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The Anthropocene is marked with a multilayered environmental crisis that requires cultural changes. Although a complex task, the contemporary Mexican artists studied here have explored this issue through literary means. In this paper, I analyse La máquina distópica (The Dystopian Machine) and El mono infinito (The Infinite Monkey) as technopoetical tools to understand the present from a historical perspective. I suggest that the usage of canonical figures such as Amparo Dávila and Ada Lovelace in these pieces provides a critical grounding that tensions the notion of individual authorship and affords a transhistorical and transtemporal approach to an endangered planet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is concerned to show that a clear methodology exists for answering the question “How Can We Tell if a Machine is Conscious?” The methodology does not deliver certainty but rather rational preference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is aimed at a comprehensive solution to the problem of reliable and safe operation of a transport energy system with a high energy concentration based on a universal energy carrier - cryogenic liquid hydrogen. The article discusses the possibility of using various methods and techniques to assess the reliability of machines and equipment operated in emergency situations and extreme conditions. The obtained results are analyzed. Currently, the oil and gas complex pays great attention to the development of hydrogen technologies, as well as hydrogen energy in connection with the relevance of the Climate Agenda. In this regard, hydrogen energy facilities are of the greatest interest: cryogenic hydrogen reservoirs, cryogenic hydrogen pipelines, cryogenic oxygen reservoirs and cryogenic oxygen pipelines, as well as cryogenic reservoirs and pipelines for storing process nitrogen gas. An important role for global energy exchange is played by LH 2 tankers for transporting cryogenic hydrogen. For example, Australia and Japan built the first LH 2 tanker to transport hydrogen from Australia to Japan. In addition, another 85 LH 2 tankers are expected to be built. After transportation, cryogenic hydrogen is stored in cryogenic hydrogen storages, usually also representing cryogenic hydrogen tanks with piping in the form of cryogenic pipelines, as well as cryogenic nitrogen tanks for storing process nitrogen gas. Further, hydrogen is used in road transport, aviation, ship fleet, industry, and energy. The main elements of mobile, stationary and airborne hydrogen storage systems are under critical loads and are in the area of increased study and attention. In this regard, we considered the functions of changing the main operational characteristics, made proposals on the possibility of predicting the development of accumulated faults and proposals for ensuring safety and extending the life of objects, taking into account the determination of local and integral damage to cryogenic tanks and pipelines. Project for the creation of a main cryogenic hydrogen pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe across the Adriatic Sea. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to optimize the rice productivity and quality, various aspects of production chains should be considered in an integrated way, including crucial steps to improve and conserve the rice grains. The lack of sufficient quantity of quality rice grains was husking methods, clearances between cylinder, and two rice cultivars is a major bottleneck to improve rice productivity and quality in Factory. This study is aimed to identify the effect of thresher machines on rice cultivars based on some technical indicators. Two types of rice husking machines (S-KB40 and YST50) were tested at three clearances of 0.5 mm, 0.7 mm and 0.9 mm, for two rice cultivars of JA and M-33. The experiments were conducted in a factorial experiment under complete randomized design with three replications. The clearance 0.9 mm was significantly superior to the other two levels of 0.5 mm and 0.7 mm in all studied parameters. For S-KB40 the machine productivity, power required, husking efficiency, broken rice ratio, head rice ratio, were 1.768 t hr-1, 14.432 kW, 77.151%, 6.816% and 59.724% respectively under the same operating conditions for Y-ST50. The results showed that the JA cultivar was significantly better than the M-33 in all studied conditions. The interaction among SKB40 husking machine, JA cultivar and the clearance between cylinder 0.9 mm gave the best results in all studied parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the manuscript of Codex Madrid I, Leonardo da Vinci's workshop drawings collection, is reviewed and the main mechanisms that appear in the aforesaid codex are analysed. It begins with a short reference to Leonardo da Vinci works and, subsequently, Leonardo's manuscripts and Codex Madrid I, in particular, are placed in their historical context. After analysing the historical scope of Codex Madrid I, a compilation of the 100 main drawings of the manuscript is made, composing nine Mechanisms Drawings Boxes. Each Mechanisms Drawings Box is a collage made up of 10 to 14 drawings of mechanical elements that appear in Codex Madrid I, with a brief description of each drawing. This compilation illustrates the wide range of mechanical elements and simple mechanisms of Codex Madrid I, forming, as a whole, a complete treatise on mechanisms, understanding mechanisms as basic elements of machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of Gothic church towers with carved stone spires and often with significant height required the most advanced technology and financial support of their age, and the application of advanced machines was also inevitable for it. This article is an attempt to virtually reconstruct and visualise the process of a 15th-century tower construction, including the main auxiliary structures: scaffolding and machinery. A series of 3D models is created for that purpose, using the contemporary plans of the partly realised north tower of St. Stephen's church in Vienna, the contemporary machine drawings of the Strasbourg-based master builder Hans Hammer, and contemporary and neo-Gothic drawings of scaffoldings together with survived exemplars as sources. An important question was whether medieval technical drawings contain enough data to model the structures or devices that they depict and if the construction process could be represented using them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kazakhstan has become a leading grower and exporter of linseed; however, domestic enterprises are unable to ensure a complete cycle of processing of these crops. Especially pressing is the need for rational use of the stem biomass, which is simply wasted or burnt, causing irreparable damage to the ecosystems of the regions where it grows. The main problem of fiber in Kazakhstan is the lack of