Unfamiliar Places Research Articles

Women Safety App Project

Abstract: Women's safety is a fundamental and ongoing issue affecting millions of women around the world. Fear of violence, harassment and persecution can create significant obstacles and limit their mobility and freedom. In response to these challenges, we developed the Women Safety Project app, an easy-to-use mobile app that aims to provide women with effective tools and resources to help them stay safe. The app takes into account women's particular safety concerns, such as traveling alone at night with the number or navigating in unfamiliar places. By providing a comprehensive and easily accessible solution, the Women Safety Project app aims to empower women to take back control of their safety and live happily ever after.

Envisioning futures at new destinations: geographical imaginaries and migration aspirations of Nepali migrants moving to Malta

ABSTRACT Imagination is central to migration. Geographical imaginaries, often shaped by historical narratives and mainstream media, allow people to envision futures elsewhere and influence migration aspirations. Using interviews with Nepalis who migrated to Malta in recent years, this article seeks to uncover how people imagine new destinations about which they have limited or no prior knowledge, and how these imaginaries compare to those of established destinations. Through this lens, the article then examines participants’ aspirations to migrate to Malta. The analysis shows how participants contextualised the information they found about Malta by drawing extensively from imaginaries of better-known European destinations, in a mechanism I call spatial imaginary spillover. Participants moved to Malta seeking increased personal freedoms, rights and safety, economic stability and affluence, exploration and social prestige linked to migration to Western destinations. As such, Malta is part of a group of new European destinations for Nepalis that are more accessible than established destinations in the West, and which participants prefer over historical destinations for Nepali workers. This article provides novel insights into how imaginaries of new destinations and other unfamiliar places are produced, and how the lens of geographical imaginaries yields rich perspectives on migration aspirations and destination preferences.

PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S FEARS AND POSSIBILITIES REDUCING THEM

The article discusses the problem of fears experienced by 3-4-year-old children. Theoretical analysis of fears and anxieties is presented on purpose to find out the possibilities to solve the problem of fears in children; recommendations to educators and families raising 3-4-year-old children who face the problem of fears are presented. The article raises a problematic question: what are common fears of preschoolers and what are possibilities to reduce fears? Research aim: to reveal the fears experienced by preschoolers and possibilities to reduce them. Research objectives: to substantiate the phenomenon of the fear in a preschool age, to determine the opinion of parents raising preschoolers, and the opinion of children about the fears they have experienced, to reveal possibilities to reduce preschoolers’ fears. Applied methods: analysis of scientific literature, written survey, oral survey, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the obtained data. Research results: preschoolers experience various fears: fear of strangers, unfamiliar places, things, phenomena. Fears of preschool children are specific and related to a child’s age and experience. Many fears go away with the time by themselves. Fearful children become anxious, angry and it is harder for them to concentrate. Children’s fears are related to separation from parents, unfamiliar environments and individuals, animals, supernatural things. Parents acknowledge that their children face a variety of fears and they try to help their children to overcome these fears. Interviews with children revealed that children are most often afraid of other children, animals, imaginary creatures, unknown situations or individuals. Children associate the overcoming of their fears with the help of people close to them (parents and teachers). Close family relationship, opportunity to talk, joint activities with other children, pedagogical help and keeping to the rhythm of the day help to overcome fears. In this process it is important cooperation between family and educational institution, development of teachers’ competencies and attention to individual needs of a child. Overcoming fears is related to joint efforts of parents and teachers, preparation of educational environment, proper presentation of educational materials.

Virtual Eye – Revolutionizing Vision Assistance For People With Disabilities

Visually challenged individuals have faced numerous challenges in their daily lives. These challenges include: Visually challenged individuals have difficulty reading printed materials, including books, magazines, and newspapers. This limitation can significantly impact their education, as they may not have access to all the materials they need to learn. Moving around in unfamiliar places can be a daunting task for the visually impaired. They may struggle to access digital or printed materials, as these are often not available in accessible formats. It might be difficult for those who are blind to identify objects. This can be frustrating, especially in situations where they are alone and need to identify objects.
 To address this issue, we are developing a mobile application for visually challenged individuals by providing a range of features such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, image-to-audio, and PDF-to-audio. It enables visually challenged individuals to access information, read books, identify objects, communicate, and navigate with ease and independence. The app's user-friendly interface can be accessed both manually and by voice command, making it easy to use for people with varying levels of technical expertise. Overall, the Virtual Eye app helps visually challenged individuals lead more fulfilling and independent lives.
 Overall, Virtual Eye application is an essential tool for visually challenged individuals, helping them navigate their daily lives with ease and independence. With this app, they can access information, communicate, and identify objects without the need for a third party, enhancing their quality of life and sense of autonomy.

