Scope and Limitations in Scientific Research

Introduction

Much confusion surrounds the use of the terms “scope” and “limitations” in scientific research. In any scientific study that we may undertake, it is important that this confusion be cleared before the actual research begins, than after fieldwork – or, worse still, when the findings, having been otherwise processed and analyzed with self-assurance, are being reported to an informed and skeptical audience.

Scope

Scope refers to the portion/proportion of the totality [the content] suggested by the research topic and the problem statement that the researcher intends to cover, or will actually cover. It incorporates the giving of the “reason why”; that is, why the scope is as we are called upon to see it – in terms of Time, Space and/or Number. “Number” here could mean the quantity or size of a variety of factors, such as: sample, the population in which the sample is embedded, social stratum, cohort, age-group, gender group, occupational group, or some other category of “subject.”

The researcher’s task under “Scope” is to specify how much and/or what aspects of the problem or relevant subject-matter is to be tackled, and how large the study area and population will be. In other words, what the researcher states under “Scope” is exactly how much research he/she is going to do [or has to do] to realize the research objectives. This helps to clarify both the sampling frame and the range of hypotheses that one can reasonably expect to test, or the research/guiding questions that one may address. Under “scope”, therefore, the researcher briefly specifies the “area” to be covered, and/or the boundaries  [the Breadth, Length and Depth – in terms of Time, Space and Number] within which the study will be confined.

Limitations

In extrapolating/generalizing research findings, one must know the boundaries of the possible, or of the acceptable claim – even if the claim be in all other ways evidence-based. This is what we call “limitations”, and it is important to know them in advance, or ahead, of data analysis – indeed, before fieldwork. All extrapolations must have boundaries beyond which they cease to be empirically and logically valid. Under “Limitations” the researcher is also supposed to indicate the extent to which the intended scope may not be fully realized.

The implicit question under “Limitations” is this: given your scope, to what extent will your findings be generalizable; that is, to what extent beyond your actual area of study, or your sample? Thus, for a concrete example, if your study covers only one slum area in Nairobi, will this allow you to say anything meaningful or significant about Nairobi as a whole – or even about all slum areas of Nairobi? What about Kenya as a whole? What about other African cities, or other slums in other cities around the world? But Max Weber talked with some animation about ideal types -- ideal-typical cases whose defining characteristics can be inferred into all other yet-to-be-fully-studied cases which observers have a priori reason to believe that they “idealize” and, in turn, idealize them. How far we can legitimately take this is yet to be decided, and I will not engage in the debate right now.

Be that as it may, under “Limitations” the researcher points out the extent to which he/she will be able to generalize or extrapolate the findings, given the scope as already specified. With “Limitations”, therefore, the researcher acknowledges what he/she will not be able to do or cover, and briefly states why -- on logistical, theoretical and/or methodological grounds.

Limitations indicate the boundaries beyond which the findings do not legitimately apply -- or have no significance -- and should not be “stretched,” given the scope. Note that logistical and related problems likely to be encountered, or actually encountered, in the field can further narrow/restrict the boundaries of the possible. In principle, however, the researcher should not, in terms of “Limitations”, concern him/herself with detailing the financial or logistical or other “mundane” constraints likely to encumber the study. [To say all this in other words: By “Limitations of study” we mean to say that, given the scope, study findings will not be extrapolated or generalized beyond a certain boundary (usually implicated, or indeed made self-evident, in the scope). That is, in view of the scope, one is expected to briefly show the contexts/situations in which one’s evidence cannot be used, or is (is not) applicable; contexts/situations to which the evidence/conclusions/findings can (and cannot) be legitimately/profitably applied].

There is a very important exception to all of the foregoing. In a sample survey, extrapolations/ generalizations can and do (are indeed expected to) go beyond the stated scope of the sample to envelope the population (and only that population) of which the sample is statistically representative. Here, the limitations mirror not the boundaries of the sample but of the population of which it is a representative part. Herein lies a critical difference between what we can do with case-study data as opposed to sample-survey data.

Conclusion

Essentially, limitations and generalizability (or extrapolation) derive, follow from, scope. Given the scope – thai is, the sampling parameters of the study – the generalizability of the findings have certain limitations which the researcher is obliged or called upon to clearly state. The findings can be extrapolated to the relevant population (and only that population) only to the extent that the sample accurately represents it. In terms of ideal types, the yet-to-be-surmounted challenge is how to clearly establish, or have broad peer agreement on, the grounds upon which findings (or characteristics) related to the case studied can be, if at all they can, "projected" on to -- that is, generalized to -- the class of cases to which it ideal typically belongs.

