ABSTRACT Background Over the past decades, several Latin American countries have introduced national curriculum reforms aligned with a broader international trend toward neoliberal educational policies. Despite historical and cultural specificities, there has been a clear convergence toward standardized teaching, measurable learning outcomes, and competency-based frameworks. These reforms, increasingly supported by discourses of flexibility, innovation, and digitalization, have legitimized the homogenization of educational results in the name of productivity and global competitiveness. In Latin America, international organizations have played a central role in disseminating governance and evaluation models based on global performance indicators and quality standards. Purpose This article examines whether common patterns linked to international perspectives and neoliberal logics can be identified within Physical Education through a comparative analysis of the two most recent national curricula of Brazil and Uruguay – the Base National Common Curricular (BNCC, 2018) and the National Curricular Framework (MCN, 2022). Research design A document-based comparative methodology was applied at two levels: first, the general structure of both curricula was examined through four analytical axes (participation, privatization, competencies, and socio-emotional discourse); second, the discipline of Physical Education was compared through its specific competencies, cross-cutting approaches, content organization, and epistemological foundations. Findings Results show convergences influenced by transnational policy networks that promote accountability and performance-based planning. However, significant differences emerged: while Brazil maintains a strong link with the notion of body movement culture, Uruguay prioritizes emotional self-regulation and intrapersonal development. The study argues that Physical Education functions as a field of negotiation between global pressures and national traditions, raising challenges and possibilities for its future development. The comparative analysis indicates that competency-based curricular reforms in Brazil and Uruguay were shaped not only by shared educational challenges but by the circulation of ideas, actors, and governance models supported by international agencies and transnational policy networks. Conclusions These reforms tend to reinforce technical approaches that reduce learning to measurable outcomes, intensify mechanisms of standardization and accountability, and restrict the scope of curricular content, despite being presented as solutions to an alleged educational crisis. In the field of Physical Education, competencies become the organizing axis through which teaching is simplified and regulated, often at the expense of broader educational purposes. This study contributes to the field by demonstrating that curricular convergence in Latin America cannot be explained solely through pedagogical trends or regional demands. Instead, it reveals how neoliberal governance and policy transfers operate through networks of expertise, consultancy, and evaluation.

Digital governance is changing the way governments run social welfare programmes through the integration of its solutions into anti-poverty systems. In this paper, we examine the influence of digital reforms on the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Kerala, widely regarded as India’s most digitally advanced state, and compare it with digital measures in Kashmir, a conflict-ridden area. Kerala’s experience with Aadhaar-registered biometric authentication and the digitisation of public services brings to the fore the ability of the state to check corruption and create better service delivery. On the other hand, Kashmir’s work for digital governance is riddled with excessive political instability, infrastructure deficit, and the frequent shutdown of the internet. This paper analyses the impact of digital initiatives in both regions in a comparative view with regard to citizens’ perceptions, state image, and access to social welfare. The paper also lays out some broader implications of digital governance for both fragile and well-established political environments. Digital technologies promise reform, the study concludes, but only if these technologies succeed will they depend on stable infrastructure, digital literacy and trust in state institutions. Lessons from Kerala’s digital success offer important pointers to making digital governance in Kashmir more efficient and inclusive.

Authority in law is manifested not only through norms and sanctions, but also through symbols that express authority, power, and position within a hierarchical structure. This paper focuses on the analysis of symbols of power in Roman law, examining their legal, social, and ideological significance, and particularly their reception into current canon law. Roman law, as the foundation of European legal culture, provides a rich set of legal symbols that have also influenced the development of canon law. Canon law adopted and adapted many of these symbols, while at the same time giving them a new – sacred – meaning. The article offers a comparative view of these two legal traditions and points to the continuity and discontinuity in the perception of legal power and its representation.

