Aim/Purpose: The research investigates the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on Iranian refugees’ settlement in Australia. Background: The study identifies the issues of settlement, such as language, cultural and social differences. Methodology: The Multi-Sited Ethnography (MSE), which is a qualitative methodology, has been used with a thematic analysis drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews with two groups of participants (51 Iranian refugees and 55 people with a role in assisting refugees). Contribution: The research findings may enable the creation of a model for use by the Aus-tralian Government with Iranian refugees. Findings: The findings show the vital role ICT play in refugees’ ongoing day-to-day life towards settlement. Recommendations for Practitioners: The results from this paper could be generalised to other groups of refugees in Australia and also could be used for Iranian refugees in other countries. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers may use a similar study for refugees of different backgrounds in Australia and around the world. Impact on Society: ICT may assist refugees to become less isolated, less marginalized and part of mainstream society. Future Research: Future research could look into the digital divide between refugees in Australia and main stream Australians.

Aim/Purpose: Provides a theoretical model as to where we should source our information as the environment becomes more complex. Background: Develops a theoretical model built on extrinsic complexity and offers a conceptual scheme relating to the relative value of different sources. Methodology: The paper is purely conceptual in nature. Contribution: Develops a model that could be tested relating to where clients should search for information. Findings: Arguments can be made that different environments warrant different priorities for informing sources. Recommendations for Practitioners: Assess how your sources of information match your perceived environment. Recommendation for Researchers: Consider developing research designs to test the proposed model. Impact on Society: Offers a new way of thinking about informing sources. Future Research: Develop propositions from the model that could be empirically tested in future research.

Labor pain and its relieving methods is one of the anxieties of mothers having a great impact on the quality of care during delivery as well as the patients' satisfaction. The propensity of using non-medicinal pain relief methods is increasing. The present study aimed to compare the effect of Acupressure at two GB-21 and SP06 points on the severity of labor pain. In this quasi-experimental single blind study started on December 2010 and ended on June 2011 in which 150 primiparous women were divided into three groups of Acupressure at GB-21 point, Acupressure at SP-6 point and control group. The intervention was carried out for 20 min at 3-4 and 20 min at 7-8 cm dilatation of Cervix. The pain severity was measured by Visual Analog Scale before and immediately, 30 and 60 min after the intervention. Then, the data were statistically analyzed. No significant difference was found among the 3 groups regarding the pain severity before the intervention. However, the pain severity it was reduced at 3-4 and 7-8 cm dilatation immediately, 30 and 60 min after the intervention in the two intervention groups compared to the control group (p<0.001). Nonetheless, no statistically significant difference was observed between the two intervention groups (p = 0.93). The results of the study showed that application of Acupressure at two GB-21 and SP-6 points was effective in the reduction of the severity of labor pain. Therefore, further studies are recommended to be performed on the application of Acupressure together with non-medicinal methods.

'What's going on?' Within the context of our critically-informed teaching practice, we see moments of deep learning and reflexivity in classroom discussions and assessments. Yet, these moments of criticality are interspersed with surface learning and reflection. We draw on dichotomous, linear developmental, and messy explanations of learning processes to empirically explore the learning journeys of 20 international Chinese and 42 domestic New Zealand students. We find contradictions within our own data, and between our findings and the extant literature. We conclude that expressions of surface learning and reflection are considerably more complex than they first appear. Moreover, developing critical reflexivity is a far more subtle, messy, and emotional experience than previously understood. We present the theoretical and pedagogical significance of these findings when we consider the implications for the learning process and the practice of management education.

EOTech EFLX Mini Reflex Sight at $249.99 out the door after a coupon code at check out. You save $249.00+ off....

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia Bhd is experiencing a resurgence in IPOs as 2024 draws to a close, reflecting renewed investor confidence in the local bourse.

With 44 initial public offerings to date, Bursa Malaysia has outpaced other markets in Southeast Asia, emerging as an attractive IPO destination amid a stable economic and political landscape.

According to Mohd Sedek Jantan, UOB Kay Hian Wealth Advisors’ head of investment research, several factors have contributed to this surge. “The risk of doing business in the fourth quarter has subsided as major economic and political uncertainties have passed, such as the US presidential election while Malaysia’s active role in international forums has bolstered the country’s global standing,” he told Bernama.

He reckons that Malaysia’s stable economic indicators, including positive trade figures, healthy employment rates and steady industrial production have fostered a predictable business environment that encourages IPO activity. “Political stability and a clear government policy framework further enhance investor confidence,” he said.

