Traditional Pillars Research Articles

Construction and combustion behavior of horizontal two-dimension combustion networks of boron-metal oxides

In order to break through the top-down combustion mode brought by the traditional pillars, it is explored to explore the exploration of delay composition array construction in two-dimensional dimensions. In this study, B-CuO, B-Bi2O3, B-Fe2O3 sticks and combustion networks with good forming properties were prepared with the help of a micro-pen direct ink writing device by dispersing the above materials in DMF with boron and metal oxides as the main body of the charge and F2602 as the binder. The sticks were thermally ignited using a nichrome wire, and the flame propagation behaviors of the sticks with different formulations, spacings and heights were tracked with a high-speed camera, and a series of combustion networks were designed on the premise of not leaping into flames. Results show that the B-CuO stick has the fastest ignition speed level (19.71–29.02 mm ·s−1) at equivalence ratios of 1.0–4.0, followed by B-Bi2O3 (5.99–16.01 mm ·s−1) and B-Fe2O3 is the slowest (1.91–4.94 mm ·s−1). The sticks burned best at an equivalence ratio of 1.0–1.5. A variety of combustion networks were constructed on 50 × 50 mm glass slides by selecting B-CuO, B-Bi2O3, and B-Fe2O3 at the equivalence ratios of 1.0, 1.5, and 1.5, respectively, among which B-CuO had the shortest combustion time (5.17 s), the shortest total combustion network length (252 mm), and 400 mm network could be realized for B-Bi2O3. Construction and 19.85 s, and B-Fe2O3 can realize 608 mm network length and 130.7 s combustion time. Through these studies, the two-dimensional combustion network construction of boron-metal oxides was realized, which provides a new idea for the delay action in small size.

A Kingdom of Possibility

A Kingdom of Possibility

CAR T therapies in multiple myeloma: unleashing the future.

In recent years, the field of cancer treatment has witnessed remarkable breakthroughs that have revolutionized the landscape of care for cancer patients. While traditional pillars such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy have long been available, a cutting-edge therapeutic approach called CAR T-cell therapy has emerged as a game-changer in treating multiple myeloma (MM). This novel treatment method complements options like autologous stem cell transplants and immunomodulatory medications, such as proteasome inhibitors, by utilizing protein complexes or anti-CD38 antibodies with potent complement-dependent cytotoxic effects. Despite the challenges and obstacles associated with these treatments, the recent approval of the second FDA multiple myeloma CAR T-cell therapy has sparked immense promise in the field. Thus far, the results indicate its potential as a highly effective therapeutic solution. Moreover, ongoing preclinical and clinical trials are exploring the capabilities of CAR T-cells in targeting specific antigens on myeloma cells, offering hope for patients with relapsed/refractory MM (RRMM). These advancements have shown the potential for CAR T cell-based medicines or combination therapies to elicit greater treatment responses and minimize side effects. In this context, it is crucial to delve into the history and functions of CAR T-cells while acknowledging their limitations. We can strategize and develop innovative approaches to overcome these barriers by understanding their challenges. This article aims to provide insights into the application of CAR T-cells in treating MM, shedding light on their potential, limitations, and strategies employed to enhance their efficacy.

Mesocurriculum modernization of a chemical engineering program: The case of a high-impact regional university in Colombia

In Colombia there are few chemical engineering programs and those have been historically linked to the industrial development of the country, supporting the training needs for industrial development in several regions of economic importance. The southwestern Colombian region contributes with the largest industrial production in the country, and the chemical engineering program of Universidad del Valle has been the only one in the region for 78 years. The last curriculum reform took place 20 years ago and the accelerated technological change urged the adoption of deep changes in the curriculum structure. A student-centered constructivist approach was applied in the faculty-wide transformation in the mesocurriculum and microcurriculum levels, defining the so-called Sensitivities, Capacities and Competencies (SCCs) as the set of attitudes, skills and knowledge necessary for an integral performance of engineers. Those were considered from two standpoints: general and disciplinary formation. In the disciplinary level, the historic traditional pillars of chemical engineering were maintained, but taking advantage on the areas of academic research, development and innovation (R+D+I) expertise demanded by the industry around the university in addition to transversal priority areas for modern chemical engineering professionals. This contribution discussed the elements of the curriculum reform for modernizing the chemical engineering curriculum of a high-impact program in a stablished university with a regional vocation.

