Journal articles on the topic 'Interconnection capacity contract'

PHE ONWJ is an upstream oil and gas company performing exploration and production of oil and gas. PHE ONWJ is subsidiary of Pertamina Hulu Energy (PHE) under PERTAMINA Group with working areas of 8.300 km2 covering offshore and onshore sites. As response to the declining of global oil price, PHE ONWJ is required to reduce its operating costs. One of them is marine operation that accounted for 10% of the total operating cost, 53% of which is the cost of energy (fuel). The marine fuel efficiency program is a technology based on approach through series of interconnecting activities namely determination of vessels’ economical speed, vessel control by Fuel Monitoring System (FMS) and Vessel Tracking System (VTS), and improvement of contractor performance management. This program has saved diesel fuel consumption for approximately 10,000 kiloliter or equivalent to savings by 34%. Financially it has saved Rp 80 billion and reduce emission by 40 ktons of CO2e during the year 2016. The keys of success of this program are strong commitment to implement economical speed, contractor partnership, capacity building and awareness to raise contractor’s competence also behaviour towards energy efficiency.

This study examines the spatial distribution and alignment of Senior High Schools (SHS), Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), and industries in Region VIII, focusing on the interconnections between geographic, educational, and economic factors. Key areas of analysis include Ormoc City, Albuera, Kananga, Isabel, and Palompon. Urban centers like Ormoc City host a high concentration of SHS offering diverse tracks such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and Accountancy, Business, and Management (ABM), catering to the demands of Information Technology (IT) and business industries. In contrast, rural areas focus on technical-vocational (TVL) tracks aligned with agriculture and fisheries but often lack alternative career pathways. HEIs are concentrated in Ormoc City, creating accessibility challenges for rural students and limiting program diversity in industrial hubs such as Isabel and Palompon. Although there is strong alignment between TVL tracks and agro-industrial needs in Albuera and manufacturing demands in Isabel, significant gaps remain, including inadequate IT specialization to meet Ormoc City’s industry needs, limited HEI capacity for STEM graduates in rural areas, and insufficient business management programs in Palompon. These findings provide actionable insights for policymakers, educators, and industry stakeholders to address educational gaps and strengthen regional economic development.

Implantable neuromodulation devices typically have metal in contact with soft, ion-conducting nerves. These neural interfaces excite neurons using short-duration electrical pulses. While this approach has been extremely successful for multiple clinical applications, it is limited in delivering long-duration pulses or direct current (DC), even for acute term studies. When the charge injection capacity of electrodes is exceeded, irreversible electrochemical processes occur, and toxic byproducts are discharged directly onto the nerve, causing biological damage. Hydrogel coatings on electrodes improve the overall charge injection limit and provide a mechanically pliable interface. To further extend this idea, we developed a silicone-based nerve cuff lead with a hydrogel microfluidic conduit. It serves as a thin, soft and flexible interconnection and provides a greater spatial separation between metal electrodes and the target nerve. In an in vivo rat model, we used this cuff to stimulate and record from sciatic nerves, with performance comparable to that of metal electrodes. Further, we delivered DC through the lead in an acute manner to induce nerve block that is reversible. In contrast to most metallic cuff electrodes, which need microfabrication equipment, we built this cuff using a consumer-grade digital cutter and a simplified molding process. Overall, the device will be beneficial to neuromodulation researchers as a general-purpose nerve cuff electrode for peripheral neuromodulation experiments.

Abstract Background While the COVID-19 outbreak in China now appears suppressed, Europe and the USA have become the epicentres, both reporting many more deaths than China. Responding to the pandemic, Sweden has taken a different approach aiming to mitigate, not suppress, community transmission, by using physical distancing without lockdowns. Here we contrast the consequences of different responses to COVID-19 within Sweden, the resulting demand for care, intensive care, the death tolls and the associated direct healthcare related costs. Methods We used an age-stratified health-care demand extended SEIR (susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered) compartmental model for all municipalities in Sweden, and a radiation model for describing inter-municipality mobility. The model was calibrated against data from municipalities in the Stockholm healthcare region. Results Our scenario with moderate to strong physical distancing describes well the observed health demand and deaths in Sweden up to the end of May 2020. In this scenario, the intensive care unit (ICU) demand reaches the pre-pandemic maximum capacity just above 500 beds. In the counterfactual scenario, the ICU demand is estimated to reach ∼20 times higher than the pre-pandemic ICU capacity. The different scenarios show quite different death tolls up to 1 September, ranging from 5000 to 41 000, excluding deaths potentially caused by ICU shortage. Additionally, our statistical analysis of all causes excess mortality indicates that the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19 could be increased by 40% (95% confidence interval: 0.24, 0.57). Conclusion The results of this study highlight the impact of different combinations of non-pharmaceutical interventions, especially moderate physical distancing in combination with more effective isolation of infectious individuals, on reducing deaths, health demands and lowering healthcare costs. In less effective mitigation scenarios, the demand on ICU beds would rapidly exceed capacity, showing the tight interconnection between the healthcare demand and physical distancing in the society. These findings have relevance for Swedish policy and response to the COVID-19 pandemic and illustrate the importance of maintaining the level of physical distancing for a longer period beyond the study period to suppress or mitigate the impacts from the pandemic.

Abstract Global reach is equated with national ambition. In the contemporary international system, one measure of global reach for states is their inclusion in global summits. This association is particularly compelling for putative “rising” states from the Global South, among the BRICS (China, India, and Brazil) and also a less well-known forum, MIKTA (Mexico, South Korea, Turkey, and Indonesia) groupings. Yet the standard means of examining the attributes of rising states via country specific and impressionistic studies appears to reveal that these rising powers are similar in many respects but there are significant differences as well. To help identify these differences we turn to a concept and data referred to as “globality.” We believe that this concept is helpful in more accurately analyzing the global reach of rising Global South countries. Though not that well known in the international relations literature, globality emphasizes agency by self-aware actors. Globality can be operationalized by tracing certain dimensions: institutional/diplomatic range; trade profile; and the trajectory of official development assistance. Broadly, the conclusion drawn from such a globality analysis substantiates a sharp distinction between the BRICS members and the MIKTA countries. The BRICS countries have some considerable capacity for global reach while it turns out that the MIKTA countries are regionally entrapped and thus less capable of global projection. Moreover, the specifics in terms of this pattern of differentiation are salient as well. The overall confirmation of an interconnection between subjective impressions of hierarchy and objective measurements of global projection, underscore the contrast between BRICS and MIKTA in summitry dynamics.

We examined whether a phosphotyrosine binding (PTB) domain from the human insulin receptor substrate-1 (hIRS-1) is capable of binding inositol phosphates/phosphoinositides. The binding specificity was compared with that of the pleckstrin homology (PH) domain derived from the same protein because the three dimensional structure was found to be very similar to that of the PH domain, despite the lack of sequence similarity. We also attempted to locate the site of binding of the inositol compounds. The PTB domain bound [3H]Ins(1,4,5)P3, which was displaced most strongly by Ins(1,3,4,5,6)P5 and InsP6, indicating that these inositol polyphosphates show the highest affinity. The PTB domain bound to liposomes containing PtdIns(4,5)P2, PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 and PtdIns(3,4)P2, but not phosphatidylinositol. In contrast, the PH domain showed a preference for Ins(1,4,5)P3, the polar head of PtdIns(4,5)P2. Site-directed mutagenesis studies were performed to map the binding site for inositol phosphates in the PTB domain. Mutation of K169Q, K171Q or K177Q, located in the loop connecting the β1 and β2 strands, which is partially responsible for binding inositol phosphates/phosphoinositides in the PH domains of several other proteins, reduced binding activity, probably because of a reduction in affinity. Mutation of R212Q or R227Q, shown to be involved in the binding of a phosphotyrosine, had little effect on the binding capacity. These results indicate that the PTB domain of hIRS-1 can bind inositol phosphates/phosphoinositides. Therefore signalling through the PTB domain could be regulated by the binding not only of proteins with phosphotyrosine but also of inositol phosphates/phosphoinositides, implying that PTB domains could be involved in a myriad of interconnections between intracellular signalling pathways.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a worldwide public health challenge. Accumulating evidence implicates elevated serum ferritin and disruptions in iron metabolism as potential elements linked to an increased risk of MetS. This study investigates the relationship between iron homeostasis—including hepcidin levels, serum iron concentration, unsaturated iron-binding capacity (UIBC), and the hepcidin/ferritin (H/F) ratio—and MetS. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 209 participants aged 24–70 were categorized into two groups: 103 with MetS and 106 without MetS. All participants underwent medical assessment, including anthropometric measures, indices of glycemic control, lipid profiles, and iron-related parameters. Participants were further stratified by the Homeostasis Model Assessment—Insulin Resistance index into three subgroups: insulin-sensitive (IS) (<1.9), early insulin resistance (EIR) (>1.9 to <2.9), and significant insulin resistance (SIR) (>2.9). Notable increments in serum ferritin and hepcidin were observed in the SIR group relative to the IS and EIR groups, with a significant association between metabolic parameters. The UIBC and serum ferritin emerged as significant predictors of MetS, particularly in men, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.753 and 0.792, respectively (p ≤ 0.001). In contrast, hepcidin was notably correlated with MetS in women, with an AUC of 0.655 (p = 0.007). The H/F ratio showed superior predictive capability for MetS across both sexes (at cutoff level = 0.67). Among women, this ratio had an AUC of 0.639 (p = 0.015), and for men, it had an AUC of 0.792 (p < 0.001). Hypertension proved an independent risk factor for MetS, affirming its role in metabolic dysregulation. The findings highlight a significant interconnection between iron homeostasis parameters and MetS, with sex-specific variations underscoring the importance of personalized diagnostic criteria. The crucial role of the H/F ratio and the UIBC as emerging predictive markers for MetS indicates their potential utility in identifying at-risk individuals. Further longitudinal research is essential to establish causality and explore the interplay between these biomarkers and MetS.

ABSTRACT The protein expression profiles of Rhizobium leguminosarum strains in response to specific genetic perturbations in exopolysaccharide (EPS) biosynthesis genes were examined using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Lesions in eitherpssA, pssD, or pssE of R. leguminosarum bv. viciae VF39 or in pssA of R. leguminosarum bv. trifolii ANU794 not only abolished the capacity of these strains to synthesize EPS but also had a pleiotropic effect on protein synthesis levels. A minimum of 22 protein differences were observed for the two pssA mutant strains. The differences identified in the pssD and pssE mutants of strain VF39 were a distinct subset of the same protein synthesis changes that occurred in the pssA mutant. ThepssD and pssE mutant strains shared identical alterations in the proteins synthesized, suggesting that they share a common function in the biosynthesis of EPS. In contrast, apssC mutant that produces 38% of the EPS level of the parental strain showed no differences in its protein synthesis patterns, suggesting that the absence of EPS itself was contributing to the changes in protein synthesis and that there may be a complex interconnection of the EPS biosynthetic pathway with other metabolic pathways. Genetic complementation of pssA can restore wild-type protein synthesis levels, indicating that many of the observed differences in protein synthesis are also a specific response to a dysfunctional PssA. The relevance of these proteins, which are grouped as members of the pssA mutant stimulon, remains unclear, as the majority lacked a homologue in the current sequence databases and therefore possibly represent a novel functional network(s). These findings have illustrated the potential of proteomics to reveal unexpected higher-order processes of protein function and regulation that arise from mutation. In addition, it is evident that enzymatic pathways and regulatory networks are more interconnected and more sensitive to structural changes in the cell than is often appreciated. In these cases, linking the observed phenotype directly to the mutated gene can be misleading, as the phenotype could be attributable to downstream effects of the mutation.

The article presents the results of studying the problems of fulfilling a comprehensive project on transforming a defense enterprise business model, mastering modern approaches to build production systems, including the concepts of lean manufacturing, “6 sigma”, CALS technology, and others. The ongoing reduction of the government defense contracts to the level ensuring the planned renewal of the army and navy armament requires an increase in manufacturing civilian products by defense enterprises to load the released capacity. The President of the Russian Federation has set the task of bringing the share of such products to 30% by 2025 and to 50% by 2030. However, the entry of these enterprises into the competitive market is not adequately prepared due to their lack of market competencies, the mastery of which requires significant changes in the organization of production, labor and management, or otherwise - transformation of the business model being implemented. The business model in the study refers to the conditional representation of the enterprise’s business, which allows us to understand the composition and interconnections of its elements, ensuring the creation and delivery of value to the consumer. In turn, the value approach focused on maximum customer satisfaction is contrasted with a conservative product approach to building production systems based on the priority of the capabilities of the existing production apparatus. The application of the modern concepts provisions for production and business modeling made it possible to identify features and to justify organizing the project for transforming the business model of a defense enterprise, mastering modern methods of constructing production systems, the composition and tasks of its participants, as well as the mechanism for consolidating the results of changes in the regulatory and methodological framework enterprises. Thus, based on the recommendations of the study, organizational prerequisites are formed for the successful diversification of defense enterprises, as well as the institutionalization of transformations of the production system in the practice of their work.

The transition towards sustainable energy systems necessitates robust policy and regulatory frameworks to support the deployment of renewable energy microgrids and energy storage systems. This paper provides an overview of the critical components and benefits of these frameworks in facilitating the integration of renewable energy technologies. Renewable energy microgrids, which can operate independently or in conjunction with the main power grid, offer significant advantages in enhancing energy security, resilience, and local energy independence. Energy storage systems, such as high-capacity batteries and pumped hydro storage, are pivotal in addressing the intermittency of renewable energy sources by storing excess energy and releasing it during periods of high demand. The effectiveness of these technologies, however, is heavily influenced by supportive policies and regulatory measures. Key policy mechanisms include financial incentives such as tax credits, grants, and subsidies that reduce the initial capital costs for renewable energy projects. Net metering policies, which allow consumers to sell excess electricity back to the grid, further encourage the adoption of renewable energy systems. Additionally, feed-in tariffs provide long-term contracts for renewable energy producers, ensuring stable revenue streams and promoting investment in microgrid and storage technologies. Regulatory frameworks play a crucial role in standardizing technical requirements, ensuring grid compatibility, and maintaining system reliability. Standards for interconnection and interoperability are essential to facilitate seamless integration of microgrids with existing power infrastructure. Moreover, regulations that mandate utility companies to incorporate a certain percentage of renewable energy in their energy mix drive the demand for renewable microgrids and storage solutions. Several regions have pioneered effective policy and regulatory models that can serve as benchmarks. For instance, the European Union's Clean Energy for All Europeans package provides comprehensive regulations to promote renewable energy and energy storage. Similarly, the United States has implemented various federal and state-level policies that support the deployment of microgrids and energy storage systems. In conclusion, well-designed policy and regulatory frameworks are instrumental in overcoming the barriers to renewable energy microgrids and energy storage adoption. By providing financial incentives, establishing technical standards, and mandating renewable energy integration, these frameworks create a conducive environment for the growth of sustainable energy systems, ultimately contributing to global energy transition goals. Keywords: Policy, Regulatory Framework, Renewable Energy, Microgrids, Energy Storage System.

Abstract Background: Uterine leiomyosarcoma (LMS) comprises 60% to 70% of the uterine sarcoma (US). These tumors present high rates of recurrence and metastasis, and the patients’ survival rates are very low (20% in five years). It is known that somatic mutations and modifications in the DNA methylation levels are associated with several types of neoplasms. Previously, our group identified missense and loss of function mutations in KMT2D, CREBBP, ATM, TSC2, and GNAS, using a genetic screening method in LMS samples. Based on these results, we decided to investigate whether a genetic and epigenetic crosstalk could help to understand the biological processes involved in the LMS origin, development, and pathogenesis. The present study aimed to evaluate the KMT2D, CREBBP, ATM, TSC2 and GNAS gene expression profile in LMS cell line, and their methylation levels in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) patients´ samples. Methods: We selected 15 LMS - FFPE samples obtained via surgical procedures performed between 2012 and 2019 at the Instituto do Cancer do Estado de São Paulo (ICESP). Genomic DNA was extracted using the QIAamp DNA FFPE Tissue Kit and we evaluated methylation levels using the Illumina Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip system 850k, including samples treated with bisulfite-treated DNA. Leiomyoma (LM) (THESCs CRL-4003) and LMS (SK-UT-1) cell lines were cultivated for gene expression analysis. Cells were growth for 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours, and the total RNA was extracted by TRIzol. High-Capacity cDNA Reverse Transcription Kit was used for cDNA synthesis and for gene expression evaluation, real-time PCR reactions were performed using TaqMan Universal PCR Master Mix and inventoried TaqMan probes. Results: KMT2D and TSC2 showed increased expression in LMS compared to LM (cut-off ≤ -2 and ≥ 2 for down and upregulation, respectively), with higher expression in 24 hours of KMT2D [Fold Regulation (FR): 2.77] and TSC2 (FR: 2.58). In contrast, CREBBP was downregulated, with lowest expression in 72 hours (FR: -6.57). ATM was upregulated at 24, 48 with higher expression in 72 hours (FR: 2.32), and GNAS was downregulated, with lowest expression in 96 hours (FR: -4.31). Moreover, the methylation analyzes showed an expressive hypomethylation in LMS samples, compared to myometrium, for KMT2D (β value: 0.45; p= 0.004); CREBBP (β value: 0.51 p < 0.0001); ATM (β value: 0.47 p < 0.0001); TSC2 (β value: 0.53 p < 0.0001) and GNAS (β value: 0.41 p < 0.0001). In conclusion, our study showed that potentially pathogenic mutations may be associated with an aberrant hypomethylation profile, as well as increased expression of KMT2D, TSC2, ATM and loss expression of CREBBP and GNAS in LMS. The interconnection of these genetic and epigenetic events is essential for understanding the complex biology of these tumors, in addition to enabling identification of biomarkers. Citation Format: Laura G. dos Anjos, Daniela Bizinelli, Katia C. Carvalho. Genetic and epigenetic features OF KMT2D, CREBBP, ATM, TSC2 and GNAS in uterine leyomiosarcomas [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 6021.

