Search results for: political opportunity structure

Authors: Shuai Zhao, Shalendra D. Sharma, Jin Xu

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This research uses advanced machine learning models to learn a number of hypotheses regarding political executives. Specifically, it analyses the impact these powerful leaders have on economic growth by using leaders’ data from the Archigos database from 1835 to the end of 2015. The data is processed by the AutoGluon, which was developed by Amazon. Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) and AutoGluon can automatically extract features from the data and then use multiple classifiers to train the data. Use a linear regression model and classification model to establish the relationship between leaders and economic growth (GDP per capita growth), and to clarify the relationship between their characteristics and economic growth from a machine learning perspective. Our work may show as a model or signal for collaboration between the fields of statistics and artificial intelligence (AI) that can light up the way for political researchers and economists.

Keywords: comparative politics, political executives, leaders’ characteristics, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Diya Sarkar, Prafulla C. Mishra

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In a parliamentary system, party discipline is the impulse; when it falls short, the government usually falls. Conceivably, the platform of Indian politics suffers with innumerous practical disorders. The politics of defection is one such specie entailing gross miscarriage of fair conduct turning politics into a game of thrones (powers). This practice of political nomaditude can trace its seed in the womb of British House of Commons. Therein, if a legislator was found to cross the floor, the party considered him disloyal. In other words, the legislator lost his allegiance to his former party by joining another party. This very phenomenon, in practice has a two way traffic i.e. ruling party to the opposition party or vice versa. The democracies like USA, Australia and Canada were also aware of this fashion of swapping loyalties. There have been several instances of great politicians changing party allegiance, for example Winston Churchill, Ramsay McDonald, William Gladstone etc. Nevertheless, it is interesting to cite that irrespective of such practice of changing party allegiance, none of the democracies in the west ever desired or felt the need to legislatively ban defections. But, exceptionally India can be traced to have passed anti-defection laws. The politics of defection had been a unique popular phenomenon on the floor of Indian Parliamentary system gradually gulping the democratic essence and synchronization of the Federation. This study is both analytical and doctrinal, which tries to examine whether representative democracy has lost its essence due to political nomadism. The present study also analyzes the classical as well as contemporary pulse of floor crossing amidst dynastic politics in a representative democracy. It will briefly discuss the panorama of defections under the Indian federal structure in the light of the anti-defection law and an attempt has been made to add valuable suggestions to streamline remedy for the still prevalent political defections.

Keywords: constitutional law, defection, democracy, polarization, political anti-trust

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Authors: Elisabeth Pedersen

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Representations and interpretations of womanhood and female sexualities bring forth various questions regarding gender norms, and the implications of these norms, which are permeating and repetitive within various societies. Literature is one form of media which provides the space to represent and interpret women, their bodies, and sexualities, and also reveals the power of language as an affective and affected force. As literature allows an opportunity to explore history and the representations of gender, power dynamics, and sexuality through historical contexts, this paper uses engaged theory through a comparative analysis of two work of literature, The Duchess of Malfi by John Wester, and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. These novels span across space and time, which lends to the theory that repetitive tropes of womanhood and female sexuality in literature are influenced by and have an influence on the hegemonic social order throughout history. It analyzes how the representation of the dichotomy of male chivalry and honor, and female purity are disputed and questioned when a woman is portrayed as sexually emancipated, and explores the historical context in which these works were written to examine how socioeconomic events challenged the hegemonic social order. The analysis looks at how stereotypical ideals of womanhood and manhood have damaging implications on women, as the structure of society provides more privilege and power to men than to women, thus creating a double standard for men and women in regards to sexuality, sexual expression, and rights to sexual desire. This comparative analysis reveals how strict gender norms are permeating and have negative consequences. However, re-reading stories through a critical lens can provide an opportunity to challenge the repetitive tropes of female sexuality, and thus lead to the embrace of the complexity of female sexuality and expression.

