Relevance of the research topic. During the year of the war (as of February 2023), due to the full-scale invasion of Russia, the total amount of damage caused to the infrastructure of Ukraine amounted to 143.8 billion dollars. These are more than 150,000 destroyed residential buildings, 25,000 km of state and local roads, 3,170 educational institutions, enterprises of the national economy, medical institutions, infrastructure facilities, etc. This list, unfortunately, can be continued. But everything destroyed after the war will have to be rebuilt. Therefore, education must respond to the changes in the labor market due to the war in the direction of training a sufficient number of personnel who will be involved in reconstruction. Vocational and technical education has powerful opportunities in the context of the assigned tasks, it is it that must respond to current realities and future needs. Formulation of the problem. Vocational (vocational and technical) education is popular abroad, which cannot be observed in Ukraine. The significant advantages of a technical vocational school are the possibility of quickly mastering a profession, retraining, obtaining an additional specialty, etc. Since the beginning of the war, the labor market of Ukraine has undergone significant changes, but the domestic economy has to some extent adapted to the state of war. Under such conditions, labor professions will be most in demand in the near future, as such specialists are necessary for the reconstruction of the country. Therefore, there is a need to conduct research on the prospects for the development of vocational education in order to meet the new requirements of the labor market and the post-war recovery of the country. Analysis of recent research and publications. There is a fairly large number of scientific studies devoted to the current state and prospects for the development of vocational education. But taking into account the state of war and the need for post-war reconstruction of the country, there is a need for additional research in order to solve new tasks and prospects for the further development of the country's economy. Highlighting unexplored parts of the general problem. The issue of managing the process of restoring the country and rebuilding its economy is inextricably linked to the process of reforming the education sector, therefore the search for effective models and mechanisms for the development of the vocational education system in accordance with the requirements of the labor market is necessary today. Setting the task, the goal of the research. The above circumstances determine the expediency of conducting a study of the state and prospects for the development of the vocational education system in Ukraine, taking into account the requirements of the labor market and the needs of Ukraine's post-war recovery. Research method and methodology. In the process of conducting the research, general scientific (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, analytical grouping) and special (abstraction, modeling, etc.) methods of studying economic phenomena and processes were used. Presenting main material. Quantitative indicators of the system of professional and technical education were evaluated. It was established that they cannot be considered optimistic, since the number of institutions, those who study in them and, accordingly, the number of graduates decreased. Analysis of the dynamics of the regional features of the system of vocational education and training showed that the leaders are the Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Kharkiv regions and the city of Kyiv. It was established that the number of education seekers is proportional to the number of applications for state budget entry in all regions of the country. The number of teachers is proportional to the number of students, which indicates the staffing of vocational education institutions in all regions of the country. The analysis of the age characteristics of teachers of Vocational (vocational and technical) education institutions showed that the total number of employees under 30 years old is almost two times less than the number of employees over 60 years old. The dominant majority is made up of employees aged 50 to 60 years. As for the age characteristics of education recipients, the maximum number of recipients is at the age of 17, which is explained by the structure of the education system in Ukraine. At the same time, there are students (students) over the age of 30, which can be explained by the desire to obtain a new (additional) specialty that is competitive on the labor market. And the number of this group of listeners is growing every year. An analysis of the level and dynamics of employment of graduates was carried out. It was established that the vast majority of graduates in 2022 were employed by profession (97.4%), not employed - only 2.5%. Regarding the sectoral structure of employment, the largest number of graduates of Vocational (vocational and technical) education found work in industry (30.7%), the second largest number was in the transport industry (28%) and agriculture (23.4%). The smallest number went to work in the field of communications (0.1%). We determined the Top-50 professions in which the number of unemployed is the largest and the smallest and proved that labor professions are in demand by the labor market even during wartime. According to official data, there were 2.6 million unemployed people in Ukraine at the end of 2022, and 2.8 million at the beginning of 2023. As of today, 45% of the unemployed are people with higher education. Instead, as the analysis showed, there is a lack of representatives of working professions. In the conditions of the need for post-war reconstruction of the country, the need for workers will continue to grow. Conclusions. The conducted analysis showed that there is a need to intensify the reformation process in the vocational education system, since the speed and efficiency of the post-war recovery of the country will depend significantly on the extent to which the needs of the labor market will be met today and in the future in labor professions.
The high street and the retail sector are facing a period of flux with tremendous pressures from local, national and global consumer trends, including rapid changes in the fiscal climate affecting local authorities. This situation has become particularly acute since the global economic downturn of 2008, which many see as the start of a significant long term global restructuring or the world's economy. Building on the findings of recent Government thinking, including the "Understanding high street performance" report by Genecon and the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published in 2012, this study argues for a fresh approach to the situation faced by the retail sector, the high street and, more generally, town centres across the country. Instead of a reactive approach to consumer trends, this report argues for a re-think of the strategic positioning of town centres to reclaim them to their rightful position and role as places that serve their communities, visitors, businesses and key stakeholders with a quality of experience that encourages them to keep coming back, staying longer and becoming local residents in due course. In line with this, the achievement of prosperity for town centres is aligned here with their strategic aspirations, and ability to satisfy changing demands, which this report suggests includes a holistic approach to the integration and management of the daytime, evening and night time economies. These three segments of the 24-hr economy should be seen as part of one menu that town centres offer in an economy increasingly driven by customer experience and perceptions. To achieve this, key town centre decision makers - who should include the business community as well as local residents - need first to establish a vision for the future of their town centre that is anchored in the 'personality' or unique characteristics of their town, sometimes referred to as the 'DNA' of the place. The aims of this study are to: 1. Present a set of tools that will help places of different sizes (from small market towns to large city centres and potentially also villages and rural locations) to plot a locally tailor-made strategic road map towards prosperity informed by their stakeholders. 2. Develop and present a state-of-the-art Town Centre Classification Matrix linked to a 'personality' test for town centres. This tool, which can be used for individual retailers and businesses as well as entire towns and tourist destinations, represents the first stage of strategic positioning and includes key elements of perceptions among visitors, residents and businesses. 3. Develop and present a new and clear national performance framework for town centres is presented. This framework is linked to the Town Centre Classification Matrix and allows places to evaluate their current situation and to monitor progress towards their strategic vision or objectives. This is achieved through a ground-breaking approach that effectively demystifies the concept of town centre performance indicators. Each indicator is explained in an approachable manner with data collection methodologies that include the possibility of using commercially available data or adopting a do-it-yourself method to field research locally. 4. Empower and support communities, Town Teams, Portas Pilots, local authority representatives, businesses operating in or near town centres, trader organisations, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), town centre managers, business improvement district managers, policy makers, town planners, charities, national retail associations, shopping centre managers, urban regeneration practitioners, tourism officers, consultancies and researchers. 5. Help locations and centres of all sizes to make key investment decisions adopting a strategic approach using decision support tools (including key performance indicators) that enable decision makers to prioritise and deal with local issues effectively. Additionally, the indicators used in this study also support users who wish to do so in pursuing further market research avenues to gain a better understanding of their town centre and the complexity of interactions between different parameters. This includes the differences that may exist in some places between facts and perceptions (e.g. reported retail crime versus perceptions of crime and safety in the town centre). As in any change management context, it is vital to know the facts so that informed decisions can be taken to prioritise available resources effectively. Based on the findings of this study, there follow ten key recommendations for further action from central government, LEPs, the retail sector and key local decision makers: 1. The role of retail and other businesses (e.g. leisure) in town centres should be revised to adopt a more holistic approach bringing the daytime, evening and night time economies under a common umbrella of strategic positioning and performance. 2. The national performance framework for town centres and Town Centre Classification Matrix presented here should be adopted nationally as part of a wider package to support ailing high streets and town centres. 3. A National Observatory for Town Centre Prosperity should be created for the UK, based on the Town Centre Performance Barometer Toolkit presented here. This national observatory should act as a common database of best practice and avoid simplistic benchmarking or league table approaches. Instead, it should focus on the sharing of innovative and entrepreneurial practices adopted by different town centres to achieve prosperity through inclusive and strategic partnership approaches at all levels. 4. A long term analysis of UK town centre prosperity trends should be carried out on the basis of field data collected using the performance criteria presented in this study. Whilst the indicator-based Town Centre Performance Barometer Toolkit is adequate for a first snap shot of the issues affecting different town centres today, it will only provide limited assistance to locations unless trends can be developed for each indicator through continuous use over a longer time frame. 5. The role of effective and genuine partnership-based place management as a key mechanism in the strategic visioning and delivery of prosperous town centres of all sizes should be recognised and supported by central and local government, urban regeneration professionals, LEPs and key local decision makers. This should apply not only to the operational management of town centres but, crucially, to key decisions affecting their development, including major interventions and regeneration projects with an impact on future growth prospects. 6. The effectiveness of current place management models (including Town Teams, Portas Pilots and Business Improvement Districts, among others) should be investigated further with due attention to place management practice overseas to establish more focused support interventions from the public and private sectors in achieving better results in each case without reinventing the wheel. 7. The impact of high performing town and city centres on neighbouring smaller centres should be investigated further, particularly by LEPs, taking a regional network and impact approach to avoid a polarisation of resources towards a (limited number of) high performing town or city centres or the squandering of resources on duplication in a small geographic area. Similarly, governance issues affecting LEPs and local councils in areas (including town centres) located on different local authority boundaries should be addressed as part of a wider framework. 8. The interactions between town centre performance parameters and their cause-effect relationships should be researched further as there is currently a limited level of evidence and understanding of these beyond relatively simple one-to-one (and not one-to-many) relationships. 9. A better understanding of consumer behaviour within the town centre ecosystem needs to be achieved at both macro and micro level in order to better support long-term decision making for their effective strategic positioning. This study offers a first step towards this by highlighting the importance of visitor perceptions but does not address the deeper and more complex mechanisms that govern the development of these perceptions. 10. The national observatory recommended above should develop further the indicator-based toolkit presented here to create indices linked to a weighting system for individual indicators derived from an extensive nation-wide field research programme on town centre prosperity.
