Cultural Features Research Articles

Digitalisation of Educational Process in the Context of Information Society Realities

The purpose of the research is to explore the problems and outline the prospects for the digital transformation of education in the context of the realities of the information society, which is guided by the principles and values of the post-industrial era. Research methods. The main methods of the research were analysis and synthesis, generalisation, systematisation, and a dialectical approach, which helped to determine the ratio of the effectiveness of traditional and distance education, analyse the main means and advantages of distance learning and distance education, and identify the features of the digital culture of modern society in the context of its impact on the modernisation of education. Research scientific novelty. The examination of the issue of educational technologisation, in particular its impact on the learning environment, has shown that the active spread of digital technologies will transform the organisation of the educational process into cooperation and productive learning activities of higher education students and teachers. Conclusions. Today, we are at the initial stage of introducing innovative technologies into the educational process, which can improve the overall level of education and literacy of the population and society as a whole. However, despite the fact that the digitalisation of the educational process has become significant at the current stage of development, it needs to be refined, changed, and involve new and additional elements and functions, and attention should be paid to revising the regulatory framework of modern legislation. It is determined that the digitalisation of the educational process involves the transformation and integration of educational technologies into all stages of the educational process: training, education, methodological integration, and career guidance. It is emphasised that the form of organising distance learning contributes to the development of independent work skills, and the range of innovative and attractive learning strategies for higher education students is growing.

PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS OF THE MICROFIELD “OLD AGE” IN RUSSIAN AND CHINESE

This article deals with the comparative study of the old age designation in Russian and Chinese phraseology. The subject of research in this paper are phraseological units of Russian and Chinese, in which the object of description is the age of an elderly person. The main research methods used in the article are the methods of definitions, field, linguocultural and comparative analyses. The aim of the paper lies in identification of similar and distinctive perceptions of an elderly person from the point of view of representatives of Russian and Chinese linguocultures. The paper analyses the plane of expression and the plane of the content of Russian and Chinese phraseological units, as well as cultural and linguistic features of those units. The scientific novelty of this study reveals itself in the fact that for the first time the phraseological means of elderly age representation of a person in Russian and Chinese linguocultures have been defined; for the first time the phraseosemantic microfield ‘old age’ in Russian and Chinese have been presented and compared. The results of the study make it possible to represent similarities and differences of the old age conceptualization by means of Russian and Chinese phraseology and to identify the features of the microfield ‘old age’ of the languages compared.

Coherence features of published research articles by Japanese authors: Culture-specific features and their acceptability

Previous studies have demonstrated that research articles by non-native English-speaking researchers often contain features discordant with rhetorical conventions of English academic writing. It has also been revealed that creation of such non-standard elements may be related to the influence of the writers’ first language writing culture. Some have argued that these cultural rhetorical features ought to be viewed as acceptable because they are part of published content that passed the rigorous examinations. Others have reported findings suggesting that these cultural yet non-standard features constitute potential writing problems. To further explore this topic, the present study examines coherence features of the discussion section of research articles (RAs) produced in English and Japanese by Japanese-speaking authors. Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) is used for the analysis of the selected texts in terms of coherence conventions of English expository or argumentative prose. The results are then compared with previous findings of coherence breaks created by student writers. The analysis shows that both English and Japanese RAs contain features discordant with coherence conventions described by RST. Close examinations show that the most prominent non-standard features in these RAs are closely comparable to those of coherence breaks in students’ writings reported by previous studies.

PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY INSPIRED BY TRADITIONAL ROGAN PRINTING OF GUJARAT

The age-old artistic practice of rag painting, which is practiced in Gujarat, Peshawar, and Sindh. It involves using a stylus to expertly apply a thick paste made of vegetable colours and castor or linseed oil onto fabric. The Persian origin of the term "Rogan" means "oil-based," emphasizing the process of heating and forming castor oil in cold water to create a viscous material. This art form was once quite popular among the Muslim Khatris group in Gujarat, and it is historically credited to the Afridis, a community of Syrian descent. After the first impression, the cloth is carefully folded to create a mirrored design. The artists used their palms to apply body-temperature paint. Rogan painting, which is well-known for its rich colours and intricate designs that frequently incorporate floral themes, animals, and regional cultural features, has faced challenges due to low awareness and the rise of low-cost, automated textiles. However, there has been a resurgence in recent years, contributed to increased tourists, support from non-profits and local cooperatives, and the prestige of winning awards and recognition. This paper gave insights into the ideation of incorporating and being inspired by Rogan art motifs into product diversification with contemporary designs through embroidery for garment collections.