Keywords: femininity, literature, representation, sexuality

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Authors: Sofía Luna, Carla González Salamanca

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The 2008 economic crisis had huge implications in Europe. In this continent, the repercussions of the crisis were not only economic but also political and institutional. The economic stress has generated changes in the perception of the citizens, their attitude and the confidence placed in the political organizations. The lost of confidence is not only present in the debtor countries but it is also present in the European economic powers like Germany and France. This research explains how the economic crisis had an impact in the identity, population’s attitude and how this generated the rise of extreme right parties. In addition, it defines the different types of attitudes and support that exist towards these political and economic institutions. The results of this investigation show that the depression beside of its economic implications, it caused institutional, social and political difficulties for the Union. Moreover, the support and attitudes of the population were severely strained because the confidence in the political organization decreased. Furthermore, a rise in the otherness sentiment was shown. In other words, the distinction between “us” and “them” increased causing repercussions in the collective European identity. Additionally, there was a spread in national identities that caused the rise of the extreme right wing parties. In conclusion, the 2008 economic crisis caused not only economic stress but also it generated a political, social and institutional crisis in Europe.

Keywords: Europe, identity, economic crisis, otherness sentiment

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Authors: M. Kamel El-Sayed

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In this research, we have linked the concept of rough set and topological structure to the creation of a new topological structure that assists in the analysis of the information systems of some electrical engineering issues. We used non-specific information whose boundaries do not have an empty set in the top topological structure is rough set. It is characterized by the fact that it does not contain a large number of elements and facilitates the establishment of rules. We used this structure in reducing the specifications of electrical information systems. We have provided a detailed example of this method illustrating the steps used. This method opens the door to obtaining multiple topologies, each of which uses one of the non-defined groups (rough set) in the overall information system.

Keywords: electrical engineering, information system, rough set, rough topology, topology

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Authors: Marietta Kékes Szabó

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The patterns of personality (mal)function and the individuals’ psychosocial environment influence the healthy status collectively and may lie in the background of psychosomatic disorders. Although the patients with their diversified symptoms usually do not have any organic problems, the experienced complaint, the fear of serious illness and the lack of social support often lead to increased anxiety and further enigmatic symptoms. The role of the family system and its atmosphere seem to be very important in this process. More studies explored the characteristics of dysfunctional family organization: inflexible family structure, hidden conflicts that are not spoken about by the family members during their daily interactions, undefined role boundaries, neglect or overprotection of the children by the parents and coalition between generations. However, questionnaires that are used to measure the properties of the family system are able to explore only its unit and cannot pay attention to the dyadic interactions, while the representation of the family structure by a figure placing test gives us a new perspective to better understand the organization of the (sub)system(s). Furthermore, its dynamic form opens new perspectives to explore the family members’ joint representations, which gives us the opportunity to know more about the flexibility of cohesion and hierarchy of the given family system. In this way, the communication among the family members can be also examined. The aim of my study was to collect a great number of information about the organization of psychosomatic families. In our research we used Gehring’s Family System Test (FAST) both in static and dynamic forms to mobilize the family members’ mental representations about their family and to get data in connection with their individual representations as well as cooperation. There were four families in our study, all of them with a young adult person. Two families with healthy participants and two families with asthmatic patient(s) were involved in our research. The family members’ behavior that could be observed during the dynamic situation was recorded on video for further data analysis with Noldus Observer XT 8.0 program software. In accordance with the previous studies, our results show that the family structure of the families with at least one psychosomatic patient is more rigid than it was found in the control group and the certain (typical, ideal, and conflict) dynamic representations reflected mainly the most dominant family member’s individual concept. The behavior analysis also confirmed the intensified role of the dominant person(s) in the family life, thereby influencing the family decisions, the place of the other family members, as well as the atmosphere of the interactions, which could also be grasped well by the applied methods. However, further research is needed to learn more about the phenomenon that can open the door for new therapeutic approaches.

Keywords: psychosomatic families, family structure, family system test (FAST), static and dynamic representations, behavior analysis

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Authors: Shahid Imran

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'Mediatization' has influenced the politics by shaping and transforming the attitudes and practices of political actors. It is a serious challenge to democracy in today’s era. This study aims to analyze the dynamics of media politics interplay in Pakistan and the contextual factors which govern this interplay. It will also address the perceived influence of media on the practices of politicians from the perspectives of the actors. The objectives have been achieved qualitatively through Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The phenomenological data have been collected using semi-structured interviews of journalists and politicians of Pakistan. The findings depict that politics in Pakistan is more driven by media logic than political or democratic logic. Media and politics have a ‘Tom and Jerry’ relationship. Political ecology is highly media-induced: politicians strategically adopt and adapt the media logic to be in the ‘media spotlight’; journalists, on the other hands, do not practice ‘fair journalism rather a more politically parallelized. The mediatized political communication behaviours of the actors are the undermining the public service logic and affecting the spirit of democracy in Pakistan. The study offers some valued implications for media, politicians and policy makers.

