Search results for: Corporate social disclosure

Authors: Maryam Alkhalosi, Ahmad Naddaf, Rana Alani

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Qatar National Library has its main accounts on social media, which presents the general image of the library and its daily news. A paper will be presented based on a case study researching the outcome of having a separate Instagram account led by librarians, not the Communication Department of the library. The main purpose of the librarians-led account is to promote librarians’ services and events, such as research consultation, reference questions, community engagement programs, collection marketing, etc. all in the way that librarians think it reflects their role in the community. Librarians had several obstacles to help users understanding librarians' roles. As was noticed that Instagram is the most popular social media platform in Qatar, it was selected to promote how librarians can help users through a focused account to create a direct channel between librarians and users. Which helps librarians understand users’ needs and interests. This research will use a quantitative approach depending on the case study, librarians have used their case in the department of Research and learning to find out the best practices might help in promoting the librarians' services and reaching out to a bigger number of users. Through the descriptive method, this research will describe the changes observed in the numbers of community users who interact with the Instagram account and engaged in librarians’ events. Statistics of this study are based on three main sources: 1. The internal monthly statistics sheet of events and programs held by the Research and Learning Department. 2. The weekly tracking of the Instagram account statistics. 3. Instagram’s tools such as polls, quizzes, questions, etc. This study will show the direct effect of a librarian-led Instagram account on the number of community members who participate and engage in librarian-led programs and services. In addition to highlighting the librarians' role directly with the community members. The study will also show the best practices on Instagram, which helps reaching a wider community of users. This study is important because, in the region, there is a lack of studies focusing on librarianship, especially on contemporary problems and its solution. Besides, there is a lack of understanding of the role of a librarian in the Arab region. The research will also highlight how librarians can help the public and researchers as well. All of these benefits can come through one popular easy channel in social media. From another side, this paper is a chance to share the details of this experience starting from scratch, including the phase of setting the policy and guidelines of managing the social media account, until librarians reached to a point where the benefits of this experience are in reality. This experience had even added many skills to the librarians.

Keywords: librarian’s role, social media, instagram and libraries, promoting libraries’ services

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Authors: Catherine Wheatley, Emma L. Davies, Helen Dawes

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The health benefits of exercise are widely recognised, but numerous interventions have failed to halt a sharp decline in physical activity during early adolescence. Many such projects are underpinned by the Theory of Planned Behaviour, yet this model of rational decision-making leaves variance in behavior unexplained. This study investigated whether the Prototype Willingness Model, which proposes a second, reactive decision-making path to account for spontaneous responses to the social environment, has potential to improve understanding of adolescent exercise behaviour in school by exploring constructs in the model with young people. PE teachers in 4 Oxfordshire schools each nominated 6 pupils who were active in school, and 6 who were inactive, to participate in the study. Of these, 45 (22 male) aged 12-13 took part in 8 focus group discussions. These were transcribed and subjected to deductive thematic analysis to search for themes relating to the prototype willingness model. Participants appeared to make rational decisions about commuting to school or attending sports clubs, but spontaneous choices to be inactive during both break and PE. These reactive decisions seemed influenced by a social context described as more ‘judgmental’ than primary school, characterised by anxiety about physical competence, negative peer evaluation and inactive playground norms. Participants described their images of typical active and inactive adolescents: active images included negative social characteristics including ‘show-off’. There was little concern about the long-term risks of inactivity, although participants seemed to recognise that physical activity is healthy. The Prototype Willingness Model might more fully explain young adolescents’ physical activity in school than rational behavioural models, indicating potential for physical activity interventions that target social anxieties in response to the changing playground environment. Images of active types could be more complex than earlier research has suggested, and their negative characteristics might influence willingness to be active.

Keywords: adolescence, physical activity, prototype willingness model, school

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Authors: Mauro Cristeche

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This paper approaches the intervention of the American State in the social arena and the modeling of the rights system from the Argentinian experience, by observing the characteristics of its federal budgetary system, the evolution of social public spending and welfare programs in recent years, labor and poverty statistics, and the changes on the labor market structure. The analysis seeks to combine different methodologies and sources: in-depth interviews with specialists, analysis of theoretical and mass-media material, and statistical sources. Among the results, it could be mentioned that the tendency to state interventionism (what has been called ‘nationalization of social life’) is quite evident in the United States, and manifests itself in multiple forms. The bibliography consulted, and the experts interviewed pointed out this increase of the state presence in historical terms (beyond short-term setbacks) in terms of increase of public spending, fiscal pressure, public employment, protective and control mechanisms, the extension of welfare policies to the poor sectors, etc. In fact, despite the significant differences between both countries, the United States and Argentina have common patterns of behavior in terms of the aforementioned phenomena. On the other hand, dissimilarities are also important. Some of them are determined by each country's own political history. The influence of political parties on the economic model seems more decisive in the United States than in Argentina, where the tendency to state interventionism is more stable. The centrality of health spending is evident in America, while in Argentina that discussion is more concentrated in the social security system and public education. The biggest problem of the labor market in the United States is the disqualification as a consequence of the technological development while in Argentina it is a result of its weakness. Another big difference is the huge American public spending on Defense. Then, the more federal character of the American State is also a factor of differential analysis against a centralized Argentine state. American public employment (around 10%) is comparatively quite lower than the Argentinian (around 18%). The social statistics show differences, but inequality and poverty have been growing as a trend in the last decades in both countries. According to public rates, poverty represents 14% in The United States and 33% in Argentina. American public spending is important (welfare spending and total public spending represent around 12% and 34% of GDP, respectively), but a bit lower than Latin-American or European average). In both cases, the tendency to underemployment and disqualification unemployment does not assume a serious gravity. Probably one of the most important aspects of the analysis is that private initiative and public intervention are much more intertwined in the United States, which makes state intervention more ‘fuzzy’, while in Argentina the difference is clearer. Finally, the power of its accumulation of capital and, more specifically, of the industrial and services sectors in the United States, which continues to be the engine of the economy, express great differences with Argentina, supported by its agro-industrial power and its public sector.

