Civil Society and Pro-Democracy Social Movements: Troubled Relations Within Authoritarian Regimes?

This article tries to conceptually lay down the troubled relations between civil society and social movements within authoritarian regimes. This is done by, first, bringing clarity to the conceptual relationship between civil society and social movement and, then, applying it to the authoritarian context, still theoretically. Following the “hints” of the Eastern European intellectuals of the late 1970s and the 1980s and building on the appropriation of Durkheim’s differentiation between mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity, the article distinguishes two types of solidarity: associative solidarity and action and collective solidarity and action. Civil society is proposed to emerge on associative solidarities (and their actions), while social movements build on collective solidarities (and their actions). Furthermore, associative and collective actions are identified to be progressive and transgressive, respectively. Consequently, the proposed theoretical account is applied theoretically to the authoritarian context and several hypotheses are proposed on the relationship between civil society and pro-democracy movement within authoritarian regimes.

Becoming Pluralists: Kant on the Normative Features of Pluralistic Thinking

Kant’s essays in the philosophy of history, such as Universal History and Conjectural Beginning, offer a speculative account of the gradual development of reason in our species and of the way the mature use of reason can be attained. Such mature use of reason, as Kant explains a few years later in the published Anthropology, is characterized by abandoning the standpoint of “practical egoism” and learning how to exercise the psychological disposition to “pluralism”. To be a pluralist, he claims, means to be capable of seeing things from other people’s standpoints, of giving deliberative weight to the needs of others, and of taking part in universally valid judgments. But Kant is never explicit about what is required in order to become a pluralist, nor does he explain what it means to be a pluralist beyond a brief remark in the Anthropology. My paper takes a detailed look at this under-studied notion and offers a novel account of this notion. I explicate the features of pluralistic thinking and I connect this notion to the public use of reason, the three maxims of common human understanding, and the role played by interpersonal communication in advancing the progress of our rational capacities. I also explain the key role of education in reason’s development and the conceptual relationship between the enlightenment of an individual and the enlightenment of the human species.

Replacing Out-of-Vocabulary Words with an Appropriate Synonym Based on Word2VnCR

The most typical problem in an analysis of natural language is finding synonyms of out-of-vocabulary (OOV) words. When someone tries to understand a sentence containing an OOV word, the person determines the most appropriate meaning of a replacement word using the meanings of co-occurrence words under the same context based on the conceptual system learned. In this study, a word-to-vector and conceptual relationship (Word2VnCR) algorithm is proposed that replaces an OOV word leading to an erroneous morphemic analysis with an appropriate synonym. TheWord2VnCR algorithm is an improvement over the conventional Word2Vec algorithm, which has a problem in suggesting a replacement word by not determining the similarity of the word. After word-embedding learning is conducted using the learning dataset, the replacement word candidates of the OOV word are extracted. The semantic similarities of the extracted replacement word candidates are measured with the surrounding neighboring words of the OOV word, and a replacement word having the highest similarity value is selected as a replacement. To evaluate the performance of the proposed Word2VnCR algorithm, a comparative experiment was conducted using the Word2VnCR and Word2Vec algorithms. As the experimental results indicate, the proposed algorithm shows a higher accuracy than the Word2Vec algorithm.

Comments on “Global and Regional Entropy Production by Radiation Estimated from Satellite Observations”

A recent paper by Kato and Rose reports a negative correlation between the annual mean entropy production rate of the climate and the absorption of solar radiation in the CERES SYN1deg dataset, using the simplifying assumption that the system is steady in time. It is shown here, however, that when the nonsteady interannual storage of entropy is accounted for, the dataset instead implies a positive correlation; that is, global entropy production rates increase with solar absorption. Furthermore, this increase is consistent with the response demonstrated by an energy balance model and a radiative–convective model. To motivate this updated analysis, a detailed discussion of the conceptual relationship between entropy production, entropy storage, and entropy flows is provided. The storage-corrected estimate for the mean global rate of entropy production in the CERES dataset from all irreversible transfer processes is 81.9 mW m−2 K−1 and from only nonradiative processes is 55.2 mW m−2 K−1 (observations from March 2000 to February 2018).

In and Out of Egypt: the Conceptual Location of Ancient Alexandria, and a Paradox for Alexandrian Judaism?

A two-part paper. The first part revisits the conceptual relationship of Alexandria to Egypt by conducting a brief yet broad survey of ancient sources from the founding of Alexandria (c. 331 BCE to 300 CE). Particular attention is paid to Jewish perspectives, given our focus on Alexandrian Judaism and Egyptian Judaism more broadly. The second part of the paper turns to the ‘paradox’ of Egyptian Judaism, sketching the background to this paradox in Jewish tradition before considering the strength of the evidence for the recognition and mitigation of the paradox in antiquity.

