ArgumentThe Scandinavian countries share a solid reputation as longstanding contributors to top level Arctic research. This received view, however, veils some deep-seated contrasts in the ways that Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have conducted research in the Arctic and the North Atlantic. In this paper it is argued that instead of focusing on the geographical determinism of science – the fact that the Arctic is close to, indeed part of, Scandinavian territories – we should look more closely at the geopolitics of (...) science to understand the differences and similarities between these three Nordic countries. Through case studies of, mainly, Swedish Arctic and North Atlantic glaciology in the 1920s through to the 1940s, and of Norwegian preparations in the 1950s for the International Geophysical Year 1957/58, the paper demonstrates how different styles of research – research agendas, methodological choices, collaborative patterns, international networks, availability of infrastructure, relations to politics and power – are conditioned on economic interests and strategic and geopolitical trajectories, either these are explicitly put in the forefront of scientific priorities as in the case of Norway in the 1950s, or when they are manifestly disregarded in the name of scientific internationalism, as in the case of Swedish glaciology. The case of Danish colonial science in Greenland is only cursorily drawn into this analysis but corroborates the overall thesis. The analysis of this wider science politics of Scandinavian circumpolar science is exercised against a brief introductory backdrop of Arctic science historiography. Its chief message is that the analysis of polar science applying modern theory and method of the social studies of science is comparatively recent and that the full potential of merging the literature of Arctic science and exploration with those of security, geopolitics, indigenous voices, and the politics of nationalism is yet to be realized. (shrink)

The discussion of universities anddemocracy has conventionally dealt first andforemost with the curriculum, or with thespirit of openness and tolerance whichcharacterises the scientific inquiry. In thisarticle I have added a discussion of thesituatedness of knowledge and knowledgeproduction, and, consequently, a discussion ofthe situated character of other roles of theuniversity, including the democratic role. Inthe light of the regress of political partiesand traditional popular movements – phenomenawhich seem to be true both as regardsmembership numbers and as regards level ofactivity – the (...) role as a locally andregionally situated meeting place for avitalisation and defence of democracy seems apromising one for the contemporary university.The article has also emphasised the linksbetween culture, social capital (``the socialfabric'') in the surrounding society, and theeconomic growth and welfare of the city andregion. With concepts such as Bildung (oreducation), civic competence (or civility), andculture, and I have tried to draw our attentionto the actual ``places of knowledge,'' whoseimportance will certainly grow in the years tocome. The care, the cultivation, and thequalification of these places into supportinginfrastructures for cultural life, creativity,industry, and democracy should be seen as acoherent, holistic mission. It needsrecognition, and articulation, by all those whoare interested in the university as asignificant social factor: politicians,industry, the cultural sector, localcommunities, and, obviously, the academiccommunity itself. (shrink)

Notions of research quality are contextual in many respects: they vary between fields of research, between review contexts and between policy contexts. Yet, the role of these co-existing notions in research, and in research policy, is poorly understood. In this paper we offer a novel framework to study and understand research quality across three key dimensions. First, we distinguish between quality notions that originate in research fields and in research policy spaces. Second, drawing on existing studies, we identify three attributes (...) considered important for ‘good research’: its originality/novelty, plausibility/reliability, and value or usefulness. Third, we identify five different sites where notions of research quality emerge, are contested and institutionalised: researchers themselves, knowledge communities, research organisations, funding agencies and national policy arenas. We argue that the framework helps us understand processes and mechanisms through which ‘good research’ is recognised as well as tensions arising from the co-existence of conflicting quality notions. (shrink)

'Strategic research’ has become a goal of government policy throughout the industrial world. This paper follows the emergence of new approaches to the funding of 'strategic research’ in Sweden, by examining three research foundations created in the late 1990s, and considers their ambitions, limitations, and achievements.

