Western Counterparts Research Articles

A Feminist Study of Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman

Postmodern tendencies have been reflected in Indian writing in English over the past few years. This paves way for the creation of new socio-cultural and political situation and circumstances that pushes the marginal or the extreme marginal to the centre stage. Feminism as it is an accompanying issue of postmodernism is the product of such a sensibility. The novel A Married Women is heavily plotted. It traces the life of Astha from her young adulthood through her early middle years. In the process she dates with a couple of young men of her own choice like her western counter parts, marries a man of her parents " choice and discovers the joys of intimacy with her husband, begets children, yet grows distant from him, and struggles to become a painter. She reflects the middle class values and seems to enjoy her mental bliss for a long time but gradually experiences that there is something certainly lacking in her life.

Representation of the “Belt and Road Initiative” in Turkish mainstream newspapers

Turkey and China are the countries that established their relations in the shadow of their ideological affiliation. Turkey constructed its multi-partied democratic regime as an implementation of Western-based democracy. However, this has not granted EU full-membership to the country, and Turkey has initiated alternative allies since mid 2000s. This shift of axis has turned into more enthusiasm after the failed coup d’état of 15 July 2016. The purpose of this study is to reveal how Turkish mainstream newspapers represent the Chinese alternative globalization project, “The Belt and Road Initiative” which was introduced in 2013 by General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping. In order to frame the background information, we will first introduce the aims of the Belt and Road Initiative, and then summarize Turkey’s relation to China from two aspects: political and economic concerns. Following the overview of Turko-Sino relationship, we will focus on the Justice and Development Party’s foreign policy to grasp its pragmatic concern in relation to the Belt and Road Initiative. Based on the contextualization of Turko-Sino relations, we will conduct thematic content analysis of the news on the Belt and Road Initiative from May to July 2017 in mainstream Turkish newspapers. Our analysis brings into question how Turkish press relocates the Belt and Road Initiative with respect to Turkey’s political and economic concerns about China’s alternative globalism, Turkish foreign policy seeking for new allies as alternatives for the Western counterparts, and thus we will examine President Erdoğan’s influence on Turkish foreign policy. Based on our findings, we will discuss the reasons for insufficient coverage of the Belt and Road Initiative in Turkish mainstream newspapers.

Molecular taxonomy and intra-Palaearctic boundary: new insights from the biogeography of the black francolin (Francolinus francolinus) by means of microsatellite DNA

The transition zones between and within biogeographic realms are a topical issue. Long ascribed to eastern Palaearctic, Iran was recently proposed as entirely pertaining to its western counterpart (featuring the ´Great Western Palaearctic`). Molecular and phenotypic information from polytypic taxa may help untangle the bioclimatic and environmental dynamics that shaped faunal distributions. In this study, we collected 221 black francolin (Francolinus francolinus Linnaeus, 1766) samples from Cyprus to Bangladesh and compared the spatial genetic structure as inferred from nine microsatellite loci with publically available bioacoustic data. We found striking overlap between the two sources of information, which pointed to the occurrence of a western and an eastern subdivision (FST = 0.435, P < 0.001) with a break across central Iran. When framed within the palaeoclimatic and geomorphological history of this region, we found that high connectivity among local subspecies was facilitated by warmer and more humid conditions preceding the cold-arid climatic phase associated with the last glacial stage. The subsequent temperature increase likely led to the substantial isolation of eastern and western black francolin populations to moist refuges. Overall, these results point to an intra-Palaearctic boundary crossing Iran longitudinally, thus raising prospect of compromise between the two most debated views.

Building constitutional democracy on oriental foundations: An anatomy of Sun Yat-Sen’s constitutionalism

Sun Yat-sen was one of the earliest and most influential political thinkers in East Asia who advocated constitutional democracy. How different was his model from its Western counterparts? Most of Sun’s constitutional thought was built on blocks of ancient Chinese political philosophy, which might not be easy for outsiders to understand. Although his set of ideas was not short of criticisms, it was indeed creative and pioneering in late 19 th and early 20 th century China. How successful was Sun’s controversial yet exciting prototype in integrating democratic constitutionalism with regionalized Oriental political traditions, which have for centuries developed in a course fundamentally different from that of the West? Submission date: 17/10/2007 Acceptance date: 21/12/2007

