Search Results (21)

Sustainable design discourse reflects diverse understandings and ideological perspectives, leading to a profusion of codes, guides, approaches and solutions, with competing claims to relevance in different contexts. This article presents a comparative investigation of four architectural projects in Nairobi, Kenya, focusing on the sustainable design approaches of different design teams, clients, and other stakeholders. The study includes interviews with architects together with field observations. The analysis examines technical and ideological approaches to sustainability, comparing the influence of techno-centric ‘Western’ approaches with low-tech alternatives, before reflecting on the most appropriate design strategies for the social and climate context. The findings highlight the significance of collaboration and conflicts between stakeholders, and the implications for design decisions. It examines the complexities, challenges, and trade-offs inherent to achieving a sustainable outcome when stakeholders with different interpretations of sustainability are brought together. Four related systematic problems concerning the practice of sustainable design in Kenya are identified: the maladaptation of Western design approaches; misunderstanding of local context; a normative bias towards technological solutions; and the prioritisation of economic considerations. Full article

The increasing incidence of droughts and heavy rainfall events is exacerbating conflicts between human and environmental demands for water. However, through providing multiple water-related ecosystem services and benefits simultaneously, Natural/Small Water Retention Measures (NSWRM) can mitigate such competing claims. Thus, they also contribute to the achievement of various Sustainable Development Goals and environmental targets set out in water- and agriculture-related policies of the European Union. In particular, NSWRM provide for the sound management of watersheds, which can significantly contribute to improved water quality and availability—as well as improving the resilience of agriculture and society. This paper demonstrates how NSWRM fit into the framework of ecosystem-based concepts, including Natural Water Retention Measures (NWRM), Green Infrastructure (GI), Sustainable Land Management (SLM), Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), and Nature-based Solutions (NbS). NSWRM, as a distinct concept, bring added value to the other concepts by focussing on easy-to-implement, modestly sized, localised technical solutions to problems associated with water management, sediment, and nutrient loss. Through experience under the EU Horizon 2020 project OPTAIN (“OPtimal strategies to retAIN and re-use water and nutrients in small agricultural catchments across different soil-climatic regions in Europe”), we show what NSWRM are, how they are linked to each of the ecosystem-based concepts, and how they can help add value to these concepts. Fourteen case studies are drawn upon from diverse countries across Europe. As a result of this analysis, we present the potential for the application of NSWRM in the context of these concepts, while helping to identify planning tools, the expertise required, and potential funding mechanisms. Full article

