Eastern Convergence Research Articles

Reimagining a nursing ecosystem in an uncertain world.

The discussion paper synthesises the insights shared during a keynote panel at the 26th International Philosophy of Nursing Conference, themed "Reimagining a nursing ecosystem in an uncertain world." It delves into the substantial impact uncertainty has on nursing, offering innovative strategies for reconceptualization. Through a critical examination of evidence-based practice, the tendency to homogenise nursing is discussed, prompting advocacy for a Nietzschean political framework as a form of resistance and emancipation. Drawing inspiration from Donna Haraway, a transition from individualistic to relational approaches is needed, especially amidst social and economic instability. Furthermore, the integration of caritas and Indigenous epistemologies underscore the significance of cultural sensitivity in nursing. Meanwhile, Ubuntu philosophy champions empathy and collective values, while a convergence of Eastern and Western philosophical traditions promises to enrich nursing practice. Ultimately, the panellists advocate for overcoming rigid ideologies in favour of a pluralistic approaches, ontologies, epistemologies and ethics to address contemporary challenges, and signal for a philosophical reorientation to engage uncertainty and reshape nursing roles in an ever-evolving and world.

Are crimes against women in India converging? Some empirical observations

ABSTRACT Using the Indian state-level panel data on crimes against women for the period 2000–2019, we examined whether various rates of crime against women were converging. The second-generation unit-root test proposed by Pesaran (2007) was employed to check for absolute β-convergence after conforming to cross-sectional dependence in our panel analysis. The results showed no convergence for various rates of crime against women at the aggregate level, barring dowry deaths. The disaggregated zone-wise results revealed convergence in Eastern and North Eastern states for the Composite Crime Index (CI). The rate of rape was convergent in the west zone, while dowry deaths and cruelty by husbands were convergent only in the Eastern zone. Note that there was a weak convergence in dowry deaths in the North zone. In short, our study fails to find robust evidence of strong convergence in various categories of crime against women in India. The system-GMM results of conditional β-convergence broadly supported the no-convergence results of Pesaran’s unit-root test, as divergence was found in most crime categories. The prominent sources of divergence are women’s employment, female foeticide rate, number of pending cases, rate of arrest, and the proportion of Schedule Castes (SCs) people in the total population.

Convergence of Eastern and Western Medicine

The article argues that, thanks to the study of the nature of meridional connections, it is possible to open the mechanism of interaction of body systems through the control of local blood flow and introduce methods of diagnosis and treatment, providing local blood supply through the control of heart rate variability (HRV).

Rethinking the Contribution of Land Element to Urban Economic Growth: Evidence from 30 Provinces in China

In China, disputes regarding the benefits and drawbacks of land finance have been heated, but the role of land in urban economic growth has received insufficient attention, particularly on a macro scale. This research used the Cobb–Douglas production function model to investigate the role of land in urban economic growth. Then, we conducted an empirical test using panel data from 30 provinces from 2000 to 2019, with the goal of revealing the role of land in urban growth and spatio-temporal inequalities in China. Furthermore, to find the spatial steady-state level of land contributions, σ convergence, absolute β convergence, and condition β convergence tests were applied. The results show that: (1) China’s urban economic development was influenced by the combined element of land, capital, and labor; (2) the contribution of land to China’s urban economy experienced a turning point during the “12th Five-Year Plan”; (3) the spatio-temporal convergence of the contribution of land showed convergence in the east but nonconvergence in the central and western regions; and (4) β convergence demonstrated convergence in eastern, central, and western China. Given the complex and turbulent international political and economic context, the Chinese government should think about how to foster continuous energy by supporting land-supply policies that are adapted to local needs.

PROBING THE NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ACTIVE MUD VOLCANIC CLUSTERS IN MAKRAN COASTAL ZONE, PAKISTAN

Makran Subduction Zone is formed in Late Cretaceous. It is divided into Eastern Makran at the southern edge of Helmand Block in Pakistan and the Western Makran at the southern edge of Lut Block in Iran. The velocity of convergence in Eastern and Western Makran are 42.0 mm/yr and 35.6 mm/yr repectively. Both segments are bound by strike-slip faults e.g. Ornach-Nal left lateral fault in the east and Minab right lateral in the west. Stratigraphically, the zone comprises Formations of ages ranging from Cretaceous to Holocene. In the Eastern Makran, most of the mud volcanoes are located along strike which include Awaran and Sipai-sing, Chandragup, Gwadar, Jabel-e-Gurab, Khandawari, Kund Malir, Ormara and Offshore mud volcanoes. The continental margin of Makran is an ideal environment of Oxygen Maximum Zone which receives organic rich matters in its sediments by marine organisms. Several assisting factors play significant roles in erupting the fluid and methane gasses through the mud vents in Makran Coastal Region such as tectonic stresses, oil, saltwater, and transmitting freshwater in the sedimentary environments.

