Search results for: narrative inquiry

Authors: Riyona Chetty, Raisuyah Bhagwan, Nalini Govender

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Background: A myriad of physical, psychosocial, and environmental sequelae are associated with limb loss. However, there is a paucity of empirical South African data, which focuses on these sequelae, how they interface with the amputee’s quality of life as well as the challenges they experience following amputation. Objective: This study sought to explore the biopsychosocial effects of amputation and how amputation affected the quality of life of transtibial amputees. Setting: Participants were recruited from a medical facility, under the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health in South Africa. Methods: A qualitative approach guided this study. Data was collected using one-on-one interviews with 14 unilateral transtibial amputees. Data was analysed thematically. Results: Five broad themes emerged from the inquiry, which captured amputees’ experiences of phantom limb pain, body image disturbances, and their challenges related to adapting to daily activities. Participants also expressed the salience of familial support as well as the importance of psychological interventions to cope. Conclusion: The findings suggested that support networks and professional psychological intervention are imperative in facilitating successful adjustment to the amputation experience. Raising awareness of limb loss in both, rural and urban settings may help reduce the stigma attached to it. Contribution: Quality of life comprises several domains, namely physical, psychological, environmental, and social albeit limited local and international data exists regarding the environmental and social effects. This study brought to the fore the positive and negative effects of amputation in each domain, as well as various strategies that facilitate successful adjustment to amputation.

Keywords: amputation, quality of life, biopsychosocial, phantom limb pain, body image, support

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Authors: Duran Fiack, Jeremy Cumberbatch, Michael Sutherland, Nadine Zerphey

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Civic leaders have increasingly relied upon local climate adaptation plans to identify vulnerabilities, prioritize goals, and implement actions in order to prepare cities for the present and projected effects of global climate change. The concept of sustainability is central to these efforts, as climate adaptation discussions are often framed within the context of economic resilience, environmental protection, and the distribution of climate change impacts across various socioeconomic groups. For urban centers, the climate change issue presents unique challenges for each of these dimensions; however, its potential impacts on marginalized populations are extensive. This study draws from the ‘just sustainabilities’ framework to perform a qualitative analysis of climate adaptation plans prepared by 22 of the 100 largest U.S. cities and examine whether, and to what extent, such initiatives prioritize social equity improvements. Past research has found that the integration of sustainability in urban policy and planning often produces outcomes that favor environmental and economic objectives over social equity improvements. We find that social equity is a particularly prominent theme in local-level climate adaptation efforts, relative to environmental quality and economic development. The findings contribute to the literature on climate adaptation and sustainability within the urban context and offer practical insight for local-level stakeholders concerning potential obstacles and opportunities for the integration of social equity initiatives into climate adaptation planning. Given the likelihood that climate changes will continue to impose unique challenges for marginalized communities in urban areas, advancing our understanding of how social equity concerns are integrated into adaptation efforts is likely to become an increasingly critical area of inquiry.

Keywords: climate adaptation plan, climate change, social equity, sustainability

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Authors: Dishari Rakshit, Mitchell Gallagher

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The global landscape is witnessing a disconcerting surge in democratic backsliding, engendering concerns over the rise of autocratisation. This research demonstrates the intricate relationship between a nation's domestic propensity for autocratic governance and its trade relations with China. Giving prominence to Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments, this study adopts a rigorous neorealist framework to discern the complexities of nations' economic interests amidst an anarchic milieu and how these interests may transcend steadfast adherence to democratic principles. The burgeoning bipolarity in the international political setting serves as a backdrop to our inquiry. To operationalise our hypothesis, we conduct a large-scale 'N' study, encompassing a comprehensive global dataset comprising countries' democracy indicators, total trade volume with China, and cumulative Chinese BRI investments over a substantial temporal expanse. By meticulously examining BRI signatories’, we aim to ascertain the potential accentuation of democratic backsliding among these nations. To test our empirical underpinning, we will validate our findings through cogent case studies. Our analysis adds to the scholarship on multifaceted interactions between trade dynamics and democratic governance within the fabric of the international political landscape. In its culmination, the paper addresses the question- has the erstwhile grandeur of bipolarity resurfaced in the contemporary global panorama? Concurrently, we explore the nexus between the ascendant wave of autocratisation as a by-product of the Beijing Consensus? Pertinent to policymakers, our discoveries stand poised to furnish a comprehensive grasp of the manifold implications arising from the deepening entanglements with China under the auspices of the BRI.

Keywords: democracy, autocracy, china, belt road initiative, international political economy

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Authors: Eliziane Fernanda Navarro, Aparecida Eleonora Sitta

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Child of the Dark is the work of the Brazilian author Carolina Maria de Jesus, published at the first time by Ática and Francisco Alves in 1960. It is, mostly, a story of lack of rights. It lacks to men who live in the slums what is essential in order to take advantage of the privilege of rationality to develop themselves as civilized humans. It is, therefore, in the withholding of the basic rights that inequality finds space to build itself to be the main misery on Earth. Antonio Candido, a Brazilian sociologist claims that it is the right to literature has the ability to humanize men, once the aptitude to create fiction and fable is essential to the social balance. Hence, for the forming role that literature holds, it must be thought as the number of rights that assure human dignity, such as housing, education, health, freedom, etc. When talking about her routine, Carolina puts in evidence something that has great influence over the formation of human beings, contributing to the way they live: the slum. Even though it happens in a distinct way and using her own linguistics variation, Carolina writes about something that will only be discussed later on Brazil’s Cities Statute and Erminia Maricato: the right to the city, and how the slums are, although inserted in the city, an attachment, an illegal city, a dismissing room. It interests ourselves, for that matter, in this work, to analyse how the deprivation of the rights to the city and literature, detailed in Carolina’s journal, conditions human beings to a life where the instincts overcome the social values.

