bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Testing E-Services
Authors: Sandhu Kamaljeet
Published: December 2011

This research is about testing the effectiveness of Web-based e-services system. The problem facing the department is the staff resistance to accept and use e-services in their work. There are technical issues that impact negatively on staff users of the e-services system. Case analysis reveals that there are wider issues stemming from the interaction with the system which has a low impact on e-services acceptance. E-services drivers such as user training and experience, motivation, perceived usefulness and ease of use, acceptance, and usage were not clearly understood by the technical development team, hence not integrated when implementing the e-services system.
Social Networks and Communities
Authors: Odella Francesca
Published: December 2011

The concept of community has been used in social sciences to describe several types of relatively stable relations among individuals, in a variety of contexts, from small rural villages to metropolitan and multicultural cities and for different forms of interaction from economic exchanges to leisure and political expression. Emerging outcomes of communitarian relations such as cohesion and cooperation, exchange of resources and communication efficiency have fostered and stimulated theory advancements and investigation of these relational contexts. The following chapter focuses on the concept of community in social network studies and describes the main theoretical approaches and research strategies adopted by network analysts to study social groupings. The review surveys classical network studies and the theoretical debate that involved the concept of community during the last century, exploring the perspective of contemporary research on communities. The theoretical implications of the study of communitarian relations and social participation will be addressed describing main community detection strategies and the debate on social capital. The third section of the chapter depicts network studies that deal with the social impact of new forms of societal communication and special types of communities in the virtual world. In the conclusions, the text outlines the challenges that social research on virtual and natural communities is expected to face in the next decade. The complete list of references is provided at the end of the chapter.
Civic Engagement and Communication Technology Networks
Authors: Salem Philip J.
Published: December 2011

The researcher investigated face-to-face, telephone, email, private electronic, and public electronic communication networks. Private electronic communication networks develop through text messaging, instant messaging, and private chat, and public electronic communication networks emerge through the exchange of messages over blogs, social network sites, and Twitter. Results indicate individuals used different technology to develop different networks to assist them in different ways. Public electronic communication was unrelated to civic engagement.
Extracting and Measuring Relationship Strength in Social Networks
Authors: Gustafson Steven , Moitra Abha
Published: December 2011

This study examines how extracting relationships from data can lead to very different social networks. The chapter uses online message board data to define a relationship between two authors. After applying a threshold on the number of communications between members, the authors further constrain relationships to be supported by each member in the relationship also having a relationship to the same third member: the triangle constraint. By increasing the number of communications required to have a valid relationships between members, they see very different social networks being constructed. Authors find that the subtle design choices that are made when extracting relationships can lead to different networks, and that the variation itself could be useful for classifying and segmenting nodes in the network. For example, if a node is ‘central’ across different approaches to extracting relationships, one could assume with more confidence that the node is indeed ‘central’. Lastly, the chapter studies how future communication occurs between members and their ego-networks from prior data. By increasing the communication requirements to extract valid relationships, it is seen how future communication prediction is impacted and how social network design choices could be better informed by understanding these variations.
User Attitude towards Mandatory Use of Information Systems
Authors: Guo Xunhua , Zhang Nan
Published: December 2011

Accumulated literature on technology adoption research has suggested that cultural factors have important impacts on the cognition and behavior of information systems users. In this paper, the authors argue that cultural factors should be treated as aggregate characteristics at the population level instead of personal attributes at the individual level. The authors also propose that theoretical models could be developed for specific cultural contexts when examining IT/IS user behavior. In this regard, a model for analyzing user attitude toward mandatory use of information systems is proposed. Drawing on generally recognized cultural characteristics of China, three factors are introduced as determinants of user attitude—leader support, technology experience, and perceived fit. An empirical study is conducted with regard to the acceptance of a mobile municipal administration system in Beijing, China, for validating the proposed model with survey data and analyzing the adoption mechanism of the target system. The moderating roles of gender, age, and education level on the model are explored by interaction effect analyses and the findings provide helpful insights for related studies in other cultural contexts.
A Comparative Study of the Effects of Low and High Uncertainty Avoidance on Continuance Behavior
Authors: Kim Hak-Jin , Choi Hun , Kim Jinwoo
Published: December 2011

