Cyprus Case Research Articles

The Byzantine Insular Countryside in the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600-ca.900): The Cases of Sicily, Cyprus, and Crete in (partial) Light of Environmental Archaeology

ABSTRACT This paper provides an overview of rural surveys and environmental archaeology studies on Sicily, Cyprus and Crete during the Byzantine Empire. It re-evaluates traditional interpretations of agricultural settlement patterns, ecosystems and populations from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages (late sixth to late ninth century). The prevailing narrative that these islands were devastated by Arab incursions, leading to widespread depopulation, economic collapse and abandonment of rural sites in favour of fortified hilltop settlements, is questioned. Instead, the study employs a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, combining environmental and climatic data with historical and archaeological evidence. This method offers a more nuanced understanding of how insular rural societies adapted to changing environmental and human conditions during the Byzantine Empire's transition from an economically unified region to a fragmented Medieval Mediterranean. The findings highlight the resilient nature of land use and rural settlement patterns amidst the transformation of the empire's political, military and administrative structures.

First Graduated Women Architects and Urbanists in Eastern Mediterranean Europe 1900-2000. The Cases of Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey

This paper provides an overview of the history of the first women graduates in architecture in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. Based on a review of digital archives and secondary sources written by local researchers, the aim of this research is to contribute to the dissemination and valorisation of women’s work and contributions to the history of modern architecture. The three countries under study constitute one of the most interesting European peripheries from the point of view of architecture, but also from the point of view of gender studies and women’s history. Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey, with their peculiarities and differences, condense in their recent history the political and cultural milestones that clearly show the direct link between the advance of democracy and women’s rights. Similarly, all this has an impact on architecture and urban planning; from the type and focus of projects and plans that are developed as a priority, to the people who are recognised and validated by architectural culture and its historical narrative. The research reveals the barriers and alliances of the first generations of women who studied architecture in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. It also reveals certain trends in the way the profession is practised, almost always linked to the socio-political context of the country and the percentage of women in the profession, among other considerations. Working for public institutions is seen as a priority working environment from which many of them have been able to make great contributions to their countries, developing infrastructures, public facilities and regulatory frameworks to improve spatial standards. Housing and heritage conservation are two areas in which these generations of women have been particularly active, some of them becoming international references in this field.

Monitoring of Land Use/Land Cover Change and Statistical Analysis of Change within the Scope of Urban Sprawl; North Cyprus Case

Monitoring land use and land cover (LULC) change is one of the main methods used in assessing landscape dynamics and defining environmental health at different spatio-temporal scales. In this study, the LULC changes between 2013 and 2021 in some centers (Lefkoşa, Girne, Gazimağusa, and Lapta) located in the Northern Cyprus Island were monitored through UA and GIS technologies, and a projection for the year 2050 was created within the scope of the settlements. The results showed that, specifically for settlements, there was an increase of 65.59% in the Girne region, 33.60% in the Lapta region, 66.87% in the Lefkoşa region, and 83.50% in the Gazimağusa region, and this increase was mostly in the north and west directions. As a result of statistical analysis, the 2050 projection reveals that settlement centers will spread significantly. It is anticipated that the results of this study will be a reference for decision-makers within the scope of land management and urban settlement planning in Northern Cyprus.

Trans-boundary water management during the peace process in Korean peninsula: Solution finding from previous precedents

South Korea and North Korea are divided states and armed-conflict counterparties. Peace building has been pursued since the 1953 Armistice Agreement, but no meaningful results have been achieved. Recently, tensions have risen in the transboundary maritime areas around the NLL, the provisional maritime delimitation line between the two Koreas. Two Koreas' unique circumstances require case studies between divided and/or armed-conflict States focusing on maritime areas. From the first case of maritime delimitation under the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan to the divided States and/or the armed-conflict States case, i.e. the East and West Germany case, the Cyprus case, the Northern Ireland case, the Israel-Jordan case), this paper aims to extract legal implications and lessons for the peaceful management of transboundary maritime areas and waters surrounding the NLL. Till now two Koreas have only agreed on transboundary maritime management with the issue-specific approach. For the future, in addition to the achievement of the issue-specific approach to the transboundary maritime management, it needs to consider the integrated maritime management, such as the MSP.

