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Drawing on language expectancy theory, we predict that linguistic errors in ICO white papers negatively impact investors’ willingness to financially contribute to ICO projects. We manually annotate a sample of 546 ICO white papers according to 13 different error subcategories related to spelling and grammar. The error-annotated data are subsequently submitted to regression analyses which confirm that linguistic errors discourage potential investments in ICOs. Specifically, our analyses reveal the presence of “high penalty” vs. “low penalty” errors which result in higher vs. lower financial investment losses for the ICOs. The negative impact of language errors is stronger when ICO white papers are (1) written in native English-speaking countries and (2) from countries without cryptocurrency regulation. Results from an experiment confirm that this relationship is not driven by the entrepreneur- or investor-specific characteristics. Overall, we highlight that the reader identifies linguistic errors as a major ‘red flag’ that ultimately affects financial decision-making.

Women usually have more complex mobilities than men do, not least if having young children in need of mobility provision. Moreover, travelling can be more challenging if having a disability, and parents of disabled children usually face many constraints in relation to everyday mobility, which implies that mothers of disabled children might experience gender-disability intersectionality in relation to mobility. This paper is based on interviews with mothers with wheelchair-using children living in Sweden and explores intersectionality from a family perspective – gender of the mother and disability of a child. The paper is based on time geography, especially focusing on the competition between time-geographical projects in everyday life. The findings suggest that gender-disability intersectionality affect the mothers’ geographical freedom and can imply both increased mobility and immobility in their lives.

This paper examines the nexus between behaviours, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and the behavioural changes induced by the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong. Through an extensive review of 208 written sources spanning March 2020 to July 2021, the study analyses how the pandemic has affected the progress and relevance of the SDG targets in the city. Using UN-provided SDG indicators, the study evaluates the written accounts of behavioural change and establishes the linkages between them and the SDGs. Saaty’s Analytical Hierarchy Process was applied to rank 75 SDG sub-targets according to their importance and urgency in Hong Kong’s pandemic context. Notably, four SDGs stand out among the top 15: SDG3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG1 (No Poverty), and SDG10 (Reduced Inequalities), reflecting the significant challenges and opportunities for public health, the economy, vulnerable communities, and environmental sustainability in Hong Kong. The paper provides a comprehensive framework for developing post-pandemic strategies to address the city’s SDG targets. It also offers valuable insights into health, consumption, social and environmental engagement, quality of life, and institutions and organisations for policymakers and stakeholders involved in Hong Kong’s pandemic recovery and sustainable development efforts.

This paper reconsiders the use Byzantine domes as components of the urban skyline, through a detailed study of the transformations of Justinian’s church of Sts. Sergius and Baccus. This domed church has long been considered as one of the earliest additions of the period of Justinian to the cityscape of Constantinople. Recent scholarship, however, has questioned the attribution of its dome to the sixth century, inviting us to view this building as a palimpsest of different historic layers rather than as landmark of a single era. The church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus lends itself ideally to such an approach. The Ottoman reuse of the church as a mosque is just one of several fascinating transformations of the church in the last fifteen hundred years. Despite the existence of several architectural surveys of the building, our understanding of the form of the original building and its later transformation is limited. This paper tries to fill this lacuna through a re-examination of the church’s fabric, with an emphasis on its dome. This is largely based on the reinterpretation of evidence provided in previous studies, especially those of Jonathan Bardill, as well as on the author’s observation of the building in 2006. Providing a new model for visualizing Justinian’s church and analyzing its transformations through time, this paper redefines the form of this church and its role alongside other Justinianic monuments in transforming the urban skyline of Constantinople.

This is a description of the conceptual foundations used for designing a novel learning environment for mechanics implemented as an Industrial Educational Laboratory – called Fisica in Moto (FiM) – at the Ducati Foundation in Bologna. In this paper, we will describe the motivation for and design of the conceptual approach to mechanics used in the lab – as such, the paper is theoretical in nature. The goal of FiM is to provide an approach to the teaching of mechanics based upon imaginative structures found in continuum physics suitable to engineering and science. We show how continuum physics creates models of mechanical phenomena by using momentum and angular momentum as primitive quantities. We analyse this approach in terms of cognitive linguistic concepts such as conceptual metaphor and narrative framing of macroscopic physical phenomena. The model discussed here has been used in the didactical design of the actual lab and raises questions for an investigation of student learning of mechanics in a narrative setting.

