Private Matter Research Articles

Health expenditure, life expectancy, fertility rate, CO2 emissions and economic growth Do public, private and external health expenditure matter

This article aims to detect empirically, the nexus dynamic interrelationships between health expenditure, totally and disaggregated, economic growth, fertility rate, life expectancy and CO2 emissions in six middle-income MENA countries, namely, (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia), during 2000 to 2019. We employ an advanced econometric technique, Dynamic Panel Data system analysis, which allows estimating time rarely variant variables. Article results show a significant and robust positive association between health expenditure and economic growth, in one hand, and negative associations between economic growth and all which of, fertility rate, life expectancy and CO2 emissions, on the other hand. Moreover, a negative nexus between fertility rate and life expectancy has been detected. Public, private and external health expenditure affect economic growth positively and significantly, meanwhile affect fertility rate negatively, except health public expenditure, which seems to encourage fertility rate. This indicates that disaggregated health expenditure matters for examination. Furthermore, negative impact of CO2 emissions on growth and life expectancy can crowd out health expenditure positive impacts on both growth and life expectancy. A series of recommendations have been introduced such as increasing health share in public spending, and for more effective government health expenditure and control pollution and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, health spending, policies and system has to function as well to mitigate impacts of high fertility, in marginalized, rural and fungible population and areas. This article shines a light on the notable issues in the area, whereas high fertility rate, limited government health expenditure, high employment and low awareness for pollution and environment degradation.

The Irish Penitentials and Conscience Formation

As commonly used in its moral sense I will, for the purposes of this paper, take the concept of “conscience” to be the inherent ability of every healthy human being to perceive what is right and what is wrong and, on the strength of this perception, to control, monitor, evaluate and execute their actions. Such values as right or wrong, good or evil, just or unjust, and fair or unfair have existed throughout human history and are also shaped by an individual’s cultural, political and economic environment. The medieval penitential literature offers just one such historical snapshot. These manuals or guides for confessors, including prayers, lists of questions to be asked by the confessor, and penances to be assigned for various sins were an integral part of the practice of private penance which began in the Celtic Church and later spread through Europe with the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon missions. Penitential books for use by confessors in private penance appeared in the sixth through ninth centuries. These texts were not as a rule decreed by episcopal synods. Their authority generally rested on the reputation of their compiler or editor. Public penances were assigned for public sins that caused scandal for the church. Private penances were assigned for private sins or matters of conscience. The Penitentials were generally more flexible than the churches’ ancient canonical penitential system which they largely replaced. While later European Penitentials tended to provide more complete guidance for the confessor instead of mere lists of rules and penalties; such instruction is not entirely absent from the earlier Irish texts and ancillary documents. Thus, the goal of penance in the early middle ages was not only sacramental but also didactic. It would have been an occasion to inculcate Christian beliefs, an opportunity to model proper Christian behaviour and by extension a key part of the formation of conscience. As was the case with later expressions of casuistry (Etym. Latin casus, case, or problem to be solved) the purpose of the penitential literature was thus to adapt and apply the unchangeable norms of Christian morality to the changing and variable circumstances of human life albeit in somewhat rudimentary fashion. As such this literary genre and the pastoral practices stemming from it are a valid and worthy object of any historical study and theological analysis concerning the ‘formation of conscience.’

The (in)visibility of sewage management and problematization as strategy for public awareness

Sewage management is crucial to the functioning of cities, yet, in the global North, seldom acknowledged in public. Wastewater infrastructures are mainly hidden underground and human excrement is considered a private matter. However, to make sanitation stay invisible, its dysfunctionality (e.g., leaking pipes, aging wastewater plants) is sometimes in acute need of being highlighted. Moreover, the work essential to keep the infrastructures maintained needs to be recognized and compensated for. Based on interviews with actors in the sewage management sector in Sweden, news articles, and public information campaigns, the present article explores how political action and public engagement are mobilized through moves between visibility and invisibility. The analysis focuses on four different modes of problematization: inproblematization, problematization, deproblematization, and unproblematization. Inscribed in the research fields of urban infrastructures and public engagement, the article sheds light on how the public secret of managing feces is upheld, through balancing acts such as creating discursive space, negotiating infrastructural disruptions, making problems treatable, and individualizing solutions. These different modes of problematization are crucial to achieving the right public attention and political measures.

