The Normative World of Memes: Political Communication Strategies in the United States and Ecuador

The media convergence model presents an environment in which everyone produces information without intermediates or filters. A subsequent insight shows that users (prosumers) —gathered in networked communities—also shape messages’ flow. Social media play a substantial role. This information is loaded with public values and ideologies that shape a normative world: social media has become a fundamental platform where users interact and promote public values. Memetics facilitates this phenomenon. Memes have three main characteristics: (1) Diffuse at the micro-level but shape the macrostructure of society; (2) Are based on popular culture; (3) Travel through competition and selection. In this context, this paper examineshow citizens from Ecuador and the United States reappropriate memes during a public discussion? The investigation is based on multimodal analysis and compares the most popular memes among the United States and Ecuador produced during the candidate debate (Trump vs. Biden [2020] and Lasso vs. Arauz [2021]). The findings suggest that, during a public discussion, it is common to use humor based on popular culture to question authority. Furthermore, a message becomes a meme when it evidences the gap between reality and expectations (normativity). Normativity depends on the context: Americans complain about the expectations of a debate; Ecuadorians, about discourtesy and violence.

Development of a Convergence Model for Social Communication of a Philippine Catholic Parish Church

Social communication is an essential church activity considering the flock's profile and the COVID-19 pandemic. The study determined the convergence and divergence of the parishioners in a Philippine Catholic Church Parish in the City of Dasmariñas, Cavite on Respect for Life, using content analysis and survey methods as bases for the development of a model for social communication. Results revealed that respondents were 31 years-old, female, married, college graduates, or attended college, with the parish for 16-30 years, Sunday Church-goers only, and not members of any Church-based organizations. Parishioners had converging conceptions about the "War on Drugs," extrajudicial killings, and the death penalty even when they could not join Church activities. Parishioners' compliance was acceptable with five convergence points: the sanctity of life, proper appropriation of justice, expression of gratitude for life, healthy living, and understanding the social context of the pronouncements. With this, a social communication model for the Parish Church was recommended, which other parishes may employ.

Convergence of Energy Carbon Emission Efficiency: Evidence From Manufacturing Sub-sectors in China

With China's economy entering the stage of high-quality development, manufacturing energy carbon emission efficiency has become the focus of academic attention. Based on the panel data of China's manufacturing sub-sectors, this paper measures and analyzes the evolution trend of manufacturing energy carbon emission and its efficiency. On this basis, this paper uses coefficient of variation and convergence model to test the convergence of manufacturing energy carbon emission efficiency. The results show that China’s manufacturing energy carbon emissions and its efficiency show an increasing trend. The coal was the main source of manufacturing energy carbon emissions. The manufacturing energy carbon emission efficiency does not exist σ convergence, but exists β convergence, and its convergence exists industry heterogeneity. The manufacturing energy carbon emission efficiency exits scale effect and technology effect, but not the effect of opening to the outside world and institutional effect, and its effect exists industry heterogeneity. By reducing carbon emissions, adopting differentiated policies, adjusting the industry scale, and enhancing the industry technology intensity, China's manufacturing can improve the energy carbon emissions efficiency and promote high-quality economic development.

An Improved Biogeography-based Optimization with Hybrid Migration and Feedback Differential Evolution and its Performance Analysis

Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is not suitable for solving high-dimensional or multi-modal problems. To improve the optimization efficiency of BBO, this study proposes a novel BBO variant, which is named ZGBBO. For the selection operator, an example learning method is designed to ensure inferior solution will not destroy the superior solution. For the migration opeartor, a convex migration is proposed to increase the convergence speed, and the probability of finding the optimal solution is increased by using opposition-based learning to generate opposite individuals. The mutation operator of BBO is deleted to eliminate the generation of poor solutions. A differential evolution with feedback mechanism is merged to improve the convergence accuracy of the algorithm for multi-modal and irregular problems. Meanwhile, the greedy selection is used to make the population always moves in the direction of a better area. Then, the global convergence of ZGBBO is proved with Markov model and sequence convergence model. Quantitative evaluations, compared with three self-variants, seven improved BBO variants and six state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms, experimental results on 24 benchmark functions show that every improved strategy is indispensable, and the overall performance of ZGBBO is better. Besides, the complexity of ZGBBO is analyzed by comparing with BBO, and ZGBBO has less computation and lower complexity.