Decision-Making and Response in Emergency Situations

It is not just the rapidity of decision-making that determines the effectiveness of response to emergency (or disaster) situations., far from it. Two related factors are just as important, if not more so. These are: (a) the ready availability of response resources (skilled responders and materiel, as a minimum); and, (b) the speed, as well as the logistical robustness and flexibility, with which the responders and the materiel can be mobilized and delivered. In the absence of the said resources and logistical capability, rapid decision-making systems will appear out of place and ineffectual..

THE THREE DIALECTICS: Dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian Question

The dialectical approach is an ever-present route to a deeper understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian question. It seems to me that this approach becomes increasingly attractive and fruitful with the passage of time – that is, with each passing decade. We may even add that its revelations (I use that term consciously) are generationally packaged in a broad sense; which means that we have three sequential packages so far (that is, since 1948) to worry over.

There are indeed three dialectics, which intertwine, in the Israeli-Palestinian Question; and their intertwining is itself of a dialectical nature.

The first of these is what I will call the Occupation Dialectic -- the Territorial Dialectic, if you wish. Here, the struggle/confrontation/ hostilities/contradiction or thesis-antithesis conflict, now on and now off, revolves around historical rights to territory and unfettered settlement, self-determination, settlement

The second is the Conversation (or Voice) Dialectic. Issues here are couched in highly emotive historical, cultural and religious terms. Each side invokes history, and even chronology, in support of its arguments. The Palestinians want their own independent state, with Jerusalem included. The Israelis want secure borders, in which its citizens are safe from remotely or otherwise instigated and organized attacks -- by PLO originally and Hizbollah and the like now. The Palestinians view the Israelis as an illegitimate occupying force. Israelis insist there is nowhere they are going,  

The third is the Action (or Power) Dialectic. Technology, particularly the technology of war and of surveillance, plays a key role here – and may yet be the decider, the Endgame factor.  And the game may not quite end in the way the protagonists typically frame the end.

[First written on January 5, 2009. To be expanded upon]

Kalonzo's Subtext

At yesterday's Eldoret rally hosted by William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta, two of the Ocampo4, Hon. Kalonzo Musyoka, Kenya's Vice President, declared that he was ready to abandon his ambition to be Kenya's next President, in favour of Uhuru or [and?] Ruto.

That's what he said, just four days after the ICC at The Hague had confirmed the charges against U and R for crimes against humanity following Kenya's controversial Presidential elections of December 2007. He had never said anything of the kind before.

That was the text; but was it real, or plainly 'Memorex' of Kalonzo's true nature? Was (wasn't) there a subtext, which any educated Kenyan could read? There was. It was this: I know (hope, O.K?) that U and R will not be Presidential candidates any time soon, thanks to one Ocampo. Remember me, then, when the time comes, as the one who stood by them when --as was not lost on them even -- all was truly lost, as far as the eye could see. As the one who was here today, and who would inherit your votes.

QED: A New Twist to the Syllogism

We are people from nowhere..
Great ideas can come from nowhere.
Therefore, ....my bud. [QED]

Africa's Emergent Middle Class

In April 2011, AfDB published an interesting new research report on Africa's class structure, with particular reference to a burgeoning Middle Class. All key observers of the African continent -- which, suddenly, is no longer 'Dark' but resource-rich -- are, it seems, captivated by this rapidly visible class, and intrigued by what it all means for the future prosperity of a troubled Global Village.

The typical model of a class structure is a pyramid. Only in developed countries such as the US is it a diamond. Trends in Africa suggest that the diamond motif is soon to reveal itself. Not only that: the size of Africa's Middle Class, as defined, threatens to surpass in the near future, if it has not done so already, the entire population of Western Europe (or EU) -- not to mention the US itself. And it is practically neck-and-neck with China's.

There'll still be debate, of course, about real purchasing power and relative baskets of goods, but when did all that social change sneak in? How is it even possible? [Click here to read the report]

Homing Bird [Haiku]

And I flew headlong.
Settled in my cosy pathway.
"Look I know those clouds."

Having Been Acquitted of Fraud Charges by a Kenyan Court, will William Ruto Return to the Cabinet?

Just a day after his "triumphant" return from the first ICC hearing of the Ocampo-Six case at The Hague, Ruto had reason to be even more genuinely euphoric. A Kenyan court cleared him of fraud charges that have haunted him for eight years. The charges had forced his suspension as minister and senior member of the cabinet some months ago.

The big question now is: will he return to the cabinet? Some argue that the return, like the suspension, will be automatic, given the provisions of the constitution.

