Causation and dominance : a study of Finnish causative verbs expressing social dominance

En väsentlig fråga inom såväl lingvistiska som kognitiva teorier är, hur språket beskriver kausala relationer. I finskan finns det en speciell typ av kausativa verb avledda med suffixet (U)ttA som används för att uttrycka att handlingen i fråga utförs av någon annan än subjektreferenten, t.ex. Maija haetuttaa Matilla kirjastosta kirjan ’Maija låter Matti hämta boken från biblioteket’ och Matti juoksuttaa Maijan kaupunkiin ’Matti låter Maija springa till staden’. Syftet med denna avhandling var att med exempel av sociala dominansens kausativer undersöka ordbildningens natur samt begreppet ’socialt förorsakande’. För att beskriva avledningars regelbundna argumentstruktur i form av kopplingen mellan syntaxen och semantiken upprättades deras prototypiska strukturer. Dessa verb har emellertid också specifika användningsområden som framhäver variationer i sociala relationer. Säregna egenskaper hos den sociala dominansens kausativer inkluderades i undersökningen och definierades som konstruktioner. Konstruktionerna omfattar speciella syntaktiska och/eller semantiska element och utöver det också pragmatiska värderande implikationer. Uppbyggnaden av den sociala dimensionen hos de undersökta verben består av egenskaper förbundna med typen av förorsakande, argumentens agentiva egenskaper (aktivitet eller passivitet, dominans, kontroll, viljestyrdhet och ansvarighet) samt konventionaliserade attityder och tolkningar. Ett exempel på en s.k. 'tolkningskonstruktion’ är den negativa dominansens uttryck som i avhandlingen kallas Maktmissbrukskonstruktionen. Denna konstruktion inkluderar talarens starkt kritiska hållning till den uttryckta situationen, t.ex. Asiakas juoksuttaa lentoemäntää ’Kunden låter flygvärdinnan springa’. Dessa konstruktioner fyller en viktig funktion i språklig kommunikation: att beskriva avvikande av sociala normer och att foga expressivitet till budskapet. Metodologiskt kombinerar denna avhandling teorier som baseras på det aktuella språkbruket och teoretisk lingvistisk analys. Verbens samt konstruktionernas konceptuella lexikala struktur och prototypstrukturerna analyserades med hjälp av den konceptuella semantikens verktyg, som har utvecklats av Jackendoff, Nikanne och Pörn.

The Role of a firm’s mindset in international success - case study of Finnish marine industry firms

This thesis investigates the influence of a firm’s mindset on international success in the context of the Finnish marine industry. The study draws theoretical wisdom from organisational behaviour and strategic management literatures. The research aim set for this study was to identify and categorise existing strategic types based on mindsets found in the marine industry SMEs, and to link the influence of mindsets with success by examining the role of mindsets in a firm’s performance. Mindsets of firms were conceptualised as aggregate collections of perceptions that influence how the surrounding environment is discerned by the members of the firm. Mindsets are idiosyncratic to firms and therefore important firm-specific resources which influence decision-making and can be observed through the strategic behaviour of firms. Qualitative case study method was applied which was further supported by quantitative data on the financial performance of the ten case firms. Taxonomy based on the dimension of mindsets and prediction was developed to demonstrate four ideal types of firms identified within the marine industry. It was found that all of the case firms emphasised adaptation in their strategy while planning was emphasised to a varying degree. Moreover, two different methods of adapting were found; proactive and reactive. Firms which plan in the long-term and adapt proactively constantly investigate whether their plans are synchronous with the realities of the market; by having an open mindset, a firm’s perception of the reality of the market is enabling the firm to develop value creating strategies which are superiorly informed.This finding was supported by the financial data and led to the proposition that having an open mindset and placing a high level of emphasis on prediction may have a positive influence on international success. Also, it was proposed that concentrating only on exploiting business opportunities in the present time and not exploring any addition opportunities can have a negative influence on the firm’s performance, even if the mindset of the firm is open.

