Book of Abstracts

Background and Aim- Everyday communications occur in adverse listening conditions, such as in background noise. Adverse listening conditions may pose perceptual challenges for listeners. The current study examines bilingual listeners’ perceptual challenges under adverse listening conditions. Intended contribution- Bilingualism has become the norm in today's global society, with the majority of individuals in the world using more than one language in their daily lives and communicating in their non-dominant language daily. Therefore, examining the challenges faced by bilinguals in adverse listening conditions can serve as the first step toward taking action to reduce such challenges and to ensure inclusive and equitable opportunities for all individuals. Methods- 30 Arabic-Hebrew bilinguals and 30 native Hebrew speakers (control group) participated in this study. These participants were tested in easy (words) and complex (sentences) perceptual tasks presented in quiet and noise. The bilingual group was tested in Arabic (first language, L1) and Hebrew (second language, L2), and the control group was examined in Hebrew. Findings- The two groups achieved similar perceptual accuracy in quiet. However, in noise, bilinguals suffered more than their controls. Specifically, background noise hinders the speech perception of bilinguals to a more considerable extent relative to its effect on Hebrew native speakers. Within the bilingual group, noise affected perceptual performance in L1 and L2 similarly in the easy task (words), although deterioration was more pronounced in L2 than in L1 in the complex task (sentences). Conclusions and Implications- The findings showed that if adverse listening conditions pose a challenge for listeners, then the challenges are doubly so in the case of bilinguals. Thus, with worldwide bilingualism and increasing globalization, the challenges faced by these individuals should be considered in educational settings and workplaces where these individuals regularly deal with adverse conditions. Future considerations could include improving the environment’s acoustics, positioning oneself nearer to the target sound, asking the communication partner to produce speech louder or more clearly, and using assistive listening devices.

The Covid-19 epidemic presented unique circumstances for examining the impact of constant and persistent personally-relevant death reminders and true existential terror on the operation of the brain’s mortality defenses and death processing, as well as testing their hypothesized link to environmental concern. Fifty healthy participants were invited to the lab during Covid-19 throughout a six-month period. They underwent a previously validated magnetoencephalography visual mismatch response paradigm indexing death denial, a host of explicit and implicit behavioral and self-report measures gauging different aspects of death processing, as well as an environment attitudes survey. Death-denial has been shown to involve prediction-based neurocognitive mechanisms attributing death to the other, but not to oneself, thus shielding the self from existential threat. The results suggest that these mortality defenses collapsed during Covid-19, but may be gradually re-emerging as time passes from the plague’s onset. Additionally, we show parallel temporal correlations between Covid’s duration and multiple behavioral and self-report measures, demonstrating that real-life existential threat impacts death processing on multiple levels of the cognitive hierarchy. Finally, using hierarchical regressions, we demonstrate that how death processing, and in particular implicit and neural measures, strongly predict diminished environmental concern. These findings highlight the malleability of the brain’s response to existential threat under extreme real-life conditions and demonstrate their impact on concern towards the environment. They point at a worrying positive feedback loop where environmentally induced rises in existential fear and denial of death may paradoxically drive public opinion towards environmental disregard and inaction. More generally, given the certainty of future occurrences of existentially threatening events, and given the brain’s training-induced plasticity, one route of preparation may involve a re-engagement with the world’s wisdom traditions for training in mortality acceptance.

