Opposite Opinions Research Articles

The correlation of housing estate area with regional infrastructure development in peri-urban region of metropolitan Bandung Raya

Housing estates development in the peri-urban area is often used as a solution to meet the needs of urban housing. In this case, the development of housing estates built by developers, are including housing units as well as the facilities and infrastructure. Based on this practice, then two opposite opinions emerge about the participation of developers in the development of housing infrastructure. The first opinion acknowledges that residential developers have assisted the government in providing settlement infrastructure. Meanwhile, the second opinion considers the infrastructure development undertaken by the residential developers has precisely caused inefficient regional infrastructure development. This study aims to examine the correlation between the development of housing estates and the development of regional infrastructure by using simple linear regression analyses, in order to prove whether there is a relationship between the two variables. This research was conducted at West Bandung Regency (Kabupaten Bandung Barat), one of the regency that located in peri-urban of Metropolitan Bandung Area. Two variables used in this study consist of the area of housing estates variable and the infrastructure development variable. The infrastructure development variable is represented by The IKG score (Geographic Difficulties Index). In this study, two different levels of the area were conducted to the examination, the village, and the subdistrict. The result of this examination shows that there is a weak correlation between the variables of the housing estates area and The IKG, even though its relationship is getting stronger when the test performed on a larger area. Based on this research, it can be said that the development of housing estates infrastructure in West Bandung Regency has a lack of significant effect on the regional infrastructure development.

PARADOKS DAN IMPLIKASINYA DALAM HUMOR BERTEMA KORUPSI

The corruption-themed humours come along with the increasing number of corruption cases in this country. The uniqueness of paradox in the corruption-themed humours is a contrary opinion or argument to popular opinion could be considered as strange or extraordinary. This paper discusses the form of paradox along with its implications in the corruption-themed humour discourse. This paper aims to describe the form of paradox and its implications in corruption-themed humour discourse. This is a descriptive paper and uses qualitative explanation to elaborate the data. Based on the findings, there are six political humour discourses with the corruption-themed humour which contains paradox language style

Percutaneous vertebroplasty: Current controversy

Percutaneous vertebroplasty: Current controversy

Location-Aware Influence Blocking Maximization in Social Networks

In real social networks, it is often the case that opposite opinions, ideas, products, or innovations are propagating simultaneously. Although the competitive influence problem has been extensively studied, existing works neglect the fact that the location information can play an important role in influence propagation. In this paper, we study the location-aware influence blocking maximization (LIBM) problem, which aims to find a positive seed set to maximize the blocked negative influence for a given query region. In order to overcome low efficiency of the greedy algorithm, we propose two heuristic algorithms LIBM-H and LIBM-C based on the quadtree index and the maximum influence arborescence structure. Experimental results on real-world datasets show that both LIBM-H and LIBM-C are able to achieve a matching blocking effect to the greedy algorithm and often better than other heuristic algorithms, whereas they are several orders of magnitude faster than the greedy algorithm.

Comparison of serum interleukin-10 level of fungal exposure among patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis and healthy people.

Introduction: Sarcoidosis is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease with unknown etiology. Fungal exposure has been assumed as one of many possible causes of the disease. The prevalence of sarcoidosis is likely to be higher in the Northern Iran compared with other regions. Environmental studies have shown higher levels of fungal spores in the air of this area. Some studies have shown that fungal exposure in patients with sarcoidosis is associated with decreased levels of interleukin-10 (IL-10) serum levels. The aim of present study was comparison of the serum levels of IL-10 in patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis and healthy people. Objectives and Methods: In this current analytical, cross-sectional study, 40 patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis compared with 34 healthy individuals as a control group, who had been visited in a pulmonary referral clinic in Rasht (Guilan-Iran). Demographic data were collected by a questionnaire. Serum IL-10 levels were measured by ELISA kit. The data were analyzed by using the SPSS software (version 19). Results: The mean concentration of IL-10 serum levels were reported 10.96±9.48 pg/ml-1 and 3.77±1.47 pg/ml-1 among the patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis and healthy individuals, respectively. The significance difference was demonstrated between patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis and control group (p<0.0001). The IL-10 showed a significant difference between the patients older than 40 and those younger than 40. In statistical analysis, 4.75 pg.ml-1 was considered the cutoff point to separate patients and control group. Conclusion: The results showed that IL-10 was greater among patients who diagnosed as pulmonary sarcoidosis. There was a contrary opinion of the expectations for the role of fungal exposure as a possible cause of greater prevalence of sarcoidosis in Northern Iran. Age and stage of disease showed a significant relationship with the IL-10 serum level and requires further investigation. IL-10 might be a possible predictor of sarcoidosis along with other factors. (Sarcoidosis Vasc Diffuse Lung Dis 2018; 35: 294-298)