Five Kurosawas and a (de)construction of theOrient

In 1959, UNESCO published a catalogue of Eastern films suitable for Western audiences, titled ‘Orient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture’. The aim of the catalogue was to familiarise Western audiences with Eastern cultures through cinema. The catalogue lists seven general characteristics of Eastern cinema to distinguish it from its Western counterpart and to provide ready-made interpretations of the essential characteristics of the Eastern world. Of the 139 feature films listed in the catalogue, five were directed by Kurosawa Akira – the biggest number of films by a single director. This article provides an analysis of the five Kurosawa films within the frame provided by the characterisations in the catalogue in the political framework of World War II and its aftermath. Reading the cultural differences listed in the catalogue as a means of constructing the East in Western eyes, the article suggests UNESCO’s world was defined neither in terms of the contemporaneous geopolitical polarisation of the Cold War nor the ongoing decolonisation process. Instead, the catalogue served the purpose of proposing a cultural intervention in geopolitics, providing a reimagining of political realities constructed on a cultural basis and given a concrete form through cinema.

Japanese Liberalism as a Distinct form of Liberalism: The Role of the Yamazaki Ansai School in the Development of Japanese Liberalism

ABSTRACTI will argue that Japanese liberalism is distinct from its Western counterparts by adopting Maruyama Masao’s description of how the development of Japanese liberalism has been continuously influenced by the ethical and political thought of the Yamazaki Ansai school. I will use Maruyama’s description of the relationship between the two to demonstrate that the distinctiveness of Japanese liberalism from its Western counterparts in the current period provides us with one of the manifestations of the inconsistencies of communitarianism. I will show that it is an inconsistent position since it is still bound by the association of consciousness and rationality. To be more explicit, my argument against communitarianism will emphasize that Japan’s adoption of liberalism as the basis for the legitimacy of rule in its nation-state is best understood in the context of liberalism’s emphasis on the association of consciousness, rationality, and their respective roles in the creation of social reality.

The role of Guanxi on international business-to-business relationships: a systematic review and future directions

PurposeThis paper aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of the extant empirical body of knowledge regarding the impact of Guanxi on international Business-to-Business (B-to-B) relationships.Design/methodology/approachAfter the collection and refinement of studies that appeared in marketing, business and management literature during 1995-2018 period, a systematic review was conducted to discover the current situation and future research directions on the subject.FindingsTheoretically, vast majority of the reviewed studies lacked a theoretical foundation, with the remainder anchored primarily on the resource-based view, social network theory and social exchange theory. Methodologically, Ganqing, Xinren and Mianzi are the most frequently investigated dimensions, whereas Renqing is the least investigated dimension. Data are mostly obtained from both Chinese and Western counterparts through survey and analyzed through univariate and multivariate data analysis techniques. Empirically, extant research focused on many diverse outcomes including trust, financial performance, cooperation, satisfaction, time orientation, opportunism and liability of foreignness, while under-examining the drives of Guanxi.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides a synthesis of extant line of research on the subject that are published in peer-reviewed international journals, which publish research in English. A meta-analysis may be conducted for providing a further detailed framework.Originality/valueThis study contributes to international marketing literature by providing an in-depth and synthesized inventory of knowledge to scholars; deriving a comprehensive analysis of theoretical foundations, methodological approaches and findings addressed by scholars in the field; noticing theoretical, methodological and empirical gaps to be examined; and providing future research directions.

The Use of Social Media by Chinese Climate Journalists: A Case Study of COP21

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to probe into the social media use by Chinese climate journalists through the examination of their professional practices on social media. Taking COP21 as a case, the study conducted a survey from Chinese COP21 journalists and analyzed WeChat and Weibo posts from Chinese journalists and tweets from their UK and US colleagues. The results show the prevalent use of WeChat among Chinese journalists and the personalization of the social media content accordingly. Compared to their Western counterparts, the use of social media for professional purposes by Chinese COP21 journalists was relatively limited. Nevertheless, several patterns of using social media were identified. Specifically, Chinese journalists tended to more frequently express personal opinions, discuss work experience and favor conventional news sources of authority than UK and US journalists. The results also suggest that climate change in Chinese media discourse will remain more a policy-related issue instead of an environmental or scientific issue, with Chinese government playing a central role.

“Tugev Balti natsionalistlik keskus” ning Nõukogude välispropaganda teel sõjast rahuaega ja külma sõtta [Abstract: “The strong Baltic nationalistic centre” and Soviet foreign propaganda: from war to peace and toward the Cold War

“Tugev Balti natsionalistlik keskus” ning Nõukogude välispropaganda teel sõjast rahuaega ja külma sõtta [Abstract: “The strong Baltic nationalistic centre” and Soviet foreign propaganda: from war to peace and toward the Cold War

Gastric cancer surgery: historical background and perspective in Western countries versus Japan.