Keywords: state intervention, welfare policies, labor market, system of rights, United States of America

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Authors: Budur Almutairi

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Introduction: There is an alarming increase in the number of diabetic patients in Saudi Arabia during the last twenty years. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that the country ranks seventh in the world for the rate of diabetes. It is also estimated that around 7 million of the population are diabetic and almost around 3 million have pre-diabetes. The prevalence is more in urban area than in rural and more in women than in men and it is closely associated with the parallel rise in obesity rates. Diabetes is found to be contributing to the increasing mortality, morbidity and vascular complications and becoming a significant cause of medical complications and even death. The trends shown by the numbers are worrying as the prevalence is steadily doubling every two decades and particularly in Saudi Arabia, this could soon reach 50% in those over 50 years of age. The economic growth and prosperity have shown notable changes in the lifestyle of the people. Most importantly, along with an increased consumption of fast foods and sugar-rich carbonated soft drinks, eating habits became less healthy and the level of physical activity is decreased. The simultaneous technological advancement and the introduction of new mechanical devices like, elevators, escalators, remotes and vehicles pushed people to a situation of leading a more sedentary life. This study is attempting to evaluate the success of the campaign that introduced through popular social media in the country. Methodology: The Ministry of Health (MoH) has initiated a novel method of campaign activity to generate discussion among public about diabetes. There were mythical monsters introduced through popular social media with disguised messages about the condition of diabetes has generated widespread discussions about the disease among the general public. The characters that started appearing in social media About 600 retweets of the original post was testimonial for the success of the Twitter campaign. The second most successful form of campaign was a video that adopted a very popular approach of using Dark Comedy in which, the diabetes was represented through a twisted negative character that talks about his meticulous plans of how he is going to take the common people into his clutches. This fictional character gained more popularity when introduced into twitter and people started interacting with him raising various questions and challenging his anti-social activities. Major findings: The video generated more than 3,200,000 views ranking 9th in You Tube’s most popular video in Saudi Arabia and was shared 7000 times in a single week. Also, the hashtag got over 4,500,000impressions and over one million visits. Conclusion: Diabetes mellitus in Saudi Arabia is emerging as an epidemic of massive proportions, threatening to negate the benefits of modernization and economic revival. It is highly possible that healthy practices connected with the prevention and management of DM can easily be implemented in a manner that does not conflict with the cultural milieu of Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: campaign, diabetes, Saudi, social media

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Authors: Yulan Wu

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The spread of fake news on social media has posed significant societal harm to the public and the nation, with its threats spanning various domains, including politics, economics, health, and more. News on social media often covers multiple domains, and existing models studied by researchers and relevant organizations often perform well on datasets from a single domain. However, when these methods are applied to social platforms with news spanning multiple domains, their performance significantly deteriorates. Existing research has attempted to enhance the detection performance of multi-domain datasets by adding single-domain labels to the data. However, these methods overlook the fact that a news article typically belongs to multiple domains, leading to the loss of domain knowledge information contained within the news text. To address this issue, research has found that news records in different domains often use different vocabularies to describe their content. In this paper, we propose a fake news detection framework that combines domain knowledge and expert knowledge. Firstly, it utilizes an unsupervised domain discovery module to generate a low-dimensional vector for each news article, representing domain embeddings, which can retain multi-domain knowledge of the news content. Then, a feature extraction module uses the domain embeddings discovered through unsupervised domain knowledge to guide multiple experts in extracting news knowledge for the total feature representation. Finally, a classifier is used to determine whether the news is fake or not. Experiments show that this approach can improve multi-domain fake news detection performance while reducing the cost of manually labeling domain labels.

Keywords: fake news, deep learning, natural language processing, multiple domains

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Authors: Rana AlHajri, Salah Al-Sharhan, Ahmed Al-Hunaiyyan

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Mobile learning is a new learning landscape that offers opportunity for collaborative, personal, informal, and students’ centered learning environment. In implementing any learning system such as a mobile learning environment, learners’ expectations should be taken into consideration. However, there is a lack of studies on this aspect, particularly in the context of Kuwait higher education (HE) institutions. This study focused on how students perceive the use of mobile devices in learning. Although m-learning is considered as an effective educational tool in developed countries, it is not yet fully utilized in Kuwait. The study reports on the results of a survey conducted on 623 HE students in Kuwait to a better understand students' perceptions and opinions about the effectiveness of using mobile learning systems. An analysis of quantitative survey data is presented. The findings indicated that Kuwait HE students are very familiar with mobile devices and its applications. The results also reveal that students have positive perceptions of m-learning, and believe that video-based social media applications enhance the teaching and learning process.

