Academic literature on the topic 'Passivity rule'

This article presents a method for passivating the communication channel of a symmetric position-position teleoperation architecture on the time domain. The time domain passivity control approach has recently gained appeal in the context of timedelayed teleoperation because passivity is not established as a design constraint, which often forces conservative rules, but rather as a property which the system must preserve during operation. Since passivity is a network property, the first design rule within this framework is to represent consistent and comprehensible circuit (i.e., network) representations of the mechanical teleoperation system. In particular, the energetic behavior of these networks is interesting because it allows straightforward conclusions about system stability. By means of so-called passivity observers (PO) and passivity controllers (PC) (Hannaford & Ryu, 2001), the energetic response of a delayed communication channel is captured and modulated over time so that the network in question never becomes nonpassive. The case analyzed in this paper tackles a communication channel that conveys position data back and forth. This type of channel does not offer intuitive network representation since only flows are actually being transmitted. Although energy clearly travels from one side to the other, port power identification, as defined by the correlated pair flow and effort, is not evident. This work first investigates how this kind of channel can be represented by means of circuit networks even with the lack of physical effort being transmitted through the channel, and identifies which networks are susceptible to become nonpassive due to the channel characteristics (i.e., time delay, discretization or package loss). Once achieved, a distributed control structure is presented based on a PC series that keeps the system at the verge of passivity (and therefore stability) independent from the channel properties. The results obtained by the simulation and by experiment sustain the presented approach.

This paper proposes a novel passivity cascade technique (PCT)-based control for nonlinear inverted pendulum systems. Its main objective is to stabilize the pendulum’s upward states despite uncertainties and exogenous disturbances. The proposed framework combines the estimation properties of radial basis function neural networks (RBFNs) with the passivity attributes of the cascade control framework. The unknown terms of the nonlinear system are estimated using an RBFN approximator. The performance of the closed-loop system is further enhanced by using the integral of angular position as a virtual state variable. The lumped uncertainties (NN—Neural Network approximation, external disturbances and parametric uncertainty) are compensated for by adding a robustifying adaptive rule-based signal to the PCT-based control. The boundedness of the states is confirmed using the passivity theorem. The performance of the proposed approach was assessed using a nonlinear inverted pendulum system under both nominal and disturbed conditions.

Why do so many people remain so passive in the face of today’s massive, looming economic, political, and ecological crises, such as climate change? Despite some notable rhetorical and regulatory examples, attempts to stem climate change have, as a rule, not come to frame the activities of most citizens. The inability to confront the imperative of social transformation today is a complex, manifold problem. At root, it has to do with fundamental systemic features of a global social system that we all contribute to reproducing in our everyday lives. While these features do not preclude political engagement, innovation, and action, they do undermine the bases of movements towards truly systemic transformation. This article focuses on one such feature, reification, as a social-structural foundation of passivity that impedes the social innovations required to tackle the climate crisis.

Abstract In January 1958, the townspeople of San Pedro de Buena Vista hunted down and killed peasant leader Narciso Torrico, sparking a wave of violence that provoked repeated state interventions in northern Potosí department, Bolivia. Encouraged by the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) state's rightward turn, local elites had regrouped to challenge revolutionary change. Meanwhile, José Rojas—a powerful peasant leader and key MNR ally—faced a crucial crossroads. Repeatedly tapped by state authorities to pacify San Pedro de Buena Vista, Rojas vacillated between asserting political autonomy and acquiescing to state power. While previous scholarship has viewed Rojas's relationship with the revolutionary state as clear evidence of the MNR's co-optation of Bolivian peasants, the events of 1958 provide a powerful counterpoint to this narrative. I argue that crucial intermediaries like Rojas evaded state agents' control in spite of their public support for the MNR, thus challenging the historiographical portrayal of peasant leaders' passivity in the postrevolutionary years.

R. K. Narayan's work has been faulted for its sidestepping of the brutal realities of colonial rule. Yet Narayan stages, in the dreaminess of his fictionalized township of Malgudi, the unwriting or undermining of the logics of language that subtend colonial rule. The author has fashioned a way to write about India that displays the vacuity of the colonial model of governance and, through his tales of failed authorship, points to something other. Emerging in his comic episodes and in his baffled protagonists is a recognition of the importance of keeping things unsettled, in suspension, or visible only in their negation. Narayan, this essay argues through a series of questions that underscore the uncertainty in his world, imagines passivity as an interruption of the progressive, purposive, and productive time that defines modernity.

