EKA University of Applied Sciences

Monogrāfijas apskats: Kukaine, J. (2024) “Viscerālā estētika: afekti un feministiskā māksla postsociālismā”. Rīga: Latvijas Universitātes Literatūras, folkloras un mākslas institūts, Rīgas Stradiņa universitāte.

Abstract Research purpose. The purpose of this study is to identify and quantitatively evaluate the volume of scientific publications, the latest research trends, and the main topics related to brand humanisation in higher education (HE). This aim is motivated by the growing importance of empathetic and human-centred communication in a competitive and digitalised educational environment. Although widely applied in practice, the concept remains fragmented in academic research, creating the need for a systematic bibliometric analysis to clarify its development and future directions. Design / Methodology / Approach. A bibliometric analysis was applied to systematise knowledge on brand humanisation in HE during 2005-2024. The analysis was conducted in several stages, including literature review, database selection, keyword specification, article screening, data extraction, and analysis. Data were retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection, ensuring access to peer-reviewed publications and reliable citation indicators. After applying selection criteria, 84 articles were retained. Descriptive bibliometrics (publication dynamics, citation statistics, collaboration patterns) were combined with science mapping techniques (keyword co-occurrence networks, overlay visualisation, and thematic mapping) using VOSviewer, R Bibliometrix, and Microsoft Excel. This framework enabled the identification of research clusters, dominant themes, and emerging areas. Findings. The analysis reveals that research on brand humanisation in HE remains underdeveloped but shows growing interest. The most influential works focus on constructs such as brand personality, image, and identity, while direct studies on anthropomorphism and storytelling are rare. Results highlight the USA, Malaysia, and Canada as leading contributors, though international collaboration is still limited. Science mapping uncovers six thematic clusters: brand image and reputation; brand identity and loyalty; personality and perception; social media engagement; consumer behaviour; and anthropomorphism. Findings confirm a shift from traditional branding approaches towards digital communication, personalisation, and emotional engagement, reflecting universities’ adaptation to students’ evolving expectations in digital environments. Originality / Value / Practical implications. This study provides the first systematic bibliometric overview of brand humanisation in HE, consolidating fragmented knowledge and identifying emerging themes. While primarily academic in focus, its practical relevance lies in offering insights into the most studied and underexplored aspects of the field. These insights can guide universities and HE marketers in recognising trends, addressing conceptual gaps, and aligning their communication strategies with approaches emphasised in the literature. In this way, the study serves as a roadmap for institutions seeking to enhance positioning and responsiveness in a digitally mediated education environment.

The issue of safety at sports mega-events, with a particular focus on football matches, has emerged as a pivotal concern for policymakers, event organisers and international governing bodies. Whilst such events are held to symbolise unity and cultural exchange, they also present substantial legal, economic and organisational challenges. The present study investigates the multifaceted issue of stadium safety by examining its legal frameworks, economic ramifications, and evolving technological solutions, employing football as the primary case study. The present study adopts a multidisciplinary methodology. A comprehensive review of the extant literature, encompassing academic studies, regulatory guidelines and institutional reports, established the theoretical foundation. A review of historical case studies was conducted to extract lessons from past failures in crowd management and emergency response. The case studies included the Hillsborough, Heysel, and Luzhniki disasters. Comparative and economic analyses were employed to evaluate safety investments in various regions and contexts, focusing on FIFA World Cup evaluations and national strategies, including those of the Latvian Football Federation. Additionally, the contributions of international legal instruments, including the Saint-Denis Convention, the Balance S4 Initiative and the Green Guide, to safety, security and services in stadium environments were evaluated. Finally, technological projects such as eVACUATE were analysed to determine their innovative contributions to predictive crowd modelling and emergency coordination. The primary objective of this research endeavour is to investigate the potential for aligning legal regulations, economic considerations, and technological innovation to engender safer and more inclusive sports environments. A fundamental concept in the analysis is the development of a "security culture", encompassing awareness, collaboration, adaptability, technological integration, and cultural sensitivity. The study emphasises the necessity of embedding this culture into stadium management, thereby highlighting the importance of implementing both preventive measures and rapid responsiveness to evolving risks, including the emergence of threats such as cyberattacks. The findings show that, although safety investments require significant financial commitments, the long-term costs of neglect, measured in terms of human lives lost, reputational damage and legal liabilities, far exceed the costs of prevention. Lessons from past tragedies emphasise the importance of consistently enforcing safety frameworks and integrating best practices into national policies. Furthermore, technological advances in crowd monitoring, evacuation planning and data-driven decision-making offer the opportunity to enhance existing protocols. In conclusion, the study argues that achieving sustainable safety at major sporting events requires international co-operation, standardised legal frameworks and balanced economic strategies. Future policy should focus on reducing disparities between countries with different resources, promoting a global culture of safety and investing in innovation driven by research. Such measures will ensure that sporting events remain secure, inclusive and celebratory occasions.

