Search results for: mainstream

Authors: N. N. Pandey, Raghvendra Singh, Biju S. Kamlam, Bipin K. Vishwakarma, Preetam Kala

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The rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is an exotic salmonid fish, well known for its fast growth, tremendous ability to thrive in diverse conditions, delicious flesh and hard fighting nature in Europe and other countries. Rainbow trout farming has a great potential for its contribution to the mainstream economy of Himalayan states in India and other temperate countries. These characteristics establish them as one of the most widely introduced and cultured fish across the globe, and its farming is also prominent in the cold water regions of India. Nevertheless, genetic fatigue, slow growth, early maturity, and low productivity are limiting the expansion of trout production. Moreover, farms adjacent to natural streams or other water sources are subject to escape of domesticated rainbow trout into the wild, which is a serious environmental concern as the escaped fish is subject to contaminate and disrupt the receiving ecosystem. A decline in production traits due to early maturity prolongs the culture duration and affects the profit margin of rainbow trout farms in India. A viable strategy that could overcome these farming constraints in large scale operation is the production of triploid fish that are sterile and more heterozygous. For better triploidy induction rate (TR), heat shock at 28°C for 10 minutes and pressure shock 9500 psi pressure for 5 minutes is applied to green eggs with 90-100% of triploidy success and 72-80% survival upto swim-up fry stage. There is 20% better growth in aquaculture with triploids rainbow trout over diploids. As compared to wild diploid fish, larger sized and fitter triploid rainbow trout in natural waters attract to trout anglers, and support the development of recreational fisheries by state fisheries departments without the risk of contaminating existing gene pools and disrupting local fish diversity. Overall, enhancement of productivity in rainbow trout farms and trout production in coldwater regions, development of lucrative trout angling and better ecological management is feasible with triploid rainbow trout.

Keywords: rainbow trout, triploids fish, heat shock, pressure shock, trout angling

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Authors: Tanvir A. Uddin, Blake Goud

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Emerging trends in FinTech-enabled alternative finance, which includes channels and instruments emerging outside the traditional financial system, heralds unprecedented opportunities to improve financial intermediation and increase access to finance. With widespread criticism of the mainstream Islamic banking and finance sector as either mimicking the conventional system, failing to achieve inclusive growth or both, industry stakeholders are turning to technology to show that finance can be done differently. This paper will outline the critical elements for successful deployment of technology to maximize benefit and minimize potential for harm from introduction of Islamic FinTech and propose recommendations for Islamic financial institutions, FinTech companies, regulators and other stakeholders who are integrating or who are considering introducing FinTech solutions. The paper will present an overview of literature, present relevant case studies and summarize the lessons from interviews conducted with Islamic FinTech founders from around the world. With growing central bank concerns about leveraged loans and ballooning private credit markets globally (estimated at $1.4 trillion), current and future Islamic FinTech operators are at risk of contributing to the problems they aim to solve by operating in a 'shadow banking' system. The paper will show that by systematising a robust theory of change linked to positive outcomes, utilising objective impact frameworks (e.g., the Impact Measurement Project) and instilling a risk management culture that is proactive about potential social harm (e.g., irresponsible lending), FinTech can enable the Islamic finance industry to support positive social impact and minimize harm in support of the maqasid. The adoption of FinTech within the Islamic finance context is still at a nascent stage and the recommendations we provide based on the limited experience to date will help address some of the major cross-cutting issues related to FinTech. Further research will be needed to elucidate in more detail issues relating to individual sectors and countries within the broader global Islamic finance industry.

Keywords: alternative finance, FinTech, Islamic finance, maqasid, theory of change

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Baptiste Brodard

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In Switzerland, as well as in other European countries, specific social issues related to Muslims have recently emerged in public debates. In addition to the question of terrorism and radicalization, Muslim migrant populations are highly affected by social problems such as crime, poverty, marginalization, and overrepresentation in prisons. This situation has drawn the state’s attention to the need for implementing new responses to the challenges of religious extremism, crime, and social exclusion particularly involving Muslims. While local authorities have begun to implement trainings and projects to tackle these new social issues, Muslim grassroots associations have developed some initiatives to address the needs of the population, mainly focusing on problems related to Islam and Muslims but also addressing the rest of the population. Finally, some local authorities have acknowledged the need for these alternative initiatives as well as their positive contributions to society. The study is based on a Ph.D. research grounded on a case study of three Islamic networks in Switzerland, including various local organizations tackling social exclusion and religious radicalization through innovative grassroots projects. Using an ethnographic approach, it highlights, on the one hand, the specificities of such organizations by exploring the role of Islamic norms within the social work practices. On the other hand, it focuses on the inclusion of such faith-based projects within the mainstream society, observing the relationships between Islamic organisations and both the state and other civil society organizations. Finally, the research study aims to identify some innovative ways and trends of social work involving the inclusion of community key actors within the process. Results showed similar trends with Islamic social work developed in other European countries such as France and the United Kingdom, but also indicate a range of specificities linked to the Swiss socio-political context, which shapes the involvement of religious actors in different ways. By exploring faith-based commitment to addressing concrete social issues, the study finally contributes to shedding light on the link between Islam, social work and activism within the European context.

Keywords: exclusion, Islam, Muslims, social work, Switzerland

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Authors: Zichao Zhang, Yifan Zhao, Samuel Court

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The carbon emission problem of the traditional construction industry has long been a pressing issue. With the growing emphasis on environmental protection and advancement of science and technology, the organic integration of digital technology and emission reduction has gradually become a mainstream solution. Among various sophisticated digital technologies, digital twins, which involve creating virtual replicas of physical systems or objects, have gained enormous attention in recent years as tools to improve productivity, optimize management and reduce carbon emissions. However, the relatively high implementation costs including finances, time, and manpower associated with digital twins have limited their widespread adoption. As a result, most of the current applications are primarily concentrated within a few industries. In addition, the creation of digital twins relies on a large amount of data and requires designers to possess exceptional skills in information collection, organization, and analysis. Unfortunately, these capabilities are often lacking in the traditional construction industry. Furthermore, as a relatively new concept, digital twins have different expressions and usage methods across different industries. This lack of standardized practices poses a challenge in creating a high-quality digital twin framework for construction. This paper firstly reviews the current academic studies and industrial practices focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the construction industry using digital twins. Additionally, it identifies the challenges that may be encountered during the design and implementation of a digital twin framework specific to this industry and proposes potential directions for future research. This study shows that digital twins possess substantial potential and significance in enhancing the working environment within the traditional construction industry, particularly in their ability to support decision-making processes. It proves that digital twins can improve the work efficiency and energy utilization of related machinery while helping this industry save energy and reduce emissions. This work will help scholars in this field to better understand the relationship between digital twins and energy conservation and emission reduction, and it also serves as a conceptual reference for practitioners to implement related technologies.

