Abstraction, Bare Life, and Counternarratives of Mobility in the Refugee Films of Richard Mosse and Ai Weiwei, Incoming and Human Flow

This chapter explores the unprecedented formal experiments of Richard Mosse and Ai Weiwei in their attempts to capture the signature global event of our time, the mass movements of refugees and immigrants across geopolitical boundaries. In Mosse’s Incoming, a thermal camera registers the heat emanating from human bodies from some 30 miles away, providing images of refugees in lifeboats, transport trucks, and refugee camps that are both other-worldly, almost mutant in their strangeness, and deeply moving—images that rivet the gaze. In Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow, drone cameras render the vast scale of human displacement around the world—a view from above is interspersed with the close witnessing of cell phone video, using the visual language of spontaneous documentation in counterpoint with a technology associated with military surveillance. In both films, Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “bare life” is articulated within an advanced optical and technological framework that brings new critical questions into view.

Dealing with the promise of metabarcoding in mega-event biomonitoring: EXPO2015 unedited data

As human activities on our planet persist, causing widespread and irreversible environmental degradation, the need to biomonitor ecosystems has never been more pressing. These circumstances have required a renewal in monitoring techniques, encouraged by necessity to develop more rapid and accurate tools which will support timely observations of ecosystem structure and function. The World Exposition (from now 'EXPO2015') hosted in Milan from May to October 2015 was a global event that could be categorized as a mega-event, which can be defined as an acute environmental stressor, possibly generating biodiversity alteration and disturbance. During the six months of EXPO2015, exhibitors from more than 135 countries and 22 million visitors insisted on a 1.1 million square meters area. Faced with such a massive event, we explore the potential of DNA metabarcoding using three molecular markers to improve the understanding of anthropogenic impacts in the area, both considering air and water monitoring. Furthermore, we explore the effectiveness of the taxonomy assignment phase considering different taxonomic levels of analysis and the use of data mining approaches to predict sample origin. Unless the degree of taxa identification still remains open, our results showed that DNA metabarcoding is a powerful genomic-based tool to monitor biodiversity at the microscale, allowing us to capture exact fingerprints of specific event sites and to explore in a comprehensive manner the eukaryotic community alteration. With this work, we aim to disentangle and overcome the crucial issues related to the generalization of DNA metabarcoding in order to support future applications.

Information-Seeking Under Threat: How the Characteristics of Web Searches Changed During the Pandemic

To adjust to novel and threatening environments people seek information. Here, we examine whether and how a threatening global event -–the pandemic– altered the characteristics of the information people sought out online. An analysis of queries submitted to Google search engine revealed that people were more likely to submit queries for information that could guide action (i.e., “How to” and “How do” searches) during the pandemic relative to before, controlling for total search volume. This tendency may have contributed to the rapid adaptation observed in response to the pandemic. Indeed, stress levels reported weekly by 17K individuals predicted the proportion of “How to” and “How do” searches, controlling for COVID-19 related confinement. Markedly, population stress levels were more strongly associated with this high-level feature of web searches than they were with searches for specific terms such as “anxiety” or “stress”. In contrast, COVID-19 related confinement, but not stress levels, was associated with the proportion of “What” and “Why” questions submitted to Google, suggesting that the confinement was related to increased desire for general knowledge. Key results were replicated across two countries (UK and US). The study suggests that in situations of high stress people ask questions that can guide action. An intriguing possibility is that tracking of this feature could be used to monitor population stress levels beyond the pandemic.

New data on the age of the Emine Formation (East Balkan, Bulgaria)

The study represents new data about chronostratigraphic range of the Emine flysch Formation in its type section at the Black Sea coast near the “Irakli” touristic resort. In the highest stratigraphic levels, calcareous nannofossils of NP 10 Rhomboaster bramlettei zone have been documented, supporting early Eocene age for the formation. These new finds will shed light on the timing of cessation of the turbiditic sedimentation in East Balkan, as well as on the specific expression of the global event – the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) in deep-water environment.