Keywords: medialization, media logic, politics, political logic

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Authors: Henrique Alpalhão

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This paper attempts to model the widely studied relationship between a country's economic growth and its level of democracy, with an emphasis on possible non-linearities. We adopt the concept of 'political capital' as a measure of democracy, which is extremely uncommon in the literature and brings considerable advantages both in terms of dynamic considerations and plausibility. While the literature is not consensual on this matter, we obtain, via panel Arellano-Bond regression analysis on a database of more than 60 countries over 50 years, significant and robust results that indicate that the impact of democratization on economic growth varies according to the stage of democratic development each country is in.

Keywords: democracy, economic growth, political capital, political economy

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Authors: Shorena Tsiklauri, Avtandil Sulaberidze, Nino Gomelauri

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In the years followed independence, an economic crisis and some conflicts led to the displacement of many people inside Georgia. The growing poverty, unemployment, low income and its unequal distribution limited access to basic social service have had a clear direct impact on Georgian population dynamics and its age-sex structure. Factors influencing the changing population age structure and urbanization include mortality, fertility, migration and expansion of urban. In this paper presents the main factors of changing the distribution by urban and rural areas. How different are the urban and rural age and sex structures? Does Georgia have the same age-sex structure among their urban and rural populations since 1950s?

Keywords: age and sex structure of population, georgia, migration, urban-rural population

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Authors: T. Pathinathan, M. Peter

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Fuzzy graphs incorporate concepts from graph theory with fuzzy principles. In this paper, we make a study on the properties of fuzzy graphs which are non-cyclic and are of two-dimensional in structure. In particular, this paper presents 2D structure or the structure of double layer for a non-cyclic fuzzy graph whose underlying crisp graph is non-cyclic. In any graph structure, introducing 2D structure may lead to an inherent cycle. We propose relevant conditions for 2D structured non-cyclic fuzzy graphs. These conditions are extended even to fuzzy graphs of the 3D structure. General theoretical properties that are studied for any fuzzy graph are verified to 2D structured or double layered fuzzy graphs. Concepts like Order, Degree, Strong and Size for a fuzzy graph are studied for 2D structured or double layered non-cyclic fuzzy graphs. Using different types of fuzzy graphs, the proposed concepts relating to 2D structured fuzzy graphs are verified.

Keywords: double layered fuzzy graph, double layered non–cyclic fuzzy graph, order, degree and size

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Authors: Mariam Waheed Mekheimar

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Nascent research is conducted to the advancement of discourse analysis to include different modes as images, sound, and text. The focus of this study will be to elucidate how images are embedded with texts in an audio-visual medium as cinema to send political messages; it also seeks to broaden our understanding of politics beyond a relatively narrow conceptualization of the 'political' through studying non-traditional discourses as the cinematic discourse. The aim herein is to develop a systematic approach to film analysis to capture political meanings in films. The method adopted in this research is Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) focusing on embedding visuals with texts. As today's era is the era of images and that necessitates analyzing images. Drawing on the writings of O'Halloran, Kress and Van Leuween, John Bateman and Janina Wildfeuer, different modalities will be studied to understand how those modes interact in the cinematic discourse. 'People at the top movie' is selected as an example to unravel the political meanings throughout film tackling the cinematic representation of the notion of social justice.

Keywords: Egyptian cinema, multimodal discourse analysis, people at the top, social justice

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Authors: Samantha Clarke

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

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

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Authors: Victor Chomel, Maziyar Panahi, David Chavalarias

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Misinformation has taken an increasingly worrying place in social media. Propagation patterns are closely linked to the structure of communities. This study proposes a method of community analysis based on a combination of centrality indicators for the network and its main communities. The objective is to establish a link between the stability of the communities over time, the social ascension of its members internally, and the propagation of information in the community. To this end, data from the debates about global warming and political communities on Twitter have been collected, and several tens of millions of tweets and retweets have helped us better understand the structure of these communities. The quantification of this stability allows for the study of the propagation of information of any kind, including disinformation. Our results indicate that the most stable communities over time are the ones that enable the establishment of nodes capturing a large part of the information and broadcasting its opinions. Conversely, communities with a high turnover and social ascendancy only stabilize themselves strongly in the face of adversity and external events but seem to offer a greater diversity of opinions most of the time.

