Conjuncture Research Articles

Geography’s relevance debates and new forms of scholar policy activism

In the context of class and culture wars over the social purpose of the university, it is time to revisit a pivotal question: to whom is the discipline of geography accountable and for what? In the spirit of looking back to look forward, we wonder to what extent and in what ways historiographies of geography that critically interrogate geographers' statements on the discipline's social mission might help and guide us at this hour? Specifically, we work to extract added value from the so-called relevance debates which animated anglophone geography in the 1970s. Characterising the present historical conjuncture as a Gramscian moment of interregnum when the ‘old is dying and the new cannot be born’, we tender the provocation that it is the responsibility of geographers to advance the cause of a ‘progressive populism’. To prosecute this public mission, it will be necessary to recentre the discipline around the figure of the geographer as scholar policy activist, immersed in and a progenitor of a vigilant, contestatory democracy. We conclude that whilst the relevance debates failed to theorise, codify, professionalise and valorise such an academic identity, these debates did bequeath logics and legacies that can fast track this work now.

Research on the Impact of Economic Development on Financial Derivatives

This paper aims to further investigate the impact of economic growth on the demand for financial derivatives, provide effective support to financial market participants and investors, and promote the stable development of financial markets. Firstly, time series analysis models, including autoregressive, mixed autoregressive, and moving average regression, are established by considering various factors in the financial market. Secondly, the basic characteristics of financial derivatives are thoroughly analyzed, and relevant variables are selected for explanation. Finally, the paper elucidates the fundamental functions of financial derivatives and their role in economic growth. The empirical results show that the correlation coefficient between non-financial institution derivatives and enterprise value is 0.2049, and the impact of enterprise economic growth on derivatives demand is 0.0003. Through time series analysis, the study reveals the impact mechanisms of economic cycles, business fluctuations, and other factors on the financial derivatives market, providing effective support for investors and participants.

How safe is the zone, and how voluntarily are the returnees? Turkey’s project for a ‘safe and dignified’ voluntary repatriation of Syrian refugees and the potential implementation of R2P on behalf of returnees

ABSTRACT The millions of refugees in Turkey are left in political limbo. Anti-refugee sentiment in society has also become an issue. However, in contradiction to the earlier Muslim solidarity rhetoric of ‘Muhajir and Ansar’, the Turkish government has been implementing its repatriation project that requires a ‘safe and dignified’ voluntary return of a million Syrian refugees to Turkey's safe zone in Northeast Syria. The article argues that the country's current political, economic and social conjuncture overshadows the voluntary character of the government's repatriation project and claims that Turkey's voluntary repatriation project does not meet the requirements of the international refugee protection regime. Building on the policy-oriented approach to international law, the article examines the potential implementation of the preventive dimension of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) on behalf of Syrian ‘returnees’. The article concludes that the ‘two-phase’ responsibility strategy that imposes responsibilities on the host country and the international community, which would be implemented simultaneously in Turkey's repatriation project, can protect returnees from possible danger in Syria. However, it can also set a precedent for future cases by filling a gap in International Refugee Law that does not address voluntary repatriation.

The Demotic Impulse of the Kitchen-Sink Dramas

In this article, I suggest a historical and theoretical re-evaluation of the British New Wave from the point of view of its demotic impulse. I begin by situating the kitchen-sink films within a broader framework of post-war innovation, driven by an aspiration to realism that reinvigorated British cinema and television within a novel historical conjuncture. I then investigate the specificity of British New Wave’s realism – with an emphasis on the films Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and A Taste of Honey – and consider their contribution to the development of an indigenous aesthetic, characterised by a demotic impulse. The relevance of the notion of demotic in the post-war cultural panorama can be attributed to the ‘equalising’ powers of the Second World War. As I will suggest, a prolific parallel can be established with another moment of historical transition during what Eric Hobsbawm called ‘the age of revolution’, in which the spirit of egalitarianism equally lay at the root of the search for a demotic. Here, I will focus on William Wordsworth’s poetic revolution to investigate the notions of egalitarianism and of demotic, which I believe can further our understanding of post-war realism in the British audio-visual landscape.

