Reducing GHG and NOx Pollutant Emissions by Hydrogen Burning with Technical Oxygen

Traditional Ghanaian furniture designs are known as an exhibition of the splendor and elegance of decorative objects or decorative ornaments that carry profound philosophical and sacred meanings. The features found in Ghana’s traditional Ghanaian design can be considered as objects for international players, with their own identity and not found elsewhere. This paper therefore seeks to identify and illuminate some of these Akan cultural objects in Ghana by referring to the Ashanti region. This paper also shows with examples how these design elements can be developed and maintained by integrating them into modern furniture and interior designs or as a straightforward or adaptive design.

Ephemeral mimetics: memes, an X-ray of Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted a crisis with consequences for public health, but also with economic, social and cultural implications that have affected all layers of society to a greater or lesser extent. Communication has been impacted by the immediacy and virality of messages and misinformation has galloped across social platforms. Against that backdrop, memes have emerged as a powerful means to channel citizen sentiment. A study of these digital objects is essential to understanding social network-based communication during the pandemic. The qualitative research reported here analyses the role of memes in communication on Covid-19, studies their development and defends their status as one of this generation’s cultural artefacts that, as such, merits preservation. Meme evolution is studied using Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief, which has been applied in a number of contexts involving psychological change. Studying memes in those terms both brings information on the evolution of citizens’ concerns to light and proves useful to sound out social media communication around the pandemic media. The challenges to be faced in meme preservation are defined, along with the ways in which heritage institutions should ensure the conservation of these cultural objects, which mirror early twenty-first century communication and world views and in this case provide specific insight into one of the most significant historic circumstances of recent decades.

BOOKS FROM THE SERGE LIFAR’S COLLECTION IN THE FUND OF THE VERNADSKY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF UKRAINE

The publication presents information about rarities from the collection of prominent Ukrainian and French artist, collector and bibliophile Serge Lifar (1905–1986) in the fund of the Department of early printed and rare books of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (VNLU). Dancer, choreographer, artist S. Lifar has been collecting personal documents, posters, cultural objects, books, various souvenirs, etc. for decades. He wanted to donate items from his personal collection as a gift to his hometown of Kyiv. In the 1990s and 2000s, parts of his collections and personal belongings were transferred to several Kyiv institutions. Rarities from his book collection came to the VNLU as part of the collection of Baron Eduard Falz-Fein, who bought part of his library at auction in Monte Carlo and donated it to the VNLU in 1981. S. Lifar’s books in the collection of E. Falz-Fein are singled out with the help of his proprietary marks: signets, paper stickers, autographs, gift inscriptions, etc. They date from the 17th – early 20th c. Among them predominate Russian-language editions of the 18th‑19th c. Widely represented editions of works by Russian and Ukrainian writers: O. Pushkin, V. Zhukovsky, A. Fet, M. Lermontov, I. Krylov, G. Derzhavin, M. Gogol, P. Kulish, and others. S. Lifar also collected various artistic lithographic albums, large-format editions with portraits, drawings, maps, etc. Essays on Russian imperial history, geography, descriptions of places, and collections of decrees are also contained in the collection. The church theme is represented by several copies of old prints in different languages and fonts. Cyrillic liturgical editions are also available in the collection. Several editions of the Bible in Old Slavonic and Dutch occupy a proper place in the collection. The publication presents the features of individual copies of the collection. It is concluded that the book collection of S. Lifar is able to inform the inquisitive reader about new facets of the personality of its former owner. Scattered across various institutions and even countries, it is still waiting for its researchers. The information is supplemented by a list with a brief descriptions and current shelf numbers.

