Search results for: social media representation

Authors: Rashid Farooq, Moazzam Naseer, Rehan Hasan

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Increasing challenges posed to the creativity in the discipline of advertising during time’s movement towards the maturity of The Third Wave – a concept of change by Toffler, have to be the major theme of this study. Creative concepts for the changing media landscape are becoming a challenge for the creative industry as Stein says that the usefulness is a dimension no creative work could avoid. Furthermore, Spencer points out that the global capitalist society provides a base for the development of digital technologies. Innovation within the discipline of creativity is reshaping this process. In this review article, the role of creativity and innovation in the development and delivery of the message has to be examined.

Keywords: advertising, creativity, ideation, new media

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Authors: Y. M. Al-Wahaibi, S. N. Al-Bahry, A. E. Elshafie, A. S. Al-Bemani, S. J. Joshi, A. K. Al-Bahri

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Crude oil is a major source of global energy. The major problem is its widespread use and demand resulted is in increasing environmental pollution. One associated pollution problem is ‘oil spills’. Oil spills can be remediated with the use of chemical dispersants, microbial biodegradation and microbial metabolites such as biosurfactants. Four different minimal salt media for biosurfactant production by Bacillus isolated from oil contaminated sites from Oman were screened. These minimal salt media were supplemented with either glucose or sucrose as a carbon source. Among the isolates, W16 and B30 produced the most active biosurfactants. Isolate W16 produced better biosurfactant than the rest, and reduced surface tension (ST) and interfacial tension (IFT) to 25.26mN/m and 2.29mN/m respectively within 48h which are characteristics for removal of oil in contaminated sites. Biosurfactant was produced in bulk and extracted using acid precipitation method. Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) of acid precipitate biosurfactant revealed two concentrated bands. Further studies of W16 biosurfactant in bioremediation of oil spills are recommended.

Keywords: oil contamination, remediation, Bacillus spp, biosurfactant, surface tension, interfacial tension

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Authors: Marc Dietrich

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Youth cultures like Punk as much as media relevant to the specific scenes associated with them offer ample opportunity for young people or juvenile adults to construct their personal identities. However, developmental psychology has largely neglected such identity construction processes during the last decades. Such was not always the case: Early developmental psychologists intensely studied youth cultures and their meaningful objects and media in the early 20th century but lost interest when cultural studies and the social sciences occupied the field after World War II. Our project Constructions of Juvenility and Generation(ality), funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, reintegrates the study of youth cultures and their meaningful objects and media in a developmental psychology perspective. We present an empirical study of the ways in which youth, juvenility, and generation (ality) are constructed and negotiated in underground media like punk fanzines (a portmanteau of fan and magazine), including both semantic and aesthetic aspects of these construction processes within punk culture. The fanzine sample was accessed by the theoretical sampling strategy typical for GTM studies. Acknowledging fanzines as artful self-produced media by scene members for scene members, we conceptualize them as authentic documents of scene norms and values. Drawing on an analysis of both text and (cover) images in Punk fanzines published in Germany (and within a sample dating from 1981 until 2015) using a novel Visual Grounded Theory approach, we found that: a) Juvenility is a highly contested concept in punk culture. Its semantic quality and valuation varies with the perspectives present within the culture (e.g. embryo punks versus older punks); b) Juvenility is constructed as having energy and being socio-critical that does not depend on biological age; c) Juvenility is regarded not an ideal per se in German Punk culture; Punk culture constructs old age in a largely positive way (e.g., as marker of being real and a historical innovator); d) Juvenility is constructed as a habit that should be kept for life as it is constantly adapted to individual biographical trajectories like specific job situations or having a family. Consequently, identity negotiation as documented in the zines attempts to balance subculturally driven perspectives on life and society with the pragmatic requirements of a bourgeois life. The proposed paper will present the main results of this large-scale study of punk fanzines and show how developmental psychology perspectives as represented in the novel methodology applied in it can advance the study of youth cultures.

Keywords: construction of juvenility, developmental psychology, visual GTM, youth culture, fanzines

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Authors: Ishtiaq Ahmad Gondal, Mubasher Hussain

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Although the world always has spent a lot to counter the terror, thousands of millions of dollars have been spent in this regard after 9/11 that result to thwart some dangerous plots of terrorists. It is also un-ignorable that the terrorists, keeping the counterterrorist actions in their mind, always planned new ways for their operations, yet there is one thing still common in most terrorists' attacks: to use the label of religion, regardless any specific religion, in any form. The terrorism, in past few years, has also hit state's security, its consistency and coherence for achieving their cultural, political and military objectives. So, if they are not treated harshly for making the people's minds and their society dirty they will continue spreading chaos, anarchy and destruction among the ignorant and innocent people. Australia is doing its best to eliminate terrorism by using different tools such as by educating people and reducing poverty. There is still need to improve the tool of education as it can be used as one of the most effective tools to counter the terrorism. It is, as this paper will highlight, the need of contemporary time for establishing some high level educational centers that can educate people and keep them safe from any kind of terror incident. This study also concluded that common man, to keep himself saved from such activities and incidents, can be educated through public awareness movements and campaigns on media and at social gatherings. There is, according to the study, a need to reorganize the curriculum taught in different educational institutions especially in Islamic Schools (Madāris) that are assumed by some western writers as place of extremists, for the better understanding of moral and social obligations, fundamental rights, religious beliefs as well as cultural and social values to promote social justice and equality. This paper is an attempt to show the role of the Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre in this regard.

