Specific Moment Research Articles

A Comparative Study of the Irrigated Zones of Jaguaribe-Apodi and Morada Nova from a (Un)Sustainable Perspective

Large-scale government-sponsored irrigation is a feasible alternative to the development of semiarid regions, such as Northeastern Brazil, provided perennial rivers and reservoirs are available. Brazilian irrigation projects have also generally promoted the participation of farmers as informed agents in the process, encouraging training and education towards agribusiness. The purpose of this explorative and descriptive study was to analyze and compare the sustainability characteristics of the Jaguaribe-Apodi and Morada Nova irrigation zones in light of the triple bottom line model (Elkington, 2012), based on information from 18 interviews conducted in September 2015 to November 2015 and submitted to discourse analysis. Triple bottom line sustainability envisages a balance between three dimensions: social, environmental and economic. Such a balance was not observed in our study due to insufficient awareness of environmental issues. However, focusing on a specific context and moment in time, the exploratory study design made it difficult to extrapolate our findings. Future studies could expand the discussion on the sustainability of irrigation zones by using data triangulation in longitudinal designs.

Addicted to Love: Royal Relapses in Racine’s Andromaque

The present analysis proposes a reading of Racine's Greek tragedy Andromaque (1667) through the guiding metaphor of addictive patterns. The author juxtaposes the behaviours of the two primary male characters, Oreste and Pyrrhus, in order to demonstrate how their resistance to their respective passions for Hermione and Andromaque can be compared to the process of recovery from substance abuse. At specific moments throughout the play, these characters each attempt to summon their willpower and overcome a desire that they know is harmful, only to end up succumbing to its intoxicating influence. Oreste and Pyrrhus alternate in their struggles to avoid relapse: as one character resists his passions, the other acquiesces, and vice versa. This vicious cycle of need drives the action of this pathetic tragedy leading up to its dénouement, in which Racine presents the repercussions of tyrannising love: insanity for Oreste, death for Pyrrhus, and political upheaval for Greece

‘Never forget’: examining changes in materiality and preservation practices at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, New York

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum commemorates specific traumatic moments in history—the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and the catastrophic attacks of September 11, 2001. The recovered realia, exhibiting damage from the attacks, consists of many objects never intended to be preserved. Now 20 years later, the plastics, newspapers and corroded metals which served as placeholders connecting us with both the past and the innocent lives lost are beginning to age. In addition, the people who care for these artefacts may no longer have personal associations with the trauma; that is, the lived experience of the events which motivated the original caretakers. This paper discusses the current research conducted by museum staff related to how the conservation community navigates our own experiences, memories and evolving biases in interpreting trauma collections and how a human-centred approach of involving family members and survivors defines conservation priorities for objects meant to stay frozen in time.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood à luz da dialética dominação e servidão na filosofia hegeliana

The purpose of this essay is to present a defense in favor of valuing anime as works that show seriousness and depth in the development of their narratives. For this, we will use the work of Hegel ([1807] 1992), specifically chapter IV, “The truth of self-certainty”, to understand the metaphysical concepts presented in it and relate them to a specific moment of the anime (drawing Japanese animation) Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, whose scene chosen for analysis precisely illustrates the Hegelian dialectic: the encounter of one of the protagonists, Edward Elric, with the Truth. As already mentioned, the objects of study in our analysis will be these two works, and we will begin by explaining what the anime in question is, and then we will go to the chapter of Hegel's book ([1807] 1992), exploring the reflections that will be presented, in order to interpret the aforementioned scene through the perspective theorized by Hegel ([1807] 1992): the dialectic of master and slave. At the end, a conclusion will be presented about the theme addressed, highlighting the implications of this analysis in everyday life.

Making sense of the pandemic: Multiple functions of commercial video games during one year and a half of COVID-19 crisis

The outbreak of the COVID-19 has made apparent the importance of gaming technologies during crises and difficult life moments. However, studies exploring the role of commercial off-the-shelf video games during the pandemic are still limited. Moreover, research often focuses on a specific moment of the crisis. In this article, we investigate how playing commercial video games impacts on how players manage and understand the COVID-19 pandemic considered in its temporal evolution. We conducted a one-year-and-a-half longitudinal qualitative study by interviewing 16 participants who were living in Italy during the first pandemic lockdown, then involving a subgroup of them (N = 10) in a follow-up interview. Study findings show that playing not only supported escapism from a difficult reality, but also helped individuals counteract the sense of detachment from the “pandemic world”, encouraging reflection and supporting sense-making. These functions of video games varied as the pandemic unfolded. Based on these findings, we present a preliminary model of the role of video game technologies during moments of crisis and suggest design considerations on how video games could support people experiencing extremely difficult life moments.

