Notre travail s’inscrit dans les ancrages théoriques de l’ethnométhodologie et de l’analyse conversationnelle. Notre intérêt est avant tout d’analyser les pratiques interactionnelles entre joueurs en situation de jeux vidéo ; et d’autre part, de comparer différents jeux sur le plan de leur organisation interactionnelle ainsi que leur structure séquentielle et multimodale. Á partir des pratiques de joueurs, nous questionnons les problèmes et contraintes rencontrés, d’une part lors des analyses de ces données en situation de jeux vidéo, et d’autre part lors (...) de présentations académiques de nos recherches. Une étude en cours, sur les séquences d’encouragement et d’instruction dans les interactions entre joueurs, nous permet de montrer qu’il est indispensable de contextualiser le type de jeu joué, ses règles, ses options spécifiques parfois, les relations entre les joueurs, les rôles de chacun à l’instant de l’extrait, et aussi les actions en cours dans l’univers du jeu lui-même qui donneraient du sens à l’analyse. Ces contextualisations et prises en compte des ressources multimodales permettent d’expliquer et de décrire plus clairement et objectivement le phénomène linguistique, l’action ou encore la problématique analysée. (shrink)

While the bioethics literature demonstrates that the field has spent substantial time and thought over the last four decades on the goals, methods, and desired outcomes for service and training in bioethics, there has been less progress defining the nature and goals of bioethics research and scholarship. This gap makes it difficult both to describe the breadth and depth of these areas of bioethics and, importantly, to gauge their success. However, the gap also presents us with an opportunity to define (...) this scope of work for ourselves and to help shape the broader conversation about the impact of academic research. Because of growing constraints on academic funding, researchers and scholars in many fields are being asked to demonstrate and also forecast the value and impact of their work. To do that, and also to satisfy ourselves that our work has meaningful effect, we must understand how our work can motivate change and how that change can be meaningfully measured. In a field as diverse as bioethics, the pathways to and metrics of change will likewise be diverse. It is therefore critical that any assessment of the impact of bioethics research and scholarship be informed by an understanding of the nature of the work, its goals, and how those goals can and ought to be furthered. In this paper, we propose a conceptual model that connects individual bioethics projects to the broader goals of scholarship, describing the translation of research and scholarly output into changes in thinking, practice, and policy. One of the key implications of the model is that impact in bioethics is generally the result of a collection of projects rather than of any single piece of research or scholarship. Our goal is to lay the groundwork for a thoroughgoing conversation about bioethics research and scholarship that will advance and shape the important conversation about their impact. (shrink)

(2013). Standards for Academic and Professional Instruction in Foundations of Education, Educational Studies, and Educational Policy Studies Third Edition, 2012, Draft Presented to the Educational Community by the American Educational Studies Association's Committee on Academic Standards and Accreditation. Educational Studies: Vol. 49, Critical, Interpretive, and Normative Perspectives of Educational Foundations: Contributions for the 21st Century, pp. 107-118.

Hurford’s Constraint (Hurford, Foundations of Language, 11, 409–411, 1974) states that a disjunction is infelicitous if its disjuncts stand in an entailment relation: #John was born in Paris or in France. Gazdar (Pragmatics, Academic Press, NY, 1979) observed that scalar implicatures can obviate the constraint. For instance, sentences of the form (A or B) or (Both Aand B) are felicitous due to the exclusivity implicature of the first disjunct: A or B implicates ‘not (A and B)’. Chierchia, (...) Fox, and Spector (Handbook of semantics, 2008) use the obviation of Hurford’s Constraint in these cases to argue for a theory of local implicature. I present evidence indicating that the constraint needs to be modified in two ways. First, implicatures can obviate Hurford’s Constraint only in earlier disjuncts, not later ones: #(Both A and B) or (A or B). Second, the constraint rules out not only disjuncts that stand in an entailment relation, but also disjuncts that are even mutually consistent: #John is from Russia or Asia. I propose to make sense of these facts by providing an incremental evaluation procedure which checks that each new disjunct to the right is inconsistent with the information to its left, before the disjunct can be strengthened by local implicature. (shrink)

Reviews the book, The psychology of human possibility and constraint by J. Martin and J. Sugarman . This wide-ranging, compact, dense, yet very readable little book presents many of the key elements of a badly needed, more credible philosophy of social science for academic and professional psychologists. The book gives no specific examples of theories or research findings that might illustrate what is meant by a better kind of "knowledge" or "theory" in psychology, so the reader is left (...) somewhat high and dry concerning this question. Perhaps it is simply the case that these questions about what might be the best kind of social and psychological inquiry and what sense to make of the plethora of theories and findings to date, are difficult, murky, and on the frontier of a hermeneutic reenvisioning of psychology. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

On March, 24, 2020, 818 cases of COVID-19 had been reported in New South Wales, Australia, and new cases were increasing at an exponential rate. In anticipation of resource constraints arising in clinical settings as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a working party of ten ethicists was convened at the University of Sydney to draft an ethics framework to support resource allocation decisions. The framework guides decision-makers using a question-and-answer format, in language that avoids philosophical and medical technicality. The (...) working party met five times over the following week and then submitted a draft Framework for consideration by two groups of intensivists and one group of academic ethicists. It was also presented to a panel on a national current affairs programme. The Framework was then revised on the basis of feedback from these sources and made publicly available online on April 3, ten days after the initial meeting. The framework is published here in full to stimulate ongoing discussion about rapid development of user-friendly clinical ethics resources in ongoing and future pandemics. (shrink)

We motivate five constraints on theorizing about sensory experience. We then propose a novel form of naturalistic intentionalism that succeeds where other theories fail by satisfying all of these constraints. On the proposed theory, which we call structure matching tracking intentionalism, brains states track determinables. Internal structural features of those states select determinates of those determinables for presentation in experience. We argue that this theory is distinctively well-positioned to both explain internal-phenomenal structural correlations and accord external features a role (...) in fixing phenomenology. In addition, we use the theory to shed light on how one comes to experience “missing shades”. (shrink)