This article explores how ‘everyday’ lawyers undertaking routine criminal defence cases navigate an authoritarian legal system. Based on original fieldwork in the ‘disciplined democracy’ of Myanmar, the article examines how hegemonic state power and a functional absence of the rule of law have created a culture of passivity among ordinary practitioners. ‘Everyday’ lawyers are nevertheless able to uphold their clients’ dignity by practical and material support for the individual human experience – and in so doing, subtly resist, evade or disrupt state power. The article draws upon the literature on the sociology of lawyering and resistance, arguing for a multilayered understanding of dignity going beyond lawyers’ contributions to their clients’ legal autonomy. Focusing on dignity provides an alternative perspective to the otherwise often all-consuming rule of law discourse. In authoritarian legal systems, enhancing their clients’ dignity beyond legal autonomy may be the only meaningful contribution that ‘everyday’ lawyers can make.

ABSTRACTMuch recent historiography has adopted a revisionist approach to Habsburg policy in restoration Italy, jettisoning the ‘black legend’ which long surrounded Austrian rule of Lombardy-Venetia. Nevertheless the Habsburg police still tend to be portrayed as essentially repressive, constantly preoccupied with the threat of revolution. This case study of the police in the Venetian provinces during the reign of Francis I challenges such a view. It looks first at the problem of establishing forces of law and order in the aftermath of Napoleonic rule, demonstrating how under-funding conservatism and a desire for uniformity with the rest of the empire meant that the Venetian constabulary was often ill-suitedfor the prevention of crime. Then follows an examination of the part played by the police in the administrative machine. This emphasises a number of roles performed by higher-ranking police officials and the secret police, and suggests their major concerns were not merely with the threat of revolution, but with gathering information essential for efficient government, and with maintaining a watchful eye over other branches of the bureaucracy. These in turn contributed considerably to the efficiency of Habsburg rule and the remarkable political passivity of the Venetian provinces in this era.

Nowadays, the phenomenon of "security" has acquired the status of a general scientific term, which served as an occasion for the search for its conceptual basis. In any study, regardless of a particular branch of knowledge, this search, as a rule, begins with the concept of this phenomenon given in the Law of the Russian Federation “On Security” No. 2446-1 of March 5, 1992. Recently, this concept has been criticized more in view of “passivity”, “static character”, “excessive ideologization” and other comments. Conclusion: its suitability as a methodological basis is doubtful. Critics often give, as an indirect proof of the correctness of their position, the argument about the absence of such a definition in the current Federal Law “On Security” No. 390-ФЗ dated December 28, 2010. The author has attempted to understand how strong and convincing the arguments "against" made by different authors are.

In the context of the political transformation of Kazakhstan, the issue of youth policy is justified by the trends in the formation of the rule of law and civil society. The fact is that these trends are not possible without regulating the political passivity and apolitical youth. It should be noted that the political activity of Kazakh youth is haphazard, besides, most of them are indifferent to changes in the political sphere. In addition, the phenomenon of quasi-liberalism, widespread in modern social networks, is becoming a destabilizing factor in the political system. All this hinders the establishment and development of feedback between the state and youth. In this regard, the strategic importance of the state youth policy as the main regulatory mechanism of the relationship between the state and youth is very high. The authors put forward the concept of the development of ideological concepts, in addition to its socio-economic orientation. It is also noted how important the place of social networks is in carrying out ideological work among young people.

Circumscribing the place of taoists in Chinese society is not straightforward for any period: honored by emperors and members of the nobility, they were scorned, as a rule, by literati-officials and treated with a mixture of reverence and familiarity by ordinary people. The paradoxical strength of passivity, the power of compliance, and the endurance of the peripheral already form a central theme in the mystical writings gathered in the fourth and third centuryb.c.Lao-tzuandChuang-tzu. The Taoism of these ancient texts advanced a doctrine of liberation through submission, of control by means of noninterference, and of transcendence as a result of physiological and mental regimens. The ideal of liberation from the physical, epistemological, and social constraints of the human condition in time translated into a quest for immortality which, by the Ch'in unification of the empire, became quite explicit. Huang-Lao thought, named for the Yellow Emperor and patron of the immortals (Huang-ti) and Lao-tzu, dominated court politics from this period through the middle of the second centuryb.c.

