Search results for: cultural image

Authors: Maria L. Swanson

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Language is a system which constantly changes and reflects social and cultural transformations of a speech community. If it is phonetic system, morphological patterns and syntactic arrangements undergo little charge and are not easily transferable from one language to another, the lexicon has a high degree of flexibility. Borrowings in Arabic have always been an interesting and important subject of study to various fields of linguistics, history and culturology, and there is quite number of works devoted to this subject (al-Khalīl, Sībawīḥ, Jeffery, Belkin, al-Maghribii, Holes, Stetkevich, el-Mawlūdī, between many others). At the same time, the history of borrowing has never been described as a process starting from its originating and up to the present time. Most of the researches study lexical and morphological adaptation of borrowed words for specific or several historical periods or delineate this process on the whole. Meanwhile, we have described the whole history of borrowings in Arabic with the brief depicting of lexical and morphological specifics for each historical period using quantitative method through dividing Arabic borrowings into several groups, basing on the specific of their adaptation of new vocabulary which is tightly related to the global transformations in the Arabic history. We explain reasons for borrowings of specific lexical layers for each historical period together with the description of its morphological specifics. We also use qualitative approach through performing statistics about the share of loan vocabulary in Arabic during different periods and the percentage of borrowings from donor languages. The history of a character and amount of borrowings is a good resource for theoretical and practical lexicography and morphology studies. It is also beneficial for researchers in the field of global and specific national, political and social developments, and different types of contacts.

Keywords: anthropological linguistics, borrowings, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics

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Authors: Diljan C. K.

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Every location on the planet has a history and culture that give it its own identity and character, making it distinct from others. urbanised world, it is fashionable to remould its original character and impression in a contemporary style. The new character and impression of places show a complete detachment from their roots. The heritage and cultural values of the place are replaced by new impressions, and as a result, they eventually lose their identity and character and never have sustenance. In this situation, form-based coding acts as a tool in the urban design process, helping to come up with solutions that strongly bind individuals to their neighbourhood and are closely related to culture through the physical spaces they are associated with. Form-based code was made by pioneers of new urbanism in 1987 in the United States of America. Since then, it has been used in various projects inside and outside the USA with varied scales, from the design of a single building to the design of a whole community. This research makes an effort to interpret the form-based code in historic corridors to establish the association of physical form and space with the public realm to uphold the context and culture. Many of the historic corridors are undergoing a tremendous transformation in their physical form, avoiding their culture and context. This will lead to it losing its identity in form and function. If the case of Valiyashala in Trivandrum is taken as the case, which is transforming its form and will lead to the loss of its identity, the form-based code will be a suitable tool to strengthen its historical value. The study concludes by analysing the existing code (KMBR) of Valiyashala and form-based code to find the requirements in form-based code for Valiyashala.

Keywords: form based code, urban conservation, heritage, historic corridor

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Authors: Asma Mehan

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Under the thrust of technological changes, population growth and vehicular traffic, Iranian historical squares have lost their significance and they are no longer the main social nodes of the society. This research focuses on how historical public squares can inspire designers to enhance social interactions among citizens in Iranian urban context. Moreover, the recent master plan of Tehran demonstrates the lack of public spaces designed for the purpose of people’s social gatherings. For filling this gap, first the current situation of 7 selected primary historical public squares in Tehran including Sabze Meydan, Arg, Topkhaneh, Baherstan, Mokhber-al-dole, Rah Ahan and Hassan Abad have been compared. Later, the influencing elements on social interactions of the public squares such as subjective factors (human relationships and memories) and objective factors (natural and built environment) have been investigated. As a conclusion, some strategies are proposed for improving social interactions in historical public squares like; holding cultural, national, athletic and religious events, defining different and new functions in public squares’ surrounding, increasing pedestrian routs, reviving the collective memory, demonstrating the historical importance of square, eliminating visual obstacles across the square, organization the natural elements of the square, appropriate pavement for social activities. Finally, it is argued that the combination of all influencing factors which are: human interactions, natural elements and built environment criteria will lead to enhance the historical public squares’ potential for social interaction.

Keywords: historical square, Iranian public square, social interaction, Tehran

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Authors: Funmilayo L. Amao, Amos O. Amao

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It has been observed that majority of the people are living in poor housing quality or totally homeless in urban center despite all governmental policies to provide housing to the public. On the supply side, various government policies in the past have been formulated towards overcoming the huge shortage through several Housing Reform Programmes. Despite these past efforts, housing continues to be a mirage to ordinary Nigerian. Currently, there are various mass housing delivery programmes such as the affordable housing scheme that utilize the Public Private Partnership effort and several Private Finance Initiative models could only provide for about 3% of the required stock. This suggests the need for a holistic solution in approaching the problem. The aim of this research is to find out the problems hindering the delivery of housing in Nigeria and its effects on housing affordability. The specific objectives are to identify the causes of housing delivery problems, to examine different housing policies over years and to suggest a way out for sustainable housing delivery. This paper also reviews the past and current housing delivery programmes in Nigeria and analyses the demand and supply side issues. It identifies the various housing delivery mechanisms in current practice. The objective of this paper, therefore, is to give you an insight into the delivery option for the sustainability of housing in Nigeria, given the existing delivery structures and the framework specified in the New National Housing Policy. The secondary data were obtained from books, journals and seminar papers. The conclusion is that we cannot copy models from other nations, but should rather evolve workable models based on our socio-cultural background to address the huge housing shortage in Nigeria. Recommendations are made in this regard.