Academia is a competitive environment. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are limited in experience and resources and especially need achievements to secure and expand their careers. To help with these issues, this book offers a new approach for conducting research using the combination of mindsponge innovative thinking and Bayesian analytics. This is not just another analytics book. 1. A new perspective on psychological processes: Mindsponge is a novel approach for examining the human mind’s information processing mechanism. This conceptual framework is used (...) to construct models in studies. The framework is highly flexible and widely applicable for many different types of information processes. The mindsponge approach can help researchers discover interesting ideas or even formulate their very own theories when investigating psychosocial phenomena. This approach brings a fresh wind to the current landscape of social sciences and humanities (SSH). 2. Easy-to-follow analysis protocol: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF analytics) is useful in terms of computing and visualizing power but also easy to learn and apply. Contrary to being intimidating, the Bayesian analytics section of this book is presented in a reader-friendly manner with a detailed yet clear step-by-step procedure. Examples are from published BMF articles, allowing readers to immediately practice the method and quickly create their own applications. With educational purposes in mind, the book is very suitable for ECRs who are looking to innovate their research methods. 3. Advocating for low-cost, high-quality research: Doing science can be very costly. Mindsponge innovative thinking and BMF analytics help produce impactful studies using openly available data on online repositories. This is based on the authors’ previous works and experiences. The book presents examples of employing the open R package bayesvl on secondary data from different sources. With less financial constraints, researchers can have more freedom of thought to pursue their curiosity and creativity. ECRs in low- and middle-income countries may find this aspect crucial in their careers. 4. Support and collaboration: The authors share their insights from experiences in the academic publishing system to help readers get through the processes of manuscript writing and peer-reviewing more easily. The authors are also ready to support other researchers with further inquiries and collaboration opportunities at the following website, mindsponge(dot)info. This book is for: a) ECRs whose only abundant resources are their innovation capacity and strength of will; b) Researchers in SSH who want to explore a novel approach to thinking and study conducting; c) Low- and middle-income countries’ researchers looking for a cost-effective research protocol; and, d) Innovative thinkers who want to turn their interesting thoughts into good publications. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Funding Utopia: Utopian Studies and the Discourse of Academic ExcellenceAdam Stock (bio)As an academic field, there is in some important ways nothing special about utopian studies. Granted, our object of inquiry may look beyond the present toward what Ruth Levitas terms the Imaginary Reconstruction of Society, but we are still workers in what Darren Webb calls the “corporate-imperial” university.1 Webb argues that within the university we can (...) at best protect “bolt holes, breathing spaces, and places of refuge” that can function as “fleeting, transitory, small-scale experiences of utopian possibility.” As academics, our greater value to utopian politics therefore involves using our “knowledge and resources... in the service of a collaborative process of memory- and story-making, pulling together disparate inchoate dreams and yearnings in order to generate a utopian vision that can help inform, guide, and mobilize long-term collective action for systemic change.”2 Such work uses resources and the products of labor within the academy in the service of ends beyond and at times against it. In other words, utopianism within the academy is necessarily complicit in the academy’s constitutive material relations, but it can also be oppositional in intellectual and—more importantly—activist senses to the academy’s ideological form. In other words, whether or not a given [End Page 517] project in the field of utopian studies is politically utopian does not depend on its material basis (i.e., how it is funded) so much as its content, in the senses of both the work that it does and the ways in which it captures and mobilizes available resources. Hence it is possible to imagine both regressive and emancipatory research projects in our field that capture or co-opt additional resources, including both internal and external funding. It is, however, a mark of emancipatory projects that they will use these resources to the ends Webb describes.Implicit in Webb’s argument is an acceptance that politically useful utopian work should be socially engaged beyond the confines of the university campus. However, engaging in utopian politics from within inegalitarian university structures (via what is institutionally termed “outreach” and “engagement” work) should be pursued with caution. Even researchers and educators acting in good faith can easily end up exploiting or causing damage to social movements, support groups and activists. Good allyship and effective support cannot be reduced to institutional mechanisms like ethics committee compliance or equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) initiatives, even when these go beyond “lip service” to become meaningful acts.3 For projects involving external collaborators with a connection to the sort of “long-term, collective action” Webb describes, research design must walk a tightrope between being supportive of utopian politics beyond the university and responding to instrumental pressures within it.Here I suggest as an academic field utopian studies is at least a little special as it mediates dialectically between theory and practice at one level while developing a conceptual framework of the dialectic between theory and practice at another. Within what Richter et al term “the paradox of universities as colonizing and liberatory spaces for community engagement and activism” the utopian method is well placed to ask questions about how we engage with the given conditions of the academy, including competitive research funding grants.4 I begin below with a discussion of the relationship of theory and academic work to the social with reference to utopian theory and then apply this to questions about our wider complicity within a discursive regime I term “academic excellence.” I argue this regime is central to the “prestige economy” upon which some of the structural inequalities of our sector are based. I conclude by suggesting that working within the constraints of the given while remaining orientated toward utopian politics in an ethical manner requires close attention to how we navigate the relationship between utopian theory and political practice. [End Page 518]Theory, Praxis, PracticeIn the final chapter of his recent monograph Becoming Utopian, Tom Moylan forms a cogent argument about the praxis of utopian-oriented politics with reference to Saul Alinsky’s community organizing and Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed.5 The writings of both figures are grounded in... (shrink)

In a previous paper we developed a general theory of input/output logics. These are operations resembling inference, but where inputs need not be included among outputs, and outputs need not be reusable as inputs. In the present paper we study what happens when they are constrained to render output consistent with input. This is of interest for deontic logic, where it provides a manner of handling contrary-to-duty obligations. Our procedure is to constrain the set of generators of the input/output system, (...) considering only the maximal subsets that do not yield output conflicting with a given input. When inputs are authorised to reappear as outputs, both maxichoice revision in the sense of Alchourr6n/Makinson and the default logic of Poole emerge as special cases, and there is a close relation with Reiter default logic. However, our focus is on the general case where inputs need not be outputs. We show in what contexts the consistency of input with output may be reduced to its consistency with a truth-functional combination of components of generators, and under what conditions constrained output may be obtained by a derivation that is constrained at every step. (shrink)

In a world of glossy corporate social responsibility reports, the shallowness of the actual CSR results may well be its counterpart. We claim that the possible gaps between aspirations and implementations are due to the company's overrating abilities to deal with the irrational and complex moral world of business. Many academic approaches aim to lift business ethics up to a higher level by enhancing competences but will fail because they are too rationalistic and generalistic to match the pluralistic and (...) situational practice constituted by the mosaic of values and set of constraints. This is demonstrated by describing and analyzing the CSR development of the multinational caterer Sodexo and in particular its Dutch branch. We explain what they do and why they are not successful. We present a new tool named Ethical Room for Maneuver that centers experiences and concrete situations in a playground of inquiry and experiment to enhance abilities to operate in themoral world and to meliorate business and society with more effectiveness. (shrink)

This investigation focuses on analysing one-sided laughter in academic presentations — a form of ‘institutional talk’ defined here as goal-oriented talk about and for the business at hand, and given at structural settings of certain formality as the lecture theatre in this case. The analytical tool employed is a partial adoption of Partington’s laughter classification/categorization drawing on the theories of ‘Politeness’ and ‘Face’. This is a rather new approach which, nonetheless, contributes positively to the field of laughter analysis since (...) these theories are ‘much less examined in relationship to institutional settings’. The data analysed for this purpose is David Nunan’s presentation entitled ‘Action Research and Professional Growth’, given at the JALT First Joint Conference in Japan. The findings suggest that one-sided laughter is a communication strategy of mainly rhetorical nature capable of revealing the underlying meaning of the interaction: its hidden ideology, purpose and goal. (shrink)

