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AbstractArtificial Intelligence (AI) has become a powerful new form of inquiry unto human cognition that has obvious implications for semiotic theories, practices, and modeling of mind, yet, as far as can be determined, it has hardly attracted the attention of semioticians in any meaningful analytical way. AI aims to model and thus penetrate mentality in all its forms (perception, cognition, emotion, etc.) and even to build artificial minds that will surpass human intelligence in the near future. This paper takes a look at AI through the lens of semiotic analysis, in the context of current philosophies such as posthumanism and transhumanism, which are based on the assumption that technology will improve the human condition and chart a path to the future progress of the human species. Semiotics must respond to the AI challenge, focusing on how abductive responses to the world generate meaning in the human sense, not in software or algorithms. The AI approach is instructive, but semiotics is much more relevant to the understanding of human cognition, because it studies signs as paths into the brain, not artificial models of that organ. The semiotic agenda can enrich AI by providing the relevant insight into human semiosis that may defy any attempt to model them.

ABSTRACTAfrica‐focused global value chain (GVC) scholars argue that the new mining industry practice of corporate outsourcing invalidates the traditional enclave thesis by providing new opportunities to support domestic firms and stimulate industrialization. However, this literature has clustered around Africa's middle‐ and high‐income countries and its analytical approach abandons the centre–periphery framework within which its earlier antecedents were grounded, while overlooking labour dynamics. Correcting for these limitations, this article explores the GVC literature's claims through a single case study of a gold mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, representative of a process of foreign‐controlled gold sector (re)industrialization underway across a group of 20 low‐income African countries. The findings confirm rather than invalidate the original enclave thesis, observing that corporate outsourcing has done little to stimulate broader industrialization while facilitating the arrival and expansion of foreign firm subsidiaries. Meanwhile, the new industry practice has also facilitated the adverse incorporation and fragmentation of Congolese labour, thus weakening the collective strength of workers. The findings demonstrate the value of expanding the conventional GVC framework to incorporate a consideration of peripherality and the capitalist labour process, and demonstrate the need for state intervention via pro‐labour and industrial policy.

La guerra asimétrica se ha convertido en una expresión con buena acogida y gran popularidad para referirse a las "nuevas" guerras del siglo XXI. Sin embargo, su definición plantea algunas controversias. Por un lado, no es fácil caracterizarla, pues en la guerra asimétrica se conjugan medios irregulares de lucha y también, con limitaciones, algunos instrumentos convencionales. Por otro lado, tampoco es sencillo detallar su presunto carácter novedoso, desde un enfoque histórico. El presente artículo aborda ambas cuestiones con el objetivo de revisar las principales aportaciones hasta la fecha e intentar delinear algunos rasgos distintivos de esta modalidad de conflicto.

Abstract
Asymmetric war has turned into an expression with good reception and great popularity to refer to the "new" wars of the 21st century. However, its definition presents some controversy. On one hand, its characterization is not easy because asymmetric war combines irregular tolls of fight and also, with restrictions, conventional ones. On the other hand, from a historical approach it is also difficult to detail what its alleged original character consists of. This article will address both subjects in order to review the main contributions made until now and to feature some distinctive characters of this kind of conflict.

Using a mixed methods approach, the current study tested whether an intervention, the Gender By Us® Toolkit, decreased implicit gender bias compared to a generic conversation. Researchers randomly assigned participants in the study to the intervention ( n = 11) or a generic conversation ( n = 12). Participants completed pre-, post-, and 2-week follow-up surveys. Valid psychometric instruments and t tests were used to assess group differences on the following measures: (1) the Social Dominance Orientation Scale, (2) the Neosexism Scale, and (3) the Modern Sexism Scale. Quantitative results showed the intervention group scored significantly higher on the Modern Sexism Scale at posttest than the control group ( p = .00), demonstrating increased acknowledgment of gender discrimination. Both groups also were asked open-ended questions related to the intervention and implicit gender bias. Qualitative results suggested that participants' overall perception was that the intervention increased their awareness of implicit gender biases within themselves and their ability to identify biases in others, yet a comparatively low number of intervention participants retained the ability to identify an example of implicit gender bias at posttest. Findings may indicate the intervention had a small but positive effect on disrupting implicit gender bias.

When Ronald Reagan infamously declared the Soviet Union to be the "Evil Empire" in 1983, he was playing upon a fundamental axiom of Cold War politics: that the world can be neatly divided between the First World of Capitalism and the Second World of Communism. Equating this divide with that of good and evil only served to strengthen the notion that the two sides were mutually exclusive. Personal politics were an extension of this perspective. One was either a Capitalist or a Communist—to reject one was equivalent to embracing the other. This paper examines the art of dissident artists such as Alexander Kosolapov, Leonid Sokov, and Ilya Kabakov; artists from the Soviet Union who were exiled to the West during the Cold War. It seeks to better understand why these artists' rebellion against the Soviet system did not translate into an embrace of Western culture upon arrival in America. The roots of their critical artistic approach are interpreted through the prism of ideological nomadism which reveals their art to be deeply ambivalent. These artworks are analyzed as a disruption to the binary understanding of the Cold War and Post-Soviet eras by their embrace of a liminal position in the overlap between the capitalist and communist cultural milieus.

