Editor's welcome, PORTAL, Vol. 2, No. 2, July 2005

Welcome to the July 2005 issue of Portal, a special issue with the title ‘Strange Localities: Utopias, Intellectuals and Identities in the 21st Century,’ guest edited by Alistair Fox and Hilary Radner (both from the University of Otago, New Zealand), who convened an international colloquium on this theme in January 2004, and Murray Pratt (University of Technology Sydney, Australia). As Alistair Fox says in his introduction to the special issue, the twelve papers gathered under the ‘Strange Localities’ rubric provide rich insights into the ways by which ‘the contemporary utopian impulse is expressing itself, both in the search for utopia, and through the exposure of false utopias.’ With a broad geographical reach, and an equally broad critical gaze, the essays collected here shed new light on the critical, yet often ambivalent, role that identity politics play in myriad utopian projects, and also in such critical enterprises and epoch-defining processes as postcolonialism, postfeminism, postmodernism, transnationalism, multiculturalism, and economic and cultural globalization. In addition to the papers collected in the special issue section, this issue of Portal includes a number of essays that, while not addressing the special issue theme, also have much to say about the nexus between contemporary identity debates, intellectual practice, and utopian imaginaries. We are also pleased to introduce in the Portal Cultural Works' section two short chronicle-like pieces by Moses Iten, a young Australian writer. Paul Allatson, Chair, PORTAL Editorial Committe

Introduction to a Special Issue on the Impact of Immigrant Legalization Initiatives: International Perspectives on Immigration and the World of Work

This article is the third in a series to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ILR Review. The series features articles that analyze the state of research and future directions for important themes the journal has featured over its many years of publication. In this issue, we also feature a special cluster of articles and book reviews on one of the most critical labor market issues across the globe—the legalization and integration of immigrants into national labor markets. Despite the urgent need for immigration reform in the United States, there is a paucity of US research that looks at the impact of a shift from unauthorized to legal immigrant status in the workplace. The US immigration literature has also paid little attention to immigrant legalization policies outside of the United States, despite the fact that other countries have implemented such policies with far more regularity. The articles in this special issue draw on studies of legalization initiatives in major immigrant destinations: Canada, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Together they underscore the importance of cross-national perspectives for understanding the range of legalization programs and their impact on immigrant workers, the workplace, and the labor market. These findings contribute to key questions in migration scholarship and inform the global policy debate surrounding the integration and well-being of immigrant

"Our Own Gayful Rest": A Postcolonial Archive

My subject is an archive of gay and lesbian activism that helps us understand a postcolonial counterpublic. The project I undertake is of historical recovery and theoretical elaboration of the specificities of postcolonial sexuality-based movements as necessary and long overdue supplements to global sexual activism

IEEE Access special section editorial: Artificial intelligence enabled networking

With today’s computer networks becoming increasingly dynamic, heterogeneous, and complex, there is great interest in deploying artificial intelligence (AI) based techniques for optimization and management of computer networks. AI techniques—that subsume multidisciplinary techniques from machine learning, optimization theory, game theory, control theory, and meta-heuristics—have long been applied to optimize computer networks in many diverse settings. Such an approach is gaining increased traction with the emergence of novel networking paradigms that promise to simplify network management (e.g., cloud computing, network functions virtualization, and software-defined networking) and provide intelligent services (e.g., future 5G mobile networks). Looking ahead, greater integration of AI into networking architectures can help develop a future vision of cognitive networks that will show network-wide intelligent behavior to solve problems of network heterogeneity, performance, and quality of service (QoS)

Researching the lives of disabled children and young people

Why a Special Issue of Children & Society dedicated to disabled children and young people? The simple answer to that question is ‘because disabled children are children first and foremost’. The vast majority of disabled children and young people in the western world live at home with their families, most attending mainstream schools, and disabled children and young people worldwide have rights to inclusion and equal treatment enshrined in national legislation and international conventions. Yet they often remain left out – from generic children’s research, from policy-making about children’s services and, in their everyday lives, from inclusion in friendship groups and social and sporting activities

The Feasibility of Alternative Dispute Resolution to Resolve Intellectual Property Disputes in Jordan

The purpose of this article is to examine the feasibility and working of the conciliatory means for settlement of intellectual property disputes in Jordan. Arbitration is the principal mechanism used