bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Digital Soul
Authors: Black Daniel
Published: September 2012

Contemporary understandings of the mind are seemingly free from the need for a soul of the kind imagined by Descartes. While for Descartes the soul represented a part of the self that could not be accounted for in a materialist, mechanistic explanation, today the soul has been replaced by the mind, which in the era of the computer is widely understood to be produced by information processing. However, while computationalist models seek to provide a purely materialist explanation for the mind, this is compromised by their reliance on a historically specific belief in the immateriality of information. Computationalist accounts of the mind cast information as an immaterial, universal substance that performs the same function as the soul and leads back into many of the problems inherent in the Cartesian account. These problems are illustrated by some of the more extreme speculation regarding the future relationship between brain and computer.
Reasoning about Human Enhancement
Authors: Wilson Samuel , Haslam Nick
Published: September 2012

Advances in bioscience and biotechnology move faster than our conceptual and ethical understanding of them. These advances may ultimately change human nature and our understanding of what it means to be human. Early attempts to understand the consequences of these advances were marred by overly thin conceptions of human nature and human identity. In particular, the precise meaning of these concepts was rarely explicated and arguments about whether enhanced humans would be superhumanized or dehumanized lacked clarity. The development of more complex models of humanness and human identity may facilitate deeper insights into the consequences of enhancement while findings from the emerging science of human nature are incorporated into our understanding of what it means to be human.
The Ur-Real Sonorous Envelope
Authors: Bates Marlin
Published: September 2012

In the rhetorical construction of identity, we are often tasked with analyzing how rhetoric either points to or creates a space for identity. This chapter would seek to move beyond that. This chapter seeks to analyze how ur-real rhetoric creates identity not through a textual sense. It creates an effect on our psyches. The exigence is no longer the over-riding guide for the identity construct. Rather, the rhetoric is called forth not just by the situation but instead by the sum total of the rhetorical effect on the bodies being changed. It is the totality of the milieu in which we find ourselves. This represents what can be considered to be a fundamental shift within identity theory: Heretofore, we seek to explain reality and ur-reality in terms of how it aligns/misaligns with the physical realm. This chapter examines World of Warcraft’s and Ultima Online’s impact not just on the lexical construction of rhetorical identity, but also on the somatic; we need to be looking as to how the body responds. The chapter attempts to discern where the somatic and the lexical construction of rhetorical identity intersect by applying theories from Black, Burke, and others.
Immigrants’ Internet Use and Identity from an Intergenerational Perspective
Authors: Elias Nelly
Published: September 2012

This chapter analyzes how the need to preserve ethnic identity and affiliation with one’s homeland is expressed and fulfilled through Internet use by two distinctive groups of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel: Immigrant youngsters aged 12-18, and immigrant senior citizens aged 65 and above. The aim of such simultaneous examination is not to identify the obvious intergenerational differences in Internet use but rather to increase our understanding of the Internet roles for different groups of immigrant users, irrespective of age. The findings are based on two recent studies: A study conducted in 2006 with 70 immigrant adolescents and a study conducted in 2009 with 32 seniors. Both studies reveal important similarities that shed light on the Internet’s role in maintaining connection with one’s country and culture of origin and preserving homeland identity among different generations of immigrants.
Ancestor Veneration Avatars
Authors: Bainbridge William Sims
Published: September 2012

It is possible at the present time to create virtual representations of deceased loved ones, and inhabit them as a way of expressing reverence and of dealing with one’s own feelings of loss, as demonstrated by this study in which 18 Ancestor Veneration Avatars (AVAs) were created. Most obviously, this can be done in massively multiplayer online role-playing games and comparable non-game virtual worlds. The identity of any individual person contains fragments of other people, most especially members of one’s family. In addition, people play a variety of roles, adopting identities temporarily that are more or less distinct from each other. Furthermore, a number of social scientists and commentators have suggested that individuals have become protean or multiplex, as rapid social change, multiculturalism, and the division of labor have eroded the functionality of unified identities. Finally, secularization has undercut traditional religious ways of managing feelings toward deceased relatives. A remarkable deduction from these observations is that many people should consider playing the role of a deceased loved one through an avatar in an online gameworld, as a form of emotionally satisfying ancestor veneration.
Self-Presence, Explicated
Authors: Ratan Rabindra
Published: September 2012

