bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Performance Appraisal as an Aid in Personnel Decisions: Linkages between Techniques and Purposes in North Carolina Municipalities
Authors: Daley Dennis M. 
Published: March 2007

This study surveys general factors essential to effective performance appraisal (related to the employment of performance standards and employee participation in their construction), examines specific types of appraisal systems (graphic rating scales, forced-choice, paired-comparison, behaviorally anchored rating scales, and appraisal-by-objectives), and explores system add-on options (critical incident, appraisal interview, self-appraisal, interim appraisals, and special management appraisals) that enhance the effectiveness of appraisal. These are examined vis-à-vis the purposes to which performance appraisals are put (training, reassignment, reinstatement, promotion, demotion, retention, dismissal, merit pay, and bonuses). General performance standards, specific appraisal types, or various productivity add-ons appear to be moderately linked (with Phi-statistics measured between .2 and .4) to their employment as aids in personnel decision making. Although we must note that these associations are not themselves causal evidence, these practices are indeed designed as aids for making personnel decisions. Their introduction into municipal performance appraisal is clearly tied to a willingness among those cities to employ those appraisals as aids in making substantive personnel decisions.
Evolution of Ethnodominated Marketing Channels: Evidence from Oman and Sudan
Authors: Speece Mark 
Published: March 2007

Ethnic domination of marketing channels is very common throughout the developing work. The phenomenon often has become closely associated with volatile political issues, such as unequal distribution of wealth or perceived foreign domination of the national economy. Ethnodomination arises when an external commercially oriented economy penetrates a subsistence agricultural economy. Historical records on Oman show in detail how such a system functioned before the era of modern economic development. A cultural boundary separates market-oriented outsiders who operate wholesale and retail firms from the subsistence farmers who are brought into the market economy as petty producers and consumers. Such trade contact starts a process of cultural assimilation. Fieldwork and historical records from Sudan show how such systems can evolve under development. When the cultural boundary has shifted downward in the marketing channel, local people begin to acquire commercially oriented values which allow them to participate more fully in economic activities. However, actually moving into marketing channel activities requires capital, most of which is still controlled by the ethnic group dominating the channels. Modern development brings infusions of capital from outside the marketing system, and local people can begin moving into lower level channel activities easily. Once that happens, successful small retailers accumulate capital to move into wholesaling, and so on. The ethnic group which traditionally had controlled channels shifts investments from marketing into industrial production, and eventually ethnodomination of marketing will decline.
Dikin-Type Algorithms for Dextrous Grasping Force Optimization
Authors: Buss Martin , Faybusovich Leonid , Moore John B. 
Published: March 2007

One of the central issues in dextrous robotic hand grasping is to balance external forces acting on the object and at the same time achieve grasp stability and minimum grasping effort. A compan ion paper shows that the nonlinear friction-force limit constraints on grasping forces are equivalent to the positive definiteness of a certain matrix subject to linear constraints. Further, compensation of the external object force is also a linear constraint on this ma trix. Consequently, the task of grasping force optimization can be formulated as a problem with semidefinite constraints. In this paper, two versions of strictly convex cost functions, one of them self-concordant, are considered. These are twice-continuously differentiable functions that tend to infinity at the boundary of posi tive definiteness. For the general class of such cost functions, Dikin- type algorithms are presented. It is shown that the proposed algo rithms guarantee convergence to the unique solution of the semidef inite programming problem associated with dextrous grasping force optimization. Numerical examples demonstrate the simplicity of im plementation, the good numerical properties, and the optimality of the approach.
Ontological Choreography: Agency through Objectification in Infertility Clinics
Authors: Cussins Charis 
Published: March 2007

This paper is about the interaction between patients and medical technology, and uses ethnographic data drawn from fieldwork in infertility clinics to question the humanist argument that selves need to be protected from technological objectification to ensure agency and authenticity. It argues that objectification is only antithetical to personhood in specific circumstances. Non-reductive manifestations of objectification make possible a notion of agency not opposed by, but pursued in objectification. The dependence of science and technology on social, individual and political factors has been quite extensively worked out in the science and technology studies literature. The dependence of selves on technology has received less attention. In other literatures that take the construction of the person seriously, the role of technology in that process is typically under-emphasized. This paper attempts to link the initiatives of these literatures by adding an ontological connection between technology and selves. A notion of `ontological choreography' is developed to describe the processes of forging functional trails of compatibility that create and maintain the referentiality between things of different kinds — like persons and reproductive technologies.
American Views of the Past
Authors: Handlin Oscar 
Published: March 2007