Keywords: higher education, mobile learning, social media, students’ perceptions

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Authors: Tien Hui Chiang

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Along with the predominant influence of neo-liberalism, public managerialism is viewed as a panacea for curing the institutionalized weakness caused by the monopoly of the public sector. In the name of efficiency, its outcome-led approach acquires a legitimate status and, in turn, it transforms into the discourse of performativity, reformulating the souls of individual members into the form of docile bodies who are willing to demonstrate their own ability in organizational contributions. The evaluation system and the organizational reconstruction are viewed as the crucial means for achieving this mission. Inevitably, university teachers are confined within a rigid and bureaucratic setting, in which they do not have too much latitude but are subject to the commands of senior administrators. However, the notion of duality highlights the interaction between structural constraints and agency. If the actor discovers the rules or properties of social structure, he/she is able to transform structural constraints into resources for developing creative actions, conceptualized as an agency. This study was designed for examining how duality operates within this hierarchical arrangement formed by public managerialism. Fourteen informants were interviewed from February to August 2014. The findings show that the evaluation system created the culture of neo-academicalism, addressing excellence in research and, in turn, motivating academic-oriented teachers. This correspondence provided a gateway for them to win honor, dignity, and prestige in groups. However, unlike the concept of duality, this agency was operating within the institutionalized context, regulated by structural constraint. Furthermore, complying with the rule/property of social structure was able to secure their advantages.

Keywords: public managerialism, social discourse, neo-academicalism, duality, structural constraint, agency

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Authors: Aneesa Shafi

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Reproduction is a complex term in a setting where it is continuously being shaped by epistemological shifts in knowledge. It denotes not just fertility, birth and childcare related practices but also the ideas that shape those practices. These ideas and practices figure into understandings of social and cultural renewal. Patriarchy continues to be a dominating force in the formation of these ideas and practices. Contemporary times are characterized by the resurgence of the whims of patriarchal politics in delineating the margins of women’s health care. This has further emboldened the struggle for reproductive rights on the global stage. The paper examines the subordination of the right to bodily autonomy of women within the ambit of their reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are recognized human rights and women’s rights. Why these rights of women face stiff opposition is established, as is the structure that creates hurdles to their enjoyment. The negotiation of this structure in the everyday life through women’s agency is also established. The reproductive sphere includes not just the process of reproduction but also social reproduction- domestic work, spheres of production and reproduction, population and birth (control) issues.

Keywords: patriarchy, women, reproduction, gender

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Authors: Shu-Hsi Ho

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The problems of aging and number of widowed peers gradually rise in Taiwan. It is worth to concern the related issues for elderly after the death of a spouse. Hence, this study is to examine the impact of spousal death on the surviving spouse’s self-perceived health and mental health for the elderly in Taiwan. A cross section data design and ordered logistic regression models are applied to investigate whether marriage is associated significantly to self-perceived health and mental health for the widowed older Taiwanese. The results indicate that widowed marriage shows significant negative effects on self-perceived health and mental health regardless of widows or widowers. Among them, widows might be more likely to show worse mental health than widowers. The belief confirms that marriage provides effective sources to promote self-perceived health and mental health, particularly for females. In addition, since the social welfare system is not perfect in Taiwan, the findings also suggest that family and social support reveal strongly association with the self-perceived health and mental health for the widows and widowers elderly.

Keywords: logistic regression models, self-perceived health, widow, widower

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Authors: Diego Cruz, Helbert Arevalo, Diana Vernot

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In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said that insect production for food and feed could become an economic opportunity for rural women in developing countries. However, since then, just a few initiatives worldwide had tried to implement this kind of project in zones of tropical countries without previous experience in cricket production and insect human consumption, such as Colombia. In this project, ArthroFood company and the University of La Sabana join efforts to make a holistic multi-perspective analysis from biological, economic, culinary, and social sides of the Gryllodes sigillatus production by rural women of the municipality of La Mesa, Cundinamarca, Colombia. From a biological and economic perspective, G. sigillatus production in a 60m2 greenhouse was evaluated considering the effect of rearing density and substrates on final weight and length, developing time, survival rate, and proximate composition. Additionally, the production cost and labor hours were recorded for five months. On the other hand, from a socio- economic side, the intention of the rural women to implement cricket farms or micro-entrepreneurship around insect production was evaluated after developing ethnographies and empowerment, entrepreneurship, and cricket production workshops. Finally, the results of the elaboration of culinary recipes with cricket powder incorporating cultural aspects of the context of La Mesa, Cundinamarca, will be presented. This project represents Colombia's first attempt to create a social business model of cricket production involving rural women, academies, the private sector, and local authorities.

Keywords: cricket production, developing country, edible insects, entrepreneurship, insect culinary recipes

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Authors: Khalliyeva Gulnoz Iskandarovna, Mannonova Feruzabonu Sherali Qizi

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A scientific field called comparative literature or literary comparative studies compares two or more literary phenomena. One of the most important scientific fields nowadays, when global social, cultural, and literary relations are growing daily, is comparative literature. Any comparative investigation reveals shared and unique characteristics of literary phenomena, which provide the cornerstone for the creation of overarching theoretical principles that apply to all literature. Comparative analysis consists of objects, and they are their constituents. For researchers, it is enough to know this. Comparative analysis, in addition to the above-mentioned actions, also focuses on comparing the components of the objects of analysis with each other. The purpose of this article is to investigate comparative analysis in literature and to identify similarities and differences between comparable objects. Students, teachers, and researchers should be able to describe comparative research techniques and their fundamental ideas when studying this topic. They should also have a basic understanding of comparative literature and their summary.

