Greece in the Eurozone: An Evaluation of the First Two Decades

On the 31st of December 2021, the euro celebrated its two decades in circulation. Initially, twelve countries adopted the euro as their new national currency, Greece being one of them. Starting in 2020, euro is the official currency of nineteen European Union countries. This paper aims to examine three issues. Firstly, the paper investigates Greek people’s perception about the euro, using data from the recent issue of the Eurobarometer (December 2021). Secondly, the economic performance of Greece is briefly examined by comparing the Greek Gross Domestic Product (GDP) two decades before and two decades after the introduction of euro. Finally, the Greek participation to the eurozone has been a controversial, political issue. The political developments in Greece during the first two decades of the euro are also studied, emphasizing the dramatic political events after the double elections of 2012. The period of the two decades ends with the detrimental impact of COVID-19. This issue is also mentioned by reviewing some recent publications. Keywords: Eurozone, Greece, GDP, per capita GDP, Eurobarometer, euro, elections, politics

Impact of Design Thinking on Human Resources

Design thinking in the human resources area is still a recent issue little known and exploited even at an international level. It has only recently begun to be worked on and shared by organizations, and it is pointed out as being one of the most important competences of the 21st century. It refers to a style of thinking that combines the senses with the context of a problem, creativity in the creation of new points of view, and solutions and rationality in the analysis and search for solutions to the context. The present research used the Employee Experience DT Model, applied on a multinational company and developed within three long sessions of brainstorming and brainwriting. The main conclusions outlined that DT stimulates the process of continuous improvement, reinforces teamwork, as well as creativity and effort in solving problems. Furthermore, it sensitizes the administration for the current existing problems, compromising it in their resolution, and working in partnership with its stakeholders.

Proverbs and African Modernity: Defining an Ethics of Becoming

African proverbs have, for good reason, attracted considerable attention from scholars, both African and non-African. One notable testimony to such attention is the international conference in South Africa from which came a monumental collection of scholarly articles now available on CD and in print. Another evidence of the interest the subject has enjoyed among African scholars is the wealth of publications they have produced in recent years, for example, Adeleke Adeeko’s monograph Proverbs, Textuality, and Nativism in African Literature; Ambrose Adikamkwu Monye’s Proverbs in African Orature: The Aniocha-Igbo Experience; Kwesi Yankah’s The Proverb in the Context of Akan Rhetoric: A Theory of Proverb Praxis; and my Yoruba Proverbs. In addition, there have been influential articles by Ayo Bamgbose, Lawrence. A. Boadi, Romanus N. Egudu, Kwame Gyekye, Yisa Yusuf, and a host of others whose omission from this rather abbreviated list is not meant as a slight. In a recent conversation, the preeminent paremiologist, Wolfgang Mieder, called my attention to the lineup of articles in the most recent issue of Proverbium [23: 2006], in which four of the five lead articles are by Nigerian scholars (Abimbola Adesoji, Bode Agbaje, George Olusola Ajibade, and Akinola Akintunde Asinyanbola) and on African proverbs, an indication, he said of the present effervescence of, and future potential for, proverb studies and publications on them on African soil. Because of these efforts we now know a good deal about proverbs as a cultural resource, their functionality and the protocols for their usage, but also their artistry-structure, wordplay, imagery, and so forth, especially after calls such as Isidore Okpewho’s (1992) that scholars pay due attention to the aesthetic dimensions of traditional oral forms.

New way of investigating ICT- enhanced teaching in TAFE Australia: Disciplinary focused

Teachers’ ways of using ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in various disciplines is a recent issue in the higher educational research paradigm. In order to extend previous findings in relation to this issue, this research proposes an in-depth investigation focusing on vocational teachers’ qualitatively diverse ways of using ICT in different disciplines. A cohort of 11 teachers from three TAFE (Technical and Further Education) institutions of NSW, Australia, were purposively chosen aiming to ensure adequate variations in disciplines, gender, and experience of using ICT. The phenomenographic research approach was considered as the theoretical and methodological underpinning which guided the participant selection, data collection and data analysis. The findings revealed that disciplines have very limited influence on using ICT in TAFE teaching. It further discerned four categories of description: tool, content, subject, and student focused. The findings provide useful information towards improving vocational teaching practices in different disciplines and working as an input for improving teacher professional development program (TPD). In order to generalise these findings, an extended research with a wider sample is recommended.

