlapping geographies and competing histories” (Cahir & James). Academic dialogues have begun to explore the collective behaviors of complex systems to define a complex system specifically as an adaptive one; i.e. a system that demonstrates ‘self organising’ principles and ‘emergent’ properties. Based upon the key principles of interaction and emergence in relation to adaptive and self organising systems in cultural artifacts and processes, this paper will argue that complex systems are cultural systems. By introducing generic principles of complex systems, and looking at the exploration of such principles in art, design and media research, this paper argues that a science of cultural systems as part of complex systems theory is the post modern science for the digital age. Furthermore, that such a science was predicated by post structuralism and has been manifest in art, design and media practice since the late 1960s. Complex Systems Theory Complexity theory grew out of systems theory, an holistic approach to analysis that views whole systems based upon the links and interactions between the component parts and their relationship to each other and the environment within they exists. This stands in stark contrast to conventional science which is based upon Descartes’s reductionism, where the aim is to analyse systems by reducing something to its component parts (Wilson 3). As systems thinking is concerned with relationships more than elements, it proposes that in complex systems, small catalysts can cause large changes and that a change in one area of a system can adversely affect another area of the system. As is apparent, systems theory is a way of thinking rather than a specific set of rules, and similarly there is no single unified Theory of Complexity, but several different theories have arisen from the natural sciences, mathematics and computing. As such, the study of complex systems is very interdisciplinary and encompasses more than one theoretical framework. Whilst key ideas of complexity theory developed through artificial intelligence and robotics research, other important contributions came from thermodynamics, biology, sociology, physics, economics and law. In her volume for the Elsevier Advanced Management Series, “Complex Systems and Evolutionary Perspectives on Organisations”, Eve Mitleton-Kelly describes a comprehensive overview of this evolution as five main areas of research: complex adaptive systems dissipative structures autopoiesis (non-equilibrium) social systems chaos theory path dependence Here, Mitleton-Kelly points out that relatively little work has been done on developing a specific theory of complex social systems, despite much interest in complexity and its application to management (Mitleton-Kelly 4). To this end, she goes on to define the term “complex evolving system” as more appropriate to the field than ‘complex adaptive system’ and suggests that the term “complex behaviour” is thus more useful in social contexts (Mitleton-Kelly). For our purpose here, “complex systems” will be the general term used to describe those systems that are diverse and made up of multiple interdependent elements, that are often ‘adaptive’, in that they have the capacity to change and learn from events. This is in itself both ‘evolutionary’ and ‘behavioural’ and can be understood as emerging from the interaction of autonomous agents – especially people. Some generic principles of complex systems defined by Mitleton Kelly that are of concern here are: self-organisation emergence interdependence feedback space of possibilities co-evolving creation of new order Whilst the behaviours of complex systems clearly do not fall into our conventional top down perception of management and production, anticipating such behaviours is becoming more and more essential for products, processes and policies. For example, compare the traditional top down model of news generation, distribution and consumption to the “emerging media eco-system” (Bowman and Willis 14). Figure 1 (Bowman & Willis 10) Figure 2 (Bowman & Willis 12) To the traditional news organisations, such a “democratization of production” (McLuhan 230) has been a huge cause for concern. The agencies once solely responsible for the representation of reality are now lost in a global miasma of competing perspectives. Can we anticipate and account for complex behaviours? Eve Mitleton Kelly states that “if organisations are understood as complex evolving systems co-evolving as part of a social ‘ecosystem’, then that changed perspective changes ways of acting and relating which lead to a different way of working. Thus, management strategy changes, and our organizational design paradigms evolve as new types of relationships and ways of working provide the conditions for the emergence of new organisational forms” (Mitleton-Kelly 6). Complexity in Design It is thus through design practice and processes that discovering methods for anticipating complex systems behaviours seem most possible. The Embracing Complexity in Design (ECiD) research programme, is a contemporary interdisciplinary research cluster consisting of academics and