scholarly journals Evaluation at the Endgame: Evaluating Sustainability and the SDGs by Moving Past Dominion and Institutional Capture

2022 ◽  
pp. 207-221
Author(s):  
Andy Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Rapid Adaptation ◽  
Human System ◽  
Point Evaluation ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Knowledge Processes ◽  
Integrative Evaluation ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
Usual Evaluation

AbstractThree facts underlay this chapter. First, the human system and all our ambitions for improving the human system depend on sustainable natural systems. Second, we do not have much time. On track to fall well short of all sustainability goals, the climate and sustainability crises grow and extinction looms. Third, up to this point evaluation has shown little interest in sustainability, yet evaluation potentially addresses the very questions that are central to informing and guiding rapid adaptation of human behavior to successfully surmounting extinction.Business-as-usual evaluation will not suffice. At the endgame with extinction looming, we need an evaluation that is more nimble, keeps up with rapidly accelerating knowledge, is relentlessly use-seeking and that guides the way to joined-up approaches. The evaluation we need will systematically mainstream sustainability across all evaluations and interventions, in all evaluation criteria and standards. For this, all evaluations will always address nexus where human and natural systems join and incorporate knowledge and methods from both systems. Existing evaluation knowledge is well suited to this task, as are knowledges in biophysical sciences. We know and promote knowledge processes for integrative evaluation and are starting to shift toward the requirements for evaluation at the nexus. As this chapter shows, the anchors holding us back are political, not technical.

Evaluation Criteria for Evaluating Transformation: Implications for the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Global Climate Emergency

2020 ◽  
pp. 109821402093368
Author(s):  
Michael Quinn Patton
Keyword(s):  
Information Needs ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Development Assistance Committee ◽  
Global Alliance ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
The Future ◽  
Fundamental Systems ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
Specific Evaluation

Fundamental systems transformations are needed to address the global emergency brought on by climate change and related global trends, including the COVID-19 pandemic, which, together, pose existential threats to the future of humanity. Transformation has become the clarion call on the global stage. Evaluating transformation requires criteria. The revised Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Development Assistance Committee criteria are adequate for business as usual summative and accountability evaluations but are inadequate for addressing major systems transformations. Six criteria for evaluating transformations are offered, discussed, and illustrated by applying them to the pandemic and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. The suggested criteria illustrate possibilities. The criteria for judging any intervention should be developed in the context of and aligned with the purpose of a specific evaluation and information needs of primary intended users. This article concludes that the greatest danger for evaluators in times of turbulence is not the turbulence—it is to act with yesterday’s criteria.

scholarly journals Importance and Utilization of Theory-Based Evaluations in the Context of Sustainable Development and Social-Ecological Systems

2022 ◽  
pp. 223-235
Author(s):  
Takaaki Miyaguchi
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Development Evaluation

AbstractNumerous challenges confront the task of evaluating sustainable development—its complex nature, complementary evaluation criteria, and the difficulty of evaluation at the nexus of human and natural systems. Theory-based evaluation, drawn from critical realism, is well suited to this task. When constructing a program theory/theory of change for evaluating sustainable development, concepts of socioecological systems and coupled human and natural systems are useful. The chapter discusses four modes of inference and the application of different theory-based evaluation approaches. It introduces the CHANS (coupled human and natural systems) framework, a holistic, analytical framework that is useful in evaluating such complex, social-ecological systems and resonates with the challenging elements of sustainable development evaluation.

Climate change and human health

2021 ◽  
pp. 193-212
Author(s):  
Alistair Woodward ◽  
Alex Macmillan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Health Response ◽  
Heavy Burden ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
Global Systems

Climate change belongs in a new category of global environmental health problems. It is not just that the impacts are widely distributed: climate change is a result of unbalanced global systems. It is one of the modern threats to a ‘safe operating space’ for the planet. The effects on health occur directly, such as increased heat waves; through pressures on natural systems (reduced crop yields and undernutrition, for instance); and, as a consequence of social disruption. Also there may be impacts due to policy responses to climate change: these are so-called ‘transition risks’. Improving baseline health status is fundamental to coping with climate change, because the populations that are most seriously affected are those that already bear a heavy burden of disease. But an undifferentiated public health response is not sufficient. There are distinctive features of climate change that have to be taken into account. Mitigation, or primary prevention, will require rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse emissions if global heating is to be limited. The goal is to identify common solutions, responses to climate change that are health-enhancing rather than health damaging. There are many candidates, but by and large they are not on the path of ‘business as usual’ development.