An Empirical Research on the Determination of Effective Factors in E-Government Acceptance and Use: Northern Cyprus Case

With the e-Government, the state-stakeholder relationship has gained a different dimension. This opened the door for public services that are participatory, affordable, transparent, efficient, quick, and flexible. The factors that affect the adoption and utilization of e-Government projects, which are implemented at significant expense, must be identified. Differences in acceptance and use of e-Government projects depend on country factors. Thus, this study aims to determine the factors affecting the acceptance and use of the Northern Cyprus E-Government Project by survey method. The study has a distinctive quality because there hasn’t been a thorough investigation in this area in Northern Cyprus. In addition, the data obtained at the end of the study will contribute to the literature on e-government applications and use in developing countries. The study was based on UTAUT and LISREL and SPSS package programs were used for data analysis. Structural equation models were used to analyze the findings in the study. The findings showed that every component had a positive impact on the participants’ intention to utilize. The major factors were found to be performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and trust in the Internet.

From Silicon Valley to the Levant: Innovation in the Eastern Mediterranean

AbstractMarket economies in the eastern Mediterranean are not counted among ideal‐typical innovators. But this picture may be changing. This article explores the emerging innovation systems in the eastern Mediterranean by examining recent data and the literatures on varieties of capitalism and innovation systems. Through the cases of Cyprus, Israel, and Turkey, the study argues that the varieties of capitalism framework, by focusing on performance at the macro level, disregards the subnational performance of these outlier markets, which have promising regional or local innovation systems. Fostering cooperation among these emerging innovation systems could become a valuable instrument for overcoming deeply rooted conflicts in the eastern Mediterranean, which has turned into a “crisis zone” due to recent energy discoveries.

International or Internationalised? Exploring issues faced by international schools in local markets: a Cyprus case study

The growing popularity and diversity of international schools worldwide has resulted in the identification of several typologies of such schools based on different factors of significance. The largest growth in numbers of international schools is now occurring in local markets, with many having a large number of host-country students and to some extent incorporating both national and international curriculum and customs. In this article we discuss the institutional and social issues that may be faced by such schools in terms of their curriculum and their identity, as well as socio-linguistic aspects. We discuss the global and local perspectives that drive and challenge the internationalisation of these schools, with a focus in particular on the context of Cyprus.

An analysis of the knowledge of adults aged between 18 and 45 on HPV along with their attitudes and beliefs about HPV vaccine: the Cyprus case

BackgroundThe aim of this research is to analyze knowledge of adults between 18 and 45 years of age and living in the Northern Cyprus about Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) along with their attitudes and beliefs towards HPV vaccine.Materials and methodsThe research, which was planned as a descriptive and cross-sectional, was executed on the web. The research was completed with 1108 women and men adults between 18 and 45 years of age, living in the Northern Cyprus and volunteered to participate in the study.Results51.90% of the adults participating in the study were found to be women, 8.84% had a Sexually transmitted disease (STD) before and 63.27% of the individuals who had a sexually transmitted disease before also had had HPV and they knew it, 77.55% had undergone a treatment for their disease, 59.18% were found to be actively infected with HPV. Statistically significant and positive correlations were determined between the overall scores of the participants from the Human Papillomavirus Knowledge Questionnaire (HPV-KQ) and their scores in the perceived severity, perceived benefits and perceived susceptibility sub-dimensions of the Health Belief Model Scale for Human Papilloma Virus and Its Vaccination (HBMS-HPVV) (p < 0.05). There was a statistically significant and negative correlation between HPV-KQ scores, questions on Current HPV Vaccination Program and the perceived barriers sub-dimension of the HBMS-HPVV whereas there was a statistically significant and positive correlation between the HPV-KQ scores, questions on Current HPV Vaccination Program and the perceived benefits and perceived susceptibility sub-dimensions of the HBMS-HPVV (p < 0.05).ConclusionsIt has emerged that the participants do not have enough information about HPV, they do not know the ways and symptoms of protection from HPV, they do not have enough information about early diagnosis and screening, and they know very little about the HPV vaccine. Health policies should be developed to increase the awareness of individuals about HPV, to increase education and to provide free vaccines.

