E-Ciencias de la Información: An electronic journal serving the transfer of knowledge

The article introduces the concept of E-Science and its importance in the generation of knowledge. This article also stresses the need to transfer that knowledge, before this, the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Costa Rica could gothrough such means as the online magazine E-Ciencias de la Información.It explains why we chose the form of electronic publication and describes the development strategy, architecture design and technological requirements. The article concludes that electronic publications have penetrated hard in the academic world and are increasingly cited, so that their contribution as vehicles for dissemination of knowledge is undeniable.

Innovative ways of knowledge representation and management

Knowledge is the key for success. The adequate treatment you make on data for generating knowledge can make a difference in projects, processes, and networks. Such a treatment is the main goal of two important areas: knowledger representation and management. Our aim, in this book, is collecting sorne innovative ways of representing and managing knowledge proposed by several Latin American researchers under the premise of improving knowledge.

Beyond human and intellectual capital: Profiling the value of knowledge, skills and experience

The concept of human capital is associated mainly with the Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and, in his usage, has a clear conceptual basis as investment in the costs of formal education. By contrast, this paper suggests that ‘intellectual capital’ is a re-branding of knowledge, skills and experience rather than re-conceptualisation of resource based learning. Becker also chose not to include informal knowledge, skills or experience within his concept of human capital, which remains limited by its constrained premises. This paper submits that both human capital and intellectual capital advocates fail to identify or measure the tacit knowledge and implicit learning which increasingly is recognised as a key to the competitive advantage of organisations. It first focuses on the conceptual basis of claims made for human capital and intellectual capital, outlines limits in their methodology, and contrasts these with insights from theories of tacit knowledge and implicit learning and the central role within them of informal or non-formal skill acquisition. It develops and illustrates instances of interfacing tacit and explicit knowledge before introducing a methodology for profiling the acquisition of knowledge, ability and skills. It does so by introducing the concepts of non-formal learningfrom- work (LfW) and informal learning-from-life (LfL), with evidence from a four country EU case study commissioned within the lifelong learning remit of the Lisbon Agenda.

Public and private initiatives for regional development : an investigation of knowledge transfer and social entrepreneurship

Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaft, Dissertation, 2016

Principles of knowledge organization: analysis and structures in the networked environment

Knowledge organization in the networked environment is guided by standards. Standards in knowledge organization are built on principles. For example, NISO Z39.19-1993 Guide to the Construction of Monolingual Thesauri (now undergoing revision) and NISO Z39.85- 2001 Dublin Core Metadata Element Set are two standards used in many implementations. Both of these standards were crafted with knowledge organization principles in mind. Therefore it is standards work guided by knowledge organization principles which can affect design of information services and technologies. This poster outlines five threads of thought that inform knowledge organization principles in the networked environment. An understanding of each of these five threads informs system evaluation. The evaluation of knowledge organization systems should be tightly linked to a rigorous understanding of the principles of construction. Thus some foundational evaluation questions grow from an understanding of stan dard s and pr inciples: on what pr inciples is this know ledge organization system built? How well does this implementation meet the ideal conceptualization of those principles? How does this tool compare to others built on the same principles?

Ethos and Ideology of Knowledge Organization: Toward Precepts for and Engaged Knowledge Organization Drawing on The Arts and Crafts Movement, Critical Theory, and Žižek

Ethos is the spirit that motivates ideas and practices. When we talk casually about the ethos of a town, state, or country we are describing the fundamental or at least underlying rationale for action, as we see it. Ideology is a way of looking at things.It is the set of ideas that constitute one’s goals, expectations, and actions. In this brief essay I want to create a space where we might talk about the ethos and ideology in knowledge organization from a particular point of view; combining ideas and inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement of the early Twentieth Century, critical theory in extant knowledge organization work, the work of Slavoj Žižek, and the work of Thich Nhat Hahn on Engaged Buddhism.I will expand more below, but we can say here and now that there are many open questions about ethos and ideology in and of knowledge organization, both its practice and products. Many of them in classification, positioned as they are around identity politics of race, gender, and other marginalized groups, ask the classificationist to be mindful of the choice of terms and relationships between terms. From this work we understand that race and gender requires special consideration, which manifests as a particular concern for the form of representation inside extant schemes. Even with these advances in our understanding there are still other categories about which we must make decisions and take action. For example, there are ethical decisions about fiduciary resource allocation, political decisions about standards adoption, and even broader zeitgeist considerations like the question of Fordist conceptions (Day, 2001; Tennis 2006) of the mechanics of description and representation present in much of today’s practice.Just as taking action in a particular way is an ethical concern, so too is avoiding a lack of action. Scholars in Knowledge Organization have also looked at the absence of what we might call right action in the context of cataloguing and classification. This leads to some problems above, and hints at larger ethical concerns of watching a subtle semantic violence go on without intervention (Bowker and Star, 2001; Bade 2006).The problem is not to act or not act, but how to act or not act in an ethical way, or at least with ethical considerations. The action advocated by an ethical consideration for knowledge organization is an engaged one, and it is here where we can take a nod from contemporary ethical theory advanced by Engaged Buddhism. In this context we can see the manifestation of fourteen precepts that guide ethical action, and warn against lack of action.

