The Legal Frameworks of Protecting Archaeology in Africa

Archaeological heritage is fragile and nonrenewable. In Africa, it is vulnerable to developmental projects in construction, mining, and agriculture as well as intentional and unintentional vandalism through everyday use and tourism. Looting, illegal trade of antiquities, and terrorism have also emerged as other significant threats to archaeological heritage in Africa. Looting and vandalism of sites and objects result from lax monitoring mechanisms and a general lack of awareness of archaeological matters among the public. Although most African countries have the legal protection of archaeological heritage, the effectiveness of these has been under question. African heritage legislations have been criticized for the lack of predevelopment assessments that would ensure the protection of recorded and unrecorded archaeological heritage. They have also been censured for protecting just the physical aspects of archaeological heritage, leaving out the intangible aspects that actually give the heritage value, especially among African communities. Another challenge was the exclusion of local communities and customary management systems in the protection of archaeological heritage. Provisions for counteracting looting and illegal trade in antiquities, coming especially from archaeological sites, were also considered weak and requiring improvements. The response to the debate on the effectiveness of the legal protection of heritage has been varied across the continent. Some African countries have responded by writing new laws, amending old ones, or providing other supporting legal provisions such as national cultural policies or regulations. Countries that have instituted new legal provisions include Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, Mali, Egypt, Mauritania, and the Republic of the Congo. Those who reworked their protective mechanisms have attempted to address many of the issues raised. Countries such as Namibia, Botswana, and Mali have included clearly defined provisions for predevelopment assessments. Others such as Liberia included archaeological heritage in their environmental protection laws. Although fewer countries have had legislation to protect intangible aspects, supporting legal provisions such as national cultural policies have helped in this regard. However, very little has been done on the inclusion of customary laws and systems of archaeological protection. Going forward, African nations have to quickly consider emerging issues such as digital manipulation, heritage-based product development, increased need for intervention conservation, and sustainable economic utilization of heritage for the development of individuals, communities, and nations. The legislative process in Africa has to be expedited to quickly and efficiently deal with these issues before they cause harm to the archaeological heritage.

The Attention Economy and the Impact of Artificial Intelligence

The growing ubiquity of the Internet and the information overload created a new economy at the end of the twentieth century: the economy of attention. While difficult to size, we know that it exceeds proxies such as the global online advertising market which is now over $300 billion with a reach of 60% of the world population. A discussion of the attention economy naturally leads to the data economy and collecting data from large-scale interactions with consumers. We discuss the impact of AI in this setting, particularly of biased data, unfair algorithms, and a user-machine feedback loop tainted by digital manipulation and the cognitive biases of users. The impact includes loss of privacy, unfair digital markets, and many ethical implications that affect society as a whole. The goal is to outline that a new science for understanding, valuing, and responsibly navigating and benefiting from attention and data is much needed.

Deepfake tweets classification using stacked Bi-LSTM and words embedding

The spread of altered media in the form of fake videos, audios, and images, has been largely increased over the past few years. Advanced digital manipulation tools and techniques make it easier to generate fake content and post it on social media. In addition, tweets with deep fake content make their way to social platforms. The polarity of such tweets is significant to determine the sentiment of people about deep fakes. This paper presents a deep learning model to predict the polarity of deep fake tweets. For this purpose, a stacked bi-directional long short-term memory (SBi-LSTM) network is proposed to classify the sentiment of deep fake tweets. Several well-known machine learning classifiers are investigated as well such as support vector machine, logistic regression, Gaussian Naive Bayes, extra tree classifier, and AdaBoost classifier. These classifiers are utilized with term frequency-inverse document frequency and a bag of words feature extraction approaches. Besides, the performance of deep learning models is analyzed including long short-term memory network, gated recurrent unit, bi-direction LSTM, and convolutional neural network+LSTM. Experimental results indicate that the proposed SBi-LSTM outperforms both machine and deep learning models and achieves an accuracy of 0.92.

Case Series-An Overview of Extracapsular Dissection of Parotid Tumours

Extra Capsular Dissection (ECD) differs markedly from classic surgical approaches to the parotid neoplasm because facial nerve dissection is not performed. Factors noted to favor this approach include mobility of the tumor within the gland, a thin covering of capsule and glandular tissue, and a tumor large enough to allow digital manipulation during dissection. Imaging, fine needle aspiration cytology, and neuron-monitoring play a heightened role in ECD [1]. The AIM of this article is to report case series on surgical management of few types of parotid tumors by extra capsular dissection and to assess longterm results after the treatment of Parotid tumors using surgical technique ECD. This case series includes five different parotid tumors such as Warthin’s tumor, Pleomorphic adenoma, Sialadenoma papilliferum of parotid, chronic sialoadenitis, Parotid cystadenoma, out of 30 cases operated in our hospital. All the patients in this study received appropriate surgical treatment (ECD) and done a follow up evaluation every month. Extra capsular dissection is a safe, reliable and recommended technique to manage the small benign superficial parotid tumors if the case is selected properly.