Keywords: community analysis, disinformation, misinformation, Twitter

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Authors: Michael F. Mascolo

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Western democratic traditions are being strained. Western nations are losing the common agonistic ground needed to engage in traditional forms of democracy – adversarial debate, voting, and the peaceful transfer of power. Political polarization among party elites has become commonplace. Because it seeks to resolve conflict through the integration of opposites, a dialectical approach to resolving partisan conflict offers the promise of helping political partisans bridge ideological divides. This paper contains an analysis of dialectical engagement as a collaborative alternative to adversarial politics. Dialectical engagement involves two broad phases: collaborative political problem-solving and dialectical problem-solving. The paper contains a description of an 18-month longitudinal study assessing the effectiveness of dialectical engagement as a method for bridging divides on contentious socio-political issues. The study shows how dialectical engagement produced dramatic consensus among a small group of individuals from different political orientations as they worked together to resolve the issue of capital punishment.

Keywords: collaborative democracy, dialectical thinking, capital punishment, partisan conflict

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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: Azam Fazelpour, Saeed R. Dehghani, Vlastimil Masek, Yuri S. Muzychka

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This study employs a method based on image analyses and structure information to detect accumulated ice on known structures. The icing of marine vessels and offshore structures causes significant reductions in their efficiency and creates unsafe working conditions. Image processing methods are used to measure ice loads automatically. Most image processing methods are developed based on captured image analyses. In this method, ice loads on structures are calculated by defining structure coordinates and processing captured images. A pyramidal structure is designed with nine cylindrical bars as the known structure of experimental setup. Unsymmetrical ice accumulated on the structure in a cold room represents the actual case of experiments. Camera intrinsic and extrinsic parameters are used to define structure coordinates in the image coordinate system according to the camera location and angle. The thresholding method is applied to capture images and detect iced structures in a binary image. The ice thickness of each element is calculated by combining the information from the binary image and the structure coordinate. Averaging ice diameters from different camera views obtains ice thicknesses of structure elements. Comparison between ice load measurements using this method and the actual ice loads shows positive correlations with an acceptable range of error. The method can be applied to complex structures defining structure and camera coordinates.

Keywords: camera calibration, ice detection, ice load measurements, image processing

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Authors: Heather Caldwell

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In 1915, state superintendent, Mary C.C. Bradford initiated a state standardization plan in order to improve the quality of schools and the educational experience for all children in Colorado. This plan would change the schools, improving them and offering more opportunities for children, teachers, and the community. In a state where geography limited opportunity to make all schools equal and brought challenges to state school leaders to improve education throughout the state, the leadership prevailed and worked together with local schools and school leaders to make drastic improvements in the curriculum. This paper will discuss this plan and will highlight key contributions to this standardization plan that improved opportunities for all students in the state of Colorado through these educational initiatives.

Keywords: history of education, standardization, curriculum, state superintendent, women in education

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Authors: Arunas Burinskas, Manuela Tvaronavičienė

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Although the new trade theories, unlike the theories of an industrial organisation, see the structure of the market and competition between enterprises through their heterogeneity according to various parameters, they do not pay any particular attention to the analysis of the market structure and its development. In this article, although we relied mainly on models developed by the scholars of new trade theory, we proposed a different approach. In our simulation model, we model market demand according to normal distribution function, while on the supply side (as it is in the new trade theory models), productivity is modeled with the Pareto distribution function. The results of the simulation show that companies with higher productivity (lower marginal costs) do not pass on all the benefits of such economies to buyers. However, even with higher marginal costs, firms can choose to offer higher value-added goods to stay in the market. In general, the structure of the market is formed quickly enough and depends on the skills available to firms.

