Search results for: national discourse

Authors: Aditi Chauhan, Neethu S. Mohan

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In the modern era, the advancement and digitalization in technology have taken place during an investigation of crime scene. The rapid enhancement and investigative techniques have changed the mean of identification of suspect. Identification of the person is one of the significant aspects, and personal authentication is the key of security and reliability in society. Since early 90 s, people have relied on comparing handwriting through its class and individual characteristics. But in today’s 21st century we need more reliable means to identify individual through handwriting. An approach employing computer modalities have lately proved itself auspicious enough in exploration of hieroglyphics substantial in investigating the case. Various software’s such as FISH, WRITEON, and PIKASO, CEDAR-FOX SYSTEM identify and verify the associated quantitative measure of the similarity between two samples. The research till date has been confined to identify the authorship of the concerned samples. But prospects associated with the use of computational modalities might help to identify disguised writing, forged handwriting or say altered or modified writing. Considering the applications of such modal, similar work is sure to attract plethora of research in immediate future. It has a promising role in national security too. Documents exchanged among terrorist can also be brought under the radar of surveillance, bringing forth their source of existence.

Keywords: documents, identity, computational system, suspect

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Authors: Yunqi Wang

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As a vital region to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have responded to the grand strategy differently. Some expressed fervent support, while others played the 'hedging' card between great powers. This paper explores the underlying rationale behind such complexity by proposing two theoretical explanations: a Regionalism Hypothesis, where countries respond with hedging, balancing, and bandwagoning behaviours in line with national interests and norm-based 'ASEAN-Way'; and a Ladder-up Hypothesis, where countries consider the initiative as an incentive to remove bottlenecks of climbing up the economic ladder in Rostow's stage of the growth model. By analysing reactions from Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia, and Singapore, two patterns are observed. On an empirical note, the more developed economies are more inclined to the Regionalist explanation. On a theoretical note, there has been a gradual convergence between the two explanations, given the impact of economic globalisation on ASEAN. This paper will contribute to the current theoretical vacancy in the study of ASEAN and BRI by capturing the particular norms shared by this regional entity.

Keywords: ASEAN, belt and road initiative, hedging, Rostow's stages of growth, regionalism

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Authors: Susana Almeida

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The right to adequate food is a human right protected under several international human rights treaties of universal or regional application. In addition, this social right is – as we intend to demonstrate – guaranteed under the Portuguese Constitution. Therefore, in order to assure the protection of this right, the Portuguese State must not only abstain from interfering with this human right (negative obligation) but also take action to secure the human right to adequate food (positive obligation). In this context, the Portuguese State has developed several governmental policies, such as taxing sugary drinks, setting the maximum amount of salt in the bread or creating the National Program for the Promotion of Healthy Food. Nevertheless, we intend to demonstrate that special attention should be given to advertising, as advertisements have an extreme influence on the consumers' decisions and hence on the food decisions. In this paper, besides explaining the cross construction of the human right to adequate food, we aim to examine the Advertising Portuguese Code and to study the several provisions that could be held by the Portuguese consumer to challenge some advertisements due to the violation of the right to health and the right to adequate food. Moreover, having in mind the influence of advertising on the food decisions and the serious problems that unhealthy food may bring (e.g., child obesity), one should ask if this legal framework should not be reviewed in order to lay out some restrictions on advertising, namely setting advices like in alcohol advertisements.

Keywords: advertising code, consumer law, right to adequate food, social human right

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Authors: Andrew Rylance, Anna Spenceley

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An evaluation was undertaken to understand opportunities for stimulating local enterprise development within the tourism supply chain, linked to a private game reserve in South Africa, the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, which neighbors the Kruger National Park. The study focused on understanding the market demand for local products and services from commercial lodges, and the current local supply from enterprises and entrepreneurs in local communities. This article quantifies the value of current procurement spend by lodges on local products and services and estimates their potential future expenditure. The study matches these responses with the availability of products and services in the neighboring communities. It also provides insights into relationships between private lodges, game reserves and local communities in South Africa. It concurs with previous research on tourism supply chains in rural South Africa, and also makes recommendations for the development of local businesses with higher technical capacity development.

Keywords: tourism, communities, business development, South Africa, Sabi Sand Game Reserve, market study, supply study

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Authors: Li Jiawei

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In the mid-1920s, Chinese dramatist Yu Shangyuan rallied a group of intellectuals and launched the National Theatre Movement to champion the incorporation of Chinese operatic resources into modern spoken drama. In 1927, the fluctuating milieu impelled Yu and most of his comrades to leave Beijing, rendering the movement a truncated undertaking. Offering to illuminate the influence or reverberation of the movement, this research examines Yu’s translation of J. M. Barrie’ s The Admirable Crichton, the first play Yu published upon returning to Beijing in 1929. It unveils that Yu still espoused the value of Chinese opera on modern stage, but his perception of drama was more instructive and rooted in theatre’s fundamental traditions, customs, and mechanics. Influenced by Sheldon Cheney’s theatrical idea, Yu aligned Western realistic drama with “psychologic drama” and Chinese opera with “aesthetic drama” and argued for a “re-theatricalized drama” that could “present psychologic drama aesthetically.” With such a perception, Yu chose to translate a psychologic drama and strove to imbue the play with an aesthetic spirit by inserting symbolic stage designs and employing poetic language. The exploration of Yu’s translation of The Admirable Crichton sheds light on the new insights that translation studies might bring to theatre historiography.