The Creation of Women from the Perspective of Mufassirun and Muhaddithun Between Past and Present Scholars

The creation of women is under constant debate, not only among the Islamic scholars but outspreads to feminists both from the west as well muslims.This debate stems from the differing views of the preceding and contemporary scholars in interpreting the texts from the Quran and the Hadiths on the creation of human particularly Eve as the first woman created by Allah. The majority of the mufassirun and hadith scholars in the past pioneered the view that the origin of human; that Eve was created from the rib of Adam a.s. This view was regarded by the feminists as derogatory to women. The contemporary mufassirun and muhaddithun are however of the opposite opinion whereby Eve’s creation was equal to that of Adam’s a.s; thereby indicating that creation of Eve did not originate from Adam a.s. Hence this study was undertaken with the aim of reviewing the opinions of the tafsir and hadith figures by comparing the views between the past and present scholars in interpretation of Quranic texts as well as hadiths pertaining to the origin and creation of women. This study also extends to examining the arguments on which the opinions of each group were deduced.In order to achieve the above objectives, this qualitative form of study will employ data collection method, conducted through library research to obtain data relating to the origin of creation of women, in particular turath literatures in tafsir for example Tafsir Ibn Kathir and tafsir works by the leading tafsir scholars in the like of Syed Qutb; in addition to the past and present books on syarah hadith. The findings of this study show that the previous and present scholars of tafsir or hadith took different methodology in understanding both textual authorities.Unlike the previous scholars of tafsir and hadith, some of the contemporary scholars’ understanding is that the texts are not to be construed literally; instead the texts need to be understood as parables and allegories thereby indicating that the creation of women is not from the ribs of Adam a.s.

Evaluation of attitudes of health care professionals towards the use of corticosteroids in the Republic of Kosovo

Irrational use of drugs/medicinal productsremains a major issue facing most health systems across the world, especially the developing countries with weak health systems, where mechanisms for routine monitoring of drug productuse are often not well developed or are at times non-existent. In order to collect preliminary data on real-life attitudes, beliefs and perceptions about the treatment with corticosteroid drugs (CSs), a representative sample of 30caregivers (medical doctors from different specialty) from Republic of Kosovo, was assessed during the period of March to April in 2017, where most of the surveyed (93.30%) were of Albanian nationality. More than 86% of all surveyed respondents confirmed that they prescribed CSs in the last year. According to the answers of the questionnaire, 33.33% of respondents prescribed 1 to 5 CSs in the last month, 23.33% of respondents prescribed5 to 10 CSs and 26.67% more than 15 CSs, while 16.67% not even once. The question concerning the attitudes on CSs treatment was answered as follows: 16.67% of all respondents had negative attitude on CSs treatment, 60% of the respondents expressed the opposite opinion, and the other 23.33% of respondents could not give a definite answer. Data from the separate analyses performed to determine the most common indication showed that allergy was the indication the CSs were mostly prescribed for (70%). Of the total CSs prescribed, obtained results revealed that low potency CSs (methylprednisolone, hydrocortisone, prednisolone) were often prescribed (70%), while the most commonly prescribed dosage forms were topical steroids, followed by the inhalation formulations and oral dosage forms (33.33%). Keywords: corticosteroids, irrational use, prescription, survey, corticophobia