Keywords: digital twins, emission reduction, construction industry, energy saving, life cycle, sustainability

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Authors: George Bocean

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In the mainstream academic spheres of thought, there is a tendency to associate the writings of Russian Marxists as being constantly against the practice of religion itself. Such arguments mainly stem from how the attitude of the Russian Marxists, specifically the Bolsheviks, towards the concept of religion supposedly originates from its own Marxist ideology. Although Marxism is critical of religion as an institution, the approach that Marxism would have on the question of religion is not as clear. Such aspect is specifically observed in the use of language of major leading Russian Marxist figures, such as Lenin and Trotsky, throughout the early 20th century, where the use of religious metaphors was widely used in their philosophical writings and speeches, as well as in propaganda posters of general left-wing movements in Russia as a whole. The methodology of the research will consist of a sociolinguistic and sociology of language approach within a sociohistorical framework of late Tsarist and early Soviet Russia, 1905-1926. The purpose of such approaches are not simply to point out the religious metaphors used in the writings and speeches of Marxists in Russia, but rather in order to analyse how the use of such metaphors represent an important socio-political connection with the context of Russia at the time. In other words, the use of religious metaphors was not only more akin to Russian culture at the time, but this also resonated and was more familiar with the conditions of the working class and peasantry. An example in this study can be observed in the writings of Lenin, where the theme of chudo (miracle) is often mentioned in his writings, and such a word is commonly associated with an idealist philosophy rather than a materialist one, which represents a common theme in Russian culture in regards to the principle of hope for a better life. A further and even more obvious example is Trotsky’s writings about how the revolution of 1905 “would be revived”, which not only resonates with the theme of resurrection, but also prophesises the “second coming” of a future revolution. Such metaphors are important in the writings of such authors, as they simultaneously contain Marxist ideas, as well as religious themes. In doing this research, this paper will demonstrate two aspects. Firstly, the paper will analyse the use of the metaphors by Russian Marxists as a whole in regards to a socio-political and ideological perspectives akin to those of Marxism. Secondly, it will also demonstrate the role that such metaphors have in regards to their impact on the left-wing movements within Russia itself, as well as their relation to the working class and peasantry of Russia within the historical context.

Keywords: language and politics, Marxism, Russian history, social history, sociology of language

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Authors: Albert Amagyei, Julia Carroll, Amanda R. Amorim Adegboye, Laura Strumidlo, Rosie Kneafsey

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Introduction: Classroom-based learning has persisted as the mainstream model of pre-registration nurse education. This model is often rigid, teacher-centered, and unable to support active learning and the practical learning needs of nursing students. Health Education England (HEE), a public body of the Department of Health and Social Care, hypothesises that blended learning (BL) programmes may address health system and nursing profession challenges, such as nursing shortages and lack of digital expertise, by exploring opportunities for providing predominantly online, remote-access study which may increase nursing student recruitment, offering alternate pathways to nursing other than the traditional classroom route. This study will provide evidence for blended learning strategies adopted in nursing education as well as examine nursing student learning experiences concerning the challenges and opportunities related to using blended learning within nursing education. Objective: This review will explore the challenges and opportunities of BL within pre-registration nurse education from the student's perspective. Methods: The search was completed within five databases. Eligible studies were appraised independently by four reviewers. The JBI-convergent segregated approach for mixed methods review was used to assess and synthesize the data. The study’s protocol has been registered with the International Register of Systematic Reviews with registration number// PROSPERO (CRD42023423532). Results: Twenty-seven (27) studies (21 quantitative and 6 qualitative) were included in the review. The study confirmed that BL positively impacts nursing students' learning outcomes, as demonstrated by the findings of the meta-analysis and meta-synthesis. Conclusion: The review compared BL to traditional learning, simulation, laboratory, and online learning on nursing students’ learning and programme outcomes as well as learning behaviour and experience. The results show that BL could effectively improve nursing students’ knowledge, academic achievement, critical skills, and clinical performance as well as enhance learner satisfaction and programme retention. The review findings outline that students’ background characteristics, BL design, and format significantly impact the success of the BL nursing programme.

Keywords: nursing student, blended learning, pre-registration nurse education, online learning

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Authors: A. Yousuf, M. Iqbal, A. Mir, S. Aziz

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This study deals with the women’s right to land for gender equality. Economic Transformation Initiative, Gilgit-Baltistan (ETI-GB), an ambitious program supported by International Fund for Agricultural Development United Nation (IFAD, UN), aims to strengthen land reforms process in disputed area of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Pakistan, that is taking place first time in the history. This project is a brick to build the foundation of land reforms and land policies in GB. The ETI-GB provides substantive support to government of GB in developing policy measures and initiatives to promote women’s right to have and to own land is kind of unconventional step in a very traditional society. It would be interesting to have discussion and document the people’s response regarding this project. The study has used mixed method for data collection. For qualitative data, content analysis is used to have a thorough understanding of different types of land reforms across the globe particularly in South Asia. Theoretical understanding of the literature is essential which provides the basis why land reforms are important and how far it plays an important role when it comes to eliminating inequality. Focused group discussion was carried out for verification and triangulation of data. For quantitative, survey was conducted to take responses from the people of the region and analyzed. The program is implemented in Ghizer district of GB. 2340 households were identified as beneficiaries of newly developed land. Among them, 2285 were men households, and 55 were women households. There is a significant difference between men and women households. In spite of great difference, it is a great achievement of the donor that in history of GB, first time women are going to be entitled to land ownership. GB is a patriarchal society, many social factors like cultural, religious play role for gender inequality. In developing countries, such as Pakistan, the awareness of land property rights has not been given proper attention to gender equality development frameworks. It is argued that land property rights of women have not been taken into mainstream policymaking in the development of nation building process. Consequently, this has generated deprivation of women’s property rights, low income level, lack of education and poor health. This paper emphasises that there should have proper land property right of women in Gilgit-Baltistan Pakistan, provided that the gender empowerment could be increased in terms of women’s property rights.

Keywords: gender equality, women right to land ownership, property rights, women empowerment

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Authors: Lior B. Navon

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The objective of this study is to investigate how technology, such as social media, can influence the biopower hierarchy between the medical knowledge about the body and women’s bodily knowledge through the case study of the hashtag 'notpee'. In January 2015, the hashtag #notpee, relating to a feminine physiological phenomenon called female ejaculation (FE) or squirting (SQ) started circulating on twitter. This hashtag, born as a reaction to a medical study claiming that SQ is essentially involuntary emission of urine during sexual activity, sparked an unusual public discourse about FE, a phenomenon that is usually not discussed or referred to in socio-legitimate public spheres. This unusual backlash got the attention of women’s magazines and blogs, as well as more mainstream large and respected outlets such as The Guardian and CNN. Both the tweets on twitter, as well as the media coverage of them, were mainly aimed at rejecting the research’s findings. While not offering an alternative and choosing to define the phenomenon by negation, women argued that the fluid extracted was not pee based on their personal experiences. Based on a critical discourse analysis of 742 tweets with the hashtag 'notpee' between January 2015 and January 2016, and of 15 articles covering the backlash, this study suggests that the #notpee backlash challenged the power balance between the medical knowledge about the feminine body and the feminine bodily knowledge through two different, yet related, forms of resistance to biopower. The first resistance is to the authority over knowledge production — who has the power to produce 'true' statements when it comes to the body? Is it the women who experience the phenomenon, or is it the medical institution? The second resistance to biopower has to do with what we regard as facts or veracity. A critical discourse analysis reveals that while both the scientific field, as well as the women arguing against its findings, use empirical information, they, nevertheless, rely on two dichotomic databases- while the scientific research relies on samples from the 'dead like body', these woman are relying on their lived subjective senses as a source for fact making. Nevertheless, while #notpee is asking to change the power relations between the feminine subjective bodily knowledge and the seemingly objective masculine medical knowledge about the body, it by no means dismisses it. These women are essentially asking the medical institution to take into consideration the subjective body as well as the objective one while acknowledging and accepting the power of the latter over knowledge production.

