Important Crossroads Research Articles

Mining Law in Cameroon: A Blueprint for Investors in the Sector

Cameroon is currently at an important crossroads as far as the development of the mining sector is concerned. In recent times, the mining sector has undergone series of legislative reforms with the aim to spur the interest of investors in this sector of the economy. These legislative reforms have also been in line with the country’s vision to become emergent by 2035, with the mining sector been one of those sectors to spur the realization of this vision. This paper therefore aims at examining the extent to which the Cameroonian mining law has become a tool to attract investors in this sector of the economy which in the past decades has witnessed a downturn of investors. The paper makes use of the qualitative research methods. Despite significant strides that the Cameroonian government has made to make to lure the interest of investors, inadequacies of the mining law, lack of transparency and accountability, discrimination in terms of obtaining certain mining licences and political instability are the major setbacks that has hindered the continuous growth of the sector. It is in this light that the research recommends both nationals and non-nationals should be involved in artisanal mining, tax and customs incentives should not only be limited to holders of semi mechanized and industrial mining permits or licences, transparency and accountability should be strengthened through continuous publication of mining data and declaration of revenue obtained from this sector, and rehabilitation of the mining sites should be effectively supervised by the concerned body.

An Orientalist Discovery Effort During the 19th Century through the Eyes of Some European Travelers in Ankara

Ankara, located in the center of Asia Minor and founded on an important crossroads, has always been an attraction center for travelers of various religious and national backgrounds. More importantly, it was located on the King’s Road which extended from Mesopotamia to Western Anatolia. Undoubtedly, these characteristic features of the city were noticed by Western travelers. The city was first visited by a Western traveler in the 16th century. The number and frequency of these trips increased over time. The 19th century is considered as the peak point in this regard. Correspondingly this article focused on the opinions of five different Western travelers who visited Ankara during the 19th century and whose names came into prominence. Before that, the period from the 16th to the 19th century was examined. In some cases, Ottoman archival documents were used to check the data provided by the travelers’ resources.

Exploring The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education: A Study on Entrepreneurial Intentions in Turkish Universities

Objectives: Entrepreneurship education serves as a key driver within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, equipping individuals with the essential knowledge, skills, and resources to fuel job creation and economic expansion. Recognizing this vital role, this study aims to delve into the intricate relationship between entrepreneurship education and the cultivation of entrepreneurial intentions within the context of Turkish universities. Specifically, it focuses on the distinct yet interrelated functions of lecturers, course content, and university policies in shaping students' aspirations for entrepreneurship.
 
 Design/methodology/approach: The foundation of this study is rooted in Resource-Based Theory, which emphasizes the pivotal significance of resources, skills, and capabilities in fostering competitive advantage. Building upon this theoretical framework, this study takes on human capital as a resource and adopts a quantitative approach to unravel the multifaceted dynamics between entrepreneurship education and students' entrepreneurial intentions. An extensive online survey is conducted among a diverse group of students from various Turkish universities. Hierarchical regression analysis is employed to unveil the individual roles of lecturers, course content, and university policies in nurturing students' entrepreneurial intentions.
 
 Results: Empirical evidence highlights the substantial influence of entrepreneurship education on students' entrepreneurial intentions. The outcomes indicate the significance of entrepreneurship lecturers, course content, and university policies as influential determinants of entrepreneurial intentions. Notably, among these factors, the influence of university policies emerges as the utmost driving force behind entrepreneurial intentions. This finding underscores the pivotal role of well-designed institutional policies in fostering an environment conducive to effective entrepreneurship education and subsequently nurturing and cultivating entrepreneurial intentions.
 
 Practical implications: This study provides practical insights for institutions and policymakers, urging institutions to craft strategies to foster an atmosphere that drives students toward entrepreneurial activities. By understanding how entrepreneurship education, particularly concerning lecturers, content, and policies, influences entrepreneurial intentions, institutions can tailor their curricula and support systems to not only promote entrepreneurship but also foster a culture of entrepreneurial intent.
 