The Power of Nostalgia: Memory, Identity, and Authority in the Shishuo xinyu

Abstract The Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 (A New Account of Tales of the World) is a collection of anecdotes concerning extraordinary historical figures active in the second through fourth centuries. This article highlights and explores the importance of the Shishuo xinyu as cultural memory. In the collection, the public display and use of personal memory of the cultural past are taken as means to preserve cultural legacy, construct cultural identity, and establish cultural authority in the elite literati community. Cultural memory gained much significance after the migration of the Western Jin 西晉 (265–316) royal house and aristocratic families to the south after its fall. On one hand, shared memory and the sharing of memory of the past created an unbroken chain of cultural legacy and secured the elite literati's cultural identities in a “continuous” tradition; on the other hand, personal memory and the monopoly of memory were crucial tools to claim cultural privilege in the highly competitive community of elite literati. The peculiar nature of the anecdote as a cross between private and public matters, as well as between local and universal knowledge, lends itself perfectly to carrying out the various social functions of cultural memory. The attention to cultural memory in the Shishuo xinyu was not an accidental or isolated phenomenon. Its sentimental and personal approach to the past reflects the prevailing cultural nostalgia in writings by elite literati of the fourth and fifth centuries.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN SIMPLIFICATION OF ARBITRATION PROCEEDINGS: FICTION OR SEVENTH SEAL IN THE WORLD OF ARBITRATION?

The term “online arbitration” has several meanings but is most often used to describe an arbitration conducted using remote communication technologies between the participants in the process. In this age of ubiquitous computing, discussing their use may seem redundant and obvious. In the proceedings held under the auspices of the world’s leading arbitration institutions, modern remote communication technologies are widely used. For example, correspondence between the parties to the process (parties, arbitrators, office) is carried out by e-mail; procedural documents and evidence are submitted electronically; organizational meetings and interrogations of witnesses, and sometimes entire hearings, are conducted by telephone or videoconferencing; hearing transcripts are often stored using LiveNote systems, which allow attendees to view transcripts in real-time. With the spread of electronic document management, the disclosure of electronic evidence (e-discovery) is increasingly being used. The current project will mainly discuss the development of AI in Commercial Arbitration and its influence and impact on the speed and cost of arbitral proceedings. In the first part of the work, I will focus on the history and origins of AI in Arbitration mentioning the impact of COVID-19 and partial transfer to virtual hearings. Also, it will provide some data from UNCITRAL and ICC about virtual hearings. The second part of the work discusses and argues on effectiveness and efficiency of virtual hearings in arbitration, including translation and transcriptions during proceedings. I will analyze whether the e-discovery reflects on confidentiality and privacy matters. Third, I consider the most critical ones because they discuss the most problematic issue - arbitrators selection. Undoubtedly that 50 % of the cases on jurisdiction arise from arbitrator’s challenge, which reflects on speed and sufficiently increases costs of the Parties. After discussing the selection tools, I decided to consider replacing arbitrators with AI, which deprived of objective or any possible challenge possible causes. Although I cover arbitration matters, in this Part, I want to provide with comparative analysis of the litigation process – judge selection and its possible replacement with AI. The conclusion will provide weaknesses and possible problems with these issues, including relevant solutions or ideas to discuss.

An anti-secularist pan-Asianist from Europe: Paul Richard in Japan, 1916–1920

AbstractThe modern Japanese nation-state that was established from 1868 onwards was marked by a strong tendency towards the separation of state and religion: religions were protected as a private matter, but the public sphere was resolutely kept free of them. This was mainly done so that competing religions would not get in the way of state-sanctioned emperor worship. The latter, although imbued with elements from Shinto, was carefully defined as non-religious, so that emperor worship could be prescribed without harm to the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. This secularist approach to policing religions was broadly shared among Japanese elites—but it did not remain unopposed.From around the turn of the twentieth century, dissatisfaction with the separation of the religious and the secular spheres began to be voiced, especially by pan-Asianist activists, who sought to combine the spiritual unity of Asia with the political liberation of Asian countries from Western colonialism and imperialism. Although Japanese pan-Asianism has conventionally been seen as a purely political movement, one cannot explain it fully without taking into account its spiritual dimension, which up to the 1920s drew its primary inspiration from India. This article will show how pan-Asianist activists in Japan opposed mainstream secularism and discuss what their vision for a unified Asia was. In doing so, it will focus on the Japanese reception of the Frenchman Paul Richard, an important political activist-cum-spiritual seeker who was a central node in the network of Indian and Japanese pan-Asianists in the early twentieth century.