Gastrectomy plus D2 lymphadenectomy plays a decisive role in the management of resectable gastric cancer in Japan. Before recent advances in chemotherapy, Japanese surgeons considered that extensive surgery involving extended lymphadenectomy with combined resection of neighboring organ(s) was required to eliminate any possible lymphatic cancer spread and improve patient survival. This approach differs radically from that in Western countries, which aim to improve survival outcomes by multidisciplinary approaches including perioperative chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy with limited lymph node dissection. However, a randomized controlled trial conducted in Japan found that more extensive lymphadenectomy including the para-aortic lymph nodes provided no survival benefit over D2 lymphadenectomy. Splenic hilum dissection with splenectomy also failed to show superiority over the procedure without splenectomy in patients with proximal gastric cancer, except in cases with tumor invasion of the greater curvature. Furthermore, bursectomy recently demonstrated similar outcomes to omentectomy alone. Although "D2 lymphadenectomy" as carried out in Japan contributes to low local recurrence rates and good survival outcomes, the results of randomized controlled trials have led to a decreased extent of surgical resection, with no apparent adverse effects on survival outcome. Notably, gastrectomy with D2 dissection has tended to become acceptable for advanced gastric cancer in Western countries, based on the latest results of the Dutch D1D2 trial. Differences in surgical practices between the West and Japan have thus lessened and procedures are becoming more standardized. Japanese D2 lymphadenectomy for advanced gastric cancer is evolving toward more minimally invasive approaches, while consistently striving to achieve the optimal surgical extent, thereby promoting consensus with Western counterparts.

Scale of religiosity for Muslims: an exploratory study

PurposeIslam plays a powerful symbolic and cultural role in the constitution of consumer preferences, especially in Muslim countries. To quantitatively study this role in the consumption patterns of Muslim consumers we need a suitable scale for religiosity. However, the existing scales of religiosity have been developed primarily for Christian/Jewish respondents and cannot provide valid results for Muslim consumers. This study aims to address these challenges by re-conceptualizing the religiosity construct for Muslims and conducting an exploratory study to generate an initial scale.Design/methodology/approachThis paper initialized the scale development exercise with a systematic review of the existing Islamic literature to ensure that we use Islamic categories to build the scale. Once the authors had a large pool of items, they consulted experts on Shariah (Islamic law) to evaluate these items for clarity, face and content validity. Next, they conducted five focus groups to (a) determine if they had covered the full terrain of Muslim religiosity; (b) identify if the items correspond with the actual experiences of the target respondents; and (c) ensure linguistic compatibility. This was followed by administering an exploratory survey designed to test psychometric properties of the new scale and to analyze the underlying dimensionality of the inventory of items.FindingsTo extract a manageable number of latent dimensions in the survey data, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) procedure was conducted. This resulted in the extraction of five different factors which were named as Mu’amalat_societal ethics, Roshan Khayali (enlightened moderation), Ibadaat (prayers), Mu’amalat_societal laws, Azeemat (a state exhibiting scrupulous faithfulness) and Mu’amalat_business dealings. There is a divide between Ibadaat (individual and collective worship) and Muamlaat (social relations) that emerged in the data from the cluster analysis procedure.Originality/valueReligion can be an important part of decision-making of a typical consumer. This paper proposes a new scale for Muslims to tap into their religiosity, as existing scales are not embedded in the Islamic literature. This study also distinguishes Muslim religiosity from its Western counterpart and thus helps in clarifying the Muslim religiosity construct.

Validating the dietary inflammatory index using inflammatory biomarkers in a Japanese population: A cross-sectional study of the JPHC-FFQ validation study.

Persistent low-grade inflammation is related to the development of many chronic diseases. The dietary inflammatory index (DII®) is designed to assess the potential effects of diet on an individual's inflammation status. The aim of this study was to evaluate the construct validity of the DII using inflammation biomarkers in Japanese adults. Overall, 565 participants from the food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) validation study of the Japan Public Health Center-Based Prospective Cohort were included in the present study. This cohort consisted of two independently recruited and examined, cohorts I and II. Dietary records (DR) were collected for 28 d and two FFQs were administered. Blood samples also were obtained for the analysis of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and interleukin (IL)-6 concentrations. DII scores were calculated from DR and FFQ using energy-adjusted dietary intakes by the density method. Higher DII scores indicate a greater proinflammatory potential of the diet. The associations between DII and inflammatory biomarkers were assessed using regression models adjusted for age, body mass index, smoking status, and amount of physical activity. The associations between DR- and FFQ-derived DII scores were moderate. Higher DR-derived DII scores, representing a more proinflammatory diet, were significantly correlated with IL-6, but not hs-CRP, concentrations in men. The geometric means of IL-6 concentrations in the lowest and highest DII quartiles were 1.05 and 1.33 pg/mL (P = 0.02 for trend) in cohort I, and 1.00 and 1.24 pg/mL (P = 0.03 for trend) in cohort II, respectively. Furthermore, IL-6 concentration appeared to increase across DII quartiles calculated from FFQ in men. However, there was no association between DII and inflammatory biomarkers in women. Null findings in women may reflect the generally lower levels of chronic systemic inflammation among Japanese versus their Western counterparts. These findings indicate that DII may be applied to measure the potential effects of diet on chronic diseases through inflammatory pathways in Japanese men.

