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Problematic Features (problematic + feature)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

,Benchmarking' and Participatory Development: The Case of Fiji's Sugar Industry Reforms

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2001
Darryn Snell
Since the mid-1970s, opposition has grown within developing countries to the use of ,top-down' development approaches by foreign consultants. Disenchantment with these development strategies, it is often claimed, has led to the current incorporation of participation in consultants' development practices. This study is concerned with the practice and methods of participatory development planning. It evaluates the Strategic Plan adopted by the Fiji sugar industry in 1997 in response to challenges that are attributed to the pressures of globalization and international competitiveness. The authors assess the external consultant's self-proclaimed ,participatory methods' in the articulation of these challenges, in the design of restructuring programmes, and in shaping the discourses of reform more generally. The consultant's use of the fashionable ,benchmarking' methodology is seen to be one of the most problematic features of the ,participatory' process. [source]

Cruelty, Horror, and the Will to Redemption

HYPATIA, Issue 2 2003
Lynne S. Arnault
Americans cherish the idea that good eventually triumphs over evil. After briefly arguing that a proper understanding of the moral harm of cruelty calls into question the credibility of popular American idioms of redemption, I argue that the epistemic dynamics of horror help account for the commanding grip of this rhetoric on the popular imagination, and I suggest that this idiom has morally problematic features that warrant the attention of feminists. [source]

Monitoring and verifying cloud forecasts originating from operational numerical models

METEOROLOGICAL APPLICATIONS, Issue 3 2008
Christoph Zingerle
Abstract Weather satellites produce large amounts of observational data in real time. This information has high temporal and spatial resolution covering almost every region of the globe. The infrared (IR) window channels of operational meteorological satellites are sensitive to the clouds and to the underlying surface. Comparing the IR channel observations with synthetic satellite images is an effective way to evaluate the quality of cloud forecasts produced by numerical models. Assessment of potentially problematic features in the early stages of the forecast is essential in not only nowcasting and very short-range forecasting but also in a reliability check of a given numerical weather prediction model (NWP). A pre-operational real-time monitoring system is set up in the Finnish Meteorological Institute, using the observed and synthetic satellite images, and applying an entity-based verification method. Copyright © 2008 Royal Meteorological Society [source]

Counterurbanisation and rural gentrification: an exploration of the terms

POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 6 2010
Martin Phillips
Abstract This paper examines the interrelationships between the concepts of counterurbanisation and rural gentrification, suggesting that four different positions can be identified. Firstly, these concepts are highly commensurable and could usefully be more closely aligned. Secondly, rural gentrification has a political/critical dimension that is missing from conceptualisations of counterurbanisation, and hence rural gentrification might usefully displace counterurbanisation as a focus of study. Thirdly, counterurbanisation is a less reductionist concept than rural gentrification, and therefore counterurbanisation researchers need to disentangle themselves from too great a focus on rural gentrification. Fourthly, both concepts share many problematic features and may both be viewed as chaotic concepts. The paper then discusses how counterurbanisation and gentrification researchers have responded to criticisms relating to their conceptual foci, suggesting that these can be characterised as legislative or interpretive. It is argued that whilst the former response has been predominant, there are signs that the latter approach is also being adopted. The concluding part of the paper draws on the notion of an interpretive approach to understanding counterurbanisation and rural gentrification, and their interrelationships. Use is made of Latour's notion of ,circulatory sociologies of translation' to consider how the two concepts are linked not only to their objects of study but also to social relationships with other academics, with governmental organisations and with public opinion and values. Attention is drawn to the differential relationships that counterurbanisation and rural gentrification are implicated in, and how this might account for the differential character of the two concepts. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]