Search results for: democratic values

Authors: Safdar Muhammad Usman, Youji Kohda, Katsuhiro Umemoto

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Electronic market place plays an important intermediary role for connecting dealers and retail customers. The main aim of this paper is to design a value co-creation model in used-car auctions. More specifically, the study has been designed in order to describe the process of value co-creation in used-car auctions, to explore the co-created values in used-car auctions, and finally conclude the paper indicating the future research directions. Our analysis shows that economic values as well as non-economic values are co-created in used-car auctions. In addition, this paper contributes to the academic society broadening the view of value co-creation in service science.

Keywords: value co-creation, used-car auctions, non-financial values, service science

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Authors: Sakineh Tashakori, Terrence Lovat

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With the start of war in every part of the world, from the war between Russia and Ukraine to the unbelievable start of the war between Israel and Palestine, the number of war refugees is increasing day by day. They are all homeless dads, moms, and kids looking for a safe place to go back to their ordinary lives without the fear of being mistreated and misunderstood by others. The significance of this study is to help the education system make life easier for refugees by going to values pedagogy inspired by Habermasian epistemology. The study employs a literature review methodology, which involves gathering relevant sources from academic journals and books to answer how values pedagogy is going to help the education system in this regard. The collected literature will be critically analyzed and synthesized to draw meaningful conclusions and support the argument for the implementation of values pedagogy. The findings of the study illustrate that values pedagogy can have a role in peace education and softening discourse to give students a better sense of mutual cultural and religious understanding and respect.

Keywords: war, refugee, values pedagogy, Habermasian epistemology, peace education

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Authors: Mishari AlNaim

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A field experiment was conducted for two seasons of 2011 and 2012 in The Agricultural Experiment Research Station in King Faisal University at Al-Hasa region, Saudi Arabia to estimate evapotranspiration (ETC) of Eggplant crop using Drainage Lysimeter with surface area of 2 x 2 m and depth of 1.5 m. The irrigation was applied daily. The amount of drainage was measured before each irrigation event. The results showed that there was almost no difference in the seasonal evapotranspiration of eggplant crop in the two seasons. The average evapotranspiration values for eggplant crop for the summer and winter seasons were 823.4 mm and 479.7 mm respectively. The highest and the lowest weekly measured values of (ETC) of eggplant crop during the two summer seasons were 8.6 mm/day and 3.9 mm/day respectively, while the highest and lowest weekly measured values of (ETC) of eggplant crop during the two winter seasons were 3.9 mm/day and 2.0 mm/day respectively. The measured values of ETc, in conjunction with the results of Penmen-Monteith equation for reference Evapotranspiration (ETR), were used to determine the crop coefficient (KC ini, KC mid and KC end) for eggplant crop. The average values were 0.50, 84 and 0.60 for KC ini, KC mid and KC end in Al-Hasa region, respectively. These estimated values for KC were used to approximate (ETc) for eggplant crop. High positive correlation coefficient (0.959) was detected between the approximated and measured values of eggplant crop evapotranspiration.

Keywords: evapotranspiration, eggpant, ETC, Al-Hasa

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Authors: Raymon Maac, Michael Arthus Muega, Joyce Ann Calingasan, Elva Maureen Gorospe

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Critical pedagogy is known for its advocacy of humanistic and liberating education. Its far-reaching approach helps students to understand and analyze their own situations and the realities happening in their society. However, this pedagogy together with its promising features is not well-known in the Philippines. This paper determines the place of critical pedagogy in the new values education curriculum and analyzes its features in the K-12 Values Education curriculum and textbook. The study examines the position of critical pedagogy in the Philippine K-12 Values Education curriculum by closely studying and comparing their features; and scrutinizes the Grade 8 Values Education textbook specifically modules 4, 8, 10 and 13 which comprises 25% of the total 16 modules. The said modules are concerned with the role of the family in the preservation of social justice, which is one of the objectives of critical pedagogy. The findings in this research were based on the pieces of evidence gathered from the curriculum and textbook itself. Based on the evaluation done, the study found out that the ideas of critical pedagogy were the same with that of the objectives of K-12 Values Education Curriculum. Due to this, values education teachers can utilize critical pedagogy in their subject. In addition, the K-12 Values Education curriculum exhibits some of the features of critical pedagogy such as authentic student empowerment and critical thinking. Lastly, some features of critical pedagogy are also evident in some of the general parts and recommended activities in the K-12 Values Education textbook while other activities need to be fully developed by both teacher and students to reflect the genuine critical pedagogy.

