Developing the Leadership Potential of African Youth Through Online Communities

This chapter draws on the results of an explorative, qualitative study that investigated how online communities can facilitate civic engagement amongst Millennials. Based on the study's findings, the chapter explores how the use of online communities can assist and empower youth, particularly African young people, to overcome barriers, empower and foster civic engagement. This chapter begins with a review of key literature, and then a summary of the study methodology, followed by a discussion of the study findings and their potential for African youth. Results of the study indicated that five facilitating factors and two barriers were influential towards youth civic engagement in an online context. Adult perceptions of youth and the low credibility of online communities were found to act as significant barriers to online youth participation. Given these key findings from the study, the authors show how to employ online communities to engage African youth civic participation and decision making.

Two Obstacle Factors for Technological Standardization: The Viewpoint of Technological Frame

The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), which is an architecture in which devices supplied by various firms and services operated by distributed organizations exchange data, has been adopted in an increasing number of situations. While there are cases in which a small number of limited organizations collaborate on certain ecosystems based on proprietary specifications, the development of open standards is increasingly important for building scalable ecosystems because of the introduction of the concepts of Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0. Under these circumstances, there are two types of barriers to standardization. One barrier is the lack of shared frames for architectural design. The other barrier is the lack of awareness of the need for scalability. In this paper, we analyze the factors underlying these two barriers and discuss the path towards breakthroughs.

Eksplorasi Perintang Warna Alami pada Kualitas Batik

Exploration is important because it has the potential to increase creativity in the use of natural materials that are able to maintain the existence of written batik without reducing the essence of written batik itself. The method used is a literature study. This study aims to describe natural materials that can be used as color barriers, determine the results and quality of batik motifs produced from natural color barriers, and determine the process and results of batik coloring on natural color barriers. The natural ingredients explored are cassava peel and canna starch. The batik motifs produced by the two barriers depend on the drying time, the thickness of the paste application and the applicator used. In the use of natural cassava peel ingredients, the color barrier can block the color well when using a triangular plastic applicator because the quality obtained is good, namely the lines are firm and clear. Meanwhile, when using natural canna starch, the color barrier can block the color well when using the vinegar bottle applicator because the results of the imitation batik motifs produced are neat, even, and firm. The natural ingredients for cassava peel are dylon and wantex dyes, while the canna starch is used for napthol dyes.

Performance Evaluation: Identifying Barriers and Enablers for Landscape Architecture Practice

Performance evaluation is crucial for environmental design and sustainable development, especially so for architecture and landscape architecture. However, such performance evaluations remain rare in practice. It is argued that the concerns over potential negative evaluations and a lack of funding are the two main barriers preventing the undertaking of performance evaluations. This research investigated how these two barriers were overcome in practice by studying 41 evaluation cases in the New Zealand landscape architecture field, as well as several international and architectural case studies for comparison. A range of enablers for performance evaluation practices were identified by this research, including funding sources and models that were not documented by existing literature, as well as two strategies for handling the risks of negative evaluation. All of the identified enablers share the same underlying logic—the benefits and costs of an evaluation should be well-regulated by certain mechanisms to keep the benefits of an evaluation greater than, or at least balanced with, the costs, for all the parties involved in the evaluation.

Reflections on Direct Access to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights: A Cul De Sac?

Individuals and NGOs can directly access the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights if the state against which a case has been filed has made an optional declaration granting this access. Alternatively, they can access the Court if the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights refers communications to it. However, two main barriers have riddled this structure. One, the few states that had made the optional declaration have begun to rapidly withdraw from it. Two, the African Commission, which was expected to mitigate such a situation where few states are making the optional declaration, is hardly referring cases to the Court. This paper examines these two barriers in tandem. It argues that if this status quo is sustained, then, sooner rather than later, this path treaded may lead the African human rights system to a cul-de-sac – back to a one tier system, composed of an accessible Commission and a Court inaccessible to both individuals and NGOs. Drawing lessons from the European and Inter-American Human Rights system, it recommends preventing this eventuality by amending the African Commission’s 2020 Rules of Procedure to provide for a default procedure of referral of cases from the Commission to the Court.

