The end of transition?:The role of informal economies in the post-Soviet space

This book challenges the accepted notion that the transition from the command economy to market based systems is complete across the post-Soviet space. While it is noted that different political economies have developed in such states, such as Russia’s ‘managed democracy’, events such as Ukraine gaining ‘market economy status’ by the European Union and acceding to the World Trade Organisation in 2008 are taken as evidence that the reform period is over. Such thinking is based on numerous assumptions; specifically that economic transition has defined start and end points, that the formal economy now has primacy over other forms of economic practices and that national economic growth leads to the ‘trickle down’ of wealth to those marginalised by the transition process. Based on extensive ethnographic and quantitative research, conducted in Ukraine and Russia between 2004 - 2007, this book questions these assumptions by stating that the economies that operate across post-Soviet spaces are far from the textbook idea of a market economy. Through this the whole notion of ‘transition’ is problematised and the importance of informal economies to everyday life is demonstrated. Using case studies of various sectors, such as entrepreneurial behaviour and the higher education system, it is also shown how corruption has invaded almost all sectors of the post-Soviet every day.

Alternative Emanzipationsvorstellungen in der DDR unter Honecker (1971-1990):ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur Rollen der Frau

Over the last twenty years the situation of women in the German Democratic Republic has been the subject of a considerable number of studies. The approach has generally been of a sociological or socio-political nature. In this thesis I propose to go one step further by examining the information that may be gained from literary sources. In a state where the media are subject to censorship, and thus controlled, one can refer to literature as an acknowledged source of inside information. Literary works often provide a forum for the formulation and discussion of ideas, which could not be aired elsewhere. Chapter 1 shows why literature, which had always been allocated a special role by the GDR's leading party, the SED, may be regarded as a reliable indicator of everyday life in that country. In this thesis I compare the findings of an analysis of women's literature with sociological data on the one hand and the portrayal of the "ideal" women in GDR media and official writings on the other. The thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach and draws on sources in political, legal, sociological, and cultural fields alike. This constellation of sources allows me to show that the views that female writers expressed in their works frequently coincide with sociological findings. Both of these sources were frequently found to be at odds with statements made in official writings and the media. Such insights could not have been provided by a study conducted from within one discipline.

Creation of a Digital Corpus of Bulgarian Dialects

The paper presents our considerations related to the creation of a digital corpus of Bulgarian dialects. The dialectological archive of Bulgarian language consists of more than 250 audio tapes. All tapes were recorded between 1955 and 1965 in the course of regular dialectological expeditions throughout the country. The records typically contain interviews with inhabitants of small villages in Bulgaria. The topics covered are usually related to such issues as birth, everyday life, marriage, family relationship, death, etc. Only a few tapes contain folk songs from different regions of the country. Taking into account the progressive deterioration of the magnetic media and the realistic prospects of data loss, the Institute for Bulgarian Language at the Academy of Sciences launched in 1997 a project aiming at restoration and digital preservation of the dialectological archive. Within the framework of this project more than the half of the records was digitized, de-noised and stored on digital recording media. Since then restoration and digitization activities are done in the Institute on a regular basis. As a result a large collection of sound files has been gathered. Our further efforts are aimed at the creation of a digital corpus of Bulgarian dialects, which will be made available for phonological and linguistic research. Such corpora typically include besides the sound files two basic elements: a transcription, aligned with the sound file, and a set of standardized metadata that defines the corpus. In our work we will present considerations on how these tasks could be realized in the case of the corpus of Bulgarian dialects. Our suggestions will be based on a comparative analysis of existing methods and techniques to build such corpora, and by selecting the ones that fit closer to the particular needs. Our experience can be used in similar institutions storing folklore archives, history related spoken records etc.

Changes and Shifts in Computing Curricula

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2015

Cyber Threats Identification in the Evolving Digital Reality

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education and Research in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2016

Összegződnek-e az egyéni törekvések? A cselekvés és az eredmény közötti szakadék problémája (Can individual efforts be aggregated? The problem of the action-impact gap)

