Search results for: language-in-education policy

Authors: Jemima C. A. Sumboh

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Given the urgency and consensus for countries to move towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC), health financing systems need to be accurately and consistently monitored to provide valuable data to inform policy and practice. Most of the indicators for monitoring UHC, particularly catastrophe and impoverishment, are established based on the impact of out-of-pocket health payments (OOPHP) on households’ living standards, collected through varied household surveys. These surveys, however, vary substantially in survey methods such as the length of the recall period or the number of items included in the survey questionnaire or the farming of questions, potentially influencing the level of OOPHP. Using different survey instruments can provide inaccurate, inconsistent, erroneous and misleading estimates of UHC, subsequently influencing wrong policy decisions. Using data from a household budget survey conducted by the Navrongo Health Research Center in Ghana from May 2017 to December 2018, this study intends to explore the potential implications of using surveys with varied levels of disaggregation of OOPHP data on estimates of financial risk protection. The household budget survey, structured around food and non-food expenditure, compared three OOPHP measuring instruments: Version I (existing questions used to measure OOPHP in household budget surveys), Version II (new questions developed through benchmarking the existing Classification of the Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) OOPHP questions in household surveys) and Version III (existing questions used to measure OOPHP in health surveys integrated into household budget surveys- for this, the demographic and health surveillance (DHS) health survey was used). Version I, II and III contained 11, 44, and 56 health items, respectively. However, the choice of recall periods was held constant across versions. The sample size for Version I, II and III were 930, 1032 and 1068 households, respectively. Financial risk protection will be measured based on the catastrophic and impoverishment methodologies using STATA 15 and Adept Software for each version. It is expected that findings from this study will present valuable contributions to the repository of knowledge on standardizing survey instruments to obtain estimates of financial risk protection that are valid and consistent.

Keywords: Ghana, household budget surveys, measuring financial risk protection, out-of-pocket health payments, survey instruments, universal health coverage

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Authors: Lusi Susanti, Prima Fithri

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The rapid growth of Indonesia population is directly proportional to the energy needs of the country, but not all of Indonesian population can relish the electricity. Indonesia's electrification ratio is still around 80.1%, which means that approximately 19.9% of households in Indonesia have not been getting the flow of electrical energy. Household electricity consumptions in Indonesia are generally still dominated by the public urban. In the city of Padang, West Sumatera, Indonesia, about 94.10% are power users of government services (PLN). The most important thing of the issue is human resources efficient energy. User behavior in utilizing electricity becomes significant. However repair solution will impact the user's habits sustainable energy issues. This study attempts to identify the user behavior and lifestyle that affect household electricity consumption and to evaluate the potential for energy saving. The behavior component is frequently underestimated or ignored in analyses of household electrical energy end use, partly because of its complexity. It is influenced by socio-demographic factors, culture, attitudes, aesthetic norms and comfort, as well as social and economic variables. Intensive questioner survey, in-depth interview and statistical analysis are carried out to collect scientific evidences of the behavioral based changes instruments to reduce electricity consumption in household sector. The questioner was developed to include five factors assuming affect the electricity consumption pattern in household sector. They are: attitude, energy price, household income, knowledge and other determinants. The survey was carried out in Padang, West Sumatra Province Indonesia. About 210 questioner papers were proportionally distributed to households in 11 districts in Padang. Stratified sampling was used as a method to select respondents. The results show that the household size, income, payment methods and size of house are factors affecting electricity saving behavior in residential sector. Household expenses on electricity are strongly influenced by gender, type of job, level of education, size of house, income, payment method and level of installed power. These results provide a scientific evidence for stakeholders on the potential of controlling electricity consumption and designing energy policy by government in residential sector.

Keywords: electricity, energy saving, household, behavior, policy

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Authors: Michael Lognoul

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In April 2021, the European Commission released its AI Act Proposal, which is the first policy proposal at the European Union level to target AI systems comprehensively, in a horizontal manner. This Proposal notably aims to achieve an ecosystem of trust in the European Union, based on the respect of fundamental rights, regarding AI. Among many other requirements, the AI Act Proposal aims to impose several generic transparency obligationson all AI systems to the benefit of natural persons facing those systems (e.g. information on the AI nature of systems, in case of an interaction with a human). The Proposal also provides for more stringent transparency obligations, specific to AI systems that qualify as high-risk, to the benefit of their users, notably on the characteristics, capabilities, and limitations of the AI systems they use. Against that background, this research firstly presents all such transparency requirements in turn, as well as related obligations, such asthe proposed obligations on record keeping. Secondly, it focuses on a legal analysis of their scope of application, of the content of the obligations, and on their practical implications. On the scope of transparency obligations tailored for high-risk AI systems, the research notably notes that it seems relatively narrow, given the proposed legal definition of the notion of users of AI systems. Hence, where end-users do not qualify as users, they may only receive very limited information. This element might potentially raise concern regarding the objective of the Proposal. On the content of the transparency obligations, the research highlights that the information that should benefit users of high-risk AI systems is both very broad and specific, from a technical perspective. Therefore, the information required under those obligations seems to create, prima facie, an adequate framework to ensure trust for users of high-risk AI systems. However, on the practical implications of these transparency obligations, the research notes that concern arises due to potential illiteracy of high-risk AI systems users. They might not benefit from sufficient technical expertise to fully understand the information provided to them, despite the wording of the Proposal, which requires that information should be comprehensible to its recipients (i.e. users).On this matter, the research points that there could be, more broadly, an important divergence between the level of detail of the information required by the Proposal and the level of expertise of users of high-risk AI systems. As a conclusion, the research provides policy recommendations to tackle (part of) the issues highlighted. It notably recommends to broaden the scope of transparency requirements for high-risk AI systems to encompass end-users. It also suggests that principles of explanation, as they were put forward in the Guidelines for Trustworthy AI of the High Level Expert Group, should be included in the Proposal in addition to transparency obligations.