Keywords: housing, sustainability, housing delivery, housing policy, housing affordability

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Authors: Azin Shakibabarough, Mojtaba Valinejadshoubi, Ashutosh Bagchi

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Catastrophic bridge failure happens due to the lack of inspection, lack of design and extreme events like flooding, an earthquake. Bridge Management System (BMS) is utilized to diminish such an accident with proper design and frequent inspection. Visual inspection cannot detect any subsurface defects, so using Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) techniques remove these barriers as far as possible. Among all NDE techniques, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) has been proved as a highly effective device for detecting internal defects in a reinforced concrete bridge deck. GPR is used for detecting rebar location and rebar corrosion in the reinforced concrete deck. GPR profile is composed of hyperbola series in which sound hyperbola denotes sound rebar and blur hyperbola or signal attenuation shows corroded rebar. Interpretation of GPR images is implemented by numerical analysis or visualization. Researchers recently found that interpretation through visualization is more precise than interpretation through numerical analysis, but visualization is time-consuming and a highly subjective process. Automating the interpretation of GPR image through visualization can solve these problems. After interpretation of all scans of a bridge, condition assessment is conducted based on the generated corrosion map. However, this such a condition assessment is not objective and precise. Condition assessment based on structural integrity and strength parameters can make it more objective and precise. The main purpose of this study is to present an automated interpretation method of a reinforced concrete bridge deck through a visualization technique. In the end, the combined analysis of the structural condition in a bridge is implemented.

Keywords: bridge condition assessment, ground penetrating radar, GPR, NDE techniques, visualization

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Authors: Djordjevic J. Sladjana, Djordjevic-Milošević B. Suzana, Milošević M. Slobodan

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The potential of biomass as a renewable energy source leads Serbia to be the top of European countries by the amount of available but unused biomass. Technologies for its use are available and ecologically acceptable. Moreover, they are not expensive high-tech solutions even for the poor investment environment of Serbia, while other options seem to be less achievable. From the other point of view, Serbia has a huge percentage of unused agriculture land. Agricultural production in Serbia languishes: a large share of agricultural land therefore remains untreated, and there is a significant proportion of degraded land. From all the above, biomass intended for energy production is becoming an increasingly important factor in the stabilization of agricultural activities. Orientation towards the growing bioenergy crops versus conventional crop cultivation becomes an interesting option. The aim of this paper is to point out the possibility of growing energy crops in accordance with the conditions and cultural practice in rural areas of Serbia. First of all, the cultivation of energy crops on lower quality land is being discussed, in order to revitalize the rural areas of crops through their inclusion into potential energy sector. Next is the theme of throwing more light on the increase in the area under this competitive agricultural production to correct land use in terms of climate change in Serbia. The goal of this paper is to point out the contribution of the share of biomass in energy production and consumption, and the effect of reducing the negative environmental impact.

Keywords: agro-energy crops, conditions for plantation, revitalization of rural areas, degraded and unused soils

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Authors: Koutsopoulou Ioanna, Gkintoni Evgenia, Halkiopoulos Constantinos, Antonopoulou Hera

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Recent advances in Internet Computer Technology (ICT) and the ever-increasing use of technological equipment amongst adolescents and young adults along with unattended access to the internet and social media and uncontrolled use of smart phones and PCs have caused social problems like sexting to emerge. The main purpose of the present article is first to present an analytic theoretical framework of sexting as a recent social phenomenon based on studies that have been conducted the last decade or so; and second to investigate Greek students’ and also social network users, sexting perceptions and to record how often social media users exchange sexual messages and to retrace demographic variables predictors. Data from 1,000 students were collected and analyzed and all statistical analysis was done by the software package WEKA. The results indicate among others, that the use of data mining methods is an important tool to draw conclusions that could affect decision and policy making especially in the field and related social topics of educational psychology. To sum up, sexting lurks many risks for adolescents and young adults students in Greece and needs to be better addressed in relevance to the stakeholders as well as society in general. Furthermore, policy makers, legislation makers and authorities will have to take action to protect minors. Prevention strategies based on Greek cultural specificities are being proposed. This social problem has raised concerns in recent years and will most likely escalate concerns in global communities in the future.

Keywords: educational ethics, sexting, Greek sexters, sex education, data mining

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Authors: David Osa-Egonwa

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Visual culture is the expression of the norms and social behavior of a society in visual images. A reflection simply shows you how you look when you stand before a mirror, a clear water or stream. The mirror does not alter, improve or distort your original appearance, neither does it show you a caricature of what stands before it, this is the case with visual images created by a tribe or society. The ‘uli’ is hand drawn body design done on Igbo women and speaks of a culture of body adornment which is a practice that is appreciated by that tribe. The use of pattern of the gliding python snake ‘ije eke’ or ‘ijeagwo’ for wall painting speaks of the Igbo culture as one that appreciates wall paintings based on these patterns. Modern life came and brought a lot of change to the Igbo-speaking people of Nigeria. Change cloaked in the garment of Westernization has influenced the culture of the Igbos. This has resulted in a problem which is a break in the cultural practice that has also affected art produced by the Igbos. Before the colonial masters arrived and changed the established culture practiced by the Igbos, visual images were created that retained the culture of this people. To bring this point to limelight, this paper has adopted a historical method. A large number of works produced during pre and post-colonial era which range from sculptural pieces, paintings and other artifacts, just to mention a few, were studied carefully and it was discovered that the visual images hold the culture or aspects of the culture of the Igbos in their renditions and can rightly serve as a mirror of the Igbo visual culture.