Keywords: object, natural, social, spiritual, epistemological, logical, methodological, methodological, axiological tasks, stages of comparison, environment, internal features, and typical situations

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Authors: Hadas Sopher, Davide Schaumann, Yehuda E. Kalay

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This paper addresses the shortcomings of architectural computation tools in representing human behavior in built environments, prior to construction and occupancy of those environments. Evaluating whether a design fits the needs of its future users is currently done solely post construction, or is based on the knowledge and intuition of the designer. This issue is of high importance when designing complex buildings such as hospitals, where the quality of treatment as well as patient and staff satisfaction are of major concern. Existing computational pre-occupancy human behavior evaluation methods are geared mainly to test ergonomic issues, such as wheelchair accessibility, emergency egress, etc. As such, they rely on Agent Based Modeling (ABM) techniques, which emphasize the individual user. Yet we know that most human activities are social, and involve a number of actors working together, which ABM methods cannot handle. Therefore, we present an event-based model that manages the interaction between multiple Actors, Spaces, and Activities, to describe dynamically how people use spaces. This approach requires expanding the computational representation of Actors beyond their physical description, to include psychological, social, cultural, and other parameters. The model presented in this paper includes cognitive abilities and rules that describe the response of actors to their physical and social surroundings, based on the actors’ internal status. The model has been applied in a simulation of hospital wards, and showed adaptability to a wide variety of situated behaviors and interactions.

Keywords: agent based modeling, architectural design evaluation, event modeling, human behavior simulation, spatial cognition

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Authors: Marc Solé, Francesc Giné, Magda Valls, Nina Bijedic

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What people say on social media has turned into a rich source of information to understand social behavior. Specifically, the growing use of Twitter social media for political communication has arisen high opportunities to know the opinion of large numbers of politically active individuals in real time and predict the global political tendencies of a specific country. It has led to an increasing body of research on this topic. The majority of these studies have been focused on polarized political contexts characterized by only two alternatives. Unlike them, this paper tackles the challenge of forecasting Spanish political trends, characterized by multiple political parties, by means of analyzing the Twitters Users political tendency. According to this, a new strategy, named Tweets Analysis Strategy (TAS), is proposed. This is based on analyzing the users tweets by means of discovering its sentiment (positive, negative or neutral) and classifying them according to the political party they support. From this individual political tendency, the global political prediction for each political party is calculated. In order to do this, two different strategies for analyzing the sentiment analysis are proposed: one is based on Positive and Negative words Matching (PNM) and the second one is based on a Neural Networks Strategy (NNS). The complete TAS strategy has been performed in a Big-Data environment. The experimental results presented in this paper reveal that NNS strategy performs much better than PNM strategy to analyze the tweet sentiment. In addition, this research analyzes the viability of the TAS strategy to obtain the global trend in a political context make up by multiple parties with an error lower than 23%.

Keywords: political tendency, prediction, sentiment analysis, Twitter

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Authors: Aldona Anna Osajda

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Suicide is a phenomenon that worries both the public and scientists in various fields. In society, suicide is a taboo subject, and in addition, there are many myths and stereotypes that are detrimental to the proper understanding and appropriate response of a person at risk of suicide. It is necessary to educate society and the suicide prevention system for various age groups. The research covers the level of knowledge and views of Polish society, including teachers and youth, regarding suicides. The main research problem is to establish the level of awareness of Polish society about the phenomenon of suicides. The study will be based on the diagnostic survey method, using the survey technique. Information about the research will be disseminated electronically on the Internet via social messaging. The collected data will be analyzed using appropriate statistics. On the basis of the obtained results, answers will be given to research questions, which will become the basis for designing an appropriate educational strategy for the society in the field of suicide and developing recommendations and recommendations for teachers to conduct classes in the field of suicide prevention for children and adolescents.

Keywords: phenomenon of suicides, suicide, suicide prevention, suicidology

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Authors: Siuzan Uorner

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The era of late modernity is characterized, on the one hand, by social disintegration, values of personal freedom, tolerance, and self-expression. Boundaries between the accessible and the elitist, normal and abnormal are blurring. On the other hand, traditional social institutions, such as religion (especially Russian Orthodox Church), exist, criticizing lifestyle and worldview other than conventionally structured canons. Despite the declared values and opportunities in late modern society, people's freedom is ambivalent. Personal identity and its aspects are becoming a subject of choice. Hence, combinations of identity aspects can be incompatible. Our theoretical framework is based on P. Ricoeur's concept of narrative identity and hermeneutics, E. Goffman’s theory of social stigma, self-presentation, discrepant roles and W. James lectures about varieties of religious experience. This paper aims to reconstruct ways of coping with incompatible identities of Orthodox gays (an extreme sampling of a combination of sexual orientation and religious identity in a heteronormative society). This study focuses on the discourse of Orthodox gay parishioners and ROC gay priests in Russia (sampling ‘hard to reach’ populations because of the secrecy of gay community in ROC and sensitivity of the topic itself). We conducted a qualitative research design, using in-depth personal semi-structured online-interviews. Recruiting of informants took place in 'Nuntiare et Recreare' (Russian movement of religious LGBT) page in VKontakte through the post with an invitation to participate in the research. In this work, we analyzed interview transcripts using axial coding. We chose the Grounded Theory methodology to construct a theory from empirical data and contribute to the growing body of knowledge in ways of harmonizing incompatible identities in late modern societies. The research has found that there are two types of conflicts Orthodox gays meet with: canonic contradictions (postulates of Scripture and its interpretations) and problems in social interaction, mainly with ROC priests and Orthodox parishioners. We have revealed semantic meanings of most commonly used words that appear in the narratives (words such as ‘love’, ‘sin’, ‘religion’ etc.). Finally, we have reconstructed biographical patterns of LGBT social movements’ involvement. This paper argues that all incompatibilities are harmonizing in the narrative itself. As Ricoeur has suggested, the narrative configuration allows the speaker to gather facts and events together and to compose causal relationships between them. Sexual orientation and religious identity are getting along and harmonizing in the narrative.