designers from architectural engineering, robotics, geography, digital media, sustainable design, and computing aiming to explore the possibility of trans disciplinary principles of complexity in design. Over arching this work is the conviction that design can be seen as model for complex systems researchers motivated by applying complexity science in particular domains. Key areas in which design and complexity interact have been established by this research cluster. Most immediately, many designed products and systems are inherently complex to design in the ordinary sense. For example, when designing vehicles, architecture, microchips designers need to understand complex dynamic processes used to fabricate and manufacture products and systems. The social and economic context of design is also complex, from market economics and legal regulation to social trends and mass culture. The process of designing can also involve complex social dynamics, with many people processing and exchanging complex heterogeneous information over complex human and communication networks, in the context of many changing constraints. Current key research questions are: how can the methods of complex systems science inform designers? how can design inform research into complex systems? Whilst ECiD acknowledges that to answer such questions effectively the theoretical and methodological relations between complexity science and design need further exploration and enquiry, there are no reliable precedents for such an activity across the sciences and the arts in general. Indeed, even in areas where a convergence of humanities methodology with scientific practice might seem to be most pertinent, most examples are few and far between. In his paper “Post Structuralism, Hypertext & the World Wide Web”, Luke Tredennick states that “despite the concentration of post-structuralism on text and texts, the study of information has largely failed to exploit post-structuralist theory” (Tredennick 5). Yet it is surely in the convergence of art and design with computation and the media that a search for practical trans-metadisciplinary methodologies might be most fruitful. It is in design for interactive media, where algorithms meet graphics, where the user can interact, adapt and amend, that self-organisation, emergence, interdependence, feedback, the space of possibilities, co-evolution and the creation of new order are embraced on a day to day basis by designers. A digitally interactive environment such as the World Wide Web, clearly demonstrates all the key aspects of a complex system. Indeed, it has already been described as a ‘complexity machine’ (Qvortup 9). It is important to remember that this ‘complexity machine’ has been designed. It is an intentional facility. It may display all the characteristics of complexity but, whilst some of its attributes are most demonstrative of self organisation and emergence, the Internet itself has not emerged spontaneously. For example, Tredinnick details the evolution of the World Wide Web through the Memex machine of Vannevar Bush, through Ted Nelsons hypertext system Xanadu to Tim Berners-Lee’s Enquire (Tredennick 3). The Internet was engineered. So, whilst we may not be able to entirely predict complex behavior, we can, and do, quite clearly design for it. When designing digitally interactive artifacts we design parameters or co ordinates to define the space within which a conceptual process will take place. We can never begin to predict precisely what those processes might become through interaction, emergence and self organisation, but we can establish conceptual parameters that guide and delineate the space of possibilities. Indeed this fact is so transparently obvious that many commentators in the humanities have been pushed to remark that interaction is merely interpretation, and so called new media is not new at all; that one interacts with a book in much the same way as a digital artifact. After all, post-structuralist theory had established the “death of the author” in the 1970s – the a priori that all cultural artifacts are open to interpretation, where all meanings must be completed by the reader. The concept of the “open work” (Eco 6) has been an established post modern concept for over 30 years and is commonly recognised as a feature of surrealist montage, poetry, the writings of James Joyce, even advertising design, where a purposive space for engagement and interpretation of a message is designated, without which the communication does not “work”. However, this concept is also most successfully employed in relation to installation art and, more recently, interactive art as a reflection of the artist’s conscious decision to leave part of a work open to interpretation and/or interaction. Art & Complex Systems One of the key projects of Embracing Complexity in Design has been to look at the relationship between art and complex systems. There is a relatively well established history of exploring art objects as complex systems in themselves that finds its origins in the systems art movement of the 1970s. In his paper “Observing ‘Systems Art’ from a Systems-Theroretical