Ethos and Ideology of Knowledge Organization: Toward Precepts for anEngaged Knowledge Organization

This paper provides rationale for considering precepts for an engaged knowledge organization based on a Buddhist conception of intentional action. Casting knowledge organization work as craft, this paper employs Žižek’s conception of vio- lence in language as a call to action. The paper closes with a listing of precepts for an engaged knowledge organization.

Fringe Types and KOS Systematics: Examining the Limits of the Population Perspective of Knowledge Organization Systems

We find ourselves, after the close of the twentieth century, looking back at a mass of responses to the knowledge organization problem. Many institutions, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification (Furner, 2007), have grown up to address it. Increasingly, many diverse discourses are appropriating the problem and crafting a wide variety of responses. This includes many artistic interpretations of the act and products of knowledge organization. These surface as responses to the expressive power or limits of the Library and Information Studies institutions (e.g., DDC) and their often primarily utilitarian gaze.One way to make sense of this diversity is to approach the study from a descriptive stance, inventorying the population of types of KOS. This population perspective approaches the phenomenon of types and boundaries of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) as one that develops out of particular discourses, for particular purposes. For example, both DDC and Martianus Capella, a 5th Century encyclopedist, are KOS in this worldview. Both are part of the population of KOS. Approaching the study of KOS from the population perspective allows the researcher a systematic look at the diversity emergent at the constellation of different factors of design and implementation. However, it is not enough to render a model of core types, but we have to also consider the borders of KOS. Fringe types of KOS inform research, specifically to the basic principles of design and implementation used by others outside of the scholarly and professional discourse of Library and Information Studies.Four examples of fringe types of KOS are presented in this paper. Applying a rubric developed in previous papers, our aim here is to show how the conceptual anatomy of these fringe types relates to more established KOS, thereby laying bare the definitions of domain, purpose, structure, and practice. Fringe types, like Beghtol’s examples (2003), are drawn from areas outside of Library and Information Studies proper, and reflect the reinvention of structures to fit particular purposes in particular domains. The four fringe types discussed in this paper are (1) Roland Barthes’ text S/Z which “indexes” a text of an essay with particular “codes” that are meant to expose the literary rhythm of the work; (2) Mary Daly’s Wickedary, a reference work crafted for radical liberation theology – and specifically designed to remove patriarchy from the language used by what the author calls “wild women”; (3) Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus a work of book art that plays on the trope of universal encyclopedia and back-of- the book index; and (4) Martinaus Capella – and his Marriage of Mercury and Philology, a fifth century encyclopedia. We compared these using previous analytic taxonomies (Wright, 2008; Tennis, 2006; Tudhope, 2006, Soergel, 2001, Hodge, 2000).

Integrated soil fertility management in eastern and western Africa: The role of knowledge and innovation systems, its adoption and impact

The rise in population growth, as well as nutrient mining, has contributed to low agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A plethora of technologies to boost agricultural production have been developed but the dissemination of these agricultural innovations and subsequent uptake by smallholder farmers has remained a challenge. Scientists and philanthropists have adopted the Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) paradigm as a means to promote sustainable intensification of African farming systems. This comparative study aimed: 1) To assess the efficacy of Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) in East (Kenya) and West (Ghana) Africa in the communication and dissemination of ISFM (Study I); 2) To investigate how specifically soil quality, and more broadly socio-economic status and institutional factors, influence farmer adoption of ISFM (Study II); and 3) To assess the effect of ISFM on maize yield and total household income of smallholder farmers (Study III). To address these aims, a mixed methodology approach was employed for study I. AKIS actors were subjected to social network analysis methods and in-depth interviews. Structured questionnaires were administered to 285 farming households in Tamale and 300 households in Kakamega selected using a stratified random sampling approach. There was a positive relationship between complete ISFM awareness among farmers and weak knowledge ties to both formal and informal actors at both research locations. The Kakamega AKIS revealed a relationship between complete ISFM awareness among farmers and them having strong knowledge ties to formal actors implying that further integration of formal actors with farmers’ local knowledge is crucial for the agricultural development progress. The structured questionnaire was also utilized to answer the query pertaining to study II. Soil samples (0-20 cm depth) were drawn from 322 (Tamale, Ghana) and 459 (Kakamega, Kenya) maize plots and analysed non-destructively for various soil fertility indicators. Ordinal regression modeling was applied to assess the cumulative adoption of ISFM. According to model estimates, soil carbon seemed to preclude farmers from intensifying input use in Tamale, whereas in Kakamega it spurred complete adoption. This varied response by farmers to soil quality conditions is multifaceted. From the Tamale perspective, it is consistent with farmers’ tendency to judiciously allocate scarce resources. Viewed from the Kakamega perspective, it points to a need for farmers here to intensify agricultural production in order to foster food security. In Kakamega, farmers with more acidic soils were more likely to adopt ISFM. Other household and farm-level factors necessary for ISFM adoption included off-farm income, livestock ownership, farmer associations, and market inter-linkages. Finally, in study III a counterfactual model was used to calculate the difference in outcomes (yield and household income) of the treatment (ISFM adoption) in order to estimate causal effects of ISFM adoption. Adoption of ISFM contributed to a yield increase of 16% in both Tamale and Kakamega. The innovation affected total household income only in Tamale, where ISFM adopters had an income gain of 20%. This may be attributable to the different policy contexts under which the two sets of farmers operate. The main recommendations underscored the need to: (1) improve the functioning of AKIS, (2) enhance farmer access to hybrid maize seed and credit, (3) and conduct additional multi-locational studies as farmers operate under varying contexts.