Extant and extinct bilby genomes combined with Indigenous knowledge improve conservation of a unique Australian marsupial

Ninu (greater bilby, Macrotis lagotis) are desert-dwelling, culturally and ecologically important marsupials. In collaboration with Indigenous rangers and conservation managers, we generated the Ninu chromosome-level genome assembly (3.66 Gbp) and genome sequences for the extinct Yallara (lesser bilby, Macrotis leucura). We developed and tested a scat single-nucleotide polymorphism panel to inform current and future conservation actions, undertake ecological assessments and improve our understanding of Ninu genetic diversity in managed and wild populations. We also assessed the beneficial impact of translocations in the metapopulation (N = 363 Ninu). Resequenced genomes (temperate Ninu, 6; semi-arid Ninu, 6; and Yallara, 4) revealed two major population crashes during global cooling events for both species and differences in Ninu genes involved in anatomical and metabolic pathways. Despite their 45-year captive history, Ninu have fewer long runs of homozygosity than other larger mammals, which may be attributable to their boom–bust life history. Here we investigated the unique Ninu biology using 12 tissue transcriptomes revealing expression of all 115 conserved eutherian chorioallantoic placentation genes in the uterus, an XY1Y2 sex chromosome system and olfactory receptor gene expansions. Together, we demonstrate the holistic value of genomics in improving key conservation actions, understanding unique biological traits and developing tools for Indigenous rangers to monitor remote wild populations.

Synthetic orbit uncertainty generation through regression analysis of historical Conjunction Data Messages

In the last decades, the Earth-orbiting population of both active and non-active objects has grown significantly, leading to a substantial increase in number of possible in-orbit collisions. It is therefore crucial to monitor the orbit of space resident objects to assess in advance the threat of risky conjunctions. Within this framework, the 18th Space Defense Squadron (SDS) is consistently updating the orbit of thousands of tracked objects by processing observations of the U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN). The determined orbital data is continuously maintained in the Special Perturbation (SP) catalogue and used by the 19th SDS to issue close approach warnings to satellite operators around the globe in the form of Conjunction Data Messages (CDM). The Flight Dynamics (FD) group of the German Space Operation Centre (GSOC) receives on regular basis a subset of the SP catalogue data along with CDMs associated to the fleet of its controlled satellites. The SP ephemerides are in fact provided without any covariance information preventing any computation of the Probability of Collision (Pc). In GSOC FD we are implementing a service to link a series of synthetic orbital error covariance matrices to a given SP ephemeris by statistically analyzing historical CDMs of past events. More than 30 GB of past conjunction data are processed to extract state vector, covariance matrix and object size parameter of already encountered secondary objects. The orbital errors of these last are subsequently categorized and divided into orbital classes to decouple the high correlation the covariance has with respect to solar flux, object dimension, altitude of perigee, eccentricity and orbit inclination. The classification aims at collecting similar CDMs regarding the aforementioned dependencies, and approximates the predicted 1-sigma position errors in the orbital frame by optimal curve-fitting techniques. By evaluation of the curve fitting coefficients of a requested orbit class a covariance matrix can be generated for any prediction time in upcoming CDM refinements and other analyses. The work discusses the limiting cases of the classification approach, bringing possible solutions to the scenario of empty classes. An in-depth characterization of the parameters that affect the orbital errors is in fact performed to individualize the neighboring class that provides the closest and most meaningful covariance timeline. Successively, the effect of using synthetic covariance in a conjunction risk assessment is also explored, adapting the problem on real operations. Lastly, the entire data processing pipeline and how the described service fits into the GSOC Flight Dynamics System (FDS) framework is described.

