Search results for: dilemma discussion

Authors: Arash Heydarian Pashakhanlou

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The security dilemma is one of the key concepts in International Relations (IR), and the numerous engagements with it have created a great deal of confusion regarding its essence. That is why this article seeks to dissect the security dilemma and rebuild it from its foundational core. In doing so, the present study highlights that the security dilemma requires interaction among actors that seek to protect themselves from other's capacity for harm under the condition of uncertainty to operate. In this constellation, actors are confronted with the dilemma of motives, power, and action, which they seek to resolve by acquiring information regarding their opponents. The relationship between the parties is shaped by the harm-uncertainty index (HUI) consisting of geographical distance, MAD, and joint democracy that determines the intensity of the security dilemma. These elements define the unified theory of the security dilemma (UTSD) developed here. UTSD challenges the prevailing view that the security dilemma is a unidimensional paradoxical concept, regulated by the offense-defense balance and differentiation that only occurs in anarchic settings with tragic outcomes and is equivalent to the spiral model.

Keywords: security dilemma, revisionism, status quo, anarchy, uncertainty, tragedy, spiral, deterrence

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Authors: Jiawei Li

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How cooperation emerges and persists in a population of selfish agents is a fundamental question in evolutionary game theory. Our research shows that Collective Strategies with Master-Slave Mechanism (CSMSM) defeat Tit-for-Tat and other well-known strategies in spatial iterated prisoner’s dilemma. A CSMSM identifies kin members by means of a handshaking mechanism. If the opponent is identified as non-kin, a CSMSM will always defect. Once two CSMSMs meet, they play master and slave roles. A mater defects and a slave cooperates in order to maximize the master’s payoff. CSMSM outperforms non-collective strategies in spatial IPD even if there is only a small cluster of CSMSMs in the population. The existence and performance of CSMSM in spatial iterated prisoner’s dilemma suggests that cooperation first appears and persists in a group of collective agents.

Keywords: Evolutionary game theory, spatial prisoners dilemma, collective strategy, master-slave mechanism

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Authors: Yoshifumi Hino

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An infinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma is a typical model that represents teamwork situation. If both players choose costly actions and contribute to the team, then both players are better off. However, each player has an incentive to choose a selfish action. We analyze the game under costly observation. Each player can observe the action of the opponent only when he pays an observation cost in that period. In reality, teamwork situations are often costly observation. Members of some teams sometimes work in distinct rooms, areas, or countries. In those cases, they have to spend their time and money to see other team members if they want to observe it. The costly observation assumption makes the cooperation difficult substantially because the equilibrium must satisfy the incentives not only on the action but also on the observational decision. Especially, it is the most difficult to cooperate each other when the stage-game is prisoner's dilemma because players have to communicate through only two actions. We examine whether or not players can cooperate each other in prisoner’s dilemma under costly observation. Specifically, we check whether symmetric Pareto efficient payoff vectors in repeated prisoner’s dilemma can be approximated by sequential equilibria or not (efficiency result). We show the efficiency result without any randomization device under certain circumstances. It means that players can cooperate with each other without any randomization device even if the observation is costly. Next, we assume that public randomization device is available, and then we show that any feasible and individual rational payoffs in prisoner’s dilemma can be approximated by sequential equilibria under a specific situation (folk theorem). It implies that players can achieve asymmetric teamwork like leadership situation when public randomization device is available.

Keywords: cost observation, efficiency, folk theorem, prisoner's dilemma, private monitoring, repeated games.

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Authors: Najia Zulfiqar

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Imparting moral education is the need of time, considering the obvious moral decline in society. Recent research shows the downfall of moral competence among university students. The main objective of the present study was to develop moral development intervention strategies for undergraduate students of Sports and Physical Education. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, insight into field-specific moral issues was gained through interviews with 7 subject experts and a focus-group discussion session with 8 students. Two research assistants who were trained in qualitative interviewing collected, transcribed and analyzed data into the MAXQDA software using content and discourse analyses. The identified moral issues in Sports and Physical Education were sports gambling and betting, pay-for-play, doping, coach misconduct, tampering, cultural bias, gender equity/nepotism, bullying/discrimination, and harassment. Next, intervention modules were developed for each moral issue based on hypothetical situations, and followed by guided reflection and dilemma discussion questions. The third moral development strategy was community services that included posture screening, diet plan for different age groups, open fitness ground training, exercise camps for physical fitness, balanced diet awareness camp, gymnastic camp, shoe assessment as per health standards, and volunteering for public awareness at the playground, gymnasium, stadium, park, etc. The intervention modules were given to four subject specialists for expert validation who were from different backgrounds within Sport Sciences. Upon refinement and finalization, four students were presented with these intervention modules and questioned about accuracy, relevance, comprehension, and content organization. Iterative changes were made in the content of the intervention modules to tailor them to the moral development needs of undergraduate students. This intervention will strengthen positive moral values and foster mature decision-making about right and wrong acts. As this intervention is easy to apply as a remedial tool, academicians and policymakers can use this to promote students’ moral development.

