Search Results (213)

This paper examines how colonial and neoliberal logics have influenced the ideas of self-management, democracy, and participation and how a decolonial perspective might reinterpret them. Although democracy and participation are celebrated in mainstream development discourse, they frequently serve as technologies of control that uphold market rationalities and dependency. The paper presents a conceptual model for comprehending how political and organisational practices in the Global South are both resisted by and limited by these dynamics, drawing on the framework of the colonial matrix of power. With reference to grassroots movements like Abahlali base Mjondolo, which represent alternative democratic logics based on collective self-management and epistemic justice, South Africa is used as a focal case. How gaps in the global architecture of dominance create opportunities for pluriversal futures is further demonstrated by comparative observations from Latin America and other Global South contexts. By (i) exposing the limitations of institutionalised participatory frameworks, (ii) highlighting radical democracy at the grassroots level, and (iii) describing the structural and epistemic prerequisites for significant change, the paper adds to discussions on decolonial political economy. By doing this, it reinterprets participation as a fight for liberating alternatives outside of colonial modernity rather than as inclusion within the status quo. Full article

The Indigenous community of San Antonio Cacalotepec, located in the region of Cholula in central Mexico, has been an active witness to territorial dispossession at the hands of powerful real estate capital. This small territory—where clean water once flowed, milpas and nopales were cultivated, and Nahuatl was the everyday language—has now become the epicenter of predatory capitalism, manifested in gated communities, commercial zones, and exclusive residential developments. As a result, the original settlement and its small landholders have been segregated and excluded from the promises of modernity and progress. Nevertheless, in this last enclave, where traces of Nahuatl can still be heard, an Indigenous awareness has emerged, reclaiming identity and the right to continue naming the territory that has been lost as their own. Within this context, fieldwork carried out by the co-research group Colectiva Hilando Territorios has led to a series of community workshops with women from San Antonio Cacalotepec, together with architecture and anthropology students from Universidad de las Américas Puebla. These workshops mapped how Cacalotepec looked before massive urbanization and documented the toponyms in the Nahuatl language. The aim has been to make visible the memory of a living territory that persists, and that, despite the sale of exclusive, car-oriented commercial and residential spaces, is continually re-signified by the community as part of its identity and collective belonging in the face of dispossession. Full article

Modern medium-voltage (MV) distribution networks face increasing reliability challenges driven by aging assets, climate variability, and evolving operational demands. In Colombia and across Latin America, reliability metrics, such as the System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), standardized under IEEE 1366, serve as key indicators for regulatory compliance and service quality. However, existing analytical approaches struggle to jointly deliver predictive accuracy, interpretability, and traceability required for regulated environments. Here, we introduce CRITAIR (Criticality Analysis through Interpretable Artificial Intelligence-based Recommendations), an integrated framework that combines predictive modeling, explainable analytics, and regulation-aware reasoning to enhance reliability management in MV networks. CRITAIR unifies three components: (i) a TabNet-based predictive module that estimates SAIFI using outage, asset, and meteorological data while producing global and local attributions; (ii) an agentic retrieval-and-reasoning stage that grounds recommendations in regulatory evidence from RETIE and NTC 2050; and (iii) interpretable reasoning graphs that map decision pathways. Evaluations conducted on real operational data demonstrate that CRITAIR achieves competitive predictive performance—comparable to Random Forest and XGBoost—while maintaining transparency through sparse attention and sequential feature explainability. Also, our regulation-aware reasoning module exhibits coherent and verifiable recommendations, achieving high semantic alignment scores (BERTScore) and expert-rated interpretability. Overall, CRITAIR bridges the gap between predictive analytics and regulatory governance, offering a transparent, auditable, and deployment-ready solution for digital transformation in electric distribution systems. Full article