Using Emotions in Usability

2007 ◽  
Vol 51 (17) ◽  
pp. 1044-1049 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto K. Champney ◽  
Kay M. Stanney
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
User Experience ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
User Interaction ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Usability Evaluation ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Human System

Emotions are evermore present in discussions of product design and are becoming part of a usability practitioner's repertoire of evaluation criteria. Nonetheless, emotions in design are far more than simply using satisfaction and frustration as criteria, noting how pleasant or unpleasant a product is, or listing a number of emotions elicited during an evaluation. Evaluating the emotional impact of a user interaction as part of a usability evaluation requires that emotions be adequately assessed and, most importantly, interpreted to identify their source. This article aims to present a method and process of Emotional Profiling to show how emotions may be utilized to aid usability professionals in further understanding the emotional reactions to human-system interactions, thereby identifying factors that enhance or detract from the user experience.

Food webs with humans: In name only?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma C. Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Dungeness Crabs ◽  
Us West

This chapter highlights the importance of considering people as integral to foodwebs. Despite extensive recent research on coupled human-natural systems, lacking are models that incorporate human behavior in a way that yields pragmatic insights into the management of multispecies fisheries. Using the US West Coast commercial fisheries system as a case study, this chapter develops a novel network approach of linking the social system (i.e., fishing communities) to the ecological system (the fish). The analysis reveals that fisheries that seem unconnected biologically, such as benthic Dungeness crabs and pelagic tuna, can in fact be strongly linked by fishing vessels that are active in both fisheries. Understanding how human behavior connects seemingly disparate ecological systems has important implications for fisheries managers seeking to balance human well-being with sustainable populations of fish.

Complexity

2021 ◽  
pp. 63-92
Author(s):  
Arden Rowell ◽  
Kenworthey Bilz
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Heuristics And Biases ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Know How ◽  
Law And Policy

This chapter addresses the role of psychological complexity in addressing environmental impacts. Recognizing, processing, and understanding environmental impacts is difficult and cognitively costly, because it requires understanding the relationships between human behavior and nature, which is made up of notoriously complicated and interactive natural systems. This generates significant cognitive load, and triggers a number of identifiable cognitive phenomena, including heuristics and biases that tend to (over)simplify complex situations. Understanding how people deal with complexity can help environmental lawyers and policy makers predict how people will respond to environmental phenomena, which in turn will make it easier not just to regulate but to know how people will respond to that regulation. Where possible, we flag potential approaches that environmental law and policy makers can use to effectively manage and respond to the challenges that complexity presents.

scholarly journals A note on the effects of epidemic forecasts on epidemic dynamics

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e9649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Record ◽  
Andrew Pershing
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Coupled System ◽  
Human System ◽  
Epidemic Dynamics ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
System A ◽  
Infection Dynamics ◽  
Functional Forms ◽  
Current Infection ◽  
Lower Infection

The purpose of a forecast, in making an estimate about the future, is to give people information to act on. In the case of a coupled human system, a change in human behavior caused by the forecast can alter the course of events that were the subject of the forecast. In this context, the forecast is an integral part of the coupled human system, with two-way feedback between forecast output and human behavior. However, forecasting programs generally do not examine how the forecast might affect the system in question. This study examines how such a coupled system works using a model of viral infection—the susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) model—when the model is used in a forecasting context. Human behavior is modified by making the contact rate responsive to other dynamics, including forecasts, of the SIR system. This modification creates two-way feedback between the forecast and the infection dynamics. Results show that a faster rate of response by a population to system dynamics or forecasts leads to a significant decline in peak infections. Responding to a forecast leads to a lower infection peak than responding to current infection levels. Inaccurate forecasts can lead to either higher or lower peak infections depending on whether the forecast under-or over-estimates the peak. The direction of inaccuracy in a forecast determines whether the outcome is better or worse for the population. While work is still needed to constrain model functional forms, forecast feedback can be an important component of epidemic dynamics that should be considered in response planning.

Effect of Iron Limitation on the Ultrastructure of Agmenellum Quadruplicatum

1981 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 410-411
Author(s):  
L. P. Hardie ◽  
D. L. Balkwill ◽  
S. E. Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Growth Medium ◽  
Green Alga ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Iron Limitation ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Blue Green Alga ◽  
Marine Cyanobacterium ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Thin Sectioning ◽  
Agmenellum Quadruplicatum

Agmenellum quadruplicatum is a unicellular, non-nitrogen-fixing, marine cyanobacterium (blue-green alga). The ultrastructure of this organism, when grown in the laboratory with all necessary nutrients, has been characterized thoroughly. In contrast, little is known of its ultrastructure in the specific nutrient-limiting conditions typical of its natural habitat. Iron is one of the nutrients likely to limit this organism in such natural environments. It is also of great importance metabolically, being required for both photosynthesis and assimilation of nitrate. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects (if any) of iron limitation on the ultrastructure of A. quadruplicatum. It was part of a broader endeavor to elucidate the ultrastructure of cyanobacteria in natural systemsActively growing cells were placed in a growth medium containing 1% of its usual iron. The cultures were then sampled periodically for 10 days and prepared for thin sectioning TEM to assess the effects of iron limitation.

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