The authors of the article continue the discussion they started in a number of previous publications of the institution of confidential investigative actions, which were embodied in the criminal procedure legislation of the post-Soviet states. Analyzes the problems associated with this unusual legal phenomenon. Judgments are made about the advisability of its comprehensive study in the domestic science of the criminal process. The purpose of this research is to examine the legal nature and procedural framework of confidential investigative actions in criminal procedure law. It provides a detailed analysis of the procedural intricacies, discusses the fundamental principles and goals that guide this process, and evaluates its effectiveness. The study examines relevant laws, regulations, and judicial precedents that govern the conduct of confidential investigative actions. Additionally, it analyzes court cases to identify prevailing trends and distinctive aspects of this procedural category. The results of the study allow us to conclude that both the fundamental essence and the procedural structure of the legal proceedings for conducting confidential investigative actions are important for ensuring the legality and fairness of the criminal process. Based on the studied features of judicial proceedings for conducting confidential investigative actions, this category is undoubtedly recognized as an independent type of criminal procedural proceedings that arises and takes place within the framework of the main pre-trial proceedings. Only the proper application of this procedure guarantees the protection of the rights of both the accused (suspects) and the victims, while ensuring the safety of society and the state. However, there are certain issues and shortcomings that require further study and legislative improvement in this area.

As noted by Umberto Eco (2009) in his book Vertigine della lista, the list is the origin of culture. Bibliographies, as curated lists, are never neutral; they reflect organizing principles, priorities, and values. This article reflects on a critical, annotated bibliography created to explore the evolving field of Medical Humanities and its application within contemporary healthcare. It considers the bibliography not merely as a record of works, but as a diagnostic tool that reveals thematic trends, disciplinary dialogues, and geographic imbalances in the field. Structured in two parts – one thematic and one geographic – the bibliography used for writing the following piece was created to support the Tuscan Health Ecosystem (THE) project by offering a scholarly foundation rooted in interdisciplinary thought. The first part gathers texts according to four key areas: 1. pedagogy and education; 2. gender, race, religion, and civil rights; 3. contributions from the arts, literature, and philosophy; 4. historical foundations. The second section maps the bibliography on a geographical basis, offering a comparative view of how different cultural and institutional contexts frame the humanities in medicine. Since the process of research, study, and publication is constantly in progress, it bears mentioning that even the bibliography used to map these dynamics will soon be outdated. However, the very flexibility of the list structure of this tool allows for constant updating. Thus, the value of this article lies in the development of interpretive and analytical categories that may be useful for future reflection. Through this reflection, the article asks: What can a bibliography tell us about the field it documents? Where do we find clusters of innovation or silence? And how might a bibliographic approach shape future directions in research, pedagogy, and health policy?

Carbon neutrality is currently accelerating the decarbonization process in the power sector. However, China, the United States, and the European Union are taking significantly different transformation paths. This article uses an energy economics framework to link binding system constraints, policy combinations, and the overall system costs to compare the differences among the three countries. This analysis integrates evidence from international assessments and peer-reviewed studies regarding the value and flexibility of variable renewable energy (VRE). The results show that as the share of renewable energy increases, economic bottlenecks shift from generation costs to flexibility and grid transmission: the marginal market value of wind and solar energy decreases as penetration rates increase, while the value of dispatchable system services increases. The EU's total control and trading system and market integration enhance long-term scarcity expectations, but without appropriate hedging designs, they increase the risk of short-term price fluctuations. The United States relies more on technology-neutral tax credits to reduce capital costs and accelerate deployment in the absence of a national carbon price. China combines large-scale clean infrastructure construction with continuous coal supply guarantees, which makes flexibility compensation, inter-provincial transmission, and reliable emission limits key to achieving cost-effective decarbonization. For China, the policy impact lies in regarding flexibility as a decarbonization asset, strengthening market signals through improved monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV), and reducing power outages through grid and market reforms.

To determine if there is a comparative measurement on bilateral sunrise view radiographs that can help predict acute transient patellar dislocation (ATPD). A retrospective chart review from a single institution was conducted of two patient groups, a case group with ATPD diagnosed by MRI, and a control group with knee injury not involving the patella or medial retinaculum. Three readers blinded to the MRI diagnosis reviewed the sunrise view radiographs and reported three values for both knees: (1) medial trochlea - medial patella distance (MT-MP); (2) lateral trochlea -medial patella distance (LT-MP); and (3) medial patellofemoral angle (MPFA), (Image 2). Diagnostic accuracy was assessed utilizing empirical ROC curves and their corresponding area under the curves (AUC). Inter-reader reliability was determined using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Sensitivity and specificity were calculated for varying differences in MPFA and MT-MP between affected knee and unaffected knee. Of the three measurements, increased MPFA measured on the injured knee was the most accurate predictor of ATPD with substantial inter-reader reliability (AUC 0.765, ICC 0.681). MT-MP (AUC 0.707, ICC 0.586) and LT-MP (AUC 0.593, 0.189) distances were less accurate and less reliable predictors. Asymmetric difference in the MPFA or MT-MP between affected knee and unaffected knee was a very specific, albeit not sensitive indicator of ATPD. Comparative sunrise view knee radiographs can help predict the diagnosis of ATPD with high specificity, prompting early MRI evaluation for definitive diagnosis, helping expedite treatment planning.