Several hundred children living in Israel were born to migrant workers from the Philippines, Africa, and other countries. These children study in the Israeli education system and are partially entitled to health and welfare services but lack formal legal status. In recent years, the children's legal status and its implications have sparked a stormy legal, political, and public debate. Many of them, along with their parents, are subjected to procedures of investigation, arrest, imprisonment, and deportation. Thus, these children are exposed to adverse and complex life circumstances that include a variety of risk factors that affect their lives, identity formation, self-experience, and mental well-being. The current study examines the experiences of undocumented children of migrant workers in Israel. It explores how these children's psychological development and emotional experience are affected by their experiences of exclusion and marginalization, alongside the threat of being deported. We examine how the children's developing self is shaped through interpersonal interactions with different social agents through a conceptual category of "foreignness and belonging," which serves as a prism to expand the interpretive analysis of the children's stories. In order to centralize the perspectives of the children themselves and allow their voices to be heard, these components are examined through life story interviews, in which the children tell their own stories and share their perceptions and experiences. The research is based on qualitative-narrative methods, using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis. The interview materials are processed with qualitative-narrative tools and through an interdisciplinary interpretive prism to examine the personal, social, psychological, and ethical meanings of the children's life experiences. The initial results indicate several central issues that shape the emotional experience and identity of the children: risk factors such as instability and poverty harm the continuity of the process of self-formation. The legal status and the danger of deportation undermine the children's sense of basic security and self-image; for children exposed to arrest and incarceration, traumatic and destabilizing experiences are reported that, in some cases, accompany ongoing emotional symptoms. Alongside this, a sense of solidarity and support from environmental factors emerged as a source of hope and contributed to a sense of belonging. We conclude that the multitude of risk factors and, in particular, the risk of deportation and exposure to arrest and incarceration acutely affect the development of the children and, therefore, in order to allow them protection and the fundamental right to fulfill their developmental potential, they must be provided with equal opportunities, protection, and a supportive environment. We call on civil and institutional organizations to intervene and protect these rights.

Social media have become channels of communication which serve various actors, including politicians, journalists, activists, civil society, and the wider public. The potential of online social networks has been identified by most of world leaders, and it has become part of normal government communications. As opposed to the traditional media channels, where the power and access tend to be distributed unequally, social media have characteristics which enable actors with less sources, visibility, and attention to challenge dominant actors. The digital public sphere is more competitive and enables new actors to join the public debate.
This can be important at times of conflicts, when narratives have a significant role, as they provide justification and explanation to the conflict, its eruption, dynamic, and the desired solution. Those narratives become a part of the cycle that perpetuates conflicts; Therefore, they are an important target for change, when promoting inter-group reconciliation. Social media is one of the channels for constructing and disseminating the hegemonic conflict-supporting narrative, but they can also be a platform where this narrative is challenged by alternative actors with less resources and visibility.
Using semi-structured interviews with 14 Israeli politicians, NGOs, activists, and journalists – the study examines how they construct and disseminate messages in social media in the context of the conflict with the Palestinians, and what is the role of social media during conflicts - as they see it. Provisional findings show that actors acknowledge the importance of social media, and even if users will not necessarily change views about the conflict, still they can find alternative information and be part of a like-minded community. Implications of the results will be discussed.

Sometimes people meet and immediately click, such that there is rapid and strong social bonding from the very first moment. People tend to perceive clicking as a mutual and rare phenomenon, but is this the case? Is a click of a click a click, similar to a friend of a friend being a friend? First we tested the common intuition for the prevalence of clicking. Next, we tested how frequent it is to feel a click within a group of people in a limited and well-defined social interaction: the Mirror Game. During the game the participants had to move their hands as coordinately as possible without talking. Across six datasets, we found that the clicking rate was about ten times the rate people intuitively assumed. Clicking was positively related to perceived synchronization but not to actual level of synchronization or mimicry. Moreover, mutual-clicks had the highest number of sub-movements, then one-sided clicks and then no-clicks. In contrast to the notion that click is mostly mutual, our results show that click is mutual in only about half the times. Finally, we found that a click of a click is not likely to be a click, implying that clicking may be more about the interaction than the individuals. We suggest that movement synchronization may lead to blurring between the self and the other and accordingly increase the tendency to click, but this feeling of blurring may not be shared as is commonly believed. Nevertheless, people mutually click much more than they expect.