A qualitative study of the internationalization of born-global technology start-ups in Brazil

O fenômeno das empresas born globals e a internacionalização de empresas brasileiras de base tecnológica são tópicos recentes na literatura acadêmica, devido também ao fenômeno ser recente. Não existem muitos estudados feitos com foco no mercado brasileiro, e os poucos que foram feitos, possuem um viés quantitativo. Esse estudo, entretanto, tem como objetivo analisar startups de maneira qualitativa. Uma extensa revisão de literatura foi desenvolvida a fim de melhor analisar as fundações nas quais o estudo seria desenvolvido, revisando os métodos de internacionalização, empreendedorismo no Brasil, e o fenômeno born global no geral. Entrevistas foram conduzidas com empreendedores no Brasil, que passaram pelo processo de internacionalização de seus modelos de negócios, a fim de reunir introspecções a respeito das peculiaridades do mercado brasileiro. Foram também analisados os fatores de escalabilidade de modelos de negócios dependentes de tecnologia, motivadores para a internacionalização, critério de seleção de mercados, programas governamentais, e o papel das startups brasileiras em uma perspectiva global.

Undergraduate research in medical education: a descriptive study of students' views

Background: Medical students engage in curricular and extracurricular activities, including undergraduate research (UR). The advantages, difficulties and motivations for medical students pursuing research activities during their studies have rarely been addressed. In Brazil, some medical schools have included undergraduate research into their curriculum. The present study aimed to understand the reality of scientific practice among medical students at a well-established Brazilian medical school, analyzing this context from the students' viewpoint.Methods: A cross-sectional survey based on a questionnaire applied to students from years one to six enrolled in an established Brazilian medical school that currently has no curricular UR program.Results: The questionnaire was answered by 415 students, 47.2% of whom were involved in research activities, with greater participation in UR in the second half of the course. Independent of student involvement in research activities, time constraints were cited as the main obstacle to participation. Among students not involved in UR, 91.1% said they favored its inclusion in the curriculum, since this would facilitate the development of such activity. This approach could signify an approximation between the axes of teaching and research. Among students who had completed at least one UR project, 87.7% said they would recommend the activity to students entering the course.Conclusion: Even without an undergraduate research program, students of this medical school report strong involvement in research activities, but discussion of the difficulties inherent in its practice is important to future developments.

The interactive whiteboard in primary school: a case study of a brazilian district school

Interactive whiteboards (IWB) consist of a set of technological equipment organized in order to fulfill a specific task, enabling the development of didactic activities. Because they are associated to computers’ potentiality, interactive whiteboards can provide bigger interactivity between: teacher and students, students and content, and among students. This work’s main objective is to present some of the results yielded from a research related to the way students perceive interactive whiteboards in the classroom. In order to analyze the IWB usage dynamics, some educational applications in the field of mathematics were applied in the 3rd grade of elementary school. Aside from observation, video recordings were made and students were interviewed about the interactive whiteboard, in order to understand how these students observe and engage with the technological tool. IWB do not transform classroom’s reality by themselves, however, their physical presence and usage amount to external reinforcement can change student’s behavior positively.

Post-War Writers' Memoirs in Romania and France: A Study of Mentalities

Ms. Net wanted to find out if there was what she terms a "collective identity of the intelligentsia" of Romania and France between 1945 and 1989. She conducted her research on a corpus of memoirs from both cultures, and in the process, uncovered some fundamental differences, which she presented in the form of a 178 page manuscript in English, and also on disc. One of the most basic appears to be that French memorialists rarely deal with social, historical and political changes and events. Ms. Net regards these writers as shutting their eyes to reality, and attempting to preserve the past. They are interested in their personal history, and in the genesis of their own works. According to Ms. Net, this tendency is so marked that she doubts whether 20th century French writers share the dominant mentalities of their times. In her opinion all this points to the fact that the French intelligentsia are "trying hard to preserve their cultural hegemony" a task which she maintains has always been an essential aspect of the identity of the French intellectual. In Romania, of course, the situation was very different. To take an example: many Romanian memoirs speak about the campaigns to improve the lot of women, while at the same time recognising and analysing the way that this was simply a "cover" for promoting the most incompetent people, men and women alike. They also express frustration at the way access to information was blocked due to the media being government controlled. Ms. Net concludes, eventually, that, in general, intellectuals, more than any other group in society, ensure the continuity of the dominant mentalities in a given cultural space. Consequently, she feels, we must revise the idea - or myth as she calls it - that intellectuals represent the avant-garde in a given society. Specifically, she concludes that petty bourgeois, patriarchal and elitist mentalities are still prevalent in France. The truth is, she reflects, that intellectuals are always true to their nature, no mater when and where they are living.

