Authoritative Entities Research Articles

From Surveillance to Toutveillance: Evaluating the Social Impacts of Different Monitoring Paradigms

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This article explores the evolution and impacts of different monitoring paradigms: traditional surveillance, sousveillance, and toutveillance. Traditional surveillance, characterized by hierarchical observation from an authoritative entity, often results in power imbalances, privacy invasion, and social inequality. In response, sousveillance monitoring by individuals of those in power emerges as a countermeasure, aiming to democratize oversight but still facing legal and ethical challenges. Toutveillance, which promotes mutual monitoring among all parties, is presented as a potential solution to these issues, leveraging technology such as body cameras to enhance transparency, accountability, and reduce discriminatory practices. The article argues that while each paradigm has its merits and limitations, toutveillance offers a more balanced approach to address the complexities of modern surveillance, privacy concerns, and social justice.</p>

Is Nigeria Ready to Combat Environmental Problems? A Peep through Judicial Decisions of Nigerian Courts

Nigeria, similar to numerous other nations across the globe, grapples with a multitude of environmental difficulties. The imperative of safeguarding the environment is considered inviolable, and any responsible nation must accord it utmost importance. The recognition and correlation between the right to address environmental issues and the rights to life and human dignity, as stated in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, have been established by authoritative entities inside the country. In Nigeria, there exist a limited number of established authorities responsible for environmental preservation. The main objective of this study is to assess the progress made by Nigeria in the realm of environmental preservation, while also evaluating the extent to which the Nigerian government and other pertinent actors in the environmental sector adhere to court directives pertaining to environmental protection. When a court of appropriate jurisdiction issues a judgement in a specific case, it is expected that the judgement will be promptly adhered to in order to uphold the principles of the legal system. Failure to comply with court judgements poses a significant issue that requires rapid attention. This study investigates the aforementioned element in the context of evaluations pertaining to environmental conservation. In order for Nigeria to align with international standards pertaining to environmental conservation, it is imperative to adhere to the principles of the rule of law and ensure compliance with court rulings.

Hoffmann’s Signature Doodles

Abstract As scholars familiar with his manuscripts and drawings will know, E.T.A. Hoffmann had the idiosyncratic and rather charming habit of signing off some of his informal letters not with a signature in the conventional sense, but with a spontaneous self-portrait: a doodle. The aim of this article is to examine such forms by framing them within the context of a broader question about Hoffmann’s doodles and drawings. Specifically, it places his ‘signature doodles’ at the centre of a graphic conversation between the contingencies of the medium and an impulse towards meaningful form. It is in that sense that they open up a space for new reflections on the author’s relationship to writing and drawing, registering a vision of the author not as an authorizing or authoritative entity, held above and separate from the work, but rather as a peculiar entanglement of self and work, whose identity is defined and confirmed from within the act of composition.

Application of The Law of dispute settlement on compensatory damages incurred by an extreme source of danger - road transportation vehicles: Practice from The People’s court of Ben Tre

In today’s social life in Vietnam, an increasing number of road vehicles have been identified as an extreme source of danger by law. Additionally, violations of the law and damages caused by this high source of danger occur more frequently, requiring authoritative entities to undertake law application activities. However, although the law is becoming increasingly complete, applying the law to settle disputes on compensation for the damages caused by the road transport vehicles remains limited. This article presents an overview of the law of dispute settlement and inadequacies and limitations when applying it to settle disputes on compensation for the damages incurred by the road motor vehicles in Ben Tre Province, thereby proposing some recommendations to amend the law to ensure proper application.