Keywords: market, structure, simulation, heterogenous firms

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Authors: Mariel Encar H. Uy, Paula Marie G. Pacle

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The purpose of this research is to present a Single Country Comparative Contextual Description Study of Strong Islamic Influences in Relation to the Politics of Republic of Indonesia. This paper recognizes that even the coalition of secular and moderate Islamic parties protect the minority rights of all the constituents, Islam is still the dominant religion among the other recognized religions in Indonesia (Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism). In this study, it will also detail the involvement on the religions’ beliefs and techniques; participation of political actors, depending on what religion they belong and adhere to; the tensions whenever the government interferes with Islamists and other religions; the government’s solution or public policies implemented to maintain peace and order of Indonesia. This paper will develop a conceptual framework to describe how the Religion and Political Stability is interdependent with each other.

Keywords: diversity of religion in indonesia, secularization in Indonesia, motivations of political actors, voter turnouts based on religion

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Authors: Jennifer Knudsen

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This study observes the moderating effects of family structure on College Achievement across cohorts. Over the past half-century, social stigmas surrounding non-traditional families have shifted, as they make up an increasing proportion of American families. Using the General Social Survey, this study employs a varying coefficient model to test if family structure moderates the effects of other background variables on respondents’ educational attainment. Initial analysis suggests that living in alternative family arrangements has an increasingly negative effect on college achievement, whereas living in an intact family with a mother and father has a positive effect on college achievement.

Keywords: education, family, college, family structure

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Authors: Zarine Avetisyan

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Paper presents the discussion of scholars concerning speech impact, peculiarities of its realization, speech strategies, and techniques. Departing from the viewpoints of many prominent linguists, the paper suggests manipulative argumentation be viewed as a most pervasive speech strategy with a certain set of techniques which are to be found in modern American political discourse. The precedence of their occurrence allows us to regard them as pragmatic patterns of speech impact realization in effective public speaking.

Keywords: speech impact, manipulative argumentation, political discourse, technique

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Authors: Hsiao-Wen Wang

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The split-share structure reform in China represents one of the most significant milestones in the evolution of the capital market. With the goal of converting non-tradable shares into tradable shares, the reform laid the foundation and supported the development of full-scale privatization. This study explores China’s split-share structure reform and its impact on statutory audit fees. This study finds that auditors earn a significant statutory audit fee premium after the split-share structure reform. The Big 4 auditors who provide better audit quality receive higher statutory audit fee premium than non-Big 4 auditors after the share reform, which is attributable to their brand reputation, rather than the relative market dominance.

Keywords: chinese split-share structure reform, statutory audit fees, big-4 auditors, corporate governance

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Authors: A. Bayoumi, M. Abdallah, F. Hage Chehade

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Structures on the ground surface bear impact from the tunneling-induced settlement, especially when twin tunnels are constructed. The tunneling influence on the structure is considered as a critical issue based on the construction procedure and relative position of tunnels. Lebanon is suffering from a traffic phenomenon caused by the lack of transportation systems. After several traffic counts and geotechnical investigations in Beirut city, efforts aim for the construction of tunneling systems. In this paper, we present a non-linear numerical modeling of the effect of the twin tunnels constructions on the structures located at soil surface for a particular site in Beirut. A parametric study, which concerns the geometric configuration of tunnels, the distance between their centers, the construction order, and the position of the structure, is performed. The tunnel-soil-structure interaction is analyzed by using the non-linear finite element modeling software PLAXIS 2D. The results of the surface settlement and the bending moment of the structure reveal significant influence when the structure is moved away, especially in vertical aligned tunnels.

Keywords: bending moment, elastic modulus, horizontal twin tunnels, soil, structure location, surface settlement, vertical twin tunnels

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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: Samiah H. Ghounaim

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The topic of this paper is significant because of the increasing need for intercultural training for foreign language teachers due to the continuous challenges they face in their diverse classrooms. First, the structure of the intercultural training program designed will be briefly described, and the structure of a 3D vignette and its intended purposes will be elaborated on. This was the first stage where the program was designed and implemented on the period of three months with a group of local and expatriate foreign language teachers/practitioners at a university in the Middle East. After that, a set of primary data collected during the first stage of this research on the design and co-construction process of a 3D vignette will be reviewed and analysed in depth. Each practitioner designed a personal incident into a 3D vignette where each dimension of the vignette viewed the same incident from a totally different perspective. Finally, the results and the implications of having participant construct their personal incidents into a 3D vignette as a reflective practice will be discussed in detail as well as possible extensions for the research. This process proved itself to be an effective reflective practice where the participants were stimulated to view their incidents in a different light. Co-constructing one’s own critical incidents –be it a positive experience or not– into a structured 3D vignette encouraged participants to decentralise themselves from the incidents and, thus, creating a personal reflective space where they had the opportunity to see different potential outcomes for each incident, as well as prepare for the reflective discussion of their vignette with their peers. This provides implications for future developments in reflective writing practices and possibilities for educators’ continuous professional development (CPD).

