Search results for: global ethics

Authors: Tapas Kumar Sinha, Joseph Mathew

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At the moment earth is in grave danger due to threats of global warming. The temperature of the earth has risen by almost 20C. Glaciers in the Arctic have started to melt. It would be foolhardy to think that this is a small effect and in time it would go away. Global warming is caused by a number of factors. However, one sure and simple way to totally eliminate this problem is to put programmable shields in space. Just as an umbrella blocks sunlight, a programmable shield in space will block sun rays from reaching the earth as in a solar eclipse and cause cooling in the penumbral region just as it happens during an eclipse.

Keywords: glaciers, green house, global warming space, satellites

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Authors: Tran Van Long

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Beyond trade facilitation, transparency in the WTO legal context is, implicitly and explicitly, aimed at addressing problems in domestic administrative law. Through the lens of global governance, this paper attempts to shed more light on the power of transparency norms enshrined in multilateral trading agreements under the aegis of the WTO. In this global ruled-base system, transparency has become sufficiently powerful to be a multifunctional instrument for promoting rule of law, good governance, and democracy.

Keywords: WTO, transparency, good governance, rule of law, global administrative law.

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Authors: Shannon Hashemi, Alireza Daneshfar

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Accounting ethical awareness has been widely promoted in recent years both in academia and in practice. However, the effectiveness of ethical awareness on accountants' judgment and choice of action is still debatable. This study investigates whether Machiavellianism and gender, as significant personality factors, influence the effect of ethical awareness on accountants' decision-making. Using an experiment, the results of ANOVA tests show that although introducing ethical awareness positively influences the accountants' judgment and choice of action, such an effect is significantly moderated by the accountants' Machiavellianism score and gender. Specifically, the test results show that the effect of introducing ethical awareness was higher on males with low Machiavellian score. The results also show that when the Machiavellian scores were high, the effect of ethical awareness was lower for both males and females. Applications of the results are discussed for accounting professionals as well as accounting ethics educators and researchers.

Keywords: ethical awareness, accounting decision making, Machiavellianism, ANOVA, ethics, accounting education

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Authors: Nina Dziatzko, Christopher Stehr, Franziska Struve

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Intercultural competence as an explicit required skill nearly never appears in job advertisements in international or even global contexts. But especially those who have to deal with different nationalities and cultures in their everyday business need to have several intercultural competencies and further a global mind-set. This way the question arises how potential future global managers can be trained to learn these competencies. In this regard, it might be helpful to see if different types of intercultural trainings have different effects on those skills. This paper outlines lessons learned based on the evaluation of two different intercultural trainings for management students. The main differences between the observed intercultural trainings are the amount of theoretical input in relation to hands-on experiences, the number of trainers as well as the used methods to teach implicit cultural rules. Both groups contain management students with the willingness and perspective to work abroad or to work in international context. The research is carried out with a pre-training-survey and a post-training-survey which consists of questions referring the international context of the students and a self-estimation of 19 identified intercultural and global mind-set skills, such as: cosmopolitanism, empathy, differentiation and adaptability. Whereas there is no clear result which training gets overall a significant higher increase of skills, there is a clear difference between the focus of competencies trained by each of the intercultural trainings. This way this research provides a guideline for both academicals institutions as well as companies for the decision between different types of intercultural trainings, if the to be trained required skills are defined. Therefore the efficiency and the accuracy of fit of the education of future global managers get optimized.

Keywords: global mind-set, intercultural competencies, intercultural training, learning experiences

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Authors: Oguzhan Cepni, Doruk Kucuksarac, M. Hasan Yilmaz

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Changes in the global risk appetite cause co-movement in emerging market risk premiums. However, the sensitivity of the changes in risk premium to the global risk appetite may vary across emerging markets. In this study, how the global risk appetite affects Credit Default Swap (CDS) premiums in emerging markets are analyzed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and rolling regressions. The PCA results indicate that the first common component derived by the PCA accounts for almost 76 percent of the common variation in CDS premiums. Additionally, the explanatory power of the first factor seems to be high over the sample period. However, the sensitivity to the global risk factor tends to change over time and across countries. In this regard, fixed effects panel regressions are used to identify the macroeconomic factors driving the heterogeneity across emerging markets. The panel regression results point to the significance of government debt to GDP and international reserves to GDP in explaining sensitivity. Accordingly, countries with lower government debt and higher reserves tend to be less subject to the variations in the global risk appetite.

