Search results for: socio-economic empowerment

Authors: Christine Redmond

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This paper contributes to research on gendered, digital identities by exploring how selfies offer scope for disrupting and moving through gendered and racial ideals of feminine beauty. The selfie involves self-presentation, filters, captions, hashtags, online publishing, likes and more, constituting the relationship between subjectivity, practice and social use of selfies a complex process. Employing qualitative research methods on youth selfies in the UK, the author investigates interdisciplinary entangling between studies of social media and fields within gender, media and cultural studies, providing a material discursive treatment of the selfie as an embodied practice. Drawing on data collected from focus groups with teenage girls in East London, the study explores how girls experience and relate to selfies and snaps in their everyday lives. The author’s Deleuzean feminist approach suggests that bodies and selfies are not individual, disembodied entities between which there is a mediating inter-action. Instead, bodies and selfies are positioned as entangled to a point where it becomes unclear as to where a selfie ends and a body begins. Recognising selfies not just as images but as material and social assemblages opens up possibilities for unpacking the selfie in ways that move beyond the representational model in some studies of socially mediated digital images. The study reveals how the selfie functions to enable moments of empowerment within limiting, dominant ideologies of Euro-centrism, patriarchy and heteronormativity.

Keywords: affect theory, femininity, gender, heteronormativity, photography, selfie, snapchat

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Authors: Nasiru Medugu Idris

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This research is aimed at assessing the vulnerability of climate change to rural communities (farmers, herdsmen and fishermen) in Nigeria with the view to study the underlying causes and degree of vulnerability to climate change and examine the conflict between farmers and herdsmen as a result of climate change. This research employed the use of quantitative and qualitative means of data gathering techniques as well as physical observations. Six states (Kebbi, Adamawa, Nasarawa, Osun, Ebonyi, and Akwa Ibom) have been selected on the ground that they are key food production areas in the country and are therefore essential to continual food security in the country. So also, they also double as fishing communities in order to aid the comprehensive study of all the effects on climate on farmers and fishermen alike. Community focus group discussions were carried out in the various states for an interactive session and also to have firsthand information on their level of awareness on climate change. Climate data from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency over the past decade were collected for the purpose of analyzing trends in climate. The study observed that the level of vulnerability of rural dwellers most especially farmers, herdsmen and fishermen to climate change is very high due to their socioeconomic, ethnic and historical perspective of their trend. The study, therefore, recommends that urgent step needs to be put in place to help control natural hazards and man-made disasters and serious measures are also needed in order to minimize severe societal, economic and political crises; some of which may either escalate to violent conflicts or could be avoided by efforts of conflict resolution and prevention by the initiation of a process of de-escalation. So this study has recommended the best-fit adaptive and mitigation measures to climate change vulnerability in rural communities of Nigeria.

Keywords: adaptation, farmers, fishermen, herdsmen

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Authors: Pinqiao Wang

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Mindfulness, derived from Buddhism, has been developed to improve individuals' well-being, first in the West and then gaining growing popularity in Asia. Numerous research studies have proven the effectiveness of mindfulness among clinical groups and the public all over the world. However, as enthusiasm surges, reflections on mindfulness and its commodification and instrumentalization arise. Hong Kong was seen as the model of a free market by neoliberal economists. The relationships between its socioeconomic neoliberalism, Western-inspired democracy aspiration, and political harmonization with China Mainland have been fraught with tensions, which have been further exacerbated by socio-political changes since the 2010s. Under such circumstances, mental health problems have come into the spotlight in Hong Kong recently. Mindfulness has gained growing popularity in Hong Kong, with its influence reaching from primary schools to corporate settings. A more comprehensive socio-political analysis of mindfulness within the Hong Kong context warrants further exploration. Drawing on interview responses from mindfulness practitioners, we examine the connections between the ideologies underlying mindfulness and contemporary capitalist society. On the one hand, mindfulness focuses on the present moment and self-improvement, representing neoliberal capitalist spirituality and reinforcing existing power relations. On the other hand, mindfulness fosters the acceptance of difference, which is argued to demonstrate the potential for advancing democracy at both the individual and community levels. Academically, this research provides empirical evidence to advance the current discussions and debates surrounding the socio-political potential of mindfulness. Practically, it serves as a reflection on mindfulness practices to optimize their impact on individuals and society.

Keywords: neoliberal subjectivity, qualitative analysis, social construction, technologies of the self, therapeutic culture

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Authors: Sheheryar Khan, Weidong Li, Fanqian Meng

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The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is one of the foremost problems out of other ecological and socioeconomic issues in urbanization. Due to this phenomenon that human-made urban areas have replaced the rural landscape with the surface that increases thermal conductivity and urban warmth; as a result, the temperature in the city is higher than in the surrounding rural areas. To affect the evidence of this phenomenon in the Zhengzhou city area, an observation of the temperature variations in the urban area is done through a scientific method that has been followed. Landsat 8 satellite images were taken from 2013 to 2015 to calculate the effect of Urban Heat Island (UHI) along with the NPP-VRRIS night-time remote sensing data to analyze the result for a better understanding of the center of the built-up area. To further support the evidence, the correlation between land surface temperatures and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was calculated using the Red band 4 and Near-infrared band 5 of the Landsat 8 data. Mono-window algorithm was applied to retrieve the land surface temperature (LST) distribution from the Landsat 8 data using Band 10 and 11 accordingly to convert the top-of-atmosphere radiance (TOA) and to convert the satellite brightness temperature. Along with Landsat 8 data, NPP-VIIRS night-light data is preprocessed to get the research area data. The analysis between Landsat 8 data and NPP night-light data was taken to compare the output center of the Built-up area of Zhengzhou city.