Keywords: biopower, female ejaculation, new media, bodily knowledge

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Authors: Khalid Alshaikh

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Libya has recently gained momentum, especially with the rise of the social issues ensued by the recent war. CSR is a new organisational culture designing its features and route within the Libyan financial institutions. Now, both the public and private banks invest in this construct trusting that its powers are capable of improving the economic, social and environmental problems the conflict has created. On the other hand, the Libyan commercial banks recognise the benefits of utilising CSR to entice investors and ensure their continuations in the national and international markets. Nevertheless, as a new concept, CSR necessitates an in-depth exploration and analysis to help its transition from the margins of religion to the mainstream of society and businesses. This can assist in constructing its activities to bring about change nation-wide. Therefore, this paper intends to explore the current definitions attached to this term through tracing back its historical beginnings. Then, it investigates its trends both in the public and private banks to identify where its sustainable development materialises. Lastly, it seeks to understand the key challenges that obscure its success in the Libyan environment. The research methodology used both public and private banks as case study and qualitative research to interview ten Board of Directors (BoDs) and eleven Chief Executive Managers (CEOs) to discover how CSR is defined and the core CSR activities practiced by the Libyan Commercial Banks (LCBs) and the key constraints that CSR faces and make it unsuccessful. The findings suggest that CSR is still influenced by the power of religion. Nevertheless, the Islamic perspective is more consistent with the social contract concept of CSR. The LCBs do not solely focus on the economic side of maximizing profits, but also concentrate on its morality. The issue is that CSR activities are not enough to achieve good charity publicly and needs strategies to address major social issues. Moreover, shareholders do not support CSR activities. Their argument is that the only social responsibility of businesses is to maximize profits, while the government should deal with the existing social issues. Finally, although the LCBs endeavour to embed CSR in their organisational culture, it is still important that different stakeholders need to do much more to entrench this construct through their core functions. The Central bank of Libya needs also to boost its standing to be more influential and ensure that the right discussions about CSR happen with the right stakeholders involved.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, private banks, public banks, stakeholders

Procedia PDF Downloads 144

Authors: L. Szymanski, S. Wiak, Z. Kolacinski, G. Raniszewski, L. Pietrzak, Z. Staniszewska

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There exist more than one hundred different types of cancer, and therefore no particular treatment is offered to people struggling with this disease. The character of treatment proposed to a patient will depend on a variety of factors such as type of the cancer diagnosed, advancement of the disease, its location in the body, as well as personal preferences of a patient. None of the commonly known methods of cancer-fighting is recognised as a perfect cure, however great advances in this field have been made over last few decades. Once a patient is diagnosed with cancer, he is in need of medical care and professional treatment for upcoming months, and in most cases even for years. Among the principal modes of treatment offered by medical centres, one can find radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery. All of them can be applied separately or in combination, and the relative contribution of each is usually determined by medical specialist in agreement with a patient. In addition to the conventional treatment option, every day more complementary and alternative therapies are integrated into mainstream care. There is one promising cancer modality - hyperthermia therapy which is based on exposing body tissues to high temperatures. This treatment is still being investigated and is not widely available in hospitals and oncological centres. There are two kinds of hyperthermia therapies with direct and indirect heating. The first is not commonly used due to low efficiency and invasiveness, while the second is deeply investigated and a variety of methods have been developed, including ultrasounds, infrared sauna, induction heating and magnetic hyperthermia. The aim of this work was to examine possibilities of heating magnetic nanoparticles under the influence of electromagnetic field for cancer treatment. For this purpose, multiwalled carbon nanotubes used as nanocarriers for iron particles were investigated for its heating properties. The samples were subjected to an alternating electromagnetic field with frequency range between 110-619 kHz. Moreover, samples with various concentrations of carbon nanotubes were examined. The lowest frequency of 110 kHz and sample containing 10 wt% of carbon nanotubes occurred to influence the most effective heating process. Description of hyperthermia therapy aiming at enhancing currently available cancer treatment was also presented in this paper. Most widely applied conventional cancer modalities such as radiation or chemotherapy were also described. Methods for overcoming the most common obstacles in conventional cancer modalities, such as invasiveness and lack of selectivity, has been presented in magnetic hyperthermia characteristics, which explained the increasing interest of the treatment.

Keywords: hyperthermia, carbon nanotubes, cancer colon cells, ligands

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Authors: Scott Hollier, Ruchi Permvattana

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The purpose of this abstract is to share the findings of a recently completed disability-related Internet of Things (IoT) project undertaken at Curtin University in Australia. The project focused on identifying how IoT could support people with disabilities with their educational outcomes. To achieve this, the research consisted of an analysis of current literature and interviews conducted with students with vision, hearing, mobility and print disabilities. While the research acknowledged the ability to collect data with IoT is now a fairly common occurrence, its benefits and applicability still need to be grounded back into real-world applications. Furthermore, it is important to consider if there are sections of our society that may benefit from these developments and if those benefits are being fully realised in a rush by large companies to achieve IoT dominance for their particular product or digital ecosystem. In this context, it is important to consider a group which, to our knowledge, has had little specific mainstream focus in the IoT area –people with disabilities. For people with disabilities, the ability for every device to interact with us and with each other has the potential to yield significant benefits. In terms of engagement, the arrival of smart appliances is already offering benefits such as the ability for a person in a wheelchair to give verbal commands to an IoT-enabled washing machine if the buttons are out of reach, or for a blind person to receive a notification on a smartphone when dinner has finished cooking in an IoT-enabled microwave. With clear benefits of IoT being identified for people with disabilities, it is important to also identify what implications there are for education. With higher education being a critical pathway for many people with disabilities in finding employment, the question as to whether such technologies can support the educational outcomes of people with disabilities was what ultimately led to this research project. This research will discuss several significant findings that have emerged from the research in relation to how consumer-based IoT can be used in the classroom to support the learning needs of students with disabilities, how industrial-based IoT sensors and actuators can be used to monitor and improve the real-time learning outcomes for the delivery of lectures and student engagement, and a proposed method for students to gain more control over their learning environment. The findings shared in this presentation are likely to have significant implications for the use of IoT in the classroom through the implementation of affordable and accessible IoT solutions and will provide guidance as to how policies can be developed as the implications of both benefits and risks continue to be considered by educators.

Keywords: disability, higher education, internet of things, students

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Authors: Parvez Sattar

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There are around 150,000 female sex workers in Bangladesh, and the country hosts one of the largest brothels in the world. There are 20 brothel-villages in the country, of which 14 are recognized to be ‘official’, and at least 11 are currently operational. Although the national Constitution adopts a preventive policy against prostitution, law does not, as such, prohibit commercial sex work by an adult woman working in a brothel having made an affidavit in this regard. But, at the same time, the law renders at least some forms of floating and hotel based sex work illegal, while sex between males has been termed as sodomy and made culpable offence even on its own. All forms of sex works by MSM and Hijra are thus branded as criminal acts. Observations and findings drawn in this article are based on both primary and secondary sources collecting data from a series of field-based empirical studies conducted by the author through questionnaire survey, FGDs, key informant consultations and other PRA/PLA tools. General and specific conclusions have been based on analysis guided by international standards of human and labour rights approaches. It has been noted that neither the community attitudes nor the cultural mind-sets, or the State's institutional set up is supportive of the causes of sex workers engaged in the most exploitative forms of labour. Lack of respect for fundamental rights continues to diminish any chances of sex workers' reintegration to the mainstream of the society, perpetuates poverty, and increases their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. To aggravate the scenario, the endemic practice of a complex debt-bondage masked by the so-called 'entry-cost' and ‘legal license’ to the industry is considered to be a somewhat accepted 'open secret' and that the police and administration keep their eyes off from such practices treating these as 'their internal affairs'. Often these practices are used by the Sardarni/Khala (landlady) and other 'managing' actors as the tool for further exploitation of the sex workers as well as a 'control strategy'. The paper concludes with the observation that the tabooed truths of commercial sex and sex workers are inherently embedded in the very factors that compel them into this endemically ostracised profession itself. While denial of both recognition and enjoyment of the fundamental human rights of sex workers is widespread, it is the same cycle of social vulnerability and economic exclusion that often confines these people within a continuous process of servitude and modern day slavery.

