Critical Outlook Research Articles

Two-Photon-Assisted Polymerization and Reduction: Emerging Formulations and Applications.

Two-photon lithography (TPL) is an emerging approach to fabricate complex multifunctional micro/nanostructures. This is because TPL can easily develop various 2D and 3D structures on a variety of surfaces, and there has been a rapidly expanding pool of processable photoresists to create different materials. However, challenges in developing two-photon processable photoresists currently impede progress in TPL. In this review, we critically discuss the importance of photoresist formulation in TPL. We begin by evaluating the commercial photoresists to design micro/nanostructures for promising applications in anti-counterfeiting, superomniphobicity, and micromachines with movable parts. Next, we discuss emerging hydrogel/organogel photoresists, focusing on customizing photoresist formulations to fabricate reconfigurable structures that can respond to changes in local pH, solvent, and temperature. We also review the development of metal salt-based photoresists for direct metal writing, whereby various formulations have been developed to enable applications in online sensing, catalysis, and electronics. Finally, we provide a critical outlook and highlight various outstanding challenges in formulating processable photoresists for TPL.

«…В тебе две души — одна: Ангел! другая: Скотина!..» (письмо В. А. Жуковского к А. А. Воей ковой от 27 августа 1823 года) (вступительная статья и комментарии С. В. Березкиной; подготовка текста С. В. Березкиной и Н. Л. Дмитриевой)

The article presents a letter by V. A. Zhukovsky to A. A. Voeykova, his beloved niece, wife of the poet and journalist A. F. Voeykov. It concerns a turbulent period of her life, associated with problems in family life, and with Alexander Turgenev, who was passionately in love with her. The letter demonstrates not only Zhukovsky’s well-known tender attitude to Voeykova and unceasing care for her, but also a critical outlook on certain traits of her personality and behavior

Offer, consumption and freedom of information in the context of assisted reproduction in the digital age: problematizing contractual guiding principles

ABSTRACT In this paper we focus on the offer of assisted reproduction (AR) services in Brazil, and in this context we focus on important regulatory instruments that guide contractual relationships in the consumption of medical procedures and rights to information, considering their wide popularization through social media. The methodological discussion seeks to collate legal reflections and sociocultural studies of offers of AR, consumption and access to information on AR. Bio-rights, a recent field of knowledge that embraces life and human reproduction, is a rich source for rising debates on AR that allows us to establish essential connections between fields of knowledge that can improve situations of non-access to information. A renewed reading of contractual relations is sought, as well as a critical outlook on the diffusion of AR technical knowledge. For this, we carefully consider the principles of new contractual theory, constitutional parameters, principalism, and basic consumer rights. This is an incipient regulation where contractual relationships touch complex topics that involve procedural success/failure rates, genetic material exchange and confidentiality. The validity of such principles as an aid to legal interpretations of concrete cases must be reconsidered in a situation characterized by legal precarity and reckless dissemination of information.

Identity Constructions at Hysterectomy: Black Women’s Narratives

Conscious and repressed power differentials between healthcare providers and patients have influenced women’s experiences of hysterectomy. A critical outlook that focuses on intersectionality and power relations of the body has provided evidence that Black, under-resourced, and currently oppressed women’s reproductive organs have been neglected. The current inquiry gathered narratives of five Black women from both private and public health facilities who had a hysterectomy before the age of 52. Their narratives of identity before and during hysterectomy were ascertained. The findings revealed negative experiences resulting from severe symptoms before hysterectomy and exposed complex negative and positive multilayered structures related to power and dominance during treatment. Insight into the challenges and benefits of hysterectomy on womanhood identified several key recommendations for providing a more nuanced perspective to enhance women’s gynaecological health.

Processing technology of tea bakery foods - a Review

Tea foods, especially tea bakery foods, play an important role in bridging the gap between supply and demand of tea industry. This paper reviews the processing technology of tea bakery foods which include tea breads, tea cakes, and tea biscuits during the past thirty years. It also points to the fact that there are no uniform quality evaluation methods for tea bakery foods. Effect of the chemical composition of tea on the quality of bakery food is discussed. According to differences in texture, chemical composition, and biological activity of functional components, different ingredients and their ratios should be adjusted to obtain high-quality tea bakery foods. To effectively preserve the special tea flavour, biological activities of tea components should be retained as much as possible. Tea baked foods were mainly evaluated through senses. There were many differences in the sensory evaluation indices, evaluation criteria, and the scores by different experts. Further, this paper provides a critical outlook of the developments needed in processing technology and quality improvement of tea bakery foods.

