Tangible Sources Research Articles

Active Learning, Living Laboratories, Student Empowerment, and Urban Sustainability

In schools and universities, we instructors carry the responsibility of informing and inspiring students. Traditional and more theoretical educational programs (here referred to as passive learning) may be tied to projects and activities (active learning), in which students gain hands-on practical experience with planning, development, implementation, maintenance, and presentation of different solution-focused activities. Complementary to passive learning, the needs for active learning activities and living laboratories have become more pertinent as global trends, such as climate change, weigh heavily on the shoulders of young people. Unless properly guided and given tangible sources of inspiration, the sense of being overwhelmed and incapable of effectively contributing to a more sustainable future may cast a dark shadow over students, their ability to engage in active learning, and their long-term career aspirations. Schools and universities are being evaluated for their “greenness”. Accordingly, operational improvements (carbon, water, waste, and nutrient footprints) to meet sustainability targets are being implemented. Structural sustainability improvements represent unique opportunities for students and instructors to engage in active learning. As a broader message to school and university administrators, it is argued that efforts to plan and implement sustainability initiatives should also involve transformations of educational curricula. It is argued that educational institutions could and should be more than sums of buildings and infra-structure and represent living laboratories. Descriptions of topics taught, learning outcomes, and links to examples of student assignments of a specific course, Urban Food and Society, are included and discussed in the broader contexts of urban food sustainability and active learning. The main purpose of this article is to promote the notion that active learning activities and the need for improved sustainability of schools and universities can go hand in hand and provide compelling educational opportunities.

Secularism and Ethical Issues in Media Practice as a Bane for National Development

This paper addresses secularism and ethical issues in media practice as a bane for national development. In communication studies, ethics is central and critical to the overall process of journalistic engagement, especially to the credibility in the gathering, processing, and delivery of information for believability. Every profession has acts, codes, ethics, or laws guiding its activities. Whether these codes are backed by effective sanctions is also another issue. Media as a very vital sector of the society guided by certain fundamental law and ethics, which guides every action of journalists. While the laws are no doubt legal issues, which can lead to litigation and subsequent prosecution, many have argued that ethics are moral standards whose violations are not backed by sanctions. Within this context, this paper examined secularism in the Nigerian context, the forces that threaten the growth of secularism in Nigeria, ethical issues in Nigerian media and how it affects national development, and factors affecting ethical media practice and how it halted development in Nigeria. Development Media Theory serves the goal of the paper. The paper is predominantly based on information derived from the qualitative data using secondary sources such as relevant texts, journals, official publications, historical documents, and the Internet, which served as tangible sources of insight into the analysis. The paper argued that the media are very important subsystem in the social system that helps cajole and coordinate the other subsystems in the social system to enhance effective development. While the media cannot work independently to bring about development, other institutions also need the media for information dissemination, and sensitization via various mediums to actualize developmental objectives.

The clandestine welfare: The role of illicit actors in the provision of social protection in Latin America

AbstractThere has been an increasing interest in exploring the different types of welfare regimes in middle- and low-income countries. However, most of the studies so far seem to neglect the importance of illicit groups as welfare providers. Illicit groups can be so powerful in many of these societies, that they can create extensive social safety nets embedded in parallel governance orders. Considering their importance as fundamental actors in the Global South, it is required to acknowledge their role as welfare deliverers as a missing piece in the literature. Hence I discuss the nature of what I call “clandestine welfare” and three specific forms of social protection provided by illicit groups: direct, involuntary, and forced. In the first form, the illicit groups provide directly to society by delivering goods or services that the formal state fails to provide. In the second, the illicit group’s activities have involuntary but positive spill-overs over society in terms of welfare. In the last one, the illicit groups use violence to force other social actors to provide social protection. By bringing illustrative examples from Latin America, I aim to show that the action of illicit groups represents a tangible source of welfare for a large segment of the population that goes beyond charity.