Others insist that Prime Minister (PM) Raila Odinga will have something to do with it, given the provisions of the National Accord, and should block Ruto's return. Raila is the leader of ODM, the party to which Ruto nominally belongs still, despite his very public and continuous tussle with the PM. The reasoning here is that the law gives the PM the authority to make the decision, given the National Accord that underpins the coalition government headed by the President and the PM.

At a time, in any case, when a cabinet reshuffle is deemed both in Kenya and elsewhere to be overdue, it will be difficult for President Kibaki to effect changes on the ODM side of the cabinet without Raila's concurrence.

I think Raila has, should and will claim a say on this matter. But what kind of a say should we hear from him? Many, "friend and foe", I think, expect an emphatic no from him. It would not be consistent, however, and it would not be judicious -- above all, it would not be smart to say no, despite the very troubling circumstances of Ruto's acquittal. Let the appeal process, if any, deal with that.

My advice would be: Raila should welcome Ruto back to the cabinet with no conditionalities whatsoever. In fact, he should make those intentions crystal clear to the public even before the scheduling of his next formal consultation with President Kibaki on the matter of Ruto's return.

If, after that, Ruto continues to be as deeply mean-spirited and hateful toward Raila as he has been, let him be the one to have to explain why to the nation -- and, in particular, to his Rift Valley constituents.

And if, after September 2011, the ICC hearings force Ruto out of the cabinet once again, as per the constitution, let that be yet another pulsating dynamic.

ENDNOTE: I expect Ruto's exuberance to cool appreciably in the coming months, as the reality dawns on him that he will not be the presidential choice of the emergent G7 coalition of presidential aspirants and leading politicians -- let alone Kenya's President following the 2012 elections. At best, he can only hope to be Uhuru Kenyatta's running mate. As to how many Rift Valley votes he will be able to deliver, as a running mate, to Uhuru -- that remains a one billion shilling question.

Evidence of culpability adduced at The Hague between April and September 2011, and beyond, might yet stop the Uhuru-Ruto alliance in its tracks. It is hard to imagine that Uhuru has not begun to worry how long it will take for his alliance with Ruto to begin to sour, along the lines of the one between Raila and Ruto. And Ruto's supporters must surely be wondering about the assurances they can possibly have that an Uhuru-Ruto coalition will not be a repeat of the "mistreatment" that Raila's supporters believe he has endured since 2008 at the hands of President Kibaki and his kitchen cabinet.

Marshall McLuhan's Four Laws of Media

McLuhan, the media sociologist/guru who coined the term 'Global Village', propounded Four Laws of Media which capture a veritably spiraling dialectic -- a quaint, never-ending, forth-and-back cyle of Synthesis-Antithesis-Thesis-Synthesis -- of media technology and segmented social life.

I read the Four Laws as follows:

1. EXTENSION/AMPLIFICATION: As they come to the fore, new media technologies extend the reach of certain pre-existing capacities of Mind and aspects of Body.

2. REVERSAL/'COUNTER-DIALECTIC': All media revolutions embody the trigger or potential for reverse motion (a counter-dialectic); that is, for a step-back from the gains they represent -- for a reset to a bygone era.

3. RETRIEVAL/RECURRENCE: Newly-invented media tend to resuscitate the senses, skills and/or sensibilities which the displaced technological order had dulled,'suppressed' or obscured.

4. OBSOLESCENCE: New media in effect coopt certain older modes of communication even as they declare them 'obsolete' and render them ineffective; and they do so because the latter do not allow themselves to disappear entirely, even as the impression of something altogether new takes root in the landscape.

Questions of a Life: Haiku

Will it rain or shine?
Be my baby safe n'yo hands?
Where'd Time go 2 die?

On the Incident Command System (ICS) as a Model of Response to Emergencies and Disasters

In their search for ways to improve the effectiveness of their work through cutting-edge models or templates, disaster managers will quickly come across the idea of the Incident Command System (ICS).

ICS is obviously a much-touted integrated solution, but a solution for what? ICS was never intended to prevent or reduce the occurrence of incidents -- emergencies or disasters of various kinds -- but to respond optimally to them after they had occurred, whenever and wherever. An incident is something that has occurred, or is occurring. To a degree, of course, an incident can also be taken to mean something ("just") about to occur.

The task of preventing incidents from occurring, however, is the task of those charged with prevention or, in a specific sense, mitigation. Mitigation here alludes to proactive or pre-emptive measures taken to minimize the impacts of incidents before they actually occur, even when their occurrence is much anticipated -- that is, "around the corner".

An evaluation of ICS must therefore be restricted to its applicability or effectiveness in responding to incidents, not in preventing them.

Yes, you can minimize mortality and alleviate morbidity through appropriately designed, timely and effective responses to incidents which are on-going or have already occurred. However, the important point here is that ICS was never meant to prevent incidents that lead to injury, death and/or destruction of property from becoming such incidents in the first place.