Purpose
Working creatively as a researcher should be a core foundation in doctoral studies, though it may be an isolating, even risky, endeavour. The purpose of this paper is to share the author's journey through the "darkness" of innovation in research methodology.


Design/methodology/approach
At the heart of this research journey was Portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 1983), which emerged early in the post-modern evolution of qualitative research. While exploring Portraiture, the author found researchers used this methodology in varying ways: application, appropriation and interpretation. In stumbling through Portraiture, the author discovered patchwork as their bricoleur's toolbag. Patchwork provided a torch that gave light to the darkness of the research process enabling interpretation of Portraiture for alignment of method and research problematic[1].


Findings
Looking back at the research journey, the author recognises the steps into post-qualitative research and the need for methodological innovators to share their journeys for inspiration, to develop understanding and open the way to greater creativity and innovation during the research process.


Originality/value
This paper provides an original view to Portraiture along with the addition of patchwork as a way of engaging with methodology as well as data.

Communities of practice (CoPs) represent a broad range of work situations characterized by shared knowledge and situated knowledge use. Although CoPs have been studied rather extensively, discussions of control in CoPs are rarer. This is peculiar because CoPs are characterized by a common tension in contemporary work: on the one hand, CoPs are expected to autonomously "think together," but on the other they are expected to be responsive to various managerial control attempts. We interrogate this tension in an ethnographic study of engineering work, where we found that in response to management control the engineering communities engaged in constructive disobedience – that is, subversion and displacement of rules and orders to construct a dynamic of control where work can be executed autonomously. By associating constructive disobedience with control in CoPs, our study contributes with insight into and theorization of how management control is dealt with and how control operates in work characterized by CoPs. The study also provides deepened insight into the limits of management control and how professionalism may be maintained despite increased management. These insights may support development of a more knowledgeable and nuanced approach to attempts at managing communities of practice.

AbstractThis article aims to focus on how signatories versus nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector compare with respect to the internal and external stakeholders and principles of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). We seek to answer the question: Do signatories to the UNGC walk the talk better than nonsignatories as determined by a variety of published rankings and data? This research presents an innovative approach to the evaluation of UNGC signatories. It uses several objective and independent data sources to assess a matched group of signatories versus nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector. Signatory organizations in the same sector as determined by SIC codes were matched with nonsignatories on variables such as size and number of employees in U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Then both types of organizations were compared on the following data sources: Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies ratings, ratings by external stakeholders, ratings by employees, unionization data, financial measures, and annual reports to shareholders. Using nonparametric testing the research found there are differences between signatories and nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector for some of the external stakeholder measures and no differences were found for the internal stakeholder measures.

A Western Sydney research project investigated the question, "What are the practices of pre-service teachers and experienced teachers of music in secondary schools that successfully engage their students with digital media?" The hypothesis underlying the project was that digital media offers school students opportunities, and has the potential to allow more self-paced, interactive and personalized learning. Consequently, the research sub-questions were: (1) How are music teachers preparing students with the techniques and skills needed to take advantages of the opportunities that ICT offers? (2) How can music teachers develop their students' capacity to use and contribute to this wealth of information? The participants in the study were five experienced teachers and four pre-service teachers, and the method was a multi-site case study approach. Data collected in the project provided positive findings about growing student engagement with digital media in a range of Sydney schools. Pre-service teachers engaged with digital media for performance, critical listening, composing and providing instant feedback. Experienced teachers tended to limit social networking to older students (16-18-year olds). Both experienced and pre-service teachers used technology for assessment and reflected deeply on the ways digital media changed their pedagogy.

For nearly a decade Bulgaria and Romania were considered the laggards of the Fifth EU Enlargement. They seemed unable to cope with the timing of their Europeanisation and, hence, the support they got from the EU was a mere continuation of the pre-accession conditionality in the form of post-accession monitoring, obscurely named "Cooperation and Verification Mechanism" (cvm). This paper presents some sound empirical evidence to prove that the cvm did not work as expected. The malfunction of the mechanism was pre-destined by a crucial mistake in its initial political design since it was meant, in the first place, to soothe the West European disappointment with the Fifth Enlargement in the context of the EU's constitution project failure. It was not tailored to the needs of a post-communist society – to establish anew a rule-of-law (RoL) institutional system, which was the core societal problem. The real issue at stake was not the "unpreparedness" of the two neighbouring countries, but a major flaw in the approach of the EU enlargement policy, which has manifested lately, in a much harsher form of serious rule of law abuses, by the developments in the previous "best performers of the Fifth Enlargement" – Hungary and Poland.