We assess precipitation and key atmospheric water-cycle terms over South America (SA) in three modern reanalyses—MERRA-2, ERA5, and CFSR/CFSv2—during 1980–2021. Two observation-based datasets (CPC Unified Gauge and MSWEP-V2) serve as references to bracket observational uncertainty. Diagnostics include regional means for the Tropical and Subtropical South Atlantic Convergence Zone (TSACZ, SSACZ) and southeastern South America (SESA), Taylor-diagram skill metrics, and a vertically integrated moisture-budget residual as a proxy for closure. All products reproduce the large-scale spatial and seasonal patterns, but disagreements persist over the Andes and parts of the central/northern Amazon. Relative to CPC/MSWEP-V2, MERRA-2 exhibits the smallest precipitation biases and the highest correlations, followed by ERA5; CFSR/CFSv2 shows a warm-season wet bias. Moisture-budget residuals are smallest in MERRA-2, moderate in ERA5, and largest in CFSR/CFSv2, with clear regional and seasonal dependence. These results document improvements in the new generation of reanalyses while highlighting persistent challenges in gauge-sparse and complex-orography regions. For hydroclimate applications that depend on internally consistent P, E, moisture-flux convergence, and runoff, MERRA-2 provides the most coherent depiction among the three, whereas ERA5 is a strong alternative when higher spatial/temporal resolution or dynamical fields are needed and CFSR/CFSv2 should be applied with caution for warm-season precipitation and closure-sensitive analyses. Full article

This study investigates the impact of integration into the international economic cycle (IEC) on green innovation in China’s manufacturing sector, a key factor in the country’s green strategic transformation. Using multi-regional input–output tables for both global and Chinese contexts from 2012 to 2017, alongside data from listed manufacturing firms, the analysis demonstrates that IEC integration significantly promotes green innovation in Chinese manufacturing enterprises. The mechanisms of innovation-driven development and the upgrading of production capital structure are central to this effect. Economic cycles involving Europe and developing economies exert a strong positive influence on green innovation, whereas demand from North America and East Asia has a comparatively weaker effect. State-owned and high-tech enterprises are identified as primary drivers of green innovation through IEC integration. The findings also indicate a high degree of dependence of China’s economy on the IEC. However, reliance on IEC integration alone may result in market failure, underscoring the essential role of government environmental regulation and macroeconomic guidance. The study provides valuable insights into the transformation and advancement of manufacturing and high-quality development within the context of the modernization of China. Full article

Syphilis, a curable sexually transmitted infection, has resurged globally, challenging public health systems in both high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, parts of Europe, Canada, and Japan, cases have surged due to declining condom use, digital platforms facilitating casual sex, and practices like chemsex and broader drug use for sex, with rising congenital syphilis rates. In LMICs, such as those in East Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, limited healthcare access, inadequate prenatal screening, and socioeconomic barriers drive persistent high prevalence, particularly among pregnant women and vulnerable populations. Despite contextual differences, shared drivers include stigma, health disparities, and outdated surveillance systems. This resurgence underscores the need for globally coordinated, equity-focused strategies, including universal syphilis testing, modernized surveillance, and context-specific sexual health education. Addressing structural and behavioral factors through collaborative international efforts is critical to reversing this trend and strengthening global STI control. Full article

John Updike’s In the Beauty of the Lilies has often been interpreted as a lament for the decline of institutional Christianity in twentieth-century America. Instead, in this essay, it is argued that the novel dramatizes the metamorphosis of the sacred across four generations of the Wilmot family. Based on Updike’s conviction that divine presence endures beyond the walls of the church and through literary and cultural analysis grounded in sociological theory, the narrative shows that what appears to be the retreat of institutional religion is in fact a return to its primal ground in private faith. From Clarence’s crisis of belief to Teddy’s communal–private devotion, Essie’s narcissistic yet spiritualized stardom, and Clark’s restless searching, the novel traces diverse expressions of private religion in modern life. Film, above all, emerges as the communicative form that replaces the authority once vested in institutional churches, becoming the most pervasive medium through which transcendence is imagined and experienced. Far from depicting religion’s disappearance, Updike presents its reconfiguration into subtler and more pervasive forms of grace. In doing so, In the Beauty of the Lilies becomes a literary meditation on how religious meaning persists, adapts, and finds new representatives in a modern, media-saturated world. Full article

The Seaport City of Valparaíso, Chile, declared a World Heritage Site (WHS) by the United Nations, is known for its built landscape shaped during the first phase of globalization in the late 19th century, including early transport systems. However, the city now faces growing 21st-century urban and transport challenges common in Latin America. Amid the rise of electric micromobility in Chile, this study explores the potential use of electric bicycles (E-Bikes) in Valparaíso’s historic quarter. A qualitative methodology was employed, including participatory mapping to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT), and focus group discussions supported by AI-based text analysis. Findings reveal that barriers to E-Bike use extend beyond topography and infrastructure, highlighting concerns such as deteriorated public spaces, lack of green areas, and safety issues. Promoting E-Bike adoption will require improving infrastructure, launching educational campaigns, optimizing routes, and fostering community participation. This study aims to inform local decision-makers on how to enhance sustainable mobility by integrating E-Bikes into the historical electric transport of Valparaíso, thereby contributing to the modernization of mobility within a heritage context. Full article

