Maoism with Italian characteristics: China’s global influence and the Italian Left, 1956–1976

In re cent ti mes, both in the aca de mic and the pro fes sio nal fields, the re has been a kind of abu se of the con cept of “Glo ba li za tion”. Mo reo ver, peo ple see it from very dif fe rent pers pec ti ves. For so me, it is the sour ce of di sin te gra tion, ine qua lity and loss of iden ti ties at a world sca le. For ot hers, it is the ba sis of a new world or der that opens op por tu ni ties of growth and de ve lop ment for all coun tries. Ho we ver, sel dom do the dif fe rent ap proa ches start from a sound analy sis of what glo ba li za tion is truly about. In fact, in the li te ra tu re on glo ba li za tion the re is no agree ment on what is the mea ning of this con cept. As Bar tel son puts it: “To day few doubt the rea lity of glo ba li za tion, yet no one seems to know with any cer tainty what ma kes glo ba li za tion real. So whi le the re is no agree ment about what glo ba li za tion is, the en ti re dis cour se on glo ba li za tion is foun ded on a qui te so lid agree ment that glo ba li za tion is”.1

Compound horizontal lines are composed of 2 segments of unequal length and width. Line bisection requires that the participants attend to the entire line (global attention). The longer segment often distracts participants, suggesting that attention directed to this segment (focal attention) disrupts the allocation of global attention. This study attempted to learn whether the allocation of focal attention to a line segment is distracted by global attention allocated to the entire line and whether there are right-left distraction asymmetries when allocating focal or global attention. Twenty-four healthy adults (12 > 65 years old) attempted to bisect horizontal lines composed of 2 segments of unequal length, with the larger segment placed to the right or left. They were also asked to bisect the longer segment of these lines. When allocating focal attention to the larger segment, healthy participants were more distracted when the smaller segment was on the left than on the right. In contrast, when attempting to allocate global attention to the entire line, participants were more distracted when the larger segment was on the right side. There were no significant differences between older and younger participants. The asymmetrical global distraction during segment bisection might be related to the right hemisphere's dominance in mediating global attention and allocating attention leftward. In contrast, the asymmetrical focal distraction during full-line bisection might be related to the left hemisphere's dominance in mediating focal attention and allocating attention toward the right. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Since the 1970s, feminist and LGBT scholarship has extensively focused on the impact that advertising, television and film have on the standardization and objectification of the female and lesbian body. However, little attention has been given to the images produced in global(izing) communication industries such as branding and stock photography. Brands and stock photographs alike may seem to be more invisible, although and perhaps because they are in fact much more pervasive than “traditional” media images. These images originate from major centers of post-industrial capitalist power and are used and consumed by multiple actors, ranging from communication professionals to ordinary consumers. In this article, I offer an in-depth critical reading of some key communication resources of two global corporations: the global coffeehouse chain Starbucks and the world-leading provider of stock photography Getty Images. First, I examine some of the key branding strategies used by Starbucks, with a specific focus on the deployment of the female body in the mermaid logo. Second, I examine Getty photographs aimed at representing lesbian subjectivities for a variety of uses. The differences that set us apart, or the eccentricities of our bodies, are increasingly exploited in globalizing contexts that require differentiation and distinction, though within the rigid structures that underlie the economic, political and cultural marketplaces of contemporaneity. For this reason, in my analysis I also and foremost focus on the visual treatment of key “abject” or “queer” features that characterize images produced both by Starbucks and Getty. In this way, I ultimately highlight some of the dynamics that underlie the coding of differences, rather than the homogenization of discursive practices in contemporary communication. Keywords: lesbian, female body, queer, abjection, stylization, Starbucks, Getty, branding, stock photography, visual communication, globalization.

