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The purpose of the study is to validate the structure that explains Internet addiction in students, as well as, identify if there are differences by gender. Through a non-probabilistic self-determination sample, 592 students were surveyed. The Internet Addiction Test-IAT was used, with 20 items integrated into six dimensions (salience, excessive use, job neglect, anticipation, lack of control, neglect of social life) with a response range: 1 a few times to 5 always. Through the SEM methodology, a four-factor model was obtained, which presented a good structural adjustment and parsimony in the indicators. Also, the ANOVA test show that the factors Salience, Excessive Use, Neglect of Work, Anticipation, Neglect of Social Life, did not present differences by gender, with the exception of the Lack of Control factor, which showed that there is a difference by gender between the groups. The most important contribution was the model obtained, which allows knowing the levels of Internet addiction in students. In this way, the academic authorities will be able to carry out the pertinent actions for the care and well-being of the students, and thus have a better use of this technology.
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Purpose: This study examines the impact of raising the ceiling value of Electronic Commerce Custom Declarations (ECCD) on Turkey's export performance processed via ECCD during the COVID-19 period. Design/methodology/approach: This paper examines the impact of the pandemic conditions on Cross-Border Electronic Commerce (ECCD) exports from Turkey to 47 countries over 42 months before and during the pandemic. An empirical analysis using the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Mean Group (MG), Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach was conducted to identify the factors affecting export flows. Findings: The findings suggest that raising the ceiling of the ECCD trade is a vital factor in increasing exports. and this result is robust after controlling for pandemic conditions. On the other hand, although the COVID-19 shock mitigates the export volume of ECCD in the short run, it changes by reversal and increases the export level in the long run. Additionally, the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Turkey have a significant and negative impact on export flows in the short run, while they have a positive and significant effect in the long run. Practical implications: The results of this study have practical implications for policymakers, emphasizing the potential and significance of Cross-Border E-Commerce (CBEC) trade. Originality/value: The study is a pioneering effort in the literature of CBEC to explore how changes in the upper limit on customs declarations can affect export flows, taking into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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Travellers' mobility decisions are fraught with uncertainty and instability during public health crises. However, existing studies have not revealed the internal mechanism of travellers' mobility changes in a public health crisis. This paper established and trained a Bayesian network model from multiple data to analyse Chinese travellers' mobility decision-making processes under COVID-19 and simulated the changes in mobility decisions in different scenarios. The results show that travellers reformulate mobility decisions in response to various information and negotiate between social customs and personal needs. Mobility can be modified through risk communication and habits adaptation. Bayesian network models provide a methodological contribution to causal exploration and scenario prediction.
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The world is on the cusp of a new technological revolution. The rapid development of advanced technology is already moving entire industries into the virtual realm. Global digitalization is penetrating all areas of social life. The contours of the emerging global information order are gradually taking shape. All of this not only opens gigantic opportunities for the development of all countries but also creates new challenges in terms of the legal regulation of cyberspace, which does not always adjust to current realities quickly enough. Therefore, new forms and ways of committing unlawful acts in cyberspace are emerging. The COVID-19 pandemic, which to a large extent has taken economic and social life online, has also led to the transformation of information crime. The potential victims most negatively affected by this situation are primarily vulnerable segments of society - children and adolescents. According to Interpol and Europol reports, there has been a significant increase over the past few years in material that contains child sexual abuse, especially in the streaming format, as well as an increase in the effectiveness of the Dark Web at adapting to such criminal activity.