Mostly, the past has been for men a strange country. Remote and inaccessible, its existence is accepted but not important. Known through the curious tales of occasional observers, it is meaningful only to the extent that it affords those who regard it reflected images of their own society.The first Americans were little occupied with the past. Although they read history, and wrote it, it was the history of their own times; the term in the seventeenth century referred more often to contemporaneous events than to those that had receded out of the memory of living men. Indeed, in a universe in which divine Providence interceded directly in the affairs of men, there was little purpose to the quest for antecedents; behind every action was the same ultimate cause.
Unilateral Initiatives: a Strategy in Search of a Theory
Authors: Horowitz Irving Louis 
Published: March 2007

“We must remember that we have reached our present tense international situation through a long series of unilateral steps in the building up ot armaments: the arms race itself is the result of unilateral initiatives by each side, Russia responding to increase in missiles by the United States and the latter deciding to increase its armaments whenever it learns (or suspects) that the Soviet Union has been doing so. The present competition in arms was not the product of international agreement but rather the fruit of a series of unilateral acts which stepped up tension and made a negotiating atmosphere more and more unlikely. The crucial question is not whether to act unilaterally but whether unilateral initiatives for peace can be as effective as unilateral armaments initiatives have been for war.” (Mulford Sibley).IUnilateralism is a big word. Like Moliere's comment on prose, it is something we have been using all of our lives without knowing its exact nature. Perhaps this is because unilateralism is a notion which we have measured in terms of degree rather than kind. The rub seems to be in the word “degree.” Thus, to understand the significance of “unilateral initiatives,” and perhaps to appreciate the complexities in working out an intelligent strategy for winning international peace, it might be worthwhile to explain the varied aspects that attach to a concept of unilateralism.
Form and Function of Poetic Language
Authors: Fónagy Ivan 
Published: March 2007

An attempt is made here to consider poetry as one of the aspects of language. It is not the first attempt and certainly not the last.At first glance we are startled by the multiplicity of additional formal laws restricting the poet's free choice of expressions: intricate rhyming schemes, equal number of syllables in a line, regular distribution of short and long, stressed and unstressed syllables, alliteration, prevailing in both ancient Germanic and modern American poetry:
Paler be they than daunting death the sleek slim deer the tall tense deer.(E. E. Cummings, All in green)
The Consumption of Astrology in Contemporary Society
Authors: Maître Jacques , Becker Chris 
Published: March 2007

“Look again at the disorder of the heavens... The courses of these little lights give rise to the idea of an order. Man has not yet recovered from it.”Valéry, Mon Faust“I am filled with thoughts of industrial might, I hear the voice of human forces. We've had enough of all the stars of heaven! We can do all that better here on earth.”Yesenin, StansyThe widespread and increasing vogue of astrology in France offers the spectacle of scientific popularization and esoteric speculation in full swing, with the two frequently intermingling. Disconcerting at first sight, this process must be placed within the framework of the social contradictions that have given rise to the rationalistic trends of “modernity.” As early as the Age of Enlightenment, occultism, as it spread, associated itself with natural science. In the nineteenth century this association continued, taking on new forms; it was now in connection with the history of religions and with Oriental studies that many magazines gave considerable space to occultism. From the Revue de Paris, where Nerval published his Aurélia, all the way over to the dignified Revue des deux mondes, the current seeped in a little everywhere. In our own day, while Planète is in the forefront, one must not lose sight of the outpouring of books and periodicals among which this publication is merely a particularly prominent commercial success. In this regard, astrology takes first place among all similar forms of speculation and occult practice that are merchandised in such fashion, in terms of its mass diffusion.
The Information of Machines and of Men: Wizards and Technocrats
Authors: Sauvy Alfred 
Published: March 2007

Thirty years ago, if one were to speak about the “treatment of information, “ the best one could expect would be politely smiling indifference. It goes without saying that this expression, until recently meaningless, refers to the information of machines.As for human information, it also arouses some interest, but for a very different end. Whereas machines are questioned as though they were oracles, in the majority of cases men are given information so as to be subjected to other men, either directly, or thanks to a kind of neutralization.
Phenomenology of Journalism
Authors: Bensman Joseph , Lilienfeld Robert 
Published: March 2007

In a previous essay, the authors attempted to define, in phenomenological terms, the artistic and critical attitudes.The artistic attitude was seen as the attempt to create the image of a total world, which could be enjoyed or viewed in terms of an attitude of everyday life; that is to say, that the created image was so all-encompassing, so total, and so complete, of a concreteness and vividness, such that the viewer could suspend perceptions of all other worlds and respond directly and immediately to the world created as a work of art.
On the Cinema and the Disruption of the Arts System
Authors: Toeplitz Jerzy 
Published: March 2007

