Hasil untuk "Social legislation"

F. Ferri, P. Grifoni, Tiziana Guzzo

The aim of the study is to analyse the opportunities and challenges of emergency remote teaching based on experiences of the COVID-19 emergency. A qualitative research method was undertaken in two steps. In the first step, a thematic analysis of an online discussion forum with international experts from different sectors and countries was carried out. In the second step (an Italian case study), both the data and the statements of opinion leaders from secondary online sources, including web articles, statistical data and legislation, were analysed. The results reveal several technological, pedagogical and social challenges. The technological challenges are mainly related to the unreliability of Internet connections and many students’ lack of necessary electronic devices. The pedagogical challenges are principally associated with teachers’ and learners’ lack of digital skills, the lack of structured content versus the abundance of online resources, learners’ lack of interactivity and motivation and teachers’ lack of social and cognitive presence (the ability to construct meaning through sustained communication within a community of inquiry). The social challenges are mainly related to the lack of human interaction between teachers and students as well as among the latter, the lack of physical spaces at home to receive lessons and the lack of support of parents who are frequently working remotely in the same spaces. Based on the lessons learned from this worldwide emergency, challenges and proposals for action to face these same challenges, which should be and sometimes have been implemented, are provided.

J. Travis, B. Western, F. Redburn

J. M. Anderson, N. Kalra, Karlyn D. Stanley et al.

K. Govindan, R. Khodaverdi, A. Jafarian

E. Brillas, C. Martínez-Huitle

Alan Blair

R. Pond

Elisabetta Biondi, Chiara Boldrini, Andrea Passarella et al.

Online social networks (OSNs) have transformed the way individuals fulfill their social needs and consume information. As OSNs become increasingly prominent sources for news dissemination, individuals often encounter content that influences their opinions through both direct interactions and broader network dynamics. In this paper, we propose the Friedkin-Johnsen on Cascade (FJC) model, which is, to the best of our knowledge, is the first attempt to integrate information cascades and opinion dynamics, specifically using the very popular Friedkin-Johnsen model. Our model, validated over real social cascades, highlights how the convergence of socialization and sharing news on these platforms can disrupt opinion evolution dynamics typically observed in offline settings. Our findings demonstrate that these cascades can amplify the influence of central opinion leaders, making them more resistant to divergent viewpoints, even when challenged by a critical mass of dissenting opinions. This research underscores the importance of understanding the interplay between social dynamics and information flow in shaping public discourse in the digital age.

Ananchenkova, Polina I.

This article is devoted to a comprehensive political analysis of the phenomenon of political empowerment of senior citizens as a key area in the context of global demographic aging. The focus is on the transformation of the role of older people in the political process, from the traditional perception of them as passive recipients of social support to their recognition as full-fl edged subjects of political action. Relevance of the topic is justified by the need to develop new approaches to the formation of an age-sensitive public policy focused on the political empowerment of the older generation. In theoretical and methodological terms, the work is based on the concepts of empowerment, inclusive democracy, and institutional political science. A structural analysis of the components of political empowerment of older people, i.e. political literacy, participation, representation, and effectiveness, is presented, taking into account the factors determining their level of involvement: individual (education, health, income), social (connections, participation in organizations), and political (accessibility of institutions, inclusiveness of legislation). The article pays special attention to the problem of ageism as a systemic barrier to the participation of the elderly in political life. The mechanisms of the negative impact of age discrimination on all aspects of political inclusion are revealed, from inaccessibility of information and infrastructure to the distortion of the public image of the older generation. Practical recommendations for overcoming these barriers are presented, including development of educational campaigns, legislative protection against discrimination, support for organizations of the elderly and expansion of inclusive participation mechanisms (public councils, participation budgets, age quotas, etc.). The work makes a contribution to the development of political gerontology and institutional political theory, focusing on the need to create an age-sensitive political environment in which the voice of an elderly person has real value and infl uence. In an aging society, it is the political empowerment of the elderly that becomes an indicator of the maturity of democracy, social justice, and effective governance.

P. Hąbek, R. Wolniak

The organization may communicate its engagement in sustainability and may presents results achieved in this field by creating and publishing corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Today, we can observe a growing number of companies issuing such reports as a part of their annual reports or as stand-alone CSR reports. Despite the increase in the number of such reports their quality is different. CSR reports do not always provide complete data that readers desire, which in turn intensifies the problem with the evaluation and comparison of the organization’s results achieved in this scope. Differences also occur between reporting models used in different EU countries caused by, inter alia, differently applied EU legislation on the disclosure of non-financial information in different Member States. This paper is one of the first attempts to perform a quantitative and qualitative analysis of corporate sustainability reporting practices in several European Union countries. The purpose of this article is to present the current state of CSR reporting practices in selected EU Member States and identify the differences in the quality and level of this kind of practices, taking into account the mandatory and voluntary model of disclosure. The study included separate CSR reports as well as annual reports with CSR sections and integrated reports published in 2012 in six selected EU Member States. The authors have used a specific evaluation tool in the examination of the individual reports. The assessment questionnaire consists of seventeen criteria grouped into two categories (relevance and credibility of information). In order to assess the quality of examined reports, the authors aggregated the indicators related with the reporting practices. The findings show that the quality level of the studied reports is generally low. Referring to its components, the relevance of the information provided in the assessed reports is at the higher level than its credibility. The study also indicates that the legal obligation of CSR data disclosure has a positive effect on the quality of CSR reports.