Keywords: social justice, counterterrorism, educational policy, religion, peace, terrorism

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Authors: Emily Carrothers

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This research takes a critical look at the development of the social worker subjectivity, particularly in Canada. Through an interrogation of required graduate course texts, this paper explicates the discursive formation, orientation, and maintenance of the social worker subject and the conceptualizations of poverty in graduate social work education. This research aims to advance understandings of power and ideology in social work graduate texts and formations of particular dominant constructions of poverty and social worker subjectivity. Guiding questions for this inquiry include: What are social workers being oriented to? What are social workers being oriented away from? How is poverty theorized, discussed and/or attached to social location in social work education? And, how are social workers implicated in contesting or reinforcing poverty? Using critical discourse analysis, 6 texts were analyzed with a particular focus on ways in which notions of poverty are discursively represented and ways in which notions of the formation of the social worker were approached. This revealed that discursively underpinning social work in anti-oppressive practice (AOP) can work to reify hierarchal structures of power that orient social workers away from structural poverty reduction strategies and towards punitive interactions with those that experience poverty and multiple forms of marginalization. This highlights that the social worker subjectivity is formed in opposition to the client, with graduate texts constructing the social worker as an expert in client’s lives and experiences even more so than the client.

Keywords: Canada, education, social work, subjectivity

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Authors: André Pasti

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Historically, the communication sector in Argentina is characterized by intense monopolization and geographical concentration in the city of Buenos Aires. In 2000, the four major media conglomerates in operation – Clarín, Telefónica, America and Hadad – controlled 84% of the national media market. By 2009, new policies were implemented as a result of civil society organizations demands. Legally, a new regulatory framework was approved: the law 26,522 of Audiovisual Communications Services. Supposedly, these policies intend to create new conditions for the development of the audiovisual economy in the territory of Argentina. The regionalization of audiovisual production and the democratization of channels and access to media were among the priorities. This paper analyses the main changes and continuities in the organization of the spatial circuit of the audiovisual industry in Argentina provoked by these new policies. These new policies aim at increasing the diversity of audiovisual producers and promoting regional audiovisual industries. For this purpose, a national program for the development of audiovisual centers within the country was created. This program fostered a federalized production network, based on nine audiovisual regions and 40 nodes. Each node has created technical, financial and organizational conditions to gather different actors in audiovisual production – such as SMEs, social movements and local associations. The expansion of access to technical networks was also a concern of other policies, such as ‘Argentina connected’, whose objective was to expand access to broadband Internet. The Open Digital Television network also received considerable investments. Furthermore, measures have been carried out in order to impose limits on the concentration of ownership as well as to eliminate the oligopolies and to ensure more competition in the sector. These actions intended to force a divide of the media conglomerates into smaller groups. Nevertheless, the corporations that compose these conglomerates resist strongly, making full use of their economic and judiciary power. Indeed, the absence of effective impact of such measures can be testified by the fact that the audiovisual industry remains strongly concentrated in Argentina. Overall, these new policies were designed properly to decentralize audiovisual production and expand the regional diversity of the audiovisual industry. However, the effective transformation of the organization of the audiovisual circuit in the territory faced several resistances. This can be explained firstly and foremost by the ideological and economic power of the media conglomerates. In the second place, there is an inherited inertia from the unequal distribution of the objects needed for the audiovisual production and consumption. Lastly, the resistance also relies on financial needs and in the excessive dependence of the state for the promotion of regional audiovisual production.

Keywords: Argentina, audiovisual industry, communication policies, geographic concentration, regionalization, spatial circuit

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Authors: Ji-Hoon Byeon, Kwon-Hee Lee

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Strainer filter serves to block the inflow of impurities while mixed fluid is entering or exiting the piping. The filter of the strainer has a perforated structure, so that the pressure drop and the velocity change necessarily occur when the mixed fluid passes through the filter. It is possible to predict the pressure drop and velocity change of the strainer by numerical analysis by implementing all the perforated plates. However, if the size of the perforated plate exceeds a certain size, it is difficult to perform the numerical analysis, and sometimes we cannot guarantee its accuracy. In this study, we tried to predict the pressure drop and velocity change by using the porous media technique to obtain the equivalent resistance without actual implementation of the perforation shape of the strainer. Ansys-CFX, a commercial software, is used to perform the numerical analysis. The analysis procedure is as follows. Firstly, the unit pattern of the perforated plate is modeled, and the pressure drop is analyzed by varying the velocity by symmetry of the wall surface. Secondly, since the equation for obtaining resistance is a quadratic equation of pressure having unknown velocity, the viscous resistance and the inertia resistance of the perforated plate are obtained from the relationship between pressure and speed. Thirdly, by using the calculated resistance values, the values are substituted into the flat plate implemented as a two-dimensional porous media, and the accuracy is verified by comparing the pressure drop and the velocity change. Fourthly, the pressure drop and velocity change in the whole strainer are analyzed by using the resistance values obtained on the perforated plate in the actual whole strainer model. Using the porous media technique, it is found that pressure drop and velocity change can be predicted in relatively short time without modeling the overall shape of the filter. Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Valve Center from the Regional Innovation Center(RIC) Program of Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE).