Les traditions philosophiques et rhetoriques de l'epoque antique ont alternativement aborde l'usage technique du langage comme un moyen d'acces au progres moral ou comme un instrument dangereux de manipulation. A l'epoque classique, certains philosophes des Lumieres ont preconise une therapie du langage visant a nous rendre conscients de notre usage des mots. Plus recemment, le renouveau de la rhetorique, qu'on observe depuis plusieurs decennies, semble inseparable d'une reflexion ethique. Fruit d'un colloque international et interdisciplinaire (Montpellier, avril 2011), cet ouvrage collectif (...) s'attache a mettre en relation le questionnement ethique et les usages publics du langage dans une perspective historique et prolonge ces analyses par des investigations contemporaines. Il rassemble les reflexions theoriques et les analyses pratiques d'eminents specialistes autour de trois periodes majeures (rhetorique antique, age classique, epoque contemporaine), en croisant les regards methodologiques francais et anglo-saxon.<BR> Ce livre contient des contributions en francais et en anglais.". (shrink)

In this paper, we present an intelligent tutoring system developed to help students in learning Computer Theory. The Intelligent tutoring system was built using ITSB authoring tool. The system helps students to learn finite automata, pushdown automata, Turing machines and examines the relationship between these automata and formal languages, deterministic and nondeterministic machines, regular expressions, context free grammars, undecidability, and complexity. During the process the intelligent tutoring system gives assistance and feedback of many types in an intelligent manner according to (...) the behavior of the student. An evaluation of the intelligent tutoring system has revealed reasonably acceptable results in terms of its usability and learning abilities are concerned. (shrink)

In this research, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was developed and tested to predict Birth Weight. A number of factors were identified that may affect birth weight. Factors such as smoke, race, age, weight (lbs) at last menstrual period, hypertension, uterine irritability, number of physician visits in 1st trimester, among others, as input variables for the ANN model. A model based on multi-layer concept topology was developed and trained using the data from some birth cases in hospitals. The evaluation (...) of testing the dataset shows that the ANN model is capable of correctly predicting the birth weight with 100% accuracy. (shrink)

This article goes behind stereotypes of Muslim veiling to ask after the representational structure underlying these images. I examine the public debate leading to the 2004 French law banning conspicuous religious signs in schools and French colonial attitudes to veiling in Algeria, in conjunction with discourses on the veil that have arisen in other western contexts. My argument is that western perceptions and representations of veiled Muslim women are not simply about Muslim women themselves. Rather than representing Muslim women, these (...) images fulfill a different function: they provide the negative mirror in which western constructions of identity and gender can be positively reflected. It is by means of the projection of gender oppression onto Islam, and its naturalization to the bodies of veiled women, that such mirroring takes place. This constitutes, I argue, a form of racialization. Drawing on the work of Fanon, Merleau-Ponty and Alcoff, I offer a phenomenological analysis of this racializing vision. What is at stake is a form of cultural racism that functions in the guise of anti-sexist and feminist liberatory discourse, at once posing a dilemma to feminists and concealing its racializing logic. (shrink)

What does Husserlian phenomenology have to offer feminist theory? More specifically, can we find resources within Husserl’s account of the living body ( Leib ) for the critical feminist project of rethinking embodiment beyond the dichotomies not only of mind/body but also of subject/object and activity/passivity? This essay begins by explicating the reasons for feminist hesitation with respect to Husserlian phenomenology. I then explore the resources that Husserl’s phenomenology of touch and his account of sensings hold for feminist theory. My (...) reading of Husserl proceeds by means of a comparison between his description of touch in Ideas II and Merleau-Ponty’s early appropriation of this account in the Phenomenology of Perception, as well as through an unlikely rapprochement between Husserl and Irigaray on the question of touch. Moreover, by revisiting the limitations in Husserl’s approach to the body—limitations of which any feminist appropriation must remain cognizant—I attempt to take Husserl’s phenomenology of touch beyond its initial methodologically solipsistic frame and to ask whether and how it can contribute to thinking gendered and racialized bodies. The phenomenology of touch, I argue, can allow us to understand the interplay between subjective, felt embodiment and social-historical context. In opening up Husserl’s account of touch to other dimensions—intersubjective and affective—sociality is revealed as residing within, and structuring of, touch. Such touch can allow us to think embodiment anew. (shrink)

Neutrosophy, the study of neutralities, is a new branch of Philosophy that has applications in many different fields of science. Inspired by the idea of Neutrosophy, Smarandache introduced NeutroAlgebraicStructures (or NeutroAlgebras) by allowing the partiality and indeterminacy to be included in the structures’ operations and/or axioms.