Michael Psellos on Literature and Art: A Byzantine Perspective on Aesthetics ed. by Charles Barber and Stratis Papaioannou

Reviewed by: Michael Psellos on Literature and Art: A Byzantine Perspective on Aesthetics ed. by Charles Barber and Stratis Papaioannou Michael Edward Stewart Barber, Charles, and Stratis Papaioannou, eds, Michael Psellos on Literature and Art: A Byzantine Perspective on Aesthetics (Michael Psellos in Translation), Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 2017; paperback; pp. 446; R.R.P. US$40.00; ISBN 978026810048. Born as Konstantinos Psellos in Constantinople in 1018, the polymath Michael Psellos has been described by one noted Byzantinist as ‘the most amazing figure in Byzantine history’ (Anthony Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 191). While some might quibble with this designation, the burgeoning market for new translations of a wide range of Psellos’s writings underscores his current popularity. Building upon two earlier volumes on Psellos that focused primarily on his orations and letters, this third volume from the University of Notre Dame Press offers English translations and commentaries from a collaboration of scholars on a wide array of his writings on literary theory, visual ethics, and art criticism. For the sake of brevity, I highlight below only some of the sections that I found noteworthy in this fascinating collection. The art of Middle Byzantine rhetoric comes to life in the hands of a master. The book opens with two Psellian treatises on rhetoric, the first a letter to an unknown student, the second a synopsis of grammar in the form of a poem to the [End Page 192] future emperor Michael VII Doukas (r. 1071–77). In these lessons Psellos displays his virtuosity as a teacher and master of what he described lovingly as ‘sweet-speaking’ (p. 65). Elegant prose for Psellos was often a matter of individual style. The next selection of texts focuses on Psellos’s views on various literary genres and ancient authorities—pagan and Christian. Rather than relying upon divine intervention or regurgitating the classics, he insisted that inspiration must come from within. He praised the Church Father Gregory of Nazianzos (329–90) for his ability to employ simple vocabulary to craft his own masterful rhetorical style, declaring ‘Without emulating the ancients he opened up each and every stream from a source from within himself’ (p. 126). For Psellos, there was no single pathway to high rhetoric, advising his student that ‘Words, my son, lie scattered about just like (one might say) unarranged stones’ (p. 128). It was up to individuals to arrange the collected material as they saw fit to craft their own mosaic of ‘perfect composition’ (p. 133). Text and author were for Psellos often distinct identities; chameleon-like, the author needed to adapt his persona to the edicts of his chosen rhetorical form. Psellos recommends ‘to argue either side of a dispute, both because we can hold opposite opinions about the same matter, and because the good are somewhat similar to the bad’ (p. 81). How securely Psellos remained tethered to the religious norms of his day remains controversial. We often find him skulking through delicate theological territory. Although Psellos describes theology as ‘The Science beyond physics […] the first science’ (p. 233), he proudly displays his mastery of Aristotelian logic, Platonic metaphysics, and Neoplatonic visual aesthetics. While Plato stands above all other classical authors, Gregory’s writings earn Psellos’s highest praise, offering an exemplum of a Christian rhetor and philosopher, an idealized image of an educated man steeped in both Christian and non-Christian learning. As the editors suggest, it is likely that Psellos hoped his contemporaries would see Gregory as a double of himself. While some (e.g. Kaldellis, Hellenism, p. 231) contend that Psellos’s praise of Gregory functioned largely as a smokescreen, deployed to protect his Byzantine Hellenism from Christian hardliners within Constantinople, the editors counter that the complex tenor of his work does not support such an interpretation. On this point, Stratis Papaioannou asserts that, while Psellos’s models are predominantly non-Christian, we should not see some ‘sort of anti-Christian pagan world-view in Psellos’ (p. 101). Psellos rooted his visual aesthetic in Christian and Neoplatonist teachings. The study closes by exploring Psellos’s response to...

