Regular Norm Research Articles

Barriers to Women Professionals’ Career Growth during Covid-19 in India

The slow advancement of women in their workplaces remains a social concern for corporates and industry experts across the globe (International Labour Organisation Report, 2018). During the covid-19 pandemic, the advancement of women got significantly impacted owing to the increased burden of domestic responsibilities and other personal challenges. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Report (2021), women in India were seven times more likely to lose their jobs during the pandemic and eleven times more likely to not return to work after the job loss. With the Covid-19 pandemic on the rise and spreading, companies were forced to redesign their work systems, initiate and adopt a remote-work setup option. While, a majority of companies continue with the hybrid model, some companies are slowly eliminating it and returning to the regular office norms as before. This change is likely to impact women, especially the working mothers, owing to the uneven distribution of child-care responsibilities, domestic work, etc. Additionally, conventional barriers such as discriminatory practices, mentoring, networking challenges and role conflicts are expected to persist or rather increase in the changed-working models – be it the hybrid, remote, or completely offline system. The present study focuses on identifying the constraints faced by the Indian women striving against the current for their career advancements, both during the Covid-19 pandemic disruption phase and post-pandemic scenario. The insights from the study will be helpful to gain a cumulative understanding about the challenges faced by women owing to the emerging work system and in addressing the future concerns more systematically.

Normative body mass-adjusted reference ranges of magnetic resonance imaging signs commonly used in diagnosing idiopathic intracranial hypertension in a healthy standard population

Patients with chronic daily headaches (CDH) are often a diagnostic challenge and frequently undergo neuroimaging. One common underlying cause of CDH is idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH). However, certain neuroimaging abnormalities that suggest IIH, such as optic nerve sheath diameters (ONSD), pituitary gland height, and venous sinus diameter, require interpretation due to the absence of established normative values. Notably, intracranial pressure is known to varies with age, sex and weight, further complicating the determination of objectively abnormal findings within a specific patient group. This study aims to assist clinical neuroradiologists in differentiating neuroimaging results in CDH by providing weight-adjusted normative values for imaging characteristics of IIH. In addition to age and BMI we here assessed 1924 population-based T1-weighted MRI datasets of healthy participants for relevant MRI aspects of IIH. Association to BMI was analyzed using linear/logistic regression controlled for age and stratified for sex. ONSD was 4.3 mm [2.8; 5.9]/4.6 mm [3.6; 5.7] and diameter of transverse sinus was 4.67 mm [1.6; 6.5]/4.45 mm [3.0; 7.9]. Height of pituitary gland was 5.1 mm [2.2;8.1]/4.6 mm [1.9;7.1] for female and male respectively. Values generally varied with BMI with regression slopes spanning 0.0001 to 0.05 and were therefor presented as normative values stratified by BMI. Protrusion of ocular papilla, empty sella and transverse sinus occlusion were rare in total. Our data show an association between BMI and commonly used MRI features for diagnosing IIH. We provide categorized normative BMI values for ONSD, pituitary gland height, and transverse sinus diameter. This distinction helps objectively identify potential IIH indicators compared to regular population norms, enhancing diagnostic accuracy for suspected IIH patients. Notably, optic nerve head protrusion, empty sella, and transverse sinus occlusion are rare in healthy individuals, solidifying their importance as imaging markers regardless of BMI.

End-stage renal disease accompanied by mild cognitive impairment: A study and analysis of trimodal brain network fusion.

The function and structure of brain networks (BN) may undergo changes in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), particularly in those accompanied by mild cognitive impairment (ESRDaMCI). Many existing methods for fusing BN focus on extracting interaction features between pairs of network nodes from each mode and combining them. This approach overlooks the correlation between different modal features during feature extraction and the potentially valuable information that may exist between more than two brain regions. To address this issue, we propose a model using a multi-head self-attention mechanism to fuse brain functional networks, white matter structural networks, and gray matter structural networks, which results in the construction of brain fusion networks (FBN). Initially, three networks are constructed: the brain function network, the white matter structure network, and the individual-based gray matter structure network. The multi-head self-attention mechanism is then applied to fuse the three types of networks, generating attention weights that are transformed into an optimized model. The optimized model introduces hypergraph popular regular term and L1 norm regular term, leading to the formation of FBN. Finally, FBN is employed in the diagnosis and prediction of ESRDaMCI to evaluate its classification performance and investigate the correlation between discriminative brain regions and cognitive dysfunction. Experimental results demonstrate that the optimal classification accuracy achieved is 92.80%, which is at least 3.63% higher than the accuracy attained using other methods. This outcome confirms the effectiveness of our proposed method. Additionally, the identification of brain regions significantly associated with scores on the Montreal cognitive assessment scale may shed light on the underlying pathogenesis of ESRDaMCI.

