Toward a New Social Contract: A Tripartite Mixed-Methods Analysis of Social Sustainability at Three Land-Grant Universities

Increasingly, colleges and universities in the United States are adapting toward a model of behavior that incorporates issues of sustainability. This adaptation in universities and in society has implications on the organizational and nation-state level, the very core of which may serve to reshape the social contract between the two. In addition to supplying a strong counter-hegemonic argument that alters the competitive economic agenda-setting paradigm, this study serves as a tripartite comparative case study analysis of university adaptation toward social sustainability. By employing a social capital lens to understanding social sustainability in higher education, this study seeks to examine the relationship between higher education, sustainability, and the nation-state.The conceptual framework of this analysis will draw on Putnam\u27s concept of social capital, in the effort to understand the relationship between higher education, sustainability, and social capital as well as what a sustainability paradigm could mean in terms of a new social contract. The methodology of this study is exploratory and aimed at understanding university adaptation in three ways: first, elements of organization and administration aimed at advancing sustainability; second, teaching and research efforts that have been established within a sustainability frame; and third, community and outreach efforts that examines the role of the university in its local environment as well as the work toward public service. The specific methodology employed can be categorized as comparative case study (Yin, 2003). To validate findings, data is triangulated via a between-methods design and collected through: qualitative survey, contextual content analysis, and comparative discourse analysis respectively (Jaeger, 1988). The result is effectively a 3 x 3 mixed methods design so that each individual case study employs each of the three methodologies in order to provide a rich description of the social sustainability phenomena and offer data for comparative discourse analysis. Findings reveal three distinct strands amongst the case studies in the analysis of sustainability discourse. Results show the importance of the role of, organizational context, personal approach of the chief sustainability agent, and organizational saga in contributing to adaptation. In this way, sustainability approaches and the priority and university adaptation differed. These three approaches can be described as: an energy/operations/facilities perspective, a research and academic-focused perspective, and a humanistic-grassroots approach

Automatic software upgrades for distributed systems

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (p. 156-164).Upgrading the software of long-lived, highly-available distributed systems is difficult. It is not possible to upgrade all the nodes in a system at once, since some nodes may be unavailable and halting the system for an upgrade is unacceptable. Instead, upgrades may happen gradually, and there may be long periods of time when different nodes are running different software versions and need to communicate using incompatible protocols. We present a methodology and infrastructure that address these challenges and make it possible to upgrade distributed systems automatically while limiting service disruption. Our methodology defines how to enable nodes to interoperate across versions, how to preserve the state of a system across upgrades, and how to schedule an upgrade so as to limit service disrup- tion. The approach is modular: defining an upgrade requires understanding only the new software and the version it replaces. The upgrade infrastructure is a generic platform for distributing and installing software while enabling nodes to interoperate across versions. The infrastructure requires no access to the system source code and is transparent: node software is unaware that different versions even exist. We have implemented a prototype of the infrastructure called Upstart that intercepts socket communication using a dynamically-linked C++ library. Experiments show that Upstart has low overhead and works well for both local-area-and Internet systems.by Sameer Ajmani.Ph.D

Ensimmäinen ja toinen käsikirjoitusversio väitöskirjaa varten

This publication contains the first and the second manuscript version for LauriLahti’s doctoral dissertation in 2015 "Computer-assisted learning based on cumulative vocabularies, conceptual networks and Wikipedia linkage".Tämä julkaisu sisältää ensimmäisen ja toisen käsikirjoitusversion Lauri Lahden väitöskirjaan vuonna 2015 "Tietokoneavusteinen oppiminen perustuen karttuviin sanastoihin, käsiteverkostoihin ja Wikipedian linkitykseen".Not reviewe

Social work with airports passengers

Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically

Environnement d'assistance au développement de transformations de graphes correctes

Les travaux de cette thèse ont pour cadre la vérification formelle, et plus spécifiquement le projet ANR Blanc CLIMT (Categorical and Logical Methods in Model Transformation) dédié aux grammaires de graphes. Ce projet, qui a démarré en février 2012 pour une durée de 48 mois, a donné lieu à la définition du langage Small-tALC, bâti sur la logique de description ALCQI. Ce langage prend la forme d’un DSL (Domain Specific Language) impératif à base de règles, chacune dérivant structurellement un graphe. Le langage s’accompagne d’un composant de preuve basé sur la logique de Hoare chargé d’automatiser le processus de vérification d’une règle. Cependant, force est de constater que tous les praticiens ne sont pas nécessairement familiers avec les méthodes formelles du génie logiciel et que les transformations sont complexes à écrire. En particulier, ne disposant que du seul prouveur, il s’agit pour le développeur Small-tALC d’écrire un triplet de Hoare {P} S {Q} et d’attendre le verdict de sa correction sous la forme d’un graphe contre-exemple en cas d’échec. Ce contre-exemple est parfois difficile à décrypter, et ne permet pas de localiser aisément l’erreur au sein du triplet. De plus, le prouveur ne valide qu’une seule règle à la fois, sans considérer l’ensemble des règles de transformation et leur ordonnancement d’exécution. Ce constat nous a conduits à proposer un environnement d’assistance au développeur Small-tALC. Cette assistance vise à l’aider à rédiger ses triplets et à prouver ses transformations, en lui offrant plus de rétroaction que le prouveur. Pour ce faire, les instructions du langage ont été revisitées selon l’angle ABox et TBox de la logique ALCQI. Ainsi, conformément aux logiques de description, la mise à jour du graphe par la règle s’assimile à la mise à jour ABox des individus (les nœuds) et de leurs relations (les arcs) d’un domaine terminologique TBox (le type des nœuds et les étiquettes des arcs) susceptible d’évoluer. Les contributions de cette thèse concernent : (1) un extracteur de préconditions ABox à partir d’un code de transformation S et de sa postcondition Q pour l’écriture d’une règle {P} S {Q} correcte par construction, (2) un raisonneur TBox capable d’inférer des propriétés sur des ensembles de nœuds transformés par un enchaînement de règles {Pi} Si {Qi}, et (3) d’autres diagnostics ABox et TBox sous la forme de tests afin d’identifier et de localiser des problèmes dans les programmes. L’analyse statique du code de transformation d’une règle, combinée à un calcul d’alias des variables désignant les nœuds du graphe, permet d’extraire un ensemble de préconditions ABox validant la règle. Les inférences TBox pour un enchaînement de règles résultent d’une analyse statique par interprétation abstraite des règles ABox afin de vérifier formellement des états du graphe avant et après les appels des règles. A ces deux outils formels s’ajoutent des analyseurs dynamiques produisant une batterie de tests pour une règle ABox, ou un diagnostic TBox pour une séquence de règle

