2,148 research outputs found
The socratic dialogue as a ritual of emotional purification
Abstract In the present paper, the role that emotions play in Socratic self-care, as it can be reconstructed from Plato's dialogues, is investigated and explored. In highlighting the fundamental role that emotions play in such a care, which is not mere repair of a fault (reparative care), but an active and constant attending to self- and others' improvement, it is emphasized how the Socratic care that is enacted in the Selected Dialogues exhibits marked religious qualities, which make Socrates a kind of priestly and demonic figure, as the reader can infer in particular from the two chapters devoted to the Critique and the Apology, respectively. The intent underlying this focus on the religious and especially initiatory aspects of Socratic care in the Platonic dialogues is, as explained at the beginning of the introduction to this work, to deepen the link between the emotional aspect of self-care, explored in depth by Professor L. Napolitano, and my personal interest in the relationship between philosophy and religion. In the present work this link has been found in the theme of 'aporia; this is interpreted in the introduction and in the following chapters as ritual death, that is, as an 'experience in which the initiate (in this case Socrates' interlocutor) witnesses his own death, that is, the disappearance of the firm attachment to his unreflective opinions. It follows that 'aporia is a positive element of self-care, since this ritual death makes it possible, if it is accepted and not rejected, to get rid of those obstacles from within that prevent one from looking forward to one's own improvement and the pursuit of happiness. Aporia is not only a logical impasse, but also an emotionally very dense moment; it therefore holds together the two fundamental components of this work, the focus on emotions in the Socratic dialogue and the focus on the initiatory aspects with which Plato cloaks this dialogue. Plato alludes to these initiatory aspects from time to time in the selected dialogues by appropriating now from Coribantism (Euthydemus), now from Orphism (Phaedo), now even from the rituals of transition from one age to another (the ephebia, as in the case of the Alcibiades); all these disparate experiences have in common the idea of a ritual death, a liminal phase between one life (the one about to leave) and the new one (about to embark on). In the Socratic dialogue enacted in Plato's works, precisely this initiatory death (the aporia) is II achieved; if the interlocutor accepts it, he or she will progress on the path of self care; if he or she is afraid or annoyed by it, he or she will derive no benefit. The introduction outlines the assumptions on which the following analysis are based: the first is the ritual and initiatory nature of refutation and the characterization of aporia as an emotionally connoted moment; the second, based on the analysis of the first book of the Republic, is the relational nature of caring and thus of the good that caring/caretaking pursues; therefore, one who cares for others necessarily also cares for himself. The intertwining of the ritual and emotional aspects, as well as the communal and relational nature of the good pursued by Socratic caring, is explored throughout the introduction and, more importantly, eight chapters, devoted to Euthydemus, Charmides, Alcibiades I, Lysis, Euthyphro, Apology, Critique, and Phaedo, respectively. In the introduction to the thesis, the reason for the choice of these dialogues is explained and what are the relationships between them in this work. In the conclusion, the scientific and especially moral reasons for the importance of emphasizing the role of emotions in Plato's Socrates and the ritual aspects of it are made clea
An examination of the verbal behaviour of intergroup discrimination
This thesis examined relationships between psychological flexibility, psychological inflexibility, prejudicial attitudes, and dehumanization across three cross-sectional studies with an additional proposed experimental study. Psychological flexibility refers to mindful attention to the present moment, willing acceptance of private experiences, and engaging in behaviours congruent with oneâs freely chosen values. Inflexibility, on the other hand, indicates a tendency to suppress unwanted thoughts and emotions, entanglement with oneâs thoughts, and rigid behavioural patterns. Study 1 found limited correlations between inflexibility and sexism, racism, homonegativity, and dehumanization. Study 2 demonstrated more consistent positive associations between inflexibility and prejudice. And Study 3 controlled for right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, finding inflexibility predicted hostile sexism and racism beyond these factors. While showing some relationships, particularly with sexism and racism, psychological inflexibility did not consistently correlate with varied prejudices across studies.
The proposed randomized controlled trial aims to evaluate an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy intervention to reduce sexism through enhanced psychological flexibility. Overall, findings provide mixed support for the utility of flexibility-based skills in addressing complex societal prejudices. Research should continue examining flexibility integrated with socio-cultural approaches to promote equity
Digital Innovations for a Circular Plastic Economy in Africa
Plastic pollution is one of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century that requires innovative and varied solutions. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, this book brings together interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder perspectives exploring challenges and opportunities for utilising digital innovations to manage and accelerate the transition to a circular plastic economy (CPE).