Perceived Distributed Leadership, Job Satisfaction, and Professional Satisfaction among Academics in Guanajuato Universities

The objective of this research was to identify the relationships between the variables of job satisfaction, professional satisfaction, distributed leadership, and the perception of insecurity in academics at five universities located in the state of Guanajuato. The research was of a non-experimental type and, according to its temporality, cross-sectional, because it was developed at a specific moment. The study is also descriptive and correlational, because it analyzes the degree of association between the variables. Finally, an exploratory factor analysis study was carried out (AFE). The results revealed that the relationship between the variables of job satisfaction and professional satisfaction was positive and significant, the relationship between the variables of distributed leadership and the perception of insecurity was positive but not significant, and the relationship between the variables of the perception of insecurity and the distribution of leadership was positive and significant. The relationship between the perception of insecurity and job satisfaction was positive but not significant. In the analysis of the control variables of sex, marital status, type of university, and level of studies with the dependent variable of job satisfaction, statistical tests were carried out to verify the existence of the significant differences between the groups. Furthermore, this analysis was conducted in relation to the variables of sex, marital status, and type of university.

Incidental graphical perception: How marks and display time influence accuracy

Incidental visualizations are meant to be perceived at-a-glance, on-the-go, and during short exposure times, but are not seen on demand. Instead, they appear in people’s fields of view during an ongoing primary task. They differ from glanceable visualizations because the information is not received on demand, and they differ from ambient visualizations because the information is not continuously embedded in the environment. However, current graphical perception guidelines do not consider situations where information is presented at specific moments during brief exposure times without being the user’s primary focus. Therefore, we conducted a crowdsourced user study with 99 participants to understand how accurate people’s incidental graphical perception is. Each participant was tested on one of the three conditions: position of dots, length of lines, and angle of lines. We varied the number of elements for each combination and the display time. During the study, participants were asked to perform reproduction tasks, where they had to recreate a previously shown stimulus in each. Our results indicate that incidental graphical perception can be accurate when using position, length, and angles. Furthermore, we argue that incidental visualizations should be designed for low exposure times (between 300 and 1000 ms).

Threat Hunting System for Protecting Critical Infrastructures Using a Machine Learning Approach

Cyberattacks are increasing in number and diversity in nature daily, and the tendency for them is to escalate dramatically in the forseeable future, with critical infrastructures (CI) assets and networks not being an exception to this trend. As time goes by, cyberattacks are more complex than before and unknown until they spawn, being very difficult to detect and remediate. To be reactive against those cyberattacks, usually defined as zero-day attacks, cyber-security specialists known as threat hunters must be in organizations’ security departments. All the data generated by the organization’s users must be processed by those threat hunters (which are mainly benign and repetitive and follow predictable patterns) in short periods to detect unusual behaviors. The application of artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning (ML) techniques (for instance NLP, C-RNN-GAN, or GNN), can remarkably impact the real-time analysis of those data and help to discriminate between harmless data and malicious data, but not every technique is helpful in every circumstance; as a consequence, those specialists must know which techniques fit the best at every specific moment. The main goal of the present work is to design a distributed and scalable system for threat hunting based on ML, and with a special focus on critical infrastructure needs and characteristics.

The dragon’s AR: Narrative augmentation in Russell’s The Dragon Defenders

The use of augmented reality (AR) in literature has predominantly focused on providing instructional tools for educators and learners, emphasizing its capacity of enhancing engagement and supporting immersive learning. Aside from its central literacy purpose, AR in children’s literature appears in the form of digital pop-up books or as add-on games, which are usually located outside of the main narrative. In this sense, AR risks disrupting the flow of a story instead of enriching the continuous imaginative space of the narrative. The Dragon Defenders series, by James Russell, uses AR as a narrative tool in ways previously unseen in children’s literature. Russell puts the reader into the shoes of his main characters, Paddy and Flynn, using AR to show the reader what the boys themselves see. There are moments in these books where the AR system and traditional narrative system fully overlap, integrate and enhance the narrative dimension of the story. While readers navigate through the book by turning physical pages, the addition of AR at specific moments in the story not only provides a more immersive reading experience but, in this case, advances the narrative to great effect. This case study asks how AR can be used to enhance the narrative structure and flow in a text-based novel, using formal gameplay analysis to examine how the AR and narrative systems interact and identifying which examples of this interaction work to the best effect. It analyses the AR moments in the context of the book, deconstructs the unusual first-person perspective from the protagonist’s point of view and explores how these AR experiences help drive and truly augment the core narrative. The larger context of this study seeks to emancipate AR from its predominantly technological ontology and contribute to the development of AR as a genuine narrative device in fiction storytelling.