The overwhelming goal of the research was to provide a knowledge basis for the process of the selection of social innovation ideas within the open call organized by the Society Integration Foundation of the Republic of Latvia. This competition is one of the actions within the ESF+ financed project “Support for new approaches in the provision of community-based social services”. The tasks involved the development of the comprehensive definition and indicators of social innovation for the field of Social Services, as well as evaluation criteria for Social Innovation ideas and projects, and practical methodology for criteria application. The goal of the current research was to build a common understanding of social innovations and their features. Data was processed by means of content analysis with the application of Voyant Tool, and analysis of the experts’ answers. The main identified features of social innovation in the field of social services are initial stimulus, novelty, need for collaboration, effectiveness, sustainability, social value, and scalability and repeatability.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a crucial role in shaping contemporary business strategies, influencing customer perceptions, enhancing brand reputation, and driving competitive advantage. This study addresses the need for a reliable instrument to evaluate consumer perceptions of CSR initiatives. It focuses on four dimensions of CSR: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities. The study developed and validated a research instrument through a pilot study involving a focus group and 120 survey respondents. The instrument demonstrated excellent internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from 0.857 to 0.907 across the scales, underscoring its reliability and accuracy. These values indicate that the scales are statistically robust and suitable for larger-scale studies. Key findings reveal insights into consumer attitudes toward CSR initiatives across different responsibilities, highlighting the relevance of ethical and philanthropic efforts in shaping perceptions. This study not only contributes to the growing body of literature on CSR but also provides businesses with an evidence-based approach to understanding consumer expectations and refining CSR strategies. The validated research instrument establishes a foundation for future studies with larger and more diverse samples.

AMAÇ: Elektrokonvulzif terapi (EKT) 1938 yılından bu yana depresyon, şizofreni, bipolar bozukluk başta olmak üzere birçok psikiyatrik bozuklukta sıklıkla kullanılan bir tedavi yöntemi olmuştur. EKT, ilk uygulanılmaya başladığı yıllardan bu yana, en tartışmalı bir tedavi yöntemlerden birisi olma konumunu sürdürmektedir. Literatürde EKT hakkında yapılmış birçok çalışma bulunmasına rağmen, hastaların öznel deneyimlerini inceleyen çalışmalar çok az sayıdadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, EKT uygulanan hastaların öznel deneyimlerini araştırmaktır. GEREÇ VE YÖNTEM: Araştırma evrenini 2014 yılından sonra Eskişehir Osmangazi Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi’nde EKT uygulanan 40 hasta oluşturmakta olup, kriterlere uyan ve çalışmaya katılmayı kabul eden 11 hasta çalışmaya dahil edilmiştir. Hastalara Sosyodemografik ve Klinik veri formu uygulanmış, bu formda katılımcının yaş, eğitim, medeni durum gibi sosyodemografik özellikleri, hastalık tanısı, EKT uygulanma sebebi, EKT uygulamasına dair değişkenler araştırılmış ve katılımcılara öznel EKT deneyimi ile ilgili açık ve kapalı uçlu sorular yöneltilmiştir. BULGULAR: EKT uygulanan hastaların 4’ünün tanısı unipolar depresyon (%36.4), 3’ünün bipolar bozukluk (%27.3), 2’sinin şizofreni (%18.2) ve yine 2’sinin tanısı şizoaffektif bozukluktu (%18.2). Genel değerlendirme soruları sonucunda, hastaların 7’sinin (%63.6) EKT’nin faydasının zararından daha fazla olduğunu ifade ettiği, hastaların 10’unun (%90.9) hastalık belirtilerinin EKT’den daha olumsuz bir deneyim olduğunu belirttiği görülmüştür. SONUÇ: Hastaların büyük çoğunluğunun EKT’den memnun kaldığı görülmüştür. Topluma ve sağlık çalışanlarına EKT’nin daha gerçekçi şekilde tanıtılması, bu güvenli ve etkili yöntemin daha fazla kullanılmasına yol açabilir.

