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Objective. The purpose of this narrative review paper was to review the state and development of the field of donor gametes in Kazakhstan, compare its legislative and technical capabilities with other countries and identify key steps towards the establishment of a unified register of donor gametes in the Republic. Materials and Methods. The narrative review paper conducted an analysis of scientific publications and legal documents to examine the implementation of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART), focusing on Donor Sexual Gametes (DSG), globally. It utilized medical publications from 2019 to 2023, legal acts, and recommendations from global health organizations to analyze eligibility criteria, legal regulations, and the social aspects of ART across different regions. Results. In Kazakhstan, ART is regulated by legislation, with DSG procedures governed by age limits, medical screening, and restrictions on the number of children born from donated gametes. Worldwide, practices vary, but there is growing interest in establishing a unified register of reproductive donor material to enhance transparency and accountability. However, legal gaps and ethical considerations must be addressed. Conclusion. The study identifies gaps in Kazakhstan's legislation compared to Western countries, emphasizing the necessity for enhanced legal rights for donors and recipients, including options for anonymity. Ethical concerns highlight the importance of confidentiality and data security in accessing the donor registry. Overall, implementing such a register promises to enhance transparency, safety, and accountability in reproductive medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does our food for thought come virtually from the internet? When we take a long view, the instant stroke of a keyboard pales in comparison to the centuries-old evolution of real food harvesting and the generation and exchange of ideas, which have resulted in creative capital. The vernacular architecture of the agricultural built environment has almost dematerialized in its transition from the ancient pre-industrial era to the post-truth world, to become almost only an imagined concept. The symbology of the common threshing terrace of a Portuguese remote mountain village can now be found in multiple spaces of the urban realm, including in the metaphor of a community arts incubator's modus operandi in Albany, New York (USA). How has the concept of food for thought developed and materialized? How has it evolved? And what are some of the expected ways it might be utilized in the future? The purpose of the paper is to trace the evolution of this concept and its elements via the BLC Framework. The methodology employs a time analysis of approximately three centuries to distinguish three distinct evolutionary phases: (i) the pre-industrial era, (ii) the industrial era, and (iii) the information-driven era. The key finding is an up-to-date discussion of the food for thought concept in two distinct geographical worlds and three-time eras, as well as a set of lessons learned according to a protest poem and a rock song. The results are presented in the form of five lessons learned with implications for public policy: the first two lessons pertain to issues of procedural justice as encapsulated in the anonymous 'The Goose' poem, while the last three result from a discussion of selected verses in Nick Cave's 'Fable of the Brown Ape' rock song. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the movie The War Is Over (La guerre est finie—France/Sweden, 1966, directed by Alain Resnais and a screenplay by Jorge Semprún). The idea is to point out a possible sociological discussion on exile, mobilizing the notion of mental images. The methodological approach is an internal analysis of the film to allow for the elaboration of sociological considerations along with the expressive elements of the film construction. To do so, we shall focus on the "leaps" within the movie's narrative order, in which a main character (Diego) anticipates, through imagination, a series of sequences and events that might or might not have occurred. To discuss the notion of mental images and their relationship with the imaginary, the theoretical reference will be Cornelius Castoriadis' book The Imaginary Institution of Society. This article will benefit from the discussions in the presentations about the film both at meetings in Brazil and at the last ISA Congress 2023 (International Sociological Association—Research Committee 37—Sociology of Arts). This text is one of the results of research supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes controversies surrounding Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and tries to answer the question of how NFTs can revolutionize virtual ownership. To answer this question, part I of the paper analyzes the technical and legal nature of NFTs and the ways users utilize this technology. This part also discusses the legal ambiguity surrounding NFTs and users' misconceptions about the scope of rights they get with NFTs. Part II analyzes NFTs from the perspective of two communities: gaming and art. This perspective is noteworthy because both communities had a need to simplify ownership of intangibles. Still, while artists and art collectors have welcomed the dawn of NFTs rather warmly, gamers expressed concerns about NFTs' utility. To understand the contrast this paper investigates how NFTs are used in the art world and gaming and what needs NFTs serve to satisfy in both communities. As one of the possible explanations, this paper suggests