Keywords: credit default swaps, emerging markets, principal components analysis, sovereign risk

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Authors: Ahmad Alhawarat, Mustafa Mamat, Mohd Rivaie, Ismail Mohd

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Conjugate gradient method has been enormously used to solve large scale unconstrained optimization problems due to the number of iteration, memory, CPU time, and convergence property, in this paper we find a new class of nonlinear conjugate gradient coefficient with global convergence properties proved by exact line search. The numerical results for our new βK give a good result when it compared with well-known formulas.

Keywords: conjugate gradient method, conjugate gradient coefficient, global convergence

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Authors: Saud Al Taj

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Employer branding is considered as a useful tool for addressing the global-local problem facing complex organisations that have operations scattered across the globe and face challenges of dealing with the local environment alongside. Despite being an established field of study within the Western developed world, there is little empirical evidence concerning the relevance of employer branding to global companies that operate in the under-developed economies. This paper fills this gap by gaining rich insight into the implementation of employer branding programs in a foreign multinational operating in Pakistan dealing with the global-local problem. The study is qualitative in nature and employs semi-structured and focus group interviews with senior/middle managers and local frontline employees to deeply examine the phenomenon in case organisation. Findings suggest that authenticity is required in employer brands to enable them to respond to the local needs thereby leading to the resolution of the global-local problem. However, the role of signaling theory is key to the development of authentic employer brands as it stresses on the need to establish an efficient and effective signaling environment wherein signals travel in both directions (from signal designers to receivers and backwards) and facilitate firms with the global-local problem. The paper also identifies future avenues of research for the employer branding field.

Keywords: authenticity, counter-signals, employer branding, global-local problem, signaling theory

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Authors: Neelam Kadyan

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Global environmental change is happening at an alarming rate in the present world. Floods, Tsunamis’, Avalanches, Change in Weather patterns, Rise in sea temperature, Landslides, are only few evidences of this change. To regulate such alarming growth of global change in environment certain regulatory system or mechanism is required. Nuisance,negligence,absolute liability,strict liability and trespass are some of the effective common law principles which are helpful in environmental problems. What we need today is sufficient law and adequate machinery to enforce the legal standards. Without law environmental standards cannot be enforced and once again there is need to adopt the common law approach in solving the problem of environmental change as through this approach the affected person can get compensation and as the same time it puts check on wrongdoer.

Keywords: global environmental problems, nuisance, negligence, trespass, strict liability, absolute liability

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Authors: Zahra Nouri Sangedehy

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There are two anthropologies considered in Protagoras. The first of them (Protagoras) considers the appearance of man, like all other beings, as the result of a natural evolution without a predetermined plan and aim. Not only the human's corporeal existence is the result of evolution and natural choices, but also his moral and social life can be explained in the light of this factor. In this anthropology, the moral and political laws derive from the contract and the people's majority agreement of society to survive. Society and socio-political institutions are the reason for the education and training (paidia) of virtues in general. The second anthropology is Socrates's, which is not clearly projected and is hidden behind his arguments. In this way, man's moral and social life is intrinsic. Man is intrinsically a moral and social being. Socrates intends to criticize the theory of the contractual nature of ethics by demonstrating the unity of virtues on the one hand and the identity of virtue and knowledge, and the problem of the teaching of virtues based on intrinsic and a priori knowledge of human beings, on the other hand, albeit with a new kind of education and training, which will replace the Sophists' education. Therefore, ethics will have undoubted foundations, and human beings will be defined again.

