Writing the Silenced Female Body, Scrutinizing the Grand Narrative of Colonization and Decolonization: The Body in Zoë Wicomb’s David’s Story

David’s Story by Zoë Wicomb addresses the complexities of representing female suffering and the limitations of traditional historical narratives in capturing the experiences of marginalized bodies.It challenges the grand narratives of national history by emphasizing the indispensable role of women’s experiences.Through characters like Dulcie and Rachael,Wicomb portrays the female body as a site of resistance and resilience,highlighting the need for more nuanced and inclusive ways of documenting history.Underscoring the inexpressibility of trauma and the limitations of language and representation,the novel self-reflexively acknowledges its own aporia of completing the narrative,embodying the ongoing struggle to capture the full breadth of human experience.

Climate change impact in the Western Himalaya:people's perception and adaptive strategies

The Himalaya represents a vast mountain system and globally valued for its significant role in regulation of global as well as regional climate that has direct impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services crucial for sustenance of millions of people in Himalaya and adjoining areas. However, mountain regions worldwide are impacted by climate change and at the same time represent distinctive area for the assessment of climate related impacts. Climate change impacts in Himalayan region have its implications on food production, natural ecosystems,retreat of glacier, water supply, human and animal health and overall human well being. The livelihood and food security of the people inhabited in region largely depend on climate sensitive sectors i.e.agriculture, livestock, forestry and their interlinkages with each other, and has the potential to break down food and nutritional security as well as livelihood support systems. People's perception and understanding of climate can be an important asset when it comes to adaptation to climate change impact;however it is not taken into consideration for the development of policy design and implementation of modern mitigation and adaptation strategies by governments and other civil society organizations.The knowledge of local people and farming communities for rural landscape management and sustainable use of bioresources is gaining credence as a key strategy to cope up with the climate change.Therefore, the present study analyzes the indigenous knowledge of local people and their perceptions on climate change, and also documented adaptation approaches at local level in mountain ecosystem of western Himalaya. The study could be useful to policy makers to design appropriate adaptation strategies to cope up with the impacts of climate change.

Climate Change: Trends and People’s Perception in Nepal

In the context of climate change, the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as floods and droughts will increase which could put tremendous challenges in water resources management in the coming days. While scientific knowledge on climate threats and changing climate patterns are essential, it is also important to consider the impacts in relation to how the threats are perceived and handled by local people. This paper intends to assess the trend and people’s perception on temperature and precipitation. Three focus groups’ discussion and a total number of 240 households were interviewed during field visit. The collected information was scaled from the least preferred-1 to the most preferred-5 based on their preferences. The trend of mean of annual average, maximum and minimum temperature indicates that the temperature has increased significantly and precipitation intensity and magnitude are also in increasing trend in the monsoon and postmonsoon seasons which may raise the extreme flood events. These facts were verified with the people’s perception. This finding could be useful for formulation of effective flood management policy and plan in this river basin as well as very applicable for other similar areas.

Mapping the Child’s Grey Interior:Authenticity of Plague Narrative in The Great Plague

The Great Plague:The Diary of Alice Paynton,London 1665-1666 adopts the realistic painting style and direct writing to the painful experience,describes the situation of the Great Plague in London truly from the perspective of children,and breaks people’s cognitive expectation of children’s literature,the construction of children’s Gray inner world is completed behind the true description of the Great Plague in London with the true brushwork,which presents a different world of childlike innocence.Despite the importance of epidemics writing in literature,the child’s diary perspective of them is one of the least developed of Plague Narrative.Only when authenticity and the child’s grey interior are integrated will we reveal a true picture of society as it was.

Beyond Bloom’s: Students’ Perception of Bloom’s Taxonomy and its Convolution with Cognitive Load

Bloom’s taxonomy is widely used in educational research to categorize the cognitive skills required to answer exam questions.For this study,we analyzed how students categorize exam questions(high-level question or low-level question,)gathered data as to their rationale for categorization,and compared their categorizations to those of experts.We found that students consistently rank high-level questions incorrectly.We analyzed student reasons for their categorizations,and found that for many of the incorrectly categorized questions the students referred to reasons related to Cognitive Load Theory.This shows that cognitive load prevents students from accurately assessing the cognitive level of an exam question.Thus,extra cognitive load in exam questions may prevent those questions from accurately measuring the skills and knowledge of the student.This points to the need for instructors to eliminate cognitive load from their exams.