Keywords: gay priests, incompatible identities, narrative identity, Orthodox gays, religious identity, ROC, sexual orientation

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Authors: Ellen Dahl Gundersen, Berit Johannessen

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Introduction: Dementia and depression are common mental disorders of nursing home residents. The care of these residents consists of providing both physical, social and mental care. Too often, the physical needs are given priority, and municipal health services are urged to focus more on the patients mental and social needs. The presence of dogs may have positive impact on the mental health of nursing home residents by improving mood, social interaction and enjoyment of the visits. The voluntary organization Red Cross, has given priority to this subject by training and certifying dogs and owners (equipages), committed for regular visits at local nursing homes. Focus of this study: How do the dog owners and employees experience the presence of a dog equipage concerning the mental health of nursing home residents? Method: Individual interviews with 8-10 certified dog owners who are volunteers from Red Cross, contributing with regular visits at local nursing homes. Focus group interviews with 10 employees working in two different nursing homes. Preliminary results: Five to seven residents and one or two employees attended weekly dog equipage visits during a period of six months. The presence of an equipage seems to have made the residents calm and more social orientated with a lighter mood and better verbal expression. Some of the residents with dementia remembered the name of the dog from one week to another. The informants also reported positive outcome for the residents by their opportunity to give and get close through physical contact with a dog. Further, the presence of an equipage affected the atmosphere at the nursing home positively by promoting joy and initiating conversations about dogs. A conscious approach by the dog owners towards the residents seems to be of significance to this matter. The positive attitude and support from employees also seem to be of crucial importance for the maintenance of these visits. Conclusion: The presence of trained dog equipages in nursing homes seems to have had an overall positive impact on the mental health of residents. A conscious approach from the dog owners as well as positive support from employees seems to have a crucial impact on the success and maintenance of the visits. These findings correspond well to former research and can thereby give implications for more extended use of dogs as a mental health promoting initiative towards geriatric consumers of municipal health care services. Further research through larger studies is needed.

Keywords: animal assisted intervention, geriatric mental health, nursing home, resident

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Authors: Jin Liang, Q. Li, Yue Qi, Liying Wang, Wenhua Yu, Xun Liu

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Fertility is very important for women. The gender role of women gives them the fertility ability. Giving birth to a boy or a girl might have effect on the mother’s life in the past in China. However, with the shifting of traditional attitudes and views, the women's social status and living situation have been transformed. Although the pregnancy and childbirth can still bring them a major impact on their lives, the form and content of the impact have changed. So we investigated the rural women of Hebei province after birth to reflect their living situation changes before and after birth and the differences of their living situation from women in the past by using a self-made rural women life situation change questionnaire, the index of well-being, and the index of general effect questionnaire. It has shown that women’s living situation after babybirth in Hebei province is well in general, and their mind and body, as well as their interpersonal relationships and social status, were all enhanced. The women’s living situation after babybirth was positively related to and could anticipate subjective happiness, and specifically, the rural women’s mind and body, their interpersonal relationship and social status in rural women life situation change questionnaire are the main predicted factors to subjective happiness. Furthermore, the women’s self-identification on female roles was influenced by the children’s gender. Specifically, women with only one daughter had highest self-identification on female roles, consisting with their families' concept about children’s gender, which indicated family values have a great effect on women’s self-identification on female roles in rural. Moreover, the women’s living situation and subjective happiness are both impacted by home incomes.

Keywords: rural women, parturition, well-being, life quality

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Authors: Dovile Kuzminskaite

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Rosario Castellanos is one of the most important Mexican writers; in her poetry and essays, she demythologizes social stereotypes about womanhood that were deeply present in Mexican society of the XXth century. In her extent poetic work, Rosario Castellanos demythologizes such concepts as romance, marriage, and motherhood, showing them in a way which did not agree with the norms of the catholic based society of her times. The aim of this research is to analyze the poetry of Rosario Castellanos working on sematic and structural levels and to investigate closely how she represents motherhood, what is the role of mother and the relationship of mother and child in her poems. Also, it is of interest to observe what are the elements used in the process of creating a different concept of motherhood. In order to reflect on this subject, this research will be based on semiotics, queer studies, and the philosophy of Michel Foucault, who introduces the concept of power when reflecting on gender and society. Rosario Castellanos turned into an example of disobedience and otherness for a generation of intellectuals in Spanish speaking countries, and because of this reason, it is of great importance to understand the politic and social statements that are represented by her poetry.

Keywords: motherhood, women, poetry, Mexico

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Authors: Konrad Rejdak

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Introduction: Neurodegenerative diseases are frequently accompanied by loss and unwanted change in functional independence, social relationships, and economic circumstances. Currently, the achievements of social robots to date is being projected to improve multidimensional quality of life among people with cognitive impairment and others. Objectives: Identification of particular human needs in the context of the changes occurring in course of neurodegenerative diseases. Methods: Based on the 110 surveys performed in the Medical University of Lublin from medical staff, patients, and caregivers we made prioritization of the users' needs as high, medium, and low. The issues included in the surveys concerned four aspects: user acceptance, functional requirements, the design of the robotic assistant and preferred types of human-robot interaction. Results: We received completed questionnaires; 50 from medical staff, 30 from caregivers and 30 from potential users. Above 90% of the respondents from each of the three groups, accepted a robotic assistant as a potential caregiver. High priority functional capability of assistive technology was to handle emergencies in a private home-like recognizing life-threatening situations and reminding about medication intake. With reference to the design of the robotic assistant, the majority of the respondent would like to have an anthropomorphic appearance with a positive emotionally expressive face. The most important type of human-robot interaction was a voice-operated system and by touchscreen. Conclusion: The results from our study might contribute to a better understanding of the system and users’ requirements for the development of a service robot intended to support patients with dementia.

