Search results for: bureaucratic engagements

Authors: Jalil Salimi, Mandana Asadi, Naser Fathi

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

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

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Authors: Pranil Kumar Upadhayaya

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While peace is dividend to tourism, tourism can also be a vital force for world peace. The existing body of knowledge on a tripartite complex nexus between tourism, peace and conflict reveals that tourism is benefactor to peace and sensitive to conflict. By contextualizing the ongoing sporadic structural conflict in the transitional phase in the aftermath of a decade long (1996-2006), Maoist armed conflict in Nepal, the purpose of this study is to explore the potentials of tourism in peace-building. The outcomes of this research paper is based on the mixed methods of research (qualitative and quantitative). Though the armed conflict ended with the comprehensive peace agreement in 2006 but there is constant manifestations of non-violent structural conflicts, which continue to threaten the sustainability of tourism industry. With the persistent application of coping strategies, tourism is found resilient during the ongoing structural political conflict. The strong coping abilities of the private sector of tourism industry have also intersected with peace-building efforts with more reactive and less proactive (pro-peace) engagements. This paper ascertains about the application of the ‘theory of tourism security’ by Nepalese tourism industry while coping with conflict and reviving, and sustaining. It reveals that the multiple verities of tourism at present has heterogeneous degree of peace potentials. The opportunities of ‘peace through tourism’ can be promoted subject to its molding with responsible, sustainable and participatory characteristics. This paper comes out with pragmatic policy recommendations for strengthening the position of tourism as a true peace-builder: (a) a broad shift from mainstream conventional tourism to the community based rural with local participation and ownership to fulfill Nepal’s potentials for peace, and (b) building and applications of the managerial and operational codes of conducts for owners and workers (labor unions) at all tourism enterprises and strengthen their practices.

Keywords: code of conduct, community based tourism, conflict, peace-building, tourism

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Authors: Tien Hui Chiang

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Along with the predominant influence of neo-liberalism, public managerialism is viewed as a panacea for curing the institutionalized weakness caused by the monopoly of the public sector. In the name of efficiency, its outcome-led approach acquires a legitimate status and, in turn, it transforms into the discourse of performativity, reformulating the souls of individual members into the form of docile bodies who are willing to demonstrate their own ability in organizational contributions. The evaluation system and the organizational reconstruction are viewed as the crucial means for achieving this mission. Inevitably, university teachers are confined within a rigid and bureaucratic setting, in which they do not have too much latitude but are subject to the commands of senior administrators. However, the notion of duality highlights the interaction between structural constraints and agency. If the actor discovers the rules or properties of social structure, he/she is able to transform structural constraints into resources for developing creative actions, conceptualized as an agency. This study was designed for examining how duality operates within this hierarchical arrangement formed by public managerialism. Fourteen informants were interviewed from February to August 2014. The findings show that the evaluation system created the culture of neo-academicalism, addressing excellence in research and, in turn, motivating academic-oriented teachers. This correspondence provided a gateway for them to win honor, dignity, and prestige in groups. However, unlike the concept of duality, this agency was operating within the institutionalized context, regulated by structural constraint. Furthermore, complying with the rule/property of social structure was able to secure their advantages.

Keywords: public managerialism, social discourse, neo-academicalism, duality, structural constraint, agency

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Authors: Shuofen Hsu, Ya-Yi Chao, Chao-Wei Li

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This paper investigates the relationship between voluntary audit (hereafter, VA) of semi-annual consolidated financial statements decision and accounting conservatism. In general, there are four kinds of auditors' assurance services, which include audit, review, agreed-upon procedure and compliance engagements base on degree of assurance. The VA work by auditors may not only have the higher audit quality but an important signal of more reliable information than the review work. In Taiwan, The listed companies must prepare the semi-annual consolidated financial statements and with auditors' review before 2012, but some of the listed companies choose the assurance work from review to audit voluntarily. Due to the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards, the listed companies were required to prepare the second quarterly consolidated financial statements which should be reviewed by auditors since 2013. This rule will change some of the assurance work from audit to review by auditors, and the information asymmetry maybe increased. To control the selection bias, we use two-stage model to test the relationship between VA decision and accounting conservatism. Our empirical results indicate that the VA decision and accounting conservatism have a significant positive relationship in firms with family-controlled. That is, firms with family-controlled are more likely to do VA and to prepare more conservative consolidated financial statements to reduce the information asymmetry, meaning that there is a complementary effect between VA and accounting conservatism for firms with more information asymmetry. But on the contrary, we find that the VA decision and accounting conservatism have a significant negative relationship in firms with professional managers-controlled, meaning that there is a substitution effect between VA and accounting conservatism for firms with less information asymmetry. Finally, the accounting conservatism of consolidated financial statements decrease after the adoption of IFRSs (International Financial Reporting Standards) in Taiwan. It means that the disclosure and transparency of consolidated financial statements had be improved.

Keywords: voluntary audit, accounting conservatism, audit quality, information asymmetry

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Authors: Khanday Pervaiz Ahmad

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It was in 19th century when the Indian educated class started to reform their socio-religious set up as an imperative to respond to the challenges put forward by the colonial empire. The colonial discourse on India from the very beginning was gendered, as the colonized society was feminized and its ‘effeminate’ character, as opposed to ‘colonial masculinity’ was held to be a justification for its loss of independence. The ‘women health figure’ is prominently in these gender discourses. The women’s health received a much place in the colonial discourse. Lack of health consciousness, illiteracy, and belief in myths, rituals and superstitions were deemed the main factors taken as an indicator of miserable condition of Indian women’s health. As the low position of women caused shame to the natives, reforming the condition of women, its health occupied a major place in their intellectual as well as activist engagements. Magazines (journals) for women began to appear in various Indian languages in the mid to late 19th century with Bengal leading the front. These sources (Magazines) like Harm, Tehzib un Niswan, Saheli, Khatoon etc. are essential for the study of the emergence of an ideology of respectable domesticity in Indian Muslim upper middle class. Similarly for the study of development of Women’s health consciousness, women’s magazines are very essential. These earliest women Urdu magazines were first started by men, and then followed by the women’s own magazines. Various health issues, like pregnancy, child-rearing, menstruation, midwives training, Pardah, and health etc. were discussed at a time when it was impossible to discuss them in public sphere. These women magazines were brave pioneers, expanding the frontiers of women’s roles, and consciousness at a time when those frontiers were severely limited. This paper will try to focus on how women responded to the question of colonial discourse about their bodies. How health consciousness developed among Indian Muslim women and in what way it contributed in the development of feminist consciousness in South Asian Muslim Women community.

