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The aim of the text is to clarify why machines are economically productive only in capitalism and therefore in our society are capitalistic machines. They are capitalist not only because they increase the productive power of the capitalist valorisation, but this valorisation first of all is producing these machines, or at least it produces their productivity and hence 'the machinic' of machines. To understand this production of the machinic, we must understand them, as, for example, Heidegger, Simondon or Deleuze and Guattari have shown, from their context: from their non-technical essence, from their connection with other machines and from the social essence of the machinic. But in this context, first of all and in the last instance, we have to understand with Marx their entanglement with the capitalist valorisation. This can be shown for three different types of machines: the physical machine, the calculation machine and the social machine: money. What all three have in common and almost defines them as machines is that all three naturalise relations by quantifying them. The classical physical machine quantifies the relation of nature, the calculation machine quantifies information and meaning, and the money machine quantifies the relations of our society. I will concentrate on the physical and the money machine only. The technique to quantify is for both the same: measurement. This quantification and naturalisation by measurement is why both are – although or especially because they are opposed types of machines – interfaces to the capitalist valorisation process, and in this functioning as interfaces, we have to search their non-technical essence.

Abstract
Big Data are a "big challenge" for finite population inference. Lack of control over data-generating processes by researchers in the absence of a known random selection mechanism may lead to biased estimates. Further, larger sample sizes increase the relative contribution of selection bias to squared or absolute error. One approach to mitigate this issue is to treat Big Data as a random sample and estimate the pseudo-inclusion probabilities through a benchmark survey with a set of relevant auxiliary variables common to the Big Data. Since the true propensity model is usually unknown, and Big Data tend to be poor in such variables that fully govern the selection mechanism, the use of flexible non-parametric models seems to be essential. Traditionally, a weighted logistic model is recommended to account for the sampling weights in the benchmark survey when estimating the propensity scores. However, handling weights is a hurdle when seeking a broader range of predictive methods. To further protect against model misspecification, we propose using an alternative pseudo-weighting approach that allows us to fit more flexible modern predictive tools such as Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART), which automatically detect non-linear associations as well as high-order interactions. In addition, the posterior predictive distribution generated by BART makes it easier to quantify the uncertainty due to pseudo-weighting. Our simulation findings reveal further reduction in bias by our approach compared with conventional propensity adjustment method when the true model is unknown. Finally, we apply our method to the naturalistic driving data from the Safety Pilot Model Deployment using the National Household Travel Survey as a benchmark.

Indigenous people experience significant health disparities compared to non-Indigenous people, which are exacerbated by less accessible and poorer quality health care services. This research aimed to understand the specific barriers to health care that Indigenous patients and their families face, as well as to explore promising practices and strategies for improving the responsiveness of health services to the needs of Indigenous people. Through qualitative interviews with Indigenous and non-Indigenous health care and social services providers, we identified a range of challenges and successful approaches, and developed recommendations for improving policy and practice to address the gaps in culturally safe health care services. Our study shows that many of the barriers Indigenous people face when accessing health care are rooted in the broader social determinants of health, such as poverty, racism, housing, and education. These are complex problems that are outside of the traditional scope of health care practice. However, this study has also demonstrated that many barriers to equitable care actually stem from within the health care system itself. We found that health care gaps were often attributable to poorly funded on-reserve health care services and culturally unsafe off-reserve services. Attitudes and practices among those working in health care and gaps in coordination between mainstream and Indigenous services are challenges related to the way the health care system operates. Solutions are needed that address these issues. Given the multifaceted nature of access barriers, strategies to improve health services for Indigenous people and communities require a comprehensive and systemic approach.

Background: Disturbances of the autonomic nervous system play a crucial role in the pathogenesis and clinical course of many diseases. Sympathetic response is an exaggerated response to stress. Studies have shown that enhanced sympathetic response to stress is an indication of prehypertensive states. Young offspring of hypertensive parents are a good model for assessing sympathetic reactivity prior to clinical hypertension. The aim of this study is to compare the sympathetic response in normotensive offspring of both hypertensive and normotensive parents.Methods: 100 young normotensives, non-smoking and healthy students (male and female) of Manipal College of medical science with a family history of hypertension and 100 young normotensives students, non-smoking and healthy with a negative family history of hypertension were enrolled in the study. Blood pressures at rest and after Isometric hand grip test and cold pressor test were measured. Statistical analysis was done to compare the blood pressure at rest and after isometric hand grip exercise and cold pressor test using independent t test.Results: A statistically significant increase in systolic and diastolic blood pressures were observed in normotensive offspring of hypertensive parents, compared to the normotensive offspring of normotensive parents indicating sympathetic overactivity after isometric hand grip exercise and cold pressor test (P<0.001). Conclusions: Normotensive offspring of hypertensive parents showed increase sympathetic reactivity after stress was given in the form of isometric hand grip exercise and cold pressor test. Thus, normotensive offspring of hypertensive parents are more likely to develop future hypertension and the risk is greater when both the parents were hypertensive.Keywords: Cold pressor test; Isometric hand grip test; Sympathetic reactivity.

