The -ing suffix in French

One striking characteristic of modern French is the increasingly large number of words that contain the English -ing suffix. This phenomenon stands in contrast to the stereotype of the French being purists with regards to language choice and use. Indeed, there is a variety of evidence that this suffix has been integrated into French as a productive derivational suffix, and does not simply occur as an accident resulting from the borrowing of English words that happen to include it. Though many studies have been carried out on loanwords in French, and certain ones have brought specific attention to the importation of -ing into French, none as of yet, have solely focused on the -ing suffix. This paper considers four major ways in which the suffix has been integrated into French grammatical structure: phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic. It is based on a corpus of approximately 730 French words containing -ing, of which a subset of individual words were studied intensively in their use on the internet. Words containing -ing are categorized in relation to a typology, which marks a distinction between loanwords and native creations. This distinction highlights the use of -ing words in French as instances of a very productive process of borrowing from English, heavily integrated into French in all of the four areas mentioned above. In addition, the suffix appears to be acquiring the status of an independent morpheme, with both a derivational use as a nominalizer and an inflectional use to create participles. As a side-effect, the velar nasal [ŋ] has entered the inventory of French phonemes. The suffix\u27s infiltration into French grammar is not uniform. There is, for example, a tendency toward greater use in connection with modern trends and hip culture as well as in certain functions within the clause. This uneven penetration sheds light on patterns of language change and will be useful in the future in documenting a snapshot of current usage as the suffix continues to make its way further into the language

IOS project motivation as a determinant of project activities and business capabilities

This paper investigates how innovation of ICT based services takes place within existing infrastructures, including the whole network of technology, vendors and customers. Our research question is, how can an information infrastructure provide generative mechanisms for innovation of ICT based services? Building on a critical realist approach, our empirical evidence was a case study within an international airline, aiming to diversify its services. From our analysis we propose that there are two self-reinforcement mechanisms in information infrastructures. First, we identified the innovation reinforcement mechanism, resulting in new services. Second, there is the service reinforcement mechanism, resulting in more users and profits. The practical implication of our framework is to show that although ICT-based innovation cannot be planned and managed in detail, the innovation mechanism may help organisations to facilitate the innovation process in a structured way

In Search of Mechanisms. Conducting a Critical Realist Data Analysis

Critical realism has emerged as an alternative to positivist and interpretive research during the past decade. Yet, the number of empirical studies based on this perspective has so far been limited. This indicates a need for a more explicit method for critical realist data analysis. To address this, we extend former research on critical realist methodology by presenting a framework for identifying and understanding causal structures in critical realist studies, termed mechanisms. The framework consists of steps involved in identifying structural components of a mechanism, how these components interact to produce to an outcome, and contextual influences on this outcome. We illustrate the application of the framework through an example of the identification of IS innovation mechanisms in a case study in the airline industry. Overall, we argue that the mechanism approach can improve empirical studies in the IS field, by providing ontological depth, creative thinking and more precise explanations

The Economics of Information Technology in Public Sector Health Facilities in Developing Countries: The Case of South Africa

The public healthcare sector in developing countries face many challenges, including weak healthcare systems and under resourced facilities that deliver poor outcomes relative to total healthcare expenditure. Healthcare delivery, access to healthcare and cost containment has the potential for improvement through more efficient healthcare resource management. Global references demonstrate that information technology (IT) has the ability to assist in this regard through the automation of processes, thus reducing the inefficiencies of manually driven processes and lowering transaction costs. This study examines the impact of new systems implementations on service delivery, user adoption and organizational culture within the hospital setting in South Africa, as perceived by doctors, nurses and hospital administrators. The research provides some insight into the reasons for investing in system automation, the associated outcomes, and organiztional factors that impact the successful adoption of IT systems. In addition, it finds that sustainable success in these initiatives is as much a function of the technology as it is of the change management function that must accompany the system implementation.Hospital information systems; healthcare management; electronic health records; South Africa, mixed methods

Promoting Children's Creativity through Designing Urban Environments

One of the principles of developed countries is the existence of a talented innovative work force. Children and adolescents, as the creative assets of the future, are the basis and principle of the cities' dynamism and stability in the future; therefore, providing an open space for the creative talents of children and adolescents to flourish for providing the city's future need for them is necessary. Lack of proper standards for designing and open spaces in accordance with the needs of the children has led to studies regarding the attendance to the basic wishes and needs of children like health, transportation, support and education and the growth and flourishment of the children's creativity, as one of the child-friendly standards of cities has been pointed out.  With the belief that the physical environment must provide the conditions for living and flourishing the talents and capabilities of children through creating appropriate grounds, the goal of this study is to present a design guide in which guidelines are presented in order to improve environmental qualities of urban environments to educate the children's creativity.  In this study, which is of the interdisciplinary and practical nature, the descriptive-analytic approach has been used. Therefore, first through the study of the theoretical basis in the field of flourishing the children's creativity and analyzing it, the effective factors on nurturing children's creativity are found and then, the approaches of the child-friendly city and creative city are studied and analyzed and then, their coefficients in devising the design guide has been utilized. This guideline includes the principles and guidelines of urban design. These principles are comfort and convenience, connection with nature, complicatedness and mystery, creativity and innovativeness, flexibility, social interaction and collaboration with the children

The Context of APEX

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) was selected to implement the Accelerated Programme for Excellence (APEX) in 2008. APEX is a fast track development programme to enable institutions of higher education to be recognised as world class entities. The programme aims to facilitate the university selected to be on an international level and also to motivate and help raise the level of excellence in higher education. The APEX programme was identified as one of the most critical initiatives to help transform Malaysian Higher Education

Mentoring: A Faith Based Relational Leadership Approach in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism in Kenya.

