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ObjectiveTypically, attention focuses on how nutrition affects physical health. The present study investigated the importance that parents attach to the impact of diet on mental performance when choosing food for their child.DesignQuestionnaire.SettingFour European countries.SubjectsParents of children aged 4–10 years (n 1574): England (n 397), Germany (n 389), Hungary (n 398) and Spain (n 390).ResultsMost parents (80–85 %) considered the effect of food on four elements of mental performance (child’s ability to learn, attention, behaviour, mood) to be moderately, very, extremely (v. slightly, not at all) important in food choices; over 90 % considered healthiness of food and making food appealing to their child important; 79·8 % cost; 76·8 % convenience. Belief that food affects mental performance was 57·4 % (ability to learn), 60·5 % (attention); less than 40 % of parents agreed they were aware which foods had an effect. Parents with lower general interest in healthy eating were less likely to consider the effect of food on mental performance elements as important. Respondents from Germany were more likely to rate mental performance as important (except behaviour); those in Hungary less likely. The most important influence on parents’ decisions about feeding their child was their own experience, except Spain, where family/friends/health professionals were more important.ConclusionsNutrition affects brain development and cognitive functioning. Low prioritisation of the effect of food on mental performance indicates potential for educating parents.

L'analyse à filtre partiel est une méthode utilisée pour évaluer l'exposition des tissus buccaux (mouth level exposure, MLE) des fumeurs de cigarettes aux constituants de la fumée principale. Nous avons évalué la capacité de l'analyse à filtre partiel à effectuer une comparaison de l'exposition des tissus buccaux à la nicotine et au goudron chez des populations de fumeurs et lors d'un étalonnage. A trois reprises, trois groupes de sujets ont fumé deux lots de la même marque de cigarettes hongroises avec un rendement en goudron de 1-mg ISO. Dix-huit courbes d'étalonnage furent tracées par trois opérateurs utilisant trois machines à fumer. Pour chaque lot de cigarettes, aucune différence significative de l'exposition des tissus buccaux ne fut observée ni parmi les trois groupes de fumeurs ni après répétition de la consommation au sein des groupes. L'exposition des tissus buccaux lors de la consommation du premier lot de cigarettes fut marginalement supérieure à l'exposition observée pour le deuxième lot. Aucune différence significative ne fut observée entre les pentes et les points d'intersection des courbes d'étalonnage produites à l'aide des différentes machines à fumer par les différents opérateurs. L'analyse à filtre partiel propose une approche reproductible permettant d'estimer l'exposition des tissus buccaux des fumeurs à la nicotine et au goudron dans le cadre d'études à grande échelle dans des environnements normaux de tabagisme.

Background This review is the latest in a series of regular annual reviews undertaken by the editors and aims to highlight some of the key papers published in Resuscitation during 2020. The number of papers submitted to the Journal in 2020 increased by 25% on the previous year.MethodsHand-searching by the editors of all papers published in Resuscitation during 2020. Papers were selected based on then general interest and novelty and were categorised into general themes.ResultsA total of 103 papers were selected for brief mention in this review.ConclusionsResuscitation science continues to evolve rapidly and incorporate all links in the chain of survival.

The paper uses insights from Jane Anna Gordon’s Creolizing Political Theory to come up with a different way to read the work of Frantz Fanon in general and his discussion of gender and sexuality in particular. The paper argues against a hermetic reading of Fanon, one which reads him outside of context and influences. Instead of this close, or primary reading of Fanon, I offer a “conversation” between Fanon and the early work of Angela Y. Davis. The paper shows that reading these two texts together allows us to see that the “perverse desire” of the neurotic, as illustrated by Fanon, is in fact heavily informed by the gendered traumas of slavery as outlined in Davis’s Women, Race, and Class.

In the last period, especially during the COVID-19 pandemics, individuals as well as institutions globally and in North Macedonia particularly, have failed to correctly respond to the new challenges related to cyber security, online attacks, and fake news. Being that in a state of isolation and quarantine most governmental institutions have heavily relied on online tools to communicate among each other and with the public, it is quite evident that they have not been well prepared to adopt new technologies. This paper aims to bridge together the needs for technology during the COVID-19 pandemics versus the security challenges that many forget to mention. The primary focus of this paper is to elaborate on the security challenges associated with technology with several examples from incidents around the world and from North Macedonia. As such, it represents a perspective paper with focus on current and emerging advances on IT security for running the “new normal” world.

In this paper the authors present the psychological consequences of social isolation on domestic violence during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the legal framework in the RNM on addressing the phenomenon of domestic violence. In this age of globalization and drive for material conformity, family life is quite difficult to cope with. This “war” for material comfort during the pandemic, has strained and stressed many families as a result of the created circumstances. Public safety measures, including physical distance and social isolation, which have also been implemented in the RNM have contributed in making family problems even more pronounced. Social distance and staying at home are very effective in reducing the transmission of Covid-19 virus, but these safeguards disrupt the routines of spouses and families. Domestic violence affects a large number of families, and it is estimated that in times of social isolation, all forms of violence have been inflicted against family members regardless of their gender and age. The most common forms of domestic violence during Covid-19 pandemic in our country are psychological, physical and economic violence. Some countries affected by Covid-19 have seen increases in levels of domestic violence, including violence against children, violence against partners, and violence against the elderly. This paper presents the results of research conducted which highlight the fact that during the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in levels of domestic violence in the Republic of North Macedonia in the first six months of 2020. The authors give their recommendations on the need for action by state institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to adapt methods and circumstances towards the protection of victims of domestic violence.