The pursuit of happiness is a significant international objective, as well as a primary socioeconomic indicator. As a result, laws, legislative processes, and reporting mechanisms have been put into place specifically for the purpose of fostering happiness. Furthermore, the pursuit of happiness is progressively and partly adopted by the business sector as the level of knowledge about it develops among various stakeholders. Despite the fact that the private sector plays a crucial part in the enhancement of gross national happiness (GNH) from a national level of view, the formal obligation of the private sector to promote GNH is still not apparent. In addition, the decision made by the company to boost happiness may have a detrimental effect on the company's financial profit in the near term; as a result, the company is less likely to make investments in happiness.
We believe our research offers a realistic, economically viable perspective in a world where happiness has emerged as a major indicator of economic success and where countries are increasingly adopting policies and initiatives aimed at boosting national happiness. Globally, the concept of using the GNH measure as a strategic aim has only been briefly addressed, and it has not yet been applied in the framework of policy making. In addition, there has to be a long-term financial incentive for businesses to become involved. Additionally, it has not yet been proposed to use the instruments of policy making to boost happiness and strengthen the engagement and responsibility of the corporate sector for the national happiness.
We create a theoretical model to offer the idea of Corporate Happiness Responsibility (CHR) as a framework for enhancing happiness within the arena of business, as CHR is an acronym that stands for Corporate Happiness Responsibility.
The model demonstrates the inherent inconsistencies that arise when attempting to maximize profits while also contributing to GNH, and it proposes closing the gap by offering government-sponsored tax breaks as an incentive.
The theoretical framework that we have developed makes a substantial contribution to the progression of happiness while simultaneously elevating the duty of the corporate sector for the happiness of a country.

Despite the prominence of the role of microfinance and microfinance institutions (MFIs) in enhancing female participation in economic activities and developing inclusive societies, a significant global gender gap in female economic opportunity and participation persists. To assess why this is the case, we examine how effective Microfinance has been in narrowing the gender gap. We posit that due to intense social identities in host societies, propositions of organizations seeking to narrow the gender gap are rejected due to a misfit in identities between the organization and society it operates in. We develop and test a structural equation model of how organizational identification is influenced by social identity processes, affecting the achievement of an organization's goal, particularly when the goal defies the social norms of the organization's jurisdiction and context. Using a sample of 376 micro-finance institutions (MFIs) across 45 tribal nations between 2010 and 2018, we find that organizational identity is directly related to the achievement of MFIs goals to pursue increased out-group (female borrowers) participation in economic activities. However, we also find that the relationship between organizational identity and organizational goal achievement was negatively and partially mediated by the intensity of social identity of these organizations host societies. A high intensity of social identity is perceived to limit the extent of organizational identification, resulting in an un-pierced ceiling of goal achievement over time. The implication is that despite the fluidity of the identities of individuals and organizations, these identities are only flexible to the extent that the social identity of the host society of an organization allows. This inhibits the host societies' commitment to an organization's goals and collective action towards social change. The paper makes 3 key contributions to the achievement of SDG 5 - Gender Equality and SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities. First, for gender parity to occur, organizational identities and propositions must harmonize the host society social identities to avoid rejection of contestable propositions. Second, we highlight the invisible inequalities persistent in an organization's host society that inhibits identification of members of these societies and gender parity propositions. Third, therefore, for propositions such as microfinance to be accepted, the social identities and social norms in host societies must be understood, to tailor propositions that will not create social sanctioning leading to discriminatory practices.

The COVID-19 crisis began to affect the global economy in March 2020, when alarming reports surfaced from Italy about the increasing hospital burden.  Consequently, the crisis impacted many dimensions of the economy and the labor market. This paper examines the result of adapting information and communication technologies before the crisis and their effect on the difficulties faced by businesses in the first lockdown in Israel, which was implemented in the second quarter of 2020. This situation emphasized the effect of firms' digital intensity and Information and Communication Technology usage. Using panel data from the 2020 Information and Communication Technology survey conducted in Israel, we question if firms that adopted Information and Communication Technology systems before the crisis sent a smaller share of their workforce on  unpaid leave during the first lockdown. We used a difference in difference methodology and revealed that adoption of Information and Communication Technology systems such as ERP / CRM and cloud services before the crisis doubled the positive effect on firms' employment compared to periods without a business cycle. We validated the robustness of these results by using a non-parametric matching method, obtaining similar results. We also found a negative effect of e-commerce capabilities on firms' level of employment in part of the industries in our research population.

