The aim of this research is to analyze the effects of innovation strategies, Total Quality Management dimensions, and internationalization strategies that Higher Education Institutions might adopt, and their effects on their organizational performance. Due to globalization and the constant changes and demands that have taken place today, HEIs are forced to seek new quality assurance instruments in higher education, to ensure greater competitiveness in the markets and their survival. To examine the association between the independent variables, namely, TQM dimensions, innovation (...) strategies, and internationalization strategies with the dependent variable, that is organizational performance of HEIs, we have chosen to use multiple linear regression analysis. A nine-predictor multiple linear regression model was proposed. The nine predictor variables are Communication, Involvement/teacher empowerment, Development/Teacher training, Continuous improvement, Leadership/Administration’s Commitment, Data analysis/Measurement of results, Focus on students, Innovation Strategies, and Internationalization strategy. We conclude that some TQM variables have a significant association with the organizational performance of HEIs, namely, Involvement/teacher empowerment, and Development/teacher training. On the other hand, also the Innovation strategies and Internationalization strategy have a significant association with the organizational performance of HEIs. This research is of enormous importance for the study of HEIs, considering their role in the development of any country and its impact on society as creators of knowledge and science. Since these institutions increasingly must deal with extremely competitive market environments, knowledge of the factors that can assist in increasing the organizational performance of HEIs is of great relevance. (shrink)

José de Sousa Pereira, membro do Conselho da Fazenda de D. Pedro II, foi enviado a Roma com a embaixada do Bispo de Lamego entre 1676 a 1682. Consignou as impressões da viagem A politica dos princepes de Itália em 1680, decerto com a finalidade de fornecer modelos críti­cos aos governantes portugueses. Da apreciação da política italiana ressaltam simpatias pela república veneziana, pelo Ducado de Saboia, mas também um conhecimento deficiente das políti­cas de Génova, Modena, Mântua, Parma e Lucca, tão (...) reduzida é a informação que sobre elas aduz. Fez ressaltar o peso da falta de unidade territorial da Itália, os inconvenientes do regime electivo e as vantagens do absolutismo, este através do modelo da corte papal e na participação da nobreza, ao nível dos outros Estados. Mas a sugestão utópica vai para a república, através duma idealização do regime veneziano. Diplomata como era, Pereira não enjeitou também in­teressantes observações sobre política internacional. (shrink)

Starting from the analysis of a phenomenological reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan and arriving at the idea of the World Person in Chiara Lubich, this article will discuss two topics: union in difference and the model of the neighbor in the Gospel. For Christians this is the confirmation that the meeting with the stranger is possible. Christ founded a community that co-exists with the stranger. It is within this path that the intuition the figure of the World (...) Person in Chiara Lubich arises. In the tension between interpretation and Truth, Lubich puts the question: was there anyone that went through the trial of doubt about the Truth, but has been able to create a new world? She says that was Jesus Forsaken, who opens up the possibility of differentiation without exclusion. (shrink)

Fear generalisation is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when fear that is elicited in response to a frightening stimulus spreads to similar or related stimuli. The practical harms of pathological fear generalisation related to trauma are well-documented, but little or no attention has been given so far to its epistemic harms. This paper fills this gap in the literature. It shows how the psychological phenomenon, when it becomes pathological, substantially curbs the epistemic agency of those who experience the fear that (...) generalizes, limiting their ability to respond to evidence, and substantially limiting their epistemic horizons. It is argued that when these epistemic harms are caused by wrongful actions and decisions of individuals or institutions, because the fear is elicited in response to a traumatic experience inflicted by them, the harms should be considered epistemic wrongs. The epistemic wrongs are closely akin to agential epistemic injustice, a variety of distributive epistemic injustice, and sometimes also involve epistemic exclusion. The paper thereby identifies a previously underexplored psychological mechanism that can be a vehicle through which both individuals and institutions can epistemically wrong others. The argument has implications for how both epistemic wrongs and epistemic injustice should be conceived, suggesting that both can occur without being caused by primarily epistemic flaws or errors, or a bad epistemic character. Finally, it highlights the advantage of taking a victim-centred approach to understanding epistemic harm. (shrink)

Hume's discussion of the idea of space in his Treatise on Human Nature is fundamental to an understanding of his treatment of such central issues as the existence of external objects, the unity of the self, the relation between certainty and belief, and abstract ideas. Marina Frasca-Spada's rich and original study examines this difficult part of Hume's philosophical writings and connects it to eighteenth-century works in natural philosophy, mathematics and literature. Focusing on Hume's discussions of the infinite divisibility of (...) extension, the origin of the idea of space, geometry, and the notion of a vacuum, she shows that the central questions of Hume's 'science of human nature' - what does the 'science of human nature' reveal about the mind and its operations? what is experience? - underlie all of these discussions. Her analysis points the way to a reassessment of the central current interpretative problems in Hume studies. (shrink)