Keywords: Child of the Dark, slum, literature, architecture and urbanism, fundamental rights, Brazil

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Authors: A. F. Chikerema

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Political leadership in Africa vary from the “criminalization” of the state to political leadership as “dispensing patrimony”, the “recycling” of elites and the use of state power and resources to consolidate political and economic power (Van Wyk:2007: p1). Political parties just like any other organizations always need leadership renewal and revamping, besides ideological and policy renewal. Zimbabwean politics present a shunned leadership renewal as reflected by the two champion political parties namely ZANU PF and MDC-T. Despite hot political power contestation between MDC and ZANUPF, the parties` internal structures are hinged on the two Godfather or Father figure that is Mugabe and Tsvangirai. They are the “labels “behind the two political parties. The suppressing of dissent voice on succession and renewal of leadership in the two parties has brew resistance from within and this has resulted in factional fights within the two political parties. The disgruntlement in the political parties has led to the stemming of the ‘bhoramusango concept’ from the electorate and party cadres whereby they are throwing or donating away their votes to other political parties. The ‘bhoramusango’ concept haunted ZANUPF in 2008 leading to its defeat by the opposition MDC-T .The paper takes the form of an analytic approach on leadership crisis in Zimbabwe. The narrative is framed on key concepts of leadership: namely leadership renewal and leadership succession, as agents operating within inherited structures negotiated political settlements, and form structures of leadership. Rulers gave priority to the consolidation of state power by installing party loyalists in the armed forces, civil service and local government. As part of this process, rulers have ensured consolidated power and authority.

Keywords: leadership renewal, leadership succession, ‘Bhora Musango’, political culture, political legitimacy

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Authors: John Rosswell Cummings III

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This research examines the discourse ancient Maya ritual practice manifest and maintained through language in a contemporary society as led by a daykeeper— a Maya spiritual leader— with the objective of discovering if the Maya Calendar has an influence on worldview. Through an ethnography of communication and discursive analysis framework, this research examines the discourse of and around the Maya calendar through original research. Data collected includes the ceremonial performance of the Tzolkin ritual, a ritual that takes place every 13 days to ceremonially welcome one of the 20 Universal Forces. During the ceremony, participants supplicate, sacrifice, and venerate. This ritual, based off the Tzolkin cycle in the Mayan Calendar, contains strong, culture-binding ideologies. This research performs a close analysis of the 20 energies of the Tzolkin and their glyphs so as to gain a better understanding of current ideologies in Maya communities. Through a linguistic relativity frame of reference, including both the strong and weak versions, the 20 Universal Forces are shown to influence ways of life. This research argues that it is not just the native language, but the discourses native to the community as held through the calendar, influence thought and have the potential to offer an alternate worldview, thus shaping the cultural narrative which in return influences identity of the community. Research of this kind, on calendric systems and linguistic relativity, has the power to make great discoveries about the societies of the world and their worldviews.

Keywords: anthropological linguistics, discourse analysis, cultural studies, sociolinguistics

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Authors: Somayeh Abedian, Pirhossein Kolivand, Hamid Reza Lornejad, Amin Karampour, Ebrahim Keshavarz Safari

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For emergency and relief service providers such as pre-hospital emergencies, quick arrival at the scene of an accident or any EMS mission is one of the most important requirements of effective service delivery. Response time (the interval between the time of the call and the time of arrival on scene) is a critical factor in determining the quality of pre-hospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS). This is especially important for heart attack, stroke, or accident patients. Location-based e-services can be broadly defined as any service that provides information pertinent to the current location of an active mobile handset or precise address of landline phone call at a specific time window, regardless of the underlying delivery technology used to convey the information. According to research, one of the effective methods of meeting this goal is determining the location of the caller via the cooperation of landline and mobile phone operators in the country. The follow-up of the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) organization has resulted in the receipt of two separate secured electronic web services. Thus, to ensure human privacy, a secure technical architecture was required for launching the services in the pre-hospital EMS information management system. In addition, to quicken medics’ arrival at the patient's bedside, rescue vehicles should make use of an intelligent transportation system to estimate road traffic using a GPS-based mobile navigation system independent of the Internet. This paper seeks to illustrate the architecture of the practical national model used by the Iranian EMS organization.

Keywords: response time, geographic location inquiry service (GLIS), location-based service (LBS), emergency medical services information system (EMSIS)

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Authors: Prasenjit Panda

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Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, a prequel to Bronte’s Jane Eyre, explores the history of the other and gives voices to the people who were silenced and kept under the darkness of negation and denial for a long time. Jean Wide Sargasso Sea provides an alternative understanding of Charlotte Brontë’s mad Creole woman, i.e., Bertha Mason of Jane Eyre in the postcolonial context. Rhys transforms Charlotte Bronte’s Victorian romance into a realistic narrative. In doing so, she re-reads Bertha as Antoinette, the unspeakable figure of otherness, into an unnameable self, and creates a new stage for the inner self. She in the novel is no longer a lunatic heiress in Rochester’s attic rather in this novel she finds her fantasy, dream and most importantly, voice. Rhys peeps through the character of Antoinette through her fragmented memories, dreams, and identity. Antoinette’s identity is mutilated constantly in the conflicts between colonizers and colonized, male and female, black and white. We shall use postcolonial theories like Bhaba’s hybridity and third space as a methodology to reveal the dialectics of struggle of a doubly colonized woman.We shall see that Bertha Mason was neglected by Bronte because of her madness and was locked in the Rochester’s Attic, but here Rhys beautifully converts her madness as a language of Antoinette, a language for her protest, a language for her liberation, a language for her dreams. In this present paper, we shall try to show how Antoinette tries to free her soul and body from the clutches of her multiple existences, identity, and narratives.

