Public Matters Research Articles

A RESPONSABILIZAÇÃO DOS AGENTES PÚBLICOS POR FRAUDES NAS AQUISIÇÕES PÚBLICAS DURANTE A PANDEMIA DE COVID-19

This is a scientific production whose theme is the accountability of public agents for fraud in public procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Law of Administrative Improbity has been standing out in several aspects of the legal system and evolving in terms of legal and current protection, giving concreteness to the constitutional demand of art. 37, § 4.º, in order to effectively protect administrative morality, valuing honesty in dealing with public matters. For this, penalties have been sanctioned when there is disrespect for probity. This work was dedicated to analyzing the cases of accountability of public agents for fraud in acquisitions during the pandemic period of COVID-19, making an analysis of the concepts brought by the doctrinators and characterizing the improbable conduct, based on the principles of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and especially in compliance with Law No. 14230/21, which provides for administrative impropriety. The methodology used was a descriptive and exploratory literature review, with a qualitative approach. Regarding the results obtained, it is correct to state that during the pandemic period, mainly between the years 2020 and 2021, several public agents were involved in embezzlement, as shown in cases I, II, III and IV. As a result, there is passive corruption, which is practiced by the public agent who requests or receives, for himself or for another person of his interest, either directly or indirectly, any undue advantage due to the position he occupies.

Intensity and fragility of Czech participatory budgeting during the Covid 19 crisis

IMPACT Participatory budgeting (PB) is widely understood to enhance citizen engagement in civic participation. The Covid 19 pandemic led to shifts in spending priorities for numerous municipalities, necessitating swift responses to rapidly changing conditions. This article investigates how these changes affected the PB decisions of Czech municipalities. Two key groups—citizens and politicians—were examined. The authors investigated voting turnout, the number of submitted proposals and the budget allocated for PB. The investigation revealed that while there was a slight decrease in the number of project proposal submissions, there was a simultaneous increase in the participation of citizens during the voting phase of PB. This suggests that PB can serve as an integral element of participatory democracy, capable of sustaining citizen interest in public matters, even during crises.

Study of the Participatory Communication on Good Territorial Governance Performance in City of Tantan, Morocco

Participatory and collaborative communication plays a crucial role in territorial governance to find innovative solutions for the proper functioning of public service.This study examines the importance of participatory and collaborative communication in good territorial governance we surveyed 250 residents in Tan-Tan, Morocco. These statistical units were chosen according to an empirical survey known as convenience sampling and were invited to complete a questionnaire of 38 questions. Once the data was collected, the analysis started first with a unilabiate analysis then another multivariate before finishing with the principal component analysis (PCA) method. We found that there is a lack of satisfaction among the population regarding participatory communication, indicating inadequate governance and management of public matters. To improve this, it is crucial to enhance communication between authorities and citizens to build trust and improve the management of public affairs. The study also suggests that the involvement of the population in community life is essential for effective local governance. The results revealed that, in this city, good governance could not take place without participatory communication. This work makes it possible to use participatory communication at the regional level and governance at the national level in general to evaluate territorial performance.

LEGAL PLURALISM AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION: HOW PERSONAL LAWS ACROSS DIFFERENT RELIGIONS IMPACT WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Legal pluralism refers to the coexistence of multiple legal systems within a society, with each system governing specific aspects of social relations. India being a large and diverse nation, with indigenous beliefs, cultural practices of various ethnic groups and multiple religious customs has a complex legal landscape that includes personal laws based on religion. In articles 25 and 26 of the Indian Constitution religious beliefs of individuals are safeguarded. Article 13 recognizes customs as laws in force and article 29 enshrines protection of minority group's culture. While it is commendable that the Constitution of India is an inclusive and secular document, its view of religious freedoms is idealistic. Religion when used to govern political matter or public matters is frowned upon, but the same beliefs when used to regulate personal and family matters are given legal recognition. This has led to a situation where personal laws based on religion perpetuate gender discrimination and inequality. This paper aims to explore the concept of legal pluralism in India and its impact on gender discrimination. The personal laws of various religions in India, such as Hindu, Muslim, and Christian laws, often contain provisions that discriminate against women. And the courts while applying these personal laws, often uphold discriminatory practices and norms under the guise of religious freedom and cultural diversity. However, when it comes to gender discrimination, the existence of personal laws based on religious norms within legal pluralistic systems can create significant challenges.These personal laws, which are based on religious principles and beliefs, often perpetuate gender inequality and discrimination against women. In order to achieve gender equality, it is crucial to address the discriminatory aspects of personal laws and work towards a more uniform legal framework that upholds fundamental rights and principles of gender equality. In the context of gender discrimination, legal pluralism plays a crucial role in shaping the rights and status of women as it reflects the coexistence of various sets of personal laws that may differ in their treatment of women. This research aims to delve into the impact of personal laws derived from different religions on women's rights, shedding light on the intersection of legal pluralism and gender discrimination.