In the Italian context, the first law directly affecting the urban planning and building sector dates back to approximately 160 years ago, precisely Law 2248/1865. It established the administrative unification of the Kingdom of Italy, empowering municipal councils to deliberate on ‘hygiene, building and local police regulations’, and was followed a few months later by Law 2359/1865 on expropriations for public purpose. By contrast, the first regulations for the protection of artistic, historical, archaeological and ethnographic heritage (1089/1938), and natural beauty (1497/1939), are just over 80 years old. From that time onwards, the rules governing planning and design actions have been considerably enriched and developed. Hence, it is worth reflecting on the effectiveness and efficiency of a regulatory framework that has been governing territorial, urban and building transformations in an increasingly articulated and specialised manner with a view to improving the quality and sustainability of natural and anthropic habitats. Moreover, its ability to govern the ways, times and cultural and technical contents of the project production process to carry out high quality creations is worthy of consideration. Perhaps the issue of standardisation has never been the centre of attention in all sectors of civil life as today: in public administration and scientific research, among economic operators, planners, and citizens themselves. Regulatory systems are increasingly pervasive in regulating design activity and the characteristics of works in response to a general «increase in the variety and complexity of public interests that appear worthy of protection, such as the quality of the environment, the safeguarding of the natural and historical-artistic heritage, the protection of health, the safety of persons, and security […]» (Bassanini et al., 2005). Changing interests require frequent updates to adapt regulations to rapid socio-economic, cultural, and technological changes. The centres of regulatory production have also multiplied, breaking up into different levels and sectors of regulation, namely with multi-level (international, EU, national, regional, local), sectoral (economy, environment, territory, landscape, infrastructure, cultural heritage, health, etc.) and institutional governance structures, with corresponding different interests (public/private, collective/individual) and complicated relationships of interconnection, conditionality and/or competition (Raveraira, 2009). The scenario is even more complex, if we broaden the scope to include, in addition to prescriptive and binding rules, the vast universe of guiding principles, voluntary standards, guidelines, best practices, etc. Moreover, also due to the nature of the legal system model of reference (civil law derived from Roman law, as opposed to the common law of English-speaking countries, founded on the binding force of practice and judgements), Italian legislation has been stratified by an anomalous number of rules, which are often not mutually coordinated, sometimes contradictory or bearing inconsistent definitions. They are either incapable of producing the desired results, or are not the cause of effects even diametrically opposed to those expected. The attempt to solve every problem through a special regulation results in limiting the free and responsible action of citizens (and planners). Indeed, as Marco Romano points out, «to reduce people’s desires to rights codified in the doctrine of planning, imposed by enlightened and pedagogical governments on rebellious citizens unaware of their own good, is to erase what makes them citizens: the diversity of their individual life projects» (Romano, 2013). On the other hand, the discrepancy between this regulatory approach and the reality that surrounds us is evident. On Alessandro Pizzorno’s death, Fabrizio Schiaffonati recalled how, back in the 1960s, the doyen of Italian political sociology had already warned that in Italy «everything must be regulated so that everything can be conceded», pointing out that «this is still the case nowadays, more than half a century later, with good peace for the quality of the project, which is overwhelmed by constraints and contradictory procedures that are obstructive to a necessary qualitative transformation of the anthropic environment within proper time and costs» (Schiaffonati, 2019). This hypertrophic growth of laws and regulations (a true ‘legislative inflation’ or ‘regulatory pollution’) is accompanied by their rapid variability over time, so much so that a building intervention begun within a given legislative framework risks being completed in the presence of a different regulatory framework, which would not have allowed its execution, and vice versa. Not to mention the «badly written, lengthy regulations that are difficult to read and even more difficult to apply, (which) now represent a constant factor with which even the most prepared and motivated operator must come to terms» (Gorlani, 2022), which lead to confusion and interpretative doubts. This makes bureaucratic formalities unnecessarily complex, overloads administrative action, and increases the regulatory and management costs for citizens, businesses and the public institutions themselves, including those dedicated to monitoring and control actions (which, in a context of shrinking public resources, are often the first to be lacking…). Legal uncertainty leads to opaque, if not arbitrary decisions, facilitates corruption, increases discrimination and social conflict, and limits economic development, sometimes to the point of inhibiting it (Bassanini et al., 2005). A vulnus with dramatic effects, if it is true that certainty does not have to be of the law, but: «certainty is law, just as, vice versa, law is certainty, if it is true that law […], is constituted for the specific purpose of giving certainty, or rather: certainties» (emphasis added; Ruggeri, 2005). The body of urban planning legislation has expanded considerably, imposing on city and regional planning new objectives and constraints aimed at protecting and improving the quality of the environment and landscape. Strategic environmental and impact assessments, regulations to limit land consumption, to increase climate resilience and to regenerate the built environment have been in use for many years now, with their rich set of analyses and tools to manage knowledge, build scenarios, compare alternatives, and quantify their effects through indicators (environmental, socioeconomic, etc.). And yet, all this does not seem to have produced the expected effects, as witnessed by the continuing degradation of urban suburbs, the continuous increase in soil erosion by new urbanisations and infrastructures, the abandonment of ‘inland areas’, and the hydrogeological instability of the most ‘fragile’ territories. Instead, by moving more and more on the level of so-called policies, planning seems to have lost its technical capacity to conform the quality of spaces, even in their cultural value and use, in a sort of throwback of illiteracy forgetting the grammatical and syntactical rules of construction of the European city. The disciplinary crisis of the plan is evident, incapable of governing land uses and built forms, as well as the quality of public space, relying, instead, on the abstraction of ‘tactical squares’ and social streets totally inadequate to determine an organic configuration of the urban structure. There is no large city that does not have a plan for climate resilience or sustainable mobility, nor is there a major project that cannot boast top-level environmental and/or energy performance, duly certified even when it plans to replace a tree-lined park of more than 50,000 square metres with green roofs on a shopping centre (for example, San Siro in Milan). Greenwashing operations often characterise the private actions of real estate operators, in the absence of checks and controls by the public authorities. The public works sector has long been searching for a better balance of time, cost and quality of works. «A long journey, which has allowed for advances […] and regulatory innovations during the Nineties» (Schiaffonati, 2006) and which, after thirty years of conjunctural measures (suspensions, temporary derogations, emergency decrees, special procedures and competences, variations of thresholds, etc.1) has led to the new Procurement Code (legislative decree no. 36/2023). It features a text of more than 150,000 words, to which the regulatory and procedural innovations introduced by the PNRR must be added, with the related set of regulations, guidelines, explanatory circulars, protocols and technical instructions2. It is a seemingly unstoppable process of continuous correction and integration to reform the reform, in the absence of the indispensable monitoring activity that should, instead, verify and assess the effects of the application of the regulation to correctly finalise its amendment. Nevertheless, there has been no lack of significant precedents in this regard, as in the case of the French experimentation of the Spinetta Law on construction insurance systems3. If we apply to the standard the historical notion of “quality as fitness for intended use” (Juran, 1951), or to the more recent notion of «the set of properties and characteristics of a product or service that provide the capacity to satisfy expressed or implicit needs» (UNI EN ISO 8402:1995), it clearly appears that the challenge to be faced concerns not so much or only regulatory and administrative simplification, or the replacement of redundant, obsolete or unjustified regulations, but precisely the “quality of regulation”. A direction undertaken since 2001 by OECD and Apec countries with a Regulatory Reform (reference criteria to ensure quality and transparency in regulatory activity), in line with the obligation to formulate rules that are conceptually and semantically precise, clear and comprehensible in the terms used, in the objectives set, in the required behaviour (Constitutional Court, ruling no. 364 of 1988) and, above all, with contents derived from consensual and shared planning (Raveraira, 2009). Responsibility, consensus and collaboration are, I believe, the key words to possibly rethink the relationship between design and regulation. In fact, I agree with Marco Dugato’s observation in this Dossier when he argues that «the fault of normative hypertrophy cannot be attributed to the omnipotence of the regulator by itself, rather it is attributable to the contribution of the ones regulated». If it is true that architectural design is constrained by regulations, it certainly cannot be mechanically determined by them for mere reasons of conformity. Conversely, as Maria Chiara Torricelli emphasises again in the Dossier, the norm is a tool that provides valid and shared knowledge to the project; and the project itself, as a projective activity, contributes proactively to its definition. There are many examples spanning technical directives regulating the implementation cycles of the INA Casa, the result of design research in support of the political project, and the various procedural and meta design regulations derived from research in the Architectural Technology Field. Such design experiences have unfolded in an experimental manner, in derogation of the regulations and leading to their renewal. Instead, deductive design approaches seem to prevail today, due to the growing availability of algorithmic procedures that do not merely support the design process, but develop it in an almost automated manner through conditioning and prevailing indicators and parameters. These tools legitimise choices where conformity to the standard acts as a screen for the assumption of precise responsibilities. There is a conceptual and operational reversal with respect to creative, responsibly inductive design action, which experiments and innovates, putting the principles of adequate performance and compliance with needs over the criteria of formal conformity. This is evident in the relationship between technical regulations and techno-typological innovation for evolutions that move the parameters of regulatory congruity “forward”, but sometimes even “sideways”. This also counteracts the phenomena of norm obsolescence. In consideration of the pervasiveness of the regulatory systems that rule design action, it is, finally, disturbing to observe the very limited importance assigned to this subject in the education of new designers. The didactics of design, which have long been the focus of Architecture studies, rarely envisage a structured discussion on regulatory and normative aspects, leaving them to the discretion of professors. Hence, at the end of the course, a large proportion of students have never heard about the Code of Procurement, environmental impact assessment or minimum environmental criteria… Whereas it is, instead, essential to solicit, from the first year, critical attention to the normative paradigm, also for the ethical, social and professional responsibilities it entails, and to encourage the assumption of norms and constraints as factors that nourish the entire design process. The norm thus becomes a «tool for guiding and controlling design choices», which as such «must be assumed in the organisation of the starting data» (Del Nord, 1992). Not to mention the need for qualifying training programmes, as Mario Avagnina points out, so that all those involved in the process, particularly public clients, are able to carry out their tasks. The objective is far from being achieved, and «necessarily passes through the training of the figures involved, starting with the RUPs». Figures characterised not only by technical knowledge of the building process and its rules, but also by a culture of standards and conscious responsibility that can only derive from a design practice, which is continually verified in the real context, and by design actions based on an experimental method that aims to face the issues of society. Figures characterised not only by technical know-how of the building process and its rules, but also by a culture of standards and conscious responsibility, which can only derive from a practice continually verified by comparison with reality, and by design actions marked by an experimental method that finds its arguments in taking on the problems of society.

AbstractBoth clonal plant capabilities for physiological integration and common mycorrhizal networks (CMNs) formed by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can influence the distribution of nutrients and growth among interconnected individuals. Using a microcosm model system, we aimed to disentangle how CMNs interact with clonal integration to influence plant growth and development. We grew Sphagneticola trilobata clones with isolated root systems in individual, adjacent containers while preventing, disrupting, or allowing clonal integration aboveground via spacers and belowground CMNs to form. We assessed multiple metrics of plant development (e.g., growth, specific leaf area, soluble sugar content), 15N transfer from donor (mother) to receiver (daughter) plants, and variation in AMF communities. We show that spacer formation between ramets and the capacity to form CMNs promoted and inhibited the growth of smaller daughter plants, respectively. In contrast to the independent effects of CMNs and spacers, CMNs, in combination with spacers, significantly weakened the promotion of daughter plants by clonal integration. AMF species richness was also negatively correlated with overall plant growth. Our results demonstrate that two common modes of plant interconnection interact in non‐additive ways to affect clonal plant integration and growth. These findings, based on Sphagneticola trilobata, question the underlying assumptions of the positive effects of both AMF CMNs and species richness in comparison to direct plant interconnections.

AbstractEnhancing drinking water resilience has become increasingly important. However, a comprehensive analysis of drinking water emergency countermeasures is lacking. This study evaluated eight countermeasures including monitoring, local alternatives, reclaimed water, interconnection, bulk water, pre‐packaged water, emergency treatment, and isolation valves from resilience and sustainability (i.e., life cycle cost) perspectives. While countermeasures such as interconnections perform relatively well from both perspectives, there is a clear trade‐off between resilience and cost. Local alternatives and emergency treatment respond quickly and provide sustained supply during emergencies but may incur higher costs. Bulk water and pre‐packaged water are typically inexpensive but have limited supply capacity and take time to distribute. As future threats are likely to become more frequent and prolonged, it is prudent for service providers to invest in countermeasures that perform well in both resilience and cost and use an integrated approach that combines high capital projects with bulk/pre‐packaged water contracts.

This study looked at how students' success in grasping abstract concepts in biology was affected by cognitive capacity, Gender, and two different teaching philosophies (project and Inquiry)—a quasi-experimental paradigm known as the pretest-posttest control group design was employed in the study. 120 SSII Biology students were split into treatment and control groups. The students came from six coeducational schools in two Local Government Areas in Kwara State. The tests were the Biology Students Mental Ability Test (r=0.87), the test measuring understanding of abstract concepts in biology (r=0.86), and instructional manuals on inquiry and project techniques. At the 0.05 significance level, three research questions and three hypotheses were examined. The collected data were analyzed using a covariance study, which found that there was a significant 3-way interconnection (interaction effect) between treatment, mental capacity, and gender and learners' accomplishment in abstract ideas in biology (F2,107) = 5.757, P> 0.05). Low mental ability female students (x ̅=24.00) had a lower mean score in project strategy than low mental ability male students ((x) ̅=24.43). In the inquiry strategy, low mental ability male students' mean score (x ̅ = 22.33) was superior to that of low mental ability female students (x ̅ = 20.75); in contrast, the conventional Strategy's mean score (x ̅ = 14.33) for low mental ability male students was superior to that of high mental ability female students (x ̅ = 13.47). The study's conclusions led to the recommendation that project and inquiry methodologies be used to raise students' mental ability and achievement in abstract concepts in biology, among others.

AbstractSmart clothing with adaptive personal thermal management functionality is highly desirable for wearing comfort and energy efficiency. However, due to the lack of common materials that can fabricate dynamic thermoregulation fabrics, translating the existing technologies to commercial applications remains challenging. Herein, leveraging an industrial textile manufacturing approach, a hierarchically programmed meta‐louver fabric with switchable modes for both hot and cold is developed. The efficacy of adaptive pore channels by manipulating the orientation of chiral knit loops to regulate water evaporation, as well as thermal convection and radiation, is experimentally demonstrated. In sharp contrast to current pore‐actuated smart textiles, the designed meta‐louver fabric gains its adaptive thermoregulation capacity directly from the multiscale textile structure engineering, ranging from the single‐helical‐fiber enabled yarn actuators to pre‐tension induced chiral‐helical knit loops. This strategy is shown to be also effective for other fiber materials, such as cotton, and thus provides a universal paradigm for a new family of metamaterials by engineering the interconnection of multiscale structures.

AbstractOffshore wind power projects are currently booming around the North Sea. However, there are inherent correlation challenges between wind farms in this area, which has implications for the optimal composition of locations and the scale-up of installed capacities. This paper is aimed at addressing the correlation problem by minimizing the variance of total wind power accumulated around the North Sea. We show that this nonlinear convex optimization problem can be solved by applying the Augmented Lagrangian Algorithm (ALA). The premise of the study is that more interconnections between the EU countries will be prioritized in order to optimize and smooth out the wind power production patterns. A publicly available dataset with historical hour-by-hour data spanning over 20 years was used for the analysis. We explore two distinct scenarios for Norwegian offshore wind development. In the first scenario, we consider the ongoing activities on the European continental side of the North Sea and their implications for Norway. Here, we illustrate the advantages of focusing on expanding wind power capacity in the northern regions of Norway to enhance the overall value of the generated wind power. In contrast, the second reference scenario neglects these interconnections, resulting in a significantly greater concentration of offshore wind development in the southern parts of Norway, particularly in Sørlige Nordsjø II. Additionally, our work estimates the wind power correlation coefficient in the North Sea as a function of distance. Furthermore, we analyze deviations and intermittencies in North Sea wind power over various time intervals, emphasizing that the perceived integration challenges are highly dependent on the chosen time resolution in the analysis.

This article examines the implications of two provocative scholarly slogans—Donna Haraway’s “Make Kin Not Babies” and Sophie Lewis’s “Abolish the Family”—for children, childhoods, and ecopedagogies in the early years. Engaging critically with these concepts, the article highlights their potential to disrupt entrenched norms while acknowledging the discomfort and uncertainty they may evoke. It begins by interrogating the normalized centrality of “the family” in early childhood teacher education and childhood studies, arguing that this focus constrains alternative imaginaries of care and justice. The discussion situates Haraway’s and Lewis’s slogans within broader debates, critiquing how idealized family structures often align with humanist stewardship pedagogy, which presumes humanity’s exceptional capacity to save both children and the planet. By contrast, speculative narratives, such as Netflix’s Sweet Tooth , offer opportunities to reimagine the child, family, and future by emphasizing interconnections between humans and the more-than-human world. These stories open space for counter-imaginaries, inspiring alternative communal formations and transformative practices. Ultimately, the article advocates for a pedagogy of discomfort and generous suspicion as ecopedagogical strategies to interrogate existing care structures and envision more equitable and interconnected futures.

AbstractThis paper introduces a comprehensive performance evaluation algorithm explicitly designed for secondary equipment in substations, specifically targeting the relay protection system. In contrast to the current evaluation systems, this novel method navigates the complex internal interconnections and mechanisms inherent within secondary system equipment. Such complications have previously impeded the accuracy and breadth of evaluations, thereby limiting the degree of precision and innovation attainable within substations. The proposed approach effectively integrates the improved Analytic Hierarchy Process entropy weight (IAHP‐EW) method with the Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) neural network. Initially, the IAHP‐EW method identified the comprehensive evaluation indicators and their corresponding weights for relay protection devices. Following weight allocation, these evaluation indicators are scrutinized and computed utilizing the multivariate regression analysis algorithm, resulting in performance evaluation outcomes for the relay protection system. These outcomes are subsequently classified and utilized in training the LVQ neural network, promoting the network's capacity to autonomously evaluate the performance status of the relay protection system. To corroborate the viability and effectiveness of this proposed performance evaluation and prediction algorithm, empirical operating data from a local substation is used. The results suggest a significant improvement in the evaluation accuracy of secondary equipment performance, indicating potential for practical application and a valuable contribution to the field through the introduction of a novel approach to performance assessment of substation relay protection systems.