Keywords: colonizer, dislocation, fragmented memories, identity, narratives

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Authors: Annisa Siu, Ping Zou

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Background: Existent literature addressing Asian American children and adolescents reveals that this population is experiencing rates of depression comparable to those of European American and other ethnic minority youths. Within the last decade, increased attention has been given to Asian American adolescent mental health. Methods: 44 articles were extracted from Pubmed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and Proquest CINAHL. Data were subject to thematic analyses and categorized into factors under individual, familial, and community levels. Results: Of all the individual factors, age and gender were the most supported in their relationship with depressive symptoms. Likewise, living situations, parent-child relations, peer relations, and broader environmental factors were strongly evidenced. The remaining psychosocial factors faced contrary evidence or were insubstantially addressed in the empirical literature. Discussion: The identified psychosocial factors within this study offer a starting point for future research to examine what factors should be included in formal or informal methods of screening/consultations. Clinicians should aim to understand the cultural influences specific to Asian American adolescents, particularly the central role that family relations may have on their depressive symptoms. Conclusion: Low awareness of culturally linked expressions of psychological distress can lead to misdiagnosis or under-diagnosis of depression in Asian American youth. Further evidence is needed to clarify the relationship of psychosocial factors linked to Asian American adolescent depressive symptoms.

Keywords: adolescent, Asian American, depression, psychosocial factors

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Authors: Caroline Hoorn

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Post-matriculants in disadvantaged communities such as Douglas encounter a number of career challenges. The transition to the democratic dispensation in 1994, coupled with the rapid changes in the information domain that are characteristic of post-industrial life, complicate the career development trajectories of disadvantaged youth. The career development stories and experiences of disadvantaged youth in provinces such as the Northern Cape have not been told, leading to their marginalisation. It is against this background that the study explored the gendered dimensions of career development narratives, experiences, and choices of post-matriculants in the Douglas community in the Northern Cape. Using a qualitative, narrative approach, the researcher elicited career development stories from 23 participants in Douglas using semi-structured interviews. Two main themes were highlighted through the narratives; (1) willingness to challenge the traditional male dominated career script (2) breaking gender barriers. The study showed that gender did not have any influence on the career choices of the post-matriculants. The perceptions around career choices and gender were being challenged partly by the urge to affirm equality and the constant reminder of the poverty-stricken conditions prevalent in the households. A preferred gender is not required to be attached to the fulfilment of outcomes in a knowledge-based economy. Thus, it is not an issue of gender or masculinity but knowledge and skills. Furthermore, the study revealed that the career choices being considered are still the traditionally stereotypical careers like nursing, teaching, and social work, which demonstrates a lack of information to a broader pool of career options to select from.

Keywords: career development, gender, narratives, post-matriculants

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Authors: Claudio Díaz, Mabel Ortiz

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An EFL teacher education programme in Chile takes five years to train a future teacher of English. Preservice teachers are prepared to learn an advanced level of English and teach the language from 5th to 12th grade in the Chilean educational system. In the context of their first EFL Methodology course in year four, preservice teachers have to create a five-minute digital story that starts from a critical incident they have experienced as teachers-to-be during their observations or interventions in the schools. A critical incident can be defined as a happening, a specific incident or event either observed by them or involving them. The happening sparks their thinking and may make them subsequently think differently about the particular event. When they create their digital stories, preservice teachers put technology, teaching practice and theory together to narrate a story that is complemented by still images, moving images, text, sound effects and music. The story should be told as a personal narrative, which explains the critical incident. This presentation will focus on the creation process of 50 Chilean preservice teachers’ digital stories highlighting the critical incidents they started their stories. It will also unpack preservice teachers’ beliefs and reflections when approaching their teaching practices in schools. These beliefs will be coded and categorized through content analysis to evidence preservice teachers’ most rooted conceptions about English teaching and learning in Chilean schools. The findings seem to indicate that preservice teachers’ beliefs are strongly mediated by contextual and affective factors.

Keywords: beliefs, digital stories, preservice teachers, practicum

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Authors: Olga Colbert

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The present work examines the representation of dreaming in Charles Dickens’ novels, particularly Oliver Twist. Dickens showed great interest in the science of dreaming and had ample knowledge of the latest dream theories in the Victorian era, as can be seen in his personal correspondence, most notably in his famous letter to Dr. Thomas Stone on 2/2/1851. This essay places Dickens’ personal writings side by side with his novels to elucidate whether the scientific paradigm about dreaming included in the novel is consistent with the current (in Dickens’ time) scientific knowledge, or whether it is anachronistic or visionary (ahead of his time). Oliver Twist is particularly useful because it contains entire passages pondering on the nature of dreaming, enumerating types of common dreams, and taking a stand on the interference of sensory perception during the dreaming state. The author is particularly intrigued by Dickens’ assumption of the commonality and universality of lucid dreaming as revealed in these passages. This essay places popular Victorian dream theories, such as those contained in Robert Macnish’s The Philosophy of Sleep, side by side with recent dream theory, particularly psychophysiologist Stephen LaBerge’s numerous articles and books on the topic of lucid dreaming to see if Dickens deviated in any way from the reigning paradigm of the Victorian era in his representation of dreaming in his novels. While Dickens puts to great narrative use many of the characteristics of dreaming described by leading Victorian theorists, the author of this study argues, however, that Dickens’ most visionary statements derive from his acute observations of his own dreaming experiences.