The Contact Theory suggests that intergroup contact under appropriate conditions can effectively reduce prejudice and stereotypes between members of different social groups. Behavior analysis of interactions between different social groups showed that there is a clear preference for the in-group compared to the out-group (for example standing or sitting next to in-group members, agreement, collaboration etc.), but after engaging in a common activity prejudice and hostility towards out-group is reduced. The goal of this study is to explore new ways of activities that can reduce prejudice and focus on Social Virtual Reality (SVR) technology. The technology of Virtual Reality (VR) was originated in the 1950s, but SVR developed only in the last decade. In SVR people from all around the world can meet in a virtual environment and interact with one another although they are very far from each other in real time. The design of this environment can be very realistic so their behavior can copy behavior in physical spaces. The physical presence is represented by a virtual image named AVATAR.
This study seeks to examine the effect of interactions in a VR environment, and to focus on the observed social behavior of the participants. We will focus especially on behaviors that reflect attitudes towards different social groups, for example, standing by the members of the in-group, preference for dialogue between members of the in-group over members from the out-group, choosing the members of the in-group when forming groups at a meeting, etc. We will examine whether the interactions in VR resemble face-to-face interactions, as observed in former research. We chose to focus on intergroup contact between participants from Ethiopia and participants from Israeli-born families as a Case Study. About 30 years after immigrating to Israel, Ethiopians still have difficulty integrating into the job market, and report social rejection. The pioneer study will include Ethiopian and Israeli-born participants and will engage them in VR. Then explore if and how the interaction in VR reduce prejudice between groups. The conclusions can help to design intergroup meetings in VR that will reduce prejudice and encourage inclusion. Behavior will be tested through observations, and attitudes through questionnaires and group discussion.
A pilot study is running these days and soon we will hold meetings with the participant to explore the behavior in VR, as described above. Findings will be presented in the conference.

Zimbabwe is, in fact, banking on tourism growth, specifically, international tourism to resuscitate the economy and grow foreign exchange. The country is not yet ready to rely on domestic tourism because most of its citizens are low-income earners that cannot economically support tourism in Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, very few studies examined the contribution of tourism particularly, international tourism to economic growth, despite its overall role in foreign exchange generation. Hence, this study seeks to investigate the effect of international tourism on economic growth in Zimbabwe, using time series data spanning over the period 1980 to 2017. The main aim of the study is to examine whether international tourism is a pathway to economic recovery in Zimbabwe. The study adopted the tourism growth model proposed by Balaguer and Cantavella-Jorda (2002) and applied the Autoregressive Distributed Lad (ARDL) bounds testing approach and its associated Error Correction Model (ECM). The direction of causality between international tourism and economic growth was examined using the Granger causality test in an error correction framework. The findings of the study show that the Tourism-Led Growth Hypothesis (TLGH) is valid both in the short-run and long-run while the Economic-Driven Tourism Growth Hypothesis (EDTGH) is valid in the long-run only. This implies that the resource allocation strategy for the Government of Zimbabwe should prioritize both international tourism and economic expansion. The study therefore recommends that the Government of Zimbabwe should allocate financial resources towards supporting the tourism sector in order to stimulate economic growth in the country. In addition, the study, guided by the validity of the EDTGH in the long run, suggests that the Government of Zimbabwe should also consider allocating resources to other sectors currently driving the economy, for example, the agriculture and manufacturing sectors; as this will enhance economic expansion in the long run.

The coexistence of vast inequalities and limited direct taxation inhibits the consolidation of welfare states in Latin America, making it harder for governments in the region to scale up the provision of public services and promote sustainable socioeconomic development. This article presents a new explanation for the persistence of this association in democratic settings. Building on a growing literature on the political economy of public finance, I argue that high levels of perceived economic inequality decrease support for mass taxation—a broad-based income tax that includes large segments of society. In contrast, a consensus towards mass taxation is more likely to emerge in societies perceived as more egalitarian. An empirical analysis combining extensive micro-level data, various regression models and a new measure of inequality perceptions provides evidence consistent with this argument. Moreover, high perceived inequality is associated with a divergence between individuals’ preferences for tax progressivity and for mass taxation. 