Keywords: community service, dilemma discussion, morality, physical education, university students.

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Authors: Erinda Bllaca Ndroqi

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The dilemma with which the monitoring professionals are facing in today’s reality is whether to accept that prisons all over the world constitute a place where not all rights are respected (ethical approach), or widen the scope of monitoring by prioritizing the special needs of people deprived of their liberties (human right approach), despite the context and the level of improved prison condition, staff profiling, more services oriented towards rehabilitation instead of punishment. Such dilemma becomes a concern if taking into consideration the fact that prisoners, due to their powerlessness and 'their lives at the hand of the state', are constantly under the threat of abuse of power and neglect, which in the Albanian case, has never been classified as torture. Scientific research in twenty-four (24) Albanian prisons shows that for some rights, prisoners belonging to 'vulnerable groups' such as mental illness, HIV positive status, sexual orientation, and terminal illness remain quite challenged and do not ensure that their basic rights are being met by the current criminal justice system (despite recommendations set forwards to prison authorities by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT)). The research orients more discussion about policy and strategic recommendations that would need a thorough assessment of the impact of rehabilitation in special categories of prisoners, including recidivists.

Keywords: prisons, rehabilitation, torture, vulnerability

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Authors: Myla Zenaida Cabrillas-Torio, Von Anthony G. Torio

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Homework is defined as an additional task that a student does outside of the school. This added activity is in recognition of the necessity to spend additional time for subjects such as Mathematics. The dilemma comes in the form of the advantages and disadvantages that can be derived from homework. Studies have revealed varying effects to students on academic and non-academic areas. Teachers are at the forefront of the decision towards the giving or not of homework. Pre-service teachers at the elementary level represent the future leaders of the educational system and should be acquainted and involved at the onset of the dilemma. The main objective of this study is to determine the perspective of pre-service elementary teachers towards homework. The anatomy of their belief can be key towards addressing the issue via teacher training. Salient results revealed that the subjects favor the giving homework on the following grounds: it helps add knowledge and confidence. Those who do not favor homework find it as an additional burden. Difficulties in complying with homework are usually associated with lack of references and performance of other household chores. Students usually spend late nights to comply with homework and are unable to perform at the best of their potentials.

Keywords: attitude, homework, pre-service teachers, mathematics education, Philippines

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Authors: Popoola I. Olayinka, Alamu E. Oladeji, B. Maziya-Dixon

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Cassava, an indigenous crop grown locally by subsistence farmers in Nigeria has potential to bring economic benefits to the country. Consumption of bread and other confectionaries has been on the rise due to lifestyle changes of Nigerian consumers. However, wheat, being the major ingredient for bread and confectionery production does not thrive well under Nigerian climate hence the huge spending on wheat importation. To reduce spending on wheat importation, the Federal Government of Nigeria intends passing into law mandatory inclusion of 20% high-quality cassava flour (HQCF) in wheat flour. While the proposed policy may reduce post harvest loss of cassava, and also increase food security and domestic agricultural productivity, there are downsides to the policy which include reduction in nutritional quality and low sensory appeal of cassava-wheat bread, reluctance of flour millers to use HQCF, technology and processing challenges among others. The policy thus presents an ethical dilemma which must be resolved for its successful implementation. While inclusion of HQCF to wheat flour in bread and confectionery is a topic that may have been well addressed, resolving the ethical dilemma resulting from the act has not received much attention. This paper attempts to resolve this dilemma using various approaches in food ethics (cost benefits, utilitarianism, deontological and deliberative). The Cost-benefit approach did not provide adequate resolution of the dilemma as all the costs and benefits of the policy could not be stated in the quantitative term. The utilitarianism approach suggests that the policy delivers greatest good to the greatest number while the deontological approach suggests that the act (inclusion of HQCF to wheat flour) is right hence the policy is not utterly wrong. The deliberative approach suggests a win-win situation through deliberation with the parties involved.

