Life In World Research Articles

In-situ catalytic bio-oil production from hydrothermal liquefaction of Cu-impregnated water hyacinth: Screening of reaction parameters

The rapid growth of water hyacinth (WH) is a major concern worldwide as it adversely affects the aquatic world's life by lowering the oxygen level or depleting the water's nutrients. In this study, the hydrothermal liquefaction of WH was performed by impregnating it with Cu and Co to enhance bio-oil production. It has been found that the Cu-impregnated-WH exhibited a high bio-oil yield in comparison to Co-impregnated-WH. The influence of reaction parameters e.g., reaction residence time, temperature, and the biomass-to-water ratio were also screened to achieve the maximum liquefaction. Further, the water-to-biomass ratio significantly tailored the bio-oil yields. It has been found that 0.2M-Cu-impregnated-WH with a 1:9 biomass-to-water ratio and 270 °C/30 min were the best-optimized conditions for the highest total bio-oil yield (41 wt%) and conversion (83%). The isolated optimum bio-oils were characterized by the GC-MS analysis to ascertain the composition of compounds that attributed to the maximum area% of N-containing and phenolics compounds. The maximum amount of both types of bio-oils was found to be high from the liquefaction of Cu-impregnated WH compared to non-catalytic. Moreover, the char was characterized by XRD, FT-IR, and TEM analysis, which confirmed the breaking of linkages of WH, and the presence of Cu in the form of CuO. The findings of the study clearly signify the potential of WH for sustainable energy production and the char obtained can be used for various other applications.

Lost world of complex life and the late rise of the eukaryotic crown.

Eukaryotic life appears to have flourished surprisingly late in the history of our planet. This view is based on the low diversity of diagnostic eukaryotic fossils in marine sediments of mid-Proterozoic age (around 1,600 to 800 million years ago) and an absence of steranes, the molecular fossils of eukaryotic membrane sterols1,2. This scarcity of eukaryotic remains is difficult to reconcile with molecular clocks that suggest that the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) had already emerged between around 1,200 and more than 1,800 million years ago. LECA, in turn, must have been preceded by stem-group eukaryotic forms by several hundred million years3. Here we report the discovery of abundant protosteroids in sedimentary rocks of mid-Proterozoic age. These primordial compounds had previously remained unnoticed because their structures represent early intermediates of the modern sterol biosynthetic pathway, as predicted by Konrad Bloch4. The protosteroids reveal an ecologically prominent 'protosterol biota' that was widespread and abundant in aquatic environments from at least 1,640 to around 800 million years ago and that probably comprised ancient protosterol-producing bacteria and deep-branching stem-group eukaryotes. Modern eukaryotes started to appear in the Tonian period (1,000 to 720 million years ago), fuelled by the proliferation of red algae (rhodophytes) by around 800 million years ago. This 'Tonian transformation' emerges as one of the most profound ecological turning points in the Earth's history.

‘Je begrijpt mij wel, toch?’. Gezondheidsonderzoek binnen de Marokkaanse gemeenschap in Nederland

‘You understand me, right?’. Health research among the Moroccan community in the Netherlands Based on a secondary analysis of three qualitative studies, we describe three tensions that arose when conducting health research within the Moroccan community in the Netherlands. Namely, the tension between (1) the need for an informal recruitment approach and preventing participation as a social obligation, (2) building a relationship of trust and breaking taboos and (3) immersing into respondents’ life world and keeping a distant perspective. The current scientific practice provides limited space to align with ethnic minority’s experience that professional and formal institutes have little attention for their perspectives and needs. Research teams, consisting of researchers from different backgrounds, who take time to continuously reflect collectively on the research process are necessary to recognize such tensions and find ways to deal with these tensions.

Post-Soviet Societies and the World of the Everyday Life of the Udis: Features of Formation of New Identity

