Sources of class conscousness: the experience of women workers in South Africa, 1973-1980

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 5

Ecology and trust in mangement and business research 1995-2010. Tentative findings. MULTI-TRUST research paper

Trust’ is considered an important driving factor for the development of ‘green growth’ strategies. An understanding of how ‘trust’ is created and maintained is crucial for those strategies. However, b& m research does neither offer consistent nor conclusive definitions of ‘trust’. Based on the review, a tentative suggestion is that the development of promising practices for the creation and maintenance of ‘trust’ is to be related to the organic complexities located in Denmark that characterize the transformation of the social space of organic agribusiness. Organic complexities are amongst others characterized by the highly fragmented meaning and current restructuring of the content of ‘organic’, diverse sale challenges, interdependences in the accreditation and certification processes, and the limited information value of eco labels. In order to meet related trust challenges, the concept of ‘high-trust relationships’ seems to be useful for this pursuit

Retirement Income Protection in Hong Kong

This paper gives background information on work, retirement, and labor force participation in Hong Kong. A brief development of social security is described followed by introducing the current retirement income protection programs in Hong Kong. The paper also discusses the financial disposition of current older adults and the soon-to-be old generation. These discussions raise the potential problems of the retirement income protection schemes. Finally, this paper provides recommendations for improving the existing schemes and proposes a study plan which tries to devise a sustainable financial support system for older adults in Hong Kong.