Scopo del presente lavoro è l’individuazione nella normativa sulle offerte pubbliche d’acquisto di una serie di norme che sembrano accentuare le problematiche connesse alla c.d. “ concorrenza tra ordinamenti”. Ancor prima della valutazione dell’impatto della c.d. direttiva opa sul nostro ordinamento si è tentato di valutare il provvedimento in funzione degli interessi perseguiti dal legislatore comunitario, scegliendo di non tralasciare il rapporto potenzialmente conflittuale che di fronte ad una scalata ostile possa instaurarsi tra tutti i soggetti a vario titolo coinvolti nell’operazione. Si è evidenziato che in un primo momento il legislatore domestico ha scelto di mantenere una linea di continuità con la disciplina già adottata dal d.lgs. 24 febbraio 1998, n. 58 e non si è avvalso della facoltà prevista nella direttiva di rendere opzionali gli istituti più discussi quali la passivity rule e la regola di neutralizzazione. In seguito tuttavia, dichiaratamente a causa del sopraggiungere della crisi economica mondiale, si è rinunciato ad una regolamentazione imperativa dell’obbligo di passività per gli amministratori e si è preferito lasciare alle singole società la facoltà di modulare le misure difensive da attuare per fronteggiare una eventuale opa sgradita o comunque non previamente concordata. Questo intervento straordinario merita una attenta riflessione in quanto, pur potendo apparire giustificato nell’ambito della grave crisi finanziaria venutasi a creare, può al contempo generare una pericolosa chiusura degli assetti societari e determinare, nel lungo periodo, una perdita delle capacità attrattive del nostro sistema economico. Peraltro, in seguito alle reazioni negative della dottrina e delle Autorità competenti, il legislatore è tornato ancora a modificare la normativa in materia: con l’ultimo provvedimento torna nella legislazione speciale la passivity rule ma viene fatta salva la possibilità per le singole società di derogarvi attraverso una misura c.d. di opting-out statutario. Alla luce degli interessi coinvolti è sembrato, pertanto, opportuno verificare se le misure adottate risultassero proporzionate rispetto agli obiettivi da raggiungere o se, invece, le stesse fossero eccessivamente gravose per un mercato del controllo societario che voglia restare contendibile: in particolare ci si è soffermati sul rischio che venga definitivamente compromessa anche la libera concorrenza tra imprese come valore del nostro ordinamento . Il riferimento ultimo è a tutte quelle misure nazionali che, attraverso la previsione di poteri speciali in favore delle autorità pubbliche, rafforzano la posizione di queste ultime nella compagine sociale alterando così le pari opportunità. La direttiva, contravvenendo a quello che avrebbe dovuto essere un obiettivo per un provvedimento che si ponga nel solco delle misure di armonizzazione del diritto societario europeo, considera valido l’assunto per cui tali poteri dovrebbero essere compatibili con la disciplina dei Trattati e non risolve il problema di una loro neutralizzazione in relazione alle operazioni di acquisizione. Le pari opportunità tra imprese, sotto il profilo che qui interessa, possono essere alterate in quegli ordinamenti in cui siano presenti quelle peculiari “misure antiacquisizione” costitutive delle clausole che riservano allo Stato il diritto di esercitare poteri speciali nelle società in contrasto con il principio “one share one vote”. Garantire alle autorità pubbliche tali poteri, come avviene nella legislazione di alcuni Stati membri, costituisce non solo un ostacolo ai meccanismi di ricambio del controllo basati sul mercato ma anche al libero movimento dei capitali e al diritto di stabilimento. La libertà di stabilimento delle persone giuridiche, prevista nel Trattato e faticosamente resa effettiva attraverso significative pronunce della Corte di Giustizia, deve essere garantita anche nell’acquisizione del controllo di società che abbiano sede statutaria in diversi Stati membri. La possibilità aperta dalla direttiva di rimettere ai singoli legislatori la scelta circa l’adozione delle misure di passivity rule e neutralizzazione ha reso invece incredibilmente variegato il ventaglio di possibilità che potrebbero prospettarsi alle società: la disciplina delle opa sarà in tal modo diversamente modulata non soltanto tenendo conto della normativa adottata dallo Stato in cui la società abbia la propria sede legale ma anche in conseguenza delle autonome e reversibili scelte dei soci. La convergenza sulle scelte di principio non ha condotto, ma sembra in maniera consapevole, ad una reale armonizzazione e ha rivelato la permanenza di lacune in relazione alla tutela dei piccoli investitori e dei risparmiatori in genere. Colmare tali vuoti richiede il ricorso alla legislazione dei singoli Stati membri, così accentuando una nuova concorrenza tra sistemi normativi. Il rischio che sembra prospettarsi è che l’ordinamento comunitario, che con tanta fatica si è affermato, perda il suo ruolo propulsivo nei confronti delle legislazioni dei singoli Stati per ridursi a controllore di normative in concorrenza tra loro.
The aim of this work is to identify within the provisions concerning the takeover bids a series of rules that seem to increase the problems dealing with the so-called “competition between systems”. Before trying to evaluate the impact of the so-called takeover bid directive on our system, we tried to evaluate the provision on the basis of the interests the EU legislator was pursuing. We decided not to leave out the potentially conflictual relation that may be created among all the parts involved in the operation during a hostile share raid. It was highlighted that in the beginning, the domestic legislator chose to follow a principle of continuity with respect to the discipline already adopted by means of the legislative Decree dated Feb. 24th 1998, n. 58 and the legislator did not use the possibility indicated in the directive to make the most controversial institutions, such as the passivity rule or the breaktrough rule, optional. Following the world economic crisis, each single company was allowed to modulate the defensive measures to be taken in order to face a possible undesired takeover bid or, in any case, one that was not previously agreed on. It is to be thoroughly deemed such as an extraordinary intervention, since, even if it may seem justified within the extremely serious financial crisis we are presently living, at the same time, it can lead corporate structures to close dangerously, thus making our economic system lose its attraction capacities in the long run. Moreover, following the negative reactions of the doctrine and the competent Authorities, the legislator modified the provisions on the matter again: thanks to the last measure adopted, the passivity rule comes back into the special legislation, but each single company can repeal in part by means of a measure called statutory opting-out. Due to the interests involved, it seemed it appropriate to verify whether the measures taken were proportionate to the goals to be achieved or if, instead, they were too burdensome for a market of corporate control willing to be contestable: it was taken into account the risk of permanently compromising also the free competition between undertakings, as one of the values of our system. The ultimate reference goes to those national measures taken that, through special powers given to the public authorities, reinforce the position of the latter in the social structure, thus altering the equal opportunities. The directive, by disregarding what should have been one of the goals for a provision in line with the harmonizing measures in the European corporate law, considers as a valid assumption the idea that such powers should be compatible with the discipline of the Treaties and such provision does not solve the issue of their neutralization with respect to takeover operations. Equal opportunities between undertakings, in the perspective presented in this work, may be altered in some systems where peculiar “anti-takeover measures” are in the provisions giving the State the right to exert special powers in those companies contrasting with the “one share one vote” principle. Ensuring the public authorities such powers, as some of the EU member States do in their legislations, is not only an obstacle to the mechanisms of market-based control turnover, but also to the free movement of capitals and to the right to establishment. The freedom of establishment of legal entities, provided for in the Treaty and made effective ponderously through relevant decisions of the Court of Justice, must be granted also in the control takeover of companies having their statutory headquarters in different member States. The directive has given the possibility to each single legislator to choose whether to adopt the passivity rule and neutralization measures, thus widening up the range of scenarios companies may have to face: therefore, the takeover bid discipline will be modulated differently according to the provisions in force in the State where the company has its registered office, but also as a consequence of the autonomous and reversible choices of the shareholders. The convergence on the criteria did not lead, apparently consciously, to a real harmonization and revealed some persisting lacks concerning the protection of small investors and savers in general. In order to plug such gaps each single member State must appeal to their legislations, thus emphasizing the competition between legislative systems. The EU rules, whose establishment was hard to achieve, may run the risk of losing their driving role with respect to the legislation in each single State and the afore mentioned rules may end up controlling provisions competing with each other.

