Islam and Christianity: Comparing the Theory of Supersession Concerning Abraham

Supersession is the theory of one idea supplanting the other. In both Christianity and Islam, this idea is commonplace. In Christianity, the message of Jesus creates a New Covenant for both Jews and Gentiles, while in Islam, the revelation of Muhammad restores the original religion that God intended from the beginning. Christianity and Islam both supersede Judaism in very similar ways. In regards to the use of Abraham in particular, each religion inherits him by appealing to Jewish scripture or their oral tradition, using him to prove their truth claims, and claiming that their religion is originally the religion of Abraham.

Current knowledge on the role of the inferior frontal gyrus in Theory of Mind - a commentary on Schurz and Tholen (2016)

Schurz and Tholen (2016) argue that common approaches to studying the neural basis of “theory of mind” (ToM) obscure a potentially important role for inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in managing conflict between perspectives, and urge new work to address this question: “to gain a full understanding of the IFG's role in ToM, we encourage future imaging studies to use a wider range of control conditions.” (p332). We wholeheartedly agree, but note that this observation has been made before, and has already led to a programme of work that provides evidence from fMRI, EEG, and TMS on the role of IFG in managing conflict between self and other perspectives in ToM. We highlight these works, and in particular we demonstrate how careful manipulation within ToM tasks has been used to act as an internal control condition, wherein conflict has been manipulated within-subject. We further add to the discussion by framing key questions that remain regarding IFG in the context of these. Using limitations in the existing research, we outline how best researchers can proceed with the challenge set by Schurz and Tholen (2016).

In search of a theory of integrated marketing communication

For the most part, the literature base for Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) has developed from an applied or tactical level rather than from an intellectual or theoretical one. Since industry, practitioner and even academic studies have provided little insight into what IMC is and how it operates, our approach has been to investigate that other IMC community, that is, the academic or instructional group responsible for disseminating IMC knowledge. We proposed that the people providing course instruction and directing research activities have some basis for how they organize, consider and therefore instruct in the area of IMC. A syllabi analysis of 87 IMC units in six countries investigated the content of the unit, its delivery both physically and conceptually, and defined the audience of the unit. The study failed to discover any type of latent theoretical foundation that might be used as a base for understanding IMC. The students who are being prepared to extend, expand and enhance IMC concepts do not appear to be well-served by the curriculum we found in our research. The study concludes with a model for further IMC curriculum development.

Towards a relational theory of copyright law

This research provides a systematic and theoretical analysis of the digital challenges to the established exclusive regime of the economic rights enjoyed by authors (and related rightholders) under the law of copyright. Accordingly, this research has developed a relational theory of authorship and a relational approach to copyright, contending that the regulatory emphasis of copyright law should focus on the facilitation of the dynamic relations between the culture, the creators, the future creators, the users and the public, rather than the allocation of resources in a static world. In this networked digital world, the creative works and contents have become increasingly vital for people to engage in creativity and cultural innovation, and for the evolution of the economy. Hence, it is argued that today copyright owners, as content holders, have certain obligations to make their works accessible and available to the public under fair conditions. This research sets forward a number of recommendations for the reform of the current copyright system.

A communitarian theory of the education rights of students with disabilities

There is a lack of writing on the issue of the education rights of people with disabilities by authors of any theoretical persuasion. While the deficiency of theory may be explained by a variety of historical, philosophical and practical considerations, it is a deficiency which must be addressed. Otherwise, any statement of rights rings out as hollow rhetoric unsupported by sound reason and moral rectitude. This paper attempts to address this deficiency in education rights theory by postulating a communitarian theory of the education rights of people with disabilities. The theory is developed from communitarian writings on the role of education in democratic society. The communitarian school, like the community within which it nests, is inclusive. Schools both reflect and model the shape of communitarian society and have primary responsibility for teaching the knowledge and virtues which will allow citizens to belong to and function within society. Communitarians emphasise responsibilities, however, as the corollary of rights and require the individual good to yield to community good when the hard cases arise. The article not only explains the basis of the right to an inclusive education, therefore, but also engages with the difficult issue of when such a right may not be enforceable.

Early adolescents’ helping behaviours when a friend is injured in a fight : the role of an extended Theory of Planned Behavior

This paper examines the role of first aid training in increasing adolescent helping behaviours when taught in a school-based injury prevention program, Skills for Preventing Injury in Youth (SPIY). The research involved the development and application of an extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), including “behavioural willingness in a fight situation,” “first aid knowledge” and “perceptions of injury seriousness”, to predict the relationship between participation in SPIY and helping behaviours when a friend is injured in a fight. From 35 Queensland high schools, 2500 Year 9 students (mean age = 13.5, 40% male) completed surveys measuring their attitudes, perceived behavioural control, subjective norms and behavioural intention, from the TPB, and added measures of behavioural willingness in a fight situation, perceptions of injury seriousness and first aid knowledge, to predict helping behaviours when a friend is injured in a fight. It is expected that the TPB will significantly contribute to understanding the relationship between participation in SPIY and helping behaviours when a friend is injured in a fight. Further analyses will determine whether the extension of the model significantly increases the variance explained in helping behaviours. The findings of this research will provide insight into the critical factors that may increase adolescent bystanders’ actions in injury situations.

