With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, multitasking textual translation has attracted more and more attention. Especially after the application of deep learning technology, the performance of multitask translation text detection and recognition has been greatly improved. However, because multitasking contains the interference problem faced by the translated text, there is a big gap between recognition performance and actual application requirements. Aiming at multitasking and translation text detection, this paper proposes a text localization method based on multichannel multiscale detection (...) of the largest stable extreme value region and cascade filtering. This paper selects the appropriate color channel and scale to extract the maximum stable extreme value area as the character candidate area and designs a cascaded filter from coarse to fine to remove false detections. The coarse filter is based on some simple morphological features and stroke width features, and the fine filter is trained by a two-recognition convolutional neural network. The remaining character candidate regions are merged into horizontal or multidirectional character strings through the graph model. The experimental results on the text data set prove the effectiveness of the improved deep learning network character model and the feasibility of the textual implication translation analysis method based on this model. Among them, the text contains translation character recognition results prove that the model has good description ability. The characteristics of the model determine that this method is not sensitive to the scale of the sliding window, so it performs better than the existing typical methods in retrieval tasks. (shrink)

In the area of machine learning, different techniques are used to train machines and perform different tasks like computer vision, data analysis, natural language processing, and speech recognition. Computer vision is one of the main branches where machine learning and deep learning techniques are being applied. Optical character recognition is the ability of a machine to recognize the character of a language. Pashto is one of the most ancient and historical languages of the world, spoken in Afghanistan and (...) Pakistan. OCR application has been developed for various cursive languages like Urdu, Chinese, and Japanese, but very little work is done for the recognition of the Pashto language. When it comes to handwritten character recognition, it becomes more difficult for OCR to recognize the characters as every handwritten character’s shape is influenced by the writer’s hand motion dynamics. The reason for the lack of research in Pashto handwritten character data as compared to other languages is because there is no benchmark dataset available for experimental purposes. This study focuses on the creation of such a dataset, and then for the evaluation purpose, a machine is trained to correctly recognize unseen Pashto handwritten characters. To achieve this objective, a dataset of 43000 images was created. Three Feed Forward Neural Network models with backpropagation algorithm using different Rectified Linear Unit layer configurations were trained and tested with this dataset. The simulation shows that Model 1 achieved accuracy up to 87.6% on unseen data while Model 2 achieved an accuracy of 81.60% and 3% accuracy, respectively. Similarly, loss was the lowest for Model 1 with 0.15 and 3.17 for training and testing, followed by Model 2 with 0.7 and 4.2 for training and testing, while Model 3 was the last with loss values of 6.4 and 3.69. The precision, recall, and f-measure values of Model 1 were better than those of both Model 2 and Model 3. Based on results, Model 1 is found to be the most efficient as compared to the other two models in terms of accuracy to recognize Pashto handwritten characters. (shrink)

Cells can transit between a range of stable epithelial and mesenchymal states and this has allowed the evolution of complex body forms. Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and its reverse, mesenchymal to epithelial transition (MET), occur sequentially in development and organogenesis. EMT often accompanies transitions between stem‐like cells and their more differentiated progeny, as occurs at gastrulation, although the relevance of this had not been clarified. New findings from the cancer and cell reprogramming fields suggest that EMT and MET can (...) act as essential portals to stem cell character. Here, we review these findings in the broader context of EMT and MET with emphasis on stem cell biology. Using the heart as an example, we also explore the potential role of EMT/MET in organ regeneration. Understanding EMT and MET at a network level will give us new tools to probe stem cell character and enhance tissue repair. (shrink)