Keywords: Ashraf class, khatoon, haram women, feminism

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Authors: Victor Toom

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Albeit it is never possible to anticipate the full range of difficulties after a catastrophe, efforts to identify victims of mass casualty events have become institutionalized and standardized with the aim of effectively and efficiently addressing the many challenges and contingencies. Such ‘disaster victim identification’ (DVI) practices are dependent on the forensic sciences, are subject of national legislation, and are reliant on technical and organizational protocols to mitigate the many complexities in the wake of catastrophe. Apart from such technological, legal and bureaucratic elements constituting a DVI operation, victims’ families and their emotions are also part and parcel of any effort to identify casualties of mass human fatality incidents. Take for example the fact that forensic experts require (antemortem) information from the group of relatives to make identification possible. An identified body or body part is also repatriated to kin. Relatives are thus main stakeholders in DVI operations. Much has been achieved in years past regarding facilitating victims’ families’ issues and their emotions. Yet, how families are dealt with by experts and authorities is still considered a difficult topic. Due to sensitivities and required emphatic interaction with families on the one hand, and the rationalized DVI efforts, on the other hand, there is still scope for improving communication, providing information and meaningful inclusion of relatives in the DVI effort. This paper aims to bridge the standardized world of DVI efforts and families’ experienced realities and makes suggestions to further improve DVI efforts through inclusion of victims’ families. Based on qualitative interviews, the paper narrates involvement and experiences of inter alia DVI practitioners, victims’ families, advocates and clergy in the wake of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide which killed approximately 8,000 men, and the 9/11 in New York City with 2,750 victims. The paper shows that there are several models of including victims’ families into a DVI operation, and it argues for a model of where victims’ families become a partner in DVI operations.

Keywords: disaster victim identification (DVI), victims’ families, social science (qualitative), 9/11 attacks, Srebrenica genocide

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Authors: Farida Ibrahim

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Right to information is the public's right to know through having access to public information held by state bodies. Recognized as a cornerstone in transparent, participatory and open democracies, the right to information is increasingly perceived today as an emerging human right on the international level. While this right is conceptualized in a range of different contexts, the paper focuses on its conceptualization as a force for socio-economic change for disadvantaged groups. The paper's goal is study the instrumental capacity of this right in empowering the public to access state-held information pertinent to their socio-economic rights. In this regard, the paper views the right to information as an inclusionary tool that is capable of spurring inclusion for individuals excluded from the ambits of both: public participation and social justice. For exploring this, the paper examines the advocacy role played by civil society groups in furthering this instrumental capacity. In particular, the paper presents a focused account on the Egyptian case. While Egypt has recently adopted its constitutional provision on access to information, doubts arise on Egyptian citizens' genuine ability to access information held by state bodies. The politico-economic environment, long term culture of bureaucratic secrecy, and legal framework do not provide promising outcomes on access to public information. Within the particular context of the Egyptian case, this paper questions the extent to which civil society in Egypt is capable of instrumentally employing the political opportunity offered by the constitutional entitlement to information access for pressuring public authorities to disclose information. Through four lawsuits brought by civil society groups in Egypt, the paper argues that the right to information has instrumentally provided civil society actors with new domains of mobilization for furthering the realization of social and economic rights, and ultimately, for renegotiating a new social order lining the relationship between the Egyptian state and its citizens marginalized by socio-economic imbalances.

Keywords: civil society, Egypt, right to information, socio-economic rights

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Authors: Dilek Dede

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This study aims at scrutinized the dilemma between education place and working place with professional socialization dimension over the beginning teachers in Turkey is to be found the solution for the dilemma in Turkey. The research question is that how can be explained the gap between education place and working place for beginning teachers in Turkey. That expected to contribute to literature with the solutions for shorting the gap between working area and education area of the teaching profession in Turkey case. The study is constructed in two section. Firstly, socialization of the teaching profession and teaching modules have been discussed through the profession, education, working place indicators. In the second section, Secondly, two educational specialists from Turkey has been interviewed about their observation on trainee teachers compelling to participate the class for candidate teachers after university grade. Then, the dilemma between education area and working area of the teaching profession has been detected by of semi-structured and in-depth interviews, the literature on the relationality of institutions and regulation is discussed. The following outcomes have been accessed in accordance with the data set and literature linkage axis: Firstly, teachers coming from the distinctive programmes as an educational background. Hence, teachers who pertain to distinctive cultures work in the same environment. That cause cultural conflicts and complication of socialization of profession. Secondly, the insufficient partnership between schools and universities besides, the education classes lead to a struggle of culture among these two institutions. Thirdly, the education classes are designed as bureaucratic form instead of coalescence between head teachers and trainee teachers around a common culture. That become deep the dilemma. In conclusion, on condition that applied-oriented education that advocates in-service learning is promoted and this programme is supported with well-structured the in-service training through the partnership of universities and schools, the gap between the working-area and education-area might be shortened.

Keywords: beginning teachers, construction of a common, social mobilization in the teaching profession, teacher training institution, the relationality of the regulations and institutions

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Authors: Sophie Kroeling, Agnetha Schuchardt

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Striving for sustainability brings a lot of challenges for different fields of interest, e. g. security or health concerns. In Germany, civil protection is predominantly carried out by emergency responders who perform essential tasks of civil protection. Based on theoretical concepts of different psychological stress theories this contribution focuses on the question, how the resilience of emergency responders can be improved. The goal is to identify resources and successful coping strategies that help to prevent and reduce negative outcomes during or after stressful events. The paper will present results from a qualitative analysis of semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 emergency responders. These results provide insights into the complexity of coping processes (e. g. controlling the situation, downplaying perceived personal threats through humor) and show the diversity of stressors (like complexity of the disastrous situation, intrusive press and media, or lack of social support within the organization). Self-efficacy expectation was a very important resource for coping with stressful situations. The results served as a starting point for a quantitative survey (that was conducted in March 2017), the development of education and training tools for emergency responders and the improvement of critical incident stress management processes. First results from the quantitative study with more than 700 participants show that, e. g., the emergency responders use social coping within their private social network and also within their aid organization and that both are correlated to resilience. Moreover, missing information, bureaucratic problems and social conflicts within the organization are events that the majority of the participants considered very onerous. Further results from regression analysis will be presented. The proposed paper will combine findings from the qualitative study with the quantitative results, illustrating figures and correlations with respective statements from the interviews. At the end, suggestions for the improvement of the emergency responder’s resilience are given and it is discussed how this can make a contribution to strive for civil security and furthermore a sustainable development.

Keywords: civil security, emergency responders, stress, resilience, resources

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Authors: Jonathan Ogwal, Louis H. Kamulegeya, John M. Bwanika, Davis Musinguzi

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Introduction: Community retail Pharmacy drug distribution points (CRPDDP) were implemented in the Lango sub-region as part of the Ministry of Health’s response to improving access and adherence to antiretroviral treatment (ART). Clients received their ART refills from nearby local pharmacies; as such, the need for continuous engagement through mobile phone appointment reminders and health messages. We share learnings from the implementation of mobile text reminders and voice call follow-ups among ART clients attending the CRPDDP program in northern Uganda. Methods: A retrospective data review of electronic medical records from four pharmacies allocated for CRPDDP in the Lira and Apac districts of the Lango sub-region in Northern Uganda was done from February to August 2022. The process involved collecting phone contacts of eligible clients from the health facility appointment register and uploading them onto a messaging platform customized by Rapid-pro, an open-source software. Client information, including code name, phone number, next appointment date, and the allocated pharmacy for ART refill, was collected and kept confidential. Contacts received appointment reminder messages and other messages on positive living as an ART client. Routine voice call follow-ups were done to ascertain the picking of ART from the refill pharmacy. Findings: In total, 1,354 clients were reached from the four allocated pharmacies found in urban centers. 972 clients received short message service (SMS) appointment reminders, and 382 were followed up through voice calls. The majority (75%) of the clients returned for refills on the appointed date, 20% returned within four days after the appointment date, and the remaining 5% needed follow-up where they reported that they were not in the district by the appointment date due to other engagements. Conclusion: The use of mobile text reminders and voice call follow-ups improves the attendance of community retail pharmacy refills.