Keywords: assistant robot, dementia, long term care, patients

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Authors: Jason Dew

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Podcasts are increasingly sources of intellectual content for many who desire to broaden their worldview. Topics range from sports to folklore, entertainment to spirituality. The list from which to choose is large, demonstrating the public’s interest in this medium. While traditional classrooms continue to serve the curious and upward bound, podcasts also satisfy intellectual cravings, especially for those on the go. The paper will explore how the podcast, The Professor’s Bayonet, attempts to scratch these itches by offering 4-5 minute commentaries on literary works, both classic and contemporary, through the dual lenses of current trends in society and theology. The reason for this approach is borne out of the direction many students take in exchanges of ideas. They have a sincere interest in how the books that are covered are relevant to their lives, and their questions are probing to the extent that dips into theology are helpful. Cursory examinations of whatever topic just won’t suffice. Those in Generation Z, especially, are parched for real and true answers. The paper, therefore, will share some excerpts from a selection of episodes, explaining the reasons behind why certain works were showcased. In an episode entitled “The Possibility of Evil,” for example, Shirley Jackson’s 1965 short story of the same name is explored, focusing on why the protagonist, Adela Strangeworth, leaves nasty little notes in the mailboxes of those in her small community she deems deserving of a good tongue-lashing. There is a negative result and the opportunity to make the connection to social media and how millions of individuals are guilty of the very same thing Adela Strangeworth is guilty of, making Jackson’s work somewhat prophetic. Reasons for this behavior are explored, namely what it says about how we as a society have evolved both interpersonally and spiritually.

Keywords: podcast, social commentary, theology, literary

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Authors: Anna Papadopoulou

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Women’s relationship to the post-industrial city has been defined by a reciprocal relationship between women’s identity and urban form. Women’s place within the social structure has been influenced by often limiting conditions set by the built environment, and, concurrently, women’s active role in social processes has definitively impacted urban development. Cities in Cyprus present unique locations for urban investigations pertaining to gender because of the country’s particular urban history: unlike most prominent European cities that have experienced approximately five hundred years of urban growth spurred by industrial development, Cypriot cities did not begin to form until the end of the Ottoman occupation that occurred in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Consequently, Cyprus’ urban history is distinctive in that it coincides with international awakenings towards gender equality. This paper is drawn from a study of a contemporary urban narrative of Limassolian women and aims to elucidate spatial and perceptual boundaries that are inherent, constructed and implied. Within the context of this study, gender - in its socially constructed form - becomes a tool for reading and understanding the urban landscape, as well as a vehicle to impact the production and consumption of space. The investigation evaluates urban changes through the lens of women’s entry into the workforce which is a profound event in the social process and consequently explores issues of space and time, connectivity, and access, perceptions and awareness. A narrative of gendered urbanism has been derived from semi-structured interviews where the findings are studied, organised, analysed and synthesised through a grounded theory approach. These qualitative findings have been complemented and specialised by a series of informal observations and mappings.

Keywords: boundaries, gender, Limassol, urbanism

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Authors: Olga Kokoulina

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Today, algorithms are assuming a leading role in various areas of decision-making. Prompted by a promise to provide increased economic efficiency and fuel solutions for pressing societal challenges, algorithmic decision-making is often celebrated as an impartial and constructive substitute for human adjudication. But in the face of this implied objectivity and efficiency, the application of algorithms is also marred with mounting concerns about embedded biases, discrimination, and exclusion. In Europe, vigorous debates on risks and adverse implications of algorithmic decision-making largely revolve around the potential of data protection laws to tackle some of the related issues. For example, one of the often-cited venues to mitigate the impact of potentially unfair decision-making practice is a so-called 'right to explanation'. In essence, the overall right is derived from the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) ensuring the right of data subjects to access and mandating the obligation of data controllers to provide the relevant information about the existence of automated decision-making and meaningful information about the logic involved. Taking corresponding rights and obligations in the context of the specific provision on automated decision-making in the GDPR, the debates mainly focus on efficacy and the exact scope of the 'right to explanation'. In essence, the underlying logic of the argued remedy lies in a transparency imperative. Allowing data subjects to acquire as much knowledge as possible about the decision-making process means empowering individuals to take control of their data and take action. In other words, forewarned is forearmed. The related discussions and debates are ongoing, comprehensive, and, often, heated. However, they are also frequently misguided and isolated: embracing the data protection law as ultimate and sole lenses are often not sufficient. Mandating the disclosure of technical specifications of employed algorithms in the name of transparency for and empowerment of data subjects potentially encroach on the interests and rights of IPR holders, i.e., business entities behind the algorithms. The study aims at pushing the boundaries of the transparency debate beyond the data protection regime. By systematically analysing legal requirements and current judicial practice, it assesses the limits of the transparency requirement and right to access posed by intellectual property law, namely by copyrights and trade secrets. It is asserted that trade secrets, in particular, present an often-insurmountable obstacle for realising the potential of the transparency requirement. In reaching that conclusion, the study explores the limits of protection afforded by the European Trade Secrets Directive and contrasts them with the scope of respective rights and obligations related to data access and portability enshrined in the GDPR. As shown, the far-reaching scope of the protection under trade secrecy is evidenced both through the assessment of its subject matter as well as through the exceptions from such protection. As a way forward, the study scrutinises several possible legislative solutions, such as flexible interpretation of the public interest exception in trade secrets as well as the introduction of the strict liability regime in case of non-transparent decision-making.