that NFTs do not make digital ownership easy but only make transfers easy. Because of this, users who looked for easier transfers got what they needed, while users who aspired to get the real-world type of digital ownership through NFTs were discontented. Part III of the paper focuses on the rights that users (namely gamers) would want to have for digital property and discusses whether NFTs (under the current legal framework) can give these extra digital rights. Part IV suggests a list of legal reforms that can bring NFTs closer to their promises. Part V concludes the analyses by discussing the role of NFTs for virtual property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The HIV/AIDS pandemic remains a significant public health issue, with sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) at its epicentre. Although antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been introduced to decrease new infections and deaths, SSA reports the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS, constituting two-thirds of the global new infections. This review aimed to elucidate the predominant barriers and facilitators influencing ART adherence and to identify effective strategies to enhance ART adherence across SSA. Methods: A comprehensive review was conducted on studies examining barriers to ART adherence and interventions to boost adherence among HIV-positive adults aged 15 and above in SSA, published from January 2010 onwards. The research utilized databases like Medline Ovid, CINAHL, Embase, and Scopus. Included were experimental and quasi-experimental studies, randomized and non-randomized controlled trials, comparative before and after studies, and observational studies such as cross-sectional, cohort, prospective and retrospective studies. Two independent reviewers screened the articles, extracted pertinent data, and evaluated the studies' methodological integrity using Joanna Briggs Institute's standardized appraisal tools. The compiled data underwent both meta-analysis and narrative synthesis. Results: From an initial pool of 12,538 papers, 45 were selected (30 for narrative synthesis and 15 for meta-analysis). The identified barriers and facilitators to ART adherence were categorized into seven principal factors: patient-related, health system-related, medication-related, stigma, poor mental health, socioeconomic and socio-cultural-related factors. Noteworthy interventions enhancing ART adherence encompassed counselling, incentives, mobile phone short message service (SMS), peer delivered behavioural intervention, community ART delivery intervention, electronic adherence service monitoring device, lay health worker lead group intervention and food assistance. The meta-analysis revealed a statistically significant difference in ART adherence between the intervention and control groups (pooled OR = 1.56, 95%CI:1.35–1.80, p = <0.01), with evidence of low none statistically significant heterogeneity between studies (I2 = 0%, p = 0.49). Conclusion: ART adherence in SSA is influenced by seven key factors. Multiple interventions, either standalone or combined, have shown effectiveness in enhancing ART adherence. To optimize ART's impact and mitigate HIV's prevalence in SSA, stakeholders must consider these barriers, facilitators, and interventions when formulating policies or treatment modalities. For sustained positive ART outcomes, future research should target specific underrepresented groups like HIV-infected children, adolescents, and pregnant women in SSA to further delve into the barriers, facilitators and interventions promoting ART adherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manner in which individuals worldwide shared art during the most challenging months of the COVID-19 pandemic stands as one of the most significant instances of creative social resistance in recent history. As a collective tool of resistance against emotional trauma, and as a means to foster a sense of community and well-being, the study of this phenomenon offers a compelling avenue for research into creativity and its social functions. This paper presents a descriptive case study of a successful 50-day collective experience within a neighborhood community in Madrid, Spain, during a period when the city, as a notably exceptional case study for research, bore one of the heaviest burdens of COVID-19 in the world. Data were gathered through in-depth personal interviews and direct observations. Applying a connected approach drawing on the fields of the Sociology of Art and Media Studies, three key findings emerge: (1) participants emphasized shared live artistic performances as the primary catalyst for fostering a sense of community, collective resilience, and overall well-being; (2) their sense of togetherness was further bolstered by digital and media support, as recordings of live performances were shared with loved ones living elsewhere, as well as with journalists and on social networks. This network of communication played a pivotal role in connecting individuals; (3) the combined efforts of both initiatives contributed to the development of a more positive individual and shared narrative surrounding the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society's growing interest in food, the success of nutritionists and dietitians as influencers and the ease with which disinformation spread through social networks form a triangle of interest. The aim of this paper focuses on analyzing the work of Spanish nutritionists as information verifiers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, in 2019. The results indicate that in their work as fact-checkers, nutritionists