Keywords: antiretroviral treatment, community retail drug distribution points, mobile text reminders, voice call follow-up

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Authors: Ahmad Khoirul Umam

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This paper investigates the role of vested interests and its impacts on anti-corruption agenda in Indonesia following the collapse of authoritarian regime in 1998. A pervasive and rampant corruption has been believed as the main cause of the state economy’s fragility. Hence, anti-corruption measures were implemented by applying democratization and market liberalization since the establishment of a consolidated democracy which go hand in hand with a liberal market economy is convinced to be an efficacious prescription for effective anti-corruption. The reform movement has also mandated the establishment of the independent, neutral and professional special anti-corruption agency namely Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to more intensify the fight against the systemic corruption. This paper will examine whether these anti-corruption measures have been effective to combat corruption, and investigate to what extend have the anti-corruption efforts, especially those conducted by KPK, been impeded by the emergence of a nexus of vested interests as the side-effect of democratization and market liberalization. Based on interviews with key stakeholders from KPK, other law enforcement agencies, government, prominent scholars, journalists and NGOs in Indonesia, it is found that since the overthrow of Soeharto, anti-corruption movement in the country have become more active and serious. After gradually winning the hearth of people, KPK successfully touched the untouchable corruption perpetrators who were previously protected by political immunity, legal protection and bureaucratic barriers. However, these changes have not necessarily reduced systemic and structural corruption practices. Ironically, intensive and devastating counterattacks were frequently posed by the alignment of business actors, elites of political parties, government, and also law enforcement agencies by hijacking state’s instruments to make KPK deflated, powerless, and surrender. This paper concludes that attempts of democratization, market liberalization and the establishment of anti-corruption agency may have helped Indonesia to reduce corruption. However, it is still difficult to imply that such anti-corruption measures have fostered the more effective anti-corruption works in the newly democratized and weakly regulated liberal economic system.

Keywords: vested interests, democratization, market liberalization, anti-corruption, Indonesia

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Authors: Afees Adebayo Salam

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This paper attempts an in-depth analysis of the economic impact of Ogbomoso migrant community in the Jos metropolis. It discusses the factors that motivated a sizeable number of Ogbomoso people (from southwestern Nigeria) to leave their hometown for a new place/space in Jos (northern Nigeria). It examines the historical antecedent of Ogbomoso migrants in northern Nigeria with emphasis on Jos metropolis. The movement of Ogbomoso migrants to Jos was dictated by the economic and social challenges of colonial and post-colonial periods. The political crisis of the 1960s was a contributory factor to the process of Ogbomoso migration to other parts of Nigeria. In the aftermath, many people migrated from Ogbomoso to different parts of the country and beyond to seek for better economic opportunities. The establishment of Ogbomoso migrant community in Jos was dated back to the colonial era when taxation was introduced by the British. Many people could not pay these taxes from their peasant farming activities, while some embarked on migration to places such as Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Keffi and Bauchi due to the harsh economic situation at home. Their settlement in Jos brought about success in several spheres of human endeavours. Ogbomoso migrants dominated both paid jobs and private business sector such as textile merchants, food stuff sellers, herbalists, printers, transporters, and religious missionaries, as well as clerical officers in the government establishments. Their remittances were invested in different sectors of Ogbomoso economy. The migrants had in one way or the other contributed to the socio-economic development of their host community in Jos as entrepreneurs. Branches of such industries were located in their hometown of Ogbomoso as a clear demonstration of community development. The remittance pattern of the migrants has transformed Ogbomoso to enviable position. Moreover, the economic success of Ogbomoso migrants over the period under review indicates the process of nation building due to peaceful nature of inter-ethnic engagements between Ogbomoso migrants and their host community in Jos. Therefore, the paper makes use of oral, archival and secondary sources to analyse the processes of migration and its economic impact. Oral interviews were conducted in Ogbomoso town with veteran migrants and their family members. Interviews were also conducted in Jos with the indigenous host community as well as other urban residents. Archival materials were obtained from Arewa House Archives and the National Archives, Kaduna and the National Archives, Ibadan.

Keywords: Ogbomoso migrants, Jos metropolis, community development, economic impact

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Authors: Mandy Wilson, Emma Vieira, Jocelyn Jones, Alice V. Brown, Lindey Andrews, Louise Southalan, Jackie Oakley, Dorothy Bagshaw, Patrick Egan, Laura Dent, Duc Dau, Lucy Spanswick

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Alcohol and drug dependency are pertinent issues for those experiencing homelessness. This includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Australia’s traditional owners, living in Perth, Western Australia (WA). Societal narratives around the drivers behind drug and alcohol dependency in Aboriginal communities, particularly those experiencing homelessness, have been biased and unchanging, with little regard for complexity. This can include the idea that Aboriginal people have ‘chosen’ to use alcohol or other drugs without consideration for intergenerational trauma and the trauma of homelessness that may influence their choices. These narratives have flow-on impacts on policies and services that directly impact Aboriginal people experiencing homelessness. In 2021, we commenced a project which aimed to listen to and elevate the voices of 70-90 Aboriginal people experiencing homelessness in Perth. The project is community-driven, led by an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation in partnership with a university research institute. A community-ownership group of Aboriginal Elders endorsed the project’s methods, chosen to ensure their suitability for the Aboriginal community. In this paper, we detail these methods, including semi-structured interviews influenced by an Aboriginal yarning approach – an important style of conversation for Aboriginal people which follows cultural protocols; and photovoice – supporting people to share their stories through photography. Through these engagements, we detail the reasons Aboriginal people in Perth shared for using alcohol or other drugs while experiencing homelessness. These included supporting their survival on the streets, managing their mental health, and coping while on the journey to finding support. We also detail why they sought to discontinue alcohol and other drug use, including wanting to reconnect with family and changing priorities. Finally, we share how Aboriginal people experiencing homelessness have said they are impacted by their family’s alcohol and other drug use, including feeling uncomfortable living with a family who is drug and alcohol-dependent and having to care for grandchildren despite their own homelessness. These findings provide a richer understanding of alcohol and drug use for Aboriginal people experiencing homelessness in Perth, shedding light on potential changes to targeted policy and service approaches.