This paper examines a new first-year EAP course in a Hong Kong university. It utilizes teacher and student reflections to understand the course’s strengths and weaknesses, aiming to enhance its design and delivery. The study employed a qualitative approach whereby textual analysis was used to interpret the data collected in the form of written teacher reflections, written student reflections, and notes of teacher reflective dialogue. The thematic categories for coding the data were established based on the course’s main learning outcomes: Effective Learning, Spoken Language, and Written Language. Findings reveal that teachers were more critical of the course compared to learners. Teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the pedagogical approach to Effective Learning unit, insufficient time provided in the course to teach solo speaking, and the inability to cover too many organizational and linguistic features in the writing unit. Students, however, did not have much to reflect on about Effective Learning, had mixed views about Spoken Language with some worried about reading from notes, and wrote extremely positively about their learning of Written Language. Nonetheless, their views provide valuable insights for course improvement. Consequently, the paper advocates for a reflective pedagogy approach to EAP that considers both teacher and student reflections to enhance teaching and learning outcomes. © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Africa is home to some of the world’s most original, resilient, and remarkable companies. The singular challenges and opportunities of the continent’s economic environment have given rise to idiosyncratic strategies and business models. However, there is a notable absence of studies on African companies. While there are numerous noteworthy companies in Africa, there are few as relevant, successful, and influential as the Dangote Group. This paper aims to add to the limited literature in the area by analyzing the business model and strategic choices of Dangote Cement, the Group’s flagship business and one of Africa’s industrial giants. In particular, it explores its corporate diversification and vertical integration strategies, which are at the core of its success. This article is based on 7 interviews with internal and external Dangote stakeholders and a detailed questionnaire completed by the Strategy Department of the firm, together with public data of the company. While the topics of diversification and integration have been studied in multiple contexts, this article provides an original perspective by applying existing research and management thinking to the specific business environment of Africa. This paper explores how and why Dangote Cement diversifies and how it identifies and integrates the advantages and disadvantages of its strategic choices. We believe it provides an original perspective that furthers our limited collective understanding of and research on strategic practices in Africa, the world’s last business academic frontier.

Following a period of close to a century when the Irish language was placed at the margins of the education system under British rule, there was a radical change in curriculum provision following political independence in Ireland in the 1920s. The importance of the Irish language in defining sovereignty, national identity, and nationhood in the Irish Free State was central to these curricular changes. Within months of the achievement of political independence, curriculum policy was revised to include provision for the teaching of the Irish language to all pupils in primary schools as well as the use of Irish as the medium of instruction in infant classes (the first two years of primary school). The education system became the linchpin in the political and cultural campaign to restore the Irish language as the vernacular. This paper critically examines how nationalist thinking in Ireland, which had its origins in nineteenth-century European discourses, impacted on curriculum decisions pertaining to the Irish language in the early 1900s. Focusing on the interrelationship between nationalism, language, and education, it traces the process and provisions of curriculum development in Ireland in the 1920s. Overall the paper argues that the influence of nationalism as understood in the wider European context of the time shifted emphasis in Ireland away from bilingualism (Irish and English languages) to the revival of the Irish language in the 1920s, primarily through the education system, to add political legitimacy to the new Irish Free State.

Manufactured Home Estates (MHEs) have become increasingly popular in Australia as a retirement housing option and in response, large investor-operators have entered the industry accumulating extensive portfolios. MHEs are appealing to investors as they require lower levels of capital investment compared to other forms of retirement housing and are supported by policy settings which maximise financial returns. The financial and regulatory environment in Australia has resulted in an investment structure where investors are required to act as operators. This paper identifies and examines five interconnected drivers which have encouraged investor-operators to commence MHEs and accumulate large portfolios. First, Australia’s ageing population emerges as a key driver of demand for retirement housing. Second, MHEs represent affordable housing for retirees. Third, broader housing policy providing support to low-income households improves financial returns to investor-operators. Fourth, investor-operator financial returns are improved by the requirement that residents purchase their dwellings through designated suppliers on which a fee is received. Fifth, the investment potential of MHE is linked to planning policies which permit their development on sites outside established residential areas, sometimes creating problems by locating older Australians in hazard affected locations. This paper provides important insights into contemporary analysis of seniors housing in Australia by outlining how policy settings have encouraged investor-operators to purchase and develop of MHEs and how, drawing on scholarship of the financialisation of housing, the investment logics of owner-investors situates MHEs as financial asset, not simply as affordable retirement housing.

Much of the world’s migration today is driven by civil wars, armed conflicts, genocide and other forms of large-scale violence. These experiences have long-lasting effects on individuals who are forced to migrate and rebuild their lives in new contexts, while coming to terms with the violence they have experienced. The papers in this special issue explore the transnational and transgenerational effects of the violent conflict, focusing on how diasporic communities deal with the memories and legacies of the violent past; how these legacies shape the processes of their integration into new context of residence and other dimensions of diasporic existence; and how they affect generations after. The introduction to the special issue discusses some of the findings, highlighting common patterns and themes that emerge from the eight papers and discussing them in the context of scholarship on diaspora, transnational migration, conflict, intergenerational transmission, and memory.