Keywords: authentic student empowerment, critical pedagogy, critical thinking, liberating education

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Authors: Yobo Opare-Addo

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Ghana came under a military and democratic rule of the same leadership from 1981-2000. These were the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), a military government and a democratic government, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) both under the leadership of Flt. Lt. J.J. Rawlings. Meanwhile the year 1985 marked a turning point in the development of the tourism industry in Ghana. Interest in tourism among African governments and for that matter the ‘PNDC cum NDC Government’ (PNDC/NDC) arose because of adverse developments in intangible exports and a corresponding decline in commodity export earnings. The ‘PNDC/NDC Government’ undertook measures and policies to improve the tourism industry and at the same time embarked on export diversification to reap the foreign exchange that the industry could generate in Ghana. The objective of this paper is to examine the measures and policies of the PNDC/NDC to improve the tourism industry in order to reap the foreign exchange. It specifically interrogates the role of the government as an agent of tourism development, through its deliberate creation of a conducive environment for tourism to flourish, the involvement of the private sector both foreign and local and the provision of tourism facilities and infrastructure and how these factors impacted on the tourism industry in Ghana. In the final analysis it evaluates the degree of success of the PNDC/NDC Government in this arena of Ghana’s socio-cultural and economic development. Introduction The Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), a military government under the leadership of Flt. Lt J.J. Rawlings overthrew a constitutionally elected government of People’s National Party in 1981. In 1992, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) won the general election conducted in December. Flt. Lt. J.J. Rawlings, the party’s leader became the President of the Fourth Republic from January 1993 to December 2000. It was refreshing to see Ghanaians embrace democracy with renewed energy, zeal, and enthusiasm. This paper takes a critical look at the efforts of the PNDC cum NDC Government (PNDC/NDC) to develop tourism in Ghana during the period from 1981-2000 Methodology: Qualitative method of research was adopted for the study. Data was collected from both primary and secondary sources, and analysis was done using descriptive analysis because descriptive analysis made it possible to describe or summarize the statistical data in the research. To gather data from primary sources, questionnaires, oral interviews, and semi-structured discussions were conducted. Respondents included public officials from Ghana Tourist Board, Ministry of Tourism, Hoteliers, restaurant operators and travel and tour operators in Accra. Secondary data sources included articles in journals, reports, magazines, bulletins, and books. The major findings included statistical data for tourism arrivals and receipts during the period and the status of the industry by the year 2000. Conclusion: The paper contributes to knowledge on political and historical aspects of tourism development in Ghana, which is almost non-existent, attitudes of the PNDC cum NDC government towards tourism development and the debates on the generation of foreign exchange to Ghana and third world countries.

Keywords: ghana, infrastructure, policies, privatization, tourism facilities

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Authors: Danielle A. Walker, Kyle L. Johnson, Tara B. Thomas, Sandor Dorgo, Jacen S. Moore

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Approximately 37 million people worldwide are infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), with the majority located in sub-Saharan Africa. The relationship existing between HIV incidence and socioeconomic inequity confirms the critical need for programs promoting HIV education, prevention and treatment access. This literature review analyzed 36 sources with a specific focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose critically low socioeconomic status and education rate have resulted in a drastically high HIV rates. Relationships between HIV testing and treatment and barriers to care were explored. Cultural and religious considerations were found to be vital when creating and implementing HIV education and testing programs. Partnerships encouraging active support from community-based spiritual leaders to implement HIV educational programs were also key mechanisms to reach communities and individuals. Gender roles were highlighted as a key component for implementation of effective community trust-building and successful HIV education programs. The efficacy of added support by hospitals and clinics in rural areas to facilitate access to HIV testing and care for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) was discussed. This review highlighted the need for healthcare providers to provide a network of continued education for PLWHA in clinical settings during disclosure and throughout the course of treatment to increase retention in care and promote medication adherence for viral load suppression. Implementation of culturally sensitive models that rely on community familiarity with HIV educators such as ‘train-the-trainer’ were also proposed as efficacious tools for educating rural communities about HIV. Further research is needed to promote community partnerships for HIV education, understand the cultural context of gender roles as barriers to care, and empower local health care providers to be successful within the HIV Continuum of Care.

Keywords: cultural sensitivity, Democratic Republic of the Congo, education, HIV

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Authors: S. Nickolas, Shobha K.

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The treatment of incomplete data is an important step in the data pre-processing. Missing values creates a noisy environment in all applications and it is an unavoidable problem in big data management and analysis. Numerous techniques likes discarding rows with missing values, mean imputation, expectation maximization, neural networks with evolutionary algorithms or optimized techniques and hot deck imputation have been introduced by researchers for handling missing data. Among these, imputation techniques plays a positive role in filling missing values when it is necessary to use all records in the data and not to discard records with missing values. In this paper we propose a novel artificial neural network based clustering algorithm, Adaptive Resonance Theory-2(ART2) for imputation of missing values in mixed attribute data sets. The process of ART2 can recognize learned models fast and be adapted to new objects rapidly. It carries out model-based clustering by using competitive learning and self-steady mechanism in dynamic environment without supervision. The proposed approach not only imputes the missing values but also provides information about handling the outliers.