Keywords: Protagoras, techne, arête, paidia

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Authors: Remy Jonkam Oben

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Using a time series approach, this study investigates how natural resources impact financial development from a global perspective over the 1980-2019 period. Some important determinants of financial development (economic growth, trade openness, population growth, and investment) have been added to the model as control variables. Unit root tests have revealed that all the variables are integrated into order one. Johansen's cointegration test has shown that the variables are in a long-run equilibrium relationship. The vector error correction model (VECM) has estimated the coefficient of the error correction term (ECT), which suggests that the short-run values of natural resources, economic growth, trade openness, population growth, and investment contribute to financial development converging to its long-run equilibrium level by a 23.63% annual speed of adjustment. The estimated coefficients suggest that global natural resource rent has a statistically-significant negative impact on global financial development in the long-run (thereby validating the financial resource curse) but not in the short-run. Causality test results imply that neither global natural resource rent nor global financial development Granger-causes each other.

Keywords: financial development, natural resources, resource curse hypothesis, time series analysis, Granger causality, global perspective

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Authors: Candice Lemaitre

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During the 1990s, an alliance of international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations proposed a set of regulatory norms designed to reduce corruption. Many governments in developing countries, such as Vietnam, enacted these global anti-corruption norms into their domestic law. This article draws on empirical research to understand why these anti-corruption norms have failed to reduce corruption in Vietnam and many other developing countries. Rather than investigating state compliance with global anti-corruption provisions, a topic that has already attracted considerable attention, this article aims to explore the comparatively under-researched area of business compliance. Based on data collected from semi-structured interviews with business managers in Vietnam and archival research, this article examines how businesses in Vietnam interpret and comply with global anti-corruption norms. It investigates why different types of companies in Vietnam engage with and respond to these norms in different ways. This article suggests that global anti-corruption norms have not been effective in reducing corruption in Vietnam because there is fragmentation in the way companies in Vietnam interpret and respond to these norms. This fragmentation results from differences in the epistemic (or interpretive) communities that companies draw upon to interpret global anti-corruption norms. This article uses discourse analysis to understand how the communities interpret global anti-corruption norms. This investigation aims to generate some predictive insights into how companies are likely to respond to anti-corruption regimes based on global anti-corruption norms.

Keywords: anti-corruption, business law, legal transfer, Vietnam

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Authors: Helen J. Spray, Karina J. Linnell

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Local-global bias in adulthood is strongly dependent on environmental factors and a global bias is not the universal characteristic of adult perception it was once thought to be: whilst Western adults typically demonstrate a global bias, Namibian adults living in traditional villages possess a strong local bias. Furthermore, environmental effects on local-global bias have been shown to be highly gender-specific; whereas urbanisation promoted a global bias in urbanised Namibian women but not men, education promoted a global bias in urbanised Namibian men but not women. Adult populations, however, provide only a snapshot of the gene-environment interactions which shape perceptual bias. Yet, to date, there has been little work on the development of local-global bias across environmental settings. In the current study, local-global bias was assessed using a similarity-matching task with Navon figures in children aged between 4 and 15 years from across three populations: traditional Namibians, urban Namibians, and urban British. For the two Namibian groups, measures of urbanisation and education were obtained. Data were subjected to both between-group and within-group analyses. Between-group analyses compared developmental trajectories across population and gender. These analyses revealed a global bias from even as early as 4 in the British sample, and showed that the developmental onset of a global bias is not fixed. Urbanised Namibian children ultimately developed a global bias that was indistinguishable from British children; however, a global bias did not emerge until much later in development. For all populations, the greatest developmental effects were observed directly following the onset of formal education. No overall gender effects were observed; however, there was a significant gender by age interaction which was difficult to reconcile with existing biological-level accounts of gender differences in the development of local-global bias. Within-group analyses compared the effects of urbanisation and education on local-global bias for traditional and urban Namibian boys and girls separately. For both traditional and urban boys, education mediated all effects of age and urbanisation; however, this was not the case for girls. Traditional Namibian girls retained a local bias regardless of age, education, or urbanisation, and in urbanised girls, the development of a global bias was not attributable to any one factor specifically. These results are broadly consistent with aforementioned findings that education promoted a global bias in urbanised Namibian men but not women. The development of local-global bias does not follow a fixed trajectory but is subject to environmental control. Understanding how variability in the development of local-global bias might arise, particularly in the context of gender, may have far-reaching implications. For example, a number of educationally important cognitive functions (e.g., spatial ability) are known to show consistent gender differences in childhood and local-global bias may mediate some of these effects. With education becoming an increasingly prevalent force across much of the developing world it will be important to understand the processes that underpin its effects and their implications.

Keywords: cross-cultural, development, education, gender, local-global bias, perception, urbanisation, urbanization

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Authors: Eko Budi Santoso

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There is a growing interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues in developing countries such as Indonesia. Firms disclose their CSR activities, and some provide assurance to gain recognition as socially responsible firms. However, several of those socially responsible firms involve in tax scandals and raise a question of whether CSR disclosure is used to disguise firm misconduct or as a reflection of socially responsible firms. Specifically, whether firms engage in CSR disclosure and its assurance also responsible for their tax matters. This study examines the association between CSR disclosure and tax aggressiveness and the role of sustainability reporting assurance to the association. This research develops a modified index according to global reporting initiatives to measure CSR disclosure and various measurement for tax aggressiveness. Using a sample of Indonesian go public companies issued CSR disclosure, the empirical result shows that there is an association between CSR disclosure and tax aggressiveness. In addition, results also indicate sustainability reporting assurance moderate those association. The findings suggest that stakeholder in developing countries should examine carefully firms with active CSR disclosure before label it as socially responsible firms. JEL Classification: M14

Keywords: CSR disclosure, tax aggressiveness, assurance, business ethics

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Authors: M. M. Muhammed, O. Khuzaima

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This research examined and outlined some of the challenges facing Islam and Muslims in the 21^st century, considering global Islamic representation and knowledge acquisition as key objectives. It was observed that the Western media misrepresentation of Islam and the Western ethos embodied by the acquisition of western civilisation are major challenges faced by Islam and Muslims today. The problem of sectarianism, decline in the socio-economic power of Muslim communities and the archaic nature of the Islamic creed were recorded as major actors to the evolving global Islamic issues. It was therefore concluded that Islam is not the reason for these challenges, rather the action of some Muslims and non-Muslims were the contributing factors to the pandemics faced by Islam and Muslims. Some relevant recommendations were made to the Islamic world that could serve as effectual solutions to these lingering problems.

Keywords: Islam, challenges, representation, knowledge, century, global, twenty-first

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Authors: Athena Pedro, Carushca de Beer, Erin Cupido, Tarryn Johnson, Tawana Keneilwe, Crystal Stoffels, Carinne Annfred Lorraine Petersen, Kuan Michael Truskey

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The early experiences of children during their first 1000 days of life are the main determining factor of their development. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore mothers' understanding of an attachment bond and the role that it plays in early childhood. A qualitative exploratory research design guided this study. Ethics approval was granted by appropriate ethics committees. Data were gathered through the use of semi-structured interviews with 15 participants within the Cape Town area, South Africa. Participants completed informed consents and were informed of confidentiality, anonymity, their rights, and voluntary participation. Thematically analysed data revealed that many participants were unaware of the term ‘the first 1000 days of a child’s life’; however, they were aware of the methods to be used for forming an attachment bond with their children. There is a need for more awareness on the subject matter within South Africa.

Keywords: awareness, children, first 1000 days, milestones, South Africa, understanding

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Authors: Jorge Sandoval Lezama, Arturo Ivan Sandoval Rodriguez, Jose Arturo Correa Arredondo

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This work aims to share innovative educational experiences at IPN Mexico, that involve collaborative learning at institutional and global level through course competition and global collaboration projects. Students from universities in China, USA, South Korea, Canada and Mexico collaborate to design electric vehicles to solve global urban mobility problems. The participation of IPN students in the 2015-2016 global competition (São Paolo, Brazil and Cincinnati, USA) Reconfigurable Shared-Use Mobility Systems allowed to apply pedagogical strategies of groups of collaboration and of learning based on projects where they shared activities, commitments and goals, demonstrating that students were motivated to develop / self-generate their knowledge with greater meaning and understanding. One of the most evident achievements is that the students are self-managed, so the most advanced students train the students who join the project with CAD, CAE, CAM tools. Likewise, the motivation achieved is evident since in 2014 there were 12 students involved in the project, and there are currently more than 70 students.

Keywords: collaboration projects, global competency, course competition, active learning

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Authors: Norbert W. Paul

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In 1988, parts of the scientific community still heralded findings to support that AIDS was likely to remain largely a ‘gay disease’. The value-ladden terminology of some of the articles suggested that rectum and fragile urethra are not sufficiently robust to provide a barrier against infectious fluids, especially body fluids contaminated with HIV while the female vagina, would provide natural protection against injuries and trauma facilitating HIV-infection. Anal sexual intercourse was constituted not only as dangerous but also as unnatural practice, while penile-vaginal intercourse would follow natural design and thus be relatively safe practice minimizing the risk of HIV. Statements like the latter were not uncommon in the early times of HIV/AIDS and contributed to captious certainties and an underestimation of heterosexual risks. Pseudo-scientific discourses on the origin of HIV were linked to local and global health politics in the 1980ies. The pathways of infection were related to normative concepts like deviant, subcultural behavior, cultural otherness, and guilt used to target, tag and separate specific groups at risk from the ‘normal’ population. Controlling populations at risk became the top item on the agenda rather than controlling modes of transmission and the virus. Hence, the Thai strategy to cope with HIV/AIDS by acknowledging social and sexual practices as they were – not as they were imagined – has become a role model for successful prevention in the highly scandalized realm of sexually transmitted disease. By accepting the globalized character of local HIV-risk and projecting the risk onto populations which are neither particularly vocal groups nor vested with the means to strive for health and justice Thailand managed to culturally implement knowledge-based tools of prevention. This paper argues, that pertinent cultural collisions regarding our strategies to cope with HIV/AIDS are deeply rooted in misconceptions, misreadings and scandalizations brought about in the early history of HIV in the 1980ties. The Thai strategy is used to demonstrate how local values can be balanced against globalized health risk and used to effectuated prevention by which knowledge and norms are translated into local practices. Issues of global health and injustice will be addressed in the final part of the paper dealing with the achievability of health as a human right.

Keywords: bioethics, HIV, global health, justice

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Authors: Sherine A. El Baradei

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Global warming and climatic change are very important topics that are being studied and investigated nowadays as they have lots of diverse impacts on mankind, water quality, aquatic life, wildlife,…etc. Also, many water and hydraulics structures like dams and barrages are being built every day to satisfy water consumption needs, irrigation purposes and power generating purposes. Each of global warming and water structures alone has diversity of impacts on water quality and aquatic life in rivers. This research is investigating the dual combined effect of both water structures and global warming on the water quality and aquatic life through mathematical modeling. A case study of the Esna Barrage on the Nile River in Egypt is being studied. This research study is taking into account the effects of both seasons; namely, winter and summer and their effects on air and hence water temperature of the Nile reach under study. To do so, the study is conducted on the last 23 years to investigate the effect of global warming and climatic change on the studied river water. The mathematical model is then combining the dual effect of the Esna barrage and the global warming on the water quality; as well as, on aquatic life of the Nile reach under study. From the results of the mathematical model, it could be concluded that the dual effect of water structures and global warming is very negative on the water quality and the aquatic life in rivers upstream those structures.

Keywords: aquatic life, barrages, climatic change, dissolved oxygen, global warming, river, water quality, water structures

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Authors: Troy A. Tyre

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Organizational behavior and organizational change are elements of the ever-changing global business environment. Leadership and organizational behavior are 21st century disciplines. Network marketing organizations need to understand the ever-changing nature of global business and be ready and willing to adapt to the environment. Network marketing organizations have a challenge keeping up with a rapid escalation in global growth. Network marketing growth has been steady and global. Network marketing organizations have been slow to develop a 21st century global strategy to manage the rapid escalation of growth degrading organizational behavior, job satisfaction, increasing attrition, and degrading customer service. Development of an organizational behavior and leadership theory for the 21st century to help network marketing develops a global business strategy to manage the rapid escalation in growth that affects organizational behavior. Managing growth means organizational leadership must develop and adapt to the organizational environment. Growth comes with an open mind and one’s departure from the comfort zone. Leadership growth operates in the tacit dimension. Systems thinking and adaptation of mental models can help shift organizational behavior. Shifting the organizational behavior requires organizational learning. Organizational learning occurs through single-loop, double-loop, and triple-loop learning. Triple-loop learning is the most difficult, but the most rewarding. Tools such as theory U can aid in developing a landscape for organizational behavioral development. Additionally, awareness to espoused and portrayed actions is imperatives. Theories of motivation, cross-cultural diversity, and communications are instrumental in founding an organizational behavior suited for the 21st century.

Keywords: global, leadership, network marketing, organizational behavior

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Authors: Eleni Peristeri, Georgia Fotiadou, Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli

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The local-global dimension has been studied extensively in healthy controls and preference for globally processed stimuli has been validated in both the visual and auditory modalities. Critically, the local-global dimension has an inherent interference resolution component, a type of cognitive control, and left-prefrontal-cortex-damaged (LPFC) individuals have exhibited inability to override habitual response behaviors in item recognition tasks that involve representational interference. Eight patients with damage in the left PFC (age range: 32;5 to 69;0. Mean age: 54;6 yrs) and twenty age- and education-matched language-unimpaired adults (mean age: 56;7yrs) have participated in the study. Distinct performance patterns were found between the language-unimpaired and the LPFC-damaged group which have mainly stemmed from the latter’s difficulty with inhibiting global stimuli in incongruent trials. Overall, the local-global attentional dimension affects LPFC-damaged individuals with non-fluent aphasia in non-language domains implicating distinct types of inhibitory processes depending on the level of processing.

Keywords: left lateral prefrontal cortex damage (LPFC), local-global non-language attention, representational interference, non-fluent aphasia

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Authors: Alisa Sheppental

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The focus of this paper is the impact of coronavirus-related restrictions on the legitimacy and efficacy of subaltern counter publics and political resistance. Both difficulties and alterations of strategies needed to be considered by modern political movements within the counter-public sphere will be illustrated based on recent examples of protests in Hong Kong, Thailand, Belarus, Poland, and France. The dynamics of the modern globalized world have previously required a high level of adaptability, which resulted in a number of new features of modern political resistance in contrast with previous decades, including digitalization of protests and higher involvement of previously fewer active citizens (women, elderly, people with disabilities, etc.) However, a global pandemic situation, along with massive restrictions of daily lives, provide new input for both theoretical and empirical analysis. The following paper represents an attempt to summarize coping and adapting strategies of subaltern counter publics and activist groups under coronavirus-related restrictions.

Keywords: citizenship, political activism, subaltern counterpublics, discourse ethics

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Authors: Shamila Ahmed

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The paper examines how the fluidity between the local level and the global level is an intrinsic feature of new terrorism. Through using cosmopolitanism, the narratives of the two opposing sides of ISIS and the ‘war on terrorism’ response are explored. It is demonstrated how the fluidity between these levels facilitates the radicalisation process through exploring how groups such as ISIS highlight the perceived injustices against Muslims locally and globally and therefore exploit the globalisation process which has reduced the space between these levels. Similarly, it is argued that the ‘war on terror’ involves the intersection of fear, security, threat, risk and social control as features of both the international ‘war on terror’ and intra state policies.

Keywords: terrorism, war on terror, cosmopolitanism, global level terrorism

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Authors: Xiwu Feng

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The paper is to analyze research ethics in social and behavioral sciences from a cross-cultural perspective. A multi-phase study investigated implementations of ethical standards and guidelines in higher institutions in China. Institutional policies and procedures on human subject research and perceptions of human subject protection were assessed in the Chinese research universities from different regions. The findings of the study indicate that the implementations of ethical standards and guidelines vary from institution to institution and from region to region. Education and cultural backgrounds of the participants influence their perceptions of the welfare and privacy of human subjects. The results of the study reveal great differences and complexities in ethical standards for the protection of human subjects of research in contrast to the Western world. The Chinese collectivistic values and the cooperative-harmonious democracy play a significant role in perceiving and implementing ethical guidelines. Chinese researchers find themselves a long way to go before seeing implementations of regulations and guidelines on human subject research in social and behavioral sciences.

Keywords: ethical standards, human subjects, research ethics, social and behavioral research

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Authors: Terada Pinyo

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This study is a survey research designed to evaluate the quality of graduate students and factors influencing their quality. The sample group consists of 240 students. The data are collected from stratified sampling and are analyzed and calculated by instant computer program. Statistics used are percentage, mean, standard deviation, Pearson correlation coefficient, Cramer’s V and logistic regression analysis. It is found that the graduate students’ opinions regarding their characteristics according to the Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF) are at high score range both overall and specific category. The top categories that received the top score are interpersonal skills and responsibility, ethics and morals, knowledge, cognitive skills, numerical analysis with communication and information technology skills, respectively. On the other hand, factors affecting the quality of graduate students are cognitive skills, numerical analysis with communication and information technology, knowledge, interpersonal skills and responsibility, ethics and morals, and career regarding sales/business, respectively.

Keywords: student quality evaluation, Thai qualifications framework for higher education, graduate school, cognitive skills

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Authors: Joachim Monkelbaan, Marcia Hale

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Now that global frameworks for sustainability governance (e.g. the Sustainable Development Goals, Paris Climate Agreement and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction) are in place, the question is how these aspirations that represent major transitions can be put into practice. Water ‘infrasystems’ can play an especially significant role in strengthening regional sustainability. Infrasystems include both hard and soft infrastructure, such as pipes and technology for delivering water, as well as the institutions and governance models that direct its delivery. As such, an integrated infrasystems view is crucial for Integrative Water Management (IWM). Due to frequently contested ownership of and responsibility for water resources, these infrasystems can also play an important role in facilitating conflict and catalysing community empowerment, especially through participatory approaches to governance. In this paper, we analyze the water infrasystem of the Los Angeles region through the lens of global frameworks for sustainability governance. By complementing a solid overview of governance theories with empirical data from interviews with water actors in the LA metropolitan region (including NGOs, water managers, scientists and elected officials), this paper elucidates ways for this infrasystem to be better aligned with global sustainability frameworks. In addition, it opens up the opportunity to scrutinize the appropriateness of global frameworks when it comes to fostering sustainability action at the local level.

Keywords: governance, transitions, global frameworks, infrasystems

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Authors: Tovondahiniriko Fanjirindratovo, Olga Ramiarinjanahary, Paulisimone Rasoavonjy

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The sunshine duration, which is the sum of all the moments when the solar beam radiation is up to a minimal value, is an important parameter for climatology, tourism, agriculture and solar energy. Its measure is usually given by a pyrheliometer installed on a two-axis solar tracker. Due to the high cost of this device and the availability of global radiation on a horizontal surface, on the other hand, several studies have been done to make a correlation between global radiation and sunshine duration. Most of these studies are fitted for the northern hemisphere using a pyrheliometric database. The aim of the present work is to list and assess all the existing methods and apply them to Reunion Island, a tropical region in the southern hemisphere. Using a database of ten years, global, diffuse and beam radiation for a horizontal surface are employed in order to evaluate the uncertainty of existing algorithms for a tropical region. The methodology is based on indirect comparison because the solar beam radiation is not measured but calculated by the beam radiation on a horizontal surface and the sun elevation angle.