Open-mindedness appears as a potential intellectual virtue from the beginning of the rise of the literature on intellectual virtues. It often takes up a special role, sometimes thought of as a meta-virtue rather than a first-order virtue: as an ingredient that makes other virtues virtuous. Jason Baehr has attempted to give a unified account of open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue. He argues that the conceptual core of open-mindedness lies in the fact that a person departs, moves beyond, or transcends a certain default cognitive standpoint. Two of his main aims are to show that (1) one does not need to assume a doxastic conflict or disagreement to be at the heart of open-mindedness—that is, there are also instances where the virtue of open-mindedness is needed when there is no opposing view to be considered—and (2) that not all forms of open-mindedness include rational assessment—that is, sometimes being open-minded is not about weighing evidence for and against a claim. So, his main aim is to show that there are various situations that afford open-mindedness, in each of which a slightly different kind of open-mindedness is called for. To unify all these different kinds of open-mindedness is then the goal of his work. He arrives at the following definition of open-mindedness (OM): an open-minded person is characteristically (a) willing and (within limits) able (b) to transcend a default cognitive standpoint (c) in order to take up or take seriously the merits of (d) a distinct cognitive standpoint. In this article, I take seriously Baehr’s suggestion of how to understand open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue and argue that the crux lies in formulating how we can be able to transcend a default cognitive standpoint. This is not as obvious as it has been taken to be in the literature on open-mindedness. Biases, overconfidence, and wishful thinking are difficult exactly because we don’t know that we are engaging in them. That is, they are systematically hidden from our consciousness, otherwise they would not be a bias, overconfidence, or wishful thinking. Hence, the crux of making open-mindedness open-minded is to see how it is possible to make something of one’s own mind visible that is systematically hidden from oneself. I argue that this problem can be solved by looking at research on attention. I base my considerations in this article on Sebastian Watzl’s account of attention, which essentially holds that paying attention is an activity of foregrounding and backgrounding mental contents. That is, attention is the activity of structuring mental contents into a priority structure of foreground and background. If I pay attention to the scene in front of me, I foreground the black letters on my screen, and I background the coffee cup next to them. In this way, I create a priority structure between the letters (as they appear to me) and the coffee cup (as it appears to me). I argue that what allows us to make something of our own mind visible that is systematically hidden from us is a special way of paying attention, hence a special way of foregrounding and backgrounding the involved mental contents. That is, the crux of what enables us to transcend a default cognitive standpoint, the conceptual core of open-mindedness, is a special kind of attention, which I will call ‘open-minded attention’ (OMA). The claim of this article is not that open-minded attention fully describes the virtue of open-mindedness (OMA is not sufficient for open-mindedness). Rather, what I try to show is that in all cases of open-mindedness it turns out that open-minded attention is the necessary component that ensures that we can indeed get rid of prior biases, that is, transcend also those implicit beliefs and expectations that are systematically hidden from us (OMA is necessary for open-mindedness). Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the number of students with mental health problems: depression, anxiety, stress. Faced with this reality, teachers and schools must be prepared to respond quickly and effectively. Therefore, the objective of this article is to analyze the emotional competences of primary school teachers in the city of Valencia based on the following sociodemographic variables: sex, age, professional experience, type of center and whether they have children. For this purpose, a quantitative methodological approach has been followed, through which the emotional competencies of primary education teachers are analyzed. These results allow us to establish teacher profiles according to sociodemographic variables and help to detect possible training deficiencies. A sample of 371 teachers of primary education in the city of Valencia has been analyzed. The Questionnaire on Teaching Competences of Primary Education Teachers, carried out under the Planned Action Model, has been used, and descriptive, univariate, bivariate and cluster analyses have been carried out. The mean, the standard deviation and the interquartile range (IQR) have been analyzed, as well as non-parametric tests such as the Wilcoxon, Kruskal–Wallis or Z test. The most significant results are that teachers have a greater ability to interpret emotions and to listen to students. On the contrary, it is teachers who most reject prejudice, discrimination and racism. Younger teachers are the ones who implement more inclusive learning environments. Finally, in general, all teachers are very respectful of students and claim to know how to manage classroom conflicts. The results obtained, in general terms, coincide with most of the research on teachers’ emotional competencies. Some aspects simply do not coincide with the literature. The teachers who participated in our research perceive themselves as having a greater capacity to observe and interpret students’ emotions, to generate learning situations that cater to diversity and to listen to their students. Other studies place these competencies at lower levels. Full article

This study used the Q-methodology approach to analyze perceptions of precision livestock farming (PLF) technology held by stakeholders directly or indirectly involved in the US swine industry. To see if stakeholders’ perceptions of PLF changed over time as PLF is a rapidly evolving field, we deliberately followed up with stakeholders we had interviewed 6 months earlier. We identified three distinct points of view: PLF improves farm management, animal welfare, and laborer work conditions; PLF does not solve swine industry problems; PLF has limitations and could lead to data ownership conflict. Stakeholders with in-depth knowledge of PLF technology demonstrated elevated levels of optimism about it, whereas those with a basic understanding were skeptical of PLF claims. Despite holding different PLF views, all stakeholders agreed on the significance of training to enhance PLF usefulness and its eventual adoption. In conclusion, we believe this study’s results hold promise for helping US swine industry stakeholders make better-informed decisions about PLF technology implementation. Full article

Water scarcity is a growing problem in many regions worldwide. According to the United Nations, around one-fifth of the world’s population lives in areas where water is scarce. Another one-quarter of the world’s population has to face water supply cuts, mainly because this proportion of the population lacks the necessary infrastructure to acquire water from rivers and aquifers (UN, 2005). Water is a resource that is essential to human survival and is also present in all productive processes in the economy. Therefore, we are challenged to adequately manage water to ensure the population’s well-being and to achieve socioeconomic development. Specifically, this paper analyzes the situation present in the summer of 2022 at Riudecanyes (a village in Catalonia, Spain), where a drought problem exists. We propose applying the conflicting claims problem theory to give possible solutions to distribute the water. We propose to use this theory to describe the distribution of the available irrigation hours in 2022, considering the demand made by the farmers in the previous year, when there was regular irrigation. Full article