Conceptions of omissions standardly come in two flavours: omissions are construed either as mere absences of actions or are closely related to paradigmatic ‘positive’ actions. This paper shows how the semantics of the verb ‘to omit’ constitutes strong evidence against the view of omissions as involving actions. Specifically, by drawing from an influential fourfold typology of verbal predicates popularised by Zeno Vendler, I argue that declarative statements involving reference to omissions are semantically stative, which is a finding that makes serious trouble for the conception of omissions as being closely related to paradigmatic actions. But references to omissions, in certain linguistic contexts, undergo a shift of meaning to describe processes or activities engaged in by the agent. Still, despite the semantic flexibility of the verb ‘to omit’, its processive reading does not straightforwardly support the second conception of omissions. A subsidiary aim of this paper is to offer a sketch of the metaphysics of processive action in order to show what those who claim that omissions are closely related to actions might be committed to.

Resumen El propósito de este artículo es determinar si los derechos que derivan de un contrato de concesión minera se encuentran protegidos ante medidas estatales que vacíen de contenido las prerrogativas que otorgan dichos contratos, sin ser expropiatorias stricto sensu. Para el desarrollo de este objetivo se lleva a cabo un estudio general del concepto de propiedad privada, de derechos adquiridos y de su función social y ecológica con apoyo en la doctrina, en la jurisprudencia de la Corte Constitucional y en la del Consejo de Estado. En particular, se evidencia que dicha función social y ecológica se puede materializar mediante actos administrativos distintos a la expropiación, afectando así la propiedad privada o los derechos adquiridos. La actividad regulatoria del Estado ha incidido sobre la posibilidad de titulares mineros de ejercer los derechos derivados de un contrato de concesión minera, sin que hayan sido expropiados ni indemnizados previamente. Se concluye que el amparo de derechos derivados de un contrato de concesión minera en estos casos, implica emprender la más onerosa vía de la jurisdicción administrativa para que se reconozca una indemnización, lo cual atenta contra el interés general del Estado y contra los derechos del particular. Abstract The purpose of this paper is to determine whether rights that derive from a mining concession are protected when governmental measures, that are not expropriatory per se, are adopted; but that nevertheless encroach upon the rights that derive from a mining concession. To this end, this article conducts a general study of the concepts of private property, acquired rights, and their social and environmental functions, based on a review of scholarly research and the case-law of the Corte Constitucional (Constitutional Court) and the Consejo de Estado (Council of State). In particular, this paper analyses how the social and environmental functions of property can be pursued with government measures that are not expropriations, and which thus affect private property or acquired rights indirectly. The State's regulatory activity has affected the rights that derive from mining titles, limiting the title holders' rights, without a previous formal expropriation procedure nor an indemnity. The paper concludes that the protection of these rights under Colombian law, implies, for the title holder, the costly procedure of resorting to administrative litigation to seek compensation, which goes against the general interest of the State and the rights of the title holder.

During the first half of the twentieth century, many philosophers of memory opposed the postulation of memory traces based on the claim that a satisfactory account of remembering need not include references to causal processes involved in recollection. However, in 1966, an influential paper by Martin and Deutscher showed that causal claims are indeed necessary for a proper account of remembering. This, however, did not settle the issue, as in 1977 Malcolm argued that even if one were to buy Martin and Deutscher’s argument for causal claims, we still don’t need to postulate the existence of memory traces. This paper reconstructs the dialectic between realists and anti-realists about memory traces, suggesting that ultimately realists’ arguments amount to inferences to the best explanation. I then argue that Malcolm’s anti-realist strategy consists in the suggestion that causal explanations that do not invoke memory traces are at least as good as those that do. But then, Malcolm, I argue that there are a large number of memory phenomena for which explanations that do not postulate the existence of memory traces are definitively worse than explanations that do postulate them. Next, I offer a causal model based on an interventionist framework to illustrate when memory traces can help to explain memory phenomena and proceed to substantiate the model with details coming from extant findings in the neuroscience of memory.

In this paper is examined the acceleration of convergence of alternative and non-alternative numerical and power series by means of an Euler-Abel type operator, that is defined earlier by G.A.Sorokin and I.Z.Milovanovic. Through this type of linear operator of generalized difference of sequence is achieved that alternative and non-alternative numerical and power series to be transformed into series with higher speed of convergence than the initial series. At the end of this paper is given the implementation of this method through a numeric example.

