Добірка наукової літератури з теми "Comics, strips"

Comic strips are a top-rated entertainment product. Supported by growing information technology, comic strips today are very accessible to almost all people. In addition to serving as a medium of entertainment, comic strips are often used as a means of opinion and convey criticism creatively from the comic artist. One of the comic strips that are vocal in expressing social criticism is Gump n Hell comic strip by Errik Irwan Wibowo. This comic strip depicts political events that occur, then publishes the comics through social media. This research is qualitative descriptive research using Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory to determine the meaning of social criticism in the comic strip Gump n Hell. The researcher took three Gump n Hell comic strip samples relating to the moment of the 2019 General Election to analyzed the meaning. From the study results, there was an implicit meaning in the comic strip, namely criticizing and satirizing specific political figures related to the phenomenon. Criticism in comics is represented subtly or indirectly through pop culture icons that become representations or parodies of exact political figures and wrapped in narratives according to political phenomena.

This study simulates the making of comic strips using Canva in teaching writing skills. This research utilizes descriptive qualitative. The analysis shows that creating comic strips using Canva is easy and simple. Open Canva at www.canva.com/ on mobile/ desktop then sign in or register using email, Facebook, or Google. Search for "comics" to start designs. Browse templates, start with a blank page, or choose Canva's ready-made templates. Experiment with features comic designs then customize comics with color schemes, lawyers, font styles, and combinations of stickers, icons, and illustrations. Rearrange speech bubbles and frames, upload images, save/publish and share. Teachers can use Canva to create/design comic strips for writing English sentences/conversations. We can use the available comic strip template patterns or customize them as needed. For example, we create/design a comic strip about "My Daily Activity", we ask students to write sentences/essays of descriptive text according to the picture instructions in the comic strips from the activities of waking up to going to school using the present tense. We can ask students to write sentences/essays about "All About Me". We can ask students to write down what is depicted in the comic strips, for example, personal information including name, birthday, address, family, favorite, hobby, or ambition. Several ways need to be considered in creating comic strips such as the concept/story idea, storyline, and attractive image. For making interesting and educative learning comics, we can include an element of humor, insert material in character conversations, use casual language, and create attractive visuals.

Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas is an ambitious, four-volume title that "seeks to capture some of the richness" of comics history and "provide information on this history for a wide range of users, from casual fans of comics to professional scholars of the form" (xxiii). Each of the four volumes covers a specific time period, beginning in the 1900s with comic strips and continuing to the present. Just as the volumes cover a broad expanse of time, they also deal with a diverse array of subjects, including comic strips, comic books, comics creators both well-known and obscure (often accompanied by large photographs), comics publishers, and genres such as science fiction and horror.

Daniel Stein and Jan-Noël Thon, eds, From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic NarrativeBarbara Postema, Making Sense of Fragments: Narrative Structure in ComicsShane Denson, Christina Meyer and Daniel Stein, eds., Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives: Comics at the CrossroadsMélanie Van Der Hoorn, Bricks and Balloons: Architecture in Comic Strip FormThomas Hausmanninger, Verschwörung und Religion: Aspekte der Postsäkularität in den franco-belgischen Comics [Conspiracy and Religion: Aspects of Post-Secularity in Franco-Belgian Comics]

Few know that comic strips can be used in educational contexts, particularly in English language classrooms. If associated with the purpose of language teaching, the use of comic strips is to facilitate students to develop their three learning domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. Integrating comic strips in classroom activities will make the process of learning more meaningful. In Indonesian context, the teaching and learning process utilising comics is still rare to find. Most Indonesian EFL teachers usually only focus on enhancing students’ reading comprehension skill when using comic strips in their teaching. They ignore other objectives such as providing the students’ other language skills, introducing the culture embedded, or sharping students’ learning domains. Such a problem occurs because the teachers do not know and are not sure of how to find good and suitable comics for their students. In addition to that, many teachers admit that it is quite difficult to prove and to convince the parents that comics can be used as stimulating, pedagogically-suitable learning media. Concerning the issue, this paper presents a comprehensive explanation on the nature of comic that suits the purpose of EFL/ESL teaching and and offers some best practices for English teachers to utilize comic strips in their teaching. It is expected that after reading this paper, EFL teachers in Indonesia can explore their belief and practice in implementing comics and bring up a new trend in EFL classroom.