Keywords: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, alcohol and other drugs, homelessness, community-led research

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Authors: Giorgi Katamadze

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Open public service and accountability towards citizens is an important feature of democratic state based on rule of law. Effective use of electronic resources simplifies bureaucratic procedures, makes direct communications, helps exchange information, ensures government’s openness and in general helps develop electronic/digital democracy. Development of electronic democracy should be a strategic dimension of Georgian governance. Formation of electronic democracy, its functional improvement should become an important dimension of the state’s information policy. Electronic democracy is based on electronic governance and implies modern information and communication systems, their adaptation to universal standards. E-democracy needs involvement of governments, voters, political parties and social groups in an electronic form. In the last years the process of interaction between the citizen and the state becomes simpler. This process is achieved by the use of modern technological systems which gives to a citizen a possibility to use different public services online. For example, the website my.gov.ge makes interaction between the citizen, business and the state more simple, comfortable and secure. A higher standard of accountability and interaction is being established. Electronic democracy brings new forms of interactions between the state and the citizen: e-engagement – participation of society in state politics via electronic systems; e-consultation – electronic interaction among public officials, citizens and interested groups; e-controllership – electronic rule and control of public expenses and service. Public transparency is one of the milestones of electronic democracy as well as representative democracy as only on mutual trust and accountability can democracy be established. In Georgia, institutional changes concerning establishment and development of electronic democracy are not enough. Effective planning and implementation of a comprehensive and multi component e-democracy program (central, regional, local levels) requires telecommunication systems, institutional (public service, competencies, logical system) and informational (relevant conditions for public involvement) support. Therefore, a systematic project of formation of electronic governance should be developed which will include central, regional, municipal levels and certain aspects of development of instrumental basis for electronic governance.

Keywords: e-democracy, e-governance, e-services, information technology, public administration

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Authors: Noah Wayne, Andrea Tuka, Adrian Norbash, Bryan Garber, Paul Ritvo

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Program/Intervention Description: The Canadian Armed Forces(CAF) Mental Health Clinicstreat a full spectrum of mental disorder, addictions, and psychosocial issues that include Major Depressive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and other diagnoses. We evaluated the feasibility of an online health coach interventiondelivering mindfulness based cognitive behavioral therapy (M-CBT) and behaviour changesupport for individuals receiving treatment at CAF Clinics. Participants were provided accounts on NexJ Connected Wellness, a digital health platform, and 16 weeks of phone-based health coaching,emphasizingmild to moderate aerobic exercise, a healthy diet, and M-CBT content. The primary objective was to assess the feasibility of the online deliverywith CAF members. Evaluation Methods: Feasibility was evaluated in terms of recruitment, engagement, and program satisfaction. Weadditionallyevaluatedhealth behavior change, program completion, and mental health symptoms (i.e. PHQ-9, GAD-7, PCL-5) at three time points. Results: Service members were referred from Vancouver, Esquimalt, and Edmonton CAF bases between August 2020 and January 2021. N=106 CAF personnel were referred, and n=77 consented.N=66 participated, and n=44 completed 4-month and follow-up measures. The platform received a mean rating of76.5 on the System Usability Scale, and health coaching was judged the most helpful program feature (95.2% endorsement), while reminders (53.7%), secure messaging (51.2%), and notifications (51.2%) were also identified. Improvements in mental health status during active interventions were observed on the PHQ-9 (-5.4, p<0.001), GAD-7 (-4.0, p<0.001), and PCL-5 (-4.1, p<0.05). Conclusion: Online health coaching was well-received amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns. Uptake and engagement were positively reported. Participants valuedcontacts and reported strong therapeutic alliances with coaches. Healthy diet, regular exercise, and mindfulness practice are important for physical and mental health. Engagements in these behaviors are associated with reduced symptoms. An online health coach program appears feasible for assisting Canadian Armed Forces personnel.

Keywords: coaching, CBT, military, depression, mental health, digital

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Authors: Moujib Bahri, Rahim Kallel, Ouafa Sakka

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Corruption is a phenomenon that increases uncertainty and risk of SMEs as it undermines the quality of the business environment and the easy access to public services. Our research builds on existing research on corruption's effects on economic growth at the firm level. Several papers have analyzed the effect of firms’ payments of bribes on their performance; however, only limited research has investigated the link between corruption, innovation, and exports. Drawing on principal-agent theory, we explore how corruption weakens the institutional context and makes the business environment unsound and not conducive to innovation and exports. This study employs data from The Enterprise Surveys conducted in Tunisia between March 2013 and July 2014 by the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The main objective of this survey was to gain a better understanding of Tunisian firms’ perception of the environment in which they operate. Since 2011, the country's political situation has become fragile and unstable, and public services are perceived as inefficient and corrupt. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 537 Tunisian manufacturing SMEs using structural equation modeling and path analysis. We find that political instability leads to higher level of corruption, and that excessive business licensing regulations create a fertile ground for bribery. Our findings do not support the greasing hypothesis suggesting that corruption can reduce the negative effect of bureaucratic delays and the hard access of companies to public services related to innovation and exports. Instead, our results support the sanding hypothesis according to which corruption hinders innovation activities and exports. Furthermore, corruption is found to, negatively and significantly, impact firms’ ownership of quality certificates. Our results suggest that, in an environment with a high level of corruption, governments and policymakers interested in assisting SMEs with their innovation and export activities should have a better control on corruption to allow them developing those activities without being forced to bribe government officers.

Keywords: corruption, innovation, exports, SMEs

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Authors: J. Fox, J. Randhawa, M. Chan, L. Campbell, A. Weakely, D. J. Harvey, S. Tomaszewski Farias

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Early identification of individuals at risk for conversion to dementia provides an opportunity for preventative treatment. Many older adults (30-60%) report specific subjective cognitive decline (SCD); however, previous research is inconsistent in terms of what types of complaints predict future cognitive decline. The purpose of this study is to identify which specific complaints from the Everyday Cognition Scales (ECog) scales, a measure of self-reported concerns for everyday abilities across six cognitive domains, are associated with: 1) conversion from a clinical diagnosis of normal to either MCI or dementia (categorical variable) and 2) progressive cognitive decline in memory and executive function (continuous variables). 415 cognitively normal older adults were monitored annually for an average of 5 years. Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess associations between self-reported ECog items and progression to impairment (MCI or dementia). A total of 114 individuals progressed to impairment; the mean time to progression was 4.9 years (SD=3.4 years, range=0.8-13.8). Follow-up models were run controlling for depression. A subset of individuals (n=352) underwent repeat cognitive assessments for an average of 5.3 years. For those individuals, mixed effects models with random intercepts and slopes were used to assess associations between ECog items and change in neuropsychological measures of episodic memory or executive function. Prior to controlling for depression, subjective concerns on five of the eight Everyday Memory items, three of the nine Everyday Language items, one of the seven Everyday Visuospatial items, two of the five Everyday Planning items, and one of the six Everyday Organization items were associated with subsequent diagnostic conversion (HR=1.25 to 1.59, p=0.003 to 0.03). However, after controlling for depression, only two specific complaints of remembering appointments, meetings, and engagements and understanding spoken directions and instructions were associated with subsequent diagnostic conversion. Episodic memory in individuals reporting no concern on ECog items did not significantly change over time (p>0.4). More complaints on seven of the eight Everyday Memory items, three of the nine Everyday Language items, and three of the seven Everyday Visuospatial items were associated with a decline in episodic memory (Interaction estimate=-0.055 to 0.001, p=0.003 to 0.04). Executive function in those reporting no concern on ECog items declined slightly (p <0.001 to 0.06). More complaints on three of the eight Everyday Memory items and three of the nine Everyday Language items were associated with a decline in executive function (Interaction estimate=-0.021 to -0.012, p=0.002 to 0.04). These findings suggest that specific complaints across several cognitive domains are associated with diagnostic conversion. Specific complaints in the domains of Everyday Memory and Language are associated with a decline in both episodic memory and executive function. Increased monitoring and treatment of individuals with these specific SCD may be warranted.