Bubbling and extinction for some fast diffusion equations in bounded domains

We study a Sobolev critical fast diffusion equation in bounded domains with the Brézis-Nirenberg effect. We obtain extinction profiles of its positive solutions, and show that the convergence rates of the relative error in regular norms are at least polynomial. Exponential decay rates are proved for generic domains. Our proof makes use of its regularity estimates, a curvature type evolution equation, as well as blow up analysis. Results for Sobolev subcritical fast diffusion equations are also obtained.

Techno-biopolitics under a tentative “state of exception”: the institutional logic of the digital governance of inbound travelers during the COVID-19 pandemic in China

The COVID-19 pandemic propelled many countries into a “state of exception,” under which several regular governance norms were suspended and emergency regulations were enacted. China was no exception. After its initial domestic vacillation, China implemented rigorous measures to control its borders and employed digital technologies, such as health codes and intelligent gate magnets, to streamline inbound travel management. These measures were in place until the end of 2022. Drawing on 30 in-depth semi-structured interviews and public and social media posts, this study examines the multifaceted role of digital governance in the management of inbound travelers during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Digital governance facilitated and streamlined the quarantining of inbound travelers. Meanwhile, the use of digital measures was entangled with the institutional logic of China’s local governance, which sometimes had to reconcile contradictory goals. Theoretically, the paper enriches our understanding of not only the idiosyncrasies of Chinese digital governance but also of techno-biopolitics under a COVID-19-induced tentative state of exception, which sheds light on a possible future in which digital technologies are deeply integrated into the institutional logic of governance in an increasingly turbulent world.

Construction of Sexual and Gender Minority Identity among Malay-Muslim Natal Females: A Meta-Synthesis

Malay-Muslim identity is the regular norm among Malays in Malaysia; however, this identity has been challenged with the emergence of sexual-and-gender minority (SGM). Even though Malay cultural values and Islamic teachings prohibit same-sex orientation and cross-gender, a SGM group has evolved among Malay-Muslim natal females. This meta-synthesis was conducted to explore the psychosocial factors involved in the construction of SGM and its consequences among Malay natal females in Malaysia using the Sandelowski-Barroso approach. A systematic search of articles was done in the selected databases by using identified keywords between October to December 2020. Twelve full articles were included after proper screening and in-depth reviews. The quality of these articles was assessed independently by two researchers. The articles were then analysed using ATLAS.ti 8 software to group the data into subthemes and themes. Lastly, the effect sizes of each subtheme were calculated. Three main themes were identified: affection seeking, hurtful experience and nurturing influences. Malay natal females also shared consequences following construction of SGM identity which include acceptance from community, continuous conflicts in life and mental health consequences. This meta-synthesis revealed the influences that shape the construction of Malay SGM women. Thus, interventions shall be planned to aid them according to cultural and psychosocial factors.

Re‐examining the impact of adjusting for education and sex the RBANS delayed memory score: Implications on the cut‐offs used to detect cognitive impairment in prodromal Alzheimer’s disease. Data from the EPAD‐LCS study.