This study examines the effects of uncertainty avoidance (UA) at the individual level on continuance behavior in the domain of mobile data services (MDS). It proposes a research model for post-expectation factors and continuance behavior that considers the moderating effect of UA, and verifies the model with online survey data gathered in Korea and Hong Kong. Post-expectation factors are classified as either intrinsic or extrinsic motivational factors, while respondents are classified according to their propensities into low-UA and high-UA groups. The results indicate that UA has substantial effects not only on the mean values of the post-expectation factors studied but also on the strength of those factors’ impact on satisfaction and continuance intention. The effects of intrinsic motivational factors on satisfaction and continuance intention are stronger for the high-UA group than for the low-UA group. In contrast, the effects of extrinsic motivational factors are generally stronger for the low-UA group.
Key Issues in Information Systems Management
Authors: Li D. , Huang W.W. , Luftman J. , Sha W.
Published: December 2011

There have been periodical studies on key IS management issues facing the IT industry in North America; however, an empirical investigation on key IS management issues in developing countries has been largely ad hoc and inadequate. This paper identifies and analyzes important issues faced by CIOs in the developing country of China. The results of this study are based on two national wide CIO surveys in China, where the first was conducted in 2004 and followed by a more recent survey in 2008. The authors provide insight for both IS practitioners and researchers who have interests in developing countries. Data analysis indentified key IS management issues and demonstrated similarities as well as differences between the two rounds of surveys. Although some strategic IS issues were still within the top 10 on both the 2004 and 2008 lists, their importance ratings were different. Implications of the findings are also discussed.
Outsourcing of Community Source
Authors: Liu Manlu , Wu Xiaobo , Zhao J. Leon , Zhu Ling
Published: December 2011

Community source (a community-based open source) has emerged as an innovative approach to developing enterprise application software. Different from the conventional model of in-house development, community source creates a virtual community that pools human, financial, and technological resources from member organizations to develop custom software. Products of community source are available as open source software to all members. To better understand community source, the authors studied the Kuali project through interviewing its participants. The interview analysis revealed that community source faced a number of challenges in project management, particularly in the areas of staffing management and project sustainability. A viable solution to these issues, as supported by the findings in the interview and the literature review on the drivers and expected benefits of outsourcing, is outsourcing software development in community source projects. The authors accordingly proposed a research framework and seven propositions that warrant future investigation into the relationship between community source and software outsourcing.
Ontologies in Intelligent Learning Systems
Authors: Deliyska Boryana , Manoilov Peter
Published: December 2011

The intelligent learning systems provide a direct customized instruction to the learners without intervention of human tutor on the base of Semantic Web resources. The principal role ontologies play in these systems is as an instrument for modeling learning process, learner, learning objects, and resources. In the chapter, a variety of relationships and conceptualizations of ontologies used in the intelligent learning systems are investigated. The utilization of domain and application ontologies in learning object building and knowledge acquisition is represented. The conceptualization of domain ontologies in e-learning is presented by the upper levels of its taxonomies. Moreover, a method and an algorithm intended for generation of application ontologies of structural learning objects (curriculum, syllabus, topic plan, etc.) are developed. Examples of curriculum and syllabus application ontologies are given. Further these application ontologies are used for structural learning object generation.
EduTutor
Authors: Rodrigues Joel J.P.C. , João Pedro F. N. , Vaidya Binod
Published: December 2011

The system architecture and its main characteristics are described in detail. EduTutor focuses on subjects for the first cycle of studies of the Portuguese primary education system, between the first and the fourth year. Its purpose is to facilitate the perception of the learning process of each student, individually, in a virtual environment, and as a study guide. Furthermore, this intelligent tutor system was designed and its architecture was prepared for being easily integrated in higher levels of studies, different subjects, and different languages. EduTutor was validated with a large set of real cases and is being used, with success, in the Aulanet LMS platform.
An Adaptive Course Generation Framework
Authors: Li Frederick W. B. , Lau Rynson W. H. , Dharmendran Parthiban
Published: December 2011

Existing adaptive e-learning methods are supported by student (user) profiling for capturing student characteristics, and course structuring for organizing learning materials according to topics and levels of difficulties. Adaptive courses are then generated by extracting materials from the course structure to match the criteria specified in the student profiles. In addition, to handle advanced student characteristics, such as learning styles, course material annotation and programming-based decision rules are typically used. However, these additives demand certain programming skills from an instructor to proceed with course construction; they may also require building multiple course structures to handle practical pedagogical needs. In this paper, the authors propose a framework based on the concept space and the concept filters to support adaptive course generation where comprehensive student characteristics are considered. The concept space is a data structure for modeling student and course characteristics, while the concept filters are modifiers to determine how the course should be delivered. Because of the “building block” nature of the concept nodes and the concept filters, the proposed framework is extensible. More importantly, the authors’ framework does not require instructors to equip with any programming skills when they construct adaptive e-learning courses.
Mashup of E-Learning Services
Authors: Yen Neil Y. , Shih Timothy K. , Jin Qun , Hsu Hui-Huang , Chao Louis R.
Published: December 2011