ABSTRAK Background: As much as 73.4% of children aged ≥ 5 years in Indonesia have breakfast with the low nutritional quality of food consumption, as evidenced by the prevalence of 95.5% of children's less consumption of vegetables and fruits. Breakfast habits affect fiber and micronutrient levels. Communication and nutritional information can increase accuracy in breakfast behavior from childhood. Effective and efficient media are needed. So far, the media for children has prioritized illustrations without paying attention to the cultivation of moral values.Objectives: This study aimed to determine the effect of Islamic comic media on improving healthy breakfast attitudes among students.Materials and Methods: The research design was a quasi-experimental type. Subjects were taken by a simple random sampling method. Ninety-six students were divided into three groups. Group A was given nutrition education using Islamic comic media about health breakfast (n = 32). Group B was given nutrition education using Islamic comic strip media about health (n = 32). Group C was a control group (n = 32). The study used two types of nutrition promotion media: comics and comic strips, which are stories about healthy eating in Islam. The time for nutrition education intervention through comics and comic strips is 2x ± 35 minutes. The pretest was ± 25 minutes with ± 10 minutes explaining the instructions for filling out the questionnaire. The posttest was ± 25 minutes with a discussion for ± 10 minutes—nutritional attitudes related to health breakfast by answering a validated questionnaire. We used the Lickert scale to categorized nutritional attitudes. Statistical test was done by Wilcoxon and Mann Whitney test.Results: The distribution of nutrition attitudes of respondents increased after the provision of Islamic comics, both comics and comic strips about breakfast. The nutritional attitudes increased significantly in the Islamic comic media group (p = 0.000) and the Islamic comic strip media group (p = 0.000), from 78.75 to 92.96 and 78.61 to 92.88, respectively.Conclusions: There was a relationship between counseling and Islamic comic media regarding healthy breakfast towards the nutritional attitude of elementary school-age students.

Theres many ways can be done to appreciate the voices of messages and criticisms through creative ways, one of them through comics. One of the Indonesian comic artists who used comics as a medium of social criticism was Haryadhi through his "Komik Strip Untuk Umum (KOSTUM)” creation. KOSTUM Comics record the events that are happening and pour them into comic strips spread through social media. This research is a qualitative descriptive type using Roland Barthes' semiotics theory with two-stage significance (two orders of signification). From the results of the study, researchers found the implicit meaning that is to criticize and satirize the behavior of Indonesian people in a subtle way. Criticism expressed to comics is directed directly at the actors but is delicately wrapped with humorous portrayals through their characters. From the KOSTUM comics examined can be concluded that the social criticism described in the comic is an expression of the condition of the community related to the values that are used as a guideline for living in community groups.Keywords: Comics, Social Criticism, Semiotics, Roland Barthes

The article is devoted to the history of Soviet comics in the 1940s through the example of the Krokodil magazine. The first part discusses stereotypes about the history of comics in the USSR, analyses the concept of the comic strip as the main form of comics in the Soviet period, and considers the use of Media studies as a framework. The purpose of the article is to examine the work of Krokodil as a space for the development of the Soviet comic strip, through R. Duncan’s and M. J. Smith’s communication model of the comic book. The second part explores the process of work of the magazine’s artists, the censorship by various gatekeepers’ actors, the typical features of the visual language of the Soviet comic strip, the distribution and perception of comic strips and the magazine itself. It is especially noted that the distinction between caricature and comic strip is not typical for the 1940s, and it will emerge only by the 1960s. The article also provides a parsing of a corpus of diaries from the 1940s, in which memories of Krokodil are highlighted. The hypothesis of H. Alaniz about the special role of comics during the Great Patriotic War is verified and questioned.