Introduction Sexting has attracted the interest of researchers, media, and public opinion, but its definition still does not reach consensus. This gap may lead to diverging prevention messages. This study investigated the opinions of adolescents on a set of sexting-related preventive measures. Methods In 2018, 48 adolescents (27 females) aged 13 to 18 years participated in the study. To assess opinions of adolescents on sexting-related prevention, we conducted a Q-methodology study, a mixed methods research, in Lausanne (Canton of Vaud, Switzerland). The final Q-set constituted 58 statements reflecting a wide range of key messages, key actors, and materials. Each participant was asked to rank-order the 58 cards using a grid ranging from - 5 (completely disagree) to + 5 (completely agree). Results Five different profiles of considering sexting-related prevention were identified: Focus on consequences, sex education, and testimonies, focus on guidelines, focus on training/information, and peer prevention. The typical scenario used in many prevention campaigns illustrating a girl who is victim of a non-consensual sharing perpetrated by a boy was not appreciated. The topic of the Internet was not considered an appropriate gateway to discuss sexting. Pressure and bullying issues as topics to discuss in a sexting-related prevention were the most consensual statements. Conclusions This study highlighted the need to offer a multi-disciplinary, multi-resource and multi-concept approach in sexting-related prevention. Broader values such as respect and consent must be integrated. Consensual sexting must be clearly differentiated from non-consensual dissemination. Policy implications and future directions, including prevention strategies, are discussed.

Son múltiples los debates jurídicos que han surgido de la participación de nuevos agentes no tradicionales en los servicios de transporte urbano de pasajeros. La inexistencia de un marco normativo con capacidad para hacerle frente a esta nueva forma de hacer negocios y la dificultad de generar uno que se adapte a las características de aquel modelo disruptivo ha provocado que, tras varios años de debate, la cuestión aún se encuentre irresoluta. En ese sentido, el presente documento aborda la problemática esgrimida a través del análisis del alcance que tiene para el denominado derecho antitrust la presencia de agentes "no tradicionales" en el mercado referenciado, así como las repercusiones que dicha realidad puede tener para la definición de efectos civiles en el marco de la aplicación privada de las normas de libre competencia. ; There are many juridical debates that have arisen from the participation of new, non-traditional agents, in urban passenger transportation services. The lack of a regulatory framework with capacity to face this contemporary perception of business and the difficulty of generating a new one that could adapt to the characteristics of that disruptive model, has caused that after several years of debate, the question is still unsettle. Consequently, this document addresses the aforementioned issues, through the analysis of the range that has for the so-called antitrust law the presence of "non-traditional" agents in the referenced market, as well as the repercussions that such reality may have for the definition of civil effects, within the framework of the private enforcement of the competition law.

OBJECTIVES: Austerity in government funding, and public service reform, has heightened expectations on UK communities to develop activities and resources supportive of population health and become part of a transformed place-based system of community health and social care. As non-monetary place-based approaches, Community Exchange/Time Currencies could improve social contact and cohesion, and help mobilise families, neighbourhoods, communities and their assets in beneficial ways for health. Despite this interest, the evidence base for health outcomes resulting from such initiatives is underdeveloped. STUDY DESIGN: A systematic review. METHODS: A literature review was conducted to identify evidence gaps and advance understanding of the potential of Community Exchange System. Studies were quality assessed, and evidence was synthesised on 'typology', population targeted and health-related and wider community outcomes. RESULTS: The overall study quality was low, with few using objective measures of impact on health or well-being, and none reporting costs. Many drew on qualitative accounts of impact on health, well-being and broader community outcomes. Although many studies lacked methodological rigour, there was consistent evidence of positive impacts on key indicators of health and social capital, and the data have potential to inform theory. CONCLUSIONS: Methodologies for capturing impacts are often insufficiently robust to inform policy requirements and economic assessment, and there remains a need for objective, systematic evaluation of Community Exchange and Time Currency systems. There is also a strong argument for deeper investigation of 'programme theories' underpinning these activities, to better understand what needs to be in place to trigger their potential for generating positive health and well-being outcomes.