Introduction. The radical transformations of recent decades have significantly changed the lives of ethnic groups like the Udis. Due to their small numbers and poor degree of protection, ethnic groups are the first to feel tension, crises, and conflicts in society, the sequelae of political, social, economic, and cultural modernization, and growing risks and threats in the global world. Methods. The systematic method made it possible to determine the contradictory and conflicting nature of modernization taking place in post-Soviet societies. The dialectical approach, the principle of unity in diversity, as well as the synergetic approach have revealed ambiguity, dynamism, and conflict in the emergence of both ethnic and general cultural identity. Analysis. Studies of the real state of post-Soviet societies have shown the unbalanced and diffuse nature of modernization, the ambiguity of the present, and uncertainty of the future. Considering the Volgograd region, the authors point out relatively stable interethnic and interdenominational relations. Simultaneously, it was revealed that the absence of a national ideology and common objectives and values problematize the issues of the joint existence of nations and ethnic groups, and hamper the search for a common cultural identity. Results. The paper reveals the complex nature of the dynamics of heterogeneous Russian society and the inadequacy of calls for unity and integration of peoples while the society continues to be fragmented, polarized, and its citizens being alienated and atomized. The agenda for national minorities and ethnic groups includes issues of determining genuine national interests by the authorities, the formation of an all-Russian identity, and patriotism as the basis of stability and sustainable development of the country. The complex environment of social communication is replete with various multifaceted processes and influences that will allow representatives of ethnic groups to become carriers of common rules, common moral norms, and cultural meanings, values, traditions and customs. Authors’ contribution. As a representative of the Udis ethnic group, R.A. Danakari considered the sociopolitical existence of his native ethnic group. The author argues convincingly that modern forms and types of modernization destroy the “life world” and traditions of most Udis, leading to marginalization, i.e., loss of origins and roots, as well as assimilation and acculturation. V.Yu. Podurueva-Miloevich focused on the political dynamics and psychological characteristics of the rapid transformation of the modern world. As a result, the author reveals the inability of most minor ethnic groups to adapt to postmodernity, to make the transition to a new identity, and to achieve self-realization.

Editorial

In times of heightened global uncertainties, media professionals, journalists and public communicators have been left with little or no guidance as to how to manage and communicate unprecedented events. Despite a wide recognition that contemporary life and media worlds have become increasingly complex, associated communication strategies for dealing with confusion and moving through turbulence have not kept pace. This Special Issue of the Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies (JAMS) revisits the almost forty-year-old acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) and investigates how present experiences of chaos may benefit from the systems-thinking approaches of VUCA. The Special Issue seeks to make an argument for further development of VUCA models addressing the paucity of tools in existing chaos and complexity in communication strategies.

Creating an Immortal Body in the External Void: The Alchemical Way of Wang Dongting 汪東亭 (1839–1917)

This paper explores the teachings of Wang Dongting 汪東亭 (1839–1917), a leading master of the Western school (xipai 西派) of internal alchemy (neidan 內丹), who developed an innovative method of alchemical cultivation that focused on creating the immortal body in the external space outside of the physical body. Wang developed a concept of two Heavens and four yin-yangs, presenting the perfect immortal and corrupted ordinary worlds as two parallel universes existing simultaneously. The two Heavens express themselves as humans' two selves, an ordinary self and its physical body given to us by our parents, and the eternal "body of law." Wang maintained that alchemists must abandon the ordinary self and exclusively cultivate the body of law, achieving immortality by separating the body of law from the physical body and "teaching" the latter to exist on its own. According to Wang's method, alchemists form a new immortal body by unifying their genuine selves with external space. To do it, practitioners first focus on breathing outside the physical body, then naturally follow breathing, then forget about it and go into deep concentration, oblivion, and even sleep. They finally awaken in an actual dream of this new immortal reality. Practitioners not only create a new immortal body outside the physical one, but also make a choice between the ordinary world of death and the immortal world of life, aiming to leave our fallen world entirely, forget about it, and never return.

Real-time face mask position recognition system based on MobileNet model.

COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease that was first identified in 2019, and has since taken more than six million lives world wide till date, while also causing considerable economic, social, cultural and political turmoil. As a way to limit its spread, the World Health Organization and medical experts have advised properly wearing face masks, social distancing and hand sanitization, besides vaccination. However, people wear masks sometimes uncovering their mouths and/or noses consciously or unconsciously, thereby lessening the effectiveness of the protection they provide. A system capable of automatic recognition of face mask position could alert and ensure that an individual is wearing a mask properly before entering a crowded public area and putting themselves and others at risk. We first develop and publicly release a dataset of face mask images, which are collected from 391 individuals of different age groups and gender. Then, we study six different architectures of pre-trained deep learning models, and finally propose a model developed by fine tuning the pre-trained state of the art MobileNet model. We evaluate the performance (accuracy, F1-score, and Cohen's Kappa) of this model on the proposed dataset and MaskedFace-Net, a publicly available synthetic dataset created by image editing. Its performance is also compared to other existing methods. The proposed MobileNet is found as the best model providing an accuracy, F1-score, and Cohen's Kappa of 99.23%, 99.22%, and 99.19%, respectively for face mask position recognition. It outperforms the accuracy of the best existing model by about 2%. Finally, an automatic face mask position recognition system has been developed, which can recognize if an individual is wearing a mask correctly or incorrectly. The proposed model performs very well with no drop in recognition accuracy from real images captured by a camera.