A question of agency : applying Sen’s theory of human capability to the concept of secondary school student career ‘choice’

In this paper, we seek to operationalize Amartya Sen's concept of human capability to guide a scholarly investigation of student career choice capability. We begin by outlining factors affecting youth labour markets in Australia; a prosperous country that is affected by a ‘two-speed’ national economy. We then examine recent government initiatives that have been designed to combat youth unemployment and cyclical disadvantage by enhancing the aspirations and career knowledge of secondary school students. We argue that these policy measures are based on four assumptions: first, that career choice capability is a problem of individual agency; second, that the dissemination of career information can empower students to act as ‘consumers’ in an unequal job market; third, that agency is simply a question of will; and finally, that school education and career advice – as a means to freedom in the space of career development – is of equal quality, distribution and value to an increasingly diverse range of upper secondary school students. The paper concludes by outlining a conceptual framework capable of informing an empirical research project that aims to test these assumptions by measuring and comparing differences between groups in the range of freedom to achieve and, therefore, to choose.

Do good things and talk about them : a theory of academics usage of enterprise social networks for impression management tactics

Enterprise social networks provide benefits especially for knowledge-intensive work as they enable communication, collaboration and knowledge exchange. These platforms should therefore lead to increased adoption and use by knowledge-intensive workers such as consultants or indeed researchers. Our interest is in ascertaining whether scientific researchers use enterprise social networks as part of their work practices. This focus is motivated by an apparent schism between a need for researchers to exchange knowledge and profile themselves, and the aversion to sharing breakthrough ideas and joining in an ever-increasing publishing and marketing game. We draw on research on academic work practices and impression management to develop a model of academics’ ESN usage for impression management tactics. We describe important constructs of our model, offer strategies for their operationalization and give an outlook to our ongoing empirical study of the use of an ESN platform by 20 schools across six faculties at an Australian university.

Gen Y recruitment: Understanding graduate intentions to join an organisation using the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Purpose Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) framework, this study explored whether the standard TPB constructs explained variance in Gen Y individuals’ intentions to join their ideal organisation. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methods approach was used featuring qualitative and quantitative methods. Findings The overall TPB model accounted for a significant 51.6% of the variance in intention to join one’s ideal organisation in the next six months with the significant predictors in the model being subjective norm and perceived behaviour control but not attitude. Research limitations/implications Using graduating students from a single Australian university sample may mean that the current findings may not extend to all Gen Y individuals. The current study has demonstrated the explanatory utility of the TPB in relation to graduate Gen Y’s intention to join their ideal organisation, providing further evidence of the robustness of the TPB framework in an organisational setting. Practical implications These findings have implications for enhancing understanding of the most effective recruitment processes for Gen Y students entering the workforce. The findings could inform recruitment policies and strategies to attract Gen Y applicants. Originality/value To our knowledge this study is the first application of the TPB to this topic. The current research extends the recruitment literature with a theoretically-based investigation. Identification of factors which inform organisational recruitment strategies, allow organisations to stand out from their competitors and potentially achieve a larger application pool from which to select the best human capital and sustain competitive advantage.

A Relationship Mediated Theory of Internal Marketing (summary section only)

This report presents a new theory of internal marketing. The thesis has developed as a case study in retrospective action research. This began with the personal involvement of the author in an action research project for customer service improvement at a large Australian retail bank. In other words, much of the theory generating ‘research’ took place after the original project ‘action’ had wound down. The key theoretical proposition is that internal marketing is a relationship development strategy for the purpose of knowledge renewal. In the banking case, exchanges of value between employee participants emerged as the basis for relationship development, with synergistic benefits for customers, employees and the bank. Relationship development turned out to be the mediating variable between the learning activity of employee participants at the project level and success in knowledge renewal at the organisational level. Relationship development was also a pivotal factor in the motivation and customer consciousness of employees. The conclusion reached is that the strength of relationship-mediated internal marketing is in combining a market focused commitment and employee freedom in project work to achieve knowledge renewal. The forgotten truth is that organisational knowledge can be renewed through dialogue and learning, through being trustworthy, and by gaining the trust of employees in return.

