Serendipity: an interesting word

Recently, I had a chance to work on a project about the serendipity concept using the Mindsponge information processing and 3D creativity making frameworks. Personally, I think that serendipity is an interesting word due to not only its intrinsic values but also discoveries and ideas related to serendipitous moments that I can observe around me.

Qualitative Investigation into the Mental Health of Healthcare Workers in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the mental health of healthcare workers in many countries including Japan. While many survey-based findings have reported the serious state of their wellbeing among healthcare workers, the first-hand experience of the mental health and coping in this population remains to be evaluated. Accordingly, this study aimed to appraise them using constructionist thematic analysis on semi-structured interviews attended by a purposive and snowball sample of 24 healthcare workers in Japan conducted in December 2020–January 2021. Four themes were identified: (1) increased stress and loneliness, (2) reduced coping strategies, (3) communication and acknowledgement as a mental health resource, and (4) understanding of self-care. Participants noted that the characteristics of Japanese work culture such as long hours, collectivism and hatarakigai (i.e., meaning in work) to explain these themes. These findings suggest that robust support at an organizational and individual level, capturing intrinsic values, are particularly important for this key workforce to cope with increased stress and loneliness, leading to better patient care.

The End of Flying: Coronavirus Confinement, Academic (Im)mobilities and Me

This chapter focuses on how the coronavirus pandemic disrupted ‘normal’ academic life and travel through an analysis of my own travel history over the past decade. After contextualising the ways in which quarantines and confinement radically decreased travel, the chapter has three parts. In the first part, I document my own curriculum vitae of academic travel over the past decade and quantitatively measure my estimated CO2 emissions. Next, I seek to situate the value of such academic travel in both quantitative and qualitative terms, through extrinsic measures such as publications and impact and through intrinsic values such as the experience of different cultures and places. Lastly, I look at the transition to virtual events and my own participation in online events during the past nine months and consider the relation between physical and virtual meetings within academic practices. Insofar as the pandemic demonstrated our ability to transform academic travel and accelerate the use of remote meetings within academic practices, a pressing concern is how to find ways of extending this into the post-pandemic phase. Among the questions I ask in conclusion are: What possibilities are there for more seriously extending remote no-fly meetings to address the climate emergency? And what are the implications of such changes, both positive and negative?

The Déjà vu System of International Trusteeship in Continental Antarctica: A Textual Analysis

In the name of environmental protection, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting seems to have borrowed the paradigm of international trusteeship of the United Nations for managing the Antarctic land-based protected areas. By comparing and analysing the critical questions highly concerned, this paper offers preliminary thoughts on the development and refinement of the conception of land-based protected areas as a déjà vu system of international trusteeship and its surrounding legal applications and implications in continental Antarctica, and challenges the direction followed by this system in protecting Antarctic intrinsic values in legal discourse.

Silence, Satire and Empathy: Reading Appupen’s Topoi in His Wordless Graphic Narratives

The projection of the incongruities of contemporary times through the frame of satire is a powerful instrument in the genre of comics and graphic narratives and in Indian graphic literature as well. Mendiburo-Seguel and Heintz (2020) explain eight Comic Style Markers (CSM) in Latin-American cultures, and satire, a “darker style”, is one of them. The paper aims to conceptualise how Appupen’s wordless graphic narratives Moonward: Stories from Halahala (2009), Legends of Halahala (2013), Aspyrus: A Dream of Halahala (2014) and The Snake and the Lotus: A Halahala Adventure (2018) register black satire against society, politics, religion, industrialization, consumerism, advertisement and so on and how they prove to play the role of “corrective humour” (Ruch and Heintz, 2016). This paper attempts to explore how the “author-artist’s” (Aldama, 2010) fantastical and dystopic graphic narratives, excoriate social and political issues to create a unique aesthetic of thoughtful critical writing in graphic mode, thereby collectively contributing to the interdisciplinary studies of fantasy and dystopia and helping to proliferate the genre of Indian Comics and graphic narratives as well. Moreover, as “satire had a moral goodness that was lacking in sarcasm and cynicism” (Ruch, Heintz, Platt, Wagner, and Proyer, 2018), this essay argues what kind of empathic feeling, perspective sharing and cognitive overlap Appupen cultivates in these four narratives and develops their moral, aesthetic and humane tenacity. The article discusses Appupen’s satire as a vehicle by which he prudently moulds empathy with the reader to convey the intrinsic values of the texts.

Principle of Non-Discrimination and Equal Treatment

With its evolution, society has introduced human rights as intrinsic values in its acts on the regulation of relations of human nature. Significant victories in the struggle for social freedoms materialized with the adoption of the first declarations of rights, which formed the basis for the passing of later constitutions. Therefore, the modern state, inclined to the protection of its citizens, is unthinkable in its functionality, without stating and guaranteeing human rights in their fundamental law. In addition, it is necessary to point out that these rights have a universal character, namely their protection for each person, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, level of health, person’s status, etc. The Constitution of Romania states in art. 15 par. (1) on this that: “All citizens benefit from the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution and other laws and have the obligations provided for therein”.