Keywords: Yu Shangyuan, translation, drama, modern China

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Authors: Suneet Jagdev

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The development of the original Bauhaus occurred at a time in the beginning of the 20th century when the industrialization of Germany had reached a climax. The cities were a reflection of the new living conditions of an industrialized society. The Bauhaus can be interpreted as an ambitious attempt to find appropriate answers to the challenges by using architecture-urban development and design. The core elements of the conviction of the day were the belief in the necessary crossing of boundaries between the various disciplines and courage to experiment for a better solution. Even after 100 years, the situation in our cities is shaped by similar complexity. The urban consequences of developments are difficult to estimate and to predict. The paper critically reflected on the central aspects of the history of the Bauhaus and its role in bringing the modernism in India by comparative studies of the methodology adopted by the artists and designer in both the countries. The paper talked in detail about how the Bauhaus Exhibition in 1922 offered Indian artists a new weapon of anti-colonial resistance. The original Bauhaus fought its aesthetic and political battles in the context of economic instability and the rise of German fascism. The Indians had access to dominant global languages and in a particular English. The availability of print media and a vibrant indigenous intellectual culture provided Indian people a tool to accept technology while denying both its dominant role in culture and the inevitability of only one form of modernism. The indigenous was thus less an engagement with their culture as in the West than a tool of anti-colonial struggle. We have shown how the Indian people used Bauhaus as a critique of colonialism itself through an undermining of its typical modes of representation and as a means of incorporating the Indian desire for spirituality into art and as providing the cultural basis for a non-materialistic and anti-industrial form of what we might now term development. The paper reflected how through painting the Bauhaus entered the artistic consciousness of the sub-continent not only for its stylistic and technical innovations but as a tool for a critical and even utopian modernism that could challenge both the hegemony of academic and orientalist art and as the bearer of a transnational avant-garde as much political as it was artistic, and as such the basis of a non-Eurocentric but genuinely cosmopolitan alternative to the hierarchies of oppression and domination that had long bound India and were at that moment rising once again to a tragic crescendo in Europe. We have talked about how the Bauhaus of today can offer an innovative orientation towards discourse around architecture and design.

Keywords: anti-colonial struggle, art over architecture, Bauhaus exhibition of 1922, industrialization

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Authors: Rungrot Trongsakul

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This paper was aimed to study the strategic cooperation development of Thailand in accordance with the door open policy of Myanmar, by use of DIMES Model: Diplomacy, Information, Military and Economics, Socio-Culture. This research employed qualitative method, aiming to study, analyze and synthesize the content of laws, policies, relevant research papers and documents, and relevant theories, and to study external environment and national power based on DIMES Model. The five steps of strategic development utilized in this study included (1) conceptual framework and definition; (2) environmental scanning; (3) assessing; (4) determining; and (5) drafting strategic plan. The suggested strategies were based on the concept of 'Soft Power'. Therefore, the determination of measures, action plans or projects as strategic means of public and private organizations should be based on sincere participation among people and communities living on the borders shared by both countries. Adoption of education, learning and sharing process is a key to building sustainability of the countries’ strategic cooperation, while an application of 'Soft Power' in all dimensions of the cooperation between the two countries was suggested.

Keywords: education, strategic cooperation, Thailand-Myanmar borders, sustainability

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Authors: Salihu Takuma

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Neem seed oil has high contents of unsaturated fatty acids which can be converted to epoxy fatty acids. The vegetable oil – based epoxy material are sustainable, renewable and biodegradable materials replacing petrochemical – based epoxy materials in some applications. Polystyrene is highly brittle with limited mechanical applications. Raw neem seed oil was obtained from National Research Institute for Chemical Technology (NARICT), Zaria, Nigeria. The oil was epoxidized at 60 0C for three (3) hours using formic acid generated in situ. The epoxidized oil was characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The disappearance of C = C stretching peak around 3011.7 cm-1and formation of a new absorption peak around 943 cm-1 indicate the success of epoxidation. The epoxidized oil was blended with pure polystyrene in different weight percent compositions using solution casting in chloroform. The tensile properties of the blends demonstrated that the addition of 5 wt % ENO to PS led to an increase in elongation at break, but a decrease in tensile strength and modulus. This is in accordance with the common rule that plasticizers can decrease the tensile strength of the polymer.

Keywords: biodegradable, elongation at break, epoxidation, epoxy fatty acids, sustainable, tensile strength and modulus

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Authors: Isa Muhammad Zumo

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The African Great Green Wall (GGW) is a significant initiative in northern Nigeria because it promotes land restoration and conservation utilizing both commercial and species of forest trees while also helping to mitigate desertification and hazards from the sand dunes and shifting Sahara deserts. Conflicts and weather, however, pose a significant danger to the achievement of these goals. The scientific method for monitoring the vegetation dynamics since inception has not received the required attention, despite the African Development Bank (ADB)'s help in funding the project and its integration into the state's development plans for GGW initiatives. This study will monitor the changes in the vegetation cover of the great green wall within Yobe State Nigeria from 2014 to 2023. The vegetation dynamics will be monitored using Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) for 6 years at 2 years intervals. The result will show the fluctuations in the vegetation cover density within the period of study. This will guide the design and implementation of policies of the GGW in achieving its objectives. The result can also contribute to the realization of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning.