A MULTILAYER FEEDFORWARD NEURAL NETWORK MODEL FOR VISUAL MOTION PERCEPTION

The local visual motion detection mechanism used in the visual systems of primatescan only sense the motion component oriented perpendicularly to the contrast gradient of thebrightness pattern.But the visual system of higher animals can adaptively determine the actualdirection of motion through a learning process.In this paper a multilayered feedforward neuralnetwork model for perception of visual motion is presented.This model employs W.Reichardt’selementary motion detectors array and T.Kohonen’s self-organizing feature map.We explored theself-organizing principles for perception of visual motion.The computer simulations show thatthis neural network is able to recognize the true direction of motion through an unsupervisedlearning process.In addition,the neurons with the same or similar motion direction selectivitytend to appear in“functional columns”which seem to be qualitatively similar to the corticalmotion columns observed by electrophysiological and cytohistochemical studies in certain higherareas such as MT.It proves that motion-detection by spatio-temporal coherences,mapping,co-operation,competition,and Hebb rule may be the basic principles for the self-organization ofvisual motion perception networks.

The DNP: Knowledge and perceptions of students in an accelerated master’s program in nursing

While the nursing community generally agrees that the Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree will strengthen nursing as an academic discipline, there is little known about students’ perceptions of the advanced degree. Nursing students enrolled in an accelerated master’s program in nursing (N = 45) were surveyed to assess their knowledge of the DNP degree while also identifying the perceived effect a DNP might have on their careers, on nursing as a discipline, and on public perceptions of nursing practice. In this study, 51% of participants supported the transition to the DNP as the standard degree for practice nursing while 29% were opposed. The majority of participants (71%) planned to pursue an advanced practice nursing degree/certification with 81% of this group signifying that they would do so even if a DNP is required. The majority of participants agreed that the DNP will improve public perception of advanced practice nursing, but 71% thought the title of “doctor” would confuse patients. While current nursing students are generally informed of the upcoming DNP transition, there is disagreement regarding its implications for their careers and for the extent of public understanding.

Interests of Livestock Activities within Agroforestry Systems in Guadeloupe: Stakeholders’ Opinions and Farmers’ Perceptions

The Valab project (Integrated Ecosystemic value-enhancement of the Guadeloupean Forest Agrobiodiversity) is a participatory action research that aims to explore the feasibility of diversification activities within the forest understorey. In the exploratory phase of the project, we studied stakeholders’ opinions on the positive and negative impacts of introducing livestock activities within a forest environment, as well as breeders’ constraints or motivations for setting up livestock units within agroforestry systems in the private forests of Guadeloupe. To establish a diagnosis of the current situation, 51 stakeholders (St) and 49 farmers (Fr) were interviewed on their perceptions, opinions, motivations and preferences. Forty-one percent of the St has had a generally positive appreciation of livestock activities, while on the opposite 31% have had a resolutely negative posture depending on their area of expertise. Their views on the possible positive effects or negative interactions between livestock and agroforestry activities were analysed in order to suggest possible approaches for the authorities or associations. Unanimously, the farmers replied that their motivations followed economic strategies: for self-consumption or sale. But their decision-making processes were also non-economic. Many of them (36% Fr) gave importance to their activity in the construction of their identity, whether it was through a desire to perpetuate traditions or to maintain family activities. The main constraints identified were natural constraints (61% Fr), including topography, climate and predators. While 28% of Fr notified their motivations for environmental protection. Another constraint was of a technical nature (44% Fr) since farmers asked for more technical references or support services. Further researches are required to study the interactions between animals and the undergrowth by describing their respective ecosystem services in order to enhance their positive interactions.