The aim of this study is to give an in-depth examination of the discipline of defence measures with regard to hostile takeover bids in Italy as a result of the implementation of the 2004/25/CE directive. The first chapter, after a brief introduction to the topic, has the specific intent of examining the characteristics and risks emerging firstly from a study of the various disciplinary approaches of hostile takeover bids and then from an analysis of two different models, the American model and the English model, that describe the key options available in managing defence measures. The second chapter offers an overview of the choices made by the Italian Legislator, firstly by l. n.149 in 1992, then by the consolidated act on financial intermediation (d.lgs. n. 58 in 1998), taking the English model as its inspiration, but contextualized within the structure of domestic ownership. The first part of the third chapter gives an account of the options recognized by the 2004/25/CE directive and those which have actually been adopted, in three distinct time phases, by the Italian Legislator (d.lgs. 229 in 2007, d.l. 185 in 2008 and d.lgs. n. 146 in 2009); the second part however, proposes an examination of the ordinary legal model and the main questions arising from it, as well as an in-depth look at the possible variables for consensus on an exception to the rule, to arrive at the most extreme solution that recognizes an autonomous space of manoeuvre in favour of the administrative board. Finally, the fourth chapter evaluates the effects of the co-existence within Italy of a plurality of models and their interaction in hostile takeover bids: the examination moves from looking at the hypothesis of a cross-border bid, originally conceived as a single hypothesis of coexistence and interaction of diverse models within the framework of a proposed public tender offer for an Italian company, to return to the domestic framework, where the same problems arise today. An exploration of the two scenarios brings to light the assumptions, the effects and critical aspects of the reciprocity clause.
Il lavoro è volto ad approfondire la disciplina delle misure di difesa dall'offerta pubblica d'acquisto ostile in Italia a seguito del recepimento della direttiva 2004/25/CE. Il primo capitolo, dopo un breve inquadramento del fenomeno, muove dai diversi approcci disciplinari dell'offerta pubblica d'acquisto ostile e dai due diversi modelli, quello americano e quello inglese, che caratterizzano le opzioni di fondo nella gestione delle misure di difesa, con l'intento di farne emergere caratteristiche e rischi. Il secondo capitolo opera una ricostruzione delle scelte compiute dal legislatore italiano, dapprima con la l. n. 149 del 1992, quindi, con il testo unico dell'intermediazione finanziaria (d.lgs. n. 58 del 1998), ispirato al modello inglese, pur se contestualizzato alla realtà  degli assetti proprietari domestici. Il terzo capitolo, nella sua prima parte, dà  conto delle opzioni riconosciute dalla direttiva 2004/25/CE e di quelle concretamente adottate, in tre distinte scansioni temporali, dal legislatore italiano (d.lgs. 229 del 2007, d.l. 185 del 2008 e d.lgs. n. 146 del 2009); nella sua seconda parte, invece, si propone di esaminare sia il modello legale ordinario, insieme alle principali questioni dallo stesso sollevate, sia le variabili disponibili per una sua deroga convenzionale, sino alla soluzione limite del riconoscimento di un autonomo spazio di manovra a favore dell'organo amministrativo. Il quarto capitolo, infine, stima gli effetti della coesistenza in Italia di una pluralità  di modelli e della loro interazione nelle ipotesi di scalata ostile: l'esame muove dall'ipotesi di scalata transfrontaliera, originariamente immaginata come unica ipotesi di coesistenza e di interazione di diversi modelli nell'ambito di un'offerta proposta nei confronti di una società  italiana, per tornare a quella domestica, nella quale oggi si possono presentare analoghi problemi. Nell'ambito dei due possibili scenari, il lavoro mette in luce presupposti, effetti ed aspetti critici della clausola di reciprocità .

