Angelica Wahyu Kartika Budiarti, Sugeng Adipitoyo, Ahmad Rizky Wahyudi
Presupposition in descriptive utterances functions as an effective linguistic strategy for subtly instilling philosophical and theological assumptions, as manifested in the contemporary song "Ingsun" by Sujiwo Tejo. This study aims to examine the forms and functions of presupposition that construct the concept of Kawula-Gusti (Servant-God relationship) in the song's lyrics, and to analyze its relevance as Javanese language teaching material in Junior High Schools. This research employs a descriptive qualitative approach with data collection techniques utilizing listening and note-taking, based on the synthesis of presupposition theories by Stalnaker, Karttunen, and Yule, combined with Austin's locutionary acts and Keraf’s descriptive theory. The findings indicate that the lyrics are dominated by lexical and existential presuppositions which implicitly instill a profound understanding of Dununge (Position), Kuwasane (Authority), and Nuju Gambuhe (Union) of the Kawula-Gusti. The descriptive utterances require the listener's cognitive accommodation to accept theological truths as background facts without rigid indoctrination. These findings have strong pedagogical relevance for Javanese Language learning at the JHS Phase D level within the Merdeka Curriculum framework, particularly for training students' interpretive abilities toward implicit meaning and strengthening character based on the Pancasila Student Profile. However, acknowledging that the reliance on a single culturally and theologically dense text limits generalizability across diverse learner backgrounds, this study recommends extending the analytical framework to multiple Javanese texts of varying genres and difficulty levels to ensure broader applicability and instructional flexibility.
Philology. Linguistics, Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar
This study explores Eastern Orthodox aesthetics through a parallax lens, situating it at the intersection of theology, anthropology, and cultural practice to move beyond the icon-centric discourse. It examines how Orthodox aesthetics, rooted in the theological vision of beauty as divine disclosure, manifests in liturgical ethos, material culture, and secular artistic expression. The analysis draws on Christos Yannaras’ ethos of liturgical art, Chrysostomos Stamoulis’ exercise in philokalic aesthetics, and Timothy Carroll’s ethnographic material ecology of Orthodox Christianity, revealing beauty as an ontological event of communion and transformation. A parallax shift to Dionysis Savvopoulos’ lyrics uncovers an aesthetic eschatology, or an aesthetics of eschatology, where Orthodox themes of resurrection and festivity permeate non-ecclesial Greek culture. Employing a comparative, interdisciplinary methodology, the study integrates theological reflection, ethnographic insights, and cultural analysis. It concludes that Orthodox aesthetics is a dynamic field where beauty, truth, and eschatological hope converge, extending beyond the sanctuary into everyday practices and popular art—“incarnated” in material reality. This transdisciplinary approach reconfigures Orthodox aesthetics as a theological anthropology, offering fresh perspectives on its role in contemporary discourse and its diffusion into the public sphere, while advocating for material culture as a critical lens for future exploration.
The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between personal values and participation in consumer boycotts across countries, taking into account the role of national culture. The study is based on data from the 11th round of the European Social Survey (2023–2024), covering 27 European countries and Israel (N = 46,162). Personal values were measured using Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21), while national culture was described by Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions. The results confirm that self-transcendence and openness to change values along with lower levels of conservation values are associ-ated with greater involvement in boycotts. Moreover, the cultural dimension of indulgence was found to strengthen the positive influence of universalism, benevolence and self-direction values on boycott participation, suggesting that a higher tolerance for emotional expression in more indulgent countries may lead to greater boycott participation. These findings extend previous research by demonstrating that the relationship between personal values and consumer boycotts is shaped by the cultural context.
