System Under Strain

Seabed mining became more active as companies invested in technologies to harvest valuable minerals. Momentum toward commercial mining would test directly the idea of international control of ocean space. The industry’s prospects also revived attention to whether the United States might join the Convention, and the Obama administration pushed to secure ratification. That effort failed, mostly because of conservative concerns about the internationalization of the seabed. Washington’s continued refusal to join the Convention created a complicated situation in which the leading maritime power claimed to defend maritime rules but was outside the Convention. From inside the Convention, China and Russia both challenged maritime rules. Both countries rejected international rulings critical of their maritime behavior. Despite an international ruling, China continued its efforts to secure special rights in the South China Sea, and the United States responded by increasing its naval activities in the area and conducting more freedom of navigation operations.

Personal growth and life satisfaction during COVID-19: Self-forgiveness and compassion as correlates

COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease that affects not only physical health, but also mental well-being. Two variables, which have been observed significantly in people facing difficult and complex situations that are also related to greater personal growth and satisfaction with life, are self-forgiveness and compassion for others. Thus, through a correlational study, we set out to examine how self-forgiveness and compassion are associated with personal growth and life satisfaction in this complicated situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In a sample of Spanish participants (N = 329, range from 18 to 83 years), the main results showed that self-forgiveness and compassion were positively related to personal growth and life satisfaction and that self-forgiveness was associated with increased personal growth and life satisfaction through compassion. Ultimately, these findings and their possible implications for therapeutic practice are discussed.

Knowledge, practices of food safety of establishment owners, food processors, and customers to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic at foodservice businesses in Son La city in 2020

Ensuring food safety for foodservice businesses is extremely necessary during the current complicated situation of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study has evaluated the knowledge and practices on food safety of establishment owners, food processors, and customers to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic at foodservice businesses in Son La city in 2020. The results show that over 75 % of establishment owners knew regulations to ensure food safety in the prevention of the Covid-19 pandemic, and 100 % of establishment owners were trained in disseminating and guiding pandemic prevention documents. Food processors who have good knowledge and practices of regulations of the Ministry of Health on ensuring food safety to prevent Covid-19, such as wearing masks when working, keeping contact distance with food, washing hands, disinfecting correctly, and do not gather in large numbers in production facilities have reached a high rate of over 90 %. All customers know about the 5K regulations. It is necessary to strengthen the propaganda to ensure food safety to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic so that the subjects can better understand the regulations of the Government, the Ministry of Health, Departments on ensuring food safety and prevention of the Covid-19 pandemic, and good practices of the above regulations.

Management of Intraocular Foreign Bodies of the Posterior Segment to Maximize Anatomical and Functional Outcomes

Open globe injury (OGI) repair remains one of the most challenging surgeries in all of the eye surgery. Intraocular foreign bodies (IOFBs) constitute a subset with special treatment considerations. It is also clear that these operations can create a more complicated situation due to damage to the cornea or crystalline lens to ensure the safe removal of the posterior segment IOFBs. In these operations, indications, time, and surgical technique of removal of the IOFB should be planned in detail to maximize anatomical and functional success and prevent permanent vision loss of the patient. Several controversies exist in the management of IOFBs that will be reviewed in this article.

Zwarte inkt: de karaktermoord op Gaius Caligula

Black ink. The defamation of Gaius Caligula This article analyses how ancient media were used for the character assassination of the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula. Why was Caligula’s reputation so severely damaged? How was this done? In the complicated situation in which Caligula came to power, the Augustan system of an autocratic rule hidden behind a republican veil was pushed aside. As a result, the conflict between Caligula and the Roman elite became insuperable. When Caligula demonstrated the realities of absolute power, he was assassinated. Shortly after, senatorial authors used the medium of historiography to start their character assassination, depicting Caligula as an insane psychopath. This article discerns between three different groups of attackers with different motives for their character assassination: eyewitnesses, Jewish writers, and later Roman senatorial authors. The article concludes with an assessment of the differences and similarities of the attacks by the three groups. The defamation of Caligula turned out to be highly successful.

