Mental Health Consequences among Sudanese Due to the Armed Conflicts and Civil Unrest of 2023: One Year Later

Aim: To investigate depression, anxiety, PTSD, and insomnia levels among Sudanese citizens after a year has passed since the start of Armed Forces conflict in Sudan. Methods: An online survey was distributed. It is composed of five parts, covering the following areas: 1) sociodemographic data;2) depression assessment;3) generalized anxiety disorder assessment;4) post-traumatic stress disorder assessment;and 5) insomnia assessment. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 27 was used for data analysis;frequency and percentage were used to describe the qualitative variables. Spearman’s correlation analysis and Chi-square test were used for correlation and association analysis;a P-value equal to or less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The study included 283 participants, primarily female (76.0%), with a mean age of 35.26 ± 6.96 years. The majority of participants were married (50.5%) and had a university level of education (50.2%). At the start of the war, 70.3% of participants were inside the war zones, and at the time of data collection, 73.5% were outside Sudan. The length of stay in the war zone ranged from 1 to 300 days, with a mean of 48.59 ± 70.284 days. Additionally, 63.3% of participants stated that they did not receive any form of mental health intervention, and the remaining did not provide an answer. There was a high prevalence of moderate-severe depression (50.5%), moderate anxiety (35.3%), PTSD (56.5%), and sub-threshold insomnia (53.4%) among the participants. Correlation analyses revealed associations between demographic factors such as sex, age, marital status, and education and mental health issues. Notably, female participants showed a higher prevalence of PTSD (53.0%) compared to male participants (67.6%). Conclusions: There is a substantial impact of war-related trauma on mental health, revealing a high prevalence of moderate-severe depression, moderate anxiety, PTSD, and sub-threshold insomnia among the participants. This emphasizes the importance of tailored interventions and support systems to address the unique needs of individuals affected by war trauma.

文明1(civilized)、文明2(civilization)、文明3(civitas)——论“文明”一词的三种不同含义

学术界对于“什么是文明”存有争议的原因,是把文明(civilized)、文明社会(civilization)和国家(civitas)三个不同的概念混为一谈造成的。“文明1”大致相当于英语civilized(文明的)。文化是人群的生活方式,但是不仅彬彬有礼、琴棋书画、轻歌曼舞、美味佳肴是文化,愚昧粗鲁、恶俗陋习、野风蛮舞、吃糠咽菜也是生活方式,所以文明1不完全等同于文化,而只有被认可与受推崇的文化才被称为文明。无论古今中外,作为文化的文明1都是褒义的,文明1即“文明”的本义,也是对文化的价值判断。“文明2”相当于英语civilization(文明社会),摩尔根用以指称继蒙昧社会与野蛮社会之后出现的、高于蒙昧与野蛮状态的社会阶段。作为社会形态的文明2当然比蒙昧与野蛮社会要进步,但是文明社会并非一切都是文明的,其中充斥着种种不文明的蒙昧与野蛮,所以不能说文明2就是“文明的”社会。“文明3”相当于英语civitas(国家),是中国学者根据恩格斯的“国家是文明社会的概括”得出的概念,系指继部落联盟或酋邦之后出现的社会组织形态。因为不同国家的国体与政体各不相同,有了国家之后并非一切都变得比野蛮社会更文明了,所以作为国家的文明3也不都是“文明的”国家。

Ethical Decision-Making Framework Based on Incremental ILP Considering Conflicts

Humans are experiencing the inclusion of artificial agents in their lives,such as unmanned vehicles,service robots,voice assistants,and intelligent medical care.If the artificial agents cannot align with social values or make ethical decisions,they may not meet the expectations of humans.Traditionally,an ethical decision-making framework is constructed by rule-based or statistical approaches.In this paper,we propose an ethical decision-making framework based on incremental ILP(Inductive Logic Programming),which can overcome the brittleness of rule-based approaches and little interpretability of statistical approaches.As the current incremental ILP makes it difficult to solve conflicts,we propose a novel ethical decision-making framework considering conflicts in this paper,which adopts our proposed incremental ILP system.The framework consists of two processes:the learning process and the deduction process.The first process records bottom clauses with their score functions and learns rules guided by the entailment and the score function.The second process obtains an ethical decision based on the rules.In an ethical scenario about chatbots for teenagers’mental health,we verify that our framework can learn ethical rules and make ethical decisions.Besides,we extract incremental ILP from the framework and compare it with the state-of-the-art ILP systems based on ASP(Answer Set Programming)focusing on conflict resolution.The results of comparisons show that our proposed system can generate better-quality rules than most other systems.