The Social Psychology of Sex and Gender

Between the late 1960s and early 1980s, gender became an important topic in U.S. social psychology, raising questions about the conceptual relationship between “sex” and “gender.” A second-wave feminist project to describe differences between women and men as previously exaggerated and currently changeable was aligned with social psychology’s emphasis on the distorting power of stereotypes and the strong influence of immediate situations on human behavior. Feminism and social psychology both suggested psychology could foment social transformation, and the authors and participants of psychological research have undoubtedly become far less “womanless” in the past half-century. By the late 1980s several incommensurate social psychologies of gender existed, creating debates about the meaning of emphasizing gender differences and similarities and the gendered social psychology of psychological science itself. However, psychology remained largely a “white space” in the 1970s and 1980s, which were also “difficult decades” in transgender history. The increasing recognition of intersectional feminism and trans-affirmative perspectives in the 2010s set the context for regarding this history from different contemporary standpoints.

THE UBER DRIVER IS NOT AN ENTREPRENEUR

ABSTRACT Purpose: To analyze the conceptual relationship between entrepreneurship and the Uber driver since the company is the pinnacle of a new way of organizing work. It is argued here that, contrary to what is used in numerous articles and in the media, the Uber driver is not an “entrepreneur” but a precarious worker with flexible facilities. Originality/value: With the emergence of a new type of employment contract that is referenced in the labor relations of the company Uber, it becomes necessary to discuss the impacts of this new organization of labor. The conceptual discussion about the framework of the Uber driver is still incipient in the field. The research contributes to a better understanding of the discourse that the worker understood as an entrepreneur legitimizes exploitation. Design/methodology/approach: This is a theoretical-analytical article. Historical and theoretical literature was used to weave how the concept of entrepreneurship emerges historically and changes over time. Also, Uberized labor is compared to Taylorism and Toyotism. Findings: It demonstrates how the Uber driver cannot be considered an entrepreneur in any of the historical concepts. It is also demonstrated that the driver is a precarious employee, with flexible time and automated management, incorporating elements of the work organization of both Taylorism and Toyotism.

Exploring Fayol's management process in a traditional Mayan dance (Pochó Dance): an ethnographic study

PurposeWell into the 21st century, it is difficult to deny the contribution that Mayan culture has made to the history of the world, and not only because of its contribution to universal culture with its architecture, astronomy and mathematics. Understanding the management practices of a Mayan dance (the dance of the Pochó) that has transcended over the years can give us an idea of the management practices carried out by an ancestral culture such as the Maya. The purpose of this article is to establish an initial conceptual relationship between the management process proposed by Henry Fayol (1916) and the management of a Mayan dance that has survived to the present day.Design/methodology/approachA specific ethnographic study was carried out in the municipality of Tenosique, Tabasco (Mexico) for two consecutive years. Research methods such as direct observation, researcher diaries, in-depth interviews and photographs were utilized that allowed a study of management practices.FindingsThanks to the cross-checking of the data obtained, it was possible to determine a theoretical-conceptual relationship between Fayol's management process and the Mayan dance studied. In fact, 12 specific management practices found in the four phases of the process were identified. In addition, with the ethnographic study it was possible to determine the levels of intensity and impact regarding the satisfaction of those attending and performing the dance.Research limitations/implicationsResearch limitations are due to result from the fact that the analysis corresponds to a single Mayan dance in a specific place (Tenosique) in the state of Tabasco, Mexico.Practical implicationsTo understand the management practices of the Mayan culture through the study of a dance that has remained alive until our days; this might be useful for the management practices of today's companies.Originality/valueIt is a pioneering study that analyzes a Mayan dance through the optics of management sciences.

Permeability in Bioclimatic Modular Facades

This study is based on the analysis of the facades of tobacco drying sheds located in the regions of Cáceres and Toledo in Spain as an example of bioclimatic production architecture. Using modular and permeable façade designs, it is possible to generate an interior space with specific hygrothermal conditions. The drying sheds are the places where the tobacco plant is cured with the air penetrating through the holes on their facades, and the tobacco dries under certain conditions of humidity and temperature. The design of these patterns based on a module, such as the brick, not only affects the composition but also determines the permeability characteristics, conditioning the interior space hygrothermally. Analysing the conceptual relationship, textures, patterns, and construction methods of the dryers with contemporary architecture, numerous examples can be found in other buildings in which modular patterns are used in the composition of the facades similar to those used in the dryers.