Organizations are the dominant social invention for generating resources and distributing them. Relational Inequalities develops a general sociological and organizational analysis of inequality, exploring the processes that generate inequalities in access to respect, resources, and rewards. Framing their analysis through a relational account of social and economic life, Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Dustin Avent-Holt explain how resources are generated and distributed both within and between organizations. They show that inequalities are produced through generic processes that occur in all social relationships: categorization and their resulting status hierarchies, organizational resource pooling, exploitation, social closure, and claims-making. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, Tomaskovic-Devey and Avent-Holt focus on the workplace as the primary organization for generating inequality and provide a series of global goals to advance both a comparative organizational research model and to challenge troubling inequalities.

During last decade significant progress has been made in the oil indus try by using soft computing technology. Underlying this evolving technology there have, been ideas transforming the very language we use to describe problems with imprecision, uncertainty and partial truth. These developments offer exciting opportunities, but at the same time it is becoming clearer that further advancements are confronted by funda mental problems. The whole idea of how human process information lies at the core of the challenge. There are already new ways of thinking about the problems within theory of perception-based information. This theory aims to understand and harness the laws of human perceptions to dramatically im prove the processing of information. A matured theory of perception-based information is likely to be proper positioned to contribute to the solution of the problems and provide all the ingredients for a revolution in science, technology and business. In this context, Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing (BISC), Univer sity of California, Berkeley from one side and Chevron-Texaco from another formed a Technical Committee to organize a Meeting entitled "State of the Art Assessment and New Directions for Research" to understand the signifi cance of the fields accomplishments, new developments and future directions. The Technical Committee selected and invited 15 scientists (and oil indus try experts as technical committee members) from the related disciplines to participate in the Meeting, which took place at the University of California, Berkeley, and March 15-17, 2002.

This book examines fuzzy relational calculus theory with applications in various engineering subjects. The scope of the text covers unified and exact methods with algorithms for direct and inverse problem resolution in fuzzy relational calculus. Extensive engineering applications of fuzzy relation compositions and fuzzy linear systems (linear, relational and intuitionistic) are discussed. Some examples of such applications include solutions of equivalence, reduction and minimization problems in fuzzy machines, pattern recognition in fuzzy languages, optimization and inference engines in textile and chemical engineering, etc. A comprehensive overview of the authors' original work in fuzzy relational calculus is also provided in each chapter.The attached CD-Rom contains a toolbox with many functions for fuzzy calculations, together with an original algorithm for inverse problem resolution in MATLAB. This book is also suitable for use as a textbook in related courses at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

This book delivers the first comprehensive development of a liberal conception of relational equality as a demand of social justice. Liberal egalitarian theories holding that justice requires a form of distributive equality in goods such as resources have been dominant for much of the last 50 years. Recently they have been subject to critique by relational egalitarians, who hold that the value of equality does not primarily require that people receive equal shares of some good, but that they relate as social equals, unencumbered by hierarchies of power and social status.

This book draws connections and explores important questions at the intersection of the debates about relational autonomy and relational equality. Although these two research areas share several common assumptions and concerns, their connections have not been systematically explored. The essays in this volume address theoretical questions at the intersection of relational theories of autonomy and equality and also consider how these theoretical considerations play out in real-world contexts. Several chapters explore possible conceptual links between relational autonomy and equality by considering the role of values—such as agency, non-domination, and self-respect—to which both relational autonomy theorists and relational egalitarians are committed. Others reflect on how debates about autonomy and equality can clarify our thinking about oppression based on race and gender, and how such oppression affects interpersonal relationships. Autonomy and Equality: Relational Approaches is the first book to specifically address the relationship between these two research areas. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in social and political philosophy, moral philosophy, and feminist philosophy.

How does socio-economic inequality affect our ability to relate to each other on emotional and intellectual levels? To date, public discourse on the rising level of inequality in many Western nations has been informed by quantifiable terms such as income and capital. Philosophical approaches, conversely, tend to focus on distributional aspects such as welfare, resources, and opportunities. In The Feeling of Inequality, author Martin Hartmann argues that the impact of inequality far transcends the material, highlighting the ways in which the emotional aspects of these disparities serve as engines of social differentiation. Reinterpreting David Hume's and Adam Smith's respective theories of sympathy, Hartmann sketches a relational theory of democracy that construes equality as a social relationship, placing particular emphasis on the emotions and attitudes that often accompany inequality such as contempt, envy, shame, esteem, pride, and admiration. Hartmann then localizes these 'relative' emotions in social and cultural practices, illustrating the ways in which these emotions result in concrete manifestations of inequality. By breaking down the foundations of the various empathy gulfs plaguing contemporary democratic societies, Hartmann paves the way for a more compassionate approach to thinking about inequality.

No book has addressed the simultaneous phenomena of Korea’s rapid economic development and its vibrant democratization in a single coherent paradigm. The late developmentalist approach emphasizes the strong role of Korea’s state and bureaucratic efficiency but does not explain how political development was concurrent with the economic miracles in the Han River; modernization and dependence theories also fail to explain the aspect of simultaneity in this phenomenon. What these three theories commonly miss is the unique relationship between state and society in Korea’s long history of political culture. In this book, Jongwoo Han takes a holistic approach to understanding these phenomena by examining the state’s role in the unprecedented economic development and society’s capabilities to resist the state’s centralized power. Han re-articulates state-society relations through Onuf’s social constructivist approach based on three rules of a political community: hegemony, hierarchy, and heteronomy. This book expands upon this effort to re-construct the state and society relations in two ways. First, it produces case studies of the capital city of Hanyang (Joseon Dynasty from 1392 to 1910), Kyeongseong (Japanese colonial control from 1910 to 1945), and Seoul (1945-current). The capital city is analyzed as a container for the major ideologies and ways of thinking that have shaped three important political eras. Second, i adopts two indigenous thoughts, Neo-Confucianism and geomancy, as sources of the main political and cultural ideologies that shape Korea’s state and society relations. These sources have never been treated as units of political analysis. This book finds that both Neo-Confucianism and geomancy, over two periods of Hanyang and Kyeongseong, are two main contributing factors of the emergence of the developmental state and vibrant democracy in Korea in the Seoul era.

This is the fourth volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. Since its revival in the 1970s political philosophy has been a vibrant field in philosophy, one that intersects with jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory. OSPP aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in political philosophy and these closely related subfields. This volume features eight papers that address a range of central topics and represent cutting edge work in the field. The three parts of the volume explore legitimacy, egalitarianism, and liberty and coercion.

Fuzzy systems and data mining are indispensible aspects of the computer systems and algorithms on which the world has come to depend. This book presents papers from FSDM 2021, the 7th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Data Mining. The conference, originally due to take place in Seoul, South Korea, was held online on 26-29 October 2021, due to ongoing restrictions connected with the COVID-19 pandemic. The annual FSDM conference provides a platform for knowledge exchange between international experts, researchers, academics and delegates from industry. This year, the committee received 266 submissions, and this book contains 52 papers, including keynotes and invited presentations, oral and poster contributions. The papers cover four main areas: 1) fuzzy theory, algorithms and systems – including topics like stability; 2) fuzzy applications – which are widely used and cover various types of processing as well as hardware and architecture for big data and time series; 3) the interdisciplinary field of fuzzy logic and data mining; and 4) data mining itself. The topic most frequently addressed this year is fuzzy systems. The book offers an overview of research and developments in fuzzy logic and data mining, and will be of interest to all those working in the field of data science.