The problem of knowing how to define art, and how to divide it into categories, has always been a serious one for theoreticians and aestheticians. In his major work entitled The Concept of Art in the Past and in the Present, Professor Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz, a distinguished Polish aesthetician, studies the origins of the concept of art and the successive modifications which it has undergone from antiquity to today.In Greece, Rome and the whole of the West in the Middle Ages, art was considered either as a profession or as a science. Together with grammar, rhetoric or geometry, the second category, known as “artes liberales,” also included music, which thus became what we call today musicology, or the science of music. The other category-that of “artes vulgares”-had a more practical character and included among other subjects agriculture, medicine and architecture. In the 12th century, the philosopher Hugh of St. Victor counted among the seven “artes vulgares” a discipline to which he gave the name “theatrica” and which, Professor Tatarkiewicz tells us, comprised not only the theatre but in a general way the art of amusing the people in public, in fact all stadium games, races and circus entertainment. Poetry came under the heading of philosophy.
The Time of Reality and the Time of the Logos
Authors: Noico Constantin 
Published: March 2007

Logic is the science of pure time, just as geometry is the science of pure space.In the past one would not have dared make such a statement. Just as geometry seemed to deal only with stable shapes and not with transformations and deformations, logic seemed to deal with the static modalities of thought and among its connections only with the syllogistic—and that as a matter of privilege. But geometry has become the science of moving spatial shapes; everywhere mathematics has brought in the fluxional element; on the whole, science considers rest as an extreme instance of motion. Logic too—even leaving aside mathematical logic— cannot keep its classical image. For thought cannot confine itself— and confines itself even less than mathematics does—to reflecting the static. While a circle can still be looked upon as a simple circle and not deformed by topological vision, a form of thought is always condensed time.
Einstein and Epicurus
Authors: Kousnetsov Boris 
Published: March 2007

Atoms and space. Clinamen. Individual existence. Isotachy. The contemporary epilogue to Epicurus's physics. The problem of death and fear of death in Epicurus and Einstein. The gods of Epicurus and Einstein's God.In 1923 a new edition of Lucretius's De rerum natura was published in Germany. The second volume—a translation of the poem into German—was prefaced by Einstein. In it one reads that “Lucretius's book will enchant anyone who is not yet completely dominated by the spirit of our time, and who feels able to take a step back to take stock of the present age, and judge our contemporaries' spiritual attainments.”
Negative Utopia and Religion
Authors: Caillois Roland 
Published: March 2007

At the time of Plato's Republic, the citizens lived in a unity of religion and politics. Hegel refers to this life, prior to the rending of the conscience into the exterior modern State and interior religion, as beautiful, free, and happy.Perhaps the nostalgia for the beautiful, free, and happy unity presides today over the confused attempts to “change life,” where politics and religion exist side by side and intermingle. But this unity was not possible except in the ideal of the Republic; the current confusion takes place rather in the name of a utopian non-city.
Reconquest, Djihad, Diaspora: Three Visions of Spain At the Discovery of America
Authors: Lafaye Jacques 
Published: March 2007

Thus Spain has two frontiers: one bordering on the region of the Infidels, the other with the Ocean.Ibn Hauqal, Kitab Surat al-Ard (t. l, p. 108)A crusading spirit colors the vision that most European historians, especially the Spanish, have of the Iberian peninsula's past. The classical conception of the Reconquest of the territory invaded by the Moors and redeemed for Christianity at the end of a secular war (in which the legendary figure of El Cid and Ferdinand the Catholic found glory) has been greatly qualified without ever having been abandoned entirely. Leaving aside the modern controversies, we shall try to throw some light upon the origins of the ideology of the “Reconquest”; for it is just that: an ideology whose aim was to justify a certain political action. We can better understand its meaning if we compare it to the two other ideologies then competing for the Iberian peninsula, the Islamic holy war (djihad), and the Judaic eschatological hope linked to the diaspora of the Sephardim.
The Stone Men of the Canadian Arctic
Authors: Caillois Roger 
Published: March 2007

