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The article presents information about the new integration theory of sustainable regional development. It is an empirically verified theory; its main components are the business environment quality (BEQ), the innovation potential of companies (IPC), and the use of human resources (UHR). Its foundations can be expressed as follows: an improvement of regional quality of business environment stimulates the development of entrepreneurial activities with positive impacts on employment rate and creation of innovations; thus generated synergic effects reinforce the territorial integration of economy and regional competitiveness, which form the basic prerequisites for sustainable regional development. The objective validity of the theory has been confirmed mainly based on hypotheses that BEQ values have strong links to GDP level and further and correspond with the population of regions as the essential measure of their significance. Application of theory allowed formulating a regional development strategy of the Czech Republic.

What is the mechanism underlying search phenomena such as search asymmetry? Two-stage models such as Feature Integration Theory and Guided Search propose parallel pre-attentive processing followed by serial post-attentive processing. They claim search asymmetry effects are indicative of finding pairs of features, one processed in parallel, the other in serial. An alternative proposal is that a 1-stage parallel process is responsible, and search asymmetries occur when one stimulus has greater internal uncertainty associated with it than another. While the latter account is simpler, only a few studies have set out to empirically test its quantitative predictions, and many researchers still subscribe to the 2-stage account. This paper examines three separate parallel models (Bayesian optimal observer, max rule, and a heuristic decision rule). All three parallel models can account for search asymmetry effects and I conclude that either people can optimally utilise the uncertain sensory data available to them, or are able to select heuristic decision rules which approximate optimal performance.

Natural disasters and public health emergencies occurred frequently and nearly everywhere in recent years. The emergencies not only seriously affected the production and life of people in disaster areas, but also brought huge economic losses to the state. In order to minimize these losses, the government must establish emergency procurement system to ensure providing necessary materials after emergencies in the fastest speed, best quality and lowest cost for the affected areas. Based on this, this paper, using integration theory, recognizes the government emergency procurement platform system, operating system and supervision system as the elements of the government emergency procurement system, and laid the foundation for further study.

The authors points out that there are several objective prerequisites for supranational mechanism to be implemented. These include a well-developed economy, high degree of internationalization and substantal level of economic interdependence. The growing contradictions between the national regulation and transnational economy can be eased by recourse to supranational mechanisms. The globalization opens the way for supranational solutions on a broad international scale.

One aim of all educational institutions is to advance the relationship between academic advising and students’ outcomes. The purpose of this literature review was to examine whether the level of quality of academic advising as measured by the advisor’s meeting frequently, informativeness and availability, educational support, and career support predict students’ persistence outcomes as measured by college loyalty, intent to drop out, social integration, and academic integration. This study helps provide evidence and empirical data to the field of academic advising by investigating its relationship with students’ college commitment. The study was guided by Tinto integration theory (1987) and Astin involvement theory (1984). The literature derives from Saudi and united states studies. The analysis of this literature resulted in the identification of the academic advising relationship with students’ outcomes. The findings are suggesting that quality academic advising matters for students’ college commitment and positively predicted students’ perceived academic integration. Future research should continue exploring the relationship between the quality of academic advising and students’ college commitment but not necessarily limited to one institution or community.

This paper analyzes the current status of rural information in Chinese, and analyzes the influencing factors on the effect of information technology applied in the rural areas from a technology adoption point of view. Then using the integration theory of technology adoption model and network externality theory, it increases the factors of network externality and cost to construct a model of user behavior model of information technology in rural areas. Finally, it proves the validity of model factors by empirical research to provide theory for the further development of information technology in rural areas.

This article notes a lack of communication between two broad schools of scholarship on regional integration: EU studies and analyses of the 'new regionalism'. It is argued that the existence of this divide, which is perpetrated by proponents of both schools, is an impediment to the elaboration of useful theory as well as being a missed opportunity. The benefits and problems of using the EU as a comparator in studies of regionalism are assessed. While the mistake of giving the EU analytical primacy as a benchmark or model is to be avoided, it is argued that careful treatment of accumulated insights from EU studies (including a proper re-inspection of classical integration theory) brings clear methodological and meta-theoretical benefits for the project of comparative regional integration scholarship.

