China's Perceptions of Russia during the Ukraine Conflict

The ongoing Russian military operation in Ukraine since February 2022 has presented significant challenges to China's foreign and security policies, as well as its economic and technological ties with the West. Initially, China refrained from criticizing Russia's military actions and adopted a "neutral" or "independent" stance in response to Western criticism. However, China was taken aback by the protracted nature of the conflict and Russia's inability to successfully conclude its military operation. This raised concerns within China, considering its own situation of potentially reunifying with Taiwan through military means if necessary. While there are distinctions between the situations in Ukraine and Taiwan, the initial speculation of China conducting military operations against Taiwan has gradually diminished, although military pressure on Taiwan remains. The conflict in Ukraine has also caused internal divisions within China and has had an impact on its relations with the West, which are crucial for China's rise on the global stage. This article aims to examine China's interests and positions regarding the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, the implications for its relations with Russia, and the opportunities and challenges that China faces in the current situation. The article employs an inductive approach, analyzing China's predicaments at four levels: perceptions within the decision-making bodies of the Communist Party, the foreign ministry, think-tanks, and the media community. It argues that in conjunction with China's economic contraction resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian military operation has prompted China to seriously contemplate how to safeguard its national interests, particularly with regard to Taiwan and its strategic objectives of attaining a prominent global position. These considerations carry medium to long-term implications for the evolving regional and global orders. In conclusion, the article briefly discusses the implications of these developments on India, shedding light on the broader regional dynamics influenced by China's response to the Ukrainian conflict. © 2023, MGIMO Universty Press. All rights reserved.

Development and Current Situation of Forest Use by Camping Sites in Japan

After the Second World War, camping and camping sites in forests have developed and increased significantly from the 1980 s to 1990 s in Japan, relying on the laws and institutions established from the 1950 s to 1970 s across multiple administrative sectors, obtaining social approval as a legitimatized outdoor activity and forest use. Since the 2000s, the management of these camping sites has deteriorated mainly owing to economic recession, which caused the movement of camping site renewal by the private sector. This movement directed the diversification of forest use by camping sites in recent years. Camping facilities have been developed in many ways to meet the needs of campers, including organized group camps that promote education and experience in forests, solo camps, glamping, and workcations under the spread of the COVID-19 that demand relaxing or productive environment, and leisure camps that require enrichment of outdoor activities. As a result of this diversification, possibilities for effective utilization of forests and regional revitalization through the management of camping sites have been observed. Many camping sites have utilized forest lands, standing trees, and forest spaces to develop facilities and services, and there are cases where firewood production for campers has promoted the reorganization and development of local forestry and securing of personnel for forest management. In addition to securing local employment brought by reorganization, local revitalization in rural and mountainous areas has been promoted through the linkage of the needs of campers to positive economic effects, increase of the visitors who deeply connected to local people, and comprehensive and sustainable use of resources in local societies. © 2023 Nihon Ringakkai. All rights reserved.

Phronesis: Deliberative Judgement as a Key Competence in the Post-Covid Educational Environment

The global Covid19 pandemic which began in early 2020 is one of the most socially disruptive events to have occurred since the Second World War. It has left a profound mark on the institutions of society, including those charged with education, and its effects will be felt for many years. In this paper, we discuss some of the effects that public health policies have had on the practice of teaching, learning and assessment in the United Kingdom. We review at some of the literature on how current students have coped with the experience of education during Covid and look at potential difficulties that new students may now face when entering university. We suggest that the concept of phronesis, that is practical wisdom or prudential judgement, which can also be thought of as the faculty for making deliberative and evaluative judgements about courses of action, will be a crucial element of any recovery pedagogy since the problems faced are context-dependent and generally involve finding the most effective solutions among a range of options. © 2022 IEEE.

