文学中的后现代伦理:晚期德里达、莫里森及其他

本文从后现代伦理的角度分析了托妮.莫里森的小说《宠儿》中塞丝杀婴行为所产生的伦理的悖论性,同时揭示了社群中所蕴涵和运作的矛盾结构,即晚期德里达所论述的免疫性与自身免疫性逻辑:每个社群在自我保护的同时,又在针对自身。这种结构存在于不同层面,美国的南北战争、黑人社群、塞丝同自己孩子的关系,甚至当前的反恐斗争都遵循这种逻辑。最后,本文指出,文学对于我们理解和把控当前世界局势的种种机制有着独特的优势和不可替代的作用。     

Web-Based Student Assessment for Program Evaluation

As part of an overall evaluation of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, (GLOBE) program, we designed a Web-based assessment environment to measure students' environmental awareness and data analysis skill. It was expected that students who were identified as high implementers in the GLOBE program would outperform low implementers in their ability to construct environmental inferences and the degree to which they could analyze environmental data. Seven high and middle school classrooms were identified as either high or low GLOBE implementers depending on the amount of atmospheric data they had collected during the year. Within each classroom students were assigned into smaller learning groups of three students per group. A total of 32 groups participated in this study. Analysis of students' responses to the tasks revealed that the students differed in their performance. Overall, the results showed that students in the high implementing classrooms were more likely to construct higher-level environmental inferences than students in the low implementing classes. Contrary to expectations, middle school students were more likely than high school students to solve the data analysis problem correctly. However, upon further analyses, high school students constructed more data graphs and were more skilled in providing correct evidence to support their decision making than were middle school students in GLOBE. This study confirms the viability of using technology-based assessments for measuring students' environmental awareness and data analysis.     

Landmark use by squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)

Two squirrel monkeys searched for a reward buried in 1 of 144 holes that formed a 12×12 grid (48×50 cm). An array of vertical, colored landmarks was placed on the grid, and their locations on the grid were changed from trial to trial. During training trials, the mealworm reward was placed either in the center of a square array of landmarks (Experiments 1 and 3) or midway between two landmarks (Experiment 2). On nonrewarded test trials, the monkeys searched among landmarks placed in the same arrays as those used in training and among landmarks placed in an expanded array (Experiments 1 and 2) or in an array intermediate between the two arrays used in training (Experiment 3). Distributions of searches on test trials indicated that the monkeys searched mostly within the configuration of the landmarks but that they had not coded the location of the reward as being either in the middle of the landmarks or at a fixed distance and direction from an individual landmark.     

The formation and evolution of international research alliances in emergent technologies: Research issues

Access to knowledge is increasingly the driver underpinning the globalization of research. In emerging industries, such access is often managed through alliance structures between small entrepreneurial organizations. The literature on international alliances, however, is dominated by studies of “Triad” nation partners (United States, Europe and Japan) which are often larger firms, collaborating for market access motives and usually with established technologies. In addition, prior research has concentrated on particular aspects, such as motives for, and initial circumstances of, alliance formation. Analyses of the dynamic aspects in the relationship between alliance partners are more scarce. This article describes a study of an international research alliance in which the technology is in the superconductivity industry (which itself is not conforming to traditional notions of an emergent technology), one partner is from a non-Triad nation and the primary motive for formation was access to knowledge. We argue that this study has revealed gaps in current alliance research and hypothesize how some more socially based and process-related considerations could enhance the debate on knowledge-seeking alliances.