Intrigue and Feud in Colonial Cyprus: Professor Talbot Rice’s Tendentious Report (1936) on the New Antiquities Department

ABSTRACTIn response to criticism about the state of the monuments there, the British government in 1935 set up a Department of Antiquities in its colony of Cyprus. The instability of its first two years owed much to local intrigues and feuds that the colonial governor, Sir Richmond Palmer, failed to resolve. His equivocal stance was tested when, immediately following a visit to the island in 1936, David Talbot Rice, the Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art at Edinburgh University, submitted to the Colonial Office in London a report criticizing the Department’s work. Dismissed at once by the governor as wildly inaccurate and unhelpful, the report raises questions about Talbot Rice’s possible motives in writing it. The episode reveals the strained nature of metropolis-colony relationships, the fallibility of reports made by visiting experts, and—specifically for the Cyprus case—the governor’s questionable commitment to the new Antiquities Department.

Accounting for functional connectivity in cross-realm conservation planning in a data poor context: The Cyprus case

In the past years, efforts have been made to include connectivity metrics in conservation planning in order to promote and enhance well-connected systems of protected areas. Connectivity is particularly important for species that rely on more than one realm during their daily or life cycle (multi-realm species). However, conservation plans for the protection of multi-realm species usually involve a single realm, excluding other realms from the prioritization process. Here, we demonstrate an example of cross-realm conservation planning application for the island of Cyprus by taking into account the terrestrial and marine realms and their interface (i.e. coast). Operating within a data-poor context, we use functional connectivity metrics to identify priority areas for the conservation of six multi-realm species, by setting conservation targets simultaneously for the terrestrial and marine realms. MARXAN decision-support tool was used for the identification of the priority areas.Four scenarios were developed to evaluate the impacts of including connectivity in the prioritization process and the effectiveness of the existing coastal/marine protected areas in the achievement of the conservation targets set for the species. All scenarios considered land and sea anthropogenic uses as surrogate costs to influence the prioritization process.Our findings show an increase in the area of the reserve network and, therefore, the cost, when connectivity is included, whilst reducing the total boundary length. Furthermore, the current reserve network fails to achieve conservation targets, particularly for the marine part, which has a substantially smaller protection coverage than the terrestrial part.We conclude that focus should be given in the expansion of the current coastal/marine reserve network following a cross-realm conservation approach. This approach is not only relevant for the conservation of multi-realm species, but also for islandscapes, in particular, where the interdependence between the hinterland and the coast is larger and therefore the magnitude of the impacts generated in one realm and affects the other.

News consumption patterns during the coronavirus pandemic across time and devices: The Cyprus case

The coronavirus pandemic sparked a renewed interest in news consumption patterns. When major crises occur, people experience an increasing need for information and sense-making; given the extraordinary impact of this health crisis on people’s social and work life, relevant work support a ‘rally around the news’ effect, news fatigue and news avoidance, doomscrolling and a trend toward mainstream and trusted news outlets. This study explored how the coronavirus pandemic shaped news consumption patterns in Cyprus. The results show that news use hit record levels at the onset of the crisis, followed by corona news fatigue in the following months. Increased news consumption levels and greater engagement with the news were recorded again in the last couple of months of 2020 when the second wave of the pandemic hit Cyprus. Direct traffic to widely used and trusted sources doubled while a crisis boosting effect on mobile access to the detriment of computers was recorded.

The Attitude of Saudi Arabia on the Cyprus Issue

The most important one of the factors that brought Turkish-Saudi relations closer, contrary to the attitude of the West that have been against Turkey in Cyprus Issue, is the fact that Saudi Arabia has been on the side of Turkey and has helped the Turkish Cypriots, . In the Cyprus case, which has been a national problem for Turkey, Saudi Arabia strongly supported Turkey. This attitude has deeply affected the general view of Turkey and thus a new era of good relations has begun. The Cyprus Issue led Turkey to the Arab world and ensured a softer policy towards Arabs. The practical aim in Turkey's policy of rapprochement with Arab countries will be to obtain the support of the Arab states that did not side with Turkey in the 1965 United Nations General Assembly vote on the Cyprus Issue. In this article, the attitude of Saudi Arabia on the Cyprus Issue will be examined and tried to be explained.