This paper presents students’ views about honest and dishonest actions within the pharmacy and medical learning environments. Students also offered their views on solutions to ameliorating dishonest action. Three research questions were posed in this paper: (1) what reasons would students articulate in reference to engaging in dishonest behaviours? (2) What reasons would students articulate in reference to maintaining high levels of integrity? (3) What strategies would students suggest to decrease engagement in dishonest behaviours and/or promote honest behaviours? The design (...) of the study incorporated an initial descriptive analysis to interpret students’ responses to an 18-item questionnaire about justifications for dishonest action. This was followed by a qualitative analysis of students’ commentaries in reference to why students would engage in either honest or dishonest action. Finally a qualitative analysis was conducted on students’ views regarding solutions to dishonest action. The quantitative results showed that students were more likely to use time management and seriousness justifications for dishonest actions. The qualitative findings found that students’ actions (honest or dishonest) were guided by family and friends, the need to do well, issues of morality and institutional guidelines. Students suggested that dishonest action could be ameliorated by external agencies and polarised views between punitive and rewards-based mechanisms were offered. These results suggest that these students engaged in dishonest action for various reasons and solutions addressing dishonest action need to consider diverse mechanisms that likely extend beyond the educational institution. (shrink)

This article investigates the propensity for academic dishonesty by university students using the partitioning method of decision tree analysis. A set of prediction rules are presented, and conclusions are drawn. To provide context for the decision tree approach, the partition process is compared with results of more traditional probit regression models. Results of the decision tree analysis complement the probit models in terms of predictive accuracy and confirm results previously found in the literature. In particular, students’ moral character—whether they (...) believe cheating is acceptable—is found to be the most important factor in determining the propensity for academic dishonesty. (shrink)

This volume presents a collection of refereed papers reflecting the state of the art in the area of over-constrained systems. Besides 11 revised full papers, selected from the 24 submissions to the OCS workshop held in conjunction with the First International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, CP '95, held in Marseilles in September 1995, the book includes three comprehensive background papers of central importance for the workshop papers and the whole field. Also included is an introduction (...) by one of the volume editors together with a bibliography listing 243 entries. All in all this is a very useful reference book relevant for all researchers and practitioners interested in hierarchical, partial, and over-constrained systems. (shrink)

A peer instruction model was used whereby 78 residence dons (36 males, 42 females) provided instruction regarding academic integrity for 324 students (125 males, 196 females) under their supervision. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to assess survey responses from both the dons and students regarding presentation content, quality, and learning. Overall, dons consistently identified information-based slides about academic integrity as the most important material for the presentations, indicating that fundamental information was needed. Although student ratings of (...) the usefulness of the presentations were middling, students did indicate knowledge gains. Both interest and personal value for academic integrity were highly predictive of positive evaluations of the presentations. Dons and students provided suggestions for improvement and identified more global concerns. (shrink)

The global surge in academic misconduct during the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated by remote teaching and online assessment, necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional aspects and stakeholders' perspectives associated with this issue. This paper addresses the prevalent use of answer-providing sites and other types of academic misconduct, underscoring the challenge of detecting all or most of the student misconduct. Exploring factors such as faculty inexperience in remote teaching and assessment, the paper advocates for proactive measures to preserve integrity (...) in education. Emphasizing the need for a culture of integrity beyond traditional classrooms, the paper reviews existing models, then details steps to create a framework using the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s TREE training method. It presents the IEPAR framework (Inspiration, Education, Pedagogical considerations, Assessment design, Response and Restorative practice), and assesses its effectiveness. Incorporating faculty feedback, the paper concludes with evidence-based findings, positioning the IEPAR framework as a robust approach for addressing academic misconduct and fostering a culture of academic integrity in higher education through responsible training of all stakeholders. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Andromache and Euripidean TragedyNancy Sorkin RabinowitzWilliam Allan. The Andromache and Euripidean Tragedy. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. xii + 310 pp. Cloth, $70.This is a workmanlike study of Euripides' Andromache, with a good and up-to-date bibliography. Allan's monograph successfully takes on most of the (many) significant criticisms of the play, in particular those concerning its alleged disunity, and argues that the play is more (...) interesting than it has been taken to be. Allan sets out to show that the play merits more attention than it has received, and he succeeds, at least with this reviewer; a classicist reviewer who has written on the play is, however, hardly a test case. Moreover, the assertion of interest is not a strong claim, and, given the constraints of academic writing, scholarly arguments for a quirky play like the Andromache are often less compelling than the literary work itself. [End Page 126]Allan's thesis, that "every play represents a distinct thematic and dramatic complex which merits individual attention" (267), is undeniably true. He further asserts that the play is calculated to surprise and that the noticeable dissonances in it are purposeful as well. The book is divided into chapters on myth, structure, characterization, rhetoric, the spread of Attic tragedy, gender, the chorus, and the gods, in that order. Allan highlights Euripides' creative use of myth, drawing attention to the elevation of Andromache and the simultaneous way in which Euripides turns Neoptolemus, who was the center of epic treatments of the myth, into a corpse. There are connections between Allan's argument about the structure of the unexpected and Euripides' handling of myth. In part, Euripides builds the structure of surprise that Allan detects through his use of novel mythic variations.The elements of flexibility and surprise that Allan emphasizes also appear in a different guise in his considerations of gender (chap. 6) and the gods (chap. 8). According to Allan, female characters are useful for exposing the tensions that emerge when heroic society encounters crisis (162), while he uses Euripides' treatment of the gods to contribute to the overall argument about the multiplicity of Euripidean tragedy.Allan sounds a similar note in discussing characterization. Here he emphasizes dissonance, the contrast of traditional and invented story, and warns against expecting the depth of characterization typical of narrative from later centuries. This is a salutary reminder of the aesthetic conventions of tragedy too often overlooked by readers of the modern era.Characterization not only grows out of structure, as Allan argues, but is developed by rhetoric. His goal in the chapter on rhetoric is "to reappraise the functions and importance of Euripidean rhetoric (defined more broadly than the mere use of forensic topoi) by placing it within the larger dramatic context of the plays, and by viewing them within the wider rhetorical context of fifth-century Athenian culture" (119). Allan's contention is that Euripidean tragedy shows the failure of persuasion because of the intervention of political power. He argues that Euripides uses the Sophistic arsenal for his own dramatic ends, never for its own sake; as he notes, rhetoric is closely related to characterization through the characters' self-presentation. As he also shows, in the Andromache and other plays of Euripides, the rhetoric cannot be separated from the fictional world of the play. Ultimately, according to Allan, rhetoric reveals the feature of adaptability, sharing it with his other analytic categories of structure, myth and characterization.Allan asserts that there is a philosophical aspect to a plot based on surprise, but here I was disappointed and would have liked to hear more. The claim seems to boil down to the statement that the play is about the fragility of fortune (41), and this seems little more than a restatement of the commonplace moralizing tag line--that we can't know what will happen. What is the philosophical significance of the flexibility and surprise?The chapters on the chorus and the gods underline Allan's point about flexibility in Euripides. His chapter on the chorus, he says, "aspires to indicate [End Page 127] how choral contributions function much more provocatively than is often appreciated, not... (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Designing Academic Conferences in the Light of Second-Order Cybernetics” by Laurence D. Richards. Upshot: Building upon Richards’s notions of “design by constraint” and the usefulness of assigning collaborative tasks to conference participants, this commentary suggests a basic application of Pask’s conversation theory as a potential aide to fruitful knowledge construction in a conference setting.