The surge in IPOs on Bursa Malaysia underscores the local bourse’s resilience compared to other regional markets.

Mohd Sedek noted that Malaysia has recorded 36 IPOs so far this year, raising about US$450 million in the first half alone, which accounts for 33% of Southeast Asia’s total IPO proceeds.

“This stands in contrast to a subdued IPO market across the Asia-Pacific, where proceeds have dropped by 63%, largely due to challenges in China and Hong Kong.

“Malaysia has outperformed both Indonesia and Singapore in IPO activity this year,” he pointed out, highlighting that Indonesia faces political uncertainty following its recent presidential election, while Singapore has seen a slowdown in activity due to high regulatory costs and weak investor demand.

In contrast, he said Malaysia’s IPO market benefits from a stable macroeconomic backdrop, business-friendly regulations, and the supportive Madani Economy Framework.

Mohd Sedek said the growth in IPOs reflects optimism in key Malaysian sectors, with recent listings from the construction, manufacturing, and healthcare industries.

He said in the construction sector, which expanded by 22.9% in the third quarter, private and public investments in residential, non-residential, and large-scale infrastructure projects are expected to drive further growth. “Key government initiatives, such as RM9 billion for private finance initiatives and RM25.5 billion from government-linked investment companies are expected to sustain this momentum,” he added.

In the manufacturing sector, Malaysia’s transformation under the New Industrial Master Plan 2030 aims to drive growth in high-value, technology-driven industries. “The government’s focus on digitalisation, green technology, and advanced manufacturing techniques is expected to attract further investments, solidifying Malaysia’s position as a competitive manufacturing hub in Asean,” he said.

Malaysia’s healthcare sector is also expanding due to demographic shifts and rising health awareness. The integration of technology, such as telemedicine and digital health solutions, is anticipated to boost the sector’s growth by improving care accessibility and efficiency. “This trend, coupled with government support for medical tourism, positions Malaysia as a key player in the healthcare industry in the region,” Mohd Sedek said.

Bursa Malaysia CEO Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift expressed satisfaction with the IPO momentum, noting that three Main Market IPOs were listed this week alone.

“This surge reflects a thriving capital market with strong regulatory support and a diverse investor pool. Malaysia has experienced a bull run, making us the Asean exchange with the highest number of IPOs to date this year,” he said.

Echoing this sentiment, the exchange regulator’s chairman Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar highlighted the significance of Monday’s listings, which took place on the auspicious date of 11.11. (Nov 11)

“Both companies chose that date for its auspicious nature, marking a rare occasion of two listings on the same day. The last time Bursa hosted two listings on a single day was in November 2017, following the demerger of Sime Darby Group, which saw both Sime Darby Plantation Bhd and Sime Darby Property Bhd debut together,” he said.

Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd chief economist Dr Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid noted that the strong IPO pipeline signals positive prospects for the Malaysian economy, as stable policies and a clear path towards becoming a high-income nation attract investor interest.

“Malaysia’s equities are undervalued, offering upside potential. The economic and policy stability enhances investor confidence, while companies’ growth trajectories inspire optimism for the market’s future,” he said.

Mohd Afzanizam said that as Bursa Malaysia continues to attract IPOs, he expects the exchange’s momentum to inspire small and medium enterprises to pursue similar growth opportunities. “The record-setting IPO activity underscores Malaysia’s resilience and strong capital market position in Asean, providing a positive outlook for 2025,” he added. – Bernama

The House of Representatives saw quite a toned-down but more gutsy version of former President Rodrigo Duterte as he refrained from swearing at the House probe into his bloody anti-narcotics campaign.

From Twiggy to Paris Hilton, this hue has proven it's got more lives than a cat with a good contour

By eschewing this emblem of entitlement, the PM is articulating a compelling narrative about modesty, egalitarianism.

Privacy: Our analog parents’ dating preferences were considered a most private of matters. For our digital children, their dating preferences is a wholesale harvesting opportunity for marketing purposes. How did this terrifying shift come to be?

I believe the first big harvester of dating preferences was the innocent-looking site hotornot.com 18 years ago, a site that more seemed like the after-hours side work of a frustrated highschooler than a clever marketing ploy. It simply allowed people to rate their subjective perceived attractiveness of a photograph, and to upload photographs for such rating. (The two founders of this alleged highschool side project netted $10 million each for it when the site was sold.)

Then the scene exploded, with both user-funded and advertising-funded dating sites, all of which cataloged people’s dating preferences to the smallest detail.