Networks and the World Wide Web seem to provide an answer to efficiently creating and disseminating knowledge resources. Knowledge, however, is ambiguous in character, and contains both explicit (information) and tacit dimensions - the latter being difficult to value as well as to transfer. Participant identity, commitment and behaviour within the network also affect the sharing of knowledge. Hence, existing laws and norms (including property rights) which have been established on the basis of discrete transactions and monetary value-oriented (...) exchange may not be adequate to deal with the whole spectrum of knowledge transfer. A model is needed to address transfer across a large heterogeneous network. We introduce the concept of sub-networks where tacit knowledge resides and argue that considering social norms underlying trust and other informal mechanisms provides a more suitable basis for understanding the exchange of tacit knowledge. Norm establishment is complicated by the fact that values differ across cultures; however, the social norms that underpin sub-networks can sustain knowledge transfer within them. The purpose of this conceptual article is to introduce the concept of sub-networks and to identify the sub-network/network relationship as an area in which it is necessary to look beyond property rights and raise the issue of norms. We believe that an analysis of the role of social norms in knowledge sub-networks and their interaction with global networks points to a key element in understanding networks and any emerging theory of network ethics in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the ontological status of actants. Actants are argued as being the basic constituting entities of networks in the framework of Actor Network Theory (Latour, 2007). I introduce two problems concerning actants that have been pointed out by Collin (2010). The first problem concerns the explanatory role of actants. According to Collin, actants cannot play the role of explanans of networks and products of the same newtork at the same time, at pain of circularity. The (...) second problem is that if actants are, as suggested by Latour, fundamentally propertyless, then it is unclear how they combine into networks. This makes the nature of actants inexplicable. -/- I suggest that both problems rest on the assumption of a form of object ontology, i.e. the assumption that the ontological basis of reality consists in discrete individual entities that have intrinsic properties. I argue that the solution to this problem consists in the assumption of an ontology of relations, as suggested within the framework of Ontic Structural Realism (Ladyman & Ross, 2007). Ontic Structural Realism is a theory concerning the ontology of science that claims that scientific theories represent a reality consisting on only relation, and no individual entities. -/- Furthermore I argue that the employment of OSR can, at the price of little modification for both theories, solve both of the two problems identified by Collin concerning ANT. -/- Throughout the text I seek support for my claims by referring to examples of application of ANT to the context of networked learning. As I argue, the complexity of the phenomenon of networked learning gives us a convenient vantage point from which we can clearly understand many important aspects of both ANT and OSR. -/- While my proposal can be considered as an attempt to solve Collin's problems, it is also an experiment of reconciliation between analytic and constructivist philosophy of science. -/- In fact I point out that on the one hand Actor Network Theory and Ontic Structural Realism show an interesting number of points of agreement, such as the naturalistic character and the focus on relationality. On the other hand, I argue that all the intuitive discrepancies that originates from the Science and Technology Studies’ criticism against analytic philosophy of science are at a closer look only apparent. (shrink)

Prince of Networks is the first treatment of Bruno Latour specifically as a philosopher. It has been eagerly awaited by readers of both Latour and Harman since their public discussion at the London School of Economics in February 2008. Part One covers four key works that display Latour’s underrated contributions to metaphysics: Irreductions, Science in Action, We Have Never Been Modern, and Pandora’s Hope. Harman contends that Latour is one of the central figures of contemporary philosophy, with a highly original (...) ontology centered in four key concepts: actants, irreduction, translation, and alliance. In Part Two, Harman summarizes Latour’s most important philosophical insights, including his status as the first ‘secular occasionalist.’ The problem of translation between entities is no longer solved by the fiat of God (Malebranche) or habit (Hume), but by local mediators. Working from his own ‘object-oriented’ perspective, Harman also criticizes the Latourian focus on the relational character of actors at the expense of their cryptic autonomous reality. This book forms a remarkable interface between Latour’s Actor-Network Theory and the Speculative Realism of Harman and his confederates. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the emergence of new trends in the humanities following the long postmodernist interval. (shrink)

Our purpose in the present work is to survey some of the formulations that the theme of networks has received in contemporary philosophy of science over a period spanning twelve decades, from the end of the 19th century up to the present time. The proposal advanced herein is to interpret the evolution of this theme in four stages: first, one that goes from a metaphor or expressive image to a notion aspiring at implementation, but still having a virtual character, (...) in the orthodox view of theories; second, a shift towards networks viewed as explicit, with the notion still having an enormous metaphorical power, as in Neurath and Quine; third, from this towards a concept amenable to implementation, as in Thagard, but still in search of an epistemological rationale, supposedly provided by BonJour and Dancy; and finally, as a notion fully endowed with a precise structuralist implementation, in the scope of the structuralist metatheory of Balzer-Moulines-Sneed. The interpretive framework adopted in this exercise in the history of philosophy of science is a modified version of Gerald Holton's thematic model, adapted to the history of philosophy instead of its original domain, the history of scientific ideas. In our version of the thematic model, we posit two main dimensions for the appraisal of any given philosophical concept, besides the thematic dimension: the metaphorical one and the dimension of its systematic implementation. (shrink)

Forums of public discussion on Internet Web sites have been promoted by some as having the potential to improve democracy through large increases in civic engagement. Such claims are scoffed at by others. To date, such forums tend to be found more on community networks and commercial Web sites than on sites owned by governments. We thus turn to an examination of forums hosted by a private New Jersey organization, to seek to understand the types and character of discussion (...) taking place. Discussion of politics and government, especially at the local level, represented slightly more than one half of the postings. Participation in the forums, however, appeared limited to a small number of people. (shrink)

Electronic mail (email), using ARPANET and other networks has been in use for almost 20 years. The widespread use of telefax is more recent. However, unless email is freed from dependence on the networks, I predict it will be supplanted by telefax for most uses in spite of its many advantages over telefax. These advantages include the fact that information is transmitted more cheaply as character streams than as images. Multiple addressees are readily accommodated. Moreover, messages transmitted as (...) class='Hi'>character streams can be readily filed, searched, edited and used by computer programs. (shrink)