Keywords: HQCF, ethical dilemma, food security, composite flour, cassava bread

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Authors: Dilek Dede

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This study aims at scrutinized the dilemma between education place and working place with professional socialization dimension over the beginning teachers in Turkey is to be found the solution for the dilemma in Turkey. The research question is that how can be explained the gap between education place and working place for beginning teachers in Turkey. That expected to contribute to literature with the solutions for shorting the gap between working area and education area of the teaching profession in Turkey case. The study is constructed in two section. Firstly, socialization of the teaching profession and teaching modules have been discussed through the profession, education, working place indicators. In the second section, Secondly, two educational specialists from Turkey has been interviewed about their observation on trainee teachers compelling to participate the class for candidate teachers after university grade. Then, the dilemma between education area and working area of the teaching profession has been detected by of semi-structured and in-depth interviews, the literature on the relationality of institutions and regulation is discussed. The following outcomes have been accessed in accordance with the data set and literature linkage axis: Firstly, teachers coming from the distinctive programmes as an educational background. Hence, teachers who pertain to distinctive cultures work in the same environment. That cause cultural conflicts and complication of socialization of profession. Secondly, the insufficient partnership between schools and universities besides, the education classes lead to a struggle of culture among these two institutions. Thirdly, the education classes are designed as bureaucratic form instead of coalescence between head teachers and trainee teachers around a common culture. That become deep the dilemma. In conclusion, on condition that applied-oriented education that advocates in-service learning is promoted and this programme is supported with well-structured the in-service training through the partnership of universities and schools, the gap between the working-area and education-area might be shortened.

Keywords: beginning teachers, construction of a common, social mobilization in the teaching profession, teacher training institution, the relationality of the regulations and institutions

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Authors: Yi Yang

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In the era of 'Internet plus', the rapid development of webcast has posed new challenges to the intellectual property law. Meanwhile, traditional copyright protection has also exposed the existing theoretical imbalance in webcast. Through the analysis of the outstanding problems in the copyright protection of the network live broadcast, this paper points out that the main causes of the problems are the unclear nature of the copyright of the network live broadcast, the copyright protection system of the game network live broadcast has not yet been constructed, and the copyright infringement of the pan entertainment live broadcast is mostly, and so on. Based on the current practice, this paper puts forward the specific thinking of the protection path of online live broadcast copyright. First of all, to provide a reasonable judicial solution for a large number of online live copyright cases, we need to integrate the right scope and regulatory behavior of broadcasting right and information network communication right. Secondly, in order to protect the rights of network anchors, the webcast should be regarded as works. Thirdly, in order to protect the copyright of webcast and prevent the infringement of copyright by webcast, the webcast platform will be used as an intermediary to provide solutions for solving the judicial dilemma. In the era of 'Internet plus', it is a theoretical attempt to explore the protection and method of copyright protection on webcast, which has positive guiding significance for judicial practice.

Keywords: 'Internet Plus' era, webcast, copyright, protection dilemma

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Authors: Ying Bo Xie, Hisa Yuki Kurokawa

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Due to the fast development, China's express delivery industry has involved in a dilemma that the service quality are keeping decreasing while the construction rate of delivery network cannot meet the customers’ demand. In order to get out of this dilemma and enjoy a succession development rate, it is necessary to understand the current situation of China's express delivery industry. Firstly, the evolution of China's express delivery industry was systematical presented. Secondly, according to the number of companies and the amount of parcels they has dealt each year, the merits and faults of tow kind of operating pattern was analyzed. Finally, based on the characteristics of these express companies, the problems of China's express delivery industry was divided into several types and the countermeasures were given out respectively.

Keywords: China, express delivery industry, status, problem

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Authors: Crystal Shackleford, Michael Pasek, Julia Smith, Jeremy Ginges

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There is extensive debate about the causal role of religion in intergroup conflict. It is commonly accepted that religious beliefs promote in-group cohesion, but religion is often believed to exacerbate inter-group conflict. Fiji is religiously diverse and has a lengthy history of ethno-religious conflict. In a preregistered field experiment using a modified version of the trolley problem dilemma, Christian and Muslim Fijians were asked, first from their own perspective, and then from their God’s perspective, whether a religious ingroup member should sacrifice their life to save five children who were ingroup or outgroup members. Almost all Muslim participants believed that the person should always sacrifice themselves to save the children. Amongst Christian participants, thinking from God’s perspective increased their likelihood of saying the children should be saved by 35% and removed a 27% gap between responses to saving ingroup versus outgroup children. These results replicate previous findings from a Palestinian sample and demonstrate, in another cross-cultural context with a history of violent conflict, that religious cognition can decrease bias and promote the application of universal moral principles.