Identifying, Mapping, and Analyzing Stakeholders of Tomato Value Chain

The research aims to optimize the efficiency of tomato value chain by mapping and analyzing various stakeholders. The study was taken as a part of the Research work of MBA (Agribusiness) carried out at Madanapalli taluka of Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh. The complete research design work is based on primary and secondary data collected through a structured questionnaire and from the Madanapalli Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee, annual reports of the National Horticultural Board, and articles from the World Processing Tomato Council. A multistage sampling technique was used for selection and Descriptive statistics, value chain analysis was carried out to identify the key activities within the industry. A value chain map illustrates the journey of tomatoes from production to the consumer, highlighting the various stages and processors involved along the way. The connections are displayed in a vertical manner from the left to the right side. At the top, the main functions of the chain are listed. These functions encompass input supply, production, trading, marketing/processing, and consumption. The vertical progression from the left to the right side illustrates the individuals engaged in performing the various functions. Displayed on the left side, the enablers help and support the actors in performing their roles. These enablers primarily include formal and informal institutions, as well as private organizations. The study concludes that lack of access to credit, Huge loss of raw produce in a glut situation, Inadequate infrastructure, seasonal fluctuations in business, and intense competition within a limited timeframe pose significant challenges in the tomato value chain. The lack of incentives for quality differentiation further exacerbates these issues. The chain's lack of transparency allows middlemen to wield control, leaving farmers with little ability to market their produce effectively.

Characterization of Top Trading Cycles with single-dipped preferences

In the object reallocation model, when agents’ preferences are unrestricted, Ekici (2024) proves that the top trading cycles is the unique mechanism that is individually-rational, pair-efficient, and strategyproof. We prove that this characterization remains true when agents’ preferences are single-dipped.

Universal Ideational Warfare: Preemptive Ideocide in the Global South

Abstract The world is entering a post-universal historical conjuncture marked by a “great divergence” triggered by a paroxysm of crises exacerbated by the Western world’s reluctance to accept its diminishing global role. In a panic response, the West is consolidating itself into a Euro-American Confederal Empire, engaging in a form of universal ideational warfare against emerging civilization-states in an effort to maintain its civilizational hegemony. This has resulted in an ideological engineering contest within the global public sphere pursued through the practice of “preemptive ideocide,” which seeks to perpetuate a missionary universalism that imposes Western political-cultural norms upon the world’s divergent cultural and self-governing modes of existence. This ideational warfare is situated within an emergent Cold War Two. The protagonists of this ideational warfare represent a service class of ideocrats devoted to the preservation of Western global primacy. The article highlights the key themes addressed by members of this service class who act as an elite posse of a global thought police. In conclusion, the article argues that humanity is irreversibly divided into non-convergent but non-conflictual cultural identities and proposes the adoption in the Global South of a cultural polygenesis covenant as an exit strategy from the prevailing dependency on missionary universalism’s ideational framework.

Financial resource scheduling and road construction projects performance in Nairobi Metropolitan, Kenya

Kenya has seen a boom in road building during the last couple of years as a result of the government's significant investments in the construction industry to upgrade infrastructure, such as road networks. Road network construction is one of the key pillar of the country long term vision 2030. However, the performance of the road projects has experienced various challenges leaving some roads uncompleted, others poorly done after huge investment of public resources. This study sought to evaluate the influence of financial resources scheduling on the performance of road construction projects in Nairobi Metropolitan, Kenya. The research was based on resource dependence theory. A descriptive design as well as the cross-sectional survey was used. The population of interest for this study consisted of 39 road construction projects being implemented by Kenya Urban Roads Authority and Kenya National Highway Authority within the Nairobi metropolitan area. A semi structured questionnaire was utilized to collect primary data. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study results revealed projects resource scheduling had a positive and significant effect on project performance of road construction projects in Nairobi Metropolitan, Kenya. The study concludes that effective financial resource scheduling enables that organization to manage risk that may occur from changes in the project’s outcome. Financial resource scheduling starts from developing the project budget which is a process for allocating administered and departmental funds necessary to build a financial foundation for producing stated project deliverables.