This article discusses the possibilities and pitfalls of constructing a code of ethics for university professors. Professional, educational, legal, and policy questions regarding the goals, format, and content of an academic ethics code are raised and a series of aspirational principles and enforceable standards that might be included in such a document are presented for discussion and debate.

Most academic efforts to understand morality and ideology come from theorists who limit the domain of morality to issues related to harm and fairness. For such theorists, conservative beliefs are puzzles requiring non-moral explanations. In contrast, we present moral foundations theory, which broadens the moral domain to match the anthropological literature on morality. We extend the theory by integrating it with a review of the sociological constructs of community, authority, and sacredness, as formulated by Emile Durkheim and others. We (...) present data supporting the theory, which also shows that liberals misunderstand the explicit moral concerns of conservatives more than conservatives misunderstand liberals. We suggest that what liberals see as a non-moral motivation for system justification may be better described as a moral motivation to protect society, groups, and the structures and constraints that are often (though not always) beneficial for individuals. Finally, we outline the possible benefits of a moral foundations perspective for System Justification Theory, including better understandings of 1) why the system-justifying motive is palliative despite some harmful effects, 2) possible evolutionary origins of the motive, and 3) the values and worldviews of conservatives in general. (shrink)

This study investigated students’ perceptions following a prepared, common presentation regarding academic integrity provided by their residence dons. This peer instruction study utilized both quantitative and qualitative analyses of survey data within a pre-test post-test design. Overall, students reported gains in knowledge, as well as confidence in their knowledge of academic integrity. Notably, students reported increases in their personal value for academic integrity after participating in the presentations. Overall, the quality and content of the presentations were (...) judged positively, and participants’ ratings of the presentation were predictive of increases in personal value of academic integrity, as well as self-reported knowledge and confidence gains. Qualitative analyses supported that the key ideas in the presentation served as the focal material for discussion, but also introduced specific topics that students wanted to explore in greater depth. (shrink)

Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in Bangladesh's academic landscape has ignited concerns about potentially eroding students' creative writing and critical thinking abilities. While AI offers efficient and personalized learning, there is a looming risk of students using it as a shortcut to success. Educators and policymakers must emphasize the cultivation of writing skills and critical thinking while guiding students to recognize the limitations of AI. While plagiarism checking is crucial for academic integrity, it often falls short in acknowledging (...) students' originality. Natural Language Processing (NLP) emerges as a promising solution, augmenting plagiarism detection by comprehending context, nuances, and novel expressions. This paper proposed a model based on NLP that can incorporate a robust token identification mechanism into AI tools used by the students. A unique identification token is generated at the time of system login and stored in a publicly accessible resource, acting as a distinct marker for user activity. These identification tokens support a plagiarism detection system that continually reviews and compares activity records. It also enables a thorough examination of user involvement across various academic supplementary tools, such as academic writing, presentation creation, image generation, etc. (shrink)

For over 70 years, research has tackled the issue of academic misconduct in the university setting. However, a review of the literature reveals that (a) consensus on the magnitude of such behavior has not been reached, and, (b) no one with expertise in quantitative methodology has attempted to classify the behaviors that describe cheaters until Ferrell and Daniel proposed the use of the Academic Misconduct Survey (AMS). Even they, following their 1995 study, made a call for the development (...) of understandable constructs in the measurement of cheating. Seventeen years later, the present study sought to produce such constructs. In a series of three phases of data collection, 4,100 participants completed a revised version of the AMS. A factor solution containing five factors proved to be the most interpretable. The five factors are as follows: creative padding, interactive cheating, false personal excuses, taking credit for others’ work, exam cheating. The present paper outlines the constructs proposed and discusses implications in this area for (1) scholars within the area of measurement and (2) educators with regard to student accountability and performance. (shrink)

A pioneering look at the fundamental role of logic in optimizationand constraint satisfaction While recent efforts to combine optimization and constraintsatisfaction have received considerable attention, little has beensaid about using logic in optimization as the key to unifying thetwo fields. Logic-Based Methods for Optimization develops for thefirst time a comprehensive conceptual framework for integratingoptimization and constraint satisfaction, then goes a step furtherand shows how extending logical inference to optimization allowsfor more powerful as well as flexible modeling and solutiontechniques. (...) Designed to be easily accessible to industryprofessionals and academics in both operations research andartificial intelligence, the book provides a wealth of examples aswell as elegant techniques and modeling frameworks ready forimplementation. Timely, original, and thought-provoking,Logic-Based Methods for Optimization: * Demonstrates the advantages of combining the techniques inproblem solving * Offers tutorials in constraint satisfaction/constraintprogramming and logical inference * Clearly explains such concepts as relaxation, cutting planes,nonserial dynamic programming, and Bender's decomposition * Reviews the necessary technologies for software developersseeking to combine the two techniques * Features extensive references to important computationalstudies * And much more. (shrink)

This paper presents the Constraint Language for Lambda Structures(CLLS), a first-order language for semantic underspecification thatconservatively extends dominance constraints. It is interpreted overlambda structures, tree-like structures that encode -terms. Based onCLLS, we present an underspecified, uniform analysis of scope,ellipsis, anaphora, and their interactions. CLLS solves a variablecapturing problem that is omnipresent in scope underspecification andcan be processed efficiently.

Workforce diversity has received increasing amounts of attention from academics and practitioners alike. In this article, we examine the empirical association between a firm’s workforce diversity and the degree of religiosity of the firm’s management by investigating their unidirectional and endogenous effects. Employing a large and extensive U.S. sample of firms from the years 1991–2010, we find a positive association between a measure of the firm’s commitment to diversity and the religiosity of the firm’s management after controlling for various firm (...) characteristics. In addition, after controlling for endogeneity with the dynamic panel generalized method of moment, we still find a positive association between the firm’s diversity and management’s religiosity. We interpret these results as supportive of the religious motivation explanation that views the firm as a human community and considers religion as a factor that influences managers to more positively embrace diversity. Our results, however, provide no support for the resource-constraint hypothesis that views the firm as a nexus of contracts and sees managers as aiming to maximize shareholder returns under resource constraints that force them to invest only in projects that have a positive net present value and reject diversity initiatives since these do not have a positive NPV. (shrink)