appropriate technology for bast fiber processing and the lack of specialists in this field. In search of ways to extract and spin linseed fibers, the authors of this article made an attempt to use worsted machines designed for wool for these purposes. The fibers obtained have satisfactory values for the following spinning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late nineteenth century, Canada has required modern construction machines for industrial growth. Thanks to their novelty and visibility, these machines entered the Canadian psyche, symbolizing hopes and fears about the relentless transformations of modernity. Metaphors depicting these machines as zoomorphic and monstruous reflected the environmental-technological infrastructures they built, which redefined nature through technologies like trains, ships, and automobiles. This article discusses how Anglo-Canadians, particularly Ontarians, interpreted technology, drawing parallels with the automobile's history. Both had a problematic coexistence with humans as equally empowering and oppressive mobile machines that were imposed on public spaces and constructed as necessary for progress. The builders used the machines' allure to present construction as an inclusive civic spectacle and foster public tolerance for their relentless disruptions. They accomplished this faster than the automobile industry came to dominate the streets, as evidenced by the celebration of "sidewalk superintendents," compared to the contentious reproach of "jaywalkers." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of mobility in Canada's history can hardly be overstated. The built waterways, railways, and roadways that allowed for the movement of peoples, goods, and ideas within the country have long been considered cultural icons conveying collective ideas of Canadian identity. Yet, little has been written on the history of the modern construction machines that made this mobility infrastructure possible after Confederation, along with their designers, manufacturers, and operators. This article helps fill that gap by examining the technological development, manufacturing, and commercialization of earthmoving equipment in Canada (especially Ontario) in the 1860s-1920s, a period of great construction activity, including two of the world's largest civil engineering and earthmoving projects and one of the fastest-expanding road networks in North America. It discusses the role of the federal, provincial, and municipal governments in developing, adopting, and disseminating this technology, and their ultimate reliance on American manufacturers despite the National Policy's protectionism. This article supports the argument that technological development in Canada during the Second Industrial Revolution was continentally integrated in ways that involved technological dialogue with American companies, associations, and publications. While this manufacturing sector became dominated by American corporations by the First World War, the extent to and manner by which that happened varied depending on the type of machinery and the construction sectors in which they were used. The technological transition from steam-powered machines to electric, gasoline, and diesel motors and how it impacted Canadian manufacturers are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to minimize makespan (Cmax) without causing tool delay with the fewest copies of each tool type, this study investigates the concurrent scheduling of automated guided vehicles (AGVs), machines (MCs), tool transporter (TT), and tools in a multi-machine flexible manufacturing system (FMS). The tools are housed in a central tool magazine (CTM), accessible to and utilized by several machines. AGVs and the tool transporter (TT) move jobs and tools between machines. Since it involves allocating tool copies and AGVs to job operations, sequencing job operations on machines, and related trip operations, such as AGVs' and TT's empty trip and loaded trip times, this simultaneous scheduling problem is highly complicated. This issue is resolved using the symbiotic organisms search algorithm (SOSA), based on the symbiotic interaction strategies that organisms adapt to survive in the ecosystem. This study proposes a mixed nonlinear integer programming formulation to address this problem. Verification is performed using an industrial problem from a manufacturing organization. The results show that employing two copies for two tool types out of 22 tool kinds and one copy for the remaining tool types results in no tool delay, which causes a reduction in the Cmax as well as cost. The industries that can benefit directly from this study are consumer electronics manufacturers, original equipment manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, and textile machine producers. The results demonstrate that the SOSA provides promising results compared to the flower pollination algorithm (FPA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a long-standing question in the history of technology concerning the trope of the living machine. The authors do this by using a cutting-edge computational method, which they apply to large collections of digitized texts. In particular, they demonstrate the affordances of a neural language model for historical research. In a deliberate maneuver, the authors use a type of model, often portrayed as sentient today, to detect figures of speech in nineteenth-century texts that portrayed machines as self-acting, automatic, or alive. Their masked language model detects unusual or surprising turns of phrase, which could not be discovered using simple keyword search. The authors collect and close read such sentences to explore how figurative language produced a context that conceived humans and machines as interchangeable in complicated ways. They conclude that, used judiciously, language models have the potential to open up new avenues of historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility of AI consciousness depends much on the correct answer to the mind–body problem: how our materialistic brain generates subjective consciousness? If a materialistic answer is valid, machine consciousness must be possible, at least in principle, though the actual instantiation of consciousness may still take a very long time. If a non-materialistic one (either mentalist or dualist) is valid, machine consciousness is much less likely, perhaps impossible, as some mental element may also be required. Some recent advances in neurology (despite the separation of the two hemispheres, our brain as a whole is still able to produce only one conscious agent; the negation of the absence of a free will, previously thought to be established by the Libet experiments) and many results of parapsychology (on medium communications, memories of past lives, near-death experiences) suggestive of survival after our biological death, strongly support the non-materialistic position and hence the much