There is currently a need for a standardized concept that describes how relationships between the self and virtual self-representations operate across virtual contexts. The framework of self-presence fulfills this need by describing how people connect to their virtual self-representations on three distinct levels of self (body, emotion, identity). The present chapter draws from the fields of presence and neuroscience to explicate this conceptual framework and describe its operationalization, the Self-Presence Questionnaire. This explication and questionnaire were developed throughout a line of research that examined self-presence within numerous virtual contexts. The results from these studies suggest that the concept of self-presence is reliable and valid, and that future research could utilize the concept to develop a greater understanding of avatar use. This chapter concludes by suggesting such research applications of self-presence and then discussing the larger implications of this line of research.
Assistive ICT and Young Disabled Persons
Authors: Söderström Sylvia
Published: September 2012

This chapter investigates the significance of assistive ICT as a tool in young disabled people’s identity negotiations. To analyse the impact of this tool, two different, but closely related, perspectives are used. The first perspective employs the concept of identity multiplicity, and the second uses Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The chapter draws on a qualitative interview study with 23 young disabled Norwegians aged 15-20 years. The analysis elaborates on how using assistive ICT creates new opportunities or represents an obstacle in young disabled people’s identity negotiations in the peer group, and thus on how both disability and identity are flexible, contextual, and relational phenomena produced in specific situations and relations. The chapter’s closing discussion expands on the tension between mainstream technology and assistive technology, and on challenges associated with the allocation of assistive technology.
The Tangible Lure of the Technoself in the Age of Reality Television
Authors: Andacht Fernando
Published: September 2012

This chapter studies the notion of technoself in a contemporary media phenomenon, reality television. How can we explain the attraction of the globalized formats of a genre without plot, actors, or director? Our most private human territory, the self, becomes a spectacle through the technological enhancement of its minute bodily expressions. The approach combines Peirce’s semiotic theory of meaning as the upshot of the interplay of different kinds of signs with Goffman’s order of interaction, the micro-social realm of face-to-face encounters. A vast audience is lured into observing the constant production of nonverbal language, which exposes the self through its visible manifestation in concrete, shifting identities. The true protagonists of the genre are the signs closest to the body: indexical signs create an almost tangible lure, the index appeal of reality television. They furnish access to what used to be the most private human realm, which has now become the technoself.
Technoself-Presentation on Social Networks
Authors: García-Gómez Antonio
Published: September 2012

This chapter examines social networking sites from a sociological and discursive perspective in order to highlight how users engage with them in the construction of their identities. In order to do so it focuses on the different strategies users of Facebook take advantage of in order both to construct their gender identity and control the way they self-represent. The results shed light on the range of identity claims both men and women tend to make in a non-anonymous online setting. In addition, this study aims to increase understanding of identity construction in the online environment in general and gender identity construction in particular.
Digitization and Consumerization of Identity, Culture, and Power among Gen Mobinets in South Africa
Authors: Chaka Chaka
Published: September 2012

This chapter seeks to explore the role played by mobile social networks (MoSoNets) in mediating and constituting, and in helping digitize and consumerize identity, culture, and power among Gen Mobinets (low and middle income black youths) harnessing MoSoNets in South Africa. It focuses, especially, on MXit and MYMsta as two instances of MoSoNets. In this case it makes the following dual argument: notions of identity, culture, and power need to be reconceptualized in the age of MoSoNets; and MoSoNets lend themselves well as convenient avenues for Gen Mobinets to leverage multiple digital identities and multiple digital cultures on the one hand, and to engage in digital power gaming and to experiment with digital power on the other hand. Most crucially, underlying the triple notions of identity, culture, and power in the era of MoSoNets is the architecture of digital and virtual affordances within which identity, culture, and power are embedded and through which they are mediated. Against this backdrop, the chapter, first, outlines the framework within which its main argument is located. Second, it characterizes how identity, culture, and power are mediated by Gen Mobinets through MXit and MYMsta. Third and last, the chapter outlines future directions related to its main argument, thereby concluding its discussion.
A New Trend in Education
Authors: Jin Li
Published: September 2012

The study of self-concept is essential in the fields of psychology, education, and for society in general, whilst self-concept is widely valued as a desirable educational goal. With the advent of social networking on the Internet, the great impacts of social interaction have rapidly migrated into the online world in order to enable people to share opinions, insights, expertise, experience, and interests with each other for collaboration, discovery, and even construction of self within an evolving technological society. The emerging technologies have expanded a new dimension of self – ‘technoself’ - driven by socio-technical innovations and challenged ideas of the next generation of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). This chapter is to bring attention to technoself enhanced social learning in education. By investigating the convergence of social media technologies for technoself enhancement, it examines the way in which Social Virtual Worlds (SVWs) are transforming the nature of learning as a social practice and discusses the role of technoself in social learning. The author has traced the new trend in TEL and recommends a novel pedagogical and sociological model of learning – an augmented learning approach which couples the technoself enhanced social learning with formal learning in education.
“To Be Shot at Without Result”
Authors: Hawreliak Jason
Published: September 2012