While previous studies have shown that left- (vs. right-) hand contractions can improve the performance of global (vs. local) attention, these results were inconsistent in certain behavioral studies in which the left cerebral hemisphere was found to be specialized for local attention, while the right hemisphere was not specialized for global attention. Thus, we reexamined whether different global (vs. local) attention performances follow left- (vs. right-) hand contractions due to right (vs. left) hemisphere activation. We recruited 100 right-handed healthy female, university student (aged 19-26 years) participants. We used the Navon task to present 80 letter-stimuli (40 in the global task; 40 in the local task) to either the participants' left or right visual fields. Half of the participants (randomly selected) were instructed to squeeze a dynamometer with the left hand, while the other half squeezed with the right hand, prior to completing the Navon task. In line with previous research, we observed a perceptual advantage of global (large letters) over local (small letters) stimuli. Participants who contracted the right hand showed an enhanced local attention performance (from left hemisphere activation), whereas those who contracted the left hand did not improve global attention performance (from right hemisphere activation). Thus, we supported prior behavioral research suggesting that hemispheric asymmetry for attention processing is evident for left but not right cortical hemisphere processing.

Conventional approaches to video action recognition perform global attention over the entire video patches, which may be ineffective due to the temporal redundancy of video frames. Recent works on masked video modeling adopt a high-ratio tube masking and reconstruction strategy as a pre-training method to mitigate the problem of focusing on spatial features well but not on temporal features. Inspired by this pre-training method, we propose Fusion Attention for Action Recognition (FAR), which fuses the sparse-dense attention patterns specialized for temporal features with global attention during fine-tuning. FAR has three main components: head-split sparse-dense attention (HSDA), token-group interaction, and group-averaged classifier. First, HSDA splits the head of multi-head self-attention to fuse global and sparse-dense attention. The sparse-dense attention is divided into groups of tube-shaped patches to focus on temporal features. Second, token-group interaction is used to improve information exchange between divided patch groups. Finally, the group-averaged classifier uses spatio-temporal features from different patch groups to improve performance. The proposed method uses the weight parameters that are pre-trained with VideoMAE and MVD, and achieves higher performance (+0.1-0.4%) with less computation than models fine-tuned with global attention on Something-Something V2 and Kinetics-400. Moreover, qualitative comparisons show that FAR captures temporal features quite well in highly redundant video frames. The FAR approach demonstrates improved action recognition with efficient computation, and exploring its adaptability across different pre-training methods presents an interesting direction for future research.

ABSTRACTBackground–objectives: When vertical lines are positioned above or below the center of the page, line bisection deviates toward the center of the page, suggesting that the edges of the page distract the allocation of attention to the line. A letter-character line (LCL) bisection requires both global and focal attention, to identify the target letter closest to the line’s center. If more focal and less global attention is allocated to a LCL, more global attentional resources may be available and inadvertently allocated to the page. Alternatively, if the allocation of focal attention to a LCL inhibits global attentional processing, there may be less distraction by the page.Method: Twenty-four healthy adults (12 older) bisected vertical solid and character lines centered, or positioned closer to the top or bottom of the page.Results: There was no difference between bisection of solid and character lines centered on the page. Page-related deviations were greater with character lines than solid line bisections, and greater for lines positioned toward the top than the bottom of the page. With lines positioned toward the top, the older participants’ attempted bisections were higher than those of the younger participants.Conclusions: These results suggest that the allocation of focal attention increases global attentional distractibility and that global-background attentional distraction is greater when the vertical lines are placed in the upper part of the page. Older participants appeared to be less distracted when lines were placed toward the top of the page, but the reason for this age difference requires further research.