Keywords: alzheimer’s disease, dementia, memory complaints, mild cognitive impairment, risk factors, subjective cognitive decline

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Authors: Jessica Ding

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The field of global health is currently advocating for a resurgence in the use of traditional medicines to improve people-centered care. Healthcare policies are rapidly changing in response; in China, the increasing presence of TCM in the same spaces as biomedicine has led to a new term: integrative medicine. However, the existence of TCM as a part of integrative medicine creates a pressing paradoxical tension where TCM is both seen as a marginalized system within ‘modern’ hospitals and as a modality worth integrating. Additionally, the impact of such shifts has not been fully explored: the World Health Organization for one focuses only on three angles —practices, products, and practitioners— with regards to traditional medicines. Through ten weeks of fieldwork conducted at an urban hospital in Shanghai, China, this research expands the perspective of existing strategies by looking at integrative care through a fourth lens: patients and families. The understanding of self-care, health-seeking behavior, and non-professional caregiving structures are critical to grasping the significance of traditional medicine for people-centered care. Indeed, those individual and informal health care expectations align with the very spaces and needs that traditional medicine has filled before such ideas of integration. It specifically looks at this issue via three processes that operationalize experiences of care: (1) how aspects of TCM are valued within integrative medicine, (2) how negotiations of care occur between patients and doctors, and (3) how 'good quality' caregiving presents in integrative clinical spaces. This research hopes to lend insight into how culturally embedded traditions, bureaucratic and institutional rationalities, and social patterns of health-seeking behavior influence care to shape illness experiences at the intersection of two medical modalities. This analysis of patients’ clinical and illness experiences serves to enrich the narratives of integrative medical care’s ability to provide patient-centered care to determine how international policies are realized at the individual level. This anthropological study of the integration of Traditional Chinese medicine in local contexts can reveal the extent to which global strategies, as promoted by the WHO and the Chinese government actually align with the expectations and perspectives of patients receiving care. Ultimately, this ethnographic analysis of a local Chinese context hopes to inform global policies regarding the future use and integration of traditional medicines.

Keywords: emergent systems, global health, integrative medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, TCM

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Authors: Eric Awich Ochen

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The end of the conflict in Northern Uganda in 2006 brought about an opportunity for the youth to return to their original home and contribute to the peace building and development process of their communities. Post-conflict is used here to refer to the post-armed conflict situation and activities of rebels of Joseph Kony in northern Uganda. While the rebels remain very much active in the Sudan and Central African Republic, in Uganda the last confrontations occurred around 2006 or earlier, and communities have returned to their homes and began the process of rebuilding their lives. It is argued that socio-economic reconstruction is at the heart of peacebuilding and sustenance of positive peace in the aftermath of conflict, as it has a bearing on post-conflict stability and good governance. We recognize that several post-conflict interventions within Northern Uganda have targeted women and children with a strong emphasis on family socio-economic empowerment and capacity building, including access to micro finance. The aim of this study was to examine the participation of the youth in post-conflict peace building and development in Northern Uganda by assessing the breadth and width of their engagement and the stages of programming cycle that they are involved in, interrogating the space for participation and how they are facilitating or constraining participation. It was further aimed at examining the various dimensions of participation at play in Northern Uganda and where this fits within the conceptual debates on peace building and development in the region. Supporting young people emerging out of protracted conflict to re-establish meaningful socio-economic engagements and livelihoods is fundamental to their participation in the affairs of the community. The study suggests that in the post-conflict development context of Northern Uganda, participation has rarely been disaggregated or differentiated by sectors or groups. Where some disaggregation occurs, then the main emphasis has always been on either women or children. It appears therefore that little meaningful space has thus been created for young people to engage and participate in peace building initiatives within the region. In other cases where some space is created for youth participation, this has been in pre-conceived programs or interventions conceived by the development organizations with the youth or young people only invited to participate at particular stages of the project implementation cycle. Still within the implementation of the intervention, the extent to which young people participate is bounded, with little power to influence the course of the interventions or make major decisions. It is thus visible that even here young people mainly validate and legitimize what are predetermined processes only act as pawns in the major chess games played by development actors (dominant peace building partners). This paper, therefore, concludes that the engagement of the youth in post-conflict peace building has been quite problematic and tokenistic and has not given the adequate youth space within which they could ably participate and express themselves in the ensuing interventions.

Keywords: youth, conflict, peace building, participation

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Authors: Zoran Barac, Maja Martinovic

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Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are a special kind of organization, with its unique purpose and combination of actors. From the societal point of view, they are central institutions in the society that are involved in the activities of education, research, and innovation. At the same time, their societal function derives complex relationships between involved actors, ranging from students, faculty and administration, business community and corporate partners, government agencies, to the general public. HEIs are also particularly interesting as objects of governance research because of their unique public purpose and combination of stakeholders. Furthermore, they are the special type of institutions from an organizational viewpoint. HEIs are often described as “loosely coupled systems” or “organized anarchies“ that implies the challenging nature of their governance models. Governance models of HEIs describe roles, constellations, and modes of interaction of the involved actors in the process of strategic direction and holistic control of institutions, taking into account each particular context. Many governance models of the HEIs are primarily based on the balance of power among the involved actors. Besides the actors’ power and influence, leadership style and environmental contingency could impact the governance model of an HEI. Analyzing them through the frameworks of institutional and contingency theories, HEI governance models originate as outcomes of their institutional and contingency adaptation. HEIs tend to fit to institutional context comprised of formal and informal institutional rules. By fitting to institutional context, HEIs are converging to each other in terms of their structures, policies, and practices. On the other hand, contingency framework implies that there is no governance model that is suitable for all situations. Consequently, the contingency approach begins with identifying contingency variables that might impact a particular governance model. In order to be effective, the governance model should fit to contingency variables. While the institutional context creates converging forces on HEI governance actors and approaches, contingency variables are the causes of divergence of actors’ behavior and governance models. Finally, an HEI governance model is a balanced adaptation of the HEIs to the institutional context and contingency variables. It also encompasses roles, constellations, and modes of interaction of involved actors influenced by institutional and contingency pressures. Actors’ adaptation to the institutional context brings benefits of legitimacy and resources. On the other hand, the adaptation of the actors’ to the contingency variables brings high performance and effectiveness. HEI governance models outlined and analyzed in this paper are collegial, bureaucratic, entrepreneurial, network, professional, political, anarchical, cybernetic, trustee, stakeholder, and amalgam models.