Narcissism, toxic work culture and abusive supervision: a double-edged sword escalating organizational deviance

Purpose In a nutshell, the purpose of this paper is to accentuate the mask of evils of the organization by discussing different experiences, stories and cases, which is on itself a bizarre because we always talk about the morality and ethos in leading styles. Design/methodology/approach The study is conducted in India and descriptive in nature. The structural equation modelling technique is used in the paper to test the relationships among the constructs directly and indirectly by mediation effect on how it raises the organizational deviance. Findings The outcome of the study indicates that organizational deviance is highly influenced by narcissism, which also raises the toxic work culture and abusive supervision. The mentioned variables not only have a significant effect but also have a partial mediation effect on organizational deviance. The study significantly contributes to the literature with the findings that not only narcissism led to organizational deviance but additionally leads to high arousal through a positive relationship with toxic work culture and abusive supervision strongly leading to organizational deviance. Research limitations/implications The study is for leaders who are more with self-love, demolishing peace and promoting the toxic work culture and deviant behaviours. Practical implications Having narcissistic traits then turns into a complicated situation for employees to decide whether to stay in the organization or leave, and if these intentions are not developing, then it led to deviance on the part of employees. Social implications A leader becomes so much obsessed with their egomania and uses the abusive supervision to dominate the team members. This pattern has to stop, as it fabricating the wrong connotation of the tranquillity of followers or team members. Originality/value This study contributes to the outcome where leaders could understand the impact of how their excess self-love turns against the workplace peace and results in high deviance.

Female Micro-Entrepreneurs and Social Networks: Diagnostic Analysis of the Influence of Social-Media Marketing Strategies on Brand Financial Performance

The business world is facing a very complicated situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs)—both in Spain and at the global level—are seeing their survival jeopardized by a fall in revenues. This scenario is aggravated in the case of micro-SMEs headed by female entrepreneurs. Accordingly, micro-SMEs, particularly those led by female entrepreneurs, need to reinvent themselves to overcome the current adversities that could lead to the destruction of their businesses and hence their jobs. One of the ways to do this is to take advantage of digital transformation. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze which variables influence the financial results of female-led Spanish micro-SMEs when they carry out social marketing actions. For that purpose, an online survey was designed and analyzed using the “PROCESS” macro. Results show that social media marketing actions have significant effects on financial performance.

Glimpsing new opportunities

As they say, times of crisis are times of opportunity. This is undoubtedly one of the most difficult times that the world in general, and tennis coaches in particular, have lived through. Despite the seriousness of the situation, it is very important that the coaches try to find opportunities to grow in this complicated situation. This article proposes some ideas of how coaches can take advantage of new opportunities related to the new world after COVID-19, training, teamwork and the values ​​associated with tennis. Maintaining a positive attitude, the coaches will be able to come out stronger and make tennis do it the same way.

Applications of a Novel Lost Circulation Additive

Lost circulation is a complicated situation in the drilling operation, wasting a lot of time and mud during processing. A serious lost circulation can cause hazards, such as sticking, blowout and collapse of well. There are some problems in conventional plugging technology, such as particle size of plugging material does not match crack width, slip of the blocking zone, and weak adhesion of lost circulation additive to the rock, which restricts the success rate of lost circulation operation. Regular and elastic polyhedron structure material compounds elastic variable network plugging material and rigid plugging materials to form a loss circulation materials (LCM)plugging mixture for different leakage speed and crack width affected by stress. Through plugging and HTHP sand bed experiment loss circulation materials(LCM) and amount of gel were optimized and improved. Through indoor simulation about leakage process of different leakage speed and different crack sizes, the on-site construction formula suitable for wells under different temperature is formed and determined. Scanning electron microscope shows the plugging gel has a variable network structure. By changing the ratio of elastic plugging material, rigid plugging material and gel, a LCM plugging formula for high temperature and high pressure formations can be formed to meet the pressure requirement of 7.5MPa. Leakage simulation formed on-site plan under different leakage rate to adapt to 180°C. The novel CPM material has been well-field tested and used for HPHT reservoirs. When the rate of leakage less than 30 m3/h and 30-60 m3/h, success rate of single plugging is more than 95% and rate of leakage greater than 60 m3/h success rate of single plugging beyond 80%. Leakage loss time is more than 80% shorter than conventional plugging techniques.

Rational Design of Smart Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications

Hydrogels are polymeric three-dimensional network structures with high water content. Due to their superior biocompatibility and low toxicity, hydrogels play a significant role in the biomedical fields. Hydrogels are categorized by the composition from natural polymers to synthetic polymers. To meet the complicated situation in the biomedical applications, suitable host–guest supramolecular interactions are rationally selected. This review will have an introduction of hydrogel classification based on the formulation molecules, and then a discussion over the rational design of the intelligent hydrogel to the environmental stimuli such as temperature, irradiation, pH, and targeted biomolecules. Further, the applications of rationally designed smart hydrogels in the biomedical field will be presented, such as tissue repair, drug delivery, and cancer therapy. Finally, the perspectives and the challenges of smart hydrogels will be outlined.