The motivations of Chinese hikers: data from Ningbo

ABSTRACT Hiking has emerged as an activity growing in popularity. One reason lies in the significant investment being made in hiking trails by the Chinese government, while equally many Chinese find hiking attractive because trail construction permits safe hiking and high levels of social interaction. This study of 579 Chinese hikers on trails in Ningbo, Zhejiang, uses multinomial logistic regression analysis to ascertain their motives based on responses to questionnaires. The questionnaire were premised on concepts derived from the Leisure Motivation and Satisfaction Scales devised by Beard and Ragheb as amended by direct observation of Chinese hiking behaviours. It was found that while Chinese interpret some items differently to their Western counterparts it was possible to use many of the items. The primary motivations appear to value social interaction and perceived health benefits. Recommendations are made for potential management action.

Indian Consumers’ Assessment of ‘Luxuriousness’: A Comparison of Indian and Western Luxury Brands

The concept of luxury is relative in nature and the perceived luxuriousness of a brand is influenced by a number of subjectivities. In the Indian context, the history of colonization and the dominance of Western cultures for the past many decades have created a preference for luxury brands of Western origin, which is reflected in the perceptions of luxuriousness of the brand. However, the ‘Westernization’ of the Indian society is intertwined with a milieu of traditions and cultures which are strongly embedded in ‘Indian-ness’, where, consumptions linked to the Indian cultural traditions and celebrations create a distinction between products that have their origins in Indian culture versus those that stemmed from the Western world. This study compares the perceived luxuriousness of Western brands (LV and Hermes) to Indian luxury brands (Sabyasachi and AND) and examines the effect of the cultural origins of a product in the context women’s fashion, where a saree is seen as a product that originates from Indian culture, vis-à-vis evening dresses, which are perceived as a primarily Western concept. The results of the study reveal that though the perceived luxuriousness of Western brands is higher than those of Indian origin, there is a clear moderating effect of the cultural origin of the product. Western brands attempting to occupy the luxury space in products which have their cultural origins in India (example Hermes marketing sarees) are perceived as being less luxurious than Indian brands present in the same product category (Sabyasachi sarees). The reverse was also found to be true, where Indian luxury brands attempting to create a space for themselves in products which are considered to be of Western origins were perceived to be less luxurious than brands their Western counterparts.

Touchy Issues in Muslim - West Relations

This paper seeks to explore the sour relationship underlying Muslims and their Western counterparts; a relationship that spanned several centuries and traversed regions and climes. The paper surveys the long years of contact between Islam and the West and shows how, despite the long years of contact and interactions, the relationship has continued to remain sour, not so cordial and often replete with conflict, clashes and at times, wars and bloodshed. The paper surveys this age-old relation and shows how it is punctuated by animosity, mutual distrust, bigotry, fear and uneasy calm. The Paper concludes by debunking the treachery, the sinister motives as well as the pathological hatred of anything Muslim and Islamic that is often exhibited by the West on the nation of Islam.

Making Space for Jewish Culture in Polish Folk and Ethnographic Museums

Looking beyond Poland’s internationally lauded new Jewish museums, this article asks how Jews are represented in longer-standing folk and ethnographic museums whose mandates have been to represent the historical culture of the Polish nation. How have such museums navigated growing internal pressures to incorporate Jews and reconsider the boundaries of “Polishness” alongside external pressures to rethink the function and approach of ethnographic museology? Based on three museums that have taken three different approaches to Jewishness—what we call cabinet of Jewish curiosities, two solitudes, and ambivalent externalization—we assess the roles played by inherited discourses and structures as well as human agents within and beyond the museum. We illuminate how social debate about the character of the nation (and Jews’ place in it) plays out in museums at a moment in their transition from nineteenth- to twenty-first-century paradigms and how a distinctively Polish path toward a “new museology” is emerging in conversation with and resistance to its Western counterparts.

