In the presently unfolding deepfake era, recurrent inflationary algorithmic superintelligence (ASI) achievement claims degenerated from being a mere reflection of an exaggerated but candid initial enthusiasm to becoming a convenient tool for misdirection facilitating epistemic perpetuum mobile (EPM) scams. This transdisciplinarily conceived paper compactly analyzes the underlying ASI definition avoidance problem which emerged from interactions between three major epistemic trends in the ASI debate: boomerism, doomerism and pragmatism. Via taking a fourth external perspective entertained by a fictive entity (...) called Cyogenes who volunteers as a philosopher and criticizes contemporary conventions (inspired by the ancient Cynicism lived by early Greek philosophers including Antisthenes and Diogenes of Sinope), the paper highlights key strengths but also particularly pitfalls within those three aforementioned epistemic trends all of which face the ASI definition avoidance problem – clearing the way for global EPM scams. After this philosophical analysis, a deflationary account of ASI (i.e. the epistemic perpetuum mobile) is discussed. Thereafter, practical cybersecurity-oriented threat models and defenses against EPM scams are formulated. In brief, fruitless EPM scams unnecessarily risk intensifying the near-term existential risk of epistemic self-sabotage and reinforcing totalitarian aspirations. (shrink)

Leibniz is committed to a form of cosmic eternity, on account of his natural theology and foundations for dynamics. However, his views on perpetuum mobiles entail that a particularly attractive type of cosmic eternity is out of reach for Leibniz.

‘Controversy’ is here introduced as a technical term referring to one aspect of dispute. ‘Controversy’ is here understood as referring to an ongoing antagonistic exchange over a disagreement that cannot be readily resolved by the means at hand. However, the issue is being discussed because the participants believe that the controversy will be resolveable in the framework of a more advanced view which will be generated by the dispute. It is claimed that this ‘controversy’ merits study; it is not claimed (...) that a dispute can be reduced to this aspect. In fact, it is shown that the dispute studied here involved intrigues in which personal and national prejudices served as weapons.The historical case study is a controversy conducted between G. W. Leibniz and Denis Papin. The first topic of the controversy, which began in 1689 and ended in 1691, was the ‘measure of force’, but it soon extended also to fundamental issues of mechanics and science in general: to the epistemological status of conservation laws, to the nature of abstractions in science etc.The study shows that far from being a ‘logomachia’, the ‘vis viva controversy’ reflected two exclusive legitimate interpretations of the conceptual system involved and enhanced both of them, preparing their ‘Aufhebung’ in a more elaborate and comprehensive system.An English translation of a not-yet published ‘Synopsis Controversiae’ by Denis Papin with annotations by Leibniz is attached as an appendix.Author Keywords: Conservation laws; Controversy; G. W. Leibniz; D. Papin; Vis viva. (shrink)

Le immagini leonardiane di nascita e creazione, di trasformazione dei corpi e della morfologia terrestre, di eventi atmosferici violenti, sottolineano una concezione metamorfica e trasformista dell'arte che si accorda con una visione della natura e della terra come animata da uno spirito vitale.

In a previous article, we have demonstrated by a general phase space argument that a Maxwellian Demon is compatible with statistical mechanics. In this article, we show how this idea can be put to work in the prevalent model of the Demon, namely, a particle-in-a-box, used, for example, by Szilard and Bennett. In the literature, this model is used in order to show that a Demon is incompatible with statistical mechanics, either classical or quantum. However, we show that a detailed (...) phase space analysis of this model illustrates that a Maxwellian Demon is compatible with statistical mechanics. (shrink)