Keywords: artistic renditions, historical method, Igbo visual culture, changes

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Authors: Tahir Ali Akbar, Hirra Jabbar

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Land cover change analysis plays a significant role in understanding the trends of urban sprawl and land use transformation due to anthropogenic activities. In this study, the spatio-temporal dynamics of major land covers were analyzed in the last twenty years (1988-2016) for District Lahore located in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. The Landsat satellite imageries were downloaded from USGS Global Visualization Viewer of Earth Resources Observation and Science Center located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota USA. The imageries included: (i) Landsat TM-5 for 1988 and 2001; and (ii) Landsat-8 OLI for 2016. The raw digital numbers of Landsat-5 images were converted into spectral radiance and then planetary reflectance. The digital numbers of Landsat-8 image were directly converted into planetary reflectance. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was used to classify the processed images into six major classes of water, buit-up, barren land, shrub and grassland, sparse vegetation and dense vegetation. The NDVI output results were improved by visual interpretation using high-resolution satellite imageries. The results indicated that the built-up areas were increased to 21% in 2016 from 10% in 1988. The decrease in % areas was found in case of water, barren land and shrub & grassland. There were improvements in percentage of areas for the vegetation. The increasing trend of urban sprawl for Lahore requires implementation of GIS based spatial planning, monitoring and management system for its sustainable development.

Keywords: land cover changes, NDVI, remote sensing, urban sprawl

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Authors: A.Boularouk, F. Chouikh, M. Lamri, H. Moualkia, Y. Bouznit

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The principal aim of this study is to considerably reduce the resistivity of the SnO2 thin layers. In this order, we have doped tin oxide with aluminum and antimony incorporation with different atomic percentages (0 and 4%). All the pure and doped SnO2 films were grown by simple, flexible and cost-effective Automatic Spray Pyrolysis Method (ASPM) on glass substrates at a temperature of 350 °C. The microstructural, optical, morphological and electrical properties of the films have been studied. The XRD results demonstrate that all films have polycrystalline nature with a tetragonal rutile structure and exhibit the (200) preferential orientation. It has been observed that all the dopants are soluble in the SnO2 matrix without forming secondary phases. However, dopant introduction does not modify the film growth orientation. The crystallite size of the pure SnO2 film is about 36 nm. The films are highly transparent in the visible region with an average transmittance reaching up to 80% and it slightly reduces with increasing doping concentration (Al and Sb). The optical band gap value was evaluated between 3.60 eV and 3.75 eV as a function of doping. The SEM image reveals that all films are nanostructured, densely continuous, with good adhesion to the substrate. We note again that the surface morphology change with the type and concentration dopant. The minimum resistivity is 0.689*10-4, which is observed for SnO2 film doped 4% Al. This film shows better properties and is considered the best among all films. Finally, we concluded that the physical properties of the pure and doped SnO2 films grown on a glass substrate by ASPM strongly depend on the type and concentration dopant (Al and Sb) and have highly desirable optical and electrical properties and are promising materials for several applications.

Keywords: tin oxide, automatic spray, Al and Sb doped, transmittance, MEB, XRD and UV-VIS

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Authors: Lisa Snape, Andreas Lang, Tony Brown, Dan Fallu, Ben Pears

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Agricultural terraced landscapes are widespread in mountainous areas in a variety of climatic zones around the World. The most famous are those found associated with the famous Inca site of Machu Pichu in the Andes, the arid lands in upland areas of Yemen, and the abundant rice terraces covering the hilltops in tropical areas such as Thailand, Vietnam, and China and also Bali. Terraces were designed using advanced engineered techniques, requiring specialist knowledge of bedrock geology, soil cultivation and maintenance, and ecosystem management to grow a variety of crops in specific environmental conditions. These enigmatic landscapes were often overlooked in the past but have now received widespread attention to further understand their age, origins, and evolution as the landscapes and environment changed over time. By understanding the age and chronologies of agricultural terrace technology, we can enhance our understanding of these unique features considered widely as important ecosystem services in the present day. We present distinct luminescence dating evidence from a variety of terraced systems found in different European environmental settings, such as the UK, Italy and Belgium, as part of the wider ERC-funded TerrACE Project. Our research aims to better understand their history and advocate for their protection and effective management as important cultural, heritage and environmental assets, creating new avenues for future scientific research.