By adopting a demand-side perspective for fiscal capacity building, the findings offer new insights into contemporary public finance challenges in Latin America, which depart from the conventional focus on the power of elites and advance our understanding of the viability of tax reforms across the region. Furthermore, the article contributes to the burgeoning literature on perceived inequality as a key concept for understanding the dynamics of states and societies and presents new evidence on intra-regional differences in subjective inequality levels across Latin America. In a wider sense, the findings suggest the importance of not only analysing inequality through the lens of taxation, but also paying greater attention to subjective inequality perceptions in the planning and implementation of tax reforms.

A sustainable energy system is based on a balance between three dimensions, which come at the expense of each other and constitute the "energy trilemma": energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability. At the country level, many decision-makers use indicator sets that evaluate and compare energy system performances concerning the trilemma goals. However, current indicators still refer to "traditional" energy systems. In contrast, transitioning into sustainable energy systems includes far-reaching changes toward decarbonized, decentralized, and digitalized (D3) systems. Although each energy system has a set of unique characteristics in which it operates and develops, these characteristics are endowed with repeated patterns and are, therefore, universally identifiable. This paper identifies D3 universal characteristics and develops a D3-compatible energy trilemma framework that evaluates energy system performances in a multidimensional manner.
This study reviews and identifies the key characteristics of D3 energy systems and clusters them into central D3 system archetypes. Next, a critical comparison between the archetypes' components and the current energy trilemma criteria indicates the adjustments required to adopt a D3-compatible trilemma index. Based on a "Value Tree Analysis" method, the study embeds these insights into a compatible index.
The study identified four D3 archetypes: (1) Distributed energy resource revolution, (2) Bulk power transformation, (3) Transmission and distribution interactivity, and (4) Distributed transactive future. The critical comparison identified necessary criteria, such as security in demand, consumer empowerment, and land availability, that the energy trilemma index must incorporate into its dimensions. The new index adds a fourth dimension, which evaluates the techno-economic capacity of the system.
Researchers and decision-makers can adapt sustainable energy development strategies to the appropriate archetypes and thus envision and compare different systems more effectively. The D3-compatible framework allows for the formation of insights from energy system performances in future scenarios and their compliance with the necessary goals.

Despite a remarkable inclusion hype in the peace-building realm, important barriers and resistance persist. Colombia is no exception to this: Although the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC-EP is the most inclusive signed globally to date, community leaders, social organizations and critical scholars heavily criticize the implementation of its participatory agenda. Specifically examining participatory Development Programs (PDETs) anchored in the peace agreement, this case study inductively explores community leaders' inclusion experiences, expectations and preferences, as well as behavioral responses resulting therefrom.
In doing so, this article contributes in several ways to a more evidence-driven peace-building theory and practice which identifies and incorporates citizens' preferences in the design and practical implementation of (inclusive) peace agreements. Policy-wise, it generates tangible insights on how to render PDET participation meaningful in community leaders' own terms. Scholarly-wise, it expands and conceptually strengthens a growing body of research on citizens in peace processes by introducing interrelated inclusion expectations, preferences and experiences to the study of public opinion and satisfaction with peace processes. Given its focus on peace agreement implementation, it also expands the temporal horizon of this research which has been largely limited to peace negotiations thus far.
Methodologically, this article draws on original survey data from elected community representatives from one PDET region. To this adds complementary qualitative data generated through in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation of PDET events and countless informal interactions and (virtual) exchanges since 2021.
I show that unfulfilled inclusion expectations and desires are at the core of widespread participatory frustration at present. Apart from similar group-level perceptions and preferences, I also find evidence of differential experiences and desires for affirmative participatory action. However, none of them are actively engaged with on behalf of policy-makers and scholars alike. Therefore, they continue to provide fertile ground for constant confrontations between community leaders, politicians and state employees.
The findings reveal both commonalities and differences between individually diverse community leaders. They identify important limitations and priority areas of action to enhance the implementation of the participatory promises of the Colombian 2016 peace agreement, while also broadening the empirical knowledge-base on the relevance of (inclusion) perceptions and expectations for inclusive peacebuilding practice and participatory policymaking more generally.