lower likelihood of AI consciousness. Instead of being concern about AI turning conscious and machine ethics, and trying to instantiate AI consciousness soon, we should perhaps focus more on making AI less costly and more useful to society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to develop a fish grater machine to produce shredded fish on a household scale. The development of this fish grating machine considers getting the maximum capacity, minimum percentage losses, maximum percentage of the sample that grater with size short and middle grade. and maximum percentage of the sample that grater with size rough grade with limited sources specified power. The method used in this research Is the machine manufacturing and testing approach. Three types of grater teeth (K-type, P-type, and B-type) are the main focus of this research to optimize the quality of the grater and the performance of the machine. The machine capacity. the percentage of losses and the optimal quality of the counting size of the developed machine can be achieved using a K-type grater. Analysis of variance and the t test are used simult ly to determine the optimal performance of this machine. The results of this study suggest that using a K-type grater is the most suitable grating machine for shredded fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a keynote address given at the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI) held in Karlsruhe, Germany, August‐September 2022, on the theme "Christ's love (re)moves borders" and organized in conjunction with the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches. The article argues that around the world, political borders are being cemented by populist nationalisms even as pandemics, capital flows, and climate change ignore them. If Christians are to resist such ideologies, they must recover a robust incarnational theology and their fundamental identity as members of the worldwide body of Christ. Simultaneously, even as borders between people are being reinforced, the border between people and machines is blurred by transhumanist and posthumanist agendas. Such paradoxes will continue to abound in an intellectual landscape where what is distinctively human is obscured by technological hubris and philosophical naïveté. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at tracking down, by looking at late medieval and early modern discussions over the ontological status of artifacts, the main steps of the process through which nature became theorized on a mechanistic model in the early 17th century. The adopted methodology consists in examining how inventions such as mechanical clocks and automata forced philosophers to modify traditional criteria based on an intrinsic principle of motion and rest for defining natural beings. The paper studies different strategies designed in the transitional period 1300–1600 for making these inventions compatible with classical definitions of nature and artifacts. In the first part of the paper, it is shown that, even if virtually all medieval philosophers acknowledged an ontological distinction between artifacts and natural beings, these different strategies demonstrate a growing concern about the consistency of the art/nature distinction. The next part of the paper studies how mechanical clocks, even before the Scientific Revolution, served as theoretical models for applying mechanistic views to different objects (be they cosmological, physical or biological). The epistemological function of clocks appears to stem from different factors (like the specific manufacturing of late medieval clocks as well as the evolution of 16th-century mechanics) that are listed in this second part of the paper. These factors, combined with the definitional issues raised by automata, explain that clocks became the symbol of a new approach to natural philosophy, characterized by the collapse of the art/nature distinction and the "mechanization of nature". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The molecular switches and machines arena has entered a new phase in which molecular machines operate under out‐of‐equilibrium conditions using appropriate fuel. Unlike the equilibrium version, the dissipative off‐equilibrium machines necessitate only one stimulus input to complete each cycle and decrease chemical waste. Such a modus operandi would set significant steps towards mimicking the natural machines and may offer a platform for advancing new applications by providing temporal control. This review summarises the recent progress and blueprint of autonomous fuel‐driven off‐equilibrium molecular switches and machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine children's (N = 40; 4–8-years-old) spontaneous interactions with parents and museum staff while exploring artifacts in a living history museum. Our aim was to connect the cognitive development literature on reasoning and learning about artifacts to children's daily experiences with artifacts in the presence of influential others, namely, parents and experts. Our sample of parent-child dyads come from primarily White, university educated, and middle-class homes. Museum staff, who are experts in the historical period and the artifacts, were available for interaction with the dyads. We examined a total of 4051 child, 5698 parent, and 5747 staff utterances, half of which pertained to artifacts. We identified what artifact features children, parents, and staff discussed, what pedagogical strategies parents and staff employed while discussing different features of artifacts, and how children respond to these pedagogical strategies. The nature of discussions about artifacts evolved with child age, as the proportion of children's talk related to simple identification decreased with age. Parents and staff provided unique learning opportunities by discussing different aspects of artifacts at different rates. For example, parents identified more artifacts using critical thinking questions, whereas museum staff provided children with more operation and purpose information about artifacts using procedural information. Parents and staff used a variety of strategies to teach their children about different artifact properties, which were compatible with how children learn new concepts. Children also responded to different pedagogical strategies differently; they were most engaged and produced more information in response to critical thinking questions. These findings are some of the first to capture spontaneous parent-child-expert interactions during artifact exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with machines, automated guided vehicles and tools simultaneous scheduling in multi-machine flexible manufacturing system considering jobs' transport times among machines to minimize makespan. Only one copy of every tool type is made available due to economic restrictions. The tools are stored in central tool magazine that shares with and serves for