Forgotten Encounters: The Legacy of Sculptresses and Female Muses

Sculpture as a medium is inherently connected to legacy making. In producing three- dimensional monuments designed to withstand the test of time, women artists provided evidence of the lasting quality and permanence of their creative acts. This article examines the actress, sculptress and novelist Anne Damer’s sculpture of the famous actress turned Countess Eliza Farren (c. 1788), paying particular attention to the relationship between sculpture as a static art form that captures tactile embodied presence and the ephemerality of performance. Farren’s involvement in Damer’s staging of the private theatricals at Richmond House (Farren directed and Damer starred) suggests that their collaborative relationship engendered aesthetic acts across media – performances that are now lost but remain in traces across a variety of material. Similarly, in the mid nineteenth century the American artist Harriet Hosmer’s spectacular sculptures of female figures were inspired in part by her intimate relationship with the famous actress Charlotte Cushman. Cushman’s dynamic performances of Lady Macbeth parallel Hosmer’s powerful controversial sculpture of Zenobia as a warrior Queen (1859). Looking ahead to the early twentieth century, I propose that Malvina Hoffman’s uncanny portrait busts of the ballet dancer Anna Pavlova (particularly her “Head of Pavlova” made of wax, 1924), similarly recreate a unique dynamic between the female artist and the intangible performances of her female muse. Drawing connections between Damer, Hosmer, and Hoffman, across time and media, allows us to re-imagine the relationship between artistic forms, materials, and aesthetic practices. Women’s artistic and theatrical legacies, I suggest, are not found only in tangible sources, but also by recuperating networks, connections, and collaborations through interdisciplinary practices. In doing so we create new legacies that chart the extraordinary accomplishments of women of the past.

Vietnamese Concepts of Love Through Idioms: A Conceptual Metaphor Approach

Love (romantic love) is an abstract concept that requires explanation. In addition to the universality of the concept, each nation has their own constructs of love, which can be expressed through idioms. Idioms represent special linguistic units because they contain cultural characteristics and national views. Idioms also reflect the colour and variety of human social activities and thus play an important role in the linguistic ontologisation of love. This paper aims to explore the Vietnamese concepts of love through idioms from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Conceptual metaphor theory (introduced by Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003) is a tool that allows the abstract target domain (LOVE) to be understood through more tangible source domains. To collect the data, a hand search of Vietnamese idiom dictionaries was conducted to establish a corpus of 126 entries, from which nine common conceptual metaphors were identified. Results from this study show that Vietnamese people regard LOVE as a predestined fate, in which the beauty of love in conjunction with nostalgia, passion, compatibility and closeness is praised, faithfulness in love is appreciated and revered, and inappropriate relationships and betrayal in love are opposed and condemned.

Importance of Education in This Challenging World

Education entails a change in a person's way of living and the growth of that person to enable him to choose the most appropriate solution to a problem at any given time. It is one of the more tangible sources of knowledge and information. A well-educated person is competent enough to use a variety of technologies. A good education can help people achieve their goals in life and grow personally and nationally. We can battle injustice with the aid of education. Our intellect and capacity to reason are improved through education. Writing emails, letters, typing messages, reading periodicals and newspapers, or even using a smartphone, makes communication simple.

Leadership in an Ageing Society and the Brain: Applying Neuroscience to Leadership

“What makes a great leader?” This question has been on the minds of scientists, philosophers, professionals, and others around the globe for centuries. Many theories and models have been proposed to answer the question, but none has fully captured leadership as a dynamic and constantly evolving attitude. In the last 20 years, technological advancements have helped neuroscientists understand the human brain better. With the help of ground-breaking insights in neuroscience, the leadership enigma has a convincing answer rooted in a specific and very tangible source: the brain. This paper aims to increase awareness around the impact of the brain on leadership behaviour in an aging society by presenting secondary research of available scientific theory. In particular, this paper aims to provide an overview and assess the brain-based leadership models and recent approaches to highlight the possible ways to boost the leadership brain and enhance performance. The paper also points out the ethical issues arising from brain enhancement in leadership and leaders' awareness of the possible broad social consequences that neuro leadership might bring.

Integrating Indigenous Language to Promote Unity in Diversity among Broadcast Media in Nigeria

Abstract: This paper interrogates the status of indigenous language in promoting unity in diversity among broadcast media in Nigeria. The paper is exploratory in nature, as it utilises the descriptive research method whereby relevant literature, documents and records were consulted and analysed based on the existing literature. The paper is predominantly based on information derived from the qualitative data using secondary sources, such as relevant texts, journals, official publications, historical documents and the Internet, which served as tangible sources of insight into the analysis. The method help findings in the works available, check the consistency of such findings, evaluates such findings with other findings. Based on the findings, English is the dominant language of use followed by the major national languages of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. English is nationally dominant, but the three major languages are regionally applied with Hausa commanding higher airtime across majority of the states in Northern part of Nigeria; Igbo in the Southeast and Yoruba ranks next to English in the Southwest. In the South-south, Pidgin and some indigenous languages rank next to English. Instead of a rise in indigenous language use in broadcasting in the country, the situation appears to be worsening because most broadcasters find it economically unattractive and financially costly to run news and programs in the indigenous languages. The study concludes that there is a weakness in the use of indigenous language among broadcast media in Nigeria. The use of indigenous language among broadcast media has been ignored in the communication industry. The study concludes that there is a need for language policy, because in the domain of mass communication today, the use of indigenous language is not properly addressed.