Conventions

The question of whether cultural heritage should be a public or a private matter has been debated before, and the decisions taken on this issue vary according to the State. But one thing is clear: the private sector can play a vital role in protecting underwater cultural heritage and in making it more accessible, even when it is publicly owned.

Protecting Sensitive Data in the Information Age: State of the Art and Future Prospects

The present information age is characterized by an ever-increasing digitalization. Smart devices quantify our entire lives. These collected data provide the foundation for data-driven services called smart services. They are able to adapt to a given context and thus tailor their functionalities to the user’s needs. It is therefore not surprising that their main resource, namely data, is nowadays a valuable commodity that can also be traded. However, this trend does not only have positive sides, as the gathered data reveal a lot of information about various data subjects. To prevent uncontrolled insights into private or confidential matters, data protection laws restrict the processing of sensitive data. One key factor in this regard is user-friendly privacy mechanisms. In this paper, we therefore assess current state-of-the-art privacy mechanisms. To this end, we initially identify forms of data processing applied by smart services. We then discuss privacy mechanisms suited for these use cases. Our findings reveal that current state-of-the-art privacy mechanisms provide good protection in principle, but there is no compelling one-size-fits-all privacy approach. This leads to further questions regarding the practicality of these mechanisms, which we present in the form of seven thought-provoking propositions.

Young People and the Process of Secularisation in Contemporary Greek Society

During the last twenty years, a significant shift has taken place in Greek society. On the one hand, the religious context has been altered due to the arrival of immigrants and refugees with different religious backgrounds. On the other hand, young people seem to distance themselves from religion and the Orthodox Church in various ways. With the above in mind, this article will try to answer a number of questions: Are young people in contemporary Greek society religious? What do they think about the role of the Orthodox Church? How do they value the Church’s public discourse on issues such as immigration, gender equality, and homosexuality? Where do they stand on state–Church relations? How close are they to the Orthodox Church? Based on theoretical discussions about secularisation, secularism, and the post-secular, this article builds upon quantitative and qualitative research on young people from 17 to 35 years of age. The main argument is that young people seem to gradually move away from religion and the Orthodox Church, while in some cases, religion becomes a private matter; this indicates that there seems to be a process of secularisation underway, although further research is needed.

A long way to liberalization, or is it? Public perceptions of women empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper explores the question of what explains public opinion of women empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa. Muslim societies have often been accused of conservatism toward empowerment, stripping women of equal access to education and opportunities. However, many predominantly Muslim societies in the MENA region seem to be on the way to implement change to provide women with more rights. Prior research points to exposure to diversity as a contributor to the acceptance of a more egalitarian role of women in society. This article analyzes different mechanisms of the exposure hypothesis and whether they contribute to predicting positive public perceptions of women empowerment in the region. The empirical analyses rely on public opinion data collected by the Arab Barometer in 2018–19. The descriptive findings suggest attitudinal differences across countries, but also significant gender gaps and divergences across core explanatory factors found under the umbrella of the exposure hypothesis, such as diverse urban living, keeping religion a private matter, and connecting with the world via social media. These factors seem important to shift people's minds and to pave women's long way to liberalization.

Barriers to Police Reporting among Pregnant Ethnoracial Minority Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence

ABSTRACT Femicide is the leading cause of death among pregnant women in the United States and the risk of pregnancy-associated intimate partner femicide is significantly higher among ethnoracial minority women. In this exploratory study we examined ethnoracial differences in the rates and reasons against calling police following nonfatal intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization in a nationally representative sample of pregnant and nonpregnant female survivors. Among IPV survivors, 1 in 18 (5.6%, n = 106) were pregnant at the time of their abuse. Although the nature of IPV experienced was generally unrelated to victims’ ethnoracial background or pregnancy status, Black/non-Hispanic women differed in that their victimization during pregnancy was associated with significantly increased feelings of being unsafe and endorsement of the belief that the IPV was a private or personal matter, and increased fear of reprisal by the perpetrator or others. There was a significant interaction between pregnancy status and ethnoracial background on reporting IPV to police, with the probability of police reporting increasing non-significantly during pregnancy for White/non-Hispanic women and decreasing non-significantly for Black/non-Hispanic women. These findings highlight barriers to police reporting of IPV among pregnant Black/non-Hispanic survivors and suggest avenues for future research aimed at decreasing racial disparities in pregnancy-associated femicide.