LifeSeeker: an interactive concept-based retrieval system for lifelog data

Lifelogging was introduced as the process of passively capturing personal daily events via wearable devices. It ultimately creates a visual diary encoding every aspect of one’s life with the aim of future sharing or recollecting. In this paper, we present LifeSeeker, a lifelog image retrieval system participating in the Lifelog Search Challenge (LSC) for 3 years, since 2019. Our objective is to support users to seek specific life moments using a combination of textual descriptions, spatial relationships, location information, and image similarities. In addition to the LSC challenge results, a further experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the power retrieval of our system on both expert and novice users. This experiment informed us about the effectiveness of the user’s interaction with the system when involving non-experts.

Brushless direct current motors with permanent magnets for marine electric drive systems: state and prospects

The main trends in the development of designs, power semiconductor circuits and control systems of promising valve electromechanical converters — brushless DC motors with permanent magnets for marine electric drive and automation equipment, are discussed in the paper. A variant of their implementation in an adjustable electric drive is presented. The object of the study is a brushless direct current electromechanical system, including a synchronous machine with magnetoelectric excitation, covered by positional feedback through a dependent controlled valve switch, and the subject is structures, the circuit of the power part, control systems, the algorithm of functioning and characteristics. The purpose of the research is to evaluate the operational features, properties and possibilities of introducing brushless direct current motors with permanent magnets as marine electric drive systems of low and medium power. The results of research and development are embodied in experimental industrial samples. A variant with microprocessor control has been developed for marine electric drive systems. The switch is assembled on transistor switches that provide high reliability and enhance the functionality of the control system. The minimum necessary system of logical variables, ensuring the implementation of rational laws of switching and speed control, has been formed. Operational characteristics at various leading angles of switching on the switch valves are presented. The presence of pole shoes at the poles introduces significant features in the patterns of their change. The main advantages and features of the proposed design and circuit solutions are formulated in the conclusions. It is indicated that valve motors with excitation from permanent magnets are the most promising solution in terms of integrating an electromechanical converter into an adjustable marine electric drive of a range of small and medium capacities.Engines of this type are structurally simple and reliable, have rigid natural mechanical characteristics, do not require energy for excitation, have a large overload capacity and high speed in transients. Their distinctive feature is the high specific moment.

Embodiments and the Open/ness of Kinship: Ma(r)king Curriculum Through Material Abstractness and Counter-Cartographies

(Re)imaging curriculum as world(ing)s, this article explores what was produced by pre-service teachers when tasked with creating a counter-cartography (i.e., an abstract and material representation of two or more coordinates) that reflects specific (curricular) moments that have shaped their teaching identity/ies. This work argues that despite the nefarious ways in which maps have been used, they can also be(come) territories that promote healing. We draw upon tenets of new materialism (as Sara Ahmed reminds us, matter matters) to frame our engagement with three counter-cartographies produced by pre-service teachers.

Mathematical Methods of Natural Language Processing in the System of Operative Determination of the Level of Tension in Society

Introduction. The most important factors causing an increase in the level of tension in society are crisis phenomena and information operations. Today, sociological surveys are considered the main way to determine the level of tension that arises in some group of people in connection with a certain event. However, this method does not allow obtaining detailed information about the dynamics of changes in tension associated with certain news events and the impact of these news events on the general level of tension in society, which complicates the decision-making process by government officials in crisis situations. The purpose of the work is to increase the situational awareness of representatives of state institutions regarding the current level of social tension provoked by crisis phenomena, news events or information operations. The information obtained will help government officials to make quick decisions to overcome these crisis phenomena and counter disinformation. The main task of the research is to develop the architecture and mathematical support of the system of operative determination of the level of tension in society based on data from social networks. Results. The architecture and mathematical support of the system of operative determination of the level of tension in society were developed. An example of the application of this system to determine the level of tension provoked by one news publication is demonstrated. The main advantages and disadvantages of the developed system, as well as directions for further research, are determined. Conclusions. The developed system of operative determination of the level of tension in society helps to quickly identify news events and news publications that have the greatest impact on increasing the level of social tension across the country at certain specific moments of time. The use of a system based on social networks makes it possible to build on the basis of current data such assessments, which can be used to study the dynamics of changes in social tension associated with a certain news event or news publication. Keywords: level of tension in society, social networks, sentiment analysis, TF-IDF, Word2vec, neural networks.