Increase in popularity of games like "Second Life" has contributed not only to significant changes in the development of the electronic entertainment industry. Promoting Games 2.0, the new trend of video game production that are assumed to be the virtual worlds that contain user-generated content makes both measured with a specific technological innovation, as well as a serious change in the organization of socio-cultural heritage. The article presents problems of the existing difficulties of terminology, the implications of the availability of (...) Games 2.0 for social life, the concept of leisure as work in the new economy and creative non-material and the characteristics of "Generation C". Work stresses the need for discussion on trends in the development of video games - defined as a choice between the projects’ of "socio-cultural ideology of perpetual motion" and "utopia of universal creativity". These approaches allow to identify the methodological basis for analysis of relations between the operators and users of Games 2.0, taking into account the wider social environment. ** Wzrost popularności gier typu „Second Life” przyczynił siȩ nie tylko do znacznych przemian w rozwoju branży rozrywki elektronicznej. Upowszechnianie Games 2.0, nowego nurtu produkcji gier wideo które z założenia maj¸a} stanowić wirtualne światy zawieraj¸a}ce treści tworzone przez użytkowników sprawia, że mierzymy siȩ zarówno z określon¸a} innowacj¸a} technologiczn¸a}, jak też z poważn¸a} zmian¸a} organizacji życia społeczno-kulturowego. Artykuł przedstawia problematykȩ istniej¸acych trudności terminologicznych, konsekwencje dostȩpności Games 2.0 dla życia społecznego, pojȩcie rozrywki jako pracy w nowej gospodarce niematerialnej i twórczej oraz charakterystykȩ „generacji C”. Praca podkreśla potrzebȩ dyskusji nad kierunkami rozwoju gier wideo - określanymi jako wybór miȩdzy projektami „ideologii społeczno-kulturowego perpetuum mobile” i „utopii powszechnej twórczości”. Podejścia te pozwalaj¸a na wskazanie podstaw metodologicznych do prowadzenia analiz relacji miȩdzy operatorami, a użytkownikami Games 2.0 przy uwzglȩdnieniu szerszego otoczenia społecznego. (shrink)

This paper argues that the idea of a Maxwellian Demon presupposes a notion of non-physical free will. The author has changed her mind in this point later on and now thinks that Mawellian Demons are compatible with mechanics; see her paper on this from 2010 and book from 2012.

This commentary analyzes different past approaches to scientific evaluation frameworks given algorithmic superintelligence claims and discusses guidelines for more rigorous solutions avoiding overhasty and damaging epistemic self-sabotage tendencies. Effects of spreading the misconceived idea of the epistemic perpetuum mobile are elucidated.

Amidst the flow of repetitive inflationary algorithmic superintelligence (ASI) achievement claims linked to the rise of epistemic perpetuum mobile (EPM) scams in the deepfake era, this compact transdisciplinary paper merely written as ephemeral mental clipboard for the purpose of self-education collates the results of a new epistemic framework to achieve a better clarification of the present widespread confusion.

While the present information ecosystem is still undergoing a tsunami of repeated algorithmic superintelligence (ASI) achievement claims linked to the motif of the epistemic perpetuum mobile (EPM), will the laterally emerging and slowly propagating quantum ASI hype finally lead to a multiversal fear of missing out? Instead of adding novel entries to the already large enough and growing set of prophecies about the future promulgated in the deepfake era, this paper written for purposes of self-education utilizes a recent (...) epistemic complexity theory to answer the following natural scientific question: could the impossibility to build a multiversal ASI be amenable to experimental problematization? (shrink)

An extension of the hypothetical experiment of Szilard, which involved the action of a one-molecule gas in an isolated isothermal system, is developed to illustrate how irreversibility may arise out of Brownian motion. As this development requires a consideration of nonmolecular components such as wheels and pistons, the thought-experiment is remodeled in molecular terms and appears to function as a perpetuum mobile.