Keywords: commercial sex work and human rights, Labor protection in sex industry, Prostitution Law in Bangladesh, Sex work as modern day slavery

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Authors: Maria Campos, Alain Massart, Hugo Sarmento

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The Meter Matters Erasmus Sport European Project (ID: 101050372) explores the field of social inclusion in and through sports with the aim of a) proposing appropriate criteria for co-funding sports programs involving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and other more vulnerable people, primarily in mainstream sports organizations and b) proposing a model for co-funding social inclusion in and through sports at the national level. This European project (2022-2024) involves 6 partners from 3 countries: Univerza V Ljubljani – coordinator and Drustvo Specialna Olimpiada Slovenije (Slovenia); Magyar Specialis Olimpia Szovetseg and Magyar Testnevelesi Es Sporttudomanyi Egyetem (Hungary) and APPDA Coimbra - Associação Portuguesa para as Perturbações do Desenvolvimento e Autismo and Universidade De Coimbra, Faculty of Sport Sciences and Physical Education (Portugal). Equal involvement of all people in sports activities is, in terms of national and international guidelines, enshrined in some conventions and strategies in the field of sports, as well as human rights, social security, physical and mental health, architecture, environment and public administration. However, there is a gap between the practice and EU guidelines in terms of sustainable support for socially inclusive sports programs in the form of co-funding by state and local (municipal) resources. We observe considerable opacity in the regulation of the field. Given that there are both relevant programs and inclusive legislation and policies, we believe that the reason for the missing article is reflected in the undeveloped criteria for measuring social inclusion in sports. Major sports programs are usually co-funded based on crowds (number of involved athletes) and performance (sports score). In the field of social inclusion in sports, the criteria cannot be the same, as it is a smaller population. Therefore, the goals of inclusion in sports should not be the focused on competitive results but on opening equal opportunities for all, regardless of their psychophysical abilities. In the Meter Matters program, we are searching for criteria for co-funding social inclusion in sports through focus groups with coaches, social workers, psychologists and others professionals involved in inclusive sports programs in regular sports clubs and with athletes and their parents or guardians. Moreover, experts in the field of social inclusion in sports were also interviewed. Based on the proposals for measuring social inclusion in sports, we developed a model for co-funding socially inclusive sports programs.

Keywords: European project, meter matters, inclusion, sport

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Authors: Diego Caballero Vélez

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In 1997 the Schengen Convention was incorporated in the mainstream of EU law by the Amsterdam Treaty. It came into effect in 1999 with the abolition of internal border controls in the EU, a milestone in the European integration project. In the meantime, due to the Yugoslav wars, nearly 700,000 asylum applications were filed in the European countries provoking a major refugee crisis. During this period, the opening of Eastern Europe fostered more cooperation and policy-making at the EU level in migration issues. Currently, a similar migratory crisis is taking place in Europe. The Syrian war has caused the most massive influx of immigrants in Europe since World War II. Nevertheless, the EU is adopting different migration policies from those implemented during the Yugoslav migration crisis. The current crisis has not led to a common European position but national responses have been offered on migration policies and responsibility for border security and asylum-seekers. A lot of factors can explain this change from a cooperation scenario to a no cooperation one, such as the economic crisis, but this research is focused on the premise that 'threat perception' lies at the core of some states grand strategies towards migration and it also influences in multilateral or unilateral responses. Migration rests at the nexus of three dimensions of security, including geopolitical interests, material production, and internal security. According to some scholars, migration policy is an 'integral instrument' of state grand strategy in that context. Political integration at the EU might be altered with the emergence of existential threats. In other words, some areas of the European cooperation can be transformed when a 'critical juncture' occurs, for instance a migration crisis. In that instance, Member states could see migration as a matter of threat that modifies their national interests and willingness to embrace international cooperation. This research will focus on EU Member states´ perceptions of the 90´s migration crisis and the current one. The goal is to evaluate to what extent the perceptions of threat are one of the main factors for explaining the transition from a cooperation scenario to a no-cooperation one in European asylum and security policies. To analyze threat perception in both migration crisis, some relevant Member states are treated as cases of study and a comparative analysis is carried out based on public opinion polls, public and policy discourse in migration, voting practices and deconstruction of the migration policies themselves both at EU level and a national one.

Keywords: cooperation, migration crisis, national responses, threat perception

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Authors: Crisanto H. Ecaldre

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Gender perception represents how an individual perceives the gender identity of a person. Since this is a subjective assessment, it paves the way to various social reactions, either in the form of acceptance or discrimination. Reports across the world show that lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) people often face discrimination, stigmatization, and targeted violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. However, the challenges faced by those who belong to both a sexual minority and a marginalized ethnic, religious, linguistic, or indigenous community are even more complex. Specifically, in Palaw’an community, members own those who identify themselves as gays or lesbians and use “bantut” to identify them. There was also the introduction of various scholarly works to facilitate dialogues that promote visibility and inclusivity across sectors in terms of gender preferences; however, there are still gaps that need to be addressed in terms of recognition and visibility. Though local research initiatives are slowly increasing in terms of numbers, culturally situating gender studies appropriately within the context of indigenous cultural communities is still lacking. Indigenous community-based discourses on gender or indigenizing gender discourses remain a challenge; hence, this study aimed to contribute to addressing these identified gaps. These research objectives were realized through a qualitative approach following an exploratory design. Findings revealed that the Palaw’an indigenous cultural community has an existing concept of homosexuality, which they termed “bantut.” This notion was culturally defined by the participants as (a) kaloob ng diwata; (b) a manifestation of physical inferiority; (c) hindi nakapag-asawa or hindi nagka-anak; and (d) based on the ascribed roles by the community. These were recognized and valued by the community. However, despite the recognition and visibility within the community, the outside people view them otherwise. The challenges experienced by the Palaw’an homosexuals are imposed by the people outside their community, and these include prejudice, discrimination, and double marginalization. Because of these struggles, they are forced to cope. They deal with these imposed limitations, biases, and burdens by non-Palaw’an through self-acceptance, strong self-perception, and the option to leave the community to seek a more open and progressive environment for LGBTs. While these are indications of their ‘resilience’ amidst difficult situations, this reality poses an important concern -how the recognition and visibility of indigenous homosexuals from the mainstream perspective can be attained.