Comics have always been and will always be a mass medium whose focus is entertainment; however, as a type of language, its use and adaptation for the educational environment is relatively recent. In the 1980s in Brazil textbooks started to display some comics. Nonetheless, only in 1997, with the creation of PCNs, were comics officially incorporated in the classroom pedagogical praxis. The term “comic strips” and its many variations have mainly negative connotations, which have persisted until now and which have impacted the potential of this type of language in Education. Nevertheless, Brazilian researchers in the area, such as Waldomiro Vergueiro, Sonia Luyten, Franciso Caruso, and others believe comic strips can be used as a pedagogical resource on every educational level, with no restrictions. Due to the fact that it is an autonomous language, comic strips are also a writing genre, which usually employs verbal and nonverbal aspects. Thus, reading the visual information that is present in comic strips can indicate a visual narrative that allows for an experience as intense as that of reading verbal aspects, since they complement one another. Therefore, comic strips are a medium that can aid formal learning of Natural Sciences thanks to its fast, dynamic and extremely visual reading, which facilitates the explanation of scientific content on any level of education, working as a motivator in the learning process.

This paper has discussed the concept of integrating comic strips and geoforensics into CLIL English classes at university level and its potential and relevance to modern-day university education. Our assumption is that comic strips can greatly help to embrace geoforensics as an emerging interdisciplinary art that offers a whole new and previously unthought-of perspective to young geological engineers. As modern teaching is more demanding than that which relies entirely on the traditional pedagogical system, language teachers today, especially CLIL teachers, need to include as many different sources as possible in organizing teaching process. Motivation is, among other advantages, the reason why we think it is advisable to occasionally include comics in the learning process. At the end of this study, we conclude that the comic strips, despite their advantages, are not sufficiently analysed and represented in teaching. The research suggests that students recognize both linguistic, scientific, and aesthetic values of a comic strip, but are not sufficiently familiar with the possibility of including ethical aspects or logical reasoning in this new media of teaching. Raising the teacher's awareness of the need for introducing comics at all teaching levels of university study is yet to be analysed, and requires careful planning in order to be successfully achieved.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Literature, Communication, and Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010.
Committee Chair: Mazalek, Alexandra; Committee Member: Bolter, Jay; Committee Member: Knospel, Kenneth; Committee Member: Murray, Janet; Committee Member: Winegarden, Claudia Rebola. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

In this creative project, I propose that comics can be used fruitfully to introduce undergraduates to the image-word dynamic, helping them become betters critics, more thoughtful consumers, and more effective creators of images. In addition, I argue that such a course of study be housed in an undergraduate rhetoric and composition major. Therefore, this project accomplishes three goals: it explores the rhetorical function of comics; second, it justifies the inclusion of comics in an undergraduate rhetoric-composition program; and, third, it provides a master syllabus for four classes that would provide the experience necessary to students wishing to study visual, verbal, and visual-verbal rhetorics.
Department of English

In a critical analysis of several independantly produced South African comics of the 1980s and early 1990s, close analysis of the comics leads to an assessment of the artists'intentions and purposes. Discussion of the artists' sources focuses on definitions of different types of comics. What is defined as a comic is usually what has been produced under that definition, and these comics are positioned somewhere between the popular and fine art contexts. As the artists are amateurs, the mechanical structure of comics is exposed through their skill in manipulating, and their initial ignorance of, many comic conventions. By comparison to one another, and to the standard format of commercial comics, some explanation of how a comic works can be reached. The element of closure, bridging the gaps between frames, is unique to comics, and is the most important consideration. Comic artists work with the intangible, creating from static elements an illusion of motion. If the artist deals primarily with what is on the page rather than what is not, the comic remains static. Questions of quality are reliant on the skill with which closure is implemented. The art students who produced these comics are of a generation for whom popular culture is the dominant culture, and they create for an audience of peers. Their cultural milieu is more visual than verbal, and often more media oriented than that of their teachers. They must integrate a fine art training and understanding into the preset rules of a commercial medium. Confronted with the problem of a separation of languages, they evolve a new dialect. Through comparative and critical analyses I will show how this dialect differs from the language of conventional comics, attempting in particular to explain how the mechanics of the cornie medium can limit or expand its communicative potential.