Winston Churchill famously asserted that “there is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.” Whether or not this is accurate, it is indicative of an ancient and persistent myth which depicts combat as the locus of glory, virtue, and sublime exhilaration. Drawing on the works of Ernest Becker, Gregory Nagy, and Ian Bogost, this chapter traces the combat myth from Homer to Call of Duty, situating it within a rhetoric of heroism and ultimately, immortality. Given the immense popularity of the First Person Shooter (FPS) and Action Role Playing Game (ARPG) genres, which employ combat as their dominant motif, the myth appears to be alive and well. The chapter concludes with a discussion of terror management theory and its application to videogame analysis and design.
Effects of Human-Machine Integration on the Construction of Identity
Authors: Ballesté Francesc , Torras Carme
Published: September 2012

Recent developments in social robotics, intelligent prosthetics, brain-computer interfaces, and implants pose new questions as to the effects of technology on identity, society, and the future of humankind. The authors’ standpoint is that such effects cannot be studied separately from their social/cultural context, and thus, this chapter begins by reviewing the existing approaches to the social construction of reality, placing special emphasis on language and its limitations to describe the future. Then, it focuses on the body as the place where the human-machine integration occurs, and describes four levels at which the notion of cyborg has been analyzed in anthropological studies: symbolic, physical, as a permeable layer between nature and culture, and as an intermediate step towards a higher-order existence. The chapter ends up with a word of caution in relation to technological determinism stemming from STS (Science and Technology Studies), as well as the need to establish Relevant Social Groups (RSG) with well-founded criteria that join scientific and sociological academics under a multidisciplinary approach.
Building a Technoself
Authors: Melson Gail F.
Published: September 2012

This chapter focuses on how the technoself develops in children through relationships with a “personal” robot technology, robotic pets, especially the robotic dog AIBO. Drawing on studies of children and AIBO as well as similar robotic technologies, I examine children’s ideas about and behaviors toward such robotic pets in order to describe three domains of the technoself: (1) ideas about the robot (the technological object); (2) ideas about the child’s relationship with the robot; and (3) ideas about the self-in-relationship with the robot. A dynamic developmental perspective is applied to each of the three domains of cognition and behavior—technological object, relationship, and self-in-relationship-- that make up the technoself. This perspective asks how variability in child characteristics, such as developmental level, gender, temperament, personality or intelligence; in contextual factors, such as family background or prior experience with other technologies; and in robotic pets themselves predict these three aspects of the technoself.
The Human-Robot Continuum of Self
Authors: Scott Kristi
Published: September 2012

This chapter examines the cinematic representations of identity in Blade Runner, Bicentennial Man, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence. It looks at the way humans and robots in these films deal with the identity of a robotic Other in relation to the human self. Using posthuman, critical race, and philosophy of technology theories, the author builds a framework for how we, as humans can see ourselves within our technological creations as Another form of ourselves. The application of this framework is as an exercise in pragmatically understanding relationships that do not exist yet in our everyday lives. By raising questions framed by the cinematic playground, this chapter provides a place to begin further exploration into the robotic-human identity continuum.
Understanding the Human-Machine Interface in a Time of Change
Authors: Orange Erica
Published: September 2012

The author presents an overview of how the ubiquitous nature of technology has led to a monumental shift in human evolution – a change involving language, thought, and feeling. The interrelationship between humans and technology will undoubtedly alter the way in which we define what it truly means to be human in a world of complexities. As systems, networks, and programs become more complex, our ability to interface with these machines that play such a prominent and vital role in our day-to-day lives is becoming increasingly difficult. It used to be the human was in charge; able to manipulate the machine to perform a desired outcome. But it is no longer simply about input and output measures. Now the roles are reversing, and it is becoming harder to determine where power and control ultimately resides. Consequently, our ability to manage machines and robots will become more vulnerable. The intimate connection and interoperability of human intelligence with machine intelligence, has undoubtedly impacted the human experience and our process of self-identification.
Identity in a Technological Society
Authors: Saner Marc A. , Geelen Jeremy
Published: September 2012

This chapter provides a framework for the Technoself that distinguishes six different processes by which emerging technologies may affect human identity. From a public policy perspective, one of these processes, the radical physical alteration of human bodies, is of prime interest. The authors discuss various technological approaches – the alterations of genes, brains, and bodies - in relation to human identity and argue for the need for a governance dialogue over their social implications. We situate these developments in the policy context and develop the governance case for communication, adaptive regulation, and societal preparedness as means to regain control of our Technoselves.
Agile, Lean, and Service-Oriented Development, Continuum, or Chasm
Authors: Rikkilä Juha
Published: September 2012

