1,720,956 research outputs found

    Government Secrecy and Security Classifications in the Context of Integrity Management in Malaysia

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    Secrecy in government is almost always perceived as being antithetical to accountability and transparency in the conduct of democratic government. However, it is undisputable that government secrecy is practiced the world over because it is indispensable to state security, international relations, public and personal interests. Hence, democratic governments must perform a delicate balancing act between openness and confidentiality in the handling of official information. Indeed, effective governance requires various legal regimes that control government information through security classifications and impose punishments on offenders. This paper aims to address the dearth of research on government secrecy and security classifications in the context of integrity management in Malaysia. Integrity management encompasses not only the exercise of moral values by public institutions and officials but also the integrity of processes and procedures that uphold the integrity of governance. This exploratory research uses qualitative content analysis of data gathered from official government publications and websites, relevant documents and course notes, as well as interviews and correspondence with field experts. The inferences derived from themes and categories generated have resulted in several important findings. First, the 1972 Official Secrets Act (OSA) plays a significant role as part of a plethora of statutes and ethical codes that are indispensable to upholding government integrity. Second, weaknesses in balancing between openness and confidentiality when handling official information are attributed to organizational failure, public officials’ lack of ethical values, comprehension and training. The challenge is to ensure that the OSA is not used for cover-ups of corruption, ethical misconducts and administrative transgressions while the proposed Freedom of Information Act does not lead to a culture of blaming and mistrust that could lead to the paralysis of government and governance

    The Politics of New Zealand educational restructuring: the case of the Picot Report

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    This thesis examines the significance of New Zealand's educational changes as heralded by the Picot Report in the context of the fourth Labour government's attempt at addressing the crises faced by the New Zealand welfare state. It is argued that the significance of the Picot Report can only be appreciated by analysing New Zealand educational restructuring in a comprehensive and unsegmented manner by taking into consideration social, political and economic aspects. It also seeks to illustrate the intricacies, complexities and pressures borne by the government in making a particular educational policy. Thus in meeting these objectives, the thesis has focused on the development of New Zealand's education system in relation to the establishment, expansion, and the subsequent reform of the Keynesian welfare state. In writing this thesis, the author has consulted numerous books, journals, newspaper articles, reports of various committees on educational issues, election manifestos and specific legislations. As a result, it has been found that the New Zealand education system had evolved in conformity to the needs of the Keynesian welfare state. In pursuing individual and collective interests simultaneously through the notion of equality of educational opportunity, the education system must ensure that the significant social and economic inequalities perpetuated by the workings of the welfare state were maintained. This was done at the expense of its capability to be responsive to particular educational needs which had arisen due to social, technological and economic changes. Hence, the Picot Report represents the fourth Labour government's effort at trying to make the education system more responsive, efficient and adaptive to the changes in needs and circumstances, by reforming its administrative structure. This has been a complex and intricate task given the social, political and economic pressures borne by the government. The success or failure of the Picot Report is not yet known. This is due to: (a) the time needed in translating policy into action; and (b) the everchanging political, social and economic circumstances, and the variation in their influences on the education system. What is certain at this stage, is that the debates over its interpretations will continue well into the future given the Picot Report's controversial nature

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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