Följande kunskapsöversikt ämnar att undersöka effekten serietidningsliknande läsmaterial har på läsförståelsen hos andraspråksinlärare av Engelska. För att undersöka detta formulerades följande forskningsfråga: I vilken mån kan serietidningsliknande material påverka läsförståelsen hon andraspråksinlärare av Engelska? En prototypisk definition av serietidningar (Mayer, 2007) användes för att tillåta denna kunskapsöversikt att använda både studier som använde serietidningar och studier som använde seriestrippar som läsmaterial. I denna kunskapsöversikt kommer därför termen serietidningsliknande läsmaterial (Comic reading materials) användas som en paraplyterm för de två mediumen. För att granska om serietidningsliknande material kan påverka läsförståelsen för andraspråksinlärare i engelska har nio vetenskapliga artiklar som behandlar ämnet valts ut. Studierna I denna kunskapsöversikt har delats upp beroende på om de använder seriestrippar eller serietidningar/grafiska noveller då dessa två material bör åkalla effekten av de kognitiva teorier som presenteras i studien. Studierna gav inte ett tyligt svar på huruvida läsmaterialen påverkade läsförståelsen bland deras deltagare. Studierna hade även olika definitioner av nyckelord så som läsförståelse, skilda metoder för att mäta läsförståelse samt variation i hur de utförde texter tester. De olika resultaten från studierna har lett till följande slutsatser. Serieliknande läsmaterial har en potential som läromedel då de kan främja läsförståelse trots att det i fallet av de valda studierna inte alltid gör det. Det behövs vidare forskning i ämnet, då definitioner av nyckelbegrepp samt tester varierar i hög grad och detta gör det svårt att dra en tydlig slutsats.

The landscape of comics in Sri Lanka has a rich history dating back to the 1950s when comic strips were immensely popular. However, in the early 2000s, the industry encountered a significant shift with the advent of digital entertainment, causing a decline in the production and popularity of comics. This transition period lasted for about 17 years, during which the industry grappled with adapting to the digital era. Webcomics emerged as a global trend, leading Sri Lankan comic artists to embrace this digital shift, albeit with challenges. Presently, the Sri Lankan comic industry comprises three primary stakeholders: comic artists, writers, and fans. Despite the transition to webcomics, the annual production drastically decreased from around 100 to only 20, with more than 40% of these discontinued after 2020. The decline in the industry is attributed to the lack of networking and collaboration among the identified stakeholders. Without a strong community base, the sustainability of the industry is compromised. The core objective of this project is to establish a platform that facilitates networking among comic enthusiasts, fostering a vibrant community. While Sri Lankan comics have a longstanding legacy, recent developments in digitalization have reshaped the landscape. Despite a budding graphic novel industry and the influence of notable comic artists, the lack of collaboration among creators and a platform connecting them with their audience has hindered the industry's growth. This project aims to scrutinize the reasons behind this decline and identify the existing gaps within the industry. By creating a space for comic enthusiasts to network and build a community, this initiative seeks to reinvigorate the Sri Lankan comic culture and propel it towards sustainable growth.

In the realm of comic books, laughter onomatopoeia (LO) plays a crucial role in character portrayal. The sound symbolism of LO can be used to assign distinct character roles and to suggest similarities in terms of appearance and personality traits. For instance, Kinsui (2014) posited that ‘hoho’ is typically associated with a young woman from a well-respected family. However, scholarship on the relationship between variable LO and character types is limited in the current literature, emphasizing the need for further study. This thesis addresses this research gap by examining the association between phonological features and character types. Using the Japanese comic series ‘One Piece’ as a case study, the research collected laughter phrases and utilized a laughter notation system to assign character roles. The results suggest that characters employing LO with common phonological elements possess analogous external and personality characteristics, demonstrating the impact of sound symbolism on character attributes, with voiced sounds, p sounds, and palatalization sounds having distinctive correlations with specific character traits.

This comic strip represents 3 of the findings from a Sheffield Hallam University research project with autistic young people and their families. There is also a full project report and a digital collection of autistic young people's artworks.

In August 2021, the IMF made a new SDR allocation to help ease pandemic-induced financial strains in the Global South. This paper assesses the potential of the SDR system to address debtrelated problems in global finance. We analyze the SDR system as a web of interlocking balance sheets whose members can use SDR holdings—the system’s tradable assets—for conversion into usable currency as a perpetual low-interest loan or to make payments to each other. Using original IMF data, we study how the system has been practically used since 1990. Though widely perceived as a solution in search of a problem in the post-Bretton Woods era, we find that the SDR system provides three mechanisms through which IMF members borrow and lend usable currency to each other, with different strings attached: first, transactions by agreement; second, the IMF’s core lending facilities for which the SDR system offers additional resources; and third, IMF-sponsored Trusts which seek to harness the SDR system for development purposes and are the basis for the current idea of ‘voluntary channeling’. Overall, given the SDR system’s idiosyncratic accounting rules, the new allocation can improve the liquidity position of a country and offer some limited avenues for sovereign debt restructuring but comes with new interest and exchange rate risks. Voluntary channeling cannot happen without a wealth transfer, neither the SDR allocation nor the use of Trusts can overcome this problem. Still, Trusts can be a useful instrument to help with debt forgiveness and to ensure that borrowed funds are used for their intended purpose.