Keywords: terraces, agriculture, luminescence dating, heritage protection

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Authors: Zubeida Rossenkhan, Pervaiz K. Ahmed, Wee Chan Au

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In view of cross cultural career experiences, to the author’s best knowledge, the crucial role of culture and religious traditions in Asia remains understudied. Drawing on the notion of social capital as an invaluable resource needed for manager’s to progress, the purpose of this study is to probe the contextual experiences of Muslim women to elucidate unique challenges associated with social capital and career progress. Twenty-three in-depth interviews with top level Malay managers were conducted to probe experiences of upward career mobility and inequities in the workplace. Interpretive phenomenology was used to surface unique challenges and processes of creating and leveraging social capital. The study uncovers the unique challenges of Muslim women in Malaysia. Narratives of participants highlight not only generic forms of gender discrimination, but also culturally specific stereotypes and social expectations limiting their advancement. Interestingly, the findings identify a gender-religion handicap in the form of perceived inequality and restrictions rooted from the women manager’s gender and religion. The analysis also reveals how these Muslim women managers’ negotiate their challenges, especially how they access social capital and progress their careers. The research offers a unique perspective on the career experiences of Malay women managers’ in top management. The research provides insight into the unique processes of developing social capital utilized by this group of women for career success.

Keywords: career success, gender discrimination, malaysia, Muslim women, social capital

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Authors: Issam Jebreen, Eman Al-Qbelat

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Outsourcing software development projects can be challenging, and there are several common challenges that organizations face. A study was conducted with a sample of 46 papers on outsourcing challenges, and the results show that there are several common challenges faced by organizations when outsourcing software development projects. Poor outsourcing relationship was identified as the most significant challenge, with 35% of the papers referencing it. Lack of quality was the second most significant challenge, with 33% of the papers referencing it. Language and cultural differences were the third most significant challenge, with 24% of the papers referencing it. Non-competitive price was another challenge faced by organizations, with 21% of the papers referencing it. Poor coordination and communication were also identified as a challenge, with 21% of the papers referencing it. Opportunistic behavior, lack of contract negotiation, inadequate user involvement, and constraints due to time zone were also challenges faced by organizations. Other challenges faced by organizations included poor project management, lack of technical capabilities, vendor employee high turnover, poor requirement specification, IPR issues, poor management of budget, schedule, and delay, geopolitical and country instability, the difference in development methodologies, failure to manage end-user expectations, and poor monitoring and control. In conclusion, outsourcing software development projects can be challenging, but organizations can mitigate these challenges by selecting the right outsourcing partner, having a well-defined contract and clear communication, having a clear understanding of the requirements, and implementing effective project management practices.

Keywords: software outsourcing, vendor, outsourcing challenges, quality model, continent, country, global outsourcing, IT workforce outsourcing.

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Authors: Büşra Güven, Ebru Kerimoğlu

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Relevant departments of universities in creative fields are increasingly facing the challenge of developing curriculum for more employable creative workforce. In Turkey, as a developing country, the creative industries have not yet argued in the political axis and higher education also has not been addressed in this context. Istanbul has the highest creative and cultural industries share also provides both rooted and developing higher education institutes for these sectors in Turkey. With this in mind, the main purpose of the paper attempts to clarify that how does higher education in creative fields deal with the demands of creative industries in Istanbul? First, the paper elaborated creative class theory, second creative industries, employability and curriculum triangle is examined. The research methodology consisted of a qualitative model based on interview analysis. Data are collected by interviews with the head of the relevant departments and professional associations authorities in selected sectors. Four higher education institutes in Istanbul are selected according to the some clarified factors related to the literature. This also offered a comparing between public and private universities in terms of the adaptability of this changing concept of work. Industry expectations and content of educations were compared and found the blind spots in the education-industry relationships. As a consequence, produced inclusive policies for universities and industries to overcome these spots with collaboration, flexibility, adaptability, openness and feedback management and also for future policies in particular outcomes of university-industry collaborations.

Keywords: creative industries, curriculum, employability, high education, Istanbul

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Authors: Mi-Hyang Lee, Seung-Hoon Han

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Korean traditional residences have been built with deep design issues for various values such as social, cultural, and environmental influences to be started from a few thousand years ago, but its meaning is being vanished due to the different lifestyles these days. It is necessary, therefore, to grasp the meaning of the Korea traditional building called Hanok and to get Korean people understand its real advantages. The purpose of this study is to propose a standardization methodology for evaluating comfort features towards Korean traditional houses. This paper is also trying to build an official standard evaluation system and to integrate aesthetic and psychological values induced from Hanok. Its comfort performance values could be divided into two large categories that are physical and psychological, and fourteen methods have been defined as the Korean Standards (KS). For this research, field survey data from representative Hanok types were collected for each method. This study also contains a qualitative in-depth analysis of the Hanok comfort index by the professions using AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) and has examined the effect of the methods. As a result, this paper could define what methods can provide trustful outcomes and how to evaluate the own strengths in aspects of spatial comfort of Hanok using suggested procedures towards the spatial configuration of the traditional dwellings. This study has finally proposed an integrated development of a standardization methodology assessing the comfort performance for Korean traditional residences, and it is expected that they could evaluate inhabitants of the residents and interior environmental conditions especially structured by wood materials like Hanok.