This paper is a response to particularist critics of the normative force of moral principles. The particularist critique, as I understand it, is a rejection not only of principle‐based accounts of moral deliberation and justification, but also of accounts of character in which principles play a central role. I focus on the latter challenge and counter it with a view I call character‐principlism. I begin by discussing in a general way what motivates the particularity objection to principles and (...) then contrast two views – both of which insist on the importance of attentiveness to particularity – about the relative normative status of principles and particular cases. I present some reasons for believing that we need a more normatively robust conception of the role of moral principles than the particularists provide. In the main portion of the paper, I discuss how character‐principlism sees principles functioning in our lives and the lives we lead with others. I contrast this with some other accounts of desirable character that particularists can embrace, and argue that these are seriously flawed because, unlike character‐principlism, they cannot satisfactorily explain how a person could possess the constancy of character that moral integrity requires. (shrink)

Although there have been many efforts in the last decade to reconcile the humanities and the information sciences, they have not radically changed the research standards prevailing in most humanistic departments. Against all appearances, the abrupt opening to quantitative methods in the digital humanities still has the character of a minority avant-garde movement. The article looks at the scientometric tradition, largely forgotten by the humanities, which may prove to be another interface bringing the two academic cultures back together. An (...) account of scientometric networks highlights the advantages and disadvantages of this orientation. The broader implications regarding the use of visual networks in the humanities are framed by the category of prostheticity, which aims to encapsulate their ambivalent status as both substitutes and cognitive enhancers. (shrink)

Important questions revolve around whether the design and implementation of electronic networks will help re-invent conventional power constructs or whether they will encourage entirely new and more equitable practices in civic society. The main goal of this paper is to critically examine the concept of community networking and associations with civic usefulness and community development. This paper will specifically look at findings from a case study of a community network in Edinburgh, Scotland: the Craigmillar Community Information Service. First, the (...) paper discusses the character of community networks and reflects on the notions of civic usefulness that accompany them. Second, the paper examines definitions of community and considers how the legacy of community development work in the UK may have fed into automatic discourses about the civic worth of electronic community networking. Third, with reference to theoretical frameworks and new data, this paper summarizes empirical findings from the case study mentioned above, outlining perceptions of the community network and its civic value. (shrink)

For five individuals, a social network was constructed from a series of his or her dreams. Three important network measures were calculated for each network: transitivity, assortativity, and giant component proportion. These were monotonically related; over the five networks as transitivity increased, assortativity increased and giant component proportion decreased. The relations indicate that characters appear in dreams systematically. Systematicity likely arises from the dreamer's memory of people and their relations, which is from the dreamer's cognitive social (...) class='Hi'>network. But the dream social network is not a copy of the cognitive social network. Waking life social networks tend to have positive assortativity; that is, people tend to be connected to others with similar connectivity. Instead, in our sample of dream social networks assortativity is more often negative or near 0, as in online social networks. We show that if characters appear via a random walk, negative assortativity can result, particularly if the random walk is biased as suggested by remote associations. (shrink)

The VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues is the most commonly used model of positive personality. In this study, we used two methods of model modification to develop models for two measures of the character strengths, the VIA Inventory of Strengths-Revised and the Global Assessment of Character Strengths. The first method consisted of freeing residual covariances based on modification indices until good fit was achieved. The second was residual network modeling (RNM), which frees residual partial correlations while (...) minimizing a function that penalizes more complex models. Models based on both strategies were developed for the two questionnaires. The resulting structural models were then applied to four other samples. Though both modification procedures achieved good fit in the sample used to develop the models, only RNM resulted in adequate model fit for both measures in all cross-validation samples. This finding suggests RNM is more robust against overfitting than traditional practices. Moreover, the result supports the validity of the three-factor model of character strengths with replicability. (shrink)

El artículo repasa algunos de los espacios más significativos en el Quijote estudiando la función que cada uno desempeña en relación con el personaje, y analizando las dimensiones de cada espacio en la doble posibilidad de la evocación realista o la fabulación de la fantasía. Todos esos espacios integran una red semiótica de sistemas procedentes de mundos geográficos, literarios, culturales o míticos variados: espacios de las novelas de caballerías, pastoriles, domésticos, aristocráticos, mitológicos o emblemáticos, que componen el tejido complejo de (...) los espacios del Quijote. The article reviews some of the most significant spaces in Don Quixote, studying the role that each space plays in relation to the character, and analyzing their dimensions in the double possibility of realistic evocation or fantastic creation. All these spaces integrate a semiotic network constituted by geographical, literary, cultural or mythical worlds: spaces of the romances, pastoral genre, and mythology that compose the complex fabric of space in Don Quixote. (shrink)

