Reliability assessment of autonomous vehicles based on the safety control structure

The recent social trends and accelerated technological progress culminated in the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs). Reliability assessment for AV systems is in high demand before its market launch. In safety-critical systems (SCSs) such as AV systems, the reliability concept should be broadened to consider more safety-related issues. In this paper, reliability is defined as the probability that the system performs satisfactorily for a given period of time under stated conditions. This paper proposes a reliability assessment framework of AV, consisting of three main stages: (i) modeling the safety control structure through the Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP); (ii) mapping the control structure and functional relationships to a directed acyclic graph (DAG); and (iii) construct a Bayesian network (BN) on DAG to assess the system reliability. The fully automated (level 5) vehicle system is shown as a numeric example to illustrate how this suggested framework works. A brief discussion on involving human factors in systems to analyze lower levels of automated vehicles is also included, demonstrating the need for further research on real case studies.

Social and structural changes in Russia: problems and prospects

This article is devoted to a review and general analysis of the main social trends in modern Russian society. In particular, the authors analyze statistical data on the most pressing problems of modern society, in parallel, attention is paid to assessing social trends in a number of the most painful issues, such as: vocational education and employment of the population, stratification of society, labor migration, demographic composition of society, demographic dynamics, processes, social consent and civic engagement of the population.

The Civic

We bring forth a civic realm with the mutual recognition of our shared humanity that allows us to repair violations of human dignity and to restore social coherence. Given our social inequalities, this takes the form of those who have resources (citizens) responding to the rightful demands of those do not (civilians). The paradigmatic model for civic engagement is the Civilian Review Board, where citizens listen and respond to civilian claims for justice and limits of the use of force. The civilian call for limits can be applied to the other three parts of the four-part framework: the Earth, humanity, and the social. This gives us permission to recognize that we have only one Earth, that death is a natural limit to human life, and that social trends, such as American Prosperity, should not be treated as limitless. Acknowledging these limitations is a necessary condition for creating a climate of justice.

The Image of the Other in the (post-)Covid Period: Analysis of Russian-language Internet Queries

The digital age has greatly changed the way information is stored and accessed. The Internet allows us to retrieve an unlimited amount of data from anywhere, at any time of the day or night. The search for new information consistently takes place via search engines, which process and store user query statistics. The analysis of these queries allows us to trace various social trends. At the same time, the personality of the researcher does not affect the "query" of the user, who is fully "sincere and independent" in finding the information he or she needs. Our hypothesis for this study is that by analysing the queries of Internet users we can identify the attitude of the contemporary Russian society to the Other and determine the criteria by which the image of the Other is formed. Considering the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers assumed that periods of lockdown may have had a particular effect, increasing interest in certain markers of otherness and decreasing interest in other markers. As a result, we identified 10 models of otherness during the (post)lockdown period, in which food and sexual marker groups are the dominant ones. In particular, the Other-Chinese model, as in previous years, remains worrying. The focus has shifted from the appearance to the sexual and food aspects. The COVID-19 pandemic has played a part in this. The Other-Japanese/Korean model also remains ambiguous, but there is a downward trend in alertness. As for the other models, for the most part they are allert-neutral.

METHODICAL WORK IN THE EXPERIMENTAL INSTITUTION

The analysis of social trends in the field of education shows an increase in the requirements for the teacher’s professional competence and personal qualities. The purpose of the article is to determine in experimental conditions the content of the methodical service of the educational institution to solve problems and increase the effectiveness of its work. The article reveals the content of the organization of the system of continuous professional and pedagogical education in a particular general educational institution in the conditions of experiment. Based on the activities in the process of research and experimental work, the institution has developed the Concept of social-pedagogical projecting of the developmental and educational process of the secondary school. The systematic work is planned to increase the level of professional competence of pedagogical staff of educational institutions: optimization of self-education processes, diversification of forms of scientific and methodological work, intensification of processes of continuous professional training. That is why the system of internal methodical work is one of the school priorities, the main task of which is the systematic collective and individual activities of teachers aimed at improving their scientific-theoretical, general cultural level, psychological and pedagogical training and professional skills. During the research the main emphasis was placed on the problem-target, as well as system-structural methods of processing and analysis of scientific achievements, generalization and comparison, as well as on the diagnostic method. Important semantic transformations in the education system require solving the problem of the quality of growth of professional competence of a pedagogical worker who is aware of the importance of social responsibility; is able to formulate and practically implement new pedagogical goals; is a holistic, pivotal figure in the development of students’ life competence. Prospects of the educational institution, its purpose and objectives of educational work are determined using comprehensive psychological and pedagogical diagnostics, professional tools, which further allows to identify problems and potential opportunities of all participants in the educational process, gaps or, conversely, creative, professional and personal potential.