Oro: Haiku

Long days by the gate.
Beat hunter sleepth, in 'is walk.
Dustbowl in 'is 'and.

Kenya: The Presidential Ambitions of William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta

I am not sure that the 2012 presidential ambitions of William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta will survive the ICC trials at The Hague.

If they do, however, only Kenyatta or Ruto -- of course not both -- can conceivably become president. Ruto has already asked Kenyatta to support his presidential bid in 2012. Kenyatta has not said yes. Kenyatta's supporters, I imagine, find Ruto's call unbelievably presumptuous, and expect that it is Ruto -- with a lesser pedigree (OMG!)-- who will have to give way to Kenyatta, perhaps being rewarded with the VP's slot. And of course it is hard to see why Ruto thinks he deserves to be Kenya's president in 2012. He is one of the most toxic politicians that Kenya's political culture has ever produced.

Ruto and Kenyatta, who belong to different political parties, will not agree on the number 1 slot, even after many posturings, as time runs out, about a Raila-finishing grand alliance of political-parties.

What then? Both Ruto and Uhuru will run for president, with Raila Odinga as the one to beat. Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and Eugene Wamalwa, neither of whom seems to have much of a chance right now, will join the fray. After much provocation and belittling, Musalia Mudavadi will opt to remain Raila's running mate, which is their best chance for eventual victory.

None of the candidates will win outright. There will be a run-off, and it is likely to be between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga. Mudavadi would have calculated this eventuality all along.

It is in the second roud that the real hustling for votes will begin, with all sorts of alliances being brokered, broken and remade in quick succession. Kenya will never have seen such. The world will be entranced...

[More to come]

North to the Frontier: Haiku

A desert dawning.
Winter winds blow glad tidings.
Old tyrants tumblin.

Kenya: House Speaker Marende's ruling on President Kibaki's list of nominees

Yesterday's ruling by Kenya's Parliamentary Speaker, Kenneth Marende -- in which he returned to sender the President's list of nominees to four powerful positions provided for in the new constitution, and crucial to its timely implementation: Chief Justice (Judge Alnasir Visram), Attorney General (Prof. Githu Muigai), Director of Public Prosecutions (Kioko Kilukumi, William Ruto's ex-lawyer) and Controller of Budget (William Kirwa, allegedly a Ruto man) -- is not a victory for the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, though it seems amply so. Ruto has lately become Kibaki's own preferred/de facto/secret Prime Minister, whose advice is heeded and whose suggested nominees (unlike Raila's) are actually nominated.

The Prime Minister acquiesced in the President's rush to short-circuit due process in a double-edged, silent, but ill-advised war -- a war against the Hague's ICC (via a gullible, bird-of-a-feather, African Union and, wishfully, the UN Security Council itself) and a war of his own succession (in which, as was clear to any adult, Raila was to be the biggest loser).

The PM had hoped that, sitting just the two of them, they would cut the cake into two even-handed parts. Bad idea. That is not Kibaki's style. The PM should have known that from the flawed February 2008 power-sharing deal, which cost him a lot of erstwhile friends, which continues to haunt him to this day, and which, ironically, PNU has been increasingly turning to its unprincipled advantage in the ever-shifting coalition landscape. The two "Princials" did consult, but obviously did not reach a consensus. Raila pulled away. The President, who appears hostage to the Ocampo Six chose to press on (needlessly, if you forget the O6)with his list.

Despite threats, Speaker Marende has done the right thing by urging the President and Prime Minister to do things right. He has asserted:

Consultations are not made if the House receives the list on which there is open disagreement between the President and the Prime Minister. As such, it is unconstitutional and the unconstitutionality cannot be cured by this House.

Worryingly, there is no guarantee that the PM would himself have done the right thing, had he been in President Kibaki's shoes these last 30 days or so. It is just that it was Kibaki's move to make, and in the eyes of many, it seems, the President made a blatant KKK move. If the CJ couldn't be his "preferred choice" (a Justice Kariuki?), then better a middle-tier Kenyan Indian (Judge Alnasir Visram) any day than someone more senior who happens to be from Nyanza -- or another middle-tier Judge from "Western", or even Mungatana's Pokomo group, if you like.

So it seems like Raila's voctory; but the victory, if it is, is pyrrhic. The toxic level in Kenya's political landscape continues to rise, as we approach 2012. The ICC and Ocampo clearly remain our best safeguard against our collective, suicidal, "darker side" as a nation. Anyone who does not see the blood-letting that is to come with the ICC taken out of the 2012 succession equation, has lost the power to reason coherently -- and lost touch even with common sense.

