Theoretical frameworks for analysing turn-based computer strategy games

This paper argues for a more specific formal methodology for the textual analysis of individual game genres. In doing so, it advances a set of formal analytical tools and a theoretical framework for the analysis of turn-based computer strategy games. The analytical tools extend the useful work of Steven Poole, who suggests a Peircian semiotic approach to the study of games as formal systems. The theoretical framework draws upon postmodern cultural theory to analyse and explain the representation of space and the organisation of knowledge in these games. The methodology and theoretical framework is supported by a textual analysis of Civilization II, a significant and influential turn-based computer strategy game. Finally, this paper suggests possibilities for future extensions of this work.

Who wants to live forever?

For millennia, human civilization has been fascinated with overcoming death. Immortality, eternal youth or at least the prospect of reaching biblical age have had a strong lure for religion, art and popular beliefs. Life after death, which is, in essence, eternal life, is the one central element of nearly all religions since Ancient Egypt. If we believe the Old Testament, some of the patriarchs lived for several hundreds of years. In the medieval ages, the fountain of youth was a popular myth, often illustrated in paintings, such as Lucas Cranach's The Fountain of Youth (Fig 1). And society today has not lost its fascination with immortality, as seen in Hollywood movies such as the Highlander films (1986–2000), The 6th Day (2000) or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and novels such as H. Rider Haggard's She. But for the first time, modern science may provide the knowledge and tools to interfere with the ageing processes and fulfil this age-old dream. This possibility has triggered an intense debate among scientists and ethicists about the potential of anti-ageing therapies and their ethical and social consequences. Given that anti-ageing therapies could dramatically change the social fabric of modern societies, it is quite astonishing that these debates have neglected the views of the larger public.

ENSINO DE SUSTENTABILIDADE NO CURSO DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO: A PERSPECTIVA DO EGRESSO

O objetivo desse trabalho foi investigar a contribuição do curso de Administração na formação de uma visão sistêmica das relações sociais, econômicas e ambientais dos seus egressos na visão dos mesmos. A tomada de decisões no ambiente corporativo requer que se considerem os interesses sociais e ambientais, além do econômico; devido, em particular, à atual crise civilizatória em que vivemos. A metodologia utilizada é a qualitativa, por meio da pesquisa exploratória, bibliográfica e de campo. O trabalho buscou aliar o suporte teórico, por meio das contribuições de Elkington (1994), Sachs (2006), Porrit (2007), Aligleri (2009), Barbierri (2010), Fazenda (2001,2008) Freire (1981,1987,1996), Leff (2009), Leonard (1997), Kleiton (2012), Tilbury e Wortman (2004), Freeman (1984), Savage (1991), Mitchell (1997), Katz (1990), Martinelli (1997), ao campo empírico, tendo sido aplicadas entrevistas em profundidade com egressos do curso bacharelado em Administração que cursaram a disciplina de sustentabilidade. De acordo com a pesquisa realizada, identificou-se que os egressos não consideram que a disciplina de sustentabilidade tenha contribuído para o desenvolvimento de competências profissionais significativas para um administrador com uma visão sistêmica, entretanto quando o tema foi abordado de forma interdisciplinar houve maior aproveitamento por parte dos egressos.

FLUXOS E TROCAS NOS ANTIGOS CULTOS DE MISTÉRIO: APROXIMAÇÕES E DISTANCIAMENTOS SIMBÓLICOS EM JOÃO 2, 1-11.

O presente estudo analisa algumas ressignificações simbólicas dos Antigos Cultos de Mistério, bem como alguns desdobramentos de suas realidades históricas. Essa dissertação avalia os possíveis fluxos e trocas ocorridos nos entornos mediterrâneos, concentrando-se nas ressignificações que os mistérios sofreram nessas fronteiras, discorrendo igualmente sobre sua possível influência numa perícope bíblica. Na investigação serão levantadas hipóteses referentes a relação dos cultos mistéricos com a expansão helenística, bem como suas possíveis interfaces com uma fonte primária do Novo Testamento. Com base no estudo dos principais mistérios presentes nas fronteiras romanas, e na avaliação da literatura neotestamentária, serão consideradas as aproximações e distanciamentos simbólicos entre o culto Dionisíaco e o texto de João 2, 1-11.

CAPITALISMO COMO RELIGIÃO: Uma crítica a seus fundamentos mítico-teológicos.