Enhancing Financial Performance: The Crucial Role of Working Capital Management in E- Commerce Retail Sector

The rapid expansion of ecommerce stores has changed the competitive landscape, requiring new ways to maintain financial health. This study examines the critical role of working capital manag ement (WCM) in financial development in the ecommerce retail industry. Implementing WCM i nvolves monitoring existing assets and liabilities to ensure adequate capacity and efficiency. By analyzing key components such as inventory management, accounts receivable, and payroll, this study demonstrates how effectively WCM can increase revenue, reduce operating costs, and incr ease revenue. Case studies of ecommerce companies revealed best practices and the impact of te chnology solutions on WCM. Findings show that companies that maintain effective WCM are ab le to withstand business fluctuations and sustain longterm growth. This article highlights the imp ortance of integrating financial strategies and strategies into business management to improve fin ancial performance in e-commerce.

A STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LABOUR WELFARE SCHEMES AND ITS IMPACT ON JOB SATISFACTION AMONG WORKERS IN TITAN WATCH COMPANY, HOSUR – A CASE STUDY

In an industrial economy, the workers are subject to periodic unemployment due to cyclical fluctuations in business, sickness, industrial accidents and old age. In India it has the obligation from the Government side to help the labourers and provide them security and adopt labour welfare measures in the form of various schemes such as Workmen’s Compensation Act, Employees’ State Insurance Act, Finances and Contributions, Sickness benefit, Medical benefit, Maternity benefit, Disablement benefit, Dependents’ benefit, Employees’ Provident Fund and Bonus schemes, Gratuity Scheme and Employees’ Pension Scheme. All these welfare schemes have followed and adopted in industries for the welfare of labourers both men and women. So, the present study is done to understand the various labour welfare facilities such as statutory and non-statutory welfare facilities provided by the company to labourers / workers namely TITAN watch company, Hosur, and its impact on job satisfaction. This study shows the positive relation between welfare facilities such as medical facilities, crèche, canteen facilities, recreation, toilet facilities, rest room facilities, reading room, loan facilities for their children’s education, marriage, housing loan, insurance coverage etc. and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is very important to know the level of contribution to workers towards his / her work and how welfare facilities affect. Labour welfare schemes are provided to strengthen man power in both physically and mentally. Thus, these facilities are more effective in improving the performance and building the morale of every worker working in industries, in order to increase the productivity of labourers.

Impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on the economic conjuncture of latin american countries

Resumo: Este estudo analisa a pandemia de COVID-19, que desencadeou uma crise econômica sem precedentes na América Latina, expondo as vulnerabilidades estruturais da região e profundas desigualdades sociais. Os governos responderam com uma combinação de políticas monetárias expansionistas, como reduções nas taxas de juros e expansão da liquidez, e políticas fiscais anticíclicas envolvendo aumento dos gastos públicos e programas de transferência de renda. Embora necessárias, essas medidas resultaram em altos níveis de dívida pública. Os impactos econômicos foram severos, com recessões, aumento do desemprego e pressão inflacionária. A recuperação tem sido desigual, exigindo esforços contínuos para promover a estabilidade macroeconômica e o crescimento sustentável. Recomendações incluem fortalecer os sistemas de saúde, diversificar as economias, investir em infraestrutura, implementar reformas estruturais, adotar uma abordagem integrada de gerenciamento de riscos e fortalecer a cooperação regional. Palavras-chave: Pandemia de COVID-19; América Latina; Situação Econômica; Políticas Macroeconômicas. Abstract: This study analyses the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered an unprecedented economic crisis in Latin America, exposing the region's structural vulnerabilities and deep social inequalities. Governments responded with a combination of expansionary monetary policies, such as reductions in interest rates and liquidity expansion, and countercyclical fiscal policies involving increased public spending and income transfer programs. Although necessary, these measures resulted in high levels of public debt. The economic impacts were severe, with recessions, rising unemployment, and inflationary pressure. Recovery has been uneven, requiring continued efforts to promote macroeconomic stability and sustainable growth. Recommendations include strengthening health systems, diversifying economies, investing in infrastructure, implementing structural reforms, adopting an integrated risk-management approach, and strengthening regional cooperation. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Latin America; Economic Situation; Macroeconomic Policies. Resumen: Este estudio analiza la pandemia de COVID-19, la cual desencadenó una crisis económica sin precedentes en América Latina, exponiendo las vulnerabilidades estructurales y profundas desigualdades sociales de la región. Los gobiernos respondieron con una combinación de políticas monetarias expansivas, como reducciones en las tasas de interés y expansión de liquidez, y políticas fiscales anticíclicas que implicaron un aumento del gasto público y programas de transferencia de ingresos. Aunque necesarias, estas medidas resultaron en altos niveles de deuda pública. Los impactos económicos fueron severos, con recesiones, aumento del desempleo y presión inflacionaria. La recuperación ha sido desigual, requiriendo esfuerzos continuos para promover la estabilidad macroeconómica y el crecimiento sostenible. Las recomendaciones incluyen fortalecer los sistemas de salud, diversificar las economías, invertir en infraestructura, implementar reformas estructurales, adoptar un enfoque integrado de gestión de riesgos y fortalecer la cooperación regional. Palabras clave: Pandemia de COVID-19; América Latina; Situación Económica; Políticas Macroeconómicas.

