Suchergebnisse

Around the world employment of women on an equal bases allows companies, industries and countries to make better use of the available talent pool, generally with potential growth implication. In Japan, since 2013, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been a ceaseless advocate for the increase in the number of female employees for the revival of the economy, and many governmental programs in support of working women have been put in place. However, the traditional Japanese management systems of lifetime employment, enterprise unions, seniority systems, together with a group-oriented and risk-adverse orientation make things change slowly. In Romania, the second country analyzed in this article, women entrepreneurs also face professional stereotypes, difficulties in getting specific jobs, traditional prejudices and a collective mentality related to women's place in society. This article explores and compares how Romanian and Japanese cultures, societies, and economies have either encouraged, or discouraged, the growth of female entrepreneurship on their own territories, and analyzes how the best emerging female executives can be supported in the future in order to maximize their potential. The analysis is based on the data provided by OECD, the World Bank, the Global entrepreneurship monitor, Japan statistics, the legislations of the two countries and the literature related to the two social environments. The findings indicate that although there are many similarities between the two countries, the percentage of female executives in Japan is much smaller than the one in Romania. This is due to the fact that Japan, with all the governmental programs in action, for the moment, still has a stricter social and work environment, a weaker maternity and childcare legislation and a higher gender gap.

Abstract. Landslides have large negative economic and societal impacts, including loss of life and damage to infrastructure. Slope stability assessment is a vital tool for landslide risk management, but high levels of uncertainty often challenge its usefulness. Uncertainties are associated with the numerical model used to assess slope stability and its parameters, with the data characterizing the geometric, geotechnic and hydrologic properties of the slope, and with hazard triggers (e.g. rainfall). Uncertainties associated with many of these factors are also likely to be exacerbated further by future climatic and socio-economic changes, such as increased urbanization and resultant land use change. In this study, we illustrate how numerical models can be used to explore the uncertain factors that influence potential future landslide hazard using a bottom-up strategy. Specifically, we link the Combined Hydrology And Stability Model (CHASM) with sensitivity analysis and Classification And Regression Trees (CART) to identify critical thresholds in slope properties and climatic (rainfall) drivers that lead to slope failure. We apply our approach to a slope in the Caribbean, an area that is naturally susceptible to landslides due to a combination of high rainfall rates, steep slopes, and highly weathered residual soils. For this particular slope, we find that uncertainties regarding some slope properties (namely thickness and effective cohesion of topsoil) are as important as the uncertainties related to future rainfall conditions. Furthermore, we show that 89 % of the expected behaviour of the studied slope can be characterized based on only two variables – the ratio of topsoil thickness to cohesion and the ratio of rainfall intensity to duration.

Purpose: To examine the effects of an employer-based monetary incentive program on membership termination and usage at a fitness center. Design: Retrospective nested case–control study examining the relationship between participation in an incentive program, visits to the fitness center, and membership termination at 1 year. Setting: University-based fitness center. Participants: Members (N = 1122) of a university-based fitness center. Intervention: Members were offered either a US$25 incentive for each month they visited the fitness center at least 10 times or no incentive. Measures: Data were extracted from the membership database and included membership termination at 1 year (yes, no), length of membership (days), participation in the incentive program (yes, no), and visits to the fitness center per month. Analysis: Cox proportional hazards model. Results: Members in the incentive program visited the fitness center on average more times per month (5.3 vs 4.3; P < .0001) but were significantly more likely to terminate memberships at 1 year compared to members who did not receive the incentive (38% vs 31%; P = .013). After controlling for relevant covariates, members who received the incentive had a 24% greater hazard of terminating their memberships compared to members who did not receive the incentive (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.24; P = .041). After controlling for the number of visits per month, the incentive program was no longer significantly related to membership termination (HR = 1.21; P = .07). Conclusion: Being in a monetary incentive program to attend a fitness center may be initially associated with a greater fitness center utilization but may not be associated with a reduced risk of membership termination.