AbstractBackgroundthe RBANS is a multilingual brief cognitive battery commonly used in both clinical practice and research. Its delayed memory index has been used as entry criteria for clinical trials in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Although several studies reported a significant effect of education and sex in RBANS scores, the published normative data only provide adjustments by age. We aimed at exploring the impact of sex and education in the age‐adjusted scores and studying the percentage of change in the classification of memory impairment, along with the association with AD biomarker status after adjusting for education and sex.MethodsWe analyzed data from the EPAD baseline Longitudinal Cohort Study (n = 1,716 [Clinical Dementia Rating [CDR] = 0 n = 1,233; CDR = 0.5 n = 483]), see Table 1. We used multiple regression to assess the impact of years of education and sex on the age‐adjusted delayed memory index within the CDR = 0 sample. The coefficients obtained were used to generate sex‐, education‐ and age‐adjusted scores. The whole sample was classified as having/not having memory impairment (<85 points) with published and full adjusted scores. Within CDR = 0.5 group, the concordance between presence of memory impairment and pathologic amyloid‐β (A+; cut‐off = 1000 pg/ml) and p‐tau levels (T+; cut‐off = 27 pg/ml) in cerebrospinal fluid was assessed.ResultsEducation and sex (being a woman) had significant positive effects (p<0.001) on the age‐adjusted delayed memory scores (Partial eta2 = 0.035 and 0.010). We observed a change of up to 10 points after sex and education adjustment (mean[SD] change = 0.83 [2.6]). The use of fully adjusted scores increased the number of individuals classified as having memory impairment by 1.7%. Within the CDR = 0.5 group, these scores identified 2.5% individuals with memory impairment that were considered within the normal range using the regular norms, and increased the concordance between memory impairment and A+T+ biomarkers by almost 5% (regular norms = 65.2%, adjusted norms = 69.7%).ConclusionAlthough small, education and sex exert a relevant effect in the delayed memory score of the RBANS and improve clinical and biomarker concordance of the conclusions on the cognitive status derived from them. Adding education and sex adjustments to the RBANS measures may improve the selection of individuals for clinical trials.

The Isoperimetric Problem for Regular and Crystalline Norms in $${\mathbb {H}}^1$$

We study the isoperimetric problem for anisotropic perimeter measures on \(\mathbb {R}^3\), endowed with the Heisenberg group structure. The perimeter is associated with a left-invariant norm \(\phi \) on the horizontal distribution. In the case where \(\phi \) is the standard norm in the plane, such isoperimetric problem is the subject of Pansu’s conjecture, which is still unsolved. Assuming some regularity on \(\phi \) and on its dual norm \(\phi ^*\), we characterize \(\mathrm {C}^2\)-smooth isoperimetric sets as the sub-Finsler analogue of Pansu’s bubbles. The argument is based on a fine study of the characteristic set of \(\phi \)-isoperimetric sets and on establishing a foliation property by sub-Finsler geodesics. When \(\phi \) is a crystalline norm, we show the existence of a partial foliation for constant \(\phi \)-curvature surfaces by sub-Finsler geodesics. By an approximation procedure, we finally prove a conditional minimality property for the candidate solutions in the general case (including the case where \(\phi \) is crystalline).

COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our lives like never before. However, its unprecedented scale has also forged greater cooperation between nations. We are learning from each other and trying to contain this dreaded disease. Though, the negative impact outweighs the positive attributes that are brought forth by the pandemic, there have been definite advantages that were observed during the pandemic. The mortality from other dreaded diseases and road accidents reduced dramatically. Healthy lifestyle became a regular norm. Health awareness at individual and household levels attained new heights. Environment and wildlife also experienced rejuvenation and air quality improved significantly all over the world. The support provided by the government to the startups for manufacturing masks and other necessities through the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan provided a boost to the failing economy. This article describes the positive impact brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic on the Health, Environment, Social-behavioral and Economic aspects of our lives.

Suicides among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic: Bangladeshi press reports

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic responses forced the authority to shut the educational institutions since March 17, 2020, in Bangladesh. Physical distancing, social isolation, and quarantine have become regular norms in our daily life due to the pandemic crisis. This extended shutdown separated the students from their academic life, increasing anxiety concerning their future education, personal and professional aspirations, and expectations. Such disruptions might increase vulnerability towards suicidal ideation among university-level students. Therefore, here we aim to assess the prevalence and related risk factors of suicides among university students in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 lockdowns. We conducted a comprehensive Google search to gather information from secondary sources. In total, 22 university students committed suicide from March 17, 2020, to June 10, 2021, in Bangladesh. The frequently reported causes of these suicides were depression, frustration, financial crisis, troubled love affairs, and family disputes, indicating an elevated prevalence of psychological distress due to the COVID-19 pandemic among students at all levels in Bangladesh. Based on the present findings, we suggest that the effective implementation of online education, financial support to families, mental healthcare support to this vulnerable group, and mutual understanding among the family members might reduce this death toll. The present findings might help researchers to understand students’ mental health and design programs accordingly to prevent future incidents.