The history of biological systematics documents a continuing tension between classifications in terms of nested hierarchies congruent with branching diagrams (the ‘Tree of Life’) versus reticulated relations. The recognition of conflicting character distribution led to the dissolution of the scala naturae into reticulated systems, which were then transformed into phylogenetic trees by the addition of a vertical axis. The cladistic revolution in systematics resulted in a representation of phylogeny as a strictly bifurcating pattern (cladogram). Due to the ubiquity of (...) character conflict—at the genetic or morphological level, or at any level in between—some characters will necessarily have to be discarded ( qua noise) in favor of others in support of a strictly bifurcating phylogenetic tree. Pattern analysts will seek maximal congruence in the distribution of characters (ultimately of any kind) relative to a branching tree-topology; process explainers will call such tree-topologies into question by reference to incompatible evolutionary processes. Pattern analysts will argue that process explanations must not be brought to bear on pattern reconstruction; process explainers will insist that the reconstructed pattern requires a process explanation to become scientifically relevant, i.e., relevant to evolutionary theory. The core question driving the current debate about the adequacy of the ‘Tree of Life’ metaphor seems to be whether the systematic dichotomization of the living world is an adequate representation of the complex evolutionary history of global biodiversity. In ‘Questioning the Tree of Life’, it seems beneficial to draw at least four conceptual distinctions: pattern reconstruction versus process explanation as different epistemological approaches to the study of phylogeny; open versus closed systems as expressions of different kinds of population (species) structures; phylogenetic trees versus cladograms as representations of evolutionary processes versus patterns of relationships; and genes versus species as expressions of different levels of causal integration and evolutionary transformation. (shrink)

The author thematizes the operation of the political market of attention that is propelled by the willingness of citizens to credit populist leaders with their digital political labour. Mutual, nevertheless unequal, exchange of attention leads to the formation of a spiral of attention. Its expansive character is sustained by the strategically subsidized recognition of populist leaders. Accumulated attention, i. e. attention capital, is the resource that is used to maintain populist networked public spheres, while citizens are proletarianized: they are (...) invited to apply their labour power to distributing political ideas but are pevented from evaluating the influence of competing public actors. (shrink)

The article discusses how current mediated conditions change nature perception from a media study perspective. The article is based on different case studies such as the current sensation of atmospheric change through sensible media attached to trees which get published via Twitter, the meteorologist Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory and the use of gutta percha derived from tropical trees for the production of cables in the history of telegraphy. For analysing the examples, the perspective of »media as environments« is flipped to (...) »environments as media«, because this focus doesn’t approach media from a networked and technological perspective primarily but makes productive the elemental character of basic »media« like air, earth and water. (shrink)

The view that organized social communities or associations differ from unorganized communities by having a kind of government or management exerting authority over the community appears almost obvious. Nevertheless it contradicts Dooyeweerd’s view, distinguishing organized communities from natural communities because of their being founded in the technical relation frame respectively the biotic one. This paper discusses the dual character of associations, requiring the introduction of a new relation frame. Determined by authority and discipline, the political relation frame succeeds the (...) frames of social intercourse and economic relations, and precedes the frames of justice and loving care. It qualifies the generic character of any association, founded in that of social intercourse. Besides, each association has a specific character, distinguishing various types of associations. These insights shed new light upon the dual character of a state as the guardian of the public domain. Constituting various networks of human relations, the public domain does not have the character of a community. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose to use Johan Galtung’s notion of structural violence as aguide for linking society’s problems of processing social meaning to the very idea of law. At the heart of my interest is the discrepancy Galtung sees between real and possible social conditions. I will first focus on the specific character of violence as communication. I will then consider the consequences of the heterogeneity of the languages that law speaks. Law and everyday practice not only refer (...) to actions in different ways, but also constitute different actions through their references. Law thus acquires a double validity: an internal one, based on the consistency of its discourse, and an external one, derived from successful translations of practical certainties. While the former defies the assumption that law can be somehow resonant, the latter paves the way for a critical understanding of law. The final section argues that if practical reason aims to create just conditions, and law is meant to sustain life, its purpose cannot be the mere optimisation of the given. Law must address the totality of possible transformations, exploring contained but not yet realised models. (shrink)

Research on small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and the ethical dimension of their internationalization initiatives has not been sufficiently undertaken, with research in international business and business ethics focusing primarily on multinational enterprises and their corresponding social responsibilities. This paper addresses this lacuna by discussing the ethical issues surrounding the process by which such firms utilize network-expanding strategies to legitimate themselves to foreign networks and partners. Through a longitudinal grounded theory approach, this paper illustrates how SME internationalization is a relationally-influenced and (...) ethically-laden process that needs careful deliberation and reflection. Because their internationalization initiatives give rise to issues that do not diminish one’s responsibility for ethical behavior, SMEs need to create an ethical infrastructure that, while cognizant of their resource constraints, enables them to develop and sustain a strong sense of character and integrity to deal with the challenges surrounding SME internationalization. (shrink)