Abstract:The author of the article identifies and describes local names of communities and community unions in the languages of Dagestan peoples. The analysis of various historical, linguistic and ethnographic data shows that peoples of Dagestan use different local terms to denote the village, villagers, and fellow villagers ( ši , šanti , roso , roso cojal , hu'r , hu'rjun vijar , g"ul , g"ulandar , g"ulanžvi , šjaravalu , šiar , šarqi , sevaḳa , ca šjaravallil insan , kent , jurt , bir jurtlu , etc.), which may have been primary and served as the basis for formation of terms denoting larger socio-political structures, such as unions of rural communities. Communities are collectives with a specific territory and a specific place of residence and they had their specific names ( baħara , mja"raka , k"urum , žyjym , etc.), while unions of communities were denoted by the terms bo , ħureba , para , mjag'lal or mjaħjal , which meant larger collectives, such as troops, militia troops, army, a part of something, etc., these words were either local names or were of Turkic origin. The article also covers the problem of ethnic terms in the languages of the peoples of Dagestan. The material presented and analyzed in the article shows that each Dagestan nation has its own ethnic name. The endonym of the Avars is mah̨arulal , the endonym of the Laks - lak , the endonym of the Kumyks - ķumuķlar , ķumuķ (singular), the endonym of the Nogais is nug"ai , etc. The ethnic term Dargo is of special interest as ethnic names of all sub-ethnic groups of the Dargins, which are called darganti , dargan (singular), are based on it.

Abstract: The author of the article analyzes life and activity of Imam Shamil's legendary Naib after his captivity in August 1859, the activity of one-eyed, one-armed and one-legged brave Baisungur within the period from 1859 till his captivity by Russian soldiers in the Benoy society in February 1861. Basing on archival documents, published sources and field data collected by the author and Chechen researchers in the mountains of Dagestan and Chechnya, the author considers the main reasons for the rise and development of the people's liberation movement of the mountaineers of the Benoy society under the command of Baisungur from Benoy, which in official documents of the Caucasian command was called Benoy or Ichkeria uprising. The author emphasizes that the main reason for the Benoyers' uprising was harsh resettlement policy of the Caucasian command that did not take into account the socio-economic conditions and traditions of the Chechens. Baisungur, who headed the Benoy society for more than 30 years and was Imam Shamil's Naib, was not the initiator of the renewal of military confrontation with the Russian authorities in the North-East Caucasus, but the fate of the Chechen society, which for the years of the Caucasian war sustained enormous human and moral losses, was the main factor for him. On the basis of analysis of the information published in the newspaper "Caucasus", the author traces the course of the uprising in 1860 and the last period of life and activity of Baisungur and his relatives until his captivity in late February 1861 and his execution in Khasavyurt Square in March.

This paper extends organizational research on distrust to explain the effects of organizational misconduct on continued market participation after a fraud. I argue that social relations between fraud victims and perpetrators insulate against the formation and diffusion of distrust. Variation in market participation after a fraud occurs because victims who belong to the perpetrator's social group are more likely to attribute blame to the organization that committed the fraud, while victims from social out-groups are more likely to generalize blame to the perpetrator's social group and subsequently avoid other organizations and institutions governed by its members. The empirical setting is Kenya's ethnically diverse Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), from which the country's largest stockbrokerage was expelled in 2008 after defrauding one-quarter of its 100,000 clients. Analysis of NSE data on trades for victimized and non-victimized investors, as well as surnames that identify investors' ethnicities, shows that clients from the same ethnic group as leaders of the corrupt brokerage are more likely than clients from rival ethnic groups to continue to participate in the market after a fraud and more likely to choose another intermediary operated by members of their ethnic group. But results also show that some victims invest more after the fraud and use less-trustworthy intermediaries to do so. This suggests that integrity-based trust may be a less effective coordination device in arm's-length market transactions than in interpersonal transactions. A key implication is that misconduct does not simply reduce average participation in a market; it changes the market's composition by filtering out diverse social groups that are more likely to demand stronger governance standards.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of a domain-specific research instrument (the wine-related lifestyle (WRL)) to determine the different lifestyle-related wine market segments in a country and compare the findings cross-culturally.


