Negative attitudes towards lesbian women and gay men continue to exist in Southeast Asian countries. This study identified predictors of homonegativity that are generally consistent across the countries in the region. Using data from the seventh round of World Values Survey, we obtained parsimonious country-level logistic regression models for six of the 11 Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia (n = 3,200), Malaysia (n = 1,313), Myanmar (n = 1,200), the Philippines (n = 1,200), Thailand (n = 1,500), and Vietnam (n = 1,200). Results suggest that four values and one demographic variable are consistent predictors of homonegativity in Southeast Asia. Endorsements of equality, choice, and agnosticism were found to be consistent predictors of lower levels of homonegative attitudes, while the opposite was observed for endorsement of relativism and older people. That there are some consistent cultural predictors of lower levels of homonegativity may suggest a common emancipative logic in Southeast Asia. On the whole, however, the findings suggest that there may be no uniform (Southeast) Asian values system that constitutes sexual prejudice. This foregrounds the need for more contextually-sensitive and culturally-informed models of homonegativity to understand why negative attitudes persist in some countries but not in others, and to also guide the crafting of interventions that are more relevant to each country.
As coastal communities across the Global South confront the multiple challenges of climate change, overfishing, poverty and other socio-environmental pressures, there is an increasing need to understand diverse coastal governance responses and livelihood trajectories from a comparative perspective. This paper presents a holistic investigation of the pressures coastal communities face in four countries and examines possible meeting points between bottom-up initiatives and top-down policies. We compare the experiences of eight fishing areas in Ghana, Tanzania, Thailand and the Philippines and ask how small-scale fishing communities perceive overfishing and other socio-environmental pressures; what factors determine the success and failure of coastal governance initiatives; and how different initiatives can be made congruent to improve coastal, rural development outcomes. Results from an extensive survey of 835 fisherfolk and semi-structured interviews with 196 key informants show that overfishing remains a significant driver of livelihood trajectories in the communities and that fisherfolk respond through informal mechanisms of collective action. Drawing from these diverse experiences, we propose viewing coastal livelihood trajectories through the integrated dimensions of socio-environmental relationships and coastal governance options and discuss implications that address institutional scalar flexibility, illegal fishing, and persistent marginalisation.
Jose Wendell P. Capili. 2022. “Along the Singapore River.” In Get Luckier: An Anthology of Philippine and Singapore Writings 2 (Edited by Migs Bravo-Dutt, Claire Betita de Guzman, Eric Valles and Aaron Lee Soon Yong), 1st ed., Pp. 140-141. Singapore : Poetry Festival Singapore.
Infrastructure and the spatial practices that coalesce around them come to matter in multiple ways. Building on the legacy of splintering urbanism and subsequent appraisals, we explore the paradoxes of infrastructural spaces in a Global South city. In Manila, urban infrastructure plays a central role in enabling evictions in city spaces marked as “danger zones,” and in inhabiting “death zones” in the peripheries where evictees are resettled. This piece employs a relational view of the tensions between the dispossessive and sustaining work of infrastructure to extend the spatial metaphors of urban infrastructure and to illuminate political possibilities built around connections.
This theoretical paper presents arguments for the significance of the location of motivation in the practice of clinical psychology. Identifying the externality and internality of motivation is argued to be clinically relevant in assessing psychopathology as this can potentially resolve comorbidity issues and improve diagnostic reliability. Furthermore, psychotherapeutic interventions can be tailored to the location of motivation. Extrinsically motivated pathological behaviours can be addressed through behaviour-based approaches, while intrinsically motivated behaviours need more long-term and in-depth therapeutic approaches. Lastly, prognosis can be assumed when the location of motivation has been identified – with extrinsically motivated behaviours having better prognosis than intrinsically motivated behaviours. Some directions for future research include testing the validity and reliability of motivation-based diagnosis, evaluating the effectiveness of matching the location of motivation with type of psychotherapy intervention, and comparing the effectiveness of motivation-matched interventions and disorder-based interventions.