A Blockchain-Based Distributed Authentication System for Healthcare

The use of digital health records, stricter health laws and the growing need for health records exchange points towards the need for an efficient security and privacy preserving mechanism. For Health Insurance management systems, multiple entities exchange health information which is used for decision making. Since multiple authoritative entities are involved, a secure and efficient information sharing protocol is required as extremely sensitive health information is exchanged among the entities. Hence this paper aims to put forward a novel a decentralized authentication system based on Blockchain known as Insurance Claim Blockchain (ICBChain) system. The proposed system ensures privacy of patients, provides secure information exchange and authentication of entities. An implementation of the proposed system is provided using Ethereum Blockchain. The security and performance analysis of the system shows its potential to satisfy Healthcare security requirements and its efficiency respectively

A Blockchain-Based Distributed Authentication System for Healthcare

The use of digital health records, stricter health laws and the growing need for health records exchange points towards the need for an efficient security and privacy preserving mechanism. For Health Insurance management systems, multiple entities exchange health information which is used for decision making. Since multiple authoritative entities are involved, a secure and efficient information sharing protocol is required as extremely sensitive health information is exchanged among the entities. Hence this paper aims to put forward a novel a decentralized authentication system based on Blockchain known as Insurance Claim Blockchain (ICBChain) system. The proposed system ensures privacy of patients, provides secure information exchange and authentication of entities. An implementation of the proposed system is provided using Ethereum Blockchain. The security and performance analysis of the system shows its potential to satisfy Healthcare security requirements and its efficiency respectively

Authority in the Classical Ḥanafī School: the Emergence & Evolution of Ẓāhir al-Riwāya

Abstract The madhhab in its classical form was an authoritative entity with substantive boundaries that established the outer limits of the school and its authoritative doctrine. The latter involved, among other things, confronting the plurality of opinions found within the school. In this essay, I will analyse the manner in which Ḥanafī jurists attempted to limit this plurality through an authorizing discourse that created a taxonomy of legal doctrine ranking different opinions present in the corpus juris of their school. Specifically, I will examine the most authoritative corpus in this taxonomy, namely ẓāhir al-riwāya, in five parts: the first part will investigate the concept of legal authority prior to ẓāhir al-riwāya; the second part will identify the earliest usage of the term ẓāhir al-riwāya; the third and fourth parts will analyse the popularization of this doctrine, its spread, and earliest theorization; the final part will briefly investigate what ẓāhir al-riwāya denoted.

The concerns associated with future prospects of the food cart business in Chittagong, Bangladesh: is the concept of halalan tayyiba missing link?

Purpose The informal segment compared to the formal segment is developing rapidly in urban areas of many developing Muslim countries. However, matter of fact, the contribution factor of the food cart business to the economic outline of the country has been vastly overlooked or neglected. The authority, policymakers, social organisations, vendors and the customers together need to play a contributing role based on intervention tactics regarding the major focus areas related to the development of this business segment. As a result, this study aims to explore concerns or issues that are hampering future business prospects considering the philosophy of halalan tayyiba. Design/methodology/approach The study has organised 16 semi-structured interview procedures with relevant food cart vendors of Chittagong, Bangladesh. The study selected participants (food cart vendors) from lower- to medium-income areas occupying at least one high school, one college in relation to several commercial premises (ex-mini shopping malls, offices and small factories) considering 6 out of 41 wards of Chittagong city corporation. All meetings with reflected participants were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim and transcripts were loaded into NVivo for coding and analysis procedure. Findings This investigation revealed that issues with food security, weather, lack of proper legislation, lack of awareness related with halalan tayyiba and erratic policies are the major challenges for the development of the food cart business in Chittagong. This study also advances how street food security well-being and hygiene practices are a piece of the halal idea and should in this way be adjusted by the halal food segment to accomplish halalan tayyiba affirmation. The outcomes also indicate an agenda for future research in this area. Research limitations/implications More reflections from the different stakeholders do have both pertinence and potential for incorporation in suggestions. Practical implications The detected findings may help both authority and other concerned entities to identify the critical dynamics to initiate appropriate strategic activities towards local economic growth considering halalan tayyiba outlines. Social implications It will ensure social well-being and food security. Originality/value This explorative research is one of few studies in the Bangladesh context, which is investigating halalan tayyiba-oriented business development outline for micro entrepreneurs.