In a time of increasing polarization, how can we address sensitive topics and ensure that university classrooms remain places of healthy discussions and ethical deliberations? This paper addresses this important question by drawing on unique qualitative data from our students’ accounts of their experience in an organizational ethics course. We developed the course using a novel pedagogical strategy centered around the creation of an artistic portfolio. We find that student engagement in an alternative individual space, such as the artistic portfolio, (...) supports them in developing (inter)personal skills in preparation for constructive participation in sensitive discussions and ethical deliberation in the classroom. Additionally, engagement with the artistic portfolio provides them with an alternative means for alleviating tension that arises from these discussions and a space for expressing their opinions. Our findings highlight the role of the portfolio as an individual safe haven that supports teachers in facilitating a positive classroom atmosphere and guides students through challenging discussions and deliberations intrinsic to responsible management education. Considering these new insights, we advocate for a shift from a collective to an individual perspective on safety in academia. This transition liberates the classroom from the constraints and limitations often associated with the establishment of collective safe spaces. (shrink)

In our target article, we took the position that tenure conveys many important benefits but that its original justification – fostering academic freedom – is not one of them. Here we respond to various criticisms of our study as well as to proposals to remedy the current state of affairs. Undoubtedly, more research is needed to confirm and extend our findings, but the most reasonable conclusion remains the one we offered – that the original rationale for tenure is poorly (...) served by the current system as practiced at top-ranked colleges and universities. (Published Online February 8 2007). (shrink)

Academic dishonesty is an insidious problem that besets most tertiary institutions, where considerable resources are expended to prevent and manage students' dishonest actions within academia. Using a mixed retrospective and prospective design this research investigated Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory as a possible explanation for academic dishonesty in 264 university students. The relationship between academic dishonesty and general criminality was also examined. A significant but small to moderate relationship between academic dishonesty and general criminality was present, (...) including correlations with general dishonesty, violent crime and drug offending subcategories. These findings suggested that a general criminological theory may be of use in explaining academic dishonesty, but the overall ability of self-control variables to explain academic dishonesty was not strong. Controlled logistic regressions indicated that a significant positive association with academic dishonesty was only present for one of 6 self-control subscales (self-centeredness), and even this association was only present in the prospective study component. A strong relationship between past and future academic dishonesty was present. Implications of the study for institutions are discussed. (shrink)

Autonomy is conceptualized as the need for agency, self-actualization and independence. Nowadays, financial independence and academic achievement for young populations may be considered as key aspects in the transition to adulthood in response to some contextual demands of different cultural environments. By means of a multi-level model, the present study aims to determine the influence and contribution of factors at individual-level (e.g. sex, age, socioeconomic status, family financial support, awarded scholarships, personal finance, student loans) and school-level (e.g. programme quality, (...) online programs, face to face programs) on the academic achievement of young higher education Colombian students. Data come from the scores of the national standardized academic achievement test administered in 2018 in Colombia. The sample included 234,386 students enrolled in 3,389 higher education institutions in Colombia. After controlling the effects of program quality, and the student's previous academic abilities and socio-economic conditions, results showed that students with scholarships had higher scores than financially-dependent students (those who had students loans) and financially-independent students (those who self-funded their studies or who worked during the week) who had low-scores in the national standardized academic achievement test. (shrink)

This paper presents a case study carried out at Sofia University in Bulgaria, describing the relationship between two developments, firstly an expanding involvement with online learning and e-assessment, and secondly the development of institutional approaches to academic integrity. The two developments interact, the widening use of e-learning and e-assessment raising new issues for academic integrity, and the technology providing new tools to support academic integrity, with the involvement in technological developments acting as a catalyst for changes in (...) approaches to academic integrity. The aim of this study is to describe in what ways the integration of technologies for student authentication and authorship checking in this university has begun to influence teachers’ approach to academic integrity, and has also helped to identify specific issues that need to be resolved for the future of academic integrity in the university. Data collected during the implementation of pilots for the project TeSLA - An adaptive trust-based e-assessment system - enabled an examination of the perspectives of administrators, teachers and students on approaches to cheating and plagiarism, and on possible future directions. The data suggests that the piloting of the TeSLA system has triggered a deepening consideration of approaches to academic integrity, and has also helped to identify important issues for future developments. (shrink)

In a time of increasing polarization, how can we address sensitive topics and ensure that university classrooms remain places of healthy discussions and ethical deliberations? This paper addresses this important question by drawing on unique qualitative data from our students’ accounts of their experience in an organizational ethics course. We developed the course using a novel pedagogical strategy centered around the creation of an artistic portfolio. We find that student engagement in an alternative individual space, such as the artistic portfolio, (...) supports them in developing (inter)personal skills in preparation for constructive participation in sensitive discussions and ethical deliberation in the classroom. Additionally, engagement with the artistic portfolio provides them with an alternative means for alleviating tension that arises from these discussions and a space for expressing their opinions. Our findings highlight the role of the portfolio as an individual safe haven that supports teachers in facilitating a positive classroom atmosphere and guides students through challenging discussions and deliberations intrinsic to responsible management education. Considering these new insights, we advocate for a shift from a collective to an individual perspective on safety in academia. This transition liberates the classroom from the constraints and limitations often associated with the establishment of collective safe spaces. (shrink)

In this paper, an adaptive sliding mode control method based on neural networks is presented for a class of manipulator systems. The main characteristic of the discussed system is that the output variable is required to keep within a constraint set. In order to ensure that the system output meets the time-varying constraint condition, the asymmetric barrier Lyapunov function is selected in the design process. According to Lyapunov stability theory, the stability of the closed-loop system is analyzed. It (...) is demonstrated that all signals in the resulted system are bounded, the tracking error converges to a small compact set, and the system output limits in its constrained set. Finally, the simulation example is used to show the effectiveness of the presented control strategy. (shrink)

Human beings as imperfect rational beings face continuous challenges, one of them has to do with the lack of recognizing and respecting our inner dignity in present times. In this collective paper, we address the overall theme—Philosophy of Education in a New Key from various perspectives related to dignity. We address in particular some of the constraints and possibilities with regard to this issue in various settings such as education and society at large. Klas Roth discusses, for example, that it (...) is not uncommon that the value of human beings has to do with their price in, inter alia, their social, cultural, political and economic settings throughout the world. He argues that such a focus does not necessarily draw attention to the inner dignity of human beings, but that human beings ought to do so in education and society at large. Lia Mollvik discusses views of inner and outer dignity, and argues that there needs to be a balance in between them, and that the balance ought to be acknowledged in education. Rama Alshoufani discusses the classification of human beings in terms of various diagnoses related to the asserted dysfunction of the brain, and she argues that such classification does paradoxically not necessarily respect people with such diagnoses as ends in themselves. On the contrary, she argues that their inner dignity is not respected, but that it should be. Other such failures are due to the lack of inner dignity when it comes to Children’s rights as discussed by Rebecca Adami, and to the lack of recognition of human beings’ vulnerability as discussed by Katy Dineen. Fariba Majlesi criticizes a too strong emphasis on substantive notions of humanist education, which seem to hinder new ways of thinking; she argues that it is necessary to acknowledge the latter in and through education in order to preserve the dignity of human beings. Dignity, it is argued throughout the paper, has an inner moral worth, and is beyond price. (shrink)

