The year 2022 marks 15 years since the entry into force of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Among its objectives, this treaty aims at acknowledging the specific nature – economic and cultural – of cultural activities, goods, and services, reaffirming the sovereign right of states to adopt or implement measures they deem appropriate for the protection and the promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions as well as reinforcing international cooperation for more balanced cultural exchanges. Since its adoption, this treaty has been criticized for its low level of constraint. However, data collected over the years show that parties rely extensively on the Convention to undertake diverse initiatives to achieve the treaty’s objectives. Based on concrete examples, this article aims to show that the effectivity of a legal instrument does not only rely on its degree of constraint but also on other factors, including monitoring mechanisms put in place in the context of its implementation.

In this paper we develop a new technique for showing that a nonlinear algebraic differential equation is strongly minimal based on the recently developed notion of the degree of non-minimality of Freitag and Moosa. Our techniques are sufficient to show that generic order $h$ differential equations with non-constant coefficients are strongly minimal, answering a question of Poizat (1980).

This study is part of a growing wave of interest in foreign language (FL) learners’ emotions, their sources, and their effects. Previous studies have confirmed that there is a clear relationship between the emotions of foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), foreign language boredom (FLB), and foreign language performance. However, the relative importance of each emotion as a predictor of FL performance has yet to be examined, and as different teaching and learning strategies can elicit different emotions, it is difficult to determine whether FL teachers and learners should prioritize a specific emotion in course design and study. We, therefore, utilized structural equation modeling and latent dominance analysis on a sample of 502 Moroccan EFL learners in order to examine the relative importance of each emotion in predicting FL performance. We argue that it is crucial to use sophisticated statistical analyses and to collect samples from outside Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries. The latent dominance analysis revealed that FLCA had the strongest (negative) effect on English test scores. FLB had a significant—but slightly weaker—negative effect and FLE had a significant—but weaker still—positive effect. As such, it is vital that FL teachers and learners not underestimate the impact of anxiety on language learning.

Estimating the ideological positions of political actors is an important step toward answering a number of substantive questions in political science. Survey scales provide useful data for such estimation, but also present a challenge, as respondents tend to interpret the scales differently. The Aldrich–McKelvey model addresses this challenge, but the existing implementations of the model still have notable shortcomings. Focusing on the Bayesian version of the model (BAM), the analyses in this article demonstrate that the model is prone to overfitting and yields poor results for a considerable share of respondents. The article addresses these shortcomings by developing a hierarchical Bayesian version of the model (HBAM). The new version treats self-placements as data to be included in the likelihood function while also modifying the likelihood to allow for scale flipping. The resulting model outperforms the existing Bayesian version both on real data and in a Monte Carlo study. An R package implementing the models in Stan is provided to facilitate future use.

This case study finds that disrespect by international expatriate managers towards local employees triggered long-term industrial unrest in the Indian subsidiary of the global car maker Toyota. Whilst innovative production models and their tools provide economic advantage to the company, the interaction of the application of the lean production model within the context of host country institutions often creates workplace disputation and unrest due to unilateralism and managerial hegemonies that overrides local customs and norms. The power of multinational enterprises to override or ignore institutional resistance and to inflict disrespect towards the local workforce can result in worker resistance, a lack of trust, and ongoing industrial unrest. This case study demonstrates how a lack of respect of local customs and workers grievances had long-lasting consequences in terms of the subsequent conflict and a poor industrial relations climate at the production plant in India.

This short article proposes to eliminate asymmetries between the CP and vP phases by arguing for a more uniform clause structure in which both phase heads, C and v, are always present in a derivation but may be removed from the workspace by Transfer. I argue that C is present in the derivation of raising clauses but is removed from the workspace after DP movement yields intersecting sets, in the sense of Epstein et al. (2012, 2015).