With the improvement of Internet technologies and multimedia resources, traditional learning has been replaced by distance learning, web-based learning, or other e-learning learning styles. According to distance learning, there are many research organizations and companies who make efforts in developing relevant systems, but they lack interoperability. The only way to reuse these applications is to redevelop them for specific purposes. In order to solve this situation and norm the various learning resources, IMS proposes a new e-learning standard named “Common Cartridge.” This standard not only integrates the past e-learning standards like LOM, SCORM, and QTI, but also proposes a technical architecture, called Learning Tools Interoperability, to make reusable applications among different systems without programming again. In this chapter, the authors firstly introduce the current e-learning environment. Then the authors pay attention to the usage of Common Cartridge standards and discuss the architecture of Learning Tools Interoperability. According to these, the authors point out the e-learning standard that could be widely utilized in the future.
Building Integrated E-Learning Environment Using Cloud Services and Social Networking Sites
Authors: Al-Zoube Mohammed , Wyne Mudasser F.
Published: December 2011

Cloud computing technologies, although in their early stages, have managed to change the way applications are going to be developed and accessed. These technologies are aimed at running applications as services over the internet on a flexible infrastructure. Microsoft Office applications, such as Word processing, Excel spreadsheet, Access database and many more can be accessed through the Internet, even though the files and applications are housed in the cloud. Cloud computing provides a low cost solution to academic institutions for their researchers, faculty, and students. This setup provides an additional benefit because all these browser-based applications can also be accessed through mobile devices in addition to being available to a variety of laptop and desktop computers, provided Internet access is available. At the same time, the massive growth of social networking sites (SNS) among today’s college students is increasing the number of higher education instructors that are combining distance education delivery with SNS. To take advantage of cloud computing and social networking sites, this chapter presents an integrated solution that provides learners with a comprehensive and feature rich environment for building and utilizing applications and can be used for building a virtual environment both for teaching and learning. The authors present an interactive tool that can be used for science education; they combined various technologies to achieve this goal. The environment and the design proposed can also be used as a platform for exploring and sharing new ideas as well as for designing, modifying, and monitoring educational or course contents. In this design under the same environment the authors also allow integration of different pedagogical approaches to both learning and teaching.
Locating and Loving the Personal
Authors: Knight Suzanne
Published: December 2011

In this chapter the author takes up the use of narrative inquiry within a secondary English language arts methods course. She focuses on two discrete moments that took place during one class session, where she and her students shared and discussed personal narratives. In particular, she explores the pedagogy that might be required to support a group of pre-service teachers’ work to become a connected knowing group, including the disruptive nature of vulnerability and risk taking.
“Critical Friendship” and Sustainable Change
Authors: Adams Susan R. , Peterson-Veatch Ross
Published: December 2011

The central focus of this chapter will be to describe the theory and practice of critical friendship in teacher professional development, paying special attention to the ways in which participants in small professional learning communities (PLCs) create spaces in which to experience discomfort together for the purpose of sustaining their own transformation as practitioners. Using protocols (prescribed turn-taking mechanisms) as social processes to negotiate and then arrive at explicitly named norms and agreements, PLCs that use critical friendship as their goal aim to create the conditions for personal and communal transformation of both their members and their institutional contexts.
Smart People Learning
Authors: Rusch Edith A.
Published: December 2011

This chapter highlights instructional practices informed by an Interactive Learning Model (Johnston & Dainton, 1996) that fosters retrospective sensemaking (Weick, 1995) and heightens reflective practice (Osterman & Kottkamp, 2004; Schon, 1987). This disruptive pedagogy reveals the symbiotic nature of theory and practice and teaches aspiring and practicing leaders that effective leadership is all about learning.
Shushes in the Parlor
Authors: Ellis Erik
Published: December 2011