A preliminary study on semen collection, its evaluation, and testicular and sperm morphometries in the wild proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus)

Introduction The proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) is an endangered species with a declining population. This article describes the first successful attempt at sperm collection and evaluation, and the testicular and sperm morphometries of the wild proboscis monkey in Sabah, Malaysia. Material and Methods Eight semen collection procedures using electro-ejaculation and digital manipulation were conducted in three wild adult male proboscis monkeys. A total of 21 ejaculates were collected. The testicular biometry was measured with the aid of ultrasonography. Sample evaluation included semen volume and pH and sperm concentration, viability, and abnormality. The sperm morphometry was undertaken using phase contrast microscopy. Results The mean (±SD) total testicular volume of these animals was 5.77 cm3 (±1.58). Semen collection by electro-ejaculation resulted in an 84% success rate, while digital manipulation did not result in any ejaculation. Each animal showed different semen characteristics, where the volume was 5–540 μL, pH 8–9, and sperm concentration 0.041–83.00 ×106/mL. The percentage of abnormal sperm was high at 76.8% (±89.60), largely due to midpiece abnormality. Normal sperm had a spherical head and long tail with a head : midpiece : tail length ratio of 1 : 2: 8. Conclusion The social status of these animals may contribute to the generally low quality of the semen. The techniques and data from this study are useful for future conservation and application of assisted reproductive technology in this species.

An unusual long standing metallic foreign body in nasopharynx in an adult

<p class="abstract">This case report was to highlight the occurrence of a long standing unusual foreign body in the nasopharynx in an adult. Foreign bodies are common in ENT practice universally. At times they may present as emergency requiring urgent intervention and many a times they go unnoticed as these are not suspected. Nasopharyngeal foreign bodies are rare in any age group. A 70 year old man presented to neurology department with complaints of headache of 1 month duration. CT brain angiography showed atherosclerotic wall calcifications in bilateral cavernous segment of ICA and there was an incidental detection of a metallic foreign body in the posterior wall of oropharynx. History revealed accidental ingestion of a ring into mouth at 1 year of age. Diagnostic nasal endoscopy (DNE) was done, FB (foreign body) ring was seen at the level of left torus tubarius in nasopharynx and same removed in to intraorally. Care should be taken while removing these FBs. Digital manipulation for removal of such FBs are hazardous and should be avoided at all cost.</p>

Case series-an overview of extracapsular dissection of parotid tumours

<p>Extra capsular dissection (ECD) differs markedly from classic surgical approaches to the parotid neoplasm because facial nerve dissection is not performed. Factors noted to favor this approach include mobility of the tumor within the gland, a thin covering of capsule and glandular tissue, and a tumor large enough to allow digital manipulation during dissection. Imaging, fine needle aspiration cytology, and neuron-monitoring play a heightened role in ECD. The aim of this article is to report case series on surgical management of few types of parotid tumors by extra capsular dissection and to assess long-term results after the treatment of parotid tumors using surgical technique ECD.This case series includes five different parotid tumors such as Warthin’s tumor, Pleomorphic adenoma, Sialadenoma papilliferum of parotid, chronic sialoadenitis, parotid cystadenoma, out of 30 cases operated in our hospital. All the patients in this study received appropriate surgical treatment (ECD)<strong> </strong>and done a follow up evaluation every month.</p>

Recurrent TMJ Dislocation in a Child: A Case Report and Discussion

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) dislocation demonstrate a displacement of the mandibular condyle from it functional position within the glenoid fossa and articular eminence. TMJ dislocation is an acute episode can be transformed into chronic dislocation after multiple repeated episodes. Oral surgeon is frequently called for the management of recurrent TMJ dislocation in adults. In pediatric population, TMJ dislocation sometimes caused by trauma or other than trauma related to wide opening of the mouth during vomiting, yawning and dental procedures considerably under general anesthesia. A 3-year-old baby girl came to Emergency department with a complaint of open mouth for the last 6 hours. Initial examination was carried out and patient was sent for CT-Scan. CT-Scan reported an asymmetric soft tissue density mass in retropharyngeal area at the level of C1 and C2, showing more bulk on right side. Some subtle radiolucency are also identified within the mass. The possibility of a low-density foreign body or retropharyngeal abscess could not be entirely excluded. A quick examination under anesthesia (EUA)was performed to relieve the patient from the abscess/growth. During EUA, they did not find any growth or collection or pus. The patient was sent to oral and maxillofacial surgeon, on initial examination and previous CT Scan findings, TMJ dislocation was diagnosed. In order to completely examine the patient, reduction of the jaw was attempted on chair side. This was achieved by digital manipulation with little effort and the baby’s jaw was secured with Barton’s bandage to prevent repeated dislocation. She continued tablet baclofen for 6 months as prescribed by the pediatrician. KEYWORDS: Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ), Recurrent dislocation, pediatric

Modelling Digital Blended Engineering Entrepreneurship

This paper aims to provide a unique model of digital blended engineering entrepreneurship. A configuration of digital technology, digital engineering, and co-operative intelligence are working in synergy to influence modern digital entrepreneurial environment. This paper offers a snapshot modelling of digital blended engineering entrepreneur. It inclines on the logic that the entry, survival, innovation, and growth of modern entrepreneur is entrenched within a coalesced platform of digital awareness, competence, and adroitness in digital manipulation. Therefore, the paper contributes by developing a novel seven-concept model of digital blended engineering entrepreneurship. The underlying concepts of the seven model are digital awareness, Digital influence, digital competence, digital sorting and sieving, digital product choice, digital engineering innovation, and digital engineering entrepreneurship. This model provides an agenda for further research in digital entrepreneurship literature.