Permitted Unless Prohibited: The Changed Soviet Mentality

Even more basic than the presence of an abundance of experts and specialists, however, is the need for an amorphous intangible, the will to achieve and succeed. The will of a nation, an admittedly nebulous and vague idea, ideally is discerned, expressed, and exercised by its leaders in the government and in the legislature. It is up to these leaders to want and then to initiate, adopt, and implement the rule of law, a term which itself embodies many concepts but contains no therapeutic formulas. In this regard, the darling of the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”), the small nation of Estonia, with a population comparable to that of the island of Manhattan, had the political and intellectual leadership with the will and the drive to create a market economy embedded in the rule of law. How such a will arises or is created is the subject for a separate sociological study and not a topic for this Essay. But the positive consequences of the leadership of Estonia in exercising and implementing this national will stands not so much as a challenge to other nations still struggling with the transformation process, such as many of the member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (“CIS”), but as an example and a confirmation that a successful transition from a centrally planned economy to a free market economy can be achieved quickly. To simply attribute and dismiss Estonia\u27s emergence as an anomaly due to the difference of its culture from that of the other peoples in the former Soviet Union, however, as is commonly done by many academicians, legislators, and other leaders in the nations of the CIS, is simply a self-fulfilling excuse for inaction, inevitable failure, and cultural arrogance, even if masked as a compliment. In fact, the prospective, still unheralded, success of the Republic of Georgia in its law reform efforts belies any such assertions. It is of note that the remarkable emergence of Estonia, and the expected achievements of Georgia, did not develop in a vacuum, but utilized the support of the international community to buttress national will

Noise Parameters of CW Radar Sensors Used in Active Defense Systems

Active defense represents an innovative way of protecting military vehicles. It is based on the employment of a set of radar sensors which detect an approaching threat missile and activate a suitable counter-measure. Since the radar sensors are supposed to detect flying missiles very fast and, at the same time, distinguish them from stationary or slow-moving objects, CW Doppler radar sensors can be employed with a benefit. The submitted article deals with a complex noise analysis of this type of sensors. The analysis considers the noise of linear and quasi-linear RF components, phase-noise of the local oscillator as well as the noise of low-frequency circuits. Since the incidence of the phase-noise depends strongly upon the time delay between the reference and the cross-talked signals, a new method of measuring noise parameters utilizing a reflecting wall has been developed and verified. The achieved results confirm potentially high influence of the phase-noise on the noise parameters of the mentioned type of radar sensors. Obtained results can be used for the analysis of noise parameters of the similar but even more complex sensors

BLAST RADIUS: No. 4 in a Series of Data Humanization Performances

At around 7:30pm on April 13, 2017 the US government dropped the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb near the Moman Dara Village in the Asadkhel area in the Achin district of Nagarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. Nicknamed the "Mother of All Bombs" the weapon is the largest non-nuclear weapon in the US arsenal, with a blast radius, meaning the area in which serious effects on people and structures can be felt, of a mile. While the MOAB was the largest weapon released, it was but one of 4,361 air weapons that targeted Afghanistan during 2017, according to US Air Forces Central Command declassified airpower summaries. At 7:30am on April 13, 2018, the anniversary of this event, I walked a path equivalent to the blast radius of MOAB on land in Arizona. This walk memorialized the civilians killed, the villages terrorized, the populations forced to migrate, and the lands scarred as a result of the endless wars being carried out in the name of protecting US citizens

Arguing Machines: Human Supervision of Black Box AI Systems That Make Life-Critical Decisions

We consider the paradigm of a black box AI system that makes life-critical decisions. We propose an "arguing machines" framework that pairs the primary AI system with a secondary one that is independently trained to perform the same task. We show that disagreement between the two systems, without any knowledge of underlying system design or operation, is sufficient to arbitrarily improve the accuracy of the overall decision pipeline given human supervision over disagreements. We demonstrate this system in two applications: (1) an illustrative example of image classification and (2) on large-scale real-world semi-autonomous driving data. For the first application, we apply this framework to image classification achieving a reduction from 8.0% to 2.8% top-5 error on ImageNet. For the second application, we apply this framework to Tesla Autopilot and demonstrate the ability to predict 90.4% of system disengagements that were labeled by human annotators as challenging and needing human supervision

The COP9 SIGNALOSOME is required for postembryonic meristem maintenance in Arabidopsis thaliana

