USFSP Digital Archive
Not a member yet
132282 research outputs found
Sort by
Military Advisors, Service Strategies, and Great Power Competition
No full textUnited States professional military advisors play a critical role across the spectrum of conflict within the various services’ strategies in support of the overall National Defense Strategy. In an era of great power competition, the role of advisory forces within the shadow of large-scale conflict, provide a crucial edge for the US military services fulfilling their strategic role. Within each of the services’ unique strategies - the Army’s multidomain operations, the Marine Corps expeditionary advanced base operations nested within the Navy’s broader littoral operations in a contested environment, and the Air Force’s forward projecting agile basing concept - advisors from across the force support developing doctrines with conducting interoperability, providing access, and building relationships with allies and partners across key regions in great power competition. Even so, within each of these services, there is room for maximizing the utility of the advisory forces’ support to the service strategies
Evaluating the COVID-19 pandemic changes on hotel organizational culture
No full textThe strong negative consequences caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic created the need for a scientific investigation of changes that occurred in the organizational culture of the hospitality industry. This research paper, using the Delphi method, served three purposes. It first assesses the changes that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to selected cultural components (product, external relations, and entrepreneurship strategy) that shape a hotel’s organizational culture, and determines how it interacts with other stakeholders on an inter-organizational level. Secondly, it links these changes to the three directions of change: formal/revolutionary, informal/evolutionary, and hybrid. Thirdly, it suggests specific policies that help hotel managers better cope with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 era for the organizational culture of their hotel. The impact of the pandemic on the selected cultural components of a hotel’s organizational culture is extensive and to address them (by reducing the negative and strengthening the positive effects), hotels must implement policies aligned with the three directions of change. This research is scientifically original as it bridges a knowledge gap and holds practical value by helping hotel executives gain a deeper knowledge of strategies and tactics that will help them deal with the negative impacts of COVID-19 in specific areas of the organizational culture of their hotels
A Brief Look at the State of Central American Science Fiction Studies
No full textThis contribution serves simultaneously as a broad overview of the current state of Central American science fiction studies as well as the introduction to the special issue of Alambique on the same topic. The article begins by briefly examining the literary history of the genre in the region, as well as its parallel development with other, more canonical genres. However, the main focus is on the work that still needs attention in the field of Central American science fiction studies, including a more precise conceptualization of the genre, a deeper consideration of the genre’s aesthetic and critical tendencies, and the pressing need to analyze and theorize Central America’s sf production. While critical dialogue with Latin American sf on the whole is essential and necessary, the field of Central American sf must still distinguish itself from the rest of the continent’s sf production
Narrar el final de los tiempos: misantropía y liberación en dos “cuentos atómicos” del salvadoreño Álvaro Menen Desleal (1960s)
No full textEl presente artículo analiza una parte de la obra de ciencia ficción del salvadoreño Álvaro Menen Desleal. Para eso, se concentra en uno de los temas que, aunque no dominante, sí es abordado de forma crítica y sagaz por parte de ese autor: el exterminio de la humanidad a partir de una hecatombe nuclear. Así, se estudian dos cuentos publicados por Menen Desleal en 1969 y que forman parte de su premiado texto Una cuerda de nylon y oro y otros cuentos maravillosos. Los cuentos son el que le da nombre a esa antología de relatos y “Hacer el amor en el refugio atómico”. En esos cuentos, el autor se enfrentó a uno de los mayores horrores de las generaciones que vivieron la tensa Guerra Fría de la década de 1960: el Apocalipsis nuclear que, gracias a la carrera armamentística, amenazaba con destruir a la humanidad y al planeta
Humanismo, empatía y un Dios terrenal: un análisis de La Ilustre Familia Androide de Álvaro Menen Desleal
No full textEntre los textos que componen la colección La ilustre familia androide (1972), del escritor salvadoreño Álvaro Menen Desleal (1931-2000), hay doce cuentos que pueden considerarse como ciencia ficción. En este trabajo se lleva cabo un análisis de dichos cuentos, para lo cual estos de dividen en cuatro categorías: robots, viajes espaciales, civilizaciones alienígenas y elucubraciones teológicas. Se llega a la conclusión general de que en el corpus aparece la figura de un dios terrenal, que ha creado al robot en analogía con la creación del ser humano por Dios. La posición del autor es humanista, en cuanto pone de relieve valores como el pacifismo y la sociabilidad, que se contraponen a la guerra y a la soledad del individuo. En los relatos sobre civilizaciones alienígenas se adopta además la perspectiva del “otro”, con lo cual se crea empatía y se obliga al lector a reflexionar sobre sí mismo. Estos cuentos fueron escritos cuando la mayoría de autores en El Salvador se ocupaban de temas sociales relacionados con la realidad nacional. Menen Desleal optó en cambio por el género fantástico, con lo cual logró crear una literatura universal e intemporal
Transmisogyny in Popular Culture, Feminisms, and Shakespeare Studies
No full textIn this article, I deal with the disparagement of femininity and trans persons in multiple levels of our culture, including in some feminist theory and Shakespearean criticism. I point out that contemporary culture, patriarchal institutions, and some feminist positions share misogynistic stances towards expressions and embodiments of femininity; and these perspectives carry over into some criticism, as well as our academic institutions and classrooms. I examine the double-standard that is often applied to feminine-gendered behavior and bodies in contemporary culture and the profession. In so doing, I address the points of tension and common ground between feminist, queer, and transgender theories in the field of Shakespeare and early modern studies. In addition, I advocate and suggest ways to implement transfeminist approaches to teaching Shakespeare within the contexts of popular culture and contemporary media
