3,296 research outputs found

    Information actors beyond modernity and coloniality in times of climate change:A comparative design ethnography on the making of monitors for sustainable futures in Curaçao and Amsterdam, between 2019-2022

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    In his dissertation, Mr. Goilo developed a cutting-edge theoretical framework for an Anthropology of Information. This study compares information in the context of modernity in Amsterdam and coloniality in Curaçao through the making process of monitors and develops five ways to understand how information can act towards sustainable futures. The research also discusses how the two contexts, that is modernity and coloniality, have been in informational symbiosis for centuries which is producing negative informational side effects within the age of the Anthropocene. By exploring the modernity-coloniality symbiosis of information, the author explains how scholars, policymakers, and data-analysts can act through historical and structural roots of contemporary global inequities related to the production and distribution of information. Ultimately, the five theses propose conditions towards the collective production of knowledge towards a more sustainable planet

    Non-Market Food Practices Do Things Markets Cannot: Why Vermonters Produce and Distribute Food That\u27s Not For Sale

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    Researchers tend to portray food self-provisioning in high-income societies as a coping mechanism for the poor or a hobby for the well-off. They describe food charity as a regrettable band-aid. Vegetable gardens and neighborly sharing are considered remnants of precapitalist tradition. These are non-market food practices: producing food that is not for sale and distributing food in ways other than selling it. Recent scholarship challenges those standard understandings by showing (i) that non-market food practices remain prevalent in high-income countries, (ii) that people in diverse social groups engage in these practices, and (iii) that they articulate diverse reasons for doing so. In this dissertation, I investigate the persistent pervasiveness of non-market food practices in Vermont. To go beyond explanations that rely on individual motivation, I examine the roles these practices play in society. First, I investigate the prevalence of non-market food practices. Several surveys with large, representative samples reveal that more than half of Vermont households grow, hunt, fish, or gather some of their own food. Respondents estimate that they acquire 14% of the food they consume through non-market means, on average. For reference, commercial local food makes up about the same portion of total consumption. Then, drawing on the words of 94 non-market food practitioners I interviewed, I demonstrate that these practices serve functions that markets cannot. Interviewees attested that non-market distribution is special because it feeds the hungry, strengthens relationships, builds resilience, puts edible-but-unsellable food to use, and aligns with a desired future in which food is not for sale. Hunters, fishers, foragers, scavengers, and homesteaders said that these activities contribute to their long-run food security as a skills-based safety net. Self-provisioning allows them to eat from the landscape despite disruptions to their ability to access market food such as job loss, supply chain problems, or a global pandemic. Additional evidence from vegetable growers suggests that non-market settings liberate production from financial discipline, making space for work that is meaningful, playful, educational, and therapeutic. Non-market food practices mend holes in the social fabric torn by the commodification of everyday life. Finally, I synthesize scholarly critiques of markets as institutions for organizing the production and distribution of food. Markets send food toward money rather than hunger. Producing for market compels farmers to prioritize financial viability over other values such as stewardship. Historically, people rarely if ever sell each other food until external authorities coerce them to do so through taxation, indebtedness, cutting off access to the means of subsistence, or extinguishing non-market institutions. Today, more humans than ever suffer from chronic undernourishment even as the scale of commercial agriculture pushes environmental pressures past critical thresholds of planetary sustainability. This research substantiates that alternatives to markets exist and have the potential to address their shortcomings

    Complicated objects: artifacts from the Yuanming Yuan in Victorian Britain

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    The 1860 spoliation of the Summer Palace at the close of the Second Opium War by British and French troops was a watershed event within the development of Britain as an imperialist nation, which guaranteed a market for opium produced in its colony India and demonstrated the power of its armed forces. The distribution of the spoils to officers and diplomatic corps by campaign leaders in Beijing was also a sign of the British Army’s rising power as an instrument of the imperialist state. These conditions would suggest that objects looted from the site would be integrated into an imperialist aesthetic that reflected and promoted the material benefits of military engagement overseas and foregrounded the circumstances of their removal to Britain for campaign members and the British public. This study mines sources dating to the two decades following the war – including British newspapers, auction house records, exhibition catalogs and works of art – to test this hypothesis. Findings show that initial movements of looted objects through the military and diplomatic corps did reinforce notions of imperialist power by enabling campaign members to profit from the spoliation through sales of looted objects and trophy displays. However, material from the Summer Palace arrived at a moment when British manufacturers and cultural leaders were engaged in a national effort to improve the quality of British goods to compete in the international marketplace and looted art was quickly interpolated in this national conversation. Ironically, the same “free trade” imperatives that motivated the invasion energized a new design movement that embraced Chinese ornament. As a consequence, political interpretations of the material outside of military collections were quickly joined by a strong response to Chinese ornament from cultural institutions and design leaders. Art from the Summer Palace held a prominent place at industrial art exhibitions of the postwar period and inspired new designs in a number of mediums. While the availability of Chinese imperial art was the consequence of a military invasion and therefore a product of imperialist expansion, evidence presented here shows that the design response to looted objects was not circumscribed by this political reality. Chinese ornament on imperial wares was ultimately celebrated for its formal qualities and acknowledged links to the Summer Palace were an indicator of good design, not a celebration of victory over a failed Chinese state. Therefore, the looting of the Summer Palace was ultimately an essential factor in the development of modern design, the essence of which is a break with Classical ornament