The role of school management teams in cultivating moral purpose in Limpopo secondary schools

In the twenty-first century, many educational systems are embracing a new paradigm of educational management that utilises team management in schools. The democratic nature of this notion in South Africa involves the use of School Management Teams (SMTs). Reflecting on this movement, this research explored the capacity of these SMTs to cultivate moral purpose in six purposively sampled schools in Limpopo Province. The data collection methods included a series of semi-structured interviews with SMT members, examination of relevant documents, and scheduled observations. The data from the interviews was transcribed manually and this, together with document analysis and scheduled observations, was analysed in three interrelated stages using the four research questions as guides (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The research highlighted that the moral purpose is a relatively new concept to the majority of SMTs. Only a few school managers presented explicit references to the notion, perceiving it as a “compelling moral imperative” or “moral goal of achievement” or “whole-school vision for academic success” or simply “respect”. Notwithstanding the different perceptions, this moral purpose is directed towards raising the level of learner achievement and it is realised when the SMTs articulate the values of commitment, discipline and responsibility. The SMTs members affirmed their commitment to various aspects of instructional leadership. Furthermore, teamwork exemplified in participative decision-making was highlighted as a notion that enhances learner achievement. The findings also affirmed the opportunities that shared leadership offered schools to share moral purpose. However, the findings also enumerate lack of parent involvement, learners discipline, and teachers’ lack of commitment to moral purpose as crucial factors that inhibit the sharing of moral purpose in schools. The two critical responsibilities accepted by the SMTs to address the constraints of sharing moral purpose are highlighted as consulting with legitimate stakeholders and reinforcing policy in the schools. As a result of this research, a number of recommendations and opportunities for further research are offered to Limpopo schools and their SMTs, the systemic authorities responsible for Limpopo education and for those responsible specifically for policy making and curriculum development in the South African education system.Educational Leadership and ManagementD. Ed. (Educational Leadership and Management

Poetry scrapbook of Stella Weston Tuttle

Scrapbook containing the published poetry of Stella Weston Tuttle, articles on her and her poetry, correspondence, and ephemera. Stella Tuttle was a student at Rollins College (Winter Park, Fla.)

European Language Grid

This open access book provides an in-depth description of the EU project European Language Grid (ELG). Its motivation lies in the fact that Europe is a multilingual society with 24 official European Union Member State languages and dozens of additional languages including regional and minority languages. The only meaningful way to enable multilingualism and to benefit from this rich linguistic heritage is through Language Technologies (LT) including Natural Language Processing (NLP), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), Speech Technologies and language-centric Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. The European Language Grid provides a single umbrella platform for the European LT community, including research and industry, effectively functioning as a virtual home, marketplace, showroom, and deployment centre for all services, tools, resources, products and organisations active in the field. Today the ELG cloud platform already offers access to more than 13,000 language processing tools and language resources. It enables all stakeholders to deposit, upload and deploy their technologies and datasets. The platform also supports the long-term objective of establishing digital language equality in Europe by 2030 – to create a situation in which all European languages enjoy equal technological support. This is the very first book dedicated to Language Technology and NLP platforms. Cloud technology has only recently matured enough to make the development of a platform like ELG feasible on a larger scale. The book comprehensively describes the results of the ELG project. Following an introduction, the content is divided into four main parts: (I) ELG Cloud Platform; (II) ELG Inventory of Technologies and Resources; (III) ELG Community and Initiative; and (IV) ELG Open Calls and Pilot Projects

Comparison of the vocabularies of the Gregg shorthand dictionary and Horn-Peterson's basic vocabulary of business letters

This study is a comparative analysis of the vocabularies of Horn and Peterson's The Basic Vocabulary of Business Letters1 and the Gregg Shorthand Dictionary.2 Both books purport to present a list of words most frequently encountered by stenographers and students of shorthand. The, Basic Vocabulary of Business Letters, published "in answer to repeated requests for data on the words appearing most frequently in business letters,"3 is a frequency list specific to business writing. Although the book carries the copyright date of 1943, the vocabulary was compiled much earlier. The listings constitute a part of the data used in the preparation of the 10,000 words making up the ranked frequency list compiled by Ernest Horn and staff and published in 1926 under the title of A Basic Writing Vocabulary: 10,000 Words Lost Commonly Used in Writing. The introduction to that publication gives credit to Miss Cora Crowder for the contribution of her Master's study at the University of Minnesota concerning words found in business writing. With additional data from supplementary sources, the complete listing represents twenty-six classes of business, as follows 1. Miscellaneous 2. Florists 3. Automobile manufacturers and sales companie