World Conditions Research Articles

Attitudes of UK pathologists and judicial officers towards medicolegal view and grant examinations: a cross-sectional mixed-methods study

AimsDespite the 1988 ‘Dundee Initiative’, which maximised the use of view and grant examinations to reduce the invasive forensic autopsy rate in Tayside, the view and grant itself remains controversial....

Representations of Experimentation in Contemporary Arabic Theatre

Art is a dynamic and renewing aesthetic vision. Since the dawn of creativity, arts have sought to break away from tradition and embrace new forms and elements in response to intellectual and other changes. Theatre, in particular, has experimented with its structure and content due to its inherent flexibility and transformative nature. Social and environmental conditions in the Arab world have driven theatre practitioners towards innovation.Many Arab playwrights responded to the events of 1967 by adopting an experimental approach in theatre. Egyptian playwright Sayyed Hafez is a key figure who emerged in the 1970s, contributing significantly to the renewal of theatrical composition. Realizing that traditional theatre was no longer effective in engaging society, Hafez introduced innovative ideas.Until the early 1970s, Arab and Egyptian theatre was predominantly traditional. However, new efforts to revitalize it began with Hafez's experimental play "The Pride of Triviality in the Land of Meaninglessness," which broke classical norms and offered new perspectives on characters, settings, and heroism.Hafez continued his experimental approach in subsequent plays, such as "It Happened as It Happened but No Event Happened," "Silent Drums in the Blue Valleys," and "They Are as They Are but Not the Vagabonds." These works reflect his desire for rebellion and passion for experimentation in theatrical writing.This study aims to analyze the features of experimentation in Sayyed Hafez's theatrical texts and their impact on the construction of the theatrical text. The significance of the research lies in exploring these experimental tendencies, benefiting specialists in theatrical criticism. The objective is to identify representations of experimentation in Hafez's plays.

Age-related differences in processing of emotions in speech disappear with babble noise in the background

ABSTRACT Older adults process emotional speech differently than young adults, relying less on prosody (tone) relative to semantics (words). This study aimed to elucidate the mechanisms underlying these age-related differences via an emotional speech-in-noise test. A sample of 51 young and 47 older adults rated spoken sentences with emotional content on both prosody and semantics, presented on the background of wideband speech-spectrum noise (sensory interference) or on the background of multi-talker babble (sensory/cognitive interference). The presence of wideband noise eliminated age-related differences in semantics but not in prosody when processing emotional speech. Conversely, the presence of babble resulted in the elimination of age-related differences across all measures. The results suggest that both sensory and cognitive-linguistic factors contribute to age-related changes in emotional speech processing. Because real world conditions typically involve noisy background, our results highlight the importance of testing under such conditions.

The right to education in the system of constitutional rights and freedoms of a person and a citizen

It was established that, despite the universal recognition of the right to education as one of the fundamental human rights enshrined in international documents and the constitutions of many states, there are a number of significant challenges in the implementation of this right at the national and global levels, including unequal access to quality education, limitations of opportunities for individual social groups, as well as the need to adapt educational systems to the rapidly changing conditions of the modern world. It is emphasized that the right to education is one of the fundamental human rights, enshrined in the constitutions of many countries of the world and international documents and is recognized not only as an important individual freedom, but also as a necessary condition for the development of democracy, the rule of law and social progress. It is noted that the right to education, as an important component of the system of human rights and freedoms, is characterized by a number of main features: universality - the right to education belongs to every person without any exceptions or restrictions based on gender, race, nationality, language, religious beliefs, social origin, state of health, beliefs or any other characteristics; every person has equal opportunities for access to education at all levels, in particular, it is also about overcoming gender inequality, as well as inequality related to physical or mental limitations, socio-economic status or place of residence; accessibility for all, which means the absence of any barriers that can prevent a person from getting an education (both financial barriers and barriers related to the place of residence, social status or special needs of a person); the quality of the process of realizing the right to education, which includes not only access to educational institutions, but also the guarantee of obtaining a quality education that contributes to the full development of the human personality; adaptability - the education system should be flexible and adapted to the needs of different population groups, including persons with special educational needs, migrants, national minorities and other vulnerable groups. In summary, the right to education is an integral part of the system of constitutional rights and freedoms of a person and a citizen and is at the basis of the development of a fair and free society, providing every person with the opportunity to realize their potential and actively participate in society. Ensuring access to quality education for everyone without exception is a key task of the state and the international community on the way to achieving sustainable development and strengthening human rights.