 Originality/value: This study pushes the boundaries of existing knowledge by illuminating the relatively unexplored yet crucially important crossroads of entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions with respect to Turkish universities. Moreover, the study adds an important perspective by focusing on analyzing the viewpoint of students, an area that has been relatively under-researched. This endeavor recognizes students as the primary beneficiaries of entrepreneurial education and consequently, a deeper exploration of their experiences and perceptions holds immense promise for enriching our understanding of the educational process's impact. By investigating the roles of lecturers, course content, and university policies, this research unravels the intricate mechanisms through which entrepreneurship education molds entrepreneurial intentions. Notably, given the limited scope of prior research on the influence of policies in Turkish universities, the distinct emphasis placed on policy impact in this study stands out as a noteworthy contribution.

TWO PONTOS CASTLES IN VEZIRKÖPRÜ, REG. SAMSUN: BÜYÜKKALE (SAGYLION) AND KÜÇÜKKALE

Vezirköprü, the district of Samsun, is an area of a continuous sedentism for millennia, from the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age until the present, due to its location at an important crossroads, with wide plains and numerous streams all around, and a landscape suitable for settled life. Being a village named Phazemon, in Strabo’s words, the site gained the identity of a city with the Roman domination in the region and took the name Neoklaudiopolis (Neapolis). The city has witnessed many wars and showed that it had an important strategic position. Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, was the biggest enemy of Roman domination in Anatolia back then. In Pontus’s coastal parts, castles have already been known, while those in the inner parts of the region have not been adequately researched. Büyükkale and Küçükkale, which are the scope of the paper, are among the latter. Both castles display many things of traditional Mithridatic fortification, with castle walls, rock tunnels, stairs, and tombs. The one in Büyükkale is identified with Sagylion of old written accounts. The castles under study have not yet been published elsewhere, and the paper is expected to contribute to the illumination of the construction activity of the Pontic Kingdom and the Hellenistic Period in Vezirköprü.

The timing of parental unemployment, insurance and children's education

ABSTRACT The timing of parental unemployment can impact children's educational transitions. Previous research has mostly examined transitions to higher education, proxying timing in relation to children's age and often focusing on selective populations. We study unemployment's intergenerational effects at multiple stages of the educational career, and define timing relative to important crossroads within and across school years for a broader population of children. Further, we build on suggestive patterns in prior studies and test if and how parental unemployment's effects vary depending on the availability, level, and combination of private insurance (parental wealth) and public insurance (unemployment benefits). We rely on Dutch administrative data on cohorts of students born between 1992 and 1998 and observed around the time of the Great Recession. With a negative-control design, we find that paternal unemployment in 6th grade decreases children's chances of enrolling in the general and academic secondary-school tracks, but only in families with lower wealth. Effects are moderate and partly flow from lower performance in a high-stakes test in 6th grade. These effects are reduced when households receive larger unemployment benefit amounts, particularly above median values. In addition, paternal unemployment in 6th grade has long-term negative effects on postsecondary enrolment for children with lower relative wealth. Differently, we do not find evidence of timing effects for spells of paternal unemployment occurring around high-school graduation, nor when examining the timing of maternal unemployment. These findings can inform remedial interventions aimed at mitigating the negative effects of disruptive events on children's education.