Political science, Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap representasi peristiwa sejarah dalam puisi Amsterdam-Batavia karya Zeffry J. Alkatiri, serta menelaah bagaimana puisi tersebut menjadi media refleksi sejarah kolonialisme Belanda di Indonesia. Dalam konteks pendidikan sejarah, puisi ini juga dinilai memiliki potensi sebagai sumber alternatif pembelajaran yang mampu memberikan pengalaman historis yang lebih mendalam dan emosional kepada peserta didik. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan metode Analisis Wacana Kritis (Critical Discourse Analysis) melalui model Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) yang dikembangkan oleh Ruth Wodak. Puisi dianalisis secara mendalam melalui empat tahapan utama: identifikasi topik wacana, analisis linguistik, analisis konteks historis dan sosial, serta integrasi temuan untuk mengungkap relasi kuasa, ideologi, dan identitas yang terkandung dalam teks. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa puisi Amsterdam-Batavia merepresentasikan berbagai peristiwa sejarah penting, terutama berkaitan dengan perdagangan rempah-rempah, ekspedisi pelayaran Belanda, kekerasan kolonial di Kepulauan Maluku dan Banda, serta pembangunan infrastruktur kolonial di Batavia. Selain itu, puisi ini juga menyoroti kontras antara kemewahan hidup para penjajah Belanda dan penderitaan baik rakyat pribumi maupun sebagian pelaut Belanda sendiri. Simbolisme dan gaya bahasa yang digunakan penyair berhasil menyampaikan makna sejarah dengan cara yang puitis namun kritis. Penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa puisi Amsterdam-Batavia tidak hanya memiliki nilai sastra, tetapi juga nilai historis yang kuat. Puisi ini dapat menjadi bahan ajar yang efektif dalam pendidikan sejarah, terutama dalam menumbuhkan empati, pemahaman kontekstual, dan kesadaran kritis peserta didik terhadap warisan kolonialisme dan dampaknya di masa lalu.
Vision-Language Models (VLMs) generate discourse-level, multi-sentence visual descriptions, challenging text scene graph parsers built for single-sentence caption-to-graph mapping. Current approaches typically merge sentence-level parsing outputs for discourse input, often missing phenomena like cross-sentence coreference, resulting in fragmented graphs and degraded downstream VLM task performance. We introduce a new task, Discourse-level text Scene Graph parsing (DiscoSG), and release DiscoSG-DS, a dataset of 400 expert-annotated and 8,430 synthesised multi-sentence caption-graph pairs. Each caption averages 9 sentences, and each graph contains at least 3 times more triples than those in existing datasets. Fine-tuning GPT-4o on DiscoSG-DS yields over 40% higher SPICE metric than the best sentence-merging baseline. However, its high inference cost and licensing restrict open-source use. Smaller fine-tuned open-source models (e.g., Flan-T5) perform well on simpler graphs yet degrade on denser, more complex graphs. To bridge this gap, we introduce DiscoSG-Refiner, a lightweight open-source parser that drafts a seed graph and iteratively refines it with a novel learned graph-editing model, achieving 30% higher SPICE than the baseline while delivering 86 times faster inference than GPT-4o. It generalises from simple to dense graphs, thereby consistently improving downstream VLM tasks, including discourse-level caption evaluation and hallucination detection, outperforming alternative open-source parsers. Code and data are available at https://github.com/ShaoqLin/DiscoSG .
Esophageal varices (EV) represent a critical complication of portal hypertension, affecting approximately 60% of cirrhosis patients with a significant bleeding risk of ~30%. While traditionally diagnosed through invasive endoscopy, non-contrast computed tomography (NCCT) presents a potential non-invasive alternative that has yet to be fully utilized in clinical practice. We present Multi-Organ-COhesion Network++ (MOON++), a novel multimodal framework that enhances EV assessment through comprehensive analysis of NCCT scans. Inspired by clinical evidence correlating organ volumetric relationships with liver disease severity, MOON++ synthesizes imaging characteristics of the esophagus, liver, and spleen through multimodal learning. We evaluated our approach using 1,631 patients, those with endoscopically confirmed EV were classified into four severity grades. Validation in 239 patient cases and independent testing in 289 cases demonstrate superior performance compared to conventional single organ methods, achieving an AUC of 0.894 versus 0.803 for the severe grade EV classification (G3 versus <G3) and 0.921 versus 0.793 for the differentiation of moderate to severe grades (>=G2 versus <G2). We conducted a reader study involving experienced radiologists to further validate the performance of MOON++. To our knowledge, MOON++ represents the first comprehensive multi-organ NCCT analysis framework incorporating clinical knowledge priors for EV assessment, potentially offering a promising non-invasive diagnostic alternative.