A Systems Thinking Perspective on the Obstacles Faced by Industrial Organizations to Transition towards Sustainability

The climate crisis threatens the sustainable development of our planet. Mitigating the complexity of the sustainable challenge needs a holistic and systematic perspective. Systems solutions, such as systems thinking and systems engineering, can help to mitigate such challenges. Systems engineering in particular has to assist in transdisciplinary development and cooperation. Methods, tools, and methodologies in systems engineering can be key enablers to align the present world condition towards sustainable trajectories. To align with the sustainable transition, industrial organizations need to integrate sustainability at their core: the system’s development. Realizing socio-technical systems that are sustainable is not a triviality. Based on industry interviews and a literature study, this article discusses these challenges and presents how systems thinking and systems engineering disciplines may support industries to mitigate the same. To realize sustainable systems this work suggests i) identifying sustainability as a quality of the system; ii) collecting environmentally sustainable (big) data; and iii) establishing a collaborative environment among stakeholders where to discuss challenges related to the system’s lifecycle.

The determinants of trump’s defeat: what if the COVID-19 pandemic did not matter?

ABSTRACT While the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the lives of many people worldwide, it is debated whether it led to the defeat of incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 American presidential election. We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic had a significantly negative impact on Trump’s support due to his conflicting and populist rhetoric, which culminated in contradictory behavior at a time when Americans sought a consistent leader to “rally round the flag.” We use both waves of the ANES 2020 Survey to determine what support for Trump would have looked like if the COVID-19 pandemic had lower influence in citizens’ electoral decision-making compared to real world conditions using regressions and a counterfactual strategy. Our findings suggest that Trump’s electoral defeat depended on multiple factors, with aggregate-level analyzes suggesting that Trump would have received more support had the management of the health crisis mattered less in voting decisions.

Changescapes

Some aesthetic forms ‘dramatise’ change. I call them ‘changescapes’. They help us know mutability by immersing us in it, by letting us be with it. Change is their theme and it is often their matter too, for they are usually of fragile and ephemeral stuff that reacts to altering conditions in the larger world. Transformations happen at their boundaries, at the limits between the inside and the outside of their systems, and then the symptoms of change become manifest in them, palpably available for our contemplation. These aesthetic forms have become plenteous recently because we are ready now to understand them and because we need now to understand mutability with them. Versions of these forms have been in human cultures for ages. For example, in the Chinese shopping district of almost every sizable city in the world, you’ll find a wonderful shop dedicated to ‘live arts’, where you can buy your aquarium, horticultural and water-fountain supplies. But there’s something about the present historical moment that’s calling changescapes forth in greater numbers and greater variety. Assaying these developments, this essay will finish in aesthetics and linguistics. But it starts with a story.

Booster effects and mechanisms of web-based personalised normative feedback alcohol intervention for college students: A pragmatic randomised controlled trial