Keywords: 3D vignettes, intercultural competence training, reflective practice, teacher training

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Authors: Sabry A. El Azazy

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Tourism plays an essential role in supporting the National Economy. Egypt was ranked as one of the most attractive touristic destinations worldwide. Tourism as a service sector affects political events and unstable conditions. Within the revolution of January 25th, 2011, tourism became below standards, and the archeological heritage sites were subject to threat. Because of the political tension and social instability, Egypt's tourism sector has drastically dropped. Currently, Egypt is working on overcoming the crisis caused by political unrest. However, it is expected to take a long time to get back to where it was, especially in terms of regaining the confidence of travelers in the country's ability to guarantee and maintain security and stability. Recently, many great projects have been done, such as; New Administrative Cairo Capital, New Suez Canal logistic project, New City of Al Alamin, New Grand Egyptian Museum, as well as other great projects that reflect positively on the tourism industry and archaeological heritage development in Egypt.

Keywords: archaeology, archaeological heritage, attractions, national economy, political events, touristic destinations, tourism industry

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Authors: Shailendra M. Pradhan, Upendra M. Pradhan

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Disasters are perennial features of human civilization. The recurring earthquakes, floods, cyclones, among others, that result in massive loss of lives and devastation, is a grim reminder of the fact that, despite all our success stories of development, and progress in science and technology, human society is perennially at risk to disasters. The apparent threat of climate change and global warming only severe our disaster risks. Darjeeling hills, situated along Eastern Himalayan region of India, and famous for its three Ts – tea, tourism and toy-train – is also equally notorious for its disasters. The recurring landslides and earthquakes, the cyclone Aila, and the Ambootia landslides, considered as the largest landslide in Asia, are strong evidence of the vulnerability of Darjeeling hills to natural disasters. Given its geographical location along the Hindu-Kush Himalayas, the region is marked by rugged topography, geo-physically unstable structure, high-seismicity, and fragile landscape, making it prone to disasters of different kinds and magnitudes. Most of the studies on disasters in Darjeeling hills are, however, scientific and geographical in orientation that focuses on the underlying geological and physical processes to the neglect of social and political conditions. This has created a tendency among the researchers and policy-makers to endorse and promote a particular type of discourse that does not consider the social and political aspects of disasters in Darjeeling hills. Disaster, this paper argues, is a complex phenomenon, and a result of diverse factors, both physical and human. The hazards caused by the physical and geological agents, and the vulnerabilities produced and rooted in political, economic, social and cultural structures of a society, together result in disasters. In this sense, disasters are as much a result of political and economic conditions as it is of physical environment. The human aspect of disasters, therefore, compels us to address intricating social and political challenges that ultimately determine our resilience and vulnerability to disasters. Set within the above milieu, the aims of the paper are twofold: a) to provide a political and sociological account of disasters in Darjeeling hills; and, b) to identify and address the root causes of its vulnerabilities to disasters. In situating disasters in Darjeeling Hills, the paper adopts the Pressure and Release Model (PAR) that provides a theoretical insight into the study of social and political aspects of disasters, and to examine myriads of other related issues therein. The PAR model conceptualises risk as a complex combination of vulnerabilities, on the one hand, and hazards, on the other. Disasters, within the PAR framework, occur when hazards interact with vulnerabilities. The root causes of vulnerability, in turn, could be traced to social and political structures such as legal definitions of rights, gender relations, and other ideological structures and processes. In this way, the PAR model helps the present study to identify and unpack the root causes of vulnerabilities and disasters in Darjeeling hills that have largely remained neglected in dominant discourses, thereby providing a more nuanced and sociologically sensitive understanding of disasters.