This study investigates antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions of young adults, the next generation of entrepreneurs. We determine whether aspiring entrepreneurs' positive and dark traits relate to entrepreneurial intentions. Results indicated that entrepreneurial fitness, a second-order construct comprised of multiple positive and bright traits, positively relates to entrepreneurial intention, while the dark traits of Machiavellianism and narcissism differentially relate to entrepreneurial fitness and intention. Narcissism positively relates to entrepreneurial fitness and intention both directly and indirectly. Though Machiavellianism positively and directly relates to entrepreneurial intention, it also negatively and indirectly relates to intention through a negative relationship with entrepreneurial fitness. However, overall, entrepreneurial fitness positively relates with entrepreneurial intention. Findings extend the core model of entrepreneurial intention by concurrently illuminating the adaptive and maladaptive aspects of the dark side of narcissism and Machiavellianism with the bright, positive antecedents of entrepreneurial intention with entrepreneurial fitness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This article argues that the colonial government in India was shaped by changes in property law, race relations and other institutional interests that accompanied the political and economic restructuring of the colonial state. Therefore, the development of constitutionalism was the outcome of an interplay between institutional and professional interests and larger socio-economic and political forces. Against the backdrop of empire, constitutionalism in British India was defined by a specific form of allocation of powers between the executive (which also exercised legislative powers) and the high courts. The structure that developed as a result was a strong executive government, particularly in its exercise of power in local districts with formal judicial scrutiny introduced after 1861. The relationship between the executive and the judiciary in localities generated a series of conflicts and tensions, which were exacerbated by the expansion of the bureaucracy, the legal profession and gradual inclusion of Indians in the upper strata of governance. Taken together, these factors led to the development of a hybrid model of separation of powers in the Indian subcontinent, which seems to have stood the test of time in post-colonial countries of South Asia despite political elites having invested considerable resources on constitutional reform.

The paper aims to present a critical analysis of the phenomenon and notion of exceptionalism in bioethics. The authors demonstrate that exceptionalism pertains to phenomena that are not (yet) entirely familiar to us and could potentially bear risks regarding their regulation. After an overview of the state of the art, we briefly describe the origins and evolution of the concept, compared to exception and exclusion. In the second step, they look at the overall development debates on genetic exceptionalism, compared to other bioethical debates on exceptionalism, before presenting a detailed analysis of a specific case of early regulation of genetic screening. In the last part, the authors explain the historical background behind the connection between exceptionalism and exclusion in these debates. Their main conclusion is that while the initial stage of the discussion is shaped by the concept of exceptionalism and awareness of risks of exclusion, the later development centers around exceptions that are needed in detailed regulatory procedures.

This article argues that the liturgical tradition of celebrating Christmas on 25 December travelled from the Latin West to the Greek East at the behest of Theodosius I upon his arrival in Constantinople in AD 380. From there it made its way to Cappadocia, Pontus and Syrian Antioch by means of travelling clerics who belonged to a pro-Nicene network. The essay also makes the larger methodological point that in late antiquity liturgical traditions did not travel of their own accord; rather, they were often carried by networks of travelling bishops and ‘radiated out’ from major sees to minor ones.

Arising of disasters by climate change had affected crop growth and yield, and then threaten local to global food security, particularly heat stress. Therefore, hazard assessment is essential to develop effective disaster risk management and adaptation interventions to ensure food security. In this study, the accumulated heat stress days (DAY), heat stress intensity (HSI) and heat degree-days (HDD) during the post-silking period of summer maize in The Huang-Huai-Hai Plain were investigated. Based on the optimal probability distribution function of HDD and information diffusion theory, we compute heat stress classification index and the possibility of heat stress, respectively. During 1981–2019, DAY, HSI and HDD were 11.8 d, 31.9°C and 23.6°Cd and increased by 0.67 d/decade, 0.10°C/decade and 3.14°Cd/decade, respectively. The threshold and hazard probability of mild, moderate and severe heat stress were 9.4, 19.4 and 34.2°Cd and 16.6, 9.3 and 4.5%, respectively. The heat stress hazard index (M) was 0.48, ranged from 0 to 0.77 during 1981 to 2019. M will increase in the future at all regions, particularly after 2060. Under SSP5-8.5 climate scenario, M ranged from 0.95 to 1.20 in 2080s, about two times than historical period. This could be used in optimizing agricultural management in summer maize production in order to combat heat stress under projected climate change.

