A novel approach for exploring the trade‐offs between several features of students’ well‐being

The development of adequate modeling at the basin level to establish public policies has an important role in managing water resources. Hydro-economic models can measure the economic effects of structural and non-structural measures, land and water management, ecosystem services and development needs. Motivated by the need of improving water allocation using economic criteria, in this study, a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) with a hydro-economic optimization model (HEAL system) was developed and used for the identification and analysis of an optimal economic allocation of water resources in a case study: the sub-middle basin of the São Francisco River in Brazil. The developed SDSS (HEAL system) made the economically optimum allocation available to analyze water allocation conflicts and trade-offs. With the aim of providing a tool for integrated economic-hydrological modeling, not only for researchers but also for decision-makers and stakeholders, the HEAL system can support decision-making on the design of regulatory and economic management instruments in practice. The case study results showed, for example, that the marginal benefit function obtained for inter-basin water transfer, can contribute for supporting the design of water pricing and water transfer decisions, during periods of water scarcity, for the well-being in both basins.

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SmartWoW – constructing a tool for knowledge work performance analysis

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management ◽

10.1108/ijppm-06-2013-0122 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 64 (4) ◽

pp. 479-498 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Miikka Palvalin ◽

Maiju Vuolle ◽

Aki Jääskeläinen ◽

Harri Laihonen ◽

Antti Lönnqvist

Keyword(s):

Work Performance ◽

Knowledge Work ◽

Well Being ◽

Management Tool ◽

Research Approach ◽

Work Practices ◽

Content Type ◽

Individual Level ◽

New Ways Of Working ◽

Novel Approach

Purpose – New Ways of Working (NewWoW) refers to a novel approach for improving the performance of knowledge work. The purpose of this paper is to seek innovative solutions concerning facilities, information technology tools and work practices in order to be able to “work smarter, not harder.” In order to develop work practices toward the NewWoW mode there is a need for an analytical management tool that would help assess the status of the organization’s current work practices and demonstrate the impacts of development initiatives. This paper introduces such a tool. Design/methodology/approach – Constructive research approach was chosen to guide the development of the Smart ways of working (SmartWoW) tool. The tool was designed on the basis of previous knowledge work performance literature as well as on interviews in two knowledge-intensive organizations. The usefulness of the tool was verified by applying it in four organizations. Findings – SmartWoW is a compact questionnaire tool for analyzing and measuring knowledge work at the individual level. The questionnaire consists of four areas: work environment, personal work practices, well-being at work and productivity. As SmartWoW is a standardized tool its results are comparable between organizations. Research limitations/implications – SmartWoW was designed a pragmatic managerial tool. It is considered possible that it can be valuable as a research instrument as well but the current limited amount of collected data does not yet facilitate determining its usefulness from that perspective. Originality/value – This paper makes a contribution to the existing literature on knowledge work measurement and management by introducing an analytical tool which takes into account the NewWoW perspective.

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Mapping Population Vulnerability and Community Support during COVID-19

International Journal for Population Data Science ◽

10.23889/ijpds.v5i4.1409 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

Author(s):

Nina H Di Cara ◽

Jiao Song ◽

Valerio Maggio ◽

Christopher Moreno-Stokoe ◽

Alastair R Tanner ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Community Support ◽

Well Being ◽

Community Action ◽