Electric Love Therapy

AbstractIn the early 1970s, as the industrial economy crumbled around Detroit and its suburbs, Dr. H. C. Tien, an independent electroconvulsive therapist who ran the Michigan Institute of Psychosynthesis in Lansing, MI, advocated a “cybernetic” approach to family psychiatry. In Tien’s practice, one can learn how the liberatory kernel of religion and the truth of sexual difference—key components of moral treatment in nineteenth-century asylum reform—became amplified by emerging paradigms of neural nets and information processing. In Tien’s practice—what he called Electric Love Therapy—electric shock treatment became a technology of conversion and, more precisely, of sexual differentiation and spiritual cultivation. Tien’s is a disturbing example of how the regulation of sexuality and gender as private matters serves as resource and spur to secular demands to proprietize religion as an interior matter.

Family violence in the new Russian realities: essence, types and reasons

The article deals with the problem of domestic violence, which has its roots since ancient times and is quite common at the present time. The main types and forms of violence (physical, economic, sexual, psychological) are considered. In Russian society, women do not feel protected from the violence of spouses and other close relatives. In modern conditions, various forms of the use of force against women are common: domestic despotism, beatings, rape, sexual harassment. In many societies, family violence between a man and a woman is not perceived as a crime against society, but is a private matter of the family. It is believed that family members resort to physical violence in cases where they have no other opportunity to influence the family’s decision-making due to lack of authority. Psychological concepts have established a special role in the causes of violence of such factors as the weakening of instinctual control, frustration, aggressiveness, alcoholism, psychopathology. Sociological approaches focus on cultural norms that provoke violence, patriarchal social structure.

Structurally Accepted Crime: Domestic Violence in Pakistan

Domestic violence is a major social issue because of its various severe physical, psychological, emotional, and social implications. When a culture rationalises such anti-human practises and gives them a structural form, they become part of the structural framework. Domestic violence is considered a private matter, though it is the most common crime in Pakistan. No one paid heed to such violence unless disfigurement or death took place. Two provinces of Pakistan ratified a law on domestic violence, but there is no national legislation on the issue. Such violence comes under the ambit of the Criminal law, which prescribes a death sentence in the case of femicide and various terms of imprisonment depending on the nature of the wound. Domestic violence is a significant issue in Pakistan. To know the legal reality of a system, analysis of court decisions must be complemented by the research and work of other legal bodies. The study will help to improve the existing laws and lead to the introduction of new laws, social and political policies to solve the problem of domestic violence.

Immigrant women’s perspectives on contraceptive counselling provided by midwives in Sweden – a qualitative study

Immigrant women in Sweden often have unmet sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs. Successful contraceptive counselling may improve their sexual and reproductive health and rights. The unique Swedish model, with midwives as the main providers of contraceptive counselling, is important for immigrant women’s health at both individual and societal levels. This study explored immigrant women’s perspectives on receiving contraceptive counselling from midwives in Sweden, in order to obtain deeper knowledge about the factors they perceive as important in the counselling situation. Nineteen in-depth individual interviews were conducted from December 2018 to February 2019, followed by qualitative manifest and latent content analysis. Trust emerged as the overall important factor in the contraceptive counselling meeting. Knowledge was lacking about the midwife’s professional role as a contraceptive counsellor. Contraceptive counselling was seen as a private matter not easily shared with unfamiliar midwives or interpreters. Previous experiences of contraceptives and preconceptions were important considerations for contraceptive choice, but communicating these needs required trust. Women also wanted more knowledge about contraceptives and SRH care and rights. Cultural and social norms concerning when and why to use contraceptives needed to be acknowledged in the midwife encounter. Although immigrant women want more knowledge about contraception, a trustful relationship with the midwife is needed to be able to make informed contraceptive choices. Midwives may need increased awareness of the many factors influencing immigrant women's choices to ensure their contraceptive autonomy. Policy changes that promote new ways of counselling and ability to provide continuous care are needed.