Empirical Research on Tourists' After-trip Perception of Landscape Preference in the Confucius Temple in Nanjing City

Thurstone’s Comparative Judgment Model was applied to measure characteristics of tourists’after-trip perception of landscape preference in the Confucius Temple,a famous historical block in Nanjing City.The results show that(a)as time goes by,the tourists’time perception differentiation has continuously sublimated from the general experience into the peak experience,and gradually evolved into the core experience element in the overall perception.In terms of content,perceptional contents of tourists decrease in sequence of the Confucian culture,the commercial culture and the culture of refined scholars.As a whole,tourists’after-trip perception differentiation has 3 sections:halo zone,sub-halo zone,and gray zone.(b)Because of tourism development,the Confucian culture is influenced by other cultures,and the commercial culture shows the trend of"over-generalization",and the culture of refined scholars has weakening carriers and modes of inheritance.Inheritance of its unique cultural connotations deserves increasing attention.

Ethics and Integrity in Building Employee＇s Perceptions

Malaysia has long been involved in the initiative of becoming a high income country by the year 2020. In this essence, fighting and eliminating any means of corruption in the public and private companies have been one of the key challenges in the long run. The globalization of businesses has somehow led to an increase in the number of unethical conduct and hazardous corruption. In the urge to enliven ethics and integrity in a company and among employees, the whole business processes and stakeholders should position code of ethics and integrity at its highest standard. However, can ethics and integrity really increase the company＇s reputation, strengthening its business operations and sustainability, and deliver trust amongst employees and employers？ The objective of this study is to analyze the perceptions of employees on issues pertaining ethics and integrity. The study has been conducted in one of the giant telecommunication companies in Malaysia where a sample of 7,056 employees were the participants involved in the survey. The study has used questionnaires to collect data. The data have then been analysed using the SPSS data analysis software. The findings explained that employees view the company as an ethical place to work where the finance department is deemed to have the highest level of integrity. While in matters of corruption risk areas, there are still practices of bribery. It is also founded that a majority of respondents about 93% agree that the company＇s initiatives are effective in building business integrity and that the level of business ethics and integrity has improved over the last two years. Running a business with ethics and integrity while selecting the fight business partners will create a corporation of ethics, integrity, and anti-corruption.

改进D-S算法的多感知机器人泄漏源识别研究

危化品泄漏场域环境复杂多变,泄漏源的识别受风速、光照强度、噪声等多重因素影响,当前多以智能机器人探测,利用嗅觉或视觉进行目标识别,但单类传感器识别结果可靠性差,提出一种改进Dempster-Shafer(D-S)证据理论的识别方法,模拟人类多感官识别机制,综合处理嗅觉、视觉和听觉识别信度;通过引入参考证据获取证据源全局信息,解决了经典D-S算法中存在的证据冲突问题,并在MATLAB中进行了算例验证。结果表明,相比嗅觉、视觉和听觉单类传感器识别信度分别提高了42.5%、51.2%和38.4%;对于冲突数据,克服了经典D-S算法、Yager算法融合失效的缺陷,相比Murphy算法识别信度提高了33%,可实现泄漏源的高信度识别,融合决策可靠性好。

Planning a Patient-Centered Parkinson’s Disease Support Program: Insights from Narrative Medicine

Background: We desired relevant information from patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and their caregivers for help in planning a long-term support program. Methods: We compared 3 ap-proaches: 1) a standard needs assessment questionnaire, the Camberwell assessment of need in the elderly, 2) an open-ended listing of needs, and 3) participation in a narrative medicine program in which health care professionals were involved. Results: On the questionnaire, patients reported physical needs as the most important while their caregivers were more concerned about psychological needs. The open-ended listings revealed additional needs, particularly access to re-liable information about PD and to opportunities to participate in clinical research. The narrative medicine process yielded a number of new insights and proposed solutions, particularly related to the heterogeneity of needs across individuals, the importance of providing hope, and the fact that caregivers expressed that their needs had been largely neglected. Participation in the narrative medicine sessions led to an increase in measured empathy by health care professionals, an im-provement in measured depression among PD patients, but a worsening of measured depression among the caregivers. Conclusions: We have identified important needs and potential solutions to be considered in providing long-term support to patients with PD and their caregivers.