Keywords: gender preference, acceptability, challenge, recognition, visibility, coping

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Authors: Nina Ponikvar, Katja Zajc Kejžar

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While the positive impacts of heritage on a broad societal spectrum have long been recognized and measured, the economic effects of the heritage sector are often less visible and frequently underestimated. At macro level, economic effects are usually studied based on one of the two mainstream approach, i.e. either the multiplier approach or the value chain approach. Consequently, there is limited comparability of the empirical results due to the use of different methodological approach in the literature. Furthermore, it is also not clear on which criteria the used approach was selected. Our aim is to bring the attention to the difference in the scope of effects that are encompassed by the two most frequent methodological approaches to valuation of economic effects of cultural heritage on macroeconomic level, i.e. the multiplier approach and the value chain approach. We show that while the multiplier approach provides a systematic, theory-based view of economic impacts but requires more data and analysis, the value chain approach has less solid theoretical foundations and depends on the availability of appropriate data to identify the contribution of cultural heritage to other sectors. We conclude that the multiplier approach underestimates the economic impact of cultural heritage, mainly due to the narrow definition of cultural heritage in the statistical classification and the inability to identify part of the contribution of cultural heritage that is hidden in other sectors. Yet it is not possible to clearly determine whether the value chain method overestimates or underestimates the actual economic impact of cultural heritage since there is a risk that the direct effects are overestimated and double counted, but not all indirect and induced effects are considered. Accordingly, these two approaches are not substitutes but rather complementary. Consequently, a direct comparison of the estimated impacts is not possible and should not be done due to the different scope. To illustrate the difference of the impact assessment of the cultural heritage, we apply both approaches to the case of Slovenia in the 2015-2022 period and measure the economic impact of cultural heritage sector in terms of turnover, gross value added and employment. The empirical results clearly show that the estimation of the economic impact of a sector using the multiplier approach is more conservative, while the estimates based on value added capture a much broader range of impacts. According to the multiplier approach, each euro in cultural heritage sector generates an additional 0.14 euros in indirect effects and an additional 0.44 euros in induced effects. Based on the value-added approach, the indirect economic effect of the “narrow” heritage sectors is amplified by the impact of cultural heritage activities on other sectors. Accordingly, every euro of sales and every euro of gross value added in the cultural heritage sector generates approximately 6 euros of sales and 4 to 5 euros of value added in other sectors. In addition, each employee in the cultural heritage sector is linked to 4 to 5 jobs in other sectors.

Keywords: economic value of cultural heritage, multiplier approach, value chain approach, indirect effects, slovenia

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Authors: Han-Mei Chen, Rongxin Zhou, Taige Wang

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Glass is widely used in everyday life, from glass bottles for beverages to architectural glass for various forms of glazing. Although the mainstream of used glass is recycled in the UK, the single-use and then recycling procedure results in a lot of waste as it incorporates intact glass with smashing, re-melting, and remanufacturing. These processes bring massive energy consumption with a huge loss of high embodied energy and economic value, compared to re-use, which’s towards a ‘zero carbon’ target. As a tourism city, Liverpool has more glass bottle consumption than most less leisure-focused cities. It’s therefore vital for Liverpool to find an upgrading approach for the single-use glass bottles with low carbon output. This project aims to assess the feasibility of industrial symbiosis and upgrading the framework of glass and to investigate the ways of achieving them. It is significant to Liverpool’s future industrial strategy since it provides an opportunity to target economic recovery for post-COVID by industry symbiosis and up-grading waste management in Liverpool to respond to the climate emergency. In addition, it will influence the local government policy for glass bottle reuse and recycling in North West England and as a good practice to be further recommended to other areas of the UK. First, a critical literature review of glass waste strategies has been conducted in the UK and worldwide industrial symbiosis practices. Second, mapping, data collection, and analysis have shown the current life cycle chain and the strong links of glass reuse and upgrading potentials via site visits to 16 local waste recycling centres. The results of this research have demonstrated the understanding of the influence of key factors on the development of a circular industrial symbiosis business model for beverage glass bottles. The current waste management procedures of the glass bottle industry, its business model, supply chain, and material flow have been reviewed. The various potential opportunities for glass bottle up-valuing have been investigated towards an industrial symbiosis in Liverpool. Finally, an up-valuing business model has been developed for an industrial symbiosis framework of glass in Liverpool. For glass bottles, there are two possibilities 1) focus on upgrading processes towards re-use rather than single-use and recycling and 2) focus on ‘smart’ re-use and recycling, leading to optimised values in other sectors to create a wider industry symbiosis for a multi-level and circular economy.

Keywords: glass bottles, industry symbiosis, smart re-use, waste upgrading

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Authors: Yuanyuan Song

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Background: As we all know, culture plays a pivotal role in the realm of education, influencing study perceptions and outcomes. Nevertheless, there remains a need to delve into how culture specifically impacts the perception of courses. Therefore, the impact of culture on students' perceptions and academic performance is explored in this study. Drawing from cultural constructionism and conflict theories, it is posited that when students hailing from diverse cultures and backgrounds converge in the same classroom, their perceptions of course content may diverge significantly. This study seeks to unravel the tangible disparities and ascertain how cultural nuances shape students' perceptions of classroom content when encountering diverse cultural contexts within the same learning environment. Methodology: Given the diverse cultural backgrounds of students within the US, this study draws upon data collected from a course offered by a US college. In pursuit of answers to these inquiries, a qualitative approach was employed, involving semi-structured interviews conducted in a college-level science class in the US during 2023. The interviews encompassed approximately nine questions, spanning demographic particulars, cultural backgrounds, science learning experiences, academic outcomes, and more. Participants were exclusively drawn from science-related majors, with each student originating from a distinct cultural context. All participants were undergraduates, and most of them were from eighteen to twenty-five years old, totaling six students who attended the class and willingly participated in the interviews. The duration of each interview was approximately twenty minutes. Results: The findings gleaned from the interview data underscore the notable impact of varying cultural contexts on students' perceptions. This study argues that female science students, for instance, are influenced by gender dynamics due to the predominant male presence in science majors, creating an environment where female students feel reticent about expressing themselves in public. Students of East Asian origin exhibit a stronger belief in the efficacy of personal efforts when contrasted with their North American counterparts. Minority students indicated that they grapple with integration into the predominantly white mainstream society, influencing their eagerness to engage in classroom activities that are conducted by white professors. All of them emphasized the importance of learning science.

Keywords: multiculture education, educational sociology, educational equality, STEM education

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Authors: Lukas Reznak, Maria Reznakova

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Recession of an economy has a profound negative effect on all involved stakeholders. It follows that timely prediction of recessions has been of utmost interest both in the theoretical research and in practical macroeconomic modelling. Current mainstream of recession prediction is based on standard OLS models of continuous GDP using macroeconomic data. This approach is not suitable for two reasons: the standard continuous models are proving to be obsolete and the macroeconomic data are unreliable, often revised many years retroactively. The aim of the paper is to explore a different branch of recession forecasting research theory and verify the findings on real data of the Czech Republic and Germany. In the paper, the authors present a family of discrete choice probit models with parameters estimated by the method of maximum likelihood. In the basic form, the probits model a univariate series of recessions and expansions in the economic cycle for a given country. The majority of the paper deals with more complex model structures, namely dynamic and bivariate extensions. The dynamic structure models the autoregressive nature of recessions, taking into consideration previous economic activity to predict the development in subsequent periods. Bivariate extensions utilize information from a foreign economy by incorporating correlation of error terms and thus modelling the dependencies of the two countries. Bivariate models predict a bivariate time series of economic states in both economies and thus enhance the predictive performance. A vital enabler of timely and successful recession forecasting are reliable and readily available data. Leading indicators, namely the yield curve and the stock market indices, represent an ideal data base, as the pieces of information is available in advance and do not undergo any retroactive revisions. As importantly, the combination of yield curve and stock market indices reflect a range of macroeconomic and financial market investors’ trends which influence the economic cycle. These theoretical approaches are applied on real data of Czech Republic and Germany. Two models for each country were identified – each for in-sample and out-of-sample predictive purposes. All four followed a bivariate structure, while three contained a dynamic component.