Keywords: conflict, moral dilemma, psychology, religion, thought experiments

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Authors: Regan Harper, Song Yang, Douglas Adams

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During the historically unprecedent time of Covid-19 pandemic, we survey college students with social issue generators to measure their core discussion groups. For the total 191 students, we elicit 847 conversation partners (alters) with our five social issue generators such as school closing, facemasks, collegiate sports, race and policing, and social inequality, producing an average of 4.43 alters per respondent. The core discussion groups of our sample are very gender balanced, with female alters slightly outnumbering male alters. However, the core discussion groups are racially homogenous, consisting of mostly white students (around or above 80 percent). Explanatory analyses reveal that gender and race of respondents significantly impact the size, gender composition, and racial composition of their core discussion networks. We discuss those major findings and implications of future studies in our conclusion section.

Keywords: core discussion groups, social issue generators, ego-centric network, Covid-19 pandemic

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Authors: Shih-Chieh Liao, Cheng-Yan Shuai

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The feature of a side-scrolling shooting game is facing the surrounding enemy and barraging in entire screen. The player will be in trouble when they are trying to do complicated operations because of the physical and system limitations of the joystick in the games. This study designed the prototype of a new type of arcade stick by focus group and assessed by the expert. By filtering the most representative, and build up the control system for the arcade stick, and testing time and bullets consumed in two experiments, try to prove it works in the game. Finally, the prototype of L-1 solves the dilemma of scroll shooting games when the player uses the arcade stick and improves the function of the arcade stick.

Keywords: arcade stick, joystick, user interface, 2D STG

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Authors: Jurica Hižak

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Getting to know the agents, i.e., identifying the free riders in a population, can be considered one of the main challenges in establishing cooperation. An ordinary memory-one agent such as Tit-for-tat may learn “who is who” in the population through direct interactions. Past experiences serve them as a landmark to know with whom to cooperate and against whom to retaliate in the next encounter. However, this kind of learning is risky and expensive. A cheaper and less painful way to detect free riders may be achieved by gossiping. For this reason, as part of this research, a special type of Tit-for-tat agent was designed – a “Gossip-Tit-for-tat” agent that can share data with other agents of its kind. The performances of both strategies, ordinary Tit-for-tat and Gossip-Tit-for-tat, against Always-defect have been compared in the finite-game framework of the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma via the Moran process. Agents were able to move in a random-walk fashion, and they were programmed to play Prisoner’s Dilemma each time they met. Moreover, at each step, one randomly selected individual was eliminated, and one individual was reproduced in accordance with the Moran process of selection. In this way, the size of the population always remained the same. Agents were selected for reproduction via the roulette wheel rule, i.e., proportionally to the relative fitness of the strategy. The absorption probability was calculated after the population had been absorbed completely by cooperators, which means that all the states have been occupied and all of the transition probabilities have been determined. It was shown that gossip increases absorption probabilities and therefore enhances the evolution of cooperation in the population.

Keywords: cooperation, gossip, indirect reciprocity, Moran process, prisoner’s dilemma, tit-for-tat

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Authors: Ashwaq Alsulami, Jianhua Shao

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Various organisations often need to understand discussions on social media, such as what trending topics are and characteristics of the people engaged in the discussion. A number of approaches have been proposed to extract attributes that would characterise a discussion group. However, these approaches are largely based on supervised learning, and as such they require a large amount of labelled data. We propose an approach in this paper that does not require labelled data, but rely on lexical sources to detect meaningful attributes for online discussion groups. Our findings show an acceptable level of accuracy in detecting attributes for Twitter discussion groups.

Keywords: attributed community, attribute detection, community, social network

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Authors: Dyana Zainudin, Atta Ur-Rahman, Thaier Hamed

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This paper explains about human nature concept as to understand the significance of information security in employees’ mentality including leaders in an organisation. By studying on a theory concept of the latest Von Solms fourth waves, information security governance basically refers to the concept of a set of methods, techniques and tools that responsible for protecting resources of a computer system to ensure service availability, confidentiality and integrity of information. However, today’s information security dilemma relates to the acceptance of employees mentality. The major causes are a lack of communication and commitment. These types of management in an organisation are labelled as immoral/amoral management which effects on information security compliance. A recovery action is taken based on ‘learn a lesson from incident events’ rather than prevention. Therefore, the paper critically analysed the Von Solms fourth waves’ theory with current human events and its correlation by studying secondary data and also from qualitative analysis among employees in public sectors. ‘Three-dimensions to failure’ of information security dilemma are explained as deny, don’t know and don’t care. These three-dimensions are the most common vulnerable behaviour owned by employees. Therefore, by avoiding the three-dimensions to failure may improve the vulnerable behaviour of employees which is often related to immoral/amoral management.