Design/methodology/approach
The research instrument included 48 psychographic activities, interests and opinions (AIO) statements, plus socio-demographic, product consumption and purchasing questions. A final sample of 376 South African wine consumers was utilised, whereon exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, combined with Hough's Euclidean test, were applied to determine the existence of clusters (segments), assign descriptions to them, and link these to product consumption data.


Findings
Five wine segments recurred when comparing wine market segmentation studies cross-culturally. This means that cross-culturally, similar types of people drink wine with similar AIOs towards wine. In the South African market, four of these segments were identified.


Research limitations/implications
This study achieved a robust lifestyle-based market segmentation algorithm which can be used by researchers in different country environments for wine as a domain-specific product.


Originality/value
The contribution of this research is threefold in that it tested the WRL instrument in a cross-cultural context which is the first time this has been done; in the process it interpreted the wine consumer segments in South Africa for the first time; using a WRL-based (AIO) approach. The study demonstrated that market segmentation based on psychographic (lifestyle) behaviour is strengthened when supported by two additional segmentation methods, namely, socio-demographics and product involvement (purchasing and consumption).

The aim of this paper is to examine the organizational background of the protests "Against dictatorship" that took place in several Serbian towns, in the spring of 2017. The absence of the official organizers and the role social networking sites played in terms of communication, organization and coordination of the protest events, raises the following question: Could the protest "Against dictatorship" be considered as an example of a digitally enabled "connective" action? According to the connective action" approach (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, 2013), in the information society a new connective" form of collective action is emerging as a result of personalization of political action that occurs within new socio-technological environment. Connective action is enabled by innovative technological opportunities for individual participation in collective ventures and supported by the role that ICTs play as "stitching" and organizing agents of collective action. In such circumstances, conventional social movement organizations and solid collective identities seem to become far less necessary. The analysis of the data collected in the field (N = 175) and in the online survey of the experiences and attitudes towards the protest (N=225), leads to the conclusion that the organizational background of the protest "Against dictatorship" is closest to the ideal-type of "self-organized network", as one of the two basic models of connective action. In the concluding part of this paper, the authors argue that the connective action" model is adequate for the interpretation of the emergence of the digitally mediated protests. However, with the transformation of protests into more solid and stable forms of collective action, this model loses its explanatory power.

Sous presse ; International audience ; While, historically, the family nature of farms has been depending mainly on the fact that capital and labour are in the same hands, developments in the French countryside lead to questioning this "historical" model, in that certain forms found today in production processes clearly seem to move away from it. This article, based on the statistical data available to date, identifies elements indicating major changes and introduces a few concrete cases, found here and there, illustrating major qualitative changes. The analysis then bears on the issue of the transfer of the most capitalised farms, and on the "flexible farming" model proposed by CER-France. The capital/labour separation process at work and its possible outcome are brought to light, particularly as regards value added distribution. ; Alors que le caractère familial des exploitations agricoles a surtout reposé, historiquement, sur le fait que capital et travail étaient réunis entre les mêmes mains, les évolutions en cours dans les campagnes françaises conduisent à interroger ce modèle « historique » car certaines formes prises aujourd'hui dans les processus de production semblent s'en éloigner nettement. Cet article identifie, au sein des données statistiques disponibles à ce jour, des éléments annonciateurs de changements majeurs et présente quelques cas concrets illustrant des changements qualitatifs. L'analyse porte ensuite sur la question de la transmission des exploitations les plus capitalisées et sur le modèle de « l'exploitation agricole flexible » proposé par le CER-France. Le processus de séparation capital/travail à l'œuvre est ainsi mis en lumière ainsi que ses conséquences possibles, notamment en termes de répartition de la valeur.