ANALISIS PENGARUH E-LEARNING MENGGUNAKAN SPADA TERHADAP EFEKTIVITAS BELAJAR MAHASISWA STMIK PRIMAKARA

ABSTRAKTujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui tentang pengaruh e-learning menggunakan SPADA terhadap efektivitas belajar mahasiswa STMIK Primakara. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode mixed methods convergence model. Objek dari penelitian ini adalah 85 orang mahasiswa semester 2, 4, dan 6. Dalam penelitian ini, dilakukan identifikasi pengaruh e-learning menggunakan platform SPADA yang dikembangkan oleh STMIK Primakara berbasis Moodle terhadap efektivitas belajar mahasiswa. Peneliti menggunakan observasi, kuesioner tertutup, kuesioner terbuka, dan studi literatur sebagai teknik pengumpulan data. Empat indikator efektivitas pembelajaran yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini, yaitu quality of instruction, appropriate levels of instruction, incentive, dan time. Peneliti menggunakan analisis data kuantitatif dan analisis data kualitatif. Analisis data kuantitatif menggunakan skala Likert untuk menghitung data dari kuesioner tertutup sedangkan analisis data kualitatif menggunakan data dari kuesioner terbuka. Dalam penelitian ini ditemukan bahwa persentase persetujuan dengan indikator quality of instruction menunjukkan hasil 86,35% (sangat efektif). Selanjutnya indikator appropriate levels of instruction dengan hasil 87,82% (sangat efektif). Indikator ketiga, incentive dengan hasil perolehan 88,94% (sangat efektif). Terakhir indikator time dengan hasil persentase persetujuan 89,56% (sangat efektif). Selain itu data kualitatif yang diperoleh juga menunjukkan bahwa penggunaan SPADA dapat mendukung proses belajar mahasiswa.Kata Kunci: e-learning, efektivitas belajar, metode campuranABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to determine the effect of e-learning using SPADA on the learning effectiveness of STMIK Primakara college students. This research uses a mixed methods convergence model. The object of this research is 85 college students in semester 2, 4, and 6. In this study, the identification of the effect of was conducted to identify the e-learning using the platform SPADA developed by STMIK Primakara based on Moodle was conducted to identify the effectiveness of college student learning. Researchers used observation, closed questionnaires, open questionnaires, and literature studies as data collection techniques. Four indicators of learning effectiveness are used in this study, namely quality of instruction, appropriate levels of instruction, incentive, and time. Researchers used quantitative data analysis and qualitative data analysis. Quantitative data analysis used a Likert scale to calculate data from a closed questionnaire, while qualitative data analysis used data from an open questionnaire. In this study, it was found that the percentage of approval with the indicator quality of instruction showed the result of 86.35% (very effective). Next is the indicator for appropriate levels of instruction with a result of 87.82% (very effective). The third indicator, incentive with the result of 88.94% (very effective). Finally, the indicator time with the percentage of approval is 89.56% (very effective). In addition, the qualitative data obtained also shows that the use of SPADA can support college student learning processes.Keywords: e-learning, learning effectiveness, mixed methods

The Convergence Model of Education for Sustainability in the Transition to Digital Economy

The paper studies the problem of updating educational programs and content, taking into account changing requirements of standards and employers for qualifications and competencies of specialists. First, we show that the updating process in transition to digital economy is associated with the transition to the convergence model of education providing its sustainability perspective. Furthermore, we propose the technique and develop basic models and methods for updating based on the convergence approach, for assessing the degree of convergence of competency models and educational content. The problems of collecting, consolidating, and extracting information on the required competencies from vacancy advertisements in open sources on the Internet are also considered. The convergence approach to updating educational programs is being introduced and tested in the information and learning environment of Penza State University (Penza, Russia).

