The term ‘practice’ is used in a loose way in art theory. Using the example of the German artist Fritz Rahmann the text elaborates crucial aspects of artistic practice, taken as ‘bundles’ of different actions: clusters of similar actions, sequencing the clusters, exploring the dialogue with materials, relating them to mental models, ascribing them to social groups. In artistic practice the artwork loses its autonomy and the artist’s role as author is relativized. The approach opens a perspective on an art world that lost its overarching framework in globalization.

Marriage rate has been decreased continuously for past five decades in the U.S. (Ruggles et al. 2014). One of the most important factors to explain this downward trend is increasing income inequality at individual levels (Cherlin, 2014, Gould and Paserman, 2003, Burtless, 1999, Oppenheimer et al., 1997). Overall economic inequality including income inequality is also expected to affect marriage rate negatively. Based on economic decision models on marriage decision (Becker, 1973, 1974, 1977), this study investigates and verifies the negative relationship between economic inequality and marriage rate in the U.S with vector autoregressive model by analysing macroeconomic time-series data. Governmental efforts to ease economic inequality will help to reduce or even reverse declining trend in marriage rate.

Iran has a very high level of per capita energy use (estimated to be 80% above other Middle East countries). That reality is primarily due to the high fossil fuel subsidies currently provided to consumers and businesses. Iran’s diverse and abundant renewable energy resources have the potential to increase energy access throughout the entire country while also providing tangible benefits for isolated rural communities and particularly local women. Despite the high potential of renewable energy (RE) physical resources available in most rural areas, the implementation of RE systems remains a novel strategy. The few RE projects that have been implemented, mainly by government projects, are gender biased as they are excluding females from such projects by focusing just on males for training, financial support, and prioritizing them for job opportunities. This article uses a gender-sensitive focus to analyze the potential that RE technologies in general and solar energy initiatives in particular can have to advance human living conditions in Iran’s isolated rural areas. More specifically, our analysis focuses on strategies to empower local women to harness advanced solar technologies for energy retailing, storage, and demand-side and supply chain management, which have been used in a rural project called Barekat-eAftab. The paper also analyses the performance and replication prospects emanating from the Barekat-eAftab Solar Project.

Most educators will tell you that some degree of change naturally accompanies education whether the change is preparing for a new textbook or changing grade levels. This type of pandemic change was a sudden and final change. It was the abrupt ending of a school year months too soon which was a different level of change for educators. Ebbeck and Chan (2011, as cited in Ebbeck & Waniganayake, 2003) wrote, “Change is an ever-present entity and necessity for growth and to meet existing and future demands” (p. 43). The futility of school change is legendary; it is an enormous and intricate task (Evans, 2001). In order to grow and develop, the positive forces must be used to our advantage and the negative forces must be blunted (Fullan, 1993). Educational change happens in small amounts at times and in very large waves at other times. The amount of change thrust upon education from the pandemic was an avalanche.

Black faculty are essential in the success of the experiences of Black graduate students. Given the low representation of Black faculty in academia, Black faculty are looked upon to assist in areas of diversity and provide service on diversity related programs. Black faculty are committed to serving in diversity roles, and value the opportunity to serve in mentoring and advising roles for students of color. Often times these service responsibilities can take time away from tenure and promotion responsibilities. While Black faculty provides service to initiatives of diversity and supports graduate students of color, who supports Black faculty? The purpose of this study was to highlight the experiences of three Black Assistant Professors in the academy to understand their experiences and perceptions as it relates to working with students of color, and the role of diversity in tenure and promotion. Utilizing Triple Quandary Theory, this study explores the experiences of Black Assistant Professors and their experiences with diversity service initiatives. This study sheds light on Black Assistant Professors’ experiences and perceptions as it relates to working with students of color, and the role of diversity in tenure and promotion process. Implications are provided based on the overall results of this study.

This study of the inedit manuscript of Sheikh Hassan al-Alati aims to shed light on the erotic dialect and enrich a field little explored by research on contemporary Arabic dialectology. Our aim is to study the locutions and writing processes in this manuscript, which differs from Alatis first book Tarwi? al-nufus wa mo??ek alabus (The appeasement of the spirits that makes the most worried people laugh) in which he excels at varying the terms and situations of humour, but does not approach it using erotic insult terms. In this study, the emphasis is on analysing the semantic connotations of the vocabularies and placing them in the Egyptian historical context. It proposes to establish a dialectological and sociolinguistic reading of this manuscript that deserves to be explored since Alati is considered among the precursors of humour in Egypt.

This paper examines the impact of foreign direct investments (FDI) inflow on balance of payment trends of Montenegro in the precrisis and post-crisis period. The motivation of this paper is based on the strong effect of previous FDI inflow on current account balance of payment trends. The balance of the current account balance of payment is not an economic policy variable such as, for example, the amount of money in circulation, but is the economic policys goal, such as the inflation rate or GDP level, i.e. an indicator that reflects the results of economic policy implementation. The current account balance of payment trends are an important source of information for economic policy makers. The current account balance of payment deficit of Montenegro in the years of strong economic growth and investment boom was the highest in Europe (in percentage of GDP for the period 2005-2008). The main source of funding the current account deficit of Montenegro was FDI. In the opinion of the IMF, the current account deficit can also be considered as a balanced response of the system to a large foreign private capital inflow and a high rate of credit growth. The balance of payment data of Montenegro show that in the last years (2011-2018) there has been a gradual decrease in the current account deficit compared to the precrisis period (2005-2008). The downward trend in the current account deficit is characterized by the period from the beginning of the crisis, and to a large extent is the result of the crisis adjustment of the economy and decrease in aggregate demand, i.e. with a decrease in capital inflow, a significant part of the deficit has had a self-correcting effect. However, in spite of the decrease in external imbalance, it is evident that the foreign trade deficit is significantly high and permanently present. The still significant FDI inflow provides enough foreign accumulation for its funding, but on the other hand it is one of the factors for creating the deficit. The existence of a longstanding deficit indicates a fundamental external imbalance for which funding is not a durable solution in itself, but it is necessary to look for ways to gradually decrease and adjust the deficit. The main contribution of the paper is reflected in the identification of effects of the foreign investment process on the current account balance of payment trends. The results of the paper will show that the foreign investment process has led to deterioration of the balance of payment imbalance. The paper also presents the necessary measures that should be undertaken in order to gradually decrease the longstanding deficit in the goods account, as the main cause of external imbalance.