Keywords: Hanok, comfort performance, human condition, analytical hierarchy process

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Authors: Almutazballlah Qablan, Jihan M. Muhaidat, Bana Abu Rajab

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Background: Acne vulgaris is the most common skin condition that general practitioners and dermatologists encounter. It represents a chronic inflammatory disease affecting the pilosebaceous unit. Although acne vulgaris is not a life-threatening condition, it has a considerable psychological impact on the affected person. Acne patients have poor body image, low self-esteem, social isolation, and restricted activities. As part of the emotional impact, increased levels of anxiety, anger, depression, and frustration have also been observed in acne patients. (1) In this study, we want to assess the association between two modifiable risk factors; BMI and smoking, regarding acne vulgaris. Methods: A case-control study was conducted at King Abdullah University Hospital in Irbid, north Jordan in 2019/2020. A total number of 163 Acne cases were collected and interviewed by the author; on the other hand, there were 162 control cases. Anthropometric measures for Acne patients and control individuals were taken, and BMI was calculated. Both groups were asked about smoking habits. Data on subjects between 14 and 33 years of age were extracted. The characteristics of people who reported acne were compared with those with no acne using univariate and multivariate analysis. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was relied on to analyze the collected data. The crosstabs methods (chi-square) and odd ratios were relied on to test the study hypothesis. Results: Cigarette smoking was highly associated with no-acne, with an odds ratio of 0.4 (95% CI: 0.2–0.9), P-value = 0.018. BMI and waterpipe smoking were not significantly associated with acne in the multivariate analysis. Conclusion: Cigarette smoking was found to be protective from Acne. No significant relation between BMI nor waterpipe smoking and the development of Acne Vulgaris.

Keywords: acne, BMI, smoking, case-control

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Authors: Adriano Mortada

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Human history is rife with conflict, and the question of refugee status determination and their rehabilitation has been up for debate since. Refugee Status Determination is the administrative or legal process by which UNHCR or governments determine whether a person seeking international protection or asylum can be identified as a refugee under international, regional, or national law. Refugee Status Determination is considered to be a vital process in aiding refugees’ realization of their rights under international law. One of the major reasons why the refugee status determination is considered an “issue”, and is one that is much debated upon annually, is the fact that the national bureaucratic systems are rigid and unbending. This is particularly concerning in the 21st century despite human advancement in policy and diplomacy, working in tandem with the United Nations and their charters and resolutions on human rights and dignity. The paper seeks to criticize the European member states' response to the refugee crisis and their inflexible and prejudiced bureaucratic systems when it comes to refugee status determination. The paper looks at multiple case studies as primary evidence and the alternate case studies where the system helped refugees, like those in Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, and Lebanon. The main concern of the paper is to highlight the bias in the selected European systems, which do not stem from the Human Rights Charter but rather on the basis of geographical backgrounds, cultural and religious affiliations of those seeking refugee status or asylum in their respective countries. The paper hopes to not only create awareness about this issue but also provide a research background to advocacy programs to bring a change in the systems.

Keywords: refugee status determination, human rights, bureaucracy, United Nations, European Union

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Authors: Rita Fofai

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The aim of the study is to help peacebuilding by analyzing the symbolical level of fights in the war. Despite the sufferings, war heroism still represents such a noble value in war narratives (especially in literature and films, whether it is high- or popular culture) which can make warfare attractive for every age-group. The questions of the study will revolve around the events when heroism is not a necessary and unselfish act for a greater good, but when the primary aim is to express strength in order to build self-mythology. Since war is a scene where the mythological level can meet reality, and even modern narratives use the elements of rituals and sacral references in even secular contexts, understanding the connection between rites and modern battles will ground this study, and the analysis will follow the logic of the violent rites. From this aspect, war is not merely the fight for different countries and ideas, but the fight of mankind with superhuman and natural or supernatural phenomena, as well. In this context, enemy symbolizes the threat of the world which is unpredictable for mankind, and the fight becomes a ritual combat; therefore the winner’s symbolic reward is to redefine himself or herself not only in the human environment but in the context of the whole world. The analysis of the study reveals that this kind of violence does not represents real heroism and rarely results in recruitment, on the contrary, conserves fear and the feeling of weakness, which is the root cause of this kind of act. The result of this study is a way to reshape the attitude toward so-called heroic war violence which is often a part of war narratives even nowadays. Since stepping out of the war tradition is mainly a cultural question, redefining the connection between society and narratives which has an effect on mentality and emotions, giving a clear guide to making difference between heroism and useless violence is very important in peacebuilding.

Keywords: war, ritual, heroism, violence, narratives, culture

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Authors: Sijing Xiong, Ran Su, Lit-Hsin Loo, Daniele Zink

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The kidney is a major target for toxic effects of drugs, industrial and environmental chemicals and other compounds. Typically, nephrotoxicity is detected late during drug development, and regulatory animal models could not solve this problem. Validated or accepted in silico or in vitro methods for the prediction of nephrotoxicity are not available. We have established the first and currently only pre-validated in vitro models for the accurate prediction of nephrotoxicity in humans and the first predictive platforms based on renal cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells. In order to further improve the efficiency of our predictive models, we recently developed a high content screening (HCS) platform. This platform employed automated imaging in combination with automated quantitative phenotypic profiling and machine learning methods. 129 image-based phenotypic features were analyzed with respect to their predictive performance in combination with 44 compounds with different chemical structures that included drugs, environmental and industrial chemicals and herbal and fungal compounds. The nephrotoxicity of these compounds in humans is well characterized. A combination of chromatin and cytoskeletal features resulted in high predictivity with respect to nephrotoxicity in humans. Test balanced accuracies of 82% or 89% were obtained with human primary or immortalized renal proximal tubular cells, respectively. Furthermore, our results revealed that a DNA damage response is commonly induced by different PTC-toxicants with diverse chemical structures and injury mechanisms. Together, the results show that the automated HCS platform allows efficient and accurate nephrotoxicity prediction for compounds with diverse chemical structures.

Keywords: high content screening, in vitro models, nephrotoxicity, toxicity prediction

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Authors: Joseph Kimutai Langat

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Tea typology is the science of classifying tea. This study was carried out between November 2023 and July 2024, whose main objective was to investigate the typological classification nomenclature of processed tea in the world, narrowing down to Kenya. Centres of origin, historical background, tea growing region, scientific naming system, market, fermentation levels, processing/ oxidation levels and cultural reasons are used to classify tea at present. Of these, the most common typology is by oxidation, and more specifically, by the production methods within the oxidation categories. While the Asian tea producing countries categorises tea products based on the decreasing oxidation levels during the manufacturing process: black tea, green tea, oolong tea and instant tea, Kenya’s tea typology system is based on the degree of fermentation process, i.e. black tea, purple tea, green tea and white tea. Tea is also classified into five categories: black tea, green tea, white tea, oolong tea, and dark tea. Black tea is the main tea processed and exported in Kenya, manufactured mainly by withering, rolling, or by use of cutting-tearing-curling (CTC) method that ensures efficient conversion of leaf herbage to made tea, oxidizing, and drying before being sorted into different grades. It is from these varied typological methods that this review paper concludes that different regions of the world use different classification nomenclature. Therefore, since tea typology is not standardized, it is recommended that a global tea regulator dealing in tea classification be created to standardize tea typology, with domestic in-country regulatory bodies in tea growing countries accredited to implement the global-wide typological agreements and resolutions.

Keywords: classification, fermentation, oxidation, tea, typology

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Authors: Ravneet Kaur, Joydeep Acharya, Sudhanshu Gaur

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform manufacturing by improving shop floor processes such as production, maintenance and quality. However, industrial datasets are notoriously difficult to extract in a real-time, streaming fashion thus, negating potential AI benefits. The main example is some specialized industrial controllers that are operated by custom software which complicates the process of connecting them to an Information Technology (IT) based data acquisition network. Security concerns may also limit direct physical access to these controllers for data acquisition. To connect the Operational Technology (OT) data stored in these controllers to an AI application in a secure, reliable and available way, we propose a novel Industrial IoT (IIoT) solution in this paper. In this solution, we demonstrate how video cameras can be installed in a factory shop floor to continuously obtain images of the controller HMIs. We propose image pre-processing to segment the HMI into regions of streaming data and regions of fixed meta-data. We then evaluate the performance of multiple Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies such as Tesseract and Google vision to recognize the streaming data and test it for typical factory HMIs and realistic lighting conditions. Finally, we use the meta-data to match the OCR output with the temporal, domain-dependent context of the data to improve the accuracy of the output. Our IIoT solution enables reliable and efficient data extraction which will improve the performance of subsequent AI applications.

Keywords: human machine interface, industrial internet of things, internet of things, optical character recognition, video analytics

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Authors: Joanna Apps, Elena Markova

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Concepts of the ideal mother and ideal mothering are disseminated through familial experiences, religious and cultural depictions of mothers and the national media. In recent years social media can also be added to the channels by which mothers and motherhood are socially constructed. However, the gulf between these depictions, -or in the case of social media ‘self-curations’ - of motherhood and lived experience has never been wider, particularly for women in disadvantaged or difficult circumstances. We report on a study of four lone mothers who were living with one or more of the following: limiting long term illness, large families, in temporary accommodation and on low incomes. The mothers were interviewed 3 times and invited to take a series of photos reflecting their lives in between each of the interviews. These photographs were used to ground the interviews in lived experience and as stimuli to discuss how the images within them compared to portrayals of mothers and motherhood that participants were exposed to on social media. The objectives of the study were to explore how mothers construct their identity in challenging and disadvantaged circumstances; to consider what their photographs of everyday life tell us about their experiences and understand the impact idealised images of motherhood have on real mothers in difficult circumstances. The results suggested that the mothers both strived to adhere to certain ideals of motherhood and acknowledged elements of these as partially or wholly impossible to achieve. The lack of depictions, in both national and social media, of motherhood that corresponded with their lived experience inhibited the mothers’ use of social media. Other themes included: lack of control, frustration and strain; and parental pride, love, humour, resilience, and hope.

Keywords: motherhood, social media, photography, poverty

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Authors: Omotayo Olalere

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The relevance of code-switching for intercultural communication through literary translation cannot be overemphasized. The translation of code-switching and its implications for translations studies have been studied in the context of African literature. In these cases, code-switching was examined in the more general terms of its usage in source text and not particularly in Ngugi’s novels and its translations. In addition, the functions of translation and code-switching in the lyrics of some popular African songs have been studied, but this study is related more with oral performance than with written literature. As such, little has been done on the German translation of code-switching in African works. This study intends to fill this lacuna by examining the concept of code-switching in the German translations in Ngugi’s Petals of Blood. The aim is to highlight the significance of code-switching as a phenomenon in this African (Ngugi’s) novel written in English and to also focus on its representation in the two German translations. The target texts to be used are Verbrannte Blueten and Land der flammenden Blueten. “Abrogration“ as a concept will play an important role in the analysis of the data. Findings will show that the ideology of a translator plays a huge role in representing the concept of “abrogration” in the translation of code-switching in the selected source text. The study will contribute to knowledge in translation studies by bringing to limelight the need to foreground aspects of language contact in translation theory and practice, particularly in the African context. Relevant translation theories adopted for the study include Bandia’s (2008) postcolonial theory of translation and Snell-Hornby”s (1988) cultural translation theory.