Engaging citizens with digital technology to co-create data, information and knowledge has widely become an important strategy for informing the policy response to COVID-19 and the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation in cyberspace. This move towards digital citizen participation aligns well with the United Nations’ agenda to encourage the use of digital tools to enable data-driven, direct democracy. From data capture to information generation, and knowledge co-creation, every stage of the data lifecycle bears important considerations to inform policy and practice. Drawing on (...) evidence of participatory policy and practice during COVID-19, we outline a framework for citizen ‘e-participation’ in knowledge co-creation across every stage of the policy cycle. We explore how coupling the generation of information with that of social capital can provide opportunities to collectively build trust in institutions, accelerate recovery and facilitate the ‘e-society’. We outline the key aspects of realising this vision of data-driven direct democracy by discussing several examples. Sustaining participatory knowledge co-creation beyond COVID-19 requires that local organisations and institutions incorporate adaptive learning mechanisms into their operational and governance structures, their integrated service models, as well as employing emerging social innovations. (shrink)

This research explored the feasibility of using multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis in novel combination with other techniques to study comprehension of epistemic adverbs expressing doubt and certainty (e.g., evidently, obviously, probably ) as they relate to health communication in clinical settings. In Study 1, Australian English speakers performed a dissimilarity-rating task with sentence pairs containing the target stimuli, presented as “doctors' opinions.” Ratings were analyzed using a combination of cultural consensus analysis (factor analysis across participants), weighted-data classical-MDS, and cluster analysis. (...) Analyses revealed strong within-community consistency for a 3-dimensional semantic space solution that took into account individual differences, strong statistical acceptability of the MDS results in terms of stress and explained variance, and semantic configurations that were interpretable in terms of linguistic analyses of the target adverbs. The results confirmed the feasibility of using MDS in this context. Study 2 replicated the results with Canadian English speakers on the same task. Semantic analyses and stress decomposition analysis were performed on the Australian and Canadian data sets, revealing similarities and differences between the two groups. Overall, the results support using MDS to study comprehension of words critical for health communication, including in future studies, for example, second language speaking patients and/or practitioners. More broadly, the results indicate that the techniques described should be promising for comprehension studies in many communicative domains, in both clinical settings and beyond, and including those targeting other aspects of language and focusing on comparisons across different speech communities. (shrink)

(2004). Toward a Critical Deliberative Strategy for Addressing Ideology in Educational Policy Processes. Educational Studies: Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. null.

The paper explores the process of the Czech journalists setting the EU agenda in the media during the ‘hot phase’ of the Czech national parliament election campaigns in 2002, 2006, and 2010. Unlike most studies that concentrated on the media agenda in the European Parliament election campaigns, we focused on periods that were neither strictly key events nor routine, but that were more intensively covered by the media and simultaneously generated more influential political representation defining national political attitudes towards the (...) EU. Articles that referred to the EU during the ‘hot phase’ were content analyzed. The results suggest that in the Czech press, the EU agenda is less and less visible, and, moreover, that it is increasingly negatively framed and reduced to an economic agenda. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo intenta visibilizar algunos aspectos del rol fundacional de la narrativa de Juan Emar en las letras nacionales, en particular, su fecundo diálogo con la antipoesía de Parra. Se propone que tanto en Miltín 1934 de Emar como en la Antipoesía de Parra asistimos a la práctica de una carnavalización del motivo de lo divino-sublime. En esta dirección, ambas poéticas vanguardistas modulan en el espacio hispanoamericano una de las aristas del “proyecto inconcluso de la modernidad” : la muerte (...) nietzscheana de Dios y de su espacio simbólico; connotado por el tópico de la música de las esferas. Tópico que en ambos autores se da en el marco de un cuestionamiento a una estética de lo sublime que predominaba en la crítica de la época.: This article attempts to draw attention to the foundational role of the literary production of Juan Emar in the national letters, in particular, its fruitful dialogue with the antipoesía de Parra. It is proposed that both in Miltín 1934 and the Antipoesía de Parra we attend the practice of carnivalization of the divine-sublime. In this direction, both avant-garde poetics modulate one of the edges the “unfinished project of modernity” : the simbolic death of God and the simbolic space; connotated by the topico of the spheres music. Topico that in both authors is given in a questioning of a critique of an aesthetic of the sublime; that prevailed in criticism of that period. (shrink)