Deeper inside the Experience of Pediatric Headache: A Narrative Study

Objective: To explore meanings, perspectives and points of view of the subjective experience of paediatric patients with headache (PPwH) and create a first-person narrative for clinical practice. Methods: We conducted a qualitative, narrative research study with PPwH, 11 - 17 years old. Data were collected through narratives interviews and a twofold narrative analysis was performed: a narrative and a thematic analysis. Results: Twenty-three patients (14 girls;mean age 14.5;median duration of illness of 5.8 years) were recruited. Through narrative analysis and close reading, narratives revealed different ways to organize illness experience: PPwH can use 1) narrative sequences of recurrent events in order a) to describe the continuing living-through of the experience of headache, b) to define operative script or c) to characterize the illness experience generally as a “controlled” routine;or 2) a storied account of events, with well-defined characters, plot and evaluation of contingency and correlation between events to express a personal point of view and a moral standpoint about the illness experience. Through thematic analysis 5 main themes and 22 subthemes about the significance of being a PPwH emerged: a) disease dimension (description of pain), b) illness dimension, c) sickness, d) causality, e) coping and f) future perception. Then, a first-person narrative story was created as a tool enabling reflection and conversation during clinical consultation. Conclusions: Results suggest that promoting narrative dialogue can be an opportunity for the neurologist: the prototypical narrative developed from story analysis might be a tool to apply for the narrative-based medicine in the clinical setting.

Narration as Therapy in Natsume Sōseki's I Am a Cat

Natsume Sōseki(1867-1916) suffered from cyclic mental depressions through his life, and it was when he was in the state of the most terrible one that he started his career as a writer by writing I Am a Cat(1905-1906). There are some evidence by his wife and friends that Sōseki's condition of disease dramatically improved during its serialization on a magazine, and the writer himself admited humorously in the preface of other work that it was his depression and mania that enabled him to produce I Am a Cat and other early works. This paper aims at describing the process how his act of narrating had therapeutic effects on his state of mind focusing on the construction of complicitous relationship between an implied author and readers in the work by the unique functions of the first-‘person' narrator: A Cat. Among others, I will consider the influence of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy(1759-1767), which Sōseki introduced to Japan for the first time, by discussing the frequent use of metalepsis that the two works have in common.

Body Narrative in Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Body,in culture study,is not simply a physical being,but a meaningful sign exposed power relations in society.Body even can be used as a narrative method.In Lady Chatterley’s Lover,there are several body images D.H.Lawrence used to narrate the story.Through body narrative,the novel shows the subordinate and alienated humanity,and its struggling revolt in the turning of twentieth century.

Changes in Rainfall and Temperature and Its Impact on Crop Production in Moyamba District, Southern Sierra Leone

Rainfall and temperature are the important variables that are often used to trace climate variability and change. A Perception study and analysis of climatic data were conducted to assess the changes in rainfall and temperature and their impact on crop production in Moyamba district, Sierra Leone. For the perception study, 400 farmers were randomly selected from Farmer-Based Organizations (FBOs) in 4 chiefdoms and 30 Agricultural Extension Workers (AWEs) in the Moyamba district were purposely selected as respondents. Descriptive statistics and Kendall’s test of concordance was used to analyze the data collected from the farmers and AEWs. Data for the analysis of variability and trends of rainfall and temperature from 1991 to 2020 were obtained from the Sierra Leone Meteorological Agency and Njala University and grouped into monthly, seasonal and annual time series. Regression analyses were used to determine the statistical values and trend lines for the seasonal and annual time series data. The Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s Slope Estimator were used to analyze the significance and magnitude of the trends respectively. The results of both studies show evidence of climate change in the Moyamba district. A substantial number of farmers and AEWs perceived a decrease in the annual rainfall amount, length of the rainy season, a late start and end of the rainy season, an increase in the temperature during the day and night, and a shortened harmattan period over the last 30 years. Analysis of the meteorological data shows evidence of variability in the seasonal and annual distribution of rainfall and temperature, a decreasing and non-significant trend in the rainy season and annual rainfall and an increasing and significant trend in seasonal and annual temperature from 1991 to 2020. However, the observed changes in rainfall and temperature by the farmers and AEWs partially agree with the results of the analyzed meteorological data. The majority of the farmers perceived that;adverse weather conditions have negatively affected crop production in the district. Droughts, high temperatures, and irregular rainfall are the three major adverse weather events that farmers perceived to have contributed to a substantial loss in the yields of the major crops cultivated in the district. In response to the negative effects of adverse weather events, a substantial number of farmers take no action due to their lack of knowledge, technical or financial capacity to implement climate-sensitive agricultural (CSA) practices. Even though few farmers are practicing some CSA practices on their farms, there is an urgent need to build the capacity of farmers and AEWs to adapt to and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. The most priority support needed by farmers is the provision of climate-resilient crop varieties whilst the AEWs need training on CSA practices.