Switzerland: Political Developments and Data in 2022

AbstractIn 2022, Switzerland's notorious fame as an “island of bliss” was significantly challenged by a sequence of numerous unprecedented large‐scale crises. While the country has managed to phase out most COVID‐19 protective measures already in the year's early weeks, the 202 Russian invasion of Ukraine internationally discredited neutrality—that is, one of the traditional pillars of Swiss identity. This article traces how Switzerland muddled through crisis after crisis. Moreover, it shows how domestic politics was affected by the distinct interconnectedness of the federal and regional (i.e., cantonal) electoral arenas, an above‐average number of direct‐democratic ballot proposals, as well as by the resignation of two out of seven members of the Federal Council. The article concludes by discussing two major and highly controversial “elephant‐in‐the‐room” issues that are continuing to shape the Swiss political discourse: Swiss–EU relations and institutional reforms to gear up Swiss‐style consensus democracy for future crises.

The Teacher in the Digital World - New Roles, Representations, Perceptions

The fast development of the Internet and digital technologies has led to many fundamental transformations in the sphere of education and has challenged the traditional pillars of the brick-and-mortar school as an institution. In light of these processes, the present study aims to reveal the teacher’s current position by studying their new roles, representations, and how they are perceived. The following insights are the result of case studies of 6 popular Bulgarian educational online platforms and Internet sites in their development for the period between 2019 and 2022 and include observations on the processes that go parallel in the Bulgarian educational institution. The research methods used in the present study include observation of online educational practices, content analysis of educational and media materials, as well as 45 in-depth semi-structured interviews with 8 creators of educational platforms, 12 teachers, 15 students, and 10 parents. The article aims to open a discussion on what the new roles of teachers in the Digital World are and how they may respond to society's new expectations. The first part of it analyses the change in the position of the teacher – from a central authority in the classroom to a guide who leads the learners through their way to knowledge. The second one regards the new need for teachers today to compete for their audience’s attention. The last two parts raise a discussion about the balance between technological and human experience. They discuss the need for teachers to obtain deeper knowledge about the impact of technology on different spheres of the human world and underline the irreplaceable role of the teacher as a human being.

Overlapping cities: Trans-urban augmentation in the digital era of western cities

The digital revolution has produced and is still creating new lifestyles that are being reflected in a new urban revolution which sees the overlapping of different environments to enrich the urban experience and respond to emergent necessities. It leads to a dissolution of the strictly defined spaces and uses to create hybrid places that colonize the urban environment. The dualities of public and private, of exterior and interior, of work and leisure, of man and woman, of house and city, are then changing, and with them also the traditional pillars of the modern society. The digital is overlapping the material, changing the urban organizational structure through new relationship between people, city and technology in a new reality recently dubbed the “metaverse”. Most of the spatial needs are then transformed, opening up to a profound rethinking of the structure of places and of the meaning itself of urban environment. The article analyses the current relationship between the material and the virtual by identifying the possible resulting spatial emergencies.

Fraught Relations: Saudi Ambitions and American Anger

The recalibration of Saudi foreign policy under Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) reflects Riyadh’s changing assessment of its relationship with the United States and its ambition to become a full-fledged geo-economic power that is less constrained by the traditional pillars of Saudi statecraft. While much attention is being paid to the acrimonious relationship between MbS and US President Joe Biden, there are structural reasons for the growing divergence between the two countries. The October 2022 OPEC+ crisis over Saudi Arabia’s oil-production cut illustrates how Riyadh is willing to prioritise its financial and energy interests even at the risk of upsetting its long-time security partner.