Pei-Gang Wang, Nazlena Mohamad Ali, Mahidur R. Sarker
In recent years, there has been a widespread integration of virtual reality (VR) technology across various sectors including healthcare, education, and entertainment, marking a significant rise in its societal importance. However, with the ongoing trend of population ageing, understanding the elderly’s acceptance of such new technologies has become a focal point in both academic and industrial discourse. Despite the attention it garners, there exists a gap in understanding the attitudes of older adults towards VR adoption, along with evident needs and barriers within this demographic. Hence, gaining an in-depth comprehension of the factors influencing the acceptance of VR technology among older adults becomes imperative to enhance its utility and efficacy within this group. This study employs renowned databases such as WoS and Scopus to scrutinize and analyze the utilization of VR among the elderly population. Utilizing VOSviewer software (version 1.6.20), statistical analysis is conducted on the pertinent literature to delve into research lacunae, obstacles, and recommendations in this domain. The findings unveil a notable surge in literature studies concerning VR usage among older adults, particularly evident since 2019. This study documents significant journals, authors, citations, countries, and research domains contributing to this area. Furthermore, it highlights pertinent issues and challenges surrounding the adoption of VR by older users, aiming to identify prevailing constraints, research voids, and future technological trajectories. Simultaneously, this study furnishes guidelines and suggestions tailored towards enhancing VR acceptance among the elderly, thereby fostering a more inclusive technological milieu. Ultimately, this research aspires to establish an encompassing technological ecosystem empowering older adults to harness VR technology for enriched engagement, learning, and social interactions.
IntroductionVoluntary organizations play an important role in today's society (Alfes, 2018:1-2). In Iran, an important part of the economy is dedicated to the non-profit sector (Ayodo, 2021). In all organizations, weakness in management weakens non-profit organizations (Pyanov et al., 2021). Accordingly, it is very important to better understand the factors that influence the decision-making of organization managers (Cyr et al., 2022:1-2). Charitable organizations should strive to demonstrate the highest level of performance; Because a well-managed charity organization will ensure a higher reputation and more donations (Crettez et al., 2021:26). Charitable organizations, as spontaneous support institutions, have a significant impact on the process of poverty alleviation and social harm (Nayeri et al., 2021:2). Part of the challenges of charities, at the micro level, include people's lack of trust in how to spend donations and poor communication between charities and donors (Ayodo, 2021) and limited resources (Alfes, 2018:1-2). Considering the diversity of charitable organizations, the necessity of designing a large system of charity is felt twice. The design of this system should be based on the opinions of actors and activists in the field of charity affairs. Therefore, improving and reforming the governance system of charity affairs should be based on the views and experiences of non-governmental and governmental charities, which requires a general understanding of their approaches and mindsets. In the theoretical literature, topics such as charity in the economy, the definition of charity, the ratio of government and non-government sectors in charity affairs, and issues and problems of governance of charity affairs in the country are discussed.Research MethodologyIn the current research, Q methodology was used, which is included in the category of applied research. This method is mixed and exploratory and has no hypothesis. For the current research, in the stage of gathering the discourse space and cue cards, the interview tool was used, and in the quantitative stage, the cue table was used, and for the quantitative data analysis, exploratory factor analysis was used. To understand the discourse environment, due to the limited number of interviews and reports published on the Internet, and also for further accreditation, interviews were conducted with 23 managers of governmental and non-governmental charities and several expert professors in this field.Research FindingsIn this research, in the first stage of selecting the Q sample phrase, 87 selected phrases were obtained. Finally, 31 terms have been selected. In the next step, 23 experts were studied and were given Q statements and tables to complete, and finally, 18 Q answers were used for analysis. In the mentioned research, face validity was used and Cronbach's alpha method was used to measure the reliability of the study, and the present value was 0.96. In the current study, the value of the KMO index is equal to 546. In Q methodology, the pebble diagram is used to show the most important factors in terms of the determined amount of variance. From the first factor onwards, the explanatory variance suddenly drops sharply. Therefore, the previous six factors will be used for factor analysis. In general, for the current research, the rotated matrix has been applied using the Varimax method. Participants No. 6, 9, and 11 form the first mental model, participants No. 1, 2, 5, 15, and 18 form the second mental model, participants No. 7, 10, and 12 form the third mental model, participants No. 4 and 14 form the fourth mental model, participants Number 3 and 17 form the fifth mental model and participants number 8, 