M. Compton, Ruth S. Shim

It is well known that social factors affect risk for mental illnesses and substance use disorders, as well as health outcomes of persons with these disorders. Social and environmental factors, in addition to their independent and combined effects, can influence genetic determinants of health and illness through gene-by-environment interactions and epigenetic mechanisms. Such social and environmental factors clearly have an effect at the individual level and should encounter intervention in the clinical setting. However, the social determinants of health and the social determinants of mental health exert their effects more broadly at the societal level and thus can be most effectively addressed through changes in public policies and social norms. Specifically, the social determinants of mental health—exemplified here by income inequality and poor education—are understood as being underpinned by unequal distribution of opportunity and, more deeply, by public policies (e.g., legislation that may not specific...

Émeline Trion, Marie-Pierre Deguillaume

The industrialisation of the suburban communes immediately surrounding Paris, at the end of the nineteenth century, led to demographic upheavals which are particularly visible at Suresnes, in the present-day Hauts-de-Seine department. Working-class inhabitants crowded into dilapidated and insalubrious buildings in the former centre, whilst the upper parts of the town remained empty. In the years after the First World War, several factors contributed to the development of social and urban policies of considerable ambition. These factors include legislation, recently enacted, that encouraged town-planning initiatives, projects for the organisation and extension of ‘Greater Paris’, and the election of Henry Sellier as mayor of Suresnes. They led to the development of new neighbourhoods and the establishment of a series of facilities dedicated to hygiene and healthcare. The ambition, to offer hygiene to all, created a broad variety of new facilities, at the same time as housing within the garden city was equipped with modern comforts. The facilities were like the rear base of a vast social system from which doctors, child-care workers and visiting nurses could sally forth throughout the territory. Today, as nearly all the dwellings have been modernised, these avant-garde facilities have been rethought and transformed, and their vocation either enlarged or completely altered. The article proposes a new look at the medico-social facilities of the interwar period and examines some key examples to show how they have changed.

Abdulaziz AlJaber, Pedro Martinez-Vazquez, Charalampos Baniotopoulos

The building sector is a major contributor to global resource consumption and waste generation. The circular economy (CE) concept offers a promising alternative to the traditional linear economy by promoting the reuse, remanufacture, repair, and recycling of materials and products. However, the adoption of CE in the building sector faces several barriers. This paper presents a systematic literature review utilising the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach, focusing on the barriers and enablers influencing the adoption of the CE concept in the building sector. Drawing from an analysis of numerous papers published between 2008 and 2023, we identified a high number of barriers and enablers that delay the integration of CE. The barriers were categorised into six categories: awareness, technical, economic and market, implementation, support/promotion, and social. The paper also discusses the interdependence of the identified barriers, using a co-occurrence matrix. The study findings indicate lack of CE regulations, fragment supply chain, and high upfront investment cost as major barriers to the implementation of CE in the building sector. Based on the study results, stringent governance and legislation, financial incentives, and the development of technology and innovation for circular building tools are critical factors for the successful implementation of CE principles. The results of this study provide a comprehensive overview of the feasibility to CE adoption in the building sector, which could also help to develop strategies to accelerate the transition to an integrated CE.

Lillian Mhuru

Gender equality is something that the human race has been struggling with since time immemorial. No country has achieved gender equality despite the legislative, social, and economic gains for women. Therefore, modern society likes to blame certain groups, such as religion for the gender inequalities which are faced, more than others. The main focus of this study is to evaluate the role of religious leaders in promoting gender equality through the legislation and religious texts in Zimbabwe. The study further explores how certain religious norms and practices can be modified through religious texts to accommodate women in achieving gender equality. The paper acknowledges that religious leaders have a greater responsibility to standup, speak and act with and on behalf of those with less power, such as the marginalized and discriminated against, including exploited planet Earth. The paper seeks to foreground how certain traditional religious practices and norms have exacerbated gender inequality in Zimbabwe, despite the laws that have been enacted by the government of Zimbabwe to promote gender equality. The data for the paper was gathered through observations and semi-structured interviews conducted with both religious leaders and women to establish how religious norms and practices directly or indirectly affect women and how they can be modified to achieve gender equality in Zimbabwe. The data gathered was analysed through descriptive data analysis. The paper concludes by recommending that religious leaders should be thoroughly trained on how to promote gender equality through religious texts and legislation. Contribution: The article evaluated the role of religious leaders in promoting gender equality through legislation and religious texts in Zimbabwe. It argued that religious leaders have a higher need to support, advocate and act on behalf of individuals who are marginalised and subjected to discrimination on planet Earth. Hence, its contribution was in promoting gender equality through religious texts and legislation in Zimbabwe for sustainable development.