Keywords: built-up area, land surface temperature, mono-window algorithm, NDVI, remote sensing, threshold method, Zhengzhou

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Authors: Diego Cruz, Helbert Arevalo, Diana Vernot

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

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

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Authors: Awangku Hassanal Bahar Pengiran Bagul, Fauziahton Ag. Samad

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The focus of this study is to outline the development of Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) in order to achieve sustainability. The CBET in Desa Cinta Kobuni is a result of a collaboration between Kampung Kobuni, Kota Kinabalu City Hall or DBKK (Dewan Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu), and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). It is located in Inanam, a sub-district of Kota Kinabalu city. The current ecotourism activities are still in the growth stage and mainly focused on cultural tourism products and activities that showcase their traditional food, clothing, language, history, values, beliefs, dance, arts, and crafts. The study’s methodological approach is qualitative with narrative inquiry, also known as storytelling. This enables the study to access valuable insight with rich data into the complexity of developing community-based ecotourism. The results show that there are three major impacts on the Desa Cinta Kobuni, which are, 1) the increment of secondary income, 2) the advancement of women’s empowerment, and 3) the enhanced sustainability initiatives of the villagers. The experience in developing their first CBET has resulted in the Kota Kinabalu City Hall producing the Framework for Sustainable Community Based Ecotourism that integrates Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (GCET) for future CBET development in other parts of the city. The paper concludes that there is a significant positive transformation of the village and the villagers while reaffirming that Community-Based ecotourism (CBET) is a sustainable form of tourism that improves the quality of life of hosts at the tourist destination.

Keywords: community, ecotourism, cultural tourism, sustainability, sustainable development

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Authors: William Albeiro Alvarez, Gloria Patricia Jaramillo, Ivan Reinaldo Sarmiento

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Understanding the behavior of individuals and the different human factors that influence the choice when faced with a complex system such as transportation is one of the most complicated aspects of measuring in the components that constitute the modeling of route choice due to that various behaviors and driving mode directly or indirectly affect the choice. During the last two decades, with the development of information and communications technologies, new data collection techniques have emerged such as GPS, geolocation with mobile phones, apps for choosing the route between origin and destination, individual service transport applications among others, where an interest has been generated to improve discrete choice models when considering the incorporation of these developments as well as psychological factors that affect decision making. This paper implements a discrete choice model that proposes and estimates a hybrid model that integrates route choice models and latent variables based on the observation on the route of a sample of public taxi drivers from the city of Medellín, Colombia in relation to its behavior, personality, socioeconomic characteristics, and driving mode. The set of choice options includes the routes generated by the individual service transport applications versus the driver's choice. The hybrid model consists of measurement equations that relate latent variables with measurement indicators and utilities with choice indicators along with structural equations that link the observable characteristics of drivers with latent variables and explanatory variables with utilities.

Keywords: behavior choice model, human factors, hybrid model, real time data

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Authors: Usman Dutse, Eldah Ephraim Buba, Dalhatu Sa’idu

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The popularity of foreign football leagues are getting a soaring in Africa. Nigerian youths are following these leagues with high sense of dedication and devotion. The paper examines the factors behind the growing popularity of foreign football league in Nigeria and its socio economic implications on the country. Primary data were largely used for the study and collected through the use of questionnaire and interview. The data collected were analysed with the use of descriptive and qualitative methods of analysis. The findings made from the analysis indicates that the reasons why foreign league is popular in Nigeria is because the quality of national league in Nigeria is poor, the matches are not mostly televised, corruption/match fixing is common; for the above mentioned reasons national football league become uninteresting compared to foreign leagues. It was also confirmed that the overwhelming popularity of foreign league has the following social effects: friendship and acquaintance are created between supporters of the same club via social media and viewing centres, it has increased the knowledge and awareness of youth about the economics and politics of international sports. However, it has also brewed rivalry between supporters of clubs, drugs are sold in viewing centres and it sometimes serves as a meeting point for miscreants and criminals. Some of the economic effects were also identified as follows: small entrepreneurs establish commercial viewing centres and they employ other supporting staff to operate. On the strength of the above findings, the following were recommended: There is the urgent need to reform our national league to an acceptable standard; improve the quality of the team, the facilities and media coverage of the matches. This might make Nigerians to channel some of the love for foreign leagues to the local leagues.