10, 13, and 16 form the sixth mental model jointly. Six types of mentality were obtained, which include, 1) those who support popularization with a focus on government regulation, 2) those who support the performance of charities, 3) those who support the transparent presence of the people, 4) opponents of government administration, 5) the sovereigntists, and 6) propagandists.Discussion and ConclusionBased on the results obtained in the current research, six types of thinking and mentality were obtained. The first group believes in the principle of popularization of charity affairs and considers it an important issue, but they think that this popularization should be under the supervision and guidance of the government as the supervising, controlling, and guiding authority. The second group pays more attention to issues that lead to the improvement of the performance and effectiveness of charities, and they believe that the solution to poverty is to promote and solve these problems within charities. The third group, believing in the weakness of the government and the lack of public trust in it, emphasizes mechanisms to attract the attention of the people, and unlike the first group, they do not believe much in government intervention in the regulatory debate. The fourth group's mindset is based on strong opposition to the entry of the government and its administration, and they introduce the best work of the government to collect taxes from the rich to allocate to the deprived. The sovereigntists and those who say full government ownership form the fifth mentality, who are very cautious about people's participation and consider a minor role for them. According to them, the performance of non-governmental charities should be under the supervision and full control of the government. Finally, the sixth mentality emphasizes the element of advertising and promotion of the good deed, as well as efforts to attract people's participation. According to the results of the present research, the common element that exists among all mentalities, although with intensity and weakness, is the need for better and more involvement of the non-governmental sector and public charities. This issue can be taken into consideration as a common axis for discussion to reach a favorable governance structure. Other issues such as the level of government influence and tenure, how to design the propaganda system, etc. are among the issues about which there are differences of opinion.
Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the declaration of war speech delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, utilizing three distinct yet complementary analytical frameworks: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Narrative Analysis (NA), and Propaganda Analysis (PA). Through the application of these methods, the research aims to examine the linguistic features, narrative structures, and propagandistic elements within the speech to better understand the persuasive tactics employed by Putin and the socio-political implications of his rhetoric. The findings of this study contribute to the growing body of literature on political discourse analysis and highlight the value of combining multiple analytical approaches for a more nuanced understanding of political rhetoric. Ultimately, this research emphasizes the significant role that language and narrative play in shaping public opinion and promoting specific political agendas.
Lenar F. Abzalov, Marat S. Gatin, Ilyas A. Mustakimov
et al.
Introduction. The article examines a yarliq from the medieval Persian treatise Dastur al-Katib to characterize the institution of ulug bitigchi that used to be widespread in the Mongol Empire and states of Genghis Khan’s descendants. Goals. The study attempts an interdisciplinary analysis of the historical monument — one yarliq appointing an ulug bitigchi (head of scribes) and contained in Dastur al-Katib fi Tayin al-Maratib (A Scribe’s Guide to Determining Ranks) compiled in the mid-14th century by Persian official Muhammad ibn Hindushah Nakhchivani. Materials and methods. The paper focuses on Dastur al-Katib and the mentioned yarliq proper, involves related medieval sources on Mongol Iran and other Chinggisid states, including works by Juvayni, Rashid al-Din, Fasih Khwafi, etc., official documents of the Chinggisid chancelleries. The work employs a series of historical and legal research methods, such as those of source criticism, diplomatics analysis, comparative historical research, formal legal approach, historical legal and comparative legal analyses. Results. The paper introduces the yarliq appointing an ulug bitigchi from the medieval Persian treatise Dastur al-Katib into Russian-language scientific discourse and supplements it with a detailed interdisciplinary analysis. The work clarifies specific features of an ulug bitigchi’s legal status — including his functions, rights, requirements for candidates in Chinggisid chancelleries — and traces its evolution. It also shows reasons for the survival of the institution in those states even after the official conversion to Islam and shaping of a corresponding government system in accordance with traditions that had existed across the Volga Region, Iran and Central Asia long before the Mongol conquest. Conclusions. The fact that the institution of ulug bitigchi did survive the subsequent Islamization was to primarily position of Ilkhans as heirs of the Mongol Empire where it had first been established as well as to seek a compromised approach in governing their various subjects — nomadic and sedentary peoples, Turko-Mongols and those who spoke Iranian languages, Moslems and adherents of other religions.