BackgroundTo evaluate the effects of booster and no booster versions of web-based alcohol Personalised Normative Feedback (PNF) and whether descriptive norms mediated and/or participant motivation moderated the effectiveness of the intervention in real world conditions (i.e. no financial incentives). MethodsPragmatic randomised controlled trial with 1-, 3-, and 6-month assessments. Brazilian college students reporting alcohol use in the last 12 months (N=931) were recruited from May/2020 to December/2022 and allocated to 1) No booster/single PNF(S-PNF); 2) Booster/multiple PNF(M-PNF); or 3) Assessment-only control. We applied Helmert coding [1: Any intervention (S-PNF or M-PNF) vs. Control; and 2: S-PNF vs. M-PNF]. Primary outcomes: typical number of drinks/week and maximum number of drinks/week; secondary outcomes: drinking frequency and number of consequences. Three-months assessment was the primary interval. Descriptive norms were tested as mediator. Interest, importance, and readiness to change were examined as moderators. ResultsCompared to control, any intervention did not influence primary outcomes at 3-months or 6-months, but did at 1-month, when reduced typical drinking (IRR:0.77, 95%CI:0.66;0.90) and maximum number of drinks (IRR:0.69, 95%CI:0.58;0.82). There was an intervention effect on the consequences at 3-months. No differences were observed between S-PNF and M-PNF. No mediation effects were found at 3-months. At 6-months, there was an indirect effect on typical drinking through norms at 3-months (b=-0.82, 95%CI:-2.03;-0.12) and effects on maximum drinks through norms at 1-month (b=-0.54, 95%CI:-1.65;-0.02). No support for moderation was found. ConclusionsIntervention reduced alcohol drinking at 1 month only and was not effective thereafter. Mechanisms of effect remain unclear.

Realization and testing of the Extended Market Wagon

The Extended Market Wagon (EMW) (see article start image) is an advanced lightweight freight wagon that was developed as part of the Fr8Rail 4 project in Europe’s Rail in the Shift2Rail IP-5 programme. In a previous article, the lightweight design developed for the EMW by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR) within the Competitive Freight Wagon (CFW) consortium was described [1]. In the following article, the subsequent manufacture of the final wagon design will be described, as well as the display of the wagon at the InnoTrans 2022 in Berlin and its testing under real world conditions in Velim in Czechia.

Forming professional reliability of railway power supply specialists

The high level of technological, technical, logistics, organizational and economic changes occurring in the railway industry determines the trajectory of development of professional training of specialists. The priority of safety issues in the context of the complex influence of occupational risks actualizes the scientific understanding of the problem associated with the substantiation of effective characteristics that allow one to withstand the cumulative influence of occupational risks, effectively develop in the professional community, maintaining a stable equilibrium state of the “man – technology – production environment” system. Analysis of research and methodological literature, experience of professional applied physical training at railway universities of the Russian Federation made it possible to identify areas of research aimed at bringing the indicators of psychophysical fitness of specialists into line with the conditions for the implementation of their professional activities. In the structure of professional competence of railway transport specialists, researchers highlight readiness for professional activity. At the same time, in today’s rapidly changing conditions of the professional world, it is necessary to form not only the current (basic) professionally significant qualities of a future specialist, but also to create conditions for the development of potential professional abilities, which will allow effectively confronting risk situations and ensuring the formation of self-regulation mechanisms. The quality that ensures the mobilization and activation of available funds, reserves, sources to achieve set goals, solve problems, and unlock opportunities in a certain area is reliability. In the article it is shown that convergence of play with learning determines the developmental effect of the game method. The complex nature of the gaming method allows to form indicators in the structure of professional reliability of railway power supply specialists.

Ensuring National Security under Martial Law Conditions: Legal Regulation, Threats, Cooperation and Directions for Improvement

The purpose of the article is to reveal the legal regulation of ensuring national security in the conditions of martial law (threats, cooperation and directions for improvement). It has been established that ensuring national security of Ukraine includes a complex of national and international measures. It has been emphasized that financing is one of the important problems in the system of ensuring national security. The financial security of a state as a component of its national security is the basis of the economic development of the country, which ensures sovereignty and integrity of the country, as well as a decent standard of living of its citizens. The financial security of a state as a component of its national security is the basis of the economic development of the country, which ensures sovereignty and integrity of the country, as well as a decent standard of living of its citizens. Another problem of ensuring national security in wartime conditions consists in preventing and combating corruption. Corruption destroys development of the military-industrial complex, prevents introduction of innovative means of protection for military personnel, it disturbs development and testing of new weapons, new technologies, and hampers provision of military personnel with the necessary equipment, protection and weapons. It was concluded that only cooperation can solve the urgent strategic tasks of ensuring national security in difficult world conditions and new globalization challenges.