The Decent Work Questionnaire (DWQ): Development and validation in two samples of knowledge workers

This research aimed to develop a questionnaire measure of workers’ perceptions of decent work. The initial pool of 72 items covered the substantive elements used by the International Labour Organization to characterize decent work. It was administered to workers from Portugal (N = 636) and Brazil (N = 1039) and submitted to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The final 31-item version yields seven factor scores in addition to the global decent work score. With good reliability, convergent and discriminant validity indices, the DWQ could open new avenues for empirical studies of the decent work concept.

Circulation of canine viruses in free-ranging Italian wolves (Canis lupus italicus) from three Italian regions

In this study, the duodenum, spleen, tongue, and lungs were sampled from 56 Italian wolves who died between 2017 and 2020. The aim of the study was to evaluate the presence and spread of DNA and RNA viruses in the wolf population examined, relating the virological results to: year of sampling, region of origin, sex, age, season, genetic determination of the species, nutritional conditions, causes of death, matrices examined. In addition, the presence or absence of co-infections was evaluated. Through molecular methods, the presence of genomic DNA of three important DNA viruses was investigated, i.e.: Canine Parvovirus type 2 (CPV-2), Canine Adenovirus type 1 (CAdV-1), Canine Adenovirus type 2 (CAdV-2). Furthermore, the presence of genomic RNA of the important RNA viruses, Canine Enteric Coronavirus (CCoV) and Canine Distemper Virus (CDV), was also investigated. The results showed that the virus with the highest prevalence in the wolf population studied was CPV-2, found in 78.6% of subjects (44/56). The prevalence of CAdV was 17.9% (10/56), in particular CAdV-1 (12.5% - 7/56) and CAdV-2 (5.4% - 3/56). The results of the molecular investigations in RT-PCR of the two RNA viruses (CCoV and CDV) did not give positive results in the study population. In this study it was observed that the majority of wolves that resulted positive were in good nutritional conditions, thus excluding a direct cause of death from CPV-2, CAdV-1, and CAdV- 2 infections. Moreover, the prevalence obtained in this study suggests that, during the years here studied, the circulation of CAdV-1 and CAdV-2 in Italian wolves of the three sampled regions was sporadic, proving consistent with sporadic and short-lived introductions of the virus in these populations. However, the situation for CPV-2 is different as there was a circulation that suggests a pattern of continuous and lasting endemic exposure over time.

Interfaces between national and EU law: time limits in cross-border civil proceedings and their impact on the free circulation of judgments

The thesis aims at exploring possible legal solutions to remove the obstacles to the free circulation of judgments in the civil justice area that arise from the remarkably diverging national rules on procedural time limits. As shown by the case-law of the CJEU, time limits have recently come under closer scrutiny. The interplay between national and EU law illustrates that time limits raise significant deficiencies connected with the right to a fair trial under Art. 6 ECHR and Art. 47 CFR – e.g. the effective recovery of claims, effective judicial protection, effective cross-border enforcement of judgments – which negatively impact EU cross-border civil litigation. In order to overcome some of the weaknesses of the current legal framework governing the cross-border enforcement of judgments and strengthen the parties’ fundamental procedural rights the PhD thesis intends to determine whether and, to what extent time limits can be harmonised at EU level. EU action on time limits would indeed favour the speed, efficiency and proportionality of cross-border proceedings without sacrificing the fairness of the judicial process and the equality of the parties

Uma biblioteca para a formação de professores: a biblioteca Joaquim Nabuco do Instituto Coração de Jesus, Santo André - SP (1959-1974)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)