History of Asia, Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
IntroductionReporting speech is a basic form of human language, and reporting practices play a key role in news report. As one of the important rhetorical devices to introduce the reported speech, reporting verbs can help the readers understand the source of the reported speech and the attitude of the journalist or the media toward the reported information.MethodThis study examines the features of reporting practice in Chinese and American news reports on public health emergency by investigating the use of reporting verbs from the perspectives of critical discourse analysis. Two English news corpora of COVID-19 pandemic are built, namely, the China Daily News Corpus and the New York Times News Corpus, with 50 news texts in each corpus. The corpus analysis tool AntConc 3.3.5 is used to conduct concordance analysis.Results and discussionIt is found that Chinese and American news reports tend to use roughly the same high-frequency reporting verbs in reporting the COVID-19 pandemic. Chinese and American news corpora show difference in the distribution feature of high-frequency reporting verbs in terms of semantic category. Both Chinese and American news reports use speech reporting verbs most frequently, indicating an objective attitude toward the reported event, and use speech reporting verbs and speech act reporting verbs to introduce the reported speech with comparatively higher degree of certainty. American news reports frequently use mental reporting verbs to show the attitude of uncertainty toward the reported speech, and Chinese news reports probably need to raise the awareness of using mental reporting verbs to express the opinions and attitude of the common people or the authority. The findings of this study can provide insights into the research on reporting strategies of news reports on emergencies in China for foreign audience.
Queer identities have predominantly existed at the peripheries of media representation as well as communication research. Linking this research gap with the field of video games as a medium, this study examines video game companies and their strategic communication efforts toward LGBTQ+ stakeholders through critical discourse analysis with influences of queer theory. With this focus, we aim to identify how video game companies discursively construct queer identities and utilize them for strategic communication. Through the analysis of the social media and online discourses surrounding two games with queer inclusion, we show that queer branding has an influence on the way strategic communication efforts are employed throughout the year, as well as the type of content. Furthermore, we show that in our selected cases, organizations can successfully align themselves with their LGBTQ+ stakeholders by having queer inclusion at the core of their strategic communication efforts and authentic organizational practices.
Conversational agents are consistently growing in popularity and many people interact with them every day. While many conversational agents act as personal assistants, they can have many different goals. Some are task-oriented, such as providing customer support for a bank or making a reservation. Others are designed to be empathetic and to form emotional connections with the user. The Alexa Prize Challenge aims to create a socialbot, which allows the user to engage in coherent conversations, on a range of popular topics that will interest the user. Here we describe Athena 2.0, UCSC's conversational agent for Amazon's Socialbot Grand Challenge 4. Athena 2.0 utilizes a novel knowledge-grounded discourse model that tracks the entity links that Athena introduces into the dialogue, and uses them to constrain named-entity recognition and linking, and coreference resolution. Athena 2.0 also relies on a user model to personalize topic selection and other aspects of the conversation to individual users.
Despite the growing violence against LGBTQ people nationwide, the National Congress of Brazil has failed to pass any legislation protecting LGBTQ rights. The executive and judiciary have compensated for this legislative gap by protecting LGBTQ rights through palliative LGBTQ policies. By historically analyzing the anti-homophobia bill PLC 122 and presenting a discourse analysis of ten anti-LGBTQ rights bills, as well as the results of semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in the billing process (2001–2021), this article seeks to unpack why and how the anti-homophobia bill was never approved in Congress. In part, Congress’ delay in approving the anti-homophobia bill is due to conservative opposition, a weak coalition between the executive and legislative branches of government, and the fact that more religious parliamentarians are represented in politics. As a result, LGBTQ bills introduced to Congress have become political weapons used by conservative and fundamentalist religious politicians as part of electoral campaign strategies. The anti-homophobia bill has opened a political window where anti-LGBTQ discourses sustain conservative politics and enforce the alliance between religion and politics. Moreover, the bill has strengthened the religious and conservative discourse, policy manipulation and the emergence of conspiracy theories—framing the bill as “opposing God’s people” and as constraining the freedom of religion and spreading fear of pastors and priests being jailed. The main conclusion is that policy and political discourses oscillate between making decisions according to the Constitution or the Bible, creating constraints and opportunities for the approval of the LGBTQ bill in the Brazilian Congress.
