Managerial Discretion in the Arab World: New National-Level Antecedents

Based on a sample of six Arabian countries, our study examines the effect of cultural practices on CEO discretion. Using a panel of senior consultants, we extend the national-level framework of managerial discretion and find that an encompassing array of cultural practices play a crucial role in shaping the degree of discretion provided to CEOs. We empirically demonstrate that power distance, future and performance orientation along with gender egalitarianism and assertiveness has positive relationships with managerial discretion. However, institutional collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and humane orientation negatively affect the degree of discretion provided to CEOs. As such, our results indicate that executives are able to take idiosyncratic and bold actions to the extent to which the cultural environment allows them to do so. Finally, we find new national-level antecedents of managerial discretion that haven’t been considered in earlier studies.

Introduction to the special issue on real world applications of intelligent tutoring systems

The idea behind creating this special issue on real world applications of intelligent tutoring systems was to bring together in a single publication some of the most important examples of success in the use of ITS technology. This will serve as a reference to all researchers working in the area. It will also be an important resource for the industry, showing the maturity of ITS technology and creating an atmosphere for funding new ITS projects. Simultaneously, it will be valuable to academic groups, motivating students for new ideas of ITS and promoting new academic research work in the area.

World press photo 2012: a construção discursiva da Primavera Árabe

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Jornalismo.

Welcome to the new world disorder: conflict and transformation in Ian McEwan’s saturday

Ian McEwan‘s novel Saturday deals with the complex issues of conflict and transformation in the age of terrorism. The plot presents one internal dilemma and several interpersonal altercations that occur within a mere twenty-four hours: a) Perowne (the protagonist) vs. himself, in face of his ambivalent thoughts regarding British military participation in the war in the Middle East; b) The protagonist vs. Baxter, a ruffian from East End, in the context of a car accident; c) Perowne vs. a fellow anaesthetist, Jay Strauss, during a squash game; d) Perowne‘s daughter, Daisy vs. her grandfather, John Grammaticus, both poets and rivals; e) Perowne‘s family vs. Baxter, who intrudes the protagonist‘s house. In this paper, I exemplify, analyse and discuss how: a) Understanding the causes of what we call evil constitutes an important step towards mutual understanding; b) Both science and arts (which Perowne considers, at first, irrelevant) are important elements in the process of transformation; c) Both personal and interpersonal conflicts are intrinsic to human nature — but they also propitiate healthy changes in behaviour and opinion, through reflection. In order to do so, I resort to Saturday, and to the work of several specialists in the field of conflict management.

Beliefs and Conflicts in a Real World Multi-Agent System

In a real world multiagent system, where the agents are faced with partial, incomplete and intrinsically dynamic knowledge, conflicts are inevitable. Frequently, different agents have goals or beliefs that cannot hold simultaneously. Conflict resolution methodologies have to be adopted to overcome such undesirable occurrences. In this paper we investigate the application of distributed belief revision techniques as the support for conflict resolution in the analysis of the validity of the candidate beams to be produced in the CERN particle accelerators. This CERN multiagent system contains a higher hierarchy agent, the Specialist agent, which makes use of meta-knowledge (on how the con- flicting beliefs have been produced by the other agents) in order to detect which beliefs should be abandoned. Upon solving a conflict, the Specialist instructs the involved agents to revise their beliefs accordingly. Conflicts in the problem domain are mapped into conflicting beliefs of the distributed belief revision system, where they can be handled by proven formal methods. This technique builds on well established concepts and combines them in a new way to solve important problems. We find this approach generally applicable in several domains.

Spatial relational learning and memory abilities do not differ between men and women in a real-world, open-field environment

This study assesses gender differences in spatial and non-spatial relational learning and memory in adult humans behaving freely in a real-world, open-field environment. In Experiment 1, we tested the use of proximal landmarks as conditional cues allowing subjects to predict the location of rewards hidden in one of two sets of three distinct locations. Subjects were tested in two different conditions: (1) when local visual cues marked the potentially-rewarded locations, and (2) when no local visual cues marked the potentially-rewarded locations. We found that only 17 of 20 adults (8 males, 9 females) used the proximal landmarks to predict the locations of the rewards. Although females exhibited higher exploratory behavior at the beginning of testing, males and females discriminated the potentially-rewarded locations similarly when local visual cues were present. Interestingly, when the spatial and local information conflicted in predicting the reward locations, males considered both spatial and local information, whereas females ignored the spatial information. However, in the absence of local visual cues females discriminated the potentially-rewarded locations as well as males. In Experiment 2, subjects (9 males, 9 females) were tested with three asymmetrically-arranged rewarded locations, which were marked by local cues on alternate trials. Again, females discriminated the rewarded locations as well as males in the presence or absence of local cues. In sum, although particular aspects of task performance might differ between genders, we found no evidence that women have poorer allocentric spatial relational learning and memory abilities than men in a real-world, open-field environment.