Paleogenetic analysis and radiocarbon dating on skeletal remains from the Roman necropolis of Contrada Diana (Lipari Island, Sicily)

Lipari, the largest of the Aeolian Islands, is located in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. Archeological evidence suggests an early human occupation starting from the Neolithic period. The island, favored by its volcanic history, was an important crossroads of cultures and commerce exchanges during prehistory up to Greek and Roman dominations. In this study, we present multidisciplinary analysis results on four skeletal remains from the necropolis of Contrada Diana attributed to the Roman period. By using Next Generation Sequencing technology we identified the biological sex and reconstructed the complete mitochondrial genome for two individuals. We retrieved the first ancient L3e5a lineage that is today present only in North and Central Africa. In addition, a 14C dating of 2,030 ± 45 years BP was obtained for one individual. A previous ancient DNA study has highlighted a genetic link between Sicily and the African continent at least from the Bronze Age. Our results, documenting the existence of contacts between Lipari and Africa during Roman influence, are particularly relevant to better understand the peopling of the Aeolian Archipelago when the island was a sea route of primary importance for the trade in the Mediterranean.

Arab States of North Africa: from the Ottoman Empire to the Colonial Empires of Modern Times

The modern history of the Northern Africa (Egypt and the Maghreb) was marked with the progress in transformation of the local social and political institutions with at the same a vast expansion of the Ottoman Porte and later of the West European powers. The Arab Maghreb which firstly became an object of the European aggression from Spain and Portugal in the 15th — 16th CC. later joined the Ottoman Empire together with Egypt. Morocco, however, managed to save its formal independence until the very beginning of the 20th C.A.D. With the European expansion in the 19th C. the Northern Africa turned into a field of colonial experiments: from the direct military occupation to the assimilation politics of the French departments in Algeria, with a later introducing the protectorate regimes in Tunisia and Morocco and transforming Egypt into a zone of strategic communications between the Great Britain and its colonies in Arabia and India. The civilization interaction within the Northern Africa during the colonial epoch brought to light, both in Europe and Russia, a numerous academic historiography, defining main trends in studying modern history of Egypt and the Maghreb area — the most important crossroads of the historical contacts between the peoples and cultures of the Orient and the Occident.

Building Ambedkar’s India: Nagaloka centre as a microcosm of Prabuddha Bharat

ABSTRACT Nagaloka Centre in Nagpur, Maharashtra is a community centre for local members of the Triratna Buddhist Community. Nagaloka hosts the Nagarjuna Training Institute (NTI) which provides free training and Bachelors’ degrees in Buddhism and Ambedkar Thought to Indian students from disadvantaged social backgrounds. In offering these courses, NTI’s administrators aim to build a pan-Indian Buddhist network and hope to eventually enact Prabuddha Bharat, ‘enlightened India.’ In their view, Prabuddha Bharat will be an India built around the principles of dhamma as Ambedkar understood them. Nagaloka serves as an important crossroads for intra- and international Buddhists to debate and demonstrate their vision of India as Prabuddha Bharat and is a vital location from which SC, ST, and OBC Indian Buddhists are in conversation with international Buddhists to (re)claim India as a Buddhist homeland.

Plans, hopes, dreams and evolving agency: case histories of young people navigating transitions.

ABSTRACT Young people’s transitions are important crossroads for their future position within society. At the end of obligatory schooling, adolescents have to decide on whether they want to attend higher secondary schooling or to enter the job market. These decisions are framed by educational and occupational aspirations. Based on young people’s narratives in a three-wave panel study, we analyze their imagined future starting one year before completing obligatory schooling. In a qualitative longitudinal case history approach, we analyze their aspirations as well as their embeddedness in their biography. We found that plans, hopes and dreams give more nuance to aspirations and are thus helpful conceptual frames for analyzing transitions. With two case histories, we illustrate different navigation processes: one with educational and the other with occupational focus but both starting with rather vague plans for their next steps. Despite different aspirations, both adolescents navigate the transitional phase and develop agency. The concretization of aspirations through plans, hopes and dreams brings evolving agency to light. Our results shed light on the process of change in young people’s aspirations with an emphasis on the person’s perspective and frame of reference.