To the memory of the ephemeral goddess Sedna, whose huge body reached out across the depths of the Arctic seas, whose hair was forever matted, full of ordure, clogged with bear furs and the snouts of narwhales, and could be combed only by a shaman on one of his cosmic journeyes.The inukshuk are piles of rough stone, shaped like men, and found on the coasts of the Canadian Arctic. I am well aware that they have never found a place in the history of statuary. However, they are unquestionably representations of the human form, and no one would confuse them with the simple cairns raised here and there by so many nomadic tribes in the course of their wanderings. They are disappearing, or have already disappeared with the recent, swift, and far reaching changes in Eskimo life. It is really almost a matter of chance as to whether one recognizes that they represent, or represented, a remarkable image of man. For me, the chance was a two-fold one, so to speak.
The Role of the International Monetary Fund in the Post-Bretton Woods Era
Authors: Phillips Ron 
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the changing role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the world economy in the 1970s and into the 1980s. Though the IMF was established in 1945 by the Bretton Woods Agreement to aid countries with short term balance of payments problems, its role in recent years has changed dramatically. Many people argue that the IMF is becoming a world central bank with powers of surveillance over domestic economic policies, conditional loans to deficit countries, and control of world liquidity. The extent to which this is the case is a main focus of this paper. In order to do this, it is necessary to review the events in the international monetary system in the 1970s with special attention given to those factors which affected the IMF's role. Though there are various interpretations of the IMF's role from both the mainstream and the radical-left, an alternative interpretation, which differs from those interpretations in many respects, is presented. My argument is that the IMF emerged in the 1970s as a global capitalist planner in response to the international economic crisis. Through international monetary reforms which occurred in the 1970s the IMF has played a pivotal role in the attempt to restore global accumulation. The failure of the IMF to accomplish this goal has been a direct result of global working class resistance to its policies.
The Modeling of Pressure Distribution in Resin Transfer Molding
Authors: Gauvin R. , Chibani M. , Lafontaine P. 
Published: March 2007

The resin transfer molding process (RTM) allows the production of large FRP parts. In this technique layers of reinforcements (mats, woven rovings) are inserted into the mold cavity and resin is injected to fill the closed mold. Cavity pressure distribution is the most important parameter to minimize leakage problem at the parting line, to reduce mold deformation and to assure a good quality part. In this paper, a simplified model applicable to unidirectional flow is proposed to predict that pressure. It is based on Darcy's law for flow of liquids through a porous media. The permeability of the reinforcement which is a function of the glass content and characteris tic of each type of reinforcement, mat or woven roving, is evaluated. Effects on the model of parameters such as glass density, surface density of the reinforcement and number of reinforcing layers are examined. The mold and instrumentation used to collect data are described and preliminary results are presented for reinforcing mat.
The Probation Field Visit and Office Report in New York State: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Authors: Lindner Charles 
Published: March 2007

Home visitation and office reporting are basic to the probation supervision process. They date to the earliest years of statutory probation and are employed both in the preparation of the presentence investigation and in the supervision of offenders. This paper presents a historical overview of the use of home visitation in the beginning years of probation. The purposes and problems of early visitation are contrasted with practices of today. Similarities and contrasts in visitation practices are explored. The changing nature of today's probation, including felony probation, probationer classification systems, and the impact of a drug epidemic, has given rise to a new set of concerns relating to home visitation in urban areas. Unless resolved, these issues may signal an end to routine home visits by probation officers.
Correctional Case Law: 1993
Authors: Maddex James L. 
Published: March 2007

For more than a decade, the spring issue of the Criminal Justice Review has offered brief summaries of federal court decisions addressing prison, jail, and related corrections and detention issues. The cases summarized in the present issue span the period from autumn 1992 to autumn 1993. The last reporter sources consulted for this survey were 7 F.3d 242 for court of appeals decisions and 832 F.Supp. 1571 for federal district court cases. Recent criminal justice decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, including those in the corrections category, are summarized in each autumn issue of the Review. The goal of this feature has been the same since its inception: to call to the reader's attention those recent cases that would be most likely to merit further study and in-depth analysis in a rapidly evolving area of the law. The cases included in the present survey represent approximately one fourth of those reported in the Federal Reporter and Federal Supplement for the period and topic under review. Thousands of other federal cases that arose during the 12 months under consideration filed by federal, state, and local inmates (the number of filings continues its upward spiral) appeared in the reporters in a list format if at all. In general, the cases contained in the present survey may be considered to be among those that have interest and possible significance beyond that of the typical case. In most of them, the court addressed the merits of factual or legal issues or at least offered more than a cursory analysis of one or more issues that are of interest to criminal justice scholars and practitioners. To the extent that the reported cases create precedent, they are binding only in their respective geographical jurisdictions. However, because this area of the law is still in a formative stage, federal judges often look beyond their own circuits for guidance in reaching decisions. As in previous surveys, the reader is cautioned that some of the decisions summarized herein are on appeal to higher courts and are therefore not necessarily final.