Keywords: strainer, porous media, CFD, numerical analysis

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Authors: Laurie Dempsey

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Relationships are considered to be beneficial for emotional wellbeing, happiness and physical health. However, they are also complicated: individuals engage in a multitude of complex and volatile relationships during their lifetime, where the change to or ending of these dynamics can be deeply disruptive. As the internet is further integrated into everyday life and relationships are increasingly mediated, Media Studies’ and Sociology’s research interests intersect and converge. This study longitudinally explores how relationship change over time corresponds with the developing UK technological landscape between 2005-2018. Since the early 2000s, the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in the UK has dramatically reshaped interaction. Its use has compelled individuals to renegotiate how they consider their relationships: some argue it has allowed for vast networks to be accumulated and strengthened; others contend that it has eradicated the core values and norms associated with communication, damaging relationships. This research collaborated with UK media regulator Ofcom, utilising the longitudinal dataset from their Adult Media Lives study to explore how relationships and CMC use developed over time. This is a unique qualitative dataset covering 2005-2018, where the same 18 participants partook in annual in-home filmed depth interviews. The interviews’ raw video footage was examined year-on-year to consider how the same people changed their reported behaviour and outlooks towards their relationships, and how this coincided with CMC featuring more prominently in their everyday lives. Each interview was transcribed, thematically analysed and coded using NVivo 11 software. This study allowed for a comprehensive exploration into these individuals’ changing relationships over time, as participants grew older, experienced marriages or divorces, conceived and raised children, or lost loved ones. It found that as technology developed between 2005-2018, everyday CMC use was increasingly normalised and incorporated into relationship maintenance. It played a crucial role in altering relationship dynamics, even factoring in the breakdown of several ties. Three key relationships were identified as being shaped by CMC use: parent-child; extended family; and friendships. Over the years there were substantial instances of relationship conflict: for parents renegotiating their dynamic with their child as they tried to both restrict and encourage their child’s technology use; for estranged family members ‘forced’ together in the online sphere; and for friendships compelled to publicly display their relationship on social media, for fear of social exclusion. However, it was also evident that CMC acted as a crucial lifeline for these participants, providing opportunities to strengthen and maintain their bonds via previously unachievable means, both over time and distance. A longitudinal study of this length and nature utilising the same participants does not currently exist, thus provides crucial insight into how and why relationship dynamics alter over time. This unique and topical piece of research draws together Sociology and Media Studies, illustrating how the UK’s changing technological landscape can reshape one of the most basic human compulsions. This collaboration with Ofcom allows for insight that can be utilised in both academia and policymaking alike, making this research relevant and impactful across a range of academic fields and industries.

Keywords: computer mediated communication, longitudinal research, personal relationships, qualitative data

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Authors: Oliver Arana

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Within the common vein of social understanding, surrealism is often understood to rely on disconcerting images and fragmented collage, both in its visual representation and literary manifestations. By tracing the history and literature of surrealism, the author makes the argument that there were certain factions within Latin America that employed characteristics of surrealism in order to reach some sense of understanding, and not to further complicate or disorient -an aim that most closely aligns to Freudian psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis should, however, be a comparable practice only to understand how Latin American surrealism had more of a concrete goal than its European counterpart. The primary subject of the paper is the Mexican poet, Pita Amor, who has retroactively been associated with the movement; and therefore, it should be duly noted that the adjective, surrealism, only applies to her as something that describes traits within the literary lexicon.

Keywords: Latin America, Pita Amor, poetry, surrealism

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Authors: Gizem Barreto Martins

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This paper explores the subversive potential inherent in the theatrical language employed within Arthur Miller's The Crucible. The research argues that this play intricately weaves ideological connections with its audience and the historical epoch it represents, effectively serving as a channel for ideological and cultural interaction potentially exerting subversive influences on social and political realms. Using a historical-materialist methodology that situates the play within its historical and political context, all while examining its connections with theater and literary theories, the paper raises a fundamental query: How does this dramatic work embody subversion, presenting a style unburdened by the performative conventions of daily life and prevailing codes and systems of representation? In response to this inquiry, the study asserts that theatrical language has the capacity to function as a subversive catalyst against prevailing ideologies, actively contributing to the process of social transformation. To substantiate this claim, the research conducts a detailed analysis of the selected play, employing the semiotic framework pioneered by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.

Keywords: arthur miller, The crucible, gilles deleuze, felix guattari, theater and literary theories