Урбанизация российского Дальнего Востока: Амурская область в 1989–2019 гг.

Introduction. Accelerated development of the Far East has been — and still is — one of the main priorities of Russia’s regional policy in the 2010s. The cities and urban agglomerations of the region are proclaimed by the Russian government as key basic points of further economic growth in this part of the country. At the same time, despite the efforts of the federal and regional authorities, the processes of urbanization in most regions of the Far East are still in crisis. Goals. The study aims to analyze the results of the Soviet urbanization in Amur Oblast and the dynamics of urbanization processes in the region over the past three decades. Materials and Methods. Analyzing official statistical data, as well as statutory instruments at the national, regional and local levels, the paper uses a set of general scientific methods, the statistical method, and special methods of historical research, in particular, the problem-chronological one. Results. The entire system of urban settlements in Amur Oblast experienced a dramatic socioeconomic, infrastructural and demographic crisis in the 1990-2010s. Even the first half of the 1990s witnessed a weakening of urbanization processes and an outflow of population from the region caused by the restructuring and crisis of production, the weakening of state social policy, a decrease in investments in the engineering and household development of territories, and insufficient solution of housing problems. In the structure of urban settlements, the greatest changes have affected workmen’s settlements most of which have lost the prospects for industrial development. In the early 2010s, the development of urban settlements in the region was still constrained by a number of economic factors (the regional budget deficit and its dependence on federal subsidies, the ongoing production crisis of most of the city-forming enterprises, etc.). Large infrastructure projects in the region (construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Power of Siberia gas pipeline, Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline, creation of advanced development areas) have supported urban settlements of the region’s industrial center in the 2010s. However, cities and towns in the north of the region have not received tangible sources of growth as a result of the Baikal–Amur Mainline project crisis. Conclusions. By the end of the 2010s, the general crisis of urbanization processes in the region resulted in that the network of urban settlements acquired more linear features — along the Trans-Siberian railway line — that be accompanied by concentrate resettlement towards Blagoveshchensk.

Burial sites in the Jewish cemetery in Tarnow after the Second World War

The article draws attention to the burial sites and tombstones at the Jewish cemetery in Tarnów from the period after World War II, which until have not been a significant object of interest among historians and epigraphists. They are a very valuable and tangible source of information about the fate of the Jewish community in Tarnów and its vicinity, which was reborn after the Holocaust, and — due to emigration and extinction — gradually disappeared years later.

Stressors and Coping Strategies of Medical Staff in the COVID-19 Pandemic in Wuhan

Exploring whether medical staff perceive stress on the assigned medical tasks, what are the specific sources of stress, what are the tangible sources of support they expected to be helpful, and individual coping with stress to provide more accurate, personal support for psychological crisis. This study uses a cross-sectional descriptive survey adopting convenience sampling among the medical staff who worked for over seven days in the infected areas of one Grade 2A and three Grade 3A hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. The assessment includes attitude when receiving tasks, major stressors, factors relieving stress, and personal management of stress. A total of 104 (76.8%) valid questionnaires are received. A majority (94.3%) of the medical staff held a positive attitude taking duty for granted but feeling nervous and afraid (81.1%). Contacting the infected (90.6%) and compensation (92.5%) are the main concerns. The major pressure sources are regarding safety for oneself (98.1%), colleagues (92.5%), and family (94.3%), as well as lack of effective treatment (92.5%), inadequate protective equipment (94.3%) and incomplete disinfection (94.3%). The main positive pressure adjustments include strict infection controlling measures (98.4%), maintaining a positive attitude (95.2%), actively attain more information 95.2%, and engage in recreational activities (93.6%), but more than 40% takes negative adjustments to vent their emotions and relieve anxiety, suggesting the importance of early psychological intervention. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the main stressors among medical staff are safety, uncertainty and shortage of resources. Positive coping includes taking effective protective measures and achieving thorough understanding of the virus.