RETURN OF THE CULTURAL OBJECTS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, EUROPEAN UNION LAW, AND LITHUANIAN LAW

The article examines the legal problems associated with the return of cultural objects in International, European Union, and Lithuanian Laws, as well as the extraterritorial application of mandatory norms. Particular importance is given to the influence of the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects and the Directive 2014/60/EC on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State. Attention is paid to the correlation of civil law doctrines with the protection of the owner’s rights and the bona fide purchaser of a cultural object on the one hand, and International and European Laws about the return to the owner and compensation to the owner of a cultural object on the other hand, because Lithuanian legislation and case law do not apply the vindication doctrine to protect owner’s rights of cultural objects and thus differs from the traditional approach to solving the problems of returning cultural objects within the civil law framework. The article deals with the related problems of recognition of the owner’s rights and changes in the evidence presumptions. The issue of restoring the owner’s rights to illegally confiscated cultural objects during the existence of the USSR was decided in the practice of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania. Courts of general jurisdiction considered claims for the return of cultural objects belonging to foreign entities - the Federal Republic of Germany and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Particular importance was the question of the application of International and European Laws in judicial practice. According to the results of the study of the practice of the Republic of Lithuania, it is proposed to regard the return of cultural objects as an independent way of protecting the owner’s rights, which makes secondary the bona fide purchaser doctrine in relation of a cultural object.

THE The Heritage of Ghanaian Traditional Furniture Culture

Traditional Ghanaian furniture designs are known as an exhibition of the splendor and elegance of decorative objects or decorative ornaments that carry profound philosophical and sacred meanings. The features found in Ghana’s traditional Ghanaian design can be considered as objects for international players, with their own identity and not found elsewhere. This paper therefore seeks to identify and illuminate some of these Akan cultural objects in Ghana by referring to the Ashanti region. This paper also shows with examples how these design elements can be developed and maintained by integrating them into modern furniture and interior designs or as a straightforward or adaptive design.

On the narrative potential of photobooks: an analysis of Alec Soth's Niagara's book

Visual narratives have a long history in the context of human cultural artifacts. In any sequence of images, the juxtaposition of visual signs gives rise to narrative potential. The narrative qualities of photographic images have been explored since its early days through the medium of the book. Borrowing the book artifact from literature, photography has adapted it for its own purposes. Such appropriation invites an examination of the strategies that are employed in photobooks to promote the emergence of narratives. Drawing upon the field of Narrative Studies and the concepts of storyworld and worldmaking, this paper investigates the narrative construction in the photobook Niagara (2006), produced by photographer Alec Soth. The paper demonstrates that certain strategies used in literary texts are analogous to the photobook space. In conclusion, I argue that photobooks are cultural objects that offer invaluable narrative possibilities, especially because they afford agency for the reader’s/viewer’s worldmaking.

Cultural and artistic education strategies

The relevance of this study is conditioned by the dual standards of institutionalisation of artistic and educational practices, must meet the principles of creating cultural objects as material products of high culture and aesthetic level, but, at the same time, must meet the requirements of the time, standards and educational tendencies of its time. Thus, a conflict of artistic vision and the standards of accumulated artistic experience is formed, which must be resolved in a process of dialogue and permanent collaboration of the two practices: educational and artistic. The purpose of this article is to investigate the basic vectors of the institutionalisation of educational and artistic practices, identifying priority ways of institutionalising both practices and the space for their interaction in scientific research. The main scientific methods for researching the topic are the basic general scientific theoretical methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparative to deduce the main regularities and characteristic features in the processes of institutionalisation of artistic practices, as well as systematisation and classification methods to form the structure of the main educational artistic strategies based on common and unique features.

INTRODUCTORY STUDY ON THE INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW APPLICABLE TO ARMED CONFLICTS AT SEA

The purpose of the international humanitarian law applicable to armed conflicts at sea is the same as the International Humanitarian Law relevant to land conflicts: to reduce the destructive consequences of the armed conflict to a minimum, to protect the civilians and other non-combatants, as well as the civilian and cultural objects, to ensure a minimal consideration of some fundamental human rights and to limit the means and methods of warfare in accordance with the four customary cardinal principles, as considered by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion on the Legality of the Use of Nuclear Weapons: the principles of humanity, distinction, proportionality and military necessity. Without any pretense of being an exhaustive study on the subject, the purpose of this article is to offer introductory insight into the international law of naval warfare.