Liquid metals and their hybrids as stimulus–responsive smart materials

The re-emergence of room temperature liquid metals presents an exciting paradigm for an ideal combination of metallic and fluidic properties. The unique fluid metal features of non-hazardous Ga-based liquid metals, including high surface energy, low viscosity, electrical and thermal conductivity, a wide temperature range of the liquid state, and desirable chemical activity for many applications, have led to remarkable possibilities for harnessing their properties and achieving unique functionalities. The realization of their stimulus-responsivity and multi-functionality make Ga-based liquid metals an attractive family of ‘smart materials’ that could act as the basis of countless applications in new frontiers, covering a wide range from materials science and engineering to medicine. Constructing hybrids of Ga-based liquid metals with other functional materials can further extend the field-responsive capacity of liquid metals to incredible levels. An increasing number of reports have revealed Ga-based liquid metals and their hybrids as remarkable soft smart-response materials. Nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying their stimulus–response activities, their interactions with other functional entities, and efficient tuning in their intimate integration, still require further exploration. Considering the applications of Ga-based liquid metals and their hybrids, this review focuses on their field-responsive physical and chemical properties. The recent field-responsive reports are comprehensively presented. The analysis of their responsive properties and the types of field applied in each case are discussed, so that a critical outlook on this field can be established.

A Postcolonial Approach to Jean Genet’s Screens

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); --darkreader-inline-color:#e8e6e3;" data-darkreader-inline-color="">Jean Genet, an “other” himself by birth, deals with “others” just like himself in his works. Genet’s rejection of society, which otherizes himself, is reflected as a bombardment of intensive social criticism in his works. Especially in his late period works, Genet does not only scrutinize the social structure but also sides with “the other” quite actively. Therefore, while Genet meets and supports people, who fight for their rights and freedom across the world, he, on the other hand gets an opportunity to see the hypocrisy of the “West” from the outside. Genet’s Screens is remarkable in the way it reveals this hypocrisy. In Screens, which deals with the Algeria’s struggle of freedom from the French occupation, Genet presents a grotesque image of the East based on the European orientalist fiction. Genet, while presenting this grotesque image, makes sure that the reader/audience does not form any identification of any sort in order to maintain the critical outlook constantly. While the prioritization of the intellectuality throughout the play manifests how and in which forms colonial discourse finds a place for itself in a colonized country, it also problematizes social roles and gender. The purpose of this paper is to trace the footprints of the colonial discourse and the orientalist fiction in Genet’s play Screens and evaluating the way author handled these issues and themes.</span>

The Application of Machine Learning Techniques to Improve El Niño Prediction Skill

We review prediction efforts of El Ni\~no events in the tropical Pacific with particular focus on using modern machine learning (ML) methods based on artificial neural networks. With current classical prediction methods using both statistical and dynamical models, the skill decreases substantially for lead times larger than about 6 months. Initial ML results have shown enhanced skill for lead times larger than 12 months. The search for optimal attributes in these methods is described, in particular those derived from complex network approaches, and a critical outlook on further developments is given.

Decentering the Self, Seeing Like the Other: Toward a Postcolonial Approach to Ontological Security

AbstractThis article advances a critical outlook on dominant interpretations of ontological security in international relations. It suggests that the preoccupation with state- and identity-centric analyses diminishes the value of the Other to an archetype of ontological insecurity and a source of ontological insecurity for the Self. It argues that seeing ontological security from the postcolonial perspective expands the self-referential understanding of ontological security to a Self-Other relation of mutual coexistence. To do so, the article proposes a framework that loosely intersects Giddens’ work on late modernity with postcolonial notions of interstitiality and hybridity. Postcolonial ontological security foregrounds the emergence of a “third hybrid Other” from an ontologically insecure status through three interrelated conditions of reflexivity, resourcefulness, and resistance. It aims to shed light on creative, nondestructive ways of confronting ontological insecurity and to encourage a view of the postcolonial Other as a learning source for the Self. These arguments are illustrated with the case of Okinawan “Otherness” vis-à-vis the US and Japanese selves, with particular attention to antimilitary base movements.

Violence, Suffering, and Social Introspection: James Baldwin's Another Country

This research examines and expands on the critical outlook concerning the scope and function of identity in the literature of James Baldwin. Looking at Another Country specifically, the essay expounds on the universality of oppressive conditions shown to operate across factors of race, gender, and sexuality. Critical discussion has largely focused on Baldwin’s construction of male identities and sexual experiences; this essay argues for the importance of the novel’s female psychological depictions and how these character profiles operate in relation to male profiles. A significant universal aspect considered is the visibility of trauma: how its appearance communicates repressed pain and influences an observer’s sense of social consciousness and individual introspective capabilities. Furthermore, the trauma and associated psychological conditions are explicitly tied to the characters’ races, genders, and sexualities; consequently, critical theory is used in the reading of key passages. Though historical elements of 1960s America will be mentioned in analysis, the scope of the essay will be focused on literary passages from the book and responding to previous scholarly criticism. Three primary themes of emphasis are violence as a prompter for social consciousness, intertwined oppressions, and the function of female characters in the novel.