Breaking with convention? Zeitenwende and the traditional pillars of German foreign policy

Abstract On 27 February 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addressed the Bundestag and announced a watershed moment (Zeitenwende) for Germany's conduct of foreign affairs. Against the backdrop of the historical pillars of German foreign policy, this article reviews the core implications of the Zeitenwende doctrine. It analyses how the new policy continued or transformed traditional notions underpinning Germany's external relations: Westbindung (integration into the West) and European integration, multilateralism, the pursuit of a rules-based international order and NATO membership, hesitant leadership, Ostpolitik and Wandel durch Handel (transformation through trade), as well as a foreign policy not relying on military means. It argues that Zeitenwende represented a break with some traditional notions, such as Ostpolitik and Wandel durch Handel, and to some extent the non-military foreign policy. However, Zeitenwende also reconfirmed other traditions: Westbindung, a commitment to multilateralism and the rules-based order, as well as the reluctance to assert German leadership. With Zeitenwende, Germany remained firmly committed to the EU and NATO as the country acknowledged that it must do more for its own, and for Europe's, security. Zeitenwende represented Germany's coming to terms with, and final acceptance of, the realities of the post-Cold War European order.

Academic Radiology Departments Should Lead Artificial Intelligence Initiatives

With a track record of innovation and unique access to digital data, radiologists are distinctly positioned to usher in a new medical era of artificial intelligence (AI). In this Perspective piece, we summarize AI initiatives that academic radiology departments should consider related to the traditional pillars of education, research, and clinical excellence, while also introducing a new opportunity for engagement with industry. We provide early successful examples of each as well as suggestions to guide departments towards future success. Our goal is to assist academic radiology leaders in bringing their departments into the AI era and realizing its full potential in our field.

Norwegian Development Aid: A Paradigm Shift in the Making?

Norway has remained committed to allocating one percent of its Gross National Income in developing aid. Poverty reduction has also stayed as an overarching objective for the aid budget. The commitment to these traditional pillars in Norwegian aid is also accompanied by major changes: reduced focus on partner countries and bilateral aid and an expanding emphasis on supporting global action, the rise of a flourishing number of new thematic priorities and delivery through multilateral channels. This article maps the evolving continuities and changes in Norwegian development aid since the early 1990s. It relies on an analytical framework based on Peter Halls work on paradigm shifts and his distinction between first, second and third order changes. The explanation for the evolving profile of Norwegian aid is found in a combination of domestic driving forces. Based on Matthew Wood’s concepts of puzzling and powering dynamics behind paradigm shifts the article identifies the forces behind evolving aid policies. One is depolitisation behind Norwegian aid – a broad political and popular support and consensus but limited debate leaving much space for foreign policy and self-interest to shape implementation and selection of instruments. A second is linked to a change in the policy arena and the growing dominance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This has led to a multifaceted and fragmented aid profile allowing various dimensions of development aid policies to be shaped by different interests and priorities. It has not yet reached a stage where we can identify a major break with the past and a radical policy transformation. The new focus on climate issues and migration may have the potential to change that and give self-interests a stronger influence over long-term development aid and its objectives. Changes in coalition politics may have the potential to change the majority behind the one percent target and the commitment to poverty reduction.

Sustainable development spillover effects between North America and MENA: Analyzing the integrated sustainability perspective

It remains an aura of ambiguity if globalization and openness resulted from the UN platform are helpful for the global sustainability or against it. This study aims to reveal if the effect of globalization and openness on sustainability of MENA and North America is negative or positive. Our study employs a SEY model as a package of Simultaneous Equations System, Vector AutoRegressive (VAR) and Granger Causality approaches during 1971–2016, to estimate the sustainable development spillover effects (or sustainability elasticities) between MENA and North America. According to the results, the sustainability elasticities are positive between MENA and North America, showing synergetic nature of sustainability spillover effects. According to the dominant and positive spillover effects, this study claims that the relationships between MENA and North America are synergistic, not trade-off. It implies that the countries in MENA and North America should develop their relationships in a peaceful environment via regional agreements, unions and openness. Therefore, our findings support the unique agenda of the UN about SDGs for progressing the global sustainable development, especially SDG 16 (Peace, justice and strong institutions) and SDG 17 (Partnership for the goals). In this way, our study for the first time confirms a new perspective integrated sustainability by adding a 4th pillar of spillover effect to the traditional pillars of social, environment, and economy.