Use of a Virtual Assistant in Preparing Elderly People to Overcome Loneliness

The problem of loneliness in old age is updated, its causes are highlighted, including the loss of a spouse, relatives and friends. Statistical data on the negative impact of loneliness on the physiological and psychological changes of the personality are provided. After labor activity is over, a person has the right for a decent life, but neither their own children nor the state currently pay the necessary attention to the majority of elderly people. The results of the study of the ideas of the elderly about the "ideal model of old age" in Poland and Ukraine are analyzed and the 4 most typical ones are selected - living with children;accommodation in specialized institutions;independent living and combined model. The assumption is substantiated that the desire for independent living and independence may be the reason for the increase in the number of elderly people who experience loneliness. The insufficient level of solving the problem of loneliness in old age is noted and the search for innovative solutions based on the combination of modern psychological directions of helping the elderly and the latest technical achievements using artificial intelligence is suggested. Attention is focused on the fact that in the process of developing modern technical means aimed at helping the elderly, it is mandatory to observe ethical and psychological principles, the list of which is proposed to be supplemented. In particular, it is emphasized that it is important not to adapt a person to the requirements of electronics, but to teach electronic devices to "communicate" in human language and in a way that is convenient for people. Also, technical means should be available to different age categories of users equally, including the elderly. In the context of adult education, the preparation of elderly people to use personal electronic assistants - virtual assistants to overcome loneliness - is gaining relevance. The results of the discussion aimed at developing the readiness of the elderly to use electronic devices based on artificial intelligence are given. The needs of elderly people are highlighted, which should be taken into account when developing personal virtual assistants, including basic life and health needs, social and communicative needs, as well as needs for cognition, development and self-realization of the personality. It is concluded that training elderly people to use personal electronic assistants is an important component of modern adult education and an essential step for the psychological support of a large part of elderly citizens who have the right for a full life and self-realization in society.

Air Quality Analysis During COVID-19 Utilizing Satellite Data

Human health is severely endangered by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). It is viewed as the worst global health threat humans have faced since the second world war and the WHO recognized it as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. This pandemic led several nations to adopt statewide lockdowns, while the industrial, construction, and transportation activities in several nations were disrupted, which lead to a significant shift in air pollutants. The lockdown, however, significantly impacted the environment and air quality in distinct cities. There are numerous ground stations deployed by pollution control organizations to monitor and collect the air pollutants data, but it is not feasible to set up a ground station in every city. In places where ground stations are not available for data collection, Google Earth Engine (GEE) satellite captured data can be used for data analysis. This study aimed to analyze the changes in air pollutants during the different lockdowns in India, such as nitrogen dioxide(NO2), sulfur dioxide(SO2), and carbon monoxide(CO) that contribute significantly to air pollution. In India, lockdowns were imposed during different periods of 2020, 2021, and 2022, according to COVID-19 waves. The air pollutants data during different waves have been analyzed and compared with the pre-COVID year (2019) data for the same duration. According to the study results, N O2 and S O2 were drastically reduced, but only a minor reduction in CO. Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai were among the major cities that saw the largest reduction, which was up to 60%. © 2022 IEEE.

Detection of Corona Virus Infection using Convolutional Neural Network

Coronavirus 2019, also known as COVID-19, has recently had a negative influence on public health and human lives. Since the second world war, this disastrous consequence has changed human experience by initiating an increasingly more devastating and unexpected health calamity. The world's condition has become a catastrophic epidemic due to uncontrolled infectious properties within society. Therefore, the initial stage and accurate identification of the virus may be a good strategy for tracking and suppressing the illness from spreading due to the lack of medication. During the pandemic, computed tomography (CT) imaging has been extensively used to detect the percentage of infection. Artificial intelligence-Assisted CT-image analysis could be a better option which can be achieved using a convolutional neural network (CNN). This is one of the prominent modes that can be effectively used in such applications. In this paper, an artificial-intelligence-based approach has been presented to investigate the coronavirus infection in the human body. The various experiments are carried out on the freely available dataset. It has been observed that the results are better indicating adequate performance for prediction. © 2022 IEEE.

Revising the Value Models for the Marine Forces Reserve Supply and Maintenance (SMAT) Inspection Program

The Marine Forces Reserve (MARFORRES) comprises mainly citizen-soldiers who are required to operate across a broad spectrum of military operations at extended distances to support the Marine Corps missions. In recent years, the accountability and readiness scores for MARFORRES units have been declining. There have been previous studies endorsed by MARFORRES G-4 to develop a value model for the Supply and Maintenance Team (SMAT) inspection program through the analysis of a stakeholder derived objectives hierarchy. This thesis expands upon previous work by focusing on the following: 1) review of the existing value models to ensure they reflect the true value of the SMAT inspection program, 2) validation of the value models to articulate the contributions that the SMAT inspection program provides to MARFORRES mission, and 3) demonstration of the utility of value models for resourcing decisions in a budget-austere environment. MARFORRES can use the value models to revise its inspection policies to focus on value-driven inspection rather than mission-driven inspection. This will help to maximize the total value of SMAT inspection to the MARFORRES mission.

China's Increasing Influence in Tunisia: Implications for U.S. National Security

Africa remains relevant to U.S. national security strategy, particularly in the context of great power competition. In the 2017 National Security Strategy, the U.S. classifies China as a revisionist power and views China's increasing influence in Africa as an emerging security threat. Recent U.S. Africa Command posture statements reflect the U.S. policy shift focused on countering China's increasing influence. China is emerging as a major competitor seeking to gain strategic positions of advantage in the international system. The nature of these challenges demand that the U.S. be prepared to meet these threats across the range of military operations. Recent studies highlight the fact that China is challenging U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific region. Does the same hold true in Africa? This study examines the case of Tunisia. The purpose of this research is to support or challenge the position that China poses the primary threat to U.S. interests in Tunisia. If not, does the U.S. military's main focus on China have negative effects, diverting attention and resources from other threats in North Africa?

