Search results

This article explores how public librarians understand and perform the democratic mission of public libraries in times of political and social turbulence and critically discusses the idea of public libraries as meeting places.

Five group interviews conducted with public librarians in southern Sweden are analyzed using a typology of four perspectives on democracy.

Two perspectives on democracy are commonly represented: social-liberal democracy, focusing on libraries as promoters of equality and deliberative democracy, focusing on the library as a place for rational deliberation. Two professional dilemmas in particular present challenges to librarians: how to handle undemocratic voices and how to be a library for all.

The analysis points to a need for rethinking the idea of the meeting place and offers a rare example of an empirically based argument for the benefits of plural agonistics for analyzing and strengthening the democratic role of public libraries.

Resurgent interest in the life and work of the Italian Cambridge economist Piero Sraffa is leading to New Directions in Sraffa Scholarship. This chapter introduces readers to some of these developments. First and perhaps foremost is the fact that as of September 2016 Sraffa’s archival material has been uploaded onto the website of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University, as digital colour images; this chapter introduces readers to the history of these events. This history provides sharp relief on the extant debates over the role of the archival material in leading to the final publication of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, and readers are provided a brief sketch of these matters. The varied nature of Sraffa scholarship is demonstrated by the different aspects of Sraffa’s intellectual legacy which are developed and discussed in the various entries of our Symposium. The conclusion is reached that we are on the cusp of an exciting phase change of tremendous potential in Sraffa scholarship.

This paper presents a new roll‐to‐roll (R‐R) production system modified for fine line patterning of flexible printed circuits (FPCs) using the subtractive method. The R‐R system is especially suited to production of FPCs because the material used—copper‐clad laminate (CCU—can be handled as it is rolled. Consideration has been given to methods and materials in designing the machines. They are now operating successfully and are used in single‐sided flexible circuit manufacture. A liquid photosensitive etch resist and a collimated light source are recommended for the system and several factors necessary for achieving R‐R working conditions are discussed. Judging from the experimental results of these systems, using narrower width materials with chemical surface preparation is an effective technique for improving the yield rate. The selection of a liquid photoresist is not so common in the case of rigid printed circuit boards because of the difficulty of the coating process. On the other hand, in the case of flexible PCBs, it is successful not only in terms of resolution characteristics but also of productivity under several different types of coating conditions. It should be noted that use of the conventional subtractive method in the printed circuit field is still advantageous as some semiconductor technologies are applicable.

During the 1950‐1979 period, the governments of Central America often pursued “cheap‐food” policies. A general‐equilibrium model is employed to show how these policies contributed to the resource‐allocation patterns observed in the region during this period. The model also shows how cheap‐food policies contributed to the observed shift in the functional distribution of income from wages to rents and profits. An empirical test verifies the contribution of bean‐pricing policy to the shift in land resources away from food crops in Costa Rica, and the causes behind the relaxation of cheap‐food policies in the 1980s are discussed.

In Japan, the first state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic was declared from April to May 2020, and it was recommended that people stay home. In this study, parents were asked (using an internet questionnaire) how their children spend time at home compared to their usual activities during this period. We conducted a cluster analysis of change patterns of indoor activities among preschool children aged three to six years (n = 1.036). The cluster analysis examined whether watching videos, playing video games, engaging in active play, taking part in art activities, and joint reading of books/picture books increased or decreased compared to normal times. Two-step cluster analysis suggested five subgroups: (1) all indoor activities were almost the same as usual, (2) video viewing and art activities increased, and active play decreased, (3) video viewing, art activities, and active play increased, (4) video viewing, computer games, art activities increased, and active play declined, and (5) video viewing and computer games increased, and all other activities decreased. Of these subgroups, it is considered that particular attention should be paid to the developmental risks of Clusters 4 and 5, who might have spent more time doing digital activities and taken part in fewer interactive activities. In addition, it was indicated that these patterns were related to parental mental health and demographic characteristics. It remains to examine the support in such case considering the possibility that less participation in interactive activities and worse mental health of parents may have negative effects on development of children.

