艺术与社会科学杂志

Numerous decarbonization initiatives that aim to lessen the immediate and long-term effects of climate change depend heavily on biomass. Decision-makers must take into account all potential sustainability consequences of bioenergy systems when making decisions in this context. The present work uses the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) methodology to compare the social performance of two biomass-to-electricity systems located in Portugal that use either fluidized-bed or grate furnace technology, in particular because studies addressing the social sustainability of bioelectricity are lacking. S-LCA uses a thorough methodology for the analysis and interpretation of social data. Child labour, forced labour, the gender wage gap, the proportion of women in different occupational groups, health care costs, and the contribution to economic development were the six social indicators that were benchmarked.

This study explored Foundation Phase (FP) teachers' practices in their quest to improve curriculum implementation by using e-learning strategies in rural schools. Most studies underscore the significance of using contemporary curriculum approaches to guide teachers towards innovations to expedite the decolonisation of rural education using e-learning strategies. The purpose of this study was to understand how FP teachers' practices of using e-learning strategies helped improve the curriculum while ensuring quality education and an improvement in learner behaviour and rural education. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised serious questions about design flaws in the current curriculum and implementation, as it fails to respond to the challenges faced by the majority of learners in schools located in rural areas. This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and teacher narratives framed by the philosophy of Ubuntu to generate data that were thematically analysed. Ethical issues were given high priority. The study found that most FP teachers struggle to infuse innovative practices targeted at promoting quality rural education into their daily praxis. Further, the facilitation of e-learning through a range of interactive strategies is only possible if issues of access to data and networks are urgently addressed.

This paper builds an original theory that is derived from the methodology premised in the ontology leading to the epistemology of unity of knowledge of monotheistic oneness in its widest meaning encompassing the dynamics of creation in its generality and specificity of issues and problems. This methodology is explained in terms of pervasive participatory and organic interactive, integrative, and evolutionary learning (IIE learning) nature and logic of the generality and details of the world-system of ‘everything’. Such an entirety of the diverse components of the world-system and its entities is explained by inter-causal endogenous variables and their relations in the form of algorithmic analytics.

Institutionalism as the phenomenology of such an intrinsic world-system and its inherent interactive, integrative and evolutionary learning (IIE learning processes) characteristics of the worldview of the pervasively participatory processes is taken as the widest definition of political economy. Thus, this paper studies the conceptual and applied aspects of the emergent field of political economy of the institutionalist worldview in the light of the qur’anic primal ontology of monotheistic unity of knowledge referred to as Tawhid and its methodological worldview governed by the ontology of unity of knowledge and its embedding of the world-system.

On the contrary, the prevalent view of political economy of institutionalism is one of legitimating the competition and adversarial behaviour that is transmitted to the nature of institutionalism via the methodological individualism nature of self and other. The pronounced difference in the theory of political economy of institutionalism in the prevalent orientation and the one presented in this paper is therefore one premised on the opposing views. These are of methodological individualism of the adversarial outlook between entities and oppositely that of participation in a methodological orientation of unity of knowledge. Even in the contrasting views of the normative theory we are constructing against the positivistic theory being extant.

The objective of this paper is to introduce an ethically constructed possibility, where there does not exist one presently. The other going idea of actor network that resembles our IIE learning methodological worldview with its ontological universality and uniqueness is of significance to understand the inter-causal relations between primal ontology of unity of knowledge, mind, machine, and sustainable inferences thus obtained. Indeed, this monotheistic quest ought to be the ultimate objective of the socio-scientific era.

Assessing the level of transfer in both public and private organizations is increasingly becoming necessary as a means of determining employee productivity and efficiency. In 2000 Holton and others came up with training transfer system inventory as a tool to predict transfer. He asserted that the success or failure of training transfer in an organization depends on the learning transfer system which are: Trainee characteristics, training design and work environment. However, it is important to note that these factors are viewed differently according demographic characteristics, context and time span taken after the training. The purpose of this study was to analyze the drivers that lead to the transfer of agricultural risk management practices among agricultural extension staff in Uganda who were trained by the Ugandan Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) so as to build their capacity to train smallholder farmers to manage the agricultural risks that have for long affected productivity. There was need to determine the extent to which the trainees were able to transfer the skill gained in Agriculture Risk Management (ARM) training back to their work environment. A total number of 281 were interviewed on their last day of training. Showed that perceived content validity, opportunity to use, readiness to learn, transfer effort performance expectation, and training design, had a significant impact on agricultural risk management transfer. Extension worker trainers, decision makers/facilitators, and other actors in the extension system should pay particular attention to the factors reported here as important to agricultural risk management training transfer. Furthermore, the LTSI has been proved to be effective in evaluating agricultural risk management training.

Many students who study abroad face difficulties when adapting in new environments and communities. Thus, this study is trying to examine whether there is a relationship between social capital within Omani Society in Queensland (OSQ) in relation to adapting to the university life and the Australian community. There is no literature that has examined adaptation and social capital within Omani communities, within different cultural landscapes. This is an ethnographic study that incorporated both observations and semi-structured interviews, and a purposive sampling method was selected for this research. Based on the thematic analysis of the interviews and observations data, the research shows that OSQ supports its members, both singles and families, to adapt to university life and integrate within Australian culture. Indeed, there are two main findings of this study that relate to OSQ and social capital. These are emotional connection and cultural distinction.