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Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi is one of the first book-length studies of Malawian hip hop. It studies the language and content of contemporary Malawian hip hop as a window onto the country's youth culture as Malawian young people negotiate what scholar Alcinda Honwana calls 'waithood,' or the condition, common among Malawian youth, of lacking opportunities to advance from a situation of dependence and being stuck in a state of relative childhood. The book argues that rap music made by Malawian youth music speaks of and represents, through its very agency their need to break out of this stagnant state. After situating Malawian hip hop with respect to both other musical genres in the country and to the nation's language in culture, Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi shows how Malawian youth use rap music to create a sense of community, which then becomes a foothold from which they can do activities that get them out of waithood and into the adult world, such as getting involved in the music industry, realizing electoral power, or participating in activism about issues such as violence against people with albinism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Hip hop has been a crucial tool for Malawian youth to build the skills, identity, and agency necessary to exercise their economic, cultural, and civic independence
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The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) prioritizes trade facilitation as one of its primary objectives in its founding Agreement (Article 2 (a)), implementing programmes to increase trade through expedited movement, and release and clearance of goods in the region. The oldest Customs Union in the world anticipated increased trade-flows following the entry into force and implementation of the progressive World Trade Organization's Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA), and operation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). Its aspirations, however, were dampened by the Covid-19 pandemic, which presented supply side challenges and slowed customs processes. Members introduced critical legislative measures to reduce or stop the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and initiate needed trade-facilitations interventions at a national and regional level. SACU also played a role in this regard, albeit a minimal one, through Council decisions. This raises the question of the SACU's effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, its relevance in its functions, institutional structural readiness to address pandemics and regional emergencies, and future role it will play in this regard. This article examines trade-facilitation related responses from the institution following the outbreak of the pandemic, and adequacies/inadequacies of the said measures. The article, lastly, proposes trade-facilitation related approaches the SACU could adopt to improve efficiency for future pandemics and other global emergencies © 2023 Kluwer Law International BV, The Netherlands
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To this end, it is essential to look at the conditions that organizations create for these employees and the conditions in which employees work. [...]the aim of this article is to highlight the risks that are associated with ensuring such working conditions that will allow for increasing the motivation, satisfaction, and performance of employees of sports organizations in Slovakia. [...]a stress-reducing work atmosphere, appropriate interpersonal relationships and employee support are conducive to the achievement of set goals (Hobfoll 2002;Park et. al 2019). In this context, an adequate and functional risk management model appears to be a suitable tool, which will enable organisations to design and apply preventive and reactive measures aimed at minimising the negative impacts of risks and at the same time taking advantage of the opportunities offered to them more efficiently. A properly set up management system is seen as a crucial component of an organisation's continued success, while it also represents one of the internal methods that allow it to respond flexibly to a rapidly changing business environment (Hutchens et al. 2020;Neck et al. 2006;Stenling et al. 2006).
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Around the world, progressive customs administrations recognise the importance of strengthening their gender balance. In the past decade, the deliberate efforts of contemporary leaders have resulted in positive organisational changes focused on equitable opportunities to prepare women and men for customs leadership. We know that customs administrations are capable of large-scale and rapid transformation – the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated just how adaptive and responsive they can be. We contend that customs administrations are well-placed to drive timely, organisation-wide change that will make gender diversity a reality. This paper highlights the need for diversity in administrations and introduces the Container Control Programme – Women's Professional Development Programme (CCP – WPDP) that is designed to significantly advance diversity in agencies to strengthen their organisational effectiveness. © 2022, International Network of Customs Universities. All rights reserved.
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PurposeThe research aims to investigate the value of local wisdom, analyse local wisdom for the harmony of a multicultural society and discover forms of inheritance of local wisdom for maintaining peace.Design/methodology/approachQualitative research was used in this research. The primary data were obtained through observation, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Secondary data were obtained through reports from agencies, such as Social Services and Central Bureau of Statistics, literature studies and news from the internet. The data validity technique used was source triangulation. The data were analysed with stages of data reduction, data presentation and conclusion.FindingsThe results showed that the local wisdom sedekah bumi, selamatan malam 1 suro, sadranan and kuda lumping contain values related to religion, cooperation, harmony, togetherness, kinship and cohesiveness;the implementation of local wisdom can strengthen social harmony;and the inheritance of local wisdom takes place sustainably from families and communities to the younger generation.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was conducted during the peak of COVID-19 cases in Central Java, Indonesia. Therefore, the data could not be obtained maximally.Practical implicationsThis research contributes widely not only to the village studied but also to other communities with similar conditions.Social implicationsThe inheritance of local wisdom can help maintain peace, unify societies and offer solution to social conflicts by implementing traditions containing humanity and peaceful values.Originality/valueThis research offers a new insight concerning the inheritance of local wisdom that can function as a tool to achieve a peaceful society and prevent social disasters from occurring.