В начале 1990-х годов российскому обществу представлялось, что пути социально-экономического развития России могут заметно трансформироваться. Научное сообщество вернулось к идее, что история не предопределена (как утверждал Герцен, «история стучится во все двери») и что советская социальная политика имеет многие возможные альтернативы. Это был классический спор об агентах/субъектах и структуре, спор, в сущности, о том, является ли история продуктом выбора индивидов или структурных сил. Эта дискуссия актуальна и по сей день, но уверенных в том, что Россия застряла в своей исторической колее, стало, пожалуй, больше. Однако критика основ социальной политики и попыток ее преобразования не может исходить из каких-то абстрактных соображений общего порядка, из примеривания того, что в Швеции или в США давно делают и там это хорошо получается. Критик должен быть, выражаясь словами Грамши или Уолцера, «связанным» (connected), то есть быть участником данного общества. Учитывая самобытность российского общества, это тем более важно. Задачей данной статьи является анализ изменений социальной политики в России за последние 18-20 лет. ; The main purpose of this article is to study the changes in Russian social policy in the past 18-20 years. The starting point is that social policy is a vague concept, by which a set of practical measures and theoretical approaches is being implied. One of the most important reasons to this is the theoretical instability of this concept is the general lack of positivism and determinism in social sciences and its failure to explain social changes. The processes of self-organization of population in Russia have been so many times interrupted by the state. The society already got used to being organized from above, however, in the last decades it seems that many major social groups as well as individuals have become rather confused and have lost their point of reference in the face of the state. The authorities, on the other hand, still do not interact with society, rather they are trying to influence it with usual strength. Different groups of population attempt to articulate their interests through the network of the NGOs, but the access barriers to any kind of discussion continue to be quite impenetrable. Redistribution mechanisms work badly, but these do not exhaust the essence of social policy. Thus, we still lack rational and attractive objectives of social development for the population. These, it seems, should most likely be related to improvement of education and health provision systems. According to its education component of HDI Russia was ranked 37th among the rest countries in 2010, while in the 1960s Russia (USSR) was in the top five of the most educated countries. The situation is far worse with the health of its population, according to its life expectancy modern Russia is far beyond many developed countries being ranked the 100th. And this with its policies offering the development of medical services rather than improving health per se. There is an apparent lack of understanding in the government with respect to the fact that the quality of life has become more important than wealth. Educated people in Russia appreciate interesting jobs and the freedom of choice, however, higher levels of economic differentiation among individuals, social groups and territories have become a serious constraint to pursuing any kind of reasonable professional motivation. No wonder, there is no consensus about the goals of development and ways of achieving them. There has also been a sharp decrease in employment in the last 15-18 years. The average number of employed at medium and large enterprises has decreased by more than one third according to official statistical data. At the same time the number of subsistence farmers and households has grown significantly, many people prefer not to buy, but to selfproduce vegetables, potatoes, fruits. About 1/3 of the adult population is involved in these kinds of activities during the peak season. This is to a greater extent possible because of flexible and irregular employment at enterprises. But the major motive behind such a strange employment model are low wages delivered at many Russian enterprises. Low wages and poor working conditions also remain the main cause of industrial conflict. But neither employees, nor any of their legal representatives such as trade unions are actually involved in the modern economic system. They have weak negotiation skills, while employers are not as constrained by state control and regulations as managers of Soviet enterprises. It is thus practically impossible for workers to organize any kind of strikes to defend their interests. Therefore, employees have to adhere to less efficient ways of attracting attention to their problems. The shift from universal to a minimum and goal-oriented social policy has led to unintended consequences in Russia. First, it has left a majority of population dissatisfied with its current situation (being used to continuous support from the state). Second, the state has itself created a trap, where pursuing economic goals through successful employment has become so much effort-consuming and risky that many decide to adhere to a much easier strategy of relying on state support. Thus, it has lead to an emergence of a rather massive, yet quite heterogeneous group of population, whose success is achieved through acquiring the nominal status of the ones in serious need and difficult situations. The now dominating approach to social policy adopted by the state is not just critically inefficient, it is, in fact, corrupting our population and assisting further lumpenisation, which can only be avoided through major revisions of social policy and adoption of serious measures, the explicit objectives of which should be consistent with purposes of human and social development.
Rationale: Successful implementation of evidence-based innovations has been identified as offering the best outcomes for service users, communities, and organisations. A widening understanding of structures, processes and resources essential to the successful adoption of innovative practices has informed the development of implementation frameworks that seek to bring research users and providers closer together. Despite these efforts, best available research knowledge is still difficult to translate into innovations in practice at scale, requiring the investment and co-ordination of resources across interconnected social structures that can be resistant to change. However, some changes do take hold and lead to new practices becoming integrated into organisational routines. Mobilising individual and collective knowledge have been identified as a key factor in delivering organisational changes. Research in this area has highlighted the role of complex, context dependent and power-laden organizational structures in relation to the spread and use of knowledge while the role of the individual as the agent of change within these organisational structures has received less attention. This study adds empirically to the conceptual and theoretical literature by focusing on the individual as the agent of change and the role of knowledge as a catalyst for the implementation of changes in practice. Drawing on literature on the creation, sharing and use of knowledge and employing the principles of complexity theory to construe the context as a series of complex adaptive systems, the study seeks to gain an understanding of how a Government policy framework transforms into individuals creating, sharing and actioning knowledge to secure changes in practice. Study Context: This study considered how the ambitions of a Scottish Government Policy, Ready to Act (R2A) were implemented within the organisational setting of an NHS Scotland health board. The participants in the study were a group of Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) which included physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech & language therapists, podiatrists and dieticians along with their leaders and representatives from the Scottish Government who had been instrumental in setting the overall direction of service redesign. The R2A policy aimed to break down professional silos to create a more integrated service delivery that focused on early intervention and prevention approaches. The overarching research aim was addressed in this context through the following research questions: What are the underlying mechanisms that enabled individuals to create, share and action knowledge to reconfigure services towards early intervention-prevention service delivery within this context? What underlying mechanisms facilitate and maintain the momentum and direction of change across diverse and dynamic agents within the system? Study Design: The qualitative longitudinal study adopted a realist approach to consider what works for whom and in what context in relation to implementing practice change in line with policy ambitions. Participants' understandings of the change process and their attributions for successful changes were explored over a 17-month period. Context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) theory configurations were constructed and refined through three tranches of focus groups (4) , interviews (23), observations (50 hours) and documentary analysis (16 documents) to provide a robust explanation of how knowledge drawn from a learning activity was mobilised across a complex adaptive system of health and social care. Theoretical Framings Employing concepts from complexity theory and knowledge mobilisation literature, the health and social care context is construed as a complex adaptive system (CAS), where interconnected entities adapt and self-organise in response to stimulus or feedback from their environment. Considering outcomes as an emergent quality of the system rather than a product of command and control, enabled the unpredictable and uncontrollable aspects of the context to be viewed as potential assets to the knowledge mobilisation process. Main Findings: The study considered two workstreams of AHPs who were collaboratively designing changes in practice which aligned with the ambitions of the R2A policy. The groups had different starting points in relation to their workstream tasks. These different starting points, and the resources and histories of the participants had continuing impacts on how the individuals within each workstream group responded to knowledge presented within the learning activity and to the policy ambition of a move to a proactive approach to service provision. Employing a complexity theory lens provided a useful analytical frame for surfacing and explaining differences in the nature and pace of change across contexts. Key constructs from complexity theory (self-organisation, feedback loops, emergence and interconnectivity) provided a useful way of explaining differences across the system and brought attention to elements of the change process which were unforeseen, forgotten or hidden in plain view. The study also identified distributed leadership and the cultivation of an allocentric disposition, where individuals were willing to engage with the knowledge from other groups and individuals, as necessary antecedents of knowledge mobilization. The importance of feedback loops in maintaining the trajectory and momentum of change across the system and over time was another important finding. Feedback loops were observed manifesting as epistemic artefacts which were created, refined and often replaced by individuals and groups as the system adapted and evolved. The longitudinal nature of the study revealed incremental changes which were important, but which were largely unacknowledged by the measures of change adopted by local management and the Scottish Government. Theoretical Contribution: The study revealed how the attributes of complex systems were harnessed to mobilise knowledge and deliver desired outcomes. Drawing together the literature on epistemic artefacts and the attributes of complex adaptive systems, this study provides a greater understanding of the role of artefacts within feedback loops in the sharing and application of knowledge. The nature of feedback loops has not been explored fully in previous studies. This study sheds light on how linguistic, social, and physical artefacts are created and employed within the process of knowledge mobilisation to support sustainable changes in practice. Empirical Contribution: This research provides a rich, detailed account of knowledge mobilisation in AHPs, an under-researched group of key actors within health care. It provides much needed longitudinal empirical evidence to a field which has received predominantly theoretical attention and provides an inter-group observation of knowledge mobilisation within a complex adaptive system. Practical Contribution: Employing realist methodology provided an ontologically deep exploration of the factors impacting on individuals and collectives as they sought to create, share, and implement their knowledge to deliver changes in practice. The realist methodology also provided a reflexive space for participants to review and unpack their experiences and set these within the context of how events emerged across the wider system over time. The refined CMO theories resonated with the experience of stakeholders from a wider national context who identified with the complexity-informed explanations of outcome variation across the system. The refined CMO configurations provide practical guidance on how key factors of complex adaptive system were harnessed to support the development and spread of innovation. Implications of the study The findings from the study suggest that where knowledge is a catalyst for changes in practice, the scale-up and spread of change across a complex adaptive system is facilitated through micro-processes of feedback. These feedback loops are highly sensitive to context. Understanding how feedback loops evolve and influence the trajectory of change within specific contexts offers an opportunity to harness the feedback loop to create virtuous cycles of change, moving the CAS in the desired trajectory of change. Understanding how vicious cycles of undesirable change or status quo are being sustained through feedback loops offers formative opportunities to dampen the influence of these feedback loops. The findings also suggest distributed and hierarchical approaches to leadership are both required within complex organisations. Although command and control structure are necessary to ensure the organisation is stable enough to function effectively, a distributed model of leadership is necessary to foster engagement and innovation. These different forms of leadership were not in competition but could be construed as operating as further feedback loops which influenced the direction of change. Creating change across this complex system relied on the mobilisation of knowledge between engaged agents. This occurred within this study through respectful and empowering relationships which were based on a model of distributed leadership and an allocentric disposition. These factors took time to become established. Individuals and groups working to mobilise knowledge were supported when anticipated timeframes for projects and activities were extended to facilitate change processes, particularly in context where individuals and groups had no history of working together. This study sought to provide a coherent explanation of the events experienced by practitioners and leaders as they addressed the shared ambitions of a government policy. The findings suggest that feedback loops which emerge from a deep understanding of how relationships are formed, managed and sustained across a system, provide key knowledge that can be mobilised to promotes the scale up and spread of innovation across a complex system. ; "This study was supported through the Scottish Improvement Science and Collaborating Centre (SISCC) and The Health Foundation. It forms part of a portfolio of work on Knowledge into Action at Scale (KiAAS)." -- Funding
Afghanistan faces a severe problem of poor nutrition and food insecurity. Chronic malnutrition among Afghan children is one of the highest in the world. This report investigates the status of food insecurity in Afghanistan with a focus on mapping provincial differences and an emphasis on understanding the impact of rising food prices on key measures of food security. It synthesizes findings from analysis of rising food prices and their impact on different measures of food access and utilization (such as calorie intake, protein consumption and the quality of diet) in Afghanistan. The findings are based on the analysis of data from the National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) 2007/08, a sample of over 20,000 households from all 34 provinces of Afghanistan. This analytical work is an integral part of the on-going collaboration between the Government of Afghanistan and the World Bank in the domain of poverty and vulnerability assessment. It aims to further the understanding of household wellbeing and vulnerability from the standpoint of food security and complements the earlier work presented in 'poverty status in Afghanistan. Finally, given that poor nutrition and food insecurity affect a sizeable proportion of the Afghan population year-round but more so during bad times, there is genuine need for a scaled-up and well-targeted safety nets program in Afghanistan.