Density-wave theory of dislocations in crystals

The density-wave theory of Ramakrishnan and Yussouff is extended to provide a scheme for describing dislocations and other topological defects in crystals. Quantitative calculations are presented for the order-parameter profiles, the atomic configuration, and the free energy of a screw dislocation with Burgers vector b=(a/2, a/2, a/2) in a bcc solid. These calculations are done using a simple parametrization of the direct correlation function and a gradient expansion. It is conventional to express the free energy of the dislocation in a crystal of size R as (λb2/4π)ln(αR/‖b‖), where λ is the shear elastic constant, and α is a measure of the core energy. Our results yield for Na the value α≃1.94a/(‖c1’’‖)1/2 (≃1.85) at the freezing temperature (371 K) and α≃2.48a/(‖c1’’‖)1/2 at 271 K, where c1’’ is the curvature of the first peak of the direct correlation function c(q). Detailed results for the density distribution in the dislocation, particularly the core region, are also presented. These show that the dislocation core has a columnar character. To our knowledge, this study represents the first calculation of dislocation structure, including the core, within the framework of an order-parameter theory and incorporating thermal effects.

Birth of the European individual : Outline of a theory of legal practice

The modern subject is what we can call a self-subjecting individual. This is someone in whose inner reality has been implanted a more permanent governability, a governability that works inside the agent. Michel Foucault s genealogy of the modern subject is the history of its constitution by power practices. By a flight of imagination, suppose that this history is not an evolving social structure or cultural phenomenon, but one of those insects (moth) whose life cycle consists of three stages or moments: crawling larva, encapsulated pupa, and flying adult. Foucault s history of power-practices presents the same kind of miracle of total metamorphosis. The main forces in the general field of power can be apprehended through a generalisation of three rationalities functioning side-by-side in the plurality of different practices of power: domination, normalisation and the law. Domination is a force functioning by the rationality of reason of state: the state s essence is power, power is firm domination over people, and people are the state s resource by which the state s strength is measured. Normalisation is a force that takes hold on people from the inside of society: it imposes society s own reality its empirical verity as a norm on people through silently working jurisdictional operations that exclude pathological individuals too far from the average of the population as a whole. The law is a counterforce to both domination and normalisation. Accounting for elements of legal practice as omnihistorical is not possible without a view of the general field of power. Without this view, and only in terms of the operations and tactical manoeuvres of the practice of law, nothing of the kind can be seen: the only thing that practice manifests is constant change itself. However, the backdrop of law s tacit dimension that is, the power-relations between law, domination and normalisation allows one to see more. In the general field of power, the function of law is exactly to maintain the constant possibility of change. Whereas domination and normalisation would stabilise society, the law makes it move. The European individual has a reality as a problem. What is a problem? A problem is something that allows entry into the field of thought, said Foucault. To be a problem, it is necessary for certain number of factors to have made it uncertain, to have made it lose familiarity, or to have provoked a certain number of difficulties around it . Entering the field of thought through problematisations of the European individual human forms, power and knowledge one is able to glimpse the historical backgrounds of our present being. These were produced, and then again buried, in intersections between practices of power and games of truth. In the problem of the European individual one has suitable circumstances that bring to light forces that have passed through the individual through centuries.

Statistical-theory of multiphoton excitation of polyatomic-molecules based on the wigner function

This paper is aimed at establishing a statistical theory of rotational and vibrational excitation of polyatomic molecules by an intense IR laser. Starting from the Wigner function of quantum statistical mechanics, we treat the rotational motion in the classical approximation; the vibrational modes are classified into active ones which are coupled directly with the laser and the background modes which are not coupled with the laser. The reduced Wigner function, i.e., the Wigner function integrated over all background coordinates should satisfy an integro-differential equation. We introduce the idea of ``viscous damping'' to handle the interaction between the active modes and the background. The damping coefficient can be calculated with the aid of the well-known Schwartz–Slawsky–Herzfeld theory. The resulting equation is solved by the method of moment equations. There is only one adjustable parameter in our scheme; it is introduced due to the lack of precise knowledge about the molecular potential. The theory developed in this paper explains satisfactorily the recent absorption experiments of SF6 irradiated by a short pulse CO2 laser, which are in sharp contradiction with the prevailing quasi-continuum theory. We also refined the density of energy levels which is responsible for the muliphoton excitation of polyatomic molecules.

Blind image restoration based on the theory of high-dimensional space geometry

In practical situations, the causes of image blurring are often undiscovered or difficult to get known. However, traditional methods usually assume the knowledge of the blur has been known prior to the restoring process, which are not practicable for blind image restoration. A new method proposed in this paper aims exactly at blind image restoration. The restoration process is transformed into a problem of point distribution analysis in high-dimensional space. Experiments have proved that the restoration could be achieved using this method without re-knowledge of the image blur. In addition, the algorithm guarantees to be convergent and has simple computation.