When Marende referred the Kibaki list to two House Committees, some ten days ago, he was roundly condemned as timid and spineless. But the wisdom in that move is that he allowed s considerable amount of national debate to take place. Many stakeholders availed themselves the opportunity to take a stand. Massive national consensus has built up, it seem clear to me,and Marende's ruling both reflects it and has been aided by it.

Was I sure then, absolutely sure, that Marende would make the ruling that he has no made? No. You can never be that sure. But I believed, based on the circumstances of the case and his previous rulings, that that was the only decision that he could make -- had to make.

So whose victory is it? First, the people of Kenya in their many ethnicities -- who are all too often ambushed with political decisions they have little time to reverse. Second, the new constitution -- which Kenyans are determined to implement and to have in its fullness. It is a victory, too, against impunity, ethnic myopia and lingering traces of an imperial presidency.

Bonde Cliff: Haiku

Sun-baked, wind-swept. Dream.
Is how you peel that matter.
Dove's verse. Two too fars!

Out of Africa: A Comment on Dr. Alice Roberts' "The Incredible Human Journey"

On December 28, 2010 (as part of my holiday fare), I watched for the first time, on BBC Knowledge (relayed by DSTV), Alice Roberts' documentary titled "The Incredible Human Journey".

This is not the first TV account of human migration out of Africa, based ultimately on qualitative evidence -- evidence gleaned, as in certain earlier accounts, in part from archaeology, anthropology and climatology; but mostly from DNA databases. And because it is not the first, it lacks that indelible "first teller's" aha moment that some of us have already been exposed to (and told and retold in lectures). Nevertheless, it remains an incredible rendition, in its own right, of our ancestors' drive, weed-like, at once single-minded and unintended, toward world "domination"; a drive to claim and take possession of an entire planet -- and beyond the planet, going "forth", who knows?

Her documentary adds refreshing twists (and certain images) to the broad, paradigm-shifting, technicolor script:

Such as the chain-reaction (or a sort of kalausi) of human movement -- up and down, east and west, round and round -- that went on for millennia within the African continent before the original "China Syndrome" moment was reached; and with it, the release.

Such as the journey through Turkey and up the Danube (wonder if they gave an ancient name to that river as they rowed and remarked upon its convenience) into greater Europa.

Such as sailing down the west coast of the Americas, after a long, but always driven, wandering through Siberia's permafrost -- into the northern badlands and, farther (across the equator once again), into the deep jungles of the South. [Or was it simply a hugging and not letting go of the coastline, rather than dedicated sailing, perhaps enticed by the sudden abundance of (sea) food, and discouraged by the rugged hilliness of Alaska? I ask this because I wonder: Where and when would necessity have prompted this branch of migrants (not being, I suppose, the ones who rowed up the Danube) to invent and develop sea-faring technology (hardware and software) during the thousands of years that they lived deep in Siberia?]

The documentary is in turn testament to the grandeur and connectedness of Ms. Roberts' own awe-inspiring, passionate, umbilical journey.

And I would like to share it with you (click here to see)

Toxic Tout, Trout: Haiku

Weigh tin 2 de tox:
All de while, I'm here, all tight.
All dem little t'outs!

Introduction to Tourism: CAT

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI
CTO 101: INTRODUCTION TO TOURISM (Evening and Day)
CTM 103: INTRODUCTION TO TOURISM (Utalii)

SEMESTER: October 2010 – February 2011

CAT QUESTIONS [Released: 06/11/2010 ]

ANSWER ONLY ONE QUESTION

1.(a) Supporting your answer with persuasive evidence, and citing
relevant sources, critically discuss the view that tourism is the
world’s largest industry.

(b) Critically discuss the differences between the following pairs of
words, providing relevant examples to show your understanding:
-- Domestic Tourism and National Tourism
-- Inbound Tourism and Outbound Tourism

2. Compare the following factors, showing how they respectively
influence at least five selected aspects of Kenyan society
and/or culture to-day:
(a) Tourism
(b) Mass media.

DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSION:
CTO 101 (Evening) = Saturday 27th November 2010, strictly from 10.30 am – 11.15 a.m.
CTM 103 (Utali) = Thursday 25th November 2010, strictly at 5.30 pm.
CTO 101 (Day) = Thursday 25th November 2010, strictly at 11.00 a.m.

NOTE: 1. I prefer word-processed answers. Expected length of each CAT submission:
5 to 8 typed, double-spaced pages only.
2. Additional marks will be awarded for answers which display originality of thought, as well as critical thinking. Marks will be deducted for Xeroxing published or other works, and for lack of seriousness (i.e. for sketchy, “bullet-riddled” and/regurgitated lecture notes)
3. Your answer should clearly demonstrate, through the citation of relevant texts, that you have engaged in noteworthy library reading for this CAT.