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The virus takes a toll on people worldwide regarding the economy and social life, control the spread of this virus and taking the vaccine are most problems faced by the governments. This article examines the news coverage of the Coronavirus vaccine, focusing on the Covid-19 vaccine and how it has been exploited politically and ideologically in the English and Arabic media (BBC and Al-Jazeera). Since there are limited researches of CDA on the vaccine discourse in the media (how the vaccine is portrayed), this study aims to contribute to the researches in CDA about Covid-19 vaccine discourse. Fairclough's (1995) three-dimensional critical discourse analysis was utilised as a foundational framework to investigate the amount to which power is linguistically expressed persuasively in every discourse of different media genres using particular lexical, rhetorical, and pragmatic methods. A qualitative approach was used to analyse the selected data (two discourses from each media type). The findings revealed that the governments, through media, had used linguistic features to persuade people's minds, convincing them to take the vaccine as the only solution. The ethical appeal, cultural, societal and religious is very well generated in the discourse of both media genres.
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The main research objective was to assess the range of threats related to poverty or social exclusion in EU countries among people with disabilities as compared to people without disabilities. The research used the available poverty determinants, including the percentage of low work intensity, the percentage of low income, the percentage of material deprivation, the poverty risk rate, the percentage of severe disability, living conditions and population income, and the overall risk of household poverty or exclusion, which are available in Eurostat databases. The data used in the research relates to 2018 and was published in 2021. The research used cluster analysis, more specifically one of the agglomeration clustering methods, i.e., Ward's method. Separate cluster analysis using Ward's method was carried out for people with disabilities and for people without disabilities. The analysis identifies two clusters among people with disabilities and two clusters among people without disabilities. In the group of people with disabilities, cluster 2 includes 19 countries with a higher risk of poverty or social exclusion, while cluster 1 includes eight countries with a lower risk of poverty or social exclusion. In turn, in the group of people without disabilities, cluster 2 includes nine countries with a higher risk of poverty or social exclusion, while cluster 1 includes 18 countries with a lower risk of poverty or social exclusion.
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In the first months of 2020, the whole world was affected by the restrictions caused by the authorities' attempts to stop the spread of SarsCov2 as far as possible. Initially, the most effective measure was quarantine, which could slow the spread of the virus. In Romania, the first case of Covid19 was confirmed on 23 February 2020, and after a period of hesitation, the national authorities imposed the quarantine on 15 March, i.e., a series of restrictions on the movement of persons and on participation in events involving more than eight persons. Obviously, the introduction of this special regime for the movement of persons affected all areas of social and economic life, including its vital branches, such as the industrial and educational activity. Of course, under these conditions, the first temptation of any ethnologist was to observe the transformations of the rhythms of life, practicing a kind of armchair ethnography and transforming into the observed "field" even their own home, their own life or the lives of those close to them, but also what came to them from the outside world via online. In contrast to these approaches, this paper studies several cases where, through contractual obligations, the ethnologist had to do the field in the classical sense of the term, i.e. to observe real (not virtual) communities, located far away (even geographically), and to participate in their social and cultural life. The constraints imposed by quarantine practically forced ethnological fieldwork to reinvent itself, making researchers reflect on the criteria for selecting their informants under the new conditions, on the manner of interacting with them, on the logistics involved in producing interviews and, last but not least, on the ethical implications of approaches of this kind. The remote field experiences of two projects were presented and analyzed: Educational and Networking Tools on Development of Authentic Performance for Professional Integration - PAN and Colecţie digitală a patrimoniului alimentar românesc si transfer spre societate - FOODie. Analyzing in particular the interviews conducted in the FOODie project, the paper highlights a number of advantages of remote fieldwork, such as: the possibility to overcome quarantine restrictions, the possibility to make a quality video recording, the openings of a collaborative ethnology. A number of difficulties of this type of remote research are also highlighted, such as: communication difficulties due to lack of direct interaction, internet signal fluctuation problems, difficulties in understanding some aspects due to ignorance of the informant's living space.