This paper scrutinizes the interconnections between debt capital raising, firm risk of default, and the presence of a former CEO who now serves as a board chairperson, referred to as the Chair‐Former‐CEO (CFC). Employing a sample of the largest non‐financial firms within the US S&P 100 from 2002 to 2018, our results reveal that, when compared to their non‐CFC counterparts, CFCs exhibit a greater propensity for opting for lower debt finance‐raising strategies and are linked to a reduced firm risk of default. The CFC brings forth human and social capital that can enhance the board's capacity to monitor and guide incumbent CEOs, thereby fostering a more effective governance mechanism. This, in turn, will lead to a reduction in agency‐related costs and an improvement in the firm's risk position. Additionally, we have uncovered an underlying mechanism through which this association takes place. The CFC prefers to pursue a low‐risk financing mix strategy directly tied to a lower likelihood of default. The findings of this paper challenge established corporate governance codes, such as those in the US and the UK, which advocate for constraints on the internal promotion of CEOs to the Chair role. In contrast to these recommendations, our study suggests advantages to consolidating these roles, particularly for the intensity of monitoring, the firm's risk‐taking behavior, and its financial policies. This alignment with the research on CEO duality, which has yielded mixed results, challenges the traditional wisdom of segregating the roles of CEO and board Chair.

Introduction There is, as Andrew Rowan dubs it, a “constant paradox” in the way we treat, relate to, and consume animals in our everyday lives (Arluke and Sanders 4). This paper examines this paradox in relation to the rise of vegetarianism as a new taste and consumer culture in the West. The first part of the paper, drawing upon Bourdieu, argues that vegetarian “taste” is fundamentally a social practice linked to class and gender. It then offers a preliminary theoretical sketch of the sociological drivers and consequences of vegetarianism in late-modernity, drawing on social theory. Having established the theoretical framework, the second part of the paper turns to an empirical analysis of the moral motivations and experiences of a selection of Australian bloggers. The key argument is that the bloggers narrate vegetarianism as a taste practice that entangles self-care with a larger assemblage of non-human responsibility that works to re-enchant a demoralised consumer modernity. Vegetarianism as Taste Practice “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier”, Pierre Bourdieu famously claimed (xxix). Bourdieu demonstrated the classificatory power of taste not only in relation to music, home décor, and art but also in relation to food. Taste, for Bourdieu, is a social process by which people actively communicate social position through classification of the judgements and preferences of both themselves and others. For example, he highlighted how the working-class dislike for fish was part of a wider class system of dispositions where the middle-class favour “the light, the refined and the delicate” defined in negation of working-class taste for “the heavy, the fat and the coarse” (182–83). How then do we read vegetarianism as a taste practice? First, we need to take Bourdieu’s point that vegetarianism is not simply an expression of personal preference, but is a social practice that articulates identity, group membership, and systems of cultural distinction. Bourdieu, while not writing about vegetarianism, did link meat eating to masculine and working-class displays of embodied strength and power—“warrior food”, as Nietzsche called it (Bennett 141). Meat, Bourdieu wrote, was “nourishing food par excellence, strong and strong-making, giving vigour, blood, and health is the dish for men” (190). On this reading, meat avoidance can be located as part of a middle-class taste for the “light” and the “healthy” but also a rejection of working-class and masculine food taste practices. Vegetarianism, like buying fair-trade, organic, and eco-friendly, might be theorised as a symbolic device for enacting middle-class displays of cultural distinction based on claims to moral purity and virtue. On the gender front, female vegetarians conform to taste trends for middle-class women—light, not fattening, and healthy—whereas for men, vegetarianism is linked to the rejection of “hegemonic” masculinity and patriarchy (Bourdieu; Connell). Empirical research partially lends support to this depiction, showing that vegetarianism is predominantly practiced by female, middle-class, university-qualified professionals working in service-sector or white-collar occupations (RealEat; Keane and Willetts). This kind of Bourdieuian analysis is important in drawing attention to the social configurations of vegetarianism as a taste practice. It, however, misses the ethical substance of vegetarianism and the wider social and cultural changes that are driving its growth in the West. The following section addresses this gap. Theorising Vegetarianism Adrian Franklin explains the growth of vegetarianism in the last part of the 20th century as part of a process of “de-centring” human-animal relations in conditions of late-modernity. Franklin suggests that vegetarianism is part of a wider social and cultural shift where animals make new types of moral claims on humans as they form closer and more intimate emotional bonds. He argues that in the context of widespread feelings of moral decline and disorder, animals are constructed as morally pure and innocent, and humans morally blameworthy and destructive (Franklin 196). From this perspective, vegetarianism is less about an ethical regards for animals but more about what animals reveal about human moral worlds: the reflections are less about an ethical consideration of the “Other” and more about a moral consideration of “ourselves” (Franklin 196). A sticker plastered on the door of my local vegetarian café encapsulates this perspective: it reads, “humans are the real pests.” Unlike Bourdieu and Franklin, Tester is important in moving from a narrow focus on what humans “do” with animals as symbolic or communicative acts to the ethical significance of vegetarianism. Tester makes a critical distinction between the “ethical” and “lifestyle” vegetarian. In Tester’s terms, the “lifestyle” vegetarian avoids meat for health and well-being reasons while the “ethical” vegetarian is concerned for the ethical treatment of animals. The “lifestyle” vegetarian is problematic for Tester due to “the being of the ethical conduct of life” being substituted for “the doing of the consumer” (218). Vegetarianism becomes emptied of moral meaning as it turns into big business marked by the growth of a multi-billion dollar faux meat industry, trendy vegetarian restaurants, lifestyle converts, and celebrity endorsements. In “lifestyle” mode, Tester argues, vegetarian concern for animal cruelty, slaughter, and death is colonised by a narcissistic concern for slimming, youth, and health—for the promotion of a contented consumer self (Humphery). Although Tester highlights the ethical substance of vegetarianism and the challenges it faces in a consumer world, like the rest of the accounts, it tends to be anthropocentric. Animals tend to speak solely to human worlds, ignoring the vitality and “distributed agency” (Bennett 38) of the non-human. The non-human animal tends to be construed as a passive and inert resource existing solely for human intentionality, rather than acknowledging their “vital power” and “liveliness” outside human agendas (133). Bennett claims that eating highlights the inseparability of humans and edible matter, and the capacity for both human and nonhuman bodies to effect social and political change. She proposes that through a greater sense of ourselves as entwined with, and part of, nature as physical entities, we can enchant the world and become energised as co-participants. Here vegetarianism can be understood as part of recognition of the “assemblage” of human and non-human actions, where self, body, nature and planet become mutually constituting and supportive. Vegetarian taste is not just about middle-class concerns for distinction, but an ethics of the non-human. What does vegetarianism as an ethical taste practice look like “on the ground”? What are the moral motivations for becoming vegetarian, and how is this understood and experienced? What roles do lifestyle and ethical motivations play in vegetarian eating behaviours? In the following section, I turn to a selection of Australian bloggers to make a modest contribution to understanding these questions in the contemporary Australian context. The bloggers are taken from a wider study that analysed 44 urban Australian blogs as part of a project on everyday Australian moralities. The blogs were sampled from the blog hosting website LiveJournal (LJ) between 2006 and 2007. Blog usernames used have been fictionalised to maintain anonymity. Specifically, I focus on a selection of three blog case studies: Universal_cloak, a 32-year-old female artistic designer from Melbourne, Starbright, a 28-year-old female student from Brisbane, and Snig, a 25-year-old male paramedic from Melbourne. The bloggers are a representative selection from a wider sample of blog writing on vegetarianism and human-animal relations. The blog narratives complicate Tester’s simplistic distinction between the “ethical” and “lifestyle” vegetarian, articulating vegetarianism as form of ethical practice that works to morally enchant the world in a dialogue between self-improvement, personal well-being, and ethical relationships with animals and the planet (Taylor). Vegetarianism in Practice: “Positive for Me, Positive for Others” Universal_cloak writes how “being hippy—wearing hippy clothes, eating healthy organic food and being full of positive energy” makes her “feel healthier […] like I’m doing a better thing for the world (society in particular) […] like I’m doing something good”. Being “authentic” to a “hippy” identity—“being true to herself”—is connected for Universal_cloak to a wider concern for the non-human—for animals, nature, and the planet. An important component of this link between self-fulfilment and “doing a better thing for the world” is not eating the “corpses of animals.” Universal_cloak describes this in detail, at the same time underlining the environmental dimensions of her vegetarianism: I feel sick to my stomach to think that an animal dies so I can eat. Why is it any different to feel the same way that people are abused, tortured and killed, that eco-systems are ravaged and torn up and irreversibly damaged, just so I can have the choice of four kinds of marinated tuna in a can? So I can have two newsagents to choose from? So I can have Alice Cooper iron-on patches, miniature plastic bowling pins, disposable cameras, instant oats, microwavable popcorn, extra-soft, quilted and fucking fragranced toilet paper? McDonalds fucking everywhere [...] ugh, I can't take it. I need to go to bed. No wonder depression is on the rise—we have a kingdom of putrid revulsion to look down upon. Vegetarianism figures for Universal_cloak as a form of ethical consumption that enables resistance to feelings of modern demoralisation, to the feeling of being “swallowed up by the great hulky polluted monster, with ads and consumer shit everywhere around you.” For Universal_cloak, vegetarianism works to both critique and re-enchant modernity: a way of saying “she doesn’t agree with the modern world” but also building a “better world around herself.” She writes that following her “ideal diet” of “fair-trade, veg-o, organic and local” and not “white bread and processed meat” gives her a strong sense of “staving off her fear that I’m fucking up the planet”. Universal_cloak locates vegetarianism within an assemblage of self-interest, nutritional advantage, ecological sustainability, and anti-consumerism (Bennett). Universal_cloak, ­as Tester distinguishes, is neither a straightforward “lifestyle vegetarian” or “ethical vegetarian” (218), neither avoiding meat-eating solely because of reasons to do with health, well-being, and risk avoidance or due to an ethical regard for the being of animals. Universal_cloak shows up Tester’s critique on two fronts. First, she highlights how vegetarianism comes alive in an assemblage that includes not only the needs of the non-human animal but also the materiality of food production, marketing, consumerism, and issues of ecological unsustainability. Universal_Cloak’s practice reflects a wider “greening of the ‘vegetarian assemblage’.” As an advertisement on the Australian Vegetarian Society’s website states: “reduce your eco footprint—GO VEGO.” Secondly, Universal_cloak underscores how Tester is bound to an overly pessimistic reading of contemporary lifestyle cultures of well-being or self-improvement. Tester reads the “lifestyle vegetarian,” focused on well-being and health, as morally inferior. In contrast, Universal_cloak reveals how vegetarianism built around a culture of self-improvement—being true to her “hippy” identity—connects her to a larger web of interacting material flows and forces constituted between self, body, non-human animals, and planetary concern. As Bennett argues, recognising the entanglement of self within a larger assemblage of the non-human means that self-interest is refashioned as ecological and interconnected ­(119). Starbright, a 28-year-old woman from Brisbane and newly practising Buddhist, further captures the expansion of self-interest within the larger aggregate of ecological and non-human concern. Picking up a copy of Peter Singer’s call to arms Animal Liberation in a second-hand bookshop while travelling in Laos, Starbright describes how she initially decided to make “a firm decision to stick to vegetarianism.” Now a devoted vegan, Starbright abstains from eating and using “anything that comes from an animal”, including clothing and footwear (e.g., wool, silk, and leather), food sources such as eggs, milk, honey or cochineal (red dye from beetles) and cosmetic products that may either contain animal derivatives or have been tested on animals. While requiring rigorous discipline and regulation of the self—a kind of secular version of Weber’s Protestant ascetic—Starbright depicts her decision to become vegan as being “one of the easiest and most rewarding changes I've made in my life.” In explaining this, Starbright, in a manner similar to that of Universal_cloak, invokes the interconnections between humans and ecological and animal life as the basis of her moral motivation. She writes: “I’m just another well-informed individual who has discovered the virtues of not eating meat, like being environmentally and ethically aware.” Starbright positions her choice not to eat meat as both an ethical and political act, which compounds to improve the lives of both human and non-human animals: If I don’t support the meat industry, I make a tiny dent in the consumption rate. Others around me take on vegetarianism, and the effect increases. Others eat less meat around me, and the dent gets slightly bigger [...] Less grazing land needed means less environmental destruction as well. Less crops to feed the animals as well. Veganism is a “rewarding change” not only because “its good to reduce suffering” but also because it is “positive to [her] health”, that she is “happier now” and she “get[s] a positive feeling out of it.” Starbright adds: “it just makes me happy, and it reduces the suffering in the world—that’s the main reason I do it.” Vegetarianism enables Starbright to engage in clearly defined morally “good works,” where there is mutual reinforcement of the “feel-good factor” (Franklin 36) between personal wellbeing and “care for the Other” (Bauman 8): “it just seems positive for me, and positive for others.” This is a form of care not perpetuating a human centred approach, which Bennett (88) warns against, but one that recognises the entanglement of human lives with non-human lives—where humans are called upon to recognise that the plight of animals and the environment is also our own plight. Snig similarly places his practice of vegetarianism within a dialectic of self-fulfilment and interconnection with the non-human world. For him, vegetarianism is about maintaining what he refers to as “internal balance,” enabling him to avoid “over-filling” his “physical needs” bucket at the expense of his “emotional bucket.” Snig believes that much of the “physical or psychic illness, unhappiness and dissatisfaction” experienced in the contemporary West is due to an “over-filling” or “over-satisfaction of one at the expense of another.” Accordingly, he advocates the “positive effects” of “filling the emotional bucket” by “doing good works” which downplay the negative psychological consequences of an “excess of sex but no romantic love” and an “excess of shallow entertainment but no deeper intellectual life.” Snig writes: If you put yourself in a position where you have a greater capacity to do good works, the path to do so becomes easier. But if you’re hopelessly mired in your own filth, any benefit you do to the world will be by accident. If you’re so locked up in your tiny little world of tv-fast-food-boring job, you can’t see what the big wide world has to offer, and what you have to offer it. Step outside and it can become much clearer. Similar to Universal_cloak, there is an emphasis in Snig’s blog on how “doing good works” (which includes vegetarianism, alongside working as a paramedic, living in small flat in the city, and volunteering on conservation projects) enables a kind of moral renewal in a perceived demoralised consumer modernity. Abstaining from eating meat—sometimes alone, but often in conjunction with a range of other eco-friendly acts—works as a way of distancing oneself, of “stepping outside,” from the excess and waste of modernity and a practical way of “doing good,” of “trying to make a better world.” Conclusion This paper has analysed vegetarianism as a contemporary taste and consumer practice. Drawing upon Bourdieu, the first part argued that it is important to recognise vegetarianism as a taste practice with distinct social configurations that are classed and gendered. Vegetarianism is linked to taste as a vehicle of distinction, making and reinforcing social divisions and distance. In such an analysis, Vegetarianism aligns with feminine and middle-class notions of food as “light, healthy and non-fattening” and for men can figure as a rejection of dominant forms of masculinity. It was argued that while Bourdieu is useful for highlighting the social dimensions of taste, this form of analysis underplays the ethical substance of vegetarianism and the wider drivers of change in contemporary human–animal relations. Here the paper drew upon the work of Franklin, Tester, and Bennett. The first two authors underline the tensions between ethics, consumerism, and lifestyle in late-modernity while Bennett highlights the distribution of agency across human/non-human “assemblages.” This theoretical background was used as a framework to investigate blogged accounts of vegetarianism. The bloggers highlight how vegetarianism works as a moral space for performing “good works” and re-enchanting a demoralised consumer modernity. In Universal_cloak’s words, vegetarianism serves as a way of saying “you don’t agree with the modern world”. Critiquing Tester’s distinction between the “lifestyle” and “ethical” vegetarian, the bloggers show how vegetarianism/veganism is constituted in a complex assemblage between health, personal well-being, animal, and environmental concerns. Drawing upon Bennett, it was suggested that vegetarianism emerges as part of a refashioning of self-interest where concerns for self and personal wellbeing are articulated within wider concerns for nature, animals and the planet. This paper raises bigger questions concerning how animals enter into human lives as “particular” Others in conditions of growing human–animal closeness. For example, to what extent will responsibility for and with the non-human grow and how will this impact upon meat eating in the West? Will vegetarianism flourish as part of contemporary middle-class taste trends toward “green,” “healthy,” and “organic” consumption? The question remains whether vegetarianism will primarily be an expression of middle-class distinction or part of a genuine ecological sensibility where the non-human—both animal and planetary—play a significant role in the working out of moral sensibilities. Perhaps Universal_cloak’s practice of vegetarianism provides an important model, where contemporary concern for self-fulfilment, health, and well-being are articulated within a large assemblage of interdependence and connection with animals, nature and the environment. The recent UN recommendation to either reduce meat-intake or adopt a plant-based diet to minimise carbon emissions (Steinfeld et al.) suggests that the nexus between human, animal, and environmental responsibility is, and will continue to be, central to everyday moral negotiation in late-modernity. References Arluke, Arnold, and Clinton R. Sanders. Regarding Animals. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1996. Bauman, Zygmunt. Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke UP, 2010. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Harvard UP, 1984. Franklin, Adrian. Animals and Modern Cultures: A Sociology of Human–Animal Relations in Modernity. London: Sage, 1999.Humphrey, Kim. Excess: Anti-Consumerism in the West. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. Keane, Anne, and Anna Willets. Concepts of Healthy Eating: An Anthropological Investigation in South-East London. London: Goldsmiths College, 1996. RealEat Survey Office. The RealEat Survey 1984–1993: Changing Attitudes to Meat Consumption. London: Vegetarian Society, 1995. Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, Mauricio Rosales, M. and Cees de Haan. “LiveStock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options”. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (2006). 10 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM›. Taylor, Charles. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992. Tester, Keith. “The Moral Malaise of McDonaldization: The Values of Vegetarianism”. Resisting McDonaldization. Ed. Barry Smart. London: Sage, 1999. 207–222.