Phenomenology of Somatization in Immigrants: An Idealtypical Approach

Introduction: Somatization in immigrants is frequent but standard studies do not differentiate between various forms of somatization. In this qualitative study, we used an idealtypical approach with the aim of phenomenologically differentiating between different forms of somatization in immigrants. Methods: The clinical description of the ideal types was based on seven levels: medical examination; description of somatization symptoms; the patients’ own interpretation of their somatic experience; concomitant psychopathological phenomena; genetic understanding; clinician’s interpretation; and course and treatment. Results: Five different ideal typologies of patients emerged: anxious hypochondriasis, somatization with cultural features playing a pathogenetic role, culturally shaped somatization (through pathoplastic effects), somatization as part of adjustment reactions due to migratory living difficulties, and somatization as post-traumatic reaction. Conclusion: These differences are useful to highlight the complex interrelationship between socioeconomic, migratory, cultural, and value factors in the construction of somatization among immigrants. Implications for research methodology, nosology, clinical management, and organization of medical facilities are also discussed.

Musical Culture of the Kyrgyz People

The musical culture of the Kyrgyz people is a valuable heritage that reflects its traditions, history, and spiritual values. This study is relevant because in the modern pedagogical process the emphasis on the integration of national cultural features, including music, is becoming increasingly important. It promotes multicultural education and the development of students’ national identity. The purpose of this study was to develop ways to integrate the musical culture of the Kyrgyz people into modern pedagogical education and recommendations for their optimisation. The following methods were used in the study: analytical, specifically, historical analysis; comparative; method of synthesis; as well as methods of generalisation and systematisation. The most revealing was the historical analysis, through which the historical context of the development of Kyrgyz musical culture and its influence on education in different periods of history was studied. The results of the study suggested that the inclusion of elements of musical culture of the Kyrgyz people in the pedagogical process can serve as an effective tool for the development of students’ cultural self-awareness, as well as the development of their emotional and social competence. However, to achieve the best results, clearly formulated methods are needed that consider the specifics of Kyrgyz musical culture and the features of the modern pedagogical process. Among such techniques, the following were identified: cultural immersion, integrated lessons, project-oriented method, organisation of creative working groups, case method, creation of interactive music laboratories, differentiated approach, and application of the method of critical analysis in lessons. The findings of this study can be useful for teachers, students at pedagogical universities, researchers in the field of pedagogy and ethnomusicology, as well as educational authorities.

Features of Societal Culture in Modern Painting

Culture in all its forms is the integrated fabric or system that contains the manifestations of life in its entirety, as well as its forms of knowledge, arts, beliefs, behaviors and prevailing values, a set of features that distinguish one society from another. Therefore, the concept of culture in its societal boundaries was characterized by keeping pace with all the variables taking place in society or the environment with its political, economic, social and cultural limits, which is a manifestation of civilization and a form of culture and for the early days of the first expression of the culture of peoples, whether in music, art or drama. The importance of this study comes from the fact that it deals with the subject of (features of societal culture in modern painting). Which made him of great importance in influencing the productions of artists, as he helped to study the characteristics of community culture in: 1- Returning to the features of the ancient societal culture and drawing inspiration from its vocabulary in contemporary works of art. 2-Identify the features of culture in European painting. 3-Shedding light on some artists in the field of European painting, whose artworks were associated with their social culture. The current study aims to identify the features of societal culture in modern painting and features of societal culture in modern painting at the period 1888-1937 in Europe.

The specifics of the monetary culture of students

In modern society, monetary culture of students plays a significant role in the context of forming their competent financial behavior. The financial sphere is constantly changing and influencing money management, which makes it interesting to study money culture. Based on the existing studies of students' monetary culture, the author's sociological research aimed at studying the monetary culture of student youth was conducted. Students of the Financial University acted as the empirical object of the study. The subject of the study was the peculiarities of monetary culture of student youth. The purpose of the study is to identify the specific features of students' monetary culture. A questionnaire survey (n=434) was chosen for the sociological study. The scientific novelty of the research consists in conducting a study according to the author's methodology aimed at quantitative analysis of the characteristic features of monetary culture in the context of its structural components. The main result of the study can be considered the analysis of monetary culture in the context of its structural components: monetary knowledge, monetary values and monetary behavior. The main conclusion of the study was the identification of fragmented formation of students' monetary culture. The index of cognitive component formation was higher than the index of behavioral component formation. At the same time, a significant part of students has no demonstration of conscious, rational monetary practices and attitudes. Understanding the specifics of monetary culture allows us to analyze the problem areas of student youth in the field of financial management, in this regard, the practical significance of the research results, on the one hand, opens opportunities for further research, and on the other hand, acts as an information base for the creation and implementation of strategies and techniques to improve financial literacy of young people.