The Convergence of Eastern and Western Higher Education in the Age of Globalisation : Competition and Co-operation in a “Frictionless” Space

The Convergence of Eastern and Western Higher Education in the Age of Globalisation : Competition and Co-operation in a “Frictionless” Space

Rising After the Storm: Interweaving Indigenous Philippine Dance and Music and Western Classical Music for Recovery and Wellbeing

Creative Arts Educ Ther (2017) 3(2):47–59DOI: 10.15212/CAET/2017/3/6 Rising After the Storm: Interweaving Indigenous Philippine Dance and Music and Western Classical Music for Recovery and Wellbeing 暴风雨后的崛起：交织菲律宾本土舞蹈、音乐和西方古典音乐以期康复和健康 Gina Alfonso Cartwheel Foundation, Philippines Abstract Long-term recovery programs for the survivors of typhoon Haiyan – as it struck the Philippines in 2013 – were inevitably characterized by a convergence of Eastern and Western approaches to health and wellness due to the sectors involved in the process. Local community volunteers and local/international non-profit organizations joined forces to offer socio-emotional support to over 100 families of Tagbanua heritage on three islands in the area of Culion, Palawan, Philippines. This paper presents the blending of Eastern and Western perspectives on post-traumatic symptoms, on well-being and on the human condition. The combined spirit of compassion and bayanihan (a Filipino term for togetherness in common effort) shared by the relief workers and the Tagbanua is also described. Narratives about the unexpected discovery of inherent indigenous ways of coping through dance – and a therapeutic encounter that involved a dialogue between Tagbanua and Western classical music – are highlighted as examples of the interweaving of art-based healing practices from the East and West which contributed towards recovery and the restoration of health. 摘要 关于曾在2013年袭击菲律宾的台风海燕幸存者的长期康复计划，不可避免地表现为东西方健康和福祉方法的融合，这是由于该计划涉及了这些内容。当地社区志愿者和当地/国际非营利组织联合向菲律宾巴拉望和库利昂地区三个岛上的100多个塔格巴努亚土著家庭提供心理支持。本文介绍了东西方对创伤后症状、健康状况和人类状况影响的观点，并描述了救援人员和塔格巴努亚人分享共情和Bayanihan （菲律宾语共同和协力之意）的精神。关于通过舞蹈应对，这种固有的土著方式的意外发现以及涉及塔格巴努亚与西方古典音乐之间对话的治疗性相遇的叙述突出显示了东西方艺术为基础的针对康复和福祉的健康治疗实践相互交织的案例。

Convergence of Medicines: West Meets East in Newly-Discovered Organs and Functions.

Although the foundations and evolution of Chinese medicine and Western medicine are very different, an increasing amount of research has revealed that those Eastern medicine principles practiced over thousands of years are confirmed by new technologies applied to the basic science of the human body. Recent scientific discoveries present enticing opportunities to reconcile Chinese medicine theories with Western biomedicine. Is there a trend toward the convergence of Eastern and Western medicine? Four studies which exemplify the potential for convergence are described in this article. The studies present findings in regard to mesentery, interstitium, a gut-lung axis, and lung-centered hematopoiesis, and were published recently in leading journals such as Science, Nature, and Lancet.

Mindfulness and psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A clinical convergence.

Mindfulness techniques originating in centuries-old Buddhist meditation practice are increasingly being used in Western psychotherapy. This article focuses on the use of one such mindfulness rubric: “the four steps”—in which Chan (the Chinese term for Zen Buddhism) practice and psychoanalytic psychotherapy process can be integrated clinically. A case example is presented. In this case the therapist was a Taiwanese immigrant and a practicing Buddhist, the supervisor an American psychoanalytic psychotherapist. The supervisory exchange was an important aspect of this convergence of Eastern and Western thought.

Comparing support for income redistribution between eastern and western European union states

Scholars have argued that Eastern Europe’s communist past drives significant differences in Eastern and Western Europeans’ social justice norms. However, much of this research examined attitudes before the East’s accession to the European Union (EU). Using data from the International Social Survey Project’s 1999 and 2009 Social Inequality surveys, I compare Eastern and Western Europeans’ attitudes toward income redistribution to examine whether EU integration has coincided with a convergence in Eastern and Western social justice norms. I find that although average levels of support for redistribution have remained stable overtime in the East, there have been important changes in ways that Eastern Europeans form opinions about redistribution. First, class status has become more important in shaping Eastern attitudes since the East’s EU accession. By 2009, its effect in the East was not significantly different from its effect in the West. Second, while citizens’ experience under communism significantly affected Eastern attitudes before EU accession, its effect has become insignificant overtime. These findings suggest that the East’s communist past is no longer an important driver of variations in social justice norms across the EU.

Is There a Korean Contribution to U.S. Pastoral Theology?

South Korea is a unique convergence of eastern and western religious traditions: 30% of South Koreans call themselves Christian, 30% Buddhist, and everyone is strongly influenced by the active traditions of Confucianism and Shamanism. Based on 8 months of research in South Korea, this paper explores three perspectives on the relationship of Christianity to traditional Asian religions: 1) Is Christianity saving Korean spirituality from the failures of Confucianism, Buddhism and Shamanism? 2) Is Christianity destroying Korean spirituality because of its connections with modernism and its rejection of historic Korean religions? 3) Is a deeper Korean spirituality transforming both Christianity and Asian religions into something that will help the world heal from the contradictions of modernism?

Sociolinguistic patterns of Andalusian Spanish

The aim of this article is to provide a sociolinguistic appraisal of Andalusian dialectal varieties of Spanish. Andalusian is derived from a southern simplification of the phonological system of thirteenth-century Castilian as the result of dialect koineization. Innovatory varieties accept natural phonological changes affecting syllable structure and reduce phoneme inventory. Since standard Spanish is a conservative dialect, Andalusian is said to be divergent. Nevertheless, convergent trends of pronunciation also develop among the most educated speakers, so that Andalusian speech communities exhibit a great deal of variation, and southern divergent features can be reversed through social pressures into a less natural and more complex phonemic system. What characterizes today's Andalusian speech behavior is a certain division between eastern and western varieties, which is the result of historical, social, and structural conditions. Convergence and divergence from the national standard underlie recent developments. On the one hand, western divergence and social acceptance of southern features is taking these varieties away from the national standard of Spain and bringing them nearer to the innovatory dialects of America. On the other hand, eastern convergence is contributing to the formation of a regional koiné where separated varieties are hardly recognized.