A fad, hype, and a paradigm shift are often the words that are used about the agile, lean, and now also about service-oriented development. What starts as a step in evolution, grows into a mass movement in Internet and social media, and results in an avalanche of books, training, and consultancy services. Each proponent tries to differentiate from others with extreme statements of own superiority and blames of others’ shortcomings. Only a next fad, hype, or paradigm shift seems to be able to override the previous. This chapter looks through the fad, hype, or paradigm shift statements and describes the principles of the agile and lean approaches to the software development. Then it introduces the service orientation that is expected to be the next major shift. If it will overshadow the agile and lean excitement in the software industry, is discussed at the end of the chapter. In addition, this chapter looks into the past in order to find a continuum between these topics till today and to the future. Further some chasms in this continuum are identified, where a new idea has made a major shift and consequently has become a major force in the field. The service orientation in the software development is in the early phase of its lifecycle. The question is: will it still go through some chasm until it settles for large use, or is it already through all of adaptations and ready to be the next wave of evolution, or the next fad, hype and paradigm shift in software industry? The last part of this chapter proposes one more adaptation that creates continuum from the agile and lean approaches but brings up also the revitalization of architecting and design methodologies.
Addressing Highly Dynamic Changes in Service-Oriented Systems
Authors: Metzger Andreas , Di Nitto Elisabetta
Published: September 2012

This chapter sets out to introduce relevant foundations concerning evolution and adaptation of service-oriented systems. It starts by sketching the historical development of software systems from monolithic and mostly static applications to highly-dynamic, service-oriented systems. Then, it provides an overview and more thorough explanation of the various kinds of changes that may need to be faced by service-oriented systems. To understand how such changes could be addressed, the chapter introduces a reference service life-cycle model which distinguishes between evolution, viz. the manual modification of the specification and implementation of the system during design-time, and (self-)adaptation, viz. the autonomous modification of a service-oriented system during operation. Based on the discussion of the key activities prescribed by that life-cycle, the chapter elaborates on the need for agility in both adaptation and evolution of service-oriented systems.
A Roadmap for Software Engineering for the Cloud
Authors: Sharma Abhishek , Maurer Frank
Published: September 2012

This chapter presents the results of a systematic review from existing literature in software engineering for cloud-based applications and describes what the research community thinks about the effects of introducing cloud computing into a software development process. In this systematic review, the authors describe the challenges cloud computing poses for software development. They particularly investigate whether agile methodologies are beneficial or not in developing software that will be deployed in the cloud. In their results, they found that industry practitioners in their blogs and self-reported reviews indicate that agile development and cloud computing goes well together and that further investigation is required to confirm this claim.
A Test-Driven Approach to Behavioral Queries for Service Selection
Authors: Zavala Laura , Mendoza Benito , Huhns Michael N.
Published: September 2012

Although the areas of Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) and Agile and Lean Software Development (LSD) have been evolving separately in the last few years, they share several commonalities. Both are intended to exploit reusability and exhibit adaptability. SOC in particular aims to facilitate the widespread and diverse use of small, loosely coupled units of functionality, called services. Such services have a decided agility advantage, because they allow for changing a service provider at runtime without affecting any of a group of diverse and possibly anonymous consumers. Moreover, they can be composed at both development-time and run-time to produce new functionalities. Automatic service discovery and selection are key aspects for composing services dynamically. Current approaches attempting to automate discovery and selection make use of only structural and functional aspects of the services, and in many situations, this does not suffice to discriminate between functionally similar but disparate services. Service behavior is difficult to specify prior to service execution and instead is better described based on experience with the execution of the service. In this chapter, the authors present a behavioral approach to service selection and runtime adaptation that, inspired by agile software development techniques, is based on behavioral queries specified as test cases. Behavior is evaluated through the analysis of execution values of functional and non-functional parameters. In addition to behavioral selection, the authors’ approach allows for real-time evaluation of non-functional quality-of-service parameters, such as response time, availability, and latency.
User-Centered Business Process Modeling and Pattern-Based Development for Large Systems
Authors: Takaki O. , Seino T. , Izumi N. , Hasida K.
Published: September 2012

In agile software development, it is imperative for stakeholders such as the users and developers of an information system to collaborate in designing and developing the information system, by sharing their knowledge. Especially in development of a large-scale information system, such collaboration among stakeholders is important, but difficult to achieve. This chapter introduces a modeling method of business processes for requirements analysis and a development framework based on Web-process architectures. The modeling method makes it easier for stakeholders to agree upon requirements. It also employs a formal method to allow business process models to satisfy both understandability and accuracy. On the other hand, the development framework above enables rapid spiral development of short-term cycles through the collaboration of developers and users. This chapter also introduces an example that compares the workloads of two requirement analyses of large-scale system developments for a government service and a financial accounting service, in order to evaluate the advantages of the proposed modeling method.
Service Science
Authors: Carroll Noel , Richardson Ita , Whelan Eoin
Published: September 2012