Sous presse ; International audience ; While, historically, the family nature of farms has been depending mainly on the fact that capital and labour are in the same hands, developments in the French countryside lead to questioning this "historical" model, in that certain forms found today in production processes clearly seem to move away from it. This article, based on the statistical data available to date, identifies elements indicating major changes and introduces a few concrete cases, found here and there, illustrating major qualitative changes. The analysis then bears on the issue of the transfer of the most capitalised farms, and on the "flexible farming" model proposed by CER-France. The capital/labour separation process at work and its possible outcome are brought to light, particularly as regards value added distribution. ; Alors que le caractère familial des exploitations agricoles a surtout reposé, historiquement, sur le fait que capital et travail étaient réunis entre les mêmes mains, les évolutions en cours dans les campagnes françaises conduisent à interroger ce modèle « historique » car certaines formes prises aujourd'hui dans les processus de production semblent s'en éloigner nettement. Cet article identifie, au sein des données statistiques disponibles à ce jour, des éléments annonciateurs de changements majeurs et présente quelques cas concrets illustrant des changements qualitatifs. L'analyse porte ensuite sur la question de la transmission des exploitations les plus capitalisées et sur le modèle de « l'exploitation agricole flexible » proposé par le CER-France. Le processus de séparation capital/travail à l'œuvre est ainsi mis en lumière ainsi que ses conséquences possibles, notamment en termes de répartition de la valeur.

The effectiveness of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) systems is contingent on a number of control mechanisms: procedural; judicial; evaluative; public and government agency; professional; and development aid agency. If we assume that procedural and judicial controls are guaranteed in developed EIA systems, then progressing effectiveness towards an acceptable level depends on improving the performance of other control mechanisms over time. These other control mechanisms are either absent, or are typically centrally controlled, requiring public finances; this we argue is an unpopular model in times of greater Government austerity. Here we evaluate a market-based mechanism for improving the performance of evaluative and professional control mechanisms, the UK Institute of Environmental Management and Assessments' EIA Quality Mark. We do this by defining dimensions of effectiveness for the purposes of our evaluation, and by identifying international examples of the approaches taken to delivering the other control measures to validate the approach taken in the EIA Quality Mark. We then evaluate the EIA Quality Mark, when used in combination with legal procedures and an active judiciary, against the effectiveness dimensions and use time-series analysis of registrant data to examine its ability to progress practice. We conclude that the EIA Quality Mark has merit as a model for a market-based mechanism, and may prove a more financially palatable approach for delivering effective EIA in mature systems in countries that lack centralised agency oversight. It may, therefore, be of particular interest to some Member States of the European Union for ensuring forthcoming certification requirements stemming from recent amendments to the EIA Directive.

Young people, emerging out of the foster care system, often struggle to become productive and self-sustainable adults in society. They are at high risk of being trapped in poverty and unemployment for their entire adult life because they are unable to make a successful transition out of the foster care system to adulthood. The purpose of this study was to explore how social entrepreneurship can be utilised to establish a developmental transitional service to facilitate the successful transition to adulthood of youth in foster care. The research participants were purposefully selected and comprised social workers and foster youths based in the township and the former homelands of the Free State. Data was collected using in-depth interviews and focus groups and was analysed using content analysis. The study found that the current model of the foster care system is not designed to facilitate and support foster youth to make a successful transition to adulthood. This may be ascribed to the following: ● The legislative requirements imposed on this population group, ● The lack of preparatory transition services and ● The limited capacity of social workers to address the needs and challenges of foster youth. The study concludes that intervention is needed in the foster care system to prepare, equip and support foster youth to become productive and self-sustainable citizens. Through the application of the social entrepreneurship framework, this study demonstrates how existing resources and new actors can be leveraged to provide a developmental transitional service that will serve to promote the resilience of youth in foster care and assist them to break the cycle of poverty.