A szerző arra a kérdésre keresi a választ, hogyan alakulhat ki látványos szakadék az egyéni cselekvések iránya és azok együttes hatása között. A szándékok és tettek hatását felülírhatja a társadalmi gazdasági tényezőkből adódó tehetetlenség: a kritikus tömeg hiánya, szervezeti-infrastrukturális tényezők, kompenzációs hatások, egymás hatását kioltó cselekvések. A szerző a környezettudatosság és az ökológiai lábnyom példáján - ezerfős reprezentatív felmérésre alapozva - mutatja be, hogy az önkéntességre alapozó megközelítés sokszor túlbecsüli a fogyasztó - társadalmi-gazdasági tényezők által korlátozott - lehetőségeit és szuverenitását. _____ Behaviour impact gaps are demonstrably present in everyday life. It is increasingly found that environmental awareness in individuals fails to lead to reductions in the ecological footprint. Intensive agricultural practice reduces biodiversity in the EU even in areas where massive agri-environmental grant schemes are available and applied. Labour market training programmes do not necessarily facilitate job-finding for underprivileged segments of the society. So individual efforts may not add up or induce the expected effect. This outcome appears even for programmes that are successful in attaining the required behavioural change in a target group. The impact of attitudes and individual acts may be wiped out by structural and economic lock-ins such as trade-offs made for the gains, lack of a critical mass of actions, infrastructural deficiencies, or interfering acts of economic actors. The discrepancy between environmental awareness and ecological footprint is used to point out how awareness-raising programmes may miss their targets by overestimating the sovereignty and capabilities of consumers. Consumers are unwillingly locked into unsustainable practices and cannot be moved from that position unless economic and structural premises are also changed.

Generational differences in consumption patterns in Hungary

Various authors have used the term consumer society with a number of different meanings, yet one common point has been the shift of focus to the consumer ethos, which alters the everyday life of society members and their relationship to each other and society as a whole. One’s relationship to consumption determines fundamental levels of consumption and for what purposes (e.g. hedonic values, family and savings), thus it is essential to explore this relationship to develop an understanding of consumer behaviour and to create effective marketing messages. This paper provides a brief summary of the various approaches and research lines of consumer culture and reviews the findings of the first, qualitative phase of our consumer culture study in Hungary. The purpose of this research programme is to analyse the changes in people’s relationships to consumption since the change of regime.

INFORMAR E ENTRETER: O PROCESSO DE PRODUÇÃO DA NOTÍCIA NO HOJE EM DIA

Sabe-se que o entretenimento está incorporado no cotidiano da sociedade moderna de maneira que ultrapassa apenas os momentos de lazer e ócio, fazendo-se presente nos ambientes profissionais, na educação e na informação. Em meio a essa nova concepção, a comunicação também percebe alterações, seja pela interatividade promovida pela midiatização, pelo novo aspecto da audiência, mais exigente e conectada, ou ainda pela hibridização de gêneros e formatos. Neste contexto, surgem programas de entretenimento, especialmente televisivos, que incorporam aspectos técnicos e práticos do jornalismo, incluindo a narrativa e os processos produtivos. Tais programas veiculam um conteúdo denominado de infotenimento, que mescla informação e entretenimento e, assim, a representação jornalística da vida social fica vinculada à distração e ao divertimento. A dissertação faz uma análise do processo de produção do conteúdo noticioso dentro de um programa de entretenimento e variedades que apresenta grande quantidade de conteúdo jornalístico em sua composição: o Hoje Em Dia, da Rede Record. Trata-se de um estudo qualitativo, do tipo estudo de caso, com uso de técnicas de observação direta, entrevistas semiabertas, pesquisa documental e análise de conteúdo. A questão da reprodutibilidade técnica de padrões e a inserção de elementos cotidianos aliados à indústria cultural e à comunicação em massa também é retratada nesta dissertação. A principal intenção é entender como é a dinâmica da produção jornalística em programas que visam entreter e, ao mesmo tempo, informar. De que maneira esses produtos híbridos da modernidade são pensados e como a teoria do infotenimento pode ser aliada às mediações comunicacionais da cultura.

A supervisão e orientação pedagógica de educadores e professores em São Tomé e Princípe : proposta de um programa de desenvolvimento profissional

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Educação de Santarém para obtenção do grau de mestre em Ciências de Educação na especialização de Supervisão e Orientação Pedagógica

O programa institucional de bolsa de iniciação à docência PIBID na formação inicial de professores de matemática

This research sought to understand the space training provided by Institutional Scholarship Program Initiation of Teaching to a group of students of Degree in Mathematics that had activities developed in the same public school. The goal is to qualify them for teaching practice for these basic institutions. We decided to conduct a qualitative study of type ethnographic case study. For a year and a half while we were at the meetings and activities of the Group, we did what we call as a participant observation. To obtain the data, we used different survey instruments: the researcher\'s field notes through his observation of everyday life of the group, photographs and filming of the activities, document analysis and database produced, physically and digitally, in addition to questionnaires and interviews with records written, which complemented each other and helped establish a triangulation of information collected. We analyze the trajectory of the group on three axes: on the first, we present and understand the paths taken by the Group in the process of setting up training spaces, and production of their professional training, in the second, we analyze how the space of PIBID is being integrated with others spaces of formations in the educational institution of the degree course in mathematics and, in the third axis, we understand the process of knowledge production of that group. The trajectory taken by the group was marked by a process of reflection and discussion systematic and collective, which favored the pursuit for be a better professional and also confirmed a possible path to be followed in initial teacher education.