Keywords: consciousness, Dickens, dreaming, lucid dreaming, Victorian

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Authors: Crystal Shackleford, Michael Pasek, Allon Vishkin, Jeremy Ginges

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In the Middle East, conflict is often viewed as religiously motivated. In this context, an important question is how we think the religion of the other drives their behavior. If people see conflicts as religious, they may expect the belief of the other to motivate intergroup bias. Beliefs about the motivations of the other impact how we engage with them. Conflict may result if actors believe the other’s religion promotes parochialism. To examine how actors on the ground in Israel-Palestine think about the God of the other as it relates to the other’s behavior towards them, we ran two studies in winter 2019 with an online sample of Jewish Israelis and fieldwork with Palestinians in the West Bank. We asked participants to predict the behavior of an outgroup member participating in an economic game task, dividing the money between themselves and another person, who is either an ingroup or outgroup member. Our experimental manipulation asks participants to predict the behavior of the other when the other is thinking of their God. Both Israelis and Palestinians believed outgroup members would show in-group favoritism, and that group members would give more to their in-group when thinking of their God. We also found that participants thought outgroup members would give more to their own ingroup when thinking of God. In other words, Palestinians predicted that Israelis would give more to fellow Israelis when thinking of God, but also more to Palestinians. Our results suggest that religious belief is seen to promote universal moral reasoning, even in a context with over 70 years of intense conflict. More broadly, this challenges the narrative that religion necessarily motivates intractable conflict.

Keywords: conflict, psychology, religion, meta-cognition, morality

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Authors: Moyahabo Molefe

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The persistence of HIV/AIDS infection rates in SA has not only been a subject of academic debate but a mediated narrative that has dominated SA’s post-apartheid film space over the last two decades. SA’s colonial geo-spatial architecture still influences migrant labour patterns, which the Oscar-nominated (2003) SA film ‘Yesterday’ has erstwhile reflected upon, yet continues to account for the spread of HIV/AIDS in SA society. Accordingly, men who had left their homes in the rural areas to work in the mines in the cities become infected with HIV/AIDS, only to return home to infect their wives or partners in the rural areas. This paper analyses, through Social Semiotic theory, how SA geo-spatial arrangement had raptured family structures with both men and women taking new residences in the urban areas where they work away from their homes. By using Social semiotic theory, this paper seeks to understand how images and discourses have been deployed in the film ‘Yesterday’ to demonstrate how HIV/AIDS is embedded in the socio-cultural, economic and political architect of SA society. The study uses qualitative approach and content/text/visual semiotic analysis to decipher meanings from array of imagery and discourses/dialogues that are used to mythologise the relationship between the spread of HIV/AIDS and SA migrant labour patterns. The findings of the study are significant to propose a conceptual framework that can be used to mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS among SA populace, against the backdrop of changing migrant labour patterns and other related factors

Keywords: colonialism, decoloniality, HIV/AIDS, labour migration patterns, social semiotics

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Authors: Javeria Khurshid

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The aim of this study is to bring forth the interpretation that Agha Shahid Ali in his verses exhibits. The study will focus on the conflict and chaos in his verses, reflecting the sense of identity attached to Kashmir. His verse advertently depicts the political turmoil and social dissent in the 'un-silent' valley, and ultimately, it expresses the chaos, anguish, and suffering, a sense of longing and belonging to this conflicted state of 'being' as well as 'mind.' Agha Shahid Ali, Kashmiri- American poet who writes of Kashmiri tragedies that continue to remain unarticulated and unheard to the major parts of world, articulates the narrative that showcases the conflicted self of Kashmiris in general and Ali’s in particular. The focus of the paper will be his poetry that debunks the claims of civility and how Kashmiri identity is kept either maligned or obscured in the major narratives that arise from the mainstream writers. However, Ali’s verses are substantially broad and clear, and very brilliantly, he rewrites Kashmir in his avid and novel voice, his verses embracing the Kashmiri self, effectively anew in English language. The paper will clearly indicate how Ali remains true to his name, 'shaheed' and 'shahid,' both a martyr and witness. Ali’s fate has been intricately entangled with Kashmir, even after his untimely death. He has fully and beautifully immersed himself in the surreal world of the conflict prevalent in the Valley, and this paper will examine the grotesque and gory history that has been spanning over the years in Kashmir with never ending cycle of conflict. The originality and innovation of his poetry surfaces from the anarchy of Kashmir, spanning between its culture, historical context, the art of memory and imagery.

Keywords: identity, self, turmoil, Kashmir

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Authors: Jennifer K. Bowerman, Rhonda L. Reich

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The purpose of this paper is to explore the concepts ACDC (Amore, Consciousness, Discipline, and Commitment) which the authors first discovered as a philosophy and framework for recruitment and organizational development in a successful start-up tech company in Brazil. This paper represents an exploration of these concepts as a potential pedagogical foundation for undergraduate business education in the classroom. It explores whether their application has potential to build emotional and practical resilience in the face of constant organizational and societal change. Derived from Holonomy this paper explains the concepts and develops a narrative around how change influences the operation of organizations. Using examples from leading edge organizational theorists, it explains why a different educational approach grounded in ACDC concepts may not only have relevance for the working world, but also for undergraduates about to enter that world. The authors propose that in the global context of constant change, it makes sense to develop an approach to education, particularly business education, beyond cognitive knowledge, models and tools, in such a way that emotional and practical resilience and creative thinking may be developed. Using the classroom as an opportunity to explore these concepts, and aligning personal passion with the necessary discipline and commitment, may provide students with a greater sense of their own worth and potential as they venture into their ever-changing futures.