Do leaders really matter? The failure of ambitions in Turkish foreign policy

The field of international relations is recently witnessing an inflation of attention toward political leaders and personalities. Yet, while political leaders mattered to understand foreign policy behaviors, the question is how much they do and under what conditions. This article argues that how leaders and personalities affect foreign policy is up to the variables that can be analyzed at the state and international levels. To illustrate this argument, I use the example of two strong, influential, and revisionist Turkish leaders: Turgut Özal and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The results point out that the main determinative on Turkish foreign policy on these leaders’ period is not their personality as argued. Instead, the main variables we should analyze are the presence domestic and international constraints such as dominant foreign policy actors, economic capacity, political polarization, and international conjunctures.

How the Social Gets Under the Skin: From the Social as Signal to Society as a Metabolic Milieu

Inflammation has risen to the forefront of biomedical research into many chronic diseases prevalent in industrialized countries, including mental, metabolic, and postviral conditions. For sociologists, the rise of inflammation in explanatory models of chronic disease is an opportunity to grasp a historical shift in thinking about how society gets under the skin as new modes of conceptualization of the relationship between societies and bodies emerge in this domain. Highlighting two historical conjunctures between epidemiology and molecular biology concerning hormones and fat, this paper thereby contrasts an older cybernetic model of the social as a signal transduced via the brain and hormonal signaling system to become a biological accretion of stress or adversity with an explanatory trajectory centered on chronic inflammation. Rather than transducing the social environment, the inflammatory body emerging from the studies of adiposity and diabetes is produced by metabolizing material and psychosocial conditions. Inequalities in the social world are thereby reflected as inflammatory states that exist upstream of, not downstream to, the kinds of social signals previously deemed important to health and health disparities. Signals still matter, but they are not their own key determinant in terms of action or impact—that is a contextual matter within the chronicity of the processual metabolic life of a cellular and bodily milieu.

Three Sociologists as National Leaders: Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jože Pučnik and Bernardo Arévalo

AbstractFernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala are PhD sociologists who served as presidents of their countries. Jože Pučnik of Slovenia, also a PhD sociologist, was a leading but defeated candidate in his country’s first post-communist presidential election. This paper explores the relationship between their sociological work and their political careers. Cardoso’s work was interdisciplinary and focused on historical conjunctures. He was very widely cited in scholarly publications. Pučnik was concerned with overcoming fundamentalist megaliths and uniting theory and practice. He had difficulty communicating the relationship between his sociology and his political leadership. Arévalo wrote a dissertation in the historical sociology of Guatemalan militarism, and also pursued an applied sociological career in conflict resolution. Sociological leadership may be enhanced by using middle-range theories tuned to current situations, especially at times of crisis, and by advocating timely and feasible solutions.