Keywords: aI act proposal, explainability of aI, high-risk aI systems, transparency requirements

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Authors: Kenneth Uzochukwu Ezugwu

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The quest for adequate teacher education is a serious task for the educational system in Nigeria because teachers are the major translators of education programmes in the classroom. The production of well trained teachers will enhance quality of the products of the school system. It is in this respect that the national policy on education posited that no educational system can rise above the quality of teachers. It is in the light of the above that this paper discusses and brought to the fore certain issues as the re-introduction of teacher training colleges, competitive entry requirement into teacher education and continuous on-the-job training as areas of needed innovation.

Keywords: curriculum innovation, issues, perspectives, teacher education

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Authors: Melanie Schinnerl, Dorothea Greiling

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In the context of the 2020 strategy, poverty and its fight returned to the center of national political efforts. This served as motivation for an Austrian research grant-funded project to focus on the under-researched local government level with the aim to identify municipal best-practice cases and to derive policy implications for Austria. Designing effective poverty reduction strategies is a complex challenge which calls for an integrated multi-actor in approach. Cities are increasingly confronted to combat poverty, even in rich EU-member states. By doing so cities face substantial demographic, cultural, economic and social challenges as well as changing welfare state regimes. Furthermore, there is a low willingness of (right-wing) governments to support the poor. Against this background, the research questions are: 1. How do local governments define poverty? 2. Who are the main risk groups and what are the most pressing problems when fighting urban poverty? 3. What is regarded as successful anti-poverty initiatives? 4. What is the underlying welfare state concept? To address the research questions a multi-method approach was chosen, consisting of a systematic literature analysis, a comprehensive document analysis, and expert interviews. For interpreting the data the project follows the qualitative-interpretive paradigm. Municipal approaches for reducing poverty are compared based on deductive, as well as inductive identified criteria. In addition to an intensive literature analysis, interviews (40) were conducted in Austria since the project started in March 2018. From the other countries, 14 responses have been collected, providing a first insight. Regarding the definition of poverty the EU SILC-definition as well as counting the persons who receive need-based minimum social benefits, the Austrian form of social welfare, are the predominant approaches in Austria. In addition to homeless people, single-parent families, un-skilled persons, long-term unemployed persons, migrants (first and second generation), refugees and families with at least 3 children were frequently mentioned. The most pressing challenges for Austrian cities are: expected reductions of social budgets, a great insecurity of the central government's social policy reform plans, the growing number of homeless people and a lack of affordable housing. Together with affordable housing, old-age poverty will gain more importance in the future. The Austrian best practice examples, suggested by interviewees, focused primarily on homeless, children and young people (till 25). Central government’s policy changes have already negative effects on programs for refugees and elderly unemployed. Social Housing in Vienna was frequently mentioned as an international best practice case, other growing cities can learn from. The results from Austria indicate a change towards the social investment state, which primarily focuses on children and labour market integration. The first insights from the other countries indicate that affordable housing and labor market integration are cross-cutting issues. Inherited poverty and old-age poverty seems to be more pressing outside Austria.

Keywords: anti-poverty policies, European cities, empirical study, social investment

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Authors: Krystian Wójcik, Sara Wróblewska, Marcin Łojek, Katarzyna Sobień

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Polish Geological Survey selected five of the most prospective areas for oil and gas exploration in Poland. They are dedicated to the 6th international tender round for hydrocarbon concessions, planned in 2022. The main exploration target of these areas is related to conventional and unconventional accumulations of gas and oil in the Carpathian basement, Carpathian Foredeep and Outer Carpathians (Block 413 – 414), as well as in the Carboniferous, Rotliegend, Main Dolomite (Block 208, Cybinka – Torzym, Zielona Góra West), and in the Mesozoic of the Polish Lowlands (Koło).