Conditional Cash Transfers: Expanding Higher Education through Social and Economic Support in Pakistan

This study was motivated by the initiatives of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan that provides various conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to youth education in the less developed areas of the country. The CCTs are given to youth in the shape of HEC Need-Based Scholarships (HEC-NBS) and the Prime Minister’s Fee Reimbursement Scheme (PMFRS). This study investigates the impact of the CCTs on the educational performance of the students in the under-developed areas of Pakistan. Data were gathered through self-administered questionnaires from the students who were awardees of the scholarships. A total of 350 responses were used for the final analysis. A statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 25 was used to get the data analyzed. It was found that the two CCTs (HEC-NBS and PMFRS) substantially affect the educational performance of the students. The PMFRS was the most dominant predictor of the students’ performance indicating a high tangible source of students’ motivation. This study helps in both theoretical and practical spectrums. It practically helps expand the higher education to every nook of the country as well as light the policy-making outlines to sustain the CCTs for the better future of higher education in Pakistan.

Expanded Documentary: The Aesthetics of Pleasure

In this article I make the claim that aesthetic strategies associated with the Modernist avant-garde can provide a tangible source of entertainment for audiences. I contextualize this through Keith Beattie’s concept of “‘documentary display”’. I use the film work of others, as well as my own documentary practice, to illustrate this. In doing this, I offer an explanation of my intentions as a filmmaker in order to show how I aim to engage audiences in particular ways through the adoption of certain aesthetic approaches to documentary filmmaking. I also discuss my own concept of ‘expanded documentary’ in order to explain how alternative forms of exhibition, as well a specific aesthetic approaches to filmmaking, can be seen as having the principle of entertainment at documentary’s core. I build on Gene Youngblood’s work on “‘expanded cinema”’ and again use the work of others, as well as my own film practice, to illustrate this.

The workers of the Donbas coal mines in the post reform period

The article deals with the problems of providing labor in the coalmines of the Donets Basin in the post reform period. Attention is drawn to the use of female and child labor in the production process, and the conditions under which this happened are being ascertained. It is noted that the intensive development of the coal industry in the 1880-1890s led, on the one hand, to a high growth rate in the number of workers employed in coal mining, and on the other, it exacerbated the deficit of this category of workers. Gradually, with the development of industry in the region, a constant contingent of miners took shape. As a result, the so-called mining families began to form in the coal industry of Donbass, which later became a tangible source of replenishing the ranks of workers.

Service and Solidarity: Domestic Workers, Informal Organising and the Limits of Unionisation in Zambia

This article examines the varied forms of collective organising pursued by domestic workers in Zambia from the 1930s to the 2010s, from struggles to establish formal associations and trade unions to participation in informal strategies of joint action. The article demonstrates that, despite the efforts of successive groups of domestic workers and labour activists, formal workers’ organisations have failed to secure broad support among the labour force or achieve significant improvements in domestic workers’ rights. This resulted from the limited financial and organisational capacity of such organisations, the dismissive attitude towards domestic workers of colonial and post-colonial governments and the failure of workers’ organisations to tailor their interventions to the broad, complex realities of domestic service. The formal labour movement model has been unsuccessful as a means of organising domestic workers both because of these limitations and because domestic workers could pursue alternative solutions to their grievances at work, from individual strategies of resistance to informal collective organising. Through informal relations of solidarity, domestic workers created accessible and popular spaces to share grievances and tangible sources of material and emotional support. These findings are relevant to academic research and to policy on both domestic service and work in Africa, highlighting the ways in which Africa’s urban working poor have used alternatives to the formal labour movement model to address exploitation at work, economic hardship and political grievances.

Cyber forensics framework for big data analytics in IoT environment using machine learning

Forensic analyst skills are at stake for processing of growing data from IoT based environment platforms. Tangible sources often have the size limits, but that’s not the case for communication traffic source. Hence, increasing the thirst for an efficient benchmarking for big data analysis. Available solutions to date have used an anomaly-based approach or have proposed approaches based on the deviation from a regular pattern. To tackle the seized bytes, authors have proposed an approach for big data forensics, with efficient sensitivity and precision. In the presented work, a generalized forensic framework has been proposed that use Google’s programming model, MapReduce as the backbone for traffic translation, extraction, and analysis of dynamic traffic features. For the proposed technique, authors have used open source tools like Hadoop, Hive, and Mahout and R. Apart from being open source, these tools support scalability and parallel processing. Also, comparative analysis of globally accepted machine learning models of P2P malware analysis in mocked real-time is presented. Dataset from CAIDA was taken and executed in parallel to validate the proposed model. Finally, the forensic performance metrics of the model shows the results with the sensitivity of 99%.