The impact of COVID-19 on the Brazilian Power Sector: Operational, commercial, and regulatory aspects

The Coronavirus outbreak has imposed different levels of stay-at-home orders worldwide to help contain the disease spread, thus promoting severe impacts over the global economy. The World Bank expects 90% of the world economy to go into recession, being this the most severe global economic crisis since the second world war. Consequently, electricity consumption has fallen sharply in many countries, so as in Brazil, what provoked critical effects over many electricity sector stakeholders. In this context, this article discusses the main consequences of COVID-19s outbreak over the Brazilian electricity sector and some measures taken by the government and the regulator to address such issues. Further, this work proposes a long-term electricity demand forecast methodology, taking into consideration bottom-up technics for general demand growth and top-down technics for the expansion of distributed generation in Brazil. The model uses as input economic forecasts from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Brazilian market consolidated expectations disclosed by the Brazilian Central Bank. The model proves to be useful to long-term demand forecast by producing results adherent to official forecasts published by Brazilian governmental institutions. © 2003-2012 IEEE.

Case Studies—AI for Infectious Disease

Infectious diseases are a prominent reason for morbidity and mortality in individuals worldwide. However, with the evolution of industrialization after World War II, there is an upsurge in the progress of chemotherapeutic agents, an extension of public health practices, and profound innovations in microbiology and immunology, leading to substantial reductions in the prevalence of mortality and morbidity owing to infectious diseases. Researchers and healthcare specialists keep exploring new knowledge to assist in confronting virulent diseases through the latest worldwide urgency. The various studies demonstrated AI as a promising technology in a better scaleup, speed-up processing capacity, consistency, and outpace human beings in certain healthcare activities. Thus, the healthcare sector utilized several AI technologies to combat infectious diseases such as TB, and COVID-19. The chapter aspires to exhaustively evaluate the position of AI as a powerful technique in diagnosing, forecasting, predicting, tracking, and drug development for infectious diseases and their associated pandemic. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

RE-SIGNIFY the DOMESTIC SPACE in TIMES of CONFINEMENT from the APPLICATION of ETHNOGRAPHIC TOOLS and PERSONAL CENTERED DESIGN

The Covid-19 crisis has been described as the “greatest challenge that humankind has faced since the 2nd World War,” having an impact on health, society, and the global economy. Houses and domestic spaces are key sites through which COVID-19 is experienced, thus, an interdisciplinary approach is needed. The goal of this research project is to forge an analytical approach while experimenting with micro-ethnography and auto-ethnography tools to analyse how we inhabit the domestic spaces in complex situations of confinement imposition in order to arrive at an outward reflection from within. The project reflects on an innovative social experiment that opens up new paths of design provoking to help us rethink the domestic space. This paper has the objective to compile, compare and explain the processes and results around the characterization of the domestic space, centring on the person in times of confinement through an ethnographic approach. © PDE 2021.

Teaching history and bringing the past back to life with serious games

Serious games are often characterised as being games developed and used for educational or non-entertainment purposes. The academic literature is saturated with definitions and developed games surrounding the concept. Despite this, there is a lack of quality meta-analytical and longitudinal analysis studies associated with use of serious games. One area where serious games have pedagogical potential is in teaching historical subjects and in displaying historical artefacts. Serious games, combined with evolving 3D modelling techniques and Virtual Reality (VR) capabilities can replicate historical events, artefacts, and environments. The creation of a serious game or even virtual museum that informs individuals about the past have the potential to provide a sense of historical realism or immersion. In the context of Covid-19 and the current global impact to the tourist industry, the application of serious games for such purposes has undoubted significance. This paper reviews the academic literature surrounding the concepts of content and assessment integration in relation to developing historical games for pedagogical and knowledge sharing purposes. The research focuses on two points. Firstly, can serious games exhibit a sense of realism and immersion towards teaching and learning history. Secondly, what are the immersive characteristics needed to make a historical game immersive. Based on the literature this paper will provide a framework that identifies best practice towards making historical games immersive from a games design perspective. The paper also presents an example of a serious game intended to educate users about military machinery used in World War two. A display of 3D modelled Roman artefacts is also presented to document how 3D modelling can replicate an interactive and immersive virtual experience. The findings of the paper argue that there is a close interdependency between aesthetical and content design and learning outcomes towards depicting historical realism and immersion. Future empirical work is also discussed in the paper with the aim of evaluating the framework presented. © The Authors, 2021. All Rights Reserved.