Extended Abstract 1. Introduction Today, Globalization in many different areas of science is discussed and there are different tendencies towards this phenomenon. The basic assumption of this research is that the impact of Globalization depends on the sociocultural contexts of each society. This study, based on some theoretical arguments, as well as, the results of interviews with students at Tehran University, shows that Globalization does not mean Westernization. In this study, the Internet has been considered as an important tool of Globalization, in particular Cultural Globalization. The basic assumption of this research is that the Internet, according to the social and cultural contexts of individuals, groups and societies, can have different consequences for their Cultural Identity. To test this assumption, the Classical and Modern Literature about Globalization and the Internet have been investigated and then the results of empirical findings of this research are presented. 2. Theoretical Framework In this study, the views of some experts in Globalization, in particular, Stuart Hall's views about Identity and Culture in the age of Globalization and Anthony Godden's views about the Formation of Identity in Modern Era, has been selected as theoretical framework. The complexity of reading and interpreting media messages and the complexity of the phenomenon of Globalization, according to the various contexts and the social factors, according to Hall's approach, and the formation of Identity in Modern Era, the Interconnectedness of Global Human-Social phenomena, and the role of Human Agency in developing them, in particular, Globalization, according to Godden's approach, are the theoretical basis of this research. In such approaches, the complexity of Globalization, the process of using the Internet and their impact on Cultural Identity of individuals and communities are emphasized. 3. Research and Method This research was conducted through a Case Study method. In Case Study method, the Theoretical or Targeted sampling is used. In this study, the researcher tried to choose students that are an example of professional Internet Users in Academia for interviews. Thereby, 30 students from 14 faculties of Tehran University at different educational levels were randomly selected and interviewed. 4. Conclusion In all the interviews conducted with students, it was observed that, in different areas of students' life, Family, Religion, Nationality, Ethnic Identity and Culture, National Identity and Culture, National Personalities and Figures, have a very important position. In their view, belonging to an Ethnicity and Nationality does not contradict Globalization. They are fiercely opposed to the rejection of their own Culture and Cultural Alienation. Also, they believe that keeping alive the name and memory of National Personalities and Figures, because of its functions for society, is essential. Most of them believe that not only the Internet disrupts their Social Relations, but also they could have used significantly the various data of Internet in Scientific, Social and Cultural subjects. And finally, they consider Cross-Cultural Exchange and Global Communications necessary for the dynamism, progress and development of society. 5. Suggestions Generally, my strategies to Conscious Confrontation with the Phenomenon of Globalization include: 1. Criticism of Nostalgic attitudes towards the Past; 2. Criticism of negative attitudes towards Globalization and, instead, take advantage of its positive aspects; 3. Conscious and Non-Ideological confrontation with the phenomenon of Globalization; 4. Providing the requirements for Cultural Pluralism; 5. Rebuilding and strengthening internal Intellectual and Cultural Foundations; 6. Access to Communication and Cultural Authority, through the use of Global Cultural Goods. In general, the fact that Social Problems can be rooted in several factors and a variety of fields, hence, all of these factors and the areas should be identified by Social and Cultural Agents, and by removing existing constraints and problems, provide the necessary conditions for rational choice of Transboundary Intellectual and Cultural Elements. If we provide the necessary conditions for people's thinking and living and believe in their ability to choose the right way of thinking and living, and in addition to gaining their trust and establishing Unity and Social Cohesion, we can play an important role in building and strengthening their Self-Confidence, Self-Control and Intellectual and Cultural Maturity in the complex, changing, uncertain and uncontrollable life in today's Globalized World and Society, and in this way, help the progress and development of society in all aspects, especially in Intellectual and Cultural aspects.