Effect of users’ opinion evolution on information diffusion in online social networks

The process of topic propagation always interweaves information diffusion and opinion evolution, but most previous works studied the models of information diffusion and opinion evolution separately, and seldom focused on their interaction of each other. To shed light on the effect of users’ opinion evolution on information diffusion in online social networks, we proposed a model which incorporates opinion evolution into the process of topic propagation. Several real topics propagating on Sina Microblog were collected to analyze individuals’ propagation intentions, and different propagation intentions were considered in the model. The topic propagation was simulated to explore the impact of different opinion distributions and intervention with opposite opinion on information diffusion. Results show that the topic with one-sided opinions can spread faster and more widely, and intervention with opposite opinion is an effective measure to guide the topic propagation. The earlier to intervene, the more effectively the topic propagation would be guided.

Turin Shroud, Resurrection and Science: One View of the Cathedral

AbstractIn a topic as controversial as the Turin Shroud, it is always surprising to note that there remains a large area of consensus among scholars who hold opposite opinions on the origin of this piece of fabric. According to the consensus view, neither science nor history can prove that the Turin Shroud shows signs of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. However, the reasons provided for this important claim are not convincing, especially in light of recent developments in historiography and analytic philosophy.

Social Debate on Free Trade Agreements: Illusions Versus Reality

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionNowadays the Free Trade Agreements (FTA-s) have been causing lots of controversies. New wave of populism, alter-globalism, and protectionism seem to be quite influential for the public discussion devoted to perspectives of implementing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). For instance, the published report (Bertelsmann Foundation, 2016) shows that there are important differences between Germans and Americans in their attitudes to trade. Only 56% of the German respondents believe increased trade relations with other countries to be something good (27% of the respondents are of the opposite opinion), while in America a positive opinion on the subject is shared by 82% of the respondents (13% of the surveyed people are of the opposite opinion). According to the Eurobarometer survey (2016) a decline in support for the TTIP was reported in 14 Member States, an increase in 9, and the same sentiment in 5. Some intuitive guesses concerning the nature of the social (including this one that is Internet provided) discourse make us suspect that there are not many judgments based on merits that would be involved in it.The main purpose of this paper is to confront the social perception concerning the FTA with the so-called knowledge. Defining a mismatch between the social perception and the expert may contribute to better understanding of the controversies on the FTA, as well as to proper defining possible sources of social conflicts and vulnerabilities of the policy implementation level. We want to verify the following hypotheses: there is a mismatch between social perception and expert on the FTA.The paper presents results of our research studies conducted on seven Polish web portals and one expert database. It should be mentioned that we also run the pilot survey focused on that issue (see Dzialo, Gawronska-Nowak, Jura, forthcoming). The key results of our pilot survey have been mostly confirmed in a bigger scale. We have also benefited from the pilot survey improving our methodological approach and defining sources of a possible bias in more precise way in this work.The paper is organised as follows. Section 1 contains description of our data and some methodological remarks. Using content analysis we try to capture some mismatch between facts and social perception in section 2. We focus on the Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) question as a special case study in section 3. Section 4 concludes.1. Data description and methodological remarksThe study presented in the paper is based on an expert base (37 documents: 20132016) and on seven Polish web portals (91988 documents, no time restriction, just subject keyword filter used:CETA, Jan 2016 - Feb 2017).1.1. Expert baseThe knowledge data is based on 37 documents, consisting of three basic types of publishing:* research papers published in Polish academic journals (mostly located in the area of economics, but also social and political sciences),* economic books,* economic reports.Within each group of documents we select a set of sources according to the two following criteria:* Occurrence of the key-words like: FTA, CETA, TTIP, and other phrases strictly connected with the Free Trade Agreements and combined with the words: analysis, effects, evaluation, etc.* Names of experts who publish papers/books in the area of international trade and free trade agreements. In the process of selection of the authors, we based on our about their professionalism and high level of quality of economic debate they present, as well as on the high number of citation of their articles.We believe that relying on the above-mentioned criteria of selection provides us with quite complete set of the up-to-date and good quality expert level publishing on the FTA. …

Exposure to the drug company marketing in Greece: Interactions and attitudes in a non-regulated environment for medical students.