Changing Balance of Power in the Global Setting and “Century of Türkiye” Vision

The balance of power in the world is changing and global politics is rapidly moving towards a new multipolar order. Russia is trying to regain its former power, while China is the first and only country that is poised to replace the US economically. India, Brazil, and South Africa are pursuing a more active and pioneering policy in their respective regions than ever before. So, what is the position of Türkiye, one of the rare countries in the Middle East and Central Eurasia that is a leader with its past and current foreign policy, in the new changing global politics and economy? This study analyzes Türkiye's foreign policy regarding its possible position in the new order. Türkiye's foreign policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is changing from a traditional and unconditional pro-Western stance to a pro-Islamic and pro-Asian global policy. The Erdogan-era Türkiye has been built on an Asiatic identity that is as much Turkish as it is Islamic, in line with changes in the geopolitical structure of the region and the international conjuncture. Turkishness and Islam are also the motifs on which Türkiye's future vision is founded. Westernization, which has marked the last one hundred years of Türkiye since 1923, is the biggest shortcoming of Erdoğan’s politics. It is not difficult to foresee that post-Erdoğan Türkiye, if it is to become a regional power or a global playmaker, would pursue a foreign policy based on the Turkish-Islamic synthesis. The question is whether the experience of “Westernised” Türkiye that began in 1923 would be integrated into this synthesis, and if so, how. This is likely to be one of the biggest tests of post-Erdoğan Türkiye.

China's Infrastructural Capitalism and Infrastructural Power of Labor: The Making of the Chinese Working Class

This article anticipates a political project that underlines China's infrastructural capitalism and the infrastructural power of labor in the making of the Chinese working class. This project embarks a re‐departure of the left movement after the Jasic struggle, which inspired a rebirth of global Marxism and Maoism that attempts to confront the failure of the first wave of socialist movements and the neoliberal turn of global capitalism. Meeting this historical conjuncture, this project is situated in the legacy of the Chinese Revolution and its firmly held belief in the class struggles of the working masses who fought for a vision of communism since the early 1920s. As part of a global project in preparation for the new wave of emancipatory movements, this project is also located in a global anti‐capitalism movement and attempts to overcome the parochial and nationalistic approach of existing Chinese Marxism. Specifically, the author conceives that Chinese capitalism has entered a new age of monopoly supported not only by new phases of high technology but also, more importantly, by state power in constructing infrastructural bases such as building projects, new economic zones, highways and high‐speed railways, digital platforms, and logistics, both internally and externally, to reproduce expanded capitalism, resulting in fierce imperial battles among global powers. The article conceptualizes this historical process not only as “infrastructural capitalism,” a term that vividly embodies the materiality of expanded capitalism, but also the infrastructural power of labor to take root.

Auditability in School Choice

In centralized public school admissions, participants may not fully observe other participants' preference rankings and priorities. In this paper, we evaluate prominent assignment rules in terms of their auditability properties. We show that Serial Dictatorship and Immediate Acceptance rules are maximally auditable, in a sense that any deviation from running them as promised can be detected with only two applicants' private information. The Deferred Acceptance and Top Trading Cycles rules are minimally auditable, in a sense that some deviations will not be detected unless one has close to full information about the preference rankings and priorities.

An efficient mechanism for function scheduling and placement in function as a service edge environment

With the advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) applications and the substantial surge in associated traffic, coupled with the rise in demand for low-latency mobile applications, the utilization of remote cloud computing infrastructure has encountered notable challenges. As a solution, edge computing has emerged, decentralizing computational resources closer to data sources. This results in quicker processing and diminished reliance on distant servers. To address resource limitations and prevent congestion in edge servers, applications are now being developed as smaller, modular components, referred to as the Function as a Service (FaaS) pattern. FaaS brings advantages such as distributing the workload across multiple edge servers and offering improved flexibility in resource management. However, the FaaS model introduces new challenges when compared to the traditional edge computing environment. These include issues like function placement and minimizing cold start delays. Assignment mechanisms play a crucial role in characterizing the interactions between edge servers and user devices. They excel at devising optimal allocation strategies and ensuring mutual satisfaction between edge servers and user devices, especially in scenarios with limited resources. This article introduces the Edge FaaS-Top Trading Cycles (EF-TTC), an efficient mechanism for implementing FaaS-based applications within the edge platform. The proposed approach models the problem of function placement and scheduling in a manner akin to the well-known School Choice problem. It subsequently employs the Top Trading Cycle mechanism to address this challenge. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly improves the average completion time for users’ requests, outperforming other baseline algorithm in this domain.