Keywords: ART2, data imputation, clustering, missing data, neural network, pre-processing

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Authors: Godiya Pius Atsiya

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One of the most devastating impacts of terrorism on the Nigerian state is the danger it has posed on women, children and other vulnerable groups. The complexity of terrorism in Nigeria, especially in most parts of Northern Nigeria has entrenched unprecedented security challenges such as refugee crisis, kidnapping, food shortages, increase in death tolls, malnutrition, fear, rape and several other psychological factors. Of particular interest in this paper as it relates to terrorism is the high rate of Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs), with women, children and the aged being the most affected. Empirical evidence arising from recent development in Nigeria’s North-East geo-political zone shows that large numbers of refugees fleeing the Boko Haram attacks have doubled. The attendant consequences of this mass exodus of people in the affected areas are that the victims now suffer untold and unwarranted economic hardship. In another dimension, recent findings have it that most powerless women and young teenage girls have been forcefully conscripted into the Islamic extremist groups and used as shields. In some respect, these groups of people have been used as available tools for suicide bombing and other criminal tendencies, the result of which can be detrimental to social cohesion and integration. This work is a theoretical insight into terrorism discourses; hence, the paper relies on existing works of scholars in carrying out the research. The paper argues that the implications of terrorism on women gender have grounding effects on the moral psyche of women who are supposed to be home managers and custodians of morality in society. The burden of terrorism and all it tends to propagate has literally upturned social lives and hence, Nigeria is gradually being plunged into the Hobesian state of nature. As a panacea to resolving this social malaise, the paper submits that government and indeed, all stakeholders in the nation’s democratic project must expedite action to nip this trend in the bud. The paper sums up with conclusion and other alternative policy measures to mitigate the challenges of terrorism in Nigeria.

Keywords: changing democratic state, policy measures, terrorism, women

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Authors: Brang Mai Lazing

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The central argument of this paper proposes that while democracy cannot guarantee transparency, authentic transparency within the hierarchy of the Church can be pursued as a means of dealing with cases of clergy sexual abuse. Amid the recent global scandal of clergy sexual abuse cases, a previous study has argued that a democratic rule should be applied to the administration of the Church so that, while a democratic Church could be compelled to exercise greater transparency when handling such cases, the Church might thereby regain credibility. Using the methodology of literature analysis, this paper explores the necessity for hierarchy and finds that democracy cannot be a guarantee for transparency. Further, through a dialogue between the theological insights of Benedict XVI and Edward Schillebeeckx, this paper argues that transparency practices are possible within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in dealing with clergy sexual abuse cases. Finally, three implications of transparency in dealing with clergy sexual abuse cases are proposed, viz.: (a) that the harm which is ultimately done to the sacred faith of believers and to the sacred origin of the hierarchy through clergy sexual abuse cases should be given greater emphasis, (b) that the removal of unnecessary layers within the Church hierarchy or replacement with layers empowered with the authority to effect change might help implement accountability and transparency practices, and (c) that any changes made to enhance transparency should be made in terms of ‘adaptability’.

Keywords: Benedict XVI, clergy sexual abuses, democracy, Edward Schillebeeckx, hierarchy, transparency

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Authors: N. S. Kubanza, D. Simatele, D. K. Das

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The purpose of this paper is to understand the urban environmental problems in Kinshasa and the consequences of these for the poor. This paper particularly examines the concept of environmental injustice in solid waste management in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The urban low-income communities in Kinshasa face multiple consequences of poor solid waste management associated with unhealthy living conditions. These situations stemmed from overcrowding, poor sanitary, accumulation of solid waste, resulting in the prevalence of water and air borne diseases. Using a mix of reviewed archival records, scholarly literature, a semi-structured interview conducted with the local community members and qualitative surveys among stakeholders; it was found that solid waste management challenge in Kinshasa is not only an environmental and health risk issues, but also, a problem that generates socio-spatial disparities in the distribution of the solid waste burden. It is argued in the paper that the urban poor areas in Kinshasa are often hardest affected by irregularities of waste collection. They lack sanitary storage capacities and have undermined organizational capacity for collective action within solid waste management. In view of these observations, this paper explores mechanisms and stakeholders’ engagement necessary to lessen environmental injustice in solid waste management (SWM) in Kinshasa.

Keywords: environmental justice, solid waste management, urban environmental problems, urban poor

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Authors: Yusuf Bala

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The last decades of the 20th Centaury witnessed renewed hope about the birth of democracy and development in Africa the interface between democracy and development in Africa has long engaged the sustained interest of scholars and researchers across Africa. The process was actively supported by all segment of society, labour students market women, rural dweller who saw in it, the prospects of reversing the trend of political despair and in disillusionment that hither to characterized political life in Africa. The political tyranny and dictatorship while having it own clientele and beneficiaries had negative and suffocating effect on the majority of the people. The democratic aspiration of the Africa people is not only confined to the Arena of political Democracy of election and granting of civil and political rights, but it involves the demand for economic empowerment better living standards of the people and adequate social welfare indeed, for the majority of the people democracy is meaningful only when it delivers socio-economic goods. However, democracy and development have generated enormous interest no conclusive evidence seems to be shared in Africa. In the course of this research emphasis shall be made on certain issues, such as issues of corruption in democracy in Africa, ethnic conflict and democracy in Africa contribution of women to democratic practice and women participation in political arena, is still very low, democratization process and industrial relation in Africa as factor that hinder the development of Democracy in Africa, a case study of Nigeria.