Synthetic Gene Network with Positive Feedback Loop Amplifies Cellulase Gene Expression in Neurospora crassa.

Second-generation or lignocellulosic biofuels are a tangible source of renewable energy, which is critical to combat climate change by reducing the carbon footprint. Filamentous fungi secrete cellulose-degrading enzymes called cellulases, which are used for production of lignocellulosic biofuels. However, inefficient production of cellulases is a major obstacle for industrial-scale production of second-generation biofuels. We used computational simulations to design and implement synthetic positive feedback loops to increase gene expression of a key transcription factor, CLR-2, that activates a large number of cellulases in a filamentous fungus, Neurospora crassa. Overexpression of CLR-2 reveals previously unappreciated roles of CLR-2 in lignocellulosic gene network, which enabled simultaneous induction of approximately 50% of 78 lignocellulosic degradation-related genes in our engineered Neurospora strains. This engineering results in dramatically increased cellulase activity due to cooperative orchestration of multiple enzymes involved in the cellulose degradation pathway. Our work provides a proof of principle in utilizing mathematical modeling and synthetic biology to improve the efficiency of cellulase synthesis for second-generation biofuel production.

A Review of International Legal Framework to Combat Cybercrime

Cyberspace is under perceived and real threat from various state and non-state actors. This scenario is further complicated by distinct characteristic of cyberspace, manifested in its anonymity in space and time, geographical indeterminacy and non-attribution of acts to a tangible source. The transnational dimension of cybercrime brings forth the issue of sovereignty, jurisdiction, trans-national investigation and extra territorial evidence necessitates international cooperation. This requires and international convention on cybercrime which is missing till date. Council of Europe Convention of Cybercrime is the lone instrument available. Though it is a regional instrument, non-members state like US, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan etc. have also signed and ratified and remains the most important and acceptable international instruments in global fight to combat cybercrime. In this paper, authors have argued that Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime should be the baseline for framing an International Convention on Cybercrime.

A Review of International Legal Framework to Combat Cybercrime

Cyberspace is under perceived and real threat from various state and non-state actors. This scenario is further complicated by distinct characteristic of cyberspace, manifested in its anonymity in space and time, geographical indeterminacy and non-attribution of acts to a tangible source. The transnational dimension of cybercrime brings forth the issue of sovereignty, jurisdiction, trans-national investigation and extra territorial evidence necessitates international cooperation. This requires and international convention on cybercrime which is missing till date. Council of Europe Convention of Cybercrime is the lone instrument available. Though it is a regional instrument, non-members state like US, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan etc. have also signed and ratified and remains the most important and acceptable international instruments in global fight to combat cybercrime. In this paper, authors have argued that Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime should be the baseline for framing an International Convention on Cybercrime.

Marketing Assets: A Framework for Differential Advantage

With the emergence of competition and market economies the issue of gaining and sustaining competitive advantage, became the most vital and challenging area of study in business and strategy. It received increased attention with opening up of world economies and huge improvements in technology which led to increased intensity in competition. These changes made strategists and marketers to rethink and revise their strategies to sustain competitive advantage over a period of time. They have learnt that traditional or tangible sources have lost their relevance as sustainable sources of competitive advantage. It is argued that they are easily copied or duplicated by competitors equipped with increasingly equalizing technologies and supported by new market conditions. So there is a need to identify and harness the new sources of competitive advantage which are hard to copy or duplicate and thus act as durable sources of competitive advantage. This study focuses on this research problem and has made an attempt to identify durable sources of competitive advantage, based on extensive literature survey and conceptual understanding of the subject. This paper argues that such sources rest in intangibles and capabilities of an organization. It is put forth that marketing assets, created through marketing activities, are such resources and in particular act as the potential durable sources of competitive advantage. The paper also concludes that differential advantage, one of the routes to competitive advantage, is going to be the only route to competitive advantage in future with cost advantage as one of its components.