Search results for: exploration/ exploitation policy

Authors: Arindam Roy

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Public policy is an intriguing terrain, which involves complex interplay of administrative, social political and economic components. There is hardly any fit-for all formulation of public policy as Lindbloom has aptly categorized it as a science of muddling through. In fact, policies are both temporally and contextually determined as one the proponents of policy sciences Harold D Lasswell has underscored it in his ‘contextual-configurative analysis’ as early as 1950s. Though, a lot of theoretical efforts have been made to make sense of this intricate dynamics of policy making, at the end of the day the applied area of public policy negates any such uniform, planned and systematic formulation. However, our policy makers seem to have learnt very little of that. Until recently, policy making was deemed as an absolutely specialized exercise to be conducted by a cadre of professionally trained seasoned mandarin. Attributes like homogeneity, impartiality, efficiency, and neutrality were considered as the watchwords of delivering common goods. Citizen or clientele was conceptualized as universal political or economic construct, to be taken care of uniformly. Moreover, policy makers usually have the proclivity to put anything into straightjacket, and to ignore the nuances therein. Hence, least attention has been given to the ground level reality, especially the socio-cultural milieu where the policy is supposed to be applied. Consequently, a substantial amount of public money goes in vain as the intended beneficiaries remain indifferent to the delivery of public policies. The present paper in the light of Reproductive Health Care policy in rural West Bengal has tried to underscore the criticality of socio-cultural factors in public health delivery. Indian health sector has traversed a long way. From a near non-existent at the time of independence, the Indian state has gradually built a country-wide network of health infrastructure. Yet it has to make a major breakthrough in terms of coverage and penetration of the health services in the rural areas. Several factors are held responsible for such state of things. These include lack of proper infrastructure, medicine, communication, ambulatory services, doctors, nursing services and trained birth attendants. Policy makers have underlined the importance of supply side in policy formulation and implementation. The successive policy documents concerning health delivery bear the testimony of it. The present paper seeks to interrogate the supply-side oriented explanations for the failure of the delivery of health services. Instead, it identified demand side to find out the answer. The state-led and bureaucratically engineered public health measures fail to engender demands as these measures mostly ignore socio-cultural nuances of health and well-being. Hence, the hiatus between supply side and demand side leads to huge wastage of revenue as health infrastructure, medicine and instruments remain unutilized in most cases. Therefore, taking proper cognizance of these factors could have streamlined the delivery of public health.

Keywords: context, policy, socio-cultural factor, uniformity

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Authors: Aishwarya Pothula

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Euthanasia in India is a politically dormant policy issue in the sense that discussions around it are sporadic in nature (usually with developments in specific cases) and it stays as a dominant issue in the public domain for a fleeting period. In other words, it is a non-political issue that has been unable to successfully get on the policy agenda. This paper studies how the Supreme Court of India (SC) plays a role in euthanasia’s policy making. In 2011, the SC independently put a law in place that legalized passive euthanasia through its judgement in the Aruna Shanbaug v. Union of India case. According to this, it is no longer illegal to withhold/withdraw a patient’s medical treatment in certain cases. This judgement, therefore, is the empirical focus of this paper. The paper essentially employs two techniques of discourse analysis to study the SC’s system of argumentation. The two methods, Text Analysis using Gasper’s Analysis Table and Frame Analysis – are complemented by two discourse techniques called metaphor analysis and lexical analysis. The framework within which the analysis is conducted lies in 1) the judicial process of India, i.e. the SC procedures and the Constitutional rules and provisions, and 2) John W. Kingdon’s theory of policy windows and policy entrepreneurs. The results of this paper are three-fold: first, the SC dismiss the petitioner’s request for passive euthanasia on inadequate and weak grounds, thereby setting no precedent for the historic law they put in place. In other words, they leave the decision open for the Parliament to act upon. Hence the judgement, as opposed to arguments by many, is by no means an instance of judicial activism/overreach. Second, they define euthanasia in a way that resonates with existing broader societal themes. They combine this with a remarkable use of authoritative and protective tones/stances to settle at an intermediate position that balances the possible opposition to their role in the process and what they (perhaps) perceive to be an optimal solution. Third, they soften up the policy community (including the public) to the idea of passive euthanasia leading it towards a Parliamentarian legislation. They achieve this by shaping prevalent principles, provisions and worldviews through an astute use of the legal instruments at their disposal. This paper refers to this unconventional role of the SC as ‘judicial entrepreneurship’ which is also the first scholarly contribution towards research on euthanasia as a policy issue in India.

Keywords: argumentation analysis, Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug, discourse analysis, euthanasia, judicial entrepreneurship, policy-making process, supreme court of India

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Authors: Shriya Chawla, Vinayak Malhotra

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Space exploration has noted an exponential rise in the past two decades. The world has started probing the alternatives for efficient and resourceful sustenance along with utilization of advanced technology viz., satellites on earth. Space propulsion forms the core of space exploration. Of all the issues encountered, space debris has increasingly threatened the space exploration and propulsion. The efforts have resulted in the presence of disastrous space debris fragments orbiting the earth at speeds up to several kilometres per hour. Debris are well known as a potential damage to the future missions with immense loss of resources, mankind, and huge amount of money is invested in active research on them. Appreciable work had been done in the past relating to active space debris-removal technologies such as harpoon, net, drag sail. The primary emphasis is laid on confined removal. In recently, remove debris spacecraft was used for servicing and capturing cargo ships. Airbus designed and planned the debris-catching net experiment, aboard the spacecraft. The spacecraft represents largest payload deployed from the space station. However, the magnitude of the issue suggests that active space debris-removal technologies, such as harpoons and nets, still would not be enough. Thus, necessitating the need for better and operative space debris removal system. Techniques based on diverting the path of debris or the spacecraft to avert damage have turned out minimal usage owing to limited predictions. Present work focuses on an active hybrid space debris removal system. The work is motivated by the need to have safer and efficient space missions. The specific objectives of the work are 1) to thoroughly analyse the existing and conventional debris removal techniques, their working, effectiveness and limitations under varying conditions, 2) to understand the role of key controlling parameters in coupled operation of debris capturing and removal. The system represents the utilization of the latest autonomous technology available with an adaptable structural design for operations under varying conditions. The design covers advantages of most of the existing technologies while removing the disadvantages. The system is likely to enhance the probability of effective space debris removal. At present, systematic theoretical study is being carried out to thoroughly observe the effects of pseudo-random debris occurrences and to originate an optimal design with much better features and control.

Keywords: space exploration, debris removal, space crafts, space accidents

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Authors: G. Erkomaishvili, E. Kharaishvili, M. Chavleishvili, N. Sagareishvili

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This paper discusses the current condition of tourism and its economic policy in Georgia. It analyzes and studies wellness tourism, as one of the directions of tourism; the newest niche in the wellness industry – triggering wellness resorts with medical ideology. The paper discusses the development tendencies of medical wellness resorts in Georgia and its main economic preferences. The main finding of the research is that Georgia is a unique place in the world according to the variety of medical recourses. This makes the opportunity to create and successfully operate medical wellness resorts, as well as develop it as a brand for Georgia in the world. The research represents the development strategies of tourism and its medical wellness resorts in Georgia, and offers recommendations based on the relevant conclusions.

Keywords: tourism, economic policy of tourism, wellness industry, medical wellness resorts

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Authors: Seyed Ziya Tabatabaei, Azimi Bin Hj Hamzah, Fatemeh Ebrahimi

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The increase in proportion of older people in Malaysia has led to a significant growth of health care demands. The aim of this study is to explore how perceived health care needs influence on quality of life among elderly Malay residents who reside in a Malaysian residential home. This study employed a method known as ethnographic research from May 2011 to January 2012. Four data collection strategies were selected as the main data-collecting tools including participant observation, field notes, in-depth interviews, and review of related documents. The nine knowledgeable participants for the present study were selected using the purposive sampling method. Two themes were identified: (1) Medical concerns: Feeling secure, lack of information, inadequate medical staff; and (2) Health promotion: Body condition, health education, physiotherapy and rehabilitation. These results could evoke the attention of policy-makers and care providers to better meet elderly residents’ health care needs.

Keywords: ethnographic study, health care needs, Malay elderly people, Malaysia, Quality of life, Residential home

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Authors: Shailender Kumar

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Current health policy pronouncements in India advocate for insurance-based financing mechanism to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), while undermine the role of comprehensive healthcare provision system. UHC is achieved when all people receive the health services they need without suffering financial hardship. This study, using 68th & 71st NSS rounds data, examines their relative and combined strength in achieving the above objective. Health-insurance has been unsuccessful in reducing prevalence and catastrophic effects of out-of-pocket payment and even dismantle the effectiveness of traditional way of health financing system. Healthcare provision is the best way forward to enhance health and well-being of households in condition if India removes existing inadequacies and inequalities in service provision across districts/states and ensure free/low cost medicines/diagnostics to the citizens.

Keywords: health policy, demand-side financing, supply-side financing, incidence of health payment

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Authors: E. T. Svahn

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Knowledge about the factors that influence the exchange between research and society is of the utmost importance for developing collaboration between different actors, especially in future science policy development and the creation of support structures for researchers. Among other things, how researchers look at the surrounding open science policy environment and what conditions and attitudes they have for interacting with it. This paper examines the Finnish researchers' attitudes towards open science policies in 2020. Open science is an integrated part of researchers' daily lives and supports not only the effectiveness of research outputs but also the quality of research. Open science policy in ideal situation is seen as a supporting structure that enables the exchange between research and society, but in other situation, it can end up being red tape generating obstacles and hindering possibilities of making science in an efficient way. Results of this study were carried out through focus group interviews. This qualitative research method was selected because it aims to understand the phenomenon under study. In addition, focus group interviews produce diverse and rich material that would not be available with other research methods. Focus group interviews have well-established applications in social science, especially in understanding the perspectives and experiences of research subjects. In this study, focus groups were used in studying the mindset and actions of researchers. Each group's size was between 4-10 people, and the aim was to bring out different perspectives on the subject. The interviewer enabled the presentation of different perceptions and opinions, and the focus group interviews were recorded and written as text. The material was analysed using grounded theory method. The results are presented as thematic areas, theoretical model, and as direct quotations. Attitudes towards open science policy can vary greatly depending on the research area. This study shows that the open science policy demands in medicine, technology, and natural sciences compared to social sciences, educational sciences, and the humanities, varies somewhat. The variation in attitudes between different research areas can thus be largely explained by the fact that the research output and ethical code vary significantly between certain subjects. This study aims to increase understanding of the nuances to what extent open science policies should be tailored for different disciplines and research areas.

Keywords: focus group interview, grounded theory, open science policy, science policy

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Authors: K. Hardy, A. Maurushat

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Policy makers are increasingly looking to make evidence-based decisions. Evidence-based decisions have historically used rigorous methodologies of empirical studies by research institutes, as well as less reliable immediate survey/polls often with limited sample sizes. As we move into the era of Big Data analytics, policy makers are looking to different methodologies to deliver reliable empirics in real-time. The question is not why did these people do this for the last 10 years, but why are these people doing this now, and if the this is undesirable, and how can we have an impact to promote change immediately. Big data analytics rely heavily on government data that has been released in to the public domain. The open data movement promises greater productivity and more efficient delivery of services; however, Australian government agencies remain reluctant to release their data to the general public. This paper considers the barriers to releasing government data as open data, and how these barriers might be overcome.

Keywords: big data, open data, productivity, data governance

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Authors: Sela Adjei

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This paper aims to rationalize the need for media policy implementation and copyright enforcement to address various challenges faced within Ghana’s film industry. After Ghana transitioned to democratic rule in 1992, critics and media professionals advocated a national media policy. This advocacy subsequently resulted in agitation for media deregulation and loosening of grip on state-owned media organizations. The reinstatement of constitutional rule in 1992 paved the way for the state to lax its monopoly of the media within the democratic context of a free market economy. The National Media Commission proposed a media policy and broadcast bill which was presented to parliament but has still not been passed into law. This legislative lapse partly contributed to the influx of unregulated foreign content. Accessible foreign media content subsequently promoted a system of unfair competition that radically undermined locally produced content, putting a generation of thriving film producers out of work. Drawing on reflections from a series of structured interviews, focus group discussions and creative workshops, the findings of this study maintain that the various challenges confronting Ghanaian filmmakers is centred around inadequate funding opportunities, copyright violation and policy implementation issues. Using the film industry structure and value chain analysis, the various challenges faced by the selected film producers were discussed and critically analyzed. A significant aspect of this study is the solution-driven approach adopted in outlining the practical recommendations that will boost the aesthetic, cultural and economic value of Ghanaian film productions. Based on the discussions and conclusions drawn with the various stakeholders within Ghana’s creative industries, the paper makes a strong case for firm state regulation, copyright enforcement and policy implementation to grow Ghana’s film industry.

Keywords: film, value, copyright, media, policy, culture, regulation, economy

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Authors: Shienna Marie Esteban

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The economic growth experience of the Philippines is one of the fastest in Asia. However, the said growth has not yet trickled down to every Filipino. This is evident to agricultural-dependent population. Moreover, the contribution of the agriculture sector to GDP has been dwindling while large number of labor force is still dependent on a relatively small share of GDP. As a result, poverty incidence worsened among rural poor causing hunger and malnutrition. Therefore, the existing agricultural policies in the Philippines are pushing to achieve greater food production and productivity to alleviate poverty and food insecurity. Through a review of related literature and collection and analysis of secondary data from DA, DBM, BAS - CountrySTAT, PSA, NSCB, PIDS, IRRI, UN-FAO, IFPRI, and World Bank among others, the study revealed that Philippines is still far from its goals of poverty reduction and food security. In addition, the agricultural sector is underperforming. The productivity growth of the sector comes out mediocre. The common observation is that weakness is attributed to the failures of policy and institutional environments of the agriculture sector. The policy environment failed to create a structure appropriate for the rapid growth of the sector due to institutional and governance weaknesses. A recommendation is to go through institutional and policy reforms through legislative or executive mandates should take form to improve the implementation and enforcement of existing policies.

Keywords: agriculture, food security, policy, poverty

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Authors: Joshua Osondu

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This research explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be utilized as a policy response to address teaching and learning (TL) issues in education in Ghana. The dual (AI and human) instructor model is used as a theoretical framework to examine how AI can be employed to improve teaching and learning processes and to equip learners with the necessary skills in the emerging AI society. A qualitative research design was employed to assess the impact of AI on various TL issues, such as teacher workloads, a lack of qualified educators, low academic performance, unequal access to education and educational resources, a lack of participation in learning, and poor access and participation based on gender, place of origin, and disability. The study concludes that AI can be an effective policy response to TL issues in Ghana, as it has the potential to increase students’ participation in learning, increase access to quality education, reduce teacher workloads, and provide more personalized instruction. The findings of this study are significant for filling in the gaps in AI research in Ghana and other developing countries and for motivating the government and educational institutions to implement AI in TL, as this would ensure quality, access, and participation in education and help Ghana industrialize.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, teacher, learner, students, policy response

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Authors: Faisal Algosair

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We examine the role of monetary policy in the presence of commodity price shocks using a Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with price and wage rigidities. The model characterizes a commodity exporter by its degree of export diversification, and explores the following monetary regimes: flexible domestic inflation targeting; flexible Consumer Price Index inflation targeting; exchange rate peg; and optimal rule. An increase in the degree of diversification is found to mitigate responses to commodity shocks. The welfare comparison suggests that a flexible exchange rate regime under the optimal rule is preferred to an exchange rate peg. However, monetary policy provides limited stabilization effects in an economy with low degree of export diversification.

Keywords: business cycle, commodity price, exchange rate, global financial cycle

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Authors: Antonia Syn

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Politicians’ outlooks on the nature of energy futures and an ‘Energy Transition’ have evolved considerably alongside a steady movement towards renewable energies, buttressed by lower technology costs, rising environmental concerns, and favourable national policy decisions. This paper seeks to examine the degree to which an energy transition has become an incontrovertible ‘status quo’ in parliament, and whether politicians share similar understandings of energy futures or narrate different stories under the same label. Parliamentarians construct different understandings of the same reality, in the form of co-existing and competing discourses, shaping and restricting how policy problems and solutions are understood and tackled. Approaching energy policymaking from a parliamentary discourse perspective draws directly from actors’ concrete statements, offering an alternative to policy literature debates revolving around inductive policy theories. This paper uses computer-assisted discourse analysis to describe fundamental discursive changes in British parliamentary debates around energy futures. By applying correspondence cluster analyses to Hansard transcripts from 1986 to 2010, we empirically measure the policy positions of Labour and Conservative politicians’ parliamentary speeches during legislatively salient moments preceding significant energy transition-related policy decisions. Results show the concept of a technology-based, market-driven transition towards fossil-free and nuclear-free renewables integration converged across Labour and the Conservatives within three decades. Specific storylines underwent significant change, particularly in relation to international outlooks, environmental framings, treatments of risk, and increases in rhetoric. This study contributes to a better understanding of the role politics plays in the energy transition, highlighting how politicians’ values and beliefs inevitably determine and delimit creative policymaking.

Keywords: quantitative discourse analysis, energy transition, renewable energy, British parliament, public policy

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Authors: E. O. Okan, A. Kepic, P. Williams

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Iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) deposits constitute important sources of copper and gold in Australia especially since the discovery of the supergiant Olympic Dam deposits in 1975. They are considered to be metasomatic expressions of large crustal-scale alteration events occasioned by intrusive actions and are associated with felsic igneous rocks in most cases, commonly potassic igneous magmatism, with the deposits ranging from ~2.2 –1.5 Ga in age. For the past two decades, geological, geochemical and potential methods have been used to identify the structures hosting these deposits follow up by drilling. Though these methods have largely been successful for shallow targets, at deeper depth due to low resolution they are limited to mapping only very large to gigantic deposits with sufficient contrast. As the search for ore-bodies under regolith cover continues due to depletion of the near surface deposits, there is a compelling need to develop new exploration technology to explore these deep seated ore-bodies within 1-4km which is the current mining depth range. Seismic reflection method represents this new technology as it offers a distinct advantage over all other geophysical techniques because of its great depth of penetration and superior spatial resolution maintained with depth. Further, in many different geological scenarios, it offers a greater ‘3D mapability’ of units within the stratigraphic boundary. Despite these superior attributes, no arguments for crustal scale seismic surveys have been proposed because there has not been a compelling argument of economic benefit to proceed with such work. For the seismic reflection method to be used at these scales (100’s to 1000’s of square km covered) the technical risks or the survey costs have to be reduced. In addition, as most IOCG deposits have large footprint due to its association with intrusions and large fault zones; we hypothesized that these deposits can be found by mainly looking for the seismic signatures of intrusions along prospective structures. In this study, we present two of such cases: - Olympic Dam and Vulcan iron-oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposits all located in the Gawler craton, South Australia. Results from our 2D modelling experiments revealed that seismic reflection surveys using 20m geophones and 40m shot spacing as an exploration tool for locating IOCG deposit is possible even when hosted in very complex structures. The migrated sections were not only able to identify and trace various layers plus the complex structures but also show reflections around the edges of intrusive packages. The presences of such intrusions were clearly detected from 100m to 1000m depth range without losing its resolution. The modelled seismic images match the available real seismic data and have the hypothesized characteristics; thus, the seismic method seems to be a valid exploration tool to find IOCG deposits. We therefore propose that 2D seismic survey is viable for IOCG exploration as it can detect mineralised intrusive structures along known favourable corridors. This would help in reducing the exploration risk associated with locating undiscovered resources as well as conducting a life-of-mine study which will enable better development decisions at the very beginning.

Keywords: crustal scale, exploration, IOCG deposit, modelling, seismic surveys

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Authors: Ogbu Harry Omilonye

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This paper examines protest as a literary mechanism against the unpopular political policy of the white minority regime in South Africa. It examines some of Mtshali’s poems as examples of protest poetry, showing how he deploys his artistic acumen in the popular struggle of the oppressed South Africans against the aberrations and obnoxious apartheid policy.

Keywords: protest poetry, poems, minority, oppression

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Authors: Laila Al-Balushi, Suad Al-Kharosui

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Due to the increasing number of breast cancer cases in Oman and the impact of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 on bed situation in the hospital, a policy of early discharge (ED) with drain after breast cancer surgery was initiated at one of the tertiary hospitals in Oman. The uniqueness of this policy is no home visit follow-up, conducted after discharge and the main mode of communication was Instagram media. This policy then was evaluated by conducting a quasi-experimental study using a questionnaire with ten open and closed-ended questions, five questions to explore patient experience using a five-point Likert scale. A total of 41 female patients responded to the questionnaire. Almost 96% of the participants stated being well informed about drain care pre- and post-surgery at home. 9% of the participants developed early sign of infection and was managed at out-patient clinics. Participants with bilateral drains expressed more pain than those with single drain. 90% stated satisfied being discharged with breast drain whereas 10% preferred to stay in the hospital until the drains were removed. This study found that the policy of ED with a drain after BC surgery is practical and well-accepted by most patients. The role of breast nurse and presence of family and institutional support enhanced the success of the policy implementation. To optimize patient care, conducting a training program by breast nurse for nurses at local health centres about care management of patients with drain could improve care and enhance patient satisfaction.

Keywords: breast cancer, surgery, early discharge, surgical drain

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Authors: Aaron Zhang, Alimire Kahaer, Gerald Weber, Nalin Arachchilage

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Access control is an essential safeguard for the security of enterprise data, which controls users’ access to information resources and ensures the confidentiality and integrity of information resources [1]. Research shows that the more common types of access control now have shortcomings [2]. In this direction, to improve the existing access control, we have studied the current technologies in the field of data security, deeply investigated the previous data access control policies and their problems, identified the existing deficiencies, and proposed a new extension structure of SPBAC. SPBAC extension proposed in this paper aims to combine Policy-Based Access Control (PBAC) with semantics to provide logically connected, real-time data access functionality by establishing associations between enterprise data through semantics. Our design combines policies with linked data through semantics to create a "Semantic link" so that access control is no longer per-database and determines that users in each role should be granted access based on the instance policy, and improves the SPBAC implementation by constructing policies and defined attributes through the XACML specification, which is designed to extend on the original XACML model. While providing relevant design solutions, this paper hopes to continue to study the feasibility and subsequent implementation of related work at a later stage.

Keywords: access control, semantic policy-based access control, semantic link, access control model, instance policy, XACML

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Authors: Jingwei Du

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The need of optimizing air conditioning systems for existing buildings calls for control methods designed with energy-efficiency as a primary goal. The majority of current control methods boil down to two categories: empirical and model-based. To be effective, the former heavily relies on engineering expertise and the latter requires extensive historical data. Reinforcement Learning (RL), on the other hand, is a model-free approach that explores the environment to obtain an optimal control strategy often referred to as “policy”. This research adopts Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) to improve chiller plant control, and enable the RL agent to collaborate with experienced engineers. It exploits the fact that while the industry lacks historical data, abundant operational data is available and allows the agent to learn and evolve safely under human supervision. Thanks to the development of language models, renewed interest in RL has led to modern, online, policy-based RL algorithms such as the PPO. This research took inspiration from “alignment”, a process that utilizes human feedback to finetune the pretrained model in case of unsafe content. The methodology can be summarized into three steps. First, an initial policy model is generated based on minimal prior knowledge. Next, the prepared PPO agent is deployed so feedback from both critic model and human experts can be collected for future finetuning. Finally, the agent learns and adapts itself to the specific chiller plant, updates the policy model and is ready for the next iteration. Besides the proposed approach, this study also used traditional RL methods to optimize the same simulated chiller plants for comparison, and it turns out that the proposed method is safe and effective at the same time and needs less to no historical data to start up.

Keywords: chiller plant, control methods, energy efficiency, proximal policy optimization, reinforcement learning

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Authors: Wendy I. E. Wesseling

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The unemployment rate has been on the rise since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008. Especially labor market entrants suffer from economic downfall. Despite the abundance of programs and agencies that help to reintegrate unemployed youth, considerable less research attention has been paid to 'fit' between these programs and its participants that ensure a durable labor market transition. According to Self-Determination Theory, need satisfaction is associated with better (mental) adjustment. As such, three hypothesis were formulated: when workers’ needs for competence (H1), relatedness (H2), and autonomy (H3) are satisfied in the workplace, they are more likely to remain employed at the same employer. To test these assumptions, a sample of approximately 800 young people enrolled in a youth unemployment policy participated in a longitudinal study. The unemployment policy was aimed at the development of generic and vocational competences, and had a maximum duration of six months. Need satisfaction during the program was measured, as well as their employment outcomes up to 12 months after completion of the policy. All hypotheses were (partly) supported. Some limitations should be noted. First, since our sample consisted primarily of highly educated white graduates, it remains to be tested whether our results generalize to other groups of unemployed youth. Moreover, we are unable to conclude whether the results are due to the intervention, participants (selection effect), or both, because of the lack of a control group.

Keywords: need satisfaction, person-job fit, self-determination theory, youth unemployment policy

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Authors: Aron Miranda Burgos, Ergon Cugler de Moraes Silva

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In the present article, it is observed that the constant advancement of issues related to misinformation impacts the guarantee of the public policy cycle. Thus, it is found that the dissemination of false information has a direct influence on each of the component stages of this cycle. Therefore, in order to maintain scientific and theoretical credibility in the qualitative analysis process, it was necessary to logically interpose the concepts of firehosing of falsehood, fake news, public policy cycle, as well as using the epistemological and pragmatic mechanism at the intersection of such academic concepts, such as the scientific method. It was found, through the analysis of official documents and public notes, how the multiple theoretical perspectives evidence the commitment of the provision and elaboration of public policies, verifying the way in which the fake news impact each part of the process in this atmosphere.

Keywords: firehosing of falsehood, governance, misinformation, post-truth

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Authors: Aimilia Vlami

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This paper examines the tourist economic development of Greece on the basis of the analysis of the main characteristics of the financing and development processes and the spatial and temporal structure of supply and demand. Taking into consideration the evolution of the economic planning and the policy for the tourist development of Greece over time, we study at the same time: the composition, the changes and the dynamics of the hotel industry in the last 20 years and especially the period of the economic adjustment programmes, where tourism has become a key pillar of development. It is clearly evident that this paper is written in a specific economic situation, which directs as much the emphases as the flow of arguments around the central question of balance of interventions in the tourist space, between the need for planning and practice of policy for sustainable tourist growth and in the de facto adaptation of fragmentary and urgent interventions of shaping and transforming the tourist space, as they are shaped by the requirements of various institutions and interest groups.

Keywords: development, Greece, hospitality, economic policy, tourism investments

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Authors: Erin Brands-Saliba

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In this evaluation study, we explore the efficacy and implementation of the five guiding principles of Bekaadendang “Being Peaceful,” a suite of services facilitated by our Anti-Human Trafficking Team, and a pivotal component of the Holistic Prevention Services department at NCFST. The guiding principles—trauma-informed care, cultural safety, 4-quadrant medicine wheel approach, harm reduction, and after-care peer support—are the foundation of Bekaadendang's mission to support at-risk individuals and survivors of human trafficking. This evaluation is of paramount importance given the profound impact of human trafficking on these communities and aims to ensure that Bekaadendang's principles are not only understood by staff but experienced by community members in a purposeful and meaningful manner. The issues at the heart of this evaluation are deeply entrenched in the historical and contemporary challenges faced by Indigenous communities, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ individuals. Well-documented reports like the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) have cast a glaring light on the disproportionately high rates of violence, exploitation, and trafficking experienced by these communities. The MMIWG report underlines the pressing need for holistic, culturally informed interventions like Bekaadendang. Furthermore, the research efforts of scholars, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, shed light on the persistent systemic issues that make Indigenous individuals more vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. Recognizing this broader context is crucial to truly grasp the importance of evaluating the guiding principles that underpin Bekaadendang's service model.

Keywords: human trafficking, indigenous healing, MMIWG, program evaluation

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Authors: Ejikeme Johnson Kanu

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This research explores the environmental justice of host communities in south-eastern Nigeria whose source of livelihood has been destroyed due to oil exploitation. Environmental justice scholarship in the area often adopts Western liberal ideology from a more macro level synthesis (Niger Delta). This study therefore explored the sufficiency or otherwise of the adoption of Western liberal ideology in the framing of environmental justice (EJ) in the area which neglects the impact of colonialism and cultural domination. Mixed archival research supplemented by secondary analysis guided this study. Drawing from data analysis, the paper first argues that micro-level studies are required to either validate or invalidate the studies done at the macro-level (Niger Delta) which has often been used to generalise around environmental injustice done within the host communities even though the communities (South-eastern) differ significantly from (South-south) in terms of language, culture, socio-political and economic formation which indicate that the drivers of EJ may differ among them. Secondly, the paper argues that EJ framing from the Western worldview adopted in the study area is insufficient to understand environmental injustice suffered in the study area and there is the need for environmental justice framing that will consider the impact of colonialism and nonrecognition of the cultural identities of the host communities which breed environmental justice. The study, therefore, concludes by drawing from decolonial theory to consider how the framing of EJ would move beyond the western liberal EJ to Indigenous environmental justice.

Keywords: environmental justice, culture, decolonial, nonrecognition, indigenous environmental justice

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Authors: S. Hamid Mirmohammadi, Shahrazad Tamjidzad

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This paper is concerned with the single-item continuous review inventory system in which demand is stochastic and discrete. The budget consumed for purchasing the ordered items is not restricted but it incurs extra cost when exceeding specific value. The unit purchasing price depends on the quantity ordered under the all-units discounts cost structure. In many actual systems, the budget as a resource which is occupied by the purchased items is limited and the system is able to confront the resource shortage by charging more costs. Thus, considering the resource shortage costs as a part of system costs, especially when the amount of resource occupied by the purchased item is influenced by quantity discounts, is well motivated by practical concerns. In this paper, an optimization problem is formulated for finding the optimal (R, Q) policy, when the system is influenced by the budget limitation and a discount pricing simultaneously. Properties of the cost function are investigated and then an algorithm based on a one-dimensional search procedure is proposed for finding an optimal (R, Q) policy which minimizes the expected system costs .

Keywords: (R, Q) policy, stochastic demand, backorders, limited resource, quantity discounts

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Authors: Nirmal Kundu, Chandan Bhar, Visveswaran Pandurangan

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Technology is the most valued possession for a country or an organization. The economic development depends not on stock of technology but on the capabilities how the technology is being exploited. The technology transfer is the best way how the developing countries have an access to state-of- the-art technology. Traditional technology transfer is a unidirectional phenomenon where technology is transferred from developed to developing countries. But now there is a change of wind. There is a general agreement that global shift of economic power is under way from west to east. As China and India are making the transition from users to producers, and producers to innovators, this has increasing important implications on economy, technology and policy of global trade. As a result, Reverse technology transfer has become a phenomenon and field of study in technology management. The term “Reverse Technology Transfer” is not well defined. Initially the concept of Reverse technology transfer was associated with the phenomenon of “Brain drain” from developing to developed countries. In the second phase, Reverse Technology Transfer was associated with the transfer of knowledge and technology from subsidiaries to multinationals. Finally, time has come now to extend the concept of reverse technology transfer to two different organizations or countries related or unrelated by traditional technology transfer but the transfer or has essentially received the technology through traditional mode of technology transfer. The objective of this paper is to study; 1) the present status of Reverse technology transfer, 2) the factors which are the enablers and barriers of Reverse technology transfer and 3) how the reverse technology transfer strategy can be integrated in the technology policy of a country which will give the countries an economic boost. The research methodology used in this study is a combination of literature review, case studies and key informant interviews. The literature review includes both published as well as unpublished sources of literature. In case study, attempt has been made to study the records of reverse technology transfer that have been occurred in developing countries. In case of key informant interviews, informal telephonic discussions have been carried out with the key executives of the organizations (industry, university and research institutions) who are actively engaged in the process of technology transfer- traditional as well as reverse. Reverse technology transfer is possible only by creating technological capabilities. Following four important enablers coupled with government active and aggressive action can help to build technology base to reach to the goal of Reverse technology transfer 1) Imitation to innovation, 2) Reverse engineering, 3) Collaborative R & D approach, and 4) Preventing reverse brain drain. The barriers that come in the way are the mindset of over dependence, over subordination and parent–child attitude (not adult attitude). Exploitation of these enablers and overcoming the barriers of reverse technology transfer, the developing countries like India and China can prove that going “reverse” is the best way to move forward and again establish themselves as leader of the future world.

Keywords: barriers of reverse technology transfer, enablers of reverse technology transfer, knowledge transfer, reverse technology transfer, technology transfer

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Authors: Elza Jurun, Damir Piplica, Tea Poklepović

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Numerous studies carried out in the developed western democratic countries have shown that the ideological framework of the governing party has a significant influence on the monetary policy. The executive authority consisting of a left-wing party gives a higher weight to unemployment suppression and central bank implements a more expansionary monetary policy. On the other hand, right-wing governing party considers the monetary stability to be more important than unemployment suppression and in such a political framework the main macroeconomic objective becomes the inflation rate reduction. The political framework conditions in the transition countries which are new European Union (EU) members are still highly specific in relation to the other EU member countries. In the focus of this paper is the question whether the same monetary policy principles are valid in these transitional countries as well as they apply in developed western democratic EU member countries. The data base consists of inflation rate and unemployment rate for 11 transitional EU member countries covering the period from 2001 to 2012. The essential information for each of these 11 countries and for each year of the observed period is right or left political orientation of the ruling party. In this paper we use t-statistics to test our hypothesis that there are differences in inflation and unemployment between right and left political orientation of the governing party. To explore the influence of different countries, through years and different political orientations descriptive statistics is used. Inflation and unemployment should be strongly negatively correlated through time, which is tested using Pearson correlation coefficient. Regarding the fact whether the governing authority is consisted from left or right politically oriented parties, monetary authorities will adjust its policy setting the higher priority on lower inflation or unemployment reduction.