Heaven, Earth and Humans: Concept and Processes of Urban Vertical Regeneration

<p><b>Rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, and capitalist developments have changed human values to be driven by materialistic developments instead of ecological developments. This has caused ecological and social crises visible in the urban fabric. There is an urgent need for us to address the question of how can we develop lifestyles that are truly holistic and able to regenerate well-being of humans and it's environments without external helps.</b></p> <p>This thesis explores the interrelationships of feng shui and regenerative development. It attempts to show the recognition of feng shui as an integral to regenerative development that can regenerate urban environment and achieves humans' well-being and harmony with nature. The thesis believes it will need to first remedy urban areas in order to regenerate the rest of the earth. It will explore the process of regeneration from micro to macro levels using feng shui and regenerative development, where it seeks to regenerate the city holistically as a whole.</p> <p>I propose that feng shui becomes an intrinsic model for regenerative development. This discipline is able to solve ecology degradation issues, to provide awareness and realisations of the intrinsic values of cities, and act as a paradigm shift towards achieving regenerative development. This thesis also propose that medium-rises compact city model, which integrate regenerative development and feng shui principles, as a better solution to solve densification of urbanisation compared to building high-rises and skyscrapers.</p>

Heaven, Earth and Humans: Concept and Processes of Urban Vertical Regeneration

<p><b>Rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, and capitalist developments have changed human values to be driven by materialistic developments instead of ecological developments. This has caused ecological and social crises visible in the urban fabric. There is an urgent need for us to address the question of how can we develop lifestyles that are truly holistic and able to regenerate well-being of humans and it's environments without external helps.</b></p> <p>This thesis explores the interrelationships of feng shui and regenerative development. It attempts to show the recognition of feng shui as an integral to regenerative development that can regenerate urban environment and achieves humans' well-being and harmony with nature. The thesis believes it will need to first remedy urban areas in order to regenerate the rest of the earth. It will explore the process of regeneration from micro to macro levels using feng shui and regenerative development, where it seeks to regenerate the city holistically as a whole.</p> <p>I propose that feng shui becomes an intrinsic model for regenerative development. This discipline is able to solve ecology degradation issues, to provide awareness and realisations of the intrinsic values of cities, and act as a paradigm shift towards achieving regenerative development. This thesis also propose that medium-rises compact city model, which integrate regenerative development and feng shui principles, as a better solution to solve densification of urbanisation compared to building high-rises and skyscrapers.</p>

Can You Teach Intrinsic Values? Creating a Rubric to Support and Assess Professional Dispositions Development

Teacher educators understand the important role of dispositions, defined as beliefs, values, and attitudes educators demonstrate when interacting with others. Without skills in these areas, teacher candidates will likely struggle to develop the necessary knowledge and skills to be effective in the classroom. There is general consensus in the field as to the value of developing these dispositions in teacher candidates. The purpose of the present paper is to describe a process aimed to define and measure professional dispositions aligned to Combs’ perceptual dispositions model. The work had three objectives. Firstly, to understand how students and other members of the faculty viewed the importance of professional dispositions. Secondly, to build on the broad definition of professional dispositions by identifying associated competencies. Finally, to create a tool to authentically assess and support teaching dispositions in teacher candidates. The authors identified six competencies to measure and help develop in teacher candidates: Cultural Competence, Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Self-reflection, and Initiative. This paper provides a methodological approach to defining dispositional competencies, a process and tool to measure these in teacher preparation programs.

Transformasi cerpen Jendela Rara ke film Rumah Tanpa Jendela menggunakan kajian struktural

Short story is a literary work that serves either to assist for entertaining or to give life values of the story itself. Besides, it is known as a prose work due to having a short-term story. The two short stories entitled “Jendela Rara'' and “Rumah Tanpa Jendela”, written by Asma Nadia, attracted the author's attention to conduct recent study towards those works. They have been adapted from short story to movie, hence, readers can obtain a structural comparison, especially intrinsic values and life values that are contained in the stories. The recent study was designed by using descriptive qualitative with structural approach to describe intrinsic elements that form the literary work. The research data was in quotation form (word, phrase, and sentence) which is related to the problems of “Jendela Rara'' short story and “Rumah Tanpa Jendela” movie. The researcher used the document analysis technique for collecting the research data. Moreover, the data analysis technique used by the researcher was a flow analysis technique, which consisted of three elements such as, data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion verification. The data result formed as a structural analysis while experiencing a transformation from a short story and film.