Keywords: democracy, development, dictatorship, conflict, ethnicity

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Authors: Christine S. Veviani

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By observing the Brazilian labor reality, considered as degrading and oppressive, as well as responsible for creating obstacles to rights, this paper is aimed at demonstrating the obligatoriness of complying with the Constitution, as an effective instrument of the Democratic and Social State of Law established in the country since 1988, which identifies and determines the recognition of a single type of citizenship, as representation of equality, social inclusion and human dignity. To achieve this purpose, that is, to awake to a new culture focused on human respect / fundamental rights engraved in the Brazilian Constitution, doctrinal works, case law and labor courts (how they work) will be used as methodology. Thus, by concluding that there is a need for a change in behavior, by employers, intended to respect the Constitution, especially with regard to the concept and citizenship content if an attempt is made to achieve as a result few steps effectiveness of fundamental social rights protective of the Brazilian working class. Thus, by analyzing the Brazilian labor reality, the result is the employers' denial of full and single citizenship of workers, whose effects are directly related to the violation of rights, which leads to the conclusion that there is a need for a change in the behavior regarding the respect for the Constitution, especially concerning the effectiveness of fundamental social rights, which protect the working class in Brazil.

Keywords: employment relationships, opposing citizenships, constitutionalism, capitalism

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Authors: Ufuk Aydın

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The Coda attenuation and frequency dependency of seismic wave are strongly dependent on the effective stresses structures within the upper crust. In this study, the data of three different stations were used to examine the lateral variation of stress. The tectonic structures of these three areas have been examined comparatively using lateral coda tomography. In the study using the single scatter method, the window length selected to be 20 second. Coda values 80 with 94 and frequency dependency values obtained between 0.69 and 1.21. The 1/QC values for the three regions ranged from 0.0012 to 0.017, highlighting the regional differences in the seismotectonic activity of the crust. The lowest absorption values obtained from Erzurum station when the highest absorption values obtained at the Kemaliye station. The low Qc and high frequency dependency values obtained Kemaliye, which indicates that it has highest tectonic activity than other two regions. The seismo-dynamics data obtained from the study found to be in agreement with the tectonic structure of the region.

Keywords: regional coda attenuation, tectonic stress, crustal deformation

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Authors: Eze R. Onukwugha

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The presence of cyanide in wastewater is known to inhibit the normal functioning of bio-reactors since it has the tendency to poison reactor micro-organisms. Bench scale models of activated sludge reactors with varying aspect ratios were operated for the treatment of cassava wastewater at several values of hydraulic retention time (HRT). The different values of HRT were achieved by the use of a peristaltic pump to vary the rate of introduction of the wastewater into the reactor. The main parameters monitored are the cyanide concentration and respective COD values of the influent and effluent. These observed values were then transformed into a mathematical model for the prediction of treatment efficiency.

Keywords: wastewater, aspect ratio, cyanide-inhibited wastewater, modeling

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Authors: Maryam Vaezi

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In this study, the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse has been applied in order to investigate the 2016 Clinton-Trump presidential debates. All three kinds of utterances (acclaims, attacks, and defenses) were produced by the candidates supporting the usefulness of the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse for the analysis of the presidential debates as a type of political discourse. Attacks comprised 45% of the candidates’ utterances, followed by acclaims at 33%; defenses were the least common function at 22%. The candidate from the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, acclaimed more, whereas the Republican Party presidential candidate, Donald Trump, attacked more. Simple denial was the most common form of defense used by the candidates. Both candidates directed more of their utterances to policy (past deeds, future plans, and general goals) than character (personal qualities, leadership abilities, and ideals). Analyzing debates in terms of the functions performed by the candidates to increase their desirability and chance of winning the election, can lead to a better understanding of these significant political events as well as other forms of political discourse.

Keywords: acclaim, attack, defend, character, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, policy, presidential debates, Republican Party

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Authors: Kanyapilai Kunchornsirimongkon, Kevin Wongleedee

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The objectives of this research were to study the opinion of inbound tourist concerning the importance of perceived values and their decision to revisit Thailand. An accidental sampling method was utilized to get 200 respondents. The findings revealed that the majority of the respondents were from Europe and Asia which accounted for about 82.5 percent of the total. Approximately 72 percent of the respondents chose to revisit Bangkok once and 28 percent had revisited more than one time. Male and female respondents were approximately the same proportion. In addition, the findings revealed the top three most important perceived values were time, activities, and expenses, whereas the least important perceived values were lodging, knowledge, and night entertainment. The majority of inbound tourists rated the overall perceived value at a medium level of importance since the overall mean was 4.41 which was less than 4.5.