基于改进YOLOX-s的机场跑道冰雪状态感知

针对机场冰雪跑道安全性和适航性状态感知能力不足及跑道表面状况报告交互的新需求,提出一种面向多尺度特征融合的机场跑道冰雪状态感知模型.以YOLOX-s模型为基础,在主干特征提取网络中引入全局上下文模块,获取更丰富的浅层与深层特征;将颈部结构中路径聚合网络替换为双向特征金字塔,以提升特征融合能力;在加强特征提取网络尾部添加自适应空间特征融合结构,进一步增强特征融合效果;使用α-EIoU优化损失函数,提高模型收敛速度与精度.实验结果表明,改进后的YOLOX-s模型在跑道冰雪实验系统所得的冰雪污染物数据集上平均精度达到了91.53%,比原始的YOLOX-s模型提高了4.68%,能够为机场跑道除冰雪作业提供决策支持.

基于T-S模型的交通状态自适应神经模糊推理系统建模与仿真

针对交通状态的识别诊断问题,引入驾驶人对交通拥堵程度的感知评价作为模型的学习目标,并建立了基于T-S(Takag-i Sugeno)模型的自适应神经模糊推理系统(ANFIS)模型.通过仿真,证明所建立的模型具有较快的收敛速度与较高的识别精度,对交通状态的识别问题研究具有一定的泛化能力和较强的应用效果.

The traumatic narratives of sexuality in Chinese writer Shao-Lin Chu’s trilogy

This paper explores the narratives of the Chinese woman novelist Shao-Lin Chu’s trilogy to see how the problem of female sexuality and resistance to parental wedlock tragedy becomes a traumatic experience.The traumatic symptoms in the narratives are taken as Peircean signs for tracing the negative influences of traumatic experiences on the formation of personal identity and the associated depressive disorder.The scenes portrayed in Chu’s traumatic narratives of female and male sexuality are implications and representations of how sexuality is conceptualized and confined by the traumatic events while backgrounded with regulations and restrictions of a traditional society.The stories of Chu’s female narrators reveal the persistent and resisting feminine power.This paper adopts the concept of feminist narrative to analyze the traumatic and sexual events in Chu’s trilogy.The decoding and re-encoding of resistance and sexuality in the traumatic narratives prove that the narratological textual analysis and semiotic reading strategy together offer a solid approach to the discovery of the persistent traumatic impacts of the secret veiled in the narratives and reveal the probable strength of compassion that has its roots derived from deplorable trauma but later transforms itself to stimulate a positive reconstruction of the traumatic survivors’identity.

足球美学——一种关于接受、阐释与理性构建的身体叙事

足球是世界级的显学,其奇观性、想象性、陪伴性功能很强烈,三者合成了其审美维度。足球从一种身体游戏逐渐进化为一种审美体系,其所经历的恰是从经典身体学到口头叙事学的演进过程。足球美学一度难以在传统美学的范畴内获得认同,却极易在现代美学的体系内成为主流。中国的足球美学经历了球迷口述、跨学科交融、融入传统美学界三个阶段,其中混合了球迷感知、大历史观启示以及文化学、生物学、进化论、物种学等多学科知识能量。足球发达国家的相关研究成果,所涉及的评判理性、戏剧美学、球迷成瘾、想象力、哲学虚构、足球诗学、足球修辞学、美丽足球等议题都有很大的开拓性意义,类似的议题将足球美学导入一种虚构与真实、身体与信念、神话与图腾、审美与审丑之类的复合式文化构成体。