Keywords: Darjeeling, disasters, PAR, vulnerabilities

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Authors: Ming Qian, Davis Qian

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This study compares the different organization structures of Chinese and English writing discourses in the engineering and scientific fields, and recommends approaches for translators to convert the organization structures properly. Based on existing intercultural communication literature, English authors tend to deductively give their main points at the beginning, following with detailed explanations or arguments afterwards while the Chinese authors tend to place their main points inductively towards the end. In this study, this hypothesis has been verified by the authors’ Chinese-to-English translation experiences in the fields of science and engineering (e.g. journal papers, conference papers and monographs). The basic methodology used is the comparison of writings by Chinese authors with writings of the same or similar topic written by English authors in terms of organization structures. Translators should be aware of this nuance, so that instead of limiting themselves to translating the contents of an article in its original structure, they can convert the structures to fill the cross-culture gap. This approach can be controversial because if a translator changes the structure organization of a paragraph (e.g. from a 'because-therefore' inductive structure by a Chinese author to a deductive structure in English), this change of sentence order could be questioned by the original authors. For this reason, translators need to properly inform the original authors on the intercultural differences of English and Chinese writing (e.g. inductive structure versus deductive structure), and work with the original authors to maintain accuracy while converting from one structure used in a source language to another structure in the target language. The authors have incorporated these methodologies into their translation practices and work closely with the authors on the inter-cultural organization structure mapping. Translating discourse organization structure should become a standard practice in the translation process.

Keywords: discourse structure, information structure, intercultural communication, translation practice

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Authors: Katherine O'Grady-Bray

Abstract:

For some deaf children, reading books can be a challenge. Frank Barnes School (FBS) provides guided reading time with Teachers of the Deaf, in which they read books with deaf children using a bilingual approach. The vocabulary and context of the story is explained to deaf children in BSL so they develop skills bridging English and BSL languages. However, the success of this practice is only achieved if the person is fluent in both languages. FBS piloted a scheme to convert an Oxford Reading Tree (ORT) book into an e-book that can be read using tablets. Deaf readers at FBS have access to both languages (BSL and English) during lessons and outside the classroom. The pupils receive guided reading sessions with a Teacher of the Deaf every morning, these one to one sessions give pupils the opportunity to learn how to bridge both languages e.g. how to translate English to BSL and vice versa. Generally, due to our pupils’ lack of access to incidental learning, gaining new information about the world around them is limited. This highlights the importance of quality time to scaffold their language development. In some cases, there is a shortfall of parental support at home due to poor communication skills or an unawareness of how to interact with deaf children. Some families have a limited knowledge of sign language or simply don’t have the required learning environment and strategies needed for language development with deaf children. As the majority of our pupils’ preferred language is BSL we use that to teach reading and writing English. If this is not mirrored at home, there is limited opportunity for joint reading sessions. Development of the e-Book required planning and technical development. The overall production took time as video footage needed to be shot and then edited individually for each page. There were various technical considerations such as having an appropriate background colour so not to draw attention away from the signer. Appointing a signer with the required high level of BSL was essential. The language and pace of the sign language was an important consideration as it was required to match the age and reading level of the book. When translating English text to BSL, careful consideration was given to the nonlinear nature of BSL and the differences in language structure and syntax. The e-book was produced using Apple’s ‘iBook Author’ software which allowed video footage of the signer to be embedded on pages opposite the text and illustration. This enabled BSL translation of the content of the text and inferences of the story. An interpreter was used to directly ‘voice over’ the signer rather than the actual text. The aim behind the structure and layout of the e-book is to allow parents to ‘read’ with their deaf child which helps to develop both languages. From observations, the use of e-books has given pupils confidence and motivation with their reading, developing skills bridging both BSL and English languages and more effective reading time with parents.

Keywords: bilingual book, e-book, BSL and English, bilingual e-book

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Authors: Mohammad Q. M. Momani

Abstract:

The objective of this study is to examine whether the value relevance of ownership structure changed as the Amman Stock Exchange market conditions changed. Using data from 2005 to 2014, the study finds that the performance of portfolios that contain firms with concentrated ownership structure declines significantly during the post-crisis period. These portfolios exhibit poor performance relative to portfolios that contain firms with dispersed ownership structure during the post-crisis period. The results argue that uninspired performance of the Amman Stock Exchange during the post-crisis period, increased the incentives for controlling shareholders to expropriate. Investors recognized these incentives and discounted firms that were more likely to expropriate.

Keywords: value relevance, ownership structure, portfolio performance, Jordan, ASE

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