AbstractThis study examines different approaches taken in the late Ottoman Empire to deal with the risks and dangers posed by railroads. Like its counterparts in Europe and the United States, the Ottoman state actively sought to protect individuals against railroad risks. For this purpose, it mandated the use of certain devices meant to facilitate the safe flow of railroad traffic and introduced measures that aimed to discipline railroaders and pedestrians into behaving appropriately. However, the state was not the only actor that struggled to address railroad risks. Railroad companies, primarily to advance their economic interests, incorporated technologies that considerably reduced the risk of collisions. Yet economic concerns also sometimes hampered investments in railroad safety. For instance, the manner in which trespassing cases were handled by accident investigation committees and courts allowed the companies to avoid their obligations with respect to fencing around railroad tracks. As a result, it was easy for pedestrians to use tracks near their homes and workplaces as pathways. Finally, the article also shows that in performing their duties, trainmen enjoyed considerable freedom from control by railroad managers. This freedom was further reinforced by the shortage of experienced and skilled labor in the Ottoman railroad industry.

Recently, the terms "adaptation and integration of migrants" are often found in scientific and public literature. However, there is still no unified opinion and clear understanding of the essence and content of these concepts, their distinctive features, which negatively affects the formation and implementation of the state policy of adaptation and integration of migrants and requires development of theoretical provisions on these processes. The purpose of this article is to develop theoretical provisions on the adaptation and integration of migrants, as well as on the state policy of adaptation and integration, the formation of a holistic view of these phenomena and processes. The article is devoted to the theoretical understanding of such concepts as adaptation of migrants, integration of migrants, state policy of adaptation and integration of foreign citizens. The author's vision of these phenomena is also presented. In the course of the study, general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis were used, as well as a systematic approach, methods of comparisons, etc. The conclusion of the article contains the main theoretical positions that form a systemic view on the adaptation and integration of migrants, the state policy of adaptation and integration, which create a holistic view on these processes

This article examines and compares governance relations of big cities in relatively small nation states in Reykjavík, Iceland, and Tel Aviv, Israel. The international literature has extensively explored governance at the municipal and national levels. We aim to enlarge this discussion by examining the unique role, experience and dynamics of large, dominant cities vis-à-vis other governance entities in the era of local governance. Using a grounded theory approach we suggest the frameworks of 'building strong nations', new localism, and 'cooperation versus collaboration' to enlighten nation-big city, state-big city and big city-city governance relations, respectively. We employed a qualitative design, using textual analysis and in-depth interviews with both state and local actors in the two countries. The results show that in both countries examined, dominant cities are required to fill a unique triple role: as leading cities in their metropolitan areas, in their respective states, and in their respective nations. Yet the two cases also differ in important ways. While Reykjavík is the head of a well-functioning community of co-producers, Tel Aviv is closer to a local jungle, where competition and competing interests prevent effective cooperation. Implications of the findings are discussed in the era of local governance.

This study is a public relations inquiry that aims to describe the use of social media by govern-ment public relations to bridge the digital divide that affects people with social welfare prob-lems. The research, unlike most public relations studies that by and large, focus on organiza-tional image, reputation, communication crisis, and transparency, uses the digital divide per-spective. The research uses Grunig and Hunt Public Relations model and Melvin De Fleur com-munication model perspectives to examine the communication processes that occur through government public relations social media. The research uses a qualitative descriptive approach to assess the communication conducted by informants. The results showed that government pub-lic relations communication through social media has not been fully able to bridge the digital divide, especially in rural areas. The digital divide creates three relates problems that affect the effectiveness of government communication with people that experience social welfare problem. Firstly, pattern of communication involves opinion leaders. Secondly, most feedback occurs in-directly while ideally, it should be direct. Thirdly, the flow of information takes place in either one or two steps, in contrast with the ideal, which should be in one step.

AbstractWhen the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drafted, governments grasped that human rights are needed as safeguards, not only against authoritarianism but also against the causes of authoritarianism. For this reason, the UDHR encompasses civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. This holistic vision of human rights was obscured during the Cold War and more recently by economic neo‐liberalism. The UK government neglects social rights, which have a very low public profile, although there is evidence that the profile of these human rights is increasing. UK domestic law and practice is inconsistent with the holistic vision of human rights and the government's binding international social rights obligations. The UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights recommends that the UK provides for 'the legislative recognition of social rights' which can be approached in various ways. One way is to proceed social right by social right (for example, the rights to housing, health and education), and sector by sector (for example, the sectors of housing, health and education). This administrative law approach advances explicit social rights without implicating or jeopardising the Human Rights Act 1998.