Keywords: governance, governance models, higher education institutions, institutional context, situational context

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Authors: Senait Belay Adugna, Mirutse Giday, Tsegahun Manyazewal

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Background: The emergence and resurgence of zoonotic diseases have continued to be a major threat to global health and the economy. Developing countries are particularly vulnerable due to agricultural expansions and the domestication of animals by humans. Scientifically sound clinical trials are important to find better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat zoonotic diseases, while there is a lack of evidence to inform the clinical trials’ capacity and practice in countries highly affected by the diseases. This study aimed to investigate researchers’ perceptions and experiences in conducting clinical trials on zoonotic diseases in Ethiopia. Methods: This study employed a descriptive, qualitative study design. It included major academic and research institutions in Ethiopia that had active engagements in veterinary and public health research. It included the National Veterinary Institute, the National Animal Health Diagnostic and Investigation Center, the College of Veterinary Medicine at Addis Ababa University, the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, the Armauer Hansen Research Institute, and the College of Health Sciences at Addis Ababa University. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 senior researcher investigators in the institutions who hold a proven exhibit primarily leading research activities or research units. Data were collected from October 2019 to April 2020. Data analysis was undertaken using open code 4.03 for qualitative data analysis. Results: Five major themes, with 18 sub-themes, emerged from the in-depth interview in connection. These were: challenges in the prevention, control, and treatment of zoonotic diseases; One Health approach to mitigate zoonotic diseases; personal and institutional experiences in conducting clinical trials on zoonotic diseases; barriers in conducting clinical trials towards zoonotic diseases; and strategies that promote conducting clinical trials on zoonotic diseases. Conducting clinical trials on zoonotic diseases in Ethiopia is hampered by a lack of clearly articulated ethics and regulatory frameworks, trial experts, financial resources, and good governance. Conclusions: In Ethiopia, conducting clinical trials on zoonotic diseases deserves due attention. Strengthening institutional and human resources capacity is a precondition to harnessing effective implementation of clinical trials on zoonotic diseases in the country. In Ethiopia, where skilled human resource is scarce, the One Health approach has the potential to form multidisciplinary teams to systematically improve clinical trials capacity and outcomes in the country.

Keywords: Ethiopia, clinical triak, zoonoses, disease

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Authors: Felippe Clemente, Evaldo Henrique da Silva

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The need to adopt some type of industrial policy and innovation in Brazil is a recurring theme in the discussion of public interventions aimed at boosting economic growth. For many years, the country has adopted various policies to change its productive structure in order to increase the participation of sectors that would have the greatest potential to generate innovation and economic growth. Only in the 2000s, tax incentives as a policy to support industrial and technological innovation are being adopted in Brazil as a phenomenon associated with rates of productivity growth and economic development. In this context, in late 2004 and 2005, Brazil reformulated its institutional apparatus for innovation in order to approach the OECD conventions and the Frascati Manual. The Innovation Law (2004) and the 'Lei do Bem' (2005) reduced some institutional barriers to innovation, provided incentives for university-business cooperation, and modified access to tax incentives for innovation. Chapter III of the 'Lei do Bem' (no. 11,196/05) is currently the most comprehensive fiscal incentive to stimulate innovation. It complies with the requirements, which stipulates that the Union should encourage innovation in the company or industry by granting tax incentives. With its introduction, the bureaucratic procedure was simplified by not requiring pre-approval of projects or participation in bidding documents. However, preliminary analysis suggests that this instrument has not yet been able to stimulate the sector diversification of these investments in Brazil, since its benefits are mostly captured by sectors that already developed this activity, thus showing problems with moral hazard. It is necessary, then, to analyze the 'Lei do Bem' to know if there is indeed the need for some change, investigating what changes should be implanted in the Brazilian innovation policy. This work, therefore, shows itself as a first effort to analyze a current national problem, evaluating the effectiveness of the 'Lei do Bem' and suggesting public policies that help and direct the State to the elaboration of legislative laws capable of encouraging agents to follow what they describes. As a preliminary result, it is known that 130 firms used fiscal incentives for innovation in 2006, 320 in 2007 and 552 in 2008. Although this number is on the rise, it is still small, if it is considered that there are around 6 thousand firms that perform Research and Development (R&D) activities in Brazil. Moreover, another obstacle to the 'Lei do Bem' is the percentages of tax incentives provided to companies. These percentages reveal a significant sectoral correlation between R&D expenditures of large companies and R&D expenses of companies that accessed the 'Lei do Bem', reaching a correlation of 95.8% in 2008. With these results, it becomes relevant to investigate the law's ability to stimulate private investments in R&D.

Keywords: brazilian innovation system, moral hazard, R&D, Lei do Bem

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Authors: Anxuan Xie, Chun-Chan Yu

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Survey evidence provides support that auditors can gain professional knowledge not only from client firms but also from teammates they work with. Furthermore, given that knowledge is accumulated in nature, along with the reality that auditors today must work in an environment of increased diversity, whether the attributes of teammates will influence the effects of knowledge sharing and accumulation and ultimately influence an audit partner’s audit quality should be interesting research issues. We test whether the gender of co-signers will moderate the effect of a lead partner’s cooperative experiences on financial restatements. Furthermore, if the answer is “yes”, we further investigate the underlying reasons. We use data from Taiwan because, according to Taiwan’s law, engagement partners, who are basically two certificate public accountants from the same audit firm, are required to disclose (i.e., sign) their names in the audit report of public companies since 1983. Therefore, we can trace each engagement partner’s historic direct cooperative (co-signing) records and get large-sample data. We find that the benefits of knowledge sharing manifest primarily via co-signing audit reports with audit partners of different gender from the lead engagement partners, supporting the argument that in an audit setting, accumulated gender-diverse working relationship is positively associated with knowledge sharing, and therefore improve lead engagements’ audit quality. This study contributes to the extant literature in the following ways. First, we provide evidence that in the auditing setting, the experiences accumulated from cooperating with teammates of a different gender from the lead partner can improve audit quality. Given that most studies find evidence of negative effects of surface-level diversity on team performance, the results of this study support the prior literature that the association between diversity and knowledge sharing actually hinges on the context (e.g., organizational culture, task complexity) and “bridge” (a pre-existing commonality among team members that can smooth the process of diversity toward favorable results) among diversity team members. Second, this study also provides practical insights with respect to the audit firms’ policy of knowledge sharing and deployment of engagement partners. For example, for audit firms that appreciate the merits of knowledge sharing, the deployment of auditors of different gender within an audit team can help auditors accumulate audit-related knowledge, which will further benefit the future performance of those audit firms. Moreover, nowadays, client firms also attach importance to the diversity of their engagement partners. As their policy goals, lawmakers and regulators also continue to promote a gender-diverse working environment. The findings of this study indicate that for audit firms, gender diversity will not be just a means to cater to those groups. Third, for audit committees or other stakeholders, they can evaluate the quality of existing (or potential) lead partners by tracking their co-signing experiences, especially whether they have gender-diverse co-signing experiences.