several machines. This simultaneous scheduling problem is highly complex in nature as it involves the allocation of automated guided vehicles and tools to job-operations, job-operations sequencing on machines, and associated trip operations including the dead heading trip and loaded trip times of automated guided vehicles. This paper proposes symbiotic organisms search algorithm for solving this problem. An industrial problem in a manufacturing company is used for verification. The results show that SOSA is providing better solutions than Jaya algorithm, and the obtained schedule can be implemented practically with reduction in cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at showing how the philosopher G. Anders develops his ontology of technology as described in his Outdatedness of Mankind, volumes I and II. The article is structured in the following manner: first, there will be a discussion on the role played by the machine in the Andersian philosophy of technology. Second, there will be an analysis on the mechanism through which radio and television alter the traditional anthropomorphic notion of ‘experience’ through the creation of phantoms and matrices. Third, there will be an exemplification of the consequences of humanity’s progressive detachment from the awareness of its praxis through the Andersian notion of the ‘Promethean Gap’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among machines, internal combustion engines (ICM) are of great complexity for their design, production and subsequent proper operation. This is largely due to the large number of friction knots they have, and the use, in them, of lubrication. The lubricant must guarantee to fulfill its main functions (separate the friction zones, evacuate the generated heat, drag the wear particles towards the filter and prevent corrosion). Lubricants allow, like blood in the human body, to detect causes of future breakdowns or failures. That is why, at work, causes of possible failures in the MCIs, forms and methods of oil diagnosis and lubrication systems are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Simondon's philosophical theory of machines, emphasizing the methodological aspect that consists of taking as input the study of machines as historical products of human industry, although not limited to that characterization, based on the MEOT and the 1968 course "L'invention et le développement des techniques". On the other hand, the papers stresses the ontological aspect according to which a machine is a mode of existence in which information and energy are differentiated, and, yet, sometimes articulated. The paper claims Simondon does not approach energy and information on the machines as two abstract, idealized entities, only capable of being studied from the formal sciences, but rather as the result of the assembly of technical organs and channels. Finally, it reconstructs the taxonomy and hierarchy of machines elaborated by Simondon. This provides a privileged example of the convergence between the studies of historical machines under the light of the information-energy relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In popular fiction, as well as in theoretical philosophy, often inspired by technological evolution, we often come across the entity of the so-called machine-god. Originating in creation myths, later adapted into the science-fiction and horror genres, the opposition between a synthetic, fabricated creation and its potentially devastating influence on its creator has been approached from multiple angles. With the rise of technological advancement, the idea of a machine capable of surpassing the human in his physical, as well as mental capabilities, becoming thus something greater than humanity itself, has slowly gained in importance. This paper aims to analyze the concept of a man-made machine-god, depicted in popular culture and contemporary scientific theories, and through the perspective of aesthetics and semiotics, compare it to its potential non-fictional parallels. Through analyzing the symbolism of modern depictions, historical discourse, and reasoning behind the subconscious reaction, it aims to analyze the possible interactions between humankind and a god that humankind itself would create. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present essay, I explore the status of clouds in the lyric and epic poetry of early modern Portuguese poet, Luís Vaz de Camões (1524?–1580). Through a close reading of the elegy "O poeta Simónides, falando" (The poet Simonides, speaking) and the Adamastor episode in canto five of Os Lusíadas (1572), I analyze Camões's poetic rendering of clouds and storms at the Cape of Good Hope and their connection to sixteenth-century theories of the "machine of the world." To flesh out these theories, I explore more contemporary poetic work on clouds, sponges, and nets. Finally, I build on the account of "desiring machines" found at the beginning of Gilles Deleuze's and Félix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia to link Camões's account of Cape storms to broader notions of machines, desire, empire, and human experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the results of studies into the influence of various factors involved in a new elastic rolling process on residual stresses in the surface layer of high-precision non-rigid thin-walled parts. Modeling and optimization of the process are carried out to ensure maximum compressive residual stresses in the surface layers of equipment parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Poliorcetica (Vat. gr. 1605) is a Byzantine treatise on siege warfare, composed by the so-called Heron of Byzantium, which was illuminated with drawings and schematics for the construction and use of military tools and structures in the eleventh century. Using an object-oriented lens, this article looks closely at the word-image relations used by the Poliorcetica's author to engage the manuscript's illuminations. The article considers how the manuscript diagrams the relationships between objects and their military operations by relying on the viewer's faculty of imagination (phantasia) to fill in the gaps offered between the text and its images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Panpsychism is 'the theory or belief that there is an element of consciousness in all matter'. An ancient idea in Western philosophy that predates the earliest writings of the pre-Socratics, panpsychism is currently being revived in a number of different disciplines in the humanities. One reason for this resurgence of interest in panpsychism in the contemporary humanities is that panpsychism mitigates human exceptionalism by reconnecting us with the various elements of our nonhuman environment, both animate and inanimate. In this essay, I show how Samuel Butler's fiction is relevant to the contemporary revival of panpsychism in the humanities by illustrating how Butler uses panpsychism