Third-party certification is an increasingly prevalent tactic which agrifood activists use to “help” consumers shop ethically, and also to reorganize commodity markets. While consumers embrace the chance to “vote with their dollar,” academics question the potential for labels to foster widespread political, economic, and agroecological change. Yet, despite widespread critique, a mounting body of work appears resigned to accept that certification may be the only option available to activist groups in the context of neoliberal socio-economic orders. At the extreme, Guthman (...) (Antipode 39(3): 457, 2007) posits that “at this political juncture… ‘there is no alternative.” This paper offers a different assessment of third-party certification, and points to interventions that are potentially more influential that are currently available to activist groups. Exploring the evolution of the Non-GMO Project—a novel certification for foods that are reasonably free of genetically engineered (GE) material—I make two arguments. First, I echo the literature’s critical perspective by illustrating how certification projects become vulnerable to industry capture. Reviewing its history and current context, I suggest that the Non-GMO Project would be better suited to helping companies avoid mounting public criticism than to substantially reorient agrifood production. Second, I explore the “politics of the possible” in the current political economy and argue that while neoliberalization and organizers’ places within the food system initially oriented the group towards the private sector, the choice to pursue certification arose directly from two industry partnerships. Consequently, current trends might favor market mechanisms, but certification is only one possible intervention that has emerged as a result of particular, and perhaps avoidable, circumstances. The article offers tentative delineation of alternatives ways that activists might intervene in agrifood and political economic systems given present constraints. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Appreciation of Arvind Mandair's Sikh Philosophy:Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing WorldJeffery D. Long (bio)"Sikhism," the Colonial Project, and Modernity1I do not use this adjective lightly, but in his brilliant volume Sikh Philosophy: Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing World (Bloomsbury, 2022) Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair goes a considerable distance toward liberating sikhī—known more widely in the academic world as Sikhism—from the conceptual constraints that have kept it (...) from engaging with and informing global issues. In so doing, he does a service not only to the Sikh community and to sikhī itself, but to the world, for there is indeed much in Sikh thought from which the wider human community can benefit. By liberating sikhī from the constraining concept of religion, Mandair facilitates a process by which persons of any background can engage with gurmat ideas—that is, ideas drawn from the system of thought based upon the teachings of the Gurus of the Sikh tradition—and learn from their wisdom.Mandair skillfully deconstructs the concept of religion, building upon earlier work in which he demonstrates the colonial functionalities of this concept.2 When, through colonial knowledge-production processes, sikhī came to be conceived as a religion, Sikh thought was relegated to the realm of theology. This was a relegation, not an elevation, because under the dominant paradigm of modernity, theology is seen as a discourse that is relevant only to a specific religious community. It is thus perceived as lacking the universality [End Page 353] that is taken to inhere in the discourses of philosophy or science. When combined with the colonial situation of Sikhs under British rule, this relegation of Sikh thought to the realm of theology becomes a way of exerting power over the community. As Mandair explains,Once theology had become the primary regime of cultural translation, Sikh thinking was inevitably tethered to the social and political project of religious identification which was required primarily to facilitate governance of cultural differences or heterogeneity that characterized the indigenous populations [of India]. By doing so, it effectively locked Sikh activity within the confines of identity politics.(p. 10)Integral to British colonial policy in India was a project of defining communities, primarily on the basis of religion, but also deploying concepts such as caste and tribe. Through these definitions, the identities of Indians could be essentialized, and policies applied to them in ways that facilitated British dominance over Indian society.3Much has been written about the ways in which language is used to promote ideologies that serve to advance the power interests of some groups of people over others.4 No less an ideological mechanism than the Oxford English Dictionary has been brought to bear in the process of constraining sikhī and depriving it of the universal relevance that it ought naturally to possess. In Mandair's words, "By defining 'Sikhism' as the beliefs and practices of Sikhs, or as an Indian monotheistic religion founded in fifteenth-century India, the OED turns the Sikh aspect into a cliché—a religious type (monotheism), an ethnic type tied to a geographical location (Punjabi/North India) and a historical type (medieval India)" (p. 11).The damage that has been wrought by the modern colonial concept of religion globally is, of course, not limited exclusively to the Sikh community. It has been integral to the construction of a secular order in which what is regarded as religious thought is, again, relegated to a parochial realm of relevance only to members of specific communities. It further serves to marginalize these same communities, whose discourses come to be seen as lacking the universality of secular thought, which is presented as objective truth. As Mandair continues,The purpose of creating the modern category of 'religion' was to help authorize and naturalize secular rationality as the dominant form of modern consciousness, and as the essential language of conventional thinking, or 'common sense.' It is precisely this common sense which persuades us of the apparent naturalness of oppositions such as religion versus politics or materiality versus ideality, to give two well-known examples.(p. 11)To these two examples, one could add the opposition of religion and... (shrink)

What are the prospects for critique in an age of collapse? Collapsing ecosystems, “democratic decay,” vicious “culture wars,” and changing knowledge economies all impact the conditions of possibility for academic critique. Universities have become bastions of “academic neoliberalism,” driven by managerialism, rankings, and punishing overwork. Terms such as “postcritique” capture the possibility that critique has literally “run out of steam,” as Bruno Latour famously put it. This article takes the form of a staged call to arms to address (...) some of these issues. First, it sets out to name the combination of economic and cultural forces that constitute “academic neoliberalism,” and to propose a constructive strategy against them. Second, it critiques debates about “postcritique.” Third, it argues that academic neoliberalism can be resisted and that this is now primary business for the sciences, humanities, and social sciences. The article closes by proposing new scholarly practices based in “constitutive criticism,” explicitly oriented towards the retrograde politics of the present. (shrink)