One of the prominent theoretical frameworks scholars use to analyze public law is the challenge of minority and majority relations in democratic regimes. For generations, scholars have grappled with questions concerning the challenge of maintaining a majoritarian democracy while preventing majority tyranny, and have attempted to formulate legal mechanisms that secure minority rights. This framework therefore serves as a primary lens through which courts and legislators approach various issues and is the basis of many constitutional and administrative schemes, such as electoral systems or the relations between governmental branches. Moreover, this paradigm is prominent in various legal mechanisms that promote goal no. 10 (reduce inequalities), such as rules concerning anti-discrimination, diversity, accommodation, and equal representation.
Despite the ubiquity of the majority framework in public law and academic discussions, scholars rarely address its shortcomings or question its scope and premise, for example, its over-broadness and insensitivity to various contexts. Particularly, the literature has yet to thoroughly examine the historical trajectory and implications of this framework in Israeli public law.
By employing critical and intellectual history methodologies, my dissertation presents a novel exploration of the majority framework. My goal is to offer a more profound understanding of our legal system and its ability to effectively govern social relations and to protect vulnerable groups. This project's findings would hopefully be relevant to any liberal democracy, specifically to multicultural societies.
In the overall project, I trace critical junctures in the evolution of the majority conceptualization in Israeli public law (1948-2020), unearthing the rationales underpinning current rules and analyzing their transformations and implications at different times.
The proposed lecture will focus on some preliminary findings concerning legislative and administrative mechanisms from the first decade of statehood regarding two minority groups, women and Palestinian-Arabs: The Employment of Women Law 1954, and the largely forgotten Ministry of Minority Affairs, which was founded in May 1948 and dissolved by June 1949. Based on archival research in Israel State Archives, I will present the ways in which the different contexts (national or gender) produced different rationales, normative stands, and imaginations regarding women, Arab-Palestinians, and "minorities" in general. Ultimately, I will argue that these two groups serve as "constitutive minorities" in Israeli public law and that the initial perceptions regarding them continue to underpin and shape various rules in our legal system. Therefore, it is essential to understand these perceptions and the historical conditions that produced them.

The UNs 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to promote solutions to political, social, environmental and financial problems in all global arenas of human life. The agenda outlines 17 types of global and local goals for promoting Sustainable life. One of the goals of the 2030 agenda is to obtain gender equality. In this context, my PhD dissertation has important implications, as it focuses on Substantive political representation of women at the municipal government level. The city is seen as an arena that illuminates the need for Substantive representation of the political interests of women in daily life.
My dissertation examines whether and in what ways do female council members in local authorities express types of issues that are pertinent to the local interests of women. This is done by examining the types of issues raising at the representation arenas of council meetings and on their Facebook pages.
The study examines Facebook posts and transcriptions of protocols dealing with topics related to the interests of women, as raised by local female politicians. These texts are analyzed by using a new term that I propose, which relies on Pitkin's Representation theory, and adds a further tier to the Substantive representation category, namely: "Concrete Substantive Representation". This additional tier enables an examination of the ways in which various interests are promoted and practically manifested in the daily lives of the city's residents. In my study I implement the term while referring to women.
The study extended over a period of two years, from October 2021 until the end of September 2023. The database comprised from two sources: public posts in personal and publicly open Facebook accounts and politicians' pages of thirty-two female local council members throughout the country; and protocols of council meetings from the same cities and during the same time period.
In addition, personal interviews are scheduled to be held with about ten female council members from different regions and from a range of socio-economical clusters to create methodological triangulation and identify motivations for this type of activity.