Despite a proliferation of research on Islam and Muslims in the media, very little work has focused on Muslim women, a much-debated social group that merits special consideration. This article aims to investigate how Muslim women are represented in BBC News website texts using a purpose-built corpus. The research employs analytical tools from the discourse-historical, socio-cognitive, and sociosemantic approaches to critical discourse studies. These are combined with corpus-based methodologies to investigate the semantic macrostructures that tend to be associated with Muslim (...) women and the discursive strategies employed in the representation of the hijab. The study is novel in its exhaustive approach to identifying salient and underreported issues related to Muslim women in news discourse. It also introduces a more integrated analysis that combines manual and automated techniques and tackles the quantification of qualitative results where possible. Findings suggest that Muslim women’s representations are largely restricted in terms of regional coverage. Semantic macrostructures related to conflict and crime are prevalent. The hijab remains a nodal discourse surrounding Muslim women whose function as a descriptive feature is often unclear, raising serious questions about its relevance. A number of recommendations are made for journalists to become cognizant of their own context models when reporting on Muslim women. (shrink)

Starting with a partial order on a NeutroAlgebra, we get a NeutroStructure. The latter if it satisfies the conditions of NeutroOrder, it becomes a NeutroOrderedAlgebra. In this paper, we apply our new defined notion to semigroups by studying NeutroOrderedSemigroups. More precisely, we define some related terms like NeutrosOrderedSemigroup, NeutroOrderedIdeal, NeutroOrderedFilter, NeutroOrderedHomomorphism, etc., illustrate them via some examples, and study some of their properties.

Street vendors are prominent on public streets and in traditional markets in most developing countries. They raise significant problems for public authorities, residents, pedestrians, and formal retailers. Their informal business is problematic, leading to conflicts and sometimes violence. Moreover, unlicensed street vendors employ children and women and are accused of counterfeiting and drug trading. However, they participate in reducing poverty and unemployment. The current data article aims to formulate a public perception on the problematic issue of street vending pervasiveness by (...) describing a survey dataset on street vending and its main driving factors. Street vending has traditionally be examined by linking it with one or more determinants; thus, the dataset covers poverty, lack of education, immigration, unemployment, urban culture, low-income consumption, resistance, and lack of microfinance as latent constructs. Five measurable variables are introduced that reflect each construct. All variables are measured via seven-point Likert scales. Using a Google Form, 425 responses were collected that reflect the attitudes of the general public in Baghdad, Iraq. This dataset is useful for research on socio-economic problems; more specifically, it introduces reliable measurement models for street vending and the eight factors driving it. (shrink)

Information and communication technologies are increasingly used for development in the Global South, and mHealth plays key role. This paper analyzes the particular relationship to science that characterizes a global maternal mHealth program deployed in Ghana and India. Using science and technology studies, this research relies on qualitative interviews conducted between 2014 and 2016 with funders, implementers, and beneficiaries of this mHealth program. This story begins with a randomized controlled trial, a biomedical experiment with a strong positioning regarding science and (...) the production of evidence. But rapidly the scientific stance disappears to give way to the testing and marketing of a product for the digital economy. From science to market, this paper offers to revisit a classical STS topic through the lens of mHealth. It shows how the various experimental forms taken by this project fundamentally diverge from scientific methods and evidence production and at the same time how it nurtures an ongoing instrumental relationship with science. Thus, from clinical research to product marketing, this paper highlights the tenuous link between evidence-based and market-based mHealth in the Global South. (shrink)

pereḳ 1. ʻOśeh fele -- pereḳ 2. Ḥidud be-divre Torah -- pereḳ 3. Ḥidud be-mile de-ʻalma -- pereḳ 4. Ḳetsat shut śikhliyot ṿe-ʻimahem shene derushim le-midrash Talmud Torah.