This book is organised into three sections bringing together discussion of environmental conditions, operational dimensions and country case studies of digital transformation towards the circular plastic economy. It explores the environment for digitisation in the circular economy, bringing together perspectives from practitioners in academia, innovation, policy, civil society and government agencies. The book also highlights specific country case studies in relation to the development and implementation of different innovative ideas to drive the circular plastic economy across the three sub-Saharan African regions. Finally, the book interrogates the policy dimensions and practitioner perspectives towards a digitally enabled circular plastic economy.
Written for a wide range of readers across academia, policy and practice, including researchers, students, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), digital entrepreneurs, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and multilateral agencies, policymakers and public officials, this book offers unique insights into complex, multilayered issues relating to the production and management of plastic waste and highlights how digital innovations can drive the transition to the circular plastic economy in Africa.
The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license
Fictocritical Cyberfeminism: A Paralogical Model for Post-Internet Communication
This dissertation positions the understudied and experimental writing practice of fictocriticism as an analog for the convergent and indeterminate nature of âpost-Internetâ communication as well a cyberfeminist technology for interfering and in-tervening in metanarratives of technoscience and technocapitalism that structure contemporary media. Significant theoretical valences are established between twen-tieth century literary works of fictocriticism and the hybrid and ephemeral modes of writing endemic to emergent, twenty-first century forms of networked communica-tion such as social media. Through a critical theoretical understanding of paralogy, or that countercultural logic of deploying language outside legitimate discourses, in-volving various tactics of multivocity, mimesis and metagraphy, fictocriticism is ex-plored as a self-referencing linguistic machine which exists intentionally to occupy those liminal territories âsomewhere in among/between criticism, autobiography and fictionâ (Hunter qtd. in Kerr 1996). Additionally, as a writing practice that orig-inated in Canada and yet remains marginal to national and international literary scholarship, this dissertation elevates the origins and ongoing relevance of fictocriti-cism by mapping its shared aims and concerns onto proximal discourses of post-structuralism, cyberfeminism, network ecology, media art, the avant-garde, glitch feminism, and radical self-authorship in online environments. Theorized in such a matrix, I argue that fictocriticism represents a capacious framework for writing and reading media that embodies the self-reflexive politics of second-order cybernetic theory while disrupting the rhetoric of technoscientific and neoliberal economic forc-es with speech acts of calculated incoherence. Additionally, through the inclusion of my own fictocritical writing as works of research-creation that interpolate the more traditional chapters and subchapters, I theorize and demonstrate praxis of this dis-tinctively indeterminate form of criticism to empirically and meaningfully juxtapose different modes of knowing and speaking about entangled matters of language, bod-ies, and technologies. In its conclusion, this dissertation contends that the âcreative paranoiaâ engendered by fictocritical cyberfeminism in both print and digital media environments offers a pathway towards a more paralogical media literacy that can transform the terms and expectations of our future media ecology
NEMISA Digital Skills Conference (Colloquium) 2023
The purpose of the colloquium and events centred around the central role that data plays
today as a desirable commodity that must become an important part of massifying digital
skilling efforts. Governments amass even more critical data that, if leveraged, could
change the way public services are delivered, and even change the social and economic
fortunes of any country. Therefore, smart governments and organisations increasingly
require data skills to gain insights and foresight, to secure themselves, and for improved
decision making and efficiency. However, data skills are scarce, and even more
challenging is the inconsistency of the associated training programs with most curated for
the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
Nonetheless, the interdisciplinary yet agnostic nature of data means that there is
opportunity to expand data skills into the non-STEM disciplines as well.College of Engineering, Science and Technolog
Subgroup discovery for structured target concepts