Keywords: monitoring, green wall, Landsat 8, Nigeria

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Authors: Kaltrina Kusari

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Displaced populations have received increasing attention, yet the experiences of return migrants remain largely hidden within social sciences. Existing research, albeit limited, suggests that policies which impact return migrants, especially those forced to return to their home countries, do not reflect their voices. Specifically, the United Nations Hight Commissioner for Refugees has adopted repatriation as a preferred policy solution, despite research which substantiates that returning to one’s home country is neither durable nor the end of the migration cycle; as many of 80% of returnees decide to remigrate. This one-size-fits-all approach to forced displacement does not recognize the impact of intersecting identity categories on return migration, thus failing to consider how ethnicity, gender, and class, among others, shape repatriation. To address this, this qualitative study examined the repatriation experiences of return migrant women from Kosovo and the role of social workers in facilitating return. In 2015, Kosovars constituted the fourth largest group of asylum seekers in the European Union, yet 96% of them were rejected. Additionally, since 1999 Kosovo has ranked among the top 10 countries of origin for return migrants. Considering that return migration trends are impacted by global power dynamics, this study relied on a postcolonial and transnational feminist framework to contextualize the mobility of displaced peoples in terms of globalization and conceptualize migration as a gendered process. Postcolonial and feminist theories suggest that power is partly operationalized through language, thus, Critical Discourse Analysis was used as a research methodology. CDA is concerned with examining how power, language, and discourses shape social processes and relationships of dominance. Data collection included interviews with 15 return migrant women (eight ethnic minorities and seven Albanian) and 18 service providers in Kosovo. The main findings illustrate that both returnee women and service providers rely on discourses which 1) challenge the voluntariness and sustainability of repatriation; 2) construct Kosovo as inferior to EU countries; and 3) highlight the impact of patriarchy and ethnic racism on return migration. A postcolonial transnational feminist analysis demonstrates that despite Kosovars’ challenges with repatriation, European Union countries use their power to impose repatriation as a preferred solution for Kosovo’s government. These findings add to the body of existing repatriation literature and provide important implications for how return migration might be carried out, not only in Kosovo but other countries as well.

Keywords: migration, gender, repatriation, transnational feminism

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Authors: Mozhgan Aliakbari, Sara Moridpour

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In recent years, much attention has been given to truck drivers’ fatigue management. Long working hours negatively influence truck drivers’ physiology, health, and safety. However, there is little empirical research in the heavy vehicle transport sector in Australia to identify the influence of working hours’ management on drivers’ fatigue and consequently, on the risk of crashes and injuries. There is no national legislation regulating the number of hours or kilometres travelled by truck drivers. Consequently, it is almost impossible to define a standard number of hours or kilometres for truck drivers in a safety management system. This paper reviews the existing studies concerning safe system interventions such as tachographs in relation to fatigue caused by long working hours. This paper also reviews the literature to identify the influence of frequency of rest breaks on the reduction of work-related road transport accidents involving trucks. A framework is presented to manage truck drivers’ fatigue, which may result in the reduction of injuries and fatalities involving heavy vehicles.

Keywords: fatigue, time management, trucks, traffic safety

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Authors: Isabel Pérez Dobarro

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In the mid-twentieth century, Spanish composers started looking beyond the national folkloric tradition (adopted by Albéniz, Granados, and Falla) and Rodrigo’s neoclassicism, and searched for other sources of inspiration. Japanese Haikus fascinated Spanish musicians, who found in their brevity and imagination a new avenue to develop their creativity. The goal of this research is to study how two renowned Spanish authors, Benet Casablancas and Mercedes Zavala, incorporated Haikus into their piano works. Based on Bruhn’s methodology on text and instrumental music relations, and developing a score and text analysis complemented by interviews with both composers, this study has revealed three possible interactions between the Haikus and these composers’ piano writing: inspiration, transmedialization, and mimesis. Findings also include specific technical gestures to support each of these approaches. Commonalities between their pieces and those by other non-Spanish composers such as Jonathan Harvey, John Cage, and Michael Berkeley have also been explored. According to the author's knowledge, this is the first study on the Japanese influence in Spanish piano music. Thus, it opens a new path for understanding musical exchanges between both countries as well as contemporary piano tools that support the interaction between text and music.