Photograph of Robert Bell, Airborne Regiment, World War II [n.d.]

A photograph of Robert Bell (kneeling, front row, third left) with his airborne regiment in the Second World War. The date and location of the photo is unknown. This photograph was among those recovered from the attic of Iris Sloman Bell, of St. Catharines, in the 1980s and kept in the possession of her son, Rick Bell. The Bell- Sloman family is descended from former Black slaves from the United States.

Nationalism and Sporting Culture: A Media Analysis of Croatia’s Participation in the 1998 World Cup

The past two centuries have witnessed the rise of nationalist movements and widespread nationalism. As these movements gained strength in Europe, sport played a role in their development. Media representations of sport recount events in a way that reinforces cultural values and this research investigates media representations of Croatian nationalism in the weeks surrounding the country’s third place victory in the 1998 FIFA World Cup. Sociological theories alongside more contemporary theories of sport and nation construction are considered. Croatian newspapers were analyzed for elements of national identity construction. The study concludes that the 1998 World Cup played an important role in Croatia’s on-going construction of nationhood and invention of nationalist traditions. This research further demonstrates sport’s ability to evoke strong emotions that are difficult to witness in other areas of social life and the direct role of sport in garnering nationalism.

Oral French Communication in French Immersion Canadian and World Studies Classrooms: A Primer for Educators

This project presents a primer for secondary French Immersion teachers that facilitates the use of French oral communicative activities in secondary Canadian and World Studies courses. The primer supports collaborative and inclusive teaching strategies that invite students to speak and develop their oral French communication skills. The primer is divided into 2 main components: (a) Rationale for the Primer, and (b) the Strategies themselves, comprising succinct descriptions as well as potential uses and suggestions. A critical content analysis of various Ontario Ministry of Education documents was undertaken in order to explore the importance of oral communication in second-language learning in Ontario secondary schools. Furthermore, holistic and invitational education perspectives were examined in order to define the advantages of collaborative learning. Moreover, research in the stream of French Immersion studies was also referenced to frame the relevance of second-language learning and the significant role the French Immersion teacher plays. The aforementioned research contributes to the advancement of theory and practice regarding the importance of opportunities for oral French communication in secondary Canadian and World Studies courses.

(Re)Vitalizing Philanthropy: The Emergence of Indigenous Philanthropy and its Implications for Civil Society throughout the Developing World

As developing countries have become more integrated within the global economy, new, developing world-based economic elites have emerged as important philanthropists and development actors. The burgeoning trend of indigenous philanthropy holds particularly important implications for traditionally resource scarce civil society throughout the developing world. Unlike their Western – and particularly US based – counterparts, these foundations emerged from the context in which they focus their projects. This paper explores whether and how the rise of an indigenous philanthropic sector holds promise for the expansion and consolidation of civil society in the developing world in light of the various limited capacities in which this sector operates.

Développement local comme stratégie de lutte contre la pauvreté : le cas du Programme de développement de zone implanté par World Vision en Haïti

