Evolution of Computer Networks: Theory and Experience. Proceedings of the Meeting, December 10-12, 1979

The properties of a computer system's architecture can be examined from the point of view of data processing organization, i.e. centralized and distributed organization; utilization mode, i.e. batch and interactive; and communication function, i.e. number and types of protocols, etc. This paper presents a method of system architecture analysis characterized by a model of the user Job Handling Process (JHP). In order to compare the properties of data processing functions and mechanisms in systems with centralized and distributed architectures, JHP and Open Systems Architecture (OSA) models have been used. The typically applicational approach of the JHP model and the layer approach of the OSA model to the analysis of the system architecture permitted the author to propose an additional layer in the OSA mode. This layer defines the interfaces of "job preparation" mechanisms initiated by the open system user

On the Determinants of Social Capital in Greece Compared to Countries of the European Union

Social capital refers to the stock of social relations, based on norms and networks of cooperation and trust that spill over to the market and state to enhance collective action between actors and achieve improved social efficiency and economic growth. The aim of the present paper is to discuss the implications of contemporary literature and empirical findings on social capital for the growth prospects of Greece, compared to the member-states of the European Union. In order to examine the potential of social capital to enhance growth, we must look into the factors that determine the nature and context of trust, norms and networks that have emerged in our multinational, multiethnic and multicultural Europe.The contribution of this paper is to offer insight on the determinants of social capital in Greece, compared to the European Union (EU - former 15 member-states). For this purpose, we regress an index of individual group membership, derived from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), on a set of individual as well as aggregate factors of social capital. Regression results provide evidence of the impact of both individual and institutional characteristics on group membership. Differences on the extent of group membership between countries might be indicative of the historical and cultural differences that have affected the evolution of social capital across Europe. Particularly in Greece, the relatively low level of group membership compared to the other EU countries might provide further evidence of its low levels of civicness. Historically, its weak civil society has been a result of a prior civic tradition of clientelism under arbitrary rule, the interference of special-interest groups and the lack of credibility and impartiality from the part of the state. And these factors might be responsible for the slow pace in reform and growth observed compared to the rest of the EU. Nevertheless, the findings on the determinants of social capital may direct us to possible means of rebuilding patterns of participatory and cooperative behavior, especially in countries with low levels of trust and civicness, such as Greece.Determinants, Social capital in Greece, European union, Diversity

Greek landscapes through the spectrum of crisis. An ethnographic approach to perceptions and meanings of insular landscape in times of recession

The Greek crisis in 2010 was a rupture spread across all aspects of the country’s social milieu causing a discontinuity in its evolutionary course. This abrupt shift of society was transmitted to its produced space, namely landscape, through the changes in institutional structures, livelihood and both individual and collective cognition. My thesis’ aim is to examine the interplay between landscape perception and spatial practice within the emerged reality of crisis. I focused on the crisis impact upon two interconverted phenomena, the way people perceive and experience their landscapes and the way they act upon them. The main interest was the process they (perception and practice) inform each other by reciprocal reactions, producing and reproducing the landscape. The spotlight was on landscapes that are both rural and tourist, on the premise that Greece, without an industrial economy, has been promoting agriculture and tourism as the crisis exodus plan, —both significant factors of landscape change. My research centred on the island of Naxos, where agriculture and tourism have an equal share in local life and economy, defining the island’s landscape; also, tourism is not overdeveloped like in adjacent islands. In my thesis, landscape is construed as Lefebvre’s spatial triad (1991) of perceived, conceived and lived: (society’s) spatial practice, (experts’) representations of space and (users’) representational spaces. On this basis, I aimed to explore the Naxiótes’ perceptions of their landscapes, their assigned meanings and their translation into landscape practice and impact, within the social context of crisis. My theoretical apparatus was Moscovici’s theory of social representations (1963) assisted by Vaisey’s dual process model of culture in action (2009). I employed ethnographic methods: a six-month stay on site as a marginal native in 2013, gathering data via participation, observation, in-depth interviews (unstructured, go-along, casual individual and group conversations) and local media. In addition, I spent two weeks on the island in 2017, for a follow-up, to add a temporal aspect to my research. My field experiences were also a vital part of my research, hence I incorporated them in my thesis. Data analysis unveiled three groups of social representations that feed into landscape perceptions and meanings: attachment, production and relations. Attachment included topophília, connection to the land and local identity; production consisted of self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship and short-termism; kinship, collectivity and conflict were under relations. Common among all groups was the crisis representation in 2013: the island’s immunity to it as no effect had endured. This narrative was reversed in 2017 among the farming and tourism stakeholders, but not the administrative ones. The umbilical cord to their tópos, as home, roots and identity, was broken by escapism. Self-sufficiency as a recipe for entrepreneurship and success was mutated into a survival path. So did short-termism, by converting from a representation of otherness to an open life strategy. Relation dynamics exhibited tension too, predominantly the representation of conflict. In contrast, kinship and collectivity remained as significant as in 2013. A distinct outcome that emerged from my analysis above was the discrepancies between people’s verbal accounts and habitual practices, which I discussed through Vaisey’s heuristic. The social representations that I identified as informative to the meaning the Naxiótes assign to their landscape, were forced into a transformative process by the crisis. People’s discursive consciousness (justification) had adapted to the new reality, however, their practical consciousness (motivation) was yet to attune. Their landscape perception has been changing, but not their landscape practice; yet

The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices

Writing is not just a set of systems for transcribing language and communicating meaning, but an important element of human practice, deeply embedded in the cultures where it is present and fundamentally interconnected with all other aspects of human life. The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices explores these relationships in a number of different cultural contexts and from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including archaeological, anthropological and linguistic. It offers new ways of approaching the study of writing and integrating it into wider debates and discussions about culture, history and archaeology