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Authors: Amer Ait Sidhoum

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Interest in sustainability has gained ground among practitioners, academics and policy-makers due to growing stakeholders’ awareness of environmental and social concerns. This is particularly true for agriculture. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the quantification of social sustainability and the contribution of social issues to the agricultural production efficiency. This research's main objective is to propose a method for evaluating prices of social outputs, more precisely shadow prices, by allowing for the stochastic nature of agricultural production that is to say for production uncertainty. In this article, the assessment of social outputs’ shadow prices is conducted within the methodological framework of nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). An output-oriented directional distance function (DDF) is implemented to represent the technology of a sample of Catalan arable crop farms and derive the efficiency scores the overall production technology of our sample is assumed to be the intersection of two different sub-technologies. The first sub-technology models the production of random desirable agricultural outputs, while the second sub-technology reflects the social outcomes from agricultural activities. Once a nonparametric production technology has been represented, the DDF primal approach can be used for efficiency measurement, while shadow prices are drawn from the dual representation of the DDF. Computing shadow prices is a method to assign an economic value to non-marketed social outcomes. Our research uses cross sectional, farm-level data collected in 2015 from a sample of 180 Catalan arable crop farms specialized in the production of cereals, oilseeds and protein (COP) crops. Our results suggest that our sample farms show high performance scores, from 85% for the bad state of nature to 88% for the normal and ideal crop growing conditions. This suggests that farm performance is increasing with an improvement in crop growth conditions. Results also show that average shadow prices of desirable state-contingent output and social outcomes for efficient and inefficient farms are positive, suggesting that the production of desirable marketable outputs and of non-marketable outputs makes a positive contribution to the farm production efficiency. Results also indicate that social outputs’ shadow prices are contingent upon the growing conditions. The shadow prices follow an upward trend as crop-growing conditions improve. This finding suggests that these efficient farms prefer to allocate more resources in the production of desirable outputs than of social outcomes. To our knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to compute shadow prices of social outcomes while accounting for the stochastic nature of the production technology. Our findings suggest that the decision-making process of the efficient farms in dealing with social issues are stochastic and strongly dependent on the growth conditions. This implies that policy-makers should adjust their instruments according to the stochastic environmental conditions. An optimal redistribution of rural development support, by increasing the public payment with the improvement in crop growth conditions, would likely enhance the effectiveness of public policies.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis, shadow prices, social sustainability, sustainable farming

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Authors: Shagufta Jahangir, Raisa Jahangir, Nadeemullah

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In many societies sports is considered inappropriate for women. It traditionally associated with mascunity. The proposed study aims at undertaking a critical situation analysis of sports women in Pakistan from a gender perspective by examining various aspects of sports women by gender including wrong social values, unstable economical position, wrong religious perspective and the role of media towards women in sports, while sports can provide a channel for informing women about their social and legal rights as well as their health issues, productive health and others. A major concern of the study is to identify the basic causes which depriving Pakistani women from sports. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights organized a symbolic mini marathon on 21 May 2005 in Pakistan to challenge arbitrary curbs on women’s public participation in sport and to highlight rising violence against women. Historically, sport has engaged the perception of gender-hierarchy in order to reproduce the ideology of male superiority, a notion which is often translated into ‘usual superiority’ within the superior communal order. However, it is argued here that we are presently in a state of communal instability with esteem to women's participation in sport.

Keywords: mascunity, gender, productive health, inappropriate, rights

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Authors: James Funsho Tope

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Being the prolific writer that he is, Gimba’s collection of Short Stories, A Toast in the Cemetery, brings out the themes of decay and corruption in the urban setting through the use of images, symbols, setting and character. Gimba seeks through these media to reveal the decay and corruption in the society. Gimba uses aesthetics to convey his message, thus making a call for change in the fabrics of society.

Keywords: corruption, decay, character, setting, symbolism, images, society

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Authors: Jungeun Cho

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Social finance has received increasing attention as a means to promote the growth of regional economies. Despite the plenty of research discussed their critical role and functions in regional economic development such as the financing and promotion of co-operatives or social enterprises and the offering credit to the financially excluded in the region, however, rarely are efforts made to measure the contribution of social finance in the regional economy. It is essential to establish an evaluation model in order to encourage social finance institutions to perform their supposed role and functions on regional economic development. The objective of this paper is to formulate an evaluation model of the contribution of social finance to the regional economy through an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach. This study is expected to provide useful guidelines for social finance institutions’ strategies and the policies of local or central government regarding social finance.

Keywords: social finance, regional economy, social economy, policies of local or central government

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Authors: Ghadeer Aly, Yasmeen Hanafy

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The way we research travel options and decide where to go has substantially changed in the digital age. Atypical search engines like social networking sites like TikTok have evolved, influencing the preferences of various generations. The influence of TikTok use as a search engine for choosing travel locations and its effect on a country's destination branding are both examined in this study. The study specifically focuses on the comparative preferences and actions of Generations Y and Z within the Egyptian community, shedding light on how these generations interact with travel related TikTok content and how it influences their perceptions of various destinations. It also investigates how TikTok Accounts use tourism branding techniques to promote a country's tourist destination. The investigation of how social media platforms are changing as unconventional search engines has theoretical relevance. This study can advance our knowledge of how digital platforms alter information-seeking behaviors and affect the way people make decisions. Furthermore, investigating the relationship between TikTok video and destination branding might shed light on the intricate interplay between social media, perceptions of locations, and travel preferences, enhancing theories about consumer behavior and communication in the digital age. Regarding the methodology of the research, the study is conducted in two stages: first, both generations are polled, and from the results, the top three destinations are chosen to be subjected to content analysis. As for the research's theoretical framework, it incorporates the tourism destination branding model as well as the conceptual model of nation branding. Through the use of the survey as a quantitative approach and the qualitative content analysis, the research will rely on both quantitative and qualitative methods. When it comes to the theoretical framework, both the Nation Branding Model and the Tourism Branding Model can offer useful frameworks for analyzing and comprehending the dynamics of using TikTok as a search engine to choose travel destinations, especially in the context of Generation Y and Generation Z in the Egyptian community. Additionally, the sample will be drawn specifically from both Gen-Y and Gen-Z. 100 members of Gen Z and 100 members of Gen Y will be chosen from TikTok users and followers of travel-related accounts, and the sample for the content analysis will be chosen based on the survey's results.

