Colonization of the normative realm in the age of instrumentality

This dissertation aims to establish a contemporary model of why apolitical actors engage in the political realm. The project will intersperse practical cases with theoretical concerns. I look at two cases: the role of Soccer Hooligans in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the Occupy Austin Movement (2015). The goal of these juxtapositions is to provide insights into the realities behind political theories, as I accommodate additional strands of theory that have received little attention to date in studies of political motivation. I begin by showing how inadequate Rational Choice Theory (RCT) has proven in explaining political action and then move onto employing central concepts from Heidegger, Arendt, Marcuse, Foucault, Habermas, and Wendy Brown to create a richer picture of what choice means for subjects. With the aid of the categories these thinkers provide, I then build an analytical heuristic device called the Three Realms of Action Model. My claim is that this model, which explains the relationship between the normative, political and economic realms can better explain political choice. The actions of nonpolitical actors might seem non-rational when viewed from within a purely economic realm, but switching between the three realms and the rationalites they inhabit, provides the three-pronged lens needed to make a more nuanced study of the power relations between political actors. To better illustrate how subjects negotiate the realms, I use familiar historical sites. Each historical event allows us to inhabit an epistemology that describes how the realms bargain for dominance with each other. The insight I come away with here is that the economic realm has colonized the normative and political realms in the United States. But despite the dominance of the economic realm, political action or choice is not driven “only” by market rationality but also by a shifting play of the power in the three realms where we see new and competing rationalities. This allows us not only to see “choice” as a more dynamic and nuanced category but also better clues us into how it is manipulated and even subverted.Germanic Studie

Management of Digital Video Broadcasting Services in Open Delivery Platforms

The future of Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is moving towards solutions offering an efficient way of carrying interactive IP multimedia services over digital terrestrial broadcasting networks to handheld terminals. One of the most promising technologies is Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H), at present under standardisation. Services deployed via this type of DVB technologies should enjoy reliability comparable to TV services and high quality standards. However, the market at present does not provide effective and economical solutions for the deployment of such services over multi-domain IP networks, due to their high level of unreliability. This paper focuses on service management, service level agreement (SLA) and network performance requirements of DVB-H services. Experimental results are presented concerning QoS sensitivity to network performance of DVB-H services delivered over a multi-domain IP network. Moreover, a solution for efficient and cost effective service management via QoS monitoring and control and network SLA design is proposed. The solution gives DVB-H operators the possibility of fully managing service QoS without being tied to third party operators

Creating Competetive Advantage Using the Internet in Primary Sector Industrie

The research reported in this paper involved an investigation of the relationship between Internet strategy development and competitive advantage. Four theory-based propositions based on the work of Porter and Millar (1985) and others are examined in relation to four primary sector multinationals. These propositions examine the relationship between an industry's Internet strategy and the integration of this strategy into the industry's marketing infrastructure to support the development of competitive advantage. The study uses Porter's (1985) value system framework to examine this relationship. The authors suggest that the value system, and the leverage of information and networking technologies to reconfigure value system relationships is becoming strategically significant to these primary sector multinationals

On stability measures and effects of data structure in the recognition of areas of endemism

Incomplete data sampling, bias, and like properties of distribution datasets that potentially introduce uncertainty in biogeographical analyses and blur biogeographical patterns; therefore, it is important to understand their influence. Despite their relevance, these problems have been largely overlooked in biogeography, where concepts such as ambiguity, stability or support have not even been defined. Here, we propose two stability measures for hypotheses of areas of endemism (AEs) and use them to explore the degree to which different structural qualities of data affect the results of analyses of endemism. Our findings suggest that different types of data incompleteness have different effects on the recovery of the species composition and the geographical or spatial structure of AEs, showing that distinct levels of sampling coverage affect the stability of results in different ways. We show that a small proportion of poorly sampled species may have a stronger impact on AEs stability than many species with medium sampling and that excluding poorly sampled species from the analyses does not guarantee more stable results. These results highlight the importance of planning data collection and indicate that, in order to obtain more stable results, focusing on completing the distribution of strongly undersampled species might be preferable to adding records of any species randomly.Fil: Casagranda, Maria Dolores. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico - Tucumán. Unidad Ejecutora Lillo; ArgentinaFil: Goloboff, Pablo Augusto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico - Tucumán. Unidad Ejecutora Lillo; Argentin