The results of this research may encourage the formation of new social clubs to assist students in their cultural transition and academic achievements through fostering social capital. Moreover, this study opens new ground for social capital theory and adaptation.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide affected the socio-cultural life of the African. One major socio-cultural ritual that was heavily affected was the celebration of funeral rituals. Funerals in Africa are not only social ceremonies but religious as well. The community uses it to send off the departed to the spiritual world. However, the advent of the COVID-19 affected the performance of funeral rituals in Africa. The paper discusses the impact of the disruption using the experience in Ghana and the responses of the various communities in Ghana had to respond to the regulations put in place by the government to regulate funerals and other indigenous religious rituals. Employing the phenomenological method, the paper analyses data collected from the field and the literature to assess the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 on the celebration of funeral rituals in Ghana. Findings from the study indicates that COVID-19 disrupted the celebrations of festivals in Ghana.

Although it is well known that bride price payment is a harmful cultural practice prevalent in dassanach ethnic group, yet, there is little understanding of its effects on other harmful cultural practices. To improve this, the study explores the hidden powers of bride price (KOYTA) payment to cause other harmful cultural practices. It also investigates reasons of practicing bride price payment. The study employed qualitative approach. The data were gathered from purposively selected interviewees specifically, using convenience sampling technique. The data obtained via interview has been cross checked and validated using focus group discussion and key informant. Thematic qualitative analysis technique has been employed to analyze the data. The study found that bride price payment, directly or indirectly, caused other harmful cultural practices such as inter-ethnic conflict, polygamy, early and forced marriage, abduction, school dropout, female genital mutilation and others. It also investigated that the participant articulated the causes of practicing bride price as it is a source of income, a sign of prestige and a preservative of family. It was revealed that bride price is a deep-rooted cultural practice with almost all participants supporting its continuity. However, recent commercialization has changed the practice and its cultural relevance is less clear in present time. Although bride price provides protection, respect, and acknowledgement of women within marriages, the paper argues that the practice caused other harmful cultural practices mentioned above. This study highlights the need to intervene on possible mitigation of the negative impacts of bride price so as to mitigate other harmful cultural practices at large. Therefore, intervening on bride price is a ‘’one size fits all’ ’ intervention on other cultural practices since other HCPs directly or indirectly caused by it.

The police force stabilizes public institutions for societal tranquillity, economic development, peaceful coexistence and is an integral pillar in securing human development, which unfortunately operates as a mirage in Nigeria. Therefore, this study seeks to provide appropriate recommendations for structural reform of the Nigeria police force using the Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) approach to the identified challenges facing the Nigerian Police Force. The study used qualitative research methodology through the thorough and critical content analysis of reports, journals, publications, and news. The study findings revealed five significant challenges hindering police effectiveness in Nigeria and developed a 10 X 5 SHRM framework that included ten (10) strategic focus and five (5) strategies. The study recommended that utilizing the 10 X 5 strategic human resource management frameworks alongside 1829 nine (9) policing principles and three (3) core ideas of Sir Robert Peel.

This article examines the experience and influence of the British welfare interventions in Zanzibar. It elucidates the origins and implementation of the British colonial development and Welfare Act of 1940 and presents this legislation as an important landmark in the development of social welfare. The article employed qualitative approach and utilized archival and oral testimonies. This article argues that, while the British colonial development act of 1929 proved to be of limited significance, the introduction and implementation of colonial development and social Welfare Act of 1940 marked a significant turning point in the development of social welfare in Zanzibar. This was characterized by major developments in education, medical and health facilities as well as improvements in urban housing. The paper also maintains that although the provision of colonial social welfare services followed the traditional approach of focusing on urban areas, to some extent rural communities benefited from the services.

This research study was carried out to obtain the effects of the use of ATM banking services on customer satisfaction. Research on the use of ATM banking services on customer satisfaction remains unrepresented and is a growing area of interest. It further offered a controversial topic that ATM holders could engage in to further make sense of the different negative and positive effects of ATM use that exist and how these directly influenced responses to gendered phenomena. It therefore elicited significant constructions of results and hence was used as a vehicle to further insight into the nature of awareness about the customer services offered by ATM points to account holders, effectiveness of ATM service on account holders and the relationships between ATM services and customer satisfaction. This was achieved using a sample of 40 ATM users of National Financial Credit bank, Bambili branch. Through this method, the effect of the use of ATM banking services on customer satisfaction was analyzed. Data was analyzed using STATA 10. The results were understood as almost three quarters of the respondents rated the services offered by an ATM to be effective with withdrawal as the main service offered by ATM, followed by checking of balances, while the statement/mini statement of account came third and Cash or cheque deposit came last. The finding further depicts that more than half of the respondents were satisfied by the services offered by the ATM. This study sheds light on the awareness that ATM services results in customer satisfaction in the society and as a view point for banking industry by showing how quality services offered by ATM service points are essential and its relationship to customer satisfaction. The researcher recommended that more inclusive study be made taking into consideration the disabled. A larger sample could also be carried out to see customer’s perception concerning ATM banking services. The researcher also recommended that the bank should check the ATMs regularly to fix irregularities.