Keywords: bivariate probit, leading indicators, recession forecasting, Czech Republic, Germany

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Authors: Johanna Sagner, María José Sandoval

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At the early stages of adolescence, young people, regardless of a disability or not, start to establish closer friendship ties. Unlike previous developmental phases, these ties are rather reciprocal, more committed, and require more time. Friendship ties during adolescence allow the development of social and personal skills, specifically the skills to start constructing identity. In an inclusive context that incorporates young people with a disability, friendship among peers also takes place. Nonetheless, the relation is shaped, among others, by the alterity construction about the other with disability. Research about peers’ relation between young people with and without disability in an inclusive context has shown that the relation tends to become a helper-helpee relation, where those with a disability are seen as people in need. Prejudices about the others’ condition or distancing from the other because of his/hers disability are common. In this sense, the helper-helpee relation, as a non-reciprocal and protective relation, will not promote friendship between classmates, but a rather asymmetric alterity. Our research is an explorative case study that wants to know how the relation between peers is shaped within a different inclusive program, were also the integrated group has special educational needs. Therefore, we analyze from a qualitative and quantitative approach the data of an inverted inclusive program. This is a unique case of a special public school for visual disability in Germany that includes young people from a mainstream school who had learning difficulties. For the research, we analyze data from interviews, focal interviews and open-ended questions with an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach. The questionnaires include a five point Likert scale, for which we calculate the acceptance rate. The findings show that the alterity relation between pupils is less asymmetrical and represents a rather horizontal alterity. The helper-helpee relation is marked by exchange, since both groups have special educational needs and therefore, those with visual disability and those with learning difficulties help each other indistinctly. Friendship is more present among classmates. The horizontal alterity peers’ relation is influenced by a sort of tie, where none of the groups need more or less help than other groups. Both groups identify that they themselves and the other have special needs. The axiological axe of alterity is not of superiority or inferiority, recognizing each other’s differences and otherness. Another influential factor relates with the amount of time they spend together, since the program does not have a resource room or a teacher who teaches parallel lessons. Two probable causes for that rather equal peer relation might be the constellation of fewer pupils per classroom and the differentiated lessons taught by teachers with a special educational formation.

Keywords: alterity, disability, inverted inclusion, peers’ relation

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Authors: Nizamuddin Zainuddin, Adam Mohd Saifudin, Ahmad Yusni Bahaudin, Mohd Hanizan Zalazilah, Roslan Jamaluddin

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Students’ enhanced experience through simulation is a crucial factor that brings reality to the classroom. The enhanced experience is all about developing, enriching and applications of a generic process flow in the field of logistics and transportations. As educational technology has improved, the effective use of simulations has greatly increased to the point where simulations should be considered a valuable, mainstream pedagogical tool. Additionally, in this era of ongoing (some say never-ending) assessment, simulations offer a rich resource for objective measurement and comparisons. Simulation is not just another in the long line of passing fads (or short-term opportunities) in educational technology. It is rather a real key to helping our students understand the world. It is a way for students to acquire experience about how things and systems in the world behave and react, without actually touching them. In short, it is about interactive pretending. Simulation is all about representing the real world which includes grasping the complex issues and solving intricate problems. Therefore, it is crucial before stimulate the real process of inbound and outbound logistics and transportation a generic process flow shall be developed. The paper will be focusing on the validization of the process flow by looking at the inputs gains from the sample. The sampling of the study focuses on multi-national and local manufacturing companies, third party companies (3PL) and government agency, which are selected in Peninsular Malaysia. A simulation flow chart was proposed in the study that will be the generic flow in logistics and transportation. A qualitative approach was mainly conducted to gather data in the study. It was found out from the study that the systems used in the process of outbound and inbound are System Application Products (SAP) and Material Requirement Planning (MRP). Furthermore there were some companies using Enterprises Resources Planning (ERP) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) as part of the Suppliers Own Inventories (SOI) networking as a result of globalized business between one countries to another. Computerized documentations and transactions were all mandatory requirement by the Royal Custom and Excise Department. The generic process flow will be the basis of developing a simulation program that shall be used in the classroom with the objective of further enhanced the students’ learning experience. Thus it will contributes to the body of knowledge on the enrichment of the student’s employability and also shall be one of the way to train new workers in the logistics and transportation filed.

Keywords: enhancement, simulation, process flow, logistics, transportation

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Authors: Tamanna Rimi

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A large body of literature has discussed the determinants of migration decision. However, the potential role of individual risk attitudes on migration decision has so far been overlooked. The research on migration literature has studied how the expected income differential influences migration flows for a risk neutral individual. However, migration takes place when there is no expected income differential or even the variability of income appears as lower than in the current location. This migration puzzle motivates a recent trend in the literature that analyzes how attitudes towards risk influence the decision to migrate. However, the significance of risk attitudes on migration decision has been addressed mostly in a theoretical perspective in the mainstream migration literature. The efficient outcome of labor market and overall economy are largely influenced by migration in many countries. Therefore, attitudes towards risk as a determinant of migration should get more attention in empirical studies. To author’s best knowledge, this is the first study that has examined the relationship between relative risk aversion and migration decision in US market. This paper considers movement across United States as a means of migration. In addition, this paper also explores the network effect due to the increasing size of one’s own ethnic group to a source location on the migration decision and how attitudes towards risk vary with network effect. Two ethnic groups (i.e. Asian and Hispanic) have been considered in this regard. For the empirical estimation, this paper uses two sources of data: 1) U.S. census data for social, economic, and health research, 2010 (IPUMPS) and 2) University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, 2010 (HRS). In order to measure relative risk aversion, this study uses the ‘Two Sample Two-Stage Instrumental Variable (TS2SIV)’ technique. This is a similar method of Angrist (1990) and Angrist and Kruegers’ (1992) ‘Two Sample Instrumental Variable (TSIV)’ technique. Using a probit model, the empirical investigation yields the following results: (i) risk attitude has a significantly large impact on migration decision where more risk averse people are less likely to migrate; (ii) the impact of risk attitude on migration varies by other demographic characteristics such as age and sex; (iii) people with higher concentration of same ethnic households living in a particular place are expected to migrate less from their current place; (iv) the risk attitudes on migration vary with network effect. The overall findings of this paper relating risk attitude, migration decision and network effect can be a significant contribution addressing the gap between migration theory and empirical study in migration literature.

Keywords: migration, network effect, risk attitude, U.S. market

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Authors: Elizabeth Owusu Asiamah

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The Ghanaian news media play a crucial role in shaping people's thinking patterns through the nature of the coverage they give to issues, events and personalities. Since the media do not work in a vacuum but within a broader spectrum, which is society, whatever stories they cover and the nature of frames used to narrate such stories go a long way to influence how citizens perceive issues in the country. Consequently, the National Media Commission and the National Communications Authority were instituted to monitor and direct the activities of the media to ensure professionalism that prioritizes society's interest over commercial interest. As the two media regulators go about their routine task of monitoring the operations of the media, they receive coverage from various media outlets (newspapers, radio, television and online). Some people believe that the kind of approach the regulators adopt depends on the nature of coverage the media give them in their reportage. This situation demands an investigation into how the media, regulated by these regulatory bodies, are representing the regulators in the public's eye and the issues arising from such coverage. Extant literature indicates that studies on media framing have centered on politics, environmental issues, public health issues, conflict and wars, etc. However, there appear to be no studies on media framing of media regulators, especially in the Ghanaian context. Since online newspapers have assumed more mainstream positions in the Ghanaian media and have attracted more audiences in recent times, this study investigates the nature of coverage given to media regulators by four purposively sampled online newspapers in Ghana. 96 news articles are extracted from the websites of the Daily Graphic, Ghanaian Times, Daily Guide and Chronicle newspapers within a five-year period to identify the prominence given to stories about the two media regulators and the frames used to narrate stories about them. Data collected are thematically analyzed through the lens of agenda-setting and media-framing theories. The findings of the study revealed that the two regulators were not given much coverage by way of frequency; however, much prominence was given to them in terms of enhancements such as images. The study further disclosed that most of the news articles framed the regulators as weak and incompetent, which is likely to affect how the public also views the regulators. The study concludes that since frames around the supportive nature of the regulators to issues of the media were not hammered by the online newspapers, the public will not perceive the regulators as playing their roles effectively. Thus, a need for more positive frames to be used to narrate stories about the National Media Commission and the National Communication Authority to promote a cordial relationship between the two institutions and a good image to the public.