Keywords: foreign, league, socioeconomic, implications

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Authors: Faith Eweluegim Enahoro-Ofagbe

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Worldwide, every nation is experiencing the effects of global warming. In developing countries, due to the heavy reliance on agriculture for socioeconomic growth and security, among other things, these countries are more affected by climate change, particularly with the availability of water. Floods, droughts, rising temperatures, saltwater intrusion, groundwater depletion, and other severe environmental alterations are all brought on by climatic change. Life depends on water, a vital resource; these ecological changes affect all water use, including agriculture and household water use. Therefore adequate and adaptive water usage strategies for sustainability are essential in developing countries. Therefore, this paper investigates Nigeria's challenges due to climate change and adaptive techniques that have evolved in response to such issues to ensure water management and sustainability for irrigation and provide quality water to residents. Questionnaires were distributed to respondents in the study area, central Nigeria, for quantitative evaluation of sustainable water resource management techniques. Physicochemical analysis was done, collecting soil and water samples from several locations under investigation. Findings show that farmers use different methods, ranging from intelligent technologies to traditional strategies for water resource management. Also, farmers need to learn better water resource management techniques for sustainability. Since more residents obtain their water from privately held sources, the government should enforce legislation to ensure that private borehole construction businesses treat water sources of poor quality before the general public uses them.

Keywords: developing countries, irrigation, strategies, sustainability, water resource management, water usage

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Authors: Humera Malik

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Gender inequality, as a societal issue, is prevalent in all spheres of life in Pakistan. It is world-wide understood that gender equality is a basic right of every human being as well as the source of development and prosperity for the whole country. In fact, many countries endeavor to ensure equal opportunities for men and women which will, in turn, help to attain sustainable growth in every field. Most of the women in Pakistan live their life under the societal pressure which is exerted by centuries old traditions. This archaic setup restricts women to stay at home because their survival is conditional to their total subjugation to the male member of the family. This patriarchal structure confers men the right to deal women as their property. It is not wrong to say that women endure severe discrimination in their whole life. No doubt, women are confronted with multifaceted discrimination in the field of education, health, politics, social status, etc. The main theme of this research is to ascertain the present condition of gender inequality in the field of economy in Pakistan. Pakistan’s poor ranking in Global Gender Gap Index, 2016 clearly depicts that women are deprived of fundamental rights as well as equal opportunities of development. This very state of affairs depicts the real picture of government’s commitment to women empowerment and gender equality. The nature of this research is descriptive which helps to determine the status of women in Pakistan on the basis of labour force participation, wage gap, estimated incomes, and ratio of high ranking positions secured by women. It is an endeavor to understand the reasons of economic inequality by following qualitative method of research. Moreover, few recommendations will be suggested to get rid of this issue.

Keywords: dismal, discrimination, feudal, patriarchal, wage gap

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Authors: Marija Zulić, Vanda Hájková, Nina Brkić-Jovanović, Linda Rathousová, Sanja Tomić

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Cerebral palsy is primarily reflected in the disorder of the development of movement and posture, which may be accompanied by sensory disturbances, disturbances of perception, cognition and communication, behavioural disorders and epilepsy. According to current inclusive attitudes towards people with disabilities implies that full social participation of children with cerebral palsy means inclusion in all activities in family, peer, school and leisure environments in the same scope and to the same extent as is the case with the children of proper development and without physical difficulties. Due to the fact that it has been established that the quality of children's participation in primary school is directly related to their social inclusion in future life, the aim of the paper is to identify predictors of social participation, respectively, and in particular, factors that could to improve the quality of social participation of children with cerebral palsy, in the primary school environment in Czech Republic. The study includes children with cerebral palsy (n = 75) in the Czech Republic, aged between six and 12 years who attend mainstream or special primary schools to the sixth grade. The main instrument used was the first and third part of the School function assessment questionnaire. It will also take into account the type of damage assessed according to a scale the Gross motor function classification system, five–level classification system for cerebral palsy. The research results will provide detailed insight into the degree of social participation of children with cerebral palsy and the factors that would be a potential cause of their levels of participation, in regular and special primary schools, in different socioeconomic environments in Czech Republic.

Keywords: cerebral palsy, Czech republic, social participation, the school function assessment

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Authors: Suhail Shersad

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Introduction In developing countries, the access to higher education for the lower socioeconomic strata is very poor at less than 0.05%. The challenges faced by prospective students in these circumstances to pursue higher education have been explored through direct interaction with them and their families in urban slums of New Delhi. This study included evaluation of the demographics, social indices, expectations and perceptions of selected communities. Results The results show that the poor life expectancy, low exposure to technology, lack of social infrastructure and poor sanitary conditions have reduced their drive for academic achievements. This is despite a good level of intelligence and critical thinking skills among these students. The perception of the community including parents shows that despite their desire to excel, there are too may roadblocks to achieving a fruitful professional life for the next generation. Discussion The prerequisites of higher education may have to be revisited to be more inclusive of socially handicapped students. The knowledge, skills and attributes required for higher education system should form the baseline for creating a roadmap for higher secondary education suited for local needs. Conventional parameters like marks and grading have to be re-looked so that life skills and vocational training form part of the core curriculum. Essential skills should be incorporated at an earlier age, providing an alternative pathway for such students to join higher education. Conclusion: There is a need to bridge the disconnect that exists between higher education planning, the needs of the concerned cohorts and the existing higher secondary education. The variables that contribute to making such a decision have to be examined further. Keywords: prerequisites of higher education, social mobility, society expectations, access to higher education