In The Philosophy of Literary Form, Kenneth Burke compares scholars to the participants in an unending conversation in a parlor. Although the famous passage in which Burke expresses this metaphor highlights the need for would-be participants to familiarize themselves with a conversation before joining it, scholars in rhetoric and composition have often used the metaphor to insist that participants in academic conversations must follow particular written conventions—conventions that are often at odds with the concept of conversation. In doing so, scholars overlook or conceal their ideological agendas and serve as de facto guardians of the parlor, etiquette police who shush even the most knowledgeable would-be participants—both students and scholars—who seek to join academic conversations in “inappropriate” ways. This chapter analyzes representative misappropriations of the conversation metaphor, including Graff & Birkenstein’s best-selling composition textbook They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, and argues for a more egalitarian interpretation and application of the metaphor. By acknowledging the inadequacy of how to typically present the conversation metaphor to students and emerging scholars, people can begin to reclaim the metaphor as one that cultivates more diverse forms of inquiry and writing. Such diversity disrupts comfortable assumptions about “stable” genres and predictable pedagogies. As Boler (1999) reminded us, “Learning to live with ambiguity, discomfort, and uncertainty is a worthy educational ideal” (p.198). Educators should model this ideal in teaching and scholarship, and should cultivate it in students. To this end, people should embrace rather than fear the complexity and irreducibility of the conversation metaphor, and should write and invite students to write intellectually rigorous yet structurally flexible essays in the exploratory tradition of Montaigne. In other words, everyone should disrupt the notion that there is only one way to join an ongoing conversation, and should create and take advantage of opportunities to join such conversations in conversational ways.
Tracing the Trope of Teaching as Transformation
Authors: Barger Julie Myatt
Published: December 2011

Transformation, or change on the part of the student, is the intended outcome of all learning situations, but at times this trope is taken too far. By considering how narratives of transformation too often fail to account for agency and complexity in student identity, this chapter answers Boler’s call for interrogations of entrenched belief systems that inform educational practices. Taking American composition pedagogies as its example, the chapter calls attention to the limitations in pedagogies that render students “other” in the teacher’s commitment to social change, proposing that portraying students as incomplete beings in need of transformation could reinforce misguided beliefs that hinder student/teacher interactions. The chapter then closes by encouraging educators to recognize student development as a process, and one that need not lead to beliefs that parallel those of the teacher.
Web 2.0 and Conscientização
Authors: Harris Heidi Skurat
Published: December 2011

This chapter introduces multiliteracy as an extension of traditional notions of critical pedagogy that uphold student reflection in and about their world through dialogue as a crucial component of becoming a truly literate human. Students immersed in digital media should be encouraged to investigate and create multimedia in the 21st century classroom. However, instructors not familiar with digital media can find opening their classrooms to digital texts a risk to their professional identities. Just as true education should help students challenge, resist, and modify their perceptions of reality, educators must constantly disrupt their own classrooms to experience true conscientização, or consciousness of consciousness along with students.
“I’m not Always Laughing at the Jokes”
Authors: Faulkner Julie , Williams Bronwyn T.
Published: December 2011

Humor in popular culture plays with our perceptions and sense of dislocation. The inherently ambiguous logic of humor allows for multiple interpretations of social phenomena, and constructs the world as arbitrary, multiple, and tenuous (Mulkay, 1988). At the same time, humor is one of the central elements of much of what young people find appealing in popular culture. Exploring the potential of humor to interrogate cultural assumptions, Australian and American students participated in a cross-cultural television study. The student cohorts then communicated on line, developing their reading of the sitcom in a cross-cultural forum. Their responses highlight the disruption to accepted patterns of social order that the play upon form, or parody, delivers. Through exploring ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ readings of a television parody, this chapter explores how humorous conventions function to reflexively position readers, and thus invite critical readings of popular and engaging texts. It also examines broader questions of the role of the US in producing and distributing popular culture, and how readers might find creative and critical ways to deal with culturally disparate world views.
Disrupting Disruption
Authors: Knoblauch A. Abby
Published: December 2011

As educators look for productive ways to encourage students to disrupt their deeply held beliefs, they often turn toward liberatory pedagogies. Such pedagogical practices, however, often provoke student resistance to what is seen as attempts at indoctrination to liberal politics. This chapter explores responses to student resistance, especially Kopelson’s (2003) performance of neutrality, and posits instead a pedagogical practice based in the theory of invitational rhetoric, one that asks instructors to (attempt to) relinquish their intent to persuade students. This invitational pedagogy provides a strategy to reduce nonproductive student resistance while allowing for critical inquiry within the college writing classroom.
Setting the Stage for Professionalism
Authors: Hanson Lynn , Love Meredith A.
Published: December 2011

This chapter discusses the problem of professional writing students transitioning from an academic environment to a work environment. Even the best students struggle in their upper-level courses as instructors expect a higher level of professionalism from their more advanced students. The authors argue that the conflict between the “student” identity and the “professional” identity should be made explicit in the writing classroom. Students can learn to develop and perform new professional roles by employing a theatrical approach, a disruptive innovation that adopts Constantin Stanislavsky’s system to the professional writing classroom. Although the approach begins as role-playing, the emphasis is on becoming the professional self. Specific assignments, projects, and student survey responses are discussed.
Pre-Service Learning and the (Gentle) Disruption of Emerging Teaching Identity
Authors: O’Brien Mia , Dole Shelley
Published: December 2011

