Visual Methodologies : Theorizing Disasters and International Relations

There is an increase in extreme weather conditions due to human-induced climate change. Their impacts are most severely felt by the marginalized and the poor in the Global South. Increasingly, study of international relations focuses on the varied forms of disasters and the global politics that emerge around them. Disaster studies scholarship actively challenges the myth of existence of “natural disasters.” Instead of defining them as being “natural,” disasters are conceived as serious disruptions to the functioning of a community or a society with human, material, economic, or environmental losses. The disaster concept is thus separated, first, from hazards such as earthquakes, cyclones, and floods, and “disaters” are not limited to events resulting from natural hazards. Disasters emerge also as a result of major economic and political instabilities due to the nature of the contemporary global political economy and global financial crises. Disasters also include those that often go unnoticed such as violent conflicts or famines, and also include global pandemics such as Ebola and COVID-19. Disasters understood in this way also include aftermaths of resource extractivism and settler coloniality. The intersection of disasters and visual methodologies offers insights into theorizing International Relations nature, the everyday, and the politics of disasters. This article focuses on such visual and audiovisual scholarship that has predominantly emerged from, and actively engages with, collaborative visual methodologies and a rethinking of research processes. Such works offer insights into critical exploration of academic knowledge production processes and praxis, suggesting that visual is not a method, but a methodological and ethical choice. Research processes adopting photo-elicitation, graphic novels and comics, and films in specific disaster contexts challenge text-dominated scholarship and offer reflection on the roles between the researcher and researched, and on the question of authorship. Turning to visuals also brings to the fore questions of representations and the strategic use of the visual in the overall scholarly storytelling practice. Further, scholars have suggested that instead of focusing on the visual devices, or the visual products, visual methodologies as a process orientation allow questions related to democratizing and accessibility to the research process to be addressed, weighing up whose priorities matter, that is, making research useful for (Indigenous) communities and resisting legacies of the imperial shutter.Peer reviewe

Supporting Latinx College Students Study Abroad

Low participation of Latinx students in study abroad is something U.S. educators should be aware of and start to address. As the Latinx student population grows in higher education, growth of this population in study abroad should follow. The purpose of this research is to compile best practices and supports that can be implemented by international education professionals to support Latinx students who study abroad at their institutions. The research will answer the following research questions: how can international educators support Latinx students to study abroad? How can the current supports in place for Latinx students (in higher education) be leveraged to help them study abroad? Using surveys and interviews with international educators who work in study abroad and Latinx students who have studied abroad this study analyzed their opinions on best practices. Relevant barriers revealed included a lack of finances, lack of parental support and students not fitting in. The supports discovered for Latinx students comprise of financial support, parental support, program and location content, and outreach and marketing. There needs to be a special attention paid to identity of Latinx students as well as how different intensity factors might affect them abroad. International educators can implement the supports mentioned, however, they must keep in mind that Latinx students can have other varying identities. Professionals will need to understand who their Latinx students are individually so not to assume what supports will be most beneficial. Further studies are needed to understand what specific Latinx identities need specific supports. It could depend on intensity combinations and students’ institutions. Keywords: Latinx, study abroad, supports, best practices, identity, international educator

An Analytical Study on the Publication Pattern and Impact of Top Research Papers: A Case Study of Information Processing and Management

Measuring the research quality of academics to assess the performance of departments, research institutes, universities or even the researchers by themselves is a trend now across the globe. Quality is a journey which can only be judged through the scholarly communications produced, especially papers published in journals. However, assessing the quality of individual papers by peer review is not trouble-free and sometimes leads to disagreement too. Partly for these reasons, the quality of the journal that the paper is published in is widely taken into consideration for the quality of the paper itself. The present study explores the publication pattern of scholarly articles of the Journal “Information Processing and Management,” a leading international journal published by Elsevier and indexed under Science Direct Database. It examines and presents an analysis of 550 articles (under Top25 hottest article of Science Direct) cited within the period from 2008 to 2013. The scholarly articles are analyzed from several bibliometric parameters such as the chronological distribution, authorship pattern and degree of collaboration, most prolific authors, country and institution-wise distribution, subject-wise distribution of articles, most downloaded and cited, the length of articles. Lotka’s law is also applied to examine authors’ productivity pattern and productivity index. Results indicated that a high level of collaboration exists among the authors, Information Science taking shape of a developing discipline within LIS and USA occupies the dominant position in terms of productive authors, institutions and country. A positive and significant relationship lies between the T25HA and the number of citations received

Measuring Growth and Impact of Neuroscience Researches in India: A Scientometric analysis based on Scopus

Present study focuses on growth of neuroscience research in India and its impact on scholarly world. Total 4812 data were collected from Scopus database for the period of 2004-2018. Analysis of the data revealed considerable increase in Annual Growth Rate in neuroscience research with 10.52% CAGR for the entire period. Relative Growth Rate (RGR) was increasing with minor fluctuations i.e. growth in Neuroscience research is not exponential ratio rather than it is arithmetic ratio and Doubling Time is similar to RGR. Trend (Least Square) of the neuroscience publications showed an increase trend during the study period. But the prediction of the trend up to the year 2023 has indicated the downward trend in the growth. Articles were the major form of publication followed by letters. Collaborative Index (CI) ranges from 4.22 to 5.02 with an average of 4.75 per joint authored papers. Degree of collaboration for total publications of the neuroscience was 0.93 i.e. team research, which is confirmed by the value of Collaboration coefficient. Mega-authored papers received highest 24657 (49.88%) citations, whereas single authored papers received lowest 861(1.74%) citations. Author Shukla, D. is the most productive author contributing 42 articles.1934 (40.19%) of total publications did not have any institutional collaboration, 1063 (22.09%) publications were co-authored with other institutes/universities/colleges of India, 764 (15.88%) were collaborated within their own organization/institute/university/college in which they are affiliated and 1051 (21.84%) publications were collaborated with foreign authors