Cognitive Grammar suggests that trajector/landmark organization provides the conceptual basis for the grammatical notions subject and that object appling the knowledge of attention (the metaphor of spotlignt) to trajector/landmark organization. It has been generally accepted that trajector/landmark organization corresponds to figure/ground organization, but there seems to be no authentic ground for this idea. Furthermore, we are now facing new theories of attention that is able to fix the problems of spotlight theory. The research of Attention has made noticeable progress since shullman et al's(1979) spotlight theory. It has been viewed within Feature Integration Theory (Treisman and Gelade 1980), as an object-based phenomenon (duncan 1984), and as Biased Competition (Desimone and Duncan 1995). This study attempts to apply the refined knowledge of attention theories to the subject phenomenon of Korean Grammar. The primary result reveals that '-nun' marks endogenous attention and '-ka' marks exogenous attention. It sounds plausible that the distinction between endogenous and exogenous attention is marked by grammatical organization, because within the framework of Cognitive Grammar, grammar is symbolic, and not distinct from semantics, but rather incorporates semantics as one of its two (semantic and phonological) poles.

In all Western countries which have been the destination for large-scale migration over the past decades, integration and assimilation issues are heavily debated. This has certainly helped making M...

The conditions for serial search are described. A multiple target search methodology (Thornton & Gilden, 2007) is used to home in on the simplest target/distractor contrast that effectively mandates a serial scheduling of attentional resources. It is found that serial search is required when (a) targets and distractors are mirror twins, and (b) when the search elements lack the Gestalt property of intrinsic orientation. The finding is put into the context of Feature Integration Theory (Treisman & Gelade, 1980) that first identified the occasions of serial search to be important to object perception and understanding.

In a previous issue of this journal, Mark Murphy critically examined Jurgen Habermas’ engagement with the process of European integration. In particular, Murphy questioned Habermas’ faith in EU law and social policy as instruments for the promotion of democracy and cosmopolitan solidarity. This article challenges the theoretical presuppositions of Murphy's account, and hence the argument he builds on them. First, it is argued, Murphy provides only a partial exposition of Habermas’ conception of European integration. With reference to EU social policy, for example, the Habermasian perspective is found to have more in common with the influential work of Stephan Leibfried than with the account of it provided by Murphy. Second, Murphy neglects the centrality to Habermas’ thought of the phenomenological ‘lifeworld’. As a result, Habermas is depicted, somewhat misleadingly, as a productivist social democrat, while the implications of his thought for analysis of the democratic deficit are left unexplored.

We construct an integration theory for sc-differential forms on oriented branched ep-subgroupoid for which Stokes’ theorem holds true. The construction is compatible with equivalences between ep-groupoids and so gives rise to an integration theory for branched suborbifolds of polyfolds. Examples are the solutions sets of proper oriented Fredholm sections of strong polyfold bundles for which we obtain invariants this way.

This article proposes a new interdisciplinary perspective in international relations (IR). It suggests that contributions from perception studies can help us reconceptualize some elements of IR. Specifically, the article takes up the concept of Gestalt and applies it to European integration. The Gestalt laws and phenomena demonstrated by European integration can be identified in other examples of regional integration, as well as in various international organizations, or alliances. They also provide insight into other features of IR, such as the international order. The Gestalt approach per se may contribute to the development of a psychological constructivist theory of IR.

The purpose of this study was to examine the diversity-related change process a university athletic department was undertaking. A comprehensive model was developed by drawing from full integration theory and institutional theory. Following an organizational diagnosis perspective, data were collected through semistructured interviews, internal documents from the athletic department and university culture centers, associated websites, and press releases. Results indicate that political, functional, and social pressures for change influenced the implementation of various diversity initiatives. Despite these efforts, two primary groups of factors served to impede the progress: organizational factors, in the form of top management support and systemic integration, and perceptual processes, in the form of social processes and utility. Results suggest that for diversity-related change to be successful, it is important to consider how diversity impacts the entire sport organization, internal and external stakeholders’ perceptions, and the meaningful influence of organizational factors.

This paper analyzes the function of the Arab League decision-making system and its influences on the Arab integration from the perspective of institutionalism and integration theory. Arab League ma...