«С глубочайшим почтением и совершеннейшею преданностию»: из переписки купца М. К. Сидорова с первым епископом Енисейским и Красноярским Никодимом (Казанцевым) (1860-е гг.)

The publication of two letters of the famous merchant, discoverer of the Northern Sea Route Mikhail Konstantinovich Sidorov to the first Yeniseisk and Krasnoyarsk bishop Nikodim (Kazantsev) is presented. The surviving texts dating back to the 1860s testify to the trusting relationship between these two outstanding contemporaries, emphasize their worldview and range of interests. Among the subjects mentioned in the letters there are M.K. Sidorov's donations in favor of the spiritual educational institutions of the Yeniseisk diocese, his service as an honorary guardian of the Krasnoyarsk Religious School, related with that requests of the archpastor, a conflict around the Yeniseisk Convent. At the same time, their communication was not limited exclusively to issues of church life. The bishop was aware of M.K. Sidorov's plans to search for passage through the northern seas and supported this initiative. As the Yeniseisk archpastor, he was particularly interested in the state of the territory of the diocese entrusted to him in the lower reaches of the Yenisei – the Turukhansk Region. The versatility of Bishop Nikodim's personality is emphasized by the mention of his works on the publication of the biography of the Siberian First Martyr Vasily Mangazeyskiy, as well as the telescope sent to him by M.K. Sidorov – a necessary attribute in long journeys to unfamiliar places. Among other things, the letters contain the names of a number of well-known statesmen, high church hierarchs, and large entrepreneurs, which characterizes the correspondents' acquaintances and connections, their social position.

Unveiling destination choices: uncovering the influence of missing visual information on tourists’ decision-making and visit intention

Purpose This research aims to investigate the impact of missing visual information on tourists’ decision-making processes and visit intention. Drawing on perception completion law and signaling theory, the study hypothesized that tourists might use visual information to infer about a destination, even if the information is incomplete or ambiguous. Design/methodology/approach To assess the impact of missing visual information, the authors asked a group of 392 participants who had no prior familiarity with a specific garden museum to envision the interior environment of the museum garden and provide feedback on their emotional responses and aesthetic evaluations. To aid in their imagination, they were presented with a video showcasing the surrounding landscape and exterior of the museum. Findings The study found that participants could anticipate their overall experience of the location by inferring the resemblance of unseen areas to the images they had viewed, even without prior exposure or information. This study provides valuable insights into the cognitive processes underlying tourism decision-making and advances our understanding of how people form expectations of new and unfamiliar places. Originality/value The originality of this research relies on the mediating role of missing aesthetics and emotion on the relationship between available aesthetics and visit intention using a structural model. This study highlights the significant role of visual information in influencing tourist decision-making, even with incomplete or ambiguous data.

Building Intercultural Spaces through Co-Creation: Insideness in Shared Living Spaces

We explored the role of art in facilitating intercultural communication through a project in which undergraduate students from the United States and Japan co-created a digital collage of shared living spaces. Through the creation of personal dioramas and a collaborative collage, students shared personal stories and objects that were meaningful to their identity formation. Our research found that incorporating personal memories and cultural objects into art-making was an effective way of evoking a sense of insideness with a place and bridging cultural differences. The collage was a learning space where students negotiated differences and worked together to create a more inclusive place through vicarious insideness. This study highlights the potential for using art to facilitate intercultural communication and engage a sense of insideness in unfamiliar places among individuals from different cultures.

Outdoor Vision-and-Language Navigation Needs Object-Level Alignment.