Negative and Positive Feedback

Negative feedback is always a good thing, negating as it does the deviation-inducing negativities that populate the environment and subvert the true (the chosen) path. It is not what it otherwise seems, being far from the picture of it that jargon paints in our minds.

Positive feedback, on the other hand, is not so unequivocal: being a good thing sometimes (when what it reinforces is a priori 'good'), and sometimes a bad (when what it touts is itself 'bad'). It eggs you on along the path you're already on, regardless of the consequences, and will not prompt a change of direction -- even if there are dangers ahead. Positive feedback, then, is a stranger to adjustment, if adjustment is not what it receives and so feeds back, as it sleeps with a some-time enemy -- status quo.

CSO 302: Qualitative Research Methods CAT: August-November 2010

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
CSO 302: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

SEMESTER: August-November 2010 [Regular Programme]

CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT TESTS (CAT) QUESTIONS [Released: 11.10 a.m., 13th September 2010]

INSTRUCTION: ANSWER ONE QUESTION ONLY

1. “Case Study is a versatile method in qualitative research. It can be the method of choice in a descriptive or diagnostic study design just as easily as it can serve as a twin-method in a broader experimental, historical or comparative study design.” Critically discuss this observation, supporting your conversation with relevant examples from the texts that you have recently read.

2. Present a coherent outline of a scholarly research proposal, and discuss in detail:
(a) the importance of the problem statement in such a proposal, and indeed in the entire research undertaking; and,
(b) how and why each section and sub-section (or chapter and sub-chapter) in the proposal builds upon the one that precedes it, or lays the essential groundwork for the one that follows it.


DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: Tuesday 5th October 2010, strictly from 04.00 – 05.00 pm only.

NOTE:
1. I prefer computer-typed answers. Expected length of each CAT submission: 6 to 10 typed, double-spaced, A4 pages only.
2. Additional marks will be rewarded for answers which display originality of thought, as well as critical thinking.
3. There will be severe penalty for plagiarism (‘Xeroxing’ published or other works).
4. Marks will be deducted for lack of seriousness (i.e. for sketchy, “bulletized” and/or regurgitated answers).
5. Your answer should clearly demonstrate, through citations, that you have engaged in noteworthy library reading for this CAT.

Cohen on Changing the Sacred Rite of Peer Review

Patricia Cohen had an interesting piece in a very recent issue of New York Times. Essentially, she reports that a "trailblazing" experiment is under way, particularly in the humanities, on alternative ways of vetting scholarly works for publication in journals, and even books, that were traditionally peer-reviewed. All of this assault on the citadel, which remained essentially 'unassailable' during the second half of the twentieth century and even farther back, is thanks to the wider spaces and resources increasingly made available by the web to both sides of the publishing divide -- the publisher and the (would-be) published -- as well as the digital divide itself.

In this new dispensation, the power to pass judgment on the quality and publishability of a scholarly submission is to be devolved well beyond small rings of anonymous experts (peer reviewers) to online "brown-bag" sessions -- a shifting kind of e-brownbag community, if you like -- in which as many experts and apprentices ('grad students') with "the time" can equally participate.

There are a number of reasons why scholars in the developing world would view this new trend with even more interest than she probably imagines when she writes:

"Clubby exclusiveness, sloppy editing and fraud have all marred peer review on occasion. Anonymity can help prevent personal bias, but it can also make reviewers less accountable; exclusiveness can help ensure quality control but can also narrow the range of feedback and participants. Open review more closely resembles Wikipedia behind the scenes...".

Still, as Cohen notes, this "open-door policy" poses some dangers:
1. Peer review would turn into some kind of "American Idol" spectacle [Now, only a select few pick the idols: who are typically American in American publications, and European in European ones].
2. Reviewers might not be as, at once, incisive and 'blunt' in public as they have been in private, working "blindly" [Which was a good thing].
3. Comments might not be as "comprehensive and conceptual" as they have been, and instead become "short and episodic" texts, fired at "warp speed" [Which, putting the speed aside, would be 'degenerate'].
4. 'Know-nothings' would rule the process [Which would be a terrible blow to professionalism and disciplinary excellence].

Read more here

On Why Focusing on Core Business May be the Route to Oblivion

The mantra of top business minds (at least since Tom Peters made the call) and leading business schools has been: "Focus on your core business"; that is to say, on your core competencies. Diversions were to be avoided at all costs.