Authoritarianism, education and the limits of political socialisation in Egypt

President al-Sisi has declared 2019 to be the ‘Year of Education’, whereby a National Project is to be launched to reform the education system. These proposed reforms are crucial, yet the politics driving them and their implications for al-Sisi’s regime remain unclear. Discussions surrounding how education is political and can help protect authoritarian regimes have largely been understated in the existing literature. This paper’s objective is to encourage a critical outlook through utilising a Gramscian approach that considers education to be a politically contested domain. This approach views education as a hegemonic apparatus capable of developing consent through politically socialising the populace into accepting certain knowledge, attitudes and behaviour conducive to the regimes in power. By analysing the education system under Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak, I illustrate the extent to which education has been politicised through its attempts to serve and legitimise their regimes and objectives, and outline the challenges that hindered their abilities to protect their hegemony and assume complete control over education. Questioning the political, economic and socio-cultural basis on which the Egyptian education system is premised can enable us to avoid reproducing its existing problems, and importantly, reconsider the relationship between politics and education under al-Sisi’s Egypt.

Demokrasi di Indonesia: Pancasila sebagai Kontekstualisasi Demokrasi

A critical outlook on democracy in general and Pancasila Democracy in particular is a necessary reflection through the course of times. This paper examines Pancasila democracy in descriptive ways as well as prescriptive way. These approaches are an attempt to explore Pancasila democracy as an open ideology in its essence. In Indonesia’s history, Pancasila democracy was once used as a tool to legitimize power. However, discourses on the subject matter in its nature must be done in the diversity of rational arguments and cannot depend on the interpretations of the ruler alone. When democracy is isolated from rational discourses, it can get caught up in various problems such as “money politics” and “identity politics” which eventually destroy democracy itself. This article portrays the dynamics of democracy in Indonesia, both in its formal settings and as a building that allows humanity reach its dignity. Pancasila Democracy can be a space for a change towards Indonesia that is more animating to the spirit of divinity, humanity, and nationalism and towards a society with solid physical and spiritual well-being.

Advances in metal halide perovskite nanocrystals: Synthetic strategies, growth mechanisms, and optoelectronic applications

Metal halide perovskite nanocrystals, as a new class of light-harvesting and light-emitting materials, have recently attracted a lot of attention for an impressive variety of optoelectronic applications. Some advantages of perovskite nanocrystals include there being low-cost, easy-to-perform synthetic routes, convenient solution processability, precise bandgap tunability over the entire visible spectral range, and exceptionally high photoluminescence quantum yields. In this review, we summarize recent advances of perovskite nanocrystals with an emphasis on the synthetic methods, growth mechanisms, optical properties, and related applications. The focus is placed on emerging new results in terms of the increasing diversity in the synthetic methodologies, ability to control nanoparticle shapes, stability enhancement strategies (including direct syntheses in water), and on the particle formation mechanisms. The basic design principles and up-to-date performance of optoelectronic devices based on perovskite nanocrystals are considered, with a main focus on light-emitting diodes, but also touching upon solar cells, photodetectors, and lasers. We finish the review with a critical outlook into the open issues and future perspective of this versatile, still rapidly developing field.

Health Status of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of ITDA KR Puram, India: A Critical Outlook

Health Status of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of ITDA KR Puram, India: A Critical Outlook

Innovative Data Management in advanced characterization: Implications for materials design

This paper describes a novel methodology of data documentation in materials characterization, which has as starting point the creation and usage of any Data Management Plan (DMP) for scientific data in the field of materials science and engineering, followed by the development and exploitation of ontologies for the harnessing of data created through experimental techniques. The case study that is discussed here is nanoindentation, a widely used method for the experimental assessment of mechanical properties on a small scale.The new documentation structure for characterization data (CHADA) is based on the definition of (i) sample, (ii) method, (iii) raw data and (iv) data analysis as the main component of the metadata associated to any characterization experiment. In this way, the relevant information can be stored inside the metadata associated to the experiment. The same methodology can be applicable to a large number of techniques that produce big amount of raw data, while at the same time it can be invaluable tool for big data analysis and for the creation of an open innovation environment, where data can be accessed freely and efficiently.Other fundamental aspects are reviewed in the paper, including the taxonomy and curation of data, the creation of ontology and classification of characterization techniques, the harnessing of data in open innovation environments via database construction along with the retrieval of information via algorithms. The issues of harmonization and standardization of such novel approaches are also critically discussed. Finally, the possible implications for nanomaterial design and the potential industrial impact of the new approach are described and a critical outlook is given.