Keywords: access to higher education, prerequisites of higher education, society expectations, social mobility

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Authors: Jalil Salimi, Mandana Asadi, Naser Fathi

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Urmia Lake (UL) has undergone a significant decline in water levels, resulting in severe environmental, socioeconomic, and health-related challenges. This paper examines the restoration process of UL from a water governance perspective. By applying a water governance model, the study evaluates the process based on six selected principles: stakeholder engagement, transparency and accountability, effectiveness, equitable water use, adaptation capacity, and water usage efficiency. The dominance of structural and physicalist approaches to water governance has led to a weak understanding of social and environmental issues, contributing to social crises. Urgent efforts are required to address the water crisis and reform water governance in the country, making water-related issues a top national priority. The UL restoration process has achieved significant milestones, including stakeholder consensus, scientific and participatory planning, environmental vision, intergenerational justice considerations, improved institutional environment for NGOs, investments in water infrastructure, transparency promotion, environmental effectiveness, and local issue resolutions. However, challenges remain, such as power distribution imbalances, bureaucratic administration, weak conflict resolution mechanisms, financial constraints, accountability issues, limited attention to social concerns, overreliance on structural solutions, legislative shortcomings, program inflexibility, and uncertainty management weaknesses. Addressing these weaknesses and challenges is crucial for the successful restoration and sustainable governance of UL.

Keywords: evaluation, restoration process, Urmia Lake, water governance, water resource management

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Authors: Yingxiao Ye, Christopher Doehring, Angelos Georghiou, Hugh Robinson, Phebe Vayanos

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Human development is a threat to biodiversity, and conservation organizations (COs) are purchasing land to protect areas for biodiversity preservation. However, COs have limited budgets and thus face hard prioritization decisions that are confounded by uncertainty in future human land use. This research proposes a data-driven sequential planning model to help COs choose land parcels that minimize the uncertain human impact on biodiversity. The proposed model is robust to uncertain development, and the sequential decision-making process is adaptive, allowing land purchase decisions to adapt to human land use as it unfolds. The cellular automata model is leveraged to simulate land use development based on climate data, land characteristics, and development threat index from NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center. This simulation is used to model uncertainty in the problem. This research leverages state-of-the-art techniques in the robust optimization literature to propose a computationally tractable reformulation of the model, which can be solved routinely by off-the-shelf solvers like Gurobi or CPLEX. Numerical results based on real data from the Jaguar in Central and South America show that the proposed method reduces conservation loss by 19.46% on average compared to standard approaches such as MARXAN used in practice for biodiversity conservation. Our method may better help guide the decision process in land acquisition and thereby allow conservation organizations to maximize the impact of limited resources.

Keywords: data-driven robust optimization, biodiversity conservation, uncertainty simulation, adaptive sequential planning

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Authors: Josip Karuc, Marjeta Mišigoj-Duraković, Goran Marković, Vedran Hadžić, Michael J. Duncan, Hrvoje Podnar, Maroje Sorić

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As a part of the CRO-PALS longitudinal study, this investigation aimed to examine the association between different levels of physical activity (PA) and movement quality in 16-years old school children. The total number of participants in this research was 725. Movement quality was assessed via the Functional Movement Screen (FMSTM), and the PA level was estimated using the School Health Action, Planning, and Evaluation System (SHAPES) questionnaire. In addition, body fat and socioeconomic status (SES) were assessed. In order to investigate the association between total FMS score and different levels of PA, multilevel modeling was employed for boys (n=359) and girls (n=366) separately. All models were adjusted for age, body fat, and SES. Among boys, MVPA, MPA, and VPA were not significant predictors of the total FMS score (β=0.000, p=0.78; β=-0.002, p=0.455; β=0.004, p=0.158, respectively). On the contrary, among girls, VPA and MVPA showed significant effects on the total FMS score (β=0.011, p=0.001, β=0.005, p=0.006, respectively). The findings of this research provide evidence that the intensity of PA is a minor but relevant factor in describing the association between PA and movement quality in adolescent girls but not in boys. This means that the PA level does not guarantee optimal functional movement patterns. Therefore, practicing functional movement patterns in an isolated manner and at moderate to vigorous intensity could be beneficial in order to reduce the risk of injury incidence and potential orthopedic abnormalities in later life. This work was supported by the Croatian Science Foundation, grant no: IP-2016-06-9926 and grant no: DOK-2018-01-2328.