Now Adam Harting warns, in a Forbes article, that doing so is a sure route to oblivion. Being nimble-footed -- able to shift gears as quickly as rapidly changing fields of play demand -- is what is called for; better still, being able to juggle several balls of commitment and focus at the same time, to multi-task, to diversify activity, to hedge risk and even to anticipate the future -- as Google seems to be (as AIG was not) good at.

Read More

The Risk of Online Share Trading

Online share trading poses many risks to the investors, particularly on platforms with non-existent or rudimentary security systems. One suspects thatthere are plenty around in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.

Occasionally "testing the system" in order to ensure security is not sufficient to give 'bankable' assurance, and so does not give comfort to the savvy investor. From the start, Online Share Trading services are typically fully covered, through carefully worded disclaimers in small-print, against litigation by their client-investors who may be hit by fraudsters. No one will fully compensate the investor who loses assets through online fraud undetected in time by otherwise aggressive service providers.

One way to eliminate this risk is to stay out of online trading completely. Another, for the more tech savvy operating in vulnerable/hackable environments, would be for service providers to offer the opportunity to buy, but not to sell, shares online. Who would want to buy shares for me, secretly? There is no palpable danger there. But a byzantine underworld of hackers may easily plot and remotely execute fraudulent "sell" orders using stolen email and share-account passwords, accompanied by illegal and lightning (and irrecoverable) transfers of funds out of investors' accounts.

It seems to me that the safest sell orders will always require long paper-trails.

A Sudden Weather: Haiku

Sunset's dark shadow.
Westward. Just little strands of light.
Ning. Under arrest.

A Sunny Day

A sunny, sunny day. Sunny on the body politic. Sunnier, still, in the mind.
Tho mornings be still chancy, my friends.

August Coldfall, Nairobi: Haiku

Peepn, true da widow.
Isn't that coldfall that I spy?
Time. Fur. Dancin Sous.

The Three-Legged Stool of Antiquity

Heaven's the abode of Threeness, and of Threeness in Oneness. That is to say, of the Trinity

Geometry and culture mirror this threeness, in which they see, with an inner eye unconstrained by our actual experiences of physical Nature, a liberating logic of ascendant presence.

Hence the triangle as such -- from which arise so many constructs of the mind and habit -- but, above all, the three-legged stool of antiquity, which is in our cultural DNA. The three-dimensional, or triangulated, gaze is the conflation of geometry and perception without which there is neither depth nor wholesomeness, and no accuracy in the gauging of height or distance or circumstance.

It seems to me that Nature -- pure, two-legged and four-legged Nature -- finds threeness, in particular three-legged motion, ugly and unwarranted; ungainly in its inherent inefficiency. Contrary to its nature.

Culture, the true contrarian here, finds three-leggedness per se a necessary, periodic detour from Nature's settled purposes that so overwhelm the human gaze from day to day. A detour and even a destination. It, three-leggedness, is not just a stance (and standpoint) but a source of great stability and reassurance (as in the stool, and in second opinions). In marriage, the first child (together with all the children that may follow) is the family's third leg, the sign that the woman and even wife is become a mother -- even of the nation. So is the walking stick a third leg, for the elderly and the infirm. We encounter the three-leg motif in the cooking stones of the village fire and the hearth.

But, as in the love triangle, threeness is also an affirmation of ever-present chaos, and its potentialities.

As for the inherent expectation of motion where ever there are legs, culture offers a simple solution. It gives threeness wheels, in return for an absence of, or quasi-arthritic, limb motion.

PowerPoint and the Incoherence it Breeds

There's been, in this decade, some serious conversation in the print media and in cyberspace concerning PowerPoint's tendency to make the presenter look stupid and bereft of coherence(Read this piece from Tad Simons, for example).

It is the same decade in which PowerPoint, taken as a mark of savviness and with-itness, has infiltrated all sorts of NGO presentations and documentation in this part of the world and, clearly, elsewhere. The meme that it is, PowerPoint has, largely through that route, found its way into academia -- into the vast majority of the word-processed term papers and CATs that undergraduates and graduate students deliver to their lecturers, who are silently overwhelmed by the growing tide of bulletized simple-mindedness and even incoherence.

Bulletized texts and the disappearance of paragraphs and coherence are so ever-present, so matter-of-fact, that I suspect many students and 'tech-savvy' managers consider them to be just how things are supposed to be, are, and are irresistibly becoming. Because I remained unaware of the conversation I have mentioned above, until just a couple of weeks ago, I believed I was waging a losing rear-guard war against a malaise that I was determined to wage a war against, regardless. I just hadn't thought of doing a Google search for Internet chatter about PowerPoint. My loss, for I would have been more evidence-based in my expressons of unease regarding PowerPoint.