Kunst, Wissen und Zeugnis

In this paper we want to explore different epistemological benefits that we gain by dealing with some artworks, and our focus is on narrative arts. We claim that there is a sense in which narrative arts (e.g. literature, film and possibly even some expressions of visual art) can be similar to testimony, in that they provide information which can be epistemologically valuable for cognitive agents such as we are. We identify at least two broad categories of these epistemological benefits, the first one includes ‘facts stating’ and in that sense is parallel to the paradigmatic case of testimony in which what the testifier says can be a source of knowledge as mere acquisition of facts for his audience (this is the first case when we speak of artworks as ‘tellings’). This, however, is not the most peculiar and distinctive kind of epistemological benefits we can gain from art. The other one has to do with raising awareness, of deepening our understanding about some issues either by a specific, powerful and involving way of providing us facts (this is the second way in which we speak of artworks as ‘tellings’), or by presenting us the stance, the attitude, the opinion of the artist that can be enlightening, or challenging for us (in this case, we speak of ‘sayings’).U ovom radu želimo istražiti različite epistemološke koristi koje dobivamo putem nekih umjetničkih djela, pri čemu smo primarno usredotočeni na narativne umjetnosti. Tvrdimo da u određenom smislu, narativne umjetnosti (primjerice književnost, film a i neka djela vizualne umjetnosti) mogu biti slične svjedočanstvu, utoliko što pružaju informacije koje mogu biti epistemološki vrijedne za kognitivne djelatnike kakvi smo mi. Razlikujemo barem dvije šire kategorije tih epistemoloških vrijednosti, od kojih prva uključuje ‘navođenje činjenica’ i u tom je smislu pandan paradigmatskom slučaju svjedočanstva u kojem ono što informator govori može biti izvor znanja za publiku koja time naprosto dobiva činjenice (ovo je prvi slučaj, kada govorimo o umjetničkim djelima kao o ‘tellings’). Međutim, to nije najsvojstvenija i najznačajnija vrsta epistemoloških vrijednosti koje dobijemo iz umjetnosti. Druga kategorija tiče se povećavanja svijesti ili produbljivanja razumijevanja o nekom fenomenu, koji se može odvijati na dva načina: ili pružanjem činjenica na specifično snažan i prožimalački način (ovo je drugi smisao u kojem o umjetničkom djelu možemo govoriti kao o ‘tellings’), ili prezentiranjem stajališta, stava ili mišljenja umjetnika koji nam može biti prosvjetljujući ili pak predstavljati izazov našem stajalištu.Dans cet article, nous souhaitons étudier les différents avantages épistémologiques qu’on tire de certains ouvrages artistiques, en nous focalisant sur les arts narratifs. Nous affirmons que, dans un certain sens, les arts narratifs (ex. lettres, cinéma, mais aussi certaines formes d’expressions de l’art visuel) peuvent ressembler au témoignage, dans la mesure où ils fournissent des informations susceptibles d’être épistémologiquement précieuses aux acteurs cognitifs que nous sommes. Nous distinguons au moins deux catégories larges de ces avantages épistémologiques. La première comprend « l’énoncé des faits » et dans ce sens représente le pendant du cas paradigmatique de témoignage où, ce que le témoin dit, peut être source de connaissance pour le public qui de cette manière reçoit simplement les faits (il s’agit du premier cas, celui où nous parlons des ouvrages artistiques comme « tellings »). Cependant, cette sorte d’avantage épistémologique n’est pas la plus originale ou la plus pertinente qu’on puisse tirer de l’art. L’autre catégorie concerne l’accroissement de la conscience ou l’approfondissement de la compréhension de certains phénomènes, soit en rapportant les faits d’une façon spécifique, puissante et engageante (ceci est la deuxième façon dont nous considérons les ouvrages d’art comme « tellings »), soit en présentant la position, l’attitude ou l’opinion de l’artiste, qui puissent nous être révélateurs ou provocateurs.In diesem Paper möchten wir den unterschiedlichen epistemologischen Vorzügen auf den Grund gehen, die wir in der Arbeit mit einigen Kunstwerken erlangen, wobei unser Schwerpunkt in der narrativen Kunst liegt. Wir behaupten, die narrativen Künste (z. B. Literatur, Film und möglicherweise überdies einzelne Ausdrücke der visuellen Kunst) könnten in gewissem Sinne dem Zeugnis ähneln, insofern sie Informationen besorgten, die epistemologisch wertvoll für kognitive Agenten wie uns seien. Wir identifizieren zumindest zwei breite Kategorien dieser epistemologischen Vorzüge, die Erste schließt „Tatsachenangaben“ ein und ist in diesem Sinne vergleichbar mit dem paradigmatischen Fall des Zeugnisses, wo die Aussagen des Zeugen als Wissensquelle, als bloße Faktenaneignung für sein Publikum zu dienen vermögen (dies repräsentiert den ersten Fall, welcher von den Kunstwerken als den „Tellings“ handelt). Dies dagegen ist nicht die eigenartigste und distinktivste Art der epistemologischen Werte, die uns die Kunst verschafft. Die andere hat es mit der Bewusstseinssteigerung sowie Verständnisvertiefung bezüglich gewisser Fragestellungen zu tun, entweder durch spezifische, kraftvolle und involvierende Art der Tatsachenvermittlung (dies repräsentiert den zweiten Fall, wo die Rede von den Kunstwerken als den „Tellings“ ist), oder eben durch die Präsentierung der Haltung, Einstellung oder Ansicht des Künstlers, welche sich für uns als erhellend oder herausfordernd herausschälen könnten (diesfalls reden wir von den „Sayings“)

Quantum Discriminant Analysis for Dimensionality Reduction and Classification

We present quantum algorithms to efficiently perform discriminant analysis for dimensionality reduction and classification over an exponentially large input data set. Compared with the best-known classical algorithms, the quantum algorithms show an exponential speedup in both the number of training vectors $M$ and the feature space dimension $N$. We generalize the previous quantum algorithm for solving systems of linear equations [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 150502 (2009)] to efficiently implement a Hermitian chain product of $k$ trace-normalized $N \times N$ Hermitian positive-semidefinite matrices with time complexity of $O(\log (N))$. Using this result, we perform linear as well as nonlinear Fisher discriminant analysis for dimensionality reduction over $M$ vectors, each in an $N$-dimensional feature space, in time $O(p \text{polylog} (MN)/\epsilon ^{3})$, where $\epsilon$ denotes the tolerance error, and $p$ is the number of principal projection directions desired. We also present a quantum discriminant analysis algorithm for data classification with time complexity $O(\log (MN)/\epsilon^{3})$.Comment: 11 pages, published versio