In the field of embodied AI, vision-and-language navigation (VLN) is a crucial and challenging multi-modal task. Specifically, outdoor VLN involves an agent navigating within a graph-based environment, while simultaneously interpreting information from real-world urban environments and natural language instructions. Existing outdoor VLN models predict actions using a combination of panorama and instruction features. However, these methods may cause the agent to struggle to understand complicated outdoor environments and ignore the details in the environments to fail to navigate. Human navigation often involves the use of specific objects as reference landmarks when navigating to unfamiliar places, providing a more rational and efficient approach to navigation. Inspired by this natural human behavior, we propose an object-level alignment module (OAlM), which guides the agent to focus more on object tokens mentioned in the instructions and recognize these landmarks during navigation. By treating these landmarks as sub-goals, our method effectively decomposes a long-range path into a series of shorter paths, ultimately improving the agent's overall performance. In addition to enabling better object recognition and alignment, our proposed OAlM also fosters a more robust and adaptable agent capable of navigating complex environments. This adaptability is particularly crucial for real-world applications where environmental conditions can be unpredictable and varied. Experimental results show our OAlM is a more object-focused model, and our approach outperforms all metrics on a challenging outdoor VLN Touchdown dataset, exceeding the baseline by 3.19% on task completion (TC). These results highlight the potential of leveraging object-level information in the form of sub-goals to improve navigation performance in embodied AI systems, paving the way for more advanced and efficient outdoor navigation.

Depiction of library use in video games: a content analysis

PurposeResearchers in information studies have examined fictional depictions of libraries in various mediums because these images can reflect and influence real-life experiences and attitudes. Video games, despite being relatively overlooked, are increasingly culturally relevant and can indicate library users' real needs and desires. This study investigates the ways in which video games depict characters using libraries to seek and use information.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative content analysis approach incorporating methods from information studies and game studies was applied. Tancheva's (2005) semiotic analysis of fictional libraries and Carr's (2019) textual approach provided the framing for the unique aspects of video games and their meanings. Carroll (2021)'s character analysis and Chatman (1996)'s theory on insiders–outsiders dynamic underpinned the data collection and analysis. The purposive sample included 15 video games released since 2010.FindingsVideo games depict game characters visiting libraries to solve short-term problems, to gain knowledge to improve themselves or to bond with others. Protagonists are often depicted as adventurers or outsiders who must adapt to unfamiliar places and situations to achieve their wider objectives. In these games, libraries provide useful documents, spaces or helpful guides and intellectuals who assist the protagonists. As outsiders, the protagonists seek information in libraries to help them learn about their environments and to immerse themselves in the local histories and cultures in their worlds. Overall, these depictions highlight both short- and long-term benefits of library use.Originality/valueAs with existing studies, the ways in which fictional library use appear in video games can suggest real needs and desires among library users. The findings from this study emphasise the importance of library services and spaces that help users both address short-term problems and immerse themselves in local concerns, with longer-term goals. Applying different research methods or lenses to analysing video games could deepen our understanding of what library users think and feel when they seek and use information in libraries.

Representation of Travel Writing in Gabriel García Márquez’s Un Métier De Rêve: Carl Thompson’s Travel Writing Study

Abstract. Travel writing, a subgenre of literature, depicts a writer's journey in visiting unfamiliar places. The author experienced negotiation between himself and the others about similarities or differences. In the travel writing, a reality is a reference emphasized the most, rather than mere imagination or fiction. This study aims to examine the representation of travel writing in Un Métier de Rêve by Gabriel García Márquez and to uncover the influence of the narrator's personal perspective (the self) on his view of Europeans (the others). The story in short story Un Métier de Rêve is one of Gabriel García Márquez's travel stories included in Douze Contes Vagabonds. This type of research is descriptive-analytic research using literature studies. The data collection technique involves reading, noting, and sorting. In analyzing the data, which includes words, phrases, dialogues, monologues, feelings, and behavior of the characters, the researcher conducted data interpretation by proving or debating a matter through valid evidence using Carl Thompson's travel writing theory, which consists of three concepts, namely: Reporting the World, Revealing the Self, and Representing the Other. The results of the study on Gabriel García Márquez's Un Métier de Rêve show that Márquez seeks to portray the world he encountered rationally and objectively, even the subjective element found in the short story still appears to be objective. As a result, there is an ambiguity found that is uncovered due to the contestation between fact and fiction in travel writing. In addition, the influence of the ideology of the former colonial state apparently provides a particular emphasis on Márquez's strategy in writing his travel stories. Keywords: Gabriel García Márquez, Travel Writing, Literatur