Antipsychotics and risk of natural death in patients with schizophrenia.

Background: Research on antipsychotics and early mortality in schizophrenia has arisen from Western countries and results show that mortality from natural causes is obviously increased in schizophrenia. China, differs largely from Western countries in health and social welfare systems, and Asian patients are more susceptible to side-effects and might require less antipsychotics than their Western counterparts. We, therefore, investigated the association between antipsychotic use and increased mortality from natural causes among patients with schizophrenia in China.Methods: We conducted a population-based nested case–control study using patients’ hardcopy archives obtained from the Severe Mental Health Disorder Systems of Chengdu between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2013. We identified all schizophrenic patients aged 18–65 years who died of natural causes in 2013 (N=157), and their age- and gender-matched controls (N=444).Results: Antipsychotic use was more frequent in controls than in cases (59.9% vs 32.5%). Risk of death decreased significantly in those receiving antipsychotic monotherapy (adjusted odds ratio=0.27, 95% CI=0.16–0.46) and antipsychotic polypharmacy (adjusted odds ratio=0.29, 95% CI=0.12–0.70) than antipsychotic-free patients. Compared with monotherapy, antipsychotic-free treatment was associated with prominently increased mortality (adjusted odds ratio=3.64, 95% CI=2.18–6.08). When stratified by age and gender, the results remained unchanged.Conclusion: Antipsychotic monotherapy significantly decreased mortality from natural causes in schizophrenic patients while antipsychotic polypharmacy did not contribute to the excess mortality and deserves further clarification. We need to improve the physical health of schizophrenic patients and promote health education among community mental health staff and primary caregivers.

Emergence of New Novel and Contribution of Salman Rushdie to Indian English Fiction

After the publication of Salman Rushdie’s second novel Midnight’s Children (1980), there is an emergence of New Fiction marking the beginning of New Era in the history of Indian Writing in English. A large number of novelists living in India and abroad write fiction in great number and thereby breaking the stigma of the marginalization of Indian English Fiction. They introduce various components of modern theories regarding the composition of the fiction. They also prove their superiority over their western counterparts by achieving remarkable recognition on international platforms and by winning various coveted awards like Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize and even Nobel Prize by V S Naipaul. These Indian English writers include Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Pankaj Mishra, Chetan Bhagat, Rohintan Mistry, Arvind Adiga, Shashi Tharoor and many more. The New novelists of the 21st century handle the themes of globalization, Political reality and cross-culturalism more effectively and brilliantly. In the present paper the focus will be on the assessment of emergence of New Fiction with its various traitsand contribution of Salman Rushdie in Indian English Fiction in the development of New Novel.

Images de violence et impératifs politiques. Représenter les djihadistes sur les écrans du monde arabe

Trying to face Isis’ propaganda, Arab film directors developed a very different way of representing jihadi terrorism from their Western counterparts. Heavily constrained by their production situations, these films (from Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia), insist on a political apprehension of the phenomenon, rather than through the radicalization prism. Their aesthetics aims at ridiculing the jihadi propaganda, or do not shy from presenting violent images in order to denounce this propaganda.

Obesity, adipocyte hypertrophy, fasting glucose, and resistin are potential contributors to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in South Asian women.

Purpose: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is often referred to as the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome. The relationship between body weight, NAFLD, and insulin resistance is not well characterized in humans. Additionally, it is unclear why South Asians develop these complications at lower levels of obesity compared to their Western counterparts.Patients and methods: To address this question, we performed a cross-sectional study using a convenience sample of Sri Lankan adult females (n=34) and collected anthropometric data, adipose tissue specimens (for histology), and fasted serum samples (for metabolic and inflammatory markers). Hepatic steatosis was assessed by ultrasound scanning and used to classify participants as NAFL 0, NAFL 1, and NAFL 2.Results: Waist circumference significantly increased with increasing NAFL grade. Participants with NAFL had significantly higher body mass index, hip circumference, and fasting plasma glucose, as well as a higher mean adipocyte area in both abdominal subcutaneous and visceral areas, indicating a higher degree of adipocyte hypertrophy associated with fatty liver. There were, however, no differences in measures of dyslipidemia. Of the multiple adipokines measured, resistin was the only proinflammatory adipokine significantly elevated in NAFL 2.Conclusion: These findings indicate that measures of adiposity, fasting serum glucose, and resistin may be important indicators of NAFLD in South Asian women.