General information and background on AI 1.1 The three battlefield revolutions The digitisation of the battlefield is a major revolution in combat, which needs to be assessed on a long-term scale as it will profoundly change military operating methods. First of all, it will mean that all the equipment deployed in the field will be interconnected with a tactical bubble that enables secure data exchanges to reduce the fog of war. What is already true for many armoured vehicles* will be true in the future for the dismounted soldier himself, who will be carrying advanced technologies. Processing these data will optimise military action. Firstly, through the speed with which information is processed, enabling greater respon­siveness, and secondly, through the consistency with which information is processed, enabling omni-surveillance of the battlefield. But this revolution of the digitisation of the battlefield is coupled with a second one, that of military robotics. Among its advantages, of course, we have the removal of the combatant from the danger zone, a high-risk area where we would rather risk a robot than a human life (cave reconnais­sance, mine clearance). If their energy autonomy can be guaranteed, these machines can also remain omnipresent in the field, where humans are subject to fatigue and climatic constraints (surveillance), or particularly in the 3rd dimension (flying over areas). Embedded technologies also enable them to be more responsive and more precise than human beings when carrying out a task. The enormous advantage of these last two qualities is immediately apparent if countermeasures need to be triggered to face a sudden threat, or if a favourable opportunity arises. More specifically, the use of robotic resources extends a military unit’s range of action beyond its traditional limits, traditionally established by its firing range. Carrying functional modules on robotic platforms will extend the unit’s information-gathering capabilities (remote cameras, sensors for CBRN threats detection) or its identification capabilities (algorithmic image processing), thereby extending the limits of its information-gathering range. Nevertheless, the use of these robotic systems requires providing a high degree of autonomy in their movements in order to reduce the human cognitive load induced by their control. This autonomy will be a factor of power, whatever the environment in which these systems operate (land, air, sea, submarine, space or cyber) and a factor in levelling the asymmetry of military potential. Recent conflicts (the 44-Day War of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, more recently Gaza, Yemen and the Red Sea, and above all the Russian-Ukrainian conflict) have marked a turning point in the way UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are perceived. They have gradually highlighted the inevitability of war between robots, that autonomy will amplify in the years to come, whether in high or low-intensity, or in symmetrical or asymmetrical conflicts. A third revolution, that goes hand in hand with the first two aforementioned, is to be dealt with by this article: Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is a veritable tool at the service of the military that will enable them to manage some of the complexity of tomorrow’s battlefield, and in particular the multiplication of operational data, interconnection of deployed equipment with remote support systems, at combined, joint, or even allied levels. Such an abundance of military data to process is accompanied by a cognitive overload that is too significant for the military leader, requiring automatic data processing. AI is a response because, with its computational capabilities, it will enable heterogeneous multi-source data to be processed, real-time analysis and rapid responses, allowing for advanced automation within systems, priority management, optimisation of available resources, etc1. In more practical terms, it can be divided into two main categories: a) decision support for the military commander when preparing or conducting a mission, b) management, coordination and interconnection of multifunctional robotic systems. 1.2 The different types of AI This article will not deal with the difference between the various types of AI. Indeed Artificial Intelligence is a term that encompasses two very different notions: symbolic AI first of all, which can be described as a top-down model, in the sense that it simulates or describes a formal representation of thought, whatever the substrate on which it is based2. It is a transcription of human decision-making mechanisms into algorithms, which thus execute a thought formalised by the designer, but which therefore cannot deviate from the original framework in which it was conceived. The solutions found by these systems are therefore logical, but do not deviate from the rules that have been set. Then the connectionist AI, or neural networks, based on a simplified model of the biological neuron and its links with the synapses send to the AI information to be processed. Such a neural network must be trained to perform a specific task or to acquire new skills, the performance of which can be improved with experience. This is known as machine learning. We are entering a new range of AI here, one that moves away from the manual writing of computer programmes. A connectionist AI can be discriminative and focus on classifying the data it analyses, or it can generate content, such as images, videos, music, texts or 3D models. Unlike symbolic AI, it raises the question of the trust that a military leader can place in such a system. 2. The benefits of AI for the military With data being set to be ubiquitous on the battlefield in the future, the opportunities offered by AI to process data from the military world are manifold. We will attempt here a general functional approach to its possible uses. 2.1 Mission preparation AI will help military leaders to make better decisions in increasingly complex tactical environments. It will be able to study several alternative solutions and propose decision options based on the analysis of multiple parameters. Our brains are not efficient at making decisions when more than five or seven factors are taken into account depending on the person and the context; beyond that limit they go into cognitive overload, which often translates into an emotional burden for the military leader. AI has no such limits and can take hundreds or even thousands of factors into account! Prior to operations, AI will thus help the leader to prepare the mission and plan the operations: by analysing the 3D terrain mapping (lines of sight, radio coverage, hydrography, soil survey, inhabited areas), by reading the history of enemy operating methods in the area, by taking into account the expected meteorology, etc. It will be a decision-making aid and will be able to propose a choice of route according to the weather conditions. It can be used as a decision-making aid, proposing an optimal itinerary based on these elements and the history of the area (mapping of IED hot spots), the light and shade for movements, checking accessible high points and listing possible areas for UAVs landing or for searches, etc. Above all, the AI’s computational capabilities will enable it to compare the military commander’s courses of action with the enemy’s possible courses of action, incorporating a host of possible non-compliant cases (complex enemy attacks such as drones swarms or combat helicopters, jamming effects, electromagnetic attacks, deception, etc.). It will enable a set of candidate solutions to be proposed to the commander, who will then be able to decide on the best course of action. 2.2 Mission conduct In the conduct of a mission, by capturing and analysing data from the battlefield in real time, AI will give military commanders a better understanding of the tactical situation. There are many ways of doing this, including tracking people (facial recognition) or vehicles (shape recogni­tion), and detecting enemy attacks (source of sound or light flashes). This requires sensors to be autonomous in their data processing, indepen­dently of networks involving on-board computing capabilities (i. e., edge computing). 2.3 Detection / Prediction The proliferation of cameras integrated into camouflaged and abandoned sensors on the field, or mounted on drones or microsatellites at altitudes that allow them to monitor the entire battlefield, will partially lift the fog of war for those who control them. AI will enable the detection of aerial stealth targets, and the spotting and identification of objects on images or videos taken by these various types of equipment, using conventional, IR or thermal vision. Data produced by these cameras and sensors are legion in theatres of operation, but armies suffer from a chronic lack of human resources to analyse them. Detection and identification will therefore be based on AI-assisted remote surveillance systems. Before deployment and under supervision, it will also have to learn how filter out false alarms, such as the rustling of leaves in trees due to the wind or the falling of dead leaves, which must not trigger alerts on images used to detect enemy movements. For detected and identified threats, AI will be able to predict and calculate the trajectory of targets in real time, and suggest priorities to deal with the fastest (missiles or remotely operated munitions). It will determine likely modes of progression for enemy vehicles or armed groups. AI will also be able to optimise radio transmission and coverage capacities according to the constraints of the terrain (mountains, relief, weather) and the resources available (positioning of communication relay drones). 2.4 Collaborative Combat Provided data is effectively shared between equipment, AI could encourage the emergence of collaborative combat as it makes it possible to optimise the distribution and availability of critical resources and effectors (i.e., means having an effect on its environment: jammer, smoke bomb, grenade etc.). Collaboration can be seen here on three main levels: a) the inter-environment availability of resources and effectors available in a given air-land tactical zone, b) cooperation between combat units and robotic systems during combat phases, and c) the organisation of logistical support by anticipating supplies as close as possible to the units, depending on the conduct of the manoeuvre. The necessary fusion of various types of data and the capacity for geo-distributed processing nevertheless requires very strong connectivity between the sensors deployed to carry out collaborative combat and a permanent flow of data. This requires an unjammed tactical network, backed up by connections to low-earth orbit satellites. 2.5 Equipment customisation In the future, AI will make it possible to customise the equipment worn by the soldier, i.e., his weaponry or the objects he wears, such as the exoskeleton. The exoskeleton will be able to adapt to the individual’s specific movement characteristics: each soldier having his own gait, AI will be able to learn it and optimise the exoskeleton’s muscular support accordingly. AI will provide cognitive assistance to the soldier through cognitive interfaces that are easy to use and present contextualised and adaptive information with a mental representation tailored to each individual, based on natural interaction between the soldier and the interface. Given the influx of operational and terrain data, it will be necessary to determine beforehand those of the soldier and personalise them: for example, with an intelligent filter adapted to the individual’s hierarchical level (group leader, platoon leader, captain) and his military speciality. Here again, AI can play a role in this filtering. Finally, AI can offer instant language translation capabilities for soldiers in the midst of a foreign population, adapting to local dialects and accents. It can also offer a “Speech to Text” capability for transmitting digital orders or chatting, adapting to the language of each person and its potential distortion depending on the context (as with the effects of stress, or as for pilots at high altitude subject to pressure variations). 2.6 Predictive maintenance In the field, equipment is subject to severe constraints. For any military equipment or weapons system, AI will help to improve their Maintenance in Operational Condition through predictive maintenance. It will enable self-diagnosis of vehicles or equipment, with access to external databases for diagnostic assistance in the event of breakdowns, but above all on a preventive basis. To achieve this, integrated HUMS (Health & Usage Monitoring System) will enable equipment to observe its own operating status. 3. The indispensable contribution of AI to robotics 3.1 Navigation AI will gradually be integrated into mobile platforms, and more specifically into robotic systems that include some form of autonomy (UAV air/ UGV land/ USV and UUV sea). Primarily for navigation functions to avoid a teleoperator being constantly dedicated to piloting and having consequently his cognitive load being dedicated solely to this function. It will enable robots to adapt to spatial configuration and unknown environments whenever necessary. It will also enable trajectory adjustments to be made under time pressure, particularly when unexpected obstacles appear along the way. Finally, it will enable these platforms to dodge threats and to position their effectors quickly and reactively. AI will also make it possible to overcome jamming constraints. While this article is being written, in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, we are close to observing remotely operated munitions that will be automated in their last trajectory section to track and neutralise the target, without direct human control. This also raises the question of a prior validation of the system’s activation by the military commander, who is responsible under International Humanitarian Law. Remotely operated munitions are currently heavily jammed in the last few hundred metres, and AI target identification functions will soon be developed to ensure the success of strikes in heavily jammed environments. 3.2 Managing multiple robotic platforms Swarms of multi-function robots, which can be multi-environments too, represent the next step in the introduction of robotics into the battlefield. Swarms can effectively occupy aerial or land spaces, ensure saturation effects thanks to redundancy of action and their sheer number. Several robotic platforms will be able to be coordinated by a collective intelligence, which adapts to external events and enables a “group behaviour” capable of reconfiguring itself and reallocating tasks internally to achieve a common objective. Their move will adapt dynamically, reactively and rapidly to the spatial configuration and to unknown environments, depending on the collective resources available. This will have multiple advantages: piloting will be supervised by a single operator, requiring less cognitive effort, and the swarm will be assigned a mission whose various components will be carried out by each of the specialised platforms (observation/detection, neutralisation, jamming, etc.). AI will grant them with a global strategy in the action, defining the expected characteristics of the swarm (speed and 3D device positioning), and the coordination of effects (observation, jamming, neutralisation, etc.). However, these strategies require modelling that takes into account the potential attrition of resources, but also the best configuration to generate a strong psychological impact on the enemy. Digital simulation is the technological solution that will make it possible to test on a larger scale various options to configure swarms and their possible uses, and to select the most appropriate configurations3. It will allow for testing vast combinations on the basis of several parameters: the rules of engagement laid down by the operational situation, the principles of the Law of Armed Conflicts, but also the types of swarm formations, the automation capabilities, and so on. 3.3 AI creates innovative robotic behaviours AI will also be innovative for robotic systems to which the military commander has delegated the execution of certain tasks. It will enable them to adapt their behaviour according to criteria that are no longer the classic criteria of an operation mounted with human partners, but mounted solely with machines whose loss in the field is entirely acceptable. In this way, it is possible to conceive a use centred on a main effect, whatever the attrition of robotic resources. It could be noted that these robotics systems are expendable and therefore have to be low cost and considered as consumable munitions, which in itself is already a conceptual evolution in military thinking. This gives rise to a number of exclusively robotic for which new doctrines of use could be devised, with some freedom of manoeuvre entrusted to the AI. For example, missions to deceive the enemy to provide support for a manoeuvre carried out by ground units. This can be done by deliberately misleading the enemy as to the direction of the friendly manoeuvre, with robots moving in the area where the enemy’s attention is required, or by disrupting them with trajectories that appear erratic or even incoherent. All this combined with the advantages offered by land-based robotics, such as responsiveness and precision, the effects of submerging by sheer numbers, and the ability to remain in the area 24 hours a day, this, provided that the robots have sufficient energy autonomy or that they carry out norias between their launch base and the action zone. While respecting IHL, we can imagine some AI whose objective will be to constantly harass enemy units by creating a feeling of constant observation and stalking, with the effect of depriving the enemy of the feeling of security that is essential to avoid any psychological collapse in the long term. On a more offensive level, AI will make it possible to seize opportunities in military action, in particular with the use of lethal assets integrated into larger, multifunctional robotic systems. The example of remotely operated munitions is very significant here, as they can be the assets around which the AI will organise the manoeuvre to detect and neutralise potential targets. For example, AI will be a particular component of future air raids in hostile territory for trajectory optimisation, in day and night conditions, and also for the training and positioning of robotic carriers and their effectors according to the potential risks detected. Compliance with IHL is of paramount importance in the execution of these missions, but its application to AI requires a specific development that could be the subject of another article, given the complexity of the subject. 3.4 Delegating tasks to AI The military leader will be able to delegate tasks to systems with a certain degree of autonomy, enabling them to carry out their mission 24 hours a day in the field, which is impossible for human beings, and will have the capacity to be more reactive than humans and therefore better able to react to saturating threats. The example of robot swarms is particularly telling, because with the advent of these sets of multifunctional robots, the leader and his subordinates will no longer be able to operate each of them remotely. He will delegate to a collective intelligence the piloting of each of the robots in the swarm, reserving for himself the piloting and control of the whole entity. Furthermore, since command performance is linked to respon­siveness, and since machines are more responsive than humans, AI will be better suited to immediately seize opportunities or react to threats, especially saturating ones and to attrition. However, this delegation of tasks to machines is a new concept for the military that raises the question of subsidiarity and the trust placed in these machines. We will come back to this in the command chapter. 4. AI to help the weak against the strong Military superiority often remains the prerogative of States benefitting from technological advances over their adversaries. But how can a State protect itself if its technologies are less developed than those of a Nation with great technological and industrial military capabilities? To answer this question, it appears that AI can be a factor in levelling asymmetry on the battlefield, by making appropriate use of the capabilities it offers. The creativity of AI can indeed offer innovative solutions to a military leader to counter the doctrines of employment of enemy military equipment. An AI trained in knowledge of friendly and enemy doctrines can develop, as an example, surprise strategies with the assets that a leader has at his disposal in a given tactical situation. We will consider here two types of assets: military equipment served by human assets and those served by robot assets. For the former, AI will be limited to being a decision aid. For the latter, the AI can manage the robot assets on its own, if this task has been delegated by the military leader. 4.1 AI as a decision-making aid for daring doctrines AI can revolutionize military tactics through daring reasoning that can surprise the adversary. However, this requires excellent knowledge of the tactical situation, provided by a comprehensive overall view of the battle­field, often called God’s eye, thanks to cameras embedded in micro­satellites as well as tactical drones. This knowledge of a precise tactical situation becomes entirely possible through the interconnection of one’s own or allied observation systems, which ensures a centralized vision of friendly and enemy troops movements. This is currently the case of the digital platform used by Ukraine in the Ukrainian theater of war, which is used to centralize all images emitted by drones to make them available to their allies. The military genius will then be able to refer to it and propose daring manoeuvres focusing on the detected enemy’s weaknesses and based on the knowledge of its modes of action in order to constrain its posture. 4.2 AI as a manager of robot assets Technological developments will very soon enable the development of coordinated systems of different robots, with a relatively low acquisition cost compared to traditional military systems, thanks to the reuse of civilian robots facilitating a “low cost” effect. AI will allow them to ensure the autonomy necessary to carry out the tasks that the military leader delegates to them, while maintaining constant supervision. Armed forces will therefore be able to benefit from their use. The responsiveness of these systems, in constant flight in the sky or easily deployable from a platform or from a truck, will enable them to counter saturating threats in real time. As a result, a battle for the occupation of 3D space by robotized machines is taking shape, setting drones against drones, swarms against drones and swarms against swarms. 4.3 Digital deception by AI While camouflage remains a basic rule for protecting your units, the introduction of AI brings a new discipline that will have to be integrated into deployed or embarked combat units: digital deception. Digital deception is a new discipline whose aim is to prevent the enemy from collecting exploitable data on our forces, but also to deceive opposing AI, which will thus be disrupted in their process of analyzing captured images. In addition to classic concealment measures, notably to conceal our forces and equipment from the omni-surveillance from the sky (satellites, drones), deceiving the enemy will also involve camouflaging our military data captured on the battlefield. This will involve breaking down shapes (characteristic points) and electromagnetic signatures. Indeed, the capture of imagery intelligence (IMINT) is now increasingly delegated to remote systems, using cameras that most often only render a 2D image, i.e., with no relief effect, on which the precise detection of details remains complex. Mirrors, for example, can become a simple way of deceiving, which is very difficult for AI to detect. The latter usually relies on detected shapes. For connectionist AI, certain neurons will specialize in the recognition of specific shapes. Let’s take the example of the tank: an AI specialized in tank recognition will have learned specific shapes characteristic of a combat tank (turret, cannon, tracks, and so on). Adding whacky shapes that are incompatible with a tank structure will most likely confuse the enemy AI. It is no longer a question of breaking lines as in classic camouflage, but of adding patterns that will lower the AI’s statistical detection of a tank. For example, by adding wooden panels with painted window shutters to the tank’s superstructure, on all 4 sides and on the top of the tank. This may seem very incongruous, but the AI will be completely confused and will not be able to conclude that an enemy tank is present, as the risk of error is too high. Of course, the enemy will quickly become aware of this, but by the time he has performed a new training for his AI to get around the problem, the friendly forces will have time to modify the paintwork on the wooden panels, and replace the shutters with … other motifs such as slates! It may be objected that this type of superstructure paint will not be compatible with traditional camouflage, the aim of which is to deceive the human eye. Not necessarily, since the primary aim of visual camouflage is to break the classic shapes detectable to the human eye. The solutions outlined above are admittedly simplistic, but further study will enable us to reconcile these two constraints: breaking the lines, and adding structural elements unlikely to be seen on military equipment. Another example is the use of fake images, with deliberately modified dimensions. These can deceive an enemy AI into not making the correlation between an object’s size and its environment, because AI simply hasn’t learned perspective in the sense that we humans manage it with our binocular vision, which gives us an idea of distances in 3D and a perception of relief. In the same vein, a virtuous AI will have learned the basic constraints of international humanitarian law (IHL), implying the non-aggression of civilian populations during combat. This represents an ethical and technical challenge, which requires AI to respect these unbreakable rules. Consequently, simulating civilian personnel on the same tank (by adding mannequins placed on the vehicle), will once again disturb an ethical AI trained not to open fire on suspicion of firing on defenseless populations. Reasoning can be applied to electromagnetism. The difference is that it is difficult to reduce an electromagnetic signature, which indicates emission on the battlefield, and therefore active participation in the conflict. This makes it difficult to mask one emission with a different electromagnetic signature. 5. The impact of AI on command For the military leader, the issue raised by the introduction of AI on the battlefield lies in the constant need to retain his responsibility for decision-making. Nevertheless, the three revolutions outlined in the introduction will gradually call into question traditional military command, which until now has been reserved for Man, the only one capable of apprehending the context and the environment and synthesizing the information4. 5.1 From vertical to horizontal command structure Primarily, since the dawn of military history, the strength of the armed forces has always been their hierarchical command structure. Soldiers place their trust in their leader, who in turn is aware of the overall tactical situation and decides on the idea of manoeuvre. Subordinates carry out orders and trust their leader’s tactical analysis. However, with the digitization of the battlefield, data is now more widely available than ever before. What is known as the verticality of command is thus disrupted by the horizontal nature of the information disseminated to all. As a result, the leader will have to formulate his orders keeping in mind that his subordinates also share the same information, and may even have received and analyzed it before him. He must therefore take their opinions into account and co-construct his thinking with them, at the risk of otherwise cutting himself off from a host of advice from his staff deployed in the field as close to the action as possible. 5.2 Optimising the decision-making process duration At the same time, AI and its ability to process information in real time means that military decision-making duration can be shortened. In a conventional decision-making process, which is traditionally broken down into four steps (information acquisition, analysis, decision based on certain rules or constraints, then action or lack of action), immediate access to information means that the decision-making process is extremely shortened. Besides, the decision-making process itself can be delegated to a machine, whose computing capacity and reaction time are far superior to those of human beings. 5.3 Hybrid subsidiarity Finally, command is exercised through subsidiarity. This will involve two components: the traditional one with the soldier team member under his command, and the future one with AI-integrated systems to which he will delegate tasks to carry out. The leader will therefore have to proceed in two phases. The first phase consists in defining precisely the tasks he delegates to these systems, while ensuring that he controls the framework within which their actions are carried out. He defines the actions that have to be validated at his level, the others being subject to a regular report. He also controls the temporal and spatial framework in which these systems evolve. Once these systems are active, the second phase implies to command by reaction. This takes place at a more global level, as in the example of the swarms mentioned above. It can be both a) a command by reframing if the action carried out by these systems deviates from the spirit of the manoeuvre intended by the leader, or b) a command by veto that temporarily or definitively stops the triggering of actions considered critical. It should be noted that the ethical question raised here is that of the trust we can place in machines that are potentially more efficient than humans, but which are not moral agents in the sense that they will never be aware of the scope of their actions and decisions. They are simply algorithms that execute. In contrast, the soldier exercises discernment and free will. 5.4 Maintaining the demands of command However, whatever the assets at his disposal, the military leader must take responsibility for the military action he leads. This principle is both structuring and reassuring. Structuring, because it ensures the credibility of the command, which takes responsibility for its own actions despite the fog of war. Reassuring, because the leader retains the need for discernment before making any decisions, and avoids offloading his responsibility onto the behavior of the machines at his disposal. Moreover, the military leader takes decisions according to the context. He is the only one able to take into account the global situation of a military action, to see beyond the initial data of the mission he is leading, and beyond the data emitted on the battlefield. Besides, he is the only one who is aware of the moral implications of his actions ­­– something, let us not forget, any machine would never possess. Nevertheless, he will have to train himself to avoid the new challenge of the significant reduction in the time allowed to make a decision, as outlined above. AI will certainly enable systems to react more quickly, but this advantage is the same for the enemy: “He who shoots first wins”, as Lieutenant-Colonel Rommel wrote in his memoirs. He will therefore have to train himself to discern and decide promptly, in order to maintain his superiority over his adversary, while restraining himself from the temptation of excessive confidence, or even fascination, in the AI’s performance. Consequently, AI, as a built-in tool in military systems that can allow for a degree of autonomy, must not cause the military leader to lose the possibility of regaining control over the machine. Here we quote Professor Dominique Lambert, who lists the conditions of supervision required to ensure that the human sense of the action is preserved5. According to him, human supervision must be: sufficient, which means that humans introduce into the management of the weapons system sufficient conditions (and not just a few necessary conditions) to ensure that ethical principles are preserved and that the rules of International Humanitarian Law and the rules of engagement are satisfied; meaningful, meaning that it is ultimately always a reference to the human sense that must guide the design, development and use of weapons systems […]; coherent, which means that at no point can the weapons system contradict what human authority has prescribed as the goal of action. In fact, it would be incoherent if a weapons system deployed to fulfill a certain mission began to behave in a way that is inconsistent with the prescribed aims. 5.5 Defining a national strategy for a sovereign military AI Given the risks inherent to this new technology, every country needs to set a strategy that respects the ethical constraints it has defined. We can cite here as an example the French Army which, in its AI Task Force report of September 2019, indicates the need to: rely on trusted, controlled and responsible AI; maintain the resilience and scalability of its systems; preserve national sovereignty; maintain freedom of action and interoperability with its allies. These general principles for a strategic policy for the implementation of a sovereign AI can be taken up or adapted by Armenia, partner country of France. The fact is that connectionist AI relies on the data that feeds its machine learning process, and then for the data processing to be carried out. But, if the data with which the AI of the civilian world is trained (Gemini, LLaMA, ChatGPT, etc.) is plethoric, it is because they have been generously and freely made available to GAMMA by their owners, without them even realizing it. The same cannot be said of military data. Under no circumstances should military data be distributed to the whole world on an open-access basis, and it must remain the priority of sovereign states. Military data is of vital importance! This means knowing how to retrieve and preserve it: it is a challenge to national sovereignty. As a result, these same states need to develop their own sovereign AI, which are the only ones to be authorized to use their military data. While the help of allied nations is invaluable in this respect, the use of military data by foreign AI will have to be agreed on between the countries concerned. It is also conceivable to start with neural networks developed by foreign nations and specialized in a given function, and then to enrich them by learning new additional classes which will remain the property of the sovereign country. 6. Conclusions As a logical consequence of the digitization of the battlefield, the interconnection of systems and the drastic increase in the amount of data to be processed, AI offers a host of opportunities that every nation must seize by adopting a development strategy that enables it to retain sovereignty over its own military data. In terms of command, AI is not just another technique. It requires every military leader who uses it to master its use, to seize the opportunities it offers, while understanding its risks. This implies having leaders capable of grasping the complexity, and not simply delegating its management to technical specialists. While AI military experts, engineers and technicians are obviously needed, so too are military personnel and officers trained in these techniques. To achieve this, the latter will be able to draw on simulation tools to help establish new doctrines of use for AI-built-in systems (detection, counter-threat, robotic systems of systems, swarms), as well as tactical situation exercises in which AI is used as a decision-support tool for manoeuvre preparation, or in conduct. We however must bear in mind that, while AI enables us to express a new type of military genius in the service of our forces, the enemy can also be inventive and changeable, with the sole aim of surprising us in order to win. References 1 See Gérard de Boisboissel. Déclinaisons et applications possibles de l’IA dans le domaine militaire. “Moroccan National Defence review”. First edition, Juin 2023. 2 See Dominique Lambert. Que penser de… ?: la robotique et l’intelligence artificielle. Fidélité/Lessius. Editions Jésuites, 2019, N 100. 3 See Thierry Berthier, Gérard de Boisboissel. Du drone au essaim de drones: une nécessaire modélisation des comportements au profit de la simulation. Conference CAID DGA 2023. 4 See Gérard de Boisboissel. Intelligence artificielle et commandement. “Défense et Sécurité Internationale”, Janvier-Février 2024, N 169. 5 See Dominique Lambert. Fondements éthiques d’un approche humaine­ment signifiante du problème des SALAS. “Les enjeux de l’autonomie des systèmes d’armes létaux”, Pedone, 2022, P. 138. * The SICS (Système d’Information du Combat de SCORPION) is an on-board operational information system all French Army vehicles are gradually being equipped with.