We present a new theoretical construct labeled motivational readiness. It is defined as the inclination, whether or not ultimately implemented, to satisfy a desire. A general model of readiness is described which builds on the work of prior theories, including animal learning models and personality approaches, and which aims to integrate a variety of research findings across different domains of motivational research. Components of this model include the Want state, and the Expectancy of being able to satisfy that Want. We (...) maintain that the Want concept is the critical ingredient in motivational readiness: without it, readiness cannot exist. In contrast, some motivational readiness can exist without Expectancy. We also discuss the role of incentive in motivational readiness. Incentive is presently conceived of in terms of a Match between a Want and a Perceived Situational Affordance. Whereas in classic models incentive was portrayed as a first order determinant of motivational readiness, here we describe it as a second order factor which affects readiness by influencing Want, Expectancy, or both. The new model’s relation to its theoretical predecessors, and its implications for future research, also are discussed. (shrink)

This discussion brings together five economists who address the major questions raised by the recent developments in the crisis of neoliberalism. The participants confront their respective definitions of neoliberalism, their understanding of the role played by financial mechanisms in the crisis and their interpretation of the crisis of sovereign debts. They discuss the implications of the crisis for the forces of the left, examining the consequences of the current weakening of the prior American hegemony : does it point to a (...) bipolar or a multipolar world, a period during which regional evolutions will have a degree of relative autonomy, some of which might define the outlines of the alternatives to neoliberalism? (shrink)

In this essay, we argue that there exist obvious parallels between questions that inform philosophy of chemistry and the so-called hard problem of consciousness in philosophy of mind. These include questions regarding the emergence of higher-level phenomena from lower-level physical states, the reduction of higher-level phenomena to lower-level physical states, and 'downward causation'. We, therefore, propose that the 'hard problem' of consciousness should be approached in a manner similar to that used to address parallel problems in philosophy of chemistry. Thus, (...) our contribution begins by scrutinizing the ways chemists and quantum chemists think about and use different levels of organization and chemical relations and relata and then investigates the problem of 'downward causation' as it relates to the question of emergence. We demonstrate that the science of the transformation of 'substances', namely chemistry, enables us to go beyond substantialism and to develop, instead, a non-substantialist account of levels of reality. Similarly, the 'hard problem' of consciousness will require that we transcend traditional emergentism and its substantialist conception of mind. As with chemical phenomena, mental phenomena must be examined in terms of the relationality of wholes and parts, and this will require the development of a mereology that explains how parts and wholes may co-define each other. Like the non-classical and non-transitive mereology that has been proposed for quantum chemistry, an extended mereology for philosophy of mind must be one that entangles the whole, its parts, and the environment, thus rendering 'downward causation' into a relational concept. This proposal is neither a reductionist analysis that only needs the parts to define the whole, nor a merely holistic description within which the whole is necessary to define the parts. Rather, we propose that the parts, the whole, and the environment co-define each other so that our understanding of parts, wholes, and environment as independent concepts must itself be altered. (shrink)

A model for U(1) gauge theories over a compact Lie group is described usingR×S 3 as background space. A comparison with other results is given. Electrodynamics equations are obtained. Finally, some considerations and observations about gravity onR×S 3 space are presented.

Casual sexual relationships are frequent relationship experiences in young adulthood that provide opportunities for many to explore sexual relationships and to construct their sexual identity. Empirical research on casual sex is still lacking outside North-American countries, despite evidence pointing to the need to contextualize sexual interactions in their own sociocultural context. In order to better understand casual sexual relationships, these should be examined in with novel samples in other countries where a “hookup culture” as it is described in the North-American (...) university campus is apparently absent. Through a qualitative study, we explored what casual sexual relationships consist of according to the perceptions of Portuguese college students. The thematic analysis of eight focus group interviews resulted in the generation of six themes, three of which are presented here: What CSRs are, regarding features and types of CSRs, Why individuals engage in CSRs, focusing on positive and negative motivations, and What one gets from CSRs, focusing on positive and negative outcomes of CSRs. Our findings showed that Portuguese emerging adults are familiarized with CSRs, particularly with one-night stand, friends with benefits and “curte”/hookup. Sexual interactions associated with other CSRs, such as booty call or fuck buddies, were mentioned but rarely associated with a distinctive label and established characteristics. Participants described the CSRs in a partially overlapping manner presenting some areas of ambiguity, such as with regard to sexual exclusivity and still-unlabeled sexual interactions. CSRs are generally evaluated as positively motivated and mainly beneficial. This study adds to the literature around casual sexual relationships by exploring and describing CSRs in a different sociocultural context, as well as indicating directions for future research in order to better prepare and empower young adults in their sexual and relational trajectories. (shrink)

1. Introdução problematizante / Daniel Melo Tal como aludido no artigo anterior, o painel «As editoras e o seu património: preservar, disponibilizar e divulgar como medidas urgentes» tornou-se um marco na área dos estudos sobre a edição e sobre património por causa do seu carácter inovador – nunca até então se tinha feito um encontro exclusivamente destinado a debater a questão da preservação, valorização e disponibilização dos arquivos definitivos das editoras portuguesas. Além deste pionei...

