A brief report of research activities of Indus Institute of Higher Eduction (IIHE) Karachi, Pakistan 2007-2010 (August)

An attempt has been made to summarize the past performance of “Indus Institute of Higher Education” (IIHE) relating to research work already done or being done in its different faculties. In fact this Institute is actively involved in research activities but never reflected them in any correspondence. This Institute is regularly publishing its academic journal with contribution from within the country and qualified researchers from abroad. Four active researchers, of this Institute, are registered and contributing articles in research journals and MPRA working paper series at national and international level. For the students of Bachelors and Masters Research Projects are mandatory for award of Degrees. The Institute has already started M.Phil and Ph.D programs and from the first batch of M.Phil a few students have already submitted their Thesis. The 2nd batch of M.Phil [16 students) is doing its thesis writing. As per HEC’s requirements every faculty have to contribute at least 2 articles at national and international level. In this respect the IIHE has planned to publish one working paper series and four e-journals in the field of textile, engineering and technology, education and economics. The management has decided to make it mandatory for every faculty to contribute at least two research papers/reports per annum. To achieve this objective Research Office has decided to train all the faculty members of the Institute through workshops etc. in order to creating awareness in Faculty members as well as students of MBA, BBA, M.Ed. and B.S.T. to use research-based structure and methodologies that are requisite for M.Phil. Or Ph.D students.Research Activities; IIHE, Cell; RePEc; Journal

Organisational Abstractions for the Analysis and Design of Multi-Agent Systems

The architecture of a multi-agent system can naturally be viewed as a computational organisation. For this reason, we believe organisational abstractions should play a central role in the analysis and design of such systems. To this end, the concepts of agent roles and role models are increasingly being used to specify and design multi-agent systems. However, this is not the full picture. In this paper we introduce three additional organisational concepts - organisational rules, organisational structures, and organisational patterns - that we believe are necessary for the complete specification of computational organisations. We view the introduction of these concepts as a step towards a comprehensive methodology for agent-oriented systems

Against the Tide. A Critical Review by Scientists of How Physics and Astronomy Get Done

Nobody should have a monopoly of the truth in this universe. The censorship and suppression of challenging ideas against the tide of mainstream research, the blacklisting of scientists, for instance, is neither the best way to do and filter science, nor to promote progress in the human knowledge. The removal of good and novel ideas from the scientific stage is very detrimental to the pursuit of the truth. There are instances in which a mere unqualified belief can occasionally be converted into a generally accepted scientific theory through the screening action of refereed literature and meetings planned by the scientific organizing committees and through the distribution of funds controlled by "club opinions". It leads to unitary paradigms and unitary thinking not necessarily associated to the unique truth. This is the topic of this book: to critically analyze the problems of the official (and sometimes illicit) mechanisms under which current science (physics and astronomy in particular) is being administered and filtered today, along with the onerous consequences these mechanisms have on all of us.\ud \ud The authors, all of them professional researchers, reveal a pessimistic view of the miseries of the actual system, while a glimmer of hope remains in the "leitmotiv" claim towards the freedom in doing research and attaining an acceptable level of ethics in science

Publishing in top journals - a never-ending fad?

Starbuck is critical of faddishness, and with good reason. Fads may come, and fads may go, but go they must-or must they? We took at the relentless pressure to publish in the top journals of Management Studies. There is no sign of decline, and yet such desperation to do something of value not because it is useful but because demand for it is great certainly satisfies the definition of fad. Is a fad that runs and runs still a fad? (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Peer review and citation data in predicting university rankings, a large-scale analysis

Most Performance-based Research Funding Systems (PRFS) draw on peer review and bibliometric indicators, two different method- ologies which are sometimes combined. A common argument against the use of indicators in such research evaluation exercises is their low corre- lation at the article level with peer review judgments. In this study, we analyse 191,000 papers from 154 higher education institutes which were peer reviewed in a national research evaluation exercise. We combine these data with 6.95 million citations to the original papers. We show that when citation-based indicators are applied at the institutional or departmental level, rather than at the level of individual papers, surpris- ingly large correlations with peer review judgments can be observed, up to r <= 0.802, n = 37, p < 0.001 for some disciplines. In our evaluation of ranking prediction performance based on citation data, we show we can reduce the mean rank prediction error by 25% compared to previous work. This suggests that citation-based indicators are sufficiently aligned with peer review results at the institutional level to be used to lessen the overall burden of peer review on national evaluation exercises leading to considerable cost savings

Responsible Conduct: The Ethics of It All in Life and Research

The teaching and learning of ethics as applied generally to the human condition as well as specifically to ethics in research are explored in this discourse. This first section focuses on individual moral dilemmas whereas the second depicts professional ethics in a more complicated tension between the personal moral self and the professional rules, regulations, and ethical expectations of a particular institution

The Political Economy of Textbook Writing: Paul Samuelson and the making of the first ten Editions of Economics (1945-1976)

Over the past two decades, numerous contributions to the history of economics have tried to assess Paul Samuelson’s political positioning by tracing it in the subsequent editions of his famous textbook Economics. This literature, however, has provided no consensus about the location of Samuelson’s political ideas. While some authors believe that Samuelson has always had inclinations toward interventionism, others conclude that he more often acted as a pro-business advocate. The purpose of this paper is not to argue for one of these two interpretations but to depict the making of Economics itself as a political process. By ‘political’ it is not meant the conduct of party politics but the many political elements that a textbook author has to take into account if he wants to be published and favorably received. I argue that the “middle of the road” stance that Samuelson adopted in the book was consciously constructed by the MIT economist, with the help of his home institution and his publishing company, McGraw-Hill, to ensure both academic freedom and the success of the book. The reason for which the stance developed is related to pre-McCarthyist right-wing criticisms of the textbook and how Samuelson and the MIT department had to endure the pressures from members of the Corporation (MIT’s Board of Trustees), who tried to prevent the publication of the textbook and threatened Samuelson’s tenure at MIT as soon as 1947 – when early manuscripts were circulated. As a result, it was decided in accordance with both the Corporation and McGraw-Hill that the Readings volume would be published to balance conflicting ideas about state intervention. Following these early criticisms, the making of the subsequent editions relied on a network of instructors and referees all over the US in order to make it as successful and consensual as possible. This seemed to work quite well in the 1950s and for a good portion of the 1960s, until Economics became victim of its own success and was seen, in an ironical twist of fate, as a right wing text by younger, radical economists. From now on, Samuelson will try to have his book sent as often as possible to the radicals for referring process, with mixed results. Eventually, the book became criticized from both its left and its right.Paul Samuelson, Economics, Textbook, Politics, Economic Education