The application of ‘identity’ to analyses of teaching is not new. However in this chapter, the authors propose that the construct has as yet unexploited potential to refresh current theories about teacher learning. They discuss how notions of identity, when integrated with social learning theory, might offer fresh insights for both research and practice. And the authors illustrate this proposition by drawing on data collected from our own pre-service teacher education students as they navigate initial encounters with numeracy (with Dole) and the arts (with O’Brien). In these courses, the authors are concerned with limiting views of self that pre-service teachers can bring to their learning of these two curriculum areas. Such views predominantly stem from pre-service teachers’ personal beliefs about the nature of these subjects, as well as confidence in their own ability ‘to do’ maths and/or art. Informed by Boler’s (1999) pedagogy of discomfort, the authors deliberately, but gently move to facilitate the ‘disruption’ of these beliefs, values, and theories about ‘self’ as teacher. Located in supportive communal spaces within courses related to each subject, they authors design “collectivized engagement” (p. 176), as well as scaffolded learning and assessment that seek to engage but soften fears about “losing personal and cultural identities” (p. 176). There is evidence to suggest that this gentle disruption of beliefs and negative self-concepts assists in the eventual renegotiation of the students’ emerging views of self-as-teacher.
The Risk of Rhetorical Inquiry
Authors: Kopp Drew
Published: December 2011

In this chapter, the author provides a theoretical outline for a practice of rhetorical inquiry in the college writing classroom, and focuses on three conditions that permit this inquiry to enact a “pedagogy of discomfort” (Boler, 1999). The first condition calls for pedagogues to amplify the performative dimension of language to disrupt what Dewey terms the “quest for certainty.” Second, students and teachers work to reconfigure their current perspectives through undergoing dialogic encounters between incongruous perspectives. Third, these performative and dialogic encounters must reiterate with increasing complexity and within increasingly unfamiliar and complex contexts. After an extensive theoretical exposition of these three conditions for a disruptive pedagogy, I present a few illustrative instances in the college writing classroom.
Creating Tension
Authors: Latham Gloria
Published: December 2011

This chapter will critically examine the disruptive pedagogies being employed during the initiation, transition, and extension phases of a virtual school culture and its impact upon the virtual school community, pre-service, and ultimately, in-service-teachers. Through the virtual, it is intended that pre-service teachers (who have a placement at this school of ideas) may be able to experience new ways of teaching and learning and, in turn, start to step away from their schooled pasts in order to reflect upon, critically assess and then enact needed change. As pre-service teachers are the potential creators of yet unchartered pedagogies, they are a vital resource. Provocation will be examined using an Action Research model.
Coevolving through Disrupted Discussions on Critical Thinking, Human Rights and Empathy
Authors: Costello Susie
Published: December 2011

The resulting exchanges of knowledge laid the ground for knowledge and cultural exchanges in interactive, unexpected educational processes.
The New Public Management of Higher Education
Authors: Brunskell-Evans Heather
Published: December 2011

This chapter explores the possibilities of Michel Foucault’s philosophical-political writings for practicing a “pedagogy of discomfort” in Higher Education (HE). Foucault’s method of genealogy and his concept of governmentality are used to reflect upon the dynamics of power underlying the government of HE in the United Kingdom, in particular the new modes of teaching and learning. The chapter has three inextricably entwined aims: it presents a genealogical history of the changing face of HE under the auspices of New Public Management (NPM) as a form of neo-liberal governmental disciplinary control; it describes the new modes of teaching and learning as examples of that control; and it argues that inherent in genealogical modes of analysis are possibilities and opportunities for educationists concerned with politically framed progressive action to develop pedagogical practices that disrupt or challenge the government of teaching and learning.
Contemporary Application of Traditional Wisdom
Authors: Case Susan S. , Smith J. Goosby
Published: December 2011

This chapter explores how accumulated wisdom from the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the Torah, Talmud, Bible, and Qur’an, provide many common codes for ethical behavior in business. Religiously derived ethics are relevant to management education because they form a source of our earliest ethical education, even for individuals unaffiliated with organized religion. When religious tension is increasing, such commonality can guide development of integrity within diverse groups of management students to confront and ethically resolve many moral challenges in the workplace. After examining similarities in these religions’ conceptualization of marketplace integrity, the chapter compares religiously derived ethical behavior along the following dimensions: workplace ethics of employers and employees; mutual responsibility and dignity of work; environmental ethics and stewardship; ethics of buying selling, and usury; and social justice and social responsibility. The chapter concludes with implications, presenting ways management educators can provide contemporary applications of this traditional wisdom.
Management Education for Developing Spiritual Integrity
Authors: Pavlovich Kathryn
Published: December 2011