In 2019, Netflix released the first season of its highly anticipated show The Witcher. Based on the books of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, the fantasy show tells the intersecting stories of the Witcher Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), the princess of Cintra Ciri (Freya Allan), and sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra), who is commonly referred to as a ‘mage’. Although not as popular among critics as its original book incarnations and adapted game counterparts, the show went on to achieve an 89% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and was subsequently renewed for more seasons. Although the general success of the show is clear among viewers, The Witcher was not without its detractors, who accused creator Lauren Hissrich of developing a woke series with a feminist agenda (Worrall), especially because of her desire to emphasise strong female characters (Crow). The latter is, of course, a direction that the Netflix series inherited from the video game version of The Witcher – especially The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – even if the portrayal is often considered to be biased and “problematic” (Heritage). Supporting the view that the show focusses on the character trajectories of independent and capable women is the analysis offered by Worrow (61), who attests that “the female representations in season one of The Witcher offer prominent female characters who are imbued with agency, institutional power and well-developed narrative arcs”. Although Worrow’s analysis offers a clear critical account of Yennefer’s story arc – among the other female characters – what it does not consider is the relationship between women and magic, which has historically seen the mistreatment and ostracising of women as practitioners, and which tacitly informs representation in The Witcher by providing a gendered view of magical power. In response to this, the purpose of our article is to consider how Yennefer’s pursuit of magic both maintains and challenges gender stereotypes, particularly as they pertain to sorceresses and witches. The analysis will focus primarily on the episodes of Season One. Through the course of Season One, audiences are introduced to the character of Yennefer as she transitions from a deformed woman into a ‘beautiful’ sorceress. Alienated by her community because of a hunched back and cleft palate, Yennefer remains mistreated until she exhibits magical tendencies – or “the ability to conduct Chaos” (Guimarães). This is an aptitude that will later be revealed to be a direct outcome of her Elvin heritage (Worrow). Having gained the attention of Tissaia (MyAnna Buring), the Rectress of the magical school Aretuza, Yennefer is purchased from her family and relocated to Aretuza to train as a mage. Initially, Yennefer struggles with the magic training, where magic itself is referred to as “chaos”. In particular, she specifically finds it hard to “control [her] chaos”, as the series puts it, because of her emotional tendencies. After a short period of time, however, Yennefer develops into a strong, talented sorceress who is later instrumental in the final battle of Season One against the Nilfgaardian forces that are at war with the city-state of Cintra (Chitwood); the conflict with the kingdom of Nilfgaard is a central plot development in The Witcher, running across multiple seasons of the series. Throughout Season One, audiences view Yennefer’s character development, as she sheds her kind, naïve personality in favour of becoming an agent of chaos, who is fully immersed in the political intrigue that influences the Continent – the broader geographical land where the events of The Witcher take place. What It Means to Be a Sorceress For the purpose of this article, we will be using the terms “sorceress” and “witch” interchangeably (Stratton). It is important to mention here that several strands of anthropological research contend that the two terms are not synonymous, with “sorcery” referring to the ability to “manipulate supernatural forces for malicious or deviant purposes” (Moro, 2); the term “witch”, on the other hand, would preferably be used for “people suspected of practising, either deliberately or unconsciously, socially prohibited forms of magic“ (Moro, 1). Nonetheless, historians and sociologists have long equated the two because of their prepotency to describe magic users who channel power for productive and nefarious purposes (Godsend; Lipscomb). We cite our understanding of these important terminologies in the latter critical area, seeing the important social, cultural, and political interconnections concomitantly held by the terms “sorceress” and “witch” in the context of magical practices within The Witcher series. ‘Mage’, for its part, seems to be used in the series as a gender-neutral term, openly recalling a well-known narrative trajectory from both fantasy novels and games. Regardless of whether they were deemed witches, sorceresses, mages, or enchantresses, and despite historical records that prove the contrary, practitioners of magic, as such, have predominantly been gendered as female (Godwin; Stratton). Such a misconception has meant that stereotypes and representations of magic and witchcraft in popular culture have continued to show a penchant for depicting witches not only as female but also as powerful and intimidating beings that continuously challenge hegemonic power structures (Burger & Mix; Stratton). Historically, and especially so in the Western context, individuals labelled as witches and sorceresses have been ostracised, in some instances eradicated through mass killings, to ostensibly contain their power and remove the threat of the evil they inevitably embodied and represented (Johnson). This established historical framework is tacitly embedded in the narrative structure of The Witcher, with examples such as Yennefer often being portrayed as out of control because of her magical powers. The series, however, acknowledges unspoken historical truths and reinforces its own canon, as it is made clear throughout that men can also be magic users; indeed, the show includes a variety of male druids, sorcerers, and mages. Where a potential gender divide exists, however, is in reference to the Brotherhood of Sorcerers, who seemingly control the activities and powers of magical practitioners. Although there is a female equivalent in Sapkowski’s novels, called the Lodge of Sorceresses, the first season of The Witcher does not openly engage with it. Such an omission could be construed as a gender concern in the Netflix show, as a patriarchal group seemingly oversees the activities of mages. As Worrow argues, the show implies that “The Brotherhood controls and legitimizes the use of magic” (66), and by being referred to as a ‘brotherhood’, creates a gender imbalance within the series. This interpretation is not unexpected, bearing in mind that gender studies scholars have consistently pointed out how structural inequalities exist, even in fictitious offerings. In social, cultural, and media contexts alike, these offerings subordinate women in favour of maintaining ideologies that advantage hegemonic masculinity (Connell; Butler). Where the stereotypes of women diverge in The Witcher, however, is in the general characterisation of these powerful witches and sorceresses as empathetic and compassionate individuals. Across the history of representation, witches have been portrayed as cruel, evil, manipulative, and devious, making witches one of the most recognisable tropes of evil women in storytelling, from fairy tales to film, TV, novels, and games (Zipes). While a number of notable exceptions exist – one should only think here of Practical Magic, both in its book and film adaptations (1995/1998), as examples of texts exploring the notion of the good witch – the representational stereotype of witches as wicked and malevolent creatures has held centrally true. A witch’s activities are generally focussed on controlling and bringing misfortune upon others, in favour of their own gain (Moro). As Schimmelpfennig puts it, the recurrent image of the witch is that of someone who is “envious” of others: “nobody loves, likes, or pities her. She seems to have brought disaster upon herself and lives on the margins of society, [often] visualised by her residence in the woods” (31). The common perception, as cemented in fictional contexts, has been that witches have nefarious and villainous intents, and their magical actions (especially) are perpetually motivated by this. Although she was initially alienated by both her magical and non-magical communities, Yennefer’s character development does not adhere exactly to the broadly established characterisation of witches. Admittedly, she does act in morally ambiguous ways. For example, in the episode “Bottled Appetites”, her desire to have children leads her to attempt to control a jinn regardless of the dangerous costs to herself and others. And yet, in the following episode, "Rare Species", Yennefer changes her mind about trying to slay a dragon whose magical properties could help her, and instead works with Geralt to defend the Dragon and its family from Reavers. She also confronts injustices by helping to defend the territory of Sodden Hill which is threatened by Nilfgaardian forces ("Much More"). Rather than being purely evil, as witches have long been considered to be, Yennefer offers a more nuanced and relatable depiction, as both a witch and, arguably, a woman character. The moral complexity of Yennefer as a magical figure, then, not only makes for compelling viewing – with such magical characters often being an expected presence in mainstream programming (Greene) – but her continued growth, and the attention given to her identity development by showrunners, challenge gender stereotypes. On screen, female characters have often been treated as auxiliaries to their male counterparts (Taber et al.); they have fulfilled roles as mother, lover, or damsel in distress, reducing any potential for growth (Nairn). The Witcher Season One gives Yennefer her own arc and, in doing so, becomes a series that elevates the status of women rather than treating them as, to borrow Simone de Bauvoir’s famous words, ‘the second sex’. Power & Empowerment Differentiating Yennefer from the stereotypes of female characters, and witches/sorceresses more specifically within the broader popular media and culture landscape, is her obvious agency within The Witcher series. Gammage et al. argue that agency can be understood as “the capacity for purposive action, the ability to make decisions and pursue goals free from violence, retribution, and fear, but it also includes a cognitive dimension” (6). Throughout The Witcher, Yennefer does not act subserviently and will even oppose the will of those around her. For example, in the episode “Before the Fall”, she gives advice to young girls training to be mages to ignore the instructions of their tutors and "to think for themselves" (26:19-26:20). She follows up by later telling the young mages about how Aretuza takes away their opportunity to bear children, to ensure the mages stay loyal to the cause. As she puts it: "Even if you do everything right, follow their rules, that's still no guarantee you will get what you want" (29:42-29:51). This exposes her character as not tied to traditional patriarchal notions of subservience. And while personal motivations may laterally aid the conception of witches as egotistical, her actions still stand out as being propelled by individual agency. Female characters on screen have often been portrayed as submissive and passive, and this includes iconic on-screen witches from Samantha in Bewitched to the titular character in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It is not uncommon to see good witches in popular media and culture, in particular, as still defined by male relationships in terms of cultural and social value (for instance, Sally Owens in Practical Magic, and Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). As Godwin puts it, these characters embody the expected gender roles of a patriarchal society, with storylines, for example, that favour love potions or keeping house. As far as The Witcher is concerned, being submissive and passive is often in direct contrast with Yennefer’s preferences. For example, in “Betrayer Moon”, she intentionally ignores the decision of the Brotherhood to act as the mage in Nilfgaard by intentionally catching the eye of the King of Aedirn: the King then asks for Yennefer to be his mage. Fringilla (Mimi Ndiweni), who was supposed to be the mage in Aedirn, is forced to go to Nilfgaard instead. Yennefer's behaviour not only defies The Brotherhood in favour of her own interests but also demonstrates her unwillingness to conform to the expectations placed on her. Such depictions of Yennefer acting with agency make her, arguably, relatable to audiences. Female characters and witches such as Yennefer become emblematic of independent, competent women who use magic to take control of their own destiny (Burger and Mix) and can be praised for opposing “oppressive societal norms” and instead advocating for “independent thought” (Godwin 92). It is possible to argue here that what drives Yennefer appears to be her sense of Otherness, as an intrinsic difference that is central to her being, both physically and emotionally. Although initially her othered nature is seemingly the product of her deformities and ethnic background (with elves being socially, culturally, and politically ostracised on the Continent), she openly admits to feeling othered throughout the series, even after her physical disfigurement is cured by magic. Her individualised agency makes her inevitably stand out and becomes a marker of difference. This representation is not dissimilar to the feelings expressed by women across First, Second, and Third-wave Feminism (Butler; Connell). Indeed, Worrow observes that “The Witcher encodes female characters with power as ‘other’, enhancing this otherness through magical abilities” (61). It would seem that, in essence, the show surreptitiously gives voice to the plight of minority groups through the hard work, dedication, and determination of Yennefer as an Othered character, as she struggles and defies expectations in pursuit of her goal of becoming a powerful sorceress. Her independence and agency tell a story of empowerment because, like other fictional witches of the last decade in the twenty-first century, Yennefer “refuses to pretend to be someone or something they are not, eschewing the lie to instead embody the truth of themselves, their identity's, and their unapologetic strength” (Burger and Mix 14). This profoundly diverges from other representations where being the ‘other’ was seen as a justification for punishment, marginalisation, or mistreatment, and amply seen across the historicised media spectrum, from Disney films to horror narratives and beyond. Nonetheless, although it appears as if Yennefer has agency and is empowered, there is the argument that she is a conduit of magic, and as such, lacks real power and influence without a capacity to control the chaos. As Godwin contends, witches are often limited in their capacity to be influential and to have true autonomy by the fact that they do not possess magic but are often seemingly controlled by it. At various times in Season One, Yennefer struggles to control the chaos magic. For example, while being beaten up, she inadvertently portals for the first time. During her magical training, she can't manage a number of magical tasks ("Four Marks"). Here, the suggestion is that she is not completely free to act as she chooses because it can produce unintentional consequences or no consequences at all; this conceptual enslavement to magic as the source of her power and individuality seemingly dilutes some of her agency. Furthermore, instances of her trying to control the chaos within the show also conform to stereotypes of women being ruled by emotions and prone to hysterical outbursts (Johnson). Aesthetics & Sexuality Stereotypically, and in keeping with fictional tropes in literature, media, and film, witches have been described as “mature” women, “with bad skin, crooked teeth, foul breath, a cackling laugh, and a big nose with a wart at the end of it” (Henderson 66). Classic examples include the witches depicted in the works of the Brothers Grimm, Disney’s instances of Madam Mim in The Sword in the Stone and the transformed Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the witches of Roald Dahl’s eponymous novel (1983), and (even more traditionally and iconically) the hags of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1623). Yet, more recently the witch aesthetic has altered significantly in the media spectrum with an increased focus on young, alluring, and enchanting women, such as Rowan Fielding in Mayfair Witches (2023 –), Sabrina Spellman of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018–2020), Freya Mikealson of The Originals (2013–2018), and of course, Yennefer in The Witcher. These examples emphasise that female magic users, much like a significant ratio of female characters in popular culture, are sexualised, with the seductive nature of the witch taking precedence and, in some cases, detracting from the character's agency as she becomes objectified for the male gaze (Mulvey). The hiring of actress Chaltora as Yennefer, although designed to challenge racialised beauty standards (Kain), does not dispel the treatment of women as sex objects as she is filmed nude during some magic rituals and in intimate scenes. Importantly, and as briefly mentioned above, when Yennefer’s back story is told, she is introduced as a young woman with physical deformities. As part of her ascension to a sorceress, she is required to undergo a physical transformation to make her beautiful, as conventional beauty and allure appear to be requirements for mages. As Worrow (66) attests, she is seen “undergoing an invasive, painful, magical metamorphosis which remakes her in the image of classical feminine beauty”. Unsurprisingly, the makeover received backlash for being ableist (Calder), but the magical change also enforced stereotypical views of women needing to be “manicured and coiffed” (Eckert, 530) to have relevancy and value. Yennefer’s beautifying procedure could also be interpreted as paralleling current cultural currents in contemporary society, where cosmetic interventions and physical transformations, often in the form of plastic surgery, are encouraged for women to be accepted. Indeed, Yennefer is shown as being much more accepted by human and mage communities alike after her transformation, as both her political and magical influence grows. In these terms, the portrayal of Yennefer maintains rather than challenges gender norms, making for a disappointing turn in the plotline of The Witcher. The decision to submit to the transformation also came at a cost to Yennefer. She was forced to forfeit her uterus and by extension her potential to become a mother. Such a storyline conforms to Creed’s long-standing perspective that “when a woman is represented as monstrous it is almost always in relation to her mothering and reproductive functions” (118). Here, even after achieving the expected beauty standards, Yennefer is still treated as abject because she can no longer “fulfil the function dictated by patriarchal and phallocentric hegemony” (Worrow 68), which further contributes to the widespread ideological perspective that women’s roles are to be nurturing and child-rearing (Bueskens). Of course, motherhood remains a contentious topic for Yennefer as, although she made the decision to forgo her uterus in pursuit of power and beauty, she later comes to regret that decision. In the episode “Rare Specifies”, Yennefer admits to Geralt that she feels loss and sadness over her inability to reproduce, which contributes to the complexity and inner turmoil of her character, while equally reinforcing the perception that women should be mothers. Her initial independence and choice are undermined by her attempts to regain her uterus and later, in Season 3, by her adopting the role of mother figure to Ciri. Conclusion In many respects, the story arc of sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg conforms to what McRobbie describes as female individualism, and Gill considers post-feminist. That is, Yennefer has choice and agency. She makes decisions out of a sense of entitlement, and privileges her desire for power, beauty, and freedom, sometimes above all else. Much like other post-feminist icons, Yennefer is empowered and challenges gender stereotypes that charge women with being passive and submissive. Yet, despite the fact that 60% of the writing credits are held by women on The Witcher (Worrow), Yennefer’s character is still objectified. Although the male gaze might not always be privileged, there are examples where her sexuality is exploited; by being portrayed as physically attractive, desirable, and promiscuous, she still conforms to gender norms about ideal beauty standards. The sexuality of her character maintains perceptions of witches and sorceresses as seducers, and while she is not cavorting with Satan, as many witches have historically claimed to be (Stratton), her depiction maintains the adage that sex sells – at least as far as media production goes. Ultimately, the character of Yennefer in The Witcher appears to be an attempt to respond to a tacit cultural desire for strong female characters with relatable storylines, without ostracising male fans. Despite the desire to include empowered female characters in the show, however, Yennefer is also depicted as a continuously unhappy and unfulfilled character, as her value becomes entangled with notions of motherhood. The balancing of these competing adages continues to simultaneously maintain and challenge stereotypes of witches and sorceresses, as representational exemplifications of women’s experiences in media and culture. References “Before a Fall.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 7. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. “Betrayer Moon.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 3. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. “Bottled Appetites.” The Witcher. Created by Lauren Hissrich. Season 1, episode 5. Netflix. Little Schmidt Productions, 2019. Bueskens, Petra. Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract. London: Routledge, 2018. 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Godwin, Victoria L. “Love and Lack: Media, Witches, and Normative Gender Roles.” Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers. Ed. Alena Amato Ruggerio. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2012. Greene, Heather. Lights, Camera, Witchcraft: A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television. Woodbury: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2021. Guimarães, Elisa. “The Witcher: Yennefer’s Magic Explained – How Does It Work & Where Does It Come From?” Collider, 30 Dec 2021. 5 Aug. 2023 <https://collider.com/the-witcher-yennefer-magic-explained/>. Henderson, Lizanne. Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland 1670-1740. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016. Heritage, Frazer. “Magical Women: Representations of Female Characters in the Witcher Video Game Series.” Discourse, Context & Media 49 (2022). <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2022.100627>. Hudspeth, Christoper. “What Happens in ‘The Witcher’ Season One? 