Keywords: Haiku, Spanish piano music, Benet Casablancas, Mercedes Zavala

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Authors: Ana Fonseca, Ana Gouveia, Edgar Ramalho, Rita Henriques, Filipa Figueiredo, João Nunes

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Due to persistent climate pressures, there is a need to find a resilient economic system that is regenerative in nature. Bioeconomy offers the possibility of replacing non-renewable and non-biodegradable materials derived from fossil fuels with ones that are renewable and biodegradable, while a Circular Economy aims at sustainable and resource-efficient operations. The term "Circular Bioeconomy", which can be summarized as all activities that transform biomass for its use in various product streams, expresses the interaction between these two ideas. Portugal has a very favourable context to promote a Circular Bioeconomy due to its variety of climates and ecosystems, availability of biologically based resources, location, and geomorphology. Recently, there have been political and legislative efforts to develop the Portuguese Circular Bioeconomy. The Action Plan for a Sustainable Bioeconomy, approved in 2021, is composed of five axes of intervention, ranging from sustainable production and the use of regionally based biological resources to the development of a circular and sustainable bioindustry through research and innovation. However, as some statistics show, Portugal is still far from achieving circularity. According to Eurostat, Portugal has circularity rates of 2.8%, which is the second lowest among the member states of the European Union. Some challenges contribute to this scenario, including sectorial heterogeneity and fragmentation, prevalence of small producers, lack of attractiveness for younger generations, and absence of implementation of collaborative solutions amongst producers and along value chains.Regarding the Portuguese industrial sector, there is a tendency towards complex bureaucratic processes, which leads to economic and financial obstacles and an unclear national strategy. Together with the limited number of incentives the country has to offer to those that pretend to abandon the linear economic model, many entrepreneurs are hesitant to invest the capital needed to make their companies more circular. Absence of disaggregated, georeferenced, and reliable information regarding the actual availability of biological resources is also a major issue. Low literacy on bioeconomy among many of the sectoral agents and in society in general directly impacts the decisions of production and final consumption. The WinBio project seeks to outline a strategic approach for the management of weaknesses/opportunities in the technology transfer process, given the reality of the territory, through road mapping and national and international benchmarking. The developed work included the identification and analysis of agents in the interior region of Portugal, natural endogenous resources, products, and processes associated with potential development. Specific flow of biological wastes, possible value chains, and the potential for replacing critical raw materials with bio-based products was accessed, taking into consideration other countries with a matured bioeconomy. The study found food industry, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries generate huge amounts of waste streams, which in turn provide an opportunity for the establishment of local bio-industries powered by this biomass. The project identified biological resources with potential for replication and applicability in the Portuguese context. The richness of natural resources and potentials known in the interior region of Portugal is a major key to developing the Circular Economy and sustainability of the country.

Keywords: circular bioeconomy, interior region of portugal, regional development., public policy

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Authors: Edward R. Moad

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Al-Ghazali’s Tahāfat al Falāsifa is widely construed as an attack on philosophy in favor of theological fideism. Consequently, he has been blamed for ‘death of philosophy’ in the Muslim world. ‘Falsifa’ however is not philosophy itself, but rather a range of philosophical doctrines mainly influenced by or inherited form Greek thought. In these terms, this work represents a defense of philosophy against what we could call ‘falsifical’ fideism. In the introduction, Ghazali describes his target audience as, not the falasifa, but a group of pretenders engaged in taqlid to a misconceived understanding of falasifa, including the belief that they were capable of demonstrative certainty in the field of metaphysics. He promises to use falsifa standards of logic (with which he independently agrees), to show that that the falasifa failed to demonstratively prove many of their positions. Whether or not he succeeds in that, the exercise of subjecting alleged proofs to critical scrutiny is quintessentially philosophical, while uncritical adherence to a doctrine, in the name of its being ‘philosophical’, is decidedly unphilosophical. If we are to blame the intellectual decline of the Muslim world on someone’s ‘bad’ way of thinking, rather than more material historical circumstances (which is already a mistake), then blame more appropriately rests with modernist Muslim thinkers who, under the influence of orientalism (and like Ghazali’s philosophical pretenders) mistook taqlid to the falasifa as philosophy itself. The discussion of the Tahāfut takes place in the context of an epistemic (and related social) hierarchy envisioned by the falasifa, corresponding to the faculties of the sense, the ‘estimative imagination’ (wahm), and the pure intellect, along with the respective forms of discourse – rhetoric, dialectic, and demonstration – appropriate to each category of that order. Al-Farabi in his Book of Letters describes a relation between dialectic and demonstration on the one hand, and theology and philosophy on the other. The latter two are distinguished by method rather than subject matter. Theology is that which proceeds dialectically, while philosophy is (or aims to be?) demonstrative. Yet, Al-Farabi tells us, dialectic precedes philosophy like ‘nourishment for the tree precedes its fruit.’ That is, dialectic is part of the process, by which we interrogate common and imaginative notions in the pursuit of clearly understood first principles that we can then deploy in the demonstrative argument. Philosophy is, therefore, something we aspire to through, and from a discursive condition of, dialectic. This stands in apparent contrast to the understanding of Ibn Sina, for whom one arrives at the knowledge of first principles through contact with the Active Intellect. It also stands in contrast to that of Ibn Rushd, who seems to think our knowledge of first principles can only come through reading Aristotle. In conclusion, based on Al-Farabi’s framework, Ghazali’s Tahafut is a truly an exercise in philosophy, and an effort to keep the door open for true philosophy in the Muslim mind, against the threat of a kind of developing theology going by the name of falsifa.

