Exploring xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta : linking the perception of social practice with textual analysis

Reporting on research undertaken under the auspices of the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. project, the present paper investigates the roots of xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta and the extent to which these can be pinpointed in the lexical choices made in discriminatory comments posted online in reaction to local news stories pertaining to migrants and members of the LGBTIQ community. Adopting Fairclough’s threedimensional framework (1995), we start off by presenting the values that underlie local discriminatory attitudes as social practice, as these were identified by the participants of four focus group interviews that were conducted at the University of Malta. In this respect, while xenophobia seems to be a far more pressing issue in Malta, homophobia, which is still also present, is taken to be predominantly triggered by deep-rooted religious beliefs and allegiance to heteronormative values. Then, when it comes to xenophobia, the main relevant trigger seems to be the perceived threat that the different collective background of a particular subset of migrants in Malta poses to the local culture. In an attempt to show that these values can also be discerned by examining even the most basic textual characteristics of a dataset comprising xenophobic and homophobic talk in the local context, we turn to identify them by looking at quantitative measures pertaining to lexical choice and metaphorical extension in the relevant parts of our corpus. In this way, we provide evidence for the fundamental – for Critical Discourse Analysis – claim that the textual analysis of a relevant dataset can indeed reveal the axiological framework that underlies the negative stance that the general population may have in relation to particular minorities, showcasing the relevance of discourse analytic methods for the broader understanding of discrimination and hate speech.Rights, Equality & Citizenship Programme of the European Commission Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (JUST/2014/RRAC/AG/HATE/6706)peer-reviewe

IT Innovation within the Esprit and IST Programs. Some Evidence from the UK

The European Strategic Program for Research in Information Technologies (Esprit) was created back in 1983 as a defensive response to the US and Japanese lead in Information Technologies (IT). Esprit was driven by the belief that intra-EU collaboration is an effective means to enhance the competitiveness of the European IT industry. Esprit has undergone a number of changes to facilitate collaboration and innovation. Yet, only after eighteen years of Esprit did the European Commission appreciate the need to encourage worldwide co-operation within its Fifth Framework Information Society Technologies (IST) Program. In the emerging information society and economy it is conceded that new ideas are as likely to be found outside Europe as within. This paper aims to investigate the personal networks of UK main contractors in Esprit and IST programs with regard to national boundaries and external linkages. It argues that the world of IT innovation is borderless and that Commission policies to impose boundaries to collaboration are unlikely to contribute to successful innovation in the IT industry throughout Europe.Mapping IT innovation networks; EU R&D programs; ESPRIT; IST; UK

Redefining logical constants as inference markers

There is currently no universally accepted general de nition of logical constanthood. With a view to addressing this issue, we follow a pragmatist ratio- nale, according to which, some notion can be identi ed as a logical constant by considering the way in which it is used in our everyday reasoning practices, and argue that a logical constant has to be seen as encoding some kind of dynamic meaning, which marks the presence of an inferential transition among proposi- tional contents. We then put forth a characterisation of logical constants that takes into account their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic roles. What follows from our proposal is that logical constanthood can be best understood as a func- tional property that is satis ed only by certain uses of the relevant notions.peer-reviewe

Fiber link design considerations for cloud-Radio Access Networks

Analog radio over fiber (RoF) links may offer advantages for cloud-Radio Access Networks in terms of component cost, but the behavior of the distortion with large numbers of subcarriers needs to be understood. In this paper, this is presented in terms of the variation between subcarriers. Memory polynomial predistortion is also shown to compensate for RoF and wireless path distortion. Whether for digitized or analog links, it is shown that appropriate framing structure parameters must be used to assure performance, especially of time-division duplex systems

Density profiles and collective excitations of a trapped two component Fermi vapour

We discuss the ground state and the small-amplitude excitations of a degenerate vapour of fermionic atoms placed in two hyperfine states inside a spherical harmonic trap. An equations-of-motion approach is set up to discuss the hydrodynamic dissipation processes from the interactions between the two components of the fluid beyond mean-field theory and to emphasize analogies with spin dynamics and spin diffusion in a homogeneous Fermi liquid. The conditions for the establishment of a collisional regime via scattering against cold-atom impurities are analyzed. The equilibrium density profiles are then calculated for a two-component vapour of 40K atoms: they are little modified by the interactions for presently relevant values of the system parameters, but spatial separation of the two components will spontaneously arise as the number of atoms in the trap is increased. The eigenmodes of collective oscillation in both the total particle number density and the concentration density are evaluated analytically in the special case of a symmetric two-component vapour in the collisional regime. The dispersion relation of the surface modes for the total particle density reduces in this case to that of a one-component Fermi vapour, whereas the frequencies of all other modes are shifted by the interactions.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