This paper presents the case of the post-crisis discursive defence of shadow banking in the Netherlands to argue, first, that there is a need to dust off older elite theories and adapt them to post-democratic conditions where there are no widely shared ‘political formulas’ to secure mass support for elite projects. Second, that temporality should be taken more seriously; it is when stories fail that elite storytelling can be observed in practice. As new ‘political formulas’ are minted and become established, (...) elites can again hope to withdraw from the political scene and leave policy-making to the self-evidence of output legitimacy and/or the perpetuum mobile of There-Is-No-Alternative (TINA). This suggests that elite theory should replace an epochal reading of post-democracy with a more conjunctural one. (shrink)

This paper is the second part of our recent paper ‘Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of Machines around the Renaissance: How Science and Technique Work’. In the first paper—which discussed some aspects of the relations between science and technology from Antiquity to the Renaissance—we highlighted the differences between the Aristotelian/Euclidean tradition and the Archimedean tradition. We also pointed out the way in which the two traditions were perceived around the Renaissance. The Archimedean tradition is connected with machines: its (...) relationship with science and construction of machines should be made clear. It is enough to think that Archimedes mainly dealt with three machines: lever, pulley and screw. As underlined in the first part, our thesis is that many machines were constructed by people who ignored theory, even though, in other cases, the knowledge of the Archimedean tradition was a precious help in order to build machines. Hence, an a priori idea as to the relations between the Archimedean tradition and construction of machines cannot exist. In this second part we offer some examples of functioning machines constructed by people who ignored any physical theory, whereas, in other cases, the ignorance of some principles—such as the impossibility of a perpetuum mobile—induced the attempt to construct impossible machines. What is very interesting is that these machines did not function, of course, as a perpetuum mobile, but anyway had their functioning and were useful for certain aims, although they were constructed on an idea which is completely wrong from a theoretical point of view. We mainly focus on the Renaissance and early modern period, but we also provide examples of machines built before and after this period. We have followed a chronological order in both parts, starting from the analysis of the situation in ancient Greece. Therefore, in the first part, we have examined the relations between the Aristotelian/Euclidean and Archimedean traditions from ancient Greece to the early modern age. In this second part, we analyse the relations of Archimedean tradition/ construction of machines from ancient Greece to the 19th century, focusing on the mentioned period. We remind the reader that our aim is to prove an epistemological thesis, not to provide a complete historical endeavour. As a correlated article, the reader will find three previous paragraphs in the first above-mentioned article. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the relationship between Helmholtz's formulation of the principle of the conservation of force and the two principles well known in rational mechanics as the principle of vis viva and the principle of the conservation of vis viva. An examination of the relevant literature from Leibniz to Duhamel reveals both Helmholtz's indebtedness to that tradition and his creative refashioning of it as he endeavoured to craft an argument that would both prohibit the construction of a perpetuum (...) class='Hi'>mobile and the efficacy of a supposed vital force and demonstrate the necessity of an ontology of mass points subject to attractive and repulsive central forces depending solely on distance. (shrink)

Si le nom d’Albert Camus continue de s’imposer, aujourd’hui, comme une figure incontournable de la littérature et de la pensée françaises du XXe siècle, il n’en est pas moins demeuré une personnalité cosmopolite, sensible à ce que la culture ne s’accomplit véritablement qu’en l’absence de sectarisme, qu’en présence de l’autre — avec ou envers lui, peu importe. C’est aussi tout le sens de la collection « Exotopies » de l’Association portugaise des études françaises (A.P.E.F.) qu’inaugure ce volume : présenter des (...) travaux sur la langue et la culture françaises, mais d’un point de vue singulier, celui d’un autre pays. En lisant ce bouquet assez restreint, mais en même temps assez diversifié de travaux sur l’oeuvre d’Albert Camus, on relèvera donc qu’il ne s’agissait ni d’un hommage, ni d’une commémoration, si contraires au vif esprit de la littérature, mais de s’aviser de l’exceptionnelle variété et actualité de son oeuvre. En ce sens, il n’est de meilleure figure pour débuter cette collection à visée cosmopolite que celle d’Albert Camus, chez qui le geste d’écriture est totalement inscrit dans une vocation humaniste. Celle-ci ne s’entend pas dans un sens moraliste, mais dans un sens existentiel — sinon existentialiste —, qui veut que chacun se définisse par le souci qu’il a de l’autre, et que l’humanité s’apparaisse comme le perpetuum mobile de l’histoire, en même temps que son point fixe, son sens dernier. (shrink)