Who is sensitising whom? A participatory interview guide development as an awareness tool within a health care research project

Who is sensitising whom? A participatory interview guide development as an awareness tool within a health care research project

Phénoménologie, expertise, méthode : comment les pratiquer avec douceur

ObjectivesThis article aims to show how the forensic psychiatric examination reconstructs, by progressing gently from the facts and the intimate history of a life, a clinical practice which is specific to it. MethodWe set aside the theories that prevail in the medical and judicial domains in order to make the clinical phenomena appear as they occur in the subject's natural experience of the world. We practice this form of reduction beginning with the encounter with the patient, and relate it in this article by choosing a literary style (37 numbered paragraphs made up of a number of equal words), that is faithful to its subjective progression, made of gentleness, formalizations, and cuts showing the objective points of attachment to the solidity of the clinical. ResultsThe clinical facts occur in the patient's lived world and in the common world, each one thought of as a reality of daily life and a reality of work, and which are co-constructed by institutions and culture. Our results are presented as clinical variations on the theme of the forensic psychiatric examination, highlighting the importance of the subject's inner history as well as the importance of his or her culture. DiscussionThis work shows how, by passing from the oral to the written form and then returning to the oral form at the time of the hearing, the expert witness does not so much describe the facts as he produces them, by placing them in direct relation with subjective experience: that of the perpetrator, that of the victim, and that of the expert himself. As a collection of stories, no fact, clinical or judicial, has any meaning in isolation. It only becomes worthwhile through the relationship that it makes present from various angles and points of view, characteristic of the plural realities that make up the co-construction of the expertise. The phenomenological method, by progressing gently, allows the facts to appear as they can make sense to each of the protagonists. A common horizon of values can then emerge from the discussion and the successive passages from oral to written form, which sheds light on the possibilities of discernment, choice, and responsibility that structure the missions entrusted to the expert witness. ConclusionPhenomenology brings to forensic psychiatry a rigorous method of progression on the philosophical level as well as on the clinical level. It can thus contributes to the progression of the judicial truth without draping the reality of the clinical facts with any cerebral mythology or any preconceived theory applied from the outside to the facts, to the subject's own experience, and to what links them.

Effectiveness of legal protection of Collective and Diffuse Rights: a contemporary look from the perspective of Complexity Theory

The present work follows the paths of bibliographic investigation, having as an investigative axis the protection of homogeneous diffuse, collective and individual rights in the light of Complexity Theory. It starts from the assumption that the complexity of social relations often radiates its effects on the legal dimension of the world of life, culminating in the emergence of complex situations that the Law aims to protect, in an equally complex way. It also considers that in the sphere of the protection of these rights, it is not always possible to find a simplified/simplifying answer to the problems presented. Faced with the current problems of society, which are more complex, it seeks to reflect on various proposals for solutions to current socio-legal problems, regarding the understanding of the referred phenomenon, considering that the proposals offered by contemporary doctrine do not always coincide with the conventional. The present research does not aim to exhaust the matter, but only to present new perspectives to the confrontation and forwarding of more contemporary solutions, related to the injuries and damages generated/caused in the socio-legal sphere of the rights and interests, now appreciated.

Multimodal Age and Gender Estimation for Adaptive Human-Robot Interaction: A Systematic Literature Review

Identifying the gender of a person and his age by way of speaking is considered a crucial task in computer vision. It is a very important and active research topic with many areas of application, such as identifying a person, trustworthiness, demographic analysis, safety and health knowledge, visual monitoring, and aging progress. Data matching is to identify the gender of the person and his age. Thus, the study touches on a review of many research papers from 2016 to 2022. At the heart of the topic, many systematic reviews of multimodal pedagogies in Age and Gender Estimation for Adaptive were undertaken. However, no current study of the theme concerns connected to multimodal pedagogies in Age and Gender Estimation for Adaptive Learning has been published. The multimodal pedagogies in four different databases within the keywords indicate the heart of the topic. A qualitative thematic analysis based on 48 articles found during the search revealed four common themes, such as multimodal engagement and speech with the Human-Robot Interaction life world. The study touches on the presentation of many major concepts, namely Age Estimation, Gender Estimation, Speaker Recognition, Speech recognition, Speaker Localization, and Speaker Gender Identification. According to specific criteria, they were presented to all studies. The essay compares these themes to the thematic findings of other review studies on the same topic such as multimodal age, gender estimation, and dataset used. The main objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis based on the surveyed region. The study provides a platform for professors, researchers, and students alike, and proposes directions for future research.