With the increase of air transportation, some crossing waypoints (CWPs) are becoming bottlenecks in the operation of air traffic networks. This paper presents a CWP operation optimisation framework based on a two-stage optimisation method. First, we considered the interests of airlines and air traffic controllers and established a flight-level dynamic allocation model for the CWP to minimise the flight-level deviation and the number of flight conflicts. A multi-objective, self-adaptive differential evolution-local search hybrid algorithm was used to solve the model in a parallel computing manner. Subsequently, a flight conflict resolution algorithm based on the Monte-Carlo tree search was designed for flight conflicts that existed after the optimisation. Finally, based on real operation data, four experimental scenarios were constructed, and the air traffic operation simulation system was used for experimental validation. For daily traffic and 1.2 times peak traffic scenarios, the average flight-level deviation reduction rates after optimisation were 53% and 39%, and the successful flight conflict resolution rates reached 89% and 75%, respectively. The experimental results showed that this optimisation framework can effectively balance the number of flight conflicts with the efficiency of flight-level usage and directly improve the capacity of the CWP, which can be used as a reference for air traffic control auxiliary decision support systems.

Elaine Horwitz et al. (1986), in their seminal article that helped jumpstart our current interest in language anxiety, characterized this affective malady as composed of three elements: fear of negative evaluation, communication apprehension, and test anxiety. Notably, all three of these components are linked in different ways to learners’ perceptions about others’ assessment of their linguistic competence. Over the years since Horwitz et al.'s influential publication, research has only reinforced the idea that feedback provided to language learners has a powerful impact on their emotional well-being and levels of linguistic confidence. This article explores research on the various ways that learners can be supported via assessment practices and feedback techniques that not only counter the debilitating effects of language anxiety but also may even work preventatively to increase learner well-being. Among these is Appreciative Inquiry, a feedback technique that focuses on what learners are doing effectively, as well as other nondeficit, strengths-based approaches that concentrate on assets rather than fixing what is broken.

Gaussian graphical models are useful tools for conditional independence structure inference of multivariate random variables. Unfortunately, Bayesian inference of latent graph structures is challenging due to exponential growth of $\mathcal{G}_n$, the set of all graphs in n vertices. One approach that has been proposed to tackle this problem is to limit search to subsets of $\mathcal{G}_n$. In this paper we study subsets that are vector subspaces with the cycle space $\mathcal{C}_n$ as the main example. We propose a novel prior on $\mathcal{C}_n$ based on linear combinations of cycle basis elements and present its theoretical properties. Using this prior, we implement a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm, and show that (i) posterior edge inclusion estimates computed with our technique are comparable to estimates from the standard technique despite searching a smaller graph space, and (ii) the vector space perspective enables straightforward implementation of MCMC algorithms.

Ronald P. Leow is Professor (Applied Linguistics) in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Language Program Director of Spanish Language Instruction at Georgetown University. He has initiated and published (over 100 articles and chapters) in several strands of research that include language curriculum development, research methodology, cognitive processes and depth of processing in language learning, (written and computerized) corrective feedback, textual enhancement, reactivity, and CALL. He has contributed to the field his 2015 Model of the L2 Learning Process in ISLA (in Explicit learning in the L2 classroom: A student-centered approach, Routledge) and his 2020 Feedback Processing Framework (in R. M. Manchón (Ed.), Writing and language learning. Advancing research agendas, John Benjamins) to provide a cognitive account for how L2 data and feedback are processed by L2 learners. His i10-index is 58 with over 6,500 citations.

This study argues, contrary to some opinions, that shadow performance existed in Iran from at least the tenth to the twentieth century. Through a textual analysis of newly discovered ancient texts, two plays specifically, this study shows how shadow performance originated in the Indian subcontinent, was transported from Iran to the historical region now known as Iraq, and then spread to Egypt, developing over time through its historical progression. This study also looks at the reasons for the decline of shadow performance in Iran, including the centuries-old Iranian Sufi criticism of the form and the establishment of the Safavid dynasty, which introduced Shiism as the official religion of Iran in the sixteenth century. Certain Iranian Sufisms considered shadow performance debaucherous until the fifteenth century. After the sixteenth century, influenced by the Turkish Karagöz, shadow performance was considered a theatrical form associated with Sunni infidels. Consequently, shadow performance was replaced with Muharram mourning rituals, ritualistic forms that reflect Shia identity.