Search results for "construct"
showing 10 items of 3723 documents
Quarry limestone dust as fine aggregate for concrete
2018
In quarrying activities, rock is extracted and transformed into aggregate of various sizes for civil engineering applications. In this process waste fine aggregates (dust waste) are generated. The disposal of this type of waste is a further cost in the extraction process, but also a possible cause of environmental pollution (e.g. leaching into water reserves, atmospheric pollution as a result of small particles causing respiratory diseases or deposited on plants disrupting photosynthesis, affecting aquatic habitats, etc.). A strategy for the effective recycling of quarry dust does not only reduce waste generation and disposal, but also addresses protection of the environment. The Italian qu…
Superresolved imaging of remote moving targets.
2006
We present a superresolving approach that allows one to exceed the diffraction limit and recover highly resolved contours of moving targets from a sequence of low-resolution images. The presented approach is suitable for remote sensing applications. The resolution decoding algorithm that is used to recover the high-resolution features of the target can be run partially via optical means and that way can be used to reduce the required computational complexity.
Iterative Regularization Techniques in Image Reconstruction
2000
In this survey we review recent developments concerning the efficient iterative regularization of image reconstruction problems in atmospheric imaging. We present a number of preconditioners for the minimization of the corresponding Tikhonov functional, and discuss the alternative of terminating the iteration early, rather than adding a stabilizing term in the Tikhonov functional. The methods are examplified for a (synthetic) model problem.
Comparing the Socio-Political Ethics of Fighting Terrorism with Extreme Self-Defense in USA
2018
In this study the authors adopted a post-positivist research design philosophy to explore the likelihood that Americans would support extreme self-defense policies like torture, reducing human rights or banning Muslims to fight against global terrorism, especially after 9/11 and in light of the Trump conservative government. The authors grounded their research questions into the literature to form hypotheses in a correlational design strategy which they tested using nonparametric statistics. They collected opinions from 3213 Americans during 2016-2017 about applying extreme self-defense tactics to combat global terrorism and how these opinions contrasted between those holding a conservative…
The Rhetoric and Relevance of IS Research Paradigms: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Evidence
2006
This paper discusses the relevance of IS research with respect to the rhetoric associated with the three major IS research paradigms in use - positivism, constructivism/interpretivism and critical research. The conceptual discussion is framed in terms of the following dimensions: ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions, relationship between theory and practice, and the role of the researcher in the research process. Based on this discussion, we propose a conceptual model to study the relationship between the espoused philosophical assumptions of researchers and the degree of relevance of researchers’ knowledge claims. This conceptual model was evaluated with data obtaine…
Opening the can of worms: A comprehensive examination of authoritarianism
2020
Abstract We carry out an exhaustive analysis of both right-wing and left-wing forms of authoritarianism in order to assess the specific predictors of these illiberal agendas. Firstly, we conduct a literature review on authoritarianism as a multidimensional psychological construct, with emphasis on its controversial links to the political spectrum, religion, and economic conservatism. Moreover, we review its potential associations with social axioms, as an interesting psychological framework to aid understanding of authoritarian attitudes. We extract three working hypotheses from this literature review, all successfully tested in two empirical studies (n = 1097 and n = 1102). Our results sug…
Toward a Political Theory of the Sublime
2018
In this chapter, the author develops a topic undertheorized in Bourdieu’s work: physical violence. He presents the key points of an esthetic theory of the sublime and develops an alternative theory of the sublime, which draws on structural constructivism and Taoist political theory. In contrast to an esthetic theory of the sublime that automatically attributes to exceptional and violent physical actions ontological superiority and performative efficiency compared to the ‘weak’ routines of the ontic Lebenswelt, in a structural constructivist theory the key to the sublime as a defining moment of politics can be found in the links between physical events and symbolic structures. According to t…
Measuring Social Solidarity. Some Research Notes
2012
Abstract There is an increasing public, political and research interest in social solidarity. Even though the concept has a long history and is embedded in solid approaches, there is not much literature concerned with its measurement. The paper falls into the area of the methodological studies of social solidarity and it deals with construct validation. The objective of this paper is to test for convergent validity and nomological validity of two sets of items aiming to measure social solidarity attitudes and acts. The main method employed is confirmatory factor analysis.
What’s Wrong with the Diffusion of Innovation Theory?
2001
This paper examines the usefulness of the diffusion of innovation research in developing theoretical accounts of the adoption of complex and networked IT solutions. We contrast six conjectures underlying DOI research with field data obtained from the study of the diffusion of EDI. Our analysis shows that DOI based analyses miss some important facets in the diffusion of complex technologies. We suggest that complex IT solutions should be understood as socially constructed and learning intensive artifacts, which can be adopted for varying reasons within volatile diffusion arenas. Therefore DOI researchers should carefully recognize the complex, networked, and learning intensive features of te…
Chile helps Chile: exploring the effects of earthquake Chile 2010
2014
Purpose– The purpose of the present paper is to explore the political discourse present in the show Chile Ayuda a Chile [Chile helps Chile] to support the survivors and victims of the last earthquake hit Chile in 2010. Based on the belief that nationalism plays a vital role in cementing the process of recovery by making survivors believe that they, after all, have a new opportunity to be on feet again.Design/methodology/approach– The visual methodology (enrooted in the analysis of content) is the chosen technique to develop five indicators which replicates the nationalist sentiment of Chileans post-disaster context. The archetype of nationalism is activated whenever the community is in dang…