Cullin-RING E3 ligases (CRLs) regulate different aspects of plant development, and are activated by modification of their cullin subunit with the ubiquitin-like protein NEDD8 (NEural precursor cell expressed Developmentally Down-regulated 8) (neddylation) and deactivated by NEDD8 removal (deneddylation). The CONSTITUTIVELY PHOTOMORPHOGENIC9 (COP9) signalosome (CSN) acts as a molecular switch of CRLs activity by reverting their neddylation status, but its contribution to embryonic and early seedling development remains poorly characterized. Here, we analyzed the phenotypic defects of csn mutants and monitored the cullin deneddylation/neddylation ratio during embryonic and early seedling development. We show that while csn mutants can complete embryogenesis (albeit at a slower pace than wild type) and are able to germinate (albeit at a reduced rate), they progressively loose meristem activity upon germination, until they become unable to sustain growth. We also show that the majority of cullin proteins is progressively neddylated during the late stages of seed maturation and becomes deneddylated upon seed germination. This developmentally regulated shift in the cullin neddylation status is absent in csn mutants. We conclude that the CSN and its cullin deneddylation activity are required to sustain postembryonic meristem function in Arabidopsis

Pelaksanaan Pasal 44 Peraturan Daerah Kota Malang Nomor 2 Tahun 2014 Terkait Pemberian Akses Permodalan Oleh Pemerintah Kota Malang Kepada Penyandang Disabilitas Yang Melakukan Kegiatan Usaha

Dalam penulisan skripsi ini penulis membahas tentang pelaksanaan Pasal 44 Peraturan Daerah Kota Malang Nomor 2 tahun 2014 terkait pemberian akses permodalan oleh Pemerintah Kota Malang kepada penyandang disabilitas yang melakukan kegiatan usaha. Hal ini dilatar belakangi dengan adanya permasalahan mengenai pemberian akses permodalan kepada penyandang disabilitas yang tidak efektif dikarenakan pendataan jumlah penyandang disabilitas di Kota Malang pada tahun 2014-2016 hanya di himpun dari lembaga serta komunitas penyandang disabilitas di Kota Malang sedangkan dalam Peraturan Daerah Kota Malang pemberian akses harus diberikan kepada seluruh penyandang disabilitas. Dimana penyadiaan akses permodalan adalah salah satu bentuk pemenuhan hak penyandang disabilitas dalam melakukan kegiatan berwirausaha dan tidak hanya itu saja, masih belum adanya kejelasan pengertian akses permodalan yang dimaksud dalam Peraturan Daerah Kota Malang Nomor 2 tahun 2014 terkait pemberian akses permodalan oleh Pemerintah Kota Malang yang mengakibatkan kekaburan hukum tentang bagaimana dan akses permodalan seperti apa yang dapat diberikan kepada penyandang disabilitas dalam pengembagan usaha. Berdasarkan hal tersebut diatas, karya tulis ini mengangkat rumusan masalah: (1) Bagaimana pelaksanaan pasal 44 Peraturan Daerah Kota Malang Nomor 2 tahun 2014 terkait pemberian akses permodalan oleh Pemerintah Kota Malang kepada penyandang disabilitas yang melakukan kegiatan usaha?(2) Apa hambatan dan solusi dalam pelaksanaan pasal 44 Peraturan Daerah Kota Malang Nomor 2 tahun 2014 terkait pemberian akses permodalan oleh Pemerintah Kota Malang kepada penyandang disabilitas yang melakukan kegiatan usaha?.Untuk mengetahui permasalahan yang ada, maka metode pendekatan penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode pendekatan yuridis sosiologis, dimana penulis mengkaji pasal 44 Peraturan Daerah Kota Malang Nomor 2 tahun 2014 dengan menyebutkan terkait pemberian akses permodalan dilaksanakan oleh Dinas Sosial dan Lembaga Keuangan Perbankan dan Lembaga Keuangan Bukan Perbankan. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian, penulis memperoleh jawaban atas permasalahan yang ada, bahwa dalam pelaksanaan kewenangan tersebut terkait dengan pemberian akses permodalan belum efektif. Hal tersebut dikarenakan pendataan jumlah penyandang disabilitas pada tahun 2016 yang tidak akurat, kurangnya partisipasi dan keterlibatan penyandang disabilitas dalam rencana kegiatan pemerintah, ketidak mampuan mengunakan bahasa isyarat sebagai alat komunikasi, tidak adanya sanksi administratif dan kekaburan pengertian akses permodalan yang termuat dalam Peraturan Daerah Kota Malang Nomor 2 Tahun 201