Après la défaite, la Constitution japonaise de 1946 a été à l’origine d’un véritable bouleversement juridique en entendant affirmer le principe de souveraineté démocratique, assurer une réelle séparation des pouvoirs et garantir les droits fondamentaux de l’Homme. Afin de veiller au respect de ces principes, la même Constitution dote en outre le Japon d’une Cour suprême armée du pouvoir de contrôler la constitutionnalité des normes et appelée, dès 1947, à jouer un rôle majeur au sein des institutions. Après plus de soixante-dix années d’exercice du pouvoir judiciaire, le constat semble néanmoins tout autre : de nombreux auteurs relèvent ainsi que, loin de jouer le rôle majeur que la Constitution lui promettait, cette juridiction serait l’une des plus « passives » au monde. Ce travail entend discuter cette qualification, à propos de laquelle s’accordent de nombreux auteurs, tant japonais qu’étrangers
The Japanese Constitution of 1946, enacted after the Defeat, represents a major change to the institutional organization by asserting the principle of popular sovereignty, a real separation of powers and fundamental human rights. In order to ensure the respect of these principles, this Constitution also endows Japan with a Supreme Court which holds the power of judicial review. Thus, the Supreme Court was called to play a major role within the after-war institutions. However, after more than seventy years of exercise of the judicial power, the observations do not meet its initial premises. Many authors note that, far from playing the major role the Constitution was destined for, this jurisdiction would be one of the most “passive” and “conservative” in the world. This work intends to discuss this qualification, which many authors agree with, both Japanese and foreign
第二次世界大戦後、1946年に公布された日本国憲法は、国民主権の原則とともに権力分立の原則を採用し、基本的人権を保障した。これらの原則を尊重するために、日本国憲法は司法機関による違憲審査制を導入し、最高裁判所に重大な役割を期待した。しかし、違憲審査権が行使されるようになってから70年以上がたった今、期待された結果は十分に達せられなかったとみられている。憲法が重大な役割を期待したことに反して、最高裁判所は世界で最も「消極主義」的であると評価されてきたからである。本論文は、日本と外国の学説が同意する、こうした性格を論じたものである。