Large-scale pornography sites, like PornHub, also started cataloging people’s porn preferences, and contiously make interesting infographics about geographical differences in preferences. (The link is safe for work, it’s data and maps in the form of a news story on Inverse, not on Pornhub directly.) It’s particularly interesting, as Pornhub is able to break down preferences quite specifically by age, location, gender, income brackets, and so on.

Do you know anyone who told Pornhub any of that data? No, I don’t either. And still, they are able to pinpoint who likes what with quite some precision, precision that comes from somewhere.

And then, of course, we have the social networks (which may or may not be responsible for that tracking, by the way).

It’s been reported that Facebook can tell if you’re gay or not with as little as three likes. Three. And they don’t have to be related to dating preferences or lifestyle preferences — they can be any random selections that just map up well with bigger patterns.

This is bad enough in itself, on the basis that it’s private data. At a very minimum, our digital childrens’ preferences should be their own, just like their favorite ice cream.

But a dating preferences are not just a preference like choosing your flavor of ice cream, is it? It should be, but it isn’t at this moment in time. It could also be something you’re born with. Something that people even get killed for if they’re born with the wrong preference.

It is still illegal to be born homosexual in 73 out of 192 countries, and out of these 73, eleven prescribe the death penalty for being born this way. A mere 23 out of 192 countries have full marriage equality.

Further, although the policy direction is quite one-way toward more tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion at this point in time, that doesn’t mean the policy trend can’t reverse for a number of reasons, most of them very bad. People who felt comfortable in expressing themselves can again become persecuted.

Genocide is almost always based on public data collected with benevolent intent.

This is why privacy is the last line of defense, not the first. And this last line of defense, which held fast for our analog parents, has been breached for our digital children. That matter isn’t taken nearly seriously enough.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

feature

A view of the PCB building in Lahore. — AFP/File

Pakistani and Indian players shake hands after the ICC men's Twenty20 World Cup 2022 cricket match at Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on October 23, 2022. — AFP"ICC in catch-22 situation" due to Pakistan-India tussle: source.Pakistan "expected to refuse playing against India" in...

The English Football Association has launched its own investigation after a video, widely shared on social media, appeared to show a Premier League referee making offensive comments about former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

The president-elect and vice president-elect undoubtedly understand that until they are inaugurated an existential threat shadows both of them.

A jury awarded more than $12 million Friday to a woman who lost her job at a Michigan insurance company after declining to get a COVID-19 vaccination.

A new EU BON acknowledged article looks at the recently introduced in scientific literature methods for constructing Spatially Explicit Rarefaction (SER) and their implication for ecologists and conservation biologist. The research was published in the journal Ecological Indicators.

Abstract: 

Recently, methods for constructing Spatially Explicit Rarefaction (SER) curves have been introduced in the scientific literature to describe the relation between the recorded species richness and sampling effort and taking into account for the spatial autocorrelation in the data. Despite these methodological advances, the use of SERs has not become routine and ecologists continue to use rarefaction methods that are not spatially explicit. Using two study cases from Italian vegetation surveys, we demonstrate that classic rarefaction methods that do not account for spatial structure can produce inaccurate results. Furthermore, our goal in this paper is to demonstrate how SERs can overcome the problem of spatial autocorrelation in the analysis of plant or animal communities. Our analyses demonstrate that using a spatially-explicit method for constructing rarefaction curves can substantially alter estimates of relative species richness. For both analyzed data sets, we found that the rank ordering of standardized species richness estimates was reversed between the two methods. We strongly advise the use of Spatially Explicit Rarefaction methods when analyzing biodiversity: the inclusion of spatial autocorrelation into rarefaction analyses can substantially alter conclusions and change the way we might prioritize or manage nature reserves.

Original Source: 

Bacaro, G., Altobelli, A., Camelletti, M., Ciccarelli, D., Martellos, S., Palmer, M.W., Ricotta, C., Rocchini, D., Scheiner, S.M., Tordoni, E., Chiarucci, A. (2016). Incorporating spatial autocorrelation in rarefaction methods: implications for ecologists and conservation biologists. Ecological Indicators, 69: 233-238. [5years-IF: 3.494] doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.04.026

Closed for nearly a decade, the famed restaurant with ties to Pier 4 in Boston burned to the ground.

The post Firefighters battle massive blaze at former inn and restaurant in Yarmouth appeared first on Boston.com.

The 96-year-old Celtics legend helped lead the team to their first NBA championship in 1957.

The post ‘We were doing something special’: Bob Cousy reflects on the history of the Celtics appeared first on Boston.com.

"After today, I don't know how you don't walk away and just feel better about that quarterback position in there with Drake Maye."