Cultural codes in epic works of Belarusian literature at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries

The article is devoted to the consideration of cultural codes in Belarusian prose at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries. Research objectives: to justify the use of the term cultural code as a literary concept; using the example of different types of codes to show the features of interpretation of a literary work. The subject of the research is spatial, character, action, animalistic, floristic, color codes in the epic works of Vladimar Gnilomedov, Kastus Tsvirka, Vikror Kazko, Ales Navarich, Andreji Fedorenko. It is noted that the cultural code as a semiotic unit, which is the bearer of deep historical and cultural meanings through which social, economic, geopolitical, cultural features, the specifics of the national worldview, behavior patterns of representatives of a certain nation or the population of the country as a whole are manifested, is considered in literary studies within the framework of semiotic approach. Methods (historical-literary, structural, semantic) and methodological basis of the study are the works of M. Epstein, Y. Kristeva, V. Khalipov, I. Shved and others. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time the features of the use of cultural codes in the epic works of modern writers are analyzed. Conclusions are drawn that among the cultural codes found in Belarusian prose, emphasizing national markings, are “partisan forest”, “kuzhal”, “cornflower”, “Belarusian partisan”, “volkolak”, “tolokak”, etc. Practical area application of the results of the work is seen in the possibility of using this material for a deep understanding and study of such academic disciplines as “History of Literature of the CIS Countries”, “History of Belarusian Literature”, university historical and literary courses, during independent research work of students, when writing coursework and theses.

Research on rural tourism environment perception based on grounded theory A case study of Beishan Village, Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, China

Drawing upon its regional culture, natural landscapes, and architectural features, Beishan Village in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, has forged a distinctive rural development model that combines an industrial park with tourism. While this approach has catalyzed rural progress, it also encounters numerous complex practical challenges. Utilizing the grounded theory method, this study employs participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and network data analysis to investigate the perspectives of three key stakeholder groups: villagers, tourists, and resident merchants. A model is constructed to capture their environmental perceptions of rural tourism. Based on an analysis of network and interview textual data, as well as the influencing factors identified through the theoretical model, this study proposes several optimization strategies. These include enhancing infrastructure development, cultivating a regional brand culture, strengthening the institutional management framework, establishing a rural sharing economy platform, and introducing digital tours. These strategies are designed to refine and enhance Beishan Village's development model, offering insights for similar villages and advancing the integration of beautiful China initiatives with urban and rural development efforts.

Linguistic and extralinguistic specificity of Russian and English texts of ethical codes in the diachronic aspect

The subject of the study is linguistic, extralinguistic and linguoculturological features that determine the specifics of English and Russian-language texts of ethical codes of banks in a comparative aspect throughout the XXI century. To analyze the specifics of the texts of ethical codes of banks (based on the material of English and Russian languages), descriptive and comparative methods are used in the article. The methodological basis is determined by a systematic approach based on the principle of consistency of linguistic phenomena, system analysis, as well as descriptive, inductive-deductive and comparative methods. In accordance with the systematic approach, the interrelation of structural, genre-content, linguistic and cultural features of the texts of banking discourse on the material of English and Russian languages is actualized.The scientific novelty consists in a comprehensive study and a systematic description of the structural, genre-content, linguistic features of the texts of ethical codes of leading English-speaking and Russian-speaking banks. For the first time, the analysis of the specifics of the texts of the banking discourse in a comparative aspect was carried out, as well as the specific structural, genre, semantic features of ethical codes as a new artifact of modern textual culture, and their transformation during the XXI century against the background of the realities of reality, namely before the 2020 pandemic and after. Thus, based on the analysis performed, it can be argued that bank texts in both languages, due to the active digitalization of society, are characterized by identical key structural, genre-content and language features. Nevertheless, Russian-language texts have made a huge transformational leap in terms of digital content and can be distinguished by a large spread of semiotically complicated polycode systems and the presence of creolized texts.