Background: A rich body of literature exists that has demonstrated adverse human health effects following exposure to ambient air particulate matter (PM), and there is strong support for an important role of ultrafine (nanosized) particles. At present, relatively few human health or epidemiology data exist for engineered nanomaterials (NMs) despite clear parallels in their physicochemical properties and biological actions in in vitro models. Objectives: NMs are available with a range of physicochemical characteristics, which allows a more systematic toxicological analysis. Therefore, the study of ultrafine particles (UFP, <100 nm in diameter) provides an opportunity to identify plausible health effects for NMs, and the study of NMs provides an opportunity to facilitate the understanding of the mechanism of toxicity of UFP. Methods: A workshop of experts systematically analyzed the available information and identified 19 key lessons that can facilitate knowledge exchange between these discipline areas. Discussion: Key lessons range from the availability of specific techniques and standard protocols for physicochemical characterization and toxicology assessment to understanding and defining dose and the molecular mechanisms of toxicity. This review identifies a number of key areas in which additional research prioritization would facilitate both research fields simultaneously. Conclusion: There is now an opportunity to apply knowledge from NM toxicology and use it to better inform PM health risk research and vice versa. ; The authors thank B. Ross and D. Balharry for practical support for the workshop. This work was supported by and performed with the context of the European Union Modelling Nanomaterial Toxicity– European Cooperation in Science and Technology (EU MODENA COST) action (TD1204), which funded the workshop in May 2015 (http://www.modena-cost.eu).

BACKGROUND : South African Mental Health Care (MHC) legislation advocates for supportive rehabilitative services in Primary Health Care (PHC) settings. PHC settings are often understaffed and MHC nurses in these settings overburdened with high patient loads. Alternative cost-effective psycho-social intervention strategies must be explored to supplement the overstrained MHC sector to meet the rehabilitative and supportive needs of service users in community settings. Using a social constructionist epistemology, this study aimed to highlight the value of a community-based support group for MHC users at a Tshwane District Community Health Centre. This was done by exploring the meaning group members attached to the group. The intervention was a collaborative partnership between a local University Psychology Department and the Department of Health, Tshwane District, utilising post-graduate psychology students as group facilitators. METHODS : Qualitative research methods were applied. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a collage-making and storytelling method. Thematic analysis highlighted the main themes representing the meaning the five participants ascribed to the group. RESULTS : The findings suggest that the group offered the participants a sense of belonging and a means of social and emotional support. The group also created opportunity for learning, encouraged mental and physical mobilisation and stimulation, and served as an additional link to professional services. CONCLUSION : The findings suggest that student-facilitated support groups could offer a viable supplement for offering support to service users in PHC settings. The group assisted MHC users to cope with symptoms, social integration, and participating in meaningful activities as part of rehabilitation services. ; The UNISA Masters by Research and Doctoral Bursary. ; http://ees.elsevier.com/hsag/default.asp ; am2017 ; Psychology

Forest resources play a crucial role for many livelihoods in the rural areas in Myanmar. Households in rural area of Myanmar, especially destitute households, depend on the forest related activities as one of the income diversification activities. This study estimated forest dependency and identified factors influencing dependency for households living around the Popa Mountain Park (PMP) in Myanmar. A sample of 75 households was randomly selected from three villages surrounding the Popa Mountain Park to analyze the significant of forest income in the rural household economy. The data were collected using structured questionnaire interviews, direct observation and group discussion. This study found that forest income contributes 38.82%, and farm income and non-farm income contribute 34.87% and 26.31% to the total household income respectively. Major forest products around PMP include firewood, medicinal plants, bamboo shoot, honey and others. OLS Regression analysis showed that agricultural income and non-farm income are scientifically and negatively correlated with the forest income. The findings go along with that of similar studies that, providing alternative source of income for the livelihood either through employment opportunities or by a source of income from cultivation would greatly reduce the dependence on the forest. The study concluded that consideration to socioeconomic characteristics of households living around PMP is essential in forestry conservation programs. Therefore, the government should consider measures to increase agricultural production and generate off- farm employment opportunities for rural communities in general and enhance conservation around Popa Mountain Park in particular. Also environmental education programmes should be encouraged in order to reduce dependence on the protected forests.Read Complete Article at ijSciences: V52016121176 AND DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18483/ijSci.1176