Conference report

This study embraces the opportunity to explore students’ immigration experiences from a cultural political economy (CPE) perspective, beginning with a review of literature relevant to understanding students’ perspectives of host nation international student mobility and migration (ISM) policy, followed by an outline of the CPE theoretical framework. The study’s methodology is presented, outlining how findings were obtained through a qualitative content analysis of interviews with 40 international students studying in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Findings are then presented through the words of study participants, highlighting how international students connect their ISM policy experiences with the local CPE contexts of their host countries. This article provides an empirical, comparative view of the student-level impacts of national immigration policy (i.e., policy pervasion) and will ideally help guide future research to (a) better understand the international student experience as embedded within particular national policy contexts, and (b) uncover the local cultural, political and economic discourse geneses of student visa and study permit policymaking. This study works to humanize the personal impacts of visa and study permit policies, which are a crucial facet of national internationalization stances due to their importance in sanctioning inbound student mobility flows.

Community nursing is crucial for health equity yet often underexposed in training. Perceptions were compared between first-year students and practicing community nurses to inform workforce strategies. To compare the perceptions of nursing students and practicing professionals, moving beyond vocational preference to explore the meanings that shape professional identity in the community setting. Through non-probabilistic intentional sampling, 67 participants were included (48 first-year students and 19 practicing professionals). Data collection occurred in October 2024 for Phase I, while implementation dates for Phase II were November to December 2024. Data collection methods comprised a self-administered questionnaire (SCOPE scale) for Phase I, and Photovoice (photography and guided discussions) for Phase II. Data analysis techniques involved descriptive and inferential statistics for quantitative data, and an iterative participatory thematic analysis for qualitative data. Integration used joint displays and a rigorous "follow-the-thread" technique to trace meta-inferences. Professionals scored significantly higher than students across all SCOPE domains (p < .001) and asset-mapping knowledge (84.2% vs. 27.1%). While 89.6% of students preferred hospitals, integration revealed a structural convergence: this statistical preference aligns with the qualitative theme of "The invisible nurse," suggesting vocational choices are constrained by a lack of role models. Conversely, a divergence emerged between students' high theoretical valuation of public health and their low affective scoring, revealing a "vocational dissonance" that contrasts with the professionals' consolidated identity. A marked perception gap separates students from community nurses. Theoretically, the study illustrates how professional identity is shaped by role visibility. At a policy level, findings suggest that ensuring workforce sustainability requires not only curricular reform but also institutional strategies that elevate the symbolic status of primary care to attract talent.

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is innervated by intrinsic neurites and extrinsic pathways linking it bidirectionally to the central nervous system. These circuits regulate digestion, metabolism, and homeostasis across metazoans. Comparative evidence from early-diverging animals to Drosophila and vertebrates suggests gut-embedded circuits arose on an epithelial/peptidergic scaffold and evolved in parallel across lineages, coordinating motility and secretion before centralised brains emerged. While vertebrates offer detailed molecular atlases of enteric nervous system (ENS) cell types, flies allow linking molecular identity with physiological function at cellular resolution. We highlight how the intestine-ENS axis integrates endocrine and immune signals and undergoes remodelling along three axes: sex as a constitutive dimorphism, reproduction as a reversible plasticity, and ageing as a biphasic trajectory. This comparative view challenges brain-centric models of systemic regulation. We propose instead that the intestine, through its neuronal, epithelial, and immune components, acts as an Enterarchon: an ancient visceral brain shaping organismal homeostasis.

Drawing on Agenda-Setting, Framing, and Sourcing theories, this study investigates the comparative ‎coverage of political news in Bangladeshi media before and after the July Movement of 2024. The ‎research aims to understand how the movement influenced media narratives, framing, tone and ‎sources in print, online and television outlets. Using a mixed-method approach combining quantitative ‎content coding of 1,150 news items with qualitative thematic textual analysis of framing strategies, ‎the study examined major Bangla and English newspapers, online portals, and television channels ‎across two periods: January–June 2024 (pre-July) and August-December 2024 (post-July). Coding ‎categories included topic salience, tone toward political actors, framing of issues, source diversity and ‎prominence. Findings reveal significant shifts in coverage post-July: protest-related issues became ‎highly salient, tone toward government turned more negative while student and civil society voices ‎were portrayed positively, framing emphasized democracy, accountability and rights over law-and-‎order concerns, and sourcing became more pluralistic. These results suggest that large-scale social ‎movements can influence media narratives and expand the diversity of political voices in the public ‎sphere. The study contributes to the understanding of media dynamics in Bangladesh, highlighting the ‎role of media in shaping political discourse during periods of social upheaval. Implications for ‎journalism, policy and future research are discussed.

