Drifting periodic structures in a degenerate-planar bent-rod nematic liquid crystal beyond the dielectric inversion frequency

We report on the electric-field-generated effects in the nematic phase of a twin mesogen formed of bent-core and calamitic units, aligned homeotropically in the initial ground state and examined beyond the dielectric inversion point. The bend-Freedericksz (BF) state occurring at the primary bifurcation and containing a network of umbilics is metastable; we focus here on the degenerate planar (DP) configuration that establishes itself at the expense of the BF state in the course of an anchoring transition. In the DP regime, normal rolls, broad domains, and chevrons (both defect-mediated and defect-free types) form at various linear defect-sites, in different regions of the frequency-voltage plane. A significant novel aspect common to all these patterned states is the sustained propagative instability, which does not seem explicable on the basis of known driving mechanisms.

Beyond Poverty: Social Justice in a Global Marketplace

The social justice paradigm, developed in philosophy by John Rawls and others, reaches limits when confronted with diverse populations, unsound governments, and global markets.Its parameters are further limited by a traditional utilitarian approach to both industrial actors and consumer behaviors. Finally, by focusing too exclusively on poverty, as manifest in insufficient incomes or resources, the paradigm overlooks the oppressive role that gender,race, and religious prejudice play in keeping the poor subordinated. The authors of this article suggest three ways in which researchers in marketing could bring their unique expertise to the question of social justice in a global economy: by reinventing the theoretical foundation laid down by thinkers such as Rawls, by documenting and evaluating emergent “feasible fixes” to achieve justice (such as the global resource dividend, cause-related marketing, Fair Trade, and philanthrocapitalism), and by exploring the parameters of the consumption basket that would be minimally required to achieve human capabilities.

Beyond the United States and Japan: Testing Yamagishi's emancipation theory of trust across 31 nations

We examined the relationship between Individualism/Collectivism and generalized social trust across 31 European nations participating in the European Social Survey. Using multi-level regression analyses, the current study provides the first empirical investigation of the effects of cultural norms of Individualism/Collectivism on generalized social trust while accounting for individuals' own cultural orientations within the same analysis. The results provide clear support for Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994) emancipation theory of trust, showing a significant and positive relationship between Individualism/Collectivism and generalized social trust, over and above the effect of a country political history of communism and ethnic heterogeneity. Having controlled for individual effects of Individualism/Collectivism it is clear that the results of the current analysis cannot be reduced to an individual-level explanation, but must be interpreted within the context Of macrosocial processes. We conclude by discussing potential mechanisms that could explain why national individualism is more likely to foster trust among people than collectivism.

Beyond the Sign. Henri Meschonnic's Poetics of Rhythm and Continuum. Towards an Anthropological Theory of Language

Basing the conception of language on the sign represents also an obstacle to the awareness of certain elements of human life, especially to a full understanding of what language or art do, Henri Meschonnic’s poetics of the continuum and of rhythm criticizes the sign based on Benveniste’s terms of rhythm and discourse, developing an anthropology of language. Rhythm, for Meschonnic, is no formal metrical but a semantic principle, each time unique and unforeseeable. As for Humboldt, his starting point is not the word but the ensemble of speech; language is not ergon but energeia. The poem then is not a literary form but a process of transformation that Meschonnic defines as the invention of a form of life by a form of language and vice versa. Thus a poem is a way of thinking and rhythm is form in movement. The particular subject of art and literature is consequently not the author but a process of subjectivation – this is the contrary of the conception of the sign. By demonstrating the limits of the sign, Meschonnic’s poetics attempts to thematize the intelligibility of presence. Art and literature raise our awareness of this element of human life we cannot grasp conceptually. This poetical thinking is a necessary counterforce against all institutionalization.