prefer Twitter to Instagram and Facebook, and there is an evident gender bias. The conclusions point to the fact that Spanish nutritionists carry out their work as fact-checkers in a not very active, poorly organized and non-technical way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study undertakes an analysis of the dichotomy mind over matter, culture and civilization, a plea for art – with special focus on literature – and raising awareness of the increasing role of humanities and the liberal arts in a society driven and increasingly dominated by scientific advancement and aiming towards solely technological purposes. The paper stems from previous research interest in the field of cultural studies and relies on recent scholarly studies raising awareness about a revival of the word and language akin to the call “make it new” and calling attention to the impact of the image versus the power of the word highly valued by literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text-conditioned image synthesis methods such as DALLE-2, IMAGEN, and Stable Diffusion are gaining strong attention from deep learning and art communities recently. Meanwhile, Image-to-Image (Img2Img) synthesis applications that emerged from the pioneering Neural Style Transfer (NST) approach have swiftly transitioned towards the feed-forward Automatic Style Transfer (AST) methods, due to numerous constraints inherent in the former method, including inconsistent synthesis outcomes and sluggish optimization-based synthesis process. However, NST holds significant potential yet remains relatively underexplored within this research domain. In this paper, we revisited the original NST method and uncovered its potential to attain image quality comparable to the AST synthesis methods across a diverse range of artistic styles. We propose a two-stage Feature-guided Style Transfer (FeaST) which consists (a) pre-stylization step called Sketching to address the poor initialization issue, and (b) Finetuning to guide the synthesis process based on high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) guidance channels. By addressing the issues of inconsistent synthesis and slow convergence inherent in the original method, FeaST unlocks the full capabilities of NST and significantly enhances its efficiency. [Display omitted] • We revisit the Neural Style Transfer (NST) framework for high-fidelity art generation. • We proposed a feature-guided reconstruction based on separated guidance channels for high and low-frequency feature regions to solve slow convergence issues. • We proposed a pre-stylization step called Sketching which improved the image synthesis time by a six-order magnitude. • We experimented a set of optimal weighting factors in feature-guided reconstruction for consistent results over wide variety of styles and contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents some of the author's artworks depicting women. The author learned the art of sewing from her mother and her grandmother. She says that major breakthroughs in her work came with an introduction to Black Studies at San Jose State University and with a return to sewn cloth as a medium. She thinks that her work sidestepped the inherent culture baggage of the European painting tradition. She makes figures out of recycled materials and feels that her work reflects childhood games with paper dolls, her family's history in the U.S. and the role-of art to cure social ills in traditional African society.

North American choreographer, Bill T. Jones started his activity as a professional dancer in the 1970s. Jones practices and thinks about art and creativity explicitly in its direct relationship not only with his own but larger communities life experience. Still/Here (1994) is a piece that, precisely, marks a milestone in the context of society and the art of the end of last century, particularly by addressing a relevant topic that has informed the experience of many people at that time in Euro-American society arising from HIV and AIDS crisis. In this paper, starting from the premise that reflexivity (Turner 1987) is a characteristic of theatrical dance, focusing on the modes of representation of emotional experiences on Jones's work, and relating it to pieces created before and after Still/Here - namely, D-Man in the Waters, Achilles Loved Patroclus and Ursonate - I intend to argue that these emotional expressions have a motivation that, beyond the psychobiological explanations (Lutz and White 1986), is only understandable if we consider the position (Rosaldo 1984) from which Jones lives his experiences and constructs his vision of the world, and a meaning that is only perceived in the light of the "biographical context" (Gell 1998) of the choreographer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The border is everyone's, can be seen by everyone, and is travelled and crossed in multiple and dynamic ways. Northern Mexico's border cities have particular characteristics that distinguish them from others. Ciudad Juárez is one of the 100 most resilient cities, and along with its sister city of El Paso, Texas, is a space that claims the right to the city through "artivism", a series of actions and manifestations of art and resistance. This paper maps and analyses these spatial appropriations in Ciudad Juárez as an essential dimension of the right to urban life and a symbolic territory for dialogue between urban residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free Open-Source Software (FOSS) is essentially seen by many organizations as a key pillar for accelerating technological innovation. This study aims to evaluate the extent