The article discusses how current mediated conditions change nature perception from a media study perspective. The article is based on different case studies such as the current sensation of atmospheric change through sensible media attached to trees which get published via Twitter, the meteorologist Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory and the use of gutta percha derived from tropical trees for the production of cables in the history of telegraphy. For analysing the examples, the perspective of »media as environments« is flipped to (...) »environments as media«, because this focus doesn’t approach media from a networked and technological perspective primarily but makes productive the elemental character of basic »media« like air, earth and water. (shrink)

In a lamellar TiAl alloy deformed at room temperature under an orientation that activates slip parallel to the interfaces, the n phase exhibits intralamellar dislocation networks parallel to the primary slip plane and entirely glissile in their habit plane. Their meshes are mainly rectangular with branches all coplanar, screw or near-screw in character and with Burgers vector of and types. Dislocation organization at and in the near-vicinity of these intralamellar networks suggests a reaction between a family of primary coplanar (...) d 011] dislocations that slip in the network habit plane and a family of dislocations that cross-slip from a plane inclined to the lamellae into the network. The reactions result in junctions with Burgers vector that subsequently transform into rectangular units. The presence of these networks is consistent with that of a residual elastic twist between adjacent n lamellae. (shrink)

This paper presents a sociological theoretical framework for the study of self-representation in social networks. Theoretically, the paper draws on the sociological classics of E. Goffman and M. Castells and work from other academic fields in which self-presentation and social networks have been explored as social phenomena. The first part of the paper provides a contextual framework for the development of information technology and the growth of social network users, and offers some terminological clarifications. Then, the sociological approaches to (...) the phenomena of social networks and self-representation are analysed within the framework of the dramaturgical approach. The spatiotemporal framework created by the emergence of the Internet is questioned, and self-representation is examined in this context. The notion of the exhibition site that defines the new form of appearance on social network platforms, the temporal status of the contemporary form of self-representation on social networks and the asynchronous character of communication implied by this self-representation are also analysed. (shrink)

Frequent lateral genetic transfer undermines the existence of a unique “tree of life” that relates all organisms. Vertical inheritance is nonetheless of vital interest in the study of microbial evolution, and knowing the “tree of cells” can yield insights into ecological continuity, the rates of change of different cellular characters, and the evolutionary plasticity of genomes. Notwithstanding within-species recombination, the relationships most frequently recovered from genomic data at shallow to moderate taxonomic depths are likely to reflect cellular inheritance. At the (...) same time, it is clear that several types of ‘average signals’ from whole genomes can be highly misleading, and the existence of a central tendency must not be taken as prima facie evidence of vertical descent. Phylogenetic networks offer an attractive solution, since they can be formulated in ways that mitigate the misleading aspects of hybrid evolutionary signals in genomes. But the connections in a network typically show genetic relatedness without distinguishing between vertical and lateral inheritance of genetic material. The solution may lie in a compromise between strict tree-thinking and network paradigms: build a phylogenetic network, but identify the set of connections in the network that are potentially due to vertical descent. Even if a single tree cannot be unambiguously identified, choosing a subnetwork of putative vertical connections can still lead to drastic reductions in the set of candidate vertical hypotheses. (shrink)

The paper introduces the communication view on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which regards CSR as communicatively constructed in dynamic interaction processes in today’s networked societies. Building on the idea that communication constitutes organizations we discuss the potentially indeterminate, disintegrative, and conflictual character of CSR. We hereby challenge established mainstream views on CSR such as the instrumental view, which regards CSR as an organizational instrument to reach organizational aims such as improved reputation and financial performance, and the political-normative view on (...) CSR, which highlights the societal conditions and role of corporations in creating norms. We argue that both the established views, by not sufficiently acknowledging communication dynamics in networked societies, remain biased in three ways: control-biased, consistency-biased, and consensus-biased. We discuss implications of these biases and propose a future research agenda for the communication view on CSR. (shrink)

The Internet has drastically changed how people interact, communicate, conduct business, seek jobs, find partners, and shop. Millions of people are using social networking sites to connect with others, and employers are using these sites as a source of background information on jobapplicants.Employers report making decisions not to hire people based on the information posted on social networking sites. Few employers have policies in place to govern when and how these online character checks should be used and how to (...) ensure that the information viewed is accurate. In this article, we explore how these inexpensive, informal online character checks are harmful to society. Guidance is provided to employers on when and how to use these sites in a socially responsible manner. (shrink)