An explorative study of antecedents of organizational mindfulness in emergency room

Emergency Room (ER) can be considered as a High Reliability Organization expected to guarantee reliability despite facing hectic and unpredictable events. To achieve this status, ER should invest on the management style of Organizational Mindfulness, focused on anticipation and containment of errors. The aim of this exploratory research was to investigate how Organizational Mindfulness occurs in Italian ERs and what is the role of Safety Culture and Work Engagement in predicting Organizational Mindfulness measured with an ad hoc questionnaire. Results show how the communal sphere of Safety Culture seems a better predictor of Organizational Mindfulness than the individual sphere of Work Engagement

Model reduction and process analysis of biological models

International audienceUnderstanding the dynamical behavior of biological networks is complicated due to their large number of components and interactions. We present a method to analyse key processes for the system behavior, based on the a priori knowledge of the system trajectory and the simplification of mathematical models of these networks. The method consists of the model decomposition into biologically meaningful processes, whose activity or inactivity is evaluated during the time evolution of the system. The structure of the model is reduced to the core mechanisms involving active processes only. We assess the quality of the reduction by means of global relative errors and apply our method to two models of the circadian rhythm in Drosophila and the influence of RKIP on the ERK signaling pathway

PROJETO QUINTAL VERDE: CAMPANHA DE CONSCIENTIZAÇÃO PARA RECICLAGEM DO LIXO E PRESERVAÇÃO AMBIENTAL

Atualmente vive-se em meio a vários problemas relacionados ao meio ambiente. Um destes problemas, e talvez um dos mais graves entre eles, é o acumulo de lixo encontrado pelas cidades, que causa tanto danos à natureza como colabora na proliferação de pragas que transmitem doenças. Sensibilizados com esse tema, a AMBAS – Associação de Moradores do Bairro Sufiatti de Xanxerê-SC, desenvolveu o Projeto Quintal Verde, que busca por meio da conscientização mostrar aos moradores práticas mais sustentáveis e os benefícios que se ganha ao cuidar do meio ambiente. Dessa forma, o projeto de design consiste no desenvolvimento de uma marca para o Projeto Quintal Verde a fim de firmá-lo na comunidade, facilitando e propiciando seu reconhecimento. Também como função do designer desenvolver materiais que mantenham a unidade com a identidade visual do projeto, disseminando-o nos vários meios de comunicação. Por meio de pesquisas bibliográficas estudou-se sobre o design, o design gráfico e identidade visual, e a sustentabilidade. Por meio da aplicação da metodologia de Munari (2015) chegou-se a um resultado de projeto satisfatório, no qual a marca desenvolvida transmite todos os conceitos buscados pelo projeto social

E-inclusion in Finland and Italy in the light of statistical data.

When young people drop out of school they are in great danger of being marginalized in society. Immigrants are another group of people who for several reasons often find it difficult to become integrated into their new home country. In both cases some less formal way of learning might help these groups avoid social exclusion. Well thoughtout development and application of new advanced technologies would be likely to level the way for continued education, communication and democratic participation in society. The term e-inclusion refers to these electronic means and how they could be applied to hindering social exclusion. This study compares the situation of school drop-outs and immigrants in Finland and Italy in the light of statistical data. It paves the way for a European research and development project whose aim is to study problems of e-inclusion in Finland and Italy empirically as well as develop technological and pedagogical solutions to them.mobile learning; e-inclusion; disadvantage groups; immigrants; drop outs