Keywords: ACDC, holonomic thinking, organizational learning, organizational change, business pedagogy

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Authors: Mukhtar Raban

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Nelson Mandela University subscribes to a humanizing pedagogy (HP), as housed under broader critical pedagogy, that underpins and informs learning and teaching activities at the institution. The investigation sought to explore the implications of humanizing and critical pedagogical considerations for a technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) environment in a university course. The paper inquires into the design of a learning resource in an online learning environment of an English communication module, that applied HP principles. With an objective of creating agentive spaces for foregrounding identity, student voice, critical self-reflection, and recognition of others’ humanity; a flexible and open 'My Presence' feature was added to the TELL environment that allowed students and lecturers to share elements of their backgrounds in a ‘mutually vulnerable’ manner as a way of establishing digital identity and a more ‘human’ presence in the online language learning encounter, serving as a catalyst for the recognition of the ‘other’. Following a qualitative research design, the study adopted an auto-ethnographic approach, complementing the critical inquiry nature embedded into the activity’s practices. The study’s findings provide critical reflections and deductions on the possibilities of leveraging digital human expression within a humanizing pedagogical framework to advance the realization of HP-adoption in language learning and teaching encounters. It was found that the consideration of humanizing pedagogical principles in the design of online learning was more effective when the critical outcomes were explicated to students and lecturers prior to the completion of the activities. The integration of humanizing pedagogy also led to a contextual advancement of ‘affective’ language learning. Upon critical reflection and analysis, student identity and agency can flourish in a technology-enhanced learning environment when humanizing, and critical pedagogy influences the learning design.

Keywords: critical reflection, humanizing pedagogy, student identity, technology-enhanced language learning

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Authors: Tumelo Jaquiline Ntsopi

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This study explored the academic writing challenges of first-year students who use English as an Additional Language (EAL) registered in the EAW101 module at an ODeL institution. Research shows that academic writing is a challenge for EAL teaching and learning contexts across the globe in higher education institutions (HEIs). Academic writing is an important aspect of academic literacy in any institution of higher learning, more so in an ODeL institution. This has probed research that shows that academic writing is and continues to pose challenges for EAL teaching and learning contexts in higher education institutions. This study stems from the researcher’s experience in teaching academic writing to first-year students in the EAW101 module. The motivation for this study emerged from the fact that EAW101 is a writing module that has a high number of students in the Department of English Studies with an average of between 50-80 percent pass rate. These statistics elaborate on the argument that most students registered in this module struggle with academic writing, and they need intervention to assist and support them in achieving competence in the module. This study is underpinned by Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework and Transactional distance theory. This study adopted a qualitative research methodology and utilised a case study approach as a research design. Furthermore, the study gathered data from first year students and the EAW101 module’s student support initiatives. To collect data, focus group discussions, structured open-ended evaluation questions, and an observation schedule were used to gather data. The study is vital towards exploring academic writing challenges that first-year students in EAW101 encounter so that lecturers in the module may consider re-evaluating their methods of teaching to improve EAL students’ academic writing skills. This study may help lecturers towards enhancing academic writing in a ODeL context by assisting first year students through using student support interventions.

Keywords: academic writing, academic writing challenge, ODeL, EAL

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Authors: Zhi-Wei Zheng, Zhong-Qi Liu, Jia-Ling Qiu, Shan-Qing Guo, Zhong-Wei Jia, Chun Hao

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Objectives: The purpose of this study was to understand and examine the association between diurnal mood variation and sexual/health-related status among men who have sex with men (MSM) using data from MSM Chinese Twitter messages. The study consists of 843,745 postings of 377,610 MSM users located in Guangdong that were culled from the MSM Chinese Twitter App. Positive affect, negative affect, sexual related behaviors, and health-related status were measured using the Simplified Chinese Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Emotions, including joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust were measured using the Weibo Basic Mood Lexicon. A positive sentiment score and a positive emotions score were also calculated. Linear regression models based on a permutation test were used to assess associations between affective states and sexual/health-related status. In the results, 5,871 active MSM users and their 477,374 postings were finally selected. MSM expressed positive affect and joy at 8 a.m. and expressed negative affect and negative emotions between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. In addition, 25.1% of negative postings were directly related to health and 13.4% reported seeking social support during that sensitive period. MSM who were senior, educated, overweight or obese, self-identified as performing a versatile sex role, and with less followers, more followers, and less chat groups mainly expressed more negative affect and negative emotions. MSM who talked more about sexual-related behaviors had a higher positive sentiment score (β=0.29, p < 0.001) and a higher positive emotions score (β = 0.16, p < 0.001). MSM who reported more on their health status had a lower positive sentiment score (β = -0.83, p < 0.001) and a lower positive emotions score (β = -0.37, p < 0.001). The study concluded that psychological intervention based on an app for MSM should be conducted, as it may improve mental health.