List of Tables and Figures Foreword: The Social Left and the Market System J.K.Galbraith Acknowledgements List of Acronyms Notes on the Contributors PART I: GLOBALIZATION AND RESISTANCE: THINKING THROUGH POLITICS Introduction: Globalization and the Politics of Resistance B.K.Gills Overturning 'Globalization': Resisting Teleology, Reclaiming Politics L.Amoore, R.Dodgson, B.K.Gills, P.Langley, D.Marshall & I.Watson Conceptualizing Resistance to Globalism J.Mittleman & C.Chin Resisting 'Globalization-From-Above' Through 'Globalization-From-Below' R.Falk Globalization versus Community: Stakeholding, Communitarianism and the Challenge of Globalization R.J.B.Jones Globalization and Democratic Provisionism R.Latham Rearticulation of the State in a Globalizing World Economy J.A.Hart & A.Prakash False Prophets and the Politics of the Retreat of the State I.R.Douglas PART II: STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE: FROM THE LOCAL TO THE GLOBAL Social Movements, Local Places and Globalized Spaces: Implications for 'Globalization from Below' P.Waterman From National Resistance to International Labor Politics D.Stevis & T.Boswell Globalization and American Common Sense: Struggling to Make Sense of a Post-Hegemonic World M.Rupert Globalization and Emancipation: From Local Empowerment to Global Reform J.N.Pieterse 'Corporate Welfare' Campaigns in North America K.P.Thomas Neoliberal Globalization, Social Welfare and Trade Unions in Southeast Asia J.D.Schmidt Globalization, Islam, and Resistance M.K.Pasha Mexico, Neoliberal Restructuring and the EZLN: A Neo-Gramscian Analysis A.D.Morton Globalization and Local Resistance: The Case of Shell versus the Ogoni C.I.Obi Structural Adjustment and the Response of Civil Society in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe: A Comparative Analysis S.J.MacLean, F.Quadir & T.M.Shaw Index

Previous researches about the influential factors of global strategic implementation only mentioned the contingency concepts of environment. They never obviously discussed whether globally industrial environments had the impact on resources allocation and organizational management and let alone distinguish the different industry globalization drivers among inbound and outbound transnational enterprises. Also no furthermore studies focused on the unique resources/capabilities whether to affect the formulation and implementation of global strategy and even global strategic posture. Owing to the constraints of past studies, this research has integrated industrial economics and management theory and practices, and then tries to construct the integrative framework. Connecting driving forces of industrial globalization and firm’s resource/capabilities as independent variables will be empirically verified whether to have an effect on the dependent variable of the configurations of global resources and global management control. Based on the investigation data of 104 inbound multinational companies in Taiwan and 112 outbound investment from Taiwan enterprises, multivariate analysis will be appropriately used for testing each hypothesis. My study has found that the global market, cost, government or competition driving forces and the firm’s unique resources/specific capabilities, significantly have major impact not only on the configuration of global primary and secondary value chain activities, but also on the global bureaucracy, clan, output or behavior control mechanisms. Next, connecting the industrial globalization with firm’s resources/capabilities still obviously has the significant overall effect of global configuration and global management control. In addition, whatever the distinctiveness of “necessities group”, “high technology group” and “financial group” for inbound enterprises or even “traditional industry group,” “highly chemical industry group” and “electronic technology group” for outbound corporations are classified, different industry clusters individually have the significant main and overall effect on global strategic posture. Thus, the research suggests the transnational corporation should catch up with the industrial globalization potentials, and then implement global configuration and flexible management control mechanisms. Simultaneously, connecting the unique resources with the internet media and integrating the specific capabilities with mutual beneficial knowledge management will be upgrading the efficiency and effectiveness for the transnational organizations.

An Analysis of Yip’s Global Strategy Model, Using Coca-Cola Strategic Leadership Model

Health services are now advertised in a global marketplace. Hip and knee replacements, ophthalmologic procedures, cosmetic surgery, cardiac care, organ transplants, and stem cell injections are all available for purchase in the global health services marketplace. "Medical tourism" companies market "sun and surgery" packages and arrange care at international hospitals in Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand, and other destination nations. Just as automobile manufacturing and textile production moved outside the United States, American patients are "offshoring" themselves to facilities that use low labor costs to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. Proponents of medical tourism argue that a global market in health services will promote consumer choice, foster competition among hospitals, and enable customers to purchase high-quality care at medical facilities around the world. Skeptics raise concerns about quality of care and patient safety, information disclosure to patients, legal redress when patients are harmed while receiving care at international hospitals, and harms to public health care systems in destination nations. The emergence of a global market in health services will have profound consequences for health insurance, delivery of health services, patient-physician relationships, publicly funded health care, and the spread of medical consumerism.