Extra-legal factors can affect not only the verdict or arrest but any judicial decision in exclusionary rule hearings. Despite the importance of interim decisions in protecting human rights, deterring state misconduct, and promoting equality, their study in the literature has been limited. We filled this gap by analyzing the impact of personal traits of judges on their decisions regarding motions to exclude evidence. The study was based on a database of 920 such rulings made by single-panel judges in the Israeli Magistrate's Courts, spanning from 2006, when the "Yissacharov Exclusionary Rule" was implemented, until 2021.
The examination of the policy of evidence disqualification involved the implementation of multivariate regressions, which incorporated factors such as the attributes of the defendant, the representation of the defendant in trial, and the specifics of the case. Furthermore, the study utilized mixed-effects logistic regressions and structural equation analysis to address the intricacy of judicial decisions and the influence that other rulings in the proceedings, such as a determination of law violation, acquittal of the defendant, scolded of the authorities or postponed decision, may have had.
The research affirms the social background hypothesis, suggesting that judges are impacted by their personal characteristics shaped by social and cultural circumstances. We found that judges' professional experience (both number of years and type of profession) directly affect case outcomes and how they write legal decisions. Former public defenders and private criminal defense attorneys are more lenient than former prosecutors, while judges who were both were right in the middle between these groups.
Second, former registrars and law clerks were more likely to determine that breaches occurred and exclude evidence than former prosecutors, though the direct effect is nonsignificant when certain mediator variables are introduced. Third, female judges tended to be harsher than males. Considering current judicial policies to appoint underrepresented groups within the judicial system and discussed the potential implications of its findings. It also reviewed the varying policy implications of its results and established the theory of post-professional identification.
The gender of the decision-making judge was found to be the second most significant factor in explaining biases originating from the judge's personal traits. The study revealed that compared to male judges, when considering the issue of excluding evidence, female judges have a tendency to be more lenient towards enforcement authorities and have a higher likelihood of admitting unlawfully obtained evidence in question, as per both datasets concerning the exclusionary rule doctrine and confession rules [Section 12 of the Evidence Ordinance (5741-1971)].
Given current trends of appointing previously unrepresented groups within the judicial system to the bench, the study delved into the potential outcomes of the findings and assessed the diverse policy ramifications. Additionally, the theory of post-professional identification was established as a result of these discussions.

My Ph.D. dissertation examines the causes of indigenous peoples' malnutrition and hunger and the inadequacy of international food law to ensure their food security. The dissertation emphasizes the essential role of cultural traditional foods in maintaining the health and food security of indigenous communities, providing insights into the legal, ethical, and cultural factors that underlie this issue.
The dissertation draws on socio-anthropological literature, medical reports, and interviews with indigenous communities to explore the importance of traditional foods in maintaining food security. It also analyzes legal cases. The dissertation finally proposes solutions based on legal and ethical principles, drawing on cultural rights, the right to self-determination, and human dignity.
The dissertation finds that traditional food plays a crucial role in safeguarding the health and food security of indigenous peoples. Those who rely on traditional foods tend to be more food secure and physically and mentally healthier than those who have less access to traditional natural resources. However, the modern global food system often fails to address culturally specific traditional food requirements, leading to inequitable access to food resources for vulnerable groups, including indigenous peoples.
The dissertation highlights the gaps in the international food law, specially focusing on General Comment n.12, which can hinder indigenous peoples from achieving stable long-term food security. It identifies white supremacy and imperial roots in international food law and shows how the modern food system has disrupted traditional social customs, jeopardized the food security of vulnerable groups, including indigenous peoples, and overly commodified food production. The dissertation proposes a right to cultural traditional food as a solution to decolonize and decapitalize the concept of food and provide food security to indigenous peoples in the long term. Cultural rights, right to self-determination, and human dignity are some of the rights through which a right to cultural traditional food can be claimed.
In conclusion, the dissertation provides valuable legal insights into the causes of food insecurity worldwide and a better understanding of right to food in its formal and substantive equality. It highlights the uniqueness of cultural traditional foods of indigenous peoples and proposes a right to cultural traditional food as a solution to protect and guarantee food security. The dissertation provides a foundation for further research in reference to other vulnerable groups' food insecurity, such as refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. Therefore, it is a valuable contribution to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals n. 2, 3 and 10.