Symbolic interactions and the development of women leaders in higher education

The under-representation of women in higher education (HE) leadership is a persistent global phenomenon. The purpose of this research is to re-examine this issue through symbolic interactionism (SI). Eight women aspiring to leadership were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews after attending a leadership programme specifically designed to enhance their leadership prospects. Analysis indicated ambiguities and contradictions that surround notions of leadership, in particular how the participants position themselves and are positioned in their workplace. This was evidenced by the meaning they attributed to: recognizing a leader; interactions with existing leadership; and speculation regarding their leadership capacity. Gendered notions were apparent in their constructed meanings. Similarity attraction was also evident, with men being observed as ‘paying it forward’, therefore facilitating promotion. Formal leadership training was advocated rather than experiential processes.

Robotic object grasping in context of human grasping and manipulation

This paper presents experimental and deductive findings that shed new light on grasp force estimation, which improves robot’s chances to grasp and manipulate the object close to optimum conditions on the first attempt, which in turn improves robot’s object manipulation dexterity.
This paper proposes that object slippage detection in the human hand is not detected based purely on microvibrations sensed by the human skin during incipient slippage but also on load sensing at each finger and movement of fingers relative to each other while holding an object.

Turning collegial governance on its head : symbolic violence, hegemony and the academic board

This article draws on Bourdieu’s theorisation of domination and Gramsci’s notions of hegemony within the context of a larger empirical study of Australian university academic governance, and of academic boards (also known as academic senates or faculty senates) in particular. Reporting data that suggest a continued but radically altered form of collegial governance in which hegemony is exercised by management rather than by the professor, it theorises the domination of academic boards within western democratic universities. However, traditional collegial governance is also dependent upon a community of scholars, a role historically played by the academic board. In view of the suggested transition in collegial governance and the resultant convergence of academic work and management, the article concludes with questions about whether academic boards can continue to serve as communities of scholars in future.

External policy influence and higher education reform in Ethiopia : understanding symbolic power of the World Bank

Increasingly national policy processes are intersected with and affected by global policy actors and ideas. In aid-recipient countries such as Ethiopia, donors use financial and non-financial means to influence national policy decisions and directions. This paper is about the non-financial influence of the World Bank (WB) in the Ethiopian higher education policy reform. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power as a ‘thinking tool’, the paper aims to shed light on forms of symbolic capital that the Bank uses to generate a ‘misrecognisable’ form of power that regulates the HE policy process in Ethiopia. The findings show that the WB transforms its symbolic capital of recognition and legitimacy to establish a ‘shared misrecognition’ and thereby make its policy prescriptions implicit and hence acceptable to local policy agents. The Bank uses knowledge-based regulatory instruments to induce compliance to its neoliberal policy prescriptions. The paper therefore underscores the value of symbol power as an analytical framework to understand elusive but critical role of donors in policy processes of aid recipient countries.

Robotic grasping and manipulation controller framework: architecture redevelopment

This paper details the further improvements obtained by redesigning a previously offered Manipulation Controller Framework to provide support to an innovative, friction-based object slippage detection strategy employed by the robotic object manipulator. This upgraded Manipulation Controller Framework includes improved slippage detection functionality and a streamlined architecture designed to improve controller robustness, reliability and speed. Improvements include enhancements to object slippage detection strategy, the removal of the decision making module and integration of its functionality into the Motion Planner, and the stream-lining of the Motion Planner to improve its effectiveness. It is anticipated that this work will be useful to researchers developing integrated robot controller architectures and slippage control.

A facile synthesis of mesoporous silica nanoparticle and its morphology manipulation by varying pH value

 Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) with particle size of20 nm have been synthesised through the template directed method at low temperature. The pH value of the reaction solution was found to have a great impact on the morphology of the final products. The morphology of resultant MSNs were investigated through transmission electron microscope. The mesoporous structure was examined by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller and Barrett-Joyner-Halenda methods. The results suggested that the high pH value had a great effect on the morphology of the final MSNs. Higher pH value intensified the interaction between particles. The pH value less than 10 is good for the formation of nanoparticles, while at pH 12, a silica framework with heterogeneous mesopore structure can be obtained.

Specifying model transformations by direct manipulation using concrete visual notations and interactive recommendations

Model transformations are a crucial part of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) technologies but are usually hard to specify and maintain for many engineers. Most current approaches use meta-model-driven transformation specification via textual scripting languages. These are often hard to specify, understand and maintain. We present a novel approach that instead allows domain experts to discover and specify transformation correspondences using concrete visualizations of example source and target models. From these example model correspondences, complex model transformation implementations are automatically generated. We also introduce a recommender system that helps domain experts and novice users find possible correspondences between large source and target model visualization elements. Correspondences are then specified by directly interacting with suggested recommendations or drag and drop of visual notational elements of source and target visualizations. We have implemented this approach in our prototype tool-set, CONVErT, and applied it to a variety of model transformation examples. Our evaluation of this approach includes a detailed user study of our tool and a quantitative analysis of the recommender system.

Claude Elwood Shannon e a symbolic analysis of relay and switching circuits: tornando o computador uma máquina semiótica.

O nome de Claude Elwood Shannon não é totalmente estranho aos pesquisadores de Comunicação Social. No entanto, parte de sua importância para a história da comunicação no século XX é pouco conhecida. Sua dissertação de mestrado e o artigo dela derivado (A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits) foram essenciais para que o computador se tornasse uma máquina de comunicação e, conseqüentemente, penetrasse em nossa sociedade na forma como ocorre hoje. Este artigo revisa o primeiro grande trabalho de Shannon e explicita sua participação no contexto atual da comunicação.

Decision rules and information provision: monitoring versus manipulation

The paper focuses on the organization of institutions designed to resolve disputes between two parties, when some information is not veriable and decision makers may have vested preferences. It shows that the choice of how much discretional power to grant to the decision maker and who provides the information are intrinsically related. Direct involvement of the interested parties in the supply of information enhances monitoring over the decision maker, although at the cost of higher manipulation. Thus, it is desirable when the decision maker is granted high discretion. On the contrary, when the decision maker has limited discretional power, information provision is better assigned to an agent with no direct stake. The analysis helps to rationalize some organizational arrangements that are commonly observed in the context of judicial and antitrust decision-making.