Seasonal dynamics of karst surface dissolution based on a limestone tables experiment (Slovak karst)
No full textChemical denudation in karst is the basic process of karst relief formation. However, it is influenced by many factors of varying intensity that depend on the climatic conditions and characteristics of each given location. Based on measurable results of weight loss of limestone tablets, we monitored the intensity of chemical denudation in two areas of the Slovak Karst, Silica Plateau and Jasov Plateau that are situated in the most developed karst plateau region of Slovakia. Both experimental sites are similar in terms of geographical conditions, thus comparable between them. In each locality, we placed three sets of standardized tablets at a depth of 50 cm, 20 cm, and on the soil surface. The research began in December 2016 and has continued up to the end of 2021, with drying and weighing of the samples taking place each three months. The lowest weight loss was recorded on samples placed on the surface (in both sites) and the highest at the depth of 20 cm. This is due to biological activity in the soil during the growing season (2.65 - 2.82 mg/cm2/year). The highest weight losses over time are observed at the turn of winter and spring, where the effect of snowfall and snow melting water plays an important role. The average dissolution rate in the spring season is between 3.78 and 4.12 mg/cm2/year, whereas in winter is from 3.24 to 4.06 mg/cm2/year
Development and Evaluation of Interactive Computerized Training to Teach Practitioners to Implement Safety Skills Training
No full textChildren can experience unintentional injuries due to safety threats found in their environments (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008). Researchers have shown that children can be taught safety responses using behavioral skills training (BST) and in situ training (IST). Within the safety skills literature, there is evidence that manualized interventions are effective for teaching parents and teachers to deliver BST (Gross et al., 2007; Novotny et al., 2020). An approach that has not been evaluated for teaching safety skills is interactive computerized training (ICT). The ICT approach employs technology to deliver trainings in the absence of a trainer (Gerencser et al., 2018; Higbee et al., 2016). The purpose of the current study was to develop and evaluate an ICT to teach practitioners to conduct a safety skills training protocol with their clients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Phase 1 of the study consisted of developing the ICT and soliciting expert feedback. In Phase 2, the researchers evaluated the ICT program with three Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA®) who provided behavior analytic services to clients with ASD. In the final phase, the BCBAs implemented safety skills training with their clients. In situ assessments were arranged to evaluate the effects of training on the clients’ safety responses. Overall, the BCBAs implemented the safety skills training protocol with high fidelity during post-ICT assessments and rated the ICT program positively. Following enhanced-BST and IST, the clients with ASD engaged in the safety skills during in situ assessments. Caregivers rated the safety skills training protocol favorably
Karl Marx on Human Flourishing and Proletarian Ethics
No full textThis dissertation will show that Marx’s philosophy contains a notion of human “second nature” centered on the activity of labor with a corresponding class-centered theory of flourishing and emancipation. This notion shares important similarities with that of Aristotle but also differs in significant ways. Second nature for Marx is created and habituated through education and social labor. Moreover, human nature is molded into different forms as history progresses and modes and means of production change. In a class society everyone becomes is alienated from their nature in a way that inhibits their flourishing. This contrasts with an emancipated society, where people are free to develop their nature in accordance with their interests as social individuals. Marx’s conception rests on a notion of species-being he gains from Feuerbach, but he goes beyond Feuerbach in historicizing human nature.
For Marx and Engels, second nature comes to reflect the class divisions inherent in each society. Every class has its own moral standpoint which emerges out of the interests, practices, social relations and ways of life of that class. Thus, Marx and Engels have a relativist view of ethics where multiple ethical systems coexist and have their own models of justification. I show that Marx and Engels are still moral realists despite their relativistic and sociological account of morality insofar as every class morality is beset by internal contradictions and external tensions that undermine it, and insofar as every class morality successfully addresses some limitations on human flourishing. Moreover, they believe that class morality will be superseded by a truly human morality only fully knowable to those who have been socialized within it.
The division in class morality is displayed in Marx’s analysis of the working day. I show how in Capital, two distinct moral standpoints are given voices by Marx to explain their reasoning on the length of the working day. The bourgeois standpoint validates the morality of free exchange, while the proletarian standpoint argues for fair compensation for their labor and sufficient free time for rest and happiness. These two standpoints are never entirely commensurate, but Marx also shows how the working-class standpoint grasps the real barriers to human flourishing, unlike the capitalist standpoint. This shows both how Marx is a relativist insofar as he recognizes the validity of two distinct moral standpoints, and how he is a realist insofar as he sees one morality as more internally consistent and capable of grasping the material conditions of the time. The ultimate ends of working class morality is a model of education that edifies everyone in a plurality of ways, an equitable distribution of work responsibilities, the use of technology to reduce the psychological and physical burdens of labor, and sufficient free time from tedious forms of labor