Keywords: Carpentras method, data fitting, global radiation, sunshine duration, Slob and Monna algorithm, step algorithm

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Authors: Snezana Svetozarevic

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The aim of the research was to determine whether there were significant changes in perceptions of family functioning by families in Serbia 12 months after the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has been declared a global pandemic. Above all, what has protected families in the face of the global crisis caused by COVID-19. The Self-Report Family Inventory, II version (SFI-II; Beavers and Hampson, 2013) and the Inventory of Family Protective Factors (IFPF; Gardner et al., 2008) were used to assess family functioning and protective factors. Currently, families perceive their functioning as more problematic regarding family emotional expressiveness, conflict, cohesion, and global family health/competence. Adaptive appraisal based on positive coping experiences significantly predicted values on emotional expressiveness, conflict, leadership, and global family health/competence dimensions -a higher prevalence of this factor was associated with more optimal family functioning and fewer problems. The growing problem in family functioning with the beginning of the pandemic is inevitable. However, our research confirmed that it is not enough to take into account what families do to survive. It is equally important to learn about what they do to thrive i.e., to study the family resilience.

Keywords: family, coping, resilience, pandemic, COVID-19

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Authors: Runglaksamee Rodkam

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The purpose of this research was to study the influence of accountants’ potential performance on their working process, a case study of Government Savings Banks in the northeast of Thailand. The independent variables included accounting knowledge, accounting skill, accounting value, accounting ethics, and accounting attitude, while the dependent variable included the success of the working process. A total of 155 accountants working for Government Savings Banks were selected by random sampling. A questionnaire was used as a tool for collecting data. Descriptive statistics in this research included percentage, mean, and multiple regression analyses. The findings revealed that the majority of accountants were female with an age between 35-40 years old. Most of the respondents had an undergraduate degree with ten years of experience. Moreover, the factors of accounting knowledge, accounting skill, accounting a value and accounting ethics and accounting attitude were rated at a high level. The findings from regression analysis of observation data revealed a causal relationship in that the observation data could explain at least 51 percent of the success in the accountants’ working process.

Keywords: influence, potential performance, success, working process

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Authors: Mohamed Rahal, Djaouida Guetta

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In this paper, the one-dimensional unconstrained global optimization problem of continuous functions satifying a Hölder condition is considered. We extend the algorithm of sequential covering SCA for Lipschitz functions to a large class of Hölder functions. The convergence of the method is studied and the algorithm can be applied to systems of nonlinear equations. Finally, some numerical examples are presented and illustrate the efficiency of the present approach.

Keywords: global optimization, Hölder functions, sequential covering method, systems of nonlinear equations

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Authors: Li-Jia Chiu

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to integrate the content of professional ethics curriculum into life education. This course is a required course for the third-year students of the university. The curriculum is based on professional ethics, which can help students gain insights into a conceptual understanding of professional theory, learning the meaning and the value of life. This study enhances students' attitude toward learning through multi-teaching methods. It takes ‘professionalism’ as the subject of discussion. Additionally, the course combines the connotation and issues of the student's career development. Using the world cafe discussion method, students can think about the role of the future career, and inspire students to integrate their career development and life value reflection and connection. This study recruited the third-year undergraduate students as samples to collect data. This study was conducted in the course of the fall semester in 2016 for thematic discussions, classroom observations, course study forms, coursework, and results in publication reports, etc. The researcher conducted induction data analysis to reflect the practice and reflection of the course. The subjects included 117 students from two classes, including 54 male and 63 female students. The findings of this study comprised the following two parts: the student’s learning and teacher’s teaching reflection. The students’ gains were that: 1) The curriculum design is different from that of other subjects; 2) The curriculum is highly interactive with teachers and classmates; 3) These students are willing to actively participate and share ideas in group discussions; 4 ) They thought the possibility of further discussions with other groups of students through table-to-table discussions; 5) They experienced the respect from other students in the learning process and their appreciation of other students in the same group. The instruction reflections were as follows: 1) Students learned to get link to the value of life and future development through topical discussions; 2) After the main course design guided through gradual guidance, the students’ psychology reached a certain degree of cognition, and further themes then added would cause more sensuous learning effects; 3) Combining students’ expertise in drawing in this department (digital media design department) into curriculum design is effective in stimulating learning motivation and sense of accomplishment; 4) In order to compare and explore learning benefits, future researches are recommended to conduct the similar studies with different departments. Finally, the researcher looks forward to providing research results and findings to the related curriculum teachers as a reference for practical curriculum planning and teaching methods.

Keywords: life education, World Cafe, professional ethics, professionalism

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