Institutions, as mechanisms of social order, often constrain the behavior of individuals within a society. Political institutions constrain the behavior of politicians, financial institutions constrain the behavior of businesses and payment processors and social institutions often constrain the behavior of individuals. These institutions often play an important role in constraining activities that may be seen as illicit or unwanted and careful analysis of these constraints can allow researchers to learn more about activities that are often hidden or go unreported.This dissertation explores the role of institutional constraints on unwanted behavior by studying deforestation in Brazil and Malawi as well as underground activity in fraudulent software sales. These cases share the commonality that they are influenced by institutional constraints. Politicians in Brazil are constrained by reelection incentives, perpetrators of fraudulent antivirus software are constrained by payment processors and the cultural practice of ethnic favoritism in public good provision leads to particular ethnic groups in Malawi receiving much more fertilizer subsidies than others.The first chapter examines deforestation in Brazil. Local political authority (formal or informal) over natural resources may create rents for politicians. The political decision to use or allocate resources involves balancing private rents with reelection prospects. I examine the case of deforestation in Brazil and a presidential decree granting the federal government the authority to punish counties that failed to limit total deforestation within their borders. This collective punishment aimed to generate pressure on local politicians to slow deforestation. Using binding term limits as a source of variation in reelection eligibility, I find eligibility has no effect on deforestation prior to the decree. After the decree, reelection eligible mayors reduced annual deforestation 10% more than mayors ineligible for reelection. These findings are consistent with the equilibrium outcome of a lobbying model. Policies such as sanctions, which target the electorate in order to influence political behavior, may be less effective when politicians are not accountable to voters.The second chapter examines Fake antivirus (AV) programs which have been utilized to defraud millions of computer users into paying as much as one hundred dollars for a phony software license. As a result, fake AV software has evolved into one of the most lucrative criminal operations on the Internet. In this chapter, we examine the operations of three large scale fake AV businesses, lasting from three months to more than two years. More precisely, we present the results of our analysis on a trove of data obtained from several backend servers that the cybercriminals used to drive their scam operations. Our investigations reveal that these three fake AV businesses had earned a combined revenue of more than $130 million dollars. A particular focus of our analysis is on the financial and economic aspects of the scam, which involves legitimate credit card networks as well as more dubious payment processors. In particular, we present an economic model that demonstrates that fake AV companies are actively monitoring the refunds (chargebacks) that customers demand from their credit card providers. When the number of chargebacks increases in a short interval, the fake AV companies react to customer complaints by granting more refunds. This lowers the rate of chargebacks and ensures that a fake AV company can stay in business for a longer period of time. However, this behavior also leads to unusual patterns in chargebacks, which can potentially be leveraged by vigilant payment processors and credit card companies to identify and ban fraudulent firms. This chapter is joint work with Brett Stone-Gross, Richard Kremmerer, Christopher Kruegel, Douglas Steigerwald, and Giovanni Vigna and was published as Stone-Gross et al. (2013).The final chapter returns to deforestation and studies it in the context of agriculture in Malawi. The effect of development policies on the environment is often ambiguous ex ante. Programs designed to improve agricultural productivity may increase deforestation by raising the marginal productivity of agricultural land, thus increasing the demand for land clearing. However, in a setting of subsistence farming on unproductive land, increasing agricultural productivity may reduce the need to shift cultivation to maintain the desired yields. This chapter examines the impact of agricultural subsidies on deforestation in Malawi by leveraging ethnic favoritism in government resource allocation. By exploiting a change in the ethnicity of the Malawi president following the 2004 election, we show that coethnic districts received more fertilizer subsidies and experienced significant declines in deforestation compared to districts with other predominant ethnicities. This paper studies a case in which poverty alleviation programs have beneficial environ- mental impacts demonstrating that, in certain contexts, input subsidies may provide a 'win-win' scenario. This chapter is joint work with Conor Carney.
DIRECTOR'S FOREWARD (Daniel Pauly). EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. PART 1: PAPERS. Prohibited species bycatch in the eastern Bering Sea flatfish fisheries - an analysis of institutions and incentives (Joshua K. Abbott and James E. Wilen). Modelling short-term choice behaviour of Danish fishermen in a mixed fishery (Bo S. Andersen and Annie-Sofie Christensen). Modeling effects of habitat closures in ocean fisheries (Matthew Berman). High seas fisheries governance: a framework for the future? (Stan Crothers and Lindie Nelson). Investing in natural capital - the case of fisheries (Ralf Doering). The catch 22 of licensing policy: socio-economic impacts in British Columbia's commercial ocean fisheries (Danielle N. Edwards, Astrid Scholz, Eric E. Tamm and Charles Steinback). The impact of rights-based management regimes on fishery productivity (Stephanie F. McWhinnie). Data fouling in marine fisheries: findings and a model for Newfoundland (Kaija I. Metuzals, C. Michael Wernerheim,Richard L. Haedrich, Parzival Copes and Ann Murrin). Early attempts at establishing exclusive rights in the British Columbia salmon fishery (Frank Millerd). Industrial evolution in response to changes in the demand for traceability and assurance: a case study of Chilean salmon aquaculture (Tyler K. Olson and Keith R. Criddle). Optimal location of marine protected areas in an international context (Arjan Ruijis and John Janmaat). An economic analysis of management options in the western rock lobster fishery of Western Australia (Neil Thomson and Nick Caputi). Testing the stability of recreational fishing participation probabilities (Eric M. Thunberg and Charles M. Fulcher). Improving utilization of the Atlantic sea scallop resource: an analysis of rotational management of fishing grounds (Diego Valderrama and James L. Anderson). PART 2: ABSTRACTS. Preferences for a buyout program: survey results from U.S. Atlantic shark fishermen (Charles M. Adams and Sherry L. Larkin). Measuring welfare effects of multispecies quota management systems (J. Agar). Economic evaluation of marine ecosystem restoration in northern British Columbia (Cameron H. Ainsworth). Valuing U.S. marine habitats: fantasy or fact? (Jackie Alder, William Cheung, Gakushi Ishimura and U. Rashid Sumaila). Price discovery in laboratory tradable fishing allowance markets with concurrent leasing (Christopher M. Anderson and Jon G. Sutinen). Excessive shares in ITQ fisheries (Lee G. Anderson). Framework for the evaluation of socio-economic and environmental indicators of sustainability in marine ecosystem based fisheries management: The Veracruz Reef system case (Patricia Arceo, Leonardo Ortiz, and Alejandro Granados). Measuring performance in a multi-output industry (Frank Asche, Daniel Gordon and Carsten Lynge Jensen). Experimental analysis of the political economics of fisheries governance(Sam Bwalya, Christopher M. Anderson and Jon G. Sutinen). Effort response, harvest, and climate in the Gulf of Mexico recreational red snapper fishery (D.W. Carter and D. Letson). Socioeconomic impacts of fishery subsidies: a review (Tony Charles). The buyback subsidy problem: time inconsistencies and the ITQ alternative (Colin W. Clark, Gordon R. Munro and U. Rashid Sumaila). Deterrence and compliance in the artisanal Lake Victoria fisheries (H. Eggert and R. Lokina). Reconciling the revocable (or impermanent) privilege of IFQs with economic needs of fishermen (Mark Fina and Joseph Sullivan). Fraser salmon and the species-at-risk act: socio-economic impacts (Gordon S. Gislason). Genetic resources for fun and profit - the role of the interest rate in natural selection (Atle G. Guttormsen, Dadi Kristorfersson and Eric Naevda). Bering Sea pollock fisher response to the Steller sea lion conservation area (Alan C. Haynie and David F. Layton). Dynamic discrete choice modleing: Monte Carlo analysis (Robert Hicks and Kurt E. Schnier). Individual habitat quotas for fisheries: the influences of regulatory scale and spatial heterogeneity (Daniel S. Holland and Kurt E. Schnier). Fisheries cooperartives - varieties and consequences (Daniel D. Huppert and Jennifer Kassakian). Treadmill effects and capitalization of resource rent in Norweigian fisheries (Gakushi Ishimura and Rognvaldur Hannesson). Global cost and regional benefit of open ocean aquaculture with ocean nourishment (Ian S.F. Jones and Ibrahem Al Tarawneh). A dynamic spatial model to predict net distribution of fishing effort in relation to changes in fish abundance in the global tuna longline fishery (Heather Keith, Carl Walters and U. Rashid Sumaila). Simulating with ISIS-Fish V2.0 the dynamics of a north-east Atlantic mixed fishery subject to spatial closures (Stephanie Mahevas, Dominique Pelletier, Paul Marchal, Olivier Guyader, Raul Prellezo and Marina Santurtun). Entering and exiting a fishery: a strategic choice? (S. Mardle and T. Hutton). International trade, fisheries, and Canadian marine ecosystems: an empirical analysis (A. Dale Marsden and U. Rashid Sumaila). Ecosystem of a small lake (Kawahara-oike, Japan) invaded by two alien species: bluegill Lepomis macrochirus and largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides (Takashi Matsuishi, Md. Monir Hossain, Akira Goto and Mikio Azuma). Decision structuring to alleviate embedding in environmental valuation (Timothy L. McDaniels, Robin Gregory, Jospeh Arvai and Ratana Chuenpagdee). A preliminary look at the Hawai'ian swordfish regulations at reducing sea turtle bycatch (Jeffrey K. O'Hara and Theodore Groves). Importation of tasteless smoke (CO) treated tuna and its impacts to local market and fisheries (Minling Pan and Timothy Ming). Risk-shifting in farm-raised catfish marketing channels (K. Quagrainie and I. Neira). Stranded capital and impacts to processors of ITQs (Kate Quigley). Modeling economic efficiency in a fishery: the Norwegian cod trawl fishery (Kristin H. Roll, Frank Asche and Atle G. Guttormsen). Protecting marine biodiveristy: a comparison of inidividual habitat quotas (IHQs) and the marine protected areas (Kurt E. Schnier and Daniel S. Holland). Outside the realmn of economics: what are the implications of environmental ethics for fisheries management? (Donald M. Schug). Spatial management of metapopulations in fisheries : the bioeconomic effects of source-sink configurations (J.C. Seigo and J.F. Caddy). Valuing ecosystem services with fishery rents: a lumped-parameter approach to hypoxia in the Neuse River estuary (Martin D. Smith and Larry B. Crowder). A hierarchical Bayes approach to discrete choice fisheries modeling: the effect of marine reserves on fishing behaviour (Marin D. Smith, Junjie Zhang and Felicia C. Coleman). Amending the Alaska halibut/sablefish IFQ program to address community needs (P.J. Smith). Ecological and economic analysis of sablefish aquaculture in British Columbia (U. Rashid Sumaila, John Volpe and Yajie Liu). On the economics of fisheries governance: a Presidential address (Jon G. Sutinen). The economic costs of regulation: a bioeconomic comparison of legislative mandates for rebuilding fish stocks in the United States and New Zealand (Gil Sylvia, Sherry L. Larkin and Michael Harte). Bayesian estimation of technical efficiency in fisheries (D. Tomberlin, X. Irz and G. Holloway). Beyond ITQs: transactions costs and self-governance in New Zealand (Ralph E. Townsend). The effect of regulatory regimes on productivity development in fisheries: a comparative country study (Ragnar Tveteras and Hakan Eggert). Market power, sharing rule and fishery co-management (J. Uchida and J. Wilen). Moving toward market based management regimes: implementing days at sea leasing in the northeast (USA) multispecies fishery (John B. Walden and Charles Fulcher). Like counting sheep from a helicopter on a cloudy day: the effects of scientific uncertainty on stock assessment and ITQ fisheries management (T. Yandle). The contribution of fisheries to GDP: underestimating the role of small-scale fisheries (Dirk Zeller, Shawn Booth and Daniel Pauly). ; Fisheries Centre (FC) ; Unreviewed ; Faculty ; Researcher ; Graduate
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Life Cycle Assessment of Rare Earth Production from Monazite / Callum Browning, Stephen Northey, Nawshad Haque, Warren Bruckard, Mark Cooksey -- Recovery of Rare Earth Elements from the Ferrous Fraction of Electronic Waste / Lars K Jakobsson, Mark W Kennedy, Ragnhild E Aune, Gabriella Tranell -- Fundamental Study of the Rare Earths Recycling Through the Pyrotetallurgical Route -- Phase Relations and Crystallization Behavior of the Cao-Sio-NdO System / Thu Hoai Le, Annelies Malfliet, Bart Blanpain, Muxing Guo -- Mitigating Supply Risk of Critical and Strategic Materials: The Role of Trade Policies / Vasken Xhaxhollari, Michele Bustamante, Gabrielle Gaustad -- Sustainable Processing of Phosphogypsum Waste Stream for the Recovery of Valuable Rare Earth Elements / Mugdha Walawalkar, Connie K Nichol, Gisele Azimi -- Life Cycle Analysis for Solvent Extraction of Rare Earth Elements from Aqueous Solutions / Ehsan Vahidi, Fu Zhao -- Characteristics of Light Rare Earths from Korean Coal Power Plants Ash / T Thriveni, Ahn Ji Whan -- Enabling & Understanding Sustainability -- Building Materials & Slag Valorization. Energy Generation From Waste Slags: Beyond Heat Recovery / Jinichiro Nakano, James Bennett, Anna Nakano -- Production of Lightweight Aggregate and Ceramic Balls Using Gold Tailings, Red Mud And Limestone / Hyunsik Park, Soo-kyung Kim, Doyun Shin, Jeong-soo Sohn -- Accounting for Variation in Life Cycle Inventories: The Case of Portland Cement Production in the U.S. / Xin Xu, Maggie Wildnauer, Jeremy Gregory, Randolph Kirchain -- Kinetics of Dephosphorization from Steelmaking Slag By Leaching With CHO-Noh-Hcl Solution / Yong Qiao, Jiang Diao, Xuan Liu, Xiaosa Li, Tao Zhang, Bing Xie -- Treatment Of Molten Steel Slag for Cement Application / João B Ferreira Neto, Catia Fredericci, João O G Faria, Fabiano F Chotoli, Tiago R Ribeiro, Antônio Malynowskyj, Andre N L Silva, Valdecir A Quarcioni, Andre A Lotto -- Incorporation of Sewage Sludge into Heavy Clay Ceramic Body / Carlos Mauricio Fontes Vieira, Isabela Oliveira Rangel Areias, Sergio Neves Monteiro -- Designing Materials and Systems for Sustainability. 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Open Peer Review reports Background Perinatal mental health problems affect up to one in five women worldwide [1, 2]. Stress, anxiety and depression in pregnancy affect not only the mother but can also have long-term adverse effects on her child via biological mechanisms in utero [3]. Along with the impact on the mother and her developing infant, antenatal depression and anxiety are the most common predictors of postnatal depression [4, 5]. Postnatal depression can reduce her ability to provide sensitive and responsive caregiving that can potentially impair child development [6]. Mental health problems in the perinatal period are a particular challenge in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where they can be at least twice as frequent as in higher-income countries [1]. Our geographical context for this work will be The Gambia, in West Africa, where mental health services are minimal, services for perinatal mental health are non-existent and high levels of stigma associated with mental health issues, as well as specific local attitudes and beliefs, impede recognition and prevent help-seeking behaviour. It is thus of high priority to develop new low-cost, low-resource, non-stigmatising and culturally appropriate approaches to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression perinatally, for the benefit of both the mother and child. The current project will test the hypothesis that the creative arts—in particular group-singing—will show special promise in alleviating perinatal mental distress in The Gambia. In high-income countries, such as the UK and the USA, singing in groups has been shown to be a powerful modulator of mood and emotion, evoking positive effects on mental health, well-being and social affiliation [7] via mechanisms involving synchrony and entrainment [8], the saliency of relational communicative features in musical interaction [9] and significant effects on the endocrine system [10]. In addition, the mother's voice is a key channel through which meaningful, sensitive and contingent interactions between the caregiver and infant can take place [11]. Recent studies have found that music and its use specifically during the perinatal period can reduce women's stress levels and depressive symptoms and increase women's attachment to their infant [12,13,14,15]. Music-centred approaches may be particularly fruitful in The Gambia as there are already a range of musical practices that specifically engage pregnant women and new mothers [16]. For instance, infant naming ceremonies occur 7 days after birth and are musical celebrations to recognise the new mother and her family [16]. Performances by Kanyeleng groups are closely associated with pregnancy and motherhood and are important in health communication [17]. These pre-existing cultural and creative practices provide an excellent context from which to explore, co-design and ultimately evaluate culturally situated, music-centred interventions that aim to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression perinatally and facilitate mother-infant caregiving. Study aims This is a feasibility study which aims to inform the design of a larger trial to investigate a Community Health Intervention through Musical Engagement (CHIME) to help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression in pregnant women compared to standard care. This article describes the trial protocol (version 1.0, 11/11/18). The protocol was prepared in accordance with the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidance. The trial SPIRIT checklist can be viewed in Additional file 1. Objectives Our primary objective is to test (a) the feasibility of delivering a group-singing intervention to a sample of pregnant women in The Gambia using a stepped wedge design and (b) the feasibility of using standardised tools to measure the impact of this intervention on anxiety and depression symptoms, before and after the intervention. This objective can be broken down into five specific feasibility objectives: 1) To obtain demographic information on the eligible population 2) To determine if our measurement tools, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20), are useable 3) To determine if the intervention is deliverable 4) To determine if the stepped wedge trial design is deliverable and obtain information that will inform the definitive study. Specifically to: a. Assess recruitment and acceptability of randomising clinics b. Assess the recruitment rate of women to control and intervention groups c. Assess participants' adherence to the intervention group and follow-up in both arms d. Test the feasibility of data collection 5) To determine if this type of intervention is culturally appropriate and well received by the community and health workers. Methods/design We will be testing the feasibility of a stepped wedge cluster design, which differs from a parallel arm cluster design in that all clinics involved in the study receive the intervention [18]. Advantages over a parallel arm cluster trial include the requirement of a smaller sample size due to the availability of a within group comparison and prevention of potential disappointment for health clinics who are not randomised into the intervention. Study setting This multi-site study will recruit from four antenatal clinics in western Gambia. Study population All participants will be Mandinka or Wolof Gambian women who are pregnant. Inclusion criteria Pregnant (14–24 weeks gestation) Speak Wolof or Mandinka fluently Exclusion criteria At least one previous late term miscarriage Current psychosis or history of psychosis Withdrawal criteria If the participant develops any serious medical condition or the participant's mental health significantly declines (as assessed by the care team), and the care team deem it necessary, then she may be withdrawn from the study. Intervention The intervention will be delivered on the community level, meaning that it will include women with a range of anxiety and depression symptoms. Our primary aim is to reduce symptoms in those experiencing them (whether these are at a high level or a medium or low level). We anticipate this may also help to reduce their symptoms into the postnatal period. By including those with low and high levels of symptoms, rather than screening and including only those with high levels of symptoms, we will aim to avoid stigma and increase acceptability. The intervention has been developed following focus groups with various stakeholders including health professionals (midwives and community birth companions), pregnant women and musicians (griots and Kanyeleng groups). Four groups of 20 women between 14 and 24 weeks gestation will attend six 60-min group-singing sessions at their local antenatal clinic. This will take place in the morning as this is the time deemed to best suit the majority of women and clinics. Local Kanyeleng groups who specialise in musical practices to support women's health will lead the sessions. The content of the six sessions will be co-designed with the Kanyeleng groups via two extended workshops with the research team. All sessions will begin with a welcome song and end with a closing song. Some of the songs used during the main body of the session will cover topics including the (a) importance of the singing group in supporting each other, (b) importance of other positive relationships in their lives, (c) resilience to challenges and empowerment and (d) importance of being open, removing stigma to discuss challenges. One lullaby will be introduced at each session. Kanyeleng leaders will also be encouraged to ensure that all the women feel comfortable and are participating when they can. The nature of the intervention will necessarily vary somewhat across the four settings, especially as Wolof speaking groups and Mandinka groups have different and distinct cultural beliefs, practices and language. By using the Kanyeleng groups local to each of the four clinics involved, the sessions will be contextually appropriate, while the workshop with all four Kanyeleng groups before the intervention begins will ensure that the overarching goals, content and approach to session delivery are broadly standardised. Over the course of the 6-week intervention period, a research assistant will observe and video and audio record two singing sessions (the first and the fourth sessions) from each of the four clinics to ascertain, using a checklist, the extent to which the sessions conform to our articulated goals. A community health nurse at each clinic will be engaged to take attendance data and report any issues of concern to the research team. The control group will consist of four groups of 20 women between 14 and 24 weeks gestation from the same four clinics. These women will receive only standard care without any additional intervention. Randomisation and blinding As we will be testing the feasibility of delivering a stepped wedge cluster design, the four different antenatal clinics will be randomised with two sites starting first (creating the first sequence) and two starting 6 weeks later (the second sequence). Randomisation will be performed by the study statistician who will generate a randomisation list using software and apply it to the pre-concealed list of clinics. The researchers and participants will not be blinded to whether they are in the intervention or the control cohort. Outcome measurements Two local research assistants (RAs) will collect all measures orally as there is a high rate of illiteracy among the target population. All scales have been translated into Mandinka and Wolof. The translation method used was based on suggestions by the World Health Organisation, Hanlon et al. [19] and Cox, Holden and Henshaw [20]. First, the scales were translated into Mandinka and Wolof. An expert panel discussion then refined the translation before back translating it into English. The expert panel came together once more to resolve any remaining issues before finalising the translation. Two questionnaires will measure antenatal anxiety and depression symptoms. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) [21] is a ten-item scale that was developed to screen for postnatal depression. It has subsequently been validated to be used during pregnancy [22]. This measurement tool has been used and validated in other African contexts; however, there is no avaliable validated version of the EPDS in Mandinka or Wolof even though it has been used in The Gambia before [23]. The Self-report Questionnaire (SRQ-20) [24] is a 20-item scale developed by the World Health Organization to measure anxiety and depression symptoms in a variety of cultural contexts. It has been used in many different African contexts such as Ethiopia [19], South Africa [25] and Rwanda [26] and as a way to measure perinatal mental health [23]. However, the SRQ-20 has never been used in the Gambian context nor has it been translated into Wolof or Mandinka. Demographic outcomes We will collect demographic information about all participants. The data we will collect is as follows: date of birth, gestational age, time taken to get to the health centre, parity, gravida, place of birth, current place of residence, ethnic group, history of serious illness, occupation, husband's occupation, marital status, educational background and amount of regular musical engagement. Feasibility outcomes The feasibility outcomes are as follows: Recruitment rate Retention and attrition rates of participants Clinics' adherence to stepped wedge schedule Completeness of data by site and over time Video and audio recording of sessions to determine fidelity of the intervention at each site, i.e. whether key content emphasised in training workshops was being delivered at each site. Qualitative interviews with participants after the intervention to capture enjoyment and perceived benefit. Recruitment Four antenatal clinics will be chosen to take part in the study based on three criteria: (1) availability of a local Kanyeleng group to deliver the intervention, (2) the language group predominantly spoken in the area (with at least one clinic being in a predominantly Wolof speaking area) and (3) the type of community the clinic serves (with at least one within an urban area). The health professionals working at the health centre will first approach participants for the study. If they meet the criteria, they will be given information about the study and asked if they would like to be referred to the RAs. They will then be put in contact with one of the RAs who will meet them privately face to face. The information sheet will be read out in their native language verbatim to ensure participants' ability to give informed consent. Consent will be taken orally by the RAs and recorded by signature or thumbprint. If participants do not choose to take part we will record their reason, if it is given, to help understand why women might not want or be able to participate. Incentive and participant retention Participants in both groups will be offered a total of 600 Dalasi (about 12 USD) for their time, 200 Dalasi for each of the three data collection time points (baseline, post, follow-up). All participants will be reminded of the data collection and the group-singing sessions by phone call. Calls will be made by the RAs 3 days and 1 day before as well as on the day of these appointments. Where possible, a record will be kept of the reasons women give for failing to join the intervention or data collection session. Sample size As this is a feasibility study, it is not designed to assess the efficacy of the intervention, although pilot data on this will be collected. We will evaluate the feasibility of study design, data collection and whether the intervention is deliverable and acceptable to the participants. In the study, we will gather information to be used in the design of the future definitive study including an estimate of the standard deviation of potential primary outcomes to inform the sample size. We aim to collect data from a total of 120 pregnant women, 60 in the control condition and 60 in the intervention condition [27]. This number will be sufficient to provide estimates of binary feasibility outcomes with precision of at least ± 9 percentage points for the 95% confidence interval. Trial schedule This trial design involves a sequential crossover of clusters whereby each cluster (antenatal clinic) receives the control condition followed by the intervention condition. The four chosen clinics will be randomised to two sequences of a 12-week phase. A separate cohort of participants will be recruited to the control group and the intervention (singing) group. Each cohort will be recruited around 4–6 months into their pregnancy. The 12-week phase for both the control and intervention cohort will include data collection at week 1 ("baseline") and week 7 ("post") after either group-singing (intervention) or standard care (control) as well as at week 11 ("follow-up"), 4 weeks after the intervention finished. Contamination will be avoided by having data for the control group collected before the intervention groups start at each clinic. See Fig. 1 for a schematic for the study. Fig. 1 figure1 Schematic of the study Full size image Assessment and management of risk There are no high risks within our study compared to standard care. We have identified three areas of ethical concern and have outlined how each of these issues will be managed. 1. Mothers may experience an adverse effect such as a miscarriage, difficult birth, still birth, a sudden drastic change in physical or mental health, infant health problems or even a serious adverse effect such as death during the intervention. It is possible that a participant experiencing such an adverse event may attribute a causal link between the adverse event and their involvement in the study. We will mitigate this association being made, firstly, by clearly explaining the nature of the intervention and any possible risks to the women when they are recruited into the study. If, despite this, an association of this nature was still made, we would enlist the help of the Ministry of Health & Social Welfare (our partner on the project) to disseminate information to the women and the community concerning the incidence of such events occurring in the general population in an attempt to reassure those concerned that such adverse events should not be attributed to involvement in the study. 2. It is possible that some of the themes involved in questionnaires could lead to the women revealing episodes of self-harm. If this is the case, the woman will receive in the moment front-line counselling to talk through these issues with the RAs who are trained psychiatric nurses. Then, if needed, she will be referred on to the community mental health team (CMHT) for further management. If the CMHT deems it appropriate, they may then refer her on to the psychiatric team. 3. It is possible that some of the themes involved in questionnaires may also lead the women to reveal domestic abuse. If this is the case, the woman will receive in the moment front-line counselling to talk through these issues with the RAs. For emergencies and cases that require immediate intervention, the RAs will connect with the Gender-Based Violence focal person. For other cases, the RAs will refer the woman to the One Stop Center at Serekunda General Hospital or Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital. 4. Women throughout the study will be monitored by the RAs, both trained psychiatric nurses. If the RAs feel that at any point a woman's score indicates a high level of symptoms and/or the women reveal that they are particularly struggling, the RAs will refer the woman on to the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) for further management. If the CMHT deems it appropriate, they may then refer her on to the psychiatric team. Data management All consent forms will be stored in a master file, which will be kept in a locked drawer where only members of the research team have access. All case report forms will not be linked to names, just a participant number, and kept in a separate locked cabinet where only the research team has access. All data, including video and audio recordings, will be held on an encrypted hard drive only members of the research team can access. Data will be stored for 5 years after the study and will then be deleted or destroyed. Analysis All data will be entered into a database by an RA and verified by the second RA using double data entry to ensure data quality. As this is a feasibility study, we will examine missing data as an outcome. Descriptive statistics will be summarised to understand the demographic variables relating to the recruited population. Descriptive statistics and plots will be used to assess the distribution of the measurement tools, repeated at baseline and follow-up and by each arm. We will also examine the distributions of scores in the different language groups to see to what extent item scores and overall distributions differ or are similar. Correlations between our two measurement tools will be calculated. To determine if the intervention is deliverable, we will record the number of sessions that the Kanyeleng groups delivered, aiming to deliver two thirds of the sessions, and the duration of each session, aiming to last between 45 and 75 min. We will also perform a qualitative evaluation, using the video and audio recordings, to determine intervention fidelity at the four sites. Both RAs will watch the video and audio recordings of the first and fourth group-singing sessions at each clinic and complete a checklist to determine if all the necessary elements—as outlined in the training workshops—were included in the intervention. Reliability of the fidelity measure will be ascertained by measuring inter-rater consistency. We will also calculate the proportion of clinics approached that consented, aiming to reach over 50% recruitment rate, and record any scheduling problems in keeping with the stepped wedge timeline. Recruitment, adherence and completeness of data will be calculated for both groups. We aim to achieve a 60% recruitment rate and no more than 30% attrition in both arms. To determine if the intervention was culturally appropriate and well received by the community and health workers, we will collect qualitative data from post-intervention interviews and perform a thematic analysis. Discussion The absence of mental health services in The Gambia, coupled with the stigma associated with mental illness in general, results in high levels of unmet need for pregnant women dealing with mental distress in The Gambia. The development of a low-cost, low-resource intervention, which is rooted in local health and cultural practices, is of high priority, and the feasibility study we intend to carry out will inform a full-scale trial to investigate efficacy of such an approach. By employing local research assistants and creating a partnership with governmental agencies, such as The Ministry of Health & Social Welfare and The National Centre for Arts and Culture, this study brings the understanding of existing health services and access to a network of primary healthcare workers throughout the country as well as the diversity of local musical practices and the meanings attached to them. This valuable knowledge will help us cope with the practical and operational issues that may arise. We hope to disseminate our findings within various scientific publications, during field days in various areas in The Gambia, and during a meeting in London which will bring together the researchers as well community members, academic colleagues and health professionals interested in hearing about this work. Trial status This article describes the protocol for a Community Health Intervention through Musical Engagement (CHIME) for perinatal mental health in The Gambia (version 1.0, 11/11/18). The sponsor for this trial is Goldsmiths, University of London. The project is funded by the MRC and the AHRC. Ethical approval was obtained from the Goldsmiths University Ethics Committee, the Research and Publication Committee (RePubliC) from the University of The Gambia and the Australian National University ethics committee. 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Funding The funders (MRC and AHRC) and sponsor (Goldsmiths) have no roles or responsibilities in the design, conduct, data analysis and interpretation, manuscript writing and dissemination of results. Author information Author notes Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo and Bonnie McConnell are joint first authors. Affiliations Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo & Lauren Stewart The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Bonnie McConnell Imperial College London, London, UK Victoria Cornelius & Vivette Glover The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Banjul, The Gambia Buba Darboe, Hajara B. Huma & Malick Gaye The National Centre for Arts and Culture, Banjul, The Gambia Hajara B. Huma, Malick Gaye & Hassoum Ceesay University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Paul Ramchandani & Ian Cross Contributions LS is the principal investigator and obtained grant funding and conceived of the study. KRMS wrote the first draft of this publication manuscript, helped with the ethics and grant application, the intervention design, and the data monitoring and data collection plan. BM helped with the ethics and grant applications, translations of questionnaires, administration of focus groups and design of the intervention. VC obtained study funding, designed the study and statistical analysis plan, contributed to writing the manuscript. BD helped with the grant and ethics application, translations of questionnaires, administration of focus groups and design of the intervention. HBH and MG helped with the translation of the questionnaires, administration of the focus groups and design of the intervention. HC helped with planning the logistics for running the study as well as with the translation of the questionnaires. IC, VG and PR all helped with the grant application and advised on research and intervention design. All authors reviewed and had input into the final submission. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Corresponding author Correspondence to Katie Rose M. Sanfilippo. Ethics declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate Ethical approval was obtained from the Goldsmiths University Ethics Committee, the Research and Publication Committee (RePubliC) from the University of The Gambia and the Australian National University ethics committee. Members of the research team will carry out the consenting and conduct of this study orally. It will be emphasised that any participant is able to withdraw from the study at any point without any consequences. Consent for publication Not applicable. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Additional information Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary information Additional file 1. SPIRIT Checklist. Rights and permissions Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Reprints and Permissions About this article Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark Cite this article Sanfilippo, K.R.M., McConnell, B., Cornelius, V. et al. A study protocol for testing the feasibility of a randomised stepped wedge cluster design to investigate a Community Health Intervention through Musical Engagement (CHIME) for perinatal mental health in The Gambia. Pilot Feasibility Stud 5, 124 (2019) doi:10.1186/s40814-019-0515-5 Download citation Received 22 February 2019 Accepted 15 October 2019 Published 07 November 2019 DOI https://doi.org/10.1186/s40814-019-0515-5 Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Keywords Perinatal mental health Feasibility trial The Gambia Music Singing group Kanyeleng Comments By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate. Please note that comments may be removed without notice if they are flagged by another user or do not comply with our community guidelines.
Rare earth elements (REE) are classified as critical metals because of their technological importance and geo-political supply risks. They are used in a range of applications, including magnets, phosphors, battery electrodes, catalysts and polishing powders. Many of these applications are important in green technologies. Permanent magnets constitute the most important REE application in terms of market size, specifically with neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium used in Nd-Fe-B magnets, and the demand for these magnets is increasing. To mitigate supply risks, efforts are underway to develop recycling technologies to retrieve REE from Nd-Fe-B material. Whilst the recycling of industrial Nd-Fe-B scrap is already practiced, recycling of rare earths from end-of-life products is still largely limited to laboratory and pilot projects. The question to be addressed in this dissertation is: How does the recycling of Nd-Fe-B magnet material reduce the environmental impact of the global REE production for use in Nd-Fe-B magnets? In the global production system, the extent to which environmental impacts can be reduced through the recycling of Nd-Fe-B magnet material depends on the following aspects: • the possible extent of the recycling activities, i.e. the question of how much REE material can be supplied from secondary magnet material sources • the choice of technologies applied in primary and secondary REE production • market mechanisms, which determine whether and to what extent the output of primary rare earth element production is reduced as a consequence of the recycling activities. To answer these questions, material flow analysis (MFA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) studies were utilized. The MFA study was conducted to quantify material (Nd-Fe-B) and associated substance (i.e. REE) flows for years 2020 to 2030. This was undertaken to identify the potential future size of secondary REE flows from these materials. Since recycling of REE from Nd-Fe-B magnets is at its early beginnings today, a future outlook was required. The potential role of secondary REE production from Nd-Fe-B material was compared with the expected overall size of future flows in the global Nd-Fe-B production system. The findings from the MFA study were used to model a future production system in which some of the REE demand is met through secondary production from scrap Nd-Fe-B magnets. Market effects on the jointly produced REE in the primary production system were analysed. The environmental effects of changing from the current REE production system based on primary mining to a potential future system in which some of the primary production is replaced by secondary production were analysed in a consequential life cycle assessment study (C-LCA study) – a form of LCA which focuses on changes in environmental impacts, rather than their absolute quantification. The study provides an example of how effects on an unbalanced REE market can be addressed in LCA studies. The MFA study showed that the amount of industrial Nd-Fe-B scrap available for recycling is likely to exceed achievable potentials of secondary Nd-Fe-B extractable from end-of-life (EOL) devices in years 2020–30 (by mass of Nd-Fe-B). Around 20 percent of global demand of Nd/Pr and of 22–23 percent of Dy/Tb for Nd-Fe-B production can be met from secondary sources from EOL magnets and industrial Nd-Fe-B scrap in years 2020–30. From a recycling perspective, the most promising Nd-Fe-B application groups were shown to change over the time period considered, posing a challenge to recyclers who have to handle the changing mix. To aid the C-LCA study, a life cycle inventory for in-situ leaching of REE from ion-adsorption deposits was compiled as this was not previously available in the public literature, or in publicly available data-bases. Results from the C-LCA study show that recycling of REE from Nd-Fe-B magnets would be beneficial from an environmental perspective due to the lower environmental impacts associated with the secondary recycling process compared to primary production, but also due to the possibility to avoid overproduction for joint productions in the primary production system. The avoided impact from primary production far exceeds the impact from the recycling activity for all analysed impact categories. In addition, the REE production from ion-adsorption clay deposits constitutes one of the most important REE production routes, and the most important production route for heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium. Therefore, the dataset provides an important addition to the REE production datasets currently available. Furthermore, an additional life cycle assessment study was conducted to assess the potential envi-ronmental impacts of a one-step recycling process developed by researchers in the EREAN project. In contrast to the C-LCA study, the focus of this LCA study was on the process-specific impacts associated with the technology as a function of different process parameters. Results from the analysis of the recycling process developed in EREAN show that the material recovery rate is crucial to the overall impact of the recycling process. Furthermore, the preparation of the magnet material required before the electrolysis also contributes to the overall impact. The comparison of this recycling route with primary production shows that the recycling process has the potential for much lower process-specific impacts than the current REE primary production process. To conclude, the secondary production of REE from Nd-Fe-B magnets could help reduce the environ-mental impacts associated with rare earth production. The potential environmental benefits of recycling are currently still limited by the amount of scrap becoming available each year, however, this is expected to increase in the near future. Whether rare earth production from secondary sources actually takes off will depend on the development of rare earth prices, on whether Nd-Fe-B recycling will be politically incentivized, and on geopolitical factors. In Europe, it is likely that political incentives will be necessary to kick-start recycling operations (ERECON. 2015). Further research regarding the magnitude of perfluorocarbons emissions during rare earth electrolysis, which are potent greenhouse gases, and on ionizing radiation associated with rare earth processing, which has been associated with adverse human – and environmental health effects, is recommended. Furthermore, an improvement of the environmental impact assessment methods available for life cycle assessments of REE, especially with regards to ionizing radiation and resource use, would be desirable.
This review focuses on the role of local institutions in adaptation to climate change. It does so under the belief that climate impacts will affect disadvantaged social groups more disproportionately, and that local institutions centrally influence how different social groups gain access to and are able to use assets and resources. It suggests that adaptation to climate change is inevitably local and that institutions influence adaptation and climate vulnerability in three critical ways: a) they structure impacts and vulnerability, b) they mediate between individual and collective responses to climate impacts and thereby shape outcomes of adaptation, and c) they act as the means of delivery of external resources to facilitate adaptation, and thus govern access to such resources. In focusing on local institutions, the review fills two glaring gaps in the existing understanding about institutions and climate change: the lack of middle-range theories of adaptation practices to help frame policy debates, and the absence of comparative empirical studies of adaptation to support policy interventions. To contribute to middle-range theoretical knowledge about climate change the review develops a conceptual framework to understand and classify the adaptation practices of the rural poor, view the institutional structuring of adaptation, and examine the types of external support interventions that local institutions inevitably channel. The review proposes a focus on different forms of mobility, storage, diversification, communal pooling, and market exchange in rural settings as the basic mechanisms through which households address riskiness of livelihoods. Using the familiar typology of public, private, and civil society institutions the review proposes an institutional linkages framework that highlights the role of institutional partnerships in facilitating adaptation and drawing from social network analysis it presents a conceptual toolkit to analyze institutional partnerships and their impacts on resource access of vulnerable social groups. In examining the role of institutions in channeling financial, information and technological, leadership, and policy interventions into rural areas, the review highlights that institutions are critical leverage points through which to determine the direction and magnitude of flows of resources to different social groups.
This paper analyzes different approaches in poverty in Senegal, relying in particular on data provided by the last two household surveys (ESPS-2-2002 and ESAM 2006) conducted by the National Agency of Statistics and Demography in partnership with the World Bank.In the analysis of monetary poverty, we reveal important differences in terms of poverty lines in regions with at extremes, Dakar 923,55 F CFA (1,40 €) and Tambacounda 515,70 FCFA (0,78€), suggesting little relevance to the use of a threshold at national level alone. On basis of these thresholds, the indices of poverty stemming from the Foster's generic formula, to Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) reveal a reduction in the rate of poverty between 2002 and 2006 from the 57.1 % to 50.8 %, that is 6.9 in the whole of country and a gap in the poverty's line passing from 18 % to 16,4 %. This decline is particularly observed in the regions of Dakar, Diourbel, Kaolack, Saint-Louis and Thies. At the departmental level, poverty rates show a significant concentration in rural areas and the existence of pockets of poverty enclaved in urban areas. The estimation of a spatial econometric model highlights the socioeconomic factors that may explain the interdepartmental differences in poverty rates observed in 2006, including the level of regional economic development (urbanization, employment) and household behavior related at infrastructure (education, health and fertility). Furthermore, we propose a dichotomous model from which it is possible to identify the determinants of income poverty of household heads. The results show that female-headed households are not the poorest layer. In general way, differences of poverty apparent between urban and rural areas are largely correlated with disabilities in terms of education and unequal access to information and communication resources.We are entering a multidimensional analysis of poverty in Senegal, through an estimate of the degree of deprivation of some basic household needs. The approach by the theory of fuzzy sets used for this purpose shows that poverty declined slightly: 1% against 7% for monetary poverty. Unlike the monetary approach, the observed decrease from non-monetary poverty affects other regions as Kolda and Ziguinchor and Kaolack and Diourbel saw an increase. The estimation of one-dimensional fuzzy indexes allowed identifying the domains in which the households post the degree of largest deprivation: the quality of housing, education and information and communication technologies, beyond income.The profiles of monetary poverty as well as multidimensional are excellent tools to target the most destitute groups of the population. However, these tools remain dumb on the perception of these poor people as for their own socioeconomic situation. In this sense, an econometric analysis of the determinants of poverty felt in Senegal in 2006 brings up the importance of certain non-economic dimensions (social exclusion, cultural and lack of consultation of stakeholders on policy development and cutter fight poverty). ; Ce travail analyse sous différentes approches la pauvreté au Sénégal en s'appuyant notamment sur les données fournies par les deux dernières enquêtes auprès des ménages (ESAM 2-2002 et ESPS-2006) réalisées par l'Agence Nationale de la Statistique et de la Démographie en partenariat avec la Banque mondiale.Dans l'analyse de la pauvreté monétaire, nous faisons apparaître des différences importantes en termes de seuils de pauvreté dans les régions avec aux extrêmes la région Dakar 923,55 F CFA (1,40 €) et Tambacounda 515,70 F CFA (0,78€), ce qui suggère le peu de pertinence quant à l'utilisation d'un seuil établi au seul niveau national. Sur la base de ces seuils, les indices de pauvreté issus de la formule générique de Foster, Greer et Thorbecke (FGT) dévoilent une baisse du taux de pauvreté entre 2002 et 2006 de 57,1% à 50,8%, soit de 6,9 point dans l'ensemble du pays et un écart à la ligne de pauvreté passant de 18% à 16,4%. Cette baisse est particulièrement observée dans les régions de Dakar, Diourbel, Kaolack, Saint-Louis et Thiès. Au niveau départemental, les taux de pauvreté montrent une concentration importante dans les zones rurales et l'existence de poches de pauvreté enclavées dans les zones urbaines. L'estimation d'un modèle économétrique spatial met en évidence les facteurs socioéconomiques susceptibles d'expliquer les différences interdépartementales de taux de pauvreté constatées en 2006, notamment le degré de développement économique des territoires (urbanisation, emploi) ainsi que les comportements des ménages liés au niveau d'infrastructures (d'éducation, de santé et de fécondité).Par ailleurs, nous proposons un modèle dichotomique à partir duquel il est possible de mettre en évidence les déterminants de la pauvreté monétaire des chefs de ménage. Les résultats montrent que les femmes chefs de ménage ne sont pas la couche la plus pauvre. De manière générale, les disparités de pauvreté manifestes entre milieux urbain et rural sont largement corrélées à des handicapes en matière de d'éducation et à l'inégal accès aux moyens d'information et de communication.Nous abordons une analyse multidimensionnelle de la pauvreté au Sénégal, à travers une estimation des degrés de privation de certains besoins essentiels des ménages. L'approche par la théorie des ensembles flous utilisée à cet effet suggère que la pauvreté a faiblement diminué : 1 % contre 7 % pour la pauvreté monétaire. Contrairement à l'approche monétaire, la baisse de la pauvreté non monétaire observée concerne d'autres régions comme Kolda et Ziguinchor et les régions de Diourbel et Kaolack connaissent une hausse. L'estimation des indices flous unidimensionnels a permis d'identifier les domaines dans lesquels les ménages affichent le degré de privation le plus important : la qualité du logement, le niveau d'instruction et les moyens d'information et de communication, au-delà du revenu.Les profils de pauvreté monétaire aussi bien que multidimensionnelle sont d'excellents outils pour cibler les groupes les plus nécessiteux de la population. En revanche, ces outils restent muets sur la perception de ces pauvres quant à leur propre situation socioéconomique. En ce sens, une analyse économétrique des facteurs déterminants de la pauvreté ressentie au Sénégal en 2006 fait apparaître l'importance de certaines dimensions non économiques (exclusion sociale, culturelle et manque de concertation des intéressés sur les politiques de développement et de lutte cotre la pauvreté).
Tourism has been acknowledged as one of the fastest growing industries in the world. However, recently tourism activities have been noted as a double-edged sword, in that it not only creates positive impacts but also causes negative impacts on the physical environment (i.e., land pollution, ecosystem degradation, air and water pollution) if not well managed. Increasing concerns about the negative impacts of tourism have led various researchers to estimate and model the role of the different tourism sectors that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and various aspects of climate change. Northern Cyprus is a popular tourist destination in the Mediterranean region, boast of increasing number of tourists annually. Besides the massive economic benefits of the tourism industry of Northern Cyprus, there are serious environmental concerns on the basis of improper waste management. Hence, the present research focused on the statistical modelling of the waste generation rate of accommodation sectors of Northern Cyprus, management approach and the re-utilization of the generated wastes. The research herein adopted a quantitative method and the data were collected through the questionnaire. Various accommodation types based on size were sampled in Famagusta, Girne and Nicosia districts of Northern Cyprus. Specifically, the thesis examines the type of wastes generated, the quantity of wastes generated considering the nationality of the tourists, waste management practices employed by each sampled accommodation and established the relationship between these independent variables and the waste generation rate. The quantifiable wastes generated per tourism seasons were modelled by three statistical models; central composite design, artificial neural network and multiple linear regressions. The results showed that 4159.9 kg and 2063.4 kg of waste were generated during the peak and lean season from the sampled hospitality facilities, respectively. In the sampled accommodation, 36% of the waste generated originated from the kitchen waste and about one-fourth (27.3%) of the total waste is non-wet waste which consists 7% of glass, 8% of nylon, 5% of wood, 4.2% disposable plastics and 2.8% of PET bottles. 35% of the sampled accommodation sector practices landfill waste disposal, while only 14% recycled the wastes generated in their facilities. Considering the results, this thesis implied that the type of accommodation sector, the waste management practices adopted by the accommodation sector, nationality and the tourism season significantly influenced the waste generation rates. These findings are important for policymakers, environmentalist and development of sustainable green hotels. Recommendations concerning separation and re-utilization of generated wastes are suggested and future research directions are outlined. This study proposes the integration of the cost-benefit system into the waste management program of each accommodation sector to encourage hotels to manage their waste effectively. Also, the conversion of waste cooking oil into green energy (biofuel) is demonstrated and encouraged to incentivise better waste management. Keywords: tourism, environmental pollution, waste generation, reutilization, forecasting ; ÖZ: Turizm, dünyadaki en hızlı büyüyen endüstrilerden biri olarak kabul edilmiştir. Bununla birlikte, son zamanlarda turizm faaliyetleri çift taraflı bir kılıç olarak görülmüştür, çünkü bu sadece olumlu etkiler yaratmaz, aynı zamanda iyi yönetilmezse fiziksel çevre üzerinde olumsuz etkilere neden olur (ör: arazi kirliliği, ekosistem bozulması, hava ve su kirliliği). Turizmin olumsuz etkileri ile ilgili artan endişeler, çeşitli araştırmacıların sera gazı emisyonlarına ve iklim değişikliğinin çeşitli yönlerine katkıda bulunan farklı turizm sektörlerinin rolünü tahmin etmelerine ve modellemelerine neden olmuştur. Kuzey Kıbrıs, Akdeniz bölgesinde popüler bir turizm beldesidir ve her yıl artan sayıda turist barındırmaktadır. Kuzey Kıbrıs turizm endüstrisinin büyük ekonomik faydalarının yanı sıra, uygun olmayan atık yönetimi temelinde ciddi çevresel kaygılar bulunmaktadır. Bu nedenle mevcut araştırma, Kuzey Kıbrıs'ın konaklama sektörlerinin atık üretim oranının istatistiksel modellenmesine, yönetim yaklaşımına ve üretilen atıkların yeniden kullanılmasına odaklanmıştır. Buradaki araştırma kantitatif bir yöntemi benimsemiş ve veriler anket yoluyla toplanmıştır. Kuzey Kıbrıs'ın Mağusa, Girne ve Lefkoşa ilçelerinde boyutuna göre çeşitli konaklama türleri örneklenmiştir. Özellikle, tez, üretilen atıkların türünü, turistlerin uyruğunu göz önüne alarak oluşturulan atıkların miktarını, her bir örnekdeki konaklama tarafından kullanılan atık yönetimi uygulamalarını incelemekte ve bu bağımsız değişkenler ile atık üretim oranı arasındaki ilişkiyi ortaya koymaktadır. Turizm mevsimlerine göre üretilen ölçülebilir atıklar üç istatistiksel modelle modellenmiştir; merkezi kompozit tasarım, yapay sinir ağı ve çoklu doğrusal regresyon. Sonuçlar, örneklenmiş konukseverlik tesislerinden en yüksek ve zayıf mevsim boyunca sırasıyla 4159.9 kg ve 2063.4 kg atık üretildiğini göstermiştir. Örneklenen konutta, üretilen atığın 'sı mutfak atığından kaynaklanmakta ve toplam atığın yaklaşık dörtte biri (% 27.3) ıslak atık değildir, %7'si cam, %8'i naylon, %5'i odun, %4.2'sini tek kullanımlık plastikler ve %2,8 PET şişeler'den oluşmaktadır. Örneklenen konaklama sektörünün 'i çöp atıklarının bertarafını gerçekleştirirken, sadece 'ü tesislerinde üretilen atıkları geri dönüştürmektedir. Sonuçlar dikkate alındığında, bu tez, konaklama sektörünün türünün, konaklama sektörünün benimsediği atık yönetimi uygulamalarının, uyruk ve turizm mevsiminin atık üretim oranlarını önemli ölçüde etkilediğini göstermektedir. Bu bulgular politika yapıcılar, çevreci ve sürdürülebilir yeşil otellerin gelişimi için önemlidir. Üretilen atıkların ayrıştırılması ve yeniden kullanımı ile ilgili öneriler önerilmekte ve gelecekteki araştırma yönleri özetlenmektedir. Bu çalışma, otellerin atıklarını etkili bir şekilde yönetmelerini teşvik etmek için her bir konaklama sektörünün atık yönetim programına maliyet-fayda sisteminin entegrasyonunu önermektedir. Ayrıca, atık pişirme yağının yeşil enerjiye dönüştürülmesi (biyoyakıt) daha iyi atık yönetimini teşvik etmenin ıspatıdır. Anahtar Kelimeler: turizm, çevre kirliliği, atık üretimi, yeniden kullanım, öngörme ; Doctor of Philosophy in Tourism Management. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Eastern Mediterranean University, Faculty of Tourism, 2018. Co-Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Akeem Oladipo, Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Habib Alipour.
The main purpose of this study is to provide a comparative analysis on dock labour systems in two European ports, focusing in particular on the container global industry. The research aims at analysing the impact of the market players' strategies along the maritime-logistics chain on dock labour dynamics in the last years, stressing the role of the institutional, material and structural constraints. By comparing two distinct case studies, the study aims to answer the following research questions: 1. How is the search for economies of scale achieved by market players along the maritime-logistics chain shaping port labour systems, schemes and work organizations in the European ports? 2. To what extent do terminal operating companies respond to the constraints driven by market players, European policies and national regulations, in order to maximize the performance of dock labour in two distinct ports/container terminals? The observation of the entire logistics chain characterizes the peculiar approach of this study. This approach fosters an analysis not only of the dynamic and complex structure of the maritime supply chain, but also of the background tendencies occurring in the overall dimension in which ports are situated, and hence the variety of dock labour systems. The focus on the container handling and the labour that incorporates it underlines the triple nature of the maritime-logistics chain, given the function of the intermodal transport unit. Consequently, this study argues that an "intermodal gaze" is required to grasp the main trends concerning labour in the pivotal link of the maritime-logistics chain. The empirical findings gathered during the fieldworks in the ports of Genoa and Antwerp are presented and discussed. The empirical evidence shows how in the Belgian case shipping companies vertically integrated with global terminal operators, particularly in the container business, demand direct employment for a significant number of their own workers, whereas casual workers are increasingly deployed during periods of peak demand. This setting in principle does not differ from the Italian case. Besides the different business models, dock labour schemes and arrangements, port employers in both cases hire a large part of the dockworkers daily, via "informal agreements", on an almost continual basis. In addition, the changing dynamics caused by exogenous factors are provoking a higher deployment of casual workers in Genoa, whereas in Antwerp this trend could further increase in the future, with the new possibility given by the ongoing port reform (after the infringement procedure sent by the European Union to the Belgian government, concerning the port labour system). The strategic action of the main players along the maritime-logistics chain is modifying the working mechanisms of both port labour systems, altering the matching of labour supply and demand, opening up new decision-making prospects for transnational terminal operating companies. In this frame, dock labour policies to date have not been carried out, except for de-regulation processes, mainly driven at supranational level and then acquired at national level. In other words, the organizational models of labour in the ports selected seem to be undermined by the processes of globalization, cutthroat competition along the entire logistics chain, and Europeization of the port labour policies. The comparative analysis displays to what extent the de-structuring processes of the organizational patterns are crossing the ports / container terminals analysed, besides the constraints partially common among the cases and partially specific to each of them. Significant dynamics, notwithstanding the institutional path dependencies and the specific global production networks, occur similarly in both the ports observed. The homogeneous pressures, however, engage with the history at national and local level, the institutional structures and practices that dictate the differences among the cases. This in turn reveals a process in which, as this study hypothesizes, such differences are more and more converging towards a commonly variegated trajectory. Beyond the different dock labour scheme and work organization, a similar division – or fragmentation – between permanent and casual workforce has been observed. Moreover, the dock labour systems and schemes compared in this study are differently managed but commonly affected by exogenous and endogenous pressures along the maritime-logistics chain. Furthermore, by looking at the port performance indicators, it has been possible to compare the terminal productivity (linked to the costs) of one cargo handling company operating in both ports, besides the significant differences among the container terminals analyzed (e.g dimension, equipment, etc). Despite the limited data availability, this comparative analysis explores how terminal operating companies behave for maximizing labour productivity in light of the dock labour schemes and regulations in two distinct environments. In short, it turns out that terminal operating companies involved in container handling apply the tariff to their customers starting from the Cash Cost per Box as parameter. The Cash Cost per Box (CCPB) is the indicator that represents how much a container handling company spends only in terms of out-of-pocket costs for each volume unit handled. In this cost structure, labour composes the main value in both cases. Being labour cost the main value, the lower amount of CCPB in the Belgian case with respect to the Italian case is mainly – but not exclusively – due to a lower number of workforce employed to handle one container with respect to the Italian case. The amount of workforce per container handled, determined also by different social relations of production in the ports selected, is the key aspect to set a proper comparison between the ports/terminals, linking the productivity indicators to the cost structure. Furthermore, it has been assessed the difference of the wages in both ports (and the distribution in terms of occupational contexts), which are lower in the Italian case and higher in the Belgian case. These findings show that, in a certain sense, the occupational port labour system in the Italian case remunerates more people by distributing lower wages, whereas in the Belgian case it remunerates less people by distributing higher wages. However, the incidence of labour cost does not changes so much in both contexts, but tends to be similar, being the difference mainly a matter of labour quotas differently distributed (and socially produced). Paradoxically, the organization of port labour in Antwerp replicated in Genoa would require, in theory, as a preliminary condition, the exclusion of a certain amount of workforce currently employed in the port operations. The main difference therefore concerns the greater or lower socialization of costs. In turn, these settings have an impact on terminal productivity, the Gross Crane Rate, due to several factors (i.e. labour force composition, work organization at quayside, terminal layout, endogenous and exogenous factors, terminal facilities, capacity, economies of scale, gang system, motivation and structural constraints, etc.). Following the previous reasoning, the empirical findings show that in Genoa the social equilibrium is given by a lower productivity compared to the Belgian case, acknowledged by the port actors involved in order to keep higher workforce in the port operations. The port labour system in Genoa absorbs more work than in the port of Antwerp, but at the same time, the model is less efficient in terms of performances.
Conseguir una economía mundial libre de carbono es de vital importancia para evitar el aumento de las temperaturas del planeta y sus fatales consecuencias para la humanidad. Para lograr ese objetivo se están llevando a cabo grandes avances en el desarrollo tanto de energías renovables como de vehículos más limpios. En el caso de los vehículos esos avances se están centrando principalmente en mejorar la eficiencia de los motores combustión, reducir la emisión tanto de gases de efecto invernadero como de otros perjudiciales para la salud y en el desarrollo de vehículos libres de emisiones directas, como los vehículos eléctricos. Estos avances hacía la obtención de automóviles más limpios está provocando un cambio en la actual flota de vehículos y se espera que en las próximas décadas habrá una renovación total de la misma. La nueva generación de vehículos reducirá en gran parte su dependencia con relación a los combustibles fósiles, sin embargo a cambio demandará una gran cantidad de recursos naturales, tan valiosos e incluso más escasos en ocasiones que el petróleo. Algunos de estos recursos serán: Co, Ni, Mn o Li para fabricar baterías; Ga, Ge, Y para hacer sistemas de iluminación tipo LEDs; Nd, Dy, Pr para construir imanes permanentes de motores eléctricos; Pt, Pd, Zr para hacer catalizadores que reduzcan la contaminación; Au, Ag, Sn, Ta, Yb para fabricar unidades electrónica; Ce, Tb, Se, La para hacer sensores o Nb, Mo, Cr, Ti, V, Sc, W para hacer aleaciones de acero de alta resistencia. Lamentablemente, estos recursos son finitos y algunos de ellos incluso ya son considerados como críticos por la Comisión Europea y otras instituciones internacionales. Una de las soluciones para mejorar la sostenibilidad en la fabricación de vehículos desde el puntode vista de los materiales que se emplean es el reciclaje. Sin embargo hay dos grandes problemas en torno al mismo. Por un lado los ratios de reciclaje no están avanzando tan rápidamente como la demanda de materiales y por otro lado las políticas de reciclaje no incentivan la recuperación de metales escasos. En la actualidad, los objetivos de reciclaje de vehículos se fijan en alcanzar un porcentaje de reciclabilidad sobre la masa total del vehículo. Para conseguir esas cuotas de reciclaje se llevan a cabo convencionalmente procesos mecánicos de separación de materiales. Estos procesos son de baja intensidad energética y a la vez muy eficaces para recuperar los metales que se emplean en mayores cantidades (acero, aluminio o cobre) pero resultan ineficaces para recuperar metales empleados en pequeñas proporciones (metales críticos o escasos). Como consecuencia, los metales críticos terminan subciclados en los procesos de fabricación de aleaciones de acero o aluminio y en el peor de los casos dispersos en un vertedero. Esta tesis se desarrolla con el objetivo principal de mejorar la eficiencia en el uso de los recursos necesarios para la fabricación de automóviles. Para conseguir dicho propósito se presenta una metodología que mide la eficiencia en el uso de los recursos e identifica posibles restricciones de suministro de metales. La metodología desarrollada se basa en la aplicación de la segunda ley termodinámica y el concepto de rareza termodinámica. Este enfoque cuantifica el valor real físico de todos los metales empleados y destaca en especial la aportación de aquellos cuya contribución al peso total del vehículo es pequeña, pero cuya escasez y por tanto su valor para el planeta es elevada. Este método evalúa la calidad de los materiales en función de su abundancia en la naturaleza y la energía útil (exergía) requerida tanto para extraerlos como para procesarlos y ponerlos a disposición de las industrias. Además del enfoque termodinámico, en esta Tesis se analizan las posibles restricciones de metales que puedan surgir en las próximas décadas. Para ello se aplica un modelo que considera la disponibilidad geológica de materiales (reservas y recursos), la capacidad de producción anual de los metales, la demanda anual estimada de cada metal, la demanda acumulada hasta 2050, la evolución de las cuotas de reciclaje y el impacto de la demanda de materiales de otros sectores. Los métodos desarrollados se aplican a diferentes tipos de vehículos (ICEV1, PHEV2 y BEV3) y han permitido alcanzar entre otros los siguientes resultados principales: (1) Desde el punto de vista del valor mineral de los recursos empleados, un vehículo eléctrico demanda 2.2 veces más recursos que un vehículo de combustión; (2) Hay 31componentes críticos en un vehículo convencional desde la perspectiva de los materiales que emplean; (3) Se han definido recomendaciones de ecodiseño para esos componentes basadas en reducir la demanda de metales escasos y mejorar tanto su reciclabilidad como su reusabilidad; (4) En los actuales procesos de reciclaje de vehículos un 27 % del valor mineral de los metales no se recicla funcionalmente; (5) Se han propuesto recomendaciones para la reducción de dichas pérdidas; (6) Se ha definido un ranking de los metales más estratégicos para el sector de la fabricación de vehículos siendo los 10 más estratégicos los siguientes: Ni, Li, Tb, Co, Dy, Sb, Nd, Pt, Au y Ag. Las contribuciones de esta Tesis son de gran valor para mejorar la sostenibilidad del sector de la fabricación de vehículos desde la perspectiva de los materiales que se emplean y están principalmente dirigidas a los siguientes grupos de interés: (1) Los diseñadores de vehículos, porque les ayudará a identificar propuestas de ecodiseño desde la perspectiva de los materiales; (2) Los responsables de desarrollar políticas en torno a la eficiencia en el uso de los recursos, ya que demuestra la debilidad de las políticas actuales basadas en el peso de los materiales y ofrece como alternativa un método que evalúa tanto la cantidad como la calidad de los materiales; (3) Los ejecutivos de las empresas, porque les presenta la dependencia y vulnerabilidad de la tecnología sobre ciertos materiales y les ayudará a planificar con antelación líneas de I+D+i basadas en la eficiencia en el uso de los recursos. ; Decarbonizing world economies is necessary to avoid the continuous increase of global temperature and its negative consequences for humanity. To get this ambitious target new advances in the fields of power generation with renewables and mobility with cleaner vehicles are being made. In the case of vehicles, these advances are being mainly focused on improving the performance of combustion engines, to reduce greenhouse and polluting emissions and the development of free direct emission vehicles like the electric ones. Advances towards cleaner vehicles are encouraging the continuous renovation of vehicle fleet so it is expected that in the following decades a complete renovation will take place. This new generation of vehicles will significantly reduce its fossil dependency. But in contrast, it will demand a huge quantity of other kinds of natural resources being some of them even scarcer than oil. Some of these resources will be necessary to manufacture the following components: batteries (Co, Ni, Mn or Li); LEDs for lighting (Ga, Ge, Y); permanent magnets for motors (Nd, Dy, Pr); catalytic converters (Pt, Pd, Zr); electronic units (Au, Ag, Sn, Ta, Yb), different kinds of sensors (Ce, Tb, Se, La), infotainment screens (In); automotive high performance steel or aluminum alloys (Nb, Mo, Cr, Ti, V, Sc, W) or injectors (Tb). Unfortunately these resources are finite and some of them are very scarce being even considered as critical for the European Commission and other institutions from several perspectives such as vulnerability, economic importance, supply, or ecological risks. One of the solutions to improve resource efficiency in vehicles is to recycle these valuable metals. Nevertheless, there are two main problems around the recycling situation. On one hand, recycling rates are not growing up as faster as metal demand. On the other hand, current recycling policies define targets based on mass weight approaches, and even if they are ambitious, they fail in enhancing the recycling of minor but critical metals. The legislation compliance is achieved by means of applying mechanical separation techniques. These processes are effective to recycle those metals with the highest contribution in the vehicle weight (steel, aluminum and copper) but they are not effective for the recovery of minor metals like those that are scarce and/or critical. Consequently, minor metals end downcycled during steel or aluminum smelting or in the worst case they finish dispersed in landfills. This Thesis is presented with the main aim to improve the resource efficiency in the vehicle manufacturing sector. To accomplish with this aim, a novel method for measuring the resource efficiency and to identify possible shortages in the supply of metals is presented. The resource efficiency is analyzed through the second law of Thermodynamics through the concept of thermodynamic rarity. This method takes into account the quality of mineral commodities as a function of their relative abundance in Nature and the energy intensity required to extract and process them. The application of the thermodynamic approach allows not only to recognize the physical value of materials with a low weight contribution but also to identify those components that use them. As it has been mentioned before this Thesis also assesses possible metal shortages. This activity is made by means of an own method which combines geological data (reserves and resources), annual capacity production, annual expected demand, cumulative expected demand to 2050, recycling rates evolutions and future resource demand of other technologies. The methodology is applied to different types of vehicles (ICEV , PHEV and BEV ) and it has been useful to achieve the following main results: (1) From a thermodynamic point of view an electric vehicle demands 2.2 times more quality resources than a combustion one; (2) 31 critical components were identified in a conventional vehicle from the perspective of the materials used to manufacture them; (3) Eco-design recommendations for these components have been defined. These recommendations are based on: reducing the demand of scarce metals and to increase both the recyclability and the reusability; (4) In current End of Life Vehicle (ELV) processes 27 % of the mineral capital (measured in rarity terms) is not functionally recycled; (5) Recommendations to reduce these losses have been proposed; (6) A strategic metal ranking for the automobile sector has been produced, being the top 10 most strategic metals the following: Ni, Li, Tb, Co, Dy, Sb, Nd, Pt, Au and Ag. The contributions of this Thesis are valuable to improve the sustainability of the vehicle manufacturing sector from the raw materials point of view. These contributions are mainly valuable for the following stakeholders: (1) Designers because it helps them to apply eco-design proposals from a raw materials point of view; (2) Policy makers because it evidences the weakness of mass based approach recycling policies and it proposes an alternative method that takes into considerations not only quantity but also quality; (3) Company's executives because it confronts them with the metal dependency and vulnerability of technology and it helps them to plan with enough time R+D+i lines based on resource efficiency.