Keywords: philosophy, incoherence, theology, Tahafut

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Authors: Shaheena Erkiah, Adjnu Damar Ladkoo

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Worldwide, improving tourism competitiveness has been on the agendas of many stakeholders of the hotel sector, and they seem to have agreed that one of the best ways to compete is via the implementation of electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM). In so doing, the organizations enjoy strategic positioning on the competitive market by managing better not only the customers but, other business components including knowledge and employee management. Over the recent years, the tourism industry in Mauritius has witnessed a drastic economic boom at international and national levels; providing a new outlook to boost business performance through existing and potential customers. E-CRM has been one of the management tools used to achieving this position. Thus, this insightful context- Mauritius- was opted for the study. The aim was to assess the effectiveness of e-CRM as a strategic tool in the hotel sector in Mauritius through the implementation of business strategy to create competitive advantage and impact on the business performance. To achieve the objectives of the study, a quantitative research methodology was adopted and the research revealed that e-CRM is indeed an effective strategic tool in the hotel industry in Mauritius that can provide a competitive advantage and impact positively on the organization’s performance.

Keywords: customer, electronic, management, relationship, strategic

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Authors: Lesa A. Thompson, Yoshinori Ikenaka, Victor Wepener, Mayumi Ishizuka

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One method for controlling malaria in endemic regions is the killing of vector mosquitoes using pesticides such as DDT in indoor residual spraying (IRS). This study was carried out to investigate the presence of and human health risk due to DDT and its metabolites (collectively, DDTs) contaminating human food sources in areas where DDT is used for IRS. Free-range chicken products (meat and eggs) were collected from homesteads in KwaZulu-Natal Province in the northeast of South Africa, and fish meat samples from Maputo Bay in neighbouring Mozambique. Samples were analysed for DDTs (o,p’-DDT, p,p’-DDT, o,p’-DDD, p,p’-DDD, o,p’-DDE and p,p’-DDE) using a gas chromatograph with electron capture detector (GC-ECD). DDTs were detected in all food types, with the predominant congener being p,p’-DDE. The presence of p,p’-DDT confirmed recent release of DDT into the environment. By using concentration levels detected in foods and national consumption levels, the risk to human health through consumption of such food products was calculated. In order of risk level, these were: chicken eggs > chicken meat > fish meat. Human risk (carcinogenic) values greater than one suggest there is an increased health risk through consumption of these foods.

Keywords: DDT, food contamination, human health risk, Mozambique, South Africa

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Authors: Olufemi Oyedele

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Building collapse (BC) in Nigeria is becoming a regular occurrence, each recording great casualties in the number of lives and materials lost. Building collapse is a situation where building which has been completed and occupied, completed but not occupied or under construction, collapses on its own due to action or inaction of man or due to natural event like earthquake, storm, flooding, tsunami or wildfire. It is different from building demolition. There are various causes of building collapse and each case requires expert judgment to decide the cause of its collapse. Rate of building collapse is a reflection of the level of organization and control of building activities and degree of sophistication of the construction professionals in a country. This study explored the use of case study by examining the causes of six (6) collapsed buildings (CB) across Nigeria. Samples of materials from the sites of the collapsed buildings were taken for testing and analysis, while critical observations were made at the sites to note the conditions of the ground (building base). The study found out that majority of the building collapses in Nigeria were due to poor workmanship, sub-standard building materials, followed by bad building base and poor design. The National Building Code 2006 is not effective due to lack of enforcement and the Physical Development Departments of states and Federal Capital Territory are just mere agents of corruption allowing all types of construction without building approvals.

Keywords: building collapse, concrete tests, differential settlement, integrity test, quality control

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Authors: Joanne Moyer

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El Paso, Texas is a southwest border city that has experienced continuous growth within the last 15-years. Understanding the urban growth trends and patterns using data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and landscape metrics, provides a quantitative description of growth. Past urban growth provided a basis to predict 2031 future land-use for El Paso using the CA-Markov model. As a consequence of growth, an increase in demand of resources follows. Using panel data analysis, an understanding of the relation between landscape metrics and electricity consumption is further analyzed. The studies’ findings indicate that past growth focused within three districts within the City of El Paso. The landscape metrics suggest as the city has grown, fragmentation has decreased. Alternatively, the landscape metrics for the projected 2031 land-use indicates possible fragmentation within one of these districts. Panel data suggests electricity consumption and mean patch area landscape metric are positively correlated. The study provides local decision makers to make informed decisions for policies and urban planning to ensure a future sustainable community.