Semiotic Analysis in the Study of Social Work

Research and professional practices have the joint aim of re-structuring the preconceived notions of reality. They both want to gain the understanding about social reality. Social workers use their professional competence in order to grasp the reality of their clients, while researchers’ pursuit is to open the secrecies of the research material. Development and research are now so intertwined and inherent in almost all professional practices that making distinctions between practising, developing and researching has become difficult and in many aspects irrelevant. Moving towards research-based practices is possible and it is easily applied within the framework of the qualitative research approach (Dominelli 2005, 235; Humphries 2005, 280). Social work can be understood as acts and speech acts crisscrossing between social workers and clients. When trying to catch the verbal and non-verbal hints of each others’ behaviour, the actors have to do a lot of interpretations in a more or less uncertain mental landscape. Our point of departure is the idea that the study of social work practices requires tools which effectively reveal the internal complexity of social work (see, for example, Adams & Dominelli & Payne 2005, 294 – 295). The boom of qualitative research methodologies in recent decades is associated with much profound the rupture in humanities, which is called the linguistic turn (Rorty 1967). The idea that language is not transparently mediating our perceptions and thoughts about reality, but on the contrary it constitutes it was new and even confusing to many social scientists. Nowadays we have got used to read research reports which have applied different branches of discursive analyses or narratologic or semiotic approaches. Although differences are sophisticated between those orientations they share the idea of the predominance of language. Despite the lively research work of today’s social work and the research-minded atmosphere of social work practice, semiotics has rarely applied in social work research. However, social work as a communicative practice concerns symbols, metaphors and all kinds of the representative structures of language. Those items are at the core of semiotics, the science of signs, and the science which examines people using signs in their mutual interaction and their endeavours to make the sense of the world they live in, their semiosis. When thinking of the practice of social work and doing the research of it, a number of interpretational levels ought to be passed before reaching the research phase in social work. First of all, social workers have to interpret their clients’ situations, which will be recorded in the files. In some very rare cases those past situations will be reflected in discussions or perhaps interviews or put under the scrutiny of some researcher in the future. Each and every new observation adds its own flavour to the mixture of meanings. Social workers have combined their observations with previous experience and professional knowledge, furthermore, the situation on hand also influences the reactions. In addition, the interpretations made by social workers over the course of their daily working routines are never limited to being part of the personal process of the social worker, but are also always inherently cultural. The work aiming at social change is defined by the presence of an initial situation, a specific goal, and the means and ways of achieving it, which are – or which should be – agreed upon by the social worker and the client in situation which is unique and at the same time socially-driven. Because of the inherent plot-based nature of social work, the practices related to it can be analysed as stories (see Dominelli 2005, 234), given, of course, that they are signifying and told by someone. The research of the practices is concentrating on impressions, perceptions, judgements, accounts, documents etc. All these multifarious elements can be scrutinized as textual corpora, but not whatever textual material. In semiotic analysis, the material studied is characterised as verbal or textual and loaded with meanings. We present a contribution of research methodology, semiotic analysis, which has to our mind at least implicitly references to the social work practices. Our examples of semiotic interpretation have been picked up from our dissertations (Laine 2005; Saurama 2002). The data are official documents from the archives of a child welfare agency and transcriptions of the interviews of shelter employees. These data can be defined as stories told by the social workers of what they have seen and felt. The official documents present only fragmentations and they are often written in passive form. (Saurama 2002, 70.) The interviews carried out in the shelters can be described as stories where the narrators are more familiar and known. The material is characterised by the interaction between the interviewer and interviewee. The levels of the story and the telling of the story become apparent when interviews or documents are examined with the use of semiotic tools. The roots of semiotic interpretation can be found in three different branches; the American pragmatism, Saussurean linguistics in Paris and the so called formalism in Moscow and Tartu; however in this paper we are engaged with the so called Parisian School of semiology which prominent figure was A. J. Greimas. The Finnish sociologists Pekka Sulkunen and Jukka Törrönen (1997a; 1997b) have further developed the ideas of Greimas in their studies on socio-semiotics, and we lean on their ideas. In semiotics social reality is conceived as a relationship between subjects, observations, and interpretations and it is seen mediated by natural language which is the most common sign system among human beings (Mounin 1985; de Saussure 2006; Sebeok 1986). Signification is an act of associating an abstract context (signified) to some physical instrument (signifier). These two elements together form the basic concept, the “sign”, which never constitutes any kind of meaning alone. The meaning will be comprised in a distinction process where signs are being related to other signs. In this chain of signs, the meaning becomes diverged from reality. (Greimas 1980, 28; Potter 1996, 70; de Saussure 2006, 46-48.) One interpretative tool is to think of speech as a surface under which deep structures – i.e. values and norms – exist (Greimas & Courtes 1982; Greimas 1987). To our mind semiotics is very much about playing with two different levels of text: the syntagmatic surface which is more or less faithful to the grammar, and the paradigmatic, semantic structure of values and norms hidden in the deeper meanings of interpretations. Semiotic analysis deals precisely with the level of meaning which exists under the surface, but the only way to reach those meanings is through the textual level, the written or spoken text. That is why the tools are needed. In our studies, we have used the semiotic square and the actant analysis. The former is based on the distinctions and the categorisations of meanings, and the latter on opening the plotting of narratives in order to reach the value structures.