in his 1872 novel Erewhon to speculate that machines might one day gain consciousness. Making Butler's treatment of what David Chalmers calls the 'hard problem of consciousness' in Erewhon so aesthetically rich, I argue, is the fact that he constructs various speculative evolutionary scenarios in the text that challenge his reader's preconceptions of what consciousness is. I label Butler's approach to the problem of mitigating human exceptionalism in Erewhon speculative evolutionary aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to optimize the maize productivity and quality, various aspects of production chains should be considered in an integrated way, including crucial steps to improve and conserve the maize crop. The lack of sufficient quantity of quality maize grains was sheller methods, clearances between cylinder, and maize grains moisture content is a major bottleneck to improve maize productivity and quality in Factory. This study is aimed to identify the effect of local thresher machine on maize cultivar Rabie based on some technical indicators, under two clearance of threshing cylinders (0.7 and 0.9mm) and three maize grain moisture content. The experiments were conducted in a factorial experiment under complete randomized design with three replications. The 0.9mm clearance was significantly better than 0.7mm clearance while the maize grains moisture content at range of 13%-15% was significantly superior to other ranges of 15%-17% and17%-19% in all studied parameters. For local THM the machine productivity, power consumption, threshing efficiency, grains damage, broken corn, grain cleaning, were 1.251 th-1, 9.358 kW, 88.717; 1.529; 3.272; and 1.318 percent respectively. The interaction among maize grains moisture content of 13%-15% and the clearance between cylinder 0.9mm gave the best result in all studied parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the birth of biomechanics in Soviet scientific discourses and how it was absorbed by the theater and literature of the day, in a reading of Michail Bulgakov's three novellas "D′javoljada" (1924), "Rokovye jajca" (1924) and "Sobač′e serdce" (1925), interpreting them as both products of and critical reactions to the transformational trends in early Soviet ideology. While artists and theorists like Aleksej Gastev worked to ensure the creation of the New Man by reshaping the human animal into an industrious mechanical man of steel, Bulgakov actively opposed such ideas. In his fiction, he exhibits a dialogical and contentious relationship to biomechanics. This reading argues that the novellas are paradoxically dependent on notions of mechanization and hybridity, aligning them with features of posthumanism, at the expense of Bulgakov's satirical attacks on Vsevolod Mejerchol′d and his theatrical biomechanics. The noisy soundscapes, metal tropes and mechanical motifs that shape the novellas, at times distract from Bulgakov's parodic affect and nurture instances of pastiche, making his early short prose indebted to none other than his avant-garde adversaries of the 1920s.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely seen as the most important technology of our time and has attracted a huge amount of interest regarding not only its technological capabilities but also its economic and ethical impact. It has, however, been less discussed with regard to the book world and publishing. AI is applicable to publishing at multiple levels, all of them significant. It could change the business-processing aspects of publishing; but, even more importantly, the latest advances in machine learning from the likes of Google and OpenAI demonstrate a powerful capacity to translate and even compose text. Publishing and publishing studies alike need to grapple with the implications of a world where machines as well as humans can produce the core product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of a living being as a kind of living machine is widespread and well-known. If it is only a metaphor, it does not mean much; however, if otherwise, there is a severe conceptual problem since the living part of the concept always indicates the notorious notion of vitalism. The question is how can living machines be really different from lifeless machines without the concept of vitalism? According to Samuel Alexander, the problem arises from the traditional usage of the concept of mechanical which is confused both with the concept of something is determinated and with the concept of material; furthermore, the latter concept is defined against the Cartesian concept of mind and not on its own. Alexander’s point is that the difference between lifeless machines and living beings lies not in a vital substance or a non-mechanical principle but in an emergent mechanical quality called life which simple machines lack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploration provides an alternative future to that offered in the discussions surrounding what is often referred to by the 'fourth industrial revolution' or the 'third offset'. I argue that even modest projections of existing trends have the capability of altering the grammar or ecology of geopolitics as well as the drivers for competition and catastrophe. Such changes are more significant than questions of how this or that actor might be different or which great powers may shape the international order in a hundred years. The essay seeks to understand what disruptive changes in non-human capability might mean for the shape of a potential geopolitics to come. In a more general sense, I want to think about how violence will be distributed differently. Will there be new sources and even kinds of competition unique to a global system populated and in some cases, structured by cunning machines – some mechanical, others digital – and what are the implications for how we imagine international relations? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field of computer science concerned with the simulation of human intelligence by smart machines and computational rationality. AI is about to transform medical practice. With the help of this technology, a doctor can examine and treat the patient without visiting any hospital or clinic. Thus, this technology is now accessible to provide online services to patients. Any patient complaints may be rapidly addressed with various health issues. AI has been studied in several fields of medical practice and health science, including population health, precision medicine, and natural language treatment. Our objective is to review the applications of AI in the field of health science research. In this research, how AI helps solving the difficult medical problems through extensive research and development is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of the work is to solve the set problem and to study the competition and perspectives of division of labor of humans and machines during creation of intangible assets in