Keywords: landscape metrics, CA-Markov, El Paso, Texas, panel data

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Authors: Marta Blavia

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Magiciens de la terre, organized in 1989 by the Centre Pompidou, became 'the first worldwide exhibition of contemporary art' by presenting artists from Western and non-Western countries, including three Chinese artists. For the first time, West turned its eyes to other countries not as exotic sources of inspiration, but as places where contemporary art was also being created. One year later, Chine: demain pour hier was inaugurated as the first Chinese avant-garde group-exhibition in Occident. Among the artists included was Cai Guo-Qiang who, like many other Chinese artists, had left his home country in the eighties in pursuit of greater creative freedom. By exploring artistic non-Western perspectives, both landmark exhibitions questioned the predominance of the Eurocentric vision in the construction of history art. But more than anything else, these exhibitions laid the groundwork for the rise of the so-called phenomenon 'global contemporary art'. All the same time, 1989 also was a turning point in Chinese art history. Because of the Tiananmen student protests, The Chinese government undertook a series of measures to cut down any kind of avant-garde artistic activity after a decade of a relative openness. During the eighties, and especially after the Tiananmen crackdown, some important artists began to leave China to move overseas such as Xu Bing and Ai Weiwei (USA); Chen Zhen and Huang Yong Ping (France); or Cai Guo-Qiang (Japan). After emigrating abroad, Chinese overseas artists began to develop projects in accordance with their new environments and audiences as well as to appear in numerous international exhibitions. With their creations, that moved freely between a variety of Eastern and Western art sources, these artists were crucial agents in the emergence of global contemporary art. As other Chinese artists overseas, Cai Guo-Qiang’s career took off during the 1990s and early 2000s right at the same moment in which Western art world started to look beyond itself. Little by little, he developed a very personal artistic language that redefines Chinese ideas, symbols, and traditional materials in a new world order marked by globalization. Cai Guo-Qiang participated in many of the exhibitions that contributed to shape global contemporary art: Encountering the Others (1992); the 45th Venice Biennale (1993); Inside Out: New Chinese Art (1997), or the 48th Venice Biennale (1999), where he recreated the Chinese monumental social realist work Rent Collection Courtyard that earned him the Golden Lion Award. By examining the different stages of Cai Guo-Qiang’s artistic path as well as the transnational dimensions of his creations, this paper aims at offering a comprehensive survey on the construction of the discourse of global contemporary art.

Keywords: Cai Guo-Qiang, Chinese artists overseas, emergence global art, transnational art

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Authors: Hernán G. Cortés-Mora, José I. Péna-Reyes, Alfonso Herrera-Jiménez

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This article describes the implementation experience of Project-Based Learning (PBL) in an engineering course of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, with the aim of strengthening student skills necessary for the exercise of their profession under a sustainability framework. Firstly, we present a literature review on the education for sustainability field, emphasizing the skills and knowledge areas required for its development, as well as the commitment of the Faculty of Engineering of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and other engineering faculties of the country, regarding education for sustainability. This article covers the general aspects of the course, describes how students team were formed, and how their experience was during the first semester of 2017. During this period two groups of students decided to develop their course project aiming to solve a problem regarding a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that works with head-of-household mothers in a low-income neighborhood in Bogota (Colombia). Subsequently, we show how sustainability is involved in the course, how tools are provided to students, and how activities are developed as to strengthen their abilities, which allows them to incorporate sustainability in their projects while also working on the methodology used to develop said projects. Finally, we introduce the results obtained by the students who sent the prototypes of their projects to the community they were working on and the conclusions reached by them regarding the course experience.

Keywords: sustainability, project-based learning, engineering education, higher education for sustainability

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Authors: Ajit Kumar Yadav, Priyanka Yadav, F. Ram

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In present study is an effort to analyse the burden of diseases in the state. Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) is estimated non-communicable diseases. Multi-rounds (52nd, 60th and 71st round) of the National Sample Surveys (NSSO), conducted in 1995-96, 2004 and 2014 respectively, and Million Deaths Study (MDS) of 2001-03, 2006 and 2013-14 datasets are used. Descriptive and multivariate analyses are carried out to identify the determinants of different types of self-reported morbidity and DALY. The prevalence was higher for population aged 60 and above, among females, illiterates, and rich across the time period and for all the selected morbidities. The results were found to be significant at P<0.001. The estimation of DALY revealed that, the burden of communicable diseases was higher during infancy, noticeably among males than females in 2002. However, females aged 1-5 years were more vulnerable to report communicable diseases than the corresponding males. The age distribution of DALY indicates that individuals aged below 5 years and above 60 year were more susceptible to ill health. The growing incidence of non-communicable diseases especially among the older generations put additional burden on the health system in the state. The state has to grapple with the unsettled preventable infectious diseases in one hand and growing non-communicable in other hand.

Keywords: disease burden, non-communicable, communicable, India and region

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Authors: Yating Yang, Xue Zhang, Chengli Zhao

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Technology capability refers to the comprehensive ability that influences all factors of technological development. Among them, researchers’ resources serve as the foundation and driving force for technology capability, representing a significant manifestation of a country/region's technological capability. Therefore, the cross-border transfer behavior of researchers to some extent reflects changes in technological capability between countries/regions, providing a unique research perspective for technological capability assessment. This paper proposes a technological capability assessment model based on personnel transfer networks, which consists of a researchers' transfer network model and a country/region role evolution model. It evaluates the changes in a country/region's technological capability roles from the perspective of researcher transfers and conducts an analysis using artificial intelligence as a case study based on literature data. The study reveals that the United States, China, and the European Union are core nodes, and identifies the role evolution characteristics of several major countries/regions.