An Empirical Study of Non-Rigid Surface Feature Matching of Human from 3D Video

This paper presents an empirical study of affine invariant feature detectors to perform matching on video sequences of people with non-rigid surface deformation. Recent advances in feature detection and wide baseline matching have focused on static scenes. Video frames of human movement capture highly non-rigid deformation such as loose hair, cloth creases, skin stretching and free flowing clothing. This study evaluates the performance of six widely used feature detectors for sparse temporal correspondence on single view and multiple view video sequences. Quantitative evaluation is performed of both the number of features detected and their temporal matching against and without ground truth correspondence. Recall-accuracy analysis of feature matching is reported for temporal correspondence on single view and multiple view sequences of people with variation in clothing and movement. This analysis identifies that existing feature detection and matching algorithms are unreliable for fast movement with common clothing.

Impact Study of Nonverbal Facial Cues on Spontaneous Chatting with Virtual Humans

Non-verbal communication (NVC) is considered to represent more than 90 percent of everyday communication. In virtual world, this important aspect of interaction between virtual humans (VH) is strongly neglected. This paper presents a user-test study to demonstrate the impact of automatically generated graphics-based NVC expression on the dialog quality: first, we wanted to compare impassive and emotion facial expression simulation for impact on the chatting. Second, we wanted to see whether people like chatting within a 3D graphical environment. Our model only proposes facial expressions and head movements induced from spontaneous chatting between VHs. Only subtle facial expressions are being used as nonverbal cues - i.e. related to the emotional model. Motion capture animations related to hand gestures, such as cleaning glasses, were randomly used to make the virtual human lively. After briefly introducing the technical architecture of the 3D-chatting system, we focus on two aspects of chatting through VHs. First, what is the influence of facial expressions that are induced from text dialog? For this purpose, we exploited an emotion engine extracting an emotional content from a text and depicting it into a virtual character developed previously [GAS11]. Second, as our goal was not addressing automatic generation of text, we compared the impact of nonverbal cues in conversation with a chatbot or with a human operator with a wizard of oz approach. Among main results, the within group study -involving 40 subjects- suggests that subtle facial expressions impact significantly not only on the quality of experience but also on dialog understanding.

Publicness and Taken-for-granted Knowledge: A Case Study of Communal Land Formation in Rural Thailand

The lack of public-mindedness can cause problems in the social order of people’s daily lives, such as the tragedy of the commons and the problem of free riders. Some scholars such as Habermas assert that communicative rationality is the solution, expecting that individuals will communicate with each other to reach a consensus without being bounded by aspects of social background. Other scholars advocate the revitalization of traditional community culture. These arguments, however, are not based on reality. By using the case of communal land formation in rural Thailand, the author shows that collective action is neither a revival of tradition nor a result of communication free from social constraints. Rather, cooperation emerges because the people rationally respond to their present needs and have built, through daily social interactions, taken-for-granted knowledge about how they should behave for cooperation.