Given both a traditional Sanskrit and an English education in Gujarat, Shyamji Krishnavarma became known in India as a Sanskrit scholar at a young age, and this reputation eventually brought him to England. Yet Krishnavarma was no simple Anglophile: deeply committed to the reformist Hindu Arya Samaj movement, he became a radical voice for anti-colonialism through the pages of his journal The Indian Sociologist (1905-1922), which was published first in London to wide international circulation, before moving to Paris and eventually Geneva to avoid legal repercussions. As this chapter outlines, Krishnavarma scorned the passivity of India’s moderate nationalists in favour of violent opposition to British rule, yet he also avoided the spiritualism and romantic attachment to violence of many of India’s ‘extremist’ leaders. Krishnavarma turned, instead, to the social theory of Herbert Spencer as the inspiration for a cosmopolitan anti-colonialism. In his work, ones sees the uptake of Spencer’s British anti-colonialism for Indian purposes. But far from simply echoing Spencer or British liberalism, Krishnavarma was an active adapter and creator, with a particular goal of putting theoretical conceptions drawn from those sources into political practice.

Cafés are places where people are essentially forced to take a stance on the morality of specific activities, not only by choosing whether to partake, but also by passively accepting others' participation in their presence. Because many of the moral “rules” about the sorts of things one can do in a café—like listen to music or smoke argileh—are not clear-cut, cafés require people to navigate complex moral terrain in order to have fun while feeling good about themselves. This chapter takes up a number of these debatable activities in order to show how more or less pious Shi'i Muslims, especially youths, employ moral flexibility in their discourses and practices of leisure. In some cases, people negotiate among different rubrics of morality, while in others they choose to ignore particular tenets or disagree about the accuracy of a rule in the first place.

The traditional approach to fuzzy design is based on knowledge acquired by expert operators formulated into rules. However, operators may not be able to translate their knowledge and experience into a fuzzy logic controller. In addition, most adaptive fuzzy controllers present difficulties in determining appropriate fuzzy rules and appropriate membership functions. This chapter presents adaptive neural-fuzzy controller equipped with compensatory fuzzy control in order to adjust membership functions, and as well to optimize the adaptive reasoning by using a compensatory learning algorithm. An analysis of stability and transparency based on a passivity framework is carried out. The resulting controllers are implemented on a two degree of freedom robotic system. The simulation results obtained show a fairly high accuracy in terms of position and velocity tracking, what highlights the effectiveness of the proposed controllers.