The discipline of service science encourages the need to develop alternative and more scientific approaches to conceptualise modern service network environments. This chapter identifies the opportunity to apply organisational network analysis (ONA) as a novel approach to model agile service interaction. ONA also supports the visualisation of a service infrastructure which sustains agile practice. The objective of this chapter is to demonstrate how the concept of agile service network (ASN) may be examined through an unconventional method to model service operations. ONA demonstrates the exchange of resources and competencies through an ASN infrastructure. Ultimately, this chapter provides a platform to develop an audit framework with associated metrics borrowed from ONA. ONA concepts offer a new analytical approach towards ASN (for example, structural, composition, behavioural, and functional). This has a significant theoretical contribution for software engineering performance.
Agile Development of Security-Critical Enterprise System
Authors: Ge Xiaocheng
Published: September 2012

The effective provision of security in an agile development requires a new approach: traditional security practices are bound to equally traditional development methods. However, there are concerns that security is difficult to build incrementally, and can prove prohibitively expensive to refactor. This chapter describes how to grow security, organically, within an agile project, by using an incremental security architecture that evolves with the code. The architecture provides an essential bridge between system-wide security properties and implementation mechanisms, a focus for understanding security in the project, and a trigger for security refactoring. The chapter also describes criteria that allow implementers to recognize when refactoring is needed, and a concrete example that contrasts incremental and “top-down” architectures.
Analyses of Evolving Legacy Software into Secure Service-Oriented Software using Scrum and a Visual Model
Authors: Chung Sam , Crompton Conrado , Bai Yan , Endicott-Popovsky Barbara , Baeg Seung-Ho , Park Sangdeok
Published: September 2012

This chapter explores using service-oriented computing to reengineer non-secure legacy software applications to create new secure target applications. Two objectives of this chapter are: (1) to analyze the architectural changes required in order to adopt new web technologies and cope with resultant vulnerabilities in source code; and (2) to measure the level of effort required to modernize software by adopting new web technologies and adding security countermeasures. To meet these objectives, a model-driven Scrum for Service-Oriented Software Reengineering (mScrum4SOSR) methodology was chosen and applied to a reengineering project. Scrum is employed to manage the reengineering project, as well as to measure implementation effort related to the modernization process. Further, a re-documentation technique called 5W1H Re-Doc is used to re-document the non-secure software application at a high level of abstraction in order to help project participants comprehend what is needed to identify candidate services for service-oriented reengineering. Case studies with and without security features are created for different types of applications - a desktop graphical user interface, a web application, a web services application, a restful web services application, and an enterprise service bus application.
Adapting Test-Driven Development to Build Robust Web Services
Authors: Laranjeiro Nuno , Vieira Marco
Published: September 2012

Web services are increasingly being used in business critical environments as a mean to provide a service or integrate distinct software services. Research indicates that, in many cases, services are deployed with robustness issues (i.e., displaying unexpected behaviors when in presence of invalid input conditions). Recently, Test-Driven Development (TDD) emerged as software development technique based on test cases that are defined before development, as a way to validate functionalities. However, programmers typically disregard the verification of limit conditions, such as the ones targeted by robustness testing. Moreover, in TDD, tests are created before developing the functionality, conflicting with the typical robustness testing approach. This chapter discusses the integration of robustness testing in TDD for improving the robustness of web services during development. The authors requested three programmers to create a set of services based on open-source code and to implement different versions of the services specified by TPC-App, using both TDD and the approach presented in this chapter. Results indicate that TDD with robustness testing is an effective way to create more robust services.
An Agile and Tool-Supported Methodology for Model-Driven System Testing of Service-Centric Systems
Authors: Felderer Michael , Zech Philipp , Breu Ruth
Published: September 2012

In this chapter, the authors present an agile and model-driven system testing methodology for service-centric systems called Telling TestStories. The methodology has a tool implementation and is based on separated system, requirements, and test models that can be validated in an integrated way. Test models contain test stories describing test behavior and test data in an integrated way. The underlying testing process is iterative, incremental, and supports a test-driven design on the model level. After a general overview of the artifacts and the testing process, the authors employ the methodology and the tool implementation on a case study from the healthcare domain.
Test Driven Decomposition of Legacy Systems into Services
Authors: Parsons David , Lange Manfred
Published: September 2012