Early Childhood Educators as COVID Warriors: Adaptations and Responsiveness to the Pandemic Across Five Countries

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted countries across the globe. The pandemic has created a completely new teaching–learning environment of interaction for early childhood educators. In many countries, face-to-face teaching has been replaced by remote teaching, while in others, there have been intermittent lockdowns and limited interruptions to regular teaching norms. Given the play-based nature of preschool teaching–learning activities in most countries, educators are required to reimagine the sociocultural relationships to their pedagogical practices in their everyday teaching–learning contexts. This paper sheds light on educators’ experiences and the dramatic shift in their indoor–outdoor teaching–learning environment due to the evolving health measures. The study draws on notions of teachers’ identities and Vygotsky’s cultural–historical concept of social situation of development (Vygotsky, 1994) to capture the new forms of relationships that early childhood educators experienced with their pedagogical environments across different countries during the pandemic. Data were collected from preschool teachers across five countries—Australia, Bangladesh, Norway, Singapore and India using online surveys which included open- and close-ended questions. Findings reveal the on-ground realities and teachers’ adaptations to new pedagogies emerging across the five countries. The new digital environments provided an equally new dimension for change. These changes were seen in interactions, relationships within the everyday pedagogical contexts, as well as the shifting physical and social environment of early years educators.

New Age Tourism: Challenges and Positioning in a Changing Society

New Age tourism is traditionally situated within the scope of alternative tourism and, as such, it is considered to attract a small portion of tourism demand. However, with the proliferation of New Age lifestyles in Western societies, New Age-themed products and services are becoming more of a regular norm in tourism offerings, causing blending and conflicting practices. Thus, this article reviews the literature on the New Age tourism and explores prominent current tourism offerings in order to revisit the place of the phenomenon on the tourism market. Blending of practices, conflicting realities, and vagueness of the phenomenon for marketing purposes are stressed as major challenges for new positioning of New Age tourism. A two-segment consumer case scenarios and three strategies for tourism providers (sticking to the status quo, the adaptation of New Aged-themed products and services, and broad tourism recognition of New Age tourism) are offered and discussed as conflict resolution recommendations.

Об опыте дистанционного обучения в современной России (философско-образовательные опыты)

This article is devoted to the issue of distance learning for students. This form of education has become common in Russia in conditions of high risk of the coronavirus infection COVID-19. However, there are concerns that distance learning will become a regular norm. Meanwhile, the consequences of this may be negative, since education and promotion of students’ moral growth will become essentially impossible. The entire education system will be reduced to informing students about certain disciplines. Thus, distance learning should not take the form of a daily norm in the education system. English version of the article is available at URL: https://panor.ru/articles/experience-of-distance-learning-in-modern-russia-philosophical-and-educational-experiments/70447.html

Revisitando a Escola Inglesa – da velha via média das Relações Internacionais à nova escola inglesa

Este artigo procura posicionar a Escola Inglesa na via intermédia entre o Realismo e o Idealismo, focando-se no pensamento de Hedley Bull e Martin Wight, e analisar a evolução da Escola Inglesa após o derrube do muro de Berlim, quando novas problemáticas foram agregadas ao estudo da sociedade internacional e das instituições internacionais. Pretende-se ainda demonstrar como a Escola Inglesa, fundada nas normas e nos padrões regulares de comportamento, é uma grande influência para a abordagem construtivista. Frente a estas realidades, surge a grande pergunta de partida: por que razão, apesar dos estudos de Hedley Bull e de Martin Wight sobre a sociedade internacional e as instituições internacionais, a Escola Inglesa se manteve, à época, marginalizada frente à Escola Norte-Americana de Relações Internacionais?, a qual origina objetivos, alguns dos quais já mencionados, e hipóteses de trabalho, que serão alcançados e comprovadas.

Ignition Timing and Fuel Injection Timing Control using Arduino and Control Drivers

To meet the regular global emission norms, the transition of fuel development stages was incorporated in petrol/gasoline engines from Carburetor type to Throttle fuel injection/Single point petrol injection and throttle injection to Port/Manifold fuel injection. To achieve advanced emission norms, conventional or manifold fuel injection (MPFI) engines are replaced by Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines. To attain efficient range of fuel economy, power output and controlled concentration of emissions coming out of an engine exhaust, the control of ignition timing and fuel injection timing are much important. In this work, the electronic hardware part includes controller/Arduino with ignition control and fuel injection drivers were used for controlling both ignition timing and fuel injection timings. In order to control these timings, the position of piston with respect TDC was measured with the help of crank and cam position sensors. Software required for ignition and fuel injection timings with crank and cam position are developed for controlling an engine with arduino and drivers.