This paper aims to study the electrochemical corrosion performance of ultrafine-grained (UFG) Cu bulk in 0.5 M NaCl solution.

UFG Cu bulk were prepared by impacting at −196°C and following heat treatment. The electrochemical corrosion behaviors of coarse-grained (CG), impacted and subsequently annealed at 190°C Cu bulks were studied.

All the bulks displayed typical active-passive-transpassive behaviors (dual passive films without stable passive regions). The resistance to corrosion of impacted Cu bulk was notably superior to that of CG Cu bulk, and subsequently annealing further improved its corrosion resistance.

Except for mechanical properties, corrosion performance has been considered to be one of the most important aspects in bulk UFG metallic materials research for the prospective engineering applications.

Cryogenic impacting could effectively reduce grain size of CG Cu bulk to UFG scale and induce high density dislocation. Subsequent annealing resulted in a further decrease of grain size even to nanoscale, as well as nanometer twins. The grain refinement, high density dislocation and annealing twins effectively enhance the passivation capability, resulting in an increase in the corrosion resistance.

Aims to provide a theoretical basis for, and overview of, self‐evaluation as a beneficial practice. Discusses six issues: (1) types of entrepreneurial organizations and metaphors which may be used to think about them; (2) how self‐evaluation is usefully seen as a learning process; (3) common problems which trigger learning by organizations; (4) Self‐Evaluation and Effectiveness Review Model (SEER) as a proposed learning process; (5) how learning can help firms to overcome problems and improve members′ effective performance; and (6) the utility of the SEER concept in a world with variable national management cultures. Hopes to persuade an influential entrepreneur of the need to plan a process which will network members′ learning for the benefit of their organization.

The purpose of this study is to explain the discipline of political economy in terms of the theory of conflict and conflict resolution on social matters. Such a theory arises substantively from the generalized and unique methodological worldview of unity of knowledge found in the Islamic epistemological case.

This paper simply uses this epistemic background without dwelling in details of the Islamic methodological worldview of unity of knowledge. Among the central social issues examined in this paper is that of preservation of peace in terms of pressing issues that complement with the concept of well-being.

The imminent study of political economy of socioeconomic development and United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is explained as a broader concept of peace as organic relational balance between the good and true pursuits of life in terms of common global well-being. Within this purview, analytical examination is made of various theoretical precepts. Within the same goal of peaceful coexistence and global conflict resolution, the official stand of Malaysia in global peace is enunciated.

The paper conveys a critical conceptual idea to debate the scope and approach of political economy of peace, development and law matters. The results of the approach used in this study constitute a major contribution of this paper to scholarship in general and acts as a critique of developmental thought of political economy of peace and law.

This chapter tries to find that how to reduce transaction cost in corporate governance by subjecting it institutionally to ethics and values of interactive and consensual decision making with transparency gained from participation between managers and shareholders/stakeholders and the community at large. This is an epistemological problem in Islamic approach to corporate governance. This chapter brings these out in technical language and methodology. An analytical epistemological and comparative study between mainstream and Islamic conceptions in corporate governance is used to develop the idea mentioned above. The analytical model used is of an ethico-economic general equilibrium type with learning variables. This chapter conveys an original idea that has not been taken up elsewhere. It reflects the systems approach to the study of behavior in corporate setting within the epistemology of systemic unity of knowledge.

Investigates the enigmatic phenomenon of information from the two major perspectives of modern cybernetics: the negentropic and the evolutionary. Discusses the meaning of this phenomenon, considering it, ultimately, as the means of combating entropy within cybernetic or control systems which create or receive, process, stock, and use information, eventually with the purpose of regulating their matter‐energy fluxes necessary for struggling against inner entropy. Discusses the sense of information as relating to thermodynamical entropy in a philosophical manner and not in some formal (mathematical) language.