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Araştırmanın amacı;COVID-19 pandemisiyle başlayan "kontrollü sosyal hayat"ın üniversite öğrencilerinin esenlik algılarına etkisini incelemektir. Araştırmada kolay ulaşılabilir durum örneklemesi kullanılmıştır. Veriler;"Algılanan Esenlik Ölçeği”ile toplanmıştır. Verilerin değerlendirmesinde DFA, Cronbach's Alpha, CR ve AVE değerlerine bakılmış, iç tutarlılığın sağlandığı tespit edilmiştir. Faktörlerin ilişki gücünde yol analizi yapılmış ve norm değerlere göre esenlik algısı alt faktörlerinden fiziksel ve sosyal boyutlarda varyansı açıklama oranları daha yüksek olduğu saptanmıştır. Katılımcıların yıllara göre esenlik algılarındaki değişim anova testi ile değerlendirilmiş ve duygusal boyutta anlamlı fark tespit edilmiştir. Performans haritası analizinde esenlik algısı üzerinde etkisi önemli olan boyutlar;spiritüel, psikolojik, duygusal ve entelektüel boyutlar bulunmuştur. Çalışma bulgularının sağlık, eğitim alanında öğrenim gören öğrenci ve akademisyenlere kaynak olacağı düşünülmektedir.Alternate :Purpose of the research;To examine the effects of "controlled social life" on the well-being perceptions of university students during COVID-19. Data was collected using easily accessible sampling with the "Perceived Well-Being Scale". Data were examined with DFA, Cronbach Alpha, CR, and AVE values , and internal consistency was achieved. Path analysis was performed and physical and social dimensions' sub-factors were found higher than the norm values. The change of well-being by years was evaluated with the Anova and a significant difference was found in the emotional dimension. Performance map analysis shows that spiritual, psychological, emotional, and intellectual dimensions have important effects on well-being. The findings will be a source for students and academicians studying on health and education.
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The Covid pandemic dominated social life over the past 2 years. It turned social interaction that is a key part of human life into risky behaviour. It thereby affected the relative utility from different consumption goods compared with a non-pandemic world. Those consumption goods that happen in public or in groups (watching a soccer game at the stadium) come in the pandemic with the risk of infection, whereas others that are done at home (watching a soccer game on TV) remain unaffected. As a result, households face a new trade-off for their consumption decisions when they have to decide about consumption with social interaction and the risk of infection. Many governments put regulation in place that restricted this trade off, whereas other governments asked the population to be responsible enough to decide on this risk-return trade off solely based on private costs and gains.
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The interest in the analysis and study of the phenomenon of withdrawal and processes of "disappearance" from social life face-to-face has grown significantly in recent years both in clinical and in anthropological and sociological fields. The Hikikomori, a phenomenon of voluntary social self-exclusion exploded in Japan in the late nineties of last century, has gradually affected, albeit in different ways, all Western societies coming to become in a few years a real social and health emergency (Ricci, 2009;Saito, 2013). However, recent studies have shown that, although in Japanese society it is considered a social pathology expressly linked to double knit to the supporting structures of Japanese society and its way of understanding the commitment and social confrontation, in Western hybrid forms is considered, instead, an individual condition and in some cases a real psychological-relational structure, imposing a broader reflection on the causes, motivations and coping strategies experienced and implemented by young people who call themselves Hikikomori (Teo, 2015;Bagnato, 2017). The present research aims to analyze, with an avalutative and depathologizing position, the emotional-relational aspects and the processes and ways of socialization of young Italian Hikikomori through the netnographic analysis of the most important online community of Hikikomori in Italy, trying to identify the common aspects and at the same time the peculiar and prototypical phenomena of some specific types and subcategories within the community itself.