Integration is a buzzword in manufacturing strategies for global competitiveness. However, some fundamental questions have yet to be answered scientifically; namely, what is integration, why integrate, and what should be integrated? How do existing integration models approach the problems of integration and to what extent are they successful? A theory-based model of information requirements for integrated manufacturing is needed to answer these questions properly. Such a model can unify hitherto narrowly defined and domainoriented approaches. We suggest a paradigm of parallel formulation and use it to formulate the information requirements for integration, including data and knowledge classes, decision spaces, and logical interactions.

Current literature on preattentive detection of significant emotional faces in visual search tasks show that these results require an explanation within the theories devoted to explaining similar results obtained for features like orientation and color in the attention literature, the best known candidate for which so far is the feature integration theory (FIT) proposed by Treisman and Gelade. This paper attempts to bridge such a gap between the attention and the emotion theories by proposing that `emotional features' should be proposed within the FIT due to their resemblance with the other features of the theory like their preattentive detection. Within such a scheme the amygdala will act as a substitute for the cells in the striate cortex that are shown to be responsible for processing the visual features, as amygdala has been shown to process faces with significant emotional value preattentively. The paper also proposes an experimental paradigm that can provide empirical support for such emotional features.

A decade ago parties were largely absent from research on and theories of EU politics. The role of parties is now a central part of the research agenda, particularly in the area of EU legislative politics. The new research on parties in EU politics has made significant theoretical contributions, led to the collection and dissemination of new datasets, and employs some of the most advanced statistical methods in contemporary European political science. What is still missing, however, is a general theory of the role and impact of political parties, which helps to explain actors' behaviour in EU politics in a range of situations. This paper sketches some of the basic elements of what might be called a ‘partisan theory of EU politics’, starting from a discussion of how the policy and office incentives of national parties are shaped by the EU's ‘upside-down polity’.

Schneider and Shiffrin (1977) proposed that training under consistent stimulus-response mapping (CM) leads to automatic target detection in search tasks. Other theories, such as Treisman and Gelade's (1980) feature integration theory, consider target-distractor discriminability as the main determinant of search performance. The first two experiments pit these two principles against each other. The results show that CM training is neither necessary nor sufficient to achieve optimal search performance. Two other experiments examine whether CM trained targets, presented as distractors in unattended display locations, attract attention away from current targets. The results are again found to vary with target-distractor similarity. Overall, the present study strongly suggests that CM training does not invariably lead to automatic attention attraction in search tasks.

The Convention on the Future of Europe not only attracted public and political attention, but quickly reached centre-stage in the academic debate about European integration. Six years after the Convention was set up, this article asks whether this flourishing field of research chiefly permits insights into an idiosyncratic institution, or whether the Convention served as a catalyst for more enduring developments in integration theory. Arguing in favour of the latter, the article demonstrates that EU scholars have used the Convention to refine our theoretical understanding in three areas: (1) domestic preference formation; (2) international negotiations; and (3) deliberative democracy and constitutional design. The reviewed literature follows a predominant trend in integration theory, namely to ‘import’ established approaches from comparative politics, international relations and democratic theory rather than to theorize the Union's nature and the process of supranational integration as a single case. In t...

Information technology (IT) adoption research recognizes theoretical limitations in discerning if and when user behavior results from perceived external influences or from personal volition. A clear understanding of this issue requires a precise distinction between mandatory and volitional behaviors. Consistent with organismic integration theory (OIT), this study situates the locus of user motivations inside the user. Drawing upon an endogenous view of behaviors, this research makes three key contributions. First, it develops the theoretical basis for clearly discerning if and when behavior results from perceived external influences or from personal volition. Specifically, it examines how endogenous psychological feelings of autonomy, freedom, conflict, and external pressure can predict and explain user intentions. Second, it proposes that behavior may result from combinations of perceived external influences and personal volition. Recognizing how such "collections of motivations" together influence behavior advances our understanding beyond the "dichotomy" of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivations often adopted in prior research. Third, it proposes that some desired behaviors may be thwarted or impeded by a conflict between perceived external influences and personal volition. The theoretically grounded research model was empirically validated in a field study on Blackboard, a Web-based education platform at a large university. Data collected from a sample of 211 users were tested using structural equation models of initial system adoption and experienced use. Empirical support was found for the proposed model and related hypotheses. The results of this study advance our understanding about user motivations for adopting IT.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which the European Union (EU) is influencing policy making in EU member states. It covers the historical development of the UK, France and Germany. There is evidence to suggest politics and economic policy making in these countries are now similar particularly in the areas of adopting anti inflationist strategies and opening up markets. However, some differences remain particularly regarding the flexibility of labour markets in the various member states.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on the various components of integration theory and incorporates also a business history approach.Findings – The main findings indicate that the EU is gradually having more influence over member states, newer areas of development include social policy, immigration and an increasing neoliberalist approach towards opening new markets. However, countries are still given some flexibility, for example, there are still a number of countries not yet will...