STRATEGIC GUIDELINES AND THE ROLE OF HUMAN CAPITAL FOR RESTORATION OF THE FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC SECURITY OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE CONDITIONS OF BANI WORLD AND INDUSTRY 4.0

The purpose of the study was to determine strategic guidelines and specify the role of human capital for restoring the financial and economic security of critical infrastructure in the conditions of BANI World and Industry 4.0. Method. In the research process, such methods were used as content analysis of scientific sources and literature, generalization, systematization and addition of the work of domestic and foreign scientists in the field of clarifying the role of human capital in the restoration of economic systems, as well as in establishing the influence of trends in the modern world on the quality of human capital and on its ability to positively influence the development of Ukraine's economy and the restoration of the financial and economic security of its critical infrastructure in the post-war period. A graphic method of visualization of individual provisions, assumptions and conclusions obtained in the research process is used. The results. It has been established that the financial and economic security of critical infrastructure facilities is an important economic characteristic of national security. A high level of financial and economic security of strategically important enterprises means their ability to withstand economic risks, to be independent of external financing, to carry out effective financial and economic activity even in a situation of significant resource limitations, which will certainly be characteristic of the post-war economy. Although European partners and the whole world promise Ukraine financial support in the process of its recovery after the war, critical infrastructure enterprises in the economic plane must be characterized by a high level of functional independence, and therefore, the problem of their financial and economic security must be solved at the levels of top management and the state without the involvement of third parties or organizations. The vectors of influence of Industry 4.0 and the world of BANI on the critical infrastructure of the state are summarized. The role of human capital in restoring the financial and economic security of critical infrastructure objects is outlined. Scientific novelty. Strategic guidelines for restoring the financial and economic security of critical infrastructure in the conditions of BANI World and Industry 4.0 are proposed. Practical significance. The proposals presented in the study can serve as a supplement to the state policy of post-war recovery and development of the economy of Ukraine in terms of managing its critical infrastructure and can be used by critical infrastructure objects when developing their own financial and economic security management strategies.

MUST dome design based on dome seeing quantitative evaluation

ABSTRACT The Multiplexed Survey Telescope (MUST) project is led by Tsinghua University, which entrusted the European Industrial Engineering (EIE) GROUP with the design, manufacture, and assembly of the dome. Located on Saishiteng Mountain in Qinghai Province, MUST benefits from exceptional atmospheric seeing conditions etc. Local dome seeing may be comparable to atmospheric seeing and requires careful consideration. This research, based on numerical simulations, focuses on refining the dome structure and temperature regulation strategies to achieve optimal dome seeing. The existing simulations only consider nighttime dome seeing and overlook the impact of daytime dome heating on nighttime conditions. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) part mostly relies on a steady-state k − ε model, which cannot simulate transient processes or capture optical turbulence. In this study, a comprehensive multiphysics field coupling simulation was conducted, encompassing radiation heat transfer, fluid heat transfer, CFD, and ray tracing. Simulations include both daytime and nighttime scenarios, taking into account the daytime heating of the dome due to solar irradiation, as well as dome seeing under natural ventilation at night. The CFD utilizes the large eddy simulation model, enabling three-dimensional transient simulation and the simulation of optical turbulence. Ultimately, the broadening of the point spread function was statistically analysed after a certain integration time, facilitating a quantitative evaluation of dome seeing. This numerical simulation approach is closer to real world conditions, improving simulation accuracy and addressing the shortcomings of existing simulations. Some qualitative conclusions are consistent with practical engineering experience. In the end, the dome seeing was successfully regulated to 0.21 arcsec, meeting the observational requirements.