Characterisation of Human-Wildlife Conflicts around the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

The history of mankind contains so many illustrations of well-classified and violent struggles against various animals over crop production in agricultural fields, attacks on human life or competition in order to have access to certain natural resources. The aim of this study is to characterise the human-wildlife conflicts that occur around the KBNP, especially with regard to primates. Surveys were carried out in 260 households selected using the snowball method. The results showed that human-wildlife conflicts around the KBNP are characterised by the destruction of crops in riparian fields by monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas, the destruction of houses, physical attacks and zoonoses. Despite the conservation and protection measures for wildlife and local populations put in place by the Park’s managers, conflicts between local populations and the Park’s wild animals are still visible. These conflicts lead to the detention of wild animals by local people roaming in the villages and to poaching on the Park’s boundaries. The weakness of the community management policy on the part of the park managers and the resentment of the indigenous peoples towards the restriction of their access to natural resources are the major constraints on the sustainable management of conflicts between the local populations and the wild animals in the KBNP. The strategies for the sustainable resolution of human-wildlife conflicts around the KBNP must be geared towards and integrated into a community conservation approach.

What are the underlying causes and dynamics of land use conflicts in metropolitan junction areas?A case study of the central Chengdu–Chongqing region in China

Land use conflicts(LUCs),as a spatial manifestation of the conflicts in the human-land relationships,have a profound impact on regional sustainable development.For China’s metropolitan junction areas(MJAs),the existence of“administrative district economies”has made the issue of LUCs more prominent.Based on a case study of the central Chengdu–Chongqing region,we conducted an exploratory spatial data analysis of the evolutionary process of regional LUCs.Furthermore,structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze the dynamic mechanism of LUCs in MJAs,with a particular emphasis on exploring the influences of administrative boundary.The results showed that from 2010 to 2020,LUCs in the central Chengdu–Chongqing region continued to worsen,and the spatial process conflict and spatial structure conflict indices increased by more than 30.0%.The intensification of LUCs in the central Chengdu–Chongqing region from 2010 to 2020 was mainly the result of the deterioration of conflicts in evaluation units with low conflict levels.LUCs in China’s metropolitan areas generally presented a circular gradient distribution,weakening from the core to the periphery,but there were some strong isolated conflict zones in the outer regions.LUCs in China’s MJAs were the result of interactions among multiple factors,e.g.,natural environment,socio-economic development,policy and institutional processes,and administrative boundary effects.Administrative boundary affected the flow of socio-economic elements,changing the supply-and-demand competition of stakeholders for land resources,consequently exerting an indirect influence on LUCs.This study advances the theory of the dynamic mechanism of LUCs,and provides theoretical support for the governance of these conflicts in transboundary areas.

African Short Story Writers and Intrapersonal Conflicts: A Critical Perspective on a Selected Short Story

The article examines the concept of intrapersonal conflict,the ravaging wars within oneself,that which is truly deeper than indecisiveness,what is responsible for inner conflict,its origin,the consequences,and how to avoid it.It employs Dul Johnsons’“In the Jaws of Love”in his Why Women Won’t Make It to Heaven.The theory for the investigation is sociological theory which articulates the inevitable relationship between literature and society.The inquiry unearths that an individuals’attempt to satisfy the needs of one’s environment at the expense of sound reasoning,the individual’s inability to find a balance between the individual’s head and heart,and being religious are detrimental to one’s wellbeing.It creates intrapersonal conflict which is indeed destructive.The paper resolves that people should be able to tell themselves the truth,recognise and accept same,even if it comes from one with whom they disagree.It also explicates that people should not depend on religious and secular leader or people to take decisions for them,and that living in fear is devastating among other things.

