Mental Well-Being and the Eco-State: A Classification of Regions and Countries of the European Union

Author(s):  
Paola E. Signoretta ◽  
Veerle Buffel ◽  
Piet Bracke
Resources ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Ewa Mazur-Wierzbicka

There are many studies which implement and assess existing measurement manners and document the progress of entities towards the circular economy (CE) at various levels, or present or propose new possibilities of measurement. The majority of them refer to the micro level. The aim of this paper is to conduct a multidimensional comparative analysis of the implementation of circular economy by EU countries. After an in-depth critical analysis of the literature, CE indicators which were proposed by the European Commission were adopted as a basis. Owing to the research population-Member States of the European Union (EU-28), focusing on the said indicators was declared reasonable in all aspects. The classification of EU countries according to the level of their advancement in the concept of CE was adopted as a main research task. In order to do so, a relevant index of development of circular economy was created (IDCE). This will allow us, inter alia, to trace changes in the spatial differentiation of advancement of the EU countries in implementing CE over the years, to identify CE implementation leaders as well as countries particularly delayed in this regard. The comparative analysis was conducted by means of statistical methods. On the basis of the analyses, it was concluded that among all EU countries, those of the old EU are the most advanced in terms of CE. The analysis confirmed significant rising trends for IDCE only in the case of Belgium and The Netherlands.


2021 ◽  
pp. 053331642110012
Author(s):  
Antigonos Sochos

In this commentary I argue that the European Union has been functioning as an insecure object of collective attachment for large parts of the European population for many years. According to attachment theory, in relationships of asymmetrical power insecure attachment is formed as the narrative constructed by the most powerful party overwrites the authentic experience of the weakest, generating conflicted representation of self and the attachment object. That attachment object may be interpersonal or collective. The EU narrative on how it safeguards democracy and citizen well-being contradicts the true experience of many Europeans who struggle to make ends meet in neoliberal Europe. On this basis, an insecure collective bond with the EU is established, as the latter fails to recognize and address the needs of many of its citizens.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1362
Author(s):  
Giorgio Smaldone ◽  
Stefano Capezzuto ◽  
Rosa Luisa Ambrosio ◽  
Maria Francesca Peruzy ◽  
Raffaele Marrone ◽  
...  

Water-bath stunning represents the most-applied stunning system in poultry slaughtering, but within the European Union, specific indications on electric parameters that should be used, such as voltage, are missing. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of two commercially available types of electrical equipment (A and B) on broilers with different live body weights and the influence of the tested parameters on meat quality. Experimental trials in a European Union-approved slaughterhouse were carried out using two different stunners. 6600 broilers, divided into three weight groups, were stunned applying different protocols based on the same current frequencies and intensity but different voltages. The state of unconsciousness (presence of corneal reflex and wings flapping) and post-mortem defects (pectoral hemorrhages and dark meat) were evaluated by blinded trained operators. The presence of corneal reflex and petechiae were the most reported consciousness signs and post-mortem injuries, respectively. Different weights played an important role within stunner A, registering statistical differences (p < 0.01) among groups. Considering injuries, an inverse relationship between body weight and lesions was found. The results highlighted the effectiveness of both stunning systems applying the best combination of electrical parameters considering the weight of the animal and ensuring its well-being.


Author(s):  
Anna TURCZAK

The contributions of forests to the well-being of humankind are extraordinarily vast and far-reaching. They are an important element in mitigating climate change. The aim of the paper is to determine the influence of particular factors on the diversity of the European Union countries in terms of the amount of wood forest resources compared with the country size. Two factors affecting the variable have been analysed in the paper: 1) the growing stock per 1 hectare of forest area and 2) the quotient of the forest area and the land area without inland water. Those two independent variables are directly proportional to the dependent variable, thus the higher the growing stock density and the higher the forest cover, the bigger the amount of wood forest resources of the analysed country. The causal analysis allowed to answer the question how the two factors affect the variable considered in the twenty eight countries, namely, what the direction and the strength of their influence are. The logarithmic method was used to carry out the causal analysis. The average results obtained for the entire European Union were compared with those received for each country separately and, on this basis, final conclusions were drawn. Data for 2005, 2010 and 2015 have been used for all needed calculations.


Author(s):  
Ana Maria Mihaela Iordache ◽  
Codruța Cornelia Dura ◽  
Cristina Coculescu ◽  
Claudia Isac ◽  
Ana Preda

Our study addresses the issue of telework adoption by countries in the European Union and draws up a few feasible scenarios aimed at improving telework’s degree of adaptability in Romania. We employed the dataset from the 2020 Eurofound survey on Living, Working and COVID-19 (Round 2) in order to extract ten relevant determinants of teleworking on the basis of 24,123 valid answers provided by respondents aged 18 and over: the availability of work equipment; the degree of satisfaction with the experience of working from home; the risks related to potential contamination with SARS-CoV-2 virus; the employees’ openness to adhering to working-from-home patterns; the possibility of maintaining work–life balance objectives while teleworking; the level of satisfaction on the amount and the quality of work submitted, etc. Our methodology entailed the employment of SAS Enterprise Guide software to perform a cluster analysis resulting in a preliminary classification of the EU countries with respect to the degree that they have been able to adapt to telework. Further on, in order to refine this taxonomy, a multilayer perceptron neural network with ten input variables in the initial layer, six neurons in the intermediate layer, and three neurons in the final layer was successfully trained. The results of our research demonstrate the existence of significant disparities in terms of telework adaptability, such as: low to moderate levels of adaptability (detected in countries such as Greece, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Italy); fair levels of adaptability (encountered in France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, or Romania); and high levels of adaptability (exhibited by intensely digitalized economies such Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc.).


Author(s):  
Pavel Zemánek ◽  
Patrik Burg

In relation to entrance of Czech Republic to the European union and with wo-revolving harmonization of our law order with EU direction, happen to classification of composting meaning. In presents act there are two circle of problems. First is utilization of rising waste, the second is perfection of soil fertility and raising of enviroment quality.The contribution deal with problems of modelling solution of place to biowaste composting and it´s optimum placing, applied on concrete conditions of the Lednice-Valtice Area. The basis is placement of dominant producer of biowaste, their kind, quantity and season in relation to prescription of compost fill. The proposal of compost technology enable determine size of place and help solve its placing.Circumscribed method is able to find practical exploitation at creation of place suggestion in real condition of existent areas.


Author(s):  
Chantal Remery ◽  
Joop Schippers

Today, as an increasing share of women and men is involved in both paid tasks at work and unpaid care tasks for children and other relatives, more people are at risk of work-family conflict, which can be a major threat to well-being and mental, but also physical health. Both organizations and governments invest in arrangements that are meant to support individuals in finding a balance between work and family life. The twofold goal of our article was to establish the level of work-family conflict in the member states of the European Union by gender and to analyze to what extent different arrangements at the organizational level as well the public level help to reduce this. Using the European Working Conditions Survey supplemented with macro-data on work-family facilities and the economic and emancipation climate in a country, we performed multilevel analyses. Our findings show that the intensity of work-family conflict does not vary widely in EU28. In most countries, men experience less work-family conflict than women, although the difference is small. Caring for children and providing informal care increases perceived work-life conflict. The relatively small country differences in work-family conflict show that different combinations of national facilities and organizational arrangements together can have the same impact on individuals; apparently, there are several ways to realize the same goal of work-family conflict reduction.


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