The article examines the life stories of three young people who were born in Switzerland, but whose parents fled Bosnia due to the Yugoslav integration wars. These biographic portraits present three different ways of relating to and identifying with the country of origin, and (dis) engaging with its violent past. The paper highlights the ways in which young people are exposed to histories of violence and how these become personally relevant to them. One way of relating to this violent past is through family stories and memories, but these often remain obscure and fragmented. At the same time, young people encounter the legacies of the conflict outside the family and the home: in different diasporic and non-diasporic social spaces. The paper identifies the crucial role of diasporic divisions resulting from the conflict, social encounters in different contexts, and exposure to alternative historic narratives, in the development of young people’s sense of belonging.

This paper introduces the Special Issue ‘Minorities and Grain Trade in Early Modern Europe’. While an area’s traditional supply circuits benefitted from satisfactory harvests and a stable food demand, minorities’ contribution became crucial during crisis. Due to their commercial networks, facilities, and capital, minorities and their agents were able to cope with market disruption, especially when inflation and the reconfiguration of supply areas rendered ‘traditional’ grain merchants unable to face the emergency. The papers included in the Special Issue focus on the geographical and financial scope of legal grain-trading minorities’ businesses and their degree of specialisation and analyse how political authorities’ reliance on minorities to face food scarcity not only represented an economic opportunity for minorities but also contributed to shaping their relationship with public authorities.

This paper was inspired by Michael Rush’s works on the social construction of fatherhood in non-European contexts. It aims to fill a knowledge gap in gender, family and Iranian studies by exploring both the changing role of fathers and men’s involvement in family life and care in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Adopting an intergenerational approach and a mixed methods design, the paper considers how fatherhood practices and discourses have changed over the last decades and how different generations of men elaborate, describe, and perform the paternal role. Despite institutionalized gender inequality and a patriarchal family structure supported by family law legislation, fatherhood in Iran is anything but static. Instead, it is possible to notice a gradual redefinition of gender roles within the family. Especially urban middle class’s men are negotiating diverse masculinities and, at the same time, delivering non-traditional parenting roles.

Background: In this paper, we will address the question of how physical education teacher education (PETE) matters and suggest one way to explore the potential impact of PETE. A distinguishing feature of the studies of PETE's impact on physical education is that they either include perspectives from preservice teachers involved in PETE courses or perspectives from physical education teachers in schools looking back at their education. Longitudinal attempts to follow preservice teachers’ journey from education to workplace, in order to grasp how they perceive the relation between teacher education and teaching practice in schools, and the transition between these contexts, are few and far between. This gap of knowledge is a missing piece of the puzzle to further develop PETE, and to inform life-long professional development for teachers. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we develop and present a methodological approach for investigating the transition of content areas from courses in PETE into teaching practice in school physical education. Second, we will illustrate the potential utility of this methodological approach in longitudinal studies by showing how one particular content area, Assessment for Learning (AfL), was investigated through the use of methods and theories described in the first part of this paper. Methodology: The suggested longitudinal approach involves Stimulated Recall (SR) interviews with pre- and postservice teachers, observations and communication with groups of students and teachers through social media. The construction, recontextualisation and realisation of pedagogic discourses regarding content areas are suggested to be analysed through a combination of Bernstein's concept of the pedagogic device and Ball's concept of fabrication. Results and Conclusions: The longitudinal design and the suggested methodology can provide answers to how content areas are transformed in and between PETE and school physical education. A co

The focus on geographical mobility is consolidating within youth studies. Mobility now increasingly characterises contemporary youth, and seems to play a crucial role in marking the transition to adulthood, conveying the complexity of youth cultures. Moving abroad represents an opportunity that fuels the transition to adulthood, by enabling young people to experience cultural diversity, experiment with practices of cosmopolitanism and reframe their sense of belonging in terms of places, times and relationships. The paper draws on a qualitative study of young Italians who have recently moved to Berlin, and explores the relationships between the transition to adulthood, mobility, cosmopolitanism and sense of belonging. It highlights the deep structural and cultural roots of their mobility practices: mobility is present from an early age in their desires, regardless of their class of origin or educational qualifications. Their mobility practices also involve a daily reworking of their sense of belonging, which sees them navigating family and friendship bonds, and new relationships of intimacy that ‘make home’ and often arise in the context of a cosmopolitan generation on the move. The paper shows how these young cosmopolitans piece together this mosaic of belonging and explores its link with the coming of age process.

How can critique in responsible innovation (RI) become generative? The anything-but-neutral relations between science, technology and society, at the core of science and technology studies, have led to the development of different repertoires of critique. None of them fitted the configurations in the biomedical practices we came to study. There, biomedical experts presented us with an analysis of the power relations perpetuated through the mainstream practices in their fields and had built socio-material alternatives to the common forms of practicing biomedicine. The paper suggests conceptualising critical observations voiced by experts embedded into socio-material alternatives as ‘critique from within’ yielding collateral goods and bads. Rather than asking how to foster responsibility conditions in RI, the paper suggests modestly reclaiming critique by articulating already existing forms of responsibility practices developed by experts themselves and analysing the ambivalent effects they engender.

This chapter systematically reviews the social work scholarly literature to investigate the origins, evolution and state of the art of digital social work with groups. Two academic databases “Social Work Abstracts” and “Social Services Abstracts” were explored to identify the most relevant papers on this topic in the period from the early 1990s to the present. A total of 167 papers were selected and analyzed. The results highlight the main trends and changes in e-social group work in the selected time period. The analysis also classifies the types of papers published, the most relevant authors, the needs or problems focused on, the types of groups developed and the technologies that were employed. The chapter questions if the accelerated and widespread digitization arising from COVID-19 has had any significant impact on e-social group work reports. The chapter ends by proposing a renewed agenda for the specialized field of digital social work with groups among practitioners, researchers and educators. Special emphasis is also placed on how the social work curriculum can best prepare students to meet the anticipated future demand for online social work practice with groups in the years to come.

Social sciences are paying increasing attention to the questions of gender equality and food systems. Both topics are recognized to have a strong urban dimension. However, urban sociology has not yet attempted to create a theory on how food, gender, and cities interact with each other. Rather, recent literature is quite rich in studies investigating either the relationship between food and cities, gender and food, or gender and cities. This paper connects the most relevant studies on these relationships with the aim of structuring a research agenda on the threefold intersection that literature already hints at, albeit implicitly, in support of the argument that interdisciplinary research focusing specifically on the food-gender-cities nexus is relevant and might lead to useful insights on how gender roles in food-related duties shape daily lives, on how social formations and food practices shape the urban space and, in turn, how the urban space impacts on social roles and practices, and on the potential of the urban scale for integrated policy intervention on food and gender matters.

The paper introduces a semiparametric estimator of the correlations among elliptically distributed random variables invariant to any form of heteroscedasticity, robust to outliers, and asymptotically normal. Our estimator is particularly fit for financial applications as vectors of stock returns are generally well approximated by heteroskedastic processes with elliptical (conditional) distributions and heavy tails. The superiority of our estimator with respect to Pearson's sample correlation in financial applications is illustrated using simulated data and real high-frequency stock returns. Using simple exponentially weighted moving averages, we extend our estimator to the case of time-varying correlations and compare it to the popular GARCH-DCC model. We show that the two approaches have comparable performances through simulations and a simple application. However, our estimator is extremely fast to compute, computationally robust, and straightforward to implement.

This paper studies the governance of the green spaces in the metropolitan area of Milan, aiming to understand the political mechanisms that underpin the generation of ecosystem services in the urban context. Based on semi-structured interviews to relevant policymakers and stakeholders and on the study of planning documents and greening policies, the research identifies the main actors who are involved in green planning and management in the city and in the metropolitan area. By analysing their green management and planning roles, economic resources and greening visions and priorities, the study depicts five coexisting green governance models. In particular, the research highlights the decreasing influence of public institutions in green planning and management and the rising relevance of private-public collaborations. These dynamics of green governance may affect the generation and the distribution of ecosystem services. On the one hand, greening in private-led regeneration processes tend toward recreational and final ecosystem services, aiming to raise land values. On the other hand, the civic projects of afforestation have evolved in territorial initiatives that go beyond the mere objective of implementing new green spaces, looking at broader planning themes–i.e. soft mobility and social welfare–demanding a stronger metropolitan coordination.

This paper examines teacher education, with a focus on student experiences of comfort, discomfort, and sense of belonging or not belonging in the educational setting. The analysis is conducted with an intersectional corpomaterial perspective and based on 12 individual and two group interviews with student teachers, who identify as breaching norms within an intersectional power dynamic, or as interested in discussing such norms. The participants describe situations where they felt excluded and where they adjusted to try to fit their educational spaces. In contrast, some talk about a desirable, but rare, state of comfort, belonging or ?just being?. This state is intertwined with the spatiality and embodiment of class, racialisation, dis/ability and gender. The analysis challenges a dualistic understanding of comfort and discomfort in education, and shows how the participants? critique of teacher education could be formulated as a longing for, and a simultaneous production of, another kind of education.

Heritage, whilst concerned with the past, is now widely accepted to be inherently “present orientated” and political, because decisions concerning which parts of the past are deemed to be remembered and protected play a key role in how groups portray their peoples’ history, shared identity and collective memory to the outside world (Ashworth, Graham and Tunbridge 2007; Butler 2006; CoE 2009; Lowenthal 1998; and Peckham 2003). Planning decisions and government-led regeneration schemes can be interpreted as part of a wider “authorised heritage discourse” (Smith 2006) that reflects how those responsible for managing change to historic urban landscapes value the heritage and social fabric of their city. This paper will analyse how through interventions in their urban fabric, nations narrate their histories by conserving, neglecting and destroying their built heritage. The focus will be on Belgrade's riverfront: the confluence of two international rivers – Sava and Danube – the strategic point for the city's birth and development by virtue of its topographical and natural features (Cvijić 2013). This area has lately become the centre of attention in the ongoing process of Belgrade's radical urban change. How the built environment becomes a “contact zone” (Stephanides 2003) where “regimes of memory” (Radstone and Hodgkin 2003) are constantly being (re)negotiated will be explored through the consideration of three contemporary cases around the Belgrade riverfront. The agonistic struggles (Mouffe 2005, 2013) and political contestation associated with one of these three cases - the Belgrade Waterfront (Datoo 2018; Eror 2015; Shephard 2016; Surk 2018) offer an insight into levels of resentment against the neoliberal prioritisation of external investment over the retention of the authentic neighbourhoods of the city.

The closure of schools and preschools due to the Covid-19 pandemic constrained millions of workers with children to modify their care arrangements. In Italy and France, governments adopted different measures to support parents in handling the additional care workload, including promoting access to telework. However, we argue that equating access to telework to a childcare policy, especially during the pandemic, had significant consequences in terms of gender and class inequalities. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in Italy and France, the article analyses the impact that telework as a social policy had on gender and class inequalities, stressing common trends and pointing out that caring for children while teleworking reinforces economic and gender inequalities. Moreover, the paper identifies strategies implemented by parents to cope with the challenge of child-caring while teleworking, highlighting that promoting such a policy can have unequal consequences depending on parents’ social and economic capital.

Establishing an appropriate system for governing various data is a critical challenge in developing smart cities. In China, with its distinctive institutional characteristics, it is not yet well investigated what kinds of data governance mechanisms are introduced, how data are collected, shared, and used, and how potential risks concerning data security and privacy are addressed. This paper conducts an exploratory study of the case of smart city development in Shenzhen and examines critical opportunities and challenges in data governance. A centralized approach led by the government has been emphasized in data governance, with its focus evolving from addressing the fragmentation of government data to fostering the integration of various kinds of data in society. Open data platforms have been developed through close cooperation between government and technology enterprises. Regulations have been introduced to protect data security and privacy and facilitate the exchange and use of data for innovation. On the other hand, stakeholders are not sufficiently incentivized to provide accurate information. The value of data is not appropriately recognized or measured, discouraging the sharing of data to facilitate the use of data. Citizens are not well-informed about what kinds of data are collected and how these data are used. Institutional mechanisms have not yet been established to ensure that the data collected from citizens are properly handled by the public authorities. It is crucial to encourage citizens’ engagement in data governance to fully implement the people-centered approach to smart city development. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Following recent work on literary-adapted machine translation (MT) systems, this paper investigates whether it is worthwhile building such a system for a reasonably well-resourced language pair, English-to-Dutch, for which generic MT systems (e.g. DeepL) are known to be competitive. Specifically, a system is presented that uses considerably more in-domain training data (novels) than in previous work, as well as an exploration of using longer instances than isolated sentence pairs (i.e. document-level MT). A sizable test set of 31 English-language novels and their published Dutch human translations is evaluated. The evaluation is multidimensional, including automatic MT evaluation metrics, error- and survey-based human evaluation, as well as quantitative automatic analyses, including the novel use of literariness prediction of translations. The results show that, overall, a literary-adapted system that combines sentence- and document-level information performs slightly better than DeepL (4% higher COMET score), with the edge being wider for genre fiction, while the gains over DeepL are smaller or negative for literary fiction. Code, data (public domain subset), and trained systems are available at https://github.com/antot/lit-mt-en-nl" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://github.com/antot/lit-mt-en-nl.

El presente trabajo ha sido llevado a cabo gracias a la obtención de una Ayuda Juan de la Cierva-formación (2017) número FJCI-2017-32068, concedida por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España). This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Spanish Government: [grant Juan de la Cierva-Formación (2017) number FJCI-2017-32068]., This paper focuses on Leo Strauss’s reading of the Republic. I argue that Strauss’s ironic interpretation of the dialogue must be understood in the context of a broader intellectual project which aims to criticize modern and contemporary political philosophy. Strauss’s understanding of Plato is strongly influenced by the hermeneutical principles he draws from his studies of medieval Jewish and Arab philosophy. Reading Plato through Alfarabi, Strauss pursues the idea of the conflict between philosophy and politics, which sheds light, also, on the problem of persecution. Accordingly, he stresses the importance of a peculiar art of reading between the lines. In Strauss’s view, this art is the starting point for recovering the esoteric meaning of the Republic. I will argue that Strauss’s interpretation contradicts several dialogical elements because it does not take into account the broader historical framework of the text. Nevertheless, even with these limitations, Plato scholars should consider Straussian insights, because these offer an untraditional and a non-doctrinal reading of the dialogue., Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España), Depto. de Filosofía y Sociedad, Fac. de Filosofía, TRUE, pub

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2017 National Communication Association Convention, where it was selected as the Top Paper for the National Communication Association's Political Communication Division, In this article, the authors examine the political pornification of Spanish politician Teresa Rodríguez and assess the rhetorical strategies she and her supporters used to respond to the controversy. The authors theorize a “fungibility frame” within which women candidates and citizens are treated as interchangeable, violable, and devalued. Rodríguez and her supporters resisted this frame, asserting women's individuality, agency, and inherent value. This case underscores the ways in which political pornification impacts not just candidates and public figures, but also private citizens. When pornified, women are presented not as individuals with political agency but as objects which may be manipulated for political and commercial gain. Additionally, this analysis reveals the ways in which the conditions that produce political pornification may be endemic to democratic culture, Depto. de Periodismo y Nuevos Medios, Fac. de Ciencias de la Información, TRUE, pub

Cognitive dysfunctions and functional brain modifications are among the side effects reported by breast cancer patients that persist beyond the chemotherapy. This paper aims at synthesizing the evidence on cognitive and functional brain changes and their associations in breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy. A systematic literature search was performed using PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, Scopus, and Embase up to July 2022. Eligible studies evaluated adult women with breast cancer treated with systemic chemotherapy, that performed cognitive assessment and resting-state functional MRI. Methodological quality was assessed. Sixteen studies were included, with a total of 1054 female participants. All studies reported alterations mainly concerned the fronto-parieto-temporal system and specifically involved the disruption of the DMN. Consistent with these findings, BCPs showed changes in cognitive performance reporting dysfunctions in executive ability, memory, and attention. However, not all the studies found a significant association between functional brain alterations and cognitive dysfunction. Some limitations including lack of sample homogeneity and different methodological approaches were reported. This work highlighted the presence of cognitive dysfunctions and functional brain alteration in breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy. This allows a greater awareness of the side effects, promoting better clinical management. However, further research is needed to investigate the cause-effect relationship between cognitive and functional alterations.

[Abstract] This paper explores the potential of a multidisciplinary approach to understand landscape evolution over the last 1200 years around an important monastic centre, Samos Abbey, in northwest Iberia. Our objective is to test whether or not landscape transformations here – in particular terracing related to agriculture – can be linked to the agency of the monks. Our landscape study combined analysis of written sources with archaeological survey and test-pitting, including OSL profiling and dating of seven earthworks, with pollen and geochemical analysis of three of them. It has been possible to detect at least four main phases of landscape transformation in the immediate surroundings of Samos Abbey. The mid-seventeenth century saw the most recent and visible transformations, partly overprinting earlier landscapes changes from the Iron Age, eighth–ninth and thirteenth centuries AD. The data suggest that landscape transformation had already begun in this area centuries before the abbey was created, but the presence of this power centre from the early Middle Ages resulted in intensive use of the territory over the last twelve centuries.

Over the past decade, environmental science and governance have undergone a ‘big data’ and ‘smart technology’ turn. Environmental sensing and monitoring technologies now gather an unprecedented amount of data about the Earth, including its biodiverse species. While these technologies are deployed for the purpose of preservation and conservation, they have been criticised for their tendency to reduce more-than-human life to data and to exert forms of algorithmic control over that data in a way that diminishes multispecies justice. In this paper, we argue for the importance of bringing digital environmental humanities (DEH) perspectives to bear on environmental governance—particularly in thinking through and planning for multispecies future(s) in an increasingly urbanised world. We focus on smart urban governance models and explore the role of biodiversity databases in environmental governance. Taking the Australian White Ibis as the protagonist of this chapter, we reveal how representation of the White Ibis in two biodiversity databases—namely the Atlas of Living Australia and Big City Birds—reinforces human-centred environmental governance. By engaging with the data-driven portrayal of ibises, the paper mobilises the more-than-human turn to propose a future direction for biodiversity databases that acknowledges nonhuman agency.