The objective of this paper is to frame research improving the governance of modern cyber-physical systems (CPS) and Complex Systems of CPS through better regulation and compliance. CPS are increasingly being used to undertake high-hazard activities that have the potential to cause significant impacts on people and the environment. The analysis detailed in this paper provides insights into how maritime, aviation, and nuclear regulators from the United States of America, the European Union, and Australia, in particular, facilitate the global trend of integrating cyber components into the high-hazard physical systems they regulate. This insight is gained by undertaking a systematic document review and word search analysis of the regulations, codes, standards and guidance documents published or referred to by these regulators, relevant to the operation of the high-hazard CPS they regulate. These documents were selected to assess the importance that these regulators place on cybersecurity, cyber safety, and cyberworthiness. This analysis confirmed that current regulations primarily treat cyber and physical safety in isolation and generally perceive the application of cybersecurity as adequate for achieving safety for the cyber aspects of CPS. This demonstrates the need for the application of more contemporary concepts, such as cyberworthiness, to the regulation of high-hazard CPS, as well as methods to pathologically assess and incrementally improve governance of such systems through approaches like Complex Systems Governance. Full article

This article analyzes how food functions as a cultural and narrative device in Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s Around the World of a Novelist (1924), offering insight into early-20th-century global encounters as mediated through diet and gastronomy. Framed within literary analysis and food studies, the study focuses on Blasco Ibáñez’s representations of food across Japan, China, India, and the Americas, identifying how culinary practices serve to construct cultural otherness, negotiate identity, and reflect broader ideological frameworks. The methodology involves close textual reading combined with interpretive tools from cultural anthropology and nutritional science, especially regarding traditional versus industrial food systems. The analysis finds that Japanese foodways are portrayed as ritualized and harmonious, Chinese cuisine as ingenious yet unsettling, Indian diets as spiritually driven but materially scarce, and American food systems as abundant and industrialized. Across these accounts, food emerges not merely as sustenance but as a marker of civilization, modernity, and cultural difference. The article concludes that Blasco Ibáñez’s narrative captures a transitional moment in global food history, documenting both the persistence of traditional culinary systems and the rise of industrialized, globalized nutrition, thereby positioning gastronomy as a key lens for understanding travel literature and cross-cultural representation. Full article

Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) is widely consumed in South America and is valued for its bioactive compounds, such as polyphenols and methylxanthines. However, during traditional processing, mainly in the fire-based scorch and drying steps, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and anthraquinone (AQ), substances with carcinogenic potential, may be formed. This study aimed to develop and validate an analytical method based on the balls-in-tube matrix solid-phase dispersion technique (BiT-MSPD) and analysis by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) for the simultaneous determination of 16 priority PAHs and AQ in yerba mate. Parameters such as sorbent type, solvent, sample-to-sorbent ratio, and extraction time were optimized. The method showed good linearity (r² > 0.99), detection limits between 1.8 and 3.6 µg·kg⁻¹, recoveries ranging from 70 to 120%, and acceptable precision (RSD ≤ 20%). The method was applied to 31 yerba mate samples, including 20 commercial samples and 11 collected at different stages of processing. Most commercial samples showed detectable levels of PAHs, with some exceeding the limits established by the European Union. AQ was detected in 40% of the samples, with some values above the permitted limit of 20 µg·kg⁻¹. The results confirm that scorch (sapeco) and drying contribute to contaminant formation, highlighting the need to modernize industrial processing practices. The proposed method proved to be effective, rapid, and sustainable, representing a promising tool for the quality control and food safety monitoring of yerba mate. Full article