The main object of study in this thesis is subgroup discovery, a theoretical framework for finding subgroups in dataâi.e., named sub-populationsâ whose behaviour with respect to a specified target concept is exceptional when compared to the rest of the dataset. This is a powerful tool that conveys crucial information to a human audience, but despite past advances has been limited to simple target concepts. In this work we propose algorithms that bring this framework to novel application domains. We introduce the concept of representative subgroups, which we use not only to ensure the fairness of a sub-population with regard to a sensitive trait, such as race or gender, but also to go beyond known trends in the data. For entities with additional relational information that can be encoded as a graph, we introduce a novel measure of robust connectedness which improves on established alternative measures of density; we then provide a method that uses this measure to discover which named sub-populations are more well-connected. Our contributions within subgroup discovery crescent with the introduction of kernelised subgroup discovery: a novel framework that enables the discovery of subgroups on i.i.d. target concepts with virtually any kind of structure. Importantly, our framework additionally provides a concrete and efficient tool that works out-of-the-box without any modification, apart from specifying the Gramian of a positive definite kernel. To use within kernelised subgroup discovery, but also on any other kind of kernel method, we additionally introduce a novel random walk graph kernel. Our kernel allows the fine tuning of the alignment between the vertices of the two compared graphs, during the count of the random walks, while we also propose meaningful structure-aware vertex labels to utilise this new capability. With these contributions we thoroughly extend the applicability of subgroup discovery and ultimately re-define it as a kernel method.Der Hauptgegenstand dieser Arbeit ist die Subgruppenentdeckung (Subgroup Discovery), ein theoretischer Rahmen fĂŒr das Auffinden von Subgruppen in Datenâd. h. benannte Teilpopulationenâderen Verhalten in Bezug auf ein bestimmtes Targetkonzept im Vergleich zum Rest des Datensatzes auĂergewöhnlich ist. Es handelt sich hierbei um ein leistungsfĂ€higes Instrument, das einem menschlichen Publikum wichtige Informationen vermittelt. Allerdings ist es trotz bisherigen Fortschritte auf einfache Targetkonzepte beschrĂ€nkt. In dieser Arbeit schlagen wir Algorithmen vor, die diesen Rahmen auf neuartige Anwendungsbereiche ĂŒbertragen. Wir fĂŒhren das Konzept der reprĂ€sentativen Untergruppen ein, mit dem wir nicht nur die Fairness einer Teilpopulation in Bezug auf ein sensibles Merkmal wie Rasse oder Geschlecht sicherstellen, sondern auch ĂŒber bekannte Trends in den Daten hinausgehen können. FĂŒr EntitĂ€ten mit zusĂ€tzlicher relationalen Information, die als Graph kodiert werden kann, fĂŒhren wir ein neuartiges MaĂ fĂŒr robuste Verbundenheit ein, das die etablierten alternativen DichtemaĂe verbessert; anschlieĂend stellen wir eine Methode bereit, die dieses MaĂ verwendet, um herauszufinden, welche benannte Teilpopulationen besser verbunden sind. Unsere BeitrĂ€ge in diesem Rahmen gipfeln in der EinfĂŒhrung der kernelisierten Subgruppenentdeckung: ein neuartiger Rahmen, der die Entdeckung von Subgruppen fĂŒr u.i.v. Targetkonzepten mit praktisch jeder Art von Struktur ermöglicht. Wichtigerweise, unser Rahmen bereitstellt zusĂ€tzlich ein konkretes und effizientes Werkzeug, das ohne jegliche Modifikation funktioniert, abgesehen von der Angabe des Gramian eines positiv definitiven Kernels. FĂŒr den Einsatz innerhalb der kernelisierten Subgruppentdeckung, aber auch fĂŒr jede andere Art von Kernel-Methode, fĂŒhren wir zusĂ€tzlich einen neuartigen Random-Walk-Graph-Kernel ein. Unser Kernel ermöglicht die Feinabstimmung der Ausrichtung zwischen den Eckpunkten der beiden unter-Vergleich-gestelltenen Graphen wĂ€hrend der ZĂ€hlung der Random Walks, wĂ€hrend wir auch sinnvolle strukturbewusste Vertex-Labels vorschlagen, um diese neue FĂ€higkeit zu nutzen. Mit diesen BeitrĂ€gen erweitern wir die Anwendbarkeit der Subgruppentdeckung grĂŒndlich und definieren wir sie im Endeffekt als Kernel-Methode neu
Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management
This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings
Honors Colleges in the 21st Century
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction | Richard Badenhausen
Part I: Honors College Contexts: Past and Present
CHAPTER ONE Oxbridge and Core Curricula: Continuing Conversations with the Past in Honors Colleges | Christopher A. Snyder
CHAPTER TWO Characteristics of the 21st-Century Honors College | Andrew J. Cognard-Black and Patricia J. Smith
Part II: Transitioning to an Honors College
CHAPTER THREE Should We Start an Honors College? An Administrative Playbook for Working Through the Decision | Richard Badenhausen
CHAPTER FOUR Beyond the Letterhead: A Tactical Toolbox for Transitioning from Program to College | Sara Hottinger, Megan McIlreavy, Clay Motley, and Louis Keiner
Part III: Administrative Leadership