It was with great surprise and relief, then, that, on April 27 (to be precise), I came upon the bold assertion, by a US Joint Forces Commander of all people(via a tweet by @Crossdawson), that "PowerPoint makes us stupid". I immediately retweeted it (@MauriYambo). For the full story, which I urge all to read, click here.

There's more online than the above links suggest, as a Google search will quickly reveal.


A Contra Contrarian View:
For a "contrarian" support for PowerPoint, read Carmine Gallo's In Defense of PowerPoint.

Where Perchance Was I, Who Was (Who Was I) Dere?: Haiku

What (was I Adam!)
If the last tree standing was
The Forbidden Tree?

Dodo, Brinklayer: Haiku

Prawn, b'side his dark hose.
Mi'st: dunes and de Tinderets.
Not dead, in Chun's 'ands!

Rush-hour Call

In the din of the evening
Rush hour,
You can still hear them birds call.

They have learnt to sing louder
Than words, if I remember.

So they can hear the singing
As we do, fading away.

As we pass them the emptying
Iborian downtown.

Ranen: Haiku

I am at week's end.
My babe be with me. Nano
Flicks of summers past.

Simpliciteria

Had my cake
And ate it!

I could do that.

All there was there was,
O please,
As thin slice of cake
In cloudy desire,
As I had.

Which I had,
And could have
No more.

And my hands felt
De emptiness,
My heart de tumblin --
A certain urge to hold
Still, and still hold.

When all was said -- undone.

I searched for answers,
For which there were
Ready questions:

Why, why,
I couldn't eat what I did not have.
Why, why,
It's never a good idea
To eat another's leftover.

Ate my cake
And don't have
It, no more!

All I H-a-v-e

What do I not have
That you think you do,
When I know that I have all
That can possibly be had,
Before heaven?

Necessity's Baby

It was dere in dat place
Where it all happen --
All, all --
All of a sudden.

I can take you dare.

She was dere, inside her den,
Which was her moder --
And whose Time was come.

And den Invention begat
Her own moder, as I saw,
Who was in her likeness.
Sure as you will see dem.

Let me tell you, a-a!

And who was already dare,
Cuddlin 'er very own --
And who saw dat it was good,
For all Time.

I can take you dare.

eStranger

All these people,
Milling and mixing and matching,
And of another mind!

They all see you, and that you see them.

Yet nobody knows who you are. And
You know you cannot know them, this way.

And no one understands you are here, or why,
And right now -- or not a story.
And will not ask.

Because you can only ask who is that when you see him,
Truly.

And nobody knows,
How it feels to ask what has never been asked,
Till Time amply passeth;
How it feels to know
What should never have been unknown,
Till now.

In that Place, which is all places!

And tho one or two point
In the vague direction,
Nobody knows, again.

They see you in passing,
And you pass, seeing them, without a word
They are looking for, who knows?

Gait rings a disconnected oneness.

You are a lone stranger.
You are among your own kind brother!

Needle's Eye

They were in danger, and couldn't imagine they were in the danger.

They were in more danger than they thought, when they began to run.
And they ran and ran, not knowing they were condemned from the start to be inside; inside that very same danger they sought to flee.

And they fled and fled --
from that which they could not outrun.

It was worse than the shadows!

They were in a danger which was inside them, already.
Eye of a needle inside a thread which made conception, such as we have it, even possible --
and even imaginable.

They were in danger, and couldn't imagine they were inside.



Footnotes:
1. Dinosaur Extinction
2. Tsunami strikes Chilean retirees
3. Chilean earthquake may have shortened length of day

Obama's State of the Union Speech

President Obama delivered his 'first' State of the Union speech to a joint-session of US Congress yesterday. I would have loved to watch it, but overslept:

Click here to read the speech.

The speech has so far elicited various reactions within the US -- from fringe Republican predictability to those willing to be persuaded and wishing him to succeed.

In general, it seems, his drive to re-connect with middle class citizens just might work -- if his agenda works, against a tide of Republican baying.

The monumental question, though, is this: Will globalization's tentative but inexorable equitization momentum allow him ample elbow room for the US to fully recover, in his watch? That's the thought that came to my mind as I waded through all the aftertalk, such as I was able to wade through in the (rushed) morning.

Louis XIV and Taniel: A Dream Encounter

-- "Bon jour!"
-- "Chamge!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Says the Sun King, over and over his crystal
glass of red wine: "L'etat, c'est Moi"

Taniel, the teetotaller,concurs,
fiddlin with his fimbo:
"Yenyewe! Thy own libs..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tuonane! Tujuane!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Change must come, Tijuana!






Note: Louis XIV