A number of studies have been done on the migration of male athletes in well-known sport disciplines such as football. However, we lack knowledge about migration in smaller sport disciplines and about female athletes as sport migrants. The present article examines first of all the growing number of foreign players in the Danish women's handball league from 1999 to 2007. Second, the athletes' motives for moving to Danish handball clubs are categorized, and third, the migrants' experiences in Danish handball clubs are related to the strategies of integration in two prominent handball clubs. The analysis reveals, among others, family- and space-related aspects which have not been covered in the literature on sports migration. Moreover, integration theory forms a useful supplement to migration theory in explaining the ways in which the club experiences of the migrants affect their motives.

The Treaty of Lisbon presents itself as the answer to three key constitutional questions: How should the division of competencies between the Union and the member states best be defined? How can actors be positioned and procedures be structured to increase the Union’s capacity to act? What provisions will make the EU system ‚more democratic‘ and thereby increase its legitimacy? In answering these questions the member states are faced with a number of structural dilemmas. A series of changes to the existing provisions is expected to lead to increased efficiency as well as more democratic participation and controls within individual institutions and procedures. It is uncertain, however, if these effects will prove mutually reinforcing or if, on the contrary, they will turn out to be counterproductive in combination. The underlying constitutional problems and questions are not conclusively addressed by the Lisbon Treaty.

The proficiency and neural underpinnings of human and nonhuman animal ability to estimate or compare different sets of items has been investigated in different fields of research such as evolution, development, and education. The general consensus holds that these abilities are supported by the so-called approximate number system (ANS). In this chapter, we will question the methods used in the ANS studies, challenge the existence of the ANS to some degree, and present an alternative sensory integration theory. First, it is explained how our performance in numerosity judgment tasks can be explained on the basis of a mechanism weighing or integrating the different visual cues. A parallel is drawn between this integration mechanism and conservation abilities. Second, it is discussed how such a integration mechanism can be used to explain the observed relation between performance in numerosity judgment tasks and math achievement.

The purpose of this present study was to improve student knowledge on the semi-adjustable articulator. Following from the insights provided by Ryan and Deci’s review of Organismic Integration Theory (OIT), we attempted to promote student interest in the semi-adjustable articulator. OIT was also utilized to provide guidance in assessing student motivation and its relation between the degree of student knowledge/interest. Finally, the study also aimed at establishing a rationale to evaluate and further develop our classroom practices at the institute. Through this process for raising student awareness, it was suggested that to observe the FGPs was useful to recognize the utility of a semi-adjustable articulator when a bridge at the molar region is made. Moreover, it was suggested that the student motivation helped promote their understanding. This highlights the need to support student motivation in our classroom. Finally, future studies on how professors perceive bureaucratic pressures from Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) and within the institute could add additional insights to improving our educational practices in the classroom.

We treat a stochastic integration theory for a class of Hilbert-valued, volatility-modulated, conditionally Gaussian Volterra processes. We apply techniques from Malliavin calculus to define this stochastic integration as a sum of a Skorohod integral, where the integrand is obtained by applying an operator to the original integrand, and a correction term involving the Malliavin derivative of the same altered integrand, integrated against the Lebesgue measure. The resulting integral satisfies many of the expected properties of a stochastic integral, including an It\^{o} formula. Moreover, we derive an alternative definition using a random-field approach and relate both concepts. We present examples related to fundamental solutions to partial differential equations., Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.3150/15-BEJ696 in the Bernoulli (http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli/) by the International Statistical Institute/Bernoulli Society (http://isi.cbs.nl/BS/bshome.htm)

We have seen in Part II the importance of a.e. convergence in integration theory. The purpose of this last chapter of our book is to clarify its relationship to other convergence notions.