Keywords: tiktok, nation image, egyptian community, tourism branding

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Authors: Tooba Sabir, Asima Jaffar, Namra Sabir, Mohammad Amjad Sabir

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Ecocriticism is the study of relationship between human and environment which has been represented in literature since the very beginning in pastoral tradition. However, the analysis of such representation is new as compared to the other critical evaluations like Psychoanalysis, Marxism, Post-colonialism, Modernism and many others. Ecocritics seek to find information like anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, ecofeminism, eco-Marxism, representation of environment and environmental concept and several other topics. In the current study the representation of environmental concepts, were ecocritically analyzed in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, one of the most read novels throughout the world, having been translated into many languages. Analysis of the text revealed, the representations of environmental ideas like landscapes and tourism, biodiversity, land-sea displacement, environmental disasters and warfare, desert winds and sand dunes. 'This desert was once a sea' throws light on different theories of land-sea displacement, one being the plate-tectonic theory which proposes Earth’s lithosphere to be divided into different large and small plates, continuously moving toward, away from or parallel to each other, resulting in land-sea displacement. Another theory is the continental drift theory which holds onto the belief that one large landmass—Pangea, broke down into smaller pieces of land that moved relative to each other and formed continents of the present time. The cause of desertification may, however, be natural i.e. climate change or artificial i.e. by human activities. Imagery of the environmental concepts, at some instances in the novel, is detailed and at other instances, is not as striking, but still is capable of arousing readers’ imagination. The study suggests that ecocritical justifications of environmental concepts in the text will increase the interactions between literature and environment which should be encouraged in order to induce environmental awareness among the readers.

Keywords: biodiversity, ecocritical analysis, ecocriticism, environmental disasters, landscapes

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Authors: Hye-Kyung Kang

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Social justice is a central principle of the social work profession and education. However, scholars have long questioned the profession’s commitment to putting social justice values into practice. Clinical social work has been particularly criticized for its lack of attention to social justice and for failing to address the concerns of the oppressed. One prominent criticism of clinical social work is that it often relies on individual intervention and fails to take on system-level changes or advocacy. This concern evokes the historical macro-micro tension of the social work profession where micro (e.g., mental health counseling) and macro (e.g., policy advocacy) practices are conceptualized as separate domains, creating a false binary for social workers. One contributor to this false binary seems to be that most clinical practice models do not prepare social work students and practitioners to make a clear link between clinical practice and social justice. This paper presents a model of clinical social work practice that clearly recognizes the essential and necessary connection between social justice, advocacy, and clinical practice throughout the clinical process: engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation. Contemporary relational theories, critical social work frameworks, and anti-oppressive practice approaches are integrated to build a clinical social work practice model that addresses the urgent need for mental health practice that not only helps and heals the person but also challenges societal oppressions and aims to change them. The application of the model is presented through case vignettes.

Keywords: social justice, clinical social work, clinical social work model, integrative model

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Authors: Fanqiang Kong, Chending Bian

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Sparse unmixing is a promising approach in a semisupervised fashion by assuming that the observed pixels of a hyperspectral image can be expressed in the form of linear combination of only a few pure spectral signatures (end members) in an available spectral library. However, the sparse unmixing problem still remains a great challenge at finding the optimal subset of endmembers for the observed data from a large standard spectral library, without considering the spatial information. Under such circumstances, a sparse unmixing algorithm termed as non-local simultaneous sparse unmixing (NLSSU) is presented. In NLSSU, the non-local simultaneous sparse representation method for endmember selection of sparse unmixing, is used to finding the optimal subset of endmembers for the similar image patch set in the hyperspectral image. And then, the non-local means method, as a regularizer for abundance estimation of sparse unmixing, is used to exploit the abundance image non-local self-similarity. Experimental results on both simulated and real data demonstrate that NLSSU outperforms the other algorithms, with a better spectral unmixing accuracy.

Keywords: hyperspectral unmixing, simultaneous sparse representation, sparse regression, non-local means

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Authors: Jon Gunnar Bernburg

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The present study addresses a topic that is fundamental to social movement theory, namely, the contingent link between movement support and movement participation. Usually, only a small fraction of those who agree with the cause of a social movement is mobilized into participating in it (a pattern sometimes referred to as 'the collective action problem'). However, historical moments sometimes emerge when many supporters become mobilized to participate in the movement, greatly enhancing the chance of movement success. By studying a case in point, this paper addresses the limited work on how support and participation are related at such critical moments. Specifically, the paper examines the association between supporting and participating in a huge 'pro-democracy' protest in Iceland in April 2016, in the wake of the global Panama Papers scandal. Organized via social media by only a handful of activists, but supported by a majority of Icelanders, the protest attracted about a fourth of the urban population, leading to a snap election and government change. Surveying Iceland’s urban population, this paper tests hypotheses about the processes mobilizing supporters to participate in the protest. The findings reveal how variables derived from the theories of biographical availability (males vs. females, working class vs. professionals), critical mass (expectations, prior protest success), and social embeddedness (close ties with protesters) moderate the association between protest support and participation. The study helps to account for one of the largest protests in Iceland’s history while contributing to the theory about how historical contexts shape the behavior of movement supporters.