James Sacré, a writing of life gesture

In French contemporary poetry, some poets have wished to return to —and so to increase the value of— the enunciation of the poetic subject. In such poetic scenario, the poet James Sacré exemplifies a new approach that tries to re-establish contact with the expression of the poetic subject, albeit always avoiding the pitfalls of excessive ornamentation and poetic effusiveness. Based on the use of simple language, this approach attaches value to legibility and does not hesitate to tap into the most banal or dullest aspects of reality. This article studies one of the procedures used by the poet to reestablish the expression of the poetic subject. This procedure seeks to rewrite life gestures—a technique that evinces an unavoidable relationship between life and poetic words in the work of James Sacré.

Multilingualism and conceptual modelling

One of the leading motivations behind the multilingual semantic web is to make resources accessible digitally in an online global multilingual context. Consequently, it is fundamental for knowledge bases to find a way to manage multilingualism and thus be equipped with those procedures for its conceptual modelling. In this context, the goal of this paper is to discuss how common-sense knowledge and cultural knowledge are modelled in a multilingual framework. More particularly, multilingualism and conceptual modelling are dealt with from the perspective of FunGramKB, a lexico-conceptual knowledge base for natural language understanding. This project argues for a clear division between the lexical and the conceptual dimensions of knowledge. Moreover, the conceptual layer is organized into three modules, which result from a strong commitment towards capturing semantic knowledge (Ontology), procedural knowledge (Cognicon) and episodic knowledge (Onomasticon). Cultural mismatches are discussed and formally represented at the three conceptual levels of FunGramKB.

Blogueros latinoamericanos, los creativos culturales de inicios del siglo XXI

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo explorar la producción textual, la identidad blog y las prácticas sociales a partir de la sistematización de relatos escritos por bloggers latinoamericanos desde una perspectiva de la fenomenología tecnológica. Planteamos una discusión sobre la comprensión de prácticas sociotécnicas y significados de las experiencias humanas que bloggers latinoamericanos debaten a partir de sus posicionamientos políticos, económicos, éticos, sociales y culturales. Son “Creativos Culturales” del siglo XXI, debido a que escriben desde sus contextos, reflexionan las experiencias y cotidianidades de sus sociedades desde la red como ejercicio para la comprender el presente de Latinoamericana y su lugar en el mundo global. 

Performatividad y arte computacional. Hacia una “DIY society”

El artículo analiza la figura del prosumidor desde los estudios visuales a partir de la combinación de la teoría de los actos de habla y los nuevos medios. El objetivo es evaluar si la distinción entre productores y consumidores, estrategias y tácticas de Michel de Certeau continúa siendo operativa en las interfaces gráficas de la cultura global de la información de Scott Lash. Para ello distingue dos tipos de performatividad de los actos de habla: la performatividad top-down del software, y la bottom-up de los juegos del lenguaje y las formas de vida. Estos tipos se aplican al análisis del discurso de los eslóganes que aparecen en los sitios web de las iniciativas “open” y de economía colaborativa, ya que las primeras están dedicadas a la producción de bienes inmateriales y las segundas a la producción de bienes materiales. El desarrollo muestra cómo los dos tipos de performatividad transforman el análisis textual de los estudios literarios y cinematográficos en una metodología capaz de investigar acciones materiales, humanas y no humanas. Las conclusiones describen el surgimiento de nuevas convenciones narrativas de poder y control ajenas a la ficción que apuntan a una “DIY society”.

The activity of the feminist online publications: challenges for the transmission of the feminist culture in Spain

Traditionally, big media corporations have contributed to hiding the women’s movement itself, as well as its main claims and topics of discussion (Marx, Myra y Hess, 1995; Rhode, 1995; Mendes, 2011). This has led the feminist movement to develop its own media generally print publications, usually, with a very specialized character and reduced audience. This is similar to what has occurred with quality main stream media, asthese publications have had to adapt themselves to a new communicatiion context, because of the financial crisis and  technological evolution. Feminist media has found in the Internet an excellent opportunity to access citizens and communicate their messages. , In view of this scene of change and renovation,  this article offers the results of a qualitative analysis focused on the experiences of four feminist online media sites edited in Spain: Pikaramagazine.com, Proyecto-kahlo.com, Mujeresenred.net and Laindependent.cat. Besides exploring the characteristics and content of these sites, the article pays attention to the virality of their contents spread through Facebook and Twitter. The onclusion estimates their social impact, insofar as they symbolize the specialization, diversification and dialogue promoted by the Web.