Keywords: information security management system, information security behaviour, information security governance, information security culture

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Authors: Mei Xuan Tan, Eng Ying Bong

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Academic discussion during and after instructional teaching is an integral part of learning. Such discussion between the instructor and student or peer-to-peer discussion can be in several different forms. It could be face-to-face discussion, via email and use of online discussion forum. In this study, the effectiveness of using WhatsApp for academic discussion for a first year half-credit Chemistry course was examined. This study was run over two years with two different batches of students. Participation in the study was voluntary and student volunteers were recruited within the first week of the term. The activity in the WhatsApp group was monitored by two instructors teaching the course. At the end of the course, the students participated in an online survey to evaluate their experience of using WhatsApp for academic discussion. There were a total of 26 questions. The survey had a total of 4 sections with regards to the use of WhatsApp for academic discussion: 1) Familiarity with WhatsApp, 2) Effectiveness of using WhatsApp for discussion, 3) Challenges and 4) Overall experience. The main purpose of using an IM platform for academic discussion was to encourage after-class discussion amongst the students. 32% of the participants had used other online platform, such as Piazza and forums in Learning Management System (LMS), for after-class academic discussion with their instructors and peers. This was a low percentage considering that some courses use such online platform as their main forum amongst instructors and students. At the end of our study, over 83% of the participants felt that WhatsApp was a more effective platform compared to other online forum. One interesting finding was the effect of WhatsApp discussion on face-to-face interaction with instructors. 28% of the students agreed that the use of WhatsApp as a discussion forum had encouraged them to approach their instructors during or after class. 51% of students answered neutral. This could be interpreted that the use of WhatsApp had not affected the frequent (or lack of) face-to-face interaction with their instructors. A second survey question, similar but phrased differently from the first, was also asked to evaluate the aspect of face-to-face interaction with instructors. 34% disagreed that the use of WhatsApp had reduced the frequency of face-to-face interaction. This could imply that the frequency remained the same or might have increased. The 38% who agreed to a decrease in face-to-face interaction have either asked the questions in WhatsApp or had their questions answered by a query from another student in the group chat. These outcomes suggested that the use of technology aided and complemented face-to-face interaction between instructors and students. The study also looked at the challenges of using WhatsApp for academic discussion. Some challenges included difficulty in referring back to previous discussion and students finding some discussions irrelevant to them. In conclusion, the use of IM platform for academic discussion was desirable for the students, but it should not be the only channel as face-to-face consultation and online forum for lengthy discussion are still important for after-class learning of students.

Keywords: chemistry, pedogogy, technological tools, undergraduate

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Authors: Avantika Verma

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Diabetic retinopathy (DR) and Central serous retinopathy (CSR) are 2 distinct entities, with difference in age of presentation, eitiopathogenesis and clinical features, but when occurring together, can be a diagnostic dilemma and requires careful evaluation. Case study of 3 patients with long standing diabetes (>15yrs) and features of Central serous retinopathy was done at Bangalore West Lions Superspeciality Eye Hospital, Bangalore, India in 2013. Even though diabetic retinopathy and CSR have different pathologies, they can coexist. The reason for coexistence could be the following: A patient with CSR as a young adult could develop DR in later years. Stress could be the contributing factor in older patient with diabetes.Stress could be a common factor for both, as it is one of the important factors in the pathogenesis of Maturity Onset Diabetes Miletus (MODY). In any situation, a careful evaluation is necessary to differentiate the cause of fundus picture, as treatment differs for the two diseases.

Keywords: central serous retinopathy, diabetic retinopathy, existence, stress

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Authors: Mitra Ghiasi, Roghayeh Ghorbani Bousari

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Nowadays, the aim of the organizations is to gain sustainable competitive. So, developing their intellectual capital, encouraging innovation, increasing suitable performance can be done by knowledge management. Knowledge turns into science if knowledge is used to improve decision making, decision quality and make effective decisions. The current research intends to investigate the relationship between cybernetics and knowledge management from the perspective of users who are members of electronic discussion groups (ALA, ALIA). The research methodology is survey method, and it is a type of correlation research. Cybernetics and knowledge management questionnaires used for collecting data. The questionnaire that was designed in electronic format, distributed among two electronic discussion groups during 30 days and completed by 100 members of each electronic discussion groups. The finding of this research showed that although cybernetics has an impact on knowledge management, there is no significant difference between the ALA and ALIA user's view regard to effect of cybernetics on knowledge management. The results also indicated that this conceptual model is consistent with the data collected from the sample.