Perspective”, Francis Halsall defines systems art as “emerging in the 1960s and 1970s as a new paradigm in artistic practice … displaying an interest in the aesthetics of networks, the exploitation of new technology and New Media, unstable or de-materialised physicality, the prioritising of non-visual aspects, and an engagement (often politicised) with the institutional systems of support (such as the gallery, discourse, or the market) within which it occurs” (Halsall 7). More contemporarily, “Open Systems: Rethinking Art c.1970”, at Tate Modern, London, focuses upon systems artists “rejection of art’s traditional focus on the object, to wide-ranging experiments al focus on the object, to wide-ranging experiments with media that included dance, performance and…film & video” (De Salvo 3). Artists include Andy Warhol, Richard Long, Gilbert & George, Sol Lewitt, Eva Hesse and Bruce Nauman. In 2002, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New York, held an international exhibition entitled “Complexity; Art & Complex Systems”, that was concerned with “art as a distinct discipline offer[ing] its own unique approache[s] and epistemic standards in the consideration of complexity” (Galanter and Levy 5), and the organisers go on to describe four ways in which artists engage the realm of complexity: presentations of natural complex phenomena that transcend conventional scientific visualisation descriptive systems which describe complex systems in an innovative and often idiosyncratic way commentary on complexity science itself technical applications of genetic algorithms, neural networks and a-life ECiD artist Julian Burton makes work that visualises how companies operate in specific relation to their approach to change and innovation. He is a strategic artist and facilitator who makes “pictures of problems to help people talk about them” (Burton). Clients include public and private sector organisations such as Barclays, Shell, Prudential, KPMG and the NHS. He is quoted as saying “Pictures are a powerful way to engage and focus a group’s attention on crucial issues and challenges, and enable them to grasp complex situations quickly. I try and create visual catalysts that capture the major themes of a workshop, meeting or strategy and re-present them in an engaging way to provoke lively conversations” (Burton). This is a simple and direct method of using art as a knowledge elicitation tool that falls into the first and second categories above. The third category is demonstrated by the ground breaking TechnoSphere, that was specifically inspired by complexity theory, landscape and artificial life. Launched in 1995 as an Arts Council funded online digital environment it was created by Jane Prophet and Gordon Selley. TechnoSphere is a virtual world, populated by artificial life forms created by users of the World Wide Web. The digital ecology of the 3D world, housed on a server, depends on the participation of an on-line public who accesses the world via the Internet. At the time of writing it has attracted over a 100,000 users who have created over a million creatures. The artistic exploration of technical applications is by default a key field for researching the convergence of trans-metadisciplinary methodologies. Troy Innocent’s lifeSigns evolves multiple digital media languages “expressed as a virtual world – through form, structure, colour, sound, motion, surface and behaviour” (Innocent). The work explores the idea of “emergent language through play – the idea that new meanings may be generated through interaction between human and digital agents”. Thus this artwork combines three areas of converging research – artificial life; computational semiotics and digital games. In his paper “What Is Generative Art? Complexity Theory as a Context for Art Theory”, Philip Galanter describes all art as generative on the basis that it is created from the application of rules. Yet, as demonstrated above, what is significantly different and important about digital interactivity, as opposed to its predecessor, interpretation, is its provision of a graphical user interface (GUI) to component parts of a text such as symbol, metaphor, narrative, etc for the multiple “authors” and the multiple “readers” in a digitally interactive space of possibility. This offers us tangible, instantaneous reproduction and dissemination of interpretations of an artwork. Conclusion: Digital Interactivity – A Complex Medium Digital interaction of any sort is thus a graphic model of the complex process of communication. Here, complexity does not need deconstructing, representing nor modelling, as the aesthetics (as in apprehended by the senses) of the graphical user interface conveniently come first. Design for digital interactive media is thus design for complex adaptive systems. The theoretical and methodological relations between complexity science and design can clearly be expounded especially well through post-structuralism. The work of Barthes, Derrida & Foucault offers us the notion of all cultural artefacts as texts or systems of signs, whose meanings are not fixed but rather sustained by networks