This paper is the second part of our recent paper ‘Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of machines around the renaissance: How s cience and t echnique Work’ (Pisano & Bussotti 2014a). In the first paper—which discussed some aspects of the relations between science and technology from Antiquity to the Renaissance—we highlighted the differences between the Aristotelian/Euclidean tradition and the Archimedean tradition. We also pointed out the way in which the two traditions were perceived around the r enaissance. t (...) he Archimedean tradition is connected with machines: its relationship with science and construction of machines should be made clear. i t is enough to think that Archimedes mainly dealt with three machines: lever , pulley and screw (and a correlated principle of mechanical advantage ). As underlined in the first part, our thesis is that many machines were constructed by people who ignored theory, even though, in other cases, the knowledge of the Archimedean tradition was a precious help in order to build machines. Hence, an a priori idea as to the relations between the Archimedean tradition and construction of machines cannot exist. i n this second part we offer some examples of functioning machines constructed by people who ignored any physical theory, whereas, in other cases, the ignorance of some principles—such as the impossibility of a perpetuum mobile —induced the attempt to construct impossible machines. What is very interesting is that these machines did not function, of course, as a perpetuum mobile , but anyway had their functioning and were useful for certain aims, although they were constructed on an idea which is completely wrong from a theoretical point of view. We mainly focus on the r enaissance and early modern period, but we also provide examples of machines built before and after this period. We have followed a chronological order in both parts, starting from the analysis of the situation in ancient Greece. t herefore, in the first part, we have examined the relations between the Aristotelian/Euclidean and Archimedean traditions from ancient Greece to the early modern age. i n this second part, we analyse the relations of Archimedean tradition/ construction of machines from ancient Greece to the 19 th century, focusing on the mentioned period. We remind the reader that our aim is to prove an epistemological thesis, not to provide a complete historical endeavour. As a correlated article, the reader will find three previous paragraphs in the first above-mentioned article (Pisano & Bussotti, 2014a). (shrink)

La experiencia filosófica de Pablo Posada Varela queda lejos de ser un currículo de filósofo académico. Cuando el verdadero filósofo escribe está movido siempre por motivaciones éticas, para fortalecer el sentido que se busca. Un sentido en contacto permanente con su φρενός, una «inteligencia frenética» al margen de los espasmos del cogito cartesiano y su posterior narcosis. Tampoco ese sentido tiene que ver con la búsqueda de la verdad de su perpetuum mobile. En Pablo Posada Varela hay una (...) verdadera topología del sentido, ideas del sentido fuera del sentido. (shrink)

Cooperation is rife in the microbial world, yet our best current theories of the evolution of cooperation were developed with multicellular animals in mind. Hamilton’s theory of inclusive fitness is an important case in point: applying the theory in a microbial setting is far from straightforward, as social evolution in microbes has a number of distinctive features that the theory was never intended to capture. In this article, I focus on the conceptual challenges posed by the project of extending Hamilton’s (...) theory to accommodate the effects of gene mobility. I begin by outlining the basics of the theory of inclusive fitness, emphasizing the role that the concept of relatedness is intended to play. I then provide a brief history of this concept, showing how, over the past fifty years, it has departed from the intuitive notion of genealogical kinship to encompass a range of generalized measures of genetic similarity. I proceed to argue that gene mobility forces a further revision of the concept. The reason in short is that, when the genes implicated in producing social behaviour are mobile, we cannot talk of an organism’s genotype simpliciter; we can talk only of an organism’s genotype at a particular stage in its life cycle. We must therefore ask: with respect to which stage(s) in the life cycle should relatedness be evaluated? For instance: is it genetic similarity at the time of social interaction that matters to the evolution of social behaviour, or is it genetic similarity at the time of reproduction? I argue that, strictly speaking, it is neither of these: what really matters to the evolution of social behaviour is diachronic genetic similarity between the producers of fitness benefits at the time they produce them and the recipients of those benefits at the end of their life-cycle. I close by discussing the implications of this result. The main payoff is that it makes room for a possible new mechanism for the evolution of altruism in microbes that does not require correlated interaction among bearers of the genes for altruism. The importance of this mechanism in nature remains an open empirical question. (shrink)