Seria possível compreender o capitalismo como religião? Nos marcos categoriais da Modernidade, baseada na racionalização e na secularização, relacionar economia e religião é um contrassenso. O capitalismo é sistema econômico secular, portanto sem relação com religião. Entretanto, se a crítica do capitalismo como religião não se reduz a uma simples metáfora, é necessário encontrar conceitos alternativos que captem a força teórica desta articulação. Que tipo de quadro analítico desvela os limites da razão instrumental em explicitar o funcionamento religioso do capitalismo? A profundidade crítica de capitalismo como religião advém justamente da junção intrigante entre a análise racional do funcionamento estrutural do capitalismo (fetiche) com a dimensão subjetiva que o impulsiona como motivação (espírito). Mesmo sendo um sistema racional e não-religioso, que submete a vida humana a suas leis internas desprovidas de qualquer sentido humano, o capitalismo desenvolve não-intencionalmente na interação humana uma estrutura de funcionamento com fundamento mítico-religioso sacrificial. As relações humanas são mediadas pelas mercadorias, em que o consumo adquire um aspecto central na significação da vida e na reprodução simbólica da sociedade. Na produção e distribuição de mercadorias, o processo de violência que explora, exclui e mata é o mesmo que gera fascínio e adesão. A expressão visível deste espírito não está mais nas tradicionais instituições religiosas, mas no próprio capitalismo. Benjamin afirma que o capitalismo substitui a religião. É uma crítica de um sistema de culpabilização das vítimas e dos próprios capitalistas, na medida em que estes nunca acumulam de modo infinito e pleno. É uma denúncia dos elementos míticos que geram legitimação religiosa para o fascínio que oculta a barbárie. Os teólogos da Escola do DEI também articulam sua teoria com finalidade crítica, numa abordagem teológica que procura discernir e criticar a idolatria no mundo de hoje. Buscam entender os mecanismos de produção de morte com a culpabilização das vítimas como sacrifício necessário em nome da esperança de redenção. O discernimento teológico de idolatria do capital supõe um tipo de razão teológica de caráter não-confessional que, superando os limites da epistemologia moderna, explicite a contradição dos pressupostos da civilização moderna ocidental. Revela o papel do pensamento mítico-teológico na ocultação do caráter sacrificial e sedutor do espírito do capitalismo. Ao mesmo tempo, enfatiza a necessária superação da interpretação positivista da religião ao criticar o reducionismo da epistemologia moderna na identificação da razão instrumental com a racionalidade humana. Renova o instrumental analítico da configuração espiritual do Capitalismo e vislumbra as brechas de sua superação.

Entre Jesus e Barrabás: realidade, expectativas e a escolha da multidão em Marcos 15,6-15

trabalho a seguir visa apresentar um estudo da palavra multidão no Evangelho de Marcos, considerando-a como personagem importante na estrutura literária concebida pelo autor, destacando especialmente sua atuação na cena da apresentação de Jesus diante de Pilatos em que é dada a ela a multidão a oportunidade de escolher pela libertação de Jesus ou de Barrabás. O texto em referência será estudado levando-se em conta o contexto de dominação romana em que estava inserido, como composição literária que reproduz a estrutura dos munera (combate ente gladiadores), fenômeno característico da civilização romana e símbolo de sua dominação, fazendo com que o escrito de Marcos seja uma paródia que visa esclarecer seu público acerca de sua própria situação.(AU)

International technology collaboration for new product development

In recent years it has become increasingly common for companies to improve their competitiveness and find new markets by extending their operations through international new product development collaborations involving technology transfer. Technology development, cost reduction and market penetration are seen as the foci in such collaborative operations with the aim being to improve the competitive position of both partners. In this paper the case of technology transfer through collaborative new product development in the machine tool sector is used to provide a typical example of such partnerships. The research evidence on which the paper is based includes longitudinal case studies and questionnaire surveys of machine tool manufacturers in both countries. The specific case of a UK machine tool company and its Chinese partner is used to provide a specific example of the operational development of a successful collaboration. The paper concludes that a phased co-ordination of commercial, technical and strategic interactions between the two partners is essential for such collaborations to work. In particular, the need to transfer marketing know-how is emphasised, having been identified as an area of weakness among technology acquirers in China.

Making sense of violence: a study of narrative meaning

Dramatized violence has been a feature of entertainment in western civilization throughout history. The function of film violence is explored and compared to violence encountered in real life. The role of narrative in individuals' meaning-making processes is also investigated. Six adults were individually interviewed using a semi-structured schedule and narrative analysis was implemented. The findings revealed that real life violence is experientially distinct from film violence but narrative was found to be central to participants' quest for the meaning of violence in both contexts. The narrative framework of violence and whether it is justifiable were fundamental to participants' understanding. The function of violent film was found to be multifaceted: it can teach viewers about the consequences of violence; it allows them to speculate about their own and others' reactions to violence; and it provides an opportunity to experience something which is ordinarily outside of our experience in order to satisfy our human existential needs.