to which factors such as cost and quality of the system, as well as usability, interoperability, and security, influence the intention to use FOSS. Based on the data obtained from the survey, we propose a new theoretical model that we test and evaluate using the SEM-PLS method. The results suggest a significant relationship between FOSS adoption and factors such as low cost, performance expectation, social influence, and system quality, which was explained on a large scale by safety, interoperability, and usability as the most important factors in adoption decisions. Thus, this paper presents a new model for the adoption of FOSS in countries with high growth potential and aims to be a significant contribution to the scientific community on the state of the art in FOSS organizations in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of Arnold Hauser's work on the social history of art and the philosophy of art history is informed by a concern for the cognitive dimension of art. The present paper offers a reconstruction of this aspect of Hauser's project and identifies areas of overlap with the sociology of knowledge-where the latter is to be understood as both a separate discipline and a going intellectual concern. Following a discussion of Hauser's personal and intellectual background, as well as of the shifting political and academic setting of his work, the paper addresses one of Hauser's central questions, viz. how best to square a thoroughgoing commitment to the social nature of art with the reality of successive artistic styles, given that the latter seem to be characterizable on purely formal grounds. This is followed by a discussion of Hauser's conflicted views on the relation between art, science, and technology. This injects a tension into Hauser's work, due to his initial reluctance to explain just how the aesthetic and the cognitive realms relate. The final part of the paper, through a closer examination of the analogies and disanalogies that Hauser sees between art history and the history of science, attempts to give a positive answer-'on Hauser's behalf', as it were-to the question of whether art may be credited with a specific cognitive dimension of its own, and if so, what its contribution to our cognitive enterprise may consist in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematicians sometimes judge a mathematical proof to be beautiful and in doing so seem to be making a judgement of the same kind as aesthetic judgements of works of visual art, music or literature. Mathematical proofs are also appraised for explanatoriness: some proofs merely establish their conclusions as true, while others also show why their conclusions are true. This paper will focus on the prima facie plausible assumption that, for mathematical proofs, beauty and explanatoriness tend to go together. To make headway we need to have some grip on what it is for a proof to be beautiful, and for that we need some account of judgements of beauty in general. That is the concern of the first section. The second section faces the problem that it is far from obvious how abstract entities, such as mathematical proofs, can be beautiful, strictly and literally speaking. Reasons are given for the view that they can be. The third section introduces the distinction between proofs which explain their conclusions and proofs which do not. Finally, the question whether, for mathematical proofs, the beautiful and the explanatory tend to coincide is addressed. It is argued that we have reason to doubt that explanatory proofs tend to be beautiful, and insufficient reason to believe or disbelieve that beautiful proofs tend to be explanatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents her encounters with venerated and Sacred Trees on field trips to India to affirmatively answer the question: Is it possible for the artist to change how we perceive the environment to the extent that people change the way they respond to and inhabit it? She argues that how we perceive and contemplate the land affects how we treat the land, and ultimately how we live within it. The paper goes beyond the economic or conservationist perspective, setting out the religious context with which the tree is perceived aesthetically in its natural environment. The practice of venerating the tree through decoration has, over time, effected cultural change in India. The tree is seen as a form that houses the sacred and thus is protected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life in the city requires a measure of debrouillardise. Several African writers have examined the plight of the prostitute as a form of resistance entwined with a daily struggle for survival. Through a cultural and historical background on transactional sex practices in sub-Saharan Africa, the paper examines the role of the prostitute in Cyprian Ekwenski's Jagua Nana and Okot p'Bitek's Song of Malaya as an individual utilizing de Certeauian tactical opposition to counteract victimization. The prostitute in these two works cannot be viewed as solely a victim. She uses - and is used by society. Close examination of the role of the prostitute in these two works will reveal an individual with a unique position in society - an individual who epitomizes the art of debrouillardise, and marks it with a connection to the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the relationship between geography and planning. The apparent distance between the two disciplines that presently exists makes such a review timely. We argue that geography and planning have more in common than is often recognised. We also consider and identify what the two disciplines