A number of questions have been raised by both practitioners and researchers regarding the compatibility of service oriented architectures and agile methods. These are compounded when both approaches are combined to maintain and migrate legacy systems. In particular, where test driven development is practiced as a core component of an agile development process, both legacy systems and service oriented architectures can present an incongruous set of development challenges. In this chapter, the authors provide experience reports on how legacy systems have been adapted to an agile, test driven development context by a process of decomposition into testable services. They describe two domains and technology contexts where automated agile testing at multiple interface layers has improved both quality of service and functionality.
Chaos and Complexity in Financial Statements
Authors: Juárez Fernando
Published: September 2012

Conceptual issues and the basis for the use of financial statements from the perspective of complexity and chaos are proposed. After analyzing the implications that these perspectives have for financial statements, basic accounting equation is examined from the view of complex logic through the mechanisms of the circumscription. Besides, the phase spaces arising from the relationship between indicators of financial health, such as total assets, stakeholder’s equity, profit and loss, or cash flow at end of year, are analyzed; also, the relationship among ratios of sustainability, liquidity, and profitability is revisited. The management discussion & analysis and notes to financial statements sections of financial statements are subjected to new interpretations, based on the beliefs logic and complex and chaotic metaphorical narratives. Finally, a critical perspective on the use of chaos and complexity in the analysis of financial statements is introduced.
On Dynamical Behaviors and Chaos Control of the Fractional-Order Financial System
Authors: Hegazi Ahmed Sadek , Ahmed El-Sayed Mohamed , Matouk Ahmed Ezzat
Published: September 2012

In this work, the authors investigate the stability conditions in a fractional-order financial system using the fractional Routh-Hurwitz criteria. According to the qualitative theory, the existence and uniqueness of solutions for a class of commensurate fractional-order financial systems are investigated. A necessary condition for this system to remain chaotic is obtained. It is found that chaos exists in this system with order less than three. Furthermore, the fractional Routh-Hurwitz conditions are used to control chaos in the proposed fractional-order system to its equilibria via linear feedback control method. Then, it is shown that the fractional-order financial system is controllable just in the fractional-order case when using a specific choice of linear controllers. Numerical simulations are used to verify the analytical results.
Nonlinear Correlation of Stock and Commodity Indices in Emerging and Developed Market
Authors: Guhathakurta Kousik , Bhattacharya Sharad Nath , Banerjee Santo , Bhattacharya Basabi
Published: September 2012

The interrelationship between stock and commodity markets has been an issue of interest for both the academia and practitioners in the field of investment and wealth management. Traditionally, commodity has been a popular avenue for diversification in a mixed portfolio. However, this works well as long as there is little or no correlation between the two markets. This chapter presents an empirical investigation of the daily movement of stock and commodity index of two different countries to throw some light on the interrelationship between stock and commodity market. The uniqueness of this study lies in the choice of markets as also the methodology. The authors have chosen a developed market, viz., the US market, and an emerging market, viz., the Indian market. This study uses the major stock and commodity indices respectively for both countries for a period of three years. For analysis the authors have used the tools from nonlinear dynamics like recurrence analysis, power spectrum analysis, and delay based cross-correlation function. The investigation revealed that the dynamics of the time path of daily movement of Indian stock and commodity exchanges are much similar in nature while those of the US market are quite different. This chapter also models the respective time series using Geometric Brownian Motion and finds that the Indian data set performed much better than the US ones. This has a strong impact on strategy for designing mixed portfolios in Indian market.
A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Leadership in Chaotic Environments
Authors: Erçetin Şefika Şule , Açikalin Suay Nilhan , Bülbül M. Sahin
Published: September 2012

In this chapter, the fundamentally interconnected concepts of chaos and leadership are subjected to theoretical and functional analysis. Building on this analysis, the authors develop a multi-dimensional approach to the study of leadership in chaotic environments.
Leadership Style and the Management of the Effects of Complexity
Authors: Antoniadis Dimitris N
Published: September 2012

Within any organisation, be that a project or a company department, a number of people/systems come together to perform tasks and deliver the expected outcome. In the process of performing those, tasks, a number of interconnections are generated that reinforce one another and result in behaviours that are very different to the norm and cause complexity. The author presents results from a wider research in construction which investigated the effect(s) of socio-organic complexity on project performance and particularly through the attribute of leadership style adopted. The results proved the nonlinearity between performance and complexity and lack of actions that will manage the effects of complexity. A framework is developed, validated, and presented in this chapter, which, by using the characteristics of complexity, allows the measurement of the current level of actions and provides a set of additional actions that will enable management of complexity through the leadership style.
Chaotic Essence inside the Organizational Reality
Authors: Cakar Ulas , Alakavuklar Ozan Nadir
Published: September 2012