Keywords: ALA discussion group, ALIA discussion group, cybernetics, knowledge management

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Authors: K. Durairaj, I. N. Umar

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Lately, asynchronous discussion forum is integrated in higher educational institutions as it may increase learning process, learners’ understanding, achievement and knowledge construction. Asynchronous discussion forum is used to complement the traditional, face-to-face learning session in hybrid learning courses. However, studies have proven that students’ engagement in online forum are still unconvincing. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the motivating factors and obstacles that affect the learners’ engagement in asynchronous discussion forum. This study is carried out in one of the public higher educational institutions in Malaysia with 18 postgraduate students as samples. The authors have developed a 40-items questionnaire based on literature review. The results indicate several factors that have encouraged or limited students’ engagement in asynchronous discussion forum: (a) the practices or behaviors of peers, or instructors, (b) the needs for the discussions, (c) the learners’ personalities, (d) constraints in continuing the discussion forum, (e) lack of ideas, (f) the level of thoughts, (g) the level of knowledge construction, (h) technical problems, (i) time constraints and (j) misunderstanding. This study suggests some recommendations to increase the students’ engagement in online forums. Finally, based upon the findings, some implications are proposed for further research.

Keywords: asynchronous discussion forum, engagement, factors, motivating, limiting

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Authors: H. Maita

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This paper addresses the issue of the speaking challenges that the Algerian PhD students experience during their studies abroad, particularly in UK territory; more specifically, this study describes how these students may deal with such challenges and whether the cultural differences is one core reason in such dilemma or not. To this end, an understanding and interpretation of what actually encompasses both linguistic interference and cultural differences are required. Throughout the paper there is an attempt to explain the theoretical basis of the interpretive research and to theoretically discuss the pivotal use of the interview, as a data collection tool, in interpretive research. Thus, the central issue of this study is to frame the theoretical perspective of the interpretive research through the discussion of PhD Algerian’s communication and interaction challenges in the EFL context. This study is a corner stone for other research studies to further investigate the issue related to communication challenges because no specific findings will be pointed out in this research.

Keywords: communication, EFL, interaction, linguistic interference

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Authors: N. Tal-Alon, O. Shapira-Lishchinsky

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Disability disclosure is one of the most complicated dilemmas that people with invisible disabilities face. There are only a few research studies that have focused on the difficulties and dilemmas of teachers who have different disabilities. In addition, there are currently no research studies focusing specifically on the different aspects of disability disclosure, which are unique to teachers. This research has, therefore, broadened the knowledge base and understanding of the dilemma of disability disclosure among teachers with invisible physical disabilities. In addition, it has shed light on the ways this issue is perceived by different groups: the perspective of school principals, the perspective of colleagues, and the perspective of teachers with physical disabilities themselves. The study sample included 12 teachers with invisible physical disabilities, 10 school principals who employ at least one teacher with an invisible physical disability, and 10 professional colleagues of at least one teacher with an invisible physical disability. This particular research study was conducted using a qualitative approach through the Narralizer computer program based on a series of in-depth interviews. The data analysis was carried out by grouping major points of interest into specific categories and sub-categories. The findings of this research suggest that teachers with disabilities struggle with the dilemma of whether or not to reveal their disability to the school staff and to their students. It was found that there were considerable differences between the issues that faculty members considered regarding this dilemma and the ones that teachers with disabilities considered. While the principals and professional colleagues focused solely on their own interests, the teachers with a disability emphasized more on the ways that they might have a positive influence on their students, as well as their own individual interests. In addition, school principals on a whole tended to view negatively the option of disclosing the disability to the students and were often critical towards teachers who concealed their disability from the school staff. The importance of this research is in its potential to influence policy decisions that can be implemented by the Ministry of Education regarding the support system for teachers with invisible physical disabilities.

Keywords: education, employment, invisible disabilities, teachers

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Authors: Ali E. Abbas

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This paper summarizes some of the discussions that occurred in a workshop in West Virginia, U.S.A which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in February 2016. The goal of the workshop was to explore the opportunities and challenges for applying systems engineering in large enterprises, and some of the issues that still persist. The main topics of the discussion included challenges with elaboration and abstraction in large systems, interfacing physical and social systems, and the need for axiomatic frameworks for large enterprises. We summarize these main points of discussion drawing parallels with decision making in organizations to instigate research in these discussion areas.