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Purpose>This study deals with attenuating the risk of relying on a single export market, which was heightened by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on Taiwanese atemoya (a fruit with short storage life) and the adoption of active controlled atmosphere (CA) containers, a new technology which lengthens storage time for other export markets. This study looks at the financial feasibility of the technology's first ever use in atemoya exports.Design/methodology/approach>Apart from the standard financial assessment tools—like net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), benefit-cost ratio (BCR) and payback period (PBP)—this study calibrated five different scenarios based on data gathered from relevant market agents including suppliers, exporters, customs brokers and technology developer.Findings>Due to the high profit margin and low investment cost, the use of active CA containers for long-haul exports of this highly perishable fruit is found both technically and financially feasible, despite the generally higher operational cost during the pandemic.Research limitations/implications>This study looked at three specific export markets: Malaysia, Dubai and Canada. Results here may lack generalizability in other markets, although it is believed that slight deviations would not invalidate the conclusions of this research because short, medium and long distances were all covered therein.Originality/value>This paper studies the first time that active CA is used for export of atemoyas to expand existing markets.
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This research aims to determine the impact of technology, commitment, and cultural change on the sustainable development of religious ecotourism villages. This study utilized quantitative research methods. The sampling technique used was random sampling, determined by the slovin formula—data collection techniques through the distribution of questionnaires and measurement using a Likert scale. The study was done in an ecotourism village in Bali Province with a population of 155 individuals, and the sample size was 100. The Structural Equation Model using WarpPLS 5.0 software modelling was used for the statistical analysis. The results demonstrate that the technology and commitment variables have no significant effect on the development of religious ecotourism villages;however, cultural changes have a substantial effect. The development of religious ecotourism villages is the dependent variable in this study;nevertheless, the research is primarily focused on how each village develops its ecotourism, which is increasingly being activated through a religious by the government. Religion, often known as a religious tradition, has a particular role in preserving and sustaining a village’s ancient legacy. The application of the concept of religion in Bali strengthens the joints of Balinese cultural life. Ecotourism villages with religious values pay attention to surrounding customs to maintain and preserve ancestral heritage.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is completely changing the transport customs of city residents. It has decreased the number of travels and has affected changes in the division of transport means. This article presents a case study of the city of Warsaw, attempting to describe the process of changes in the use of public transport in daily trips in the following months of the pandemic. Statistical data on the public transport offer, number of passengers, and tickets sold in 2017–2021, which are available in monthly and annual bulletins issued by the public transport organizer, were used. The knowledge base was supplemented with the results of surveys conducted among the city’s residents. The obtained data were organized and analyzed using descriptive statistics methods. The study findings reveal that the lower use of public transport for travel during the COVID-19 pandemic is mainly due to the imposed limits on the number of passengers and is also linked to changes in the structure of the tickets purchased, especially a significant decrease in the sale of long-distance tickets, which implies the loss of a significant number of most valuable, regular users. It was also observed that the appraisal of public transport did not deteriorate, which allowed to expect with optimism the return of passengers after the pandemic. Therefore, a package of possible steps to be taken to restore confidence in public transport and to enable return of lost passengers is presented. The results of the analyses show how easily passengers can be lost and why it is so important to ensure the functioning of public transport even in crisis situations such as a pandemic. These results can also be applied in transport policy updates.
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In the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, how to promote blockchain technology to improve the efficiency of port customs clearance and logistics transparency has become a hot research question in the shipping industry. In this paper, we investigate the value of blockchain-based vertical cooperation led by a port or a shipping company in a one-to-two shipping service competition model. A status quo scenario and two different investment scenarios led by different stakeholders are constructed, and equilibrium solutions of the Stackelberg game in three scenarios are proposed. Meanwhile, consumer surplus and social welfare under different cooperation frameworks are discussed. We find that i) investment in blockchain technology can significantly increase the profits of shipping supply chain participants. ii) From the point of view of profit, when the investment efficiency of the port and the shipping company satisfies a certain relationship, there is a balanced strategy for both parties to invest in blockchain technology. iii) The more intense the competition for the services of shipping companies, the lower the level of blockchain technology to improve the logistics capabilities of the shipping supply chain participants. iv) The port's investment in blockchain technology brings more consumer surplus and social welfare. The abovementioned findings can provide managerial insights for ports and shipping companies and present decision support for the government to formulate blockchain technology promotion policies.