Research on Carbon Productivity and It's Spatial Convergence of Steel Industry in China

The Global-Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index was applied to analyse the carbon productivity in steel industry (SICP) of 29 provinces in China from 2006 to 2017, and then the SICP was decomposed into technical efficiency change index (TC) and technical progress index (EC). On this basis, the spatial effect is introduced into the traditional convergence model to investigate the spatial convergence of SICP. The empirical results show that: (1) The overall carbon productivity of China's steel industry is at a relatively low level, showing a slow growth trend. (2) The average value of the GML index of SICP is higher than 1, showing obvious inter-provincial and regional heterogeneity. Compared with EC, TC is the leading factor that promotes the increase of SICP. (3) The spatial absolute and condition β convergence of SICP exist in the whole country and the three major regions, but the σ convergence feature is not significant. The addition of spatial factors speeds up the convergence trend, and the speed of spatial absolute β convergence is about 3 times that of the classical convergence model. At the same time, the conditional convergence rate is significantly faster than the absolute convergence, which is closely related to the differences in influencing factors such as the industrial structure, economic development level, human capital, energy consumption intensity, and R&D investment among regions. There is still much room for improvement in carbon productivity in China's steel industry, and investment in scientific research must be increased in order to achieve the upgrading of the industrial structure and technological innovation. The existence of spatial convergence requires strengthening the joint reorganization of steel enterprises between provinces and regions, making full use of the spatial spillover effects of production technology, and realizing regional green and coordinated development.

A σ-Convergence Model for Analyzing the Balance of Insurance Industry in China

There are significant regional differences in the development of China’s insurance industry. An important question is that such regional differences are expanding or shrinking? Based on Barrow’s economic growth convergence model, this paper uses the σ convergence model to analyze the differences in the development of China’s insurance industry and its trends. It draws on the statistics data from 1990 to 2020. The empirical results show that the convergence of China’s insurance development is not obvious before 2006, but it shows a significant convergence after 2006. And, there are some differences between the Eastern, the Central, and the Western. Furthermore, when considering the spatial correlation, the convergence of insurance development among provinces in China is more obvious. This shows that the flowing of capital, technology, and labor force between regions may be beneficial to the balanced development of insurance among the regions.

Convergence or Divergence? Emission Performance in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Countries

Emission convergence is a fundamental ground for cooperative CO2 emission mitigation. We investigate the emission convergence in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries using a modified dynamic β-convergence model. From 2000 to 2017, the per capita emissions of the RCEP countries and its subgroups show a statistically significant diverging pattern. Nonetheless, upon accounting for multiple inputs and outputs using data envelopment analysis, we find that two out of the three emission performance indicators show statistically significant absolute convergence. The carbon emission efficiency (CEE) of the 15 RCEP countries grew from 0.5719 in 2000 to 0.6725 in 2017 and will converge at a value of 0.8187, while the carbon–population performance (CPP) increases from 0.4534 to 0.5690 and will converge at 0.7831. Furthermore, using a conditional β-convergence model, we find that trade volume has no significant effect on the growth rates of CEE and CPP, but can accelerate their speed of convergence, which indicates that the establishment of the RCEP may facilitate the convergence of its 15 member countries on CEE and CPP. Our findings suggest that emission mitigation agreement in the RCEP countries is feasible. CEE- or CPP-based indicators can be used for emission budget allocation.

Convergence between Blockchain and the Internet of Things

The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a particular convergencemodel for IoT and blockchain. Multiple regression model was selected to determine the effectiveof a specific convergence model. Three convergence models were selected for this study, includingthe hybrid approach, the IoT-blockchain approach, and the IoT-IoT approach. The findingsindicated that there are issues with convergence between two different technologies. The otherfinding was that the hybrid model provided the best convergence platform for integrating IoT withblockchain. Regarding the IoT and blockchain, convergence challenges included the limitedcapacity of IoT devices to handle the nature of distributed ledgers. The recommendation is that theaspects of traditional blockchain should be redesigned because of new requirements of IoT,including smart contracts, consensus protocol, data privacy, and security.