The main aim of this paper is to analyze the electronic banking services in Kosovo’s banking net profit during the period 2013 - 2017. The paper discusses the role that these services have played in the development of the banking industry, modernization of e-commerce, and economic growth. These services provide higher security, faster and easier access by reducing transaction costs, access to more distant markets, and access to many products and services. The main paper results have shown that E-banking services have the highest positive impact in banking net profit, while automated teller machine services have shown a slight positive impact. The highest positive correlation results have been seen in point-of-sale services, whereas automated teller machine services showed a negative correlation in banking net profit in Kosovo during the research period. The constant increase of demand for these services has enabled banks to increase their profits in the banking market of Kosovo. Therefore, the paper finds that commercial banks in Kosovo should increase their focus on the advancement and development of electronic banking services (particularly, E-Banking services which are very practical and can be easily used anywhere and anytime).

Withdrawal is an act by which a member state of an international organization willingly terminates its membership. The right to withdraw from international organizations is explicitly mentioned in the constitutions of most of them and the circumstances regarding to the right of withdrawal vary depending on the organization. The purpose of this paper is to explain the right and procedures of withdrawal, and the reasons that result with the will of states to withdraw from international organizations. For the realization of this research are used qualitative methods, based on the bibliography that is related to international organizations, with special emphasis with the right and procedures of the withdrawal of states from international organizations. Furthermore, some informations are also collected from the credible internet sources, which have valuable data about the withdrawals of states from international organizations and the reasons that result with such decisions. The results of the research have shown that since the appearance of international organizations until today, there were and there are decisions of states to withdraw from international organizations, coming from the reluctance of states to hand over to international organizations parts of their sovereignty. The conclusions of this paper aim to increase knowledge about the real meaning of the processes of withdrawals of states from international organizations.

The paper aims to analyze and comment the current eLearning environments considering the space and time characteristics in order to better understanding of certain antecedents’ factors for eLearning system acceptance and effective use by students. The current paper illustrated the eLearning platforms – from the differences between online and traditional face to face learning to the spatial thinking and learning process – using as a case study the minds of students from a technical University of Romania.

The interest in Industry 4.0 relating technology in earthwork construction is increasing and continues to gain more and more in popularity. Earthwork contractors have begun to think about alternative and innovative ways to increase productivity by applying new ICT technologies. In this context they try e.g. to utilize sensors, software and information and communication tools to improve processes and to reduce workforce and total costs at the same time. However, as with many innovations, there exist companies that have not invested in these technologies yet. The objective of this paper is to investigate in technologies associated with Industry 4.0 and their potential future application-possibilities in the field of earthwork construction. Therefore, this paper conducted an in-depth literature review of relevant Industry 4.0 technology topics. Additionally, semi-structured interviews among German earthwork industry experts were conducted, which revealed several insights regarding benefits, challenges and barriers of managing relevant technologies.

Re-curriculation is currently the most talked about topic in Higher Education in South Africa because of the new Higher Education Qualification Sub-Framework alignment process required by all Higher Education Institutions. However, the lecturer in the classroom, especially new lecturers, are also faced with the task of designing the actual curricula of a subject once the new qualification is to be implemented, in terms of achieving the aims and objectives of the subject area. In other words, ensuring that the outcomes of the subject are achieved by the student. Ideally all lecturers at institutions of higher learning should develop strategies for their “own” curricula. Developing the aforementioned strategies might be challenging to first time lecturers. The methodologies of developing a new qualification and strategies for building curricula is discussed in this paper are different curriculum planning methods and strategies. The aforementioned strategies are focusing on students, mentoring, supportive tools such as software programmes, feedback and assessments. The findings of this paper are proper curricula development to enhance the ability to understand, recall and apply information. The main objective is to use proper curricula development to empower students with a diversity of cultures to understand the material presented by the lecturer. This paper concludes that curricula planning should allow students to be given space to grow and interact and ultimately attain deep life-long learning.

The tradition of international criminal tribunals which started with the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals was returned with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. As a result of the bloody wars in the territory of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the Security Council of the United Nations decided to establish the ICTY as an ad hoc tribunal, that was approved by the resolutions 808 and 827. The main purpose of the paper is to highlight the features of the ICTY during its mandate from 1993 to 2017. For the realization of this research are used qualitative methods, based on the bibliography that is related with international criminal law, with special emphasis with the activities of international criminal tribunals. Furthermore, some data are also collected from the credible internet sources, which have valuable information about the procedures of the ICTY and for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. The results of the study demonstrate that during its mandate, the ICTY was accompanied with a lot of successes which distinguish it from the other international criminal tribunals. At the same time, the ICTY has also a lot of failures, which have come as a result of various political influences within it. The conclusions of this paper aim to increase knowledge about the activity of the ICTY, by offering important information for its establishment and organs, and for its main successes and failures.

