Academicus International Scientific Journal

027-046

Authors: Chidinma Iheanetu Tandlich, Roman Tandlich,

The current article is an attempt by the authors to present a bioethical case, or rather a search being undertaken to develop tools to interpret the novel ontological realm which has been created, and continues to be transformed in real time, by the COVID19 pandemic and its aftermath. The ontological realm is new, but the physical features of the world and the human in it are partially constants and identical to the previous realm parameters, the pre-COVID19 space-time. The question of existence in the new ontological realm is…how can the continuum of Homo sapiens and its existence be sustained in this new realm? The tools being developed use of previous information and knowledge of the members of Homo sapiens as a starting point and source of metaphors as tools to facilitate existence in the new realm. In this way, existing knowledge, which is held by individual members of Homo sapiens, and which exists and continues being created in the continuum of Homo sapiens, can be the foundation for the creation of new knowledge about the post-COVID19 realm and the individual and collective comprehension of humans of it and in it. Conceptual metaphors, the creation of compound metaphor and the prospective dialectic are suggested by authors as a possible epistemic implementation mechanisms in this context. The adaptation of humanity, its imagination and some professions are used to demonstrate the case for the ‘new science of human existence’ in the post-COVID19 world.

060-077

Authors: Michael V Peshkam

A world without plastic packaging waste by 2030 is achievable. But it will require significant change. It will require consumers to be connected to the packaging they use. It will require a marriage between economy, ecology, and society. And it will require a monetary, ecological (i.e., carbon credit), and social value to be assigned to packaging that is currently disposed of all too easily. And finally, it will require “Uberization of waste management.” In this paper, a number of solutions and recommendations for creating a world without plastic packaging waste are presented – all are in harmony with the pace of change we are witnessing within the present age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) aka Industry 4.0. The study explores how the plastics industry in general, and Food & Beverage (F&B) industry in particular can adopt the recommendations, thus transforming the industry, and crafting entirely new customer value propositions. The findings from the yearlong qualitative study that commenced in 2018, in part were based on interviews of industry experts. They are condensed into nine strategic recommendations to help achieve the vision of a world free plastic pollution by 2030. The recommendations were chosen to be both achievable yet bold and strive to encourage all stakeholders to work collectively towards meeting the vision by 2030.

093-103

Authors: Adrianit Ibrahimi, Besa Arifi

Cryptocurrency has become ubiquitous and is evolving constantly. The question is if our legal framework is catching up with it. Therefore, this article analyzes the arguments on the legitimacy and legality of cryptocurrency in order to emphasize the relation between corruption and cryptocurrency. The research has enlightened some cogent arguments on the possibility of perpetrators committing corruption acts through cryptocurrency. These arguments basically refer to some of the unique characteristics of cryptocurrency such as the quick value fluctuation, the difficulties in tractability and the lacking current legislation. The unique features of it may headline cryptocurrency as an immensely attractive environment for corruption activities. Hence the world has already faced some tangled scamming scandals with cryptocurrency specified herein. Therefore, the aim of this article is to highlight the possibility for corruption acts to be committed through cryptocurrency as a form of corruption unknown before.

116-127

Authors: Sybil Rhodes

The political salience of policy issue arenas related to the movement of people, including immigration, citizenship, and asylum, has increased in recent decades and is likely to continue to escalate for the foreseeable future, because of both real dynamics of migration flows and because of political dynamics including reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic. Existing governance regimes at the global, regional, and national levels somewhat order the migration issue arena and do much humanitarian good, but they also generate new problems and injustices. The perception of disorder in migration and citizenship are likely to continue to present challenges for liberal democracy and for international cooperation. This article outlines the contours of challenges of governing the movement of people since the end of the Cold War.

154-160

Authors: Mike Mohamed Ghouse

This paper aims to prepare an individual to function effectively in a constantly changing multi-faith, multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-everything society with minimum conflicts. Pluralism is a new subject with a focus on its effect on different aspects of life in building cohesive societies where no one has to live in apprehension or fear of the other. Pluralism means respecting the otherness of others in religion, culture, politics, and the workplace. You may see people of different faiths, races, cultures, and ethnicities interacting, working, studying, intermingling, playing, and marrying each other. A decade from now, you may not see the monopoly of a race or cultural groups in the workplace, place of worship, school, bus, train, theater, library, or other public gatherings. These interactions between people not familiar with each other’s culture lend themselves to misunderstandings and are bound to create conflicts. As responsible members of society, we must prepare ourselves to prevent possible challenges and lay a foundation for the effective functioning of institutions where every human feels secure about his faith, race, ethnicity, culture, language, political or sexual orientation, or any other uniqueness. Exclusive communities will become a thing of the past. If you live amidst others, you should also respect the otherness of others, as you expect them to do the same for you.

24-44

Authors: Josie-Marie Perkuhn

When the infectious coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 broke out it resulted in a global crisis. In the fight of Covid-19, China’s government relied on its strength to apply new technologies, i.e. for controlling and containment of the virus by tracing and tracking Chinese citizens. Relying on the trajectory of industrialisation, China has pursued a path of innovation. While it is reasoned that China’s advantage might have origin in the experience of the SARS outbreak almost two decades ago, this article argues that mainly China’s innovation- driven climate has favoured the application of new technologies in combatting the current crisis. Based on the innovation-driven trajectory this article explores China’s pathway out the corona crisis and how this might strengthen China’s role in global health governance. In order to pursue this aim, this article explores several areas, in which the next generation of technologies, such as AI-based diagnostic or intelligent robots were applied and concludes with an outlook based on the formulated political agenda, strategic considerations and initial international cooperation regarding China’s impact for global health.