This paper addresses the problem of coherence, i.e., whether the internal and external dimensions of li (礼 rituals, rites, and the observance of them) are compatible. This problem stems mainly from Mencius’ seemingly conflicting statements. On the one hand, he emphasized the goodness of xing (性 human nature) in terms of the goodness of the heart-mind. On the other hand, he defended the act of following li regardless of one’s heart-mind. This paper argues that Mencius held coherent moral reasons internalism, asserting that moral reasons are embedded in people’s universal and potential instinct to do morally good things. Consequently, he distinguished morality from non-moral normativity and claimed that the former takes precedence over the latter. The concept of li is thus divided into moral li and non-moral li, with moral li taking precedence over non-moral li. Therefore, the act of “following li regardless of one’s heart-mind” refers to following non-moral li, as long as it does not conflict with moral li. Based on the fact that Mencius’ concept of li is a kind of coherent moral reasons internalism, this paper further responds to some challenges from moral reasons externalism. It does so by clarifying the meaning of “seeking the cause within oneself” (反求诸己 fan qiu zhu ji), showing that Mencius believed every individual could establish rational inner guidance and be motivated to lead a reflective and autonomous moral life. Full article

Due to the challenge of global warming, the European Union (EU) signed the Paris Agreement (2015) to diminish total Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. This paper addresses the conflict that EU member states face when they want to follow the target of the Paris Agreement for the period 2021–2030 which is a 55% GHG emission reduction by 2030 (compared with GHG emission in 1990). EU member states have to emit at a level that is lower than their emission needs. To solve this problem, we implement the claims problems approach as a method for distributing insufficient resources among parties with greater demands. We use several well-known division rules to divide the emission budget among EU member states. We define a set of principles that should be satisfied by division rules to select the most optimal allocation method. To diminish the effect of countries’ preferences on the allocation we use equity and stability criteria to examine the fairness of the rules. Moreover, we allocate the emission budget in two ways: First, we apply division rules to allocate the total emission budget for 2021–2030 among countries. Second, we allocate the emission budget annually from 2021 to 2030. We propose that Constrained Equal Awards (CEA) is an appropriate division rule to meet the target of 2030. Full article