Keywords: affect, men who have sex with men, sexual related behavior, health-related status, social media

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Authors: Howard Prosser

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This paper examines how critical thinking is framed, especially for primary-school students, in the recently established Australian Curriculum: History. Critical thinking is one of the curriculum’s 'general capabilities.' History provides numerous opportunities for critical thinking’s application in everyday life. The so-called 'history wars' that took place just prior to the curriculum’s introduction in 2014 sought to bring to light the limits of a singular historical narrative and reveal that which had been repressed. Consequently, the Australian history curriculum reflects this shifting mindset. Teachers are presented with opportunities to treat history in the classroom as a repository of social possibility, especially related to democratic potential, beyond hackneyed and jingoistic tales of Australian nationhood. Yet such opportunities are not explicit within the document and are up against pre-existing pedagogic practices. Drawing on political thinker Cornelius Castoriadis’s rendering of the 'social-historical' and 'paidea,' as well as his mobilisation of psychoanalysis, the study outlines how the curriculum’s critical-thinking component opens up possibilities for students and teachers to revise assumptions about how history is understood. This ontological shift is ultimately creative: the teachers’ imaginations connect the students’ imaginations, and vice versa, to the analysis that is at the heart of historical thinking. The implications of this social imagination add to the current discussions about historical consciousness among scholars like Peter Seixas. But, importantly, it has practical application in the primary-school classroom where history becomes creative acts, like play, that is indeterminate and social rather than fixed and individual.

Keywords: Australia, Castoriadis, critical thinking, history, imagination

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Authors: Amit Kaushik

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Equus kiang kiang is an indigenous large-bodied herbivore species, and in India, it is restricted to limited geographies of Ladakh. One of such areas is the Tsokar Basin. With the rise in global pashmina demand, the livestock numbers have grown significantly. Previous studies have reported conflict between a nomadic pastoral community, the Changpas, and kiang. Absentee pastoralism (in lieu of pure pastoralism) and tourism are two major economic activities among the local people. However, the social, economic, political, and ecological changes are inevitable in such a contemporary system. The study examines several factors influencing the local pastoral economy and focuses on the presence of two non-human cohabitants, kiang, and the wolf. This study used semi-structured interviews and vehicle count method in four different seasons. The results show that people perceived kiang as a threat but also reveal a level of tolerance towards them. The locals predicted high kiang numbers ranging from 200-3000 in the basin and contrastingly ranked them behind wolves, which are very few in numbers. Due to a lack of scientific pieces of evidence, the kiang population status remains obscure, and local peoples’ concerns remain unaddressed. But how this competitive dysfunctionality does take place? On one side, the rural development or the animal husbandry department aims at developing the area by providing stall-feed and tourism, whereas, on another side, the wildlife department emphasizes wildlife conservation. Therefore, the managers and planners may need to be cautious about the local socio-ecological complexities and may require inter-departmental communications. The study concludes that an interdisciplinary inquiry may be an important tool in understanding such a precarious situation and may be used in the policy-making processes.

Keywords: coexistence, human-livestock-wildlife interactions, interdisciplinary approach, kiang, policymaking, tsokar.

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Authors: Lavina N. Bhaskar, Ashima Tiwari

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In the endeavour of connecting culture to stories, textile to narratives and people to material, authors analyse the impact of narratives in two popular Indian textiles namely - Mata Ni Pachedi and Pabuji Ki Phad. These textiles narrate people’s tale or Folk tale. Each textile has a style or format in which the story is told (and it is visual). Mata Ni Pachedi, when translated into the English language literally means behind the mother goddess. Mata Ni Pachedi is an Indian textile from the province of Gujarat which constitutes an entire temple of the goddess, with the idol herself in it. On the other hand, Pabuji ki Phad is scroll painting of folk deities of Rajasthan, narrated by Bhopas (the Priest singers of Rajasthan). These textiles narrate stories of ordinary people with extraordinary courage, of social reform, and people’s belief in the divine. Authors take to task their years of craft-cluster study conducted in the past and use existing literature to map their journey in the preliminary phase of research. And then carried out an ethnographic study by visiting the origins of these textiles in Rajasthan and Gujrat (in India), met artisans and their families who are still practicing these dying art form, in order to understand the format and impact of textile story-telling. This research paper talks about the narrative in Indian textiles; the stories in them, artisans and their life as metaphorical representations of the People in Mata Ni Pachedi and Pabuji Ki Phad.

Keywords: cultural derivatives, folk-tale, Indo-Narratives, Indology

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Authors: Sofia Serra-Dawa

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Adult relationships accrue on a variety of past social experiences, intentions, and emotions that might predispose and influence the approach to and construction of subsequent relationships. The Adult Attachment Theory (AAT) proposes four types of adult attachment, where attachment is built over two dimensions of anxiety and avoidance: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant. The AAT has been studied in multiple settings such as personal and therapeutic relationships, educational settings, sexual orientation, health, and religion. In music scholarship, the AAT has been used to frame class learning of student singers and study the relational behavior between voice teachers and students. Building on this study, the present inquiry studies how attachment types might characterize learning relationships of music students (in the Western Conservatory tradition), and whether particular instrumental experiences might correlate to given attachment styles. Given certain behavioral cohesive features of established traditions of instrumental playing and performance modes, it is hypothesized that student musicians will display specific characteristics correlated to instrumental traditions, demonstrating clear tendency of attachment style, which in turn has implications on subsequent professional interactions. This study is informed by the methodological framework of Adult Attachment Scale-R (Collins and Read, 1990), which was particularly chosen given its non-invasive questions and classificatory validation. It is further hypothesized that the analytical comparison of musicians’ profiles has the potential to serve as the baseline for other comparative behavioral observation studies [this component is expected to be verified and completed well before the conference meeting]. This research may have implications for practitioners concerned with matching and improving musical teaching and learning relationships and in (professional and amateur) long-term musical settings.