Ukrainian Football Phraseology: Semantic Aspect
The analysis of football phraseologisms as specific sayings enables, as far as possible, the construction of an objective picture of Ukrainian sports phraseology. Football phraseology has the following features: (a) it emerges in the domain of football or involves the acquisition of new semantics in this domain; (b) the integrity of meaning is closely related to football situations; (c) it is reproducible in football discourse for the purpose of secondary nomination of some actions, processes, phenomena; (d) it is relatively constant in terms of composition and structure (with possible variation); (e) it is expressive.
Football phraseologisms fixed in the modern Internet discourse include the following semantics: (a) team actions; (b) group (combinative) actions; (c) individual actions of players; (d) referees’ actions; (e) the result of a match; (f) substitution of players; (g) the end of a career; (h) the team’s aim at a tournament, etc. The Ukrainian football phraseology is characterised by inconsistency of its components, significant variability and various semantic content, which often leads to the transformation of its elements and the development of polysemy. A large number of synonymous phraseologisms belong to a category with the meaning ‘to score a goal’; some units contain military vocabulary. The correct interpretation of football phraseology requires background knowledge, which indicates its narrow professional orientation and which means that it is incomprehensible for the average speaker.
The development of football discourse and the evolution of its vocabulary require the compiling of dictionaries of the active type and the creation of text corpora that will open up new perspectives for linguistic and football studies.
Frazeologia piłkarska w języku ukraińskim. Aspekt semantyczny
Analiza frazeologizmów związanych z piłką nożną jako konkretnych powiedzeń umożliwia zbudowanie, na ile to możliwe, obiektywnego obrazu ukraińskiej frazeologii sportowej. Frazeologię piłkarską charakteryzuje szereg cech: a) pojawia się w domenie piłki nożnej lub wiąże się z nabywaniem w niej nowych znaczeń; b) integralność znaczenia jest ściśle związana z sytuacjami piłkarskimi; c) jest odtwarzalna w dyskursie piłkarskim dla celów wtórnej nominacji pewnych działań, procesów, zjawisk; d) jest względnie stała pod względem składu i struktury (z możliwością zmienności); e) jest ekspresywna.
Utrwalone we współczesnym dyskursie internetowym frazeologizmy piłkarskie obejmują następującą semantykę: a) działania zespołowe; b) działania grupowe (wspólne); c) indywidualne działania graczy; d) działania sędziów; e) wynik meczu; f) zmiana zawodników; g) zakończenie kariery; h) cel drużyny w turnieju itp. Ukraińska frazeologia piłkarska charakteryzuje się niespójnością jej elementów, znaczną zmiennością i różnorodną treścią semantyczną, co często prowadzi do transformacji i rozwoju polisemii. Duża liczba synonimicznych frazeologizmów należy do kategorii o znaczeniu ‘zdobyć gola’; niektóre jednostki zawierają słownictwo wojskowe. Prawidłowa interpretacja frazeologii piłkarskiej wymaga podstawowej wiedzy z tego zakresu, co wskazuje na jej wąską orientację zawodową i sprawia, że jest niezrozumiała dla przeciętnego użytkownika języka.
Rozwój dyskursu piłkarskiego i ewolucja jego słownictwa wymagają opracowania słowników typu aktywnego oraz stworzenia korpusów tekstowych, które otworzą nowe perspektywy w językoznawstwie i badaniach nad piłką nożną.