Transactional Revolutionaries

For historians of the American Revolution, there are supposed to be few more certain paths to fame and fortune than writing a flattering book about the Founders, as Woody Holton observes in the closing pages of Liberty Is Sweet. That may or may not be true. But as anyone who has followed the controversies and talking points of our own time surely knows—whether the topic is the enduring appeal of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (1980; rev. ed., 2015) or The New York Times’s 1619 Project—there is also mileage and, I suspect, decent money in books by historians whom Holton admiringly calls “the debunkers” (568). As the “hidden history” in his title suggests, that debunking tradition is where Holton situates his latest contribution to scholarship on the revolution. Although readers looking for famous men and women will not be disappointed, Holton’s primary interest is the history of “women, Native Americans, African Americans, and other unknown Americans,” including poor white men (568). Some of his hidden actors are better known today than they were in their own time. Boston King, who escaped enslavement in South Carolina by joining the British army, features prominently in my own teaching and writing, as I’m sure he does for many of my colleagues. Others are familiar names in unfamiliar places. I confess that I did not know that Daniel Boone started his fabled career as a wagon driver in General Edward Braddock’s ill-fated expedition to the Monongahela in 1755—this despite growing up in one of the Pennsylvania valleys that Boone and Braddock marched on Fort Duquesne to secure. The role of female war and peace chiefs in Pontiac’s War, the Native insurgency that swept the Midwest during the mid-1760s, will come as no surprise to specialists, but it may surprise general readers, who are the book’s intended audience. Britain responded by stationing an army of ten thousand regulars in Indian country, which in turn supplied the pretext for the parliamentary taxes that so outraged colonists on the Atlantic seaboard. Had the Wabash River’s Indigenous matrons “not founded a pan-Indian confederacy to battle the British,” writes Holton, the American Revolution might not have happened (160).

УСАМІТНЕНИЙ ВІДПОЧИНОК ЯК ТРЕНД ТУРИСТИЧНОГО РИНКУ

The article examines the tendency of the traveler to seek solitude with himself and his thoughts. Solitude has received a new wave of popularity on the international and domestic tourist market. There is an increasing rejection of mass group tours and trips (based on statistical data). According to a study by the World Travel and Tourism Council, about half of travelers worldwide traveled within their own country. In Ukraine, solo travel has doubled. According to the results of a survey conducted by the European Tourist Commission, the majority of Europeans in 2022 preferred short-term trips to less crowded, unfamiliar places, natural sites, national parks, rural settlements, protected areas. The issue of security is important. Travel insurance is always a good idea. The understanding of the role of a healthy lifestyle is growing. The importance of a healthy ecology is growing for solitary rest. This promotes interest in tourism in forest and rural regions, in particular, on weekends. There is an increase in demand for places where there is a balanced interaction of local residents and nature, hospitality and respect for privacy. Accordingly, the use of houses or separate apartments, tents is increasingly popular. All this affects the demand and supply of services in the tourist market. Secluded rest provides self-development and a unique experience of self-discovery, restoration of a person's physical and psychological health. It provides ample opportunities for self-reflection and growth with the joy of unlimited freedom. Unique design projects of houses, chalets or small hotels for comfortable seclusion in the forest or mountains, near water bodies or in the valley. Ukraine, thanks to its natural wealth, offers a choice of many ideal locations for seclusion from negative information and instability of the outside world to deepen your inner world. The importance of a healthy ecology of the country is growing for secluded recreation. Solo travel is becoming increasingly popular thanks to the internet, mobile apps and social media. They are used to obtain information or purchase any tourist services. Thus, the established trend will contribute to the construction of quality tourist products with selected customer segments.

"His Eyes Disappear": (Re)framing the Racial Imagination through Anti-Portraiture in Teju Cole's Blind Spot