Joint Management of Shared Resources, Issues and Conflicts of the Nso and Oku Tribes in the Ngongbaa Montane Forest Area, NWR of Cameroon

Wherever people live together in or near homelands that harbour joint natural resources such as forest, water, minerals, oil etc., they must collaborate, co-exist and share these resources irrespective of their genetic, social, cultural, and political peculiarities. This is not always the case when self-interest, ethnic divisions, elitist politics, economic interest and power tussle set in. The Nso and Oku people who reside in the Ngongbaa Forest area constitute an example of joint management of resources where at one period, their relationship over the management of the Oku Mountain Forest was cordial and at another, the relationship became conflictive. This study was designed to study the influence of the KIFP forest management policies on the Nso indigenous forest Management system in Ngongbaa Forest, and its implications. The data collected for the study was secured through the administration of a questionnaire to residents of 10 villages adjacent to the Ngongbaa Forest, and forest users who carried out livelihood activities there between 1963 and 2015. These forest user groups include beekeepers, rat trappers, grazers, mushroom gatherers, ground honey/tree honey harvesters, carvers, etc. The investigation also extended to the traditional leaders of Nso and Oku who are in charge of the land tenure systems. The findings show that the Oku Mountain Forest is jointly owned by the Nso and Oku people. The Nso own the eastern half of the forest known as Ngongbaa Forest while the Oku own the western half, known as the Kilum Forest. The cordial relationship that existed between these people ensured the conservation of the forest. But the conflicts that later set in, especially due to the creation of the Kilum Mountain Forest Project in 1987 later changed to the Kilum Ijim Forest Project (KIFP) in 1992 sidelined the local communities which was contrary to the dispositions of the new Cameroon forest law enacted in 1994. Thus, the indigenous conservation practices became ignored which the local population never digested well. This seriously jeopardized the wellbeing of the forest in general.

Harnessing artificial intelligence for identifying conflicts of interest in research

This editorial explores the transformative potential of artificial intelligence(AI)in identifying conflicts of interest(COIs)within academic and scientific research.By harnessing advanced data analysis,pattern recognition,and natural language processing techniques,AI offers innovative solutions for enhancing transparency and integrity in research.This editorial discusses how AI can automatically detect COIs,integrate data from various sources,and streamline reporting processes,thereby maintaining the credibility of scientific findings.

The Positive Significance of Confucian Civilization in Peace Building

The Confucian emphasis on benevolence and empathy can be applied in conflict resolution processes.When parties in conflict embrace these values,it becomes easier to find common ground,compromise,and work towards peaceful solutions.Confucian civilization,with its emphasis on ethics,harmony,and diplomacy,offers valuable contributions to peace-building efforts in the contemporary world.By promoting virtuous leadership,fostering cross-cultural understanding,and emphasizing ethical governance,Confucianism can play a positive role in achieving and maintaining global peace.Confucianism continues to exert significant influence in the contemporary world,particularly in the context of peace-building efforts.This article explores the positive significance of Confucian civilization in contributing to peace-building endeavors globally.

The Historical Position and Value Dimensions of Human Rights Civilization

Human beings are the mainstay and the ultimate goal of civilization.The history of human civilization is a continuous struggle to realize the respect,liberation,protection,and development of humanity.Human rights are an achievement of humanity and a symbol of progress,and the human rights civilization is an important component of human civilization.Understanding and interpreting human rights from the perspective of human rights civilization means that human rights are not only a concept or an idea but also a grand historical and long-term social practice.Up to now,the development of human rights civilization has roughly experienced four awakening eras:initialization,revolution,popularization,and globalization.In terms of its value dimensions,it has the characteristics of progressiveness,diversity,commonality,inclusiveness,indivisibility,openness,and so on.The historical position of human rights civilization and the development of its value dimensions have shown to the world that human rights are the common wealth of humanity,and human rights belong to all mankind;human rights are historical,concrete,and developmental;the concept of human rights is constantly evolving,and its connotations and categories are constantly expanding;achieving the free and well-rounded development of every person is the highest value realm of human rights civilization.The Chinese modernization endows Chinese civilization with modern strength and opens up new horizons for human rights civilization.The new pattern of human rights civilization to be created by Chinese modernization not only possesses the common characteristics of human rights civilization but also enjoys Chinese characteristics based on its own national conditions,enriching and developing the diversity of human rights civilization for all mankind.