This paper extends a stochastic theory for buffer fill distribution for multiple “on‘ and “off‘ sources to a mobile environment. Queue fill distribution is described by a set of differential equations assuming sources alternate asynchronously between exponentially distributed periods in “on‘ and “off‘ states. This paper includes the probabilities that mobile sources have links to a given queue. The sources represent mobile user nodes, and the queue represents the capacity of a switch. This paper presents a method (...) of analysis which uses mobile parameters such as speed, call rates per unit area, cell area, and call duration and determines queue fill distribution at the ATM cell level. The analytic results are compared with simulation results. (shrink)

Our world is mobile. People move, either within the state or from one state to another, to access opportunities, to improve their living conditions, or to start afresh. Yet, we usually assume that migration is an exceptional activity that leads to permanent settlement. In this paper, I invite us to reconsider this assumption. First, I analyse several ways in which people experience mobility in contemporary societies. Then, I turn to migration, as a specific form of mobility. I distinguish between (...) a legal/administrative, a social, and a self-identification-based approach to migration, demonstrating that they lead to divergent definitions of who is a migrant. I proceed by introducing the concept of mobile migration and by developing a typology of mobile migrants. I conclude that, in order to devise migration policies that treat migrants fairly, a careful consideration of the claims and interests of the different types of mobile migrants is necessary. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relationship between internationalisation, mobility, quality and equality in the context of recent developments in research policy in the European Research Area (ERA). Although these developments are specifically concerned with the growth of research capacity at European level, the issues raised have much broader relevance to those concerned with research policy and highly skilled mobility. The paper draws on a wealth of recent research examining the relationship between mobility and career progression with particular reference to a recently (...) completed empirical study of doctoral mobility in the social sciences (Ackers et al. Doctoral Mobility in the Social Sciences. Report to the NORFACE ERA-Network, 2007). The paper is structured as follows. The first section introduces recent policy developments including the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers and the European Commission’s Green Paper on the ERA. The discussion focuses on concerns around the definition of ‘mobility’ and the tendency (in both policy circles and academic research) to conflate different forms of mobility and to equate these with notions of excellence or quality. Scientific mobility is shaped as much by ‘push’ factors (limited opportunity) as it is by the ‘draw’ of excellence. Scientists are exercising a degree of ‘choice’ within a specific and individualised framework of constraints. The following sections consider some of the ‘professional’ and ‘personal’ factors shaping scientific mobility and the influence that these have on the relationship between mobility, internationalisation and excellence. The paper concludes that mobility is not an outcome in its own right and must not be treated as such (as an implicit indicator of internationalisation). To do so contributes to differential opportunity in scientific labour markets reducing both efficiency and equality. (shrink)

Wealthy individuals stand to gain materially from economic inequality and, moreover, have shaped many organizational and societal practices that perpetuate economic inequality. Thus, they are unlikely allies in the effort to remedy economic inequality. In this article, however, we study the mobilization of a small group of wealthy activists who join underprivileged allies to expose and contest the root causes of wealth consolidation; they offer an instructive alternative to “philanthrocapitalism,” whereby the wealthy give after extreme accumulation. Our study contributes to (...) the growing literature on inequality and organizations by recognizing how inequality is reproduced through organizations, cognizant that efforts to halt this reproduction will likely be contested by the wealthy. Our study examines how advocacy by the wealthy may be challenging, but it may garner attention because it is unexpected. We derive the concept of “privilege work” from our observations of an often awkward and fraught process that enables the wealthy to engage with their own privilege, use their insider knowledge of wealth accumulation as a lever for change, and work respectfully with underprivileged allies rather than invoking superior status. (shrink)