56-74

Authors: Bahia El Oddi,Carin-Isabel Knoop

The world is focused on countering climate change to guarantee our survival. But as our planet burns up, we are burning out. The costs of mental health disorders dwarf those of climate change and yet do not get commensurate attention from global leaders. Health care providers and organizations have acted first but need support of the financial markets and public decision-makers. In this paper, we argue that the economic and social toll of mental health and wellbeing issues deserve equal attention from business and public leaders because Human Sustainability is as important as Environmental Sustainability for our ability to endure and thrive as a species in harmony with others.

91-103

Authors: Lisa Coleman

The article asserts the need for organizations to adopt intentional and transformative Global Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, Equity, and Access (GIDBEA) practices, to ensure their future readiness. The research developed reaffirms the benefits of GIDBEA strategies in identifying gap areas and navigating crises, by providing insights on how to successfully embed a ‘new different’ GIDBEA strategy into organizational frameworks. By drawing trends across the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic and other previous health and economic crises, it is indicated what is described as the “normality of disruption” and the need to move away from the idea of a ‘new normal’ to a new different. The new different acknowledges that the ‘normal’ or the status quo was often challenging for many. The impact and importance of the disruptions that individuals, communities, nations, etc., all have and will face together, is also recognized. The new different emphasizes organizational transformation through co-creation, sustainability, adaptivity, resilience, and design thinking. By implementing a design thinking model, GIDBEA proactively engages mistakes while promoting innovation through dissent and disruption. As a result, disruptions are not considered episodic crises but as recurring, expected, and presenting opportunities. Furthermore, it is argued that GIDBEA expertise is essential for remaining agile, innovative, and providing strategic organizational architecture to prepare and innovate for these disruptions. However, it is necessary to consider that GIDBEA practice can be limited due to the failure of organizations and leaders to frame it as an asset and develop strategic plans to leverage it in the same way they do other critical functional business units. Therefore, unless prioritized and conducted intentionally, GIDBEA work will not achieve its promised bonuses and transformative potential. The article offers readers insights and tools to assess existing GIDBEA within their organization. Using metaphors of “construction” and “architecture,” it illustrates how reimaging organizational architectures and constructing initiatives focused on GIDBEA are fundamental to resiliency, organizational sustainability, and the ability to thrive through shifting landscapes.

122-142

Authors: Yllka Ahmeti,Etem Iseni

Profitability expresses the ability to make a profit from all the business activities of the company. It shows how efficiently management generates profit by utilizing all available resources. This paper examined the effects of specific company factors, namely independent variables such as: liquidity, company size, company age, tangible asset, leverage, company capital and growth of com-pany, on profitability represented by return on assets (ROA) and net profit margin (NPM) as a dependent variable. The sample in this study includes eleven insurance companies for the period 2015 - 2020. The regression results indicate that size, leverage and age of company, have significant effects on the ROA. Meanwhile in NPM of insurance companies in Kosovo size of company and firm growth have significant effects.

174-183

Authors: Firuza Mukhitdinova

The article analyses the strategies for reducing the phenomena of domestic violence, focusing on the legal preventive measures. It highlights the historical aspects of the problem, by referring to the legal framework, in trying to overcome it. By introducing the causes and the nature of the domestic violence in Uzbekistan, leveraging into a theoretical, historical and legal analysis, social measures are weighted in relation to the domestic violence. The methodological approaches in the study of social processes of domestic violence are used meanwhile evaluating the social consequences of domestic violence, considering the correlation between the increased instability in the society and the level of social dissatisfaction of the population. The paper, by referring to the Laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On the Protection of Women from Oppression and Violence”, as well as to several other laws and regulations on regard, makes a review to the reforms and notebooks such as “iron notebook”, “youth” and “women”, where special attention is paid to the correlations between unemployment of youth and women and the phenomena of domestic violence.

194-213

Authors: Cassady Pitt, Brittani Walker

This article examines the extent to which participation in sports acts as a conditioning effect to the relationship between economic disadvantage and adolescent violent delinquency. Deriving hypotheses from general strain and social control theories, we use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to test if type of extracurricular activity participation diminishes the risk of economic disadvantage on violent delinquency. In support of social control theory, the direct effect of academic clubs and performing arts is negatively associated with adolescent violence. Additionally, analyses indicate that participation in contact sports decreases the relationship economic disadvantage and violent delinquency when other strain controls are added including race/ethnicity, family structure, lack of parental supervision, etc. Overall findings are expected of the social control conditioning effect of general strain theory.

226-234

Authors: Seth Oppong

Lawrence M. Mead presented an interesting argument as to why poverty exists in the United States. He problematizes the culture of the poor of which ethnic minorities over-represent. By referring to the geographic regions from which these ethnic minorities came from, he globalised the question of poverty in the US. This invites a global policy debate rather than a US-centric policy debate. Indeed, Mead so freely made references to Africa and the African culture severally throughout his commentary. It is against this backdrop that I show that Mead was right to a large extent on the question of inner-driven individualised orientation. However, he overestimates its influence and misreads what culture is. He presented the culture of poverty as the antecedent of poverty. It was concluded that manipulating both internal drive (internal locus of control) and the structure of society is a more effective way to tackle poverty.