Purpose This study aims to examine the perceptions of religious tourism site associations, specifically Muslim tourists’ perception of other religions’ tourism site affiliations. Grounded in the stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) framework, the study conceptualizes site religious affiliation as the stimulus, religiosity as part of the organism that processes this input and tourists’ attitudes toward visiting as the response. This study also tests whether perceived association influences attitudes toward visits and examines the moderating role of the Islamic attribute of destination in the model. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative design was applied using samples of 513 Muslim respondents. This study uses a six-point Likert scale on online questionnaires. Grounded in the S-O-R framework, the study conceptualizes perceived site religious affiliation as the stimulus, religiosity and internal beliefs as part of the organism and attitude toward visiting as the response. The data were then analyzed using the structural equation modeling technique. Findings This study found that Islamic religiosity significantly affects the perceived association in only non-Abrahamic affiliated tourism sites. However, the relationship is negative, i.e. the more religious Muslim tourists are, the more they will associate the place as secular rather than religious. Meanwhile, for the Abrahamic-Catholicism site, Islamic religiosity does not affect Muslim tourists’ perceived association toward the tourism site. Furthermore, the data reveal that the more Muslim visitors associate the destinations as sacred (stimulus), the more negative their attitude toward visiting them (response), processed through religious evaluation (organism). Finally, Islamic attributions of the sites weaken the negative impact of perceived sacredness on Muslim tourists’ visiting attitudes toward other religion’s tourism sites by altering internal evaluations within the organismic stage. Originality/value This study sheds light on how tourists from particular religious affiliations (i.e. Islam) perceive tourism sites affiliated with other religions. By adopting the S-O-R framework, this study illustrates the psychological process underlying tourists’ interpretation and reaction toward religious stimuli. The comparative view of the religions affiliated with the tourism sites that are the same and different from those of the tourists’ (Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic) adds to the value contributed by this study.

Creativity is widely understood as a distinct human characteristic, yet the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping creative ecosystems, presenting both opportunities and challenges. Despite these advancements, comprehensive insights into how social groups, especially stakeholders, perceive and experience AI-generated art remain inadequate. Through semi-structured interviews with 23 artistic practitioners in China across visual art domains such as painting, design, and filmmaking, this study identifies themes related to practitioners’ perceptions of the creative process (mechanism and time), created works (aesthetic and quality), and creating actors (role and ownership) from a human-AI comparative view. Contextualized perceptions shaped by variations across art domains are also revealed. As human-AI collaboration in artistic creation gains prominence, this study also illustrates how artistic practitioners negotiate their agency with machine agency through dual routes: the affective route and the action route. The findings contribute to the ongoing discourse of artificial creativity, enrich the socio-technical understandings of AI-generated visual art and shed light on the agency dynamics between human and AI within the context of artistic creation.