Development of Health Tourism Route Model base on Local Wisdom and Culture, Ranong Province, Thailand

This study aims to 1) Examine health tourism route in Ranong Province, 2) Examine local wisdom and culture in Ranong Province for modeling the health tourism route, 3) Develop a health tourism route model based on local wisdom and culture in Rayong Province. This study is qualitative research on Hat Som Pan to turn the community into a health tourist attraction, in connection with other health tourist attractions in Ranong Province. Data is collected through in-depth interview and group talk with the persons involved in health and cultural tourism, or stakeholders in the studied area. The sampled persons were divided into four groups (1) Public and private organization staff members involved with tourism promotion, (2) experts, (3) Thai and foreign tourists, and (4) local leaders and wise people, for the total of six. Content analysis was performed, and triangulation was done for result verification to keep the data reliable and factual. The study revealed that Ban Hat Som Pan Community had several natural attractions and local wisdom and culture that could be used to promote health tourism. The Community had potential for networking with the outside service business, so it was able to handle the diversity entailing the tourism route based on health tourism, and local wisdom and culture. The effort was made on three traditional pillars upheld by the community “Mold, Sift and Soak Ores”. There were three main activities, the first being Do – Eat as Medication, which was a food-related local wisdom activity where food was provided, and cooking was demonstrated to tourists. The second was Do-Beauty which was the use of local herbs in therapeutic spa to promote both appearance and health. The third one was Do-Body, which focused on therapeutic and relaxing body massage and mineral bath. The massage was done using local-made massage oil to promote holistic health. The three activities were holistic health promotion through eating, care of internal health through local-made product, and mineral bath and massage to promote health. In this model route, the tourists would have time to travel and engage in activities with the locals for relaxation and health promotion in accordance with the guideline of health tourism.  

English

Theories advanced in the political economy literature concerning China’s presence in Africa have often focused on Beijing’s motive, leaving under-theorized the dynamics that may be causing the responsiveness and embrace of China by these African states. The president of Ghana at the 73rd UN General Assembly defended Chinese investment in Africa and described China as the new avenue that Africans can resort to address their problems. This naturally raises the question of whether African countries and Ghana specifically, are abandoning their traditional neoliberal source of major financial assistance, the IMF and World Bank, and turning to China. It is therefore imperative to understand what mechanisms are necessitating the embrace of Chinese loans and the logic behind state actors’ disinclination from traditional financial sources. This is especially critical when the two neoliberal economic institutions have been major traditional pillars of Ghana’s economy. To unpack these mechanisms, the article takes a theoretical approach grounded on the historical economic relations between Ghana and China vis-à-vis Ghana and neoliberal institutions. Through an analysis of state actors’ rhetoric on economic governance and new financing models, the paper posits two rationales behind Ghana’s embrace of Chinese loans. The first being the need to improve the living standards of Ghanaians and address the persistent public grievances over neoliberal policies, and the second being the recognition of a window of opportunity in the global economic order.   Key words: Ghana, China, state actors, economic governance, financing models.

