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Why the ongoing occupation of Ukraine matters to ethnobiology
Get PDFEthnobiology and ethnomedicine investigate the continuously changing complex and inextricable relations among
culture, nature, and health. Since the emergence of modern ethnobiology a few decades ago, its essence and mission
have been the study of biocultural diversities and the centers of its inquiries have been and are local communities
and their co-evolutionary interrelationships between natural environments and social systems. At the core of ethnobi�ologists’ work there are not only conceptualizations of and refections on others’ views about nature and the universe,
but also a robust commitment to advocacy in defense of these assemblages of local ecological knowledge, practices,
and beliefs (LEK). Homogenization processes and therefore erosion of LEK have occurred throughout history in difer�ent ways: from colonialism to industrialization, and from fnancialization to globalization; however, we cannot forget
the role played by centripetal states and even dictatorships in this process, nor the associated political ideology of
nationalism, which has often elicited and justifed policies aimed at standardizing diversities within state borders. Our
research groups have been working since eight years together with local communities in Ukrainian rural areas and
documented a remarkable erosion of LEK during the Soviet times, yet an extraordinary surviving biocultural diversity
occurs; the ongoing military occupation of Ukraine could further threaten this heritage. While citizens’ attention now
should be on efectively supporting those who are experiencing hardships during this traumatic time, ethnobiologists
will be called hopefully soon to directly participate in rebuilding the biocultural “cobwebs” damaged by the military
operations
Advances in Land–Ocean Heat Fluxes Using Remote Sensing
Get PDFAdvanced remote sensing technology has provided spatially distributed variables for estimating land–ocean heat fluxes, allowing for practical applications in drought monitoring, water resources management, and climate assessment. This Special Issue includes several research studies using state-of-the-art algorithms for estimating downward longwave radiation, surface net radiation, latent heat flux, columnar atmospheric water vapor, fractional vegetation cover, and grassland aboveground biomass. This Special Issue intends to help scientists involved in global change research and practices better comprehend the strengths and disadvantages of the application of remote sensing for monitoring surface energy, water, and carbon budgets. The studies published in this Special Issue can be applied by natural resource management communities to enhance the characterization and assessment of land–ocean biophysical variables, as well as for more accurately partitioning heat flux into soil and vegetation based on the existing and forthcoming remote sensing data
Structural and Optical Properties of Nanocrystalline Pbs Thin Films Prepared by Microwave-Assisted Chemical Bath Deposition
Get PDFNanocrystalline lead sulfide (PbS) thin films have been successfully deposited onto glass
substrate via microwave assisted chemical bath deposition. Aqueous solutions of lead nitrate Pb(NO3) and
thiourea [SC(NH2)2] were used as lead and sulfur ion sources respectively. Structural and morphological
studies revealed a high synthesized nanocrystalline PbS thin films quality. Optical studies showed a
significant blue shifting in the energy gap of the prepared nanocrystalline PbS thin films. Compared with
bulk PbS, the prepared nanocrystalline PbS showed large energy gap, value of about 2.4 eV. This could
be attributed to the confinement effect of nanocrystalline PbS thin films. The study introduced a simple
and cost-effective method to further investigate other properties of nanocrystalline PbS thin films such as
electrical and morphological properties
Mishandling of COVID-19 Pandemic: A Challenge to the International Order
Get PDFThe paper examines the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the extent to which it had
affected the international order, particularly where it had exposed the contradictions, injustices,
and fragility of the order. The sacrifices needed to be made by the great powers were not made
during the pandemic for the international system to maintain its balance and provide the support
needed by the global south, as many of the weaker states found it difficult to survive, while elitism
on the part of the global north had its day. The paper, through the document and thematic analysis,
found that the marketization of the international system has impacted the ethics of life and death,
deciding who is to live and who is to die, when and even how? Another key finding is the depiction
by COVID-19 of human hierarchies that the liberal international system fails to consider, thus
challenging the claim that sacrifices are made in support of the system by the developed world. In
the context of the foregoing, the paper recommends that the current international order should be
restructured with a view to addressing the lopsidedness, gaps, and inequalities to make the world
balanced and more just, in accordance with the liberal norms and value
The Perception of the Teachers about the Children with Specific Learning Disability as a Special Education Need: Brayaty Primary School Case in Erbil
Get PDFStudents with special learning difficulties are categorized as people in need of special education. The field of special education is very wide, and it also covers specific learning disability. Specific learning disability is mistakenly perceived as a lack of intelligence because it is considered as the main reason behind students’ failures to a large extent. These students have the potential to be integrated into society with special education. This study was conducted to reveal how this situation is perceived by the teachers
Depression, Anxiety and Stress Level among University Students of Class Reentry Post Covid-19 Pandemic
Get PDFSince the breakdown of the COVID-19, tertiary education in Malaysia is still using online classes. Returning to normal study routines might have some positive effects or opposite and causes anxiety for other students as with class reentry. Therefore, this study is evaluating the depression, anxiety, and stress in reentry classes of university students post covid-19 from all over Malaysia. Observational study was conducted using online questionnaire that was developed by adapting the Patient Health questionnaire (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), and Perceived stress scale (PSS). The results show higher levels of anxiety and perceived stress among Malaysian university students towards class reentry which causes moderate depression. The findings revealed a significant correlation between depression, anxiety, and perceived stress. Thus, policies should be implemented by educational institutions and instructors to help understand the students’ mental strain and deal with future pandemic to overcome students’ anxiety and emotional distress
A Transfer-Learning-Based Approach for Emergency Vehicle Detection
Get PDFThe paper presents a computer-vision based approach for real-time detection of different types of emergency vehicles under heavy traffic conditions. This enables preferential path clearance for emergency vehicles by the traffic controller which has the potential of saving lives, properties and increasing the ability to prevent crimes and drastically reducing the total time required by an emergency vehicle to reach its target destination. The main challenge emergency vehicles faced in and around the cities is heavy traffic jams, which significantly hampers their operations resulting in a disastrous outcome. In most of the cities, emergency vehicles are equipped with unique colors and sound system which enable the traffic police to identify them. As our cities become smarter and transition into an era of artificial intelligence, the old system may not be sustainable due to that fact that it needs humans to constantly monitor emergency vehicle arrival at the intersections and also the sound produces by such vehicles may be nuisance and discomforting to the general public. This paper proposed a method of automatic detection of four different categories of emergency vehicle irrespective of the vehicle’s shapes, models or manufacturers’ using modified version of YOLOv5 object detection algorithm. YOLO is an acronym for (You Only Look Once) and it is an object detection algorithm that divides images into a grid system. Each cell within the grid is responsible for detecting objects within itself. YOLO is one of the most famous object detection algorithms due to its speed and accuracy. YOLO models are used for object detection with high performance which consists of 84 classes to detect and differentiate between 84 different objects. The proposed model developed here is based on 4 classes which are (Firetrucks, Ambulance, Police Car, and Normal Cars) classes. The top layers (fully connected layers) of the YOLO algorithm were re-designed and retrained to get new learned weights while freezing the bottom layers (convolutional layers) and retaining the pre-trained YOLOv5 weights. After retraining with the proposed modified YOLOv5, the model has shown promising results and quite impressive metrics in detecting and classifying emergency vehicles and normal vehicles. Using Mean Average Precision (mAP) metric, for police cars we achieved 98%, 96% for fire trucks, 89% for ambulances and 97% for normal cars
The Quality of Assessment during Covid-19 Online Education in the Eyes of Students: Tishk International University Case
Get PDFMeasurement and evaluation are an indispensable elements of educational processes. As a result of this, how learning takes place is revealed, and the question of what changes should be made in the future depends on the result of this. The criteria for measurement and evaluation were designed in accordance with face-to-face education. In the conditions of online education in the Covid-19 process, some problems arose regarding measurement and evaluation. With the Likert scale questionnaire, we applied to our students, it was investigated how healthy the teacher assessments were during the term. In this study, it was revealed that the students had problems with measurement, evaluation, and teacher assessment in this period
The Effect of Spell-Checker Features on Spelling Competence among EFL Learners: An Empirical Study
Get PDFWriting is an essential skill in any languages. There are several sub-skills involved in writing, the most important one is spelling. Spelling is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of writing as it requires learners to acquire a range of detailed knowledge including writing system, orthography, and punctuation. With the wide spread of technology use in almost all aspects of our lives, learning and teaching processes are not exceptional from this storm that ultimately affects the way language learning and teaching are maintained. In this line, the current study intended to examine the effects of using technological tools that are featured with auto-spell checker on the spelling abilities of learners. To do so, a quasi-experimental method was carried out to address the issue under investigation. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and GraphPad Prism. The findings exhibited the influence of such technological tools on spelling competence of the learners in which those who heavily depend on such technological tools face more challenges pertaining spelling in their writing tasks
A Revision of the Impacts of Covid 19
Get PDFThe Covid-19 and quarantine conditions caused great changes in people’s lives. In addition, it deeply affected human life in different aspects. Many negative effects of Covid 19 emerged over time and caused many damages. First of all, this process, which had a deep impact on people’s psychology, caused people to suffer from many psychological, mental and physiological diseases. It also left very deep economic effects and brought all sectors to a standstill in many countries of the world. Its economic effects deeply shook states as well as individuals. Although not as effective as the others, it left some political effects. In addition, it had some adverse effects on children and turned some negative behaviors into addiction. Thus, computer and internet addiction emerged in some children. The only observed positive effect of the process was on the environment. Due to the slowdown in industrial activities, some positive improvements were seen in nature again