    Enhancing Query Processing on Stock Market Cloud-based Database

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    Cloud computing is rapidly expanding because it allows users to save the development and implementation time on their work. It also reduces the maintenance and operational costs of the used systems. Furthermore, it enables the elastic use of any resource rather than estimating workload, which may be inaccurate, as database systems can benefit from such a trend. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that allocates the materialized view over cloud-based replica sets to enhance the database system\u27s performance in stock market using a Peer-to-Peer architecture. The results show that the proposed model improves the query processing time and network transfer cost by distributing the materialized views over cloud-based replica sets. Also, it has a significant effect on decision-making and achieving economic returns

    Writing Facts: Interdisciplinary Discussions of a Key Concept in Modernity

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    "Fact" is one of the most crucial inventions of modern times. Susanne Knaller discusses the functions of this powerful notion in the arts and the sciences, its impact on aesthetic models and systems of knowledge. The practice of writing provides an effective procedure to realize and to understand facts. This concerns preparatory procedures, formal choices, models of argumentation, and narrative patterns. By considering "writing facts" and "writing facts", the volume shows why and how "facts" are a result of knowledge, rules, and norms as well as of description, argumentation, and narration. This approach allows new perspectives on »fact« and its impact on modernity

    Did you just make that up? An auto-ethnographic investigation into the emergence of images in painting, as situated within the framework of C20th and C21st British Art

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    I am a painter. My paintings depict figures in groups or alone, enacting narrative in illusionistic space. The paintings are produced without much explicit preparation in terms of their content, relying on improvisation in the studio for their realisation. I do not have a clear idea of when they are finished, either, and I often alter paintings long after their first conclusion. I set out to examine where the images and spaces I depict come from, how their form develops and how they might continue to emerge; how I make things up, in other words. In doing this, I hope to make the paintings better by increasing the complexity of my understanding of them, to shed light on creative practice in general, and to offer insight to other painters like me, and to researchers into creative practice. I have subjected the emergent and shifting nature of my paintings to academic study by combining a close attention to the work and its processes with a self-reflective journal of the activity and ongoing theoretical writing. This process generates a virtuous spiral of activity in the studio, as writing about the painting produces insight, which is fed into the painting, making it better, and producing more insight, which is fed into the painting and so on. In subjecting my studio practice to study, I hope to open it up in a way that might be useful to others. The analysis of reflections on my own painting - developing the concept of the intersubjective object - is an attempt to make sense of interrelationships between the material, social and theoretical territories of painting. This is where the originality of my study lies. In presenting it, I offer insights into my creative practice that will be useful for other creative practitioners, and for academic study of creative practice. I address questions about improvisation and narrative development in my paintings. First, I introduce the thesis and lay out its terms. In chapter 1 I set out the literature which informs the thesis, and in chapter 2 I set out the methodologies I have approached in working out my own method. In chapter 3 self-reflection and reflexivity are discussed in relation to improvisation and narrative, in chapter 4 which I examine how meaning is realised in relation to the surface of the painting, in chapter 5 which the positioning of my studio practice in terms of its wider contexts is examined in relation to painting as an intersubjective object and in chapter 6 which I look at continuity in my studio practice. I propose cloth as a metaphor for the work, as an articulation of development within individual paintings and within the practice. In chapter 7 I discuss the problem of finishing paintings. This research has brought my painting into sharper focus, examining the relationship of painting to the improvisation of content. It has allowed me to re-examine elements of my practice that I have either taken for granted or overlooked, revealing historical parallels that would have remained invisible otherwise. It develops an understanding of the significance of narrative and improvisation in any creative practice, elucidating ideas about the self in creativity. In differentiating painting from other fine art practices and creative forms it produces a powerful sense of the significance of the painting in making meaning. The research leads me to the identification of a painting as an intersubjective object, in that my own subjectivity and those of others meet and operate there to generate and develop meaning. This theoretical construction can be employed in discussion of other art works, as well as my own