After Effects and Financial Management of COVID-19 Lockdowns in Small Businesses: A Quantitative Study of Micro-Retailers in Lahore, Pakistan

The global pandemic COVID-19 has influenced the entire world and different routines of life. This research is based on the problem indicating has COVID-19 lockdown effected the financial management of small businesses or not. This quantitative research analyzes the significance of COVID-19 lockdowns in affecting small businesses for micro-retailers in Lahore, Pakistan. Theory of financial crisis and Theory Y are used to test the hypotheses. Here dependent variables to check the results of this research are reserve and ready cash, sales and mobile/ecommerce because it has diversity of options to view the needs of the micro-retailers and strong facts for financial management. Data was collected from the micro-retailers belonging to three different fields of small businesses of Lahore Pakistan. The questionnaire responses are taken by the relevant micro-retailers. Descriptive analysis, independent sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance are used to test the data. The findings show that COVID-19 lockdowns have adversely effected cloth and mobile/electronics micro-retailers and less the food/grocery retailers up to the extent that reserve and ready cash is becoming short, sales average has declined and micro-retailers do not have much awareness of mobile/ecommerce ways to keep up with the financial management for a living.

Employment status and coping strategies of renal patients on hemodialysis

Chronic Kidney Disease is a disabling and high-cost chronic disease for patients who suffer from it and their families. When it manifests itself at a productive age and people are active at work, permanence in employment is at risk and the world of life of the patient’s changes in the face of physical damage, constant absences from the workplace, derived from medical consultations, studies and relapses; as well as secondary effects of renal replacement therapy. Faced with this situation, kidney patients of productive age who receive hemodialysis face multiple stressors in their day-to-day life to remain active in the workplace and economically independent. For this reason, they often resort to mechanisms and alternatives to deal with the disease and preserve their employment, autonomy, self-esteem, as well as control over them and the disease. The objective of this research is to describe, based on the experiences of a group of kidney patients of productive age who receive hemodialysis, the coping strategies they use to face the disease, recover their autonomy, self-esteem and control over them and the disease and continue to be active at work, either formally or on their own.

Psychology of Thinking in Search of Human Dimension: A Systemic and Anthropological View

The psychology of thinking needs to expand its subject area in order to match the psychology of human existence. The processual and complicated life world of a person is an integral ontological space of thinking, in the context of which problematization and mental search unfold. The author believes that life relations and existential mood should be regarded as operational, dynamic, subject-thematic, and stylistic aspects of thinking. Acts and events of thought of a holistically understood personality cannot be separated from their active thinking relationship with the Self and the world. The great dynamics of thinking includes transtemporal and chronotopic aspects of the ongoing mental experience and the topology of cognitive identity. New promising directions for further theoretical and experimental research in the psychology of thinking can be implemented in line with systemic anthropological psychology.

A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study of Aesthetics in Nursing Practice Among Hospitalized Cancer Patients in Nepal.

Background: Aesthetics is the art of nursing that is expressive, subjective, and visible in the act of caring in nursing practice. Aesthetics in nursing practice satisfies holistic needs and achieves the quality of whole-person care. Purpose: The aim of this study is to describe the meanings of the lived experiences of cancer patients in terms of receiving care from the perspective of aesthetics in nursing practice. Methods: The hermeneutic phenomenological approach grounded on Gadamerian philosophy guided this study. Eleven Nepalese cancer patients who met the inclusion criteria shared their experiences through graphic illustrations (drawings) and interviews. Data were analyzed and interpreted following van Manen's phenomenological approach reflective of the four life worlds. The trustworthiness of findings was established following the criteria by Lincoln and Guba. Results: Thematic categories of the lived experience of cancer patients were revealed, reflecting the four life worlds: lived relation expressed as being nurtured as a family; lived space as appreciating the healing space; lived time as being hopeful; and lived body as receiving a new life. This experience was described as experiencing self and other while appreciating the healing space, being hopeful and nurtured as family and having a new life Implications for Practice: Aesthetics in nursing practice values on politely nurturing cancer patients as nurses' family members in a pleasant healing environment. Further, cancer patients experience having a new life.