There is a growing demand for public participation in environmental decision-making. However, it is unclear how a large number of citizens can best engage in such complex public policy decision processes. This need from the civil society challenges the OR community to develop online decision-making tools. This article reports on a feasibility assessment of swing weight elicitation, implemented online, for real-world decisions about future wastewater infrastructure. Eliciting weights with the swing method is common in MAVT/MAUT, but not online. A total of 298 affected citizens from the Paris region answered the online swing weight elicitation survey. Another 357 citizens directly rated objectives. Three aspects of learning in the context of MCDA were considered: did participants learn facts about the wastewater topic? Did they comply with the swing elicitation process, i.e. follow the instructions? Did participants learn about their preferences? Factual learning was limited. Process compliance was really low (12%), leading to a number of recommendations for improving the interface for online swing weight elicitation. The collected preferences differed statistically significantly between the compliant and non-compliant participants, and also between the non-compliant and direct rating respondents. This emphasised the effect of the elicitation method on preference construction. Moreover, more participants experienced a strengthening of pre-existing opinions than a change in opinion, and most reported being uncertain about their answers. This calls for better understanding process learning and preference construction. We discuss our developed procedure for online swing weight elicitation, recommend ways to improve swing online surveys, and suggest interesting future research lines that would allow empirically verifying our propositions.

EU-Biodiesel (Indonesia) is the latest in two lines of cases. On the one hand, the case offers yet another example of the Dispute Settlement Body striking down creative interpretations of antidumping rules by developed countries. Applying the Appellate Body's decision in EU-Biodiesel (Argentina), the panel found that the EU could not use antidumping duties to counteract the effects of Indonesia's export tax on palm oil. On the other hand, the decision is another chapter in the battle over renewable energy markets. Both the EU and Indonesia had intervened in their markets to promote the development of domestic biodiesel industries. The panel's decision prevents the EU from using antidumping duties to preserve market opportunities created by its Renewable Energy Directive for its domestic biodiesel producers. The EU has responded in two ways. First, through regulations that disfavor palm-based biodiesel, but not biodiesel made from from other foodstocks, such as rapeseed oil commonly produced in the EU. Second, the EU has imposed countervailing duties on Indonesian biodiesel, finding that Indonesia's export tax on crude palm oil constitutes a subsidy to Indonesian biodiesel producers. The EU's apparently inelastic demand for protection raises two questions: First, when domestic political bargains rest on both protectionist and non-protectionist motives and policies have both protectionist and non-protectonist effects, what are the welfare consequences of restraining only overt protectionism? Second, under what circumstances may regulatory approaches be even less desirable than duties for addressing combined protectionist and environmental interests, and would the WTO have the right powers to discipline them in an environmentally sound way?

In 2016, there were an estimated 40.3 million victims of modern slavery in the world, more than were enslaved during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Since the adoption of the 2000 UN Trafficking Protocol, numerous efforts from inter-governmental agencies, governmental agencies, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have strived to combat the phenomena of human trafficking through legal-institutional means, direct interventions, and programs of support for those exploited. This anti-trafficking work has paid varying degrees of attention to the principles and methods of monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment, but has often been subject to the end of project evaluations. Similar to findings of reviews of evaluations in the international development sector, evaluations of anti-trafficking programing have primarily focused on assessing the progress of project implementation and the achievement of outputs, rather than tracking the achievement of outcomes or impact. This is further complicated by the hidden nature of human trafficking and the trauma experienced by human-trafficking victims. As a consequence, despite some evidence of raised awareness and increased levels of funding, organizations are still struggling to demonstrate impact and discern what works to combat human trafficking. This article analyses the evaluations of counter-trafficking programing produced since the Protocol to draw conclusions regarding the lessons learned from these interventions and the methods used to monitor and evaluate human-trafficking programs. By highlighting gaps, this article provides a series of suggestions on how to better track progress and impact toward the elimination of modern slavery.

This paper analyzes the growth pathways of 1,321 regions in the European Union from 2003 to 2017. The aim is to inform integrated territorial investments and other economic development initiatives in lagging regions. Using the definition of lagging regions from the European Commission's Catching Up Initiative, more than two-thirds of the European Union member states have lagging regions when defined at the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics-3 scale. These small lagging regions are often hidden within larger and more prosperous regions. The paper considers the roles of industrial structure, innovation, and inward foreign direct investment as growth-enhancing factors. The findings indicate that the growth dynamics in low-income regions are different from those in regions in other income groups: there is no overall pattern in the contribution of industry to growth but there is a strong association between foreign direct investment and growth. Among low-growth lagging regions -- the 171 small regions in the European Union with gross domestic product per capita less than 90 percent of the European Union average, and stagnant or negative growth performance -- growth is correlated with construction and innovation. There are also differences in the growth pathways of rural and non-rural regions: growth is associated with moving away from agriculture in rural regions, and it is associated with construction and innovation in non-rural regions. The results imply that a finer geographic scale can be important in policy making and programming of Cohesion Policy Funds, to cater to different needs and opportunities at the scale of Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics-3 regions.