Functional hemispheric asymmetries with respect to global/local processing have been observed more reliably in divided-attention than in selective-attention tasks. This difference has been accounted for by assuming that the hemispheres operate differently in the two tasks. In our study, the alternative hypothesis was tested that the interference between the global and local levels is increased under divided attention, and that this makes it necessary to base response selection on a more elaborated mental stimulus representation in which the levels and their content are integrated. Because the hemispheres systematically differ in this integration process (Hübner and Volberg, 2005), the increased interference between the levels explains why the corresponding asymmetries occur more reliably under divided attention. Two experiments supporting this hypothesis are reported, one with a divided and one with a selective attention task.

In [11] Sion has investigated measures and integrals having values in uniform semigroups. In this paper a result which gives sufficient conditions for the existence of a unique product of semigroup valued measures is established. Moreover a convergence theorem for product integrals of semigroup valued functions is proved.

The history of integration is developed in a large number of papers and books, among which we can quote, without being exhaustive [4, 9, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 26, 31, 35, 40, 42, 45, 50]. The aim of this note is, after recalling briefly the evolution of the definition of the integral of a real function of one real variable over an interval (the ‘riemannesque story’), to try to imagine what the history could have been if, instead of giving a rigorous definition of the integral for continuous functions, Augustin Cauchy had tried, following the earlier motivation of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, to define rigorously the integral for functions which have a primitive, i.e. for derivatives (the ‘romanesque story’). We show that, if Cauchy or his immediate followers had been successful, the history of integration, and even the history of analysis in the XIX and XX centuries would have been quite different and the progress somewhat faster. In this way, we give another perspective – a ‘history of science’-fiction one – to the importance of the new definition of the integral introduced by Jaroslav Kurzweil [28] in 1957 – fifty years ago – and independently by Ralph Henstock [24] in 1961.

Firstly the chapter provides an overview of political and socio-economic (economic sciences) theories which can be employed in order to trace the international integration of infrastructures. In a second step some of these theories are applied to empirical-historical facts. The functionalistic integration theory of political sciences is used to explain the integration in the telecommunications sector. For a general analysis of the integration of infrastructures the standardization theory of social sciences is applied. The economic perspective of the new institutional economics contributes the theory of path dependencies, which is tested as an explanatory means for transport integration in post-World War II Europe on the one hand and for the integration of specific facts in the railway sector since the nineteenth century and in the telecommunications sector in the twentieth century. Furthermore the theory of property rights is utilized for the examination of European radio integration in the post-World War II era.

First published online: 18 Jun 2015 We map the pattern and extent of the European integration of core state powers (coercive force, public finance and public administration) and analyse causes and consequences. We highlight two findings: First, in contrast to historical examples of federal state-building, where the nationalization of core state powers precipitated the institutional, territorial and political consolidation of the emerging state, the European integration of core state powers is associated with the institutional, territorial and political fragmentation of the European Union. Second, in contrast to European market integration, state élites and mass publics, not organized business interests, are the prime drivers of integration. Published version of EUI RSCAS WP 2015/33

The concept of bounded variation has been generalized in many ways. In the frame of functions taking values in Banach space, the concept of bounded semivariation is a very important generalization. The aim of this paper is to provide an accessible summary on this notion, to illustrate it with an appropriate body of examples, and to outline its connection with the integration theory due to Kurzweil., Comment: 39 pages, to be submitted to Real Analysis Exchange

Going beyond studies of individual differences in and profiles of students' motivation, we investigated situation-specific (intra-personal) experiences of autonomous (enjoyment, interest, and task choice) and controlled (having to do, and the teacher wanting them to do a task) motivation across learning situations during one week, and how these were related to student characteristics (teacher rated academic performance and task-focus). Three-hundred and fourteen primary school students (Years 5 and 6) completed electronic questionnaires on Personal Digital Assistants, on an average of 11.2 learning episodes during a week. Multilevel Structural Equation Models provided support for a model based in organismic integration theory (OIT). At the situation-level, controlled motivation positively predicted autonomous motivation. At the student-level, students differed in the association between autonomous and controlled motivations, such that lower performers felt more autonomously motivated when controlled motivation was high. Implications for teacher practice are discussed.