Triangular Fuzzy-Rough Set Based Fuzzification of Fuzzy Rule-Based Systems

Abstract In real-world approximation problems, precise input data are economically expensive. Therefore, fuzzy methods devoted to uncertain data are in the focus of current research. Consequently, a method based on fuzzy-rough sets for fuzzification of inputs in a rule-based fuzzy system is discussed in this paper. A triangular membership function is applied to describe the nature of imprecision in data. Firstly, triangular fuzzy partitions are introduced to approximate common antecedent fuzzy rule sets. As a consequence of the proposed method, we obtain a structure of a general (non-interval) type-2 fuzzy logic system in which secondary membership functions are cropped triangular. Then, the possibility of applying so-called regular triangular norms is discussed. Finally, an experimental system constructed on precise data, which is then transformed and verified for uncertain data, is provided to demonstrate its basic properties.

Synnatzschke’s theorem for polynomials

We establish a multilinear generalisation of Synnatzschke’s Theorem for regular operators on Banach lattices, with the Arens adjoint taking the place of the transpose. Using this result, we show that the Aron–Berner extension of a regular homogeneous polynomial to the order continuous bidual preserves the absolute value. As a consequence, it follows that the regular norm is preserved by the Aron–Berner extension.

A norm enforcement mechanism for a time-constrained conditional normative framework

This paper presents the formalization for a system that monitors and enforces regulative time-constrained conditional norms through sanctioning, for agent societies. The representation here has the advantage of allowing for qualitative and quantitative interval-based temporal constraints between a norm’s condition and its effect. The system possesses mechanisms for monitoring both norm compliance and violation of reified norms. Each norm has an identity, which enables the identification of norms violated or complied with. The formalism seamlessly treats violation- or conformance-handling norms (such as violation notification, sanctioning and rewarding norms) as regular norms. The implementation formalizes norms as logic program clauses, the head of which specifies what normative position (i.e. the norm’s effect) an agent must observe within some time constraint of some arising situation; and the body of which describes a situation defined as the norm’s pre-condition and the role that the implicated agent plays within it. For the purpose of imposing sanctions, the only violations deemed liable are those violations that the agent fails to mitigate by compliance with all relevant contrary-to-duty norms. An agent may ultimately be sanctioned for a liable norm while norm compliance is rewarded in the system. Sanctioning itself takes place in two norm-guided phases: the obligation of an enforcer agent to notify an erring agent of reparative actions it is obliged to take and the time constraint within which it should be taken, and a norm for monitoring the agent’s compliance with the notification. The violation of the latter norm leads to the meting out of sanctions.

АНГЛИЙСКИЕ ДЕИСТЫ И «ШАРАВАДЖИЗМ»: ОТ ИНТЕЛЛЕКТУАЛЬНОГО ЛАНДШАФТА К ЛАНДШАФТНОМУ ПАРКУ

The article dwells further on the topic of Chinese philosophy and Confucian thought’s reception in the West in the era of the Enlightenment, repeatedly studied by the author, and problematizes the points of contact between the British followers of deism and Confucian thought. The article considers the ideas and some works of English deists, drawing inspiration from the ideas of the French Enlightenment, which actively appropriated the Chinese political experience in its presentation by Jesuit missionaries and travelers to China. The author makes an attempt to connect the natural-philosophical ideas of deists, who saw Confucian literati as their philosophical brothers in relation to religion and questions of creation, with the subsequent development of interest in Far Eastern influences on English culture and art, considering the case of the watercolor artist Alexander Cozens and the decisive turn of English park construction from the regular classicist norm of French parks to romantic English landscaped palace and park ensembles. The author comes to the conclusion that English parks and watercolors in some way turned into a visual expression of the ideas of deists, who called for observing and learning from nature and real life, while the landscape gardening ensembles themselves proved to be a reflection of the intellectual landscape.

Geometry of Spaces of Orthogonally Additive Polynomials on C(K)

We study the space of orthogonally additive n-homogeneous polynomials on C(K). There are two natural norms on this space. First, there is the usual supremum norm of uniform convergence on the closed unit ball. As every orthogonally additive n-homogeneous polynomial is regular with respect to the Banach lattice structure, there is also the regular norm. These norms are equivalent, but have significantly different geometric properties. We characterise the extreme points of the unit ball for both norms, with different results for even and odd degrees. As an application, we prove a Banach–Stone theorem. We conclude with a classification of the exposed points.