Evaluating patterns of national and international collaboration in Cuban science using bibliometric tools

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that collaboration was a key characteristic of Cuban science to maintain their scientific capacity during a period of economic restrictions and an important feature of Cuban science policy and practice for the benefit of society. Design/methodology/approach -- Collaboration was studied through Cuban scientific publications listed in PubMed for the period 1990-2010. The search was carried out using the advanced search engine of PubMed indicating oCubaW in the affiliation field. To identify participating institutions a second search was performed to find the affiliations of all authors per article through the link to the electronic journal. A data set was created to identify institutional publication patterns for the surveyed period. Institutions were classified in three categories according to their scientific production as Central, Middle or Distal: the pattern of collaboration between these categories was analysed. Findings -- Results indicate that collaboration between scientifically advanced institutions (Central) and a wide range of national institutions is a consequence of the social character of science in Cuba in which cooperation prevails. Although this finding comes from a limited field of biomedical science it is likely to reflect Cuban science policy in general. Originality/value -- Using bibliometric tools the study suggests that Cuban science policy and practice ensure the application of science for social needs by harnessing human resources through national and international collaboration, building in this way stronger scientific capacity

Regional and global science: Publications from Latin America and the Caribbean in the SciELO Citation Index and the Web of Science

In this article the authors compare the visibility of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) publications in the Core Collection indexes of the Web of Science (WoS) inlcuding Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index, and the SciELO Citation Index (SciELO CI) which was integrated into the larger WoS platform in 2014. The purpose of this comparison is to contribute to the broader understanding of the communication of scientific knowledge produced in Latin America and the Caribbean, and to provide some reflections on the potential benefits of the articulation of regional indexing exercises into WoS for a better understanding of geographic and disciplinary contributions. How is the regional level of SciELO CI related to the global range of WoS? In WoS, LAC authors are integrated at the global level in international networks, while SciELO has provided a platform for interactions among LAC researchers. The articulation of SciELO into WoS may improve the international visibility of the regional journals, but at the cost of own journal inclusion criteria independence

The Assessment and Educational Outreach of Lighting Practices for Coastal Light Pollution Impacting Sea Turtle Ecosystems

This proposal, prepared for the Junta de Calidad Ambiental (Environmental Quality Board) in Puerto Rico, will describe the assessment and modification for different types of light fixtures to reduce the light pollution which is impacting coastal ecosystems. From the literature and research, we will describe what light pollution is, the regulation that is active in Puerto Rico, different types of lighting guidelines, and how light pollution is dangerous to ecosystems and the environment. We will determine a percentage of light fixtures which can be easily modified or replaced to reduce the light trespass on the beach as well as create an educational guide about light pollution and modification ideas to educate the public

Defining Black Masculinities: Intersectional Analyses of Gender, Race and Sexuality in Caribbean and Latin American Literature, 1955 to Present

The objective of my dissertation is to define and construct parameters for analyzing the Afro-descendant male experience in four specific texts: Mi compadre el General Sol [General Sun, My Brother] (1955), Adire y el tiempo roto [Adire and Broken Time] (1967), Sortilégio II: mistério negro de Zumbi redivivo [Sorcery 2: Black Mystery of Resurrected Zumbí] (1979), and Negro: Este color que me queda bonito [Black: This Color Looks Good on Me] (2013). Black masculinities are distinct and this study sets five parameters: 1) Sexual Prowess, 2) Contentious relationship with the White woman, 3) Violence and Toxic Masculinity, 4) Emotive Numbness, and 5) Generational Traumas. Deriving from the theory of Masculinities and Men’s Studies, namely hegemonic masculinity established by R.W. Connell, I build the case for several independent Black masculinities in classic Afro-Latin American literature. Additionally, my study embraces a range of concepts from Frantz Fanon’s confrontation with colonial inferiority complexes and Abdias do Nascimento’s Quilombismo to intersectionality constructs provided by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Djamila Ribeiro and bell hooks. In Chapter One, I propose readings of physical and reputational masculinities in protagonist Hilarion Hilarius and assess his character development and liminality in Mi compadre el General Sol. In Chapter Two, I contend that the protagonist Julián utilizes a plethora of heteromasculine disguises such as the prominence of military weaponry and performance, ancillary homophobic language, and hegemonic masculinity in relation to females to protect the incoming Castro regime’s image and conceal his Black queer identity in Adire y el tiempo roto. Using Sortilégio II as primary evidence in Chapter Three, I examine and debunk the continuous idiosyncrasies of the racial democracy myth. In Chapter Four, I opine that Benny copes better with racial trauma eventually but conclude that he remains in denial of the gravity of his trauma’s long-lasting effects