With digital equipment becoming increasingly networked, either on wired or wireless networks, for personal and professional use alike, distributed software systems have become a crucial element in information and communications technologies. The study of these systems forms the core of the ARLES' work, which is specifically concerned with defining new system software architectures, based on the use of emerging networking technologies. In this context, we concentrate on the study of distributed systems which bring to life the vision of ubiquitous computing systems, also known as ambient intelligence.

반도체 공정 overview

This chapter discusses leading problems linked to energy that the world is now confronting and to propose some ideas concerning possible solutions. Oil deserves special attention among all energy sources. Since the beginning of 1981, it has merely been continuing and enhancing the downward movement in consumption and prices caused by excessive rises, especially for light crudes such as those from Africa, and the slowing down of worldwide economic growth. Densely-populated oil-producing countries need to produce to live, to pay for their food and their equipment. If the economic growth of the industrialized countries were to be 4%, even if investment in the rational use of energy were pushed to the limit and the development of nonpetroleum energy sources were also pursued actively, it would be extremely difficult to prevent a sharp rise in prices. It is evident that it is absolutely necessary to pursue actively the development of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power if a physical shortage of energy is not to block economic growth.

World energy outlook

Capitalism and Freedom

The Limits to Capital

Este articulo es, a dia de hoy, una de las piezas clasicas y fundamentales para la posibilidad de estudiar las relaciones globales de poder a partir de las herramientas conceptuales desarrolladas por Gramsci a lo largo de su obra. Cox, contribuye de esta forma a las corrientes criticas de las Relaciones Internacionales al discutir varios conceptos gramscianos y cuales serian las implicaciones para estudiar las relaciones internacionales en distintos periodos de hegemonia y contrahegemonia. De igual forma, el autor planteo la cuestion –en su momento novedosa– de la relevancia de tomar en cuenta los procesos internos de construccion de bloques historicos contrahegemonicos como aquellos que podrian tener un efecto revolucionario en las estructuras y organizaciones internacionales, asi como ruptura con la hegemonia plasmada como una clase perteneciente a un orden economico universal transnacional.  This article is a classic and fundamental for approaching global power relations with the conceptual tools developed by Gramsci. Cox contributes to critical thought in International Relations by discussing various gramscian concepts and what their implications are for the study of different historical forms of hegemony and counter-hegemony. Also, the author draws our attention –novel at the time of its publicaction– to the relevance of taking into account the construction of domestic counter-hegemonic historic blocs. He suggests that these could have a revolutionary effect on international structures and organizations, as well as rupture with the hegemony performed by the transnational economic order.

/pdf/gramsci-hegemonia-y-relaciones-internacionales-un-ensayo-4pf37zld7g.pdf

Gramsci, hegemonía y relaciones internacionales: Un ensayo sobre el método | Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method

Models and modelling are key tools for scientists, science teachers and science learners. In this paper we argue that classroom‐based research evidence demonstrates that the use of models and analogies within the pedagogy of science education may provide a route for students to gain some understanding of the nature of science. A common theme to emerge from the literature reviewed here is that in order to successfully develop conceptual understandings in science, learners need to be able to reflect on and discuss their understandings of scientific concepts as they are developing them. Pedagogies that involve various types of modelling are most effective when students are able to construct and critique their own and scientists’ models. Research also suggests that group work and peer discussion are important ways of enhancing students’ cognitive and metacognitive thinking skills. Further we argue that an understanding of science models and the modelling process enables students to develop a metacognitive awa...

The Role of Models/and Analogies in Science Education: Implications from Research.

Within the next five years, Chinese trade with Africa is predicted to reach $100 billion per year. Much of this springs from China's growing expansion into Africa's oil markets. It is argued that Chinese oil diplomacy in Africa has two main goals: in the short-term to secure oil supplies to help feed growing domestic demand back in China; and in the long-term, to position China as a global player in the international oil market. Yet at the same time, this oil safari is being accompanied by an explicit stance that emphasizes state sovereignty and ‘non-interference’ in domestic affairs and is wholly disinterested in transparency or human rights. Consequently, Beijing has increasingly been accused of turning a blind eye to autocracy and corruption. China is also threatening to undercut efforts by the African Union and its western partners to make government and business more accountable. While China is providing investment where little was previously forthcoming, concerns about Beijing's engagement with Africa's oil industries need to be resolved, not least by African leaders themselves.

China's oil diplomacy in Africa

With China’s rise to the status of world power, trade and political links between Africa and China have been escalating at an astonishing rate. Sino-African relations are set to become an increasingly significant feature of world politics as China’s hunger for energy resources grows and many African countries seek a partner that, unlike the West, does not worry about democracy and transparency, or impose political conditions on economic relations. 
Ian Taylor, one of the foremost authorities on the international relations and political economy of Africa, provides a comprehensive assessment of relations between China and Africa. He discusses the historical evolution of Sino-African relations in the period since the 1949 revolution, with particular emphasis on the period since the end of the Cultural Revolution. Considering in detail China’s relations with Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Malawi, Taylor demonstrates how China has used the rhetoric of anti-hegemonies to secure and promote its position in the Third World.
Taylor gives an engaging account of the hitherto under-researched topic of relations between China and Africa, a phenomenon of growing importance in contemporary international politics.

China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise

China's Africa Policy in Context. Oil Diplomacy. The Impact of Cheap Chinese Goods. The Issue of Human Rights. The Arms Trade. Peacekeeping. What Does It All Mean?

China's New Role in Africa

The People's Republic of China's (PRC's) policy towards Africa in the 1990s has its roots in the crisis surrounding the Tiananmen Square crackdown on 4 June 1989, and the heavy and persistent criticism by the developed world levelled against Beijing's human rights record since that date. Previous to this, the importance of the African continent to China had become less and less important in the 1980s, as the Cold War underwent a thawing process and China's modernisation project demanded foreign investment and technological assistance. Though Chinese officials paid rhetorical lip service to such issues as South–South co-operation, the reality of the situation was that Beijing was mainly interested in maintaining intimate relations with those countries from which it could benefit economically. In stark contrast to China's position in the 1960s and 1970s, exhortations and propaganda grounded in Maoist foundations disappeared, for the ‘socialist modernisation’ project of Deng Xiaoping demanded economic investment and a non-conflictual approach to international politics. As a result, non-ideological relations with the United States, Western Europe and Japan based on expanding trade links and co-operation took a priority in China's foreign policy formulation.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/161792.pdf

Ian Taylor

Papers

The Role of Models/and Analogies in Science Education: Implications from Research.

China's oil diplomacy in Africa

China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise

China's New Role in Africa

China's foreign policy towards Africa in the 1990s