Seventeen sustainable development goals were formulated to create a harmonious world order for the benefit of different nations and peoples. At the same time, economic practice provides a lot of examples of conflicts of an economic nature between individual sustainable development goals. One of these conflicts is the need for environmental imperatives and economic growth when a massive assessment of land used for crop production and green energy projects is needed. The present paper considers a non-traditional approach to the mass evaluation of land plots on the condition that geographic information systems provide the main source of information, such as the case of land allocation for green energy facilities and evaluation of agricultural plots. The novelty of the proposed approach firstly means the development of a comparative approach, which receives much less attention in the valuation literature than cost and income approaches, as it can give an adequate picture of the current state of the market. The model includes the study of the entire dataset, the selection of model distributions and the construction of estimates based on model distributions. The methodology of multivariate lognormal distribution of factors and prices of analogues is used. The peculiarity of the market evaluation of land plots in such cases is, as a rule, the absence of rank predictors and sufficient number of continuous predictors, which provides a base for the application of a novel approach. The method of express testing of hypotheses about joint normality of logarithms of values of pricing factors and prices is proposed. The market value is estimated as an estimate of the modal value of conditional lognormal price distribution. Secondly, the problem of market valuation is solved in case of the almost complete absence of information about price-forming factors in the areas being assessed, and thirdly, the factors are determined based on geoinformation databases (distance to the nearest large city, regional center, federal highway, large rivers, lakes, and solid waste landfills), which allow for market assessment in the absence of information on pricing factors for land plots, except for the offer price and the plot area. The research was necessitated by the claim to determine on a specific date the cadastral value of agricultural land for the purposes of taxation, corresponding to the market value, in the almost complete absence of information on pricing factors in the assessed areas. The value of land reflects a complex combination of factors, so the use of the proposed mathematical toolkit allows for building a consistent model for the evaluation of land where improvements are absent or have no value in terms of land acquisition purposes. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected economic development in countries around the world. It has deepened existing problems and increased the need for economic transformation, modernisation, and qualitative development, and launched new technological reforms that have led to the emergence of new economic forms of business models, consumption, as well as policies at the level of the state or local governments. The impacts of the pandemic are still visible in many aspects of life, including economic activity and the individual decisions of economic subjects at the level of households, enterprises, and governments. In this article, we present the results of the impact analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic with an emphasis mainly on the SMEs segment focusing on the tourist, hotel, and gastro industry (generally as one of the most affected by the pandemic). We also analyse the impact of the pandemic on the automotive industry because it is the most important manufacturing industry in Slovakia. Regardless of which industries of the national economy they are operating in, SMEs are assumed to be a driving force of structural changes, increasing employment, and economic growth. SMEs in Slovakia represent approx. 99% of all active enterprises and significantly participate in the success of the national economy. They are also an important factor in cooperation with large enterprises; in the case of Slovakia, the automotive industry should be highlighted (it is an important part of the secondary sector). The analysis and evaluation of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are carried out as a temporal and comparative analysis of the selected economic and industrial indicators relevant to the assessment of the impact of the pandemic on the Slovak business environment. It is an overview study of development; the impact of the pandemic is expressed mostly through the ratio indicators. The basis for time analysis and comparison is data representing the economic status quo before the pandemic (2019), and the ordinary period is represented by data distinctive of the pandemic period (2020, 2021). The results of the analysis indicate that the pandemic had a strong impact on employment and the sales of enterprises operating in the accommodation and catering industries; on the other hand, it did not reflect in the number of defunct enterprises, which points to the potential effectiveness of anti-pandemic measures in terms of state aid for the business sector. The results of this study may serve as a basis for the evaluation of introduced support programs (the evaluation of optimal combination and the impact of fiscal policies during a national/global economic crisis between assisting households, companies, state, and local governments) immediately mitigating the consequences of anti-pandemic measures, but also programs to eliminate the long-term consequences of the pandemic in the business environment in Slovakia. Assessing the situation is also a prerequisite for evaluating the impact of current crises (problems such as the global failure of logistics chains due to the pandemic, inflation, the environmental and energy crisis, and migration due to war conflict and applied sanction measures). In general, it is possible to claim that the pandemic was a huge burden for Slovakia; on the other hand, it was a lesson learned. Full article

Muslims on every continent have responded in a great variety of ways to the challenges of colonial modernity. Yet, it is also possible to examine broader currents within this diversity. Fundamentalism, modernism, and traditionalism are global currents which also overlap with other religions, such as Christianity or Hinduism. However, these contested and unstable categories only loosely designate internally diverse currents comprised of complex sub-currents as well as countercurrents. Fundamentalism, for example, has been used to designate various Wahhabi or Salafi movements. Modernism can refer to liberal, progressive, and even postmodern Islamic movements. Traditionalism generally refers to those movements which claim continuity with classical lineages, especially in jurisprudence (fiqh), doctrine (‘aqîda), and spirituality (tasawwuf). Muslims associated with this current generally identify as Traditional rather than Traditionalist. Traditional Islam is a global community whose participants adhere to several Sunni and Shia lineages and share a common discourse, network, and aesthetics. These participants typically depict fundamentalism as too rigid and literalist, and modernism as too eager to capitulate to Western ideologies and prone to unorthodox interpretations of Islam. However, rather than hostility and conflict with the West, Traditional Muslims tend to promote peaceful inter-civilisational dialogue, based on shared values in terms of spirituality, ethics, and indeed geopolitical stability. Morocco has emerged as a hub of Traditional Islam, along with other countries such as Jordan. It is pursuing an official policy to reinforce its reputation as the centre of a Western Islamic tradition that converges around the following four central elements: (1) veneration of the Prophet Muḥammad’s descendants (sharifism); (2) Maliki fiqh; (3) Ash’ari ‘aqîda; (4) Junaydi tasawwuf. This article examines how Morocco is actively engaged in shaping the regional and global Traditional Islamic community. It also proposes a decolonial world-systems analysis of how Traditional Islamic discourse relates to the lived experiences of Muslims in places such as Morocco. Based on this analysis, this article concludes that a credibility problem impedes efforts by Traditional Muslims to defend the unique ways of being, knowing, and behaving developed by Muslims against the ongoing genocidal threat of colonial modernity. Full article