This chapter explores the interface between spirituality and integrity, and focuses particularly on educational processes that may facilitate this development. First, definitions and constructs of integrity are discussed as they relate to spirituality. The second section explores teaching pedagogies related to processes for developing one’s inner leadership. Such processes facilitate the dissolution of subject-object, and open the way for an awareness that goes beyond our ‘small selves’ for more ethical and sustainable futures to be imagined. The third part of this chapter explores outcomes for students with examples of teaching pedagogies presented regarding how students may connect with something far deeper than their ‘small selves’. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion on organisational and managerial implications of spiritual integrity, through both practical and theoretical insights. These include leadership as being ethical and authentic; a more meaningful sense of personal, organisational and societal purpose; and finally developing a deeper awareness of stewardship of the earth.
A Global Approach towards Teaching Ethics in International Business
Authors: Rammal Hussain G.
Published: December 2011

The areas of ethics and social responsibility have increasingly become important in the study of international business and are now covered at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. While the introduction of ethical theories and responsibilities of corporations within the subject matter has helped create awareness of ethical issues faced by managers in the global marketplace, the current body of knowledge focuses mainly on the Western perspective. This chapter extends the ethical perspective to non-Western philosophies and covers the teachings and ideologies of Confucianism, Gandhism and Islam. These philosophies describe the ethical and moral values that help can explain the decision-making behavior of managers in China, India and many Muslim countries. These suggested codes of ethics are relevant for both students and academics, especially in light of the increasing number of acquisitions by firms from emerging economies.
Is It Ethical? A Multidimensional Approach to Facilitating Ethical Decision Making in Students
Authors: Roper Carolyn , Roberts Cynthia
Published: December 2011

The need for ethical leadership continues to become increasingly important as the environment grows more interconnected and complex. Educators are being called upon to assist in the development of ethical leaders; however, ethical decision-making, because of its complex nature, is not something that can be taught in a simple, straight forward fashion. This chapter provides an overview of a variety of strategies regarding when, what, and how to teach ethics and presents an instructional module in ethical decision-making, grounded in scholarly literature. The module can be used to provide depth and richness for undergraduate and graduate university students by creating an opportunity for them to ponder ethical situations, mull over and debate alternatives based on philosophical lenses, and arrive at decisions, which are probably not identical, but personally defensible. The educational unit focuses on developing awareness of one’s own ethical stance as well as teaching the utility of a system for ethical analysis which allows for contextual difference, nuance and complexity rather than imposing one set of moral standards. In addition, several keys to effective ethics instruction are suggested.
Research on Corporate Codes of Ethics and Its Application to University Honor Codes
Authors: Hyatt Katherine
Published: December 2011

Honors codes have been shown to have a positive impact on the integrity of students and have been adopted by numerous colleges and universities. Students are informed of the code and asked to sign it. Instructors have academic dishonesty policies on their syllabi. However, the honor code should be further emphasized and lesson can be learned from research on ethics codes. These lessons can serve as practical strategies and suggestions for future research on university honor codes. Training students to be professionals and preparing them to act ethically in the workplace should be our top priority. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss these implications.
Rethinking Ethics Education in Business Schools in the Post-Financial Crisis Epoch
Authors: Vaiman Vlad , Sigurjonsson Throstur Olaf
Published: December 2011

This chapter deals with a multitude of perspectives on ethics education in business schools and provides a compelling example of Iceland, where unethical behavior of its business elite and the total disregard for commonly accepted ethical rules of conducting business led to unsustainable expansion of the financial industry and its subsequent collapse in the fall of 2008. The authors examine whether ethics education or more precisely, the lack thereof, played any role in this financial collapse, and whether business schools should contribute to molding moral characters of their students, who will ultimately become the next generation of business leaders. Here are a few important highlights of what has been found. First, a consensus seems to have been reached that business schools have an important role in developing the moral character of their students, something they haven’t practiced sufficiently according to managers. Second, business schools ought to take a more direct part in a society’s discourse on business ethics and perhaps be in the forefront of these discussions. Third, there is a clear need for not only asking business schools to contribute to molding the moral character of students but to reshaping that of practicing managers through re-training and continuous education.
Nurturing Integrity in Management Education with the Development of an Alternative Web of Metaphors
Authors: Audebrand Luc K. , Burton John W.
Published: December 2011