Keywords: Iceland, crisis, protest support vs. participation, theories of mass mobilization

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Authors: Recep Kesli, Huseyin Bilgin, Ela Tasdogan, Ercan Kurtipek

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Aim: The aim of this study was to compare resin based Bactec plus aerobic/anaerobic blood culture bottles (Becton Dickinson, MD, USA) and polymeric beads based BacT/Alert FA/FN plus blood culture bottles (bioMerieux, NC, USA) in terms of microorganisms recovery rates and time to detection (TTD) in the patients receiving antibiotic treatment. Method: Blood culture samples were taken from the patients who admitted to the intensive care unit and received antibiotic treatment. Forty milliliters of blood from patients were equally distributed into four types of bottles: Bactec Plus aerobic, Bactec Plus anaerobic, BacT/Alert FA Plus, BacT/Alert FN Plus. Bactec Plus and BacT/Alert Plus media were compared to culture recovery rates and TTD. Results: Blood culture samples were collected from 382 patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit and 245 patients who were diagnosed as having bloodstream infections were included in the study. A total of 1528 Bactec Plus aerobic, Bactec Plus anaerobic, BacT/Alert FA Plus, BacT/Alert FN Plus blood culture bottles analyzed and 176, 144, 154, 126 bacteria or fungi were isolated, respectively. Gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria were significantly more frequently isolated in the resin-based Bactec Plus bottles than in the polymeric beads based BacT/Alert Plus bottles. The Bactec Plus and BacT/Alert Plus media recovery rates were similar for fungi and anaerobic bacteria. The mean TTDs in the Bactec Plus bottles were shorter than those in the BacT/Alert Plus bottles regardless of the microorganisms. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that resin-containing media is a reliable and time-saving tool for patients who are receiving antibiotic treatment due to sepsis in the intensive care unit.

Keywords: Bactec Plus, BacT/Alert Plus, blood culture, antibiotic

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Authors: Ina Filkobski, Eran Shor

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This article explores how newspapers cover murder of women by family members and intimate partners. Three major Israeli newspapers were compared in order to analyse the coverage of Jewish and Arab victims and culprits and to examine whether and in what ways the media contribute to the construction of symbolic boundaries between minority and dominant social groups. A sample of some 459 articles that were published between 2013 and 2015 was studied using a systematic qualitative content analysis. Our findings suggest that the treatment of murder cases by the media varies according to the ethnicity of both victims and culprits. The murder of Jews by family members or intimate partners was framed as a shocking and unusual event, a result of the individual personality or pathology of the culprit. Conversely, when Arabs were the killers, murders were often explained by focusing on the culture of the ethnic group, described as traditional, violent, and patriarchal. In two-thirds of the cases in which Arabs were involved, so-called ‘honor killing’ or other cultural explanations were proposed as the motive for the murder. This was often the case even before a suspect was detected, while police investigation was at its very early stages, and often despite forceful denials from victims’ families. In case of Jewish culprits, more than half of the articles in our sample suggested mental disorder to explain the acts and cultural explanations were almost entirely absent. Beyond the emphasis on psychological vs. cultural explanations, newspaper articles also tend to provide much more detail about Jewish culprits than about Arabs. Such detailed examinations convey a desire to make sense of the event by understanding the supposedly unique and unorthodox nature of the killer. The detailed accounts were usually absent from the reports on Arab killers. Thus, even if reports do not explicitly offer cultural motivations for the murder, the fact that reports often remain laconic leaves people to draw their own conclusions, which would then be likely based on existing cognitive scripts and previous reports on family murders among Arabs. Such treatment contributes to the notion that Arab and Muslim cultures, religions, and nationalities are essentially misogynistic and adhere to norms of honor and shame that are radically different from those of modern societies, such as the Jewish-Israeli one. Murder within the family is one of the most dramatic occurrences in the social world, and in societies that see themselves as modern it is a taboo; an ultimate signifier of danger. We suggest that representations of murder provide a valuable prism for examining the construction of group boundaries. Our analysis, therefore, contributes to the scholarly effort to understand the creation and reinforcement of symbolic boundaries between ‘society’ and its ‘others’ by systematically tracing the media constructions of ‘otherness’. While our analysis focuses on Israel, studies on the United States, Canada, and various European countries with ethnically and racially heterogeneous populations, make it clear that the stigmatisation and exclusion of visible, religious, and language minorities are not unique to the Israeli case.

Keywords: comparative study of media coverege of minority and majority groups, construction of symbolic group boundaries, murder of women by family members and intimate partners, Israel, Jews, Arabs

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Authors: Samantha Clarke

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The term social justice is central to social work; however, the meaning behind this term is not as simple as defining the term itself. This is because the meaning of social justice is relative since its origin and development is based on evolving political perspectives. Political perspectives provide numerous lenses to view social justice in social work; however, the realities of changing society have meant that social justice has assumed different values, definitions, and understandings over time and in different geopolitical and cultural contexts. There are many competing and convincing theories of social justice that are relevant to social work practice. Exploring the term is not an idle preoccupation because the meaning of the term is not as crucial as the meaning of the worldview, as it is the worldview that positions social justice as crucial in the emancipation of people marginalized from oppression. The many political assumptions that underlie the term social justice are explored and connected to the contemporary discussions about social justice in social work. These connections are then interrogated in the Canadian Social Works Code of Ethics, and in micro, mezzo, and macro approaches. To be remiss in interrogating the underlying political assumptions of the worldview of social justice is to entrench oppression and to preserve oppressive structures in contemporary Canadian social work. The concept of social justice is unable to withstand closer scrutiny about its emancipatory qualities in Canadian social work when we interrogate the many political assumptions that frame its understanding. In order to authenticate social justice as an emancipatory central organizing principle, Canadian social workers must engage in deeper discussions about the political implications of social justice in their everyday practices based on diverse worldviews and geopolitical contexts. Social workers are well positioned to develop an understanding of social justice that is emancipatory based on their everyday practices because as social and political actors they are positioned to work for and with individuals and toward the greater good of those who are marginalized from oppression.