The Great Power Politic-Capital-Social Information Synergy towards Successful Local Economic Development

The development concept with Local Economic Development (LED) approach applied by developing countries is considered as a new resolution to reduce poverty, unemployment, and economic gaps while improving the quality of life amid globalization and world hegemony. LED is a socio-economic field of study with a relatively new policy formulation that the planning and implementation process is still developing with various alternative theories and approaches. Hence, this paper provides a conceptual and analytical framework for understanding the great power of 4.0 (Politic-Capital-Social-Information) in LEDs synergy in an applicable and comprehensive manner. This paper analyzes the theory and approach of LED with a focus on conceptualizing the synergy of the great power of 4.0 (Politic-Capital-Social-Information) coming from the governments, communities, businesses, and media that affect LED implementation success in the context of developing countries. LED conceptualization is essential in facilitating researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to elaborate political power, capital power, social power, and information influence in implementing LED programs in developing countries. Unlocking the potential of LEDs by synergizing the power of 4.0 (Politic-Capital-Social-Information) is expected to reduce socio-economic gaps and realize equal development for all people, given the condition that the LED strategy has been formulated and implemented effectively.

Neither work nor leisure: temporalities and life world realities of split shift work in the Austrian care sector

ABSTRACT Employment conditions have been subject to far-reaching flexibilization and fragmentation in recent decades. One of the many ways to make labor flexibly available and cost-effective is to divide the working day using split shifts. In this qualitative study on the home care sector in Austria, we investigate the workers’ experiences of split shifts as example of fragmented work and unsocial working times. On an empirical level, the findings show that split shifts imply severe challenges for the workers. On a conceptual level, the research emphasizes the need to consider complex and subjective dimensions of time in researching working times. Our findings suggest that even seemingly clear delineations between work and non-work time are in fact fragile and ambivalent. In that sense, the interruption between the two shifts in split shift work is neither work nor real leisure.

The commodification of social reproduction: A view of global care chains from a migrant-sending country

What is driving the commodification of social reproduction in Ghana? Perhaps it is a natural consequence of the expansion of a powerful capitalist system into even more areas of the life world, as work on global capitalism suggests. Perhaps it is due to female international migration, creating care deficits in the country of origin, as the theory of global care chains suggests. This article shows that commodification is driven not only by transnational migration, but is also a response to local social conditions and historical traditions of care, such that the expansion of capitalism is not a natural force, but becomes naturalised and normalised through local adaptations. Although urban and international migration play a role, so too do changes in women’s ability to balance their individual advancement with care labour, changes in the meaning and practices of kinship, and long-standing histories of informal recruitment of labour into households that can easily become more commodified. This article examines the commodification of social reproduction and the effects of such commodification, phenomena which are not always seen as requiring explanation because of the linear narratives of ever-expanding capitalism and the changes wrought by modernization.

Infosphere, Datafication, and Decision-Making Processes in the AI Era.

A recent interpretation of artificial intelligence (AI) (Floridi 2013, 2022) suggests that the implementation of AI demands the investigation of the binding conditions that make it possible to build and integrate artifacts into our lived world. Such artifacts can successfully interact with the world because our environment has been designed to be compatible with intelligent machines (such as robots). As the use of AI becomes ubiquitous in society, possibly leading to the formation of increasingly intelligent bio-technological unions, there will likely be a coexistence of a plethora of micro-environments wrapped and tailored around humans and basic robots. The key element of this pervasive process will be the capacity to integrate biological realms in an infosphere suitable for the implementation of AI technologies. This process will require extensive datafication. This is because data is the basis of the logical-mathematical codes and models that drive and guide AI. This process will have huge consequences on workplaces, on workers, as well as on the decision-making processes required for the functioning of future societies. In this paper we will offer a comprehensive reflection on the moral and social implications of datafication as well as a set of considerations about its desirability, which will be informed by the following insights: (1) full protection of privacy may become structurally impossible, thus leading to undesirable forms of political and social control; (2) worker's freedom may be reduced; (3) human creativity, imagination, and even divergence from AI logic might be channeled and possibly discouraged; (4) there will likely be a push towards efficiency and instrumental reason, which will become preeminent in production lines as well as in society.

How public imagery matters for art and crisis

In this piece we discuss how use of images in news about crises affects the need for, the possibilities for, and opportunities for contemporary art and crises. In doing so we discuss ontologies of photographic art, images in context, representation, and violence. We argue that the increasing volume of news images around us affects how pictures are perceived, and accordingly the space in which art is experienced. We use examples from the artist author’s exhibitions and publications to develop these experienced relations into fractured images, and how the artwork can be seen both as expressions of experience and of self. The article concludes that art embeds both the representation, the artist’s and the viewer’s life worlds, and that art concerning crisis shows how the risk of simulation and the potential for understanding are two sides of the same coin.