Keywords: perceived values, tourist destination, visiting, Thailand

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Authors: He Li

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Around the mid-1980s, Confucianism was reintroduced into China from Taiwan and Hong Kong as a result of China’s policies of reform and openness. Since then, the revival of neo-Confucianism in mainland China has accelerated and become a crucial component of the public intellectual sphere. The term xinrujia or xinruxue, loosely translated as “neo-Confucianism,” is increasingly understood as an intellectual and cultural phenomenon of the last four decades. The Confucian scholarship is in the process of restoration. This paper examines the Chinese intellectual discourse on Confucianism and democracy and places it in comparative and theoretical perspectives. With China’s rise and surge of populism in the West, particularly in the US, the leading political values of Confucianism could increasingly shape both China and the world at large. This state of affairs points to the need for more systematic efforts to assess the discourse on neo-Confucianism and its implications for China’s transformation. A number of scholars in the camp of neo-Confucianism maintain that some elements of Confucianism are not only compatible with democratic values and institutions but actually promote liberal democracy. They refer to it as Confucian democracy. By contrast, others either view Confucianism as a roadblock to democracy or envision that a convergence of democracy with Confucian values could result in a new hybrid system. The paper traces the complex interplay between Confucianism and democracy. It explores ideological differences between neo-Confucianism and liberal democracy and ascertains whether certain features of neo-Confucianism possess an affinity for the authoritarian political system. In addition to printed materials such as books and journal articles, a selection of articles from the website entitled Confucianism in China will be analyzed. The selection of this website is due to the fact that it is the leading website run by Chinese scholars focusing on neo-Confucianism. Another reason for selecting this website is its accessibility and availability. In the past few years, quite a few websites, left or right, were shut down by the authorities, but this website remains open. This paper explores the core components, dynamics, and implications of neo-Confucianism. My paper is divided into three parts. The first one discusses the origins of neo-Confucianism. The second section reviews the intellectual discourse among Chinese scholars on Confucian democracy. The third one explores the implications of the Chinese intellectual discourse on neo-Confucianism. Recently, liberal democracy has entered more conflict with official ideology. This paper, which is based on my extensive interviews in China prior to the pandemic and analysis of the primary sources in Chinese, will lay the foundation for a chapter on neo-Confucianism and democracy in my next book-length manuscript, tentatively entitled Chinese Intellectual Discourse on Democracy.

Keywords: China, confucius, confucianism, neo-confucianism, democracy

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Authors: Boukrida Rafiq

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Democracy is based on the notion that all citizens have the right to participate in the managing of political affairs and that every citizens input is of equal importance. This basic assumption clearly places emphasis on public participation in maintaining a stable democracy. The level of public participation, however is highly contested with many theorists arguing that too much public participation would overwhelm and ultimately cripple democratic systems. On the other hand, others who favor high levels of participation argue that more citizen involvement leads to greater representation. Regardless of these disagreements over the utopian level of participation, there is widespread agreement amongst scholars that, at the very least, some participation is necessary to maintain democratic systems. The ways in which citizens participate vary greatly and depending on the method used, influence political decision making at varying levels. The method of political participation is a key in controlling public influence over political affairs and therefore is also an integral part of maintaining democracy, whether it be "thin" (low levels of participation) or "Robust" (high levels of participation). High levels of participation or "robust" democracy are argued by some theorists to enhance democracy through providing the opportunity for more issues to be represented during decision making. The notion of widespread participation was first advanced by classical theorists.

Keywords: assumption clearly places emphasis, ultimately cripple, influence political decision making at varying, classical theorists

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Authors: John Ibanga

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Since May 1999, when Nigeria returned to uninterrupted democratic rule, there have been various attempts by successive governments at committing themselves to democratic ideals. Such efforts include a revision of communication policies after repeated calls by civil society organisations, development partners, researchers, and academics to allow not only the commencement of campus radio broadcasting but also the takeoff of community radio broadcasting. Thus, in 2015, operating licenses were granted to several communities spread across the six geopolitical zones in the country for the establishment of community radio stations culminating in the establishment of the first community radio in Nigeria on July 17, 2015. And, since citizens’ involvement in policy matters and governance is one of the tenets of participatory democracy, it becomes imperative to investigate how the emerging community radio sector in Nigeria is facilitating participatory democracy among Nigerians, even in the face of attempts by the present government to silence all dissenting voices. This study, therefore, examines how residents in Ondo State, Southwest Nigeria, are utilising programmes on Ejule Nen and Kakaaki community radio stations in Ondo State, Nigeria, to deepen participatory democracy. Much of the existing studies on the role of community radio in participatory democracy and citizens' engagement efforts miss out on Nigeria because of the delayed implementation of community radio policy in Nigeria being Africa’s most populous nation as well as a major player in the affairs of the African continent. While the participatory communication and communication infrastructure theories were used as framework, data were collected from in-depth interviews with staff of the community radio station and community leaders, focus group discussions with the community residents, and qualitative content analysis of programmes on the station. The residents used the community radio stations as platforms for demanding accountability from government, mobilising resources for the execution of a number of community projects, promoting credible electoral practices, and influencing the implementation of free education policy in their communities. Hence the community radio stations became the reliable and authoritative voices of residents for participating in the public sphere and, generally, the democratic process.