    Management of socio-economic transformations of business processes: current realities, global challenges, forecast scenarios and development prospects

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    The authors of the scientific monograph have come to the conclusion that мanagement of socio-economic transformations of business processes requires the use of mechanisms to support of entrepreneurship, sectors of the national economy, the financial system, and critical infrastructure. Basic research focuses on assessment the state of social service provision, analysing economic security, implementing innovation and introducing digital technologies. The research results have been implemented in the different models of costing, credit risk and capital management, tax control, use of artificial intelligence and blockchain. The results of the study can be used in the developing of policies, programmes and strategies for economic security, development of the agricultural sector, transformation of industrial policy, implementation of employment policy in decision-making at the level of ministries and agencies that regulate the management of socio-economic and European integration processes. The results can also be used by students and young scientists in the educational process and conducting scientific research on global challenges and creation scenarios for the development of socio-economic processes

    Implementing an SQL Based ETL Platform for Business Intelligence Solution

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    Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceThe exponential growth and development of information technology in the last twenty years has compelled most industry segments to shift from focusing on core business to adopting digitally sophisticated and data-driven processes. Those who have followed its growth have benefited, but unfortunately, just a small percentage of them do. Having information systems that just hold a vast volume of data is no longer sufficient for businesses. To gain a competitive advantage, these businesses must make well-informed decisions. Every firm, regardless of industry, has access to a wealth of data that it can utilize to its advantage. This is where Business Intelligence comes in. Business intelligence enables these companies to make better use of their data by providing previously unusable data in an intelligible and interpretable format. This internship report aims to cover the development of the data warehousing and data analytics for HROps, a product owned by BI4ALL. HROps is being developed with the goal of facilitating, centralizing, and making people management processes in organizations more efficient. I will be working on a low-cost SQL based ETL Framework using T-SQL for developing standard ETL processes. I will also be working and creating Power BI dashboards and reports to gather useful information from the data collected

    Atlas

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    Public libraries want to contribute to an inclusive and innovative society and aim to enable their patrons to acquire the necessary 21st century skills. Dutch public libraries are therefore gradually adding more and more activities to their curriculum, teaching these different types of skills, such as ‘invention literacy’. They also often provide a ‘performative space’ (i.e. a makerspace) for their patrons. This means library spaces are no longer dominated by books, but rather reflect the current development in libraries’ core business, moving from collections to connections in order to serve their local communities. The KB, the National Library of The Netherlands, participated in the KIEM1 project Performative Spaces in Dutch Public Libraries. Stepping Stones of Inclusive Innovation, researching the development of performative spaces in libraries. This project, a collaboration with the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at the Delft University of Technology, fits the KBs strategic interests in providing an innovative and socially aware library system

    Improving inter-unit collaboration during the project sales phase

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    This thesis, conducted as a case study is aimed at studying the collaboration between three functional units of a supplier project-based management firm. In particular, the main purpose of the case study is to study how the sales unit, sourcing unit and project unit of the firm share information, especially during the sales phase. Therefore, this study explores what collaboration between the sales, project and sourcing units means. Furthermore, this research also explores what are the information generated and shared during the sales phase, and what benefits are achieved when the units collaborate. This thesis highlights the importance of information to units during the project management phase. Furthermore, this thesis shows how important it is to handle information appropriately and ensure information quality. Through literature analysis, the author introduces existing concepts and collects data through questionnaires and interviews for analysis. An assessment of the existing practice functions and processes of the units was also done. After this, the content analysis methodology was used to analyze the data collected. It was found that in the supplier project-based case company, a lot of information generated during the sales phases of every project is critical and useful during the sales phase and after the completion of the sales phase. Also, gathering information is an important part of the project during the sales phase because it helps to understand the project requirements and propose a competitive offer to the customer. In addition, the information enables other units to make proper plans to support effective project execution. Therefore, another important finding was the need to share the information early enough with other stakeholders, and through the right medium that supports the easy access of the information. Based on the case company under study, it was found that the sales, project, and sourcing units of the firm all benefit when they share information with one another. This study tackled an important area of a supplier project-based firm, however, the data gathered and analyzed was only from one case company. Hence, this study can be used as a starting point or guide for similar research in other case companies. Furthermore, the findings of this study may be used by academic institutions, professionals in the field of project management, and organizations
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