Predicting the critical organizational behavior and culture of the Turkish construction industry's occupational groups for determining the success of the construction business

Organizational culture is connected to people's capacity to organize themselves internally and adapt to the outside environment. Contracting companies were asked to complete a questionnaire based on organizational culture characteristics. This study intends to make a substantial theoretical contribution by demonstrating a broader perspective on exposing the essential cultural features using a quantitative approach with the fewest possible questions. Exploratory factor analysis and Principal Component Analysis were used to identify the most critical variables and extract a more manageable number of components from multiple related variables. Twenty-eight variables were reduced to thirteen to eliminate statistical cross-loading. Furthermore, the organizational culture was simplified from eight to three dimensions. Thirteen factors were created based on cultural habits in the construction sector, with three inclusive dimensions: multiple motivational, one–bipolar, and many bipolar. This study provides a more succinct survey that quantifies cultural habits and their influence on sectoral performance.

Research on narrative design of handicraft intangible cultural heritage creative products based on AHP-TOPSIS method

To address the issues of subjectivity and bias that designers face in selecting and constructing narrative cultural themes when introducing narrative design methods into the design of handicraft intangible cultural heritage cultural and creative products, a model incorporating quantitative analysis methods into the narrative theme selection process is proposed. First, based on the theory of cultural levels and semiotic structure, a new narrative text structure is developed to enrich the narrative cultural themes of handicraft intangible cultural heritage. Second, a process model for constructing narrative texts of handicraft intangible cultural heritage is established using kansei engineering, factor analysis, and the TOPSIS method, to minimize the impact of subjective factors in the narrative theme selection process. Finally, using the design of Huangmei Cross Flower cultural and creative products as an example, the feasibility of the model is validated. This method model effectively reduces the transmission bias of cultural features in the narrative design process of handicraft intangible cultural heritage, providing a theoretical foundation for further design practice of handicraft intangible cultural heritage products.

LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL FEATURES OF PROVERBS THAT VERBALIZE LABOR ACTIVITY (USING THE EXAMPLE OF ENGLISH AND KARAKALPAK LANGUAGES)

This article examines the linguistic and cultural features of proverbs that express notions of labor activity in English and Karakalpak languages. Proverbs play a significant role in reflecting the values, attitudes, and beliefs of a culture, especially inrelation to work ethics, diligence, and community cooperation. By analyzing a selection of proverbs from both languages, this article aims to highlight the similarities and differences in how labor activity is conceptualized and verbalized, taking into account the cultural nuances that shape attitudes towards work.

Research of the organizational culture of small business entities

The necessity of developing new approaches and techniques, adapting existing options for a deeper diagnosis of organizational cultures for small business entities (organizations) is actualized. The author's version of the understanding of the spheres and types of organizational culture is proposed, the results of diagnostics and a graphical representation of the profile of the organizational culture of small businesses in the field of consulting, based on the application of the methodology of the framework design by K. Cameron and R. Quinn, are presented. The specific features of the organizational culture of small business entities are highlighted.

Prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus isolated from bioaerosols of local markets located in Agulu, Anambara State

There is a need for improved understanding of aerosol-acquired disease due to the increasing environmental load of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus are examples of bacteria for which the role of exposure to aerosolized organisms in disease transmission should be more closely evaluated globally. This study is aimed at evaluating the prevalence and antibiogram of S. aureus and E. coli present in market bioaerosols, located in Nwagu-Agulu, Anambra Nigeria. Impaction sample collection method was used to collect bioaerosol samples within the market using nutrient agar as the collection media, A combination of the cultural and microscopic features as well as selected biochemical tests were employed to identify the isolates. The Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method was used to determine antibiotic resistance to selected commonly used antibiotics. A total of 76 S. aureus and 24 E. coli were isolated. Both organisms have been implicated in community-acquired infections. The most common bacteria isolated were Staphylococcus aureus. Varying levels of resistance were observed by these isolates to selected commonly use antibiotics. There is high prevalence of S. aureus and E. coli within Nwagu market Agulu, Anambra State, Eastern region of Nigeria. The organisms have very high rates of resistance to antibiotics (MDR) as reported by other workers. The government as well as Health professionals must play an important role in the prevention of community acquired infections via regular environmental monitoring of open markets bioaerosol and establishing a common permissible limits or concentration for bioaerosols within the markets.