"His Eyes Disappear":(Re)framing the Racial Imagination through Anti-Portraiture in Teju Cole's Blind Spot Benjamin Williams (bio) TEJU COLE uses film photographs and oblique prose divagations to take us on a voyage across the globe with a peripatetic philosopher in his 2017 photobook, Blind Spot. With COLE snapping photos, processing the film, and composing corresponding texts, we travel from the United States to Lagos (where COLE grew up), next to a lake in Switzerland; then, in a "flickering series of scenes," we are transported from the sites of a Balinese massacre in Ubud, Indonesia, to New Zealand, and from there to makeshift memorials for migrants scoring the earth near the Arizona border, and back again to Africa.1 The travel photographs paired with lyrical prose make us consider how exposure within the photographic and textual frame creates epistemic and ontological disjunctions, or what COLE calls "blind spots." Rather than an "attempt at comprehensiveness and totality," COLE'S collection maintains "faith in the fragment and the montage," which can "evoke the truth about a situation."2 We are asked to look more toward an intermingling visual constellation [End Page 93] of the photobook as a whole and to discover a through-line connecting disparate places and people. COLE creates an aesthetic assemblage or montage of photography, testimony, poetry, and ethnography to illuminate a kind of missing truth about the connections between historical displacement, attenuated pasts, mobility, and racial representation. While Cole's fiction and its relationship to photography and racialization have been widely discussed, his own photographic practices, as exemplified in Blind Spot, the "fourth in a quartet of books about the limits of vision," have received only limited critical attention.3 Most criticism, like Robert Pinsky's, examines Cole's terse and oblique commentary in the photobook to argue that Cole reveals "mysteries of the ordinary," which are "attained in patiently awaited, brief flashes."4 Similarly, Colin Dickey illuminates how Cole's fragmentary images are used to explore the "absences that define documentation and nonfiction," as exemplified through the slow and deliberate practices of film development that Cole uses.5 More recently, Monika Gehlawat argues that Cole uses intermedial aesthetic practices to "foster an atmosphere of thoughtful discretion," reticence, and inwardness for both photographed subjects and the audience.6 Yet, these accounts are limited in their engagement with questions concerning the historical and transnational trajectory of photography that has been calibrated in accordance with hierarchical conceptions of race. Alexandra Kingston-Reese, however, provides an incisive corrective as she reflects not only on intermediality but also on the racialized politics of vision and aesthetics of blackness in Cole's photobook. Kingston-Reese finds that through the emphasis on aurality, visuality, and digital presence, the volume creates slant rhymes and "networked contemporary artistic practices" to foster "empathetic forms," illuminate "perceptual weaknesses," and afford "new modes of reading."7 I follow Kingston-Reese's attendance to Cole's ethically insightful and "ethnically observant" intermedial aesthetics, but I turn my attention to the coeval processes of photographic portraiture and race-making exhibited in the work.8 More specifically, I examine Cole's aesthetic process, which reveals how portraiture's methods are co-constitutive of a reductive imaginary of race that we face, or fail to face, in the photograph.9 As I argue, Blind Spot explores ethically fraught issues within the sensorially confused space of the photo collection by [End Page 94] playing with exposure, light, and composition to confront what Paul Gilroy calls "epidermal thinking."10 To challenge such framing ontologies of race, Cole practices anti-portraiture, which allows the audience to (re)search, (re)envision, and (re)frame the racial imagination that uses photographic documents, especially those emphasizing physiognomy and bodies, as a locus for classification and racial categorization. By (re)framing an alternative way of seeing according to the limitations of vision, Cole's compendium of photographs and text engages with our ethical obligation as he activates cultural memory and uses film photographs to move us to forget the familiar and instead see unfamiliar faces and places on their own terms, where darkness signifies wisdom or potentiality. Cole's process of anti-portraiture thus responds to the...