The COVID 19 pandemic followed by the invasion of Ukraine is a two-punch economic strike never seen in recent history. The pandemic not only disrupted many aspects of a tightly knit integrated world but also exposed its fragility. The devastation of Ukraine and the vast program of sanctions quickly imposed by most major developed countries have accelerated the retreat of globalization. For many decades, Central Bankers and economists considered stable prices as an almost permanent feature. Today, the consumer price index in the US hit a 40-year high at more than 8 per cent and experts were unable to predict such course of inflation. In this paper, we offer a unique perspective on these events. First, we identify a few major influential factors that have altered significantly and reliably inflation since World War II. We then turn to looking at recent events in the light of these factors to try and extrapolate a likely trend for inflation in the coming years. Despite the dire economic challenges of World War II, the economy recovered quickly, the financial imbalances rectified in only a few years and inflation was tamed. Can the same thing be achieved after the pandemic? Our analysis suggests that this is highly improbable. Deep-rooted inflationary forces are at work because of the distortions that the economic order of the last 40 years has created. These distortions, exacerbated by the dual crisis, will take long to repair. We are then looking at an unsettled economic and inflationary future. The wise course of action to avoid a chaotic future requires that the US authorities withdraw from hands-on policies and instead, pave the way for the agile private sector to take the lead and adapt the economy to the changing conditions.

The COP9 signalosome (CSN) is an eight-subunit protein complex that is highly conserved among eukaryotes. Genetic analysis of the signalosome in the plant model species Arabidopsis thaliana has shown that the signalosome is a repressor of light dependent seedling development as mutant Arabidopsis seedlings that lack this complex develop in complete darkness as if exposed to light. These mutant plants die following the seedling stage, even when exposed to light, indicating that the COP9 signalosome also has a central role in the regulation of normal photomorphogenic development. The biochemical mode of action of the signalosome and its position in eukaryotic cell signaling pathways is a matter of controversy and ongoing investigation, and recent results place the CSN at the juncture of kinase signaling pathways and ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. We have shown that one of the many CSN functions may relate to the regulation of translation through the interaction of the CSN with its related complex, eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF3). While we have established a physical connection between eIF3 subunits and CSN subunits, the physiological and developmental significance of this interaction is still unknown. In an effort to understand the biochemical activity of the signalosome, and its role in regulating translation, we originally proposed to dissect the contribution of "h" subunit of eIF3 (eIF3h) along the following specific aims: (i) Isolation and phenotypic characterization of an Arabidopsis loss-of-function allele for eIF3h from insertional mutagenesis libraries; (ii) Creation of designed gain and loss of function alleles for eIF3h on the basis of its nucleocytoplasmic distribution and its yeast-two-hybrid interactions with other eIF3 and signalosome partner proteins; (iii) Determining the contribution of eIF3h and its interaction with the signalosome by expressing specific mutants of eIF3h in the eIF3h- loss-of function background. During the course of the research, these goals were modified to include examining the genetic interaction between csn and eif3h mutations. More importantly, we extended our effort toward the genetic analysis of mutations in the eIF3e subunit, which also interacts with the CSN. Through the course of this research program we have made several critical scientific discoveries, all concerned with the apparent diametrically opposed roles of eIF3h and eIF3e. We showed that: 1) While eIF3e is essential for growth and development, eIF3h is not essential for growth or basal translation; 2) While eIF3e has a negative role in translational regulation, eIF3h is positively required for efficient translation of transcripts with complex 5' UTR sequences; 3) Over-accumulation of eIF3e and loss-of-function of eIF3h both lead to cop phenotypes in dark-grown seedlings. These results were published in one publication (Kim et al., Plant Cell 2004) and in a second manuscript currently in revision for Embo J. Are results have led to a paradigm shift in translation research – eIF3 is now viewed in all systems as a dynamic entity that contains regulatory subuits that affect translational efficiency. In the long-term agronomic outlook, the proposed research has implications that may be far reaching. Many important plant processes, including developmental and physiological responses to light, abiotic stress, photosynthate, and hormones operate in part by modulating protein translation [23, 24, 40, 75]. Translational regulation is slowly coming of age as a mechanism for regulating foreign gene expression in plants, beginning with translational enhancers [84, 85] and more recently, coordinating the expression of multiple transgenes using internal ribosome entry sites. Our contribution to understanding the molecular mode of action of a protein complex as fundamental as eIF3 is likely to lead to advances that will be applicable in the foreseeable future.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3

