A snapshot on crowdfunding

This article addresses crowdfunding, a relatively new form of informal financing of pro-jects and ventures. It describes its principle characteristics and the range of players in this market. The different business models of crowdfunding intermediaries are explored and illustrated. A first attempt is made to classify the different forms of funding and business models of crowdfunding intermediaries. Based on the available empirical data the paper discusses the economic relevance of crowdfunding and its applicability to start-up financing and funding creative ventures and research projects. --

Breaking silences and upholding confidences: responding to HIV in the Lihir Islands, Papua New Guinea

Various forms of silence are understood to characterize the response to HIV/AIDS in the Lihir Islands in Papua New Guinea. While some efforts have been made to prevent HIV and educate residents, these seem not to have been in proportion to its classification as a high-risk setting for transmission, given social factors associated with the Lihir gold mine. Confidentiality is both practiced yet critiqued in Lihir as another form of silencing that detracts from efforts to emphasize the serious nature of HIV, promote its prevention, and care for those who live with it. 'Breaking the silence' has come to be seen as key to preventing HIV in Lihir, yet while certain silences are acknowledged, others have escaped scrutiny.Susan R. Heme

Specification Matching of State-Based Modular Components

Retrieval of software components from a library relies on techniques for matching user requirements against library component interfaces. In this paper we introduce a number of techniques for matching formally specified, state-based modules. These techniques will form the basis for retrieval tool support. The techniques described in this paper build on existing specification matching methods, based on individual functions, specified using pre- and post-conditions. We begin by defining a basic module matching technique, based on matching the individual units within a module. We consider variations of this technique that take into account two important features of modules: the visibility of module entities; and the use of state invariants. An advanced technique, based on data refinement and the use of coupling invariants, is also described

A Refinement Calculus for Logic Programs

Existing refinement calculi provide frameworks for the stepwise development of imperative programs from specifications. This paper presents a refinement calculus for deriving logic programs. The calculus contains a wide-spectrum logic programming language, including executable constructs such as sequential conjunction, disjunction, and existential quantification, as well as specification constructs such as general predicates, assumptions and universal quantification. A declarative semantics is defined for this wide-spectrum language based on executions. Executions are partial functions from states to states, where a state is represented as a set of bindings. The semantics is used to define the meaning of programs and specifications, including parameters and recursion. To complete the calculus, a notion of correctness-preserving refinement over programs in the wide-spectrum language is defined and refinement laws for developing programs are introduced. The refinement calculus is illustrated using example derivations and prototype tool support is discussed.Comment: 36 pages, 3 figures. To be published in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP

Specifying software architectures using a formal-based approach

Architecture description languages (ADLs) describe the abstracted structure of a system. In this paper we describe a new ADL based on extension of the existing CARE language used in formally specifying and implementing reusable software components. The mainelements of this ADL are components and connectors, with functional and nonfunctional behaviours and interfaces defined. The ADL includes a configuration part, describing the connection between components and connectors, defined using a CSP-like notation. The ADL is amenable to the use of theorem proving techniques for establishing correctness of the architecture. The recursive architecture is also specified as a part of the communication. The design for the CARE ADL is incorporated with the plan to leverage existing tools for matching and adapting CARE components, to develop support for the detection and correction of architecture mismatches (i.e. where components do not interoperate correctly).David Hemer, Yulin Din

Civic engagement in young adulthood: Social capital and the mediating effects of postsecondary educational attainment

Civic Engagement has two purposes in American society. The first is to maintain democracy and democratic institutions; the second is to serve as a pathway for maturation into adulthood. Utilizing data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), we investigate how adolescent experiences with schools and families impact young adult’s political (voting) and nonpolitical (volunteering) civic engagement and the mediating role postsecondary educational attainment may have in this process. Utilizing measures of adolescent bonding and bridging social capital, as well as human and financial capital, this investigation takes a life course perspective and relies heavily on theories of capital and emerging adulthood. Our study examines relationships between adolescence, emerging adulthood, and young adulthood with a sample of 6,872 respondents drawn from Waves I and IV of Add Health with a structural equation model and 10,000 bootstrap samples to test for mediation. We investigated these political and nonpolitical civic engagement. Our study used nationally representative, longitudinal data, to account for multiple important developmental pre-collegiate factors, assessed civic engagement in young adulthood, and included individuals who did not attend and/or complete higher education as well as those who did. In short, we found unique relationships exist for political and non-political civic engagement. Behavioral bonding and bridging social capital demonstrated direct and indirect effects to civic engagement in young adulthood. Postsecondary education was the strongest predictor civic engagement in young adulthood, suggesting greater levels of education are a powerful social structure to prepare members of society for civic participation

Civic learning for dissent: College students’ activist orientation, campus climates, and higher education in the American democracy

There are two important premises at the core of the American democracy: inclusion and dissent. Focusing on the premise of democratic dissent, the overarching goal of this study is understanding how colleges may encourage desirable civic outcomes. This dissertation is proceeds in an alternative format, containing three distinct manuscripts. Chapter 1 provides background and framed the subsequent manuscripts. Chapter 2 examines the measurement properties of survey scales, paying specific attention to potential differences by gender, race, and class year, and considering how these differences may affect findings and conclusions. Using confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, four latent factors were hypothesized and confirmed. Test of invariance examined measurement on the basis of gender, race, and class year. Findings suggested these four factors were invariant. Chapter 3 enumerates campus opportunities that shape students’ perceptions and predict campus climate that encourages civic learning and engagement. The study utilized ecological theory and data collected from the PSRI and utilized two-level multi-level modeling. Associations between student characteristics (e.g., race, personality), educational practices (e.g., diversity courses, first year seminars), and subjective measures of environment (e.g., perceived advocacy by campus professionals) were all revealed as potential levers for shaping students’ perception of climate. Chapter 4 examines how college students’ background, engagement, and perceptions are related to the development of an orientation towards activism and dissent by using the Activism Orientation Scale (AOS). The study utilized ecological theory and data collected from the PSRI, employing OLS regression. Some findings were consistent with previous scholarship on civic outcomes; however, two key findings were surprising. Chapter 5 revisits ideas from Chapter 1 in light of findings, concluding the dissertation. This dissertation adds to the growing literature that connects the subjective environment to student outcomes and emphasizes the conceptual value of campus climates for student development. Higher education, through both educational practices and campus climate, can shape civic learning towards activism (i.e., collective, social-political action taking)

ComDev in the Mediatized World

As we are writing, in late 2011, we are in the beginning of a historical revolution that may or may not turn out to be even more far-reaching than the one unleashed in 1989. A common denominator in this resurging revolution is the mobilizing power of the so-called social media. Even if labels such as the Twitter or Facebook revolution are rightfully refuted, the on-going Arab Spring is a clear-cut example of a new and unprecedented communication power, which is largely out of the authorities’ control. While the crucial role of media and communication in processes of social change and development at last becomes evident, it is however not associated with the field of communication for development and social change, not even by the development agencies themselves. While ComDev historically has been about developing prescriptive recipes of communication for some development, it is high time we refocus our attention to the deliberative, non-institutional change processes that are emerging from a citizens’ profound and often desperate reaction to this global Now