BackgroundMedical students are targeted by the pharmaceutical industry and are exposed to their marketing strategies even in the preclinical years of study. The marketing strategies used by pharmaceutical companies with physicians are also applied to students, affecting their future prescribing behaviour, and include low-cost non-educational gifts, travel expenses and conferences registration fees. In Greece, there are no national or institutional regulations and guidelines concerning drug company–medical student interactions. This study is the first time this estimate has been made in Greece and assessed a) the interactions between pharmaceutical companies and medical students, and b) students' attitudes towards pharmaceutical marketing.MethodsA sampling of undergraduate medical students completed an anonymous, self-administered, web-based survey. The first part of the survey investigated the interaction between the students and pharmaceutical companies; the possible answers were the binomial variables ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The second part assessed the students' opinions of pharmaceutical company marketing and the answer options were ‘agree’, ‘don't know/don't answer’ and ‘disagree’.ResultsThe survey was completed by 412 undergraduate medical students (mean age 22 ± 2.2 years, 52.7% were women); the overall response rate was 58.9%. Although the majority did not consider accepting gifts and meals from drug companies as ethical, most of them (59%) had accepted meals and low-cost non-educational gifts, especially the clinical-level students. Further, 52,6% of the students did not believe that accepting gifts from pharmaceutical companies would affect their own prescription behaviour, whereas surprisingly they held the opposite opinion of their classmates. The vast majority (85.9%) agreed that sponsored lectures were biased in favour of a company's products; however, 47.6% agreed that promotional material is useful for learning about new medications and 34.5% believed that medical schools should allow drug company representatives to interact with students.ConclusionOur results suggest that medical students in Greece are notably exposed to pharmaceutical industry marketing and their conflicting answers demonstrate that they are inadequately prepared for this interaction. Interventions are needed so that students are prepared and able to manage these interactions critically.

Emotions and personality traits in argumentation: An empirical evaluation1

Argumentation is a mechanism to support different forms of reasoning such as decision making and persuasion and always cast under the light of critical thinking. In the latest years, several computational approaches to argumentation have been proposed to detect conflicting information, take the best decision with respect to the available knowledge, and update our own beliefs when new information arrives. The common point of all these approaches is that they assume a purely rational behavior of the involved actors, be them humans or artificial agents. However, this is not the case as humans are proved to behave differently, mixing rational and emotional attitudes to guide their actions. Some works have claimed that there exists a strong connection between the argumentation process and the emotions felt by people involved in such process. We advocate a complementary, descriptive and experimental method, based on the collection of emotional data about the way human reasoners handle emotions during debate interactions. Across different debates, people’s argumentation in plain English is correlated with the emotions automatically detected from the participants, their engagement in the debate, and the mental workload required to debate. Results show several correlations among emotions, engagement and mental workload with respect to the argumentation elements. For instance, when two opposite opinions are conflicting, this is reflected in a negative way on the debaters’ emotions. Beside their theoretical value for validating and inspiring computational argumentation theory, these results have applied value for developing artificial agents meant to argue with human users or to assist users in the management of debates.

An Informational Influence Perspective on (Non) conformity: Perceived Knowledgeability Increases Expression of Minority Opinions

Two studies tested whether perceived knowledgeability, a metacognitive indicator of attitude strength, predicts expression of minority (but not majority) opinions on social/political issues. In Study 1, the tendency for participants in the minority to be slower to report their opinions than participants in the majority was present among those who felt less knowledgeable in their attitudes toward controversial issues, but not among those who felt more knowledgeable. In Study 2, perceived knowledgeability moderated the relationship between minority opinion status on an issue and willingness to discuss an issue with someone who held the opposite opinion as oneself. In both studies, attitude certainty produced similar effects to perceived knowledgeability. Implications for processes of informational versus normative influence in opinion expression and conformity, as well as for the metacognitive model of attitude strength, are discussed.