QOL-12. “I’M JUST LIKE A BASKET FULL OF PROBLEMS”: QUALITATIVE STUDY OF COGNITIVE DYSFUNCTION AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN GLIOMA SURVIVORS

Abstract For glioma survivors, cognitive impairment can be a central determinant of quality of life, but we need better understanding of their unique challenges and supportive care needs. In this qualitative study, we aimed to explore the post-treatment experiences of cognitive and functional challenges and their impact on quality of life from the perspectives of glioma survivors. Glioma survivors in an observational study were invited to participate in an in-depth qualitative interview. Using a semi-structured interview guide, interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed using a reflexive thematic analysis approach to develop key themes to inform clinical practice. Participants (n=9) ranged in age from 29 to 72 years, and were at least 4 years post-diagnosis. Under the overarching survivorship theme, three key themes were developed. The first theme, “Learning what my brain can and can’t handle,” centered on functional challenges related to cognitive impairments, including difficulties at work and managing home and family responsibilities. In response, participants described generating their own strategies to manage cognitive limitations in daily activities. The second theme, “Such an important crossroads”, reflected the significant emotional impact of persisting impairments (e.g., frustration, disappointment, reduced self-esteem, acceptance), increased anxiety around an uncertain future, and a shift in personal values towards an increased sense of gratitude, crystalizing of intentions, and focus on things of greatest importance. The final theme, “A solid foundation of people around me”, referred to the necessity of social support, in both emotional and instrumental terms. Many expressed a desire for and appreciation of coping tools and support for the support people in their lives. Nearly all participants expressed interest in cognitive rehabilitation – whether or not they were experiencing significant cognitive problems. These findings have implications for clinical practice and can inform the development of effective patient-centered supportive care interventions in this population.

Pollen record of the Late Pleistocene-Holocene stratigraphic sequence and current plant biodiversity from Grotta Mora Cavorso (Simbruini Mountains, Central Italy).

Grotta Mora Cavorso (Jenne, Latium), a complex karstic system in Central Italy, has returned one of the most precious Prehistoric palaeontological and anthropological heritage. Through the analysis of pollen spectra and charcoals from cave stratigraphic levels (Late Pleistocene final phases-Holocene), the overall vegetation trend of the site was pointed out. Although taphonomy and palynology of cave deposits are complex, pollen assemblage represents a reliable source for inferring past vegetation; indeed, climatic, environmental, and cultural interactions determine fossil pollen record. Site formation processes and postdepositional bias should be generally considered in the analysis of stratigraphic sequences used to define paleoenvironmental conditions. The sediment deposits from Grotta Mora Cavorso showed a vegetation pattern point in out a progressive increase in woody plants from lower levels upward. Palynological investigations highlighted a changing environment predominantly characterized by cooler and perhaps more humid conditions than today, with plant subalpine and marsh communities nearby the cave. The ecological requirements of the identified plant taxa supplied useful indications to reconstruct ancient and modern environments of the Simbruini Mounts and the Upper Aniene River valley. This scenario, in accordance with previous faunistic and carpological findings and palynological analyses from Latium, provided a further perspective on the vegetation history, biodiversity, and climate of an important crossroads between the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian coasts.

The Contextual Analysis of HRM Practices in Multinational Companies in the Czech Republic

This paper aims to analyze the current state of the Czech Republic’s socioeconomic environment and the HRM practices of MNCs. The Contextual Analysis was made by using data records from 2015 to 2020 from the Czech Statistical Office, Santander Trade’s website, and CzechInvest. By using Hofstede’s six dimensions, the Czech Republic was compared with its neighbor countries: Germany, Poland, and Slovakia. Literature review was done by using articles from the prestigious scientific journals. The study found that the Czech Republic is an attractive foreign investment market because of the followings: it has one of Europe's most strategic geographical locations. Its excellent infrastructure contributes to the Czech Republic's positioning as an important crossroads for European business corridors; its FDI policies and investor-friendly regulations, which offer a number of advantages for foreign investors; and its socioeconomic environment, which is also suitable for the establishment of new businesses in the country. At the end, the study recommends further research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on MNCs, FDI, and the Czech Republic’s policies on how to eliminate these effects.