Culturing of animal cells was developed in the late 19th and early 20th century, when researchers worked out how to support the growth of cells in media in an ex-vivo environment(footnote). The technology has been used commercially in the medical products industry, notably to produce antibodies for use as new medicines and as reagents in diagnostics. Animal cell culturing has expanded into the food industry especially due to its benefit in promoting sustainability for example by freeing up global arable land used for livestock farming, with cultured meat predicted to enter the UK market in the coming year(s) and already on the market in Singapore. With this in sight, a systematic search protocol was devised to identify hazardous concerns that will help inform the risk assessment for any future applications for authorisation to the FSA. To note, the term ‘cultured’ is now referred to as ‘cultivated’ but the report uses the former term to keep in line with the search string used for the research. This report was limited to meat products manufactured from cultured animal cells. Even though majority of these hazards cross-over to other products such as fish, there is potential to evaluate hazards associated with fish/seafood products separately in the near future. This hazard identification considers the nature of potential hazards associated with the production of cultured animal cells; a novel technology that uses animal cells and cell culturing to produce a substance that resembles meat thus avoiding animal rearing for meat products or aquaculture. As cultured animal cells may pose new risks this report aims to ‘scope out’ the technology to gain an understanding of it and to identify the potential risks that this may pose

In the face of the multiple shocks currently experienced by the domestic economy (resulting from the drop in oil prices and the appearance of a global pandemic), the Colombian financial system is in a position of sound solvency and adequate liquidity. At the same time, credit quality has been recovering and the exposure of credit institutions to firms with currency mismatches has declined relative to previous episodes of sudden drops in oil prices. These trends are reflected in the recent fading of red and blue tonalities in the performance and credit risk segments of the risk heatmaps in Graphs A and B.1 Naturally, the sudden, unanticipated change in macroeconomic conditions has caused the appearance of vulnerabilities for short-term financial stability. These vulnerabilities require close and continuous monitoring on the part of economic authorities. The main vulnerability is the response of credit and credit risk to a potential, temporarily extreme macroeconomic situation in the context of: (i) recently increased exposure of some banks to household sector, and (ii) reductions in net interest income that have led to a decline in the profitability of the banking business in the recent past. Furthermore, as a consequence of greater uncertainty and risk aversion, occasional problems may arise in the distribution of liquidity between agents and financial markets. With regards to local markets, spikes have been registered in the volatility of public and private fixed income securities in recent weeks that are consistent with the behavior of the international markets and have had a significant impact on the liquidity of those instruments (red portions in the most recent past of some market risk items on the map in Graph A). In order to adopt a forward-looking approach to those vulnerabilities, this Report presents a stress test that evaluates the resilience of credit institutions in the event of a hypothetical scenario thatseeks to simulate an extreme version of current macroeconomic conditions. The scenario assumes a hypothetical negative growth that is temporarily strong but recovers going into the middle of the coming year and has extreme effects on credit quality. The results suggest that credit institutions have the ability to withstand a significant deterioration in economic conditions in the short term. Even though there could be a strong impact on credit, liquidity, and profitability under the scenario being considered, aggregate capital ratios would probably remain at above their regulatory limits over the horizon of a year. In this context, the recent measures taken by both Banco de la República and the Office of the Financial Superintendent of Colombia that are intended to help preserve the financial stability of the Colombian economy become highly relevant. In compliance with its constitutional objectives and in coordination with the financial system’s security network, Banco de la República will continue to closely monitor the outlook for financial stability at this juncture and will make the decisions that are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of the economy, facilitate the flow of sufficient credit and liquidity resources, and further the smooth functioning of the payment system. Juan José Echavarría Governor