Borderline intellectual functioning: an update.

Borderline intellectual functioning (BIF) is a descriptive v-code that is often used, especially in forensic settings, as if it were a full-fledged disorder. Various historical and other aspects of this classification are reviewed, and commentary is made on the question of whether to upgrade BIF to a regular psychiatric category, or to eliminate it by folding it into an already recently expanded category of intellectual developmental disorder (IDD). Full-scale intelligence quotient (IQ) is an outmoded concept that is decreasingly being used. For example, DSM-5 states that measures of 'executive functioning' (reasoning, planning, consequential thinking, attention, self-regulation, and so on) are often more meaningful that full-scale IQ as diagnostic indicators of IDD. Even the definition of BIF in DSM-5 no longer specifies an IQ score range. BIF is a descriptive v-code (rather than a typical psychiatric category), which started out as a sub-type of IDD (formerly mental retardation or intellectual disability) but morphed into its current status when the IQ ceiling for IDD was changed from minus one standard deviation (85) to minus two standard deviations (70). It has been suggested that, as people with BIF often have adjustment problems, the BIF category be elevated to the status of a formal psychiatric disorder. In this article, a contrary opinion is expressed, namely that the BIF category be dropped.

The Relationship between Personality Traits and Emotional Intelligence among High School Teachers in Nourabad Mamasani

In recent years, positive psychology approach, according to the talents and capabilities of people with the slogan of interest is psychology. The turn away, your ultimate goal is to identify structures and practices knows that well and provides human happiness. So the more human factors that match the needs and threat to life and cause, the most fundamental structures of this approach are studied. In the meantime, resiliency special place, especially in the fields of developmental psychology, family psychology and mental health, to be allocated (Campbell- Sills, Cohan, & Stein, 2006). Among the factors that affect resilience can be high esteem, positive problem-solving skills, strong links with the school, the peer group devoid of substance, higher intelligence, an internal locus of control and constructive communication skills, noted (Werner & Smith, 2000). Among the issues raised in the factors affecting the resiliency Resiliency is the role of intelligence, Some of the findings suggest that intelligence is a determining factor in resilience and confirm the opposite opinion It should be noted that the research group of general intelligence measured by IQ tests is to researchers, But today, other types of intelligence are considered as emotional intelligence (Derksen, Kramer, & Katzko, 2002). The first time in years (1990) psychologist «Salluy»-called emotional intelligence to impart quality and understanding other people's feelings, compassion for the feelings of others and the ability to apply effective administration ofmood. In fact, this intelligence, including understanding their feelings and others and use it to make good decisions in life. The first time in years (1990) psychologist «Salluy»-called emotional intelligence to impart quality and understanding other people's feelings, compassion for the feelings of others and the ability to apply effective administration of mood. In fact, this intelligence, including understanding their feelings and others and use it to make good decisions in life. In other words, a factor that defeat in a motivating and social skills by having high To establish a good relationship with the population. Emotional intelligence theory to predict a new perspective on success factors and also provides primary prevention of mental disorders Who complement cognitive science, neuroscience and child development. Emotional capabilities to expertly manage relationships with others is very important. Psychologist «Gollman» states The cognitive intelligence at best only 20% of success makes and 80 percent of success is dependent on other factors And the fate of people in many situations depends on the skills that make up emotional intelligence (Zakery, 2007). According to material presented on variables such as personality traits and emotional intelligence research on resiliency to examine the personality characteristics and emotional intelligence among high school teacher, is on resiliency.Express issueWhile the concept of intelligence is one of the concepts that from the past to the present case is concerned, But the important point is that in fact the study of the cognitive aspects of intelligence often, such as memory, problem-solving and thinking are emphasized. While noncognitive aspects of intelligence are not only the ability of emotional, personal and social well considered, But also in predicting a person's ability to succeed in life and the importance of compatibility are located. In this regard, one ofthe most important aspects of cognitive integration concepts (such as thinking) and noncognitive (e.g., excitement), emotional intelligence (Wong & Law, 2002). Emotional intelligence is a new concept proposed in recent years and used against cognitive intelligence. In fact, a noncognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence is historically rooted in the concept of social intelligence and for the first time bySerandayk (1920) was introduced. According to Srandayk, emotional intelligence and the ability to manage people to act wisely in human relations. …