Do “Chinese gays” come out?

AbstractThis paper draws on linguistic-ethnographic fieldwork in Chengdu, China to consider the utility of broad labels such asChinese, Westernandgayin accounting for the performance of sexual and cultural identity. I problematise work which takes such notions to be stable and self-evidently referential, arguing instead that identity is much more fluid, emergent and discourse-dependent than conventional understandings tend to imply. I focus on visibility of queer sexual identity partly because it is an especially accessible example of the role of language in identity performance, being most often achieved through verbal interaction. More broadly, however, this focus emerged through my ethnographically informed, discursive-sociocultural approach to my life and research in mainland China during the period 2008–2019. Specifically, I use spoken data from the interviews which formed part of this process to argue that social practice within related ethnic and/or social groups is best understood in terms of the situated use of sociolinguistic tools and the entailed negotiation of pertinent ideological systems. From this perspective, the ostensibly insurmountable ideological pressures that “Chinese gays” are typically seen to face, and which tend to be attributed to a taken-for-granted and monolithic “Chinese culture”, are better interpreted with reference to the complex relationship between language, culture and identity. Thus, I do not assume the right to make broad claims about whatChinese gaysdo, or to state that they are categorically different from their presumed homogenousWesterncounterparts. Instead, I discuss what certain individuals say in certain conversations, noting how their performance of identity is often highly individualised, being shaped according to the interactants present and the interactional aims relevant to specific moments of communication.

Theorising political legitimisation: From stasis to processes

Legitimacy remains a key concept in political sociology, and perhaps even more so in lay understandings of political processes and structures, as evidenced by conflict over territories and regimes around the world. However, the concept suffers from a rather static representation, and even when addressed in processual form, in terms of specific moments in the process, such as conditions favouring legitimacy or its effects. Building from an Eliasian perspective, we argue for a more processual concept of legitimisation to encompass the dynamic social networks (figurations) that constitute the more unintentional context for deliberate legitimation claims. As networks expand and intensify, processes of legitimisation incorporate changing and more diverse bases for legitimacy claims, as well as a greater variety of such claims and counterclaims. As the power relations between contending groups change, legitimation practices become part of the integrating functions of the state, shaping figurations and the social habitus.

Coulomb corrected nonadiabatic instantaneous ionization rate and the electron trajectory in an elliptically polarized laser field

This paper presents an analytical model that investigates the impact of Coulomb effect on tunneling ionization events in an elliptically polarized laser field. The model focuses on ionization rate and momenta, at a specific moment, based on recent experimental findings and strong-field approximation. Results show that incorporating Coulomb correction improves photoionization rate across various intensities and provides valuable insights into ionization mechanism, particularly for argon atoms at 410 and 800 nm wavelengths. This has significant implications for attosecond physics and ultrafast laser technology.

National Submissions to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee as Constructions of National Identity: Cameroon, Kenya and Nigeria

ABSTRACT This article examines the construction of national identity in the context of the post-9/11 counter-terrorism sanctions regime established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373. The study focuses on the written reports of three member states – Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria – arguing that these documents not only serve as inventories of national capacity but also as performances of national identity within a specific historical moment. Two overarching arguments are made. First, constructions of terrorism play a crucial discursive role in demarcating self from other in these reports, consistently portraying terrorism as an external and morally reprehensible threat to national security. Second, despite this relatively consistent framing of terrorist otherness, the reports contain creative and diverse reflections on, or articulations of, national identity and its associated characteristics. In making these arguments, the article contributes to existing literature on the post-9/11 UN counter-terrorism regime by offering an original reading of national submissions to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, focusing on relatively neglected states from the global South, and develops new conceptual insight into the plasticity of terrorism as a form of discursive otherness capable of sustaining diverse representations of national self-identity

« ¡Un clásico que nunca falla ! ». Ingeniería lingüística y degustación : la invención como estrategia psicosociodinámica en el trinomio alemán-inglés-español (DE-EN-ES)