CISG Through the Willem C Vis Moot casebook: Seventeen Years of the CISG Evolution Explored Through Annual Global Discussion

<p>This paper explores the evolution of the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods (referred to throughout the text as the "CISG" or the "Convention") jurisprudence through the Willem C Vis Moot ("Vis Moot") casebook. It analyses the CISG issues raised and explored in the seventeen years of the Willem C Vis Moot and draws out notable trends and key themes. Upon the analysis of the trends and themes which have arisen over the past seventeen years, the dissertation discusses how the Vis Moot problems, as well as the winning memoranda, reflect and encapsulate the evolution and developments in the worldwide application and interpretation of the CISG in those areas. The analysis of the Vis Moot problems is thus used as a tool to consider the worldwide jurisprudential developments on the CISG over the past two decades, and identify both those aspects of the Convention that have benefited from considerable analysis, and where comprehensive jurisprudence has already developed, as well as the "gap" areas where further work is required in order to ensure the CISG evolves alongside technological, social, political and legal developments affecting international sale of goods contracts. The dissertation concludes by drawing out the notable trends illustrated by, and set against the backdrop of, the Vis Moot casebook, and the consequent implications of such trends on the current state ofCISG jurisprudence. In particular, these trends and outcomes are assessed as against the overall spirit of the Convention and its goal of achieving, or seeking to achieve, uniform application of rules on international sale of goods contracts. This assessment seeks to capture how this goal of uniformity has been achieved to-date, and where the upcoming challenges may lie in the coming years. Finally, the paper considers the overall importance and impact of the Vis Moot, as an annual global event with manifold benefits, on the interpretation, promotion and development of the CISG.</p>

CISG Through the Willem C Vis Moot casebook: Seventeen Years of the CISG Evolution Explored Through Annual Global Discussion

<p>This paper explores the evolution of the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods (referred to throughout the text as the "CISG" or the "Convention") jurisprudence through the Willem C Vis Moot ("Vis Moot") casebook. It analyses the CISG issues raised and explored in the seventeen years of the Willem C Vis Moot and draws out notable trends and key themes. Upon the analysis of the trends and themes which have arisen over the past seventeen years, the dissertation discusses how the Vis Moot problems, as well as the winning memoranda, reflect and encapsulate the evolution and developments in the worldwide application and interpretation of the CISG in those areas. The analysis of the Vis Moot problems is thus used as a tool to consider the worldwide jurisprudential developments on the CISG over the past two decades, and identify both those aspects of the Convention that have benefited from considerable analysis, and where comprehensive jurisprudence has already developed, as well as the "gap" areas where further work is required in order to ensure the CISG evolves alongside technological, social, political and legal developments affecting international sale of goods contracts. The dissertation concludes by drawing out the notable trends illustrated by, and set against the backdrop of, the Vis Moot casebook, and the consequent implications of such trends on the current state ofCISG jurisprudence. In particular, these trends and outcomes are assessed as against the overall spirit of the Convention and its goal of achieving, or seeking to achieve, uniform application of rules on international sale of goods contracts. This assessment seeks to capture how this goal of uniformity has been achieved to-date, and where the upcoming challenges may lie in the coming years. Finally, the paper considers the overall importance and impact of the Vis Moot, as an annual global event with manifold benefits, on the interpretation, promotion and development of the CISG.</p>

Team-Based Learning in a Physiology Course To Prepare for The International Inter-Medical School Physiology Written Quiz in Kunming Medical University

Background International Inter-medical School Physiology Quiz (IMSPQ) is a global event that purportedly engages students in team work, critical thinking and active learning of physiology. Team-based learning (TBL) is an interactive analytic teaching approach and has been used extensively in medical education. However, there is little evidence of its use in preparing for IMSPQ. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether a TBL approach is effective to prepare for the written section of IMSPQ. Methods Five students from Grade 2014 majoring in Clinical Medicine, were selected, based on academic performance in physiology and English, to be taught in a TBL physiology course to prepare for the written section of 14th IMSPQ. Results In 2016, this TBL teaching method worked well and for the first time the team from Kunming Medical University entered the top forty teams at the written competition of 14th IMSPQ in Yogyakarta. Conclusion TBL method was effective to prepare for the IMSPQ in Kunming Medical University and provided an improved team performance in the written section of 14th IMSPQ.

The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Lifestyle: How Young people have Adapted Their Leisure and Routine during Lockdown in Italy

The Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global event. Physical distancing and other restrictions imposed by national and local governments all over the world to contain the spread of the virus almost certainly have had a significant impact on young people, who are more sensitive to peer interaction and social stimuli than adults. This article sets out to investigate the lifestyles of young Italians during the first lockdown, with the aim of exploring how leisure becomes the object of a negotiation between social needs, regulatory requirements, and a situation of crisis. To investigate these aspects, we present the results of a quantitative study conducted on a large group of individuals in Italy, focusing on young Italians’ lifestyles and leisure activities, together with an overview of prevailing moods. Our findings indicate that young people activated various adaptation strategies in response to the crisis with possible significant effects on lifestyles and well-being.