Keywords: adult attachment, music education, musicians attachment profile, musicians relationships

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Authors: Ibrahim Nadeem, Mohammed Rahman, Yasser Ad-Dab’Bagh, Mahmood Akhtar

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Depression is one of the most prevalent mental illnesses and is often associated with various other medical disorders. In this review, we aim to evaluate existing systematic reviews that investigate the use of probiotics as a treatment for depressive symptoms. Five online databases were searched for relevant studies up to December 2017. Systematic reviews that included randomized controlled trials assessing the efficacy of probiotics in the treatment of depressive symptoms were included. Seven systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria. Three of these reviews conducted meta-analyses, out of which, two found probiotics to significantly improve depressive symptoms in the sample population. Two meta-analyses conducted subgroup analysis based on health status, and both found probiotics to significantly decrease depressive symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder, but only one review found it to significantly decrease in healthy patients. Another subgroup analysis was conducted based on age, and found probiotics to produce significant effects on subjects under the age of 60, but close to no effect on patients over the age of 65. Out of the four reviews that conducted qualitative analysis, three reviews concluded that probiotics have the potential to be used as a treatment. Due to the differences in clinical trials, a definitive effect of probiotics on depressive symptoms cannot be concluded. Nonetheless, probiotics seem to produce a significant therapeutic effect for subjects with pre-existing depressive symptoms. Further studies are warranted for definitive conclusions.

Keywords: depression, gut-brain axis, gut microbiota, probiotic, psychobiotic

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Authors: Kexin Tan

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The Silk Road is a concept idiosyncratic in nature. Western scholars co-created and conceptualized in its early days, transliterated into the countries along the Silk Road, redefined, reimagined, and reconfigured by the public in the second half of the twentieth century. Therefore, the image is not only a mirror of the discursive interactions between East and West but Self and Other. The travel narrative of Sven Hedin, through which the Silk Road was enriched in meanings and popularized, is the focus of this study. This article examines how the Silk Road was imagined in three key texts of Sven Hedin: The Silk Road, The Wandering Lake, and The Flight of “Big Horse”. Three recurring themes are extracted and analyzed: the Silk Road, the land of enigmas, the virgin land, and the reconnecting road. Ideas about ethnotypes and images drawn from theorists such as Joep Leerssen have been deployed in the analysis. This research tracks how the images were configured, concentrating on China’s ethnotypes, travel writing tropes, and the Silk Road discourse that preceded Sven Hedin. Hedin’s role in his expedition, his geopolitical viewpoints, and the commercial considerations of his books are also discussed in relation to the intellectual construct of the Silk Road. It is discovered that the images of the Silk Road and the discursive traditions behind it are mobile rather than static, inclusive than antithetical. The paradoxical characters of the Silk Road reveal the complexity of the socio-historical background of Hedin’s time, as well as the collision of discursive traditions and practical issues. While it is true that Hedin’s discursive construction of the Silk Road image embodies the bias of Self-West against Other-East, its characteristics such as fluidity and openness could probably offer a hint at its resurgence in the postcolonial era.

Keywords: the silk road, Sven Hedin, imagology, ethnotype, travelogue

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Authors: Shohreh Ghasemi

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Introduction: Melanoma is a complex disease with various clinical and histopathological features that impact prognosis and treatment decisions. Traditional methods of melanoma prognosis involve manual examination and interpretation of clinical and histopathological data by dermatologists and pathologists. However, the subjective nature of these assessments can lead to inter-observer variability and suboptimal prognostic accuracy. AI, with its ability to analyze vast amounts of data and identify patterns, has emerged as a promising tool for improving melanoma prognosis. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted to identify studies that employed AI techniques for melanoma prognosis. The search included databases such as PubMed and Google Scholar, using keywords such as "artificial intelligence," "melanoma," and "prognosis." Studies published between 2010 and 2022 were considered. The selected articles were critically reviewed, and relevant information was extracted. Results: The review identified various AI methodologies utilized in melanoma prognosis, including machine learning algorithms, deep learning techniques, and computer vision. These techniques have been applied to diverse data sources, such as clinical images, dermoscopy images, histopathological slides, and genetic data. Studies have demonstrated the potential of AI in accurately predicting melanoma prognosis, including survival outcomes, recurrence risk, and response to therapy. AI-based prognostic models have shown comparable or even superior performance compared to traditional methods.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, melanoma, accuracy, prognosis prediction, image analysis, personalized medicine

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Authors: Ghadeer Mohammad Said El-Sheikh, Samer Mohamad Shalhoob