SUFFICIENCY AND INSUFFICIENCY OF HOTEL FACILITIES AND SERVICES FOR GUESTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS: THE CASES OF PORTUGAL AND CYPRUS

Adequate facilities and appropriate customer service in the hotel industry are needed to cater the increasing numbers of people with special needs, including within the senior cohort. This paper purpose is to assess and compare the cases of Cyprus and Portugal – countries that are highly dependent on the tourism industry – and to identify whether their hotels have the necessary facilities and employees are well equipped to support guests with special needs. The results reveal that both Portuguese and Cypriot hotels regard their facilities as adequate for people with physical disabilities but exclude guests with other types of disabilities. Furthermore, employees are not well prepared to provide services to this cohort of the market. This failure to develop the necessary structures has implications for these countries’ competitiveness in terms of becoming accessible and disabled-friendly destinations.

분쟁에 의한 접경지역에서의 3자 개입에 따른 평화협력과 향후 과제: 키프로스와 북아일랜드 사례를 중심으로

본 연구는 분쟁에 의해 형성된 접경지역의 평화와 화해의 평화협력을 견인하는 3자 개입의 유형과 사례를 분석하여 그 의의와 한계 및 향후 과제를 제안하고자 한다. 키프로스와 북아일랜드는 단일 국가(영토) 내에서 민족적, 종교적 분쟁으로 각각 그린라인(green line)과 인터페이스(interface)라는 접경지역이 만들어졌으며, 3자 개입을 통해 평화협력을 견인했다. 키프로스는 UN의 UNFICYP가 군사적 개입을 단행했고, 북아일랜드는 미국과 EU가 경제적 개입을 통해 사회 인프라를 구축하고 평화 및 화해 협력의 길을 열었다. 접경지역에서의 3자 개입은 평화협력을 이끄는 데 선도적인 역할을 하지만, 개입을 철수 할 때 접경지역이 가지고 있는 본질적인 문제에 의해 평화협력의 노력이 수포가 될 위험이 크다. 폭력과 분쟁의 구조적인 문제들을 해결하고, 분쟁의 관리 및 예방하고 발전을 모색하는 적극적 평화로 나아가기 위해서는 보다 접경지역 중심적이고 다차원적인 방면에서 접경지역의 취약성을 연구하고 함의를 분석하는 것이 중요하다.

Media Trends and Prospects in Educational Activities and Techniques for Online Learning and Teaching through Television Content: Technological and Digital Socio-Cultural Environment, Generations, and Audiovisual Media Communications in Education

The purpose of this article is to provide information and data that will contribute to the enhancement of teaching methodologies for online learning and teaching at all educational levels and disciplines (including adult education). More specifically, it attempts to shed light on media trends and prospects as educational activities and techniques, as well as on the utmost importance of the use of television content as audiovisual educational content. This venture focuses on the cases of Cyprus and Greece following literature materials and reviews, research results, and findings of previous numerous studies and research papers from and through the Internet that were considered as background. The aforementioned were applied in a pilot case study with adult educators as adult learners (18 years and older), providing literature data and historical elements as a source of further study. The findings from the pilot case study revealed that the television content can also shape (adult) learners’ perceptions on how they understand and learn in an online environment in regard to the generational cohort they belong. Furthermore, the results disclosed that an online educational process utilizing audiovisual media technologies and audiovisual content (audiovisual media communications) may support technology-enhanced learning through non-verbal communication in the new streamlined digital era in which we live. An important conclusion of this article is that the (inter)national genealogical characteristics and habits, the inherent and special characteristics, and the socio-cultural identity of learners, as well as the various (inter)national social-phenomena (e.g., media socio-phenomenon, Internet phenomenon, revival phenomenon, etc.) of the past and present, should always be taken into account by education administrators and educators, in order to maintain a quality and sustainable future education.