Keywords: functional movement screen, fundamental movement patterns, movement quality, pediatric

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Authors: E. Er, Y. S. Cheng

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The role of parents and caregivers in their children’s education is pivotal. Parental involvement (PI) is often associated with a range of student outcomes. This includes academic achievements, socioemotional development, adaptive skills, physical fitness and school attendance. This study is the first in Singapore to (1) explore the relationship between parental involvement and student outcomes; (2) determine the effects of family structure and socioeconomic status (SES) on parental involvement and (3) investigate factors that inform involvement in parents of children with specific developmental disabilities. Approval for the study was obtained from Nanyang Technological University’s Institutional Review Board in Singapore. The revised version of a comprehensive theoretical model on parental involvement was used as the theoretical framework in this study. Parents were recruited from a SPED school in Singapore which caters to school-aged children (7 to 21 years old). Pearson’s product moment correlation, analysis of variance and multiple regression analyses were used as statistical techniques in this study. Results indicate that there are significant associations between parental involvement and educational outcomes in students with developmental disabilities. Next, SES has a significant impact on levels of parental involvement. In addition, parents in the current study reported being more involved at home, in school activities and the community, when teachers specifically requested their involvement. Home-based involvement was also predicted by parents’ perceptions of their time and energy, efficacy and beliefs in supporting their child’s education, as well as their children’s invitations to be more involved. An interesting and counterintuitive inverse relationship was found between general school invitations and parental involvement at home. Research findings are further discussed, and suggestions are put forth to increase involvement for this specific group of parents.

Keywords: autism, developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities, parental involvement, Singapore

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Authors: Chomba Kalunga

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Many developing countries have a rich endowment of natural resources. Yet, amidst that wealth, living standards remain poor. At the same time, international markets have been surged with an increase in copper prices in the last twenty years. This is a presentation of the findings on the causal economic impact of Zambia’s copper mines, a country located in sub-Saharan Africa endowed with vast copper deposits on living standards using household data from 1996 to 2010, exploiting an episode where the copper prices on the international market were rising. Using an Instrumental Variable approach and controlling for constituency-level and microeconomic factors, the results show a significant impact of copper production on living standards. After splitting the constituencies close to and far away from the nearest mine, the results document that constituencies close to the mines benefited significantly from the increase in copper production, compared to their counterparts through increased levels of employment. Finally, the results are not consistent with the natural resource curse hypothesis; findings show a positive causal relationship between the presence of natural resources and socioeconomic outcomes in less developed countries, particularly for constituencies close to the mines in Zambia. Some key policy implications follow from the findings. The finding that increased copper production led to an increase in employment suggests that, in Zambias’ context, policies that promote local employment may be more beneficial to residents. Meaning that it is government policies that can help improve the living standards were government needs to work towards making this impact more substantial.

Keywords: copper prices, local development, mining, natural resources

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Authors: Solmaz Jahed Shiran, John Hearne, Tayebeh Saghapour

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Daily travel behavior is strongly influenced by the location of the places of residence, education, and employment. Hence a change in those locations due to a move or changes in an occupation leads to a change in travel behavior. Given the interventions of housing mobility and travel behaviors, the hypothesis is that a mobile housing market allows households to move as a result of any change in their life course, allowing them to be closer to central services, public transport facilities and workplace and hence reducing the time spent by individuals on daily travel. Conversely, household’s immobility may lead to longer commutes of residents, for example, after a change of a job or a need for new services such as schools for children who have reached their school age. This paper aims to investigate the association between residential mobility and travel behavior. The Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity (VISTA) data is used for the empirical analysis. Car ownership and journey to work time and distance of employed people are used as indicators of travel behavior. Change of usual residence within the last five years used to identify movers and non-movers. Statistical analysis, including regression models, is used to compare the travel behavior of movers and non-movers. The results show travel time, and the distance does not differ for movers and non-movers. However, this is not the case when taking into account the residence tenure-type. In addition, car ownership rate and number found to be significantly higher for non-movers. It is hoped that the results from this study will contribute to a better understanding of factors other than common socioeconomic and built environment features influencing travel behavior.

Keywords: journey to work, regression models, residential mobility, commute mode, car ownership

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Authors: Eli Buchbinder

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Dialectics theory perceives two or more forces or themes as mutually opposed and negating on the one hand and as interdependent for their definition, existence, and resolution on the other. Such opposites might never be fully reconciled but might, simultaneously, continue to produce a higher level of integration and synthesis as well as tension, contradictions, and paradoxes. The identity of social work is constructed by poles; an understanding that emerges through key concepts that shape the profession. The key concept of person-in-environment creates dialectical tensions between the psychological versus the social pole. Important examples that reflect this focus on the psychological versus the social nature of human beings. This meta-perspective influences and constructs the implementation of values, ways of intervention, and professional relationships, e.g., creating a conflict between personal/social empowerment and social control and correction as the aims of the profession. Social work is dynamic and changing, with a unique way of perceiving and conceptualizing human behavior. Social workers must be able to face and accept the contradicting elements inherent in practicing social work. The basic philosophy for social work education is a dialectic conceptualization. In light of the above, social work students require dialectics as a critical mode of perception, reflection, and intervention. In the presentation, the focus will be on reflection on teaching students to conceptualize dialectics as a frame when training to be social workers. It is believed that the focus should emphasis two points: 1) the need to assist students to identify poles and to analyze the interrelationships created between them while coping emotionally with the tension and difficulties involved in containing these poles; 2) teaching students to integrate poles as a basis for assessment, planning, and intervention.