Industry 4.0. Design/methodology/approach: The research is performed with the help of regression and comparative analysis by building regression curves and with the help of the qualitative structural and logical analysis. Findings: The authors perform an overview of the factors that determine the advantages and limits of participation in creation of intangible assets in Industry 4.0, determine the perspectives and compile recommendations for division of human and machine labor during creation of intangible assets in Industry 4.0. Originality/value: The results of the performed research confirmed the general hypothesis that machine technologies allow improving the innovative, marketing and organizational and managerial activities and activities in the sphere of R&D through automatization of certain stages of the process of creation of intangible assets. The authors determine the factors that define the contribution of machine technologies in this process and their competitive advantages as compared to human intellectual capital during creation of intangible assets. These advantages prove the possibility and expedience of division of human and machine labor during creation of intangible assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the mathematical model of a machine with eight immovable magnets and two movable magnets, and the machine with four immovable magnets and two movable magnets are introduced for the electricity creation. The proposed machines are based on the machine with two immovable magnets and two movable magnets, but they have two main differences: they have more interactions between the immovable and movable magnets, and they create more electricity. Experiments are included to validate that the proposed mathematical models represent a prototype and to observe which machine creates more electricity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue, entitled 'Machines & Measure', is largely the dissemination from a workshop held at University of Leicester School of Business, organised by editor Phoebe V Moore, for the Conference for Socialist Economists South Group in February 2018, which was hosted by the University of Leicester School of Business, Philosophy and Political Economy Centre. Not all the authors in the Special Issue were speakers at the event, but this collection provides a carefully selected, representative collection of articles and essays which address the questions and disturbances that drove the event's concept, those being, as articulated in the event description: How are machines being used in contemporary capitalism to perpetuate control and to intensify power relations at work? Theorising how this occurs through discussions about the physical machine, the calculation machine and the social machine, the workshop was designed to re-visit questions about how quantification and measure both human and machinic become entangled in the social and how the incorporation and absorption of workers as appendages within the machine as Marx identified, where artificial intelligence and the platform economy dominate today's discussions in digitalised work research.Stemming from Marxist critical theory, questions of money, time, space are also revisited in the Special Issues articles, as well as less debated concepts in rhythmanalysis and a revival of historically frequently discussed issues such as activities on the shop floor, where a whole range of semi-automated and fully automated methods to manage work through numeration without, necessarily, remuneration continue. Articles ask the most important questions today and begin to identify possible solutions from a self-consciously Marxist perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'The mirror for (artificial) intelligence in capitalism' expands on the historical episodes outlined in the article by Engster and Moore in the current Special Issue, to develop the historical materialist critique of the history of ideas leading up to and during the eras of artificial intelligence, but also as a way to critique the contemporary moment where machines are ascribed autonomous intelligence. Specifically, the history of the ideational manufacturing of human intelligence demonstrates a pattern of interest in calculation and computation, intelligent human and machinic behaviours that are, not surprisingly, ideologically aligned with capitalism. The simultaneous series of machinic and technological invention and related experiments shows how machines not only facilitate the processes of normalisation of what is considered intelligent behaviours, via both human and machinic intelligence, but also facilitate and enable the integration of capitalism into everyday work and life. Intelligent behaviours are identified as the capacity for quantification and measure and are limited to aspects of thinking and reasoning that can provide solutions to, for example, obstacles in the production and extraction of surplus value, based on the specific postulations and assumptions highlighted in this piece. Today, ideas of autonomous machinic intelligence, seen in the ways artificial intelligence is incorporated into workplaces outlined in the sections below, facilitate workplace relations via intelligent behaviours that are assistive, prescriptive, descriptive, collaborative, predictive and affective. The question is, given these now autonomous forms of intelligence attributed to machines, who/what is looking in the mirror at whose/which reflection? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the largest producer and exporter of Lentinus edodes in the world. To improve its market value, twin-screw extrusion and expansion machine has been developed to further process the Lentinus edodes. To resolve the problems of blockage, low prematurity and missing operation parameters of this machine in producing Lentinus edodes pufferent, we presented an improved twin-screw extrusion and expansion machine in this paper to lower puffer ability, improve water absorption and reduce its hardness. The equipment consists of a frame, a mixing device, a feeding device, a tempering device, a heating device, an extruding and bulking device and a rotary cutting device. It is equipped with a cooling system, a lubricating system, a transmission system, a control system and a pressure detection system. Design and determination of the anti-blocking device for the feed mixing device, the pre-maturing and tempering device, and the structural parameters of the twin screw were conducted. In order to investigate the influence of operation parameters on swelling performance of the product, the Box-benhnken combined test method was used to study the working parameters of the double screw extruder. The effects of screw speed, extrusion temperature and water content on the swelling rate, hardness, brittleness and water absorption of the expanded product were analyzed, and the determinants were optimized. The results showed that, based