Mediation in a conflict society: an ethnographic view on mediation processes in Israel

This thesis addresses the question: how do individuals in a conflict society engage in peaceful dispute resolution through mediation? It provides a close look at Israeli society, in which people face daily conflicts. These include confrontations on many levels: the national, such as wars and terror attacks; the social, such as ethnic, religious and economic tensions; and the personal level, whereby the number of lawyers and legal claims per capita are among the highest in the world. The magnitude, pervasiveness, and often existential nature of these conflicts have led sociologists to label Israel a ‘conflict society’.   Mediation practice came into this society and challenged the existing ethos and norms by proposing a discourse of dialogue and cooperation. The thesis focuses on the meeting point that mediation engenders between narratives of conflict, which have developed in this environment, and the mediation processes, which set out to achieve a collaborative discourse and mutual recognition.   The fieldwork, forming the core of the thesis, consists of the observation of supervised mediation processes of civil disputes in two leading mediation centres, and interviews with professionals and key figures in the discipline. The wide variety of voices of a broad range of interviewees and many different parties provide for rich, qualitative data.   The use of the narrative‐ethnographic approach in observing mediation processes helps identify key themes in participantsʹ  narratives. The subsequent analysis leads to the insight that these mediation processes reflect, in a subtle way, the narratives, beliefs and needs of individuals in a conflict society. The findings from this study indicate that perceptions of life in a conflict society are clearly manifested through mediation processes. These place obstacles and inhibit the attainment of agreements. Yet, surprisingly, some of the findings also demonstrate an aversion to conflict and a well‐expressed desire to maintain communication and to achieve peaceful resolution

Stickiness of Commercial Virtual Communities

The recent merging of the electronic market arena has enabled the creation of new environments in which consumers can interact with each other online – Commercial Virtual Communities (CVC). The strategic question facing internet businesses today is what are the components of the glue that makes consumers stay and return to websites in general and to CVCs in particular, i.e. how can one increase the stickiness of a CVC? This paper provides an insight into the nature of CVCs and the factors that drive their stickiness. The resulting framework is evaluated with the help of a survey among CVC experts. The results of the survey are presented.economics of technology ;

Numerical Analysis of Various Heat Countermeasures: Effects on Energy Consumption and Indoor Thermal Comfort in Densely Built Wooden House Area

Densely built areas with poor thermal insulation suffer from high thermal environmental risks and generally consume high energy in summer. Determining the relationship between density and energy consumption is necessary, particularly when implementing urban heat island (UHI) countermeasures. This study evaluated the effects of density and UHI countermeasures on the energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort of a detached house in a typical densely built wooden house area in Yokohama City, Japan. Three densities and six countermeasures were considered. Annual hourly simulations based on the SCIENCE-Vent thermal environment simulation model yielded the following results: in densely built wooden house areas, the energy consumption and thermal discomfort increased with density. The green roof yielded the largest energy savings in the cooling and heating seasons, demonstrating the highest annual energy savings with 5.7%. Density had little impact on rooftop countermeasures, but the effect of the high-reflectance walls increased with density, and the reduction in annual energy consumption (air conditioning and lighting) is 2.6%, 3.0%, 3.6% in 37%, 47%, and 59% density cases, respectively. The impact of thermal countermeasures on indoor thermal comfort varied according to the thermal control mechanism

Pseudo Alopecia Areata Caused by Skull-caps with Metal Pin Fasteners used by Orthodox Jews in Israel

Background: Alopecia Areata (AA) is a disease characterized by hair loss that is widely believed to be autoimmune in origin. Thus treatment is generally aimed in this direction using immune inhibitors such as steroids and PUVA

The Influence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the Entrepreneur Leadership Attributes

Innovation, and especially innovation leadership, is a critical factor in enhancing a firm’s success in today’s changing markets. This research investigates changes in the entrepreneurial leadership attributes amid the fourth industrial revolution and how these changes relate to the fast pace of technology advancement. As part of the fourth industrial revolution, the barrier to introducing innovative technology has decreased due to the accessibility of high-end commercial capabilities, such as cloud computing, big-data capacities, open-source codes, and more, which reduce their need for in-house development. This research taps into the current academic knowledge gap and aims to understand how leadership traits (or attributes) may help fully exploit this significant revolution’s advantages and gain a competitive advantage over rivals. This paper also contributes to the knowledge of innovation study and entrepreneur leadership study. The research utilizes automated techniques of content analysis of published interviews and entrepreneurs’ biographies from recent years and the distant past. The results reveal that current entrepreneurs tend to be open-minded while avoiding rejecting innovation from other firms (avoiding “the not invented here” concept) and are willing to share the experience with the adjacent technology eco-system. The main conclusion of the research is that the entrepreneur in the current era should utilize the open innovation eco-system and gather the ingredients for innovation initiatives, and also have the ability to accurately seek the best offthe- shelf solution to use and integrate it while avoiding time- and budget-consuming development procedures

How the current fourth industrial revolution effecting the leadership?

Innovation leadership is critical in enhancing a firm’s success in today’s changing markets. This research investigates the changes in entrepreneurial leadership attributes amid the fourth industrial revolution and the fast pace of technological advancement. This study helps to understand how leadership traits may help entrepreneurs fully exploit the advantages of this revolution and gain a competitive advantage. The content analysis method used for this research utilized written data regarding 23 leaders from 20 companies from the latest 19th century during the first industrial revolution until the current fourth industrial revolution. Results reveal noticeable leadership attributes emphasized in the fourth industrial revolution, such as communication, coaching, innovation, forecasting future, team-builder, and more. Those attributes are in tight correlation with the current novel digital leadership paradigm and the known effects of the fourth industrial revolution on the firms and leaders. Results reveal that current entrepreneurs tend to be open-minded while avoiding rejecting innovation from other firms and are willing to share the experience with the adjacent technology ecosystem

Radiative Forcing and Temperature Response to Changes in Urban Albedos and Associated CO2 Offsets

The two main forcings that can counteract to some extent the positive forcings from greenhouse gases from pre-industrial times to present-day are the aerosol and related aerosol-cloud forcings, and the radiative response to changes in surface albedo. Here, we quantify the change in radiative forcing and surface temperature that may be obtained by increasing the albedos of roofs and pavements in urban areas in temperate and tropical regions of the globe. Using the catchment land surface model (the land model coupled to the GEOS-5 Atmospheric General Circulation Model), we quantify the response of the total outgoing (outgoing shortwave+longwave) radiation to urban albedo changes. Globally, the total outgoing radiation increased by 0.5 W/square m and temperature decreased by -0.008 K for an average 0.003 increase in albedo. For the U.S. the total outgoing total radiation increased by 2.3 W/square meter, and temperature decreased by approximately 0.03 K for an average 0.01 increase in albedo. These values are for the boreal summer (Tune-July-August). Based on these forcings, the expected emitted CO2 offset for a plausible 0.25 and 0.15 increase in albedos of roofs and pavements, respectively, for all global urban areas, was found to be approximately 57 Gt CO2 . A more meaningful evaluation of the impacts of urban albedo increases on climate and the expected CO2 offsets would require simulations which better characterizes urban surfaces and represents the full annual cycle