Keywords: code switching, german translation, ngugi wa thiong’o, petals of blood

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Authors: Ludovic Fabre, Paola Melani, Patrick Lemaire

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The goal of this study was to test whether and how emotions influence drone operators in estimation skills. The empirical study was run in the context of numerical estimation. Participants saw a two-digit number together with a collection of cars. They had to indicate whether the stimuli collection was larger or smaller than the number. The two-digit numbers ranged from 12 to 27, and collections included 3-36 cars. The presentation of the collections was dynamic (each car moved 30 deg. per second on the right). Half the collections were smaller collections (including fewer than 20 cars), and the other collections were larger collections (i.e., more than 20 cars). Splits between the number of cars in a collection and the two-digit number were either small (± 1 or 2 units; e.g., the collection included 17 cars and the two-digit number was 19) or larger (± 8 or 9 units; e.g., 17 cars and '9'). Half the collections included more items (and half fewer items) than the number indicated by the two-digit number. Before and after each trial, participants saw an image inducing negative emotions (e.g., mutilations) or neutral emotions (e.g., candle) selected from International Affective Picture System (IAPS). At the end of each trial, participants had to say if the second picture was the same as or different from the first. Results showed different effects of emotions on RTs and percent errors. Participants’ performance was modulated by emotions. They were slower on negative trials compared to the neutral trials, especially on the most difficult items. They errored more on small-split than on large-split problems. Moreover, participants highly overestimated the number of cars when in a negative emotional state. These findings suggest that emotions influence numerical estimation, that effects of emotion in estimation interact with stimuli characteristics. They have important implications for understanding the role of emotions on estimation skills, and more generally, on how emotions influence cognition.

Keywords: drone operators, emotion, numerical estimation, arithmetic

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Authors: Paulina Pietrzyk-Kowalec

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This paper presents the phenomenon of multilingualism becoming the norm rather than the exception in the European Union. It also seeks to describe the correlation between the command of foreign languages and employability. It is evident that the challenges of today's societies when it comes to employability and to the reality of the current labor market are more and more diversified. Thus, it is one of the crucial tasks of higher education to prepare its students to face this kind of complexity, understand its nuances, and have the capacity to adapt effectively to situations that are common in corporations based in the countries belonging to the EU. From this point of view, the assessment of the impact that the command of foreign languages of European university students could have on the numerous business sectors becomes vital. It also involves raising awareness of future professionals to make them understand the importance of mastering communicative skills in foreign languages that will meet the requirements of students' prospective employers. The direct connection between higher education institutions and the world of business also allows companies to realize that they should rethink their recruitment and human resources procedures in order to take into account the importance of foreign languages. This article focuses on the objective of the multilingualism policy developed by the European Commission, which is to enable young people to master at least two foreign languages, which is crucial in their future careers. The article puts emphasis on the existence of a crucial connection between the research conducted in higher education institutions and the business sector in order to reduce current qualification gaps.

Keywords: cross-cultural communication, employability, human resources, language attitudes, multilingualism

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Authors: Ainolnaim Azizol, Valerie Ross

Abstract:

Music is as old as mankind and rituals using music such as Kavadi have been associated with social, cultural, and spiritual practices in many traditional and modern societies. Recent literature has provided scientific evidence that music affects psychological and physical changes through stimulation of brainwave. Despite such advances, the scientific study of the sonic qualities peculiar to traditional instruments and how it impacts on ritualistic activities is still lacking. This study addresses one such phenomenon. Devotees in Kavadi rituals are known to be in a state of trance state and do not experience pain nor suffer injury despite the hundreds of needles pierced through their skins. Although scientists have sought to understand how this is possible, lesser is known about the music that is used to prepare devotees to enter into the trance state. This study fills this gap of knowledge by providing scientific evidence through the identification and mapping of the sonic spectrum or sound fingerprint of the instruments and the repertoire used in these ritualistic forms in their ethnographic environment and in audio-controlled situations. The objectives are to identify and categorize the different types of traditional music used in Kavadi rituals; to record, transcribe and digitally score the musical repertoire used in the oral tradition of Kavadi rituals; to map the sonic spectrum of ritual music using spectromography and advanced music analytical software a mixed methodology will be used. This comprises ethnographic field studies using interviews, participant observation, audio-video recordings and audio-methodology using spectromography and advanced audio-technology for sonic mapping and the transcription of audio recordings into digital scores.