Resumen: En el presente paper se pretende definir el concepto de “interes general de Espana” utilizado en el art. 155 CE/78. Se trata de un ejemplo tipo de “concepto juridico indeterminado”, que es analizado desde una perspectiva terminologica, semantica, historica y hermeneutica para la definitiva determinacion de su verdadero significado constitucional. Palabras clave: “interes general de Espana”, “concepto juridico indeterminado”, art. 155 CE/78. Abstract: This paper intends to define the concept of the “Spanish general interest” used in art. 155 of the Spanish Constitution. This is typically considered as an example of an “undefined legal concept”, which is analyzed here from different perspectives: terminological, semantical, historical and hermeneutical in order to define its true constitutional meaning. Keywords: “Spanish general interest”, “undefined legal concept”, art. 155 of the Spanish Constitution

Prediction is an important aspect of scientific practice, because it helps us to confirm theories and effectively intervene on the systems we are investigating. In ecology, prediction is a controversial topic: even though the number of papers focusing on prediction is constantly increasing, many ecologists believe that the quality of ecological predictions is unacceptably low, in the sense that they are not sufficiently accurate sufficiently often. Moreover, ecologists disagree on how predictions can be improved. On one side are the ‘theory-driven’ ecologists, those who believe that ecology lacks a sufficiently strong theoretical framework. For them, more general theories will yield more accurate predictions. On the other are the ‘applied’ ecologists, whose research is focused on effective interventions on ecological systems. For them, deeper knowledge of the system in question is more important than background theory. The aim of this paper is to provide a philosophical examination of both sides of the debate: as there are strengths and weaknesses in both approaches to prediction, a pluralistic approach is best for the future of predictive ecology.

Researchers studying linked Social-Ecological Systems (SESs) often use the notion of coevolution in describing the relation between humans and the rest of nature. However, most descriptions of the concept of socio-ecological coevolution remain elusive and poorly articulated. The objective of the following paper is to further specify and enrich the meaning of “coevolution” in social-ecological studies. After a critical analysis of two accounts of coevolution in ecological economics, the paper uses the frameworks of Niche Construction Theory and the Geographic Mosaic Theory to define social-ecological coevolution as the reciprocal adaptation of human-social and ecological ensembles through human and ecological niche construction activities. In sum, this conceptual analysis suggests that an ecologization of Darwinian coevolution can bring clarity to profound functional integration that takes place between humans and ecological systems, and at the same time opens fruitful avenues for social-ecological research.

The issue of hate speech is widely present in the Balkan Peninsula and although it has a serious impact in inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations, it has never been addressed properly by the academia or the judicial systems. This paper aims to outline the main principles that define hate speech from the linguistic and legal perspective. Throughout the paper several international cases of hate speech are cited along with the measures that western European countries take in order to minimize the level of stereotypes and public discrimination. In the second part, the paper brings examples from degrading hate speech cases coming from public figures in Macedonia. In addition, a few comparative cases from the international practice have been cited in order to perceive if an egalitarian society is possible in Macedonia from the aspect of language usage without the hatred constituents by aiming to develop an acceptable public discourse for all.

Do general interest journals set the trends in research attention to particular topics, or is it field journals that have greater initial influence? In this paper, we focus on the subfield of environmental economics and attempt to empirically identify whether it has been the leading general interest journals or the top environmental economics field journal that has set the research trends on climate change, air pollution, water pollution, and other topics. We use textual analysis and Granger causality tests to investigate the question of which journals lead in publication of papers related to these topics in environmental economics. Our results indicate that leadership depends on the topic; however, there is some evidence that the top field journal in environmental economics generally took the lead in more controversial topics.

This paper presents a comparison of most capable families of distributions for modelling asymmetry. Kum-normal, stable-symmetric normal family and two of the full families were chosen, where the quality of the fit, the flexibility and the amount of asymmetry parameters were factors used for comparison. The objective of this study was to generate data with increasing levels of asymmetry and to choose the best fit. The distributions were also compared in modelling two data sets of pollution of the drinking water in the El-Sharkia governorate in Egypt. Much of this paper is concerned with the distribution theory, exploring the properties of some new recent families of distributions and, where appropriate, extolling their virtues. Relatively, much of this paper is devoted to practical application.

Pacifism is often painted into a corner as an absolute rejection of all violence and war. Such a dogmatic and negative formulation of pacifism does leave us with pacifism as a morally problematic position. But pacifism is not best understood as a negative claim. Nor is pacifism best understood as a singular or monistic concept. Rather, there is a “pacifist tradition” that is grounded in an affirmative claim about the importance of nonviolence, love, community building, and peaceful conflict resolution. This more positive conception of pacifism aims to transform social and political life. When understood in this way, pacifism is a robust and useful critical social theory. This paper explores the philosophy of pacifism in an attempt to reconceptualize pacifism as a tradition of normative critical theory. The paper argues that pacifism ought to be understood on analogy with other critical theories—such as feminism; that pacifism should be understood in terms of the “pacifist tradition”—along lines familiar from interpretations of the “just war tradition”; and that pacifism should be seen as offering interesting themes and ideas that are worthy of philosophical attention.

In a recent paper entitled “The Case for Colonialism” Bruce Gilley argued that Western colonialism was “as a general rule” both beneficial to those subject to it and considered by them to be legitimate. He then advocated for a return to the Western colonization of the Third World. Gilley’s article provoked a furious response, with calls for its retraction being followed by the resignation of much of the publishing journal’s editorial board. In this paper I note that Gilley’s article meets none of the criteria required to justify its retraction, and that instead of retracting it it should be rebutted. I then argue that his arguments against those who oppose colonialism are all fatally flawed, and that he has provided no justification for his claims that colonialism was either beneficial to those who lived under it, or considered by them to be legitimate.