Due to the complication of agrarian and industrial complex, functioning of various forms and strengthening of influence of integration on its prospects there is necessity of studying of problems of development of its integration environment, a need of definition of its role for overcoming of this crisis phenomena in agrarian sector and a need of justification of concepts of its further development. On the basis of the results of the analysis we can mark transformational structures of agrarian and industrial complex, also we can prove an application of differential and integration theory in studying of development of the integration sphere of the agrosphere, we can define its structure,elements, and factors causing its state. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s7p253

This paper argues that the divide between 'new' and 'old' regionalisms in international politics is increasingly seen as exaggerated, but that the conceptual implications of this non-difference have yet to be taken seriously. The attempt to build a new body of theory to explain and describe recent forms of region-building—the 'New Regionalist Approach'—is mistaken, and falsely sets up classical integration theory as an Other in an act of auto-definition. Likewise, the acceptance of this divide by EU scholars—whether explicitly or by default—hampers their own attempts to elaborate useful theory. The two areas of study are properly understood not as separate paradigms, but rather as sub-divisions of the same one. Thus, a fruitful way to harness the insights of scholars in both sub-fields of study is to undertake an explicit programme of comparative research based around an agreed set of independent variables, research issues and hypotheses, all stemming from a common definition of the dependent variable. Th...

Several studies have demonstrated that hemispheric differences for the processing of hierarchical letter stimuli are more likely to occur when the letters at the levels are associated with conflicting responses. Typically, a single stimulus is presented, so that the conflict occurs between the global and the local levels of the same stimulus. Our hypothesis is that in this situation, conflict resolution requires integration of the letters and their respective levels and that the hemispheres differ in this integration process. According to this integration theory, the favorable effect of response conflict on hemispheric differences should vanish if other features, such as location, can also serve for conflict resolution. This prediction was tested in the present study by simultaneously presenting an individual hierarchical stimulus to each visual field. Conflicting letters either were arranged within one stimulus or were placed in different stimuli. In the latter case, a response conflict could also be resolved by integrating letters and locations. As was expected, there were no visual field effects in these conditions. On the other hand, visual field effects showed up when the conflicting letters were located within the same stimulus. These results support the idea that the hemispheres differ in their capacity for integrating level and form.

Visual search is a key paradigm in attention research that has proved to be a test bed for competing theories of selective attention. The starting point for most current theories of visual search has been Treisman's “feature integration theory” of visual attention (e.g., Treisman & Gelade, 1980). A number of key issues that have been raised in attempts to test this theory are still pertinent questions of research today: (1) The role and (mode of) function of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms in controlling or “guiding” visual search; (2) in particular, the role and function of implicit and explicit memory mechanisms; (3) the implementation of these mechanisms in the brain; and (4) the simulation of visual search processes in computational or, respectively, neurocomputational (network) models. This paper provides a review of the experimental work and the—often conflicting—theoretical positions on these thematic issues, and goes on to introduce a set of papers by distinguished experts in fields designed to ...

Deliberative approaches build on a large body of normative and positive political theory, which highlights the contribution of argumentative interaction for the coherence of a polity, its social acceptance and its normative acceptability. The purpose of this overview is to show the richness of deliberative approaches in integration studies and to stimulate researchers to apply them to empirical work. Deliberative approaches are a promising alternative to more established theoretical approaches. Their comparative strength is that they provide normative guidance to integration studies, open up a new research agenda for the analysis of interaction in European politics, and offer innovative interpretations for understanding the institutional design and the political process of the EU.

This paper uses attachment theory as an explanatory framework to better understand the God image. The first part explores theoretical foundations and contemporary perspectives on attachment theory. Next, empirical research on the God image and attachment is reviewed. The final part discusses how clinicians can use this framework to conceptualize and collaborate with clients who wish to address their relationship with God in the psychotherapy process.

For a long time people have been trying to develop probability theory starting from ‘finite’ events rather than collections of infinite events. In this way one can find natural replacements for measurable sets and integrable functions, but measurable functions seemed to be more difficult to find. We present a solution. Moreover, our results are constructive (in the sense of Bishop).