Effects of convincing power and neutrality on minority opinion spreading

The dynamics evolution of the minority opinion in public debates is studied using a convincing power (CP) model with neutrality. In a given group, an agent with a definite standpoint (yes or no) can be persuaded to be a neutral agent, if its capacity of persuasion is lower than the average CP of its opponents. Besides that a neutral agent will change its state and follow a more persuasive opinion. Starting from two opposite opinions with different rates, repeated local discussions are found to drive the minority reversal. It reveals that in addition to the initial minority, the number of neutral agents is also an important factor to the eventual winners. During the process of consensus, there exists a threshold of initial fraction to guarantee one side win. The results have a guiding significance for designing strategies to win a public debate.

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN RUSSIA: THE RESEARCH EXPERIENCE OF TEACHERS ABOUTON INCLUSION

The article examines the results of the study of educators’ views on inclusive education and subjects of inclusive educational process. The paper considers the problems that deal with the perception of inclusive education subjects by teachers and teachers’ attitude towards inclusion as an educational innovation. The authors focus on the problem of whether educators are ready to implement inclusive education of disabled children in compulsory schools. The authors obtained data on the fragmentation, vagueness, and often contradictoriness of these views, the apparent predominance of the emotional and evaluative component that manifested itself in the division of teachers into those who spoke out for inclusion and those who opposed it. Despite the fact that with regard to inclusion, teachers have different, sometimes opposite opinions, negative experiences about changes in the educational process in case of inclusive education are typical of all teachers. In the minds of the majority of educators, inclusion was presented as a process that is inappropriate (at this stage in the development of the education system in our country), which includes more risks than positive moments, leading to a decline in the quality of the educational process, and negative changes in the relations between subjects of the educational process. The obtained results also testify to the lack of clear understanding of the subjects of inclusive educational process among teachers. Teachers rarely speak about inclusion as a process that is common to all its participants. This fact points to the educators do not understand the essence of educational innovation: this was manifested not only in the dichotomy that was clearly manifested: “ordinary children – children” special “,” parents of “special” children “ parents of ordinary children, but also in the idea of inclusive education as an innovation exclusively for children with disabilities.

The effect of the ownership concentration on earnings management. Empirical evidence from the Italian context

The numerous cases of business disruptions, involving opportunism and accounting fraud by shareholder, directors and managers, that have occurred in different countries over the past two decades along with institutional and context phenomena and with the rise of the 2008 financial crisis, have refocused the attention of academia, professionals and world policy makers on the disclosure processes used by companies and on corporate governance mechanisms. This paper, after a systematic description of the investigated issues – ownership structure, ownership concentrations and largest shareholders examines the relationship between ownership structure or concentrated ownership and earnings management in the Italian context, characterized by concentrated ownership and the dominance of the largest shareholder who exercises typically significant influences on management decisions directly or indirectly. Existing literature suggests, in an unequivocal way, the effect of the ownership structure on earnings management. According to some researchers, the ownership structure decreases the incentive to manage earnings. Others have the opposite opinion, they think ownership structure on earnings management provides the opportunity and incentive to manipulate earnings. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to analyse whether, in the Italian context, a firm’s ownership structure, measured with several variables, exacerbates or alleviates earnings management. Using a sample of 300 non-financial listed Italian firms from 2011 to 2013. We find that discretionary accruals, as a proxy for earnings management, is negatively related to ownership concentration and the second largest shareholder and positively related to first largest shareholder. The study’s results suggest that ownership concentration improve the quality of annual earnings, in a particular agency setting, by reducing the levels of earnings management.