on the level of the significance, 1) factors affecting the expansion rate were ranked in material water content > expansion temperature > screw speed, 2) factors affecting hardness were ranked in material moisture content > screw speed > swelling temperature, 3) factors affecting brittleness were ranked in material moisture content > screw speed, 4) factors affecting water absorption were ranked in material moisture content > swelling temperature > screw speed. The optimal operating parameters were: screw speed 167.23 r/min, swelling temperature 151.68℃, material moisture content 16.83%. Under these conditions, the swelling rate, hardness, brittleness and water absorption of the product were increased by 4.04%, 18.61 N, -8.46 mm/cm2 and 313.86% respectively, compared to the traditional machine. Practical application of the optimized parameters revealed that the error between the optimized productivity and real productivity was less than 4%, with the maximum productivity being 165 kg/h. Compared with the existing equipment in the laboratory at School of Mechanical Engineering in Yangzhou University, the designed machine increased the swelling rate, brittleness, water adsorption and brittleness by 25.00%, 40.55% and 62.35% respectively, while reducing the hardness by 48.21%. Therefore, the design of this machine can provide relatively mature technical equipment for the development of mushroom swelling products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative models of operational research are an important tool for optimizing production factors in an enterprise, and they are a tool for decision-making, serving for competitiveness increasing. They enable to look for the right solutions of problems in business processes and optimize all resources in the enterprise. The aim of the contribution is to point out the possibilities of optimizing the operation of mining machines through management tools - optimization mathematical models. In this contribution, we used operation capability control model of the machines and a model of a critical element. The results of the models determine the optimal inspection interval for 10 months of machine operation and the optimum belt conveyor change interval is 11th working shift. Through quantitative models of operational research, we were able to solve the problems of the mining company. Based on the operational research models used, we found that the ball mill in the capacity reserve positions should be monitored within its life cycle in 10 months of its operation, and conducted a comprehensive control focusing on the functionality of the ball mill. On the belt conveyor, it is necessary to carry out a belt check after 11 each working shift, since this interval represents the minimum operating costs and at the same time, it is the time when the belt conveyor can be repaired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1872 Butler published Erewhon , a novel set in a utopian land inspired by the New Zealand countryside. Erewhon parodied some of the main social issues of the Victorian era including political, economic, scientific and social ideas, offering its readers a critical overview not only of Britain and its inhabitants, but also of the cultural revolution triggered by Darwin's theory of natural selection. Leaving aside the utopian and satirical dimensions of the novel, this article focuses on the meaning of evolutionary science in Erewhon through a discussion of the three chapters called 'The Book of the Machines'. I suggest that the hypothesis of evolution advanced in 'The Book of the Machines' can only be fully understood in relation to Butler's scientific writings more generally. In 'The Book of the Machines', I will argue, Butler pioneered the idea of memory as heredity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laymert Garcia dos Santos has been, since the 1990s, not only articulating consistent synergies between Yanomami shamanism and contemporary art, but also insistently testing the hypothesis, usually formulated in Gilbert Simondon's terms, that "the first technician is the pajé, the medicine man, [...] [the] shaman", who "brings to his community a new and irreplaceable element produced in a direct dialogue with the world, an element that, until then, was hidden or inaccessible to the community." In this paper, I propose to rework some ethnographically documented cases of audiovisual "shamachinisms", under the light of the Simondonian hypothesis, as formulated by Garcia dos Santos: if shamans are the first technicians, would it not be for the same reason they are also the first artists?, i.e.: because they network, operating over knots that articulate realities that are usually incompatible?; because they access, in block and in a controlled manner, in a singular here-now, the presence of great potentials, usually dispersed in an inaccessible and uncontrollable elsewhere-then?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the problem of scheduling on parallel machines subject to non-availability constraints with precedence constraints between the tasks is treated. We consider the minimization of the maximum completion time (i.e., makespan). We propose to use a meta-heuristic entitled tabu search to solve this scheduling problem which has its own application in the assembly industry where the tasks' graph takes the form of an intree, and where the machines may not be available due to machine breakdowns or preventive maintenance. The insertion movement is used to generate neighbourhoods. Several versions of tabu meta-heuristic algorithm are proposed. The results of tabu search are compared with a proposed lower bound and the best heuristic. It is concluded that the last proposed version of tabu search is the better in terms of computed makespan and computing time. The algorithm of this proposed version uses two tabu lists and partitions the machines into two sets in order to reduce the number of generated neighbours and then minimize the computing time by keeping the same quality of solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the relationship between humans and technological simulations according to three recent audiovisual productions: Her, Ex Machina and Be Right Back. Their images and arguments illustrate the current uncertainties about technological development, projecting a future in which the concerns are particularly focused on the simulation of human beings. Simultaneously, these fictional beings show, in the audiovisual productions analyzed, their adaptation to the society in which we live, with a superior ability to process and store information. However, in the two films and the episode examined, the singularity, the possibil - ity of being controlled and dominated by machines, acquires a new meaning, replacing the collective confrontation against technology with different versions in which the machines determined to be independent peacefully, are confined to isolation or are