Keywords: algorithms, public interest, trade secrets, transparency

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Authors: Nisar Alungal Chungath

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“No human being is illegal" has become a dictum strongly upheld in the context of global immigration and migration, highlighting the ethical and moral dimensions of how societies and governments treat individuals and communities who have crossed political borders or are living in a country without legal authorization. It seeks to shift the focus from categorizing human beings as illegal immigrants to recognizing their inherent human rights and the complexities of their circumstances. As a complex social phenomenon, law has been a crucial instrument in shaping, regulating and governing human societies and vice versa. The law has now become a humongous political project of the modern majoritarian regimes to democratically illegitimize and illegalize the unpopular sections and minorities. Drawing from the theoretical frameworks of dialectics, the paper explores the philosophical underpinnings of the historical evolution and dynamic nature of modern law. The paper employs a phenomenological approach to analyze the dialectical relations between individuals, societies, and legal systems, aiming to shed light on the ethical and political implications of these interactions. By examining the historical essence of law, its relationship with social and cultural norms, and the role of power dynamics, this article argues for constantly maintaining the dialectics of law—the dynamic interplay between legal norms, social practices, cultural values, and historical contexts through a philosophical and phenomenological lens, in order to bridge the gap between universal principles and particular contexts. The paper will shed light to the dialectics of the law in the context of instances of the legal persecutions of the modern secular democracies such as Citizenship Amendment Act-2019, India.

Keywords: phenomenology, dialectic, modern law, politics, resistance, margins

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Authors: Tholokuhle T. Ntshakala, Seraphin D. Eyono Obono

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Nations are still finding it quite difficult to win mega sport competitions despite the major contribution of sport to society in terms of social and economic development, personal health, and in education. Even though the world of sports has been transformed into a huge global economy, it is important to note that the first step of sport is usually its introduction to children at school through physical education or PE. In other words, nations who do not win mega sport competitions also suffer from a weak and neglected PE system. This problem of the neglect of PE systems is the main motivation of this research aimed at examining the factors affecting the perceived awareness of physical education teachers on the ICT's that are adoptable for the teaching and learning of physical education. Two types of research objectives will materialize this aim: relevant theories will be identified in relation to the analysis of the perceived ICT awareness of PE teachers and subsequent models will be compiled and designed from existing literature; the empirical testing of such theories and models will also be achieved through the survey of PE teachers from the Camperdown magisterial district of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The main hypothesis at the heart of this study is the relationship between the demographics of PE teachers, their behavior both as individuals and as social entities, and their perceived awareness of the ICTs that are adoptable for PE, as postulated by existing literature; except that this study categorizes human behavior under performance expectancy, computer attitude, and social influence. This hypothesis was partially confirmed by the survey conducted by this research in the sense that performance expectancy and teachers’ age, gender, computer usage, and class size were found to be the only factors affecting their awareness of ICT's for physical education.

Keywords: human behavior, ICT Awareness, physical education, teachers

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Authors: Abhay Vir Singh Kanwar

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The pharmaceutical industry today is a multi-billion dollar business and yet disadvantages people in many corners of the globe who are still dying in large numbers from curable illnesses for lack of access to drugs. The astronomical prices of essential and life-saving drugs is not just an economic problem that can be settled through clever market strategies but is an ethical issue, given the accumulated wealth of today’s humanity and the sense of global justice that it increasingly comes to share. In this paper, I make a very practical argument for what I shall call ‘the ethical healthcare paradigm’, which, I propose, can replace the economistic paradigm that can still drive the healthcare sector without creating spillover effects on the market. Taking off from the ethical-philosophical argument for recognizing every individual’s right to capability to be healthy, I shall come to the focused practical proposal of the cost-rationalization and universal availability of essential, life-saving drugs through the undertaking of research and development funding for drug innovation by the business establishment as such in terms of the concept of CSR. The paper will first expose the concepts of basic and fundamental capabilities in relation to education and health, after which it will focus on the right to capability to be healthy of every person. In the third section, it will discuss the ‘ethical healthcare paradigm’ as opposed to the economistic health paradigm and will argue that the patient will have to be considered the primary stakeholder of this paradigm or the very ‘subject’ of healthcare. The next section will be on an ethical-historical critique of the pharmaceutical industry’s profit driven economism. The section after that will look at the business operation and the stages in the life cycle of a drug that comes to the market in order to understand the risks, strengths and problems of the pharmaceutical industry. Finally, the paper will discuss the concept of CSR in relation to the ethical healthcare paradigm in order to propose CSR funding in research and development for innovation on drugs so that life-saving drugs can be made available to every sick person cost-effectively.

Keywords: capability approach, healthcare, CSR, patient

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Authors: Rachael Sullivan, Joshua Berman

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The number of satellites orbiting earth are in the thousands now. Commercial launches are increasing, and civilians are venturing into the outer reaches of the atmosphere. As the space industry continues to grow and evolve, so too will the demand on resources, the disparities amongst socio-economic groups, and space company governance standards. Outside of just ensuring that space operations are compliant with government regulations, export controls, and international sanctions, companies should also keep in mind the impact their operations will have on society and the environment. Those looking to expand their operations into outer space should remain mindful of both the opportunities and challenges that they could encounter along the way. From commercial launches promoting civilian space travel—like the recent launches from Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and Space X—to regulatory and policy shifts, the commercial landscape beyond the Earth's atmosphere is evolving. But practices will also have to become sustainable. Through a review and analysis of space industry trends, international government regulations, and empirical data, this research explores how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting and investing will manifest within a fast-changing space industry.Institutions, regulators, investors, and employees are increasingly relying on ESG. Those working in the space industry will be no exception. Companies (or investors) that are already engaging or plan to engage in space operations should consider 1) environmental standards and objectives when tackling space debris and space mining, 2) social standards and objectives when considering how such practices may impact access and opportunities for different socioeconomic groups to the benefits of space exploration, and 3) how decision-making and governing boards will function ethically, equitably, and sustainably as we chart new paths and encounter novel challenges in outer space.