This paper is an effort toward conceptual transparency around toxic inclusivity in academic feminism and the kinds of care it lacks toward, what amounts to, bad knowledge production practices. In this paper, we claim that some of the forms of reductive inclusion that ought to be avoided are epistemologically unsound practices that propagate disempowering, false, and/or distortive messages about targets of inclusion. We take reductive inclusion to be inclusion that treats the targets of inclusion as plot devices and/or as means to a narrative end. These practices should be avoided in order to work toward a range of coalitional possibilities between differently situated populations with social justice aims. Moreover, we are concerned with making clear that toxic inclusion is a type of bad scholarship. The reductive inclusions to avoid articulated in this paper are (1) interpolation and (2) ossification. Interpolation involves executing “inclusion” with formal, instead of substantive, overtures. Ossification, however, establishes parasitic relations of inclusion that present a skeleton of one’s targets for inclusion that reduces whole groups to serve the purpose of the narrator. Through a discussion of Audre Lorde’s “An Open Letter to Mary Daly” (1979), we explain Lorde’s brilliant and succinct critique of Daly as exemplifying interpolation and ossification. Ultimately, this paper adds to diverse Black feminist literatures on effective coalitions and gestures toward potential rules for engagement across difference in our story telling.

Inter-ethnic relations between Albanians and Macedonians in Macedonia have been rather problematic since the times of former Yugoslavia. After independence, the new constitution of the Republic of Macedonia instead of improving it has further downgraded the position of Albanians and other minorities living in the country. The non-fulfilment of Albanians’ core demands led to an armed conflict in 2001. The Ohrid Agreement has in addition to ending the armed conflict, also provided for a range of legislative and policy measures to improve the position of the Albanians by ensuring equality and minority protection. However, 16 years after the Ohrid Agreement, inter-ethnic relations in Macedonia still remain burdened by prejudice and stereotypes, rather than cooperation and mutual prosperity. The main aim of the paper is to analyse the state of inter-ethnic relations in Macedonia, with special focus on relations between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. The paper also offers an analysis of main factors that contribute to inter-ethnic tensions in the country and explores possible scenarios in the future. The most relevant part of the paper analyses the causality between inter-ethnic and interstate relations. The paper claims that similarly to most of the countries in the Western Balkans, inter-ethnic and interstate relations are basically the components of the same equation. The paper concludes that in Macedonia, Kosovo rather than Albania is much more relevant for the causality between inter-ethnic and interstate relations in Macedonia, and it also offers several reasons to support such thesis. Accordingly, the overall inter-ethnic relations between Macedonians and Albanians in Macedonia heavily depend on inter-state relations between Macedonia and Kosovo and vice versa.

Quality techniques and Design for Six Sigma methodology are complex areas that need to be understood through correlation of theoretical and practical teaching. Universities started to apply different approaches for achieving better results, on building greater knowledge and skills for their students. The paper presents a methodology of teaching quality techniques and DFSS methodology, an approach that is focused on understanding the concepts through technical examples from industry and applying the knowledge within a project. A model is proposed for teaching Design for Six Sigma methodology through a workshop done in the classroom. The students are split into groups and will practically work through the main elements of DFSS methodology, for improving the quality of a chosen product by re-designing it. The objective of research is to analyze the performance of this methodology and to identify the strong points. The measurement is done through feedbacks received from students, that is presented at the end of the paper. The methodologies used during research consist of bibliographic research, observational study on classroom, questionnaire and interview technique.

This paper aims to analyse the actual state of research in the field of supply chain management and to identify eventual gaps of knowledge and potential research directions in the field concerned. The research has been accomplished using various bibliographical sources, books, scientific reports, internal reports and information material. This paper analyses different national and international studies in the field of supply chain management, converge to identify eventual differences concerning authors’ opinion, problems and research gaps. It has been found that the specialty literature analyses in general subjects such as supply chain management, supplier performance, suppliers’ selection and evaluation, suppliers’ development, performance management and do not take into consideration also the supply chain management performance, so that various gaps concerning the specialty literature in the field of supply chain management performance evaluation have been identified. It is thus proposed that these research results are disseminated with the aid of a knowledge transfer eLearning platform within the “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu. This platform allows university personnel and its students gain access to specific academic findings.

The development of the business - industry environment is unconceivable without the involvement of academia. On one hand, the universities can provide new perspectives and know-how which can be further translated into exquisite products and services for companies. On the other hand, the business environment can raise practical problems and challenges for academia, providing in the same time material support for finding solutions to these problems. This paper presents a successful partnership between business and academia materialized in the development of a robotized semiautomatic motorcycle transmission. Since the solutions existing on the market did not meet the specific requirements of our industrial partner, we were asked to design an innovative and cost effective clutch and gearbox mechanism. The paper presents all the stages passed from establishing specific objectives and tasks for each member of the project’s team, the specific steps followed in order to develop the clutch operation mechanism and the gear mechanism, the obstacles and failures encountered during the design process and the testing procedures, the optimizations implemented, up to the final solution. The advantages of such industry-academia projects are discussed and possible obstacles that can hinder this kind of collaboration are addressed.