Keywords: decision analysis, systems engineering, framing, value creation

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Authors: Adi Levy

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Military and security personnel defections during nonviolent resistance (NVR) campaigns are recognized as an effective way of undermining the regime’s power, but they also may generate moral dilemmas that contradict the moral standing of NVR tactics. NVR campaigns have been primarily praised for their adherence to moral and legal norms, yet some of NVR tactics raise serious ethical concerns. This paper focuses on NVR tactics that seek to promote defections and disobedience within military and security personnel to sustain their campaign. Academic literature regarding NVR tactics indicates that compared to violent forms of resistance, defections are more likely to occur when security forces confront nonviolent activists. Indeed, defections play a strategically fundamental role in nonviolent campaigns, particularly against authoritarian regimes, as it enables activists to undermine the regime’s central pillars of support. This study examines the events of the Arab Spring and discusses the ethical problems that arise in nonviolent activists’ promotion of defections and disobedience. The cases of Syria and Egypt suggest that the strategic promotion of defections and disobedience was significantly effective in sustaining the campaign. Yet, while such defections enhance nonviolent activists’ resilience, how they are promoted can be morally contentious and the consequences can be dire. Defections are encouraged by social, moral and emotional appeals that use the power disparities between unarmed civilians and powerful regimes to affect soldiers and security personnel’s process of decision-making. In what is commonly referred to as dilemma action, nonviolent activists deliberately entangle security forces in a moral dilemma that compels them to follow a moral code to protect unarmed civilians. In this way, activists sustain their struggle and even gain protection. Nonviolent activists are likely to be completely defeated when confronted with armed forces. Therefore they rely on the military and security personnel’s moral conscious of convincing them to refrain from using force against them. While this is effective, it also leaves soldiers and security forces exposed to the implications and punishments that might follow their disobedience or defection. As long as they remain nonviolent, activists enjoy civilian immunity despite using morally contentious tactics. But the severe implications brought upon defectors. As a result, demand a deep examination of this tactic’s moral permissibility and a discussion that assesses culpability for the moral implications of its application.

Keywords: culpability, defections, nonviolence, permissibility

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Authors: Maureen Montalban

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The military is a predominantly male-dominated organisation that has entrenched hierarchical and patriarchal norms. Since 1975, women have been allowed to continue active service in the Australian Defence Force during pregnancy and after the birth of a child; prior to this time, pregnancy was grounds for automatic termination. The military and family, as institutions, make great demands on individuals with respect to their commitment, loyalty, time and energy. This research explores what it means to serve in the Australian Army as a woman through a gender lens, overlaid during a specific time period of their service; that is, during pregnancy, birth, and being a mother. It investigates the external demands faced by servicewomen who are mothers, whether it be from society, the Army, their teammates, their partners, or their children; and how they internally make sense of that with respect to their own identity and role as a mother, servicewoman, partner and as an individual. It also seeks to uncover how Australian Army servicewomen who are also mothers attempt to manage the dilemma of serving two greedy institutions when both expect and demand so much and whether this is, in fact, an impossible dilemma.

Keywords: women's health, gender studies, military culture, identity

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Authors: Lin Peng, Jin Zhang, Yuanyuan Miao, Quanquan Zheng

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Group discussion and group decision-making have long been a topic of research interest. Traditional research on group decision making typically focuses on the strategies or functional models of combining members’ preferences to reach an optimal consensus. In this research, we want to explore natural process group decision making through discussion and examine relevant, influential factors--common superordinate identity shared by group and size of the groups. We manipulated the social identity of the groups into either a shared superordinate identity or different subgroup identities. We also manipulated the size to make it either a big (6-8 person) group or small group (3-person group). Using experimental methods, we found members of a superordinate identity group tend to modify more of their own opinions through the discussion, compared to those only identifying with their subgroups. Besides, members of superordinate identity groups also formed stronger identification with group decision--the results of group discussion than their subgroup peers. We also found higher member modification in bigger groups compared to smaller groups. Evaluations of decisions before and after discussion as well as group decisions are strongly linked to group identity, as members of superordinate group feel more confident and satisfied with both the results and decision-making process. Members’ opinions are more similar and homogeneous in smaller groups compared to bigger groups. This research have many implications for further research and applied behaviors in organizations.

Keywords: group decision making, group size, identification, modification, superordinate identity

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Authors: K. Durairaj, I. N. Umar

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The asynchronous discussion forum is one of the most widely used activities in learning management system environment. Online forum allows participants to interact, construct knowledge, and can be used to complement face to face sessions in blended learning courses. However, to what extent do the students perceive the benefits or advantages of forum remain to be seen. Through content and social network analyses, instructors will be able to gauge the students’ engagement and knowledge construction level. Thus, this study aims to analyze the students’ level of knowledge construction and their participation level that occur through online discussion. It also attempts to investigate the relationship between the level of knowledge construction and their social interaction patterns. The sample involves 23 students undertaking a master course in one public university in Malaysia. The asynchronous discussion forum was conducted for three weeks as part of the course requirement. The finding indicates that the level of knowledge construction is quite low. Also, the density value of 0.11 indicating that the overall communication among the participants in the forum is low. This study reveals that strong and significant correlations between SNA measures (in-degree centrality, out-degree centrality) and level of knowledge construction. Thus, allocating these active students in a different groups aids the interactive discussion takes place. Finally, based upon the findings, some recommendations to increase students’ level of knowledge construction and also for further research are proposed.

