Cultural Differences in Children’s Recommended Punishment of Moral Transgressions

The purpose of this research was to examine the severity of punishment recommended by children for moral transgressions. Using Hofstede’s (1980) distinction between individualism and collectivism, we examined the severity of punishment recommended by eight to twelve year old children for moral transgressions that violated a cultural value. Participants were children of various nationalities enrolled in a summer camp on the island of Mallorca, Spain. The children were classified as either individualist or collectivist using the Children’s Self-Construal Scale (Lewis et al. 2000). Each child reacted to nine moral transgressions, two of which were universal and seven of which reflected transgressions of either individualist or collectivist values. The results indicated that children classified as collectivists recommended harsher punishments for transgressions of collectivist values, whereas individualists did not vary in their recommended level of punishment for transgressions against both collectivist and individualist values. Keywords: individualism, collectivism, moral judgments, cultural orientation, moral transgressions

Sustainable Ecotourism through Cutting-Edge Technologies

Tourism is a phenomenon that dates back to ancient times. Ancient Greek philosophers recognised, adopted, and promoted the concept of rest-based tourism. Ecotourism is a particular type of tourism that connects with activities that take place in nature, without harming it, along with the herbal and animal wealth. According to estimates, the global ecotourism industry is currently booming due to various reasons, and it is becoming an important factor of sustainable regional development. This article presents the vision, work, and outcomes of project AdVENt, a project focusing natively in sustainable ecotourism through natural science and technological innovation. AdVENt’s study area includes the National Parks of Oiti (or Oeta) and Parnassus in Central Greece, where there is a remarkable native flora with a high endemism rate integrated with areas of cultural value and national and European hiking routes and paths of varying difficulty.

Improvement of Oracle Bone Inscription Recognition Accuracy: A Deep Learning Perspective

Deep learning techniques have been successfully applied in handwriting recognition. Oracle bone inscriptions (OBI) are the earliest hieroglyphs in China and valuable resources for studying the etymology of Chinese characters. OBI are of important historical and cultural value in China; thus, textual research surrounding the characters of OBI is a huge challenge for archaeologists. In this work, we built a dataset named OBI-100, which contains 100 classes of oracle bone inscriptions collected from two OBI dictionaries. The dataset includes more than 128,000 character samples related to the natural environment, humans, animals, plants, etc. In addition, we propose improved models based on three typical deep convolutional network structures to recognize the OBI-100 dataset. By modifying the parameters, adjusting the network structures, and adopting optimization strategies, we demonstrate experimentally that these models perform fairly well in OBI recognition. For the 100-category OBI classification task, the optimal model achieves an accuracy of 99.5%, which shows competitive performance compared with other state-of-the-art approaches. We hope that this work can provide a valuable tool for character recognition of OBI.

A B73 x Palomero Toluqueño mapping population reveals local adaptation in Mexican highland maize

Generations of farmer selection in the central Mexican highlands have produced unique maize varieties adapted to the challenges of the local environment. In addition to possessing great agronomic and cultural value, Mexican highland maize represents a good system for the study of local adaptation and acquisition of adaptive phenotypes under cultivation. In this study we characterize a recombinant inbred line population derived from the B73 reference line and the Mexican highland maize variety Palomero Toluqueño. B73 and Palomero Toluqueño showed classic rank-changing differences in performance between lowland and highland field sites, indicative of local adaptation. Quantitative trait mapping identified genomic regions linked to effects on yield components that were conditionally expressed depending on the environment. For the principal genomic regions associated with ear weight and total kernel number, the Palomero Toluqueño allele conferred an advantage specifically in the highland site, consistent with local adaptation. We identified Palomero Toluqueño alleles associated with expression of characteristic highland traits, including reduced tassel branching, increased sheath pigmentation and the presence of sheath macrohairs. The oligogenic architecture of these three morphological traits supports their role in adaptation, suggesting they have arisen from consistent directional selection acting at distinct points across the genome. We discuss these results in the context of the origin of phenotypic novelty during selection, commenting on the role of de novo mutation and the acquisition of adaptive variation by gene flow from endemic wild relatives.

Cross-cultural perspective on sustainable consumption: implications for consumer motivations and promotion

Firms in the past have based their marketing and promotion strategies on the assumption of infinite resources and zero environmental impact. With the growing importance of environmental costs associated with finite resources, firms need to revisit their marketing and promotion strategies. This study defines and conceptualizes horizontal/vertical individualism–collectivism (H/V I-C) cultural value orientations as antecedents of sustainable consumption. Drawing on H/V I-C value orientations, this study attempts to build a sustainable consumption model to better understand how horizontal/vertical individualism–collectivism cultural values are reflected in consumers’ sustainable consumption motives and how they can be translated into persuasive advertising appeals tailored to specific cultural segments. This study contributes to provide new theoretical and managerial insights into understanding culturally relevant sustainable consumption motives and to establish appropriate strategies of sustainable consumption promotion in cross-cultural contexts. Most importantly, this study provides implications to companies for balancing more carefully their growth goals with the need to pursue sustainability across different cultures.

МОВНА ІДЕНТИЧНІСТЬ ЕТНІЧНИХ СПІЛЬНОТ У КОНТЕКСТІ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ МОВНОЇ СИТУАЦІЇ

The article outlines the main sociolinguistic parameters of collective language identity. The role of such constructs as ethnicity, statehood, linguistic and cultural value is considered in terms of the formation of language identity. The approach to the analysis here was chosen with taking account of the post-totalitarian specifics of the language situation in Ukraine. The correlation between ethnolanguage and national language identity has been traced. Determinants such as language status, language vitality, sociolinguistic capacity of communities and institutional support are taken into consideration. The importance of language management and language planning in the country and innovative principles of European language policies (language tolerance, language integration, preservation of endangered languages and emphasis on language rights) are underlined as points of reference for focusing on the language identity of ethnic communities. Theoretical substantiation of the concepts “ethnolinguistic identity” and “national (state) language identity” is offered.

Didactic Values and Cultural Expressions of the Minangkabau Community Prohibition in Nagari Biaro Gadang

This study aims to determine the didactic value and cultural value of the expression of prohibition used by the Minangkabau community in Nagari Biaro Gadang, Agam Regency, West Sumatra. This research method used descriptive qualitative method and was carried out in three stages, such as data collection, data classification, and data analysis stages. The data was collected by observing, interviewing, recording, and taking notes on the utterances conveyed by the informants. Classification of data was done by collecting forbidden expressions. Prohibition expressions are analyzed by using a hermeneutic approach to find out the meaning of the existing prohibition expressions. Analyzing data by transcribing the results of interviews, translating into Indonesian, grouping prohibition expressions based on didactic values consisting of religious education values, moral education values, and social education values and cultural values in forbidden expressions. The result of the research shows didactic values, which consist of religious education, moral education, and social education. In addition, in the expression of the prohibition of the Minangkabau people of Nagari Biaro Gadang, cultural values are also found. The conclusion of this research is that each prohibition expression had its own didactic and cultural values.Keywords: Prohibition Phrases, Didactic and Cultural Values, Minangkabau Cultures.