Technological and societal changes have made downward social and economic mobility a pressing issue in real-world politics. This article argues that a Rawlsian society would not provide any special protection against downward mobility, and would act rightly in declining to provide such protection. Special treatment for the downwardly mobile can be grounded neither in Rawls’s core principles—the basic liberties, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle—nor in other aspects of Rawls’s theory. Instead, a Rawlsian society is willing to (...) sacrifice particular individuals’ ambitions and plans for the achievement of justice, and offers those who lose out from justified change no special solicitude over and above the general solicitude extended to all. Rather than guaranteeing the maintenance of any particular individual or group’s economic position, it provides all of its members—the upwardly mobile, the downwardly mobile, and the immobile—a form of security that is at once more generous and more limited: that they will receive the liberties, opportunities, and resources promised by the principles of justice. (shrink)

Mobile health is rapidly being implemented and changing our ways of doing, understanding and organising healthcare. mHealth includes wearable devices as well as apps that track fitness, offer wellness programmes or provide tools to manage chronic conditions. According to industry and policy makers, these systems offer efficient and cost-effective solutions for disease prevention and self-management. While this development raises many ethically relevant questions, so far mHealth has received only little attention in medical ethics. This paper provides an overview of (...) bioethical issues raised by mHealth and aims to draw scholarly attention to the ethical significance of its promises and challenges. We show that the overly positive promises of mHealth need to be nuanced and their desirability critically assessed. Finally, we offer suggestions to bioethicists to engage with this emerging trend in healthcare to develop mHealth to its best potential in a morally sound way. (shrink)

"A climate crisis and other pressures on planetary ecology are causing profound anxieties. Climate change threatens to trap hundreds of millions of people in dire poverty and to separate further an already deeply divided world. However, a new generation of activists is offering inspiration, serving as a hope-maker. This book offers an accessible and empirically informed philosophical discussion of climate change, global poverty, justice, and the importance of political responses, both internationally and domestically, that offer hope. There are reasons enough (...) to worry that the era of pervasive human planetary impact, the Anthropocene, could produce terrible global injustices and massive environmental destruction. But that need not be so. Since the Industrial Revolution growth in productive capacity and the egalitarian struggles to share its benefits widely have made another world possible. We still have reason to hope for a world in which international cooperation to manage Earth systems sustainably prevails, in which the natural treasures of the Earth are valued, in which a vision of prosperity is realized and the scourges of disease, ignorance, and poverty are overcome, in which powerful lobbies defending private interests that threaten sustainability are minimized and contained, and in which democratic politics responding to the values of an educated public prevail. The work of bringing about such a world is the work of mobilizing hope"--. (shrink)

Mobile lifestyle is a comparatively little studied phenomenon, although the development of information and communication technologies significantly changes almost all manifestations of our life. Mobility, network capital, social and humanitarian technologies are becoming substantial conditions for successful employment. The purpose of the article is to analyse the results of the sociological project where youth of Latvia and Belarus became the object of research, in order to determine problems of mobile lifestyle in the aspect of employment through general and (...) special perception of young people of two countries with differing economic systems. (shrink)

Mobile Health (m-health) technologies, such as wearables, apps, and smartwatches, are increasingly viewed as tools for improving health and well-being. In particular, such technologies are conceptualized as means for laypersons to master their own health, by becoming “engaged” and “empowered” “managers” of their bodies and minds. One notion that is especially prevalent in the discussions around m-health technology is that of empowerment. In this paper, I analyze the notion of empowerment at play in the m-health arena, identifying five elements (...) that are required for empowerment. These are (1) knowledge, (2) control, (3) responsibility, (4) the availability of good choices, and (5) healthy desires. I argue that at least sometimes, these features are not present in the use of these technologies. I then argue that instead of empowerment, it is plausible that m-health technology merely facilitates a feeling of empowerment. I suggest this may be problematic, as it risks placing the burden of health and behavior change solely on the shoulders of individuals who may not be in a position to affect such change. (shrink)