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Introduction The trope of food is often used in the humanities to discuss aspects of a culture that are customarily overlooked by a textualist approach, for food embodies a kind of knowledge that comes from the direct engagement with materials and processes, and involves taste as an aesthetics that exceeds the visual concept of the “beautiful.” Moreover, cooking is one of the most ancient cultural practices, and is considered the habit that defines us as humans in comparison to other animals—not only culturally, but also physiologically (Wrangham). Today we have entered a post-human age in which technological augmentations, while promoting the erasure of embodiment in favour of intelligence (Hayles), create new assemblages between the organic and the digital, thus redefining what it means to be human. In this context, a reassessment of the practice of cooking as the manipulation of what constitutes food—both for thought and for the body—may promote a more nuanced approach to contemporary culture, in which the agency of the non-human (from synthetic materials to the digital) affects our modes of being and reflects on our aesthetic sensibility. In the 1980s, Guy Debord observed that the food industry's standardisation and automation of methods of production and consumption have anaesthetised the consumer palate with broader political and cultural implications. Today the Internet has extended the intertwinement of food and technology to the social and aesthetic spheres, thus further impacting on taste. For instance, cultural trends such as “foodism” and “slow food” thrive on blogs and social networks and, while promoting an artisanal style in food preparation and presentation, they paradoxically may also homogenise cooking techniques and the experience of sharing a meal. This leads to questions regarding the extent to which the digitalisation of culture might be hindering our capacity to taste. Or, given the new possibilities for connectivity, can this digitalisation also foster an aesthetic sensibility associated with different attitudes and approaches to food—one that transgresses both the grand narratives and the standardisation promoted by such gastronomic fashions? It also leads to the question of how such activities reflect on the collective sphere, considering the contagious character of networked communication. While foodism thrives online, the Internet has nevertheless prompted a renewed interest in DIY (do-it-yourself) cooking techniques. As a recent issue of M/C Journal testifies, today cookbooks are produced and consulted at an unprecedented rate—either in print or online (Brien and Wessell). Taking the example of the online diffusion of DIY cheese-making recipes, I will below trace the connections between cooking, computer culture, and taste with the support of Gilbert Simondon's metaphysics of technics. Although Simondon never extensively discussed food in relation to technology, the positioning of technicity at the heart of culture allows his work to be used to address the multifaceted nature of taste in the light of recent technological development, in particular of the Network. As a matter of fact, today cooking is not only a technical activity, in the sense that it requires a certain practical and theoretical skilfulness—it is also a technological matter, for the amount of networked machines that are increasingly used for food production and marketing. Specifically, this paper argues that by disentangling the human—albeit partially—from the capitalist cycle of production-marketing-consumption and by triggering an awareness of the increasingly dominant role technology plays in food processing and manufacturing, the online sharing of home-cooking advice may promote a reconfiguration of taste, which would translate into a more nuanced approach to contemporary techno-culture. In the first part of this discussion, I introduce Simondon’s philosophy and foreground the technical dimension of cooking by discussing cheese-making as a process of individuation. In the second, I focus on Simondon’s definition of technical objects and technical ensembles to position Internet culture in relation to cooking, and highlight how technicity folds back on taste as aesthetic impression. Ultimately, I conclude with some reflections on how such a culinary-aesthetic approach may find application in other techno-cultural fields by promoting an aesthetic sensibility that extends beyond the experience of the “social” to encompass an ethical component. Cooking as Individuation: The Networked Dimension of Taste Simondon is known as the thinker, and “tinkerer”, of technics. His project is concerned with ontogenesis—that is, the becoming of objects in relation to the terms that constitute them as individual. Simondon’s philosophy of individuation allows for a better understanding of how the Internet fosters certain attitudes to food, for it is grounded on a notion of “energetic materiality in movement” (Deleuze and Guattari 408) that explains how “immaterial” algorithms can affect individual experience and cultural production. For Simondon, individuation is the process that arises from objects being out-of-phase with themselves. Put differently, individuation allows for “the conservation of being through becoming” (Genesis 301). Likewise, individualisation is “the individuation of an individuated being, resulting from an individuation, [and creating] a new structuration within the individual” (L’Individuation 132). Individuation and individualisation are processes common to all kinds of being. Any individual operates an internal and an external resonance within the system in which it is enmeshed, and produces an “associated milieu” capable of entering into relation with other individuals within the system. Simondon maintains that nature consists of three regimes of individuation, that is, three possible phases of every being: the physical, the biological, and the psycho-social—that develop from a metastable pre-individual field. Technology traverses all three regimes and allows for further individualisation via transductive operations across such phases—that is, via operations of conversion of energy from one form to another. The recent online diffusion of DIY cheese-making recipes lends itself to be analysed with the support of Simondon’s philosophy. Today cheese dominates degustation menus beside the finest wines, and constitutes a common obsession among “foodies.” Although, as an object, cheese defies more traditional canons of beauty and pleasure—its usual pale yellow colour is not especially inviting and, generally speaking, the stinkier and mouldier it is, the more exclusive and expensive it usually is—it has played a sizeable role in the collective imagination since ancient times. Although the genesis of cheese predates archival memory, it is commonly assumed to be the fruit of the chemical reaction naturally occurring in the interaction of milk with the rennet inherently contained in the bladders made of ruminants’ stomachs in which milk was contained during the long transits undertaken by the nomadic cultures of Central Asia. Cheese is an invention that reportedly occurred without human intervention, and only the technical need to preserve milk in high temperature impelled humans to learn to produce it. Since World War II its production is most exclusively factory-based, even in the case of artisanal cheese (McGee), which makes the renewed concern for homemade cheese more significant from a techno-cultural perspective. Following Simondon, the individualisation of cheese—and of people in relation to cheese—depends on the different objects involved in its production, and whose associated milieu affects the outcome of the ontogenetic process via transductive operations. In the specific case of an industrial block of cheese, these may include: the more or less ethical breeding and milking of cows in a factory environment; the types of bacteria involved in the cheese-making process; the energy and costs inherent in the fabrication of the packaging material and the packaging process itself; the CO2 emissions caused by transportations; the physical and intellectual labour implied in marketing, retailing and selling; and, last but not least, the arguable nutritional value of the factory-produced cheese—all of which, in spite of their “invisibility” to the eyes of the consumer, affect physical conditions and moods when they enter into relation with the human body (Bennet). To these, we may add, with specific reference to the packaging: the RFID tags that electronically index food items into databases for a more efficient management of supplies, and the QR codes used for social media marketing purposes. In contrast, the direct engagement with the techno-material conditions at the basis of the home cookery process allows one to grasp how different operations may affect the outcome of the recipe. DIY cheese-making recipes are specifically addressed to laypeople and, because they hardly demand professional equipment, they entail a greater attunement with, and to, the objects and processes required by the recipe. For instance, one needs to “feel” when milk has reached the right temperature (specifically, 82 degrees centigrade, which means that the surface of the milk should be slightly bubbly but not fully boiling) and, with practice, one learns how the slightest movement of the hand can lead to different results, in terms of consistency and aspect. Ultimately, DIY cheese-making allows the cook to be creative with moulding, seasonings, and marinading. Indeed, by directly engaging with the undiscovered properties and potentials of ingredients, by understanding the role that energy (both in the sense of induction and “transduction”) plays on form and matter, and by developing—often via processes of trial and error—technics for stirring, draining, moulding, marinading, canning, and so forth, making cheese at home an exercise in speculative pragmatics. An experimental approach to cooking, as the negotiation between the rigid axioms that make up a recipe and the creative and experimental components inherent in the operations of mixing and blending, allows one to feel the ultimate outcome of the cooking process as an event. The taste of a homemade cheese is linked to a new kind of knowledge—that is, an epistemology based on continuous breakages that allow for the cooking process to carry on until the ultimate result. It is a knowledge that comes from a commitment to objects being out-of-phase, and from the acknowledgement of the network of technical operations that bring cheese to our tables. The following section discusses how another kind of object may affect the outcome of a recipe, with important implications for aesthetics, that is, technical objects. The Internet as Ingredient: Technical Objects, Aesthetics, and Invention The notion of technical objects complements Simondon’s theory of individuation to define the becoming of technology in relation to culture. To Simondon: “the technical object is not this or that thing, given hic et nunc, but that of which there is a genesis” (Du Mode 20). Technical objects, therefore, are not simply technological artifacts but are constituted by a series of events that determine their evolution (De Vries). Analogously to other kinds of individuals, they are constituted by transductive operations across the three aforementioned phases of being. The evolution of technical objects extends from the element to the individual, and ultimately to the technical ensemble. Elements are less than individualised technical objects, while individuals that are in a relation of interconnection are called ensembles. According to Simondon, technical ensembles fully individualise with the realisation of the cybernetic project. Simondon observes that: “there is something eternal in a technical ensemble [...] and it is that which is always present, and can be conserved in a thing” (Les Cahiers 87). The Internet, as a thing-network, could be regarded as an instance of such technical ensembles, however, a clarification needs to be made. Simondon explains that “true technical ensembles are not those that use technical individuals, but those that are a network of technical individuals in a relation of interconnection” (Du mode 126). To Simondon, humankind has ceased to be a technical individual with the industrialisation and automation of methods of production, and has consigned this function to machines (128). Expanding this line of thought, examples such as the viral spreading of memes, and the hypnotic power of online marketing campaigns, demonstrate how digital technology seems to have intensified this process of alienation of people from the functioning of the machine. In short, no one seems to know how or why things happen on the Internet, but we cannot help but use it. In order to constitute “real” technical ensembles, we need to incorporate technics again into culture, in a relation of reciprocity and complementarity with machines, under the aegis of a technical culture. Simondon specifies that such a reconfiguration of the relation between man and machines can only be achieved by means of an invention. An invention entails the individualisation of the technical ensemble as a departure from the mind of the inventor or designer that conceived it, in order to acquire its own autonomous existence (“Technical Mentality”). It refers to the origin of an operative solidarity between individual agents in a network, which provides the support for a human relation based on the “model of transidividuality” (Du Mode 247). A “transindividual relation” is a relation of relations that puts the individual in direct contact with a real collective. The notion of real collective is opposed to that of an interindividual community or social sphere, which is poisoned by the anxieties that stem from a defected relation with the technical ensemble culture is embedded in. In the specific context of the online sharing of DIY cheese-making recipes, rather than a fully individualised technical ensemble per se, the Internet can be regarded as one of the ingredients that make up the final recipe—together with human and the food—for the invention of a true technical ensemble. In such a framework, praxis, as linked to the kind of non-verbal knowledge associated with “making,” defines individuation together with the types of objects that make up the Network. While in the case of foodism, the practice of online marketing and communication homogenises culture by creating “social phenomena,” in the case of DIY cooking advice, it fosters a diversification of tastes, experiences, and flavours linked to individual modes of doing and cooking, that put the cook in a new relation with the culinary process, with food, and with the guests who have the pleasure to taste her meal. This is a qualitative change in the network that constitutes culture, rather than a mere quantitative shift in energy induction. The term “conviviality” (from the Latin con-vivere) specifically means this: a “living together,” rather than a mere dinner party. For Simondon, a real technical ensemble is an assemblage of humans, machines, tools, resources and milieus, which can only be éprouve—i.e., experienced, also in the sense of “experimented with”—rather than represented. A technical ensemble is first and foremost an aesthetic affair—it can only be perceived by experimenting with the different agents involved in the networked operations that constitute it. For Simondon “aesthetics comes after technicity [and] it also returns to us in the heart of technicity” (Michaud in De Boever et al. 122). Therefore, any object bears an aesthetic potential—even something as trivial as a homemade block of cheese. Simondon rejects the idea of an aesthetic object, but affirms the power of technicity to foreground an aesthetic impression, which operates a convergence between the diverging forces that constitute the mediation between man and world, in terms of an ethical treatment of technics. For Simondon, the beautiful is a process: “it is never, properly speaking, the object that is beautiful: it is the encounter operating a propos of the object between a real aspect of the world and a human gesture” (Du Mode 191 emphasis added). If an analysis of cooking as individuation already foregrounds an aesthetics that is both networked and technical, the relational capabilities afforded by networked media have the power to amplify the aesthetic potential of the human gesture implied in a block of homemade cheese—which today extends from searching for (or writing) a recipe online, to pouring the milk and seasoning the cheese, and which entails less environmental waste due to the less intensive processing and the lack of, or certainly a reduction in, packaging materials (Rastogi). The praise of technical creativity resounds throughout Simondon’s thought. By using the Internet in order to create (or indeed cook) something new, the online sharing of DIY cooking techniques like cheese-making, which partially disengages the human (and food itself) from the cycle of production-marketing-consumption that characterises the food industry in capitalist society by fostering an awareness of the networked operations that constitute her as individual, is an invention in its own right. Although the impact of these DIY activities on the global food industry is still very limited, such a hands-on approach, imbued with a dose of technical creativity, partially overcomes the alienation of the individual from the production process, by providing the conditions to “feel” how the individualisation of cheese (and the human) is inscribed in a larger metabolism. This does not stop within the economy of the body but encompasses the techno-cultural ensemble that forms capitalist society as a whole, and in which humans play only a small part. This may be considered a first step towards the reconciliation between humans and technical culture—a true technical ensemble. Indeed, eating involves “experiments in art and technology”—as the name of the infamous 1960s art collective (E.A.T.) evokes. Home-cooking in this sense is a technical-aesthetic experiment in its own right, in which aesthetics acquires an ethical nuance. Simondon’s philosophy highlights how the aesthetics involved in the home cooking process entails a political component, aimed at the disentanglement of the human from the “false” technical ensemble constituted by capitalist society, which is founded on the alienation from the production process and is driven by economic interests. Surely, an ethical approach to food would entail considering the biopolitics of the guts from the perspective of sourcing materials, and perhaps even building one’s own tools. These days, however, keeping a cow or goat in the backyard is unconceivable and/or impossible for most of us. The point is that the Internet can foster inventiveness and creativity among the participants to the Network, in spite of the fixity of the frame in which culture is increasingly inscribed (for instance, the standardised format of a Wordpress blog), and in this way, can trigger an aesthetic impression that comprises an ethical component, which translates into a political stand against the syncopated, schizophrenic rhythms of the market. Conclusion In this discussion, I have demonstrated that cooking can be considered a process of individuation inscribed in a techno-cultural network in which different transductive operations have the power to affect the final taste of a recipe. Simondon’s theory of individuation allows us to account for the impact of ubiquitous networked media on traditionally considered “human” practices, thus suggesting a new kind of humanism—a sort of technological humanism—on the basis of a new model of perception, which acknowledges the non-human actants involved in the process of individuation. I have shown that, in the case of the online sharing of cheese-making recipes, Simondon’s philosophy allows us to uncover a concept of taste that extends beyond the mere gustatory experience provided by foodism, and in this sense it may indeed affirm a reconfiguration of human culture based on an ethical approach towards the technical ensemble that envelops individuals of any kind—be they physical, living, or technical. Analogously, a “culinary” approach to techno-culture in terms of a commitment to the ontogenetic character of objects’ behaviours could be transposed to the digital realm in order to enlighten new perspectives for the speculative design of occasions of interaction among different beings—including humans—in ethico-aesthetic terms, based on a creative, experimental engagement with techniques and technologies. As a result, this can foreground a taste for life and culture that exceeds human-centred egotistic pleasure to encompass both technology and nature. Considering that a worryingly high percentage of digital natives both in Australia and the UK today believe that cheese and yogurt grow on trees (Howden; Wylie), perhaps cooking should indeed be taught in school alongside (rather than separate to, or instead of) programming. References Bennet, Jane. Vibrant Matter: a Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke UP, 2010 Brien, Donna Lee, and Adele Wessell. “Cookbook: A New Scholarly View.” M/C Journal 16.3 (2013). 7 Jan. 2014. ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/688›. Crary, Jonathan, and Sanford Kwinter. Incorporations. New York: Zone, 1992. De Boever, Arne, Alex Murray, Jon Roffe, and Ashley Woodward, eds. Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2012. De Vries, Marc. “Gilbert Simondon and the Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts.” Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 12.1 (2008). Debord, Guy. “Abat-Faim.” Encyclopedie des Nuisances 5 (1985) 2 Jan. 2014. ‹http://www.notbored.org/abat-faim.html›. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. London: Continuum, 2004. Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. Howden, Saffron. “Cultural Cringe: Schoolchildren Can’t See the Yoghurt for the Trees.” The Sydney Morning Herald 5 Mar. 2012. 5 Jan. 2014. ‹http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/cultural-cringe-schoolchildren-cant-see-the-yoghurt-for-the-trees-20120304-1ub55.html›. McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004. Michaud, Yves. “The Aesthetics of Gilbert Simondon: Anticipation of the Contemporary Aesthetic Experience.” Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology. Eds. Arne De Boever, Alex Murray, Jon Roffe, and Ashley Woodward. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2012. 121–32. Rastogi, Nina. “Soft Cheese for a Clean Planet”. Slate 15 Dec. 2009. 25 Jan. 2014. ‹http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2009/12/soft_cheese_for_a_clean_planet.html›. Simondon, Gilbert. Du Mode d’Existence des Objets Techniques. Paris: Aubier, 2001. ---. L’Individuation a La Lumière Des Notions de Forme et d’Information. Grenoble: Millon, 2005. ---. “Les Cahiers du Centre Culturel Canadien” 4, 2ème Colloque Sur La Mécanologie. Paris, 1976. ---. “Technical Mentality.” Parrhesia 7 (2009): 17–27.---. “The Genesis of the Individual.” Incorporations. Eds. Jonathan Crary, and Sanford Kwinter. New York: Zone, 1992. 296–319. Wrangham, Richard. “Reason in the Roasting of Eggs.” Collapse: Philosophical Research and Development Volume VII. Eds. Reza Negarestani, and Robin Mackay. London: Urbanomic, 2011. 331–44. Wylie, Catherine. “Significant Number of Children Believe Cheese Comes from Plants, Reveals New Survey.” The Independent 3 Jun. 2013. 5 Jan. 2014. ‹http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/significant-number-of-children-believe-cheese-comes-from-plants-reveals-new-survey-8641771.html›.

IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 404 | P a g e Fuzzy Logic Implementation of Internet of Things and Smart Material Management in the Sector of Automotive Management R Nithya1* , P Ranjith Kumar2 , Mahesh Sahebrao Wavare3 , Ajay Singh4 , Ashim Bora5 , Rajdeep Singh solanki6 , Firos A7 1School of Computing Science, KPR College of Arts Science and Research, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India 2Department of Mechanical Engineering, M.A.M. School of Engineering, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India 3Department of Mathematics, Rajarshi Shahu Mahavidyalaya (Autonomous), Latur, Maharashtra, India 4Department of Management Studies, BBS College of Engineering and Technology, Phaphamau, Uttar Pradesh, India 5Department of Mathematics, Kampur College, Kampur, Assam. India 6Department of Computer Science, Medicaps University Indore, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India 7Department of computer Science and Engineering, Rajiv Gandhi University (A Central University), Rono-Hills, Doimukh, Arunachal Pradesh, India *Corresponding mail: nithya5790@gmail.com ABSTRACT The most prominent advancements in upcoming cars is the connection mechanism. Remote access allows users, manufacturers, and service personnel to monitor, fix, and improve autos in a variety of application situations. Implementing remote access relies on software solutions that are exposed to security threats. However, as the IoT, Fuzzy logic evolves, networking technologies that might be employed in the automotive sector are being launched. The flexible AUTOSAR system described in this study improves automotive middleware by incorporating cutting-edge IoT technologies and provides remote monitoring and diagnostics services for autos. We use the automobile industry as an example to highlight the possibilities of modern IoT. Keywords: Fuzzy, IoT, Industry 4.0, automotive 1. INTRODUCTION The automobile sector is a growing technological subject that is gaining prominence. One of its most visible forms is the rising interconnection of future automobiles. One of the most evident concerns with today's autos is remote access to diagnostic data, which is why Flexible AUTOSAR was developed [1]. Vehicles employed a variety of engine control methods prior IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 405 | P a g e to the recent development of more intricate in-car computers with higher processing capability (ECUs). They were more concerned with fundamental utility and safety than with having a lot of computer capacity. Because of these new in-car platforms, modern automotive middleware and even whole operating systems may now be employed. Many apps that need more processing power than earlier versions may operate on the flexible AUTOSAR middleware stack available in modern autos. Because of the availability of Flexible AUTOSAR, the automobile may be linked to modern technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) [2]. The simple adaption of IoT technologies for use in automotive applications is a significant problem, mostly because conventional safety approaches in automotive software design are still used [3]. Reusability of various IoT systems might be achieved by integrating a car into the current IoT ecosystem and portraying that similar automobile as another smart material device across the entire system. This type of usability can cause the market for car connection to grow more quickly [4]. The majority of current answers are OEM-specific and it wont deliver any usability options. Security risks are present when IoT is integrated and remote access is established. On the supplementary, these machineries may be used for a variety of purposes, such distant access to analytic information. The foremost challenge is combining current IoT systems with AUTOSAR changeable and adapting both skills to this new blend that may result in poorly constructed modules that risk system safety. Another challenge is ensuring that the information shown in the IoT system corresponds to the data on the real automobile stage. The IoT system should also include access control policies for the actual in-vehicle platform [5], [6]. The issue of integrating Internet of Things (IoT) technology for connectivity purposes into modern vehicle software stacks is currently the focus of a number of research and solutions in industry and academia [7]. In contrast to the more prevalent controller area network (CAN), Ethernet-based diagnostics solutions, such as diagnostic over IP (DoIP), are becoming more accessible in academia and business. Software upgrades may also be performed remotely through a vehicle. There aren't many remote diagnostic approaches accessible right now. UConnect, an industrial system, provides a complete vehicle communication platform. Ford's Sync provides an extra option and serves as the foundation for connection and entertainment [8]. This technology, however, has not yet been fully incorporated into IoT applications. OEM integrations are common, yet consumer electronics and computer research programmes get little to no attention. By linking in-car computer platforms to the Internet of Things, we can remotely screen in-car identification and the status of various modern motorist aid structures. The AUTOSAR Flexible Demonstrator employs a stack that contains the proposed solution. 2. Methodology To make integration easier, this solution makes use of OBLO Living, an existing Fuzzy and IoT implementation that shows a smart material-based home system. The core component of IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 406 | P a g e the proposed design is the Over the Air (OTA) Bridge Agent, which is signified as one of the facilities in the change AUTOSAR stack [9], [10]. Through the change AUTOSAR communiqué unit, the OTA Bridge Agent communicates with active flexible applications (ADAS algorithms) and additional facilities, such as UCM (Update and configuration manager), gathering data, receiving various types of events generated by each of the requests and facilities present on the AUTOSAR stage, and exchanging numerous types of evidence. Furthermore, the OTA Bridge Representative component directly controls communiqué with the OBLO component of the system. Both the cloud and customizable software modules have the ability to spark discussions. OTA Bridge Agent modules communicate using the issuesubscribe model. This indicates that all OTA Agent facilities and customers have signed up for a certain message type. All additional modules that have subscribed to that kind of communication get any messages generated by one of those modules. This solution does not take into account existing motorized safety practises in package design and software program application since the Flexible AUTOSAR standard is not yet finalised and suitable security measures have not yet been implemented. Furthermore, the Flexible AUTOSAR Demonstrator, which serves as the solution's base, was not intended with safety in attention since it is mainly used for protest purposes. Safety will be careful in future revisions of the Flexible AUTOSAR normal. The future architecture is shown in Figure 1. The OTA Bridge Agent, which manages any form of communication protocol needed by the cloud, includes the Bridge Client as one of its parts. Internet Protocol (IP) must be used in this technique due to the way the OBLO system is set up. The bridge client may be swiftly replaced by another client implementation if a different Fuzzy and IoT solution is selected. In order to transmit messages between the Bond Client and Bridge Service mechanisms via Bond Runtime, the client is also responsible for translating messages from the OBLO system's preferred JSON format to the internal event format [11], [12]. IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 407 | P a g e Fig. 1 Proposed system building The OTA Bridge Agent's event propagation is controlled by the Bridge Runtime component. Events spread both ways—from services to clients as well as the reverse. Both clients and services provide the proper handlers for the various event types they may support and register at runtime. One of the several event queues receives the event that one of the internal communication participants is attempting to broadcast during runtime. To provide the least propagation delays for events as well as improved load balancing, two kinds of queues are employed, with services posting their proceedings on one kind of line and clients publishing their events on the other. Before contacting the relevant clients' or services' handlers, a runtime component will keep a check on both of these queues. Every time an event is added to the queue, the Bridge Runtime component checks each event's unique identifier (ID) and executes the appropriate event handler code based on that ID. When a service or client is registered, the runtime obtains this ID. The last element of the OTA Bridge Agent is Bridge Services. On the Flexible AUTOSAR demonstration platform, bridge services are utilised to abstract the difficulties associated with interacting with other applications and services. The suggested patch includes two different service types: Diagnostic Service and Updater Service. Although it is often built on ARA COM, the interface for dealing with adaptable submissions and facilities is decided by how they are constructed, and the number of OTA Bond Agent amenities that this answer offers is not incomplete by the architecture of this constituent. IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 408 | P a g e In order to get diagnostic information from flexible apps and other analytic monitors, Analytic Service must communicate with Diagnostic Manager via DoIP. The foundation of a diagnostic service is the setup of a analytic tester that employs diagnostic mechanisms like diagnostic requests to remotely activate control routines or collect data based on its identification. In order to get a certain kind of diagnostic information, the diagnostic service regularly sends DM a number of diagnostic enquiries. The universal diagnostic service (UDS) messages that DM sends back in response include a string of bytes that correspond to the value of the requested data. The remaining OTA Bridge Agent modules then bundle the diagnostic data into an internal communication format called an event and transmit it to the system's remote component. The Updater Service is in charge of distributing needs to connect, uninstall, or inform various software parcels and of compiling programmes from predetermined sites. It communicates with Configuration Manager and Update (UCM). For the installation, upgrading, or removal of certain software packages, the Bridge client sends requests to the updater service through the Bridge Runtime. The updater service will begin downloading the package from the given URL after processing the request. The software package will be received by the UCM Flexible AUTOSAR service from the Updater service and sent there for appropriate processing. The Updater service exists to provision the claim that full duplex house communiqué with the Fuzzy and IoT system is likely since the diagnostic information exchange situation is a oneway communiqué scenario in which acquired data is given to the Fuzzy and IoT structure. The diagnostic service is crucial for implementing this tactic. In a different case, the OTA receives a message with a request for a software bundle update, connect, or removal whenever a remote system component gives a knowledge for this sort of activity. 3. Result and discussion The Intrinsyc S820AM V2 ADP in-car computing stage, Motorized Grade Linux, and the Flexible AUTOSAR demonstration are used in the assessment environment. The OBLO Entry, which provides access to the OBLO Cloud, is also necessary for the assessment environment. The OBLO cloud is functioning on a distant server. The testing environment's setup is shown in Figure 2. There are two possible channels for communication between the OTA Bridge and OBLO scheme. In the first case, the communication is started by the Diagnostic facility module of the OTA Bridge Agent constituent. Fig. 3 shows the communication flowchart for this instance. In this data transmission situation, the Diagnostic Module will direct the DM Flexible Service a number of repetitive diagnostic enquiries. An interior event will be generated and the data from the UDS communication devoted to it when the required diagnostic information is obtained as a UDS communication. The Bridge Client module will thereafter receive this IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 409 | P a g e event from the Bridge Runtime. The event will be handled correctly by the Bridge Client and sent to the OBLO system. The OBLO scheme will create a request for an flexible software update, connect, or elimination in this communication situation and will deliver the suitable software bundle. The Bridge Client module will receive this request and subsequently provide the necessary event. After receiving this event, the Updater service module will utilise it to locate the software package at the given site and transmit it to the UCM Flexible facility for dispensation. To assist the reader understand performance assessment better, we give both of these communicational examples. It is often measured how long it takes for data to go from one end of the system to the other. The time needed for message spread over the OTA Bridge Agent is also measured and compared with the overall length of time. Fig 5. gives the propagation times' dispersion. A typical overall time with one lively OTA Bridge Gobetween service is 87.6 milliseconds, and the propagation time of an OTA is 2.5 milliseconds. In the second message exchange scenario, a distant OBLO system component initiates communication. Figure 4 depicts the flow illustration for the message conversation situation. Spread times for OTA Bridge Agent services increase practically linearly as the number of active users increases. In the first test, the OTA Bridge Agent only adds 2% to the propagation time overall. A few additional services are running in the second measurement example, including the Updater facility and two more test services, all of which are sending a lot of messages to the network and the OTA Bridge Agent runtime. IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 410 | P a g e Fig. 2. Testing of environment Fig. 3. OTA bridge agent When the OTA Bridge Agent's spread time is included, it accounts for 5.72% of the overall propagation time and increases approximately linearly from 1.5 to 4.62 milliseconds. Additionally, Fig 5. displays the temporal distribution for this case study. This measurement is used to send a 1kB message. Performance is evaluated using a different kind of measurement in addition to the active service count. Calculated for two distinct message IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 411 | P a g e payload sizes is the propagation time. A message's size is first gauged at 5 kB, and then again at 50 kB. Fig 6. depicts the time distribution that is influenced by message size. Fig. 4. OBLO system as communicator Contrary to the rest of the system, the time distributions demonstrate that the OTA Bridge Agent is only marginally impacted by changes in communication size. The OBLO scheme was built using the MQTT protocol, which is designed to be used for rapid communications, making the rest of the scheme more sensitive to this upsurge in communication scope. There is a 2 ms variation in spread time in the OTA Bridge Agent for a communication that is 10 times larger. As an existing Fuzzy and IoT answer that is not a part of this answer, the OBLO component of the system presentation is not busy into consideration. Instead, propagation time is only assessed to compare with the real OTA Bridge Agent propagation time. The linearly growing propagation time of this system, which is dependent on the number of lively services and the current load on the OTA Bridge, is a significant weakness. Safety factors are not taken into explanation in this procedure, as was also indicated in part III of this article. Compared to conventional car diagnostics, this technique incurs additional overhead (OBD). On the other side, a distant car analytic system is offered. Concert evaluations reveal that the propagation time increase brought on by the use of this module does not significantly affect the latency of the current Fuzzy and IoT solution. IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 412 | P a g e Fig. 5 Propagation time number of active series Fig. 6 Time for message distribution IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320 7876 Research paper © 2012 IJFANS. All Rights Reserved, UGC CARE Listed ( Group -I) Journal Volume 11, Iss 8,December 2022 413 | P a g e CONCLUSION This research indicates that contemporary Flexible AUTOSAR may be created by by fusing current Fuzzy and IoT technology with streamlined functionality. The suggested architecture may gather diagnostic information and transmit it to various cloud services. In addition, there are more implementation options than only remote diagnostic. The suggested layout is flexible and simple to grow. This kind of solution's drawback is that, in contrast to conventional auto diagnostic techniques, it has particular overheads. Furthermore, safety issues are not taken into account while developing or implementing software since the Flexible AUTOSAR standard is currently inadequate and has a poorly defined safety component. Future Car2X communication systems might be constructed using this concept. Since it does not consider any additional security measures beyond those offered by the IP, DoIP, and MQTT protocols, this approach may be improved. The safety of this technology may be enhanced by Flexible AUTOSAR standard upgrades in the future. REFERENCES [1] H. Pourrahmani et al., “The applications of Internet of Things in the automotive industry: A review of the batteries, fuel cells, and engines,” Internet of Things (Netherlands), vol. 19, no. July, p. 100579, 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.iot.2022.100579. [2] H. C. Shen, K. C. Wang, C. H. Yang, and H. Y. Chen, “Fuzzy Terminal Sliding Mode Control for Chaotic Synchronization of Nonlinear Gyros,” 2019 IEEE Eurasia Conference on IOT, Communication and Engineering, ECICE 2019, no. 3, pp. 471– 474, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ECICE47484.2019.8942792. [3] R. Massoud, F. Bellotti, R. Berta, A. De Gloria, and S. Poslad, “Exploring Fuzzy Logic and Random Forest for Car Drivers’ Fuel Consumption Estimation in IoTEnabled Serious Games,” Proceedings - 2019 IEEE 14th International Symposium on Autonomous Decentralized Systems, ISADS 2019, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ISADS45777.2019.9155706. [4] F. C. Chuang, C. H. Yang, K. C. Wang, H. Y. Chen, and H. C. Shen, “Attitude Robust Fuzzy H∞ Control for Quadrotor Vehicles,” 2019 IEEE Eurasia Conference on IOT, Communication and Engineering, ECICE 2019, no. 4, pp. 208–211, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ECICE47484.2019.8942682. [5] M. S. Babu, T. A. Anirudh, and P. 