Examination of the core curriculum from the perspective of reference framework of competences for democratic culture: Northern Cyprus case

ABSTRACT This study, conducted within the interpretive paradigm, aimed to understand how democratic education is constructed around the theme of ‘responsible and active citizen’ in the national core curriculum in Northern Cyprus. An in-depth document analysis was conducted, to examine the extent to which the learning outcomes across the curriculum are aligned with the competence descriptors in the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC). This framework was used as a guide and a tool to obtain a European and global perspective. The findings revealed that there is alignment, to a certain degree, between the learning outcomes and the RFCDC competences. This confirms that some of the major concepts of democratic education are incorporated in the core curriculum. The findings also indicated that in this curriculum, democratic education focuses on knowledge and engagement at a basic level. In doing so, it undermines the experiential side of citizenship learning, and active participation in democratic life. The study also sheds light on the use and nature of the RFCDC.

Modeling the evolution of COVID-19 via compartmental and particle-based approaches: Application to the Cyprus case.

We present two different approaches for modeling the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both approaches are based on the population classes susceptible, exposed, infectious, quarantined, and recovered and allow for an arbitrary number of subgroups with different infection rates and different levels of testing. The first model is derived from a set of ordinary differential equations that incorporates the rates at which population transitions take place among classes. The other is a particle model, which is a specific case of crowd simulation model, in which the disease is transmitted through particle collisions and infection rates are varied by adjusting the particle velocities. The parameters of these two models are tuned using information on COVID-19 from the literature and country-specific data, including the effect of restrictions as they were imposed and lifted. We demonstrate the applicability of both models using data from Cyprus, for which we find that both models yield very similar results, giving confidence in the predictions.

Securitization and desecuritization of energy resources: insights from alsace-lorraine for Cyprus island

Energy resources since the industrial revolution have been paramount for both developing and developed countries. Therefore, the urgent need for and control over energy resources in order to have an advantage against rivalries have become a significant part of national security. From the late 18th century to early 20th century, coal and gasoline were major energy resources to make machines operational but they have been gradually replaced by the fossil fuels, oil and gas. While transformation is happening, dependency on energy resources in the fields ranging from housewarming to jet fuels dramatically increased. Having adequate energy resources, in this sense, provides industrially and economically strategic advantages for a country, so military or political struggles over energy resources have been a salient issue in international relations. This paper seeks to examine the struggle over energy resources under the light of Alsace-Lorraine case and to compare the results with the Cyprus case. In doing so, securitization studies facilitate theoretical ground on how energy resources are securitized, which leads to a country to take extreme cautions, including armed conflict and on how energy resources are de-securitized, which leads to changes in foreign policies from conflict to cooperation.

Principles in selecting children books in primary schools: North Cyprus case

Turkish language went into effect along with the arrival of the Ottomans to the Island in 1571. Since then the Turkish Cypriots have been using Turkish in expressing their customs and traditions and activities. Currently 400.000 people Turkish people on the Island speak, write and broadcast in Turkish. Soon after adapting the use of Latin alphabet by Atatürk in Turkey, the Turkish Cypriots began to use the new alphabet as their official language. At present, besides the Atatürk Teacher Academy, training primary education teachers, there are eight universities in North Cyprus. In all these institutions there are Turkish Language and Literature, Turkish Teaching departments and Turkish Preparatory Schools for overseas students. In this respect, our aim is to determine the primary school teachers’ (ATA graduates) criterion principles in selecting children’s books. The subject question will be dealt with in four sections. The first section includes introduction, under which the problem, aims, significance, numerical data, limitations, and definitions are dealt with. The second section discusses methodology, research model and stages through examples, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Findings and interpretation will be presented in the third section. The summary, discussion and suggestions will be the scope of the fourth section.&#x0D; &#x0D; Keywords: Children Books, Turkish Education, Primary Education, Traditional Literature, North Cyprus

Capital controls: a tool to protect an economy under pressure The cases of Cyprus, a eurozone member, and Iceland

This paper considers the effectiveness of capital controls as a protective action. We analyse the recent cases of Iceland and Cyprus and examine the extent to which the controls on free capital movement delivered the outcome that motivated their imposition in each country. The methodology used examines main macro-economic indicators and attempts to locate significant variations pre and post capital controls. The results indicate that controls were only partially successful. In Iceland they did not manage to control the pressure over foreign exchange rate. In case of Cyprus controls achieved only partially to control outflows. Belonging to the eurozone was not proven to be a negative factor for success of the measures in Cyprus.