Florence Kelley’s Struggle against Child Labour: Revisiting the Obstacles

Florence Kelley (1859–1932) was a leading American reformer and activist against child labour. As an admired national icon, most of the biographical and scholarly accounts focus on her achievements. This article, by contrast, analyses and categorises the numerous obstacles Kelley had to face in her activist life, hereto barely discussed in the Kelley literature. Drawing mainly on her private papers from the New York Public Library, her autobiography, and edited letters, it focuses on her personal experiences and helps to reconstruct the shadowy sides of her activism. Offering an unpolished historical account rather than a simple and incomplete success story, it aims to give readers a grasp of her perseverance, intelligence, and capacity to change her strategy in pursuit of her goals. Often what seemed to be an obstacle turned out to be an important crossroads on the way towards the next important step in her activist life. Overall, the article reconstructs and categorises episodes involving the lesser-known everyday obstacles she faced, but also critically revisits the way Kelley’s activism has been portrayed in the literature.

Health informatics and health information management: future trends for information technology in health sciences

Healthcare is at an important crossroads in that current models of care are increasingly seen by politicians and policymakers as unsustainable. Furthermore, there is a need to move away from the reactive, doctor-centred model of care to one that is more patient-centred and that consistently delivers accessible, high-quality and safe care to all. Greater use of health information technology (HIT) is seen by many key decision makers as crucial to this transformation process and, hence, substantial investments are made in this area. However, healthcare, particularly in hospitals, remains a laggard in health information technology (HIT) adoption. To uncover the underlying reasons, we discuss current implementation and adoption challenges and explore potential ways to address these. We outline strategic, organisational, technical and social factors that can ‘make or break’ technological implementations. Most importantly, we suggest that efforts should be characterised by an underlying awareness of the complexity of the hospital environment and the need to develop tools that support provision of integrated multidisciplinary care. We conclude with a discussion of promising future developments, including increased patient involvement; access and contribution to shared records; the penetration of smart devices; greater health information exchange and interoperability; and innovative real-time secondary uses of data.

Strange hadron spectroscopy with the KLong facility at Jefferson lab

The strange quark hadrons sit at an important crossroads between the light and heavy quark hadrons, but their spectrum is comparatively poorly known. The KLF experiment was recently approved to run in Hall D of Jefferson Lab, and will use an intense secondary beam of KL mesons with the existing GlueX spectrometer to collect data several orders of magnitude larger than existing dataset. In this talk, I will discuss the expected physics reach of this experiment and the status of its preparations

Neuroimmune contributions to Alzheimer's disease: a focus on human data.

The past decade has seen the convergence of a series of new insights that arose from genetic and systems analyses of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) with a wealth of epidemiological data from a variety of fields; this resulted in renewed interest in immune responses as important, potentially causal components of AD. Here, we focus primarily on a review of human data which has recently yielded a set of robust, reproducible results that exist in a much larger universe of conflicting reports stemming from small studies with important limitations in their study design. Thus, we are at an important crossroads in efforts to first understand at which step of the long, multiphasic course of AD a given immune response may play a causal role and then modulate this response to slow or block the pathophysiology of AD. We have a wealth of new experimental tools, analysis methods, and capacity to sample human participants at large scale longitudinally; these resources, when coupled to a foundation of reproducible results and novel study designs, will enable us to monitor human immune function in the CNS at the level of complexity that is required while simultaneously capturing the state of the peripheral immune system. This integration of peripheral and central perturbations in immune responses results in pathologic responses in the central nervous system parenchyma where specialized cellular microenvironments composed of multiple cell subtypes respond to these immune perturbations as well as to environmental exposures, comorbidities and the impact of the advancing life course. Here, we offer an overview that seeks to illustrate the large number of interconnecting factors that ultimately yield the neuroimmune component of AD.

