The Metaverse blends physical and digital realities, transforming social, educational, and professional interactions into immersive experiences. However, its rapid expansion introduces risks such as addiction and negative mental health effects. This study explores these concerns, focusing on virtual environment addiction and the need for proactive solutions. It proposes responsible usage, integrated mental health support, and ethical interventions like avatar-based therapy and AI moderation. A case study of 100 BGMI/PUBG players aged 18-25 reveals addiction symptoms, including withdrawal, neglect of responsibilities, and preference for virtual over real-life interactions. The findings highlight the Metaverse's dual impact and emphasize the need for evidence-based design, regulation, and mental health safeguards.
This study investigates the role of the tourism industry in driving product diversification within creative industries. To achieve this objective, we constructed baskets of creative products for 110 countries, including 242 six-digit Harmonized System codes. We then measured the level of diversification of creative products within the baskets using the Herfindahl-Hirschman concentration index, the Theil, the Between-Theil and Within-Theil inequality indices, and the number of active (exported) products. The tourism industry development level was represented by foreign tourist arrivals and tourism receipts. By specifying a dynamic panel data model estimated via the system GMM estimator and panel quantile regression method, we found that the tourism industry development spurs creative product diversification by fostering engagement with creative industries and improving the productive capabilities. The results remained robust across econometric methods, country subsamples, and the measurements of creative product diversification and tourism industry development.
Japan-based online English schools that predominantly employ Filipino teachers have emerged and expanded rapidly, yet the recruitment websites through which they are hired remain critically understudied. While existing scholarship has examined platformization and privilege in teacher recruitment broadly, no study has analysed the specific multimodal and discursive strategies these schools deploy to construct the job for prospective Filipino applicants. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis of seven recruitment websites, this study investigates how online English teaching is represented, how applicants are attracted, and whether these portrayals reflect the work's material realities. The findings reveal a consistent 'promise-gate-constraint' rhetoric built around three interlocking themes: flexible and convenient, financially enticing but precarious, and professional but easy. An appealing promise draws applicants in, a low-barrier gate maximises labour supply, and obscured constraints normalise precarity. These recruitment interfaces reproduce linguistic hierarchies and shape the equity and pedagogical conditions of the digital learning environments they supply.
This study introduces a semiclassical modeling for the impact of proton irradiation on two perovskite solar cell structures: FA0.7Cs0.3Pb(I0.9Br0.1)3/C60 and Cs0.01MA0.01FA0.98PbI3/P3HT using coupled current-continuity and rate equations linked to irradiation-induced defect-generation rate. Results reveal a strong dependence of radiation response on perovskite composition. Proton irradiation can induce both ionizing and displacement damage in perovskite solar cells leading to vacancy and defect generation. The result is increased recombination and degradation of performance parameters (reduced fill factor and efficiency) or, otherwise, annihilation of defects in perovskite layer and an increase in the current density. The Br-alloyed cell exhibits superior radiation tolerance, maintaining rather stable open-circuit voltage and retaining 56
Tourism and the creative industries are highly interconnected, functioning as both upstream and downstream sectors for one another. In this study, we examined the impact of the tourism market diversification strategy on the diversification of creative products. Using a cross-country dataset covering 91 countries from 1996 to 2020, we found that diversification in tourists' countries of origin significantly accelerates creative product diversification. This result is robust across various measures of product diversification. Furthermore, we observed that such diversification strategies are more effective in fostering the creation of new creative products than in expanding the scale of existing products.