Determinants and consequences of the deformation of individual legal awareness under the negative conditions of the modern world

The essence of individual legal consciousness, the factors leading to its deformation, and the consequences that arise in this case are considered. Legal consciousness is presented as a person’s personal attitude to law and its mental reflection, which can manifest itself in different ways under different conditions. The importance of objective and subjective factors that create a high level of anxiety of an individual, increase his despair in his future, deform individual legal awareness and negatively affect legal behavior is determined. Such important subjective determinants are the general level of an individual’s intellectual development, his worldview, self-esteem, individual psychological characteristics, mental state, etc. The direct proportional dependence between the deformation of legal consciousness and illegal behavior and destabilizing and traumatizing factors that threaten human safety is substantiated. Attention is focused on objective factors that do not depend on the will of a person, but influence his life. Economic factors deserve special attention, namely economic crisis, unemployment, poverty of a large part of the population, inflation. Particularly dangerous determinants of legal awareness are war and the related threat to human life, health, rights and freedoms, as well as corruption, injustice, crime, the consequence of which is social tension and despair of people regarding the opportunities to provide themselves with decent living conditions, or even survive Establishing the role of personal factors in the deformation of legal awareness, studying and analyzing criminogenic situations from the point of view of their subjective perception by the individual - all this will contribute to expanding the capabilities of law enforcement agencies in the field of crime prediction and prevention. The state has the duty to prevent threats to the welfare of society and the quality of life of the country’s citizens. A state striving to achieve progress in overcoming illegal behavior must fight corruption and injustice, and ensure equality of all before the law.

The effect of nesting habitat on reproductive output of the Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica). A comparative study of populations from atypical and typical nesting habitats in western Poland

The aim of this study was to discover if atypical nesting places such as abandoned second world war bomb shelters and conditions occurring within, can constitute suitable and good quality alternative habitat for the Barn Swallow. To answer this question, the time of breeding, clutch size and the mean survival probability of nest contents were compared between swallows nesting in shelters and in farm outbuildings – typical nesting habitat. The study showed that bunkers do constitute a suitable and relatively good quality alternative habitat for the Barn Swallow but they are poorer nesting places than pigsties or cowsheds. Mean survival rate of nest contents (eggs/nestlings) was higher in farm outbuildings than in bunkers, but only differences in the first broods were recorded. The results are most probably the effect of different conditions occurring in the two kinds of nesting habitat, especially at the beginning of the breeding season, when the unfavourable weather conditions can negatively influence breeding swallows to a higher degree in bunkers than in outbuildings.

Neurocognitive Errors and Noncontact Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries in Professional Male Soccer Players.

Evidence is emerging that core neurocognitive functions such as working memory and inhibitory control (ie, motor-response and attentional inhibition) are linked to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury risk. Research has been conducted in laboratory settings, but the contribution of neurocognition to actual ACL injuries under real-world conditions is unknown. To describe the possible neurocognitive errors involved in noncontact ACL injury mechanisms. Case series. Soccer matches. A total of 47 professional male soccer players. Three independent reviewers evaluated 47 videos of players sustaining noncontact ACL injuries. Neurocognitive errors in inhibitory control were operationalized as follows: (1) motor-response inhibition was scored when a player demonstrated poor decision-making and approached the opponent with high speed that reduced the ability to stop or change the intended action and (2) an attentional error was scored when a player shifted his selective attention away from the relevant task to irrelevant stimuli. Of 47 noncontact ACL injuries, 26 (55%) were related to a pressing-type injury, 19 (73%) of which involved a deceiving action made by the opponent, suggesting poor inhibitory control of the defender. Of the remaining 21 noncontact ACL injuries (45%), 16 (76%) could be attributed to attentional errors. Agreement among the 3 raters was very good for all items except poor decision-making, which showed fair to good agreement (Fleiss κ = 0.71). Interrater reliability was excellent (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.99-1.00). Errors in motor-response inhibitory control and attentional inhibition were common during noncontact ACL injury events in professional male soccer players. The interrater agreement in detecting neurocognitive errors in general was very good.

Color constancy in real-world settings.