A Timeless Classic! Linguistic Engineering and Gastronomy: Invention as a Psychosociodynamic Strategy in the German-English-Spanish Trinomial (DE-EN-ES)
 The aviation industry has always been recognized for its focus on the customer experience, and airline menus are a faithful reflection of this commitment. This study highlights that these menus not only offer a wide variety of gastronomic options but also employ linguistic engineering techniques to persuade and entice passengers into making specific choices. By analyzing the menus of Lufthansa, Air Canada, and Iberia on the PUJ- YYZ-AMS-FRA route in December 2022, some of the most common strategies used in linguistic engineering were identified. For instance, German menus from Lufthansa are characterized by their rigor in nominalization and brand exposure, suggesting that the company uses food as a means to promote its brand and differentiate itself from competitors. On the other hand, Air Canada's English menus deliberately use adjectives to convince customers to choose specific options. The same technique applies in the Spanish text of Iberia, where inventions and exclamations are used to tempt passengers into selecting specific culinary choices. It is interesting to note how these strategies are premeditated and strategically applied in the linguistic engineering of airline menus. The way this type of persuasion is linguistically expressed also varies according to the language, suggesting that airlines adapt their techniques to the cultures and linguistic expectations of their customers. Ultimately, this study emphasizes that linguistic engineering is a powerful tool for companies seeking to persuade customers and enhance their overall experience. While this work focused on the menus of the mentioned airlines at a specific moment, similar dynamics are likely to be found in other texts and diverse media. Therefore, linguistic engineering provides an opportunity for companies to develop more effective persuasion and marketing strategies. The application of these strategies can not only improve original texts but also be valuable in the field of transcreation, a highly functional branch in language translation and interpretation. These tacit strategies provide insights that can be considered as an autonomous method to enhance communication and customer satisfaction.

A Multi-Feature Fusion and Situation Awareness-Based Method for Fatigue Driving Level Determination

The detection and evaluation of fatigue levels in drivers play a crucial role in reducing traffic accidents and improving the overall quality of life. However, existing studies in this domain often focus on fatigue detection alone, with limited research on fatigue level evaluation. These limitations include the use of single evaluation methods and relatively low accuracy rates. To address these issues, this paper introduces an innovative approach for determining fatigue driving levels. We employ the Dlib library and fatigue state detection algorithms to develop a novel method specifically designed to assess fatigue levels. Unlike conventional approaches, our method adopts a multi-feature fusion strategy, integrating fatigue features from the eyes, mouth, and head pose. By combining these features, we achieve a more precise evaluation of the driver’s fatigue state level. Additionally, we propose a comprehensive evaluation method based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, combined with situational prediction. This approach effectively evaluates the fatigue state level of drivers at specific moments or stages and provides accurate predictions. Furthermore, we optimize the gated recurrent unit (GRU) network using an enhanced marine predator algorithm (MAP), which results in significant improvements in predicting fatigue levels during situational prediction. Experimental results demonstrate a classification accuracy of 92% across various scenarios while maintaining real-time performance. In summary, this paper introduces a novel approach for determining fatigue driving levels through multi-feature fusion. We also incorporate AHP-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation and situational prediction techniques, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of fatigue level evaluation. This research holds both theoretical and practical significance in the field of fatigue driving.

Revisiting Norse Mythology: the Case of A.S. Byatt’s Ragnarök

"Revisiting Norse Mythology: The Case of A.S. Byatt’s Ragnarök. In 2011, British author and Booker-prize winner A. S. Byatt publishes Ragnarök, her rewriting of the Norse myth about the death of the gods. Seen through the eyes of a thin child who is forced to witness the terrors of World War II, the story and characters of the Norse myth are reinterpreted and retold in accordance with the child’s vision, imagination and feelings. The paper here focuses on the association of the Scandinavian imaginary with specific moments in A. S. Byatt’s personal history, and highlights the use of certain patterns and ideas that are present in both, trying to pinpoint the elements that make possible the transformation of the mythical into the actual. The aim of this study is to explore the evolution of the mythological events as they are rewritten in Byatt’s 21st century book, in close connection with the main character’s personal development. To that end, the paper will also dwell upon the comparison drawn by Byatt herself between the Norse and the Christian mythological imaginary – a vision filtered through the eyes and thoughts of the focalizer of the text, the thin child. Keywords: Ragnarök, A. S. Byatt, reinterpretation, Norse myths, death of the gods"