Estudio de las formas de aplicación de la fotografía sobre los materiales pétreos para la arquitectura = Study of photography application methods over architectural stony materials

Desde que el Hombre era morador de las cavernas ha sido manifiesto su deseo innato por grabar y reproducir "instantáneas con las que perpetuarse o sobre las que mirarse ". La aparición y desarrollo de la fotografía como medio para poder captar y fijar "la imagen directa de la realidad circundante " pronto se convierte en un nuevo lenguaje estético y poético que permite al artista la interpretación y reflexión de lo observado. Se imprime a la imagen el carácter de la mirada del fotógrafo, estableciendo un diálogo conceptual con el juego de luces. La presente Tesis plantea la creación de una nueva piel de arquitectura mediante la impresión fotográfica sobre materiales pétreos. La búsqueda de la expresividad de los materiales como soporte de expresión artística implica un cambio de escala al trasladar la instantánea fotográfica a la arquitectura y la aplicación de un nuevo soporte al imprimir la fotografía sobre materiales arquitectónicos. Se justifica la elección del dispositivo láser CO2 como sistema de impresión fotográfica sobre los materiales pétreos arquitectónicos, como la técnica que permite la unión física de la imagen y el proyecto arquitectónico, generando un valor añadido a través del arte de la fotografía. Se justifica la elección de los materiales investigados, Silestone® Blanco Zeus y GRC® con TX Active® Aria, de forma que la investigación de esta nueva piel de arquitectura abarca tanto la envolvente del edificio como su volumen interior, permitiendo cerrar el círculo arquitectónico "in&out" y dota al proyecto arquitectónico de un valor añadido al introducir conceptos sostenibles de carácter estético y medioambiental. Se realiza una consulta a las empresas del sector arquitectónico relacionadas directamente con la producción y distribución de los materiales Silestone® y GRC®, así como a las empresas especializadas en sistemas de impresión fotográfica sobre materiales, acerca del estado del arte. Se recorre la Historia de la fotografía desde sus orígenes hasta el desarrollo de la era digital y se analiza su condición artística. Se recopilan los sistemas de impresión fotográfica que han evolucionado en paralelo con los dispositivos de captura de la instantánea fotográfica y se describe en profundidad el sistema de impresión fotográfica mediante dispositivo láser CO2. Se describen los procesos de fabricación, las características técnicas, cualidades y aplicaciones de los materiales pétreos arquitectónicos Silestone® Blanco Zeus y GRC® con TX Active® Aria. Se explica la técnica utilizada para la captación de la imagen fotográfica, su justificación artística y su proceso de impresión mediante dispositivo láser CO2 bajo diferentes parámetros sobre muestras de los materiales arquitectónicos investigados. Se comprueba la viabilidad de desarrollo de la nueva piel de arquitectura sobre Silestone® Blanco Zeus y GRC® con TX Active® Aria sometiendo a las piezas impresas bajo diferentes parámetros a tres ensayos de laboratorio. En cada uno de ellos se concreta el objetivo y procedimiento del ensayo, la enumeración de las muestras ensayadas y los parámetros bajo los que han sido impresas, el análisis de los resultados del ensayo y las conclusiones del ensayo. Ensayo de amplitud térmica. Se determina el grado de afectación de las imágenes impresas bajo la acción de contrastes térmicos. Series de muestras de Silestone® Blanco Zeus y GRC® con TX Active® Aria impresas con láser CO2 se someten a ciclos de contraste frío-calor de 12 horas de duración para una amplitud térmica total de 102°C. Se realiza una toma sistemática de fotografías microscópicas con lupa de aumento de cada pieza antes y después de los ciclos frío-calor y la observación de las transformaciones que experimentan los materiales bajo la acción del láser CO2. Ensayo de exposición a la acción de la radiación ultravioleta (UV). Se determina el grado de afectación de las imágenes impresas al activar la capacidad autolimpiante de partículas orgánicas. Una serie de muestras de GRC® con TX Active® Aria impresa con láser CO2 se someten a ciclos de exposición de radiación ultravioleta de 26 horas de duración. Se somete la serie a un procedimiento de activación del aditivo TX Active®. Se simula la contaminación orgánica mediante la aplicación controlada de Rodamina B, tinte orgánico, y se simula la radiación UV mediante el empleo de una bombilla de emisión de rayos ultravioleta. Se realiza una toma sistemática de fotografías macroscópicas de la serie de muestras ensayadas: antes de aplicación de la Rodamina B, momento 00:00h, momento 04:00h y momento 26:00h del ensayo. Se procede a la descarga y análisis del histograma de las fotografías como registro de la actividad fotocatalítica. Ensayo de la capacidad autodescontaminante del GRC® con TX Active® impreso con láser CO2. Se comprueba si la capacidad autodescontaminante del GRC® con TX Active® se ve alterada como consecuencia de la impresión de la imagen fotográfica impresa con láser CO2. Serie de muestras de GRC® con TX Active® Aria impresa con láser CO2 se someten a test de capacidad autodescontaminante: atmósfera controlada y contaminada con óxidos de nitrógeno en los que se coloca cada pieza ensayada bajo la acción de una lámpara de emisión de radiación ultravioleta (UV). Se registra la actividad fotocatalítica en base a la variación de concentración de óxido de nitrógeno. Se recopila el análisis e interpretación de los