This chapter examines coping and compliance as Jewish survival strategies during the Holocaust. “Coping” means confronting a danger and trying to survive while staying put, without leaving one's community or country; collaborating with the perpetrators; or resisting the perpetrators. However, coping does not mean submissiveness and passivity. It typically requires breaking rules and laws by engaging in black market transactions, smuggling and bribing, theft, or taking various legal or illegal actions to improve one's chances for survival. “Compliance” is an extreme version of coping, defined as acting according to the rules and guidelines prescribed by the authorities without taking active steps to change one's situation. The chapter shows that coping by Jews in Minsk, Kraków, and Białystok consisted mainly of a combination of three tactics: securing employment in a needed industry, obtaining food, and preparing a hideout.

Professionals are in good standing in the principal-agent literature. With a sense of professional responsibility, an honor code or an oath, they bring extra effort to challenging and difficult to monitor tasks. Often they repay our trust. But there are also substantial challenges in delegating to those with difficult to replace knowledge and specialized training. These challenges are discussed in this chapter in a variety of individual and organizational contexts and in particular in analyzing the use that religious institutions and governments make of those with specialized training. Notwithstanding their rigidly hierarchical organizational structures, complete with rules of conduct and quite fearsome methods of control, the Catholic Church and the military have difficulty keeping agents on task. The chapter shows how these agents exploit their positions. Observing the theoretically unexpected passivity of principals when confronted with non-compliant behavior in these organizations, this chapter modifies the accepted account with the argument that group loyalties, asset specificity, and what the author refers to as the “agent confidence factor” put up the cost of punishment for the principal and protect noncompliant agents from the normal consequences of their actions.

In this chapter, the theoretical foundation of the use of virtual worlds (3D environments) to strengthen the personal social network of people who are challenged in that area, especially the elderly, is described. The psychological (bordering on sociological and anthropological) aspects of “living” in a virtual “world,” such as Second Life, are described. Opportunities and threats of those aspects regarding the possibilities of strengthening the personal network and quality of life are indicated. The chapter is based on a 5-year research project. The concrete outcome of which is translated into real life projects under the name VayaV. VayaV is described in this chapter as a case study. The Dutch municipalities all agree that the main social problems facing their citizens are exclusion, feeling lonely, passivity, and lack of friends and an adequate personal social network. In the latest figures, more than a third of the people who were interviewed (a cross section of the whole Dutch population) said: I am often lonely and I am suffering because of it. With their consent, a virtual environment is developed based on the research project in Second Life, in such a way that people who do not like computers and know nothing about digital social networks can meet and have fun and form a community of friends and acquaintances. In this case, there is more to the VayaV approach than playing a game in which someone has set the rules and goals for you. It is more like everyday life where people set their own goals and rules, according to their own values and norms.

There are several works in the field of smart homes for healthcare, with different types of sensors used to monitor medical, behavioral and environmental parameters for patients. In the context of smart home for the elderly, the use of sensors needs to be adapted to respect the privacy of elders and to work passively without the need for caregiver assistance. Most research in this area focused on activity recognition (e.g. eating, sleeping, watching TV, etc.) which may be defined as the identification of a sequence of actions (e.g. using microwave, lying down, etc.). In this chapter, we propose a comprehensive ontological model for well-being activity recognition in smart home. Our approach takes into account different aspects of the well-being context such as patient profile, object being used to perform the activity, the time of running the activity, its location, etc. In order to validate the proposed ontology and reason on it, we perform a set of queries and inference rules.

There are several works in the field of smart homes for healthcare, with different types of sensors used to monitor medical, behavioral and environmental parameters for patients. In the context of smart home for the elderly, the use of sensors needs to be adapted to respect the privacy of elders and to work passively without the need for caregiver assistance. Most research in this area focused on activity recognition (e.g. eating, sleeping, watching TV, etc.) which may be defined as the identification of a sequence of actions (e.g. using microwave, lying down, etc.). In this chapter, we propose a comprehensive ontological model for well-being activity recognition in smart home. Our approach takes into account different aspects of the well-being context such as patient profile, object being used to perform the activity, the time of running the activity, its location, etc. In order to validate the proposed ontology and reason on it, we perform a set of queries and inference rules.