On Posthuman Folklore by Tok Thompson

On Posthuman Folklore by Tok Thompson Travis Brisini (bio) Posthuman Folklore, by Tok Thompson. University Press of Mississippi, 2019. ISBN: 9781496825087. Hardcover, paperback, and ebook. If I might be so bold, I’d like to begin this review with a generalization: for the sake of an easy shorthand, there are effectively two types of books about posthumanism. The first is the highly technical philosophical text, aimed at the massive pillars of tradition and topicality that have propped up academia since at least the Enlightenment. While these interventions share the unifying characteristic of skepticism about the privileged and unique ontological status of “The Human,” there is significant diversity in topical focus and scope. Michael Serres—whose oeuvre tells the story of humanity, technology, and nature as an ongoing, contiguous milieu—provides a historical account, while Donna Haraway’s recent work proposes relationships of care and mutual obligation as fundamental to our Earthly life with nonhuman Others. Rosi Braidotti provides a complex philosophical genealogy for the posthumanist turn, while Alaimo, Neimanis and van der Tuin examine the relationship between New Materialist and feminist ontologies, and the consequences of this pairing for political and social formulations. Broadly speaking, these works offer deep challenges to the very ontology and epistemology of twenty-first-century knowledge. It is a question, [End Page 282] in these works, not only of what counts, but of how to imagine, undertake, and interpret the situated knowledge(s) of the world. The second type of book about the posthumanities is the work of survey and application: a text whose primary goal is to take the insights generated by the first type of work and apply them to a particular context, in the process reevaluating that context in light of these new posthumanist ideas. These texts—while perhaps less rigorously and ardently philosophical—nonetheless serve an important place in the ecosystem of the posthuman turn, as the site of application and integration. They are the books that show us the consequences—in our familiar academic fields—of the broad philosophical shifts that arise from posthumanist perspectives. Posthuman Folklore, by Tok Thompson, is a book squarely located in this second camp. It is the first book-length effort elucidating the consequences of the posthuman turn for the field of folklore, including an interdisciplinary cadre of scholars and artists in the areas of folklore, storytelling, anthropology, cultural studies, and performance studies, to name a few noteworthy examples. The book succeeds in its claim to offer a wide variety of examples of posthumanist thought, altering established concepts and tenets of folklore. Its form does, however, come with a number of limitations. Posthuman Folklore is essentially two books: one on the nonhuman (animal, plant, material) tendency in posthumanist scholarship, and another on the technological (digital/virtual) tendency that is sometimes also called “transhumanism.” Thompson suggests that it is his goal to integrate these two often disparate tendencies around the question of ontology, writing that “both can be used to help inform the other, and the wider question of basic human ontology: what is it to be human, and how do we perform our humanity?” (14). But in practice, the two areas remain distinct. One might argue that the chapters each contribute to an emergent, “holistic” conversation that proposes a distinct posthumanist ontology and position for the human, but that conversation never materializes in an overt way, and readers are left to draw their own connections between the ontological statuses of the human proposed by each chapter. The work is clearly a collection of previously published essays, and as such, while each chapter stands on its own, the collective philosophical thrust of the work seems both bifurcated and weakened. The nonhuman bent clearly offers more opportunities for new inventional, conceptual expansions for folklorists but also contains within it the possibility that a posthumanist turn may end with (or demand) a level of conceptual stretching that undoes folklore as a discrete object of inquiry. [End Page 283] It is unclear how coherent our shared program of research will be without the commonplace of the “human” as an agent/element of folkloric construction or performance, or how or to what degree the demands of ethological inquiry will...

Television Programmes Among the Youth of India: An analytical Study

For the past many decades, television news channel have been the best source of information –cum –entertainment to sit among the family and enjoy hours of relaxation. Nowadays people don’t prefer to watch news channels as they have opinion that these days the news channels have become boring. As a result, TV News programme in terms audience reach and significantly to public discourse can rightly be said that the term ‘Infotainment’ is a new concept for a developing country. It refers to a mixed bag if styles, formats and sub-genres and its distinguished feature is that it falls somewhere in the space between the two traditional pillars of television i.e, Information and Entertainment. The main problem of traditional account of journalism is the audience no longer find it as important and sustaining as they once did. News and current affair are moving study aims to find out preferences of information format of TV News programmes by the audience as well as to analyze the information format of TV Programmes used by the channels.