『공공성과 그 문제들』에 나타난 듀이의 국가론과 교육적 함의

This study was conducted to clearly diagnose social conflicts and confusion that our society is experiencing in the form of governance called popular democracy and to seek solutions for them. To this end, in order to utilize the insights of the state presented by John Dewey in the era of the industrial revolution, Dewey's theory of the state was analyzed, focusing on his book The Public and Its Problems, and educational implications were presented based on this.
 The research question is as follows. ① What is the state? ② What is the desirable state in Dewey's opinion? What are the educational ways to achieve this? The research results are as follows. ① According to Dewey, the state is not a fixed entity but a evolving process. It appears in various forms in time and space, the boundaries between private and public things change fluidly in it, it tries to maintain traditions and customs, and it intervenes in important public matters. ② The net of interdependence has become wide and complex, but solidarity has weakened, and we should change ‘a giant society’ into ‘the great community’. To this end, signs and symbols can be utilized and freedom of social inquiry and sharing the results of it should be guaranteed. ③ In order to realize this educationally, it is necessary to foster ‘the great public’ by strengthening discussion classes. Through discussion classes, students can strengthen their ability to analyze complex social phenomena, have an opportunity to acquire democratic attitudes, and gain experience in creating and implementing the common good.
 To resolve the constant conflict in modern society, the great community is needed. The great community needs the great public, and the great public needs the great education. We should establish a vision of the great community and realize it through the method of the great education.

MRNA Covid-19 Vaccine-Induced Toxicity: Will the Real Ringmaster Please Stand Up

The diversity of mRNA Covid-19 vaccine-induced toxicities has been the subject matter of numerous publications

Self-Discovery in Small Remedies: A Reading of Shashi Deshpande’s

Women writers in Indian writing in English portray women as daughter, wife, mother and other stereotyped roles in their literary works of art. The cultural changes in India are contrasted through the lives of individuals, communities and the nation. The novelist interweaves many aspects of the personal life with the public matters. Shashi Deshpande’s Small Remedies (2006) is about the protagonist’s quest for self. It delineates the journey of women towards self-discovery in relation to society, and the relationships that are central to women. The women in her novels face upheavals in their marriage. The upheavals are generally inevitable when a woman refuses to conform to her ascribed traditional role. The article examines the self-discovery of the women characters in the novel Small Remedies.

Analyzing online public opinion on Thailand-China high-speed train and Laos-China railway mega-projects using advanced machine learning for sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis is becoming a very popular research technique. It can effectively identify hidden emotional trends in social networks to understand people’s opinions and feelings. This research therefore focuses on analyzing the sentiments of the public on the social media platform, YouTube, about the Thailand-China high-speed train project and the Laos-China Railway, a mega-project that is important to the country and a huge investment to develop transportation infrastructure. It affects both the economic and social dimensions of Thai people and is also an important route to connect the rail systems of ASEAN countries as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. We gathered public Thai reviews from YouTube using the Data Application Program Interface. This dataset was used to train six sentiment classifiers using machine learning and deep learning algorithms. The performance of all six models by means of precision, recall, F1-score and accuracy are compared to find the most suitable model architecture for sentiment classification. The results show that the transformer model with the WangchanBERTa language model yields best accuracy, 94.57%. We found that the use of a Thai language-specific model that was trained from a large variety of data sources plays a major role in the model performance and significantly increases the accuracy of sentiment prediction. The promising performance of this sentiment classification model also suggests that it can be used as a tool for government agencies to plan, make strategic decisions, and improve communication with the public for better understanding of their projects. Furthermore, the model can be integrated with any online platform to monitor people's sentiments on other public matters. Regular monitoring of public opinions could help the policy makers in designing public policies to address the citizens’ problems and concerns as well as planning development strategies for the country.