Keywords: co-signing experiences, audit quality, knowledge sharing, gender diversity

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Authors: Elsher Lawson-Boyd

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In the wake of the Human Genome Project, the life sciences have undergone some fascinating changes. In particular, conventional beliefs relating to gene expression are being challenged by advances in postgenomic sciences, especially by the field of epigenetics. Epigenetics is the modification of gene expression without changes in the DNA sequence. In other words, epigenetics dictates that gene expression, the process by which the instructions in DNA are converted into products like proteins, is not solely controlled by DNA itself. Unlike gene-centric theories of heredity that characterized much of the 20th Century (where the genes were considered as having almost god-like power to create life), gene expression in epigenetics insists on environmental ‘signals’ or ‘exposures’, a point that radically deviates from gene-centric thinking. Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars have shown that epigenetic research is having vast implications for the ways in which chronic, non-communicable diseases are conceptualized, treated, and governed. However, to the author’s knowledge, there have not yet been any in-depth sociological engagements with neuroepigenetics that examine how the field is affecting mental health and trauma discourse. In this paper, the author discusses preliminary findings from a doctoral ethnographic study on neuroepigenetics, trauma, and embodiment. Specifically, this study investigates the kinds of causal relations neuroepigenetic researchers are making between experiences of trauma and the development of mental illnesses like complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), both throughout a human’s lifetime and across generations. Using qualitative interviews and nonparticipant observation, the author focuses on two public-facing research centers based in Melbourne: Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health (FNMH), and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI). Preliminary findings indicate that a great deal of ambiguity characterizes this infant field, particularly when animal-model experiments are employed and the results are translated into human frameworks. Nevertheless, researchers at the FNMH and MCRI strongly suggest that adverse and traumatic life events have a significant effect on gene expression, especially when experienced during early development. Furthermore, they predict that neuroepigenetic research will have substantial implications for the ways in which mental illnesses like complex PTSD are diagnosed and treated. These preliminary findings shed light on why medical and health sociologists have good reason to be chiming in, engaging with and de-black-boxing ideations emerging from postgenomic sciences, as they may indeed have significant effects for vulnerable populations not only in Australia but other developing countries in the Global South.

Keywords: genetics, mental illness, neuroepigenetics, trauma

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Authors: Priscilla Echeverria

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This paper addresses initial teacher formation as a formative space in which pedagogy students develop a pedagogical agency capacity to contribute to social justice, considering ethical, political, and epistemic dimensions. This paper is structured by discussing first the concepts of agency, pedagogical interaction, and social justice from a critical perspective; and continues offering preliminary results on the capacity of pedagogical agency in novice teachers after the analysis of critical incidents as a research methodology. This study is motivated by the concern that responding to the current neoliberal scenario, many initial teacher formation (ITF) programs have reduced the meaning of education to instruction, and pedagogy to methodology, favouring the formation of a technical professional over a reflective or critical one. From this concern, this study proposes that the restitution of the subject is an urgent task in teacher formation, so it is essential to enable him in his capacity for action and advance in eliminating institutionalized oppression insofar as it affects that capacity. Given that oppression takes place in human interaction, through this work, I propose that initial teacher formation develops sensitivity and educates the gaze to identify oppression and take action against it, both in pedagogical interactions -which configure political, ethical, and epistemic subjectivities- as in the hidden and official curriculum. All this from the premise that modelling democratic and dialogical interactions are basic for any program that seeks to contribute to a more just and empowered society. The contribution of this study lies in the fact that it opens a discussion in an area about which we know little: the impact of the type of interactions offered by university teaching at ITF on the capacity of future teachers to be pedagogical agents. For this reason, this study seeks to gather evidence of the result of this formation, analysing the capacity of pedagogical agency of novice teachers, or, in other words, how capable the graduates of secondary pedagogies are in their first pedagogical experiences to act and make decisions putting the formative purposes that they are capable of autonomously defining before technical or bureaucratic issues imposed by the curriculum or the official culture. This discussion is part of my doctoral research, "The importance of developing the capacity for ethical-political-epistemic agency in novice teachers during initial teacher formation to contribute to social justice", which I am currently developing in the Educational Research program of the University of Lancaster, United Kingdom, as a Conicyt fellow for the 2019 cohort.

Keywords: initial teacher formation, pedagogical agency, pedagogical interaction, social justice, hidden curriculum

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Authors: Amrita Sen

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In the face of a growing insurgent movement and the perceived failure of the state and the market towards sustainable resource management, a range of decentralized forest management policies was formulated in the last two decades, which recognized the need for community representations within the statutory methods of forest management. The recognition conceded on the virtues of ecological sustainability and traditional environmental knowledge, which were considered to be the principal repositories of the forest dependent communities. The present study, in the light of empirical insights, reflects on the contemporary disjunctions between the preconceived communitarian ethic in environmentalism and the lived reality of forest based life-worlds. Many of the popular as well as dominant ideologies, which have historically shaped the conceptual and theoretical understanding of sociology, needs further perusal in the context of the emerging contours of empirical knowledge, which lends opportunities for substantive reworking and analysis. The image of the community appears to be one of those concepts, an identity which has for long defined perspectives and processes associated with people living together harmoniously in small physical spaces. Through an ethnographic account of the implementation of Joint Forest Management (JFM) in a forest fringe village in Sundarban, the study explores the ways in which the idea of ‘community’ gets transformed through the process of state-making, rendering the necessity of its departure from the standard, conventional definition of homogeneity and internal equity. The study necessitates an attention towards the anthropology of micro-politics, disaggregating an essentially constructivist anthropology of ‘collective identities’, which can render the visibility of political mobilizations plausible within the seemingly culturalist production of communities. The two critical questions that the paper seeks to ask in this context are: how the ‘local’ is constituted within community based conservation practices? Within the efforts of collaborative forest management, how accurately does the depiction of ‘indigenous environmental knowledge’, subscribe to its role of sustainable conservation practices? Reflecting on the execution of JFM in Sundarban, the study critically explores the ways in which the state ceases to be ‘trans-national’ and interacts with the rural life-worlds through its local factions. Simultaneously, the study attempts to articulate the scope of constructing a competing representation of community, shaped by increasing political negotiations and bureaucratic alignments which strains against the usual preoccupations with tradition primordiality and non material culture as well as the amorous construction of indigeneity.

Keywords: community, environmentalism, JFM, state-making, identities, indigenous

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Authors: Emily Warren

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Despite the growing body of research on Japanese food history, little has been written about the attitudes and perspectives premodern Japanese people held about their food, even on special celebratory days. In fact, the overall image that arises from the literature is one of ambivalence: that the medieval nobility of the Heian and Kamakura periods (795-1333) did not much care about what they ate and for that reason, food seems relatively scarce in certain historical records. This study challenges this perspective by analyzing the manuals written to guide palace management and feast preparation for royals, introducing two of the sources into English for the first time. This research is primarily based on three manuals that address different aspects of royal food culture and preparation. The Chujiruiki, or Record of the Palace Kitchens (1295), is a fragmentary manual written by a bureaucrat in charge of the main palace kitchen office. This document collection details the utensils, furnishing, and courses that officials organized for the royals’ two daily meals in the morning (asagarei gozen) and in the afternoon (hiru gozen) when they enjoyed seven courses, each one carefully cooked and plated. The orchestration of daily meals and frequent banquets would have been complicated affairs for those preparing the tableware and food, thus requiring texts like the Chûjiruiki, as well as another manual, the Nicchûgyôji (11th c.), or The Daily Functions. Because of the complex coordination between various kitchen-related bureaucratic offices, kitchen officials endeavored to standardize the menus and place settings depending on the time of year, religious abstinence days, and available ingredients flowing into the capital as taxes. For the most important annual banquets and rites celebrating deities and the royal family, kitchen officials would likely refer to the Engi Shiki (927), or Protocols of the Engi Era, for details on offerings, servant payments, and menus. This study proposes that many of the great feast events, and indeed even daily meals at the palace, were so standardized and carefully planned for repetition that there would have been little need for the contents of such feasts to be detailed in diaries or novels—places where historians have noted a lack of the mention of food descriptions. These descriptions were not included for lack of interest on the part of the nobility, but rather because knowledge of what would be served at banquets and feasts would be considered a matter-of-course in the same way that a modern American would likely not need to state the menu of a traditional Thanksgiving meal to an American audience. Where food was concerned, novelty more so than tradition prompted a response in personal records, like diaries.