Of Conflict and Collapse: Rethinking State Formation in Post-Gaddafi Libya

Abstract This paper explores the relationships between the Libyan state and society, and the ways in which these dynamics affected the subsequent civil wars in 2011 and onwards. Beyond the commonly-studied impact of oil and state rentierism, this paper demonstrates that the enduring centralization of the state, Gaddafi’s dystopian governance system, the socio-economic and political cultures pre-2011, and the interplay between local systems of legitimacy and central authority have played an underappreciated role in the contemporary Libyan landscape. The continuities and discontinuities of order that defined and characterized the Libyan state before and after 2011 are thus dissected. An exploration of the appositeness of Eurocentric theories of statehood to the Libyan landscape unveils the pillars of legitimacy that defined Libyan statehood pre-Gaddafi. This sheds light both on how the Gaddafi regime sought to control society by often manipulating these pillars and on the ways in which Libyan society either directly and indirectly resisted his rule or rested in complacency. This covert resistance, which turned overt, widespread, and violent in 2011, paved the way for a discursive mutation of “tribalism.” This notion morphed from one of a group behavioral binding mechanism tied to blood lineage into one underpinned by notions of solidarity that override kinship. This analysis in turn elucidates the precarity of the Libyan state and explains the subsequent turmoil in the country post-2011, characterized notably by the emergence of armed non-state actors. A key discontinuity identified is in the realm of foreign influencers that have exploited long-standing domestic grievances and weaponized Libya’s traditional pillars of legitimacy, thus tearing at its society’s social fabric.

Structural Dissonance Re-Imagined: The Finale of Elgar’s Violin Sonata, OP. 82

Abstract Contemporary critical reception of Elgar’s Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82 was divided: was this work old hat or modestly cutting edge? Study of the tonal intricacies of its finale can facilitate interesting answers to this question, which mediate between its implied extremes. The article focuses on Elgar’s unusual treatment of sonata form’s traditional harmonic pillars, arguing that he radically changed their surface contents while still attempting to guarantee their continued relevance as organizing presences at a level below the musical surface. Particularly important is his articulation of the finale’s structural dominant. The music that follows on from an abortive cadence in V at the end of the finale’s secondary theme area might be thought to ‘translate’ the dominant into a more modern kind of musical language; it can thus be perceived as a genuine structural dissonance once more, rather than as a consonant cliché.

Moving Beyond the Pillars of Cancer Treatment: Perspectives From Nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology has made a significant impact on basic and clinical cancer research over the past two decades. Owing to multidisciplinary advances, cancer nanotechnology aims to address the problems in current cancer treatment paradigms, with the ultimate goal to improve treatment efficacy, increase patient survival, and decrease toxic side-effects. The potential for use of nanomedicine in cancer targeting and therapy has grown, and is now used to advance the four traditional pillars of cancer treatment: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and the newest pillar, immunotherapy. In this review we provide an overview of notable advances of nanomedicine in improving drug delivery, radiation therapy and immunotherapy. Potential barriers in the translation of nanomedicine from bench to bedside as well as strategies to overcome these barriers are also discussed. Promising preclinical findings highlight the translational and clinical potential of integrating nanotechnology approaches into cancer care.

Building an Innovative and Entrepreneurial Dimension in an Institution of Higher Education

Institutions of higher education in the twenty-first century are undergoing a transformation locally and globally from traditional pillars of learning to being more entrepreneurial in their core business. There is increasing pressure on universities to becoming more flexible and adaptable as organizations and in the graduate attributes, they imbed in their students. There is a need to build deeper links with business, to both maximize innovation and promote growth, to ensure students are equipped to excel in the workforce. This change is having a disruptive effect on the role of universities, from classical research institutions to entrepreneurial universities mimicking more of the modern workplace working environment, requiring autonomy in their decision-making and in the way new research is developed, implemented and transferred in the relationships formed within their respective regions. This article outlines work in progress on the University of South Australia’s attempts to rebrand itself as a University of Innovation and Enterprise (Australia’s University of Enterprise) in both its end-user inspired research outcomes and industry-informed teaching and learning.