The changing conditions for the accumulation and transmission of knowledge in the age of multimedia networks make it inevitable that old philosophical problems become formulated in a new light. Above all, the problem of the unity of knowledge is once again a topical issue. The situation-dependent acquisition of knowledge that is made possible by mobile learning transcends the boundaries of traditional disciplines, linking the domains of text, diagram, and picture. Database integration and multimedia search become central problems in the (...) epistemology of the 21st century, while handheld devices are emerging as vital technologies for supporting collaborative learning. -- Kristóf Nyíri has published widely on Wittgenstein, Austrian intellectual history, and the philosophy of communication. He directs the interdisciplinary research program COMMUNICATIONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY, conducted jointly by the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Westel Mobile Telecommunications, Budapest. (shrink)

The paper looks into prospects of using mobile applications in the regional information market. It reviews global trends in their introduction rates, based on development of mobile devices and new information technologies. Mobile applications are classified, their most popular types for business and community described. The author provides rationale for some directions of market expansion owing to a growing share of smartphones in the total number of mobile phones and an increase in the number of Internet (...) users. Some specific features of the regional information market performance and its main participants are identified. The paper presents economic performances of companies by regions of Ukraine as a critical economic factor in using mobile applications. The banking sector and trade are defined as the most favorable lines of activity. The following bottlenecks in the use of mobile applications by domestic banks are identified as compared to those in Europe, specifically in Poland: a low rate of activity in this field and insufficient number of Internet users. The author analyzes functional capabilities of active software in the most successful banks of Ukraine. Services of the most popular mobile applications offered by major companies with regional representatives are examined. There are some factors identified, which adversely affect the shaping of community demand for mobile applications, such as regional disproportions in the flow of income as well as high purchase costs of food commodities and extremely low purchase costs of household appliances. The author gives some positive examples of promoting mobile applications in local information markets in the field of public transport. It is established that prospects of further use of mobile applications in the regional information market depend on enhancement of financial stability of economic entities and an increase of the income level of the population. (shrink)

Most conceptions of public and private life within political and social theory do not adequately consider the networks or fluidities involved in contemporary social relations. The distinction of public and private is often conceived of as statically `regional' in character. This article, following an extensive analysis of the multiple meanings of the `public' and `private', criticizes such a static conception and maintains that massive changes are occurring in the nature of both public and private life and especially of the relations (...) between them. We consider flows and networks that enable mobility between and across apparent publics and privates. These mobilities are both physical (in the form of mobile people, objects and hybrids of humans-in-machines) and informational (in the form of electronic communication via data, visual images and texts). We consider the transformations of public and private life that have arisen from `complex' configurations of place and space: the dominant system of car-centred automobility whose spatial fluidities are simultaneously private and public; and various globalizations through the exposure of `private' lives on public screens and the public screening of mediatized events. These mobile, machinic examples demonstrate the limitations of the static, regional conceptualizations of public and private life developed within much social and political theory, and suggest that this divide may need relegation to the dustbin of history. (shrink)

Meaning of place is usually approached as slow social cognitive construction. However, grounded on the theory of affordances, it may also stem from direct perception-action processes, which enable the formation of immediate perceived functional, social or symbolic meaning of place (Raymond, Kyttä, & Stedman, 2017). In the present study, affordances of places, which are perceived by a specific perceiver in a specific place, were mapped using a web-map survey. Each place offers opportunities for interaction, behavior, use, feeling or meaning, which (...) is directly perceived and actualized there. This paper aims at identifying the degree of youth-friendliness of urban neighborhoods using the hypothetical intertwined model of independent mobility and actualized affordances (Kyttä, 2004) combined with place use and meaning (Broberg, Kyttä, & Fagerholm, 2013). SoftGISchildren methodology (Broberg, Kyttä, et al., 2013) was adopted to carry out a cross-sectional research, involving 145 sixth to ninth graders of the Great Lisbon area. SoftGIS integrates Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS), enabling collection and place mapping of daily subjective environmental experiences in the physical environment, consequently allowing for individuals to be actively engaged in public processes of participation (Brown & Kyttä,2014). A place based web survey called “Ideal City: a game of graphic imagination” was adopted. Participants were asked to map their home place, select and mark social, functional, leisure and emotional place transactions, and report actual and ideal mobility to these places. Findings on mobility showed that shorter distances to meaningful affordances of places promote active and independent travel; ideally, youths would like to be more frequently active and more frequently autonomous. As for meaningful places, a total of 1632 affordances were localized, with a higher number on social category. Neighborhood area (500 meters around home place) was assessed as youth-friendly, where active and independent travel occurred more frequently, and social affordances were the most expressive type. Relational and affectional experience in the neighborhood places was meaningful for youth. Municipalities should consider these features when planning, designing and managing residential areas aiming for the well-being and health of young citizens; and include youths as specialists of space (spatialists) in planning participatory processes (PPGIS). (shrink)