Airborne iodine-131 plays a pivotal role in both nuclear medicine and nuclear safety due to its radiotoxicity, volatility, and affinity for the thyroid gland. Although the total exhaled activity after medical I-131 therapy is minimal, over 95% of this activity appears in volatile organic forms, which evade standard filtration and reflect metabolic pathways of iodine turnover. Our experimental work in patients and mice confirms the metabolic origin of these species, modulated by thyroidal function. In nuclear reactor environments, both under routine operation and during accidents, organic iodides such as [131I]CH3I have also been identified as major airborne components, often termed "penetrating iodine" due to their low adsorption to conventional filters. This review compares the molecular speciation, environmental persistence, and dosimetric impact of airborne I-131 across clinical, technical, and accidental release scenarios. While routine reactor emissions yield negligible doses (<0.1 µSv/year), severe nuclear incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima have resulted in significant thyroid exposures. Doses from these events ranged from tens of millisieverts to several Sieverts, particularly in children. We argue that a deeper understanding of chemical forms is essential for effective risk assessment, filtration technology, and emergency preparedness. Iodine-131 exemplifies the dual nature of radioactive substances: in nuclear medicine its radiotoxicity is therapeutically harnessed, whereas in industrial or reactor contexts it represents an unwanted hazard. The same physicochemical properties that enable therapeutic efficacy also determine, in the event of uncontrolled release, the range, persistence, and the potential for unwanted radiotoxic exposure in the general population. In nuclear medicine, exhaled activity after radioiodine therapy is minute but largely organically bound, reflecting enzymatic and metabolic methylation processes. During normal reactor operation, airborne iodine levels are negligible and dominated by inorganic vapors efficiently captured by filtration systems. In contrast, major accidents released large fractions of volatile iodine, primarily as elemental [131I]I2 and organically bound iodine species like [131I]CH3I. The chemical nature of these compounds defined their atmospheric lifetime, transport distance, and deposition pattern, thereby governing the thyroid dose to exposed populations. Chemical speciation is the key determinant across all scenarios. Exhaled iodine in medicine is predominantly organic; routine reactor releases are negligible; severe accidents predominantly release elemental and organic iodine that drive environmental transport and exposure. Integrating these domains shows how chemical speciation governs volatility, mobility, and bioavailability. The novelty of this review lies not in introducing new iodine chemistry, but in the systematic comparative synthesis of airborne radioiodine speciation across medical therapy, routine nuclear operation, and severe accident scenarios, identifying chemical form as the unifying determinant of volatility, environmental transport, and dose.

The network of residences of the Bohemian nobility began to form in the thirteenth century. The earliest evidence of noble courts dates from this period. For the late medieval era, it is possible to reconstruct a diverse range of noble residences and to gain insight into the structure of the courts of leading baronial families. These included noble courtiers and the fraucimor (the women’s section of court society), court officials, as well as members of the chancery and service staff. A model example is the court of the lords of Rožmberk (Rosenberg), whose long-term residence was Český Krumlov. This case can be approached from two perspectives: (1) the people involved (a reconstruction of personnel composition and respective areas of competence) and (2) the place and performance (actors and venues of ceremonial acts, as well as everyday interactions and their symbolism). The court of the lords of Rožmberk also serves as a starting point for a broader comparative view, since many of the features of its functionality have general parallels among other Bohemian and Central European noble families.

Corroboration of confessions: a comparative view of the approaches in Australia, South Africa and other common-law jurisdictions

The contribution provides a comparative view of the involvement of Artificial Intelligence in the Judiciary in the modern world. It contrasts this with the situation in Slovakia and highlights the dangers of introducing Artificial Intelligence into the Judiciary without careful consideration. It specifically addresses the issue of integrating Artificial Intelligence into the Random Court Case Allocation System. It warns of the threat to the right to a lawful judge due to arbitrary interference in the Random Court Case Allocation System through Artificial Intelligence.

The present research analyzes how head teachers and teachers understand transformational leadership and its effects on the improvement of collaboration among secondary school teachers. The public secondary school teachers and head teachers from Lahore, Pakistan were selected as the sample, using stratified random sampling. Quantitative survey design was employed to collect data from the 140 teachers and 35 head teachers. Using a structured questionnaire, the researcher measured and evaluated the five dimensions of teamwork: professional communication and feedback, shared decision making, mutual trust and support, instructional collaboration and overall teamwork performance. To evaluate the group differences, the researcher employed independent samples t-tests. The response pattern was based on a 5-point Likert scale. The results of the study showed teachers' perceptions of the impact of transformational leadership were found to be higher than head teachers across all five surveyed dimensions of teamwork. The study suggests the adoption of distributed leadership approaches and provision of appropriate leadership development to address the leadership gap and cultivate a more cohesive school culture.

Abstract In recent decades scholarship has shown a special interest in Sufism as a component of Islamic society; nevertheless, the study of its material culture has advanced more slowly, impeding a better understanding of the spaces associated with it. In light of the two different models of zāwiya that other researchers have previously identified in the Middle East—more modest ones undertaken by individuals and monumental ones sponsored by the state—I have so far been able to recognize a similar dichotomy in al-Maghrib al-Aqsa. This article, however, examines the two aforementioned models, placing them on an even broader geographical framework that allows for a comparison between two extremes of the Islamic Mediterranean, the Maghrib and Anatolia, revealing common patterns as well as characteristics peculiar to each.