In recent years management education has sought to integrate into both undergraduate and graduate programs a concern for ethics and integrity. If this goal is to be achieved management educators must address the way in which an overreliance on mainstream metaphors (e.g., business-as-war) perpetuates an approach to management which is at odds with ethics and integrity. They need to be mindful of how metaphors are used and the images that they evoke. Part of the challenge in fostering ethics and integrity is to challenge the preconceptions which students have about the nature of business activities. Such attitudes are generally in line with these mainstream metaphors. In this chapter, the authors’ goal is not to find the perfect metaphor; one which will best incorporate a praxis of integrity as a part of management education. Rather they suggest that overuse of any metaphor has distorting effects and that what is the needed is to develop a web of metaphors which will provide management students with a capacity for seeing events from a broader perspective which includes considerations of ethical and value implications. Exposure to different metaphors will lead to different lines of reasoning and decision-making. By using different metaphors to understand the complex and paradoxical character of management, students have the opportunity to see possibilities for action and implications of decisions that they may not have thought about otherwise. In short, it is their claim that management education needs metaphorical pluralism if it is to nurture ethics and integrity.
Hollywood in the Classroom
Authors: Kester George W. , Cooper Gregory J. , Dean Roger A. , Gianiodis Peter T. , Goldsby Michael G.
Published: December 2011

This chapter describes how Hollywood movies can be used in the classroom to bring finance and business ethics alive in ways that that are difficult to achieve in traditional lectures, assignments and written case studies. The use of seven popular full length motion pictures, four fictional and three based upon actual events, are discussed along with an approach that uses selected excerpts (film clips) in the classroom.
Th1 and Th17 Cells Regulate Innate Immune Responses and Bacterial Clearance during Central Nervous System Infection
Authors: Holley Monica M. , Kielian Tammy
Published: December 2011

Brain abscesses arise following parenchymal infection with pyogenic bacteria and are typified by inflammation and edema, which frequently results in a multitude of long-term health problems. The impact of adaptive immunity in shaping continued innate responses during late-stage brain abscess formation is not known but is important, because robust innate immunity is required for effective bacterial clearance. To address this issue, brain abscesses were induced in TCR αβ knockout (KO) mice, because CD4+ and NKT cells represented the most numerous T cell infiltrates. TCR αβ KO mice exhibited impaired bacterial clearance during later stages of infection, which was associated with alterations in neutrophil and macrophage recruitment, as well as perturbations in cytokine/chemokine expression. Adoptive transfer of either Th1 or Th17 cells into TCR αβ KO mice restored bacterial burdens and innate immune cell infiltrates to levels detected in wild-type animals. Interestingly, adoptively transferred Th17 cells demonstrated plasticity within the CNS compartment and induced distinct cytokine secretion profiles in abscess-associated microglia and macrophages compared with Th1 transfer. Collectively, these studies identified an amplification loop for Th1 and Th17 cells in shaping established innate responses during CNS infection to maximize bacterial clearance and differentially regulate microglial and macrophage secretory profiles.
Antiviral and Regulatory T Cell Immunity in a Patient with Stromal Interaction Molecule 1 Deficiency
Authors: Fuchs Sebastian , Rensing-Ehl Anne , Speckmann Carsten , Bengsch Bertram , Schmitt-Graeff Annette , Bondzio Ilka , Maul-Pavicic Andrea , Bass Thilo , Vraetz Thomas , Strahm Brigitte , Ankermann Tobias , Benson Melina , Caliebe Almuth , Fölster-Holst Regina , Kaiser Petra , Thimme Robert , Schamel Wolfgang W. , Schwarz Klaus , Feske Stefan , Ehl Stephan
Published: December 2011

Stromal interaction molecule 1 (STIM1) deficiency is a rare genetic disorder of store-operated calcium entry, associated with a complex syndrome including immunodeficiency and immune dysregulation. The link from the molecular defect to these clinical manifestations is incompletely understood. We report two patients with a homozygous R429C point mutation in STIM1 completely abolishing store-operated calcium entry in T cells. Immunological analysis of one patient revealed that despite the expected defect of T cell proliferation and cytokine production in vitro, significant antiviral T cell populations were generated in vivo. These T cells proliferated in response to viral Ags and showed normal antiviral cytotoxicity. However, antiviral immunity was insufficient to prevent chronic CMV and EBV infections with a possible contribution of impaired NK cell function and a lack of NKT cells. Furthermore, autoimmune cytopenia, eczema, and intermittent diarrhea suggested impaired immune regulation. FOXP3-positive regulatory T (Treg) cells were present but showed an abnormal phenotype. The suppressive function of STIM1-deficient Treg cells in vitro, however, was normal. Given these partial defects in cytotoxic and Treg cell function, impairment of other immune cell populations probably contributes more to the pathogenesis of immunodeficiency and autoimmunity in STIM1 deficiency than previously appreciated.
Recent Advances in Underlying Pathologies Provide Insight into Interleukin-8 Expression-Mediated Inflammation and Angiogenesis
Authors: Qazi Basit Saleem , Tang Kai , Qazi Asma
Published: December 2011