Keywords: agenda setting, media framing, media regulators, online newspapers

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Authors: Mandy Tao Benec

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Propaganda, understood as a ‘deliberate attempt to persuade people to think and behave in a desired way’, contributes to the fabric of mass media discourse as an important component, albeit often under various alternative expressions except ‘propaganda’. When the word ‘propaganda’ does appear in the mainstream media of the West, it is often selectively applied upon undesiring parties such as China, the North Korea, Russia’s Putin, or terrorists, etc.. This attitude reveals an ‘us verse them’ mentality; and a presupposition that propaganda is something only ‘they’ do whilst ‘we’ do not. This phenomenon not only runs in danger of generating political naivety, but also calls for the necessity of re-examining propaganda which will benefit from analysing it in contrasting social and political environments. Therefore, this paper aims to compare how propaganda has been understood and put in practice both in the Anglo-American context and by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By revealing the convergence and divergence of the propaganda discourses between China and the West, it will help clarify the misconception and misunderstanding of the term. Historical narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis are the main methodologies. By carefully examining data from academic research on propaganda in both English and Chinese, the landscape of how propaganda is defined throughout different eras is mapped, with special attention paid to analysing the parallelism and/or correspondence between China and the West when applicable. Meanwhile, critically analysing the official documents such as speeches and guidelines for propaganda administration given by top-rank CCP leaders will help reveal that in contrast to the West’s ‘us-them’ mentality, China sees oneself in no difference with the Western democracies when propaganda is concerned. Major findings of this study will identify a series of convergence and divergence between Chinese and Western propaganda discourses, and the relationship between propaganda the ‘signified’ (its essence) and propaganda the ‘signifier’ (the term itself), including (yet not limited to): 1) convergence in China catching up with the West, acknowledging the perceived pejorative connotation of the term 2) divergence in propaganda activities disassociated from the term in the West; and convergence in adopting such practice when China following suit in its external propaganda towards the West 3) convergence in utilising alternative notions to replace ‘propaganda’, first by the West, then imported and incorporated enthusiastically by China into its propaganda discourse 4) divergence between China’s internal and external propaganda and the subsequent differentiation between in which contexts the CCP sees fit to utilise the concept 5) convergence between China and the West in their English language propaganda discourses, whilst simultaneous divergence in their presuppositions: ‘usthem’ by the West and ‘we are the same’ by China. To conclude, this paper will contribute to the study of propaganda and its discourse by analysing how propaganda is understood and utilised in both worlds, and hence to uncover the discourse power struggle between the two, which contributes to the propaganda discourse itself. Hence, to untie the misconception of propaganda.

Keywords: China, discourse, power, propaganda

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Authors: Yu-Fong Lin

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The main purpose of this study is to explore the impact of different lighting arrangements that create different visual environments in a 3C retail store on the perception, psychology, and shopping tendencies of consumers of different genders. In recent years, the ‘emotional shopping’ model has been widely accepted in the consumer market; in addition to the emotional meaning and value of a product, the in-store ‘shopping atmosphere’ has also been increasingly regarded as significant. The lighting serves as an important environmental stimulus that influences the atmosphere of a store. Altering the lighting can change the color, the shape, and the atmosphere of a space. A successful retail lighting design can not only attract consumers’ attention and generate their interest in various goods, but it can also affect consumers’ shopping approach, behavior, and desires. 3C electronic products have become mainstream in the current consumer market. Consumers of different genders may demonstrate different behaviors and preferences within a 3C store environment. This study tests the impact of a combination of lighting contrasts and color temperatures in a 3C retail store on the visual perception and psychological reactions of consumers of different genders. The research design employs an experimental method to collect data from subjects and then uses statistical analysis adhering to a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design to identify the influences of different lighting environments. This study utilizes virtual reality technology as the primary method by which to create four virtual store lighting environments. The four lighting conditions are as follows: high contrast/cool tone, high contrast/warm tone, low contrast/cool tone, and low contrast/warm tone. Differences in the virtual lighting and the environment are used to test subjects’ visual perceptions, emotional reactions, store satisfaction, approach-avoidance intentions, and spatial atmosphere preferences. The findings of our preliminary test indicate that female subjects have a higher pleasure response than male subjects in a 3C retail store. Based on the findings of our preliminary test, the researchers modified the contents of the questionnaires and the virtual 3C retail environment with different lighting conditions in order to conduct the final experiment. The results will provide information about the effects of retail lighting on the environmental psychology and the psychological reactions of consumers of different genders in a 3C retail store lighting environment. These results will enable useful practical guidelines about creating 3C retail store lighting and atmosphere for retailers and interior designers to be established.

Keywords: 3C retail store, environmental stimuli, lighting, virtual reality

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Authors: Tingwei Shu, Dong Zhou, Chengjun Guo

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Semantic communication is an emerging form of communication that realize intelligent communication by extracting semantic information of data at the source and transmitting it, and recovering the data at the receiving end. It can effectively solve the problem of data transmission under the situation of large data volume, low SNR and restricted bandwidth. With the development of Deep Learning, semantic communication further matures and is gradually applied in the fields of the Internet of Things, Uumanned Air Vehicle cluster communication, remote sensing scenarios, etc. We propose an improved semantic communication system for the situation where the data volume is huge and the spectrum resources are limited during the transmission of remote sensing images. At the transmitting, we need to extract the semantic information of remote sensing images, but there are some problems. The traditional semantic communication system based on Convolutional Neural Network cannot take into account the global semantic information and local semantic information of the image, which results in less-than-ideal image recovery at the receiving end. Therefore, we adopt the improved vision-Transformer-based structure as the semantic encoder instead of the mainstream one using CNN to extract the image semantic features. In this paper, we first perform pre-processing operations on remote sensing images to improve the resolution of the images in order to obtain images with more semantic information. We use wavelet transform to decompose the image into high-frequency and low-frequency components, perform bilinear interpolation on the high-frequency components and bicubic interpolation on the low-frequency components, and finally perform wavelet inverse transform to obtain the preprocessed image. We adopt the improved Vision-Transformer structure as the semantic coder to extract and transmit the semantic information of remote sensing images. The Vision-Transformer structure can better train the huge data volume and extract better image semantic features, and adopt the multi-layer self-attention mechanism to better capture the correlation between semantic features and reduce redundant features. Secondly, to improve the coding efficiency, we reduce the quadratic complexity of the self-attentive mechanism itself to linear so as to improve the image data processing speed of the model. We conducted experimental simulations on the RSOD dataset and compared the designed system with a semantic communication system based on CNN and image coding methods such as BGP and JPEG to verify that the method can effectively alleviate the problem of excessive data volume and improve the performance of image data communication.