Keywords: transfer network, technological capability assessment, central-peripheral structure, role evolution

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Authors: Maryam Kiani

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Geopolymer has gained significant prominence worldwide and is now widely regarded as a potential alternative to conventional Portland cement. Nevertheless, for it to be widely accepted and incorporated into national and international standards, it is crucial to establish precise definitions and dependable mix design methodologies for geopolymer materials. The lack of a common definition and methodology has led to inconsistencies and perplexity across various areas of research. Addressing this concern is imperative for several reasons. To overcome the existing inconsistencies and confusion, concerted efforts should be made to establish clear definitions and robust mix design methodologies for geopolymer materials. This can be achieved through collaborative research, knowledge sharing, and engagement with industry experts. By doing so, we can pave the way for the widespread acceptance and utilization of geopolymer materials, revolutionizing the construction and infrastructure industry in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. The primary goal of this article is to offer clear explanations regarding the different meanings of geopolymer and the various methodologies used in geopolymer processes. Its main aim is to improve comprehension of both unary and binary geopolymer systems. By thoroughly exploring existing research, this article strives to illuminate the diverse methods and techniques utilized in the exciting field of geopolymer science.

Keywords: geopolymer, nanomaterials, structural materials, mechanical properties

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Authors: Aziz Larbi, Widad Sadok

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In Morocco, the mountainous regions extend over about 26% of the national territory where 30% of the total population live. They contain opportunities for agriculture, forestry, pastureland and mining. The production systems in these zones are characterised by crop diversification. However, these areas have become vulnerable to the effects of climate change. To understand these effects in relation to the population living in these areas, a study was carried out in the zone of Taliouine, in the Anti-Atlas. The vulnerability of crop productions to climate change was analysed and the different ways of adaptation adopted by farmers were identified. The work was done on saffron, the most profitable crop in the target area even though it requires much water. Our results show that the majority of the farmers surveyed had noticed variations in the climate of the region: irregularity of precipitation leading to a decrease in quantity and an uneven distribution throughout the year; rise in temperature; reduction in the cold period and less snow. These variations had impacts on the cropping system of saffron and its productivity. To cope with these effects, the farmers adopted various strategies: better management and use of water; diversification of agricultural activities; increase in the contribution of non-agricultural activities to their gross income; and seasonal migration.

Keywords: climate change, Taliouine, saffron, perceptions, adaptation strategies

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Authors: Hortènsia Curell, Ana Fernández-Montraveta

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This paper presents the creation, development, and analysis of a corpus designed to study the presence of attitude markers and author’s stance in research articles in two different areas of linguistics (theoretical linguistics and sociolinguistics). These two disciplines are expected to behave differently in this respect, given the disparity in their discursive conventions. Attitude markers in this work are understood as the linguistic elements (adjectives, nouns and verbs) used to convey the writer's stance towards the content presented in the article, and are crucial in understanding writer-reader interaction and the writer's position. These attitude markers are divided into three broad classes: assessment, significance, and emotion. In addition to them, we also consider first-person singular and plural pronouns and possessives, modal verbs, and passive constructions, which are other linguistic elements expressing the author’s stance. The corpus, Corpus of Attitude in Academic Writing (CAAW), comprises a collection of 21 articles, collected from six journals indexed in JCR. These articles were originally written in English by a single native-speaker author from the UK or USA and were published between 2022 and 2023. The total number of words in the corpus is approximately 222,400, with 106,422 from theoretical linguistics (Lingua, Linguistic Inquiry and Journal of Linguistics) and 116,022 from sociolinguistics journals (International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Language in Society and Journal of Sociolinguistics). Together with the corpus, we present the tool created for the creation and storage of the corpus, along with a tool for automatic annotation. The steps followed in the compilation of the corpus are as follows. First, the articles were selected according to the parameters explained above. Second, they were downloaded and converted to txt format. Finally, examples, direct quotes, section titles and references were eliminated, since they do not involve the author’s stance. The resulting texts were the input for the annotation of the linguistic features related to stance. As for the annotation, two articles (one from each subdiscipline) were annotated manually by the two researchers. An existing list was used as a baseline, and other attitude markers were identified, together with the other elements mentioned above. Once a consensus was reached, the rest of articles were annotated automatically using the tool created for this purpose. The annotated corpus will serve as a resource for scholars working in discourse analysis (both in linguistics and communication) and related fields, since it offers new insights into the expression of attitude. The tools created for the compilation and annotation of the corpus will be useful to study author’s attitude and stance in articles from any academic discipline: new data can be uploaded and the list of markers can be enlarged. Finally, the tool can be expanded to other languages, which will allow cross-linguistic studies of author’s stance.

Keywords: academic writing, attitude, corpus, english

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Authors: Bennasser Samira

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Meningitis, especially the meningococcal one, is a serious problem of public health. A system of vigilanceand surveillance is in place to allow effective actions to be taken on actual or potential health problems caused by all forms of meningitis. Objectives: 1. Describe the epidemiological surveillance system for meningitis in the province of Taza. 2. Evaluate the quality and responsiveness of the epidemiological surveillance system for meningitis in the province of Taza. 3. Propose measures to improve this system at the provincial level. Methods: This was a descriptive study with a purely quantitative approach by evaluating the quality and responsiveness of the system during 5 years between January 2016 and December 2020. We usedfor that the investigation files of meningitis cases and the provincial database of meningitis. We calculated some quality indicators of surveillance system already defined by the National Program for the Prevention and Control of Meningitis. Results: The notification is passive, the completeness of the data is quite good (94%), and the timeliness don’t exceed 71%. The quality of the data is acceptable (91% agreement). The systematic and rapid performance of lumbar punctures increases the diagnostic capabilities of the system. The local response actions are effected in 100%. Conclusion: The improvement of this surveillance system depends on strengthening the staff skills in diagnostic, reviewing surveillance tools, and encouraging judicious use of the data.