Governments, companies, and citizens all think trust is important. Especially today, in the networked era, where we make use of all sorts of e-services and increasingly interact and buy online, trust has become a necessary condition for society to thrive. But what do we mean when we talk about trust and how does the rise of the Internet transform the functioning of trust? This books starts off with a thorough conceptual analysis of trust, drawing on insights from - amongst others (...) philosophy and sociology - to sharpen our understanding of the topic. The book explains how the arrival of large systems - such as the internet - has changed the character of trust which today is no longer based on interpersonal interactions but has become completely mediated by technologies. Based on the layered building plan of the Internet itself, a new conceptual lens called 4 Cs is developed to analyse and understand trust in the networked era. The 4Cs refer to the 4 layers which all have to be taken into account to assess trust online, namely: context, code, codification, and curation. The 4Cs bring together the firsthand experiences of the user (context), the sort of technology that is being used (code), the legal implication (codification) and business interests (curation) in order to get a clear picture of the trust issues that may arise. In the final part of the book some real-life cases are discussed (digital hotel keys, Airbnb, online personalization) to illustrate how trust -analysed through the 4 Cs lens- might flourish or be challenged in our current networked era. (shrink)

The Internet has drastically changed how people interact, communicate, conduct business, seek jobs, find partners, and shop. Millions of people are using social networking sites to connect with others, and employers are using these sites as a source of background information on job applicants. Employers report making decisions not to hire people based on the information posted on social networking sites. Few employers have policies in place to govern when and how these online character checks should be used and (...) how to ensure that the information viewed is accurate. In this article, we explore how these inexpensive, informal online character checks are harmful to society. Guidance is provided to employers on when and how to use these sites in a socially responsible manner. (shrink)

Women in corporate-government affairs are involved in work networks at all levels; yet, there are significant differences in the character of ties by gender. This article challenges claims that women's work connections are not instrumental, and hence not powerful, relative to men's. The author argues that, although limited, women are in key positions to influence business-government relations and their own situations.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 195-197 [Access article in PDF] Fourth Conference of the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies John D'Arcy May Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin Hosted by the Department of Theology at the University of Lund, May 4-7, 2001, this conference reversed the perspective of the previous one, which studied Buddhist perceptions of Jesus. In the event, a strong Buddhist presence from Europe, Thailand, and (...) Japan ensured that distinctive, even conflicting Buddhist views of Christianity were represented at the Lund conference. But there were also some impressive attempts by Christians to come to terms with the history of the relationship and its implications for theology.A feature of the conference was personal testimonies to lives transformed by awareness of other traditions. Eshin Nishimura described his "Zen way—with Christians," starting with his contacts with Quakers in postwar Japan and America. In an extremely interesting and controversial session, Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand and Reimyo Tierelinckx, a Belgian living the life of a Zen nun in Dortmund, Germany, disagreed about those aspects of Christianity that are actually relevant to Buddhism: social action or contemplation? In his Christian response, Jacques Scheuer emphasized the "always already, always now" character of grace and the eschatological perspective of "Christ ahead of us" as a fundamental contrast, while Asa Egner pointed out the difference between salvation without self-interest and the "god" of capitalism.There were also examples of how Buddhism is understood by Christians in specific contexts. Sulak Sivaraksa recalled the intolerance of the missionaries in Thailand, who assumed they had a monopoly on truth and morality and were "not comfortable with differences." On the other hand, they stimulated renewal in the Theravada sangha and forced Buddhists to confront structural violence. Kosuke Koyama, who was one of those missionaries, said he became more relaxed about living in space-time as the coordinates of divine-human encounter, but questioned whether dependent coorigination and the Buddhist emphasis on psychology leave enough room for a sense of history. Yet Buddhism too requires that we make an effort to "put out the fire," which in today's context should lead to a hermeneutic of ethical action. Eshin Nishimura told how Buddhism, even before it reached Japan, had begun to conceive of the Buddha as an absolute being transcending time and space who was to be worshipped as a savior. He startled participants by speaking of "the secret reason why [End Page 195] Japanese Buddhism is so degenerate," which he later clarified to some extent by illustrating how practice can have priority over charity.Though there was plenty of opportunity to practice at the conference, the personal side was complemented by a number of first-rate scholarly studies of both history and theology/buddhology. Elizabeth Harris drew on her firsthand knowledge of Sri Lanka to analyze the different phases the Christian understanding of Buddhism passed through there. In the period 1800-1830 there was puzzlement among the British as to whether the Buddha was a god or a man who proposed a "system of undisguised atheism." Between 1830 and 1870, though the realization was dawning that Buddhism represented a high degree of ethics and even holiness, the missionaries did everything in their power to undermine it and demonstrate its inferiority and inauthenticity. From 1870 to 1900 this trend continued, despite a growing sympathy for the Buddha and Buddhism on the part of humanists and scholars. The outcome was a "demythologizing" of the Buddha to a status below that of Jesus as the prelude to the growth of conservative evangelical Christianity in Sri Lanka.Hakan Eilert gave a reassessment of Karl Reichelt, the Norwegian Lutheran missionary to China, where he arrived in 1893 after having a healing experience of nature mysticism. This made him more open to Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism than might have been expected of a Lutheran from such a conservative background. Though his motto was "the light of the Buddha shines everywhere," in fact he seems to have read Christian ideas into Buddhism. Constrained by incipient Barthianism and a watchful home church, Reichelt... (shrink)

