Suchergebnisse

Based primarily on a systematic review of the relevant literature between 2000 and 2017, this paper reflects on the state of journalism about science in developing countries, with a focus on its issues, challenges and implications for their developmental processes and causes. Five major themes emerge from our analysis: (a) heavy dependence on foreign sources, especially the media of the Global North; (b) the low status of domestic science news in newsrooms; (c) uncritical science reporting that lends itself to easy influences of non-science vested interests; (d) tight grips of politics on science journalism; and (e) ineffective relationships between science and journalism. We will demonstrate that, while some of these problems exist in the North, they can have far more severe consequences on the progress of the South, where news plays an almost exclusive role in informing and engaging laypeople with science and its socio-cultural, economic and political implications.

In this paper, we critically assess two of the key conceptual foundations for the comparative capitalisms (CC) literatures, neo-pluralist political science and economic sociology, in order to identify more clearly the deep intellectual roots of these literatures. Principally, we focus on how the strengths of neo-pluralism and economic sociology – their attention to detail in considering the huge range of 'types' of capitalism that exist across the world – come at a high price. Put briefly, the redefinition of 'capitalism' as 'the economy' concentrates research agendas on the specific political and social conditions found across the world, leaving 'the economy' relatively untouched. In consequence, 'capitalist diversity' is quickly, and often silently, equated to 'political diversity' or 'social diversity'. As such, a key weakness of CC scholarship, identified by various authors in this Capital & Class special issue – that it does not provide a satisfactory theoretical understanding of capitalist societies – is a problem that runs deeper than the limitations that can be observed in contemporary debates. The implications of our argument are discussed in the conclusion.

Abstract
This essay foregrounds the hermeneutic purchase of totality in contemporary literary criticism. Responding to the recent proliferation of the "gig work" novel, the essay takes up two interrelated lines of inquiry: How might we rethink the conceptual affordances of "totality" for the ongoing project of the critique of political economy? What would a rethinking of totality's position in the conceptual architecture of literary criticism offer in the way of new heuristics for the analysis of the novel? Through recourse to G. W. F. Hegel's Science of Logic and Michael Theunissen, Hans-Friedrich Fulda, and Rolf-Peter Horstmann's Critical Presentation of Metaphysics: A Discussion of Hegel's "Logic" (Kritische Darstellung der Metaphysik: Eine Diskussion über Hegels "Logik"), this essay proposes a method of literary analysis that approaches the formal aspects of the novel as defined through the historical-material conditions for the writing of the text. The essay then puts a close reading of Hilary Leichter's Temporary in conversation with Sarah Brouillette's account of the decline of the English-language literary novel to suggest how the formal properties of the contemporary gig work novel respond to the general crisis of novel production in the twenty-first century.

The terms "politics" and "literature" are both "essentially-contestable" concepts. "Politics" can mean political practice, political ideas or the study of politics; "literature" can mean the writing of books, the content of those books or the reading of them. "Politics and literature" is often taken to be synonymous with "political literature," but different usages of "politics" and "literature" will produce other connections. Much of the work in "politics and literature" hitherto has been of a sociological nature. Less interest has been shown in the distinctively political aspects of the possible relationships between the study of politics — political thought in the widest sense — and the content of literature.No methodology has yet been developed, in Literary Studies or Political Science, for the explication and understanding of these connections. The sociology of literature, however, provides terminology that may be useful in establishing such links.

In the recent years the application of strategies, procedures and tools to evaluate the research have become subject of interest and their application is currently matter of discussion. The assessment exercises are regulated at national level and are carried out in different European countries such as France, United Kingdom and The Netherlands. In Italy the first research assessment exercise has been legislated in 2003 and entrusted to a specific Committee named Comitato di Indirizzo per la Valutazione della Ricerca (CIVR)1. Three years later the CIVR and other committees have been replaced by a specific Agency named Agenzia Nazionale di Valutazione del Sistema Universitario e della Ricerca (ANVUR). This Agency, set up at the end of 2006, aims to ??rationalize the system of assessment of the quality of Universities, state and private Research Institutions beneficiary of public funds?? ? The results of these activities managed by ANVUR represent a criteria to assign the state funds to Universities and Research Institutions?. It is not hard to imagine that the effects of this type of exercise has a strong political implication and determines a significant economic impact on the future of Universities and Research Institutions. The debate concerning the adopted methods and critical aspects about the assessment exercises is studied thoroughly at international level. At the present time, ANVUR has completed two evaluation exercises of the quality of the research named Valutazione della Qualit? della Ricerca (VQR): the first one spans the years 2004 - 2010; the second from 2011 to 2014. The work analyzes the environment of VQR in order to understand the organizational set-up, the operational models, the scientific areas involved in the process, the selection and evaluation criteria and indicators of the research products. The work looks at the environment of VQR in order to understand the organizational set-up, the operational models, the scientific Areas involved in the process and the selection and evaluation criteria of the research products. More in detail, our work analyzes and compares the evaluation exercises conducted in Italy with the aim of verifying if and how Grey Literature is involved in the research evaluation processes. The article checked the types of products admissible for the research assessment and those actually presented by the researchers of Universities and Research Institutions. We measured the products from a quantitative point of view and observed their ramification in the different disciplinary fields rather than their transformation during the period of time taken into consideration. At the same time, we focused on the Open Science movement in order to understand what could be its role within the research assessment exercises and how it could affect the future of scholarly scientific communication.

This article examines the potential of space science technology for water infrastructure (WI) management. It defines space technology in detail, and when South Africa (SA) started using it as a tool. To explain the context, the different types of orbits, altitudes, and functions of satellites are given, as well as the challenges that satellites encounter in orbit, including the quantity and sizes of orbital debris also known as space junk. The article articulates the international and local challenges to WI and further introduces space technology as a tool that can assist to overcome the challenges. Legislation governing the application of space technology in SA is discussed and the different satellites owned by the various space agencies of Africa are outlined. A discussion on how space technology has boosted the economies and employment in Africa and South Africa is provided. How the various applications of the technology, such as remote sensing (RS), Earth observation (Eo), Geo-Information sciences, navigation, communication, safety, and security can assist WI management are discussed. Details about the involvement of various African and SA universities and colleges in space science programmes that benefit the communities are explained. Also outlined are some experiments performed on the International Space Station (ISS) that benefit the Earth and that could be useful to WI management.