of relationships. Implemented in a digital environment post-structuralist theory is tangible complexity. Strangely, whilst Philip Galanter states that science has no necessary over reaching claim to the study of complexity, he then argues conversely that “contemporary art theory rooted in skeptical continental philosophy [reduces] art to social construction [as] postmodernism, deconstruction and critical theory [are] notoriously elusive, slippery, and overlapping terms and ideas…that in fact [are] in the business of destabilising apparently clear and universal propositions” (4). This seems to imply that for Galanter, post modern rejections of grand narratives necessarily will exclude the “new scientific paradigm” of complexity, a paradigm that he himself is looking to be universal. Whilst he cites Lyotard (6) describing both political and linguistic reasons why postmodern art celebrates plurality, denying any progress towards singular totalising views, he fails to appreciate what happens if that singular totalising view incorporates interactivity? Surely complexity is pluralistic by its very nature? In the same vein, if language for Derrida is “an unfixed system of traces and differences … regardless of the intent of the authored texts … with multiple equally legitimate meanings” (Galanter 7) then I have heard no better description of the signifiers, signifieds, connotations and denotations of digital culture. Complexity in its entirety can also be conversely understood as the impact of digital interactivity upon culture per se which has a complex causal relation in itself; Qvortups notion of a “communications event” (9) such as the Danish publication of the Mohammed cartoons falls into this category. Yet a complex causality could be traced further into cultural processes enlightening media theory; from the relationship between advertising campaigns and brand development; to the exposure and trajectory of the celebrity; describing the evolution of visual language in media cultures and informing the relationship between exposure to representation and behaviour. In digital interaction the terms art, design and media converge into a process driven, performative event that demonstrates emergence through autopoietic processes within a designated space of possibility. By insisting that all artwork is generative Galanter, like many other writers, negates the medium entirely which allows him to insist that generative art is “ideologically neutral” (Galanter 10). Generative art, like all digitally interactive artifacts are not neutral but rather ideologically plural. Thus, if one integrates Qvortups (8) delineation of medium theory and complexity theory we may have what we need; a first theory of a complex medium. Through interactive media complexity theory is the first post modern science; the first science of culture. References Bowman, Shane, and Chris Willis. We Media. 21 Sep. 2003. 9 March 2007 http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php>. Burton, Julian. “Hedron People.” 9 March 2007 http://www.hedron.com/network/assoc.php4?associate_id=14>. Cahir, Jayde, and Sarah James. “Complex: Call for Papers.” M/C Journal 9 Sep. 2006. 7 March 2007 http://journal.media-culture.org.au/journal/upcoming.php>. De Salvo, Donna, ed. Open Systems: Rethinking Art c. 1970. London: Tate Gallery Press, 2005. Eco, Umberto. The Open Work. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1989. Galanter, Phillip, and Ellen K. Levy. Complexity: Art & Complex Systems. SDMA Gallery Guide, 2002. Galanter, Phillip. “Against Reductionism: Science, Complexity, Art & Complexity Studies.” 2003. 9 March 2007 http://isce.edu/ISCE_Group_Site/web-content/ISCE_Events/ Norwood_2002/Norwood_2002_Papers/Galanter.pdf>. Halsall, Francis. “Observing ‘Systems-Art’ from a Systems-Theoretical Perspective”. CHArt 2005. 9 March 2007 http://www.chart.ac.uk/chart2005/abstracts/halsall.htm>. Innocent, Troy. “Life Signs.” 9 March 2007 http://www.iconica.org/main.htm>. Johnson, Jeffrey. “Embracing Complexity in Design (ECiD).” 2007. 9 March 2007 http://www.complexityanddesign.net/>. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1984. McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1962. Mitleton-Kelly, Eve, ed. Complex Systems and Evolutionary Perspectives on Organisations. Elsevier Advanced Management Series, 2003. Prophet, Jane. “Jane Prophet.” 9 March 2007 http://www.janeprophet.co.uk/>. Qvortup, Lars. “Understanding New Digital Media.” European Journal of Communication 21.3 (2006): 345-356. Tedinnick, Luke. “Post Structuralism, Hypertext & the World Wide Web.” Aslib 59.2 (2007): 169-186. Wilson, Edward Osborne. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: A.A. Knoff, 1998. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Cham, Karen, and Jeffrey Johnson. "Complexity Theory: A Science of Cultural Systems?." M/C Journal 10.3 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/08-cham-johnson.php>. APA Style Cham, K., and J. Johnson. (Jun. 2007) "Complexity Theory: A Science of Cultural Systems?," M/C Journal, 10(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/08-cham-johnson.php>.