Bringing Books to Life: Engaging Papuan Children to Read

Bringing Books to Life: Engaging Papuan Children to Read Wigati Yektiningtyas (bio) and James Modouw (bio) Compared to other Indonesian children, the literacy rate of Papuan children is pretty low. According to 2014 USAID’s Baseline Study for Rural and Remote Education Initiative for Papuan Provinces, the EGRA (Early Grade Reading Assessment) is also low, scoring only 14.61 percent (as opposed to the national score of 62.80 percent). This also means that despite Papuan children’s ability to read, they do not understand what they have read. Instead of reading, Papuan children generally prefer to play in the wild (Modouw 34). There is no encouragement from the parents as reading is considered unimportant and education is left entirely to the school. This calls for a strategy to foster Papuan children’s reading interest so they can gain new knowledge and experiences, develop imagination, and improve their language skills. In the early 2013, Community Reading Centers (CRCs) were established in Papua as an answer to this call (Yektiningtyas-Modouw and Karna 67–86). The books in CRC collections initially came from outside Papua and unfortunately, were not very attractive. Despite the improvement in 2020, CRCs still could not successfully attract children to read. During a 2021 observation of CRCs in Jayapura Regency, the children were seen just playing aimlessly. They merely browsed through the books before putting them back, showing no interest in reading. Interviews with several elementary schoolchildren reveal their disinterest in the contents of the books. “I don’t know rice fields, I don’t know elephants, I don’t like reading what I don’t know,” one of them said. Two teachers from CRCs in East Sentani and West Sentani Districts added that the children would read if they were forced to. Meanwhile, teachers from CRCs in Demta District and Kemtuk Gresi District said that while the children read books, they did not understand the contents. The teachers from CRCs in Central Sentani District also mentioned that the children would close the book immediately when they encountered unfamiliar terms, places, trees, objects, or animals. Even unfamiliar proper names could be an excuse for them to stop reading. These children seem to prefer reading folktales from the area where they came from (Yektiningtyas and Gultom 224). They find it easier to read and understand texts with familiar landscapes, animals, plants, daily routines, traditions, or proper names—a phenomenon referred to as “emotional ties” (Lazar). These connections become good bridges to motivate children to read and write, eliminating the burden of alienating materials (Yektiningtyas-Modouw and Karna; Dickinson et al.). [End Page 58] The Use of Papuan Folktales One of Papua’s local excellences that needs to be utilized in education is none other than folktales. This utilization is also in line with Jayapura’s new regulation of local languages and tradition in education in nine customary areas of the regency (Awoitauw 17). This is an attempt to preserve the rarely acknowledged cultural heritages and, simultaneously, further facilitates children’s reading through their emotional connection with local folklores. The texts, loaded with local values, can attract children to read, promoting reading habits and transforming them into independent readers. When all these things have been achieved, children can be introduced to various books from across cultures. The problem of reading difficulty becomes less apparent when folktales are used. Children easily recognize places, plants, animals, and proper names. For example, Ebi dan Kandei (Ebi and Kandei)—a famous fable from Sentani about friendship, fights, and betrayal between a bird and a fish— refers to the name of a Sentani endemic bird (Ebi) and an almost-extinct endemic fish in the Lake Sentani area (Kandei / Glossamia beauforti). Children’s familiarity with the content facilitates deeper engagement with the book. When Ebi and Kandei was used in the reading session, it was generally followed up by listing other birds around the Sentani area, such as the cassowary, mambruk (Goura victoria), kumkum, eagles, and cockatoos. They also listed the native fish in the lake area, such as kahe (Glossamia wichmani) and the rare kanseli (Neoarius velutinus). This activity led to an interesting discussion about extinction in nature and environmental preservation. NM (ten...

Place of linguistic and country studies in the process of socio-cultural adaptation of foreign higher education applicants

The article deals with the peculiarities of the socio-cultural adaptation of foreign higher education applicants. The relevance of the study has to do with the significant flow of educational migrants to Ukraine. Most of them experienced “culture shock” due to the discrepancy between imaginary and real life in a foreign-speaking country with a history, culture, lifestyle, and traditions different from their own. Their socialization and language training are integral components of adaptation in a foreign-language educational and socio-cultural environment, of the process of personal growth. The author describes the peculiarities of communicative and sociocultural competences formation in the process of learning Ukrainian as a foreign language and considers the advisability of using sources that reveal the evolution of the country’s history and culture in the regional dimension. Knowledge of the region or city where foreigners study helps them navigate unfamiliar places better. The paper offers a view on the role and place of linguistic and country studies competence in the process of socio-cultural adaptation. The study of local history materials by foreign students should be accompanied by visual displays of examples of material and spiritual culture. It is advisable to conduct thematic excursions (real and virtual), round tables, contests, business games, and conferences. Foreign students should be involved in various communicative situations, which would allow them to remember the vocabulary and grammar of the Ukrainian language faster and better. It has been proved that studying the history and culture of another nation using language training of foreign citizens contributes to the formation of not only communicative competence but also a versatile personality. Understanding the differences in the historical processes, cultural and socio-economic development of individual countries and peoples contributes to the formation of the foundations of humanism and tolerance. The process of adaptation to a new foreign language environment promotes awareness of one’s own identity. Prospects for further research are seen in the improvement of forms and methods of classroom and extracurricular work, the use of new country studies materials to develop and increase the level of mastery of foreign students in all types of speech activities, to promote soft adaptation to new living conditions, and personal growth.