resultados de los ensayos de laboratorio y se elaboran las conclusiones generales de la investigación. Se sintetizan las futuras líneas de investigación que, a partir de las investigaciones realizadas y de sus conclusiones generales, podrían desarrollarse en el ámbito de la impresión fotográfica sobre materiales arquitectónicos. Se describe el rendimiento tecnológico y artístico generado por las investigaciones previas que han dado origen y desarrollo a la Tesis Doctoral. ABSTRACT Since ancient time, humanity has been driven by an innate wish to reproduce and engrave "snapshots that could help to perpetúate or to look at one self". Photography's birth and its development as a mean to capture and fix "the direct image of the surrounding reality" quickly becomes a new aesthetical and poetical language allowing the artist to interpret and think over what has been observed. The photographer's eye is imprinted onto the image, and so the conceptual dialogue between the artist and the light beams begins. The current thesis suggests the creation of a new architectural skin through photography imprinting over stony materials. The search for material's expressiveness as a medium of artistic expression involves a change of scale as it transfers photographic snapshot into architecture and the use of a new photographic printing support over architectural materials. CO2 laser is the chosen printing system for this technique as it allows the physical union of the image and the architectonic project, generating an added value through the art of photography. The researched materials selected were Silestone®, Blanco Zeus and GRC® with TX Active® Aria. This new architectural skin contains the building surrounding as well as its interior volume, closing the architectonic "in & out" circle and adding a value to the project by introducing aesthetical and environmental sustainable concepts. Architecture companies related to the production and distribution of materials like Silestone® and GRC®, as well as companies specialized in photography printing over materials were consulted to obtain a State of the Art. A thorough analysis of photography's History from its origins to the digital era development was made and its artistic condition was studied in this thesis. In this study the author also makes a compilation of several photographic printing systems that evolved together with photographic snapshot devices. The CO2 laser-based photographic printing system is also described in depth. Regarding stony materials of architecture like Silestone®, Blanco Zeus and GRC® with TX Active® Aria, the present study also describes their manufacture processes as well as technical features, quality and application. There is also an explanation about the technique to capture the photographic image, its artistic justification and its CO2 laser-based printing system over the researched materials under different parameters. We also tested the feasibility of this new architectural skin over Silestone® Blanco Zeus and GRC® with TX Active® Aria. The pieces were tested under different parameters in three laboratory trials. Each trial comprises of an explanation of its objective and its process, the samples were numbered and the printing parameters were specified. Finally, with the analysis of the results some conclusions were drawn. In the thermal amplitude trial we tried to determine how printed images were affected as a result of the action of thermal contrasts. Series of samples of Silestone® Blanco Zeus and GRC® with TX Active® Aria printed with CO2 laser were subjected to several 12h warm-cold cycles for thermal total amplitude of 102oc. Each sample was captured systematically with microscopic enhanced lenses before and after cold-warm cycles. The changes experienced by these materials under the effect of CO2 laser were observed and recorded. Trial regarding the Ultraviolet Radiation (UR) effect on images. We determined to which extent printed images were affected once the self-cleaning organic particles were activated. This time GRC® with TX Active® Aria samples printed with CO2 laser were exposed to a 26h UR cycle. The samples were subjected to the activation of TX Active® additive. Through the controlled application of Rodamine B and organic dye we were able to simulate the organic contamination process. UR was simulated using an ultraviolet beam emission bulb. A systematic capture of macroscopic pictures of the tested sample series was performed at different time points: before Rodamine B application, at moment 00:00h, moment 04:00h and moment 26:00h of the trial. Picture's histogram was downloaded and analyzed as a log of photocatalytic activity. Trial regarding the self-decontaminating ability of GRC® with TX Active® printed with CO2 laser. We tested if this self-decontaminating ability is altered as a result of CO2 laser printed image. GRC® with TX Active® Aria samples printed with CO2 laser, were subject to self-decontaminating ability tests with controlled and nitrogen oxide contaminated atmosphere. Each piece was put under the action of an UR emission lamp. Photocatalytic activity was recorded according to the variation in nitrogen oxide concentration. The results of the trial and their interpretation as well as the general conclusions of the research are also compiled in the present study. Study conclusions enable to draw future research lines of potential applications of photographic printing over architecture materials. Previous research generated an artistic and technological outcome that led to the development of this doctoral thesis.