The streaming of plastic in the Mediterranean Sea

Plastic debris is a ubiquitous pollutant on the sea surface. To date, substantial research efforts focused on the detection of plastic accumulation zones. Here, a different paradigm is proposed: looking for crossroad regions through which large amounts of plastic debris flow. This approach is applied to the Mediterranean Sea, massively polluted but lacking in zones of high plastic concentration. The most extensive dataset of plastic measurements in this region to date is combined with an advanced numerical plastic-tracking model. Around 20% of Mediterranean plastic debris released every year passed through about 1% of the basin surface. The most important crossroads intercepted plastic debris from multiple sources, which had often traveled long distances. The detection of these spots could foster understanding of plastic transport and help mitigation strategies. Moreover, the general applicability and the soundness of the crossroad approach can promote its application to the study of other pollutants.

The worker bee’s dilemma: move out to move up?

Theoretical basis This case is underpinned by multiple motivational theories, including Maslow’s Hierarchy, Alderfer’s existence relatedness growth, equity theory, expectancy theory and Herzberg’s two-factor theory. Research methodology This data was gleaned from the protagonist and corporate documents. Names have been changed to conceal the identity of the firm and its employees. Case overview/synopsis Vivienne consistently earned high-performance ratings at her firm. She designed the internal firm university, a permanent learning program. She then noticed other employees being promoted based on her work. She was not offered a promotion, so she conducted a job analysis. Based on those findings, Vivienne decided to develop and present a retitling proposal for her promotion to a title better aligned with the level of work she performed. This case analyzes Vivienne’s organization, the firm university program, and her retitling proposal using management theories, human resources laws, and concepts, and it leads to an important career crossroads. Complexity academic level Undergraduate courses: organizational behavior and human resource management.

Molecular identification of Contracaecum rudolphii A and B (Nematoda: Anisakidae) from cormorants collected in a freshwater ecosystem of the pre-alpine area in Northern Italy.

Contracaecum rudolphii (s.l.) is a complex of sibling species with different genetic structure and ecological preference. This study reports the presence of specimens of Contracaecum rudolphii (s.l.) from sedentary and wintering cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis) from the pre-mountain area of the Alps in Northern Italy, an important crossroads for most of the bird migration routes. A total of 48 specimens of cormorants collected from two adjacent freshwater habitats were analysed and C. rudolphii nematodes were retrieved in 100% of the examined specimens. A subsamples of 115 C. rudolphii individuals were genetically characterized and found to belong to the sibling species C. rudolphii B (n=90) and C. rudolphii A (n=25). C. rudolphii B were retrieved from both locations and included adults as well as larvae, while only adults of C. rudolphii A were detected, and in just one location. As expected for a freshwater environment, C. rudolphii B constitutes the largest sibling fraction, indicating that this likely is the endemic species, while cormorants originating from the breeding brackish lagoons and marine coastal environments of central and northern Europe could have brought C. rudolphii A from their breeding sites or migration stopovers.

Internet of Things: Protocols, Applications and Security Issues

The Internet of Things is poised to become an important crossroads for several technologies. As a result, it will be possible to connect smart physical goods and enable smart decision-making across a wide range of applications. Various devices, including computers, actuators, and sensors, may link to one another and exchange data in a networked environment known as the Internet of Things (IoT). Smart refers to how humans communicate with technology, whereas ”smart objects” describes the machines themselves. As the market's supply of gadgets grows, ensuring their safety becomes more critical than ever. The availability of cutting-edge methods and tools has been instrumental in the current surge of interest in IoT security studies. To guarantee success, these applications need the characteristics of the environment provided by the IoT framework. This essay dives deep into the IoT's layered architecture, layer-by-layer protocols, cutting-edge use cases, and pervasive security concerns. In addition to analysing the current security structure, this paper provides a research taxonomy for IoT. Our study is more comprehensive than many that have come before it on the topic of the Internet of Things; we look at everything from sensors to real-world applications.