Keywords: asynchronous discussion forums, content analysis, knowledge construction, social network analysis

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Authors: Park Eri, Sklad Marcin, Tsirogianni Stavroula

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In a world where there is increasing exchange and movement of populations groups, and interconnectedness, there are plenty of opportunities for mutual cultural enrichment. However, in everyday life, relations among different cultural groups do not go that smoothly often resulting in discrimination, inequalities and violence. The increasing differentiation of roles, values and worldviews raise a lot of tensions and dilemmas for the state and people -especially in western liberal societies- about issues of acceptance, fairness, justice, autonomy, plurality, freedom, equality and cohesion. Cultural diversity requires a deeper understanding of the roots, meaning and consequences of group differences. We argue, that a psychology from the standpoint of the subject needs to be developed further according to new societal needs. This means within a globalised society, issues regarding the construction of the other as another have become of utmost importance. In constructing the other human beings construct their ideal and possible worlds and meanings about their lives and their significance by drawing on a set of cultural norms, beliefs and values embedded in the different contexts whereby they find themselves in. In this article, we are describing a series of exercises developed in collaboration with University students in the Netherlands that have been piloted with undergraduate 2nd year University Psychology students. These exercises aimed at making tangible and obvious how students apply different moral principles and norms to regulate relationships, which are linked to hegemonic ideological forces. The exercises were in the form of thought experiments that included 8 moral dilemmas, inspired by the moral foundations theory, that touched on different moral principles. The moral dilemmas were built onto each other in incremental steps: from a very tangible/hands-on level to more challenging and demanding ones which require to step into pre-existing networks on knowledge and discourses. After the execution of every dilemma, a discussion followed, which is focused on building links between the ‘theme of the exercise’ and participants’ own lives experiences. In this paper, we provide an evaluation of the methodology used through a discursive analysis of the discussion between the students and the teacher.

Keywords: citizenship, moral dilemmas, social justice, education

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Authors: Ihuarulam A. Ikenna

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In the past few decades, the field of chemistry education has grown tremendously and researches indicated that after traditional chemistry instruction students often lacked deep conceptual understanding and failed to integrate their ideas into coherent conceptual framework. For several concepts in chemistry, students at all levels have demonstrated difficulty in changing their initial perceptions. Their perceptions are most often wrong and do not agree with correct scientific concepts. This study explored the effectiveness of intervention discussion sections for a college general chemistry course designed to apply research on students preconceptions, knowledge integration and student explanation. Three interventions discussions lasting three hours on bond energy and spontaneity were done tested and intervention (treatment) students’ performances were compared with that of control group which did not use the experimental pedagogy. Results indicated that this instruction which was capable of identifying students' misconceptions, initial conceptions and integrating those ideas into class discussion led to enhanced conceptual understanding and better achievement for the experimental group.

Keywords: remedying, students’ misconceptions, learning, intervention discussion, learning model

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Authors: James Etim Archibong

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The death penalty, to be or not to be, is a topical and hugely divisive issue in several countries. The United Nations recommends its universal abolition. Europe has abolished it, while some countries limit the practice to heinous crimes. Nigeria is one of the countries that have retained the death penalty. In 2004, the federal government placed a moratorium on execution, which was breached in 2006, 2013 and 2016. Nigeria currently has about three thousand inmates on death row because governors are reluctant to sign execution warrants. Human rights groups have consistently called for its abolition in Nigeria, but this has been rebuffed by the government. Nigeria currently finds itself in a dilemma between the global campaign to end the practice and the local support for its retention. This paper, employing a doctrinal approach, examines the concept of capital punishment in Nigeria from the first execution in 1971 to date. It has also examined the debate to abolish or retain it against the backdrop of Nigeria’s present social, economic and multicultural circumstances. It finds that the death penalty is a human right issue and Nigeria should join the majority of states that have dispensed with the practice. While the government contemplates which way to go, amid the impasse, the paper recommends, in the interim, an official, legally backed a moratorium on execution; commuting of death sentences to life imprisonment, and eventually expunging it from the constitution in the ongoing constitutional review.

Keywords: death penalty, capital punishment, human rights, deterrence, right to life

Procedia PDF Downloads 148