Rethinking Context Models

Since the first context-aware applications were designed, context modelling has played a central role. During the last decade many different approaches were proposed to model context, ranging from ad-hoc models to extensions to relational databases or ontologies. In this paper we propose to take a step back and analyse those approaches using the seminal views presented by Paul Dourish in his work (What we talk about when we talk about context). Based on that analysis we propose a set of guidelines that any context model should follow.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

Queer pop Asia: toward a hybrid regionalist imaginary

"There is a larger context behind this project of rethinking Asian queer cultural studies, which has to do with the broad critical debate about the de-centering of the existing forms of multicultural critique and theory production at large (Birch, 2000; Cevasco, 2000; Chen, 1996; Abbas and Erni, 2005; Stratton and Ang, 1996). However, the research about queers that originates in Asia today has yet to confront the received forms of inquiry and models of analysis that has mostly been centered on western experiences (see Erni, 2003)."AsiaPacifiQueer Network, Australian National Universit

From Value Protection to Value Creation: Rethinking Corporate Governance Standards for Firm Innovation

A company’s pro-innovation needs are often met by the exploitation of its resources, widely defined. The resource-based theory of the firm provides immense empirical insights into how a firm’s corporate governance factors can contribute to promoting innovation. However, these implications may conflict with the prevailing standards of corporate governance imposed on many securities markets for listed companies, which have developed based on theoretical models supporting a shareholder-centered and agency-based theory of the firm. Although prevailing corporate governance standards can to an extent support firm innovation, tensions are created in some circumstances where companies pit their corporate governance compliance against resource-based needs that promote innovation. In the present context of steady internationalization and convergence in corporate governance standards in global securities markets towards a shareholder-centered agency-based model, we argue that there is a need to provide some room for accommodating the resource-based needs for companies in relation to promoting innovation. We explore a number of options and suggest that the most practicable option would be the development of recognized exceptions that deviate from prevailing corporate governance standards. We further suggest as to how an exceptions-based regime can be implemented in the U.K. and U.S., comparing the rules-based regime in the U.S. with the principles-based regime in the U.K

Rethinking Corporate Governance for a Bondholder Financed, Systemically Risky World

This Article makes two arguments that, combined, demonstrate an important synergy: first, including bondholders in corporate governance could help to reduce systemic risk because bondholders are more risk averse than shareholders; second, corporate governance should include bondholders because bonds now dwarf equity as a source of corporate financing and bond prices are increasingly tied to firm performance

The technological mediation of mathematics and its learning

This paper examines the extent to which mathematical knowledge, and its related pedagogy, is inextricably linked to the tools – physical, virtual, cultural – in which it is expressed. Our goal is to focus on a few exemplars of computational tools, and to describe with some illustrative examples, how mathematical meanings are shaped by their use. We begin with an appraisal of the role of digital technologies, and our rationale for focusing on them. We present four categories of digital tool-use that distinguish their differing potential to shape mathematical cognition. The four categories are: i. dynamic and graphical tools, ii. tools that outsource processing power, iii. new representational infrastructures, and iv. the implications of highbandwidth connectivity on the nature of mathematics activity. In conclusion, we draw out the implications of this analysis for mathematical epistemology and the mathematical meanings students develop. We also underline the central importance of design, both of the tools themselves and the activities in which they are embedded