BACKGROUND: Smoke-free policies are increasingly being enacted in several countries. In 2014, Lagos State, the commercial capital of Nigeria, enacted a statewide smoke-free policy; however, university campuses were excluded from the list of public places where smoking would be disallowed. This study aimed to assess students' support for smoke-free campus policies, their attitudes, and exposure toward secondhand smoke (SHS). METHODS: This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out among 421 university undergraduates in two premier universities in the state. Respondents were selected using a multistage sampling method, and the data were collected using a pretested self-administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Many (55.4%) of the respondents agreed that students who are non-smokers have the right to inhale smoke-free air on campuses and expressed feelings of irritation (57.1%) or anger (17.1%) when exposed to SHS on campus. Majority (80.1%) of the respondents were in support of a smoke-free policy on their campus and in favor of a ban on smoking in enclosed spaces on campus (79.6%). Exposure to SHS on campus was high, as one in five respondents were exposed to SHS in their hostel rooms (19.9%) and 44.9% were exposed in outdoor campus spaces in the preceding week. There was a statistically significant association between respondents' age, gender, smoking status, and attitudes toward SHS and support for a smoke-free campus policy. CONCLUSION: Although the majority of the students were non-smokers, significant exposure to SHS on campuses still exists. There is a huge support for smoke-free campus policies. The state government should consider including campuses on the list of smoke-free public spaces in the review of the statewide smoking law.

Within India, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing typically has been viewed as a non-traditional security concern that includes food and economic security, as well as broader societal and political issues. This article argues for understanding IUU fishing in a broader and deeper way and to view this issue as a traditional security threat. Several developments merit this approach, including the threat posed by foreign fishing vessels near Indian waters. Such distant water fishing vessels have been found fishing illegally around the world. On several occasions, these vessels are present near the exclusive economic zone of other states, raising serious legal and operational questions. In turn, coastal States have shown varied responses to these vessels ranging from strengthening their maritime security framework to using force and taking military action against these vessels. To confront these challenges, this article recommends revisiting India's domestic legal and institutional framework on IUU fishing as well as cooperating with the relevant maritime frameworks at the regional and international level. Even though India has strengthened its legal and institutional framework to address its maritime security challenges, this article suggests that joining regimes on IUU fishing can benefit India. The Agreement on Port State Measures (PSMA) is one such example. The PSMA will bolster India's attempts to fight IUU fishing by avoiding duplication of resources as well as creating a stronger framework against this threat at the regional and international levels. By revamping its domestic, regional, and international approach to recognize IUU fishing as a traditional and non-traditional national security threat, India will be better equipped to address this challenge.

According to the Constitution of World Health Organization (1946) "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition". To advance health equity there is a need to influence states by material inducement, persuasion and socialization. Health inequities have been slowly recognized by some national courts and human rights tribunals, as violations of human rights. The paper will examine the right of non-discrimination to health care of socially disadvantaged persons, such as women, with an emphasis on the decision by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in the Alyne v. Brazil (2003). Particularly, how Alyne's preventable death came to be seen as a legal wrong and stresses the continuing challenges of ensuring that all these types of wrongs are justiciable in national and constitutional courts. Also, it will be examined, how these courts have applied civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights to promote health. The paper will explore the importance of health equity in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (2030), especially Goal 3 on health and Goal 5 on women's and girls' equality. It is essential to analyze how the rights of equality and non-discrimination could be further applied, in order to improve women's access to health care services and to promote their health. The core elements are to understand heath inequity, the clinical issues and how bioethical principles could be applied to remedy disparities in the context of health care.

The global impact of solid waste is growing fasterthan the rate of urbanization, a threat to humanitys survival, a crime against the environment.In Manila, Philippines, estuaries are the tributaries of waterways flowing to Manila Bay.This study evaluated the degree of commission of Ecological Solid Waste Management(ESWM)as an environmental crime among theinformal settlers of the major estuaries of Manila.Italso investigatedthe causes of waste crime commission among the respondents.Using descriptive evaluative research and a purposive sampling technique,480 served as respondents of the study.For the treatment and analysis of data, percentage method, four point likert scale and Pearson Product Moment of Coefficient Correlation r were utilized.Results showed thatcommunity residents are less aware of their violation of the Ecological Solid Waste Law as an environmental crime and non-participation of the waste management program as to waste disposal.The environmental officers moderately aware on the non-strict implementation of waste management programsamong estuary residents.It showed the very great extent on the commission ESWM law. Meanwhile, there is a significant relationship on the perception of the respondent as to information campaign of the government and values orientation. Values orientation explained highly significant amount of variance on the commission of ESWM law. The results indicated the importance of understanding the community concerns, sustainable solid waste management program, awareness of environmental crimes, enforcement and prosecution of environmental laws and willingness towards involvement critical for prevention and informing in solid waste waste management program, awareness of environmental crimes, enforcement and prosecution of environmental laws and willingness towards involvement in solid waste management improvement initiatives are critical for prevention and informing interventions.