Alone or Not Alone? – The Attitudes of Hungarians Towards Solo Travel

Before the COVID pandemic, solo travel was getting more and more popular – especially among women travelers. Both demographic, social trends, and inner motivations enhanced the popularity of this type of travel. The aging society and the single lifestyle increased the demand on the one hand, while on the other hand, the desire for self-realization, to find new ways of life, escapism, the thirst for self-confidence drive more tourists to travel alone. In the case of women travelers, their increasing decisive power and independence also boosted solo travel. The tourism industry also offers several attractions specially designed for them. The post-pandemic era will show how this special group of travelers will react to the changed circumstances and how they will change their travel habits. The paper examines how frequently Hungarian respondents travel alone and what their attitudes towards this type of traveling are. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

State Responsibility, International Law and the COVID-19 Crisis

Disruptions caused by the global spread of COVID-19 have generated different types of responsibility claims at both the domestic and international levels. Alleged breaches of the law have resulted from the immediate reactions to the pandemic’s emergence and spread, as well as from less proximate adjustments made to the ongoing crisis. This contribution begins by briefly surveying the types of responsibility relevant to the crisis with a view to identifying systemic legal issues, particularly at the international level. It then focusses on the law of state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts, not to resolve the various claims that are or can be made, but in order to identify what this crisis reveals about the trends in the law of responsibility, the opportunities for its invocation, and indeed, state tactics in engaging with this body of law. Just as the pandemic has been revelatory of social trends, so too it has highlighted trends in the law and its operation.

Zoonotik Bir Patojen Olan Salmonella’nın Bitki Konaklarındaki Davranışı

Salmonella is known as one of the main factors of food-borne gastroenteritis, and with this feature, it poses a great risk in terms of public health and economic losses. It is estimated that of the approximately 94 million cases of salmonellosis occurring in the world each year (about 85 percent of these are food-borne), an average of 150,000 result in death. Current social trends highlight the important health benefits of fresh produce in our daily diet. As an irony; Uncooked consumption of fresh herbal products is increasingly identified as a source of transmission for pathogens of intestinal origin, and epidemics occurring in this way are spreading rapidly. Today, the frequency of anthropogenic pathogen outbreaks associated with fresh produce, spices, and nuts has surpassed those associated with foods of animal origin. Human pathogens in the production chain; It can be transferred to plant material by basic means such as the use of animal manure, contaminated irrigation water, biological vectors (insects and animals) and contaminated seeds. In the light of these data, many intestinal pathogens have been identified as phyllo sphere-associated bacteria. Despite all these findings, there are many unknowns on the persistence and infectivity of Salmonella in contaminated plant hosts. In this review article, the factors affecting the attachment, colonization and survival of Salmonella on plant surfaces, as well as the information on the infection processes that continue with the invasion of plant tissues are discussed in the light of contemporary literature data.

Impact of Artificial Intelligence on HR practices in the UAE

Social trends and information technology are creating pressure, resulting in organizations being forced to update and recreate themselves. Against this backdrop there is an increasing trend to adopt artificial intelligence technologies. This study aims to explore and investigate the effect of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Human Resources (HR) practices in UAE companies with the help of mixed-method design. A mixed-method design was applied to explore and test the research questions. Semi-structured interviews and survey were conducted, respectively for both the study designs. AI and HR personnel were approached as sample participants for this study. Thematic analysis and PLS-SEM (Partial least squares path modeling) were used to analyze the data, respectively. Positive and significant effects of planned training and development process (0.231→0.021), tactical performance appraisal and integration of AI (0.719→0.000), and integration of AI and efficient HR practices (0.204→0.131) were shown. The moderating role of ease of use on integration of AI and efficient HR practices was negative and insignificant. AI plays an essential role in shifting the HR functions to enter the digitization era. The types of businesses and abilities require some activities such as training and development due to the increased use of technology.

Informal Academic Entrepreneurship: Current State and Development Trends

The concept of academic capitalism appeared in the international sociological discourse in the 1990s. However, Russian academic capitalism has taken unconventional forms as it develops in the shadow informal environment of the academic labor market. It covers a wide range of academic activities, e.g. tutorship, extra classes, ghost-writing of essays, theses and graduation papers, etc. Quite often, federal universities and research centers order grant reports, state assignments papers, and manuscripts for top peer-reviewed journals from provincial academics. The Russian market of shadow academic entrepreneurship is closed, secretive, tough, and highly competitive. The COVID-19 pandemic gave it a new rise: it increased three times in 2020–2021. New forms of digital employment and shadow academic capitalism lead to new social trends, e.g. new priorities appear in the subject of scientific research as academic institutions lose their profile in favor of their shadow academic employers. New flexible informal academic structures demonstrate faceted over-connectivity, non-market mechanisms of academic competition, and new forms of digital and traditional academic exploitation. Other trends include shadow branding of universities, proletarization and feudalization of academic labor, conflict of interests in science and education, formation of demand for low-quality higher education, monopolization in the academic market, etc. As a result, the academic community in Russia is transforming into a closed estate with its digital academic elite, middle class of academic entrepreneurs, and digital academic proletarians.