Popular Pressure on Government

My immediate reaction at the outset of this talk, aside from the subject, is a contradiction of a good and bad condition existing in the audience. The had is that I feel guilty about Professor Emery who, it seems to me, is not being treated fairly. I was unable to hear his lecture, while he is sitting and listening to me. This seems very unfair

Reflections on the impact of social technologies on lecturers in a pathway institution

Education has evolved over time from face-to-face teaching to computer-supported learning, and now to even more sophisticated electronic tools. In particular, social technologies are being used to supple- ment the classroom experience and to ensure that students are becoming increasingly engaged in ways that appeal to them. No matter how educationally beneficial, however, new technology is affected by its users. To investigate this, lecturers at the Eynesbury Institute of Business and Technology (EIBT)—a Higher Education pathway provider—were surveyed to determine their perception and application of social technolog(ies) in their personal, but predominantly ‘professional’ lives. Utilising a qualitative and autoethnographic approach, one author provides an insight into their own attitude toward social technologies, coupled with responses to three open-ended questions. Thereafter, the same questions were posed to EIBT academic staff to understand their willingness or reluctance to use social technologies in their practice as part of their first-year pathway course(s)

Analyzing the location decisions of agro-industrial investments in Greece

This article examines empirically the factors determining the agro-industrial investments in Greece and their impact on tourism development. Firstly, the determinants influencing the spatial configuration, the socioeconomic forces and the political framework of the agro-industrial investments in Greece are examined theoretically, according to the literature considered by Regional Science. At next, a multi-ordinal regression analysis is applied on the determinants elected theoretically, utilizing statistical data from Greece that describe the period 2004-2008. The results of the analysis are interpreted under the regional developmental perspective, constituting an indirect evaluation of the Greek Developmental Laws 3299/04 and 3522/06, applied by the Government to orientate the developmental dynamics of the agro-industry in Greece. Finally, a further analysis is applied comparing the agro-industrial investments with the tourism dynamics in Greece, indicating a field of policy implementation. Copyright © 2015, IGI Global

Building smarter cities through social entrepreneurship

The objective of the present study is to examine the extent to which social ventures are able to increase the “smartness” of cities. To achieve this goal, we adopt a qualitative approach using a case study method to obtain valuable insights about different characteristics and strategies of Cais (a non-profit association dedicated to helping disadvantaged people in urban areas). Through our analysis of Cais’s activities, we assess whether its social interventions match the dimensions proposed by Giffinger et al. (2007) to rank smart cities’ performance; specifically, it has smart: economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, and living. The research shows that the action pursued comprises elements from all the above-mentioned dimensions. Further, the analysis reveals that Cais reinforces the smartness of the city in which it acts (in terms of attributes such as living, economy, people, and environment).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio