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What are the legal, political and social challenges to governance that the Taliban face in forming a stable state, which would possess legitimacy and the capacity to provide services in the areas of security, combating corruption and reducing poverty in Afghanistan?
No full textThesis (B.A. in Political Science, Minor in Business Administration)--John Cabot University, Fall 2021.Twenty years after being ousted by a US-led military coalition in 2001, the Islamic militant group of the Taliban are back in power for a second time in Afghanistan. But the question that remains is whether the Taliban are capable of governing Afghanistan, or will they fail like they did in their first rule. This thesis uses Karl Derouen and Shaun Goldfinch’s criteria of political stability to answer that question by examining the legal, political and social challenges that the Taliban face in forming a stable state in Afghanistan. The results offer evidence that possessing internal and external legitimacy, protecting Afghanistan against the regional security complexes, combating corruption and reducing poverty are the main challenges to governance that the Taliban face in their second rule in Afghanistan
‘I Do Not Like Being Me’: The Impact of Self-Hate on Increased Risky Sexual Behavior in Sexual Minority People
Get PDFBackground
Increased risky sexual behaviors (RSB) in sexual minority people relative to heterosexual individuals are well documented. However, the role of trans-diagnostic factors that are not sexual orientation-specific, such as self-criticism, in predicting RSB was understudied. The present study aimed to test participants’ gender and sexual orientation as moderators between self-criticism and RSB.
Methods
Data were collected during 2019. The total sample included 986 sexual minority people (Nwomen = 51%) and 853 heterosexual people (Nwomen = 46%), ranging from 18 to 35 years of age. Self-criticism dimensions (self-hate, self-inadequacy, self-reassurance), types of positive affect (relaxed, safe/content, and activated affect), and RSB were assessed. Bivariate, multivariate analyses, and moderated regression analyses were conducted.
Results
Sexual minority participants showed higher levels of RSB, self-hate, and self-inadequacy than heterosexual people. Only in sexual minority men, RSB correlated positively with self-hate and negatively with safe/content positive affect. Moderated regressions showed that only for sexual minority participants, higher RSB were predicted by higher levels of self-hate. At the same time, this association was not significant for heterosexual people controlling the effects of age, presence of a stable relationship, other self-criticism dimensions, and activation safe/content affect scale. The two-way interaction between sexual orientation and gender was significant, showing that regardless of self-hate, the strength of the association between sexual orientation and RSB is stronger for sexual minority men than sexual minority women and heterosexual participants.
Conclusions
Findings highlight the distinctive role of self-hate in the occurrence of RSB in sexual minority people and support the usefulness of developing a compassion-focused intervention to target self-hate in sexual minority people
Painful Disclosure: Women Writing About Mental Illness
No full textThesis (B.A. in English Literature, Minor in Communications)--John Cabot University, Spring 2021.Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" initiated a genre of literature in which women writers use fiction as a means of telling their own stories of mental illness. Various as mental illnesses may be, the literature of this genre shows a good deal of commonality from one work to another. These works reinforce each other in telling a story in which women's illness is specifically female and connected to the vocations available or unavailable to women. They also narrate of a medical profession dominated by men, in which female patients' complaints are not listened to or taken seriously. This essay will look at three works that are prominent in this genre: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892), Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925), and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963). What is most interesting from a literary point of view is how these authors transform their stories into works of fiction
“The Citadel of Culture”: The Italian Academy’s Unrealized Urban Plan to Redevelop Rome’s Lungara District
No full textMaster of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2021."The Reale Accademia d’Italia (the Royal Academy of Italy) was an Italian Fascist national cultural institution with the mission of reshaping the Italian intelligentsia’s cultural and scientific production to the Fascist regime’s needs. The Italian Academy was headquartered in Rome’s Villa Farnesina, a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture located on Via della Lungara. The Italian Academy’s unrealized 1939 proposal to redevelop the entire Lungara district shows a desire to ‘reframe’ the Villa Farnesina and aggrandize the Academy’s physical position within the urban layout of Rome. The plan would have replaced the Regina Coeli prison with a monumental access route to the crest of the Janiculum. It would have created a visual and transportation connection between the secular “sacred area” of Garibaldini monuments atop the Janiculum and Rome’s bustling city center.Since the 1870’s Italian city planners had eyed the Lungara district for redevelopment, but it was the Fascist regime that was finally willing to carry out the necessary destruction to redevelop the area. The Academy intervened with their own Lungara redevelopment proposal because the institution wanted control of their neighborhood. The Academy’s proposal was crafted by the famous architect and urbanist Marcello Piacentini and approved by Benito Mussolini in late 1939. The project was set to be executed during the mid-1940s but was slowly given up on during Italy’s increasingly desperate situation during World War II.The Lungara redevelopment proposal would have clustered various Italian cultural institutions into the redesigned Lungara district, in physical proximity to the Italian Academy. This would have helped the Italian Academy perform its mission of coordinating Italian cultural production. The unrealized Lungara proposal is an urban planning expression of the Fascist regime’s desire for a totalitarian Italy
The Roma Image in Western Baroque Art
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History)--John Cabot University, Spring 2021.The Roms, an ethnic group known by numerous names and titles, become highly visible in Baroque painting, especially conspicuous because of their exotic appearance and their association with “magical” activity. 17th-century European viewers were both attracted to and terrified by this ethnic group, creating an ambiguous attitude towards its image. Painting in this century was also characterized by emphasis on naturalism through direct observation, lending ideas of verism to the representation of the Roms. This thesis focuses on the evolution of representing the Roms between the 16th and 17th centuries. Interest in the representation of the Roms has only emerged in the past few decades and no systematic studies in the sphere of art history have been undertaken. The first chapter presents an in-depth analysis of near Eastern figures in Renaissance painting and the appearance of the Roms. With a contextual and formal methodology of finding connections between different paintings, this thesis will discuss distinguishing contrast in rendering secular and religious subjects, and the influence of Renaissance masters on Baroque artists in representing “turbaned” characters. The second chapter deals with the issue of losing established iconographic elements of Roms by switching cultural codes and presenting a theatrical approach to rendering the Roms on canvases. The conclusion reviews every stated issue concerning the ambiguity towards Roma and how it changed throughout the centuries
The Power of the European Court of Human Rights in Confrontation with the Sovereignty of the Russian Federation
No full textThesis (B.A. in Political Science, Minor in Legal Studies and Psychology)--John Cabot University, Fall 2021.The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation has led to numerous human rights violations. Although Russia is one of the signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, the state shows a profound disregard for the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights by refusing to accept responsibility for human rights violations within the Crimean peninsula. This dissertation attempts to shed light on the problem of continued non-compliance by the Russian Federation through a thorough examination of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in relation to the inter-state case of Ukraine v. Russia. It will be shown that, notwithstanding the fact that the conflict between Ukraine and Russia is ongoing and the situation can be described as political, there are legal issues for which the ECtHR is the appropriate forum. While the European Court of Human Rights has traditionally had a high compliance rate, the question is whether the current non-compliance by the Russian Federation threatens to undermine the persuasive power of the ECtHR and disrupt the peace, democracy and tolerance that it promotes
Abandoning the Discourse of Philosophical Evil
No full textThesis (B.A. in Humanistic Studies)--John Cabot University, Fall 2020.The concept of philosophical evil has the ability to explain away many of the undesirable faces of human wrongdoing. Evil skeptics have oft criticized the term and concept of evil as it can easily be misused to slap an easy to understand label on highly complex situations. Then there is also the question of whether pure evil as a secular concept even exists, or whether evil is only motivated by human intentions. These various arguments and analyses are very intriguingly illustrated in an infamous modern day example of what is commonly perceived to be great evil- terrorism. The modern "evil" of terrorism serves to be a rigorous thought experiment in which we can apply, argue, and question multiple aspects of both evil skepticism and evil as an explanatory power. If the term evil is to be used in an explanatory context what questions must it be able to answer and what standards must it pass in order to function well enough to stay in continued use? Moreover, will a new definition prevent it from being abused by the powers that be as has so often happened in the past
Interfaith Dialogue and Humanization of the Religious Other: Discourse and Action
No full textHumanization is a frequently invoked goal of interfaith dialogue—but what does it mean to dialoguers to be “human,” let alone to make each person more human? This article takes a close look at the common discourses of interfaith dialoguers, and how those discourses are translated into action. Drawing on observed vignettes and reflections from ethnographic interviews across geopolitical contexts, the article conceptualizes humanization as a discursive object of the interfaith society that dialoguers invoke to enhance group solidarity and express collective identity in the form of their sacred values. By frequently invoking the concept of humanization, interfaith dialogues signal to each other that they are uniting around a common goal. Specifically, the article investigates normative discourses regarding “humanization” of the religious other and how the practice of exchanging narratives facilitates humanization and the cultivation of empathy. Through this data we can see that “humanization” is a common discursive goal of dialoguers. In Italy, humanization is a matter of disconfirming stereotypes and alleviating ignorance across social divides, whereas in the Middle East humanization intensifies into a commitment to not physically harm the other, who is recognized through the course of intergroup engagement as sharing a common ground of experience and complexity with the other. Dialoguers say humanization can be achieved through non-discursive relational practices such as artistic collaboration, shared silence, humor or cognitive re-framing, but most often through narrative storytelling
Model for estimating the healthcare costs and capacity of intensive care units in Italy in the treatment of patients with COVID-19: remdesivir impact assessment
No full textIntroduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which is a human coronavirus responsible for a pandemic. Direct interventions, i.e. physical distancing and use of protective devices, can prevent or limit contagions, however, it is also required to evaluate the optimization of limited resources, such as the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). For this purpose, it is relevant to estimate the impact of therapeutic solutions that reduce the probability that the patient transits to ICU in symptomatic subjects and in need of hospitalization. The therapeutic solutions allow a more rapid recovery of the patient and save scarce resources that can be used in the treatment of other patients.
Methods: A forecasting model is designed to estimate the impact of one therapeutic solution, i.e. the antiretroviral Remdesivir, on both the capacity of intensive care and the healthcare costs for hospitals when managing the current emergency. A base case is presented as well as a best and a worst case scenario deriving from the sensitivity analyses.
Results: The introduction of Remdesivir in patients receiving low-flow oxygen therapy with the purpose of reducing ICU accesses and deaths leads to 431 million euros cost savings and avoids 17,150 hospitalizations in intensive care and 6,923 deaths. In the best case, 294 million euros savings are estimated, whilst in the worst case the model estimates a saving of 512 million euros.
Conclusions: Remdesivir has the potential to reduce the negative effects of the Coronavirus disease, improving patient conditions and reducing death tolls, and can also save scarce healthcare resources during this pandemic, resulting in a shorter hospital stay and fewer ICU admissions. (Market Access
Late Antique Christianity as a Syncretistic Socio-Political Institution in the West
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History, Minor in Humanistic Studies and Creative Writing)--John Cabot University, Spring 2020.Deconstructing Christian theology and doctrine to its core elements, it is possible to understand Church success in the Roman Empire as the result of Christianity adaptable socio-cultural and institutional structures. Christianity has differentiated itself from paganism and condemned ‘pagan’ religions as false. However, Christianity not only derive from ‘pagan’ beliefs, but it also applied a syncretistic political theology to configure itself into the Western Roman Empire's political and socio-cultural frame. The characteristic Christian doctrine of salvation has pre-Christian antecedents. Salvation is derived from archetypical purificative life-giving fluids like blood and water. Jesus theological function of savior stems from his association with Oriental Mysteries divinities whose birth and death have a regenerative function. The variety of characters in Christianity, such as saint, demons, and angels that work under the control of predominant sun god, display not only Christian nature as a henotheistic religion but also Christianity adaptation of ‘pagan’ divinities and cult to its necessity. Late Antique Christianity and Church establishment in the West resulted from Christianity flexibility and syncretism