The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices

Writing is not just a set of systems for transcribing language and communicating meaning, but an important element of human practice, deeply embedded in the cultures where it is present and fundamentally interconnected with all other aspects of human life. The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices explores these relationships in a number of different cultural contexts and from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including archaeological, anthropological and linguistic. It offers new ways of approaching the study of writing and integrating it into wider debates and discussions about culture, history and archaeology

Interstate Alliances of the Fourth-Century BCE Greek World: A Socio-Cultural Perspective

This dissertation offers a reassessment of interstate alliances (συμμαχία) in the fourth-century BCE Greek world from a socio-cultural perspective. Although there are a number of studies of ancient and modern alliances that approach the topic from a politico-military perspective, this is the first to apply a socio-cultural perspective to classical Greek alliances. By considering the subject in its own context, from the primary literary and epigraphic sources rather than modern theoretical models, this study aims to identify how contemporaries understood and represented their collaborative activities with other poleis. This approach leads to insights that challenge the widespread notion that classical Greek alliances were temporary affiliations designed for nothing more than political and military objectives. On the contrary, even though alliances materialized within the context of warfare, they were reifications of the ideational, cultural, religious, and economic interactions between individuals in each polis. The overall endeavor, therefore, can be considered a socio-cultural history of Greek alliances in the fourth century BCE. Part I shows how the practice of constructing an interstate alliance was a social activity that grew out of historical interactions on the interpersonal level. It also examines the constitutive element behind the legislative and religious activities in alliance negotiations, which strengthened old ties and developed new ones in a common cause and towards a common identity. Part II reviews the principal Athenian, Spartan, and Theban bilateral alliances of the fourth century BCE. It emphasizes their distinct alliance experiences and practices, while also noting the prevalent importance of socio-cultural factors for their success or failure. Part III reexamines the end of alliances and offers an alternative interpretation of that phase based upon contemporary perceptions. It also highlights the innovative and important contributions which this project offers to the wider academic community. Although this study seeks out contemporary perceptions, its conclusions engage with the current debates in history, classics, and international relations studies

Greece between East and West: a survey and an historical interpretation

Thesis (Ph.D.)—-Boston University.Greece's difficulties are not new nor entirely Greek and they became acute, from time to time, as a result of unusual circumstances. Deep problems underlie the fluctuating currents of Greek history, and the Great Powers have been party to many of Greece's difficulties, while Greece's neighbors have been instruments of Great Power machtpolitik in the Balkans. Greece's tragedy has been fourfold: first, its territory occupies the peninsula which commands an arena of intensepolitical rivalry. Second, since its creation it has been a small and poor nation occupying a strategic geographic position. Third, Greek liberation was made possible by the aid of many Powers that continued to retain their "interest" in Greece. Lastly, Greek nationalism which found fertile soil in the "Great Idea" with the belief that for survival the little kingdom had to strengthen itself economically and politically by absorbing adjacent lands. These lands, however, more often than not, were inhabited predominantly by Greeks who were faced with absorption or annihilation by a reawakening of Slavic Balkan peoples or renascent Ottoman nationalism. This situation led to a fervent and natural desire for enosis by exohellenes and the historical anagke and almost religious passion felt by the Greek Government to effect a union so long sought after and for so long desired. From the outset the Greeks were caught between East and West, for Greece's independence and later the extension of its boundaries could be realized only at the expense of Turkey and the policies of Austro-Hungary and England. For Austria, a continental Power, this meant maintenance of Metternich's "consecrated structure"; for England, an insular Power, it meant maintenance of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire since its dissolution would not only disrupt the equilibrium of Europe but its dismemberment would remove the last substantial political bulwark to Russian expansion. It is not surprising that Castlereagh could set aside his doctrine of noninterference in the Greek issue since, as in the Lowlands, its application would have threatened British interests. At the same time, Greece could expect little from Russia, for concessions from that quarter, notwithstanding the Tsarist ruse of protecting co-religionists would be at the expense of PanSlavism and Tsarist expansion. Furthermore, being non "Catholic," Greece could expect no sympathy from Catholic powers. Finally, her early boundaries, like most boundaries in the Near East, reflected neither a political nor an economic necessity but were drawn to guarantee weakness and rivalry and became an object of power politics. This inherent situation has brought Greece periodic chastisements and unsolicited transgressions by the Great Powers with serious effects on her domestic life as well as her inter-national position. Historically, Austria-Hungary, England, France, and Germany, individually or in collusion, had prevented Russian domination of the Balkans and the Near East; but recent history proved more favorable to the Soviet Union until Soviet designs against Greece and Turkey after World War II forced the United States to take a series of decisive actions best described as the "Truman Doctrine" which caused international Communism to suffer in Greece its first and only major defeat in the post-war period. As a result, Greece found a new protector in the United States, but at the same time fell more securely into the Western orbit. In 1841, Sir Edmund Lyons, the British Minister to Athens, made the prophetic statement, "A Greece truly independent is an absurdity. Greece is Russian or she is English; and since she must not be Russian, it is necessary that she be English." In 1947, the Truman Doctrine reaffirmed this dictum with the modification that since Greece cannot be English, it is necessary that she be "American.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Europe Chapter 2014 Annual Conference:Human Factors in high reliability industries

On the occasion of the 2014 Meeting in Lisbon, Portuga

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Europe Chapter 2014 Annual Conference:Human Factors in high reliability industries

On the occasion of the 2014 Meeting in Lisbon, Portuga