Keywords: community, community radio, democracy, participatory democracy

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Authors: Sharon Cayzer-Haller, Shir Ginosar-Yaari, Ariel Knafo-Noam

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The 21st century emerged as the digital century, and it is marked by a wide range of technological developments and changes, followed by potential changes in human communication skills. This technological revolution has changed human means of communication in many different ways: children and adolescents are spending much of their time in front of screens, participating in all sorts of online activities (even more so since the outbreak of COVID-19). The current study focuses on the role of values in adolescents' online bystanders' behavior. Values are cognitive, abstract representations of desirable goals that motivate behavior, and we hypothesized finding significant associations between specific values and differential online bystanders' feelings and behavior. Data was collected through online questionnaires that measured the participants' values, using Schwartz's short version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (Schwartz, 2012). Participants’ online behavior was assessed in a questionnaire addressing reactions to situations of cyber shaming and cyberbullying, and specifically positive feelings and pro-social behavior (e.g., more supportive reactions) toward the victims, as opposed to different offensive behavioral reactions (such as laughing at the victim or ignoring the situation). Participants were recruited with a commercial research panel company, and 308 Israeli adolescents' values and online behavior were examined (mean age 15.2). As hypothesized, results show significant associations between self-transcendence values (universalism and benevolence) and conservation values (conformity, tradition, and security). These two groups of values were positively correlated with pro-social bystanders' feelings and behavior. On the opposite side of the values scale, the value of power was negatively associated with the participants' pro-social behavior, and positively associated with offensive behavioral reactions. Further research is needed, but we conclude that values serve as crucial guiding factors in directing adolescents' online feelings and behavior.

Keywords: adolescents, values, cyberbullying, online behavior, power

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Authors: Patrick May Mukonki

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KOV pit (Kamoto Oliveira Virgule) is located 10 km from Kolwezi town, one of the mineral rich town in the Lualaba province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The KOV pit is currently operating under the Katanga Mining Limited (KML), a Glencore-Gecamines (a State Owned Company) join venture. Recently, the mine optimization process provided a life of mine of approximately 10 years withnice pushbacks using the Datamine NPV Scheduler software. In previous KOV pit studies, we recently outlined the impact of the accuracy of the geological information on a long-term mine plan for a big copper mine such as KOV pit. The approach taken, discussed three main scenarios and outlined some weaknesses on the geological information side, and now, in this paper that we are going to develop here, we are going to highlight, as an overview, those weaknesses, strengths and opportunities, in a global SWOT analysis. The approach we are taking here is essentially descriptive in terms of steps taken to optimize KOV pit and, at every step, we categorized the challenges we faced to have a better tradeoff between what we called strengths and what we called weaknesses. The same logic is applied in terms of the opportunities and threats. The SWOT analysis conducted in this paper demonstrates that, despite a general poor ore body definition, and very rude ground water conditions, there is room for improvement for such high grade ore body.

Keywords: mine planning, mine optimization, mine scheduling, SWOT analysis

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Authors: Tholaine Matadi

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South Africa is a democratic country with a historical record of racially-motivated marginalisation and exclusion of the majority. During the apartheid era the country was run along pieces of legislation and policies based on racial segregation. The system held a tight clamp on interracial mixing which forced people to remain in segregated areas. For example, a citizen from the Indian community could not own property in an area allocated to white people. In this way, a great majority of people were denied basic human rights. Now, there is a supreme constitution with an entrenched justiciable Bill of Rights founded on democratic values of social justice, human dignity, equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms. The Constitution also enshrines the values of non-racialism and non-sexism. The Constitutional Court has the power to declare unconstitutional any law or conduct considered to be inconsistent with it. Now, more than two decades down the line, despite the abolition of apartheid, there is evidence that South Africa still experiences hate crimes which violate the entrenched right of vulnerable groups not to be discriminated against on the basis of race, sexual orientation, gender, national origin, occupation, or disability. To remedy this mischief parliament has responded by drafting the Prevention and Combatting of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill. The Bill has been disseminated for public comment and suggestions. It is intended to combat hate crimes and hate speech based on sheer prejudice. The other purpose of the Bill is to bring South Africa in line with international human rights instruments against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related expressions of intolerance identified in several international instruments. It is against this backdrop that this paper intends to analyse the impact of the Bill on the rights to human dignity, equality, and freedom. This study is significant because the Bill was highly contested and creates a huge debate. This study relies on a qualitative evaluative approach based on desktop and library research. The article recurs to primary and secondary sources. For comparative purpose, the paper compares South Africa with countries such as Australia, Canada, Kenya, Cuba, and United Kingdom which have criminalised hate crimes and hate speech. The finding from this study is that despite the Bill’s expressed positive intentions, this draft legislation is problematic for several reasons. The main reason is that it generates considerable controversy mostly because it is considered to infringe the right to freedom of expression. Though the author suggests that the Bill should not be rejected in its entirety, she notes the brutal psychological effect of hate crimes on their direct victims and the writer emphasises that a legislature can succeed to combat hate-crimes only if it provides for them as a separate stand-alone category of offences. In view of these findings, the study recommended that since hate speech clauses have a negative impact on freedom of expression it can be promulgated, subject to the legislature enacting the Prevention and Combatting of Hate-Crimes Bill as a stand-alone law which criminalises hate crimes.

