The Mis-Education of the Indebted Student

In the contemporary global neoliberal economy financial debt shapes indebted subjectivity. It also drastically alters education philosophy, policy and practice. This dissertation analyzes in an interdisciplinary fashion the impacts of financial debt on subjectivity and educational experience. As a work of philosophy of education, it also examines the ways in which education can be a practice that liberates subjectivity from debt’s delimiting force. Emancipatory education theory and practice play an important role in current and future struggles for debt jubilee

Returns Management Practices in Swiss Online Apparel Retailing: A Multiple Case Study Approach

Product returns are a critical, costly task for online retailers; yet the process of managing and avoiding returns is neither actively coordinated nor investigated. Based on a multiple case study approach, six in-depth interviews with top- and middle-level apparel industry managers were conducted to explore and describe practices of managing product returns in online apparel retailing. Our findings revealed returns management practices implemented in online apparel retailing and identified several applications to reduce the environmental footprint of product returns and improving the company’s performance, based on five facets of returns management: (1) the interplay of return policy, product category, and preventive actions; (2) the application of avoidance practices; (3) the management of returns in omnichannel retail; (4) the potential of artificial intelligence to reduce return rates; and (5) the role of sustainability in consumer behaviour. To reduce product returns and enhance a company’s performance, we propose to map the practices against different phases of the return journey

INFLUENTIAL FACTORS OF RECOMMENDATION BEHAVIOUR IN SOCIAL NETWORK SITES - AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

This paper analyzes influential factors of recommendation behaviour in social network sites (SNSs). Extant research on both SNSs and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has given insufficient attention to SNSs as a potential eWOM channel. Considering the specificities of SNSs, this paper distinguishes implicit and explicit recommendation behaviour. Drawing upon research on eWOM, SNSs, and knowledge exchange, influential factors of implicit and explicit recommendation behaviour are identified. A theoretical model explaining why SNS users (do not) engage in implicit and explicit recommendation behaviour is developed. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used for hypothesis testing. Data was collected via an online survey from 832 SNS users. The empirical results show a positive impact of reciprocity on both implicit and explicit recommendation behaviour, a negative impact of fear of producing spam on implicit recommendation behaviour, and a positive impact of both implicit recommendation behaviour and the perceived value of the recommended product on explicit recommendation behaviour

How Consumers Progress to More Advanced Levels of Data-based Products and Services: A Scenario-Based Approach

Data-based products and services (DBPS) utilise personal data to enhance their capabilities and provide consumers with a more intelligent and personalized experience. As a result, the experience of DBPS is fluid – the amount of data consumers feed into the product determines their experience. However, barriers such as privacy concerns hinder the progression to a more pronounced level at different thresholds. We developed and employed a scenario-based prospective incident technique to analyse how consumers experience DBPS at certain levels and how they advance from one level to another. Results show that consumers are willing to share non-critical personal data in exchange for mainly utilitarian benefits at basic DBPS levels. As DBPS usage progresses, consumers constantly perform cost-benefit assessments. Providers of DBPS can target these assessments by clearly communicating incremental added value to enable a small-step progression at all levels of usage

Real-Time Detection of Optical Transients with RAPTOR

Fast variability of optical objects is an interesting though poorly explored subject in modern astronomy. Real-time data processing and identification of transient celestial events in the images is very important for such study as it allows rapid follow-up with more sensitive instruments. We discuss an approach which we have developed for the RAPTOR project, a pioneering closed-loop system combining real-time transient detection with rapid follow-up. RAPTOR's data processing pipeline is able to identify and localize an optical transient within seconds after the observation. The testing we performed so far have been confirming the effectiveness of our method for the optical transient detection. The software pipeline we have developed for RAPTOR can easily be applied to the data from other experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, to appear in SPIE proceedings vol. 484

TRACES OF THE TIME WHICH REMAINS:: VIGNETTES ON THE ART AND TIME OF DYING

TRACES OF THE TIME WHICH REMAINS: VIGNETTES ON THE ART AND TIME OF DYIN

Hacia un “carácter poético” docente y una poética del cuestionamiento en Educación

Inspirados en el poeta Romantico John Keats (1795-1821), en este artículo meditamos sobre lo que puede ocurrir en el espacio educativo si los docentes cultivan y alimentan el carácter poético y la capacidad negativa. El artículo busca retratar una disposición docente particular, y el impacto que esa disposición podría tener en la experiencia educativa de los docentes y sus estudiantes. Comenzando con algunas consideraciones sobre el carácter poético y la capacidad negativa, el artículo se propone ponderar cómo un docente con carácter poético desafía la concepción familiar de la educación como una "búsqueda por la certeza" haciendo de la educación una travesía sin norte por las aguas de lo que no se sabe ni conoce

The applicability of context-based multicast: a shopping centre scenario

This paper analyzes the applicability of context-based multicast content distribution (CBMCD) on the example of realistic push- and videobased mobile advertising services at a shopping centre. The technical results of the simulation of the service scenario show that CBMCD significantly reduces the number of unicast streams and the total volume of traffic in the network. The results of the financial analysis show that these technical benefits can be translated into considerable financial benefits due to costs savings. Taken together, these results suggest that CBMCD can be an efficient, cost-saving network traffic management approach and the basis for lucrative push services