Interleukin-8 has long been recognized to have anti-inflammatory activity, which has been established in various models of infection, inflammation, and cancer. Several cell types express the receptor for the cytokine IL-8 and upon its recognition produce molecules that are active both locally and systemically. Many different types of cells, in particular monocytes, neutrophils, epithelial, fibroblast, endothelial, mesothelial, and tumor cells, secrete IL-8. Increased expression of IL-8 and/or its receptors has been characterized in many chronic inflammatory conditions, including psoriasis, ARDS, COPD, and RA as well as many cancers, and its upregulation often correlates with disease activity. IL-8 constitutes the CXC class of chemokines, a potent chemoattractant and activator of neutrophils and other immune cells. It is a proangiogenic cytokine that is overexpressed in many human cancers. Therefore, inhibiting the effects of IL-8 signaling may be a significant therapeutic intervention.
Natural Hazards – Nonlinearities and Assessment
Authors: Papadopoulos Gerassimos A.
Published: December 2011

Geosciences are developing and applying a wide range of methodologies to assess natural hazards. Significant advances in the site characterization and models development have been achieved in the last decade, but many challenges still remain. Several disastrous earthquakes in the past decade accompanied with tsunamis have required a rapid assessment of the underlying causes of the tragic loss of life and property. Natural disasters risk reduction and control as a crucial criterion for sustainable development and minimizing social and economic loss and disruption due to earthquakes, tsunamis and other hazards requires reliable assessment of the seismic and tsunami hazard, as well as mitigation actions of the vulnerability of the built environment and risk. All of these provide the critical basis for improved building codes and construction emergency response plans for the people and infrastructure safety and protection.
Source apportionment of the summer time carbonaceous aerosol at Nordic rural background sites
Authors: Yttri K. E. , Simpson D. , Nøjgaard J. K. , Kristensen K. , Genberg J. , Stenström K. , Swietlicki E. , Hillamo R. , Aurela M. , Bauer H. , Offenberg J. H. , Jaoui M. , Dye C. , Eckhardt S. , Burkhart J. F. , Stohl A. , Glasius M.
Published: December 2011

Abstract. In the present study, natural and anthropogenic sources of particulate organic carbon (OCp) and elemental carbon (EC) have been quantified based on weekly filter samples of PM10 (particles with aerodynamic diameter <10 μm) collected at four Nordic rural background sites [Birkenes (Norway), Hyytiälä (Finland), Vavihill (Sweden), Lille Valby, (Denmark)] during late summer (5 August–2 September 2009). Levels of source specific tracers, i.e. cellulose, levoglucosan, mannitol and the 14C/12C ratio of total carbon (TC), have been used as input for source apportionment of the carbonaceous aerosol, whereas Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) was used to statistically treat the multitude of possible combinations resulting from this approach. The carbonaceous aerosol (here: TCp; i.e. particulate TC) was totally dominated by natural sources (69–86%), with biogenic secondary organic aerosol (BSOA) being the single most important source (48–57%). Interestingly, primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP) were the second most important source (20–32%). The anthropogenic contribution was mainly attributed to fossil fuel sources (OCff and ECff) (10–24%), whereas no more than 3–7% was explained by combustion of biomass (OCbb and ECbb) in this late summer campaign i.e. emissions from residential wood burning and/or wild/agricultural fires. Fossil fuel sources totally dominated the ambient EC loading, which accounted for 4–12% of TCp, whereas <1.5% of EC was attributed to combustion of biomass. The carbonaceous aerosol source apportionment showed only minor variation between the four selected sites. However, Hyytiälä and Birkenes showed greater resemblance to each other, as did Lille Valby and Vavihill, the two latter being somewhat more influenced by anthropogenic sources. Ambient levels of organosulphates and nitrooxy-organosulphates in the Nordic rural background environment are reported for the first time in the present study. The most abundant organosulphate compounds were an organosulphate of isoprene and nitrooxy-organosulphates of α- and β-pinene and limonene.