Philology. Linguistics, Slavic languages. Baltic languages. Albanian languages
The formulation of Mean Field Games (MFG) typically requires continuous differentiability of the Hamiltonian in order to determine the advective term in the Kolmogorov--Fokker--Planck equation for the density of players. However, in many cases of practical interest, the underlying optimal control problem may exhibit bang-bang controls, which typically lead to nondifferentiable Hamiltonians. We develop the analysis and numerical analysis of stationary MFG for the general case of convex, Lipschitz, but possibly nondifferentiable Hamiltonians. In particular, we propose a generalization of the MFG system as a Partial Differential Inclusion (PDI) based on interpreting the derivative of the Hamiltonian in terms of subdifferentials of convex functions. We establish existence of a weak solution to the MFG PDI system, and we further prove uniqueness under a similar monotonicity condition to the one considered by Lasry and Lions. We then propose a monotone finite element discretization of the problem, and we prove strong $H^1$-norm convergence of the approximations to the value function and strong $L^q$-norm convergence of the approximations of the density function. We illustrate the performance of the numerical method in numerical experiments featuring nonsmooth solutions.
The enactive approach has become an influential paradigm in cognitive science. One of its most important claims is that cognition is sense-making: to cognize is to enact a world of meaning. Thus, a world is not pregiven but enacted through sense-making. Most importantly, sense-making is not a fixed process or thing. It does not have substantial existence. Instead, it is groundless: it springs from a dynamic of relations, without substantial ground. Thereby, as all cognition is groundless, this groundlessness is considered the central underlying principle of cognition. This article takes that key concept of the enactive approach and argues that it is not only a theoretical statement. Rather, groundlessness is directly accessible in lived experience. The two guiding questions of this article concern that lived experience of groundlessness: (1) What is it to know groundlessness? (2) How can one know groundlessness? Accordingly, it elaborates (1) how this knowing of groundlessness fits into the theoretical framework of the enactive approach. Also, it describes (2) how it can be directly experienced when certain requirements are met. In an additional reflexive analysis, the context-dependency and observer-relativity of those statements themselves is highlighted. Through those steps, this article exhibits the importance of knowing groundlessness for a cognitive science discourse: this underlying groundlessness is not only the “ground” of cognition, but it also can be investigated empirically through lived experience. However, it requires a methodology that is radically different from classical cognitive science. This article ends with envisioning a future praxis of cognitive science which enables researchers to investigate not only theoretically but empirically the “foundationless foundation” of cognition: groundlessness.
Nowadays, almost all electronic devices include a communication interface that allows to interact with them, exchange data, or operate their services remotely. The trend toward increased interconnectivity simultaneously increases the vulnerability of these systems. Due to the high costs associated with comprehensive security analysis, many manufacturers neglect the safety aspect of a product in order to avoid costs. However, the importance of secure IT systems is growing, as the security of a system can also influence safety-critical aspects. Standard security analysis approaches are nowadays still mainly based on time-intensive and error-prone manual activities. In this paper, we present the formal concepts of the automatic threat and vulnerability analysis tool ThreatGet. Therefore, we introduce the concept of the Extended Data-Flow Diagram that is used to represent the system under investigation in an abstracted form, and we highlight the formal analysis language of the tool. This domain-specific language is used to formulate so-called anti-patterns. These anti-patterns that can be interpreted by the tool for an automatic security analysis of the system. Besides the language declaration, we present the entire semantic evaluation of the language during the analysis. Parts of the definitions and elaborations of the diagram model and the analysis language were developed in the context of the master thesis of Korbinian Christl, in cooperation with the University of Vienna.
This article explores the comedic construction of national identity in Nigerian stand-up comedy. By national identity, I mean collective perspectives on the sociopolitical and cultural realities of postcolonial Nigeria. While critical discourse analysis provided the framework for interpretation, data was derived from purposively sampled recorded videos of Nigerian stand-up comedians. Such collective perspectives are constructed when a comedian indexes cultural/political events and situations in a monologue. The investigation reveals four identity mapping strategies: performing (non)theatrical identities, using the comedy voice to indicate multiple identities, constructing a trickster identity and constructing a resilient spirit identity. These strategies entail foregrounding assumptions about the Nigerian state and using language in a strategic way to indicate sociopolitical and cultural realities.