Keywords: professional ontology, a generic social work education, skills and values of social work, reflecting on social work teaching methods

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Authors: Feng Huang, Carlos G. Ochoa, Haitao Zhao

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Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, is located at the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin. It has great value in socioeconomic development and is internationally recognized as an important lacustrine and wetland ecosystem with abundant biodiversity. Impacted by ongoing climate change and anthropogenic activities, especially the regulation of the Three Gorges Reservoir since 2003, Poyang Lake has experienced significant water regime evolution, resulting in challenges for the management of water resources and the environment. Quantifying the contribution of hydrologic and topographic changes to water regime alteration is necessary for policymakers to design effective adaption strategies. Long term hydrologic data were collected and the back-propagation neural networks were constructed to simulate the lake water level. The impacts of hydrologic and topographic changes were differentiated through scenario analysis that considered pre-impact and post-impact hydrologic and topographic scenarios. The lake water regime was characterized by hydrologic indicators that describe monthly water level fluctuations, hydrologic features during flood and drought seasons, and frequency and rate of hydrologic variations. The results revealed different contributions of hydrologic and topographic changes to different features of the lake water regime.Noticeable changes were that the water level declined dramatically during the period of reservoir impoundment, and the drought was enhanced during the dry season. The hydrologic and topographic changes exerted a synergistic effect or antagonistic effect on different lake water regime features. The findings provide scientific reference for lacustrine and wetland ecological protection associated with water regime alterations.

Keywords: back-propagation neural network, scenario analysis, water regime, Poyang Lake

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Authors: Jingjue Bao, Ye Li, Yujie Qi

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The explosive growth of ride-hailing has reshaped residents' travel behavior and plays a crucial role in urban mobility within the built environment. Contributing to the research of the spatial variation of ride-hailing demand and its relationship to the built environment and socioeconomic factors, this study utilizes multi-source data from Haikou, China, to construct a Multi-scale Geographically Weighted Regression model (MGWR), considering spatial scale heterogeneity. The regression results showed that MGWR model was demonstrated superior interpretability and reliability with an improvement of 3.4% on R2 and from 4853 to 4787 on AIC, compared with Geographically Weighted Regression model (GWR). Furthermore, to precisely identify the surrounding environment of sampling point, DeepLabv3+ model is employed to segment street-level images. Features extracted from these images are incorporated as variables in the regression model, further enhancing its rationality and accuracy by 7.78% improvement on R2 compared with the MGWR model only considered region-level variables. By integrating multi-scale geospatial data and utilizing advanced computer vision techniques, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the spatial dynamics between ride-hailing demand and the urban built environment. The insights gained from this research are expected to contribute significantly to urban transportation planning and policy making, as well as ride-hailing platforms, facilitating the development of more efficient and effective mobility solutions in modern cities.

Keywords: travel behavior, ride-hailing, spatial relationship, built environment, street-level image

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Authors: Wenbo Du, Xiaomei Ma

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With the empowerment of Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment (CDA), various domains of language testing and assessment have been investigated to dig out more diagnostic information. What is noticeable is that most of the extant empirical CDA-based research puts much emphasis on individual-level diagnostic purpose with very few concerned about learners’ group-level performance. Even though the personalized diagnostic feedback is the unique feature that differentiates CDA from other assessment tools, group-level diagnostic information cannot be overlooked in that it might be more practical in classroom setting. Additionally, the group-level diagnostic information obtained via current CDA always results in a “flat pattern”, that is, the mastery/non-mastery of all tested skills accounts for the two highest proportion. In that case, the outcome does not bring too much benefits than the original total score. To address these issues, the present study attempts to apply cluster analysis for group classification and quantile regression analysis to pinpoint learners’ performance at different proficiency levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced) thus to enhance the interpretation of the CDA results extracted from a group of EFL learners’ reading performance on a diagnostic reading test designed by PELDiaG research team from a key university in China. The results show that EM method in cluster analysis yield more appropriate classification results than that of CDA, and quantile regression analysis does picture more insightful characteristics of learners with different reading proficiencies. The findings are helpful and practical for instructors to refine EFL reading curriculum and instructional plan tailored based on the group classification results and quantile regression analysis. Meanwhile, these innovative statistical methods could also make up the deficiencies of CDA and push forward the development of language testing and assessment in the future.