release in order to survive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We mainly introduced 3 kinds of excavator machines for the construction of ripped-rock revetment. The new type hopper was equipped with a flip board, which can be accurately positioned and quickly released to achieve the purpose of throwing instead of clearing up. Through the experiment, to choose a kind of machine tool, which is firm, reliability, easy to install and maintain, and practicality to reduce the levelling of the slope in the later stage and improve the construction efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary psychology theorizes and researches social oppression in terms of culturally and linguistically mediated phenomena (e.g., stereotypes, identities, norms, attitudes). Although social constructionist and embodied cognition perspectives correct certain deficits of mainstream approaches, they still consider embodiment only in terms of linguistic or cognitive mediation. As a result, the role played by human embodiment in material systems is largely overlooked in psychological analyses of capitalist oppression. Roberto Esposito and Maurizio Lazzarato propose that similarities (rather than differences) between humans and non-human entities, especially machines, should be the starting place for a critique of capitalism. Esposito traces the longstanding history of cultural divisions between persons and things, which contributes to our current blindness to embodiment. Lazzarato details how signs and diagrams—once thought to belong to the abstract province of symbols—now play a direct, vital role in material reality under capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to compare two fitness-training methodologies, instability circuit resistance training (ICRT) versus traditional circuit resistance training (TCRT), applying an experimental model of exercise prescription controlling and modulating exercise load using the Borg rating of perceived exertion. Forty-four healthy young adults age (21.6 ± 2.3 years) were randomly assigned to three groups: TCRT (n = 14), ICRT (n = 14) and a control group (n = 16). Strength and cardiorespiratory tests were chosen to evaluate cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness before and after the training program. In cardiorespiratory data, a significant difference was observed for the time effect in VO2max, peak heart rate, peak velocity, and heart rate at anaerobic threshold intensity (p < 0.05) in the experimental groups. In strength variables, a significant Group x Time interaction effect was detected in 1RM, in mean propulsive power, and in peak power (p ≤ 0.01) in the back squat exercise. In the bench press exercise, a significant time effect was detected in 1RM, in mean propulsive power, and in peak power, and a Group x Time interaction in peak power (all p < 0.05). We can conclude that applying an experimental model of exercise prescription using RPE improved cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness in healthy young adults in both experimental groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses problem of predicting direction and magnitude of movement of currency pairs in the foreign exchange market. The study uses Support Vector Machine with a novel approach for input data and trading strategy. The input data contain technical indicators generated from currency price data (i.e., open, high, low and close prices) and representation of these technical indicators as trend deterministic signals. The input data are also dynamically adapted to each trading day with genetic algorithm. The study incorporates a currency strength-biased trading strategy which selects the best pair to trade from the available set of currencies and is an improvement over the previous work. The accuracy of the prediction models are tested across several different sets of technical indicators and currency pair sets, spanning 5 years of historical data from 2010 to 2015. The experimental results suggest that using trend deterministic technical indicator signals mixed with raw data improves overall performance and dynamically adapting the input data to each trading period results in increased profits. Results also show that using a strength-biased trading strategy among a set of currency pair increases the overall prediction accuracy and profits of the models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of intelligence and rationality in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet requires a new context of analysis in which Herbert Simon's approach to the sciences of the artificial is surpassed in order to grasp the role of information in our contemporary setting. This new framework requires taking into account some relevant aspects. (i) In the historical endeavor of building up AI and the Internet, minds and machines have interacted over the years and in many ways through the interrelation between scientific creativity and technological innovation. (ii) Philosophically, minds and machines can have epistemological, methodological and ontological differences, which are based on the distinct configuration of human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Their comparison with rationality and its various forms is particularly relevant. (iii) Scientifically, AI and the Internet belong to the sciences of the artificial, because they work on designs that search for specific aims, following selected processes in order to achieve expected results. (iv) Technologically, AI and the Internet require the support of information and communication technologies (ICT). These have an instrumental role regarding the existence of AI and the Internet. Also ICT shape their diverse forms of configuration over the years. Within this framework, this paper offers a new context of analysis that goes beyond Simon's and follows four main steps: (i) the interaction between scientific creativity and technological innovation as the philosophico-methodological setting for Artificial Intelligence and the Internet; (ii) artificial intelligence and human intelligence as epistemological basis for machines and minds, where the differences between artificial intelligence and human intelligence are made explicit (under the consideration of 'computational intelligence') and the analysis of minds and machines is made from the perspective of rationality ('symbolic rationality' and 'adaptive rationality'); (iii) intention and its difference with design of machine learning are considered to distinguish human intelligence from artificial intelligence; and (iv) the internal and external aspects of artificial designs in contemporary society are considered through the perspective of rationality, which leads to the transition from intelligence to rationality in the Internet as well as to the historicity of information (how aims, processes, and results can be based on conceptual revolutions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]