Bedah Rumah Untuk Kesejahteraan Dan Kesehatan Masyarakat Tidak Mampu Di Gowa Kota Makassar

Poverty causes families to be unable to meet the needs of adequate housing for themselves and their families. Not everyone is able to meet their housing needs for economic reasons. One of the basic human needs is a house in the context of decentralized housing provision. Currently, there is no housing provision system in the regions that is responsive to developing needs. This is due to the lack of developed understanding that housing is also a public matter apart from being an individual matter. The aim of implementing the House Renovation Program is targeting poor people who have uninhabitable houses. The house renovation program has had an impact on poverty alleviation in Gowa District, Makassar. Community Service Activities (PKM) by the Indonesian Teachers and Lecturers Association in collaboration with IKAT Japan South Sulawesi as a form of improving the problem of poverty for our underprivileged brothers and sisters with a house renovation program. Apart from alleviating the problem of poverty through this house renovation program, it is hoped that those who receive Mr. Ridwan's assistance will be helped by comfortable accessibility with their families.

Gender Equality in Narratives and Illustrations Contained in Integrated Thematic Books for Class I Students in the 2013 Curriculum in Primary Schools

This research aims to describe gender equality in the narratives and illustrations contained in the integrated thematic books for class I students in the 2013 curriculum in elementary schools. This study used descriptive qualitative method. The data collection methods used were literature study, observation, documentation and note taking. In data processing, we use a qualitative approach using Nature theory and semantics. Based on the results of the research and discussions that have been carried out, it can be concluded that the substance of the book's content contains gender inequality. Gender inequality is reflected through illustrative images and story text which fall into three categories, namely (1) Gender inequality in trait values, (2) Gender inequality in work roles, and (3) Gender inequality in hobbies. Each category depicts a woman who is feminine, weak, irrational, emotional and plays a lot of roles in domestic matters. Women are not in an equal position with men who have a masculine attitude and are able to play a role in public matters. Gender bias can influence student teaching and learning activities, such as: using appropriate methods that involve all students, classroom management such as assigning seats to the class teacher, dividing them randomly without looking at the gender and achievement of the students and changing them once a month so that students don't feel bored. and student interactions, especially those that occur outside the classroom, involve interactions between students. Male students usually play with members of the same gender, while female students also play with female friends to make it easier for students to choose the games they play

Effects of cadmium on children and adolescents development (systematic review)

Introduction. Cadmium is widespread in the environment as a result of industrial activity, the use of agrochemicals, smoking. Children and adolescents are an eco-sensitive group of the population, and indicators of their physical and mental development are highly informative indicators of environmental impact. 
 The purpose of the review was to study the effects of cadmium on the physical and mental development in children and adolescents.
 Search and selection of sources. A search was conducted for literature that is freely available using the search engines PubMed, Science Direct and elibrary. The search was carried out by the keywords: “effects of cadmium on the physical and mental development of children”, as well as on their individual indicators. The initial search allowed identifying seven thousand eight hundred sixty one reports, after an independent evaluation by two experts, 24 full-text publications remained. The inclusion criteria were: original data on the effect of cadmium on the development indicators in children and adolescents at any route of its entry into the body, a mathematically proven link between the level of cadmium with development indicators, taking into account the possibility of data bias.
 Results. The analysis of the subject matter and design of publications allowed establishing a limited set of criteria for assessing the physical and mental development (there are no indicators of dental maturity, puberty of boys, speech development, playing activity). Most studies indicate the effect of intrauterine exposure to cadmium on the body weight in newborns. The negative effect of cadmium on intellectual development begins to be determined in the senior preschool and school age and is also found in most studies. Contradictory data were obtained for the remaining indicators. Most researchers have not received data on sex differences when exposed to cadmium.
 Conclusion. Additional comprehensive randomized multicentric studies of the physical and mental development of children under the influence of cadmium, conducted according to a single protocol, are needed.

