’Escalation of Commitment’ as a Force for Good? Evidence from an Indonesian Digital Government Project

In extant literature, ‘escalation of commitment’ is viewed as a recommitment of resources to a failing course of action that can lock projects into an ill-fated path of failure. This view portrays all feedback information driving recommitment decisions as “negative” in nature. In this paper we question this portrayal, joining an emerging alternative view that makes no assumptions about the nature of feedback. We take the view that feedback is inherently equivocal, and regard escalation of commitment as decision dilemmas arising out of such equivocality. Drawing on a case study of a digital government project in Indonesia, the paper explores this alternative view by understanding the antecedents of escalation of commitment deployed by key actors in steering a failing project to become a reasonably successful one. Theoretically, the paper suggests that the decision maker’s dilemma is influenced by their personal beliefs, cultural norms and institutional values. The paper presents the notion of “perseverance of commitment”, where escalation of commitment emerges, and is subsequently reinforced through a collective belief-driven reframing mechanism

The coloniality of metadata : a critical data analysis of the Archive Of Early American Images at the John Carter Brown Library

How do contemporary metadata practices replicate the coloniality of power embedded in European colonial documents describing the Spanish Americas? This report draws from critical theory and postcolonial thought within the field of Latin American studies to explore the extent to which standardized description and categorization practices can perpetuate a Eurocentric colonial gaze on the Spanish Americas. In order to ground this theoretical engagement within the fields of information science and critical data studies, a dataset is compiled and computationally analyzed, which contains metadata records corresponding to images derived from books, manuscripts, and broadsides printed between 1492 and 1825 about the Spanish Americas found in the Archive of Early American Images at the John Carter Brown Library. This report then applies unsupervised machine learning techniques and counts word frequencies to identify broad metadata trends across the collection. Ultimately, this report combines methods from critical data studies and Latin American cultural studies to understand how controlled vocabularies and descriptive practices can perpetuate colonial structures of power.Latin American StudiesInformatio

Geografía-Paisaje-Taxonomía.

Para llegar a una clasificación taxonómica de los paisajes geográficos: 1º, se propone una definición de la geografía; 2º, se interpreta el paisaje geográfico como un conjunto de unidades funcionales, que se denominan individuos de paisaje, los cuales permiten dividir el paisaje con un criterio objetivo; 3º, se comentan el concepto, es tructura, funcionamiento y límites del individuo de paisaje; 4º, se propone una ordenación taxonómica de los individuos de paisaje, asi como su correspondiente nomenclatura, paralelas a las usadas para los seres vivos; 5º, se mencionan 83 taxones de dicha clasificación

On the Potential of the Excluded Volume and Auto-Correlation as Neuromorphometric Descriptors

This work investigates at what degree two neuromorphometric measurements, namely the autocorrelation and the excluded volume of a neuronal cell can influence the characterization and classification of such a type of cells. While the autocorrelation function presents good potential for quantifying the dendrite-dendrite connectivity of cells in mosaic tilings, the excluded volume, i.e. the amount of the surround space which is geometrically not accessible to an axon or dendrite, provides a complementary characterization of the cell connectivity. The potential of such approaches is illustrated with respect to real neuronal cells.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Antimicrobial activity of essential oils against Paenibacillus larvae

American foulbrood is a serious bacterial disease that affects Apis mellifera colonies; the causative agent is Paenibacillus larvae [1 ]. The aim of the study was to evaluate in vitro the antimicrobial activity of 32 essential oils against P. larvae. Oils from 21 botanical species were analyzed by gas chromatography (CG and CG/EM). All essential oils were classified according to the composition of their main components in two groups: benzene ring compounds (BRC) and terpene compounds (TC). Minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) in MYT broth [2] was assessed by the microdilution method. Final serial dilution concentrations of the essential oils ranged between 2,000-12.5 mgll. The bacterial isolates were collected from different Argentina's region. The chromatographic analysis showed that a 67% of the essential oils contained predominately terpene compounds. while the remaining 33% included mainly compounds with benzene rings. From the TC group, Cymbopogon citratus essential oil showed the better antimicrobial activity against P. larvae with MIC values between 150 and 250 mgl l. The essential oi ls from Aloysia polystachya and Mentha spp. had the lowest inhibitory activity. Among the oils from the BRC group, one of the lowest MIC values was found with cinnamon essential oil (Cinnamomun zeylanicum) being between 25 and 50 mg/L; Origanum vulgare showed the highest MIC values (350-400 mg/L). Essential oils, especially those with BRC in their composition, presented inhibitory capacity against P. larvae strains

Resultados de los potenciales evocados miogénicos vestibulares en el vértigo posicional paroxístico benigno

Objective: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) seems to occur because of otoconia migration into the semicircular canals or their adherence to the cupula. Although the origin of these otoconia lies in the macula of the utricle, vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) can be used assess saccular function. The aim of this study is to assess the saccular function in patients diagnosed with BPPV. Patients and method: Nineteen patients diagnosed with BPPV of the posterior semicircular canal were included in this study. Their auditory function and their caloric, rotatory chair, and VEMP responses were tested. Ipsilateral and contralateral VEMP thresholds, ipsilateral and contralateral p13 and n23 latencies at 100 dB, inter-peak amplitude and the interaural amplitude difference were determined. Results: We found a lack of VEMP response in 52 % of the ears with BPPV. When adjusted for bilateral absence, VEMP response was absent in 20.3 % of ears. Conclusions: Some patients with idiopathic BPPV show a degree of saccular dysfunction

Loop bounds on non-standard neutrino interactions

We reconsider the bounds on non-standard neutrino interactions with matter which can be derived by constraining the four-charged-lepton operators induced at the loop level. We find that these bounds are model dependent. Naturalness arguments can lead to much stronger constraints than those presented in previous studies, while no completely model-independent bounds can be derived. We will illustrate how large loop-contributions to four-charged-lepton operators are induced within a particular model that realizes gauge invariant non-standard interactions and discuss conditions to avoid these bounds. These considerations mainly affect the $\mathcal O(10^{-4})$ constraint on the non-standard coupling strength \eps_{e\mu}, which is lost. The only model-independent constraints that can be derived are $\mathcal O(10^{-1})$. However, significant cancellations are required in order to saturate this bound.Comment: Minor changes, version to be published in JHEP. 17 pages, 3 Axodraw figures, REVTeX