Color constancy denotes the ability to assign a particular and stable color percept to an object, irrespective of its surroundings and illumination. The light reaching the eye confounds illumination and spectral reflectance of the object, making the recovery of constant object color an ill-posed problem. How good the visual system is at accomplishing this task is still a matter of heated debate, despite more than a 100 years of research. Depending on the laboratory task and the specific cues available to observers, color constancy was found to be at levels ranging between 15% and 80%, which seems incompatible with the relatively stable color appearance of objects around us and the consistent usage of color names in real life. Here, we show close-to-perfect color constancy using real objects in a natural task and natural environmental conditions, chosen to mimic the role of color constancy in everyday life. Participants had to identify the color of a (non-present) item familiar to them in an office room under five different experimental illuminations. They mostly selected the same colored Munsell chip as their match to the absent object, even though the light reaching the eye in each case differed substantially. Our results demonstrate that color constancy under ideal conditions in the real world can indeed be exceptionally good. We found it to be as good as visual memory permits and not generally compromised by sensory uncertainty.

Личный фонд: перспективное решение для управления активами

In the turbulent conditions of the modern world, resolving such issues as protection of assets, possibility of their preservation and subsequent transfer to worthy successors can hardly be considered irrelevant. The question arises whether there is a legal mechanism that is universal both for managing and structuring the owner’s assets “here and now”, and for achieving various goals in the long term, not limited by the life of the founder. In March 2022, an institution that clearly claims to be considered in this perspective — a personal fund — has been introduced into Russian law.

C4 monocots and C4 dicots exhibit rapid photosynthetic induction response in contrast to C3 plants.

Considering the prevalence of ever-changing conditions in the natural world, investigation of photosynthetic responses in C4 plants under fluctuating light is needed. Here, we studied the effect of dynamic illumination on photosynthesis in totally 10 C3, C3-C4 intermediate, C4-like and C4 dicots and monocots at CO2 concentrations of 400 and 800 μmol mol-1. C4 and C4-like plants had faster photosynthetic induction and light-induced stomatal dynamics than C3 plants at 400 μmol mol-1, but not at 800 μmol mol-1 CO2, at which the CO2 supply rarely limits photosynthesis. C4 and C4-like plants had a higher water use efficiency than C3 plants at both CO2 concentrations. There were positive correlations between photosynthetic induction and light-induced stomatal response, together with CO2 compensation point, which was a parameter of the CO2-concentrating mechanism of C4 photosynthesis. These results clearly show that C4 photosynthesis in both monocots and dicots adapts to fluctuating light conditions more efficiently than C3 photosynthesis. The rapid photosynthetic induction response in C4 plants can be attributed to the rapid stomatal dynamics, the CO2-concentrating mechanism or both.

Factor model of the health of the Russian population in the border areas

The subject of the study included significant conditions and factors for maintaining health in the context of ensuring the demographic security of Russian society. The object of the study was the national health of Russians and its regional specifics. Methodological approaches included a civilizational approach to the analysis of global and regional social, economic, behavioral determinants of health and population motivation for health-saving technologies. A secondary analysis of the phenomenon of national health in the context of modern humanitarian research is presented. The novelty of the study is based on the analysis of regional practices of the population in relation to their health, the structure of morbidity, factors and reasons motivating the population to take care of their health and lead a healthy lifestyle. Behavioral models of the population's attitude towards health and a healthy lifestyle are described; the structure of diseases in the population of border areas was analyzed. The specifics of motivation to preserve health through employer investments are described. It was concluded that there are regional specificities that determine the quality of public health and, in some cases, provoke specific “medical” interregional and external migration (for example, the opportunity to change place of residence to improve medical care). The health of employees of an enterprise of any form of ownership is a decisive reproductive component of human capital. In the conditions of the modern world, the permanent experience of the socio-economic and financial crisis, the transformation of values, the population is expected to significantly adapt to the changed conditions of society. All of this requires optimal levels of health and vitality. In this context, health is essential for the full and effective implementation of educational or professional activities.