Keywords: semantic communication, transformer, wavelet transform, data processing

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Authors: Lesley Northrop, Justin DeGrazia, Jessica Greenwood

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ASPIRA Labs now offers an en-suit and ready-to-implement technology transfer solution to enable labs and hospitals that lack the resources to build it themselves to offer in-house genetic testing. This unique platform employs a patented Molecular Inversion Probe (MIP) technology that combines the specificity of a hybrid capture protocol with the ease of an amplicon-based protocol and utilizes an advanced bioinformatics analysis pipeline based on machine learning. To demonstrate its efficacy, two independent genetic tests were validated on this technology transfer platform: expanded carrier screening (ECS) and hereditary cancer testing (HC). The analytical performance of ECS and HC was validated separately in a blinded manner for calling three different types of variants: SNVs, short indels (typically, <50 bp), and large indels/CNVs defined as multi-exonic del/dup events. The reference set was constructed using samples from Coriell Institute, an external clinical genetic testing laboratory, Maine Molecular Quality Controls Inc. (MMQCI), SeraCare and GIAB Consortium. Overall, the analytical performance showed a sensitivity and specificity of >99.4% for both ECS and HC in detecting SNVs. For indels, both tests reported specificity of 100%, and ECS demonstrated a sensitivity of 100%, whereas HC exhibited a sensitivity of 96.5%. The bioinformatics pipeline also correctly called all reference CNV events resulting in a sensitivity of 100% for both tests. No additional calls were made in the HC panel, leading to a perfect performance (specificity and F-measure of 100%). In the carrier panel, however, three additional positive calls were made outside the reference set. Two of these calls were confirmed using an orthogonal method and were re-classified as true positives leaving only one false positive. The pipeline also correctly identified all challenging carrier statuses, such as positive cases for spinal muscular atrophy and alpha-thalassemia, resulting in 100% sensitivity. After confirmation of additional positive calls via long-range PCR and MLPA, specificity for such cases was estimated at 99%. These performance metrics demonstrate that this tech-transfer solution can be confidently internalized by clinical labs and hospitals to offer mainstream ECS and HC as part of their test catalog, substantially increasing access to quality germline genetic testing for labs of all sizes and resources levels.

Keywords: clinical genetics, genetic testing, molecular genetics, technology transfer

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Authors: Shan Jiang

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China is a country with a distinct cultural system. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the central factor for everything, which naturally includes culture. There are quite a lot of cultural policies in China. The same goes for TV dramas. This paper traces the evolution of Chinese TV drama policy since 1986, examines the realistic situation behind the changes, and explores the structure and role of the government in shaping the process. Using historical documents and media reports, it first analyzes four key time nodes: 1986, 2003, 2012, and 2022. It shows how the policy shifts from restricting private production to opening up to public participation, from imposing one censorship to another, and from promoting some content to restricting some other area. It finds that the policy process is not simply rectilinear but rather wandering between deregulation and strengthening control. Secondly, it divides the policies into "basic" policies that establish the overall layout and more refined "strategic" policies that respond to more refined needs. It argues that the "basic" policy process is caused by China's political, economic, and cultural system reform, and then the "strategic" policy process is affected by more environmental factors, such as the government's follow-up development strategy, industrial development, technological innovation, and specific situations. Thirdly, it analysis the main body of the 104 policies from 2000 to 2021 and puts these subjects into China's power structure and cultural system, revealing that the policy issuers are all under the highest leadership of the Chinese Central Committee. Further, the paper challenges the typical description of Chinese cultural policy, which focuses on state control exclusively, identifies the forces within and outside the system that participate in or affect the policy-making process, and reveals the inter-subjective mechanism of policy change. In conclusion, the paper reveals that China's TV drama policy is under the unified leadership of the Party and the government, which greatly guarantees the consistency of the overall direction of cultural policy, that is, the right to speak firmly in the hands. The forces within the system can sometimes promote policy changes due to common development needs. However, folk discourse is only the object of control: when it breeds a certain amount of industrial space, the government will strengthen control over this space, suppress its potential "adverse effects", and instead provide protection and create conditions for the cultivation and growth of its mainstream discourse. However, the policy combination of basic policy and strategic policy, while having a strong effect and emergency capacity, also inhibits the innovation and diversification of the TV drama market. However, the state's substantial regulation will continue to exist in the future.

Keywords: TV Policy, China, policy process, cultural policy, culture management

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Authors: David Sinfield, Thomas Cochrane, Marcos Steagall

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While there is much hype around the potential and development of mobile virtual reality (VR), the two key critical success factors are the ease of user experience and the development of a simple user-generated content ecosystem. Educational technology history is littered with the debris of over-hyped revolutionary new technologies that failed to gain mainstream adoption or were quickly superseded. Examples include 3D television, interactive CDROMs, Second Life, and Google Glasses. However, we argue that this is the result of curriculum design that substitutes new technologies into pre-existing pedagogical strategies that are focused upon teacher-delivered content rather than exploring new pedagogical strategies that enable student-determined learning or heutagogy. Visual Communication design based learning such as Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography and Design process is heavily based on the traditional forms of the classroom environment whereby student interaction takes place both at peer level and indeed teacher based feedback. In doing so, this makes for a healthy creative learning environment, but does raise other issue in terms of student to teacher learning ratios and reduced contact time. Such issues arise when students are away from the classroom and cannot interact with their peers and teachers and thus we see a decline in creative work from the student. Using AR and VR as a means of stimulating the students and to think beyond the limitation of the studio based classroom this paper will discuss the outcomes of a student project considering the virtual classroom and the techniques involved. The Atelier learning environment is especially suited to the Visual Communication model as it deals with the creative processing of ideas that needs to be shared in a collaborative manner. This has proven to have been a successful model over the years, in the traditional form of design education, but has more recently seen a shift in thinking as we move into a more digital model of learning and indeed away from the classical classroom structure. This study focuses on the outcomes of a student design project that employed Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technologies in order to expand the dimensions of the classroom beyond its physical limits. Augmented Reality when integrated into the learning experience can improve the learning motivation and engagement of students. This paper will outline some of the processes used and the findings from the semester-long project that took place.

Keywords: augmented reality, blogging, design in community, enhanced learning and teaching, graphic design, new technologies, virtual reality, visual communications

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Authors: Janette Porter, Kay Standing

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The paper presents our experiences of working in both mainstream and Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) schools in England from 2012-2019, using creative methodologies to deliver and evaluate healthy relationship education. It aims to explore to explore how young people's perceptions of relationships and their "perfect partner" are mediated by factors such as gender, body image, and social media. It will be an interactive session, inviting participants to reflect on their own experiences of relationship education, and to take part in an example of a classroom activity of 'a perfect partner'. Young people aged 16-25 are most at risk of relationship abuse and intimate partner violence. This can be enacted both on the body, through physical and sexual violence, but also emotional and psychological abuse. In England and Wales relationship education became compulsory in schools in September 2020. There is increasing recognition for the need for whole school approaches to prevent gender-based violence, in particular domestic abuse, from happening in the first place and for equipping schools to feel more confident supporting young people affected by gender-based violence. The project used creative methods, including arts, drama, music, poetry, song, and creative writing, to engage participants in sensitive topics related to relationship education. Interactive workshops with pupils aged 11-19 enabled young people to express themselves freely, pupils then used drama to share their knowledge with their peer group. We co-produced material with young people, including an accessible resource pack for use in SEND schools, particularly for children with visual and sensory impairments. The project was evaluated by questionnaires and interviews with pupils. The paper also reflects on the ethical issues involved in the research. After the project, young people had a better understanding of healthy and unhealthy relationships, improved knowledge of the early warning signs of abuse and knew where to go to for help and advice. It found that creative methods are an effective way to engage young people in relationship education and sensitive topics. We argue that age and ability appropriate relationship education should be compulsory across the curriculum and that implementing creative and art-based approaches to address sensitive topics can enhance the effectiveness of relationship education programs in promoting healthy relationships and preventing abuse. The paper provides academic and practitioner perspectives, providing a reflection on our research, looking at practical, methodological, and ethical issues involved in research on Gender Based Violence with young people in a school setting.

Keywords: relationship education, healthy relationships, creative methods, young people

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