Since the enrollment expansion of colleges and universities, University graduates have proliferated in China, the employment of college graduates is becoming more and more difficult. Real situation requires colleges and universities must spend big strength in starting a business to promote graduates employment. Based on colleges and universities to promote university students' employment entrepreneurship support measures as the research content, with in 5 colleges and universities in hebei province as the research object, through the investigation and study and literature analysis, the paper analyzes the problems existing in the guidance of employment and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, school enterprise cooperation, employment. At the same time reference to the United Kingdom and the United States of college students employment experience, the paper put forward the improvement measures of the colleges and universities in the current stage to promote the employment and Entrepreneurship of College Students: equal emphasis on service and development in the field of employment guidance, the unity of theory and practice in the aspect of entrepreneurship education, in the aspect of school enterprise cooperation to achieve win-win.

This paper presents a comparative analysis of possessive inflection in the three known Zamucoan languages: Ayoreo and Chamacoco – still spoken in the Chaco area between Bolivia and Paraguay – plus †Old Zamuco, described by the Jesuit father Ignace Chomé in the first half of the 18th century. The comparison allows us to build a plausible reconstruction of Proto-Zamucoan possessive inflection. Old Zamuco appears to be the most conservative language among the three, while Chamacoco appears to be the most innovative, although it exhibits relics of special importance for reconstructive purposes. Our analysis identifies in Zamucoan a series of features of general interest for the typology of person marking. This paper presents a comparative analysis of possessive inflection in the three known Zamucoan languages: Ayoreo and Chamacoco – still spoken in the Chaco area between Bolivia and Paraguay – plus †Old Zamuco, described by the Jesuit father Ignace Chomé in the first half of the 18th century. The comparison allows us to build a plausible reconstruction of Proto-Zamucoan possessive inflection. Old Zamuco appears to be the most conservative language among the three, while Chamacoco appears to be the most innovative, although it exhibits relics of special importance for reconstructive purposes. Our analysis identifies in Zamucoan a series of features of general interest for the typology of person marking.

The paper analyses Ukraine’s geopolitical position and argues that Ukraine is slowly gravitating towards West. The paper gives a small hint of approximation process of Ukraine within EU and NATO, and argues how this approximation process is opposed by Russia, who wants Ukraine back to its influence. Occupation off Crimea by Russia violated international order, opening way to unstructured international ties out traditional UN bodies. The Ukraine’s destiny is unclear, Dnieper River may divide country in two, and the West faces biggest security and political threat after WWII.

Being one of the largest movements of displaced people through European borders since World War Two, the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016, tested the coordination of the states and international organizations, and as well as the strategies for response of the latter to such enormous fluxes of displaced people along the Balkan corridor. The quick on-time reaction of the specialized humanitarian international organizations made significant achievements by the international organizations in terms of humanitarian assistance for the refugees and support for the governments of the region. Their approach mainly sought to create a partnership with the governments of the Balkan route in handling the serious humanitarian challenges (with a different strategy compared to other experiences, mainly this time through providing assistance and protection to the refugees throughout the corridor of the refugee crisis), it showed how important is such coordination at the end, with an aim to avoid further human catastrophes along refugee routes, and to avoid major security repercussions for the countries of the region. With a comparative approach, the paper analyzes the response of the international organizations in terms of the strategies they have applied along the Balkan human corridor and their new innovative approaches used in terms of the coordination with the local authorities and governments of the Balkan route. Different to previous forms of humanitarian interventions and dynamics of the refugee crisis (dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1990s), the roles of the international organizations along the Balkan human corridor following the Syrian war of 2015 and 2016 have shaped many innovative dimensions, including firstly their advising orientation and support for refugees and local authorities (mainly through providing help on legal issues). Apart from humanitarian activities for delivering direct aid, the major intergovernmental organizations (most of them operating under the umbrella of the UN) following the implementation of border controls from very beginning of the refugee crisis have been focused in supporting the local authorities as well as on regulating the flow of migrants. The strategies of response by the international organizations in the latest case of the Balkan human corridor notably shifted from the classical humanitarian dimension of their reactions. These strategies have played as well an important role in advising, and especially in developing a partnership with the local authorities capacity building and legal support for both local institutions and refugees. However, through the comparative approaches the paper identifies that there are different models of management roles played by the specialized international organizations in various countries of the Balkan route and its frontiers.

I examine replications of empirical papers in development economics published in the top-5 and next-5 general interest journals between the years 2000 through 2015. Of the 1,138 empirical papers, 71 papers (6.2 percent) were replicated in another published paper or working paper. The majority (77.5 percent) of replications involved reanalysis of the data using different econometric specifications to assess robustness. The strongest predictor of whether a paper is replicated or not is the paper's Google Scholar citation count, followed by year of publication. Papers based on randomized control trials (RCTs) appear to be replicated at a higher rate (12.5 percent).