A Framework for Thawing Value Conflicts in the GMO Debate

This chapter explores the ethical dimensions of one of the most contentious applications of agricultural biotechnology: the genetic modification of food products. While the development of genetically modified breeds and seeds has many advantages, the public has consistently expressed worries concerning the adoption of genetically modified organisms. The first section of this chapter uses the AquAdvantage salmon debate in the United States to highlight the most common concerns discussed in current labeling debates, from the potential for environmental harm to health impacts. This analysis illustrates how the polarization of the public debate stems from normative conflicts, rather than a lack of empirical research. Two barriers to achieving consensus concerning genetic modification are identified, before the chapter ends with the introduction of the “GMO Value Framework,” a reflexive approach designed to help cultivate fruitful value-focused discussions concerning current and future bioengineering applications.

Studying mental disorders as systems, not syndromes

Over the last decades, many specialists have worked tirelessly to improve the lives of people affected by mental health problems. The topic has also received increasing political and funding priority. However, despite global efforts, progress in understanding, predicting, and treating mental health problems remain disappointing. I discuss two barriers to progress. The first is diagnostic literalism, the tendency to take mental health diagnoses for more than they are. The second is reductionism, aiming to understand mental health problems by reducing them to a few (often biological) elements. Both views result from, and in turn reinforce the problematic premise that mental health diagnoses cut nature at her joints. Conceptualizing mental disorders as complex, biopsychosocial systems is a crucial shift. It provides us with new lenses through which we can study mental health disorders, and also has the potential to provide new levers, similar to other disciplines such as biology, medicine, and ecology where understanding systems has provided novel tools for intervention.

Scattering, Quantum Current, and Resonant Tunneling

Having examined free particles and particles that are confined in space by a potential energy term, we now consider the impact of a disturbance in the flat energy landscape for a free particle. By disturbance we means some kind of fixed “obstacle” which is either a positive (repelling) or negative (attractive) potential. We are interested in determining the impact on the free particle. Continuing to work mostly in one dimension, the particle described by a plane wave corresponding to momentum moving in the positive direction (a positive k−vector in the x−direction), we study elastic scattering. In one dimension, this means that we determine the probability that the particle is transmitted (continuing in the forward direction) or reflected (now moving in the backward direction.) We will also determine the nature of the solution inside the potential and in the case that the potential energy maximum is greater than the kinetic energy of the particle, we will show that the particle tunnels through the barrier. Interestingly, when we have two barriers, we can find conditions where the probability that the particle is transmitted is unity. This is the result of resonance, a feature of the wave-like nature of the particle’s wave function.

Free energy landscape with two barriers and a transient intermediate state determining the unfolding and folding dynamics of cold shock protein

Cold shock protein (Csp) is a typical two-state folding model protein which has been widely studied by biochemistry and single molecule techniques. Recently two-state property of Csp was confirmed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) through direct pulling measurement, while several long-lifetime intermediate states were found by force-clamp AFM. We systematically studied force-dependent folding and unfolding dynamics of Csp using magnetic tweezers with intrinsic constant force capability. We found that Csp mostly folds and unfolds with a single step over force range from 5 pN to 50 pN, and the unfolding rates show different force sensitivities at forces below and above ~ 8 pN, which determines a free energy landscape with two barriers and a transient intermediate between them along one transition pathway. Our results provide a new insight on protein folding mechanism of two-state proteins.

Developing the Leadership Potential of African Youth Through Online Communities

This chapter draws on the results of an explorative, qualitative study that investigated how online communities can facilitate civic engagement amongst Millennials. Based on the study's findings, the chapter explores how the use of online communities can assist and empower youth, particularly African young people, to overcome barriers, empower and foster civic engagement. This chapter begins with a review of key literature, and then a summary of the study methodology, followed by a discussion of the study findings and their potential for African youth. Results of the study indicated that five facilitating factors and two barriers were influential towards youth civic engagement in an online context. Adult perceptions of youth and the low credibility of online communities were found to act as significant barriers to online youth participation. Given these key findings from the study, the authors show how to employ online communities to engage African youth civic participation and decision making.