LETTER TO EDITOR: A response to Narayanan et al. (2021) “On the validity of the recently described bush frog Raorchestes kollimalai Gowande, Ganesh & Mirza, 2020” published in Zootaxa

Narayanan et al. (2021) make extremely grave allegations of ‘misrepresentation of data’ by Gowande et al. (2020). Narayanan et al. (2021) found serious flaws in the publication dealing with the description of Raorchestes kollimalai by Gowande, Ganesh & Mirza (2020). The authors state that Gowande et al. (2020) overlooked many errors, which consequently raises questions on the validity of R. kollimalai. We here respond to their comments, dispel their false allegations of misrepresentation of data and provide evidence for the validity of Raorchestes kollimalai. A common practice while writing a response/critique of a published paper is to contact the editor of the journal in which the paper was published, which, in this case, is TAPROBANICA. However, Narayanan et al. (2021) chose to publish their critique in a different journal, ZOOTAXA and thus, were unaware of the erratum to the paper on the new species. The erratum that was published in a recent issue of Taprobanica (Gowande et al. 2021) resolves some of the concerns raised by Narayanan et al. (2021). These concerns were a mistake on the part of Gowande et al. (2020) but by no means did the authors intend to hide or misrepresent data as accused by Narayanan et al. (2021).

Monocyte as a prognostic marker in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

This letter raised some concerns about the study by Karampitsakos et al. in a recent issue of Respiratory Research.

A Complex Microbial Interplay Underlies Recurrent Vulvovaginal Candidiasis Pathobiology

While extremely prevalent, painful, and difficult to treat, vulvovaginal candidiasis remains largely understudied in the field of women’s health. In a recent issue of mSystems , McKloud et al. (E.

The Cultivation of Social Work Knowledge: Toward a More Robust System of Peer Review

In a recent issue of Families in Society, Caputo argues for the “centrality” of peer review in the cultivation of social work knowledge. Specifically, he favors the double-blind model of peer review. In this paper, I argue that social work should adopt a more dynamic set of reviewing practices. First, I define some terminology and discuss the limitations of the current double-blind model. Then, I describe recent trends in peer review, which I argue foster a more robust and open system. I frame this discussion within the context of the wider open science movement and urge social workers to engage with these scholarly practices. In line with these practices and values, a freely accessible preprint is available at: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/rvqze/

Piled Modifiers, Buried Verbs, and Other Turgid Prose in the American Political Science Review

ABSTRACT Academic writing is notoriously difficult to read. Can political science do better? To assess the state of prose in political science, we examined a recent issue of the American Political Science Review. We evaluated the articles according to the basic principles of style endorsed by writing experts. We find that the writing suffers most from heavy noun phrases in forms such as noun noun noun and adjective adjective noun noun. Further, we describe five contributors that swell noun phrases: piled modifiers, needless words, nebulous nouns, missing prepositions, and buried verbs. We document more than a thousand examples and demonstrate how to revise each one with principles of style. We also draw on research in cognitive science to explain why these constructions confuse, mislead, and distract readers.

A Review of Cyberbullying and Cybervictimization: Taxonomy, Challenges, Limitations, and Recommendations for Future Researchers

Cyberbullying and cybervictimization is vital and recent issue that still require further investigations. It is classified as a global problem, serious risk and danger that challenging researchers in term of assessment, nature and measuring that demand massive effort to limit and reduce its prevalence and consequences. The aim of the study is to underline challenges, limitations, and recommendations that related to cyberbullying and cybervictimization that need to be explored and investigated in greater depth in future researches. The current study intends to analyse the twenty- seven previous studies and build taxonomy that highlights gabs and shortage of the phenomena into four main sections: research, programs, methodology and theories and model. Based on researcher analysis there are four main sections that present the challenges and limitations, whereas eleven sub-sections and eight divisions give more details about these challenges and limitations. Discussion: The result of the review present that more factors need to integrate and re-investigate whereas theories need to link, and methodology aspects require to develop. In addition, new aspects and open areas that demand investigate in future. This review and taxonomy provide a unique opportunity to develop and create additional research fields. Received: 8 March 2021 / Accepted: 20 April 2021 / Published: 17 May 2021