The article examines the role that mentoring, a critical relational leadership process would have in preventing and countering violent extremism by first examining the contexts of radicalization into violent extremism and past violent extremist attacks. Youths and adolescents in Kenya have been radicalized into violent extremism with resultant acts of terror that have resulted in; mass fatalities, casualties, destruction of facilities, disruption of livelihoods and business, and creation of immense fear within the public. The first major attack that seemed to have opened this cycle of al Qaeda and al Shabaab-led Jihadist attacks was the August, 1998 twin-bombing of the USA embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Since then, we have had the advent of; al Qaeda, its affiliate al Shabaab, and ISIS attacks rising within the African continent with heavy impacts of death trails, casualties, and destruction. This year, Kenya has suffered a number of attacks targeting both soft and hard targets. Among the soft targets was the attack targeting Dusit Hotel in the upmarket 14 Riverside Complex, which left 21 Kenyans and foreigners dead. By extension there have been a number of IED attacks targeting the security services of Kenya many fatalities and casualties. All these attacks have been executed by violent extremists among who are Kenyan youth who have been recruited and radicalized into violent extremism as an ideology that is leveraged on the Islam religion. This ideology of Jihadism is skewed but uses narratives that easily appeal to those targeted for radicalization. Consequently there is an urgent need to have in place relevant mentoring leadership practice to enhance worldviews and perspectives among youth and adolescents which are in tandem with what a sane world subscribes to. It then becomes imperative to have a faith-based mentoring approach that is devoid of extremism and which gives the pool of those targeted a leadership component. This deliver a countering and preventive relational leadership model enhancing resilience of individuals and communities, while countering narratives and propaganda inherent in the recruitment and radicalization to violent extremism. Following literature review and conceptualization of the variables, this article concludes that preventive and countering violent extremism measures are best deployed first amongst the youth, who form the largest and most vulnerable pool of those targeted for radicalization due to; their crave for an identity, promises of a utopian caliphate on earth and life upon death, poverty, joblessness, presence of ungoverned spaces such as the complex cyber space, and dysfunctional social systems including families

Improving Reading Comprehension Achievements of Pupils in Public Primary Schools: Implications for Teacher Librarians

Teacher librarians are individuals with recognized teaching qualification as well as qualification in library science. Teacher librarians are often concerned about how much learners are able to grasp and retain meaning from the materials they read as well as their reading comprehension achievements. The term reading comprehension describes a complex process in which learners are involved in some mental processes like creating meanings and organizing texts. This study aimed to improve the reading comprehension achievements of pupils in public primary schools through the use of reflective instructional technique. Two teacher librarians served as research assistants in the study. The study employed the quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design. Thirty-three pupils each were assigned to the experimental and control groups respectively. The sample comprised pupils in primary four and five classes. The instrument used for data collection was the reading comprehension achievement test. The data generated were subjected to analysis of covariance. Results of the analyses showed that the reflective instructional technique led to improvement in the reading comprehension achievements of pupils in public primary schools in that the experimental group had a significant increase in reading comprehension achievement scores at the posttest. There was no significant influence of pupils\u27 gender on their reading comprehension achievement scores after benefitting from the intervention, F (1, 65)=.259, p=.613. Results further show that there was no significant interaction effect of the instructional technique and gender on the pupils’ reading comprehension achievement scores, F (1, 65)=.228, p=.634. One of the study implications is that teacher librarians can collaboratively work with other teachers to improve pupils’ reading comprehension achievement in primary schools. The teacher librarians can also influence pupils’ learning outcomes by working directly with pupils and promoting reading

Relooking at the Common Core Standards Through the Lens of Equity – Closing the Achievement Gap

On the failure of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to close the “achievement gap” between whites and minorities, the Common Core State Standards were heralded as the best way of raising academic standards for all children around the country and closing the achievement gap. Numerous reports have emerged questioning the efficacy of the Common Core Standards to deliver what was promised. Public disillusion is apparent. This paper is an attempt to revisit the Common Core Standards through the lens of data generated by its implementation. Quantitative data available from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for 4th, 8th and 12th grade students and their achievements scores for mathematics and reading for the years 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015 were taken into consideration. Results have revealed no increase, much less significant, in the average achievement scores and no indication that the achievement gap was being narrowed. Recommendations have been made for having a relook at the content and the implementation of the standards

The Social Investment Welfare State in Europe, 1990s and 2000s: Economic Ideas and Social Policies

Since the late 1990s, new ideas and strategies concerning the role and shape of the Welfare State have been formulated. All these analyses and policy developments point towards a similar policy logic based on ‘social investment’. The aim of this paper is to map out the contours of this new perspective, both at the ideational level and in terms of the policies implemented throughout Europe. It also aims at assessing the achievements, as well as the shortcomings, of this strategy. In doing so it provides a critical analysis of the content and coherence of the social investment ideas and policies and opens up for a discussion of whether the social investment perspective can provide adequate responses to challenges such as population ageing, the impact of the economic crisis and environmental issues