The US armed forces currently enjoy an unprecedented level of technological superiority across the full spectrum of military threats. These advances were primarily funded through US government and Department of Defense support of basic science and technology throughout the 50 years of relative peace experienced during the Cold War. A long-term investment in research has allowed the military to field key enabling technologies such as radar, jet engines, nuclear weapons, night vision, precision-guided munitions, stealth, the Global Positioning System, unmanned air vehicles, and information management systems that have dramatically changed warfare. Technological superiority will continue to be a cornerstone of our national military strategy. (1) While today's technological edge allows us to dominate the broad spectrum of conflict and win with relatively few casualties, maintaining a technological edge has become a key component of the vision to transform the US joint forces by relying on the development and fielding of high-technology weapons that enable a smaller force to be more effective. (2) The catalyst that created today's generation of technological advances was a post-World War II decision to create a huge national engine of public science. The blueprints of this engine were drafted in a report to President Truman by Vannevar Bush, who was the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. The foundation of Dr. Bush's plan was to fund investigator-initiated projects, largely conducted in academic laboratories, by civilians independent of the military establishment. (3) Under this construct, universities did fundamental research work--the R in R&D. Government laboratories and arsenals would then take some of that research and, with the cooperation of industry, develop it into military technologies. The vision Bush proposed clearly recognized that the applications developed from basic research often appeared many years after the work was initiated, and that there may be no clear benefit realized from much of this work. In the 50 years since the end of World War II, changes have occurred that might call for a major adjustment in our strategy for defense funding of scientific research. The two most important are the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a global technological marketplace. (4) Public funding of basic research for the Department of Defense during the Cold War was successful because it minimized risk by taking maximum advantage of long-term research projects that produced rather mature technologies for development. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is an example of a technology that has given US forces an incredible advantage on the modern battlefield. Research on satellites and a global positioning system began in 1946 after the publication of an article on geo-stationary orbits by physicist Arthur C. Clarke, more widely known for writing 2001: A Space Odyssey. The first GPS satellite was launched in 1978, with the full 24-satellite constellation completed on 9 March 1994. (5) In a way our science and technology capability has acted as an additional form of deterrence against our adversaries. However, in today's fast-paced and dynamic environment, the Department of Defense cannot afford 48 years to research, develop, and deploy critical technologies to the warfighter. Many critical defense technologies are now readily available in the global marketplace. Therefore advanced technology is as readily available to our adversaries and allies alike. This makes the in-house development of new capabilities ever more important. The Department of Defense is relying on an investment in science and technology to provide the foundation for transformational joint warfighting capabilities. However, the DOD has maintained the same basic research infrastructure and funding policies that were developed for the Cold War. In order Lo stay ahead of adversaries with access to technologies available in the global marketplace, the DOD needs to shorten the time-frame from concept to fielding. …

Global-local Knowledge Coupling Approach to Support Airframe Structural Design

Globalization is defined as an individual’s connectivity in global networks. Social identity is conceptualized as attachment and identification with a group. We use questionnaire items to measure individual involvement with global networks along with local, national, and global social identity. Propensity to cooperate is measured in experiments involving local and global others. Firstly, we analyze possible determinants of global social identity, showing a significant and positive correlation with an index of individual global connectivity. Secondly, we find a significant mediating effect of global social identity between individual global connectivity and propensity to cooperate at the global level. This is consistent with a cosmopolitan hypothesis of how participation in global networks reshapes social identity: Increased participation in global networks increases global social identity and this in turn increases propensity to cooperate with others.