In the chaotic reality of the human civilizations, organizations were always seen as bastions of order. Even in the extreme cases of organizations that sought to bring chaos and confusion, their purpose was generally to clear the present situation and bring a new order. Except the cases of some extreme sects and marginal crime organizations, almost all organizations strive to bring their own existential definitions of order. In this process, management has been the tool of bringing order to organization. Even though modern management is a relatively new concept, all through the history the elements of management such as superior-subordinate relation, persuasion, direction, and administration were seen (Starbuck, 2003; Wren, 2004). But underneath the idealistic goal of bringing order, all organizations are suffering from the chaotic essence that is in their midst. In the organizational theory literature, this chaotic essence is either ignored or it is treated as a problem of good implementation of managerial control. And this problem has been treated in a surprisingly linear way whereas non-linearity of the organizational reality is not considered.
Fostering Creative Transformations in Organizations with Chaos
Authors: Pryor Robert , Bright Jim
Published: September 2012

This chapter introduces the Chaos Theory of Careers (Pryor & Bright, 2003b, 2011) as applied to organizational behavior. The authors argue that organizations and the people within them can be usefully thought of as complex dynamical open systems – or strange attractors. From this perspective, organizational behavior can be understood in chaos terms such as attractors, fractal patterns, non- linearity, emergence, and phase shifts. Understanding organizations in dynamic terms provides a coherent picture of the inherent uncertainty and change that organizations face. This, in turn, has implications for management models that need to move from command, control, and predict, to facilitation and disruption of closed system processes. The difference between organizational anarchy and a principled chaos-based approach are highlighted. A model of organizational and personal creativity is presented and linked to concepts such as fractal behavior, career development and the re-thinking of traditional goal-centered approaches to management and change. For organizations to thrive in a world that is inevitably complex, uncertain, and changing, the authors argue that the Chaos Theory of Careers provides a coherent management framework and suggests approaches that will foster the development of a creative and flexible organization to meet these contemporary challenges.
A Comparative Study of Four Different Satellite Image Classification Techniques for Geospatial Management
Authors: Bhattacharya Devanjan , Banerjee Santo
Published: September 2012

Satellite imagery interpretation has become the technology of choice for a host of developmental, scientific, and administrative management work. The huge repository of geospatial data and information that are available as satellite imageries datasets from platforms such as Google Earth need to be classified and understood for natural resources management, urban planning, and sustainable development. The classification and analysis procedures involve algorithms like maximum likelihood classifier, isodata, fuzzy-logic classifier, and artificial neural network based classifier. Amongst these classifiers the optimum has to be selected for classifications which involve multiple features and classes. Herein lies the motivation for the present research, which can facilitate the selection of one amongst the many algorithms available to a decision maker/manager. The aforementioned techniques are applied for classification, and the respective accuracies in the classes of forestry, rock, water, built-up area, and dry river bed have been tabulated and verified from ground truth. The comparison is based on time and space complexity of the algorithms considering also the accuracy. It is found that traditional methods like MLC and Isodata offer good time and space consumption performance over the recent more adaptable algorithms as fuzzy and ANN. But the latter group excels in accuracy of assessment. The study suggests points and cases for ranking the techniques as best, 2nd best, and so on, where each technique could be optimally utilised for a given geospatial dataset based on its contents.
Managing Chaos in Nonlinear Economic Systems
Authors: Cole Sam
Published: September 2012

The logistic equation (Lorentz, 1963) has been advanced as an explanation of the chaotic growth patterns observed human settlements. It is questioned, however, whether the growth potential in population systems is sufficient for chaos. By modifying the logistic equation to account for the impact of globalization and agglomeration economies on small tourist destinations, Cole (2009a) demonstrates using data from the Caribbean that solutions and trajectories can replicate formal criteria for chaos. Theoretically, the reason for this, in addition to the availability of investment, demand, information, and labor (that alleviate the conventional restrictions on growth), is the demand and supply-side synergies between activities within a dynamic market-segmented sector. This chapter presents continuous and discrete solutions to the model and explains key findings for destination take-off, accelerated growth, and economic maturity, with a rule for modulating and managing chaos-prone economic systems.
DemoscopoPhysics
Authors: Hanias M.P. , Magafas L.
Published: September 2012

Inspired from the application of physics in economy (Econophysics) and society (Sociophysics), the authors introduce the term DemoscopoPhysics as the latest interdisciplinary research field that applies theories and methods originally developed by physicists in order to predict election results by using mainly Non Linear Dynamics (chaotic dynamics). For this purpose, they applied chaotic analysis on samples from political survey for the Euro election results in Hellas, Greece in 2009, and also for the Hellenic National elections of October 4, 2009 in order to predict election results.
Nonlinear Dynamics of Voltage Fluctuation in Power Plants for Strategic Decisions
Authors: Guhathakurta Kousik , Banerjee Santo , Dan Pranab K.
Published: September 2012