Burn Nurse Competency Utilization: Report From the 2019 Annual American Burn Association Meeting

Competence in healthcare is a recognized expectation by consumers. In 2018 following an extensive review and consensus-building process, burn nursing practice competencies were published. Clinical nurse leaders were called upon to use these published competencies in practice as a basis for the requisite knowledge and skills needed in the care of the burn-injured individual. In 2019 at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Burn Association, nurses from four U.S. burn centers reported on their center's incorporation of the competencies within their educational nursing curriculums. This paper provides a forum for each of the lead authors from Rhode Island Hospital Burn Center, the University of Utah Health Burn Trauma Intensive Care Unit, Parkland Regional Burn Center, and the University of Chicago Medicine Burn Center to outline their current utilization of the new burn nurse competencies and plans for future use.

A discussion of the unresolved 2016/17 plans for regulating the Polish dietary supplements market

The Polish dietary supplement market is growing steadily. However, even though these products may have an impact on health they are not as strongly regulated as pharmaceuticals. In 2016/17 the introduction of new regulations covering the marketing of dietary supplements in Poland was proposed. This article briefly describes the Polish market for dietary supplements and assesses the benefits and risks associated with its development. A range of potential legislative changes, such as a total ban on dietary supplements, a ban on using the images and recommendations of authoritative entities, increased fines for breaking the law, and other measures are under consideration. We describe the advantages (e.g., better customer protection, and the limitation of inappropriate, misleading advertising) and disadvantages (e.g., a decrease in product innovation, deterioration in product offerings, and rises in product prices) of the proposed changes. As a European Union member, Poland adopts EU law, but EU directives have only harmonized some issues relating to dietary supplement marketing, other key aspects remaining within the competence of member states, but it is noted that some proposed changes in Polish law (e.g., an advertising ban) are so strict that they are unlikely to be acceptable to the EU.

Understanding Flu Vaccination Acceptance Among U.S. Adults: The Health Belief Model and Media Sources

Based on previous studies about the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the reinforcing relationship between media selectivity or preference and individual’s behavior, this study used a national representative adult sample to assess flu vaccination as the result of an appraisal of relevant health beliefs, trust towards the authoritative entities (e.g. CDC & FDA) and vaccine-related media information, in addition to one’s existing behavior pattern. Results showed that not-vaccinated individuals differ significantly in their vaccine-related health believes and the trust towards the authoritative information sources. This group acquired less recommendation from health care providers and more negative sentiments about flu vaccine overall. After controlling for the existing behavior, media selectivity and perceived vaccine benefit are predicting individual’s vaccination hesitancy and intention in the coming flu season.

DO OPEN GEODATA ACTUALLY HAVE THE QUALITY THEY DECLARE? THE CASE STUDY OF MILAN, ITALY

Abstract. In the past number of years there has been an amazing flourishing of spatial data products released with open licenses. Researchers and professionals are extensively exploiting open geodata for many applications, which, in turn, include decision-making results and other (derived) geospatial datasets among their outputs. Despite the traditional availability of metadata, a question arises about the actual quality of open geodata, as their declared quality is typically given for granted without any systematic assessment. The present work investigates the case study of Milan Municipality (Northern Italy). A wide set of open geodata are available for this area which are released by national, regional and local authoritative entities. A comprehensive cataloguing operation is first performed, with 1061 geospatial open datasets from Italian providers found which highly differ in terms of license, format, scale, content, and release date. Among the many quality parameters for geospatial data, the work focuses on positional accuracy. An example of positional accuracy assessment is described for an openly-licensed orthophoto through comparison with the official, up-to-date, and large-scale vector cartography of Milan. The comparison is run according to the guidelines provided by ISO and shows that the positional accuracy declared by the orthophoto provider does not correspond to the reality. Similar results are found from analyses on other datasets (not presented here). Implications are twofold: raising the awareness on the risks of using open geodata by taking their quality for granted; and highlighting the need for open geodata providers to introduce or refine mechanisms for data quality control.