Ce mémoire est une étude sur le développement local comme stratégie de lutte contre la pauvreté en Haïti. C'est une étude de cas sur une stratégie qui a été implantée par la WVI dans plusieurs communautés pauvres en Haïti, le Programme de Développement de zone (PDZ). Nous avons cherché à savoir comment le PDZ a permis de mettre en place un projet de développement local de lutte contre la pauvreté dans ces communautés. Plus spécifiquement, nous avons analysé, à l'aide de la perspective de Klein et al. (2011), le type de stratégie de développement local auquel le PDZ correspond et vu comment il implique les communautés visées. En effet, plusieurs dimensions, dont la majorité proposée par Klein et al. ont été analysées : le transfert de la stratégie aux leaders locaux ; le processus de leadership local (individuel, organisationnel et socio-territorial) ; la mobilisation des ressources endogènes et exogène ; l'utilisation créative des programmes publics ; la gestion locale des conflits et apprentissage collectif ; et la construction d'une identité positive et d'un sentiment d'appartenance. Ce mémoire fait ressortir une critique souvent adressée à l'endroit des interventions des ONGI, à savoir que la situation de dépendance qu'elles engendrent compte tenu de l'approche assistentialiste sur laquelle elles sont souvent échafaudées. Particulièrement, l'étude du PDZ, nous renseigne que dans un contexte de grande pauvreté, de cumulation de désavantages (en termes de ressources humaines, économiques, politiques), ou d'obstacles objectifs, le développement par initiatives locales soulève des défis et enjeux majeurs. Les données montrent que la stratégie du PDZ __ bien qu'elle soit parvenue à développer un leadership local ; à favoriser une circulation limité de ressources économiques ; à permettre la construction d'une identité positive chez certaines personnes ; __ ne permet pas une mobilisation locale co-construite qui viendrait maintenir les actions mises de l'avant en faveur des priorités dégagées par les communautés elles-mêmes. Enfin, à travers l'analyse nous avons pu conclure qu'elle correspond à un modèle top-down.

Non-University Higher Education and the Relationship of Its Graduates and the World of Work: Colombia

The non-university sector has been part of the Colombian higher education system for more than 50-years. Despite its long years of existence, it has never occupied such an important role within the education system as the one it is having today. Therefore, the aim of this work is to analyze the development of the non-university sector in the framework of the country’s social, educational and economic demands. Likewise, its actual situation and certain aspects of the relationship between its graduates and the world of work, i.e., graduates’ employment characteristics, the relationship of higher education studies and their work, as well as their early career success, are examined. In order to generate the required information, a graduate survey was carried out in Atlántico (Colombia). The target population was graduates from higher education institutions registered in Atlántico who were awarded a technical, technological or professional degree in 2008 from any of the following knowledge areas: Fine Arts, Health Science, Economy-Administration-Accountancy and similar, and Engineering-Architecture-Urban planning and similar. Besides, interviews with academic and administrative staff from non-university institutions were carried out, and higher education related documents were analyzed. As a whole, the findings suggest that the non-university sector is expanding and may help to achieve some of the goals, for which it is widely promoted i.e., access expansion for under-represented groups, enhancement of the higher education system, and the provision of programs pertinent to the needs of the market. Nevertheless, some aspects require further consideration, e.g., the sector’s consolidation within the system and its quality. As for the relationship between non-university higher education and the world of work, it was found to be close; particularly in those aspects related to the use of knowledge and skills in the work, and the relationship between graduates’ studies and their work. Additionally, the analysis of the graduates’ in their early career stages exposes the significant role that the socioeconomic stratum plays in their working life, particularly in their wages. This indicates that apart from education, other factors like the graduates’ economic or social capital may have an impact on their future work perspectives

What can Flickr photographs tell us about the world?

In their second year, our undergraduate web scientists undertake a group project module (WEBS2002, led by Jonathon Hare & co-taught by Su White) in which they get to apply what they learnt in the first year to a practical web-science problem, and also learn about team-working. For the project this semester, the students were provided with a large dataset of geolocated images and associated metadata collected from the Flickr website. Using this data, they were tasked with exploring what this data could tell us about the world. In this seminar the two groups will present the outcomes of their work. Team Alpha (Ellie Hamilton, Clayton Jones & Alok Acharya) will present their work on "The relationship between Group Photos, Social Integration and Suicide". This work aims to explore whether levels of social integration (which Durkheim posited as a factor in "Egoistic Suicide" rates) can be predicted by measuring the proportion of photos of groups of people to photos of individuals within a geographical region. Team Bravo (Agnieszka Grzesiuk-Szolucha, Thomas Leese & Ammaar Tawil) will present their work on "Sentiment Analysis on Flickr Photo Tags to Classify a Photo as Positive or Negative, In Order to Determine the Happiness of a Country or Region". This work explores whether estimates of sentiment made by applying SentiWordNet to Flickr tags correlate with indices of world happiness and socio-economic well-being.

School leadership in a contradictory world

Resumen basado en el de la publicación