This paper brings into the picture the perspective of the energy regulator. It casts light on the challenges associatsed with the task of guaranteeing a number of medium-to-long-term objectives such as an adequate flow of investment in infrastructure, development of well-functioning markets, and a balance between private profit and the general interest. In particular, the paper addresses the concern of fostering long-lasting, “future-proof” investment in a sector that has been characterised by intense technological change and fast-changing market conditions—both sources of major uncertainty as to the effects that regulatory decisions will have on future developments within the sector. Drawing on the author’s personal former experience as president of the Italian regulatory agency from 2011 to 2018, the paper illustrates and assesses past regulatory action with reference to (i) reform of the gas market, (ii) adoption of a new generation of smart meters, (iii) reform of the electricity retail market, (iv) and integration of RES into the electricity market. The review illuminates the multifaceted circumstances that have fostered—or hindered—successful forward-looking regulation.

As higher education institutions take up augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) tools and applications, important choices and challenges arise in deciding how to approach the planning and design of infrastructure, spaces, and the services to be offered. The observations in this paper are based upon early experiences of growing AR/VR spaces and support in one university setting. The emerging services, space designs, and choice of technology and training offered are informed both by consideration of the varied AR/VR environments being explored in the curriculum as well as a general interest in supporting AR/VR use by individuals and groups in non-curricular settings. The goals of this paper include: 1) briefly surveying commonalities and differences of AR and VR as they're being applied to teaching and learning; 2) considering service design approaches and decision points around AR/VR technologies; 3) and noting challenges for developing sustainable approaches to AR/VR support.

In the current scenario, green technologies in chemistry and various fields create attention to every researcher. The green synthesis provides environmentally and eco-friendly raw materials and intermediate products, making a simple process without using harmful and toxic reactants. Amino acids are one of the reactants from which the intermediates or excipients can be made using the straightforward methodology, and these are utilized in drug delivery via a different route of Administration. By employing such medication at a cellular level, we can eliminate the adverse events and toxicity of chemically synthesized excipients and achieve a better therapeutic effect. In the present paper, Arginine was reviewed as the starting material from which the greener excipients can be synthesized, and these materials were employed for drug delivery systems. However, some of the synthetic processes employed chemicals, and also usage of the synthesized green material in the formulation of different dosage forms may require proper guidelines, but still, the research is going on for the application of green excipients for therapeutic purposes. Moreover, Arginine, as such, is an amino acid. It can also be utilized in different formulations as an active ingredient, which was also emphasized in the review paper from past research and patents. This review aims to be comprehensive and have general interest for chemists as it involves the various routes by which excipients were synthesized and the study, including the properties of different excipients and their application.

When my individual action is only one among a large number of similar actions and does not seem to make any difference to the bad collective outcome, can it nonetheless be condemned by act-utilitarianism? This question has currently regained interest with papers e.g. by Shelly Kagan, Julia Nefsky and Felix Pinkert. Christopher Morgan-Knapp and Charles Goodman answer the question in the affirmative for miniscule emissions in the context of climate change. They use expected utility analysis as Kagan did in consumer ethics. In this paper, I want to show that assumptions about the impact of emissions vary according to some underlying empirical scenarios all of which are possible. Individual actions might be relevant in the sense of contributing to a mere linear accumulation of emissions; or they might be relevant by leading to an accumulation in the form of crossing thresholds, be it one or several; finally, such actions might not be relevant at all. To give an answer that solves the problem and that is based solely on expected utility analysis is impossible. So I reject the result of Morgan-Knapp/Goodman.

The paper summarises the main findings on Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) accident recovery workers from Latvia and their health disturbances, which have been studied by the authors during the last two decades. Approximately 6000 persons from Latvia participated in CNPP clean-up works in 1986–1991. During their work period in Chernobyl they were exposed to external as well as to internal irradiation, but since their return to Latvia they were living in a relatively uncontaminated area. Regular careful medical examinations and clinical studies of CNPP clean-up workers have been conducted during the 25 years after disaster, gathering knowledge on radiation late effects. The aim of the present review is to summarise the most important information about Latvian CNPP clean-up worker health revealed by thorough follow-up and research conducted in the period of 25 years after the accident. This paper reviews data of the Latvian State Register of Persons Exposed to Radiation due to CNPP Accident and gives insight in main health effects found by the researchers from the Centre of Occupational and Radiological Medicine (Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital) and Rīga Stradiņš University in a number of epidemiological, clinical, biochemical, immunological, and physiological studies. Latvian research data on health condition of CNPP clean-up workers in the late period after disaster indicate that ionising radiation might cause premature ageing and severe polymorbidity in humans.