This article reports the results of an investigation into the issues encountered by undergraduate language students while engaging in ‘the Grammar Project’ - a collaborative assessment task for the module Academic and Professional Skills for Language Learning - and shows how encouraging students to take ownership of their learning process with the support of a Virtual Learning Environment can increase their motivation and their understanding of the subject matter. It shows that students’ beliefs may hinder their learning experience, while maintaining (...) that an effective social-interactive environment can help them understand subject-specific concepts, particularly if this is supported by recording their reflections both within the VLE and in a portfolio. (shrink)

(2013). Hope and Fear: The Theological Side of Framing Environmental Change. Ethics, Policy & Environment: Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 152-155. doi: 10.1080/21550085.2013.801187.

The tetradic Lorentz-gauge invariant formulation of the SU(2) × U(1) theory in S3 × R space-time is presented and the general gauge covariant Dirac-Klein-Gordon-Maxwell-Yang-Mills equations are derived. A direct comparison of these equations to those of the SU(2) × U(1) gauge theory on Minkowskian background points out major differences effectively induced by the minimally coupling to S3 × R gravity.

Adults reason by exclusivity to identify the meanings of novel words. However, it is debated whether, like children, they extend this strategy to disambiguate other referential expressions. To further inform this debate, this study tested 41 adults on four conditions of a disambiguation task: label/label, fact/fact, label/fact, and fact/label. Participants also provided a verbal explanation for their referent selections to tease apart the underlying processes. Results indicated that adults successfully discerned the target object in the label/label and label/fact condition, yet (...) not the remaining two conditions. Verbal reports indicated that the strategy utilized to disambiguate differed depending upon communicative context. These findings confirm that the tendency to reason by exclusivity becomes restricted to word-learning situations with growing linguistic and communicative experience. (shrink)

This essay offers a novel approach for understanding the poetry of negritude and its role in the struggle for black liberation by appealing to Giambattista Vico’s insights on the historical, cultural, and myth-making function of poetry and of the mythopoetic imagination. The essay begins with a discussion of Vico’s aesthetic historicism and of his ideas regarding the role of imagination, poetry, and myth-making and then brings these ideas to bear on the discussion of the function of negritude poetry, focusing primarily (...) on the writings of Aimé Césaire and on Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay, Black Orpheus. (shrink)

Mi problema es como reconciliar una fundamentación racional de instituciones democráticas, que en nuestras sociedades tienden a ser de índole liberal, con la creciente complejidad demográfica de las sociedades contemporáneas. Mi punto de vista es que esta fundamentación debería ser deliberativa y discursiva, es decir, debería garantizar una participación reflexiva de todos los ciudadanos en el diseño y sostenimiento de sus instituciones públicas. Ahora bien, ¿cómo alcanzar este ideal en sociedades cuyas complejidades dificultan la coordinación de intereses y la participación (...) discursiva, lo que vuelve a sus ciudadanos dispuestos a sacrificar sus libertades para rendirlas a un poder político despótico y totalitario? Palabras claves: instituciones democráticas y sociedades complejas; democracia deliberativa. The constitution of democratic citizenship and the problem of the foundation of knowledge in complex societiesMy problem is how to reconcile a rational foundation of democratic institutions, which in our societies tend to be of a liberal nature, with the increasing demographic complexity of contemporary societies. My contention is that this rational and liberal foundation ought to be deliberative and discursive, that is to say, it must guarantee a reflective participation of all citizens in the design and maintenance of their public institutions. However, how could this ideal be achieved within societies with such complexities that make coordination of interests and discursive participation difficult, thus making their citizens willing to sacrifice their liberties, in order to surrender them to a despotic or totalitarian political power? Keywords: Democratic institutions and complex societies; Deliberative democracy. (shrink)

Testemunhos na primeira pessoa dados por quem aceitou recordar os factos, os dramas e os sucessos do tempo de mudança e transformação vertiginosa que constituiu o período de vida do Padre Manuel Antunes, professor que marcou indelevelmente várias gerações.