This study is situated in a globalising world where cultural flows of people, practices and ideas are part of everyday life (Appadurai, 2001). Literature in the field of intercultural studies (e.g. Angrosino, 2007; Liamputtong, 2010, 2008) and the connected field of culture and identity (e.g. Crewe & Maruna, 2006; Hopper, 2007; Lawler, 2008) show that these cultural flows have some generalisable impacts on the way life is lived across the world, but they are also experienced in particular and diverse ways by individuals throughout the world. The study examines these flows through two inter-connected perspectives. From one perspective this thesis is a narrative-based inquiry into the effects of globalisation on middle-class Tamil peoples living in Chennai, India and Melbourne, Australia. From another perspective it is a critically reflexive account of one person’s efforts over a period of five years to understand and forge intercultural relationships with an ‘other’ culture in this globalising world. From both perspectives, the study is about ‘transformation’ for middle-class Tamils in Chennai, and Melbourne, and for the author, as the researcher. My PhD journey began as an investigation into the mediating impact of the English language upon cultures and cultural practices of Tamils living in two geographically distanced parts of the world. However, soon into the study I came to agree with a range of researchers, such as Crystal (2003, 2006, 2008), Graddol (2010), Kirkpatrick (2010) and Pennycook (1994, 2003, 2007), who point to globalisation and globalising practices as the major driving force behind the newly attained status of English as a (or the) global language. And so my reading broadened and a more complex picture emerged. Thus I became sensitized to the influence of globalisation on cultures, cultural practices and the language of the Tamil peoples in Chennai (and on Tamil diasporic communities in Australia). I explored the concept of globalisation through a range of theorists (e.g. Chirico, 2014; Robertson, 1992; Robertson & White, 2007; Turner, 2010b) and, importantly, Eriksen’s (2014) key concepts and dimensions of globalisation. I worked with Appadurai’s (1996, 2001) ‘global cultural flows’ to explain the shifts and transitions in national and international economies, political interactions, and an increasing sense of compressed time and place. The study is underpinned by a humanistic philosophy in the interpretive paradigm. I work with social constructivist theories associated with the social construction of meaning (Creswell, 2013; Denzin & Lincoln, 2008). The work of Burr (2003) and Gergen and Gergen (2001, 2004, 2009) are particularly important in the way I position myself as an intercultural researcher (see also A. Gray, 2003). Conscious of the tendencies in ‘insider/outsider’ debates to descend into simple dualism, I have taken on the role of ‘invited guest’ in my investigation ‘into’ these cultures and cultural practices. This methodological stance enabled me to participate in the daily activities, interactions and events of some Tamils in the course of my learning about the explicit and tacit aspects of Tamil cultures. However, I am mindful of Said’s (1978) warnings of the dangers of propagating colonialist approaches to power, exploitation, and control in research. My strategy, in this respect, has been to develop a distinctly reflexive narrative-based inquiry that draws rigorously on theorised notions of narrative, story and experience throughout this thesis (Etherington, 2004, 2007, 2009). I conclude that the linguistic and cultural practices of the middle-class Tamil participants in Chennai, India, as in Melbourne, Australia, are being significantly influenced by a range of globalising flows that can be seen to be in a state of profound “transition and transformation”. Individual Tamils and Tamil communities in Chennai are beginning to challenge the deeply held view of traditional cultures as being static, prompting them to engage in new identity work as they are impacted upon, and to some extent, engage with these global flows. In Melbourne, the middle-class Tamil families are in a complex process of transitioning into Australian social and cultural life, while consciously attempting to maintain what they see as ‘their’ traditional cultural practices. Globalising flows are having particular but quite diverse impacts on the identities and cultural practices of middle-class Tamil families, such that the deeply felt notion of the ‘joint’ family is changing, as indeed it has been changing over the course of the last one hundred years. My experience as an intercultural researcher, even one who was to a significant extent an ‘invited guest’, is that the journey of intercultural research is a slow and complicated one that requires time, patience and resilience in order to build understandings of an other’s cultures and cultural practices in a globalising world. I learned that I needed to be continually and reflexively open to difference and to transformation in ‘the other’ and ‘the self’, and to the ways in which my own background and cultures are unavoidably mediating the ways in which I learned about and understood the experiences and cultures of the middle class Tamil communities. This PhD study demonstrates what is possible in a globalising world when participating in intercultural encounters. It also reveals that these encounters can lead to further engagement through patience, attitudes of inclusiveness and reciprocity, understanding, and sensitivity.