Keywords: cognitive diagnostic assessment, diagnostic feedback, EFL reading, quantile regression

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Authors: Solomon Assefa Huluka

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Wounds account for severe morbidity, socioeconomic distress, and mortality around the globe.For several years, various herbal products are used to expediteand augment the innate wound healing process. In Ethiopian folkloricmedicine, Verbascum sinaiticum L. (V. sinaiticum) is commonlyapplied as a wound-healing agent. The present study investigated the potential wound healing and antioxidant properties of hydroalcoholic leaf extract of V. sinaiticum. The 80% methanol extract, formulated as 5% (w/w) and 10% (w/w) ointments, was evaluated in excision and incision wound models using nitrofurazone and simple ointment as positive and negative controls, respectively. Parameters such as wound contraction, period of epithelialization, and tensile strength were determined. Moreover, its in vitro antioxidant property was evaluated using a DPPH assay. In the excision model, both doses (5% and 10% w/w) of the extract showed a significant (p<0.001) wound healing efficacy compared to the negative control, as evidenced by enhanced wound contraction rate and shorter epithelialization time records. In the incision model, the lower dose (5% w/w) ointment formulation of the extract exhibited the maximum increment in tensile strength (85.6%) that was significant (p<0.001)compared to negative and untreated controls. Animals treated with 5% w/wointment, furthermore, showed a significantly (p < 0.05) higher percentage of tensile strength than nitrofurazone treated ones. Moreover, the hydroalcoholic extract of the plant showed a noticeable free radical scavenging property. The result of the present study upholds the folkloric use of V. sinaiticum in the treatment of wounds.

Keywords: wound healing, antioxidant, excision wound model, incision wound model, verbascum sinaiticum

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Authors: Uttam Aryal, Shekhar Thapaliya

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This research paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the factors contributing to student dropout at Makawanpur Multiple Campus, utilizing primary data collected directly from dropped out as well as regular students and academic staff. Employing a mixed-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study examines into the complicated issue of student dropout. Data collection methods included surveys, interviews, and a thorough examination of academic records covering multiple academic years. The study focused on students who left their programs prematurely, as well as current students and academic staff, providing a well-rounded perspective on the issue. The analysis reveals a shaded understanding of the factors influencing student dropout, encompassing both academic and non-academic dimensions. These factors include academic challenges, personal choices, socioeconomic barriers, peer influences, and institutional-related issues. Importantly, the study highlights the most influential factors for dropout, such as the pursuit of education abroad, financial restrictions, and employment opportunities, shedding light on the complex web of circumstances that lead students to discontinue their education. The insights derived from this study offer actionable recommendations for campus administrators, policymakers, and educators to develop targeted interventions aimed at reducing dropout rates and improving student retention. The study underscores the importance of addressing the diverse needs and challenges faced by students, with the ultimate goal of fostering a supportive academic environment that encourages student success and program completion.

Keywords: drop out, students, factors, opportunities, challenges

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Authors: Belaynesh Tsegay Beyene, Teklay Gebrecherkos, Atsebaha Gebrekidan Kahsay, Mahmud Abdulkader

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Background: Hepatitis B and C viruses are of important health and socioeconomic problem of the globe with remarkable diseases and deaths in Sub-Saharan African countries. The burden of hepatitis is unknown in the prison settings of Tigrai. Therefore, we aimed to describe the seroprevalence and associated factors of hepatitis B and C viruses among prisoners of Tigrai, Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out from February 2020 to May 2020 at the prison facilities of Tigrai. Demographics and associated factors were collected from 315 prisoners prospectively. Five milliliter of blood was collected and tested using rapid tests kits of HBsAg (Zhejiang orient Gene Biotech Co., Ltd., China) and HCV antibodies (Volkan Kozmetik Sanayi Ve Ticaret Ltd. STI, Turkey). Positive samples were confirmed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co. Ltd). Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 and p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The overall seroprevalence of HBV and HCV were 25 (7.9%) and 1(0.3%), respectively. The majority of hepatitis B viral infections were identified from the age groups of 18-25 years (10.7%) and unmarried prisoners (11.8%). Prisoners greater than 100 per cell [AOR =3.95, 95% CI= (1.15, 13.6, p =0.029)] and having history of alcohol consumption [AOR =3.01, 95% CI= (1.17, 7.74, p =0.022)] were significantly associated with HBV infections. Conclusions: The seroprevalence of HBV among prisoners was nearly high or borderline (7.9%) with a very low HCV prevalence (0.3%). HBV was most prevalent among young adults, large number of prisoners per cell and those who had history of alcohol consumption. This study recommends that there should be prison-focused intervention including regular health education by emphasis on the mode of transmission and introducing HBV screening policy for prisoners especially when they enter to the prison.

Keywords: seroprevalence, HBV, HCV, prisoners, Tigrai

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Authors: Rachael Sullivan, Joshua Berman

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

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

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Authors: Shraddha Jain Sharma, Ratnalata Gupta

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Predicting stock movements in the financial market is both difficult and rewarding. Analysts and academics are increasingly using advanced approaches such as machine learning techniques to anticipate stock price patterns, thanks to the expanding capacity of computing and the recent advent of graphics processing units and tensor processing units. Stock market prediction is a type of time series prediction that is incredibly difficult to do since stock prices are influenced by a variety of financial, socioeconomic, and political factors. Furthermore, even minor mistakes in stock market price forecasts can result in significant losses for companies that employ the findings of stock market price prediction for financial analysis and investment. Soft computing techniques are increasingly being employed for stock market prediction due to their better accuracy than traditional statistical methodologies. The proposed research looks at the need for soft computing techniques in stock market prediction, the numerous soft computing approaches that are important to the field, past work in the area with their prominent features, and the significant problems or issue domain that the area involves. For constructing a predictive model, the major focus is on neural networks and fuzzy logic. The stock market is extremely unpredictable, and it is unquestionably tough to correctly predict based on certain characteristics. This study provides a complete overview of the numerous strategies investigated for high accuracy prediction, with a focus on the most important characteristics.