Keywords: freedom of expression, hate crimes, hate speech, human dignity

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Authors: C. F. Jones Couto

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The implementation of quality Physical Education (PE) inspires and instils lasting healthy behavioural patterns, hence have the potential as an educational tool to teach values in today’s society. The goal of PE should be to contribute to the acceptance of the infinite qualities of South Africa’s (RSA) diversity and to claim RSA’s diversity as a source of strength that forms a universal bond of a common set of values. There is a global change in the interaction of children with their environment; their lives are shaped by forces that do not necessarily assist them in learning and applying values. In most countries today, the responsibility for developing values is assigned to schools in formal teaching settings. Values-based education offers an investment in individual and societal improvement through attendance to a values framework. The aim of this qualitative research is to develop a PE programme aligned with the current South African curriculum, enriched with values of Olympism and Ubuntuism, and to present PE teacher training workshops (TTW). Participatory action research will be used as the basis of how data will be collected, analysed, and presented on an ongoing, cyclical basis. PE teachers from different schools in the Tshwane District of RSA will participate as they can best inform the research questions and enhance the understanding of the phenomenon under study. The outcomes of using PE as a tool to teach values can propose recommendations to the Department of Basic Education of RSA to improve and implement a quality PE curriculum that is applicable to practice and that will optimize the chances of meeting the South African National Curriculum Statement standards. A PE programme with the aim of holistic development, based on the values of Olympism and Ubuntuism, can strive to ensure that the values set out in RSA’s constitution are part of PE organization, planning, and teaching at each South African school.

Keywords: olympism, physical education, teacher training, ubuntuism, values-based education

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Authors: Seyed Salahedin Naghshbandi, Mahnaz Ahmadikhatir, Siavash Hamidzadeh

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational political behavior and ethical values with the job enthusiasm of the sport personnel of the National Iranian Gas Company. The population of this research included all personnel of the National Iranian Gas Company's sports personnel (150 people). For collecting information, library resources and three questionnaires, organizational political behavior by Kaspar and Carlsen (1997), Lewall's moral values questionnaire (1986) and job enthusiasm questionnaire Schaufeli & Bekker (2003) have been used. Validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by university professors. Using Cronbach alpha correlation coefficient, the reliability of the organizational political behavior questionnaire was 0.92, the moral values questionnaire was 0.86 and the Schaufeli & Baker job enthusiasm questionnaire was 0.91-0.96. The results of this research show a significant, direct and positive relationship between the components of job aspiration with political behavior and ethical values. Therefore, managers of organizations should, as far as possible, remove political behaviors from the organization and be able to institutionalize ethical values in their organization so that they can increase employee eagerness.

Keywords: political behavior, ethical values, job enthusiasm, staff, national Iranian gas company

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Authors: Z. I Jeeva

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The establishment of municipalities in South Africa has been a long and difficult process; 25 years later, it still appears to be evolving. In 1994, the new democratic government undertook to restructure the country’s racially segregated administrative structure by integrating areas to form cohesive municipal entities that would allow for the more efficient administration management of the regions. It planned to achieve this within a short seven-year period from 1993 to 2000, which was to be divided into three phases, namely, the pre-interim phase from 1994 to1995, the interim phase from 1996 to 1999, and the post-interim phase from 2000 onwards. However, the extensive integrated municipal approach was easier to pen on paper than to implement in practice. This paper seeks to explore the South African spatial reform process from 1993 to 2020, by analyzing policy documents and literature in order to determine how exactly the government attempted to achieve this. The study found that the spatial restructuring process was particularly complex since the democratic government inherited an unequal society located on a fragmented spatial landscape of which there was limited knowledge with many unresolved issues. Furthermore, the study found that there is a lack of literature on the topic from an urban planning perspective and calls for further research to ensure the formation of more efficient administrative regions.

Keywords: categorization, demarcation, municipalities, racial integration, spatial reform

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Authors: Taiwo Frances Gbadegesin

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Children’s capacity to contribute to social and economic status of a nation has been given more recognition than ever. Global policy priority aimed at ensuring sustainable development has been extended to the developing nations of the world. However, many developing countries have continued to puzzle out the extent and possibilities of exploring sustainability within their socio-economic environment. This paper considers ways in which the theoretical framework of Dahlberg, Moss and Pence (1999; 2007) and Moss (2007; 2012) that embraces meaning-making, social construction of childhood experiences and democratic perspectives can be used to understand children’s capacity for building a sustainable future. This paper presents data collected through interviews and observations from ECCE teachers and children in Lagos, Nigeria. A distinct finding is that children’s participation in building sustainable future is a consequence of the knowledge of the workings of their social, economic and cultural nuances and not a matter of economic wealth per se. It further argues that sustainability is situated within a complex network of local and global contexts. It thus challenges the present neo-liberal approach and advocates a democratic approach to preparing children for a sustainable society. It concludes that sustainability cannot be built on what may be seen as decontextualized responses by relevant stakeholders to the needs and experiences of the “whole child”.