can learn from each other. It is commonly recognised that planning can learn something of the art of the analytical from geography – that geographical perspectives can lend analytical insight to planning thought and practice. In light of recent concerns over the relevance of geography, we highlight in particular what geography can learn from planning. Here, it is less commonly recognised that geography can learn something of the art of persuasion from planning – a sense of the necessary imperfections and limitations that attend interventions in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary art practices are characterized by the transformation of completed or finalized objects into open works, fluid spatial situations and relations in the social field. Art processes raise the question: Can the complex structure of artworks provide an analogy and methodology that art researchers can use to co-design our culture from anthropological, philosophical, aesthetic and sociopolitical perspectives? This paper addresses this question through an examination of the artistic use of, and critical commentary on, media and available technologies, and of the artistic treatment of life forms found in the work of the younger generation of Slovenian artists (Tratnik, Berlot, Peljhan, Lovšin and others). The strategies these artists employ in their projects significantly strengthen the case for a re-articulation of the aesthetic, the ethical and the political, through a transition in various territories: art, (biotechnological) science, technology, new media and everyday reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space satellites are invisible instruments of globalization that influence governmental policies. This paper examines remote sensing satellites as optical devices capable of redefining human cognition. They represent accessibility and openness through the more agreeable paradigm of transparency. However, transparency, like surveillance, is based on the interconnection between power, knowledge and perceptual experience. Artists use a variety of tactical practices, including amateurism, to tease apart these connections. Amateurism dedicates itself to the politics of knowledge. The author concludes, based on examples of her work and that of others, that the potential for political intervention exists when knowledge is paired with action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which comments on the papers on gender and sexuality on rural context published within the issue. It reviews Scott Herrings interpretation of Michael Meads' work and suggests that his theory on anachronism and the challenge arising from it are overstated. Meanwhile, it notes other aspects of homosexuality like in Colin Johnson and Nicholas Syrett's historical studies on rural homosocial domains with the possibilities of homosexual and gender transgressiveness.

Abstract: Interprocedural data flow analyses of executable programs suffer from the conservative assumptions that need to be made because no precise control flow graph is available and because registers are spilled onto the stack. This paper discusses the exploitation of calling-conventions in executable code data flow analyses to avoid the propagation of the conservative assumptions throughout a program. Based on this exploitation, the existing backward liveness analyses are improved, and a complementary forward liveness analysis is proposed. For the SPECint2000 programs compiled for the Alpha architecture, the combined forward and improved backward analysis on average finds 62% more free registers than the existing state-of-the-art liveness analysis. With the improved analysis, we are able to show that on an average less than half of the registers of the RISC Alpha architecture are used. This contradicts the common wisdom that compilers can exploit large, uniform register files as found on RISC architectures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents a latter-day situationist who calls himself Banksy. He engages himself in the cultural politics scene. He is a graffiti artist focusing on political issues using his artworks fostering a reputation as that of Debord's enigmatic mystique. He disguises himself in many ways. Also featured in this paper are information on his art books "Existencilism" and "Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall." Significance of Banksy's contribution to the abolition and realisation of art in relation to politics is discussed.

This paper examines the work of Brazilian artist Flávio de Carvalho (1899-1973) from the perspective of contemporary media art, highlighting his practical and theoretical legacy. Initially associated with the Anthropophagy art movement, Carvalho used mass media creatively and incorporated insights from psychology, sociology and anthropology into his art. He realized events that went beyond "performance art," including a pioneering presentation on television in 1957. This article offers a brief overview of Carvalho's trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the panoramas of Athens to show how a modem audience creatively adapted the notion of Greece to its own purposes. Analyzing the paintings in terms of Picturesque art and of the rhetoric of visual representation, it asks what social and intellectual values underlie them. The results of this analysis show that the panoramas, so far from being merely forerunners in some sense of the photograph, were an expression of Western liberal democratic thought, its disappointment at the existing condition of Greece, and its hopes for revolutionary change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]