The paper is devoted to the peculiarities of the man image in Japanese woman writer Okamoto Kanoko’s fiction. As a rule, the hero-lover (victim) has not the indispensable vitality and innate power. He is sickly or weak-minded. His fragility and passivity are contrasted with heroine’s (vampire) strength and assertiveness. The demonic motif is ubiquitous in Okamoto Kanoko’s stories. In other side, the man image is not a “lover”, but a “son”, which cult was set in her works. In certain cases heroine’s attitude to a hero leads to the erotic conflict.

Abstract Recent studies in passively-isolated systems have shown that mode coupling is desirable for best vibration suppression, thus refuting the long-standing rule of mode decoupling. However, these studies have ignored the non-linearities in the isolators. In this work, we consider stiffness nonlinearity from pneumatic isolators and study the nonlinear free undamped vibrations of a passively-isolated ultra-precision manufacturing (UPM) machine. Experimental analysis is conducted to guide the mathematical formulation. The system comprises linearly and nonlinearly coupled in-plane horizontal and rotational motion of the UPM machine with quadratic nonlinear stiffness from the isolators. We present closed-form expressions using the method of multiple scales for two cases viz. the non-resonant case and the bounded internal resonance case. We validate our theoretical findings through direct numerical simulations. For the non-resonant case, we show that the system behaves similar to a linear system. However, for the nearly internal resonance case, we demonstrate strong energy exchange between the modes stemming from nonlinear mode coupling. We further study the effect of nonlinear mode coupling on the vibration isolation performance and demonstrate that mode coupling is not always desirable.

This paper presents an application of function structures in the design of single component morphing airfoils. A series of function structures are developed in an attempt to create an accurate model of a passively morphing airfoil. This paper describes each approach taken, while noting their modeling aspects that were successful or unsuccessful to identify representation features of existing function structure syntax and rules that relate to the usability of the models. System boundaries and definitions, function and flow definitions, carrier flows, and system state definitions are investigated. It was found that function structures in their current state, are incapable of accurately modeling the functionality of the shape changing aspect of a passively morphing airfoil. These limitations are identified and recommendations necessary to model artifacts similar to the morphing airfoil are presented. Finally, previous research efforts in the design of morphing airfoil technology are presented as solutions to certain key functions identified, thereby demonstrating the possible benefits of implementing function structures to this field.

Abstract Many multi-agent systems in nature are comprised of agents that interact with, and respond to, the dynamics of their environment. In this paper, we approach the study of such agent environment interactions through the study of passively compliant vehicles coupled to their environment via simple nonholonomic constraints. We first consider a single passively compliant Chaplygin beanie atop a platform having translational compliance, introduce the reduced equations for the system using the notion of nonholonomic momentum, and provide proof for its stability under arbitrary deformations of the elastic element modeling its compliance. We then direct our focus to results concerning the frequency response and control of passive Chaplygin beanies under actuation of the platform, discuss rich dynamical features arising from periodic actuation, and develop rules by which control can be exerted to collect and disperse multiple passive vehicles. We then discuss how the latter of these results clarifies the extent to which stable behavior can be excited in the system through exogenous control.

A novel multi-level fuzzy control (MLFC) system is introduced and implemented for online force control of end-milling processes to increase machining productivity and improve workpiece quality, where the cutting force is maintained at its maximum allowable level in the presence of different variations inherent in milling processes, such as tool wear, workpiece geometry and material properties. In the controller design, the fuzzy rules are generated heuristically without any mathematical model of the milling processes. An adaptation mechanism is embedded in to tune the control parameters on-line and the resultant closed-loop system is guaranteed to be stable based on the input-output passivity analysis. In the experiment, the control algorithm is implemented using a National Instrument real-time control computer in an open architecture control environment, where high metal removal rates (MRR) are achieved and the cycle time is reduced by up to 34% over the case without any force controller, and by 22% compared with the regular fuzzy logic controller (FLC), thereby indicating its effectiveness in improving the productivity for actual machining processes.