Yan Lianke is a prolific and yet controversial mainland Chinese author who attracts global attention. Three of his novels and short-story collections banned in the mainland were published in Hong Kong, including Serve the People! (2005), The Years, Months, Days (2009), and The Four Books (2010). He served as Visiting Professor of Chinese Culture at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and was conferred Doctor of Letters honoris causa. His two lecture collections review the dissemination and impacts of nineteenth- and twentieth-century world literature on China. What is the significance of Yan's encounter with Hong Kong? How do Hong Kong scholars and critics view Yan's mythorealist portrayal of the economic development of China in the age of globalization? This paper investigates the reception of Yan in Hong Kong from a cross-regional perspective by analyzing Yan's literary works published in Hong Kong, his award-winning novel The Day the Sun Died, The Explosions Chronicles, and The Four Books in particular. It also probes into the dynamics of how Yan and his writings travel to Hong Kong and beyond. The chapter draws on materials including anthologies reviews, journal papers, articles on local Chinese and English newspapers, academic conferences, graduate theses, and interviews. The quantitative approach of word cloud will be employed to supplement the analysis. This chapter holds that Yan is perceived in Hong Kong as a controversial mainland author, who revealed through his mythorealist the “reality” hidden behind China's door that is half-opened and half-closed. Moreover, the significance of Yan's encounter with Hong Kong lies in its cross-regional publications and activities, which enable a censored writer to connect with global readers.

Big data analytics in smart cities has given rise to the new interdisciplinary field of urban science, which uses data mining, visual analytics, modeling, and simulation to create novel planning support systems. One such system is RAISE (the Rapid Analytics Interactive Scenario Explorer) which assists urban planners and local government authorities with rapid analysis and visualization of land value uplift from proposed transport infrastructure. This paper’s contribution is twofold. We first introduce co-design as a method for developing a planning support tool such as RAISE and present findings from a series of co-design workshops that informed its development. Findings included the need for further transparency of the land valuation process and recommendation of a community feature that explains valuation outcomes to landowners. The resulting insights from the co-design process led to a series of emerging questions that the design of this type of planning support system raises: (a) the collaboration with local government partners and the need for what Huybrechts calls “institutioning;” (b) some of the ethical implications of use, and (c) the impact of moving from conventional to AI/machine learning-assisted modeling. We discuss these questions as part of our second contribution. The paper concludes by reflecting on the process of using the development of RAISE not just as a solution but as an opportunity to problematize new questions and identify future research opportunities that tackle these questions.

The sustainability requirements of the planet in recent years have made it necessary for everyone to reflect on new lifestyles. For this purpose, the United Nations has established an agenda for change organised into 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that claim to be achieved by 2030. The demands of this sustainable development are organised into three main dimensions: social, environmental, and economical. To achieve these goals, the educational system is fundamental. This new context demands new areas of study centred on the educational sphere; for example, in a holistic Health Physical Education (HPE), there are precedents in the literature that show a relationship of the characteristics to enhance sustainable development. Based on these references, it is suggested that the characteristics of holistic HPE could contribute to the three dimensions of sustainability and the SDGs. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to deepen through a series of reflections and comments on the elements that compose a holistic HPE to contribute to the sustainable development of the planet. The paper begins with a justification of the delimitation of the problem it seeks to solve through this research area. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the specific SDG targets related to holistic HPE and the sustainability competencies to be developed. The epistemological foundations that a holistic HPE contribution could have on the three dimensions of sustainable development, are also added. Finally, the document closes with orientations for future research and teaching methodology proposals and teaching approaches that would fit within the holistic HPE for sustainable development. The contributions made in this document will allow researchers to find a baseline from which to begin to conduct research that confirms the virtues of holistic HPE in contributing to a more sustainable world.

This paper offers an exploration of how race shapes the migration trajectories and labour market experiences of Black African youth who migrated to deindustrialising Newcastle, a traditionally White working-class city. The paper draws on qualitative data gathered from interviews with 20 Black African youth (10 males and 10 females) residing in the city in 2018. Their ages ranged between 18 and 30 years and they migrated to Australia under different circumstances as students or dependents of their carers who travelled to Australia as skilled migrants or as refugees. These young people migrated to Australia from different African countries including: The Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, Liberia, Uganda and Ghana. Theorising their experiences through decolonial theory and Critical Race Theory, this paper explores how these young migrants imagined Australia pre-migration in contrast with how they experienced Australia post-migration. With this, the paper forwards the argument that pre-migration Black African youth draw on modernist notions of development associated with Whiteness to position Australia as a developed place, and they have the expectation that once in Australia these experiences of development would be available to them. Post-migration, these young people negotiate being racialised on the labour market while looking for work and working, meaning that these experiences of ‘development’ are not available to them. The paper concludes by reflecting on the importance of accounting for how other processes like racialisation impact on young people’s experiences of migration and labour market engagement in deindustrialising localities like Newcastle.