Die Behandlung englischen Kulturgutes im Wiener fin de siècle:am Beispiel von Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Hermann Bahr und Peter Altenberg

This study explores the fascination which English culture represented in turn-of-the-century Vienna. The writers that are going to be discussed are the renowned Anglophile Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the more ambivalent Hermann Bahr and the idealizing, but Janus-faced Peter Altenberg. With the more widely known poet, prose writer and playwright, Hofmannsthal, individual aspects of his engagement with English culture have already been well researched; the same, however, cannot be said in the case of Hermann Bahr, whose extensive literary oeuvre has now largely been forgotten, and who has, instead, come to be valued as a prominent figure in the culture life of modernist Vienna, and Peter Altenberg, whose literary fame rests mainly on his prose poems and who, a legend in his life-time, has in recent years also increasingly attracted research interest as a phenomenon and ‘embodiment’ of the culture of his time: while their engagement with French literature, for example, has long received its due share of attention, their debt to English culture has, until now, been neglected. This thesis, therefore, sets out to explore Hofmannsthal’s, Bahr’s and Altenberg’s perception and portrayal of English civilization – ranging from English character and stereotypes, to what they saw as the principles of British society; it goes on to investigate the impulses they derive from Pre-Raphaelite art (Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Whistler) and the art and crafts-movement centred around William Morris, as well as their inspiration by the art criticism of John Ruskin and Walter Horatio Pater. In English literature one of the focal points will be their reading and evaluation of aestheticism as it was reflected in the life and writings of the Dubliner Oscar Wilde, who was perceived, by these Austrian authors, as a predominant figure of London’s cultural life. Similarly, they regarded his compatriot George Bernard Shaw as a key player in turn-of-the-century English (and European) culture. Hermann Bhar largely identified with him. Hofmannsthal, on the other hand, while having some reservations, acknowledged his importance and achievements, whereas Peter Altenberg saw in Shaw a model to reassure him, as his writings were becoming more openly didactic and even more miniaturistic than they had already been. He turned to Shaw, too, to explain and justify his new goal of making his texts more intelligent to a wider circle of readers.

Ireland:from racism without ‘race’, to ‘racism without racists’

The Irish have been relentlessly racialized in their diaspora settings, yet little historical work engages with “race” to understand Irish history on the island of Ireland. This article provides an interpretation of two key periods of Irish history—the second half of the sixteenth century and the period since 1996—through the lens of racialization. I argue that Ireland's history is exceptional in its capacity to reveal key elements of the history of the development of race as an idea and a set of practices. The English colonization of Ireland was underpinned by a form of racism reliant on linking bodies to unchanging hierarchically stacked cultures, without reference to physical differences. For example, the putative unproductiveness of the Gaelic Irish not only placed them at a lower level of civilization than the industrious English but it also authorizes increasingly draconian ways of dealing with the Irish populace. The period since 1996, during which Ireland has become a country of immigration, illustrates how racism has undergone a transformation into the object of official state policies to eliminate it. Yet it flourishes as part of a globalized set of power relations that has brought immigrants to the developing Irish economy. In response to immigration the state simultaneously exerts neoliberal controls and reduces pathways to citizenship through residence while passing antiracism legislation. Today, the indigenous nomadic Travellers and asylum seekers are the ones that are seen as pathologically unproductive. Irish history thus demonstrates that race is not only about color but also very much about culture. It also illustrates notable elements of the West's journey from racism without race to racism without racists.

Interactive semantics

Much research pursues machine intelligence through better representation of semantics. What is semantics? People in different areas view semantics from different facets although it accompanies interaction through civilization. Some researchers believe that humans have some innate structure in mind for processing semantics. Then, what the structure is like? Some argue that humans evolve a structure for processing semantics through constant learning. Then, how the process is like? Humans have invented various symbol systems to represent semantics. Can semantics be accurately represented? Turing machines are good at processing symbols according to algorithms designed by humans, but they are limited in ability to process semantics and to do active interaction. Super computers and high-speed networks do not help solve this issue as they do not have any semantic worldview and cannot reflect themselves. Can future cyber-society have some semantic images that enable machines and individuals (humans and agents) to reflect themselves and interact with each other with knowing social situation through time? This paper concerns these issues in the context of studying an interactive semantics for the future cyber-society. It firstly distinguishes social semantics from natural semantics, and then explores the interactive semantics in the category of social semantics. Interactive semantics consists of an interactive system and its semantic image, which co-evolve and influence each other. The semantic worldview and interactive semantic base are proposed as the semantic basis of interaction. The process of building and explaining semantic image can be based on an evolving structure incorporating adaptive multi-dimensional classification space and self-organized semantic link network. A semantic lens is proposed to enhance the potential of the structure and help individuals build and retrieve semantic images from different facets, abstraction levels and scales through time.

Towards the Noosphere of Intangible (Esotericism from Materialistic Viewpoint)

Exploration of intangible world is under the serious influence of esotericism. Mystics, religions, unrestrained use of metaphors, fairy tales, gossips, unverified and uncertified “facts” – all this needs accurate well-disposed, but sound scientific consideration. Our society really needs new ideas, new approaches and new paradigms. Technological civilization becomes more and more complicated, risky and ecologically critical. The current level of AI research cannot guarantee successful solution of societal control and management. Besides, the human being itself practically did not change its mental and psychological abilities for many thousands years. We can lose control over our society and its technology, if we do not change cardinally ourselves. In this text, I tried to approach this problem – the problem of our noosphere from materialistic viewpoint.