HEALTH STATUS OF PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE TRIBAL GROUPS OF KARNATAKA, INDIA:A CRITICAL OUTLOOK.

06Mar 2019 HEALTH STATUS OF PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE TRIBAL GROUPS OF KARNATAKA, INDIA:A CRITICAL OUTLOOK. Santosh S. Dharanaik and Jai Prabhakar S.C. Research Associate (Project),Centre for Multi-disciplinary Development Research (CMDR), Dharwad,Karnataka-India. Assistant Professor, Centre for Multi-disciplinary Development Research (CMDR), Dharwad, Karnataka-India.

Fuelling the hydrogen economy: Scale-up of an integrated formic acid-to-power system

Transitioning from fossil fuels to sustainable and green energy sources in mobile applications is a difficult challenge and demands sustained and highly multidisciplinary efforts in R&D. Liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHC) offer several advantages over more conventional energy storage solutions, but have not been yet demonstrated at scale. Herein we describe the development of an integrated and compact 25 kW formic acid-to-power system by a team of BSc and MSc students. We highlight a number of key engineering challenges encountered during scale-up of the technology and discuss several aspects commonly overlooked by academic researchers. Conclusively, we provide a critical outlook and suggest a number of developmental areas currently inhibiting further implementation of the technology.

Convenient and accurate method for the identification of Chinese teas by an electronic nose

A convenient, accurate, and effective approach for the identification of Chinese teas and their production area has been developed. For this, Chinese tea samples from different regions were collected and their odours were analysed by an electronic nose (E-nose). An unambiguous identification of the Chinese teas could not be achieved by means of traditional principal component analysis or linear discriminant analysis methods. Thus, multiple logistic regression (MLR), support vector machines (SVM), and random forests (RF) were employed as alternative to build identification models. The experimental results show that the method aiming within scope based on the RF performs very well, with prediction accuracies and computation times being superior to the two others (MLR and SVM). The results were demonstrated that E-nose could be used in the classification of Chinese teas, when an optimal pattern recognition algorithm is selected. The present study provides a critical outlook on the developments of Chinese teas identification, authenticity control and against adulteration in the Chinese circulation market.

From Utopia to Reality: Trans-Formation of Pedagogical Knowledge in English Language Teacher Education

In this article the author reports on a study of some English language student-teachers’ trans-formations of knowledge about language education. The question that guided the study was: How are English language student-teachers’ formative pedagogical and research experiences portrayed in a transformative and critical outlook for initial teacher education? Reflections, perceptions, and conceptions served as data and were collected by means of diaries, interviews, and degree projects or monographs. From the analysis of data, two main themes emerged: “Going Back and Forth from Utopia to Reality” and “EFL Student-Teachers as Novice Critical Researchers”. A conclusion was that the participants’ trans-formations mediated by pedagogical and research agendas represented alternatives with high levels of sensitivity towards socially associated issues in language education.

Curriculum Reform as a Political Statement in Developing Contexts:: A Discursive and Non-affirmative Approach

While not an entire global phenomenon, competency-based curricula have gained relevance and presence, primarily as a policy promoted by the European Commission with the European context. Kosovo – a non EU-state – shifted its curriculum from content-based to competency-based in its latest 2011 curriculum reform. This article focused on the opportunities that Kosovo students have to master learning competencies considering coverage of this specific competency within the main Kosovo’s Curriculum Framework, mathematics teacher education programmes, and grade 6 and grade 10 mathematics syllabi. Relying on document analysis methodologically and discursive institutionalism and non-affirmative theory theoretically, the analysis and findings show that learning competencies are central in the Kosovo’s new curricula, defined as one of the six key competencies to be mastered by students over their pre-university education from grade 1 to 12. Regarding teacher education programmes, findings show that BA degree for mathematics still relies in strong disciplinary knowledge, while the MA degree has been updated to reflect the latest reform. Grades 6 and Grade 10 mathematics syllabi are fully in line with KCF. Strong coordinative and communicative discourses have been at play to create the conditions for the shift from content- to competency-based curricula, while competency-based approach in itself is both an affirmative process, since curricula and learning outcomes are clearly defined from a top-down approach, and non-affirmative enough to allow for opportunities for students to obtain an open and critical outlook for themselves and democratic society – now and in the future.