Keywords: Canadian social work, political analysis, social justice, social work practice

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Authors: M. Hadjisoteriou, A. Kyriacou Petrou

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This paper will discuss ideas of social sustainability in urban design and human behavior in multicultural contested sites. It will focus on the potential of the re-reading of the “site” through mapping that acts as a research methodology and will discuss the chosen site of Mouttalos, Cyprus as a place of multiple identities. Through a methodology of mapping using a bottom up approach, a process of disassembling derives that acts as a mechanism to re-examine space and place by searching for the invisible and the non-measurable, understanding the site through its detailed inhabitation patterns. The significance of this study lies in the use of mapping as an active form of thinking rather than a passive process of representation that allows for a new site to be discovered, giving multiple opportunities for adaptive urban strategies and socially engaged design approaches. We will discuss the above thematic based on the chosen contested site of Mouttalos, a small Turkish Cypriot neighbourhood, in the old centre of Paphos (Ktima), SW of Cyprus. During the political unrest, between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, in 1963, the area became an enclave to the Turkish Cypriots, excluding any contact with the rest of the area. Following the Turkish invasion of 1974, the residents left their homes, plots and workplaces, resettling in the North of Cyprus. Greek Cypriot refugees moved into the area. The presence of the Greek Cypriot refugees is still considered to be a temporary resettlement. The buildings and the residents themselves exist in a state of uncertainty. The site is documented through a series of parallel investigations into the physical conditions and history of the site. Research methodologies use the process of mapping to expose the complex and often invisible layers of information that coexist. By registering the site through the subjective experiences, and everyday stories of inhabitants, a series of cartographic recordings reveals the space between: happening and narrative and especially space between different cultures and religions. Research put specific emphasis on engaging the public, promoting social interaction, identifying spatial patterns of occupation by previous inhabitants through social media. Findings exposed three main areas of interest. Firstly we identified inter-dependent relationships between permanence and temporality, characterised by elements such us, signage through layers of time, past events and periodical street festivals, unfolding memory and belonging. Secondly issues of co-ownership and occupation, found through particular narratives of exchange between the two communities and through appropriation of space. Finally formal and informal inhabitation of space, revealed through the presence of informal shared back yards, alternative paths, porous street edges and formal and informal landmarks. The importance of the above findings, was achieving a shift of focus from the built infrastructure to the soft network of multiple and complex relations of dependence and autonomy. Proposed interventions for this contested site were informed and led by a new multicultural identity where invisible qualities were revealed though the process of mapping, taking on issues of layers of time, formal and informal inhabitation and the “permanence of the temporary”.

Keywords: contested sites, mapping, social sustainability, temporary urban strategies

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Authors: Febri Ramadhan

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Water medium is a vital necessity for the survival of fish. Fish can survive inside/outside of water medium within a certain time. By knowing the level of survival fish at outside of water medium, a person can transport the fish to a place with more efficiently. Transport of live fish from one place to another can be done with wet and dry media system. In this experiment the treatment-given the observed differences in fish species. This experiment aimed to test the degree of resilience of fish out of water media. Based on the ANOVA table is obtained, it can be concluded that the type of fish affects the level of resilience of fish outside the water (Fhit> Ftab).

Keywords: fish, transport, retention rate, fish resiliance

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Authors: Panida Jongsuksomsakul

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This study of the ‘happiness’ and ‘sustainability’ in the community of Donkeaw, Amphoe Mae Rim, Chiang Mai Province during the non-election period in Thailand, noted that their happiness levels are in the middle-average range. This was found using a mixed approach of qualitative and quantitative methods (N = 386, α = 0.05). The study explores indicators for six aspects of well-being and happiness, including, good local governance, administrative support for the health system that maintains people’s mental and physical health, environment and weather, job security and a regular income aids them in managing a sustainable lifestyle. The impact of economic security and community relationships on social and cultural capital, and the way these aspects impact on the life style of the community, affects the sustainable well-being of people. Moreover, living with transparency and participatory communication led to diverse rewards in many areas.

Keywords: communication, happiness, well-being, Donkeaw community, social and cultural capital

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Authors: Shai Gabay

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The tunnel effect describes the phenomenon where a moving object seems to persist even when temporarily hidden from view. Numerous studies indicate that humans, infants, and nonhuman primates possess object persistence, relying on spatiotemporal cues to track objects that are dynamically occluded. While this ability is associated with neural activity in the cerebral neocortex of humans and mammals, the role of subcortical mechanisms remains ambiguous. In our current investigation, we explore the functional contribution of monocular aspects of the visual system, predominantly subcortical, to the representation of occluded objects. This is achieved by manipulating whether the reappearance of an object occurs in the same or different eye from its disappearance. Additionally, we employ Archerfish, renowned for their precision in dislodging insect prey with water jets, as a phylogenetic model to probe the evolutionary origins of the tunnel effect. Our findings reveal the active involvement of subcortical structures in the mental representation of occluded objects, a process evident even in species that do not possess cortical tissue.