Background: There is limited research on the heterogeneity of worker suicides. We compared differences in workers’ suicides by clustering suicide deaths. Methods: From 2010 to 2017, 353 suicide deaths were claimed in the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance; variables were coded using a standardized methodology. A two-step cluster analysis classified the clusters based on demographic and employment conditions. Details of the suicide, clinical variables, personal stresses, and work-related stresses were compared using the chi-square test and one-way analysis of variance. Results: We identified five clusters and they differed particularly in work-related stress. “Responsibility-burdened type” experienced excessive responsibility as managers; “role-changed type” experienced a sudden and unpredictable role change as clerks or sales workers; “risk-exposed type” experienced physical risk factors at work (working alone, outdoors, and in shifts) as machine operating and assembling workers, or craft and related trades workers; “job-insecurity type” experienced unstable employment (irregular, nonpermanent) as elementary or service workers; “workplace-violence type” was mainly unmarried women who lived alone, and experienced interpersonal conflict and violence as professionals and related workers. There were no differences between clusters in clinical variables (except problem drinking) and personal stresses. Conclusion: Interventions to alleviate work-related stress in worker clusters are needed to prevent suicide in workers. Full article

This contribution speaks to this Special Issue’s guiding question of how the approach to freedom of religion and minority protection can be combined to foster the protection of religious communities and their members by examining a particular European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case that provokes a contrasting question: ‘What happens when provisions for religious minority protection lead to the violation rather than protection of members’ rights?’ That case is Molla Sali v. Greece (2018), in which the ECtHR addressed the claim of a member of a Muslim minority community whose membership in that community subjected her—involuntarily—to the authority of sharia law over inheritance matters. The case serves as a foundation from which to explore the ECtHR’s engagements with the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, an exploration which helps bring to the fore the problems around the concept of ‘voluntary’ opting into identification with a minority identity when the latter entails some form of disadvantage. Women, in particular, due to family and peer pressures, are vulnerable to such disadvantage in contexts such as that from which the case of Molla Sali arises. Thus, the case invites discussion of various ways in which individual and group rights may come into conflict and considers minority rights specifically in relation to other human rights. Full article

Power supply is the cornerstone for the sustainable socio-economic development of any country. In a developing country like Pakistan, shortage of power supply is the main obstacle to its economic growth, making it a disputed and contested resource among different administrative units/provinces and socio-economic sectors. A key challenge is allocating the limited available power among provinces with conflicting and competing needs amid the supply-demand gap. In this research, the allocation of energy during a shortage is considered as a game-theoretic bankruptcy problem. Five bankruptcy rules namely the Proportional Rule, Constraint Equal Award Rule, Constraint Equal Loss Rule, Talmud Rule and Piniles Rule are used for power allocation among the provinces of Pakistan. Each province is characterized by its power demand. A new framework is also proposed for power allocation, which synthesizes the Nash bargaining solution concept with bankruptcy theory to resolve power-related disputes among the four provinces within Pakistan. Additionally, a new method is introduced in this study to compare and contrast the different allocation rules. The results suggest that the basic power demands of the provinces can be satisfied by the proposed disagreement points among the provinces, and the bargaining weights can highlight the role of different levels of power claims, lengths of transmission lines, and variations in population among provinces. The findings also suggest that, due to the lowest dispersion, the proportionate rule is the most suitable method for power allocation among the provinces. The paper combines relevant bankruptcy rules with Nash bargaining theory to propose an algorithm for addressing power sector supply-demand mismatches in Pakistan. Full article

The tobacco industry promotes electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and heated tobacco products (HTP) as a safer alternative to conventional cigarettes with misleading marketing sustained by studies with conflict of interest. As a result, these devices sell without regulations and warnings about their adverse effects on health, with a growing user base targeting young people. This systematic review aimed to describe the adverse effects on the respiratory system in consumers of these devices. We conducted a systematic review and bibliometric analysis of 79 studies without conflict of interest evaluating ENDS and HTP effects in the respiratory system in experimental models, retrieved from the PubMed database. We found that the damage produced by using these devices is involved in pathways related to pulmonary diseases, involving mechanisms previously reported in conventional cigarettes as well as new mechanisms particular to these devices, which challenges that the tobacco industry’s claims. The present study provides significant evidence to suggest that these devices are an emerging public health problem and that they should be regulated or avoided. Full article