This paper is a theoretical attempt to investigate possible connections between trust and eustress and also mistrust and distress. The paper includes both empirical material and theoretical material. Empirical material was analysed by using Grounded Theory. According to analysis of both empirical and theoretical material there are connections between the phenomena mentioned. Trust is connected to eustress by several categories, such as mutual process, openness, and leadership of self and versatile interchange of knowing. Mistrust and distress are also connected by several categories: incomprehensibility and embarrassment, indifference, change, and depersonalisation. There were also categories identified as ambivalent categories, since they could be connected to either eustress or distress.

Although the debates about access to services of general interest have been at the core of the EU territorial cohesion discourse since the late 1990s, the impact of unequal accessibility to living conditions has yet be the subject of close inspection. The paper examines the relationship between the accessibility of services of general interest and demographic and socio-economic conditions in a specific Czech region. The analysis reveals inter-municipal disparities and identifies spatially excluded areas. Despite the negative association of insufficient access with education and depopulation characteristics, the results suggest that demographic and socio-economic development stems from a more complex set of factors.

Let $C_t$ be a cycle of length $t$, and let $P_1,\ldots,P_t$ be $t$ polygon chains. A polygon flower $F=(C_t; P_1,\ldots,P_t)$ is a graph obtained by identifying the $i$th edge of $C_t$ with an edge $e_i$ that belongs to an end-polygon of $P_i$ for $i=1,\ldots,t$. In this paper, we first give an explicit formula for the sandpile group $S(F)$ of $F$, which shows that the structure of $S(F)$ only depends on the numbers of spanning trees of $P_i$ and $P_i/ e_i$, $i=1,\ldots,t$. By analyzing the arithmetic properties of those numbers, we give a simple formula for the minimum number of generators of $S(F)$, by which a sufficient and necessary condition for $S(F)$ being cyclic is obtained. Finally, we obtain a classification of edges that generate the sandpile group. Although the main results concern only a class of outerplanar graphs, the proof methods used in the paper may be of much more general interest. We make use of the graph structure to find a set of generators and a relation matrix $R$, which has the same form for any $F$ and has much smaller size than that of the (reduced) Laplacian matrix, which is the most popular relation matrix used to study the sandpile group of a graph., Comment: to appear in Discrete Appl. Math

The topic of overreaction, and reactions in the stock-market is highly important to understand foranybody with a financial background, or with a general interest in the stock-market. To this extend it seemed as authors would agree that overreactions in the stock-market is a common concept, however there is a great deal of uncertainty about how, and when it would happen. Therefore, this paper will have a quantitative exploratory case-study approach, with the purpose of providing more insights in how the market reacts to certain situations. It was chosen to use legitimacy as the criteria for the crisis events, meaning all the cases presented in the paper will have experienced legitimacy issues in relations to the crisis. A theoretical framework will be used for the analysis that highlights some of the important aspects from the crisis situations, which will in the end be used for a combined comparison.What was found in this paper was that the level of uncertainty information and uncertainty risk that a crisis created could play a significant role when it comes to reactions from the market. It was seen that the importance of having a proper response strategy to legitimacy crisis situations was fairly minimal. The case-studies showed that the company who seemed to have the worst response to the event, was also the company that experienced the least impact from the crisis, in terms of stock-market reaction.

Contrary to most areas of Europe, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the Faroe Islands) have for many years shared a regional research and development program on nuclear reactor safety and emergency preparedness - NKS. In spite of its project results having received great recognition and having been integrated in state-of-the-art emergency preparedness tools over the world, NKS as an organization does not seem well known outside the Nordic countries. Although the Fukushima accident had no health impact at all in Nordic areas, it taught a number of lessons of generic nature with respect to new R&D tasks that could further strengthen and secure future maintenance of the Nordic region's capability to effectively respond to such events. For broader inspiration, this paper briefly introduces the Nordic nuclear emergency preparedness cooperation channels and outlines the related NKS R&D project initiatives launched after the Fukushima accident, many of which should be of general interest also far outside the region. The paper is intended as an introduction to NKS with an invitation to explore its results. All project results are available cost-free on the NKS website.

Many governments in the world have created e-government initiatives including developed and developing countries. In order to better understand e-government evolution, different maturity models have been developed by many authors. In this paper the most cited e-government maturity models are analyzed using the meta-synthesis approach. As a result, five stages of e-government maturity are identified. The comparative results show the supported stages by each e-government initiative as important elements in the decision making process. This paper is attempting to show that although there are many models for measuring e-government maturity, they all converge on one common model. The contribution of this paper is in simplifying work for researchers when choosing the right maturity model.

This paper considers the important practicality, scientific and methodological principles in the design of the pre-masters program in National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University (or simply TPU). TPU is a university that mainly provides technical education, particularly education in engineering, science and technology disciplines. The design of the pre-masters program also considers the incorporation of educational technology for its realization for the international students, who received the bachelor’s degrees in other countries in English language and want to study masters programs in Russian language in Russia. According to the results of a comparative analysis that explored the experiences of the international students from English-speaking and Russian-speaking universities in the world within their pre-bachelors and pre-masters programs, this paper explains the differences between these programs and the specific features of the pre-masters programs. Further, this paper reports the analysis results of the implementation, monitoring and outcomes of the pre-masters program in TPU. It also presents some proposals for its further development.