Fretted Lines: Di-versification in Augusta Webster's Dramatic Monologues

Fretted Lines:Di-versification in Augusta Webster's Dramatic Monologues Herbert F. Tucker (bio) It seems as if the resistance, so to speak, offered to the plastic despotism of the artist by characteristics accepted, not made, called forth a subtler and a stronger skill than if he had worked with the limitlessness of free invention.1 I'll find it for you on a whitewashed wallWhere the slow shadows only change so muchAs shows the street has different darknessesAt noontime and at twilight.2 —Augusta Webster Nothing seems more to have gratified the modernism of Vita Sackville-West, in the course of a briskly condescending 1920s retrospect of Victorian women's poetry, than to drop Augusta Webster's dramatic poetry into the dustbin of intellectual history: "these blank-verse pieces . . . she probably regarded as vehicles for expressing her sociological opinions rather than as poetry."3 The remark of course is not really about Webster's intentions but about Sackville-West's opinion that the verse lies beneath notice. In this paper all that I have to say arises from the opposite opinion: that Webster's dramatic verse rewards the most careful attention we can muster. But first let me engage Sackville-West's imputation that the poet's chief allegiance was "sociological." I do so because most of the literary criticism Webster's long-neglected work has attracted within the last academic generation in effect endorses the sociological premise. It reads her writing for the ideas that are expressed there about socially embedded ideologies—principally of gender—as these were institutionally enforced and personally enacted in a British Victorian context. In pursuit of this quarry, our scholarship on Webster is seldom detained much longer than Sackville-West was by the artistic medium of expression. We now have [End Page 105] much better accounts than we did of the poet's life and career, discerning investigations of her feminism, and thoughtful calibration, at a generic level, of the prose and verse kinds she practiced. What remains regrettably scarce is analysis, even appreciation, of her poetry as such.4 Victorian reviewers knew better. Whether they commended or chastised Webster's versecraft, they made a point of discussing it; and the contradictory reactions they posted suggest that it may have proved particularly resistant to description within received Victorian categories. Whereas for one 1860s reviewer "Mrs. Webster's blank verse has none of the sustained music, the organic rhythm, which is necessary to make blank verse endurable," another found it if anything sustained to a fault, complaining about "the too great monotony of the verse, . . . the sameness, the lack of spring and impulse."5 This defect struck a successor as still unaddressed in the 1870 collection Portraits: "Mrs. Webster's verse, though always smooth and mellifluous, seems to us sometimes wanting in spontaneity." 6 But that same year, another critic suspected instead that she "composes too rapidly; many of the lines appear to run too easily" and want "concentration."7 The concentrated spontaneity these reviews jointly demand seems a tall order; yet it describes pretty well the result this poet obtained, with remarkable freshness of invention, in the books to which her critics were responding and to whose formal qualities their criticisms bore authentic if splintered witness. As a more acute contemporary reader of Portraits put the case, no doubt with an eye to the blinkered journalistic competition, "Her simplicity is likely to repel the multitude, whose taste has been vitiated by false imagery and sham sentiment. And this simplicity is combined with a subtlety of thought, feeling, and observation which demand that attention which only real lovers of poetry are apt to bestow."8 Subtle simplicity, concentrated spontaneity: getting at the characteristics that these oxymora name, and appreciating the artistic originality and cultivation that produced them, will require more attention to form than Webster's latter-day admirers have been accustomed to pay. Webster is not only an accomplished prosodist but is furthermore, within the metrical tradition certifying that accomplishment, an exquisite innovator in the resources of blank verse. We can more clearly apprehend the innovation, understated and elusive as it is, after a look at how thoroughly she mastered...