Home-Based Individualized Cognitive Stimulation (iCS) Therapy in Portuguese Psychiatric Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Cognitive difficulties are common in people with mental health issues, including psychotic disorders, although this population may have difficulty accessing treatments due to various challenges, including transportation, remembering appointments, or discomfort in crowded or unfamiliar places. Home-based services can be crucial and effective for reaching populations with accessibility issues; one home-based intervention technique is individual cognitive stimulation (iCS), which has been shown to be an effective strategy to target and improve cognitive functioning in various samples. Using a previously established Portuguese iCS protocol, based on an initial brief cognitive assessment and the subsequent administration of cognitive stimulation materials and reflection exercises, the current randomized controlled trial explored the effectiveness of the iCS intervention on participants in Portugal with psychotic disorders. Outcome tools included measures of cognition, depression, quality of life, and functional abilities at baseline, the completion of the intervention, and post-intervention follow-up. With two well-matched groups at baseline, the results revealed significant improvements in the intervention group on cognitive functioning, depression, quality of life, and, more modestly, functional activities. These results offer an important contribution to the field of iCS protocols, in an effort to enhance the lives and well-being of various clinical populations, including those with psychotic disorders.

Comparing Pears to Apples: Unlike Dogs, Cats Need Habituation before Lab Tests.

Research on the socio-cognitive skills of different species often benefit from comparative experiments, however, the ecology of the species and development of the individuals may differently determine how they react to the same test situation. In this study, our aims were twofold: to observe and compare the spontaneous behaviour of companion cats and dogs in the same novel environment, and to habituate them (if needed) to the novel environment in the presence of their owners and an unfamiliar experimenter. The behaviour of 62 family cats, 31 experienced (which had the opportunity to meet strangers and explore unfamiliar places) and 31 inexperienced cats, and 27 family dogs was compared in an unfamiliar room. The subjects' behaviour was coded during the first five minutes in the presence of two passive persons, their owners, and an unfamiliar experimenter. Then, based on a set of rules, first the owner, and then the experimenter tried to initiate interactions with the subjects and the subjects' willingness to interact was evaluated. To pass the habituation test, subjects were expected to play with the experimenter or accept food from them. All dogs passed the test on the first occasion, while almost 60% of the cats failed. The cats' experience did not play a significant role, in fact, younger cats passed more easily. We found marked differences between dogs and cats in all behavioural variables; compared to dogs, cats spent more time crouching and close to their box, while less time exploring or close to the owner. We did not find a difference in the cats' behaviour based on their experience. Our results support the hypothesis that unlike dogs, cats need extensive habituation in a novel environment. This could partially be explained by the difference in the ecology and/or domestication process of the species, although developmental effects cannot be excluded. Our findings have fundamental consequences not only for the considerations of the testability of cats and on the interpretation of their data collected in the laboratory, but in a more general sense on developing comparative experiments.

Induction of spatial anxiety in a virtual navigation environment

Spatial anxiety (i.e., feelings of apprehension and fear about navigating everyday environments) can adversely impact people’s ability to reach desired locations and explore unfamiliar places. Prior research has either assessed spatial anxiety as an individual-difference variable or measured it as an outcome, but there are currently no experimental inductions to investigate its causal effects. To address this lacuna, we developed a novel protocol for inducing spatial anxiety within a virtual environment. Participants first learnt a route using directional arrows. Next, we removed the directional arrows and randomly assigned participants to navigate either the same route (n = 22; control condition) or a variation of this route in which we surreptitiously introduced unfamiliar paths and landmarks (n = 22; spatial-anxiety condition). The manipulation successfully induced transient (i.e., state-level) spatial anxiety and task stress but did not significantly reduce task enjoyment. Our findings lay the foundation for an experimental paradigm that will facilitate future work on the causal effects of spatial anxiety in navigational contexts. The experimental task is freely available via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/uq4v7/).

What I Think about When I Think about Teaching Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration in Pedagogy

What I Think about When I Think about Teaching Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration in Pedagogy

The Impact of Disasters and Climate Change on Migration and Displacement

This paper examines the impact of disasters and climate change on migration and displacement. It looks at the direct and indirect effects of such events and how they can force people to move away from their homes. It also discusses the growing trend of environmental migration and how this has been exacerbated with managing such population movements. Finally, it outlines the potential solutions to this growing problem and proposes ways to address the humanitarian issues involved. This paper examines the impact of disasters and climate change on migration and displacement. It looks at the various ways in which disasters and climate change can cause displacement, such as extreme weather events, sea level rise, and land degradation. It also looks at the consequences of displacement on both individuals and communities, such as loss of livelihoods, increased vulnerability to exploitation, and displacement to unfamiliar places. Finally, the paper looks at the potential policy responses to mitigate the effects of disasters and climate change on migration and displacement. Keyword :Climate Change, Disaster, Displacement, Migration, Impacts.