Keywords: climate, environment, ESG, law, outer space, regulation

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Authors: Ons Triki, Fathi Abid

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Along with the increase in the use of leasing contracts in corporate finance, multiple studies aim to model the credit risk of the lease in order to cover the losses of the lessor of the asset if the lessee goes bankrupt. In the current research paper, a convertible lease contract is elaborated in a continuous time stochastic universe aiming to ensure the financial stability of the firm and quickly recover the losses of the counterparties to the lease in case of default. This work examines the term structure of the lease rates taking into account the credit default risk and the capital structure of the firm. The interaction between the lessee's capital structure and the equilibrium lease rate has been assessed by applying the competitive lease market argument developed by Grenadier (1996) and the endogenous structural default model set forward by Leland and Toft (1996). The cumulative probability of default was calculated by referring to Leland and Toft (1996) and Yildirim and Huan (2006). Additionally, the link between lessee credit risk and lease rate was addressed so as to explore the impact of convertible lease financing on the term structure of the lease rate, the optimal leverage ratio, the cumulative default probability, and the optimal firm value by applying an endogenous conversion threshold. The numerical analysis is suggestive that the duration structure of lease rates increases with the increase in the degree of the market price of risk. The maximal value of the firm decreases with the effect of the optimal leverage ratio. The results are indicative that the cumulative probability of default increases with the maturity of the lease contract if the volatility of the asset service flows is significant. Introducing the convertible lease contract will increase the optimal value of the firm as a function of asset volatility for a high initial service flow level and a conversion ratio close to 1.

Keywords: convertible lease contract, lease rate, credit-risk, capital structure, default probability

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Authors: H. Haryati, A. Nor Azura

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Over the turn of the century, the advertising landscape has evolved significantly, from print media to digital media. In line with the shift to the advanced science and technology dramatically shake the framework of societies Fifth Industrial Revolution (IR5.0), technological endeavors have increased exponentially, which influenced user interaction more inspiring through online advertising that intentionally leads to buying behavior. Users are more accustomed to interactive content that responds to their actions. Thus, immersive experience has transformed into a new engagement experience To centennials. The purpose of this paper is to investigate pleasure and arousal as the fundamental elements of consumer emotions and affective responses to marketing stimuli. A quasi-experiment procedure will be adopted in the research involving 40 undergraduate students in Nilai, Malaysia. This study employed a 2 (celebrity endorser vs. Social media influencer) X 2 (high and low visual complexity) factorial between-subjects design. Participants will be exposed to a printed version depicting a fashion product endorsed by a celebrity and social media influencers, presented in high and low levels of visual complexity. While the questionnaire will be Distributing during the lab test session is used to control their honesty, real feedback, and responses through the latest Instagram design and engagement. Therefore, the research aims to define the immersive experience on Instagram and the interaction between pleasure and arousal. An advertisement that evokes pleasure and arousal will be likely getting more attention from the target audience. This is one of the few studies comparing the endorses in Instagram advertising. Also, this research extends the existing knowledge about the immersive visual complexity in the context of social media advertising.

Keywords: immersive visual experience, instagram, pleasure, arousal

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Authors: Luisa Carrer, Lorenzo De Masi

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In this paper, we exploit the massive amount of information from Facebook to build a measure of gender attitudes in Italy at a previously impossible resolution—the municipal level. We construct our index via a machine learning method to replicate a benchmark region-level measure. Interestingly, we find that most of the variation in our Gender Norms Index (GNI) is across towns within narrowly defined geographical areas rather than across regions or provinces. In a second step, we show how this local variation in norms can be leveraged for identification purposes. In particular, we use our index to investigate whether these differences in norms carry over to the policy activity of politicians elected in the Italian Parliament. We document that females are more likely to sit in parliamentary committees focused on gender-sensitive matters, labor, and social issues, but not if they come from a relatively conservative town. These effects are robust to conditioning the legislative term and electoral district, suggesting the importance of social norms in shaping legislators’ policy activity.

Keywords: gender equality, gender norms index, Facebook, machine learning, politics

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Authors: Sijuade A. A., Oguntoye J. P., Awodoye O. O., Adedapo O. A., Wahab W. B., Okediran O. O., Omidiora E. O., Olabiyisi S. O.

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Electronic voting systems have been introduced to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of the election process in many countries around the world, including Nigeria. However, concerns have been raised about the security and integrity of these systems. One way to address these concerns is through the implementation of electronic forensic election audit systems. This study aims to evaluate voters' intention to the adoption of electronic forensic election audit systems using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. In the study, the UTAUT model which is a widely used model in the field of information systems to explain the factors that influence individuals' intention to use a technology by integrating performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, cost factor and privacy factor to voters’ behavioural intention was proposed. A total of 294 sample data were collected from a selected population of electorates who had at one time or the other participated in at least an electioneering process in Nigeria. The data was then analyzed statistically using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results obtained show that all variables have a significant effect on the electorates’ behavioral intention to adopt the development and implementation of an electronic forensic election audit system in Nigeria.

Keywords: election Audi, voters, UTAUT, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating condition social influence, facilitating conditions, cost factor, privacy factor, behavioural intention

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