The stability of output of a power station is an important criterion for power supply. It is always desired that the voltage and frequency of output of any power plant should be stable. The nature of fluctuations, if any, in the output, needs thorough investigation. If the fluctuation has high degree of chaos as revealed by the time series representing the voltage, then such fluctuation may be controlled by introducing unconventional sources of power like hydro, wind, et cetera in the grid. The authors have analyzed the daily voltage output from five different thermal power stations in Eastern India. To analyze the dynamics of the time series the authors have used the techniques from nonlinear dynamics Delay Embedded Phase Reconstruction and Empirical Mode Decomposition. The studies show that the dynamics of the time path of voltage output of Biharshariff, Maithon, and Jeypore power plants are more or less chaotic in nature. Therefore, it may be inferred that in those particular grids other sources of power generation may be introduced.
Reciprocal Control of G1-Phase Progression Is Required for Th-POK/Runx3–Mediated CD4/8 Thymocyte Cell Fate Decision
Authors: Sato Takehito , Chiba Tomoki , Ohno Shin-ichiro , Sato Chiharu , Sugoh Tatsuya , Miyashita Keiko , Akatsuka Hisako , Hozumi Katsuto , Okada Yoshinori , Iida Yumi , Akatsuka Akira , Agata Yasutoshi , Chiba Marin , Kohu Kazuyoshi , Satake Masanobu , Tanabe Hideyuki , Saya Hideyuki , Habu Sonoko
Published: September 2012

After receiving a TCR-mediated differentiation signal, CD4 and CD8 double-positive thymocytes diverge into CD4 or CD8 single-positive T cells, for which Th-POK and Runx3 have been identified as pivotal transcription factors, respectively. The cross-antagonistic regulation of Th-POK and Runx3 seems to be essential for CD4/8 thymocyte lineage commitment. However, the process for determining which pivotal factor acts dominantly has not been established. To explore the determining process, we used an in vitro culture system in which CD4 or CD8 single-positive cells are selectively induced from CD4/8 double-positive cells. Surprisingly, we found that control of G1 cell cycle phase progression is critical for the determination. In the CD4 pathway, sustained TCR signal, as well as Th-POK, induces G1-phase extension and represses CD8 expression in a G1 extension-dependent manner. In the CD8 pathway, after receiving a transient TCR signal, the IL-7R signal, as well as Runx3, antagonizes TCR signal-mediated G1 extension and CD8 repression. Importantly, forced G1 extension cancels the functions of Runx3 to repress Th-POK and CD4 and to reactivate CD8. In contrast, it is suggested that forced G1 progression inhibits Th-POK function to repress CD8. Collectively, Th-POK and Runx3 are reciprocally involved in the control of G1-phase progression, on which they exert their functions dependently. These findings may provide novel insight into how CD4/CD8 cell lineages are determined by Th-POK and Runx3.
Cutting Edge: Pseudomonas aeruginosa Abolishes Established Lung Transplant Tolerance by Stimulating B7 Expression on Neutrophils
Authors: Yamamoto Sumiharu , Nava Ruben G. , Zhu Jihong , Huang Howard J. , Ibrahim Mohsen , Mohanakumar Thalachallour , Miller Mark J. , Krupnick Alexander S. , Kreisel Daniel , Gelman Andrew E.
Published: September 2012

The mechanisms that link bacterial infection to solid organ rejection remain unclear. In this study, we show that following the establishment of lung allograft acceptance in mice, Pseudomonas aeruginosa airway infection induces a G-CSF–dependent neutrophilia that stimulates acute rejection. Graft-infiltrating neutrophils sharply upregulate the B7 molecules CD80 and CD86, but they do not express CD40 or MHC class II in response to P. aeruginosa infection. Neutrophil B7 promotes naive CD4+ T cell activation and intragraft IL-2+, IFN-γ+, and IL-17+ T lymphocyte accumulation. Intravital two-photon microscopy reveals direct interactions between neutrophils and CD4+ T cells within pulmonary allografts. Importantly, lung rejection in P. aeruginosa-infected recipients is triggered by CD80/86 on neutrophils and can be prevented by B7 blockade without affecting clearance of this pathogen. These data show that neutrophils enhance T cell activation through B7 trans-costimulation and suggest that inhibiting neutrophil-mediated alloimmunity can be accomplished without compromising bacterial immune surveillance.