1,721,272 research outputs found
Social Quality and Precarity: Approaching New Patterns of Societal (Dis)Integration
Full text linkThe main issue of this article is to discuss the question of ‘precarity’ in the context of the theory of social quality (see Beck et al, 2001), with which to pave the way for developing further the theoretical foundation of precarity. Societal practice is the main challenge this concept tries to address. However, the danger is to introduce a new term, yet maintaining a discussion on traditional problems as poverty, marginalisation and exclusion. Our thesis is that these problems, far from being sufficiently tackled, are currently going along with and being adjunct to another challenge, namely precarity. Although the ‘old problems’ are not problems of individuals and expression of their ‘personal failure’, precarity – seen in the context of the theory of social quality – means a new stage of socialisation of the problems by further individualisation of the victims. In principle, we can say that this understanding of precarity is an expression of a further erosion of society, characterising especially periods of transformation of economic systems.Social Quality; Precarity; Social Exclusion; Social Disintegration; Social Policy
Introduction
No full text[Extract] With the processes of globablisation, we are more than ever confronted with the paradoxes inherent in modern statehood. The characteristics of modern statehood are: 91) securing freedom from feudal oppression or despotism, (2) legislating for equality among citizens, (3) focusing on inclusion to incorporate the previously excluded into the system and finally, of the utmost importance, (4) establishing the principle of individualism as a primary goal
Introduction
No full text[Extract] With the processes of globablisation, we are more than ever confronted with the paradoxes inherent in modern statehood. The characteristics of modern statehood are: 91) securing freedom from feudal oppression or despotism, (2) legislating for equality among citizens, (3) focusing on inclusion to incorporate the previously excluded into the system and finally, of the utmost importance, (4) establishing the principle of individualism as a primary goal
Nation state, social cohesion and cultural diversity
No full text[Extract] The nation state is a construct that emerged in the era of the industriar revolution. The state defmes the meaning of citizenship and promotes systems which define the lives of the people living within its borders. The modem state rests on the notion of citizenship in both a legal and a nonnative sense. Marshall (1992) identifies that citizenship rights include civil, political and social rights. The detennlnation of these rights, particularly social rights, is the result of historical struggles among different groups in society. The adequacy or otherwise of these rights are hotly debated topics (Babacan and Babacan, 2007)
Nation State and Ethnic Diversity
Full text linkWith the processes of globalization, we are more than ever confronted with the paradoxes inherent in modern statehood. The characteristics of modern statehood are: (1) securing freedom from feudal oppression or despotism, (2) legislating for equality among citizens, (3) focusing on inclusion to incorporate the previously excluded into the system and finally (4), of the utmost importance, establishing the principle of individualism as a primary goal. The social construct of ethnicity gives rise to a second paradox. It develops as a material force if and when it grips the masses. Logically, any such construct as ethnicity is exclusive to the extent on which it depends on otherness. The erection of hegemonic structures to deal with these issues and also with the confrontation of shifting borders is at the core of this book
Mapping and Mitigating Extensive Cellular Dead Spots using Context-aware Vehicular Data Dissemination Protocols
No full textThe integration of advanced systems for continuous vehicle health monitoring, perception of the operating environment, and detection of nearby obstacles in modern vehicles, combined with the ability to share such information with neighboring vehicles and remote transportation infrastructure, has enabled the development of numerous innovative services in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) sphere. These services target key aspects of the transportation ecosystem including road safety, efficient traffic management, and enhanced comfort for drivers and passengers. On the one hand, the effectiveness of such vehicular applications depends on the consistent and reliable transmission of transport-related data within opportunistic, short-lived ad hoc networks of adjacent vehicles, the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. On the other hand, there is a need for a steady reliable communication between vehicles and the remote vehicular infrastructure, which is named vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication.
Usually, the V2I communication is carried out using cellular networks. However, providing complete cellular coverage across entire road network is often unfeasible due to economic, demographic, and environmental factors. The buildup of the cellular network infrastructure is mostly driven by the number of people living in an area and not by the demands of the road traffic, which leads to intermittent cellular connectivity in sparsely populated areas, so-called dead spots. Absent cellular connectivity deteriorates the efficiency of vehicular services that rely on such technology for V2I communication.
The first step to mitigate negative aspects caused by cellular dead spots is to know the areas, where they persist. Therefore, the research presented in this thesis began with the design and implementation of a system to collect, store, appropriately aggregate, and analyze connectivity-related data about the cellular network quality on road network. The decision to build such an artifact resulted from a cooperation between the ITS group at NTNU and the Norwegian Public Road Administration (NPRA) along with a thorough investigation of the state-of-the-art applications and adopted technologies within the ITS framework. The system consists of two components: an Android application, that senses relevant mobile connectivity data and runs on smartphones, and a remote geographical database server that collects and efficiently stores the sensed data. Moreover, upon request, the server aggregates the information appropriately and provides spatial information of all the road segments with inadequate cellular connectivity along the user’s route. In addition, the performance of the artifact was evaluated through field tests and considerations regarding the scalability in terms of the required data storage, computation power, and mobile-to-server transmissions.
The field tests revealed that mobile connectivity is not always guaranteed, even on roads near cities like Trondheim, Norway. That led us to create a new procedure to mitigate the adverse effect of dead spots on the prompt delivery of messages to remote vehicular infrastructure. The results of this endeavor form the core of this Ph.D. thesis project. The main idea behind the proposed technique is to hand over transport-related messages to vehicles expected to regain connectivity fastest. Thus, nearby vehicles can capitalize on V2V communication based on opportunistic and ephemeral ad hoc networks. In these networks, vehicles share relevant spatiotemporal information with each other, that guides the selection of the fastest vehicle, which is responsible for carrying all messages and delivering them, once connectivity is restored.
To enable this, available wireless technologies for short-range, direct device-to-device communication were investigated. Given that from the API level 14, Android has included support for Wi-Fi Direct through the Wi-Fi P2P framework, state-of-the-art smartphones can offer a low-cost alternative to DSRC/WAVE and other vehicular networks for V2V communication. Hence, an Android application was implemented and used to assess the performance of such a solution applied to the vehicular domain focusing on the characterization of the time required to execute various phases of the Wi-Fi Direct protocol. Results showed that Wi-Fi Direct performs adequately at moderate vehicle speeds.
That was followed by creating a series of hybrid data dissemination protocols, that use Wi-Fi Direct for V2V communication to accelerate the delivery of messages to the remote infrastructure in road segments with unavailable cellular connectivity. Initially, two variants of a unicast data dissemination protocol were developed. They differ in the mechanism used to select the vehicle that will be responsible for carrying all the messages from the members of a specific ad hoc network. The first variant is only based on the time, vehicles have been in the current dead spot. In the second variant, the choice, which vehicle is supposed to leave first, is computed from the information about the extension of the dead spot, retrieved from the server implemented in the first phase of this thesis, as well as the current location of the vehicle and its kinematics. These data can be eventually obtained from the road guidance system.“In reference to IEEE copyrighted material which is used with permission in this thesis, the IEEE does not endorse any of NTNU’s products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. If interested in reprinting/republishing IEEE copyrighted material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution, please go to http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/rights_link.html to learn how to obtain a License from RightsLink
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
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