This research aims to fill knowledge gaps in Latvian textile companies' brand image impact of experience marketing. Despite existing literature, Latvian textile enterprises have received less attention. Data is collected through a questionnaire survey and statistical analysis. This comprehensive evaluation contributes to understanding experience marketing in the Latvian textile industry and fills knowledge gaps in academic literature. This research aims to evaluate the impacts of the experience marketing strategies on the brand image of the companies in the textile industry of Latvia. This study uses a quantitative approach, using internet-based questionnaire survey. The authors collected 162 responses using convenience sampling method. The aim is to demonstrate the impact of experience marketing on the brand image of Latvian textile industries through an analysis procedure. The research question of the study: "What is the impact of experience marketing strategies on the brand image of companies in the textile industry of Latvia?" The study found a significant relationship between experience marketing strategies in the Textile Industry of Latvia and all independent variables, with a moderate correlation observed except for customer satisfaction. The analysis confirmed that these strategies positively enhance the brand image of companies in the industry, as confirmed by the results of the Chi square test and Spearman correlation.

Social entrepreneurship as a specific kind of business has been developing in Latvia since 2018, and it is a little researched field. Achieving the goals of social entrepreneurship is facilitated by several factors, including the competences of the social entrepreneur him/herself. The present research aims to identify the general basic knowledge, skills and competences necessary for a social entrepreneur in Latvia. The authors made a review of theoretical literature on the role of managerial competencies in social enterprises and analysed the results of surveys of social entrepreneurs and their institutional partners – university teaching personnel – conducted in Latvia. The research found that there were areas of general knowledge, skills and competences of social entrepreneurs that were rated as equally important by both groups surveyed, yet the social entrepreneurs gave more importance to competences related to business goals and opportunities. The present research makes a scientific contribution in two aspects: 1) the identified general competencies required for a social entrepreneur could serve as a basis for further research to measure the actual competencies of social entrepreneurs; 2) the research contributes to an institutional framework for the social entrepreneurship ecosystem by developing recommendations for cooperation partners – those involved in adult lifelong learning, incl. universities, for the development of competencies in social entrepreneurs.

Cosmography describes and maps the sky, the Earth, and the universe. It is based on geocentric assumptions and a belief in homologies between the spatial order of terrestrial and celestial spheres. There is no single tradition of cosmography in Islam. Indian cosmological concepts, as well as pre‐Islamic Persian ideas, were familiar to scholars and undoubtedly influenced them, much like ancient Greek ideas did. Not all of them were adopted. The most widely known concept was the division of the inhabited world intokishwars(keshvars) and its representation in cosmographic diagrams.

In this article, I address the by-product of the property reform—perpetual land lease—with a case study of Latvia. Contributing to scholarship on the challenge of property reforms after generations of dispossession, I examine the economic meaning of property restitution in this post-Soviet context. Using process-tracing and policy analysis techniques to examine the creation and implementation of Latvia’s restitution policy in the aftermath of independence from the Soviet Union, I tackle the research question: “Have the property rights of the parties been considered during these reforms?” I use two theories to answer this question: one of law and economics, by applying the theory of efficient regulation and Normative Hobbes Theorem (coalesced from the Coase Theorem and the Hobbes Theorem) and the other of transitional justice, by analysing the perpetual lease relations as part of restitution policy, aimed at providing justice to victims of the Soviet occupation and nationalization. In this paper, I illustrate that state intervention by normatively fixing the lease fee is necessary to prevent infringement of property rights of the landowners, thus ensuring that restitution as a transitional justice measure has reached its aim.