In the real world, individual resources are crucial for patients when epidemics outbreak. Thus, the coupled dynamics of resource diffusion and epidemic spreading have been widely investigated when the recovery of diseases significantly depends on the resources from neighbors in static social networks. However, the social relationships of individuals are time-varying, which affects such coupled dynamics. For that, we propose a coupled resource-epidemic dynamic model on a time-varying multiplex network to synchronously simulate the resource diffusion and epidemic spreading in (...) dynamic social networks. The equilibrium analysis of the coupled model is conducted in a general scenario where the resource generation varies between susceptible and infected states and the recovery rate changes between resourceful and noresource states. By using the microscopic Markov chain approach and Monte Carlo simulations, we determine a probabilistic framework of the intralayer and interlayer dynamic processes of the coupled model and obtain the outbreak threshold of epidemic spreading. Meanwhile, the experimental results show the trivially asymmetric interactions between resource diffusion and epidemic spreading. They also indicate that the stronger activity heterogeneity and the larger contact capacity of individuals in the resource layer can more greatly promote resource diffusion, effectively suppressing epidemic spreading. However, these two individual characters in the epidemic layer can cause more resource depletion, which greatly promotes epidemic spreading. Furthermore, we also find that the contact capacity finitely impacts the coupled dynamics of resource diffusion and epidemic spreading. (shrink)

Since antiquity, scholars have observed a structural tension within Plato’s Phaedrus. The dialogue demands order in every linguistic composition, yet it presents itself as a disordered composition. Accordingly, one of the key problems of the Phaedrus is determining which—if any—aspect of the dialogue can supply a unifying thread for the dialogue’s major themes (love, rhetoric, writing, myth, philosophy, etc.). My dissertation argues that “soul-leading” (psuchagōgia)—a rare and ambiguous term used to define the innate power of words—resolves the dialogue’s structural tension. (...) I clarify the conceptual and dramatic features of soul-leading by focusing on the dialogue’s uniquely prevalent use of the semantic network of “leading” and “following.” By continuing to foreground the language and drama of leading and following, I offer a new interpretation of the dialogue as a whole: the Phaedrus is Plato’s articulation of how the soul can be led into communion with reality. Chapter 1 discusses scholarly disputes about the unity of the Phaedrus and proposes that soul-leading adequately satisfies the criteria put forward for what would count as a unifying element. I argue that soul-leading unifies the dialogue both thematically and non-thematically; moreover, soul-leading is a theme capacious enough to account for the other principal contenders for unity put forward. Chapter 2 develops the ambiguous character of soul-leading by examining how the dialogue showcases dangerous forms thereof. Love and language are dangerous when they lead the soul toward goods which can never truly fulfill it. In order to clarify how love and language can mislead the soul, Socrates develops a set of accounts of how the soul is led, both internally and externally, in the three speeches on love. If the soul is to be led into communion with reality (the proper end of soul-leading), it must be led internally by the right part of the soul and externally by the right object of desire. Chapter 3 argues that all souls can, in principle, be harmonized and directed in the way that Chapter 2 requires. I show that Plato’s view of philosophy is neither elitist (i.e., some are intrinsically incapable of philosophy) nor naively essentialist. All can come into communion with reality because all are by nature equipped to do so. While Plato recognizes that there are forces which tend to prohibit one from exercising one’s capability of being rightly led, none of them are intrinsic to human nature. Chapter 4 argues that successful soul-leading require neither the leader nor the follower to be already well-disposed to what’s ultimate in order for the pair to come to a communion with what’s ultimate. Plato’s depiction of soul-leading love shows that love can itself promote the formation needed for both leader and follower to come into contact with reality. Love can do so because it is always already bound up reality in its responsiveness to beauty. Beauty itself calls the lover to itself by shining through the beautiful beloved, who acts as a reminder of transcendent Beauty. The lover mediates this same experience for the beloved. Each comes to desire the other as well as Beauty itself. Chapter 5 argues that the drama of the lovers’ formation mythically depicted in the Palinode (Chapter 4) is written into the drama of the dialogue as a whole. In the relationship between Socrates and Phaedrus, we see an enactment of love’s formative role. Likewise, in the relationship between Phaedrus and Lysias, we see an enactment of the dangerous soul-leading discussed in Chapter 2. My focus on leading and following also allows me to show the thematic significance of the drama’s setting. Chapter 6 articulates the metaphysical conditions under which one can be led into communion with reality. Transcendent Beauty invites us into communion with itself and makes possible our ascent by providing us with divine guides and images which can transport us from our ordinary experiences to the true beings. Beauty accomplishes its work—leading us in a “divine dance” where we follow the gods up to Beauty and back down to each other—through images. When we handle images of reality rightly, they lead our souls into communion with reality. Further, when we have come into communion, we’ll be inspired to be co-workers of Beauty’s soul-leading work. When we articulate reality in language, we create new images that can serve to lead others toward reality. (shrink)