Keywords: inflation rate, monetary policy orientation, transition EU countries, unemployment rate

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Authors: Elena Kovalevich, Irina Tomasheva

Abstract:

The research relevance is caused by the importance of studying features of cross-cultural communication in the system of intensive language contacts, on the one hand, and on the other – by the need of control over the language situation as cross-cultural contacts often reflect emotionally intense reality, destructive for national culture and language and also for health and mentality of the individual. The objective consists in systematization of requirements imposed by the globalized society on ethics, aesthetics and emotive component of cross-cultural communication under conditions of language hybridization of modern Russian-speaking society. Problems connected with establishing the criteria differentiating eco-friendly and eco-unfriendly communication; identifying the specifics of the eco-unfriendly communication containing language hybrids; justifying the negative impact of language hybridization on ethics and esthetics of cross-cultural communication are considered, taking into account the category of emotivity. The study makes a contribution to the development of key problems of modern linguistics connected with exploration of basics in the theory of language personality, ecology of language, emotive linguistics. The results can be used by specialists in the fields of sociolinguistics, cross-cultural communication, the national language policy.

Keywords: cross-cultural communication, eco-linguistics, ethics and aesthetics, emotivity, language hybrids

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Authors: Joseph Kwame Sarfo-Adu

Abstract:

Social protection programs have been rolled out by successive governments in the quest of bridging the inequality gap in Ghana. Despite notable positive impacts of these programs across the country, there still remains worrying experience of the exclusion of the poor and vulnerable especially in rural Ghana Notwithstanding the rhetoric of participation within the discussion of social protection programs, less attention has been given to the design of these programs. In view of this, the study seeks to address how social protection programs are designed to address the needs of the poor. This study focused on five selected social protection programs in Ghana because they are programs with nationwide coverage. Qualitative thematic analysis was applied to analyze our data with the use of the Nvivo 12 version. We found out that there is a strong link between policy design and poverty alleviation. Our findings revealed that a well-designed program can significantly alleviate poverty, a poorly designed program can create more damage.

Keywords: social protection, poverty alleviation, policy design, effective outcome

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Authors: S. Jabeen

Abstract:

Though Pakistan has a rich cultural history and a diverse population; its global image is tarnished with labels of Muslim ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘extremism.’ Cultural policy is a tool that can be used by the government of Pakistan to ameliorate this image, but instead, this fundamentalist reputation is reinforced in the 2005 draft of Pakistan’s cultural policy. With its stern focus on a homogenized cultural identity, this 2005 draft bases itself largely on forced participation from the largely Muslim public and leaves little or no benefits to them or cultural minorities in Pakistan. The effects of this homogenized ‘Muslim’ identity linger ten years later where the study and celebration of the cultural heritage of Pakistan in schools and educational festivals focus entirely on creating and maintaining a singular ‘Islamic’ cultural identity. The current lack of inclusion has many adverse effects that include the breeding of extremist mindsets through the usurpation of minority rights and lack of safe cultural public spaces. This paper argues that Pakistan can improve social inclusivity and boost its global image through cultural policy. The paper sets the grounds for research by surveying the effectiveness of different cultural policies across nations with differing socioeconomic status. Then, by sampling two public literary festivals in Pakistan as case studies, the National Youth Peace Festival hosted with a nationalistic agenda using public funds and the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) that aims to boost the cultural literacy scene of Lahore using both private and public efforts, this paper looks at the success of the private, more inclusive LLF. A revision of cultural policy is suggested that combines public and private efforts to host cultural festivals for the sake of cultural celebration and human development, without a set nationalistic agenda. Consequently, this comparison which is grounded in the human capabilities approach, recommends revising the 2005 draft of the Cultural Policy to improve human capabilities in order to support cultural diversity and ultimately contribute to economic growth in Pakistan.

Keywords: cultural policy, festivals, human capabilities, Pakistan

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Authors: Sujeet Kumar

Abstract:

Education has greater importance particularly in terms of increasing human capital and economic competitiveness. It plays a crucial role in terms of cognitive and skill development. Its plays a vital role in process of socialization, fostering social justice, and enhancing social cohesion. Policy related to education has been always a priority for developed countries, which is later adopted by developing countries also. The government of India has also brought change in education polices in line with recognizing change at national and supranational level. However, quality education is still not become an open door for every child in India and several reports are produced year to year about level of school education in India. This paper is concerned with schooling in India. Particularly, it focuses on two government and two private schools in Bihar, but reference has made to schools in Delhi especially around slum communities. The paper presents brief historical context and an overview of current school systems in India. Later, it focuses on analysis of current development in policy in reference with field observation, which is anchored around choice, diversity, market – orientation and gap between different groups of pupils. There is greater degree of difference observed at private and government school levels in terms of quality of teachers, method of teaching and overall environment of learning. The paper concludes that the recent policy development in education particularly Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan (SAA) and Right to Education Act (2009) has required renovating new approach to bridge the gap through broader consultation at grassroots and participatory approach with different stakeholders.

Keywords: education, public policy, participatory approach

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