How should we conduct ourselves? Critical realism and Aristotelian teleology : a framework for the development of virtues in pedagogy and curriculum

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Journal of Critical Realism on 19 June 2018, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2018.1484653. Under embargo until 19 December 2019.Faced with the marketization of Higher Education in England, pedagogy is under pressure in ways that often undermine lecturers’ deeply held values. For instance, this pressure results in the reduction of significant aspects of teaching to narrow metrics and requires universities to operate within intrusive structures that subordinate their pedagogical aims to profit-orientated objectives. In this paper, I analyse the way that people can preserve their agency in this pedagogical context. I guide my analysis with a framework that combines critical realism with Aristotelian virtue ethics and MacIntyre’s ideas of qualities within human practices. I suggest the kinds of qualities that might assist faculty to preserve and advance rich pedagogical projects in the current circumstances. Finally, I use a critical realist morphogenetic approach to argue that people may be able to resist losing their way when faced with ubiquitous performativity regimes.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Impact of Digital Technology on Library Resource Sharing: Revisiting LABELNET in the Digital Age

The digital environment has facilitated resource sharing by breaking the time and distance barriers to efficient document delivery. However, for the librarians, this phenomenon has brought more challenging technical and technological issues demanding addition of more knowledge and skills to learn and new standards to develop. The overwhelming speed and growing volume of digital information is now becoming unable to acquire and manage by single libraries. Resource sharing, which used to be a side business in the librarianship trade, is now becoming the flagship operation in the library projects

Institutional Approach to E-commerce: An Integrated Framework for Pakistan

Pakistan needs to knit itself into global information economy in order to ensure economic development. E-commerce is the essential tool through which this objective can be met. Currently, the economy is in a transition, the span of which needs to be shortened in order to meet the global challenges in the coming years. An institutional approach is essential to develop e-commerce. An appropriate institutional framework will shorten the time span of the transition period and will ensure a smooth transition to information economy. It will provide an effective and efficient use of the existing institutional infrastructure and development of new institutions. It calls for close coordination between the government, industry, and international organisations.

Postmodern world through the lens of “Enzo”- Narrator of Garth Stein’s “The Art of Racing in the Rain”

To be able to see the world through a clear lens is what should be implied not fancied. Sadly, to dismay, people now a days do not sober this practice yet yearn to make Earth a peaceful place which is just as imprudent as to expect a fish to adapt to land just because the ocean water is prevailing salty. In such age where values and norms seem faded by such lens, Enzo explains the realities quite well by diving into complex yet extremely obligatory philosophies of our daily lives. Neither the world is what we see nor what we want it to be for what change this temporary dwelling could manifest if we were only to think about our benefit, solely? Enzo-a quadrant breed; by examining, analyzing, proposing and probing various attitudes, simply qualifies to be much more than a human because we homosapiens deliberately miss quite many chances to express our inner most gratitude or even abhor towards a fellow being. We don't even relish the present moments nor do we care to ponder over our ethics which is why Enzo pledges the initiative and tries to bring us back to where we actually belong through dragging us to wander in ablissful fantasy of magic realism. It is both exceptional and warily common to contour someone's voice in our head and Garth Stein has successfully managed to implement this concept through The Art of Racing in the Rain. The joys, the sorrows, the exclusions, the harmonies and the coherences we feel in this postmodern world shape our attire of being a human but Enzo, in this case, transformsthis foregone concept of ours by introducing us to an unexplainable reality where one should not only bind bridles to the tongue but should also care in uttering even the slightest grain of sympathy for these are the words which shape this postmodern world

Cluster-based cooperative subcarrier sensing using antenna diversity-based weighted data fusion

Cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) is used in cognitive radio (CR) networks to improve the spectrum sensing performance in shadow fading environments. Moreover, clustering in CR networks is used to reduce reporting time and bandwidth overhead during CSS. Thus, cluster-based cooperative spectrum sensing (CBCSS) has manifested satisfactory spectrum sensing results in harsh environments under processing constraints. On the other hand, the antenna diversity of multiple input multiple output CR systems can be exploited to further improve the spectrum sensing performance. This paper presents the CBCSS performance in a CR network which is comprised of single- as well as multiple-antenna CR systems. We give theoretical analysis of CBCSS for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing signal sensing and propose a novel fusion scheme at the fusion center which takes into account the receiver antenna diversity of the CRs present in the network. We introduce the concept of weighted data fusion in which the sensing results of different CRs are weighted proportional to the number of receiving antennas they are equipped with. Thus, the receiver diversity is used to the advantage of improving spectrum sensing performance in a CR cluster. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the conventional CBCSS scheme

Validity of the technology acceptance model (TAM) : A sensemaking perspective

This study investigates whether sensemaking activities influence technology acceptance and if the strength of relationship between TAM’s constructs changes over a period of time. This study was a panel-based longitudinal study, whereby data was collected in three stages within a single semester. The setting of the study was at the School of Management, USM. The major findings of the study showed that sensemaking does influence the TAM if activities are undertaken at high and low levels and also sensemaking influences individual constructs of TAM rather than the whole model. This study failed to prove that there is a significant change in the strength of relationship between TAM constructs over a period of time under sensemaking influence, which is that sensemaking activities were found not to exhibit any moderation effect on the TAM constructs. Sensemaking acts as an external variable which influences TAM rather than moderate the strength of the relationship between TAM constructs. This could be because the technology in question was mandatory to be used by the subjects rather than voluntary. Implications for managers are discussed

Genetics of Non-Syndromic Autosomal Recessive Mental Retardation

Non-syndromic mental retardation is one of the most serious neurodevelopmental disorders, which has a serious impact not only on the affected individuals and their families but also on the health care system and society. Previously research has been more focused on the X-linked mental retardation and only recently studies have shown that non-syndromic autosomal recessive mental retardation is extremely heterogeneous and contributes much more than the X-linked mental retardation. But very little is known about the genes and loci involved in nonsyndromic autosomal recessive mental retardation than the X-linked mental retardation. To date only thirty loci and ten genes have been established associated with the non-syndromic autosomal recessive mental retardation. This short review presents an overview of the current knowledge on clinical information available for the ten genes associated with this unexplored group of genetic disorde