RPER Software - A Social Management Tool for Rapid Participatory Emancipatory Research: Planning, Design and Implementation

Theoretical framework: This study is grounded in Social Management, a paradigm that focuses on society's deliberative process for public decisions. It also employs the Rapid Participatory and Emancipatory Research (RPER) method, an adaptation of rapid and participatory appraisals, to apply social management in rural contexts. Research objectives: Identify the requirements, plan, design, assess the complexity, and implement a system to support the RPER application. Methodology: The waterfall model for software development lifecycle was used to carry out the system's planning. The discipline of Business Process Management (BPM) was necessary for the requirements mapping and the Function Point Analysis (FPA) technique to measure the software complexity from a user perspective. Results: The RPER application process was fully mapped, and several features that could be implemented for the software were uncovered. These functionalities address practically all the steps involved in the method’s application. In addition, the software measurement was completed, and 542 function points were found. After this, the design for the graphical user interface was then created. Finally, the software was developed using technologies such as Express for building the back-end RESTful API with Node.js, React library to create the front-end’s componentized user interface, TypeScript as the main programming language and PostgreSQL as the relational database. Originality: It is notable that some software has already been used to try and promote social participation in public matters. However, studies specific to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to resolve social issues, and, at the same time, dealing specifically with participatory techniques are non-existent. There is an overflow of software tools designed to support quantitative research in the agriculture field, yet there remains a notable deficiency in software tailored to assist qualitative research and practices. Theoretical and practical contributions: The use of a web system on participatory approaches can bring advantages. In the theoretical side, this research might provide insights into these methods’ evolution. It will also provide a foundational framework for understanding the intersection of ICT and participatory techniques, paving the way for future research in this area. Some other more practical benefits include the wider distribution and dissemination of results, data transparency, the unification or centralization of the research made using the methods, the organization of data, the possibility of automation on report generation, better communication and collaboration between team members, and data safety with periodic backups. Nonetheless, the software could serve as a platform for preparing new researchers with help and tips section for each of the methods’ techniques.

Glosa do wyroku Naczelnego Sądu Administracyjnego z dnia 21 lutego 2023 r. (III OSK 7096/21, CBOSA) dotyczącego udostępnienia w trybie ustawy o dostępie do informacji publicznej pytań egzaminacyjnych szkoły wyższej

The commented judgment concerns the disclosure of questions from the semester written exam conducted at a university on the basis of the Act on Access to Public Information. The Supreme Administrative Court decided that such questions do not constitute public information, because they do not concern public matters, and are also an “internal document”, i.e. they concern matters related to the current functioning of the entity and do not express its position towards other entities. The author of the commentary accepts the position of the Court because it cannot be inferred from the provisions defining the tasks of a university that questions from semester written exams constitute public information. There are no legal regulations that would specify in detail the course of such exams and indicate that their results directly shape the student’s legal situation. In addition, such questions are an internal document, as they are only an element of the preparation of documentation concerning the student, allowing only at later decisions to be made regarding his further status.

Inclusion as ownership in participatory budgeting: facilitators’ interpretations of public engagement of children and youth

ABSTRACT This article draws from two cases of participatory budgeting (PB) in Poland and Finland to explore PB as an inclusive practice of involving children and youth in local governance. Scrutinizing interpretations of facilitators involved in the creation of PB, we analyze the motivation for incorporating children and youth into governance and how their engagement was conducted from the view of ownership. We identify ownership as a central element of inclusion when children and young people are invited to participate in public matters. Our conceptualization distinguishes four analytical dimensions of ownership: ownership of (1) process, (2) issue, (3) action produced, and (4) decision-making. Additionally, we argue that from the view of PB facilitators, encouraging the ownership of children and young people to PB involves four functions: carrying out a legally mandated task, identifying topical issues, developing tools of support, and constructing a motivational link between school and society. We highlight that ownership can potentially contribute to the challenges of engagement experienced in PB initiatives. However, promoting ownership possesses a risk of disempowering the participants and raises concern about the relation between ownership and the level of genuine inclusion.