Keywords: sonic, traditional, ritual, Kavadi, music

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Authors: Maria Florencia Ferrer, Saulo Fabiano Amancio-Vieira

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The use of the blockchain in the public sector is present today and no longer the future of disruptive institutional and technological models. There are still some cultural barriers and resistance to the proper use of its potential. This research aims to present the strengths and weaknesses of using a public-permitted and distributed network in the context of the public sector. Therefore, bibliographical/documentary research was conducted to raise the main aspects of the studied platform, focused on the use of the main demands of the public sector. The platform analyzed was LACChain, which is a global alliance composed of different actors in the blockchain environment, led by the Innovation Laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Lab) for the development of the blockchain ecosystem in Latin America and the Caribbean. LACChain provides blockchain infrastructure, which is a distributed ratio technology (DLT). The platform focuses on two main pillars: community and infrastructure. It is organized as a consortium for the management and administration of an infrastructure classified as public, following the ISO typologies (ISO / TC 307). It is, therefore, a network open to any participant who agrees with the established rules, which are limited to being identified and complying with the regulations. As benefits can be listed: public network (open to all), decentralized, low transaction cost, greater publicity of transactions, reduction of corruption in contracts / public acts, in addition to improving transparency for the population in general. It is also noteworthy that the platform is not based on cryptocurrency and is not anonymous; that is, it is possible to be regulated. It is concluded that the use of record platforms, such as LACChain, can contribute to greater security on the part of the public agent in the migration process of their informational applications.

Keywords: blockchain, LACChain, public sector, technological disruptions

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Authors: Tracey Bone

Abstract:

Deaf inmates, whose first or preferred language is a Signed Language, experience barriers to accessing the necessary two-way communication with correctional staff, and the educational and social programs that will enhance their eligibility for conditional release from the federal prison system in Canada. The development of visual content to enhance the knowledge and skill development of correctional staff is a contemporary strategy intended to significantly improve the correctional experience for deaf inmates. This presentation reports on the development of two distinct training videos created to enhance staff’s understanding of the needs of deaf inmates; one a two-part simulation of an interaction with a deaf inmate, the second an interview with a deaf academic. Part one of video one demonstrates the challenges and misunderstandings inherent in communicating across languages without a qualified sign language interpreter; the second part demonstrates the ease of communication when communication needs are met. Video two incorporates the experiences of a deaf academic to provide the cultural grounding necessary to educate staff in the unique experiences associated with being a visual language user. Lack of staff understanding or awareness of deaf culture and language must not be acceptable reasons for the inadequate treatment of deaf visual language users in federal prisons. This paper demonstrates a contemporary approach to meeting the human rights and needs of this unique and often ignored inmate subpopulation. The deaf community supports this visual approach to enhancing staff understanding of the unique needs of this population. A study of its effectiveness is currently underway.

Keywords: accommodations, American Sign Language (ASL), deaf inmates, sensory deprivation

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Authors: Elnaz Alimi, Keriakoula Andriopoulos, Sam Boyer, Weronika Zuczek

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Occupational therapists can use coaching strategies to guide parents in providing therapy for their children with developmental disabilities. Evidence from various fields has shown increased parental self-efficacy and positive child outcomes as benefits of home and community-based parent coaching models. A literature review was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of parent coaching interventions delivered in home and community settings for children with developmental disabilities ages 0-12, on a variety of parent and child outcomes. CINAHL Plus, PsycINFO, PubMed, OTseeker were used as databases. The inclusion criteria consisted of: children with developmental disabilities ages 0-12 and their parents, parent coaching models conducted in the home and community, and parent and child outcomes. Studies were excluded if they were in a language other than English and published before 2000. Results showed that parent coaching interventions led to more positive therapy outcomes in child behaviors and symptoms related to their diagnosis or disorder. Additionally, coaching strategies had positive effects on parental satisfaction with therapy, parental self-efficacy, and family dynamics. Findings revealed decreased parental stress and improved parent-child relationships. Further research on parent coaching could involve studying the feasibility of coaching within occupational therapy specifically, incorporating cultural elements into coaching, qualitative studies on parental satisfaction with coaching, and measuring the quality of life outcomes for the whole family.

Keywords: coaching model, developmental disabilities, occupational therapy, pediatrics

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Authors: Yufeng Li, Yinan Ma, Jing Wu, Chengnian Long

Abstract:

Infrared object detection aims at separating small and dim target from clutter background and its capabilities extend beyond the limits of visible light, making it invaluable in a wide range of applications such as improving safety, security, efficiency, and functionality. However, existing methods are usually sensitive to the noise of the input infrared image, leading to a decrease in target detection accuracy and an increase in the false alarm rate in high-noise environments. To address this issue, an infrared small target detection algorithm called YOLO-IR is proposed in this paper to improve the robustness to high infrared noise. To address the problem that high noise significantly reduces the clarity and reliability of target features in infrared images, we design a soft-threshold coordinate attention mechanism to improve the model’s ability to extract target features and its robustness to noise. Since the noise may overwhelm the local details of the target, resulting in the loss of small target features during depth down-sampling, we propose a deep and shallow feature fusion neck to improve the detection accuracy. In addition, because the generalized Intersection over Union (IoU)-based loss functions may be sensitive to noise and lead to unstable training in high-noise environments, we introduce a Wasserstein-distance based loss function to improve the training of the model. The experimental results show that YOLO-IR achieves a 5.0% improvement in recall and a 6.6% improvement in F1-score over existing state-of-art model.

Keywords: infrared small target detection, high noise, robustness, soft-threshold coordinate attention, feature fusion

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