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Medical equipment operation state is a valid reflection of health care organizations' performance, where such equipment highly contributes to the quality of healthcare services on several levels in which quality improvement has become an intrinsic part of the discourse and activities of health care services. In healthcare organizations, clinical and biomedical engineering departments play an essential role in maintaining the safety and efficiency of such equipment. One of the most challenging topics when it comes to such sophisticated equipment is the lifespan of medical equipment, where many factors will impact such characteristics of medical equipment through its life cycle. So far, many attempts have been made in order to address this issue where most of the approaches are kind of arbitrary approaches and one of the criticisms of existing approaches trying to estimate and understand the lifetime of a medical equipment lies under the inquiry of what are the environmental factors that can play into such a critical characteristic of a medical equipment. In an attempt to address this shortcoming, the purpose of our study rises where in addition to the standard technical factors taken into consideration through the decision-making process by a clinical engineer in case of medical equipment failure, the dimension of environmental factors shall be added. The investigations, researches and studies applied for the purpose of supporting the decision making process by a clinical engineers and assessing the lifespan of healthcare equipment’s in the Lebanese society was highly dependent on the identification of technical criteria’s that impacts the lifespan of a medical equipment where the affecting environmental factors didn’t receive the proper attention. The objective of our study is based on the need for introducing a new well-designed plan for evaluating medical equipment depending on two dimensions. According to this approach, the equipment that should be replaced or repaired will be classified based on a systematic method taking into account two essential criteria; the standard identified technical criteria and the added environmental criteria.

Keywords: technical, environmental, healthcare, characteristic of medical equipment

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Authors: Hadjer Chellia

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the present study reports on second language use among Algerian international students in the UK. In Algeria, French has an important status among the Algerian verbal repertoires due to colonial reasons. This has triggered many language conflicts and many debates among policy makers in Algeria. In higher education, Algerian English students’ sociolinguistic profile is characterised by the use of French as a sign of prestige. What may leave room for debate is the effect of crossing borders towards the UK as a result of international mobility programmes, a transition which could add more complexity since French, is not so significant as a language in the UK context. In this respect, the micro-objective is to explore the fate of French use among Ph.D. students in the UK as a newly established group vis-à-vis English. To fulfill the purpose of the present inquiry, the research employs multiple approaches in which semi-structured interview is a primary source of data to know participants’ attitudes about French use, targeting both their pre-migratory experience and current one. Web-based questionnaires are set up to access larger population. Focus group sessions are further procedures of scrutiny in this piece of work to explore the actual linguistic behaviours. Preliminary findings from both interviews and questionnaires reveal that students’ current experience, particularly living in the UK, affects their pre-migratory attitudes towards French language and its use. The overall findings are expected to bring manifold contributions to the field of research among which is setting factors that influence language use among newly established émigrés communities. The research is also relevant to international students’ experience of study abroad in terms of language use in the guise of internationalization of higher education, mobility and exchange programmes. It could contribute to the sociolinguistics of the Algerian diaspora: the dispersed residence of non-native communities - not to mention its significance on the Algerian research field abroad.

Keywords: Algerian diaspora, French language, language maintenance, language shift, mobility

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Authors: Shuaibu Umar Abdul

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The essence of any state as well as government is to ensure and advance the security of lives and property of its citizens. As a result, providing security in all spheres ranging from safeguarding the territorial integrity, security of lives and property of the citizens as well as economic emancipation have constitute the core objectives cum national interest of virtually all country’s foreign policy in the world. In view of this imperative above, Nigeria has enshrined in the early part of her 1999 constitution as amended, as its duty and responsibility as a state, to ensure security of lives and property of its citizens. Yet, it does not make any significant shift as it relates to the country’s fundamental security needs as exemplified by the current enormous security challenges that reduced the country’s fortune to the background in all ramifications. The study chooses realist paradigm as theoretical underpinning which emphasizes that exigency of the moment should always take priority in the pursuit of foreign policy. The study is historical, descriptive and narrative in method and character. Data for the study was sourced from secondary sources and analysed via content analysis. The study found out that it is lack of political will on the side of the government to guarantee a just and egalitarian society that will be of benefit to all citizens. This could be more appreciated when looking at the gaps between the theory in Nigerian foreign policy and the practice as exemplified by the action or inaction of the government to ensure security in the state. On this account, the study recommends that until the leaderships in Nigerian foreign policy recognized the need for political will and respect for constitutionalism to ensure security of its citizens and territory, otherwise achieving great Nigeria will remain an illusion.

Keywords: foreign policy, nation, national security, Nigeria, security

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Authors: Iuliana-Erika Köpeczi

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‘Language is no longer regarded as peripheral to our grasp of the world we live in, but as central to it. Words are not mere vocal labels or communicational adjuncts superimposed upon an already given order of things. They are collective products of social interaction, essential instruments through which human beings constitute and articulate their world’, said Roy Harris. If we were to accept the above-mentioned premise, then we surely must accept that discourse, generally, - and political discourse, specifically -, bears a crucial importance to one’s perception of reality. The way in which political rhetoric constructs reality changes the relationship between the voter and his/her view of the world, which, in turn, influences greatly the future trends of political participation. In this context, our inquiry focuses on the role of populist discourses in the post 9/11 political rhetoric, and how this led to the formation, construction and reconstruction of identity within the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ dichotomy. It is our hypothesis that anti-intellectualistic elements played a significant role in the manner in which identity construction had been carried out on a discursive level. By adopting a comparative approach, we intend to identify the similarities and differences between the use of such anti-intellectualist elements in the United States of America on one hand – within the discourse of Rick Santorum, – and France on the other – with Marine le Pen’s discourse. Our methodological approach uses close textual analysis of primary source material (discourse analysis); historical contextualization of both primary documents and broader socio-political and cultural framework through archival research and secondary sources; as well as interpretation of primary texts through theoretical frameworks (qualitative research). We hope that the output of our endeavor will be useful in better understanding the different correlations that exist between anti-intellectualism and populism and how the interactions between these two elements aids in political identity construction through discourse.

Keywords: anti-intellectualism, discourse theory, France, identity construction, populism, United States of America

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