On citizens' right to information: Justification and analysis of the democratic right to be well informed

On citizens' right to information: Justification and analysis of the democratic right to be well informed

Deliberative democracy and the digital public sphere: Asymmetrical fragmentation as a political not a technological problem

Deliberative democracy and the digital public sphere: Asymmetrical fragmentation as a political not a technological problem

Partnership: Private Law and Political Theory in Rabbinic Laws of Neighbors

This essay offers a reading of early rabbinic laws of neighbors and reconstructs a distinctive political theory with a "partnership" concept at its heart. The thesis presented here begins with the idea that for the early rabbis, there is a form of partnership that arises spontaneously—i.e., with no need for agreement or contract—between people who live in close vicinity. In this way, individual neighbors become partners in spaces, objects, and structures situated between their private properties, and the people of the city become partners in all public matters and assets. Private-law reasoning serves the rabbis to theorize the life of the city as a whole. A major implication of this theory is that ultimate political authority lies in the hands of the people of the city, not in those of potential affluent or religious leaders. The people of the city rule the city because it is theirs in partnership. This civic theory, it is proposed, should be read in the intellectual context of Roman political thought. The rabbis are shown to exploit the gap between the views of Cicero and the Roman jurists about the city and to produce a political theory beneficial to provincial cities that would be recognizable to Roman intellectuals of their time. The people of the city, therefore, rule as equals among themselves and as autonomous vis-à-vis external imperial power. Reading the early civil legal principles in this way serves to expand the canon of Jewish political thought.

Citizens’ perceptions on public finance literacy: Familiarity, importance, actual use and proposed learning objectives

Recent literature highlights the importance of providing citizens public sector accounting education to help them become public finance literate. This study performs a questionnaire-based survey to a convenient sample of citizens to collect their perspective on the topic. The results indicate an average familiarity of the respondents with key public finance concepts, with male respondents appearing more familiar. The respondents place more importance in being able to monitor and assess the state’s financial performance and condition rather than that of the local government. In practice, when making voting decisions during municipal elections they focus less on financial information, compared to when it comes to state elections, mainly due to difficulties in accessing the municipalities’ financial information. The respondents are further supportive of receiving public sector accounting education as they believe it could help them monitor the local and state government’s financial condition and performance, take more rational election decisions and more actively participate to public matters. They perceive that such an education should take place from high-school and not earlier, and they find useful this educational process to continue via online and on-site seminars. Finally, they make recommendations on the specific content (learning objectives) of public sector accounting education at the different educational levels (school, high-school, municipal seminars, and online seminars).

The Development of Home Economics as a Field of Knowledge and its Contribution to the Education and Social Status of Women

Denmark underwent major changes in the 1800s and the first part of the 1900s, which affected the role of education in the lives of women. Until then, women in Denmark had primarily worked as homemakers with few academic opportunities; but from the early 1900s, home economics developed as a field of knowledge, and several schools of home economics appeared across the country. Several factors contributed to and influenced this development. Focusing on the period 1890–1940, which was particularly important to the development of this knowledge field in Denmark, we consider the interests promoting the growth of this field of knowledge, its educational content, and the contradictory meaning it had for the social status of women. On the one hand, the development of home economics contributed to turning home duties into an educational and occupational area, preparing for a welfare state making the private sphere a public matter. On the other hand, it tied women to the private sphere and prevented their influence in the public sphere.

Government Rhetoric and the Representation of Public Opinion in International Negotiations

The role of domestic public opinion is an important topic in research on international negotiations, yet we know little about how exactly it manifests itself. We focus on government rhetoric during negotiations and develop a conceptual distinction between implicit and explicit manifestations of public opinion. Drawing on a database of video recordings of negotiations of the Council of the European Union and a quantitative text analysis of government speeches, we find that public opinion matters implicitly, with the exact pattern depending on governments’ stance toward the EU. Pro-EU governments are responsive to public opinion in their support for compromises and attempts to stall negotiations, whereas Euroskeptic governments tend to remain silent when confronted with a public positively disposed toward the EU. Our results show that although governments implicitly represent public opinion, they do not systematically invoke their voters explicitly, suggesting the public matters but in different ways than often assumed.