The swelling and nutrient release behaviors of a novel hydrogel blend of hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), and sodium alginate (NaAlg) was investigated to determine its applicability as an agricultural soil conditioner. Hydrogel swelling and nutrient release data were obtained over time at varying temperatures and pH conditions. The experimental data were fit into the power law, Tsai and Strieder, and Johansson’s models to determine the kinetic parameters for the swelling behavior and nutrient release. Under the experimental swelling conditions, the maximum and minimum swelling capacities of the hydrogel blend were 322.9245% and 228.0483%, respectively. The data fit to the power law suggested that a pseudo Fickian behavior describes the diffusion mechanism. The data fit to the Tsai and Strieder and Johansson’s models provided the experimental values for the α and temperature correlation as 3.69×10^-5 and 0.0278, respectively, which implies that the diffusion behavior within the hydrogel does not vary significantly within the temperature range. Lastly, the inconsistency observed in the nutrient release behaviors at varying pH suggested that additional trials may be required in order to establish a clearer relation between pH and nutrient release behavior.
Microparticle protein delivery system using alginate and cellulose derivative (HPC, HEC and CMC) composite system was prepared using external gelation with vibration technology. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a model protein was encapsulated using these biodegradable materials. This preparation showed an increase in encapsulation efficiency in comparison to the samples where pure alginate was used as the encapsulating material. Compared with the other microparticles, the 50:50 alginate/HEC samples exhibited significant encapsulation efficiency. Consequently, its release rate in the acidic medium was comparatively substantial and higher cumulative release in the simulated intestinal fluid (SIF) medium at the end of the dissolution study was observed to be high at around 86.17%.
Current available methods for water desalination are energy intensive, expensive, and not feasible for small-scale applications. As an alternative, hydrogels and hydrogel composites may be utilized both as draw agent and semi-permeable membrane to desalinate water via forward osmosis. In this study, a non-toxic, biodegradable, and low-cost hydrogel composite is prepared by adding activated carbon (AC) as filler to a 3:1 blend of sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (NaCMC) and hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC), with citric acid as crosslinking agent. A one factor-at-a-time (OFAT) analysis was performed to correlate the crosslinker concentration, crosslinking duration, and AC content to the swelling and desalination efficiency of the CMC/HEC/AC hydrogel composite. Results showed that the swelling of the hydrogel varies directly with the crosslinking duration but varies inversely with the crosslinking concentration. The experiments also showed that the addition of AC as filler significantly improves the desalination efficiency of the hydrogel composite; however, it was also observed that efficiency is reduced if the AC content is excessive.
The dissolution-precipitation method has been identified as a potentially viable solution to plastic waste recycling in the Philippines. In this study, the effect of solvent temperature and composition on the dissolution kinetics of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) in D-limonene/xylene were determined. Dissolution temperature was varied within 100°-120°C with solvent composition of 0-100 wt% D-limonene for both 2-layer and 3-layer laminates of LDPE and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The data were fitted to the Korsmeyer-Peppas model and the kinetic parameters were determined. Based on the experimental data, it was observed that there is no definitive relation between the dissolution rate and temperature for all solvent composition except at pure xylene, where the behavior at 110°C and 120°C appeared to be identical. It was also observed that introducing even a small amount of D-limonene to the solvent solution significantly increases the rate of dissolution, with a 1:3 limonene-to-xylene ratio having a K value that is 0.075 higher than that of pure xylene. Dissolution in D-limonene was observed to best fit the Fickian model, while that in xylene generally followed the non-Fickian model. Lastly, the 2-layer laminates showed to follow anomalous transport, wherein solvent diffusion and disentanglement of chains have comparable rates.
This piece situates the challenges and opportunities for geography as a discipline amid the setting of Philippine higher education. By charting the discipline’s historical transformations and contemporary trajectories in the spheres of pedagogy, research, and service learning, it presents a particular picture of geography’s place and possible futures within a global South context. Despite its disciplinal marginality rooted in institutional constraints in the country’s higher education system, geography is at a crucial juncture in expanding its visibility and reach, and magnifying its relevance and transformative potentials in the Philippines.
This work joins the discourse on whether or not Murakami is a “pure” Japanese writer. However, it attempts to analyze the problem using a philosophical lens instead of a literary one. Using the concept of basso ostinato as articulated by Maruyama Masao and further emphasized by the thoughts of Kato Shuichi, this article attempts to pose a new way of looking at this question.