THE GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE OF WALLACE TANK PUEBLO (AZ Q:1:199 (ASM)), PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK, ARIZONA: REHABILITATING THE DAMAGED CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF A PUEBLO IV VILLAGE

Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) is a unique landscape of physical beauty and paleontological treasures. Known for its ancient fossils, petrified wood, and awe-inspiring vistas, it is also well-known in the archaeological community as having some of the earliest villages on the southern Colorado Plateau. Additionally, it is home to a few large late precontact pueblos (Pueblo IV period: ~1275-1400 CE) that were once part of an extensive regional network of communities where people and goods moved across the landscape. Wallace Tank Pueblo is the largest Pueblo IV period village within the Park. This once thriving 600-room pueblo was home to the ancestors of the Zuni, Hopi, and other descendant communities. Over time the physical features of the village were damaged by historic ranching activities and natural erosion. It is now a scoured and degraded landscape where the once sustaining natural spring is not even identifiable. Because of the uniqueness of this village within the Petrified Forest environment consultations between the Park and descendant communities should consider management plans that will re-establish a spring-fed wetlands. Such a plan would not only focus on preservation of the cultural features, but also on the health of the environment and that of the descendants who maintain an emotional and spiritual connection to this ancestral village.

Interactional Voices from Newspaper Editorials: A Filipino-American Contrastive Study

Using categorization of interactive metadiscourse, the present study attempted to contrastively compare editorials of two writing cultures, Filipinos and Americans. The objectives of the study were identifying the cultural features revealed by the Filipino editorialists and Anglo-American editorialists, and determining how the two writing cultures differ in the utilization of interactional metadiscourse resources in their editorials. A total of 180 editorials served as the corpus of the study; 90 from the Philippine Daily Inquirers (PDY) and 90 from the New York Times (NYT). The findings revealed that American editorialists significantly employed metadiscource resources as compared to Filipino editorialists specifically the employment of code glosses and transitional devices. This can be attributed to their writing confidence in utilizing their native language for Americans, while second language for Filipinos. Cultural, political, and social realities also play a critical role in the utilization of metadiscoursal resources in writing.The pedagogical implications were provided for future research directions.

From Natural Law to Relativism: Joseph Ratzinger on the Normative Transformation since Kant

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to fill a certain gap in the assessment of relativism by drawing on Joseph Ratzinger’s (1927–2022) criticism of the normative transformation since Kant. During the Enlightenment, Natural Law was doubted as a cultural feature of Christianity that had no bearing on pluralist society. Consequently, this jurisprudential tradition underwent de-Hellenization and branched out in radical directions, the most decisive of which was Kant’s post-metaphysical system of natural values. Positivism and German Idealism attempted to restore the unity of philosophy that Kant’s philosophy had disrupted. Yet even more influentially, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it was Marxism that relativized the doxological aspect of normativity by emphasizing the importance of praxis. Since philosophy became neither an exact science as Kant had conceived it to be, nor a practical programme for social justice as Marxism had promised, the Existentialists, and particularly Sartre, advocated a more radical philosophy of freedom. Ratzinger argues that despite the nuances of post-Kantian philosophy, Positivism, Existentialism, and Marxism failed to comprehend the human condition and that the positivist method resulted in an overwhelming relativism that has reduced normativity to a matter of correct procedures rather than regarding it as the foundation of the inviolable dignity of the human being.

The Sex Show in "Midjourney": The Stubborn Biases and Gender Fantasies of AI Painting Tools

Currently, AI drawing has made significant progress, with various AI drawing software and tools emerging. However, the binary gender concepts present in AI drawing have sparked discussions and controversies among users. These gender concepts manifest as inherent stereotypes and societal biases in the gender expression and portrayal within AI-generated images. The "Midjourney" AI painting tool is utilized in this study to generate prompts encompassing gender narratives, produce corresponding AI images, conduct data statistics on these images, and perform visual symbol analysis on the image content, so as to investigate the degree of gender fluidity. The results reveal that "Midjourney" exhibits distinct gender biases in gender roles, gender features, appearance, clothing, and color presentation. This suggests a low level of gender fluidity in AI drawing tools, indicating significant gender biases and stereotypes, along with visual cultural features dominated by male influences.