Kartik Sharma, Yeon-Chang Lee, Sivagami Nambi et al.

Social recommender systems (SocialRS) simultaneously leverage the user-to-item interactions as well as the user-to-user social relations for the task of generating item recommendations to users. Additionally exploiting social relations is clearly effective in understanding users' tastes due to the effects of homophily and social influence. For this reason, SocialRS has increasingly attracted attention. In particular, with the advance of graph neural networks (GNN), many GNN-based SocialRS methods have been developed recently. Therefore, we conduct a comprehensive and systematic review of the literature on GNN-based SocialRS. In this survey, we first identify 84 papers on GNN-based SocialRS after annotating 2151 papers by following the PRISMA framework (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses). Then, we comprehensively review them in terms of their inputs and architectures to propose a novel taxonomy: (1) input taxonomy includes 5 groups of input type notations and 7 groups of input representation notations; (2) architecture taxonomy includes 8 groups of GNN encoder notations, 2 groups of decoder notations, and 12 groups of loss function notations. We classify the GNN-based SocialRS methods into several categories as per the taxonomy and describe their details. Furthermore, we summarize benchmark datasets and metrics widely used to evaluate the GNN-based SocialRS methods. Finally, we conclude this survey by presenting some future research directions. GitHub repository with the curated list of papers are available at https://github.com/claws-lab/awesome-GNN-social-recsys.

Patrícia Branco, João Pedroso

Portugal, with circa 10 million inhabitants, has almost 800 young people, aged 16-24 years, serving prison sentences. The majority comes from low-income families living in sensitive urban areas of Lisbon and Oporto, with low levels of education, and many are Afro-Portuguese or come from African Portuguese-speaking countries. These young people are thus identified with the neighbourhoods where they live, portrayed as violent and problematic. The narratives from the actors of the justice system we interviewed suggest that such depiction results from a set of plural disruptions – social, legal, and institutional – leading to the selectivity and criminalisation of this group of young people. We thus call them the “damned of inclusion” since the plurality of exclusions affecting them hasn’t been addressed holistically by the social inclusion programs created in the last decades. Since these young men are “caught under the radar”, there seems to be a criminal reaction from the law, the judicial practices and the prison system – which turns into a normalizing response.

Arkadiusz Domaszk

The present paper raises the issue of social insurance for the clergy in the Catholic Church. The first part provides the historical background, norms of the 1917 Code of Canon Law and indications of the Second Vatican Council. The next part discusses the current decrees of canon law and solutions adopted in Poland. At present, the Church has abandoned the beneficial system. Systemic church solutions are based on state legislation. In their absence, decisions are made by the Bishops’ Conference, as well as individual particular Churches. It refers both to social and health insurance.

Susannah Kate Devitt, Tamara Rose Pearce, Alok Kumar Chowdhury et al.

Against the backdrop of a social media reckoning, this paper seeks to demonstrate the potential of social tools to build virtuous behaviours online. We must assume that human behaviour is flawed, the truth can be elusive, and as communities we must commit to mechanisms to encourage virtuous social digital behaviours. Societies that use social platforms should be inclusive, responsive to evidence, limit punitive actions and allow productive discord and respectful disagreement. Social media success, we argue, is in the hypothesis. Documents are valuable to the degree that they are evidence in service of, or to challenge an idea for a purpose. We outline how a Bayesian social platform can facilitate virtuous behaviours to build evidence-based collective rationality. The chapter outlines the epistemic architecture of the platform's algorithms and user interface in conjunction with explicit community management to ensure psychological safety. The BetterBeliefs platform rewards users who demonstrate epistemically virtuous behaviours and exports evidence-based propositions for decision-making. A Bayesian social network can make virtuous ideas powerful.

Iris Sportel

This paper focuses on cultural, religious, or ethnic claims made by family members in court cases against state institutions in the Netherlands. Based on an analysis of court judgements, I explore claims-making in cases regarding children from minority families in various fields of law. In the literature, such claims are often discussed in the context of the so-called cultural defence, where perpetrators of crimes make cultural claims to avoid or lessen punishment. However, family members may also make claims for exceptions of state policies, demand accommodation of particular practices, or to challenge discrimination by state institutions. The paper shows how Dutch courts are reluctant to engage with such claims, and often leave them out of court judgements entirely. I argue that this lack of engagement with cultural, religious, or ethnic claims should be understood in the context of general Dutch discourses of colour-blindness and assimilation of migrant minorities.