Keywords: stock market prediction, artificial intelligence, artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic, accuracy, deep learning, machine learning, stock price, trading volume

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Authors: Rahm Sibylle

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The core element in most European teacher training concepts consists in practical periods where teacher students may review the chosen profession before going on to their theoretical studies. In Germany, teacher students learn in practical studies about everyday teaching and learning in schools. Teacher students appreciate opportunities to explore school practice and to feel responsible for students’ learning. In practical studies, teacher students often idealize their teacher mentors (and consequently tend to imitate their teaching style) or contrarily feel disappointed about school practice. Concepts of empowerment through practical experience in school-based academic teacher training have to be developed. Our Swiss-German research project COPRA (Coaching in practical periods; funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG), aims at gaining resilient results about the effectiveness of (peer) coaching in practical school periods. To explore innovative ways of accompanying novice teachers in practical periods we consider different cultures of teacher training institutions. School cultures, including teachers’ beliefs and teaching traditions involve different training cultures as starting positions for our intervention study. In our qualitative study, we describe typologies of teacher training institutions by analyzing group discussions with teacher students, mentor teachers and university lecturers concerning participation, cooperation, and relationships. In our paper, we present the design of our intervention study, our coaching concept as well as typologies of teacher training cultures. We discuss opportunities for teacher students to learn through domain-specific (peer) coaching on the background of these typologies.

Keywords: teacher training (practical periods), teacher students' coaching, training cultures (typologies), COPRA (coaching in practical periods)

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Authors: Jessy Abouarab

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For more than half a century, international norms related to refugee security and protection have proliferated, yet their role in alleviating war’s negative impacts on human life remains limited. The impact of refugee-security processes often manifests asymmetrically within populations. Many issues and people get silenced due to narrow security policies that focus either on abstract threat containment and refugee control or refugee protection and humanitarian aid. (In)security practices are gendered and experienced. Examining the case study of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, this study explores the gendered impact of refugee security mechanisms on local realities. A transnational feminist approach will be used to position this research in relation to existing studies in the field of security and the refugee-protection regime, highlighting the social, cultural, legal, and political barriers to gender equality in the areas of violence, rights, and social inclusion. Through Photovoice methodology, the Syrian refugees’ (in)securities in Lebanon were given visibility by enabling local volunteers to record and reflect their realities through pictures, at the same time voice the participants’ anxieties and recommendations to reach normative policy change. This Participatory Action Research approach helped participants observe the structural barriers and lack of culturally inclusive refugee services that hinder security, increase discrimination, stigma, and poverty. The findings have implications for a shift of the refugee protection mechanisms to a community-based approach in ways that extend beyond narrow security policies that hinder women empowerment and raise vulnerabilities such as gendered exploitation, abuse, and neglect.

Keywords: gender, (in)security, Lebanon, refugee, Syrian refugees, women

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Authors: Mohammad Taghi Karimi, Maryam Hasan Zahraee

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Background: Low back pain (LBP) is a common health and socioeconomic problem, especially the chronic one. The joint contact force is an important parameter during walking which increases the incidence of injury and degenerative joint disease. To our best knowledge, there are not enough evidences in literature on the muscular forces and joint contact forces in subjects with low back pain. Purpose: The main hypothesis associated with this research was that joint contact force of L4/L5 of non-specific chronic low back pain subjects was the same as that of normal. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the joint contact force difference between non-specific chronic low back pain and normal subjects. Method: This was an experimental-comparative study. 20 normal subjects and 20 non-specific chronic low back pain patients were recruited in this study. Qualysis motion analysis system and a Kistler force plate were used to collect the motions and the force applied on the leg, respectively. OpenSimm software used to determine joint contact force and muscle forces in this study. Some parameters such as force applied on the legs (pelvis), kinematic of hip and pelvic, peaks of muscles, force of trunk musculature and joint contact force of L5/S1 were used for further analysis. Differences between mean values of all data were measured using two-sample t-test among the subjects. Results: The force produced by Semitendinosus, Biceps Femoris, and Adductor muscles were significantly different between low back pain and normal subjects. Moreover, the mean value of breaking component of the force of the knee joint increased significantly in low back pain subjects, besides a significant decrease in mean value of the vertical component of joint reaction force compared to the normal ones. Conclusions: The forces produced by the trunk and pelvic muscles, and joint contact forces differ significantly between low back pain and normal subjects. It seems that those with non-specific chronic low back pain use trunk muscles more than normal subjects to stabilize the pelvic during walking.

Keywords: low back pain, joint contact force, kinetic, muscle force

Procedia PDF Downloads 238