On encoded lexical meaning : philosophical and psychological perspectives

The past few years have seen quite a bit of speculation over relevance theorists’ commitment to Fodorian semantics as a means to account for the notion of encoded lexical meaning that they put forth in their framework. In this paper, I take on the issue, arguing that this view of lexical semantics compromises Relevance Theory’s aim of psychological plausibility, since it effectively binds it with the ‘literal first’ hypothesis that has been deemed unrealistic from a psycholinguistic viewpoint. After discussing the incompatibility of Fodor’s philosophical account with the perspective that relevance theorists adopt, I briefly suggest ways in which further behavioural research on the semantics/pragmatics distinction could help advance more cognitively- oriented accounts of encoded lexical meaning.peer-reviewe

Development of a road transport emission inventory for Greece and the greater Athens area: Effects of important parameters

Traffic is considered one of the major polluting sectors and as a consequence a significant cause for the measured exceedances of ambient air quality limit values mainly in urban areas. The Greater Athens Area (located in Attica), the most populated area in Greece, faces severe air pollution problems due to the combination of high road traffic emissions, complex topography and local meteorological conditions. Even though several efforts were made to construct traffic emission inventories for Greece and Attica, still there is not a spatially and temporally resolved one, based on data from relevant authorities and organisations. The present work aims to estimate road emissions in Greece and Attica based on the top down approach. The programme COPERT 4 was used to calculate the annual total emissions from the road transport sector for the period 2006–2010 and an emission inventory for Greece and Attica was developed with high spatial (6 × 6 km2 for Greece and 2 × 2 km2 for Attica) and temporal (1-hour) resolutions. The results revealed that about 40% of national CO2, CO, VOC and NMVOC values and 30% of NOx and particles are emitted in Attica. The fuel consumption and the subsequent reduction of annual mileage driven in combination with the import of new engine anti-pollution technologies affected CO2, CO, VOC and NMVOC emissions. The major part of CO (56.53%) and CO2 (66.15%) emissions was due to passenger cars (2010), while heavy duty vehicles (HDVs) were connected with NOx, PM2.5 and PM10emissions with 51.27%, 43.97% and 38.13% respectively (2010). The fleet composition, the penetration of diesel fuelled cars, the increase of urban average speed and the fleet renewal are among the most effective parameters towards the emission reduction strategies

Motivating the procedural analysis of logical connectives

With a view to addressing the non-truth-conditional meaning of discourse connectives from a cognitive perspective, relevance theorists have for long pursued the argument that the relevant expressions do not carry conceptual (≈denotational) meaning, but rather encode procedures, i.e. instructions which guide pragmatic inference by creating cognitive ‘shortcuts’ that the hearer takes advantage of during utterance interpretation. At the same time, they assume that logical connectives are conceptual, rather than procedural encodings. In this paper, I explore the extent to which an analysis of logical connectives along procedural lines is viable, by offering a number of arguments which suggest that logical connectives can and should be studied on a par with discourse ones.peer-reviewe

On the effect of land use change on the meteorological parameters above the greater Athens area

The rapid land use changes that took place in the Greater Athens Area (GAA) the past decades, due to the expansion of the urban grid, have changed the landscape of Attica significantly. Areas that were covered by low vegetation in the past are now replaced by roads (e.g. Attiki Odos) and new towns. On the other hand, accurate and updated data of land use are necessary for simulating the meteorological fields above urban areas, which in turn are given as input to photochemical models in order to study the dispersion of pollutants above urban areas. The purpose of the present work is to study the effects of land use changes on the meteorological parameters, such as wind speed profiles and temperature. For this reason, the meteorological mesoscale model MM5 was applied, using updated land use data. The model ran with the grid nesting method using two grids, the fine one covering the GAA with a spatial resolution of 5 × 5 km2. Results showed that the land use changes affected wind and temperature fields. Wind velocities decreased above areas covered by urban grid that were previously characterised as shrub land, while above the rapidly developing eastern suburbs of Attica an increase in velocities appeared