The precision of image synthesis techniques for rendering naturalistic scenes often works contrary to the realism of the everyday world. Pristine, crystalline, uniform and perfect may describe the most idealized computer images: the surfaces are smooth, neat and crisp in appearance. Efforts to produce realism have recently focused on light and the interaction of light with surfaces. The radiosi...

The poor success rate of policy for curriculum change has been widely noted in the educational change literature. Part of the problem lies in the complexity of schools, as policymakers have proven unable to micromanage the multifarious range of factors that impact upon the implementation of policy. This paper draws upon empirical data from a local authority-led initiative to implement Scotland’...

The field of humanoids robotics is widely recognized as the current challenge for robotics research. Developing humanoids poses fascinating problems in the realization of manipulation capability, which is still one of most complex problem in robotics. The paper, starting from an overview of current activities in the development of humanoid robots, with special focus on manipulation, presents th...

Assuming that sound methodological indications regarding the evaluation of health promotion programs should be rooted in a critical reflection on the nature of health promotion programs, this paper reviews two traditional ontological perspectives at the basis of most scientific activity. While empirical realism conceptualises programs as natural objects, idealism and relativism strictly confine...

In recent years many theorists within the field of critical realism have highlighted the drive within modern mainstream economics towards mathematical modelling (Lawson 1997; Fleetwood 1999). Simultaneously, a group of French economics students have criticised the discipline, describing it as autistic and calling for a return to reality (Devine 2002). More recently, a theory has been advanced d...

This paper reflects on research carried out with a group of women receiving intensive family support aimed at addressing the cause of their family's 'anti-social behaviour'. The methodological approach to the research was underpinned by the philosophical principles of critical realism. It was also informed by the ethical and political concerns of feminist scholarship. The paper reports on the p...

Abstract In recent years, there has been an increasing number of scholars who have argued that “religion” is a specifically modern category which first emerged in Western Europe the seventeenth century and was further developed, extended to rest world, context colonialism. This, turn, led discussion what these studies mean for study religion. this article, I examine influential answer question ...