Conservation biology emerged as an organized academic discipline in the United States in the 1980s though much of its theoretical framework was originally developed in Australia. Significant differences of approach in the two traditions were resolved in the late 1990s through the formulation of a consensus framework for the design and adaptive management of conservation area networks. This entry presents an outline of that framework along with a critical analysis of conceptual issues concerning the four theoretical problems that emerge (...) from it: (i) place prioritization for conservation action; (ii) the selection of surrogates for biodiversity in conservation planning; (iii) the assessment of vulnerability of conservation areas; and (iv) the synchronization of incommensurable criteria including socio-economic constraints on conservation planning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Appreciating Susan SontagFred RushMuch education from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s was self-education. Although one might happen to take a university course that incorporated contemporary art and criticism, it was a rarity. More often one supplemented university fare with one's own reading, listening, and viewing of cutting-edge art, anthropology, music, philosophy, linguistics, etc. Susan Sontag was for many Americans of that time a preeminent guide in this process, opening (...) doors to some of the most interesting and influential European work in art and criticism. Sontag's essayistic output—and she was one of the supreme writers in that genre—was seminal. Any sociologist or intellectual historian of the period would have to take her work greatly into account. Her incisive takes on her subject matter were not for everyone. Although trained as a philosopher at the then epicenter of the Anglophone philosophical world, Harvard, she did not tiptoe through academic complexities and was, therefore, decidedly out of step with the philosophical temperament of that time. She strode in, proselytized for her favorites, excoriated her enemies, and left no one in the room ignorant of the fact that she had been there, dominated the conversation and, on the way out, rearranged the furniture.Sontag's views generally have not received much philosophical attention. Even those who prize her critical work have tended to sell short the early, programmatic essays like "Against Interpretation" and "On Style." Perhaps this neglect is self-wrought. Sontag is often at her best when engaged in what one might call first-order criticism, that is, criticism of particular works of art on their own terms. Her work in critical theory tends to be both abstracting and declamatory and, so, operates against her strong suit. Moreover, Sontag's theory of criticism commits her to [End Page 36] the precedence of critical practice over theorizing. Accordingly, she is led to reduce the importance of those early essays. Yet this is where the interest of philosopher will fall, if indeed it falls at all.Sontag's main concern relevant to the philosophy of literature and to aesthetic theory more broadly is what she takes to be the colonization of aesthetic and critical response by what she terms "theory." Critical response is always, to some degree theoretical of course, so her point cannot be one that is ascribed sometimes to her, i.e., that critical response is supposed to be non-theoretical tout court. An "erotics of art," the famous formula contained in the last sentence of "Against Interpretation," is after all an erotics, which was in the ancient world a genre of theoretical investigation, not erotic experience or even erotica. Criticism can be theoretical in many senses as well. By itself the term "theory" does not rule out much unless one appends to it constraints having to do with the internal structure of bodies of knowledge that either qualify or disqualify them as theories correctly so-called. Sontag seems most concerned about two aspects of theoretical accounts of art: (A) their systematicity and (B) their use of modes of interpretation that undercut the aesthetic nature of works. With regard to (B), she is wary particularly of accounts of literary value that appeal to unconscious or subterranean social forces as determinative of meanings of works. The problem with (A) is that systematicity, she claims, tends toward exclusion and reduction, destroying the particularity of individual works.These two contentions comprise the diagnostic and negative side of Sontag's programmatic work in literary theory, i.e., what is to be avoided in one's experience and judgment of art. What is to be avoided is "interpretation," but what is interpretation exactly? What is the scope of Sontag's claim against it? Do her early essays provide a stable, convincing account of the relation between theory, on the one hand, and experience and criticism, on the other? Is she caught between formalism and a more politically engaged kind of criticism? On the positive side, what kind of critical response to literature is appropriate to its aesthetic nature? Is Sontag's replacement for interpretation viable? Sontag presents her answers to the first set of questions in an unstructured... (shrink)

Academic freedom is an important good, but it comes with several responsibilities. In this commentary we seek to do two things. First, we argue against Francesca Minerva's view of academic freedom as presented in her article ‘New threats to academic freedom’ on a number of grounds. We reject the nature of the absolutist moral claim to free speech for academics implicit in the article; we reject the elitist role for academics as truth-seekers explicit in her view; and (...) we reject a possible more moderate re-construction of her view based on the harm/offence distinction. Second, we identify some of the responsibilities of applied ethicists, and illustrate how they recommend against allowing for anonymous publication of research. Such a proposal points to the wider perils of a public discourse which eschews the calm and careful discussion of ideas. (shrink)

This study examines how the self-reported cheating behaviors of students from a single large institution serving primarily adult students in online courses differ from those previously reported in large-scale studies of academic integrity among traditional-age college students. Specifically, the research presented here demonstrates that students at a large online university are no more likely to engage in most forms of cheating than the traditional-age students in residential institutions studied by Donald McCabe in his seminal research on academic integrity. (...) Relatedly, our study finds that students’ age decreases the likelihood of engaging in cheating behaviors. Moreover, traditional-age undergraduates in our study were no more likely to engage in cheating behaviors than the undergraduate students McCabe surveyed. Our study offers a unique contribution to the extant literature on academic integrity, as we believe this is the largest survey of student attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors from a single institution. The research presented here confounds the common perception that cheating is more prevalent and easier to accomplish in online learning and assessment. (shrink)

The essay examines precolonial, colonial, academic, and post-independence African voices that describe and promote special versions of the past in one part of eastern Africa. By studying the connections among African intellectuals, local discursive and political constraints, and overseas discursive and political constraints which emerged between 1890 and the present, the article outlines many of the themes that constitute academic African history.With this critical historiography at hand, we may see how struggles for control of discourse on the African (...) past are breaking free of an essentially European-derived conceptual framework by attending to local and regional forms of historical action. Both male and female competent speakers participate, often in radically different ways. Studying them, and those who listen to them and support them, will historians of Africa a sense of African actors' historical creativity as well as their arts of resistance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Solarpunk Conference by From Imagination to ActionAriel Kroon and Kees SchullerFrom Imagination to Action, The Solarpunk Conference, June 24, 2023, VirtualThe Solarpunk Conference was born out of the desire to see an accessible space dedicated to discussions of solarpunk. With solarpunk growing in popularity in both popular and academic circles, the need for such a space seemed obvious to the organizers. The organizers also felt the (...) need to bridge academic and popular conversations in a way that was productive and opened further discussion, as the disconnect between the academic and popular spheres is often damaging to social movements. [End Page 634]This was especially important for solarpunk because of its nature as being built from below. Solarpunk is crowdsourced, having evolved over the years from social media aesthetic to literature to social movement, with few canonical critical texts. Taking into consideration the distributed democratic nature at the heart of solarpunk, the conference aimed to be accessible to the widest array of people possible: in this regard, the conference was incredibly successful. As a remote conference, the event was already more financially and practically accessible than an in-person event. Tickets were available to those across the financial spectrum, with a large percentage of our tickets being pay-what-you-can, or free to those in need; live captioning was provided on the day of, volunteers were available throughout the day to address accessibility concerns, and the ability for attendees to request live translations or other accessibility options was also provided. Further, while still retaining academic integrity and value, the majority of the presentations were legible to the largely non-expert, non-academic audience.The other key goal for the conference was to create a space for conversation and networking between otherwise disconnected members of the solarpunk community. To this end, alongside the Zoom webinars used for presentations, a Discord server was created for attendees that saw consistent engagement, networking, and project sharing, further allowing presenters to engage with attendees after their talks, enabling extended Q+A sessions that otherwise would have not been possible within schedule constraints. This hybrid model between Zoom and Discord proved incredibly effective, allowing for a wide range of interactions, and encouraging the community building and idea sharing that were key to this conference.Throughout the conference, themes of climate grief and the disaffection and despair of late-stage neoliberal capitalism returned to the fore, with speakers positioning solarpunk as a way to combat these negative affects. Mirroring these themes, most speakers emphasized the necessity of direct (solarpunk) action to escape the dystopian long-present of contemporary corpo-capitalism. Perhaps because of these same themes appearing in the movement as a whole, solarpunk is often reduced to an aesthetic of green utopia, which is an unfair stereotype given that many strands of solarpunk thought could be labeled as anti-utopian or in the vein of critical utopian theory. Solarpunk’s explicit aim to imagine sociopolitical and economic realities beyond late-stage capitalist neoliberalism requires it to divest from what Lauren Berlant calls “stupid optimism”—“the faith that adjustment to certain forms or practices [End Page 635] of living and thinking... will secure one’s happiness” (2011, 126). Solarpunk rejects classical utopian picturing of a future world that operates according to the logics of the present, which in turn have been shaped by the (often racist, sexist, and classist) logics of the past (cf. Williams 2018; Kroon 2021). It is also important to note that solarpunk does not adhere to a singular vision of the future but instead acknowledges the biodiversity of nonhuman nature and the diversity of the human experience, and so encourages multiple futures that serve the peoples and lands on which they rest.The conference began with opening remarks by one of the organizers, Lindsay Jane, followed by a land acknowledgment by Cheryle Chagnon-Greyeyes, traditional knowledge-keeper and Indigenous activist from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Treaty Six. Chagnon-Greyeyes welcomed participants in nehiyaw (Cree), acknowledging her location in Mohkinstsis (Calgary, Alberta) and the Indigenous nations there, and reminding attendees to think about their connection to the land that they were on. She shared a teaching... (shrink)