CHAPTER FIVE âIt Is What You Make Itââ: Opportunities Arising from the Unique Roles of Honors College Deans | Jeff Chamberlain, Thomas M. Spencer, and Jefford Vahlbusch
CHAPTER SIX The Role of the Honors College Dean in the Future of Honors Education | Peter Parolin, Timothy J. Nichols, Donal C. Skinner, and Rebecca C. Bott-Knutson
CHAPTER SEVEN From the Top Down: Implications of Honors College Deansâ Race and Gender | Malin Pereira, Jacqueline Smith-Mason, Karoline Summerville, and Scott Linneman
Part IV: Honors College Operations
CHAPTER EIGHT Something Borrowed, Something New: Honors College Faculty and the Staffing of Honors Courses | Erin E. Edgington and Linda Frost
CHAPTER NINE Telling Your Story: Stewardship and the Honors College | Andrew Martino
Part V: Honors Colleges as Leaders in the Work of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access
CHAPTER TEN Cultivating Institutional Change: Infusing Principles of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into Everyday Honors College Practices | Tara M. Tuttle, Julie Stewart, and Kayla Powell
CHAPTER ELEVEN Positioning Honors Colleges to Lead Diversity and Inclusion Efforts at Predominantly White Institutions | Susan Dinan, Jason T. Hilton, and Jennifer Willford
CHAPTER TWELVE Honors Colleges as Levers of Educational Equity | Teagan Decker, Joshua Kalin Busman, and Michele Fazio
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Promoting the Inclusion of LGBTQ+ Students: The Role of the Honors College in Faith-Based Colleges and Universities | Paul E. Prill
Part VI: Supporting Students
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Who Belongs in Honors? Culturally Responsive Advising and Transformative Diversity | Elizabeth Raisanen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Fostering Student Leadership in Honors Colleges | Jill Nelson Granger
Part VII: Honors College Curricular Innovation
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Honors Liberal Arts for the 21st Century | John Carrell, Aliza S. Wong, Chad Cain, Carrie J. Preston, and Muhammad H. Zaman
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Honors Colleges, Transdisciplinary Education, and Global Challenges | 423 Paul Knox and Paul Heilker
Part VIII: Community Engagement
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Teaching and Learning in the Fourth Space: Preparing Scholars to Engage in Solving Community Problems | Heidi Appel, Rebecca C. Bott-Knutson, Joy Hart, Paul Knox, Andrea Radasanu, Leigh E. Fine, Timothy J. Nichols, Daniel Roberts, Keith Garbutt, William Ziegler, Jonathan Kotinek, Kathy Cooke, Ralph Keen, Mark Andersen, and Jyotsna Kapur
CHAPTER NINETEEN Serving Our Communities: Leveraging the Honors College Model at Two-Year Institutions | Eric Hoffman, Victoria M. Bryan, and Dan Flores
About the Authors
About the NCHC Monograph Serie
Investigating Digital Corporate Reporting from an Upper Echelons Theory Perspective: Evidence from the Arab Middle East
Utilising the insights of Upper Echelons Theory (UET) and bounded rationality assumption, this original study aimed to investigate the association between corporate leadersâ characteristics and both the extent and readability of Digital Corporate Reporting (DCR). Content analysis of corporate websites of 122 publicly listed Jordananian firms has been carried out. The logistics regression analysis revealed that maintaining a functioning corporate website is inversely associated with CEO age. This indicates that younger CEOs are more likely to retain a web presence for the firm than their older counterparts. The OLS regression analysis revealed that CEOsâ education and tenure were negatively associated with the extent of DCR. Moreover, it was found that Corporate Governance (CG) moderating variables hardly lessen this relationship. The results confirm the current thoughts regarding the rise of CEO effects in corporations with unique evidence from the Arab Middle East (AME). Building on the previous evidence, the study also aimed at uncovering the association between chairman characteristics and the readability of the digital version of the chairmanâs Letter to Shareholders (LTS). A hand-built dataset from a sample of 379 LTS from 101 publicly listed firms in 7 AME countries over five years (2014 â 2018) were employed to achieve this objective. Focusing on the clarity of DCR, the results of this second part of this study emphasizes the potential of UET to provide incremental plausible explanations of the variance in the levels of readability of LTS. The clustered regression results of the panel data demonstrate that older and less educated chairpersons are associated with more readable disclosures. Such findings on disclosure styles demonstrate the power of individuals in positions of authority as a consequence of higher education and tenure. Such findings contribute to the evolving inquiry on the significance of readability for enhancing corporate disclosure transparency and have implications for improving the DCR extent and readability
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