Keywords: children, ECCE, sustainable development, Nigeria

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Authors: Begum Koru, Isik Aybay, Demet Celik Ulusoy

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The discipline of law is quite complex and has its own terminology. Apart from written legal rules, there is also living law, which refers to legal practice. Basic legal rules aim at the happiness of individuals in social life and have different characteristics in different branches such as public or private law. On the other hand, law is a national phenomenon. The law of one nation and the legal system applied on the territory of another nation may be completely different. People who are experts in a particular field of law in one country may have insufficient expertise in the law of another country. Today, in addition to the local nature of law, international and even supranational law rules are applied in order to protect basic human values and ensure the protection of human rights around the world. Systems that offer algorithmic solutions to legal problems using artificial intelligence (AI) tools will perhaps serve to produce very meaningful results in terms of human rights. However, algorithms to be used should not be developed by only computer experts, but also need the contribution of people who are familiar with law, values, judicial decisions, and even the social and political culture of the society to which it will provide solutions. Otherwise, even if the algorithm works perfectly, it may not be compatible with the values of the society in which it is applied. The latest developments involving the use of AI techniques in legal systems indicate that artificial law will emerge as a new field in the discipline of law. More AI systems are already being applied in the field of law, with examples such as predicting judicial decisions, text summarization, decision support systems, and classification of documents. Algorithms for legal systems employing AI tools, especially in the field of prediction of judicial decisions and decision support systems, have the capacity to create automatic decisions instead of judges. When the judge is removed from this equation, artificial intelligence-made law created by an intelligent algorithm on its own emerges, whether the domain is national or international law. In this work, the aim is to make a general analysis of this new topic. Such an analysis needs both a literature survey and a perspective from computer experts' and lawyers' point of view. In some societies, the use of prediction or decision support systems may be useful to integrate international human rights safeguards. In this case, artificial law can serve to produce more comprehensive and human rights-protective results than written or living law. In non-democratic countries, it may even be thought that direct decisions and artificial intelligence-made law would be more protective instead of a decision "support" system. Since the values of law are directed towards "human happiness or well-being", it requires that the AI algorithms should always be capable of serving this purpose and based on the rule of law, the principle of justice and equality, and the protection of human rights.

Keywords: AI and law, artificial law, protection of human rights, AI tools for legal systems

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Authors: Sadam Alwadi

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Outlier values become a problem that frequently occurs in the data observation or recording process. Thus, the need for data imputation has become an essential matter. In this work, it will make use of the methods described in the prior work to detect the outlier values based on a collection of stock market data. In order to implement the detection and find some solutions that maybe helpful for investors, real closed price data were obtained from the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). Tukey and Maximum Overlapping Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT) methods will be used to impute the detect the outlier values.

Keywords: outlier values, imputation, stock market data, detecting, estimation

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Authors: Ntokozo C. Mthembu

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The notion of sustainable chemistry has become significant in the discourse for a global post-colonial era, including South Africa, especially when it comes to access to the general health system and related policies in relation to disease or ease of human life. In view of the stubborn vestiges of coloniality in the daily lives of indigenous African people in general, the fundamentals of present Western medical and traditional medicine systems and related policies in the democratic era were examined in this study. The situation of traditional healers in relation to current policy was also reviewed. The advent of democracy in South Africa brought about a variety of development opportunities and limitations, particularly with respect to indigenous African knowledge systems such as traditional medicine. There were high hopes that the limitations of previous narrow cultural perspectives would be rectified in the democratic era through development interventions, but some sections of society, such as traditional healers, remain marginalised. The Afrocentric perspective was explored in dissecting government interventions related to traditional medicine. This article highlights that multiple medical systems should be adopted and that health policies should be aligned in order to guarantee mutual respect and to address the remnants of colonialism in South Africa, Africa and the broader global community.

Keywords: traditional healing system, healers, pluralist healthcare system, post-colonial era

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Authors: Sarah Beaver, Renee Bryce

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Audiograms detect hearing impairment, but missing values pose problems. This work explores imputations in an attempt to improve accuracy. This work implements Linear Regression, Lasso, Linear Support Vector Regression, Bayesian Ridge, K Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Random Forest machine learning techniques to impute audiogram frequencies ranging from 125Hz to 8000Hz. The data contains patients who had or were candidates for cochlear implants. Accuracy is compared across two different Nested Cross-Validation k values. Over 4000 audiograms were used from 800 unique patients. Additionally, training on data combines and compares left and right ear audiograms versus single ear side audiograms. The accuracy achieved using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values for the best models for Random Forest ranges from 4.74 to 6.37. The R\textsuperscript{2} values for the best models for Random Forest ranges from .91 to .96. The accuracy achieved using RMSE values for the best models for KNN ranges from 5.00 to 7.72. The R\textsuperscript{2} values for the best models for KNN ranges from .89 to .95. The best imputation models received R\textsuperscript{2} between .89 to .96 and RMSE values less than 8dB. We also show that the accuracy of classification predictive models performed better with our best imputation models versus constant imputations by a two percent increase.

Keywords: machine learning, audiograms, data imputations, single imputations

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