Keywords: evaluation, meningitis, system, taza, morocco

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Authors: Jorge A. Schiavon

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This article analyzes the international relations of sub-State governments (IRSSG) in Mexico. It aims to answer five questions: 1) What explains the recent and dramatic increase in their international activities? 2) What is the impact of federalism on the foreign affairs of the federal units? 3) What are the levels or degrees of IRSSG and how have they changed over the last years? 4) How do Mexican federal units institutionalize their international activities? 5) What are the perceptions and capacities of the federal units in their internationalization process? The first section argues that the growth in the IRSSG is generated by growing interdependence and globalization in the international system, and democratization, decentralization and structural reform in the national arena. The second section sustains that the renewed Mexican federalism has generated the incentives for SSG to participate more intensively in international affairs. The third section defends that there is a wide variation in their degree of international participation, which is measured in three moments in time (2004 2009 and 2014), and explains how this activity has changed in the last decade. The fourth section studies the institutionalization of the IRSSG in Mexico through the analysis of Inter-Institutional Agreements (IIA). Finally, the last section concentrates in explaining the perceptions and capacities of Mexican sub-State governments to conduct international relations.

Keywords: federalism, foreign policy, international relations of sub-state governments, paradiplomacy, Mexico

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Authors: Robert Rusinek, Marek Gancarz, Jolanta Wawrzyniak, Marzena Gawrysiak-Witulska, Dariusz Wiącek, Agnieszka Nawrocka

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Investigations were performed to examine the possibility of using an electronic nose to monitor the development of fungal microflora during the first eighteen days of rapeseed storage. The Cyranose 320 device with polymer-composite sensors was used. Each sample of infected material was divided into three parts, and the degree of spoilage was measured in three ways: analysis of colony forming units (CFU), determination of ergosterol content (ERG), and measurement with the eNose. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the generated patterns of signals, and six groups of different spoilage levels were isolated. The electronic nose with polymer-composite sensors under laboratory conditions distinguished between species of spoiled and unspoiled seeds with 100% accuracy. Despite some minor differences in the CFU and ergosterol content, the electronic nose provided responses correctly corresponding to the level of spoilage with 85% accuracy. Therefore, the main conclusion from the study is that the electronic nose is a promising tool for quick and non-destructive detection of the level of oil seed spoilage. The research was supported by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), Grant No. PBS2/A8/22/2013.

Keywords: colony forming units, electronic nose, ergosterol, rapeseed

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Authors: Tiberiu Socaciu, Tudor Colomeischi, Eugenia Iancu

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Business failure affects in various proportions shareholders, managers, lenders (banks), suppliers, customers, the financial community, government and society as a whole. In the era in which we have telecommunications networks, exists an interdependence of markets, the effect of a failure of a company is relatively instant. To effectively manage risk exposure is thus require sophisticated support systems, supported by analytical tools to measure, monitor, manage and control operational risks that may arise. As we know, bankruptcy is a phenomenon that managers do not want no matter what stage of life is the company they direct / lead. In the analysis made by us, by the nature of economic models that are reviewed (Altman, Conan-Holder etc.), estimating the risk of bankruptcy of a company corresponds to some extent with its own business cycle tracing of the company. Various models for predicting bankruptcy take into account direct / indirect aspects such as market position, company growth trend, competition structure, characteristics and customer retention, organization and distribution, location etc. From the perspective of our research we will now review the economic models known in theory and practice for estimating the risk of bankruptcy; such models are based on indicators drawn from major accounting firms.

Keywords: Anglo-Saxon models, continental models, national models, statistical models

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Authors: Thanny Noeem Taiwo

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The study is an attempt to gauge the way political parties advertised their candidates and parties during the 2015 presidential election. It examined the prominence given to political advertisement by newspapers and their patrons. It also looked at the campaign issues that the candidates emphasized in their campaign and also the appeals used in the advertisements. This research work is examined against the backdrop of the Framing Theory. The agenda setting and framing effects theories are media effects theories that explain how the media affects the people, events and situations in the society. Samples comprising of three daily newspapers were selected to represent the newspapers in the Nigeria. The Punch Newspaper, the Nation and the Vanguard will be used for population of this study. These newspapers were chosen because they are widely read national dailies and also because of its affiliation with some political parties. The study revealed that low prominence was given to political messages because most of the advertisements were in the inside pages of the newspapers. The media or the print medium could be a partner in a political setting as the fourth estate of the realm. While the press was trying hard to be professional, its operations were considerably inhibited by the political adventures of the patrons of the media. There is the need for strict professionalism to the ethics of journalism in the commercialization of political messages that would eventually rub off positively on the way the media is perceived.

Keywords: aAdvertisement, election, framing, newspaper

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