The Path,Trends,and Approaches of the Civilization Evolution of Rural Marriage Forms

Rural marriage has characteristics such as close relationship with labor production,deep integration of traditional culture,shy and introverted expression of subjective emotions,and illegal and rough marriage.The civilization evolution of rural marriage forms is moving towards a path that is conducive to the development of production and the pursuit of happiness for farmers,the construction of rural spiritual civilization,and the comprehensive development of rural society.This study analyzes the direction of the evolution of rural marriage form civilization,predicts the trend of rural marriage form civilization evolution,and proposes the future path of rural marriage form civilization evolution,including adhering to human’s most original value expectations of marriage life,drawing nourishment from excellent traditional Chinese culture,and continuously adjusting marriage and family policy tools to keep up with changes in the world of life.

Problem Analysis and Effective Strategies of Ecological Civilization Education for Undergraduates in the New Age

The ecological civilization in the new age is one important aspect for undergraduates.We must enhance the concept of their civilization and improve the quality of civilization.Carrying out ecological civilization education in colleges and universities has a practical significance for enriching the contents of ideological and political education to realize their all-round development.Nowadays,some undergraduates lack awareness of ecological civilization and ignore its importance.For this reason,undergraduates need to pay attention to ecological civilization and improve their own ecological civilization literacy to promote the all-round development in qualities in the new age.This paper mainly analyzes the current problems in undergraduates’ecological civilization education and explores effective strategies to solve the current problems in undergraduates’ecological civilization education.The strategies include integrating ecological civilization resources,innovating methods of ecological civilization,strengthening ecological educator team construction,embodying ecological culture in campus construction and creating the atmosphere,emphasizing innovative practices for ecological civilization,strengthening publicity of social-ecological civilization,and attaching importance to family education of ecological civilization.

Living in a Condominium Regime:Neighborhood Conflicts in Low-Income Housing,Tijuana,Baja California-A Secondary Publication

This paper analyzes neighborhood conflicts arising from the condominium property regime,under which social housing promoted by Mexican government institutions and private developers is acquired.This regime has facilitated access to housing for the salaried population,but it is far from contributing to the attainment of the right to housing.The research takes as case studies housing complexes located in the city of Tijuana,Baja California,Mexico.The analysis included a mixed methodology.Firstly,similar case studies were analyzed;secondly,a review of the Condominium Property Regime Law was carried out in order to understand its implications.In view of the pandemic situation,a virtual survey was applied to the inhabitants of these areas,as well as interviews with presidents of neighborhood committees of these complexes.From the above,it was found that this form of ownership generates conflicts,reflected in the dissatisfaction of the inhabitants with their housing,disagreements and controversies in their organization and coexistence.The inhabitants have to collectively solve the problems they face,related to the maintenance and use of common areas,insecurity,and cleanliness,among others.In addition,there is a lack of support from local authorities.With this,it is concluded that although the inhabitants have a space that solves their housing problem,it does not manage to be a space that adequately guarantees their right to housing.

Research on the Development Path of Green Marine Economy in the Era of Ecological Civilization

This article explores the development path of the green marine economy in the era of ecological civilization.It highlights the importance of developing a green marine economy and how it has become a global consensus.The article suggests that China should take proactive measures to optimize its marine industrial structure,promote marine scientific and technological innovation,strengthen marine resource protection and environmental governance,and enhance the competitiveness of the marine economy.The ultimate objective is to achieve sustainable development of the ocean,expand the blue economic space,and accomplish the goal of green marine economic development.

Pioneering a New Realm of Human Rights Civilization in the Chinese Path to Modernization——An Overview of the Symposium on“The Chinese Path to Modernization and the Promotion of Free and Comprehensive Human Development”

On October 14,2023,a symposium themed“The Chinese Path to Modernization and the Promotion of Free and Comprehensive Human Development”was held in Changchun,Jilin Province,China.More than fifty experts,scholars,and researchers from national institutions and universities engaged in discussions and exchanges on human rights on the Chinese path to modernization,including the path,practice,knowledge systems,and civilization forms of human rights.This symposium played a significant role in advancing the construction of the disciplinary system,academic system,and discourse system of human rights in China.

