Today Looks Research Articles

Pandemic Visitation Restrictions at the End of Life

Dying today looks dramatically different than it did a century ago, largely due to wider treatment options and more specialized medical practices. Often missing from these advancements is the focus on factors relative to a patient’s total circumstances. Especially in light of the recent pandemic, it is incumbent upon Catholic health care providers to treat who whole person rather than simply focus on more utilitarian philosophies of care.

Figure, image, reputation of politicians in the language and the actual political discourse (a corpus research experience)

The purpose of the article is to show the evolution of the concepts of “figure”, “image” and “reputation” in the Russian language in the last fifty years, to analyze their use in modern political discourse. The corpus study on the material of modern political journalism, showed that “image”, the emotionally affecting perception of a person, does not always coincide with the “figure” as the type or character associated with the speaker. Content-analysis of the use of lexemes imidzh, obraz, reputatsiya showed that in the semantic plan they influenced each other, becoming synonyms in various meanings. The semantic evolution of the word imidzh went from an impression of appearance to stereotypical ideas that can be appreciated by society. The “figure”, judging by the Russian National Corpus data, today looks more like a “role” in a film or a play, responding to the theatricalization of the political process. An analysis of the speeches of the president, the prime minister of the country, regional rulers, deputies, and opposition leaders reveals the “masks” of the Grate-Powerman and Patriot, People’s Chosen, Ordinary Man, Strong Man (Powerful Hand), Debater, Distressor, and some others, used as an element of a discursive strategy.

Digital Revolution and New India

Digital technologies and how we use them are changing the face of business, even as those technologies that underlie computers, robots, and smart equipment are rapidly evolving, becoming more powerful, and transforming organizations much faster than in the past. Significant competitive advantage is now achievable from digital innovation and transformation. This special issue aims to generate understanding of some of today's issues and looks at opportunities for tomorrow.

The Socio-Political Analysis of Relevance of Affirmative Action Policy: The Legacy of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was one of the most important figures who played a remarkable role in India's nation building. His legacy as a socio-political reformer had a deep effect on modern India. In post-Independence India; socio-political thoughts of Dr. Ambedkar has acquired respect across the political spectrum. His initiatives have influenced various spheres of life and transformed the way India today looks at socio-economic policies, education and affirmative action through socio-economic and legal incentives. In the polarized debate around Affirmative Action, it is either demonized as the root of all evil or valorized as the panacea for eliminating discrimination. It is worth noting at the outset that Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the chief architect of the constitution of independent India, who ensured that Affirmative Action was constitutionally mandated, himself did not see Affirmative Action as a panacea. He did not believe that the caste system could be made less malignant. He said “…my ideal would be a society based on Liberty, Equality and Fraternity… (the caste system) means a state of slavery … a society in which some men are forced to accept from others the purposes which control their conduct” (emphasis in the original). He was constantly engaged with the question of strategies and instruments which would lead to the annihilation of caste altogether. The present paper is an attempt made to examine the reflection of the brutal custom of caste discrimination, its impact on society and the novel system of Affirmative Action i.e. The Quota System that was invented to mitigate the social distance and discrimination which was created by the false notion of “Caste Superiority” in Indian society.

Safe Styles:Today's looks for tomorrow's threats

Safe Styles:Today's looks for tomorrow's threats

The Japanese model in retrospective: industrial strategies, corporate Japan and the ‘hollowing out’ of Japanese industry

This article provides a retrospective look at the Japanese model of industrial development. This model combined an institutional approach to production based around the Japanese Firm (Aoki's, J-mode) and strategic state intervention in industry by the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). For a long period, the alignment of state and corporate interests appeared to match the wider public interest as the Japanese economy prospered. However, since the early 1990s, the global ambitions of the corporate sector have contributed to a significant ‘hollowing out’ of Japan's industrial base. As the world today looks for a new direction in economic management, we suggest the Japanese model provides policy-makers with a salutary lesson in tying the wider public interest with those of the corporate sector.

Why FTP is no longer up to the job

It's an interesting exercise to look back at corporate computing and the way it's changed over the past few decades. The IT world of today looks very different from the one of 30 years ago. The major change, of course, has been the rise of the Internet.

Small journal vs. high impact journal: Dilemma of a new author

Small journal vs. high impact journal: Dilemma of a new author

IJDL special issue on complex digital objects: Guest editors' introduction

Although the Web of today looks very different from the Web of 10 years ago, digital library (DL) file formats still look much the same. Using terminology from the Open Archival Information System (OAIS), the submission information packages (SIPs) and archival information packages (AIPs) were frequently the same application specific formats of the dissemination information packages (DIPs). Driven by the proliferation of enabling technologies such as XML, Resource Description Format (RDF) and Dublin Core, there has been increasing interest in the DL community to use complex digital objects: objects that aggregate data, metadata and sometimes services into a single, logical digital entity. For example, instead of just a bare PDF file, a complex object could aggregate the PDF, the descriptive metadata (perhaps in multiple formats), provenance and rights statements and links to format conversion services. While the end-user continues to receive the PDF, DLs would ingest and exchange the complex digital object, building extended services based on the additional encapsulated and aggregated data. In much the same way that metadata formats arise from different communities, so have complex digital objects. In the realm of scientific and high-performance computing, data formats such as NetCDF [1], HDF [2], SmartFiles [3] and ELFS [4] have been in widespread use. In the commercial content provider industry, complex objects can be traced to the persistent stores of object-oriented databases

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Chelsea Pensioners lined up at the Royal Hospital Chelsea to help start the demolition of their old infirmary. The 1960s infirmary is being knocked down to make way for new residential accommodation. The project is being paid for through a campaign that aims to raise £35 million by March 2008. The hospital was built in 1692 to provide for retired soldiers, and today looks after 300 men. See page 37 .