Subjective study of adaptive streaming strategies for 3DTV

Although the delivery of 3D video services to households is nowadays a reality thanks to frame-compatible formats, many efforts are being made to obtain efficient methods to transmit 3D content offering a high quality of experience to the end users. In this paper, a stereoscopic video streaming scenario is considered and the perceptual impact of various strategies applicable to adaptive streaming situations are compared. Specifically, the mechanisms are based on switching between copies of the content with different coding qualities, on discarding frames of the sequence, on switching from 3D to 2D and on using asymmetric coding of the stereo views. In addition, when video freezes happen, the possibility of keeping the end-to-end latency or maintaining the continuity of the video are considered. These aspects were evaluated carrying out a subjective assessment test considering also visual discomfort issues using a methodology designed to keep as far as possible domestic viewing conditions.

Discussion: Comparative study of breakwater crown wall - calculation methods

This paper presents an extensive and useful comparison of existing formulas to estimate wave forces on crown walls. The paper also provides valuable insights into crown wall behaviour, suggesting the use of formulas for prior sizing and recommending, in any case, tests on a physical model in order to confirm the final design. The authors helpfully advise to use more than one method to obtain results closer to reality, always taking into account the test conditions under which each formula was developed

Do Methods Matter In Global Leadership Development? A Mixed-Methods Study Of A U.s.-Based International Mba Program

As world communication, technology, and trade become increasingly integrated through globalization, multinational corporations seek employees with global leadership experience and skills. However, the demand for these skills currently outweighs the supply. Given the rarity of globally ready leaders, global competency development should be emphasized in higher education programs. The reality, however, is that university graduate programs are often outdated and focus mostly on cognitive learning. Global leadership competence requires moving beyond the cognitive domain of learning to create socially responsible and culturally connected global leaders. This requires attention to development methods; however, limited research in global leadership development methods has been conducted. A new conceptual model, the global leadership development ecosystem, was introduced in this study to guide the design and evaluation of global leadership development programs. It was based on three theories of learning and was divided into four development methodologies. This study quantitatively tested the model and used it as a framework for an in-depth examination of the design of one International MBA program. The program was first benchmarked, by means of a qualitative best practices analysis, against the top-ranking IMBA programs in the world. Qualitative data from students, faculty, administrators, and staff was then examined, using descriptive and focused data coding. Quantitative data analysis, using PASW Statistics software, and a hierarchical regression, showed the individual effect of each of the four development methods, as well as their combined effect, on student scores on a global leadership assessment. The analysis revealed that each methodology played a distinct and important role in developing different competencies of global leadership. It also confirmed the critical link between self-efficacy and global leadership development.

A Theorical Point of View of Reality, Perception, and Language

It is possible to view the relations between mathematics and natural language from different aspects. This relation between mathematics and language is not based on just one aspect. In this article, the authors address the role of the Subject facing Reality through language. Perception is defined and a mathematical theory of the perceptual field is proposed. The distinction between purely expressive language and purely informative language is considered false, because the subject is expressed in the communication of a message, and conversely, in purely expressive language, as in an exclamation, there is some information. To study the relation between language and reality, the function of ostensibility is defined and propositions are divided into ostensives and estimatives.