The Conflicts Between Primitiveness and Civilization:an Analysis of Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness, a chilling tale of horror set in the Congo during the period of rapid colonial expansion in the 19th century written by the renowned British novelist Joseph Conrad, is a world famous novella. Since its publication, it remains an indisputably classic text and arguably Conrad's finest work. And it has been regarded as a significant text in British literature because of its modernistic features, innovative narration and artistic style. Heart of Darkness deals with the highly disturbing effects of economic, social and political exploitation of European and African societies. It has inspired filmmakers and such authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gabriel Garica Marquez, D. H. Lawrence and Virginia,Woolf. This article is aimed to analyse it from the perspective of primitiveness and civilization. Through the analysis, readers can sense Conrad's attitude towards the two aspects.

Civil3d技术在河道治理中的应用分析

为了切实加强水环境保护及水资源管理与利用,近年来我国一直在加快和加大力度落实河道治理,要想保证河道治理达到预期效果,并最大程度提高河道治理工程生态效益,首先要确保河道治理设计与施工方案的科学合理性,可见借助现代化技术手段,优化和改进河道治理设计与规划是很有必要的。基于此本文首先进行Civil3d技术的梳理与说明,继而详细分析Civil3D软件在某河道治理项目的具体应用,旨在与相关工作人员相互交流、共同探讨。

Impacts of Oil Exploration (Oil and Gas Conflicts;Niger Delta as a Case Study)

The discovery of Oil and Gas in Nigeria led to exploration of crude oil for revenue basis. Oil exploration and exploitation caused environmental problems which resulted into major conflicts in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. The article examines the impact of oil exploration, and oil and gas conflicts in Niger Delta area and it highlights the problems of pipeline vandalism, structure of oil and gas and the general obstacles in the industry. It discovers that pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft, pollution, oil spillage causes serious environmental degradation which resulted into serious conflicts. The article discovered that environmental problems in the area dislodged the people of their means of livelihood both in the area of fishing and farming. It recommends that there should be a compelling environmental restoration of natural resources by deploying land treatment technologies. Government should sanction multinational companies discharging oils or creating environmental pollution through necessary laws and regulations.

Indexing habitat suitability and human-elephant conflicts using GIS-MCDA in a human-dominated landscape

Concerns for biodiversity loss, wildlife conservation, and habitat destruction have dominated the policy agenda worldwide for decades. Unsustainable human-induced development and negative interaction between humans and wildlife have emerged as predominant issues globally. The present study deals with human and elephant conflicts (HEC) in the Polpitigama Divisional Secretariat, Sri Lanka, which is located in the Kahalla-Pallekele elephant corridor and connects Wilpattu and Kaudulla wildlife sanctuaries. The research objectives are identifying spatial patterns of elephant habitat suitability and probable risk zones for HEC. The elephant habitat suitability and HEC risk zones were identified on spatial and temporal scales using Geographic Information System integrating Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. Different factors, including habitat suitability, distance to roads, distance to croplands, distance to forests and protected areas, settlements, and population density, were considered to determine HEC risk zones in the area. Topography, water, and vegetation criteria are considered when determining elephant habitat suitability. The results of the Analytic Hierarchy Process run the spatially explicit model. The results revealed that of the total area, 15.3% is very highly suitable for elephant habitats, while the least suitable areas contribute only 4%. About 33.8% of the area is moderately suitable for elephants. The risk map indicates that 23.7% of the total area is under very high risk for HEC, and the least risk areas only account for 5.4%. About 26.2% of the area falls under the moderate risk zone for HEC. Since the model considered three aspects of HEC, it will help policymakers in wildlife conservation to avoid and minimize the HEC.

Ecological Economic Analysis of the Ecological Turn in the Development of Modern Civilization

During the primitive civilization and agricultural civilization periods,the functions and structures of various elements within the ecological and economic system were able to develop synergistically.But humans were always passive in the face of nature and cannot yet break free from its constraints and oppression.During the period of industrial civilization,the contradiction between the unlimited expansion of economic system demand and the relative reduction of ecosystem supply became increasingly severe.Its development model had obvious non ecological economic characteristics,which posed a great threat to the sustainable development of human society.The ecological turn in the development of human civilization is an inevitable trend,and the gradual replacement of industrial civilization by ecological civilization will become an objective fact.Ecological civilization has overcome the non ecological economic nature of industrial civilization and established an ecological economic operation mode that promotes and transforms economic and ecological systems in both directions.It has achieved a perfect combination of ecological operation of social and economic systems and economic operation of natural ecosystems,and harmonious,coordinated,and win-win development of economic society and natural ecology.