The ISCIP Analyst, Volume IX, Issue 13

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

Literature and Marxism: A controversy

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism/1475/thumbnail.jp

DESIGN AND EXPLORATION OF NEW MODELS FOR SECURITY AND PRIVACY-SENSITIVE COLLABORATION SYSTEMS

Collaboration has been an area of interest in many domains including education, research, healthcare supply chain, Internet of things, and music etc. It enhances problem solving through expertise sharing, ideas sharing, learning and resource sharing, and improved decision making. To address the limitations in the existing literature, this dissertation presents a design science artifact and a conceptual model for collaborative environment. The first artifact is a blockchain based collaborative information exchange system that utilizes blockchain technology and semi-automated ontology mappings to enable secure and interoperable health information exchange among different health care institutions. The conceptual model proposed in this dissertation explores the factors that influences professionals continued use of video- conferencing applications. The conceptual model investigates the role the perceived risks and benefits play in influencing professionals’ attitude towards VC apps and consequently its active and automatic use

The Visible Effects of an Invisible Constitution: The Contested State of Transdniestria\u27s Search for Recognition through International Negotiations

Most scholars agree that modern states share several defining characteristics: a population, territory, government, and the capacity to enter into international relations. More recently, this list has expanded to include the criteria of democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights. These traditional and contemporary criteria for statehood are likewise essential for settling the status of de facto states, entities that seek international recognition yet are rebuffed by the world community. By examining the criteria for international recognition from the perspective of constitutional law, this dissertation reveals the existing but overlooked relationship between the recognition process and constitutionalism. As is shown, a constitution performs more than its usual functions of organizing and regulating a polity, limiting the government, and ensuring individuals protection. It also plays a key role in asserting and realizing both the traditional and contemporary criteria for state recognition. This linkage between constitutionalism and the recognition process is then tested on the case study of Transdniestria, an entity within the Republic of Moldova that has all the attributes of a state and seeks recognition of its statehood. As one of the first analyses of unrecognized foundational legal frameworks, this dissertation offers insight into how an “invisible” constitution affects the recognition process and the political status of an unrecognized state. It shows that, while the Transdniestrian constitution has not influenced the entity’s search for recognition, it has had other important effects on the negotiation process, such as consolidating Transdniestrian statehood, hardening the entity’s position in negotiations, and influencing the nature of its interactions with international actors. These outcomes broaden the understanding of the contemporary criteria for recognition and the functions of a constitution with respect to their application in unrecognized states. They also demonstrate the limitations of the prevailing approach in the literature that democratization is necessarily beneficial for the purposes of conflict resolution. In such a way, this research additionally helps to present a more nuanced picture of post-Cold War politics, law, and international relations in Europe

Adoption of project appraisal practice and accessibility of finance : an empirical analysis on selected small and medium-sized manufacturing companies in Malaysia

The crucial role played by small and medium-sized industries (SMIs) in developing countries is very well acknowledged. In Malaysia, for example, the SMIs are perceived as the backbone of the nation's industrialisation process. However, the promotion and development of these SMIs are often hampered by their lack of access to formal institutional credits. The lack of access to formal credits is often ascribed to the higher level of perceived risks, moral hazards and transactions costs. At present, banks and SMIs in developing countries do not have the appropriate technology to adequately assess these risks. The present study seeks to suggest that project appraisal practice can and should be adopted by the SMIs in order to assess their project's risks. Banks are recommended to use similar techniques to objectively evaluate their lending risks. Built upon the theoretical framework of finance and development, the study empirically evaluates the relationship between the adoption of project appraisal practice by the SMIs and their access to formal sector finance. In addition, the study also attempts to identify the factors that can influence the company's decision whether or not to adopt formal project appraisal practice. A very significant and positive relationship was found between the adoption of project appraisal practice and the SMIs' access to formal sector finance. The following factors were found to be significant in determining whether or not a firm adopts project appraisal practice: (1) access to banks finance, (2) entrepreneur's level of education, (3) training on project appraisal, (4) market classification, and, (5) level of business experience. The study therefore concludes that the adoption of project appraisal practice by SMIs should be encouraged through formal training. Finally, the study suggests that the present system of providing finance to SMIs should be reformed and a more innovative and efficient system is recommended

The Visible Effects of an Invisible Constitution: The Contested State of Transdniestria\u27s Search for Recognition through International Negotiations

Most scholars agree that modern states share several defining characteristics: a population, territory, government, and the capacity to enter into international relations. More recently, this list has expanded to include the criteria of democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights. These traditional and contemporary criteria for statehood are likewise essential for settling the status of de facto states, entities that seek international recognition yet are rebuffed by the world community. By examining the criteria for international recognition from the perspective of constitutional law, this dissertation reveals the existing but overlooked relationship between the recognition process and constitutionalism. As is shown, a constitution performs more than its usual functions of organizing and regulating a polity, limiting the government, and ensuring individuals protection. It also plays a key role in asserting and realizing both the traditional and contemporary criteria for state recognition. This linkage between constitutionalism and the recognition process is then tested on the case study of Transdniestria, an entity within the Republic of Moldova that has all the attributes of a state and seeks recognition of its statehood. As one of the first analyses of unrecognized foundational legal frameworks, this dissertation offers insight into how an “invisible” constitution affects the recognition process and the political status of an unrecognized state. It shows that, while the Transdniestrian constitution has not influenced the entity’s search for recognition, it has had other important effects on the negotiation process, such as consolidating Transdniestrian statehood, hardening the entity’s position in negotiations, and influencing the nature of its interactions with international actors. These outcomes broaden the understanding of the contemporary criteria for recognition and the functions of a constitution with respect to their application in unrecognized states. They also demonstrate the limitations of the prevailing approach in the literature that democratization is necessarily beneficial for the purposes of conflict resolution. In such a way, this research additionally helps to present a more nuanced picture of post-Cold War politics, law, and international relations in Europe

Silent Light, Luminous Noise: Photophonics, Machines and the Senses

This research takes the basic physical premise that sound can be synthesized using light, explores how this has historically been, and still is achieved, and how it can still be a fertile area for creative, theoretical and critical exploration in sound and the arts. Through the author's own artistic practice, different techniques of generating sound using the sonification of light are explored, and these techniques are then contextualised by their historical and theoretical setting in the time-based arts. Specifically, this text draws together diverse strands of scholarship on experimental sound and film practices, cultural histories, the senses, media theory and engineering to address effects and outcomes specific to photophonic sound and its relation to the moving image, and the sculptural and media works devised to produce it. The sonifier, or device engendering the transformations discussed is specifically addressed in its many forms, and a model proposed, whereby these devices and systems are an integral, readably inscribed component - both materially and culturally - in both the works they produce, and via our reflexive understanding of the processes involved, of the images or light signals used to produce them. Other practitioners' works are critically engaged to demonstrate how a sense of touch, or the haptic, can be thought of as an emergent property of moving image works which readably and structurally make use of photophonic sound (including the author's), and sound's essential role in this is examined. In developing, through an integration of theory and practice, a new approach in this under-researched field of sound studies, the author hopes to show how photophonic sound can act as both a metaphorical and material interface between experimental sound and image, and hopefully point the way towards a more comprehensive study of both