The famous Allen's interval relations constraint propagation algorithm was intended for linear time. Its 13 primitive relations define all the possible mutual locations of two intervals on the time-axis. In this paper an application of the algorithm for non-linear time is suggested. First, a new primitive relation is added. It is called excludes since an occurrence of one event in a certain course of events excludes an occurrence of the other event in this course. Next, new composition rules for (...) relations between intervals are presented: some of the old rules are extended by the relation excludes, and entirely new ones are formulated for composing the relation excludes with the other relations. Four different composition tables are considered. The choice of a composition table depends on whether time is branching or not, and whether intervals can contain non-collinear subintervals or not. (shrink)

In modern academic career systems there are a large number of entry positions, much smaller numbers of intermediate positions, and still fewer full professorships. We examine how this system has developed in Germany, the country where the modern academic system was introduced, tracing the historical development of academic positions since the early 19th century. We show both a differentiation and professionalization. At first, professorships and private lecturer positions were the only formal positions, but later, lower formal (...) class='Hi'>academic positions emerged. Over the whole period, the share of higher academic positions steadily decreased. This differentiation process was closely connected to professionalization: remuneration through salaries was extended from professors to almost everyone working in the German academic system. We propose that the process of differentiation and professionalization was induced by the expansion and democratization of higher education. Finally, our study shows that the opportunities for PhDs to obtain salaried doctoral positions have increased since the 1950s. On the other hand, opportunities for PhDs to become a professor or obtain another tenured job have decreased since the 1980s due to a slowdown of higher education expansion. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky is responsible for creating the field of research on grammatical theory in its present form, and he has also been material in providing frameworks for syntactic analysis, from early transformational grammar to current implementations of the minimalist program. Against the background of these syntactic frameworks, a huge number of constraints on grammatical dependencies have been proposed over the years. Constraints initially suggested by Chomsky have a more troubled history, in the sense that they have variously been claimed to (...) be empirically falsified, considered conceptually flawed, or simply consigned to oblivion. This chapter aims to argue that some of the constraints arguably belonging to this latter group can, upon closer scrutiny, in fact be shown to be at the heart of current syntactic theory, and qualify as “good”, whereas this does not necessarily hold for constraints in the former group. (shrink)

As the title suggests, the article focuses on the development of Plato and his philosophy, which is better known as Platonism. The advent of the Hellenestic schools advocated a more empirical approach to the study of philosophy as well as Platonism. And it was probably not until toward the beginning of the second century ad that a disparate set of philosophers who identified themselves as “Platonists” conceived the project of advocating and defending a specifically Platonic philosophy of interpreting Plato's works (...) and ideas. The problem of the delayed development of Platonism is an interesting one because the general conditions for its emergence seem to have been in place from at least 50 bc. Notable among these conditions were three significant changes in late Hellenistic philosophy. The first was the demise of the skeptical academy by the middle of the first century bc, which released the interpretation of the Platonic corpus from institutional constraints, and in particular from the skeptical interpretations of Plato the academics had advocated since the third century bc. How much may the debate continue; Platonism still continues to be an integral part of present day philosophical interpretations. (shrink)

Technology is pervasive in current police practices, and has been for a long time. From CCTV to crime mapping, databases, biometrics, predictive analytics, open source intelligence, applications and a myriad of other technological solutions take centre stage in urban safety management. But before efficient use of these applications can be made, it is necessary to confront a series of challenges relating to the organizational structures that will be used to manage them, to their technical capacities and expectations, and to weigh (...) up the positive and negative external factors at play at the intersection between technology, society and urban management. The paper contributes to this discussion by looking into the dynamics that drive technological uptake in the field of urban safety, the different theories underpinning the relationship between crime and space, and the history and technological characteristics of Geographic Information Systems to later present specific case studies and practical examples of crime mapping systems. Finally, addressing matters related to organisational constraints, technological possibilities and societal impact from a critical point of view, the paper lays out guidelines to ensure that using technology to manage urban safety does not result in increased victimisation, inequalities or inefficiency. Taking one of the longest established technology used in police practice, crime mapping, and using a multidisciplinary, critical approach to escape technological solutionism and bridge the gap between the academic literature and policy needs and recommendations, this paper sends a cautionary tale to those hoping that technology alone can solve complex urban and social problems. (shrink)

Context: A tension exists between the needs and desires of the institutions providing the funding for academics to attend conferences and the potential for transforming the knowledge and understanding of conference participants - than in advancing their own careers and celebrity. Approaches to the problem can recognize the importance of funding and career-building in the current society, while still experimenting in ways that could generate new ideas. Method: Ideas from second-order cybernetics are used to derive design principles that might alleviate (...) the tension and encourage deep conversations, idea generation and experimentation. The author draws on experiences with designing, organizing and participating in cybernetics conferences over a period of 34 years. Results: An academic conference designed to a set of broad, second-order cybernetic principles, where participants are informed of the design intent before they decide to attend, can open an opportunity for learning, understanding and the creation of new ideas in ways that would not otherwise be available. Although there are no guarantees, such designs can attenuate the tension, often experienced at traditionally designed conferences, between advancing individual careers/celebrity and building new knowledge together. Implications: The design principles derived, already exhibited in some conferences, could be useful to organizers wishing to foster incompatible and opposing ideas and facilitate dialogue among conference participants. These same principles have implications for the design of other social systems and point to the possibility of a new and more humane society. Constructivist content: A feature of second-order cybernetics is that knowledge is continually changing as our desires change, and we must take responsibility for the consequences of the ideas we construct and use to satisfy our desires. Key Words: Design by constraint, dynamics of interaction, asynchronicity, tyranny of the clock, times of truth, moments of art. (shrink)