Keywords: archerfish, tunnel effect, mental representations, monocular channels, subcortical structures

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Authors: Jorge Gonzalez Camus, Valentin Keyantuo, Mahamadi Warma

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In this work, we obtain representation results for solutions of a time-fractional differential equation involving the discrete fractional Laplace operator in terms of generalized Wright functions. Such equations arise in the modeling of many physical systems, for example, chain processes in chemistry and radioactivity. The focus is on the linear problem of the simplified Moore - Gibson - Thompson equation, where the discrete fractional Laplacian and the Caputo fractional derivate of order on (0,2] are involved. As a particular case, we obtain the explicit solution for the discrete heat equation and discrete wave equation. Furthermore, we show the explicit solution for the equation involving the perturbed Laplacian by the identity operator. The main tool for obtaining the explicit solution are the Laplace and discrete Fourier transforms, and Stirling's formula. The methodology mainly is to apply both transforms in the equation, to find the inverse of each transform, and to prove that this solution is well defined, using Stirling´s formula.

Keywords: discrete fractional Laplacian, explicit representation of solutions, fractional heat and wave equations, fundamental

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Authors: Rachelly Ashwall, Ephraim Tabory

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In an attempt to reduce the level of a major identity-based conflict in Israel between Ultra-orthodox and secular Jews, several initiatives in recent years have tried to bring members of the two societies together in facilitated joint discussion forums. Our study analyzes the impact of two types of such programs: joint mediation training classes and confrontation-based learning programs that are designed to facilitate discussions over controversial issues. These issues include claims about an unequal shouldering of national obligations such as military service, laws requiring public observance of the Sabbath, and discrimination against women, among others. The study examines the factors that enabled the two groups to reduce their social distance, and increase their understanding of each other, and develop a recognition and tolerance of the other group's particular social identity. The research conducted over a course of two years involved observations of the activities of the groups, interviews with the participants, and analysis of the social media used by the groups. The findings demonstrate the progression from a mutual initial lack of knowledge about habits, norms, and attitudes of the out-group to an increasing desire to know, understand and more readily accept the identity of a previously rejected outsider. Participants manifested more respect, concern for and even affection for those whose identity initially led them to reject them out of hand. We discuss the implications for seemingly intractable identity-based conflict in fragile societies.

Keywords: identity-based conflict, intergroup relations, joint mediation learning, out-group recognition, social identity

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Authors: Sandra Maria Cerqueira Da Silva

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The construction of the material world involves a series of social power relations. These relations, in a way, can dictate, shape, judge and drive the profiles of so-called ‘ideal’ individuals. Gender relations, as power relations, are defined based on hierarchies, obediences and inequalities, and male domination seems, with few exceptions, to be rooted in every society around the world. The profile of the Brazilian woman, beyond patriarchal and market determinations, is strongly subjected to media products. Women are, numerically, the majority in Brazilian society. The social indicators point to slight advances in terms of years of study and professional qualification, as well as access to the job market; yet, differences in opportunity and conditions — often explained though the ‘unquestionable’ cultural rancidness argument — still hinder women’s ability to reach and keep job positions. These unequalities are also visible in everyday interactions and in gender relations, and they become greater once race is added to the analysis. For a black woman, her racial origins may play a part in determining the construction of her gender roles. In these terms, there is need to investigate the racial character of the sexual differences within a larger social proccess of naturalization and justification of cultural hierarchies. Thus, the goal of this study is to identify and discuss the media-built image of black women in Brazil. Furthermore, it is necessary to seek views different than those of the ruling classes. The study uses a qualitative approach based on the feminist standpoint, which intends to hold women’s experiences as central. The body of the research — images taken from the Internet — was treated through critical content analysis. The results show that in Brazil the profile of black women, beyond the machist and sexist generalizations, objectifies them or sees them as servants, always at the disposal of non-blacks. It is necessary to overcome the history of this nation, always considering the contribution of these women to the growth and development of places and societies. This can be done through the acknowledgement and highlighting of the few black women who were able to overcome the many barriers in their path and reach leadership position in the country. There are still many important challenges in the way of finding affirmative policies and reaching a more equal society in terms of gender and race; a serious and firm political commitment seems sine qua non.

Keywords: black woman, feminist standpoint, markings, objectification

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Authors: Bahareh Golchin, Nooshin Riahi

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One of the most significant issues as attended a lot in recent years is that of recognizing the sentiments and emotions in social media texts. The analysis of sentiments and emotions is intended to recognize the conceptual information such as the opinions, feelings, attitudes and emotions of people towards the products, services, organizations, people, topics, events and features in the written text. These indicate the greatness of the problem space. In the real world, businesses and organizations are always looking for tools to gather ideas, emotions, and directions of people about their products, services, or events related to their own. This article uses the Twitter social network, one of the most popular social networks with about 420 million active users, to extract data. Using this social network, users can share their information and opinions about personal issues, policies, products, events, etc. It can be used with appropriate classification of emotional states due to the availability of its data. In this study, supervised learning and deep neural network algorithms are used to classify the emotional states of Twitter users. The use of deep learning methods to increase the learning capacity of the model is an advantage due to the large amount of available data. Tweets collected on various topics are classified into four classes using a combination of two Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory network and a Convolutional network. The results obtained from this study with an average accuracy of 93%, show good results extracted from the proposed framework and improved accuracy compared to previous work.

Keywords: emotion classification, sentiment analysis, social networks, deep neural networks

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