The post Former Patriot Ted Johnson explained why Drake Maye is preferable to ‘mopey’ Caleb Williams appeared first on Boston.com.

When Wajed al-Khalifa and her family arrived in the US as refugees in 2015, everything about the United States seemed foreign. They were now far away from their home in Syria and it was time to acclimate to a new life. It wasn’t long though before they started hitting milestones: Khalifa and her husband got driving licences, their four children excelled in school, quickly overcoming barriers such as English-language instruction and a new education system. Over the past 4 years reporter Monica Campbell has been checking in with the family and their story is still unfolding.

Also, US congresswoman Ilhan Omar tells us about her experience as a refugee from Somalia, and how this informs what she thinks about the US migration crisis.

(Gasem Al Hamad and his children in their new home in Turlock, California. He and his wife fled Syria with their kids after several family members were tortured or killed as the civil war rages on. Al Hamad is now a halal butcher at a nearby slaughterhouse. Credit: Monica Campbell/The World)

Nine years have passed since Syrians took to the streets to demand the ouster of the government of Bashar al-Assad. During those nine years, thousands of lives have been lost, many have been displaced and much of the country is in ruins. For many Syrians, displacement has led them to look for a new life in Europe, which has meant spending time on the Greek island of Lesbos. Tens of thousands of Syrians and migrants from other countries have passed through Lesbos. We’ll hear from Syrians reflecting on the crisis in Syria and from migrants who are now seeking asylum, while waiting in limbo in makeshift camps on Lesbos.

Photo: A drone image shows a displaced camp in the town of Kafr Uruq southwest of the town of Sarmada in Syria's northwestern Idlib province. Credit: Omar Haj Kadour/Getty Images

Some students of color at Stoughton High School were among those who received such messages, according to a statement from Stoughton Public Schools.

The post Racist text messages referencing slavery raise alarms, prompt investigations in Mass. and other states appeared first on Boston.com.

A Tufts professor reportedly said they would no longer send students to Moulton's office for internships, but the university refuted the report.

The post Tufts refutes report that it’s broken ties with Seth Moulton over transgender comments appeared first on Boston.com.

Southern California's Fast-Moving Mountain Fire Out of Control as 800 Firefighters Battle Inferno

If you’ve ever purchased ready-to-assemble furniture at IKEA or if you’ve put together toys on Christmas Eve you have been involved with prefabricated products. 

Every three years, in alignment with the building code cycle, the Gypsum Association issues new editions of the Association’s three code-referenced publications: GA-600 Fire Resistance and Sound Control Design Manual, GA-216 Application and Finishing of Gypsum Panel Products, and GA-253 Application of Gypsum Sheathing.

The Refractories Institute announced the 2024 recipients of college scholarships for students pursuing an education related to refractory science. TRI, which is comprised of approximately 50 member-companies that operate in the refractory industry, awards scholarships annually.

Prefab construction is here, and it’s happening. The combination of a severe labor shortage and extreme shortfalls in housing supply is driving a renewed interest in prefabricated construction as a more cost-efficient alternative to traditional building.

At New Philanthropy Capital’s annual conference, charity leaders discussed their experiences of engaging with the new government

In its continual endeavors to keep its industry documents up to date, the association reviews the latest.

A growing body of research documenting reflective insulation as the “best application” for common building assemblies has prompted Fi-Foil Co. Inc. to advance this industry knowledge to building professionals through continuing education.

Following the 2023 debut of its “City of Yes” strategy to permit more housing faster in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration unveiled a raft of zoning changes last winter intended to make the proposed growth carbon-neutral, according to Adam Friedberg, a Buro Happold expert behind similar initiatives in the region and worldwide.

Greenbelt, MD — Following up on their release of a report detailing 11 best practices for minimizing cancer risk among firefighters, the National Volunteer Fire Council and the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Volunteer and Combination Officers Section have unveiled new posters to highlight each practice.

Emmitsburg, MD — Of the estimated 26,000 fire-related firefighter injuries that occurred annually from 2015 to 2017, 87% were related to structure fires, according to data published in the July edition of the U.S. Fire Administration’s “Topical Fire Report Series.”

Greenbelt, MD — “Building a Superhighway to Safety – Protecting our Responders on Roadways” is the theme for the 2020 Firefighter Safety Stand Down.

Emmitsburg, MD — Sixty-two firefighters died while on duty in 2019 – the fewest since the U.S. Fire Administration began tracking such data in 1977, according to an annual report recently released by the agency.

Washington — A new poster and fact sheet from NIOSH are designed to help educate firefighters about the unique nature of row house fires and how to stay safe when fighting these blazes.