Keywords: banquets, bureaucracy, Engi shiki, Japanese food

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Authors: Stephen Kyakulumbye, Vivian Kobusingye

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Generally, World over, COVID-19 has had adverse effects on all sectors but with more debilitating effects on the education sector. After reactive lockdowns, education institutions that could continue teaching and learning had to go a distance mediated by digital technological tools. In Uganda, the Ministry of Education thereby issued COVID-19 Online Distance E-learning (ODeL) emergent guidelines. Despite such guidelines, academic institutions in Uganda and similar developing contexts with academically constrained resource environments were caught off-guard and ill-prepared to transform from face-to-face learning to online distance learning mode. Most academic institutions that migrated spontaneously did so with no deliberate tools, systems, strategies, or software to cause active, meaningful, and engaging learning for students. By experience, most of these academic institutions shifted to Zoom and WhatsApp and instead conducted online teaching in real-time than blended synchronous and asynchronous tools. This paper provides students’ experiences while blending synchronous and asynchronous content-creating and learning tools within a technological resource-constrained environment to navigate in such a challenging Uganda context. These conceptual case-based findings, using experience from Uganda Christian University (UCU), point at the design of learning activities with two certain characteristics, the enhancement of synchronous learning technologies with asynchronous ones to mitigate the challenge of system breakdown, passive learning to active learning, and enhances the types of presence (social, cognitive and facilitatory). The paper, both empirical and experiential in nature, uses online experiences from third-year students in Bachelor of Business Administration student lectured using asynchronous text, audio, and video created with Open Broadcaster Studio software and compressed with Handbrake, all open-source software to mitigate disk space and bandwidth usage challenges. The synchronous online engagements with students were a blend of zoom or BigBlueButton, to ensure that students had an alternative just in case one failed due to excessive real-time traffic. Generally, students report that compared to their previous face-to-face lectures, the pre-recorded lectures via Youtube provided them an opportunity to reflect on content in a self-paced manner, which later on enabled them to engage actively during the live zoom and/or BigBlueButton real-time discussions and presentations. The major recommendation is that lecturers and teachers in a resource-constrained environment with limited digital resources like the internet and digital devices should harness this approach to offer students access to learning content in a self-paced manner and thereby enabling reflective active learning through reflective and high-order thinking.

Keywords: synchronous learning, asynchronous learning, active learning, reflective learning, resource-constrained environment

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Authors: Simon Winberg

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The landscape of professional postgraduate education is changing: the focus of these programmes is moving from preparing candidates for a life in academia towards a focus of training in expert knowledge and skills to support industry. This is especially pronounced in engineering disciplines where increasingly more complex products are drawing on a depth of knowledge from multiple fields. This connects strongly with the broader notion of Industry 4.0 – where technology and society are being brought together to achieve more powerful and desirable products, but products whose inner workings also are more complex than before. The changes in what we do, and how we do it, has a profound impact on what industry would like universities to provide. One such change is the increased demand for taught doctoral and Masters programmes. These programmes aim to provide skills and training for professionals, to expand their knowledge of state-of-the-art tools and technologies. This paper investigates one such course, namely a Software Defined Radio (SDR) Master’s degree course. The teaching support for this course had to be drawn from an existing pool of academics, none of who were specialists in this field. The paper focuses on the kind of educator, a ‘hybrid academic’, assembled from available academic staff and bolstered by research. The conceptual framework for this paper combines Activity Theory and Genre Ecology. Activity Theory is used to reason about learning and interactions during the course, and Genre Ecology is used to model building and sharing of technical knowledge related to using tools and artifacts. Data were obtained from meetings with students and lecturers, logs, project reports, and course evaluations. The findings show how the course, which was initially academically-oriented, metamorphosed into a tool-dominant peer-learning structure, largely supported by the sharing of technical tool-based knowledge. While the academic staff could address gaps in the participants’ fundamental knowledge of radio systems, the participants brought with them extensive specialized knowledge and tool experience which they shared with the class. This created a complicated dynamic in the class, which centered largely on engagements with technology artifacts, such as simulators, from which knowledge was built. The course was characterized by a richness of ‘epistemic objects’, which is to say objects that had knowledge-generating qualities. A significant portion of the course curriculum had to be adapted, and the learning methods changed to accommodate the dynamic interactions that occurred during classes. This paper explains the SDR Masters course in terms of conflicts and innovations in its activity system, as well as the continually hybridizing genre ecology to show how the structuring and resource-dependence of the course transformed from its initial ‘traditional’ academic structure to a more entangled arrangement over time. It is hoped that insights from this paper would benefit other educators involved in the design and teaching of similar types of specialized professional postgraduate taught programmes.

Keywords: professional postgraduate education, taught masters, engineering education, software defined radio

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Authors: Rojan Dahal

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One Health refers to a collaborative effort between multiple disciplines - locally, nationally, and globally - to attain optimal health. Although there were unprecedented intersectoral alliances between the animal and human health sectors during the avian influenza outbreak, there are different views and perceptions concerning institutionalizing One Health in South Asia. It is likely a structural barrier between the relevant professionals working in different entities or ministries when it comes to collaborating on One Health actions regarding zoonotic diseases. Politicians and the public will likely need to invest large amounts of money, demonstrate political will, and understand how One Health works to overcome these barriers. One Health might be hard to invest in South Asian countries, where the benefits are based primarily on models and projections and where numerous issues related to development and health need urgent attention. The other potential barrier to enabling the One Health concept in responding to zoonotic diseases is a failure to represent One Health in zoonotic disease control and prevention measures in the national health policy, which is a critical component of institutionalizing the One Health concept. One Health cannot be institutionalized without acknowledging the linkages between animal, human, and environmental sectors in dealing with zoonotic diseases. Efforts have been made in the past to prepare a preparedness plan for One Health implementation, but little has been done to establish a policy environment to institutionalize One Health. It is often assumed that health policy refers specifically to medical care issues and health care services. When drafting, reviewing, and redrafting the policy, it is important to engage a wide range of stakeholders. One Health institutionalization may also be hindered by the interplay between One Health professionals and bureaucratic inertia in defining the priorities of diseases due to competing interests on limited budgets. There is a possibility that policymakers do not recognize the importance of veterinary professionals in preventing human diseases originating in animals. Compared to veterinary medicine, the human health sector has produced most of the investment and research outputs related to zoonotic diseases. The public health profession may consider itself superior to the veterinary profession. Zoonotic diseases might not be recognized as threats to human health, impeding integrated policies. The effort of One Health institutionalization remained only among the donor agencies and multi-sectoral organizations. There is a need for strong political will and state capacity to overcome the existing institutional, financial, and professional barriers for its effective implementation. There is a need to assess the structural challenges, policy challenges, and the attitude of the professional working in the multiple disciplines related to One Health. Limited research has been conducted to identify the reasons behind the barriers to institutionalizing the One Health concept in South Asia. Institutionalizing One Health in responding to zoonotic diseases breaks down silos and integrates animals, humans, and the environment.

Keywords: one health, institutionalization, South Asia, institutionalizations

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