This study investigated the use of mobile telephones by males and females in a public bar frequented by professional people. We found that, unlike women, men who possess mobile telephones more often publicly display them, and that these displays were related to the number of men in a social group, but not the number of women. This result was not due simply to a greater number of males who have telephones: we found an increase with male social group (...) size in the proportion of available telephones that were on display. Similarly, there was a positive relationship between the number of visible telephones and the ratio of males to females. Our results further show that the increased display of telephones in groups with more males is not due to the ostensive function of these devices (i.e., the making and receiving of calls), although single males tended to use their phones more. We interpret these results within the framework of male-male competition, with males in larger group sizes functioning in an increasingly competitive environment. This competitive environment is suggested to be akin to a lek mating system in which males aggregate and actively display their qualities to females who assess males on a number of dimensions. We suggest that mobile telephones might be used by males as an indicator of their status and wealth (sensu “cultural ornaments”). (shrink)

This article investigates elite young people’s transitions from the Leysin American School in Switzerland, an elite secondary school, to international higher education. These young people often moved to the UK or the US for higher education – locations associated with global status in the education market. However, I argue, new configurations of race and racism in those spaces may challenge some students’ elite status, despite their wealth. This article demonstrates that to navigate such issues in their transition to higher education, (...) these young people leaned on their diasporic networks. By doing so, they strategically and pre-emptively ascertained whether their power and privilege would travel with them when they became mobile. Significantly, then, this article attends to the differential experiences of members of the transnational elite and highlights the racial discrimination that they may face in mobility. It thereby complicates the notion of mobility as an effective strategy for elite status maintenance. (shrink)

Academic mobility is usually perceived and discussed as a positive phenomenon — as a prerequisite for building a competitive and successful economy and quality science. Academic mobility has now become essential to building a successful academic career in many research domains. On the policy level the negative impact of academic mobility on researchers’ lives and especially women’s is usually overlooked and marginalized. In my paper I focus on academic mobility in the context of academics’ relationships and family lives. I ask (...) two research questions: What is the impact of mobility on researchers’ relationships? How does mobility affect the lives of the partners of mobile researchers? The analysis is based on i) 16 in-depth interviews with academics from various fields of research about their experiences of long-term fellowships abroad in the early stages of their academic path and on ii) 16 in-depth joint interviews with Czech dualcareer academic couples. The analysis shows that academic mobility has a great and significant impact on the family and partnership lives of migrating researchers. For many, especially the partners of migrating researchers, mobility means they have to make many concessions in their private and family lives. I conclude that the impact of academic mobility on people’s partnership lives is highly gendered because couples’ work and family lives are closely intertwined. (shrink)

Employee mobility is a phenomenon that challenges workplace ethics. This paper argues that despite on‐going attempts by management and consultants to build and install employee loyalty, and despite the complexity of relationships between employees and their organization, employee mobility remains a common phenomenon in today’s market. Courts, at least Israeli courts, perceive the employee–employer relationship as almost purely contractual and thus strive to protect workers first, often ignoring deeper commitments such as loyalty. This results in a certain dissonance in the (...) relationships between employees and employers. (shrink)