Domain Walls, Triples and Acceleration

We present a construction of domain walls in string theory. The domain walls can bridge both Minkowski and AdS string vacua. A key ingredient in the construction are novel classical Yang-Mills configurations, including instantons, which interpolate between toroidal Yang-Mills vacua. Our construction provides a concrete framework for the study of inflating metrics in string theory. In some cases, the accelerating space-time comes with a holographic description. The general form of the holographic dual is a field theory with parameters that vary over space-time.Comment: 63 pages, 1 figure; LaTe

Everything and nothing: A critical review of the “social” in Innovation and Entrepreneurship studies

Over the past two decades we have witnessed growing academic and policy interest in phenomena such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In these instances, the “social” element has often been described as a new or rediscovered category, indicating a normative predisposition to “elevate” existing or emerging innovation and entrepreneurship processes by identifying and promoting socially-acceptable standards of behavior and goal-setting. While previous reviews on social innovation have focused on the historical development of the concept and its role in academic debate, this article critically reviews the place of the “social” in current mainstream Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) studies. The aim is to understand how this literature has been evolving in relation to this element and to what extent this addition has promoted a radical shift in the research direction. Our review, based on selected articles from 16 I&E mainstream journals, advances a novel classification of the dominant approaches to the social dimension in I&E studies, identifying four main categories: disciplinary, integrationist, separationist, and essentialist. What emerges is that most I&E studies ignore, minimize, or compartmentalize the “social”, using it to extend existing frameworks rather than to evolve them. Indeed, while the “social” has been offering an avenue for critical views to challenge mainstream discourse, at present it does not seem to significantly affect the latter’s evolution

Everything and nothing: A critical review of the “social” in Innovation and Entrepreneurship studies

Over the past two decades we have witnessed growing academic and policy interest in phenomena such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In these instances, the “social” element has often been described as a new or rediscovered category, indicating a normative predisposition to “elevate” existing or emerging innovation and entrepreneurship processes by identifying and promoting socially-acceptable standards of behavior and goal-setting. While previous reviews on social innovation have focused on the historical development of the concept and its role in academic debate, this article critically reviews the place of the “social” in current mainstream Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) studies. The aim is to understand how this literature has been evolving in relation to this element and to what extent this addition has promoted a radical shift in the research direction. Our review, based on selected articles from 16 I&E mainstream journals, advances a novel classification of the dominant approaches to the social dimension in I&E studies, identifying four main categories: disciplinary, integrationist, separationist, and essentialist. What emerges is that most I&E studies ignore, minimize, or compartmentalize the “social”, using it to extend existing frameworks rather than to evolve them. Indeed, while the “social” has been offering an avenue for critical views to challenge mainstream discourse, at present it does not seem to significantly affect the latter’s evolution.Over the past two decades we have witnessed growing academic and policy interest in phenomena such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In these instances, the “social” element has often been described as a new or rediscovered category, indicating a normative predisposition to “elevate” existing or emerging innovation and entrepreneurship processes by identifying and promoting socially-acceptable standards of behavior and goal-setting. While previous reviews on social innovation have focused on the historical development of the concept and its role in academic debate, this article critically reviews the place of the “social” in current mainstream Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) studies. The aim is to understand how this literature has been evolving in relation to this element and to what extent this addition has promoted a radical shift in the research direction. Our review, based on selected articles from 16 I&E mainstream journals, advances a novel classification of the dominant approaches to the social dimension in I&E studies, identifying four main categories: disciplinary, integrationist, separationist, and essentialist. What emerges is that most I&E studies ignore, minimize, or compartmentalize the “social”, using it to extend existing frameworks rather than to evolve them. Indeed, while the “social” has been offering an avenue for critical views to challenge mainstream discourse, at present it does not seem to significantly affect the latter’s evolution

The gauging of two-dimensional bosonic sigma models on world-sheets with defects

We extend our analysis of the gauging of rigid symmetries in bosonic two-dimensional sigma models with Wess-Zumino terms in the action to the case of world-sheets with defects. A structure that permits a non-anomalous coupling of such sigma models to world-sheet gauge fields of arbitrary topology is analysed, together with obstructions to its existence, and the classification of its inequivalent choices.Comment: 94 pages, 1 figur

Revaluing commodity fetishism to facilitate fashion sustainability

Thesis (M. Tech.: Design) -- Central University of Technology, Free State, 2018Despite the environmental and humanitarian costs of the clothing system in this industrial age, sustainability plays a minor role in design education, commercial practice and the industry. This situation has resulted in the fashion industry becoming the least sustainable industry, second only to oil. Part of the problem lies in the contemporary system of advertising and related cultural practices, which promise customer satisfaction by encouraging the consumption of “fast” seemingly disposable fashion. However, the products of the fashion industry are not designed to promote true customer satisfaction, but rather to meet company’s sales goals in the capitalist society, therefore the customer has to procure again and again in an attempt to construct their cultural identities through fashion. The central concern is the loss of positive agency resulting from consumerism and the lack of values in a fashion system. Consequently, profit based fetishes are used as a substitute for the lack of more synergistic need satisfiers, such as belonging, nurturing and connection. How can a model for strategic intervention be conceptualised in order to address the deficit between the production-value and the perceived added-value of commodities in the fashion industry, by using the notion of the fetish to engage with the quintuple helix innovation model and Kaiser’s circuit of style-fashion-dress model? Positive agency is precluded from the conventional model of sustainability, so an alternative ‘agent model’ is presented in which agency is central. This aspect opens up potentialities to insert positive agency agendas within the theoretical argument. Additionally, the generalised universal ethics within the helix innovation model are not in-depth enough to effectively consider aspects oriented to feminist ethics of care. Therefore, ethics of care, Chapman’s concept of ‘emotionally durable design’ as well as Maslow and Max-Neef’s theories on needs, are used as a moral foundation to determine consumption versus ethical approaches. A grounded theory study is undertaken with critical analysis and synthesis of theoretical data as the methods of investigation. By contrasting the processes in Kaiser’s circuit of style-fashion-dress within the concerns of ethics of care, a strategic framework is developed. Sustainable intervention routes towards positive agency are identified by exploiting the gap between wants and needs through the lens of Marxist, Freudian and Baudrillardian notions of the fetish. Conceptualising a strategy to address these dilemmas provides recommendations for more sustainable and ethical practices in the fashion industry, and thereby aims to promote agency towards human flourishing

Classical Partition Identities and Basic Hypergeometric Series

Around 2% of the investigators admit to have falsified or fabricated data at least once. Also, 34% report to have been guilty to one or more questionable research practices, such as doing many statistical analyses and to publish only what fits their theoretical framework. Prevention of questionable research practices is very important. Universities should ensure that the training is in order and the research culture is adequate, and they should critically look at perverse incentives, such as a too high publication pressure, but also by ensuring proper guidelines, and by having a fair and transparent procedure for suspected violations of scientific integrity. This article is based on my inaugural lecture (in Dutch) formally starting my chair on Methodology and Integrity, which was presented at VU University Amsterdam on May 2, 2014. The Dutch version of the lecture was distributed as a booklet among the audience and is submitted for publication to the Dutch and Flemish journal for management in higher education Thema. The original Dutch text and the English translation of the inaugural lecture were made available as PDF in the repository of VU University Amsterdam