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In PilsenTwenty-six Station Road,She climbed to the third floorUp stairs which were all that was leftOf the whole house,She opened her doorFull on to the sky,Stood gaping over the edge.For this was the placeThe world ended.Thenshe locked up carefullylest someone stealSiriusor Aldebaranfrom her kitchen,went back downstairsand settled herselfto waitfor the house to rise againand for her husband to rise from the ashesand for her children’s hands and feet to be stuck back in placeIn the morning they found herstill as stone, sparrows pecking her hands.Five Minutes after the Air Raidby Miroslav Holub(Calder 287) Holding Still Detonation. Affect. During the Second World War, London and other European cities were subjected to the terrors of aerial bombardment, rendered through nightmarish anticipations of the bomber (Gollin 7) and the material storm of the real air-raid. The fall of bombs plagued cities and their citizens with the terrible rain of explosives and incendiary weapons. A volatile landscape was formed as the urban environment was ‘unmade’ and urged into violent motion. Flying projectiles of shrapnel, debris and people; avalanches of collapsing factories and houses; the inhale and exhale of compressed air and firestorms; the scream of the explosion. All these composed an incredibly fluid urban traumatic, as atmospheres fell over the cities that was thick with smoke, dust, and ventilated only by terror (see for instance Sebald 10 and Mendieta’s 3 recent commentary). Vast craters were imprinted onto the charred morphologies of London and Berlin as well as Coventry, Hamburg and Dresden. Just as the punctuations of the bombing saw the psychic as well as the material give way, writers portraying Britain as an ‘volcano island’ (Spaight 5) witnessed eruptive projections – the volleys of the material air-war; the emotional signature of charged and bitter reprisals; pain, anguish and vengeance - counter-strikes of affect. In the midst of all of this molten violence and emotion it seems impossible that a simultaneous sense of quiescence could be at all possible. More than mere physical fixity or geographical stasis, a rather different sort of experience could take place. Preceding, during and following the excessive mobilisation of an air raid, ‘stillness’ was often used to describe certain plateuing stretches of time-space which were slowed and even stopped (Anderson 740). Between the eruptions appeared hollows of calm and even boredom. People’s nervous flinching under the reverberation of high-explosive blasts formed part of what Jordan Crandall might call a ‘bodily-inclination’ position. Slackened and taut feelings condensed around people listening out for the oncoming bomber. People found that they prepared for the dreadful wail of the siren, or relaxed in the aftermath of the attack. In these instances, states of tension and apprehension as well as calm and relief formed though stillness. The peculiar experiences of ‘stillness’ articulated in these events open out, I suggest, distinctive ways-of-being which undo our assumptions of perpetually fluid subjectivities and the primacy of the ‘body in motion’ even within the context of unparalleled movement and uncertainty (see Harrison 423 and also Rose and Wylie 477 for theoretical critique). The sorts of “musics of stillness and silence able to be discovered in a world of movement” (Thrift, Still 50), add to our understandings of the material geographies of war and terror (see for instance Graham 63; Gregory and Pred 3), whilst they gesture towards complex material-affective experiences of bodies and spaces. Stillness in this sense, denotes apprehending and anticipating spaces and events in ways that sees the body enveloped within the movement of the environment around it; bobbing along intensities that course their way through it; positioned towards pasts and futures that make themselves felt, and becoming capable of intense forms of experience and thought. These examples illustrate not a shutting down of the body to an inwardly focused position – albeit composed by complex relations and connections – but bodies finely attuned to their exteriors (see Bissell, Animating 277 and Conradson 33). In this paper I draw from a range of oral and written testimony archived at the Imperial War Museum and the Mass Observation wartime regular reports. Edited publications from these collections were also consulted. Detailing the experience of aerial bombing during the Blitz, particularly on London between September 1940 to May 1941, forms part of a wider project concerning the calculative and affective dimensions of the aeroplane’s relationship with the human body, especially through the spaces it has worked to construct (infrastructures such as airports) and destroy. While appearing extraordinary, the examples I use are actually fairly typical of the patternings of experience and the depth and clarity with which they are told. They could be taken to be representative of the population as a whole or coincidentally similar testimonials. Either way, they are couched within a specific cultural historical context of urgency, threat and unparalleled violence.Anticipations The complex material geographies of an air raid reveal the ecological interdependencies of populations and their often urban environments and metabolisms (Coward 419; Davis 3; Graham 63; Gregory The Colonial 19; Hewitt Place 257). Aerial warfare was an address of populations conceived at the register of their bio-rhythmical and metabolic relationship to their milieu (Adey). The Blitz and the subsequent Allied bombing campaign constituted Churchill’s ‘great experiment’ for governments attempting to assess the damage an air raid could inflict upon a population’s nerves and morale (Brittain 77; Gregory In Another 88). An anxious and uncertain landscape constructed before the war, perpetuated by public officials, commentators and members of parliament, saw background affects (Ngai 5) of urgency creating an atmosphere that pressurised and squeezed the population to prepare for the ‘gathering storm’. Attacks upon the atmosphere itself had been readily predicted in the form of threatening gas attacks ready to poison the medium upon which human and animal life depended (Haldane 111; Sloterdijk 41-57). One of the most talked of moments of the Blitz is not necessarily the action but the times of stillness that preceded it. Before and in-between an air raid stillness appears to describe a state rendered somewhere between the lulls and silences of the action and the warnings and the anticipatory feelings of what might happen. In the awaiting bodies, the materialites of silence could be felt as a kind-of-sound and as an atmospheric sense of imminence. At the onset of the first air-raids sound became a signifier of what was on the way (MO 408). Waiting – as both practice and sensation – imparted considerable inertia that went back and forth through time (Jeffrey 956; Massumi, Parables 3). For Geographer Kenneth Hewitt, sound “told of the coming raiders, the nearness of bombs, the plight of loved ones” (When the 16). The enormous social survey of Mass Observation concluded that “fear seems to be linked above all with noise” (original emphasis). As one report found, “It is the siren or the whistle or the explosion or the drone – these are the things that terrify. Fear seems to come to us most of all through our sense of hearing” (MO 378). Yet the power of the siren came not only from its capacity to propagate sound and to alert, but the warning held in its voice of ‘keeping silent’. “Prefacing in a dire prolepsis the post-apocalyptic event before the event”, as Bishop and Phillips (97) put it, the stillness of silence was incredibly virtual in its affects, disclosing - in its lack of life – the lives that would be later taken. Devastation was expected and rehearsed by civilians. Stillness formed a space and body ready to spring into movement – an ‘imminent mobility’ as John Armitage (204) has described it. Perched on the edge of devastation, space-times were felt through a sense of impending doom. Fatalistic yet composed expectations of a bomb heading straight down pervaded the thoughts and feelings of shelter dwellers (MO 253; MO 217). Waves of sound disrupted fragile tempers as they passed through the waiting bodies in the physical language of tensed muscles and gritted teeth (Gaskin 36). Silence helped form bodies inclined-to-attention, particularly sensitive to aural disturbances and vibrations from all around. Walls, floors and objects carried an urban bass-line of warning (Goodman). Stillness was forged through a body readied in advance of the violence these materialities signified. A calm and composed body was not necessarily an immobile body. Civilians who had prepared for the attacks were ready to snap into action - to dutifully wear their gas-mask or escape to shelter. ‘Backgrounds of expectation’ (Thrift, Still 36) were forged through non-too-subtle procedural and sequential movements which opened-out new modes of thinking and feeling. Folding one’s clothes and placing them on the dresser in-readiness; pillows and sheets prepared for a spell in the shelter, these were some of many orderly examples (IWM 14595). In the event of a gas attack air raid precautions instructions advised how to put on a gas mask (ARPD 90-92),i) Hold the breath. ii) Remove headgear and place between the knees. iii) Lift the flap of the haversack [ …] iv) Bring the face-piece towards the face’[…](v) Breathe out and continue to breathe in a normal manner The rational technologies of drill, dressage and operational research enabled poise in the face of an eventual air-raid. Through this ‘logistical-life’ (Reid 17), thought was directed towards simple tasks by minutely described instructions. Stilled LifeThe end of stillness was usually marked by a reactionary ‘flinch’, ‘start’ or ‘jump’. Such reactionary ‘urgent analogs’ (Ngai 94; Tomkins 96) often occurred as a response to sounds and movements that merely broke the tension rather than accurately mimicking an air raid. These atmospheres were brittle and easily disrupted. Cars back-firing and changing gear were often complained about (MO 371), just as bringing people out of the quiescence of sleep was a common effect of air-raids (Kraftl and Horton 509). Disorientation was usually fostered in this process while people found it very difficult to carry out the most simple of tasks. Putting one’s clothes on or even making their way out of the bedroom door became enormously problematic. Sirens awoke a ‘conditioned reflex’ to take cover (MO 364). Long periods of sleep deprivation brought on considerable fatigue and anxiety. ‘Sleep we Must’ wrote journalist Ritchie Calder (252) noticing the invigorating powers of sleep for both urban morale and the bare existence of survival. For other more traumatized members of the population, psychological studies found that the sustained concentration of shelling caused what was named ‘apathy-retreat’ (Harrisson, Living 65). This extreme form of acquiescence saw especially susceptible and vulnerable civilians suffer an overwhelming urge to sleep and to be cared-for ‘as if chronically ill’ (Janis 90). A class and racial politics of quiescent affect was enacted as several members of the population were believed far more liable to ‘give way’ to defeat and dangerous emotions (Brittain 77; Committee of Imperial Defence).In other cases it was only once an air-raid had started that sleep could be found (MO 253). The boredom of waiting could gather in its intensity deforming bodies with “the doom of depression” (Anderson 749). The stopped time-spaces in advance of a raid could be soaked with so much tension that the commencement of sirens, vibrations and explosions would allow a person overwhelming relief (MO 253). Quoting from a boy recalling his experiences in Hannover during 1943, Hewitt illustrates:I lie in bed. I am afraid. I strain my ears to hear something but still all is quiet. I hardly dare breathe, as if something horrible is knocking at the door, at the windows. Is it the beating of my heart? ... Suddenly there seems relief, the sirens howl into the night ... (Heimatbund Niedersachsen 1953: 185). (Cited in Hewitt, When 16)Once a state of still was lost getting it back required some effort (Bissell, Comfortable 1697). Cautious of preventing mass panic and public hysteria by allowing the body to erupt outwards into dangerous vectors of mobility, the British government’s schooling in the theories of panicology (Orr 12) and contagious affect (Le Bon 17; Tarde 278; Thrift, Intensities 57; Trotter 140), made air raid precautions (ARP) officers, police and civil defence teams enforce ‘stay put’ and ‘hold firm’ orders to protect the population (Jones et al, Civilian Morale 463, Public Panic 63-64; Thomas 16). Such orders were meant to shield against precisely the kinds of volatile bodies they were trying to compel with their own bombing strategies. Reactions to the Blitz were moralised and racialised. Becoming stilled required self-conscious work by a public anxious not to be seen to ‘panic’. This took the form of self-disciplination. People exhausted considerable energy to ‘settle’ themselves down. It required ‘holding’ themselves still and ‘together’ in order to accomplish this state, and to avoid going the same way as the buildings falling apart around them, as some people observed (MO 408). In Britain a cup of tea was often made as a spontaneous response in the event of the conclusion of a raid (Brown 686). As well as destroying bombing created spaces too – making space for stillness (Conradson 33). Many people found that they could recall their experiences in vivid detail, allocating a significant proportion of their memories to the recollection of the self and an awareness of their surroundings (IWM 19103). In this mode of stillness, contemplation did not turn-inwards but unfolded out towards the environment. The material processual movement of the shell-blast literally evacuated all sound and materials from its centre to leave a vacuum of negative pressure. Diaries and oral testimonies stretch out these millisecond events into discernable times and spaces of sensation, thought and the experience of experience (Massumi, Parables 2). Extraordinarily, survivors mention serene feelings of quiet within the eye of the blast (see Mortimer 239); they had, literally, ‘no time to be frightened’ (Crighton-Miller 6150). A shell explosion could create such intensities of stillness that a sudden and distinctive lessening of the person and world are expressed, constituting ‘stilling-slowing diminishments’ (Anderson 744). As if the blast-vacuum had sucked all the animation from their agency, recollections convey passivity and, paradoxically, a much more heightened and contemplative sense of the moment (Bourke 121; Thrift, Still 41). More lucid accounts describe a multitude of thoughts and an attention to minute detail. Alternatively, the enormous peaking of a waking blast subdued all later activities to relative obsolescence. The hurricane of sounds and air appear to overload into the flatness of an extended and calmed instantaneous present.Then the whistling stopped, then a terrific thump as it hit the ground, and everything seem to expand, then contract with deliberation and stillness seemed to be all around. (As recollected by Bill and Vi Reagan in Gaskin 17)On the other hand, as Schivelbusch (7) shows us in his exploration of defeat, the cessation of war could be met with an outburst of feeling. In these micro-moments a close encounter with death was often experienced with elation, a feeling of peace and well-being drawn through a much more heightened sense of the now (MO 253). These are not pre-formed or contemplative techniques of attunement as Thrift has tracked, but are the consequence of significant trauma and the primal reaction to extreme danger.TracesSusan Griffin’s haunting A Chorus of Stones documents what she describes as a private life of war (1). For Griffin, and as shown in these brief examples, stillness and being-stilled describe a series of diverse experiences endured during aerial bombing. Yet, as Griffin narrates, these are not-so private lives. A common representation of air war can be found in Henry Moore’s tube shelter sketches which convey sleeping tube-dwellers harboured in the London underground during the Blitz. The bodies are represented as much more than individuals being connected by Moore’s wave-like shapes into the turbulent aggregation of a choppy ocean. What we see in Moore’s portrayal and the examples discussed already are experiences with definite relations to both inner and outer worlds. They refer to more-than individuals who bear intimate relations to their outsides and the atmospheric and material environments enveloping and searing through them. Stillness was an unlikely state composed through these circulations just as it was formed as a means of address. It was required in order to apprehend sounds and possible events through techniques of listening or waiting. Alternatively being stilled could refer to pauses between air-strikes and the corresponding breaks of tension in the aftermath of a raid. Stillness was composed through a series of distributed yet interconnecting bodies, feelings, materials and atmospheres oriented towards the future and the past. The ruins of bombed-out building forms stand as traces even today. Just as Massumi (Sensing 16) describes in the context of architecture, the now static remainder of the explosion “envelops in its stillness a deformational field of which it stands as the trace”. The ruined forms left after the attack stand as a “monument” of the passing of the raid to be what it once was – house, factory, shop, restaurant, library - and to become something else. The experience of those ‘from below’ (Hewitt 2) suffering contemporary forms of air-warfare share many parallels with those of the Blitz. Air power continues to target, apparently more precisely, the affective tones of the body. Accessed by kinetic and non-kinetic forces, the signs of air-war are generated by the shelling of Kosovo, ‘shock and awe’ in Iraq, air-strikes in Afghanistan and by the simulated air-raids of IDF aircraft producing sonic-booms over sleeping Palestinian civilians, now becoming far more real as I write in the final days of 2008. Achieving stillness in the wake of aerial trauma remains, even now, a way to survive the (private) life of air war. AcknowledgementsI’d like to thank the editors and particularly the referees for such a close reading of the article; time did not permit the attention their suggestions demanded. Grateful acknowledgement is also made to the AHRC whose funding allowed me to research and write this paper. ReferencesAdey, Peter. Aerial Geographies: Mobilities, Bodies and Subjects. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 (forthcoming). 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