عجيب أمر الفقهاء..وعجيب أولئك الذين أطلقوا على أنفسهم رجال الدين..ضلوا الطريق إلى الله وأضلوا، سرقوا الله من جوهر مكنونه وعظمة أسراره، جردوه من أسراره القدسية، نزعوا عنه سيم الألوهية، صوروه على أنه قاطع طريق، أو فى أحسن الأحوال رب ديوث!!! لا يغار على عرضه!! ولا يأبه لعياله..ولا يهتم لمن أوكل إليهم الخلافة، بل جردوه عن كل شىء...عن الربوبية والألوهية والتقديس. قدموا صورة مغلوطة تنافى الله وتضاده، ولكنها ياللأسف.. ماقُدمت إلا باسم الله، قدموا أنفسهم على أنهم حماة الشريعة، فإذ فجأة نجد (...) ألا شريعة لديهم ولا عقيدة ولا دين!! هى محض قشور قشرية لا لب لها ولا مضمون، قشريات جمعوها يُمنة ويُسرة، قدموها على أنها الدين..وصوروا أنفسهم الهداة المهديين، هم ملاك الحقيقة المطلقة، تلك المولود البغيض المشوه الذى لا وجه له ولا عينين، لا صورة له تشبه أبيه أو مصدره، الله رحمة ولكنهم أبوه إلا جلادًا...رحيمًا جعلوه جبارًا فى الأرض، مصلحًا صوروه ديوثًا...انقلبوا على الله واستبدلوه..ذهبوا ليدلوا الناس عليه فانقلبوا بدونه...هدموا جمهورية السلام والعدل والرحمة، وأقاموا على أنقاضها جمهورية القتل والسلب والسبى والهدر المتعمد لكرامة الإنسان، فلبئس ما استبدلوا به الله... ولبئس ما صوروا به ربًا ملك فعدل، وقدر فعفى، وحاسب فرحم، فكانت تلك الجمهورية مسخًا مشوهًا من جمهورية الله.... (shrink)

Matter and Form explores the relationship between natural science and political philosophy from the classical to contemporary eras, taking an interdisciplinary approach to the philosophic understanding of the structure and process of the natural world and its impact on the history of political philosophy. It illuminates the importance of philosophic reflection on material nature to moral and political theorizing, mediating between the sciences and humanities and making a contribution to ending the isolation between them.

The Phaedrus continues to fascinate. But then, that seems to be precisely the point, and scholars are doing an ever-better job of showing how the Phaedrus accomplishes the interest it generates, both in itself and in philosophy generally. The latest commentary to unravel the propaedeutic nature of the Phaedrus is Daniel Werner’s monograph, and it is a well-written, meticulous, and insightful examination. As his title suggests, Werner limits himself to the topic of myths in the Phaedrus, but that lens gives (...) him an interesting view into the propaedeutic question. Why is it that myths can have such a stimulating effect on us? How can myths generate an interest in philosophy? What kind of person in particular is .. (shrink)

The purpose of the current paper is to introduce the theoretical arguments of optimal distinctiveness literature in studying the relationship between CEO narcissism and corporate social responsibility. We focus on CSR scope conformity and CSR emphasis differentiation and introduce CEO narcissism as an important determinant of the extent to which the firm responds to these two types of strategic pressures. Our analysis is based on a sample of 509 firm-year observations over the 2006–2013 period. Fixed effects regression technique is used (...) to test our hypotheses. Our findings provide evidence that CEO narcissism is negatively related to CSR conformity and positively related to CSR differentiation strategies. We also find evidence that firm prior performance will moderate the relationship between CEO narcissism and CSR conformity but not CSR differentiation. (shrink)