Keywords: concession policy, international tender, oil and gas exploration horizons, prospective areas

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Authors: Ahmeda Ali, Mary Codd, Susan Brundage

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Importance: This research focuses on devising and improving Health Service Executive (HSE) policy and legislation and therefore improving patient trauma care and outcomes in Ireland. Objectives: The study measures components of the Trauma System in the district hospital setting of the Cavan/Monaghan Hospital Group (CMHG), HSE, Ireland, and uses the collected data to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the CMHG Trauma System organisation, to include governance, injury data, prevention and quality improvement, scene care and facility-based care, and rehabilitation. The information will be made available to local policy makers to provide objective situational analysis to assist in future trauma service planning and service provision. Design, setting and participants: From 28 April to May 28, 2016 a cross-sectional survey using World Health Organisation (WHO) Trauma System Assessment Tool (TSAT) was conducted among healthcare professionals directly involved in the level III trauma system of CMHG. Main outcomes: Identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the Trauma System of CMHG. Results: The participants who reported inadequate funding for pre hospital (62.3%) and facility based trauma care at CMHG (52.5%) were high. Thirty four (55.7%) respondents reported that a national trauma registry (TARN) exists but electronic health records are still not used in trauma care. Twenty one respondents (34.4%) reported that there are system wide protocols for determining patient destination and adequate, comprehensive legislation governing the use of ambulances was enforced, however, there is a lack of a reliable advisory service. Over 40% of the respondents reported uncertainty of the injury prevention programmes available in Ireland; as well as the allocated government funding for injury and violence prevention. Conclusions: The results of this study contributed to a comprehensive assessment of the trauma system organisation. The major findings of the study identified three fundamental areas: the inadequate funding at CMHG, the QI techniques and corrective strategies used, and the unfamiliarity of existing prevention strategies. The findings direct the need for further research to guide future development of the trauma system at CMHG (and in Ireland as a whole) in order to maximise best practice and to improve functional and life outcomes.

Keywords: trauma, education, management, system

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Authors: Zijian Cheng, Frank Liu, Yupu Sun

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The relationship between the intensity of share pledging activities and the level of financial constraint in publicly listed firms in China is examined in this paper. Empirical results show that the high financial constraint level may motivate insiders to use share pledging as an alternative funding source and an expropriation mechanism. Share collateralization can cause a subsequently more constrained financing condition. Evidence is found that share pledging made by the controlling shareholder is likely to mitigate financial constraints in the following year. Research findings are robust to alternative measures and an instrumental variable for dealing with endogeneity problems.

Keywords: share pledge, financial constraint, controlling shareholder, dividend policy

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Authors: Yaser Ghasemi Aryan, Firoozeh Moghiminejad, Mohammadreza Shahraki

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Background: The cooperative institution is considered the first and most essential pillar of strengthening social capital, whose sustainability is the main guarantee of survival and continued participation of local communities in natural resource management projects. The Village Development Group and the Microcredit Fund are two important social and economic institutions in the implementation of the International Project for the Restoration of Degraded Forest Lands (RFLDL) in Sarayan City, South Khorasan Province, which has learned positive lessons from the participation of the beneficiaries in the implementation. They have brought more effective projects to deal with desertification. However, the low activity or liquidation of some of these institutions has become one of the important challenges and concerns of project executive experts. The current research was carried out with the aim of explaining the main components of the instability of these institutions. Materials and Methods: This research is descriptive-analytical in terms of method, practical in terms of purpose, and the method of collecting information is two documentary and survey methods. The statistical population of the research included all the members of the village development groups and microcredit funds in the target villages of the RFLDL project of Sarayan city, based on the Kochran formula and matching with the Karjesi and Morgan table. Net people were selected as a statistical sample. After confirming the validity of the expert's opinions, the reliability of the questionnaire was 0.83, which shows the appropriate reliability of the researcher-made questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS software. Results: The results related to the extraction of obstacles to the stability of social and economic networks were classified and prioritized in the form of 5 groups of social-cultural, economic, administrative, educational-promotional and policy-management factors. Based on this, in the socio-cultural factors, the items ‘not paying attention to the structural characteristics and composition of groups’, ‘lack of commitment and moral responsibility in some members of the group,’ and ‘lack of a clear pattern for the preservation and survival of groups’, in the disciplinary factors, The items ‘Irregularity in holding group meetings’ and ‘Irregularity of members to participate in meetings’, in the economic factors of the items "small financial capital of the fund’, ‘the low amount of loans of the fund’ and ‘the fund's inability to conclude contracts and attract capital from other sources’, in the educational-promotional factors of the items ‘non-simultaneity of job training with the granting of loans to create jobs’ and ‘insufficient training for the effective use of loans and job creation’ and in the policy-management factors of the item ‘failure to provide government facilities for support From the funds, they had the highest priority. Conclusion: In general, the results of this research show that policy-management factors and social factors, especially the structure and composition of social and economic institutions, are the most important obstacles to their sustainability. Therefore, it is suggested to form cooperative institutions based on network analysis studies in order to achieve the appropriate composition of members.

Keywords: cooperative institution, social capital, network analysis, participation, Sarayan.

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Authors: D. M. Samartsev, A. G. Copping

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As with all industries, architects are using increasing amounts of automation within practice, with approaches such as generative design and use of AI becoming more commonplace. However, the discourse on the rate at which the architectural design process is being automated is often personal and lacking in objective figures and measurements. This results in confusion between people and barriers to effective discourse on the subject, in turn limiting the ability of architects, policy makers, and members of the public in making informed decisions in the area of design automation. This paper proposes the use of a framework to quantify the progress of automation within the design process. The use of a reductionist analysis of the design process allows it to be quantified in a manner that enables direct comparison across different times, as well as locations and projects. The methodology is informed by the design of this framework – taking on the aspects of a systematic review but compressed in time to allow for an initial set of data to verify the validity of the framework. The use of such a framework of quantification enables various practical uses such as predicting the future of the architectural industry with regards to which tasks will be automated, as well as making more informed decisions on the subject of automation on multiple levels ranging from individual decisions to policy making from governing bodies such as the RIBA. This is achieved by analyzing the design process as a generic task that needs to be performed, then using principles of work breakdown systems to split the task of designing an entire building into smaller tasks, which can then be recursively split further as required. Each task is then assigned a series of milestones that allow for the objective analysis of its automation progress. By combining these two approaches it is possible to create a data structure that describes how much various parts of the architectural design process are automated. The data gathered in the paper serves the dual purposes of providing the framework with validation, as well as giving insights into the current situation of automation within the architectural design process. The framework can be interrogated in many ways and preliminary analysis shows that almost 40% of the architectural design process has been automated in some practical fashion at the time of writing, with the rate at which progress is made slowly increasing over the years, with the majority of tasks in the design process reaching a new milestone in automation in less than 6 years. Additionally, a further 15% of the design process is currently being automated in some way, with various products in development but not yet released to the industry. Lastly, various limitations of the framework are examined in this paper as well as further areas of study.

Keywords: analysis, architecture, automation, design process, technology

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Authors: Oyelade Oluwatoyin

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The phenomenon of crises in educational sector in Nigeria has reached its peak in the 21st century. Thus, this paper examines the strategies that can be used in managing the conflict situation in Nigeria Higher Institution of learning. The causes of conflicts such as inadequate funding, insufficient school facilities, poor working condition, poor enrolment, proliferation of higher institutions and unfavourable administrative decision are the major detriment of law and order i.e. strike action, destruction of property and programmes coupled with the student unrest. This write-up will make use of the available information and with the aim of adding value to existing knowledge. It was recommend that steps should be taken by policy maker to prevent scourge of conflicts in tertiary institutions in Nigeria

Keywords: conflicts, higher institutions, management, measures

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Authors: Hrvoje Simovic

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Paper analyses the key problems of fiscal sustainability in Croatia. To point out key challenges of fiscal sustainability, the public debt sustainability is analyzed using standard indicators of fiscal stability, accompanied with the identification of regime changes approach in the public debt trajectory using switching regression approach. The analysis is conducted for the period from 2001 to 2016. Results show huge vulnerability in recession period (2009-14), so key challenges in current fiscal policy and public debt management are recognized in maturity prolongation, interest rates trends, and credit rating expectations.

Keywords: fiscal sustainability, public debt, Croatia, budget deficit

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Authors: Wuttigrai Ngamsirijit

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Creative tourism is an ongoing development in many countries as an attempt to moving away from serial reproduction of culture and reviving the culture. Despite, in the destinations with diverse and potential cultural resources, creating new tourism services can be vague. This paper presents how tourism experiences are modularized and consolidated in order to form new creative tourism service offerings in evanescent cultural communities of Bangkok, Thailand. The benefits from data mining in accommodating value co-creation are discussed, and implication of experience modularization to national creative tourism policy is addressed.

Keywords: co-creation, creative tourism, new service design, experience modularization

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Authors: Divyansh Goel, Varun Jain

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Classical economics works on the principle that people are rational and analytical in their decision making and their choices fall in line with the most suitable option according to the dominant strategy in a standard game theory model. This model has failed at many occasions in estimating the behavior and dealings of rational people, giving proof of some other underlying heuristics and cognitive biases at work. This paper probes into the study of these factors, which fall under the umbrella of behavioral economics and through their medium explore the solution to a problem which a lot of nations presently face. There has long been a wide disparity in the number of people holding favorable views on organ donation and the actual number of people signing up for the same. This paper, in its entirety, is an attempt to shape the public policy which leads to an increase the number of organ donations that take place and close the gap in the statistics of the people who believe in signing up for organ donation and the ones who actually do. The key assumption here is that in cases of cognitive dissonance, where people have an inconsistency due to conflicting views, people have a tendency to go with the default choice. This tendency is a well-documented cognitive bias known as the status quo bias. The research in this project involves an assay of mandated choice models of organ donation with two case studies. The first of an opt-in system of Germany (where people have to explicitly sign up for organ donation) and the second of an opt-out system of Austria (every citizen at the time of their birth is an organ donor and has to explicitly sign up for refusal). Additionally, there has also been presented a detailed analysis of the experiment performed by Eric J. Johnson and Daniel G. Goldstein. Their research as well as many other independent experiments such as that by Tsvetelina Yordanova of the University of Sofia, both of which yield similar results. The conclusion being that the general population has by and large no rigid stand on organ donation and are gullible to status quo bias, which in turn can determine whether a large majority of people will consent to organ donation or not. Thus, in our paper, we throw light on how governments can use status quo bias to drive positive social change by making policies in which everyone by default is marked an organ donor, which will, in turn, save the lives of people who succumb on organ transplantation waitlists and save the economy countless hours of economic productivity.

Keywords: behavioral economics, game theory, organ donation, status quo bias

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Authors: Francesca Spagnoli, Shenja van der Graaf, Pieter Ballon

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Humans do not behave rationally. We are emotional, easily influenced by others, as well as by our context. The study of human behaviour became a supreme endeavour within many academic disciplines, including economics, sociology, and clinical and social psychology. Understanding what motivates humans and triggers them to perform certain activities, and what it takes to change their behaviour, is central both for researchers and companies, as well as policy makers to implement efficient public policies. While numerous theoretical approaches for diverse domains such as health, retail, environment have been developed, the methodological models guiding the evaluation of such research have reached for a long time their limits. Within this context, digitisation, the Information and communication technologies (ICT) and wearable, the Internet of Things (IoT) connecting networks of devices, and new possibilities to collect and analyse massive amounts of data made it possible to study behaviour from a realistic perspective, as never before. Digital technologies make it possible to (1) capture data in real-life settings, (2) regain control over data by capturing the context of behaviour, and (3) analyse huge set of information through continuous measurement. Within this complex context, this paper describes a new framework for initiating behavioural change, capitalising on the digital developments in applied research projects and applicable both to academia, enterprises and policy makers. By applying this model, behavioural research can be conducted to address the issues of different domains, such as mobility, environment, health or media. The Modular Behavioural Analysis Approach (MBAA) is here described and firstly validated through a concrete use case within the domain of health. The results gathered have proven that disclosing information about health in connection with the use of digital apps for health, can be a leverage for changing behaviour, but it is only a first component requiring further follow-up actions. To this end, a clear definition of different 'behavioural profiles', towards which addressing several typologies of interventions, it is essential to effectively enable behavioural change. In the refined version of the MBAA a strong focus will rely on defining a methodology for shaping 'behavioural profiles' and related interventions, as well as the evaluation of side-effects on the creation of new business models and sustainability plans.

Keywords: behavioural change, framework, health, nudging, sustainability

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Authors: Shanti Swaroop Gupta, Bibekananda Mohapatra, S. K. Chaturvedi, Anand Bohra

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For sustainable development in India, there is an urgent need to follow the principles of industrial symbiosis in the industrial processes, under which the scraps, wastes, or by‐products of one industry can become the raw materials for another. This will not only help in reducing the dependence on natural resources but also help in gaining economic advantage to the industry. Gypsum is one such area in India, where the linear economy model of by-product gypsum utilization has resulted in unutilized legacy phosphogypsum stock of 64.65 million tonnes (mt) at phosphoric acid plants in 2020-21. In the future, this unutilized gypsum stock will increase further due to the expected generation of Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) gypsum in huge quantities from thermal power plants. Therefore, it is essential to transit from the linear to circular economy in Gypsum in India, which will result in huge environmental as well as ecological benefits. Gypsum is required in many sectors like Construction (Cement industry, gypsum boards, glass fiber reinforced gypsum panels, gypsum plaster, fly ash lime bricks, floor screeds, road construction), agriculture, in the manufacture of Plaster of Paris, pottery, ceramic industry, water treatment processes, manufacture of ammonium sulphate, paints, textiles, etc. The challenges faced in areas of quality, policy, logistics, lack of infrastructure, promotion, etc., for complete utilization of by-product gypsum have been discussed. The untapped potential of by-product gypsum utilization in various sectors like the use of gypsum in agriculture for sodic soil reclamation, utilization of legacy stock in cement industry on mission mode, improvement in quality of by-product gypsum by standardization and usage in building materials industry has been identified. Based on the measures required to tackle the various challenges and utilization of the untapped potential of gypsum, a comprehensive action plan for the transition from linear to the circular economy in gypsum in India has been formulated. The strategies and policy measures required to implement the action plan to achieve a circular economy in Gypsum have been recommended for various government departments. It is estimated that the focused implementation of the proposed action plan would result in a significant decrease in unutilized gypsum legacy stock in the next five years and it would cease to exist by 2027-28 if the proposed action plan is effectively implemented.

Keywords: circular economy, FGD gypsum, India, phosphogypsum

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Authors: Laraba Bala Mohammed

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Education is a very vital tool in enhancement of the general development of individuals in the society who would participate effectively in national development processes, including people with special need, educating children with special needs is one of the greatest challenges of this millennium, this is because professionals in the field of special education are operating in an exciting and rapidly changing phenomenon. Inclusive education in Nigeria is not a new development in the teaching and learning process, but the most important aspect is the utilization and effective integration of people with special needs in the society. This paper focuses on the need of parents, government, professionals in the field of special education and stakeholders to work together for the full implementation of inclusive education in Nigeria.

Keywords: inclusive education, national policy, education, special needs

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Authors: Olfa Kaabia, Ilyes Abid, Khaled Guesmi

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This pioneer paper studies whether and how Bitcoin shocks are transmitted to the U.S economy. We employ a new methodology: TVP FAVAR model with stochastic volatility. We use a large dataset of 111 major U.S variables from 1959:m1 to 2016:m12. The results show that Bitcoin shocks significantly impact the U.S. economy. This significant impact is pronounced in a volatile and increasing U.S economy. The Bitcoin has a positive relationship on the U.S real activity, and a negative one on U.S prices and interest rates. Effects on the Monetary Policy exist via the inter-est rates and the Money, Credit and Finance transmission channels.

Keywords: bitcoin, US economy, FAVAR models, stochastic volatility

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Authors: Ipenyi Peter

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Discipline is an issue that tends to undermine the provision of quality education in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. This is because the overall goals of tertiary institutions, as enunciated in the National Policy of Education, can hardly be achieved by all the stakeholders without strict conformity and adherence to the rules and regulations and the ideals of the entire society. The adherence is essential for the general welfare of the society. This paper critically X-rayed the causes of indiscipline in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Such courses include laxity in home control and parental supervision, school, teacher and societal factors as well as government influence. The paper recommended among others such strategies as enculturation, acculturation as well as the acquisition of a certain number of generic skills for dealing with discipline and ethical issues in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

Keywords: discipline, education, tertiary institutions, society

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Authors: Nahela Nowshin, Rafia Sultana, Farzana Misha, Sabina F. Rashid

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Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are currently an area of neglect for males (aged 15-24 years) in Bangladesh. The lack of focus on the male youth population has consequences not only for their own health and wellbeing, but the patriarchal structure of Bangladeshi society and socio-cultural norms mean that the male population’s SRH behavior can severely impact the lives of their female counterparts. A majority of sexual and reproductive health and rights-related research and interventions in the country are female-centric. Although the Government of Bangladesh has taken many initiatives to improve the SRHR of the general population, the male youth segment has not been prioritized in most of these interventions. There is an urgent need for male-youth-focused SRHR interventions in Bangladesh, but due to a lack of evidence-based research on this issue, there exist data gaps on how such interventions could be better designed and implemented. Therefore, to ascertain strategies for better program design and smoother implementation of male-youth-focused sexual and reproductive health and rights interventions, we carried out 25 key informant interviews with experts as well as focal persons involved in more than 20 ongoing and recently-ended SRHR-related interventions of national and international non-government organizations in which male youth were targeted or engaged. The results show that program implementers face several challenges at the field, organizational and policy levels. Some of the most common field challenges include high sensitivity to SRHR topics due to cultural reasons, difficulties in acquiring access to boys and young men due to their high mobility and engagement in labor for commercial purposes, as well as accessing them in hard-to-reach areas due to transportation and communication issues. Common organizational-level challenges include a lack of skilled manpower. Policy-level challenges include the prohibition of SRH service provision to unmarried adolescents and youth and lack of readiness of local governments to implement existing action plans. Some ways in which male-youth-focused SRHR interventions can be made more effective are through sensitization of service providers, awareness-raising at the community level to engage parents, advocacy to increase donor interest, and generating data on SRHR of male youth.

Keywords: Bangladesh, intervention, male, SRHR

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Authors: Ephraim Daka, Maxim Kotsemir

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The National system Innovation (NSI) have recently proliferated as a vehicle for addressing poverty and national competitiveness in the developing countries. While several governments in Sub-Saharan Africa have adopted the developed countries’ models of innovation to local conditions, the Zambian case is rather unique. This study highlights conceptual and socioeconomic challenges directed to the performances of the NSI. The paper analyses science and technology strategies with the inclusion of “innovation” and its effect towards improving socioeconomic elements. The authors reviewed STI policy and national strategy documents, followed by interviews compared to economical regional and national data sets. The NSI and its related to inter-linkages and support mechanism to socioeconomic development were explored.

Keywords: national system of innovation, socioeconomics, development, Zambia

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Authors: Kamrun Nahar Koly, Saimul Islam

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Overweight and obesity is increasing at an alarming rate and a leading risk factor for morbidity throughout the world. In a country like Bangladesh where under nutrition and overweight both co-exist at the same time, but this issue has been underexplored as expected. The aim of the present study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and identify the barriers of the physicians regarding overweight and obesity management on an urban hospital of Dhaka city in Bangladesh. A simple cross sectional study was conducted at two selected government and two private hospital to assess the knowledge, attitude and common barriers regarding overweight and obesity management among healthcare professionals. One hundred and fifty five physicians were surveyed. A standard questionnaire was constructed in local language and interview was administrated. Among the 155 physicians, majority 53 (34.20%) were working on SMC, 36 (23.20%) from DMC, 33 (21.30%) were based on SSMC and the rest 33 (21.30%) were from HFRCMH. Mean age of the study physicians were 31.88±5.92. Majority of the physicians 80 (51.60%) were not able to answer the correct prevalence of obesity but also a substantial number of them 75(48.40%) could mark the right answer. Among the physicians 150 (96.77%) reported BMI as a diagnostic index for overweight and obesity, where as 43 (27.74%) waist circumference, 30 (19.35%) waist hip ratio and 26 (16.77%) marked mid-arm circumference. A substantial proportion 71 (46.70%) of the physicians thought that they do not have much to do controlling weight problem in Bangladesh context though it has been opposed by 42 (27.60%) of the physicians and 39(25.70%) was neutral to comment. The majority of them 147 (96.1%) thought that a family based education program would be beneficial followed by 145 (94.8%) physicians mentioned about raising awareness among mothers as she is the primary caregiver. The idea of a school based education program will also help to early intervene referred by 142 (92.8%) of the physicians. Community based education program was also appreciated by 136 (89.5%) of the physicians. About 74 (47.7%) of them think that the patients still lack in motivation to maintain their weight properly at the same time too many patients to deal with can be a barrier as well assumed by 73 (47.1%) of them. Lack of national policy or management guideline can act as an obstacle told by 60 (38.7%) of the physicians. The relationship of practicing as a part of the general examination and chronic disease management was statistically significant (p<0.05) with physician occupational status. As besides, perceived barriers like lack of parents support, lack of a national policy was statistically significant (p<0.05) with physician occupational status. For the young physician, more training programme will be needed to transform their knowledge and attitude into practice. However, several important barriers interface for the physician treatment efforts and need to address.

Keywords: obesity management, physician, awareness, barriers, Bangladesh

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Authors: J. T. Manhire

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A tax authority wants to take actions it knows will foster the greatest degree of voluntary taxpayer compliance to reduce the “tax gap.” This paper suggests that even if a tax authority could attain a state of complete knowledge, there are constraints on whether and to what extent such actions would result in reducing the macro-level tax gap. These limits are not merely a consequence of finite agency resources. They are inherent in the system itself. To show that this is one possible interpretation of the tax gap data, the paper formulates known results in a different way by analyzing tax compliance as a population with a single covariate. This leads to a standard use of the logistic map to analyze the dynamics of non-compliance growth or decay over a sequence of periods. This formulation gives the same results as the tax gap studies performed over the past fifty years in the U.S. given the published margins of error. Limitations and recommendations for future work are discussed, along with some implications for tax policy.

Keywords: income tax, logistic map, tax compliance, tax law

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Authors: Ojo Johnson Adelakun

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This study explores the long-term relationships between manufacturing output (MO) and several economic determinants, interest rate (IR), inflation rate (INF), exchange rate (EX), credit to the private sector (CPSM), gross claims on the government sector (GCGS), using monthly data from March 1966 to December 2023. Employing advanced econometric techniques including Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS), and Canonical Cointegrating Regression (CCR), the analysis provides several key insights. The findings reveal a positive association between interest rates and manufacturing output, which diverges from traditional economic theory that predicts a negative correlation due to increased borrowing costs. This outcome is attributed to the financial resilience of large enterprises, allowing them to sustain investment in production despite higher interest rates. In addition, inflation demonstrates a positive relationship with manufacturing output, suggesting that stable inflation within target ranges creates a favourable environment for investment in productivity-enhancing technologies. Conversely, the exchange rate shows a negative relationship with manufacturing output, reflecting the adverse effects of currency depreciation on the cost of imported raw materials. The negative impact of CPSM underscores the importance of directing credit efficiently towards productive sectors rather than speculative ventures. Moreover, increased government borrowing appears to crowd out private sector credit, negatively affecting manufacturing output. Overall, the study highlights the need for a coordinated policy approach integrating monetary, fiscal, and financial sector strategies. Policymakers should account for the differential impacts of interest rates, inflation, exchange rates, and credit allocation on various sectors. Ensuring stable inflation, efficient credit distribution, and mitigating exchange rate volatility are critical for supporting manufacturing output and promoting sustainable economic growth. This research provides valuable insights into the economic dynamics influencing manufacturing output and offers policy recommendations tailored to South Africa’s economic context.

Keywords: domestic credit, government claims, financial variables, manufacturing output, financial analysis

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Authors: Md. Abud Darda

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Different options for natural gas production in wide geographic areas may be described through diffusion of innovation models. This type of modeling approach provides an indirect estimate of an ultimately recoverable resource, URR, capture the quantitative effects of observed strategic interventions, and allow ex-ante assessments of future scenarios over time. In order to ensure a sustainable energy policy, it is important to forecast the availability of this natural resource. Considering a finite life cycle, in this paper we try to investigate the natural gas production of Myanmar and Algeria, two important natural gas provider in the world energy market. A number of homogeneous and heterogeneous diffusion models, with convenient extensions, have been used. Models validation has also been performed in terms of prediction capability.

Keywords: diffusion models, energy forecast, natural gas, nonlinear production

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Authors: S. Jamshidi, E. Feizi Ashtiani, M. Ardestani, A. Feizi Ashtiani

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Waste load allocation (WLA) strategies usually intend to find economical policies for water resource management. Water quality trading (WQT) is an approach that uses discharge permit market to reduce total environmental protection costs. This primarily requires assigning discharge limits known as total maximum daily loads (TMDLs). These are determined by monitoring organizations with respect to the receiving water quality and remediation capabilities. The purpose of this study is to compare two approaches of TMDL assignment for WQT policy in small catchment area of Haraz River, in north of Iran. At first, TMDLs are assigned uniformly for the whole point sources to keep the concentrations of BOD and dissolved oxygen (DO) at the standard level at checkpoint (terminus point). This was simply simulated and controlled by Qual2kw software. In the second scenario, TMDLs are assigned using multi objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) method in which the environmental violation at river basin and total treatment costs are minimized simultaneously. In both scenarios, the equity index and the WLA based on trading discharge permits (TDP) are calculated. The comparative results showed that using economically optimized TMDLs (2nd scenario) has slightly more cost savings rather than uniform TMDL approach (1st scenario). The former annually costs about 1 M$ while the latter is 1.15 M$. WQT can decrease these annual costs to 0.9 and 1.1 M$, respectively. In other word, these approaches may save 35 and 45% economically in comparison with command and control policy. It means that using multi objective decision support systems (DSS) may find more economical WLA, however its outcome is not necessarily significant in comparison with uniform TMDLs. This may be due to the similar impact factors of dischargers in small catchments. Conversely, using uniform TMDLs for WQT brings more equity that makes stakeholders not feel that much envious of difference between TMDL and WQT allocation. In addition, for this case, determination of TMDLs uniformly would be much easier for monitoring. Consequently, uniform TMDL for TDP market is recommended as a sustainable approach. However, economical TMDLs can be used for larger watersheds.

Keywords: waste load allocation (WLA), water quality trading (WQT), total maximum daily loads (TMDLs), Haraz River, multi objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), equity

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Authors: Affordability, Expenditure Patterns towards Sustainable Consumption in Malaysia

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Safe drinking water is needed for survival. Households have to pay the water bill monthly. However, lower income households are sometimes unable to afford the cost. This study examines water access and affordability among households in Malaysia and the determinants of water affordability using cross-sectional data and multiple regression. The paper expects that the bill for basic water consumption is inversely related to average income. This means that policy makers need to redesign the water tariff to improve the quality of life of lower income households.

Keywords: affordability, sustainable consumption, income, water tariff

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Authors: Dina Mohamed Ahmed Mahmoud Bakr

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The concept of a circular economy is gaining increasing attention as a way to promote sustainable economic growth and reduce the environmental impact of human activities. The circular economy is a systemic approach that aims to keep materials and resources in use for as long as possible, minimize waste and pollution, and regenerate natural systems. The purpose of this article is to present a summary of the principles and tactics employed in the circular economy, along with examples of prosperous circular economy projects implemented in different sectors across Japan, Austria, the Netherlands, South Africa, Germany, and the United States. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities associated with the transition to a circular economy and the policy interventions that can support this transition.

Keywords: circular economy, waste reduction, sustainable development, recycling

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Authors: Charles Akinola Imolehin

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According to the news on world population record, over 6.6 billion people on earth, and almost a quarter million added each day, the scale of human activity and environmental impact is unprecedented. Soaring human population growth over the past century has created a visible challenge to earth’s life support systems. Critical natural resources such as clean ground water, fertile topsoil, and biodiversity are diminishing at an exponential rate, orders of magnitude above that at which they can be regenerated. In addition, the world faces an onslaught of other environmental threats including degenerated global climate change, global warming, intensified acid rain, stratospheric ozone depletion and health threatening pollution. Overpopulation and the use of deleterious technologies combine to increase the scale of human activities to a level that underlies these entire problems. These intensifying trends cannot continue indefinitely, hopefully, through increased understanding and valuation of ecosystems and their services, earth’s basic life-support system will be protected for the future. To say the fact, human civilization is now the dominant cause of change in the global environment. Now that human relationship to the earth has change so utterly, there is need to see to that change and understand its implication. These are two aspects to the challenges which all should believe. The first is to realize that human activity has power to harm the earth and can indeed have global and even permanent effects. Second is to realize that the only way to understand human new role as a co-architect of nature is to see human activities as part of a complex system that does operate according to the same simple rules of cause and effect commonly used to. So, understanding the physical/biological dimension of earth system is an important precondition for making sensible policy to protect our environment. Because believing in Sustainable Development is a matter of reconciling respect for the environment, social equity, and economic profitability. Also, there is strong believe that environmental protection is naturally about reducing air and water pollution, but it also includes the improvement of the environmental performance of existing process. That is why is important to always have it at the heart of business policy that the environmental problem is not our effect on the environment so much as the relationship of production activities on the environment. There should be this positive thinking in all operation to always be environmentally friendly especially in projection and considering Sustainable ALL awareness in all sites of operation.

Keywords: earth's ocean, marine animals life under treat, flooding, ctritical natiural resouces polluted

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Authors: Yazdani Saeed, Rafiei Hamed, Nekoofar Farahnaz

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Governments Policies play a major role in national and international Markets. Pistachio is one of the most important non-oil export commodity of Iran. Therefore, in this study the relation between the producer support policies and the export of Pistachio was examined. An econometric model (VAR) was applied to test the study hypothesis. According to the estimated coefficient in VAR model, lag of producer support index has a significant and negative effect on variation of Pistachio’s export in short term. In other word, in short term, export advantage index is dependent on the amount of producers support in previous period.

Keywords: producer support, export advantage, pistachio, Iran

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