Between private matters and public engagement: Conflicted partisan fighters in the resistance novels of Vittorini and Fenoglio

In this article I explore the representation of partisan fighters provided by Elio Vittorini and Beppe Fenoglio in their novels Uomini e no (1945) and Una questione privata (1963), through the lens of Hannah Arendt's reflection on totalitarianism’s exploitation of the weakened boundaries between public and private, and on partisans’ reappropriation of the public realm during the Resistance struggle. I argue that partisan characters Enne 2 and Milton display the psychological burden derived from their choice to engage in the public realm, and from the subsequent necessity to act and use violence in order to pursue the goal of Liberation from totalitarianism. Basing these literary figures on their own engagement in the Resistenza, Vittorini and Fenoglio offer a counterargument to Arendt's claim that the private becomes a sad and opaque dimension for those who reappropriated the public – their paper partisans experience the unbearable weight deriving from public engagement, and struggle with a desire to find refuge, respectively, in their personal and interior dimensions.

How social norms contribute to physical violence among ever-partnered women in Uganda: A qualitative study.

This paper contributes to the literature that studies how social norms sustain undesirable behavior. It establishes how norms contribute to intimate partner physical violence against women. First, norms organize physical violence as a domestic and private matter. Second, they organize physical violence as a constituent part of women's lives, thereby normalizing women's experience of abuse. Third, norms define appropriate boundaries within which male partners perpetrate violence. The findings draw essential information for social change interventions that target improvement in women's and girls' wellbeing. For social and behavioral programmes to change harmful norms, they have to deconstruct physical violence as a private matter, advance the de-normalization of physical violence, and dismantle acceptable boundaries within which violence happens.

Liberation Theology: A Pragmatist Perspective

Liberation Theology: A Pragmatist Perspective

THE FACE BEHIND THE ZOOM: WHAT MATTERS?

Since Covid-19 pandemic, Zoom has been adopted by many as an online platform to facilitate learning. This article addresses students’ (dis)agreement to how they perceive their faces in Zoom; whether it is technically a matter of either on-or-off video mode; of insecurities, of any psychological impacts, and of the notion of face as good name or reputation. A survey by means of Google form was organized in the last two meetings of two courses in the odd semester of academic year 2021-2022 to elicit students’ responses to any of Likert-based five scales of (dis)agreements to 16 statements concerning face in Zoom. 122 ELESP USD students of the third and fifth semester responded to this survey. Data were analyzied and interpreted by means of percentage of agreements. The findings reveal that the notion of face in Zoom is initially and in majority agreed as a matter of being in either on-or-off video mode which depends on the stability of internet connection. Next, being in on-or-off video mode is largely bound to whether there is any obligation to be so. The majority agree also that not showing face in Zoom allows them to do side work apart, and prevents matters of privacy from being exposed. The majority also agree that one’s face in Zoom reflects psychological aspects such self pride and honor, dignity, consideration, tact, poise, and perceptiveness. Preference to being on-or-off-video mode is also a matter of not exposing one’s state of insecurities, and is concerned with the notion of face as a representation and approval of self reputation or good name.

BTK, the new kid on the (oncology) block?

In the last decade data piled up indicating that BTK – for twenty years considered as a “private matter” of bone marrow-derived cells – it is expressed and plays important and different roles also outside of the hematopoietic compartment and, most notably, in tumor cells. Initial evidence that BTK plays a critical role in B cell-derived malignancies prompted the chase for specific inhibitors, the forefather of which entered the clinic in a record time and paved the way for an ever increasing number of new molecules to be trialed. The growing interests in BTK also led to the discovery that, in solid tumors, two novel isoforms are mainly expressed and actionable liabilities for target therapy. Remarkably, the different isoforms appear to be involved in different signaling pathways which will have to be attentively specified in order to define the area of therapeutic intervention. In this perspective we briefly summarize the progress made in the last decade in studying BTK and its isoforms in cancer cells and define the open questions to be addressed in order to get the most benefits from its targeting for therapeutic purposes.