Educators in America should be concerned about the failure of dialogue evident in television, newspapers, journals, and social media. Not only are people unable to talk and listen to each other, but some types of research are forbidden, stories are retracted in journals or newspapers because of a backlash, speakers are silenced on college campuses, and sometimes unfruitful conversations lead to violence. One is reminded of Raskolnikov’s dream in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, where the protagonist dreams of a plague that infects people with the idea that they alone have the truth, have the inability to understand each other, and end up destroying each other. The so-called “cancel culture” that we are suffering today is the fulfillment of this prophetic dream. It is rooted, not in modern technologies, but in the modern understanding of the person as an abstract, disengaged self that inevitably leads to empty conversations. What educators need today is to offer a richer metaphysics of the human person and an environment where students can learn what it means to grow in the truth together. In this paper, I will argue that (1) the failure of modern conversations is rooted in the flawed anthropology of modernity, (2) offer a richer metaphysics of the human person that can enable true dialogue, and (3) propose that Luigi Giussani’s Christian educational method can offer educators in the classroom a way to respond to cancel culture in a fruitful way. Full article

Road infrastructure plays a crucial role in economic development across Latin America, yet outdated design standards in Ecuador compromise both safety and efficiency. Despite a national road network exceeding 61,000 km, Ecuador’s geometric design guidelines have not been formally updated since 2003 and fail to reflect recent changes in vehicle configurations or driver characteristics. This study proposes a data-driven methodology to update two key geometric parameters: vehicle dimensions and driver eye height. A database of 1170 vehicles across 36 categories was developed using 2023 registration records and technical specifications. Driver eye height was estimated using two complementary approaches: (1) combining vehicle seat height and ground clearance data with Ecuador-specific anthropometric measurements from the country’s five main ethnic groups, and (2) virtually assigning anthropometric profiles to the national fleet. The results show that the average eye height of light vehicle drivers is approximately 0.95 m, which is lower than the current design standards in Ecuador (1.15 m) and AASHTO (1.08 m). Estimates for heavy vehicles are also lower (1.70 m versus 2.0 and 2.4 m, respectively). These findings reveal a mismatch between the current design assumptions and real-world conditions. The proposed framework is scalable and replicable, supporting the modernization of road design standards in Ecuador and other Latin American countries. Full article

This research presents an overview of transportation mode choice, emphasizing key influencing factors and a range of methodological approaches from traditional Random Utility Theory (RUT) models to modern Machine Learning (ML) techniques. A comprehensive review covered 875 papers, which were screened for relevance. The search was conducted on ScienceDirect and Google Scholar between October and November 2024 using the keywords transport and choice model. Search results were reviewed until several consecutive entries no longer contained content relevant to the topic. After the screening and exclusion process, 106 papers remained for analysis. The review reveals that the Multinomial Logit (MNL) model remains the most widely used approach for modeling transportation mode choice, despite a growing interest in ML methods. Cars and buses dominate in passenger transport studies, while trucks, trains, and ships are most common in freight research. Data is typically collected through surveys (for passenger transport) and interviews (for freight), though some studies use secondary sources. Geographically, Asia and Europe are most represented, with regions like South America underrepresented. Travel time and cost are key variables, with increasing attention to the built environment in passenger studies and service reliability in freight studies. Overall, most studies aim to address real-world transport challenges. The review highlights the persistent gap between theoretical advancements and real-world applicability. To support this analysis, it examines the specific research objectives and findings of each study. Full article

Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of religion is crucial for explaining cultural and geopolitical transformations. Based on multi-source religious demographic data, this study analyzes the spatio-temporal dynamics of global Catholicism after WWII using gravity migration and standard deviational ellipse models, revealing spatial heterogeneity and tracing the migration of its developmental center. Spatial typology techniques are further employed to classify patterns of Catholic growth efficiency. Our findings reveal that: (1) The absolute number of global Catholics has steadily increased, exhibiting a west-heavy, east-light pattern, with particularly notable growth in the Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa. The proportion of Catholics has declined—especially in traditional strongholds such as Europe and the Americas—while rising in emerging missionary regions, notably in Africa. (2) The macro-trend of Catholic development demonstrates a continuous southward shift in its global center of gravity, transitioning from Europe to the Global South—particularly regions like Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The standard deviational ellipse reveals pronounced oscillation, with an increasing rotation angle and a southward tilt, suggesting an accelerating pace of change in the global distribution of Catholicism. (3) Post-WWII, Catholic growth outpaced population in 75.57% of countries, though modestly. Developmental efficiency temporally followed a trajectory of “broad weak positive—drastic polarization—weak equilibrium”, while spatially reflecting pronounced regional heterogeneity shaped by the combined effects of colonial legacies, social demands, political dynamics, and modernity shocks. Overall, our study provides empirical support for understanding the links between religious spatial patterns and social transformation. Full article