Studies on policing in the Global South rarely discuss police self-evaluation of performance. Furthermore, internal performance assessments usually reflect the perspectives of senior management with little to no input from frontline officers. This paper seeks to present a more inclusive view of police performance as it presents the findings of a stakeholder perceptions survey commissioned by the Tuvalu Police Service (TPS) to examine police perceptions about their performance as service providers. We examine the survey responses of 100% of TPS officers on active duty (N=84) and 14 in-depth interviews to determine their views on the integrity, professionalism and service provision of TPS members. Findings indicate that police are able to provide useful assessments of the organisation and of their colleagues, but are less valid sources of information about personal performance. These findings are particularly relevant to discussions about improving police service provision in the developing world. The paper makes a contribution to policing scholarship by highlighting the potential of self-evaluation as an impetus for improved policing practices.

Teachers around the world report a lack of confidence about working with learners who are regarded as ‘diverse’. This paper draws on mixed methods research to explore knowledge claims that underpin the pedagogical work of teacher educators. Using our theoretical framing of epistemic reflexivity, we show connections between knowledge claims made across the broad literature of teacher education/diversity and those made by teacher educators about their practices and programs. Findings identified challenges with respect to existing practice which point to different ways of knowing about our work. This paper is a call to action for teacher educators to reclaim their accountability for teaching diversity.

Despite clear claims that higher education institutions prepare graduates for a world that is increasingly globalised, diverse and interconnected, how best to develop intercultural competence in places of learning is less clear. Drawing focus to a purpose-built intercultural programme, this paper explores the development of intercultural competence within a group of culturally diverse students at a regional Australian university. Eight students participated in a series of forums that were guided by a dialogic approach to facilitate discussion around cross-cultural topics. Through a fine-grained qualitative analysis of interviews and reflections, students were found to develop a deeper self-awareness and understanding of others’ views and reported better seeing themselves in a global context. The programme also promoted greater individual awareness around adjusting communication skills to relate to others, and students reflected on what it might mean to interact in a broader global society. This paper highlights the value of intentionally promoting cross-cultural interactions in higher education learning spaces and offers a dialogic approach as a way forward for universities to produce globally ready students.

This paper conceptualises replication research as being one of the most needed areas of ongoing academic activity. Using George the Galapagos tortoise as a metaphor for the lack of replication research, it is argued that only by replicating research studies over time can solid theory be developed. For the most part, advertising and marketing communication research consists of non-replicated, one-shot, point-in-time experiments which, once accepted and published by a journal, becomes the litany of the academic community and is then deified by the citation process. The paper begins by reviewing the background of replication research in the marketing communication domain and applies it to current thinking and publication trends. Reasons for the lack of replication research are presented and some conclusions are drawn for those seeking to confirm or challenge existing research. An agenda is provided for the development and publication of replication research.

This paper presents a new visualisation of tensions in developing and delivering undergraduate higher education. It links qualitative research on academics’ perceptions of education in one English research-intensive university to known models of knowledge, curricula, pedagogies, student engagement and identities to propose a new conceptual framework. Reworking the 1980s Clark triangle, with its apices of academic oligarchy, state authority and market denoting system tensions, a common apex now merges state and market agendas, and societal pulls are introduced at the third. The paper acknowledges today’s complex higher education environment and responds to critiques about the original triangle’s static nature, recognising oscillation within the space and adding a fourth apex representing students’ identities. The adapted model, supported through academics’ lived experiences, makes explicit the spectrum of choices and desired educational outcomes. It offers an important aid to debates on the purpose of higher education and learning and teaching policy and practice.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to different ways of working for social work and human service practitioners across the globe. This paper examines the use of technology by practitioners during nationwide stay at home orders due to COVID19. This study consisted of interviews with fifteen social work and human services practitioners in Southeast Queensland, Australia. While technology is frequently used in practice, the challenges and benefits of using technology as a primary practice method whilst working from home are discussed in this paper. The findings of this study suggest that the use of technology whilst working from home may be a viable option for future practice in well-resourced organizations with technologically proficient practitioners. However, for practitioners and clients without limited access to technology or reduced digital capabilities, such arrangements risk becoming discriminatory. Considerations therefore must be made in ensuring access to technology and the appropriateness of working from home for some social work and human services practitioners.

This paper problematises the dominance of the Northern gaze on sex work. Because the organisation of sex work takes place under different modes in Bangladesh, sex work premises have a unique structure which sets them apart from sex work in the Global Northern contexts. In particular, the dichotomy between private and public life, which has influenced the structure and organisation of sex work in many Northern contexts, as well as the regulation of sex work, is less pronounced in the Bangladeshi context. By documenting the culturally distinct and varied experiences of regional sex workers in Bangladesh, this paper emphasises the diversity among sex workers and argues that ignoring the culturally-specific conditions of the organisation of sex work risks universalising sex workers as perpetual victims. This paper highlights the importance of acknowledging the cultural variability of sex work to understand the diversity of sex workers’ experiences.