Computer modelling of personality and behaviour is becoming increasingly important in many fields of computer science and psychology. Personality and emotion-driven Believable Agents are needed in areas like human–machine interfaces, electronic advertising and, most notably, electronic entertainment. Computer models of personality can help explain personality by illustrating its underlying structure and dynamics. This work presents a neural network model of personality and personality change. The goals are to help understand personality and create more realistic and believable characters for interactive (...) video games. The model is based largely on trait theories of personality. Behaviour in the model results from the interaction of three components: personality-based predispositions for behaviour, moods/emotions and environmental situations. Personality develops gradually over time depending on the situations encountered. Modelling personality change produces interesting and believable virtual characters whose behaviours change in psychologically plausible ways. (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate about the role of affect in transformative change towards gender equality, by comparing the building of affect in two recently founded women’s networks in Italian and Dutch universities. By conceptualizing networking as a social and cultural practice that organizes a collective body through the building of affect between specific groups of organizational stakeholders, we reveal the emotional, dynamic and context-dependent character of transformative change. We found that similar women’s networks build affect with organizational (...) stakeholders in different ways, shaping boundaries of different collective bodies through emotions and adapting to the cultural meaning attributed to earlier actions. By bridging bottom-up and top-down approaches to gender equality and tailoring the building of affect to the local context they potentially contribute to transformational change towards gender equality. (shrink)

A popular line in philosophy championed by Jackson and his followers analyses concepts as networks of propositions. It takes even network-propositions characterizing ordinary empirically applicable concepts to be a priori, in contrast to statements of empirical science. This is meant to guarantee both the autonomy of conceptual analysis, and its substantial and informative character. It is argued here, to the contrary, that empirically applicable and entrenched concepts owe the acceptability of their own network precisely to its empirical (...) pedigree. Promoting an empirical proposition into a network proposition does not make it ultimately a priori: no matter how entrenched the network is, it owes its ultimate justification to its empirical pedigree. Autonomy from experience and informativeness clash with each other: the stipulative "knowledge" is a priori in a weak sense, but not informative and substantial, the factual knowledge is substantial but not a priori. (shrink)

The history of Chinese medicine is still widely imagined in terms dictated by the discourse of modernity, that is as ‘traditional’ and ‘Chinese.’ And yet, so as to be intelligible to us moderns, it must simultaneously be framed through categories that make it comparable somehow to the ‘West’ and the ‘modern’ from which it is said to be essentially different. This is accomplished, for instance, by viewing Chinese medicine as fundamentally shaped by cosmological thinking, as focusing on process rather than (...) matter, and as forever hampered by attachments to the past even when it tries to innovate. At the same time, it is described as pursuing its objectives in ways that make sense in ‘our’ terms, too, such as the goal of creating physiological homeostasis through methods of supplementation and drainage. In this paper, I seek to move beyond this kind of analysis through a two-pronged approach. First, by focusing on the concept of tong 通 - a character that calls forth images of free flow, connectivity, relatedness and understanding - I foreground an important aspect of Chinese medical thinking and practice that has virtually been ignored by Western historians of medicine and science. Second, by exploring how the influential physician Ye Tianshi 葉天士 employed tong to advance medical thinking and practice at a crucial moment of change in the history of Chinese medicine, I demonstrate that physicians in early modern China moved towards new understandings of the body readily intelligible by modern biomedical anatomy. I argue that this mode of analysis allows us to transcend the limitations inherent in the current historiography of Chinese medicine: because it allows for comparison to emerge from our subject matter rather than imposing our imaginaries onto it in advance. (shrink)

Although cities were given no role in the constitutional order of the United States, the new nation posed the same potential threats to the accumulation of capital and wealth as European monarchs posed to long-powerful urban centers. In mobilizing for self-protection and advancement, American business developed new practices and discourses of citizenship that sustained a central role for the community as the locus of social provision. The strategy combined opportunity-hoarding through restricted membership in civic groups and obligation-hoarding through the alignment (...) of diverse networks of voluntarism with this civic core. The linkage of business interests to this hybrid charitable-civic configuration constituted a source of resistance to nationalizing tendencies driven by demands for social protection. This alternative model of social provision and civic organization sustained a distinctive pattern of political membership and state development. By fiercely defending the capacity of privately governed civic networks to provide substantial social support, this history of business influence through community organizations lives on in the partial and fragmented character of the American welfare state. (shrink)

The new business opportunities and prospects emerging in Europe within the Common Market and other Western and European countries also raise important ethical challenges. This work comprises a collection of ethical insights to enhance the conduct of business in an evolving Europe.