DO OPEN GEODATA ACTUALLY HAVE THE QUALITY THEY DECLARE? THE CASE STUDY OF MILAN, ITALY

In the past number of years there has been an amazing flourishing of spatial data products released with open licenses. Researchers and professionals are extensively exploiting open geodata for many applications, which, in turn, include decision-making results and other (derived) geospatial datasets among their outputs. Despite the traditional availability of metadata, a question arises about the actual quality of open geodata, as their declared quality is typically given for granted without any systematic assessment. The present work investigates the case study of Milan Municipality (Northern Italy). A wide set of open geodata are available for this area which are released by national, regional and local authoritative entities. A comprehensive cataloguing operation is first performed, with 1061 geospatial open datasets from Italian providers found which highly differ in terms of license, format, scale, content, and release date. Among the many quality parameters for geospatial data, the work focuses on positional accuracy. An example of positional accuracy assessment is described for an openly-licensed orthophoto through comparison with the official, up-to-date, and large-scale vector cartography of Milan. The comparison is run according to the guidelines provided by ISO and shows that the positional accuracy declared by the orthophoto provider does not correspond to the reality. Similar results are found from analyses on other datasets (not presented here). Implications are twofold: raising the awareness on the risks of using open geodata by taking their quality for granted; and highlighting the need for open geodata providers to introduce or refine mechanisms for data quality control.

The Importance of Authoritative URI Design Schemes for Open Government Data

A major challenge when working with open government data is managing, connecting, and understanding the links between references to entities found across multiple datasets when these datasets use different vocabularies to refer to identical entities (i.e.: one dataset may refer to Microsoft as “Microsoft”, another may refer to the company by its SEC filing number as “0000789019”, and a third may use its stock ticker “MSFT”.) In this paper the authors propose a naming scheme based on Web URLs that enables unambiguous naming and linking of datasets and, more importantly, data elements, across the Web. They further describe their ongoing work to demonstrate the implementation and authoritative management of such schemes through a class of web service they refer to as the “instance hub”. When working with linked government data, provided either directly from governments via open government programs or through other sources, the issue of resolving inconsistencies in naming schemes is particularly important, as various agencies have disparate conventions for referring to the same concepts and entities. Using linked data technologies the authors have created instance hubs to assist in the management and linking of entity references for collections of categorically and hierarchically related entities. Instance hubs are of particular interest to governments engaged in the publication of linked open government data, as they can help data consumers make better sense of published data and can provide a starting point for development of linked data applications. In this paper the authors present their findings from the ongoing development of a prototype instance hub at the Tetherless World Constellation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (TWC RPI). The TWC RPI Instance Hub enables experimentation and verification of proposed URI design schemes for open government data, especially those developed at TWC in collaboration with the United States Data.gov program. They discuss core principles of the TWC RPI Instance Hub design and implementation, and summarize how they have used their instance hub to demonstrate the possibilities for authoritative entity references across a number of heterogeneous categories commonly found in open government data, including countries, federal agencies, states, counties, crops, and toxic chemicals.

Comparison of three media for transport and storage of the samples collected for detection of avian influenza virus

Detection of avian influenza viruses (AIVs) is important for diagnosis, surveillance and control of avian influenza which is of great economic and public health significance. Proper transport and storage of samples is critical for the detection when the samples cannot be detected immediately. As recommended by some international or national authoritative entities and some publications, phosphate buffered saline (PBS), PBS–glycerol and brain heart infusion broth (BHIB) are frequently used for transport and storage of the samples collected for detection of AIVs worldwide. In this study, we compared these three media for transport and storage of simulated and authentic swab and feces samples collected for detection of AIVs using virus isolation and reverse transcription-PCR. The results suggest that PBS–glycerol is superior to PBS and BHIB as the sample transport and storage media. The results also suggest that the samples collected for detection of AIVs should be detected as soon as possible because the virus concentration of the samples may decline rapidly during storage within days at 4 or −20°C.

The European Marine Strategy: Contribution and challenges from a Portuguese perspective

Abstract The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is considered to be the environmental pillar of the EU Integrated Maritime Policy, establishing a framework within which member states must take the necessary measures to achieve, or maintain, good environmental status in their marine waters. This study presents Portugal's contributions to the Directive development, describes the Portuguese institutional framework within the MSFD and, finally, highlights the opportunities and threats to the success of the MSFD implementation in Portugal. The latter entails an analysis of the Directive's long term adequacy in its link to (1) marine spatial planning, (2) climate change and (3) the economic/financial crisis. With one of Europe's largest exclusive economic zones. Portugal's interest in the MSFD is paramount. Efforts towards the approval of the final document were assured during the Portuguese presidency of the European Council of Ministers, in 2007, while chairing a thorough discussion between the Council and the European Parliament. In the Portuguese context, the Directive implementation will rely on the Water Institute as the authoritative entity, which will be responsible for coordinating all necessary efforts at the national level. The success of such process depends on a close cooperation among the institutions involved as well as on how approved measures account for long term issues. In addition, the MSFD implementation must be built on lessons learned within the Water Framework Directive, in order to be successful. Although it poses a methodological challenge to Portugal, the MSFD implementation is expected to contribute significantly to the improvement of coastal/marine conservation and management at the national level.

Knowledge management governance – a strategic driver

This paper investigates how Knowledge management (KM) governance drives the effective implementation of KM strategy in organizations. To this end, we analysed the survey evidence from 218 organizations from the perspective of KM governance, selection of techniques in the development and implementation of knowledge strategy and its alignment with business strategy. Based on the analysis, we have developed a model of KM governance explaining elements of KM maturity that lead to strategic benefits realization. We reveal the relative importance of the roles of KM authority entities and the vital link between KM governance and corporate governance. These underscore how the KM governance environment supports the effective management of knowledge through strategically aligned, governed, transparent activity.

A taxonomy of multinational ethical and methodological standards for clinical trials of therapeutic interventions

BackgroundIf trials of therapeutic interventions are to serve society's interests, they must be of high methodological quality and must satisfy moral commitments to human subjects. The authors set out to...

Mining Authoritativeness of Collaborative Innovation Partners

The global marketplace over the past decade has called for innovative products and cost reduction. This perplexing duality has led companies to seek external collaborations to effectively deliver innovative products to market. External collaboration often leads to innovation at reduced research and development expenditure. This is especially true of companies which find the most authoritative entity (usually a company or even a person) to work with. Authoritativeness accelerates development and research-to-product transformation due to the inherent knowledge of the authoritative entity. This paper offers a novel approach to automatically determine the authoritativeness of entities for collaboration. This approach automatically discovers an authoritative entity in a domain of interest. The methodology presented utilizes web mining, text mining, and generation of an authoritativeness metric. The concepts discussed in the paper are illustrated with a case study of mining the authoritativeness of collaboration partners for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

Patrimônio cultural e Geoparque

Os órgãos culturais brasileiros, de forma compartilhada com outras entidades do poder público e a sociedade civil, devem reconhecer e assumir a responsabilidade pelo patrimônio geológico. A terra, desde os primórdios da humanidade, revela ricos valores e significados culturais. O Iphan tem atuado na preservação de sítios de valor geológico e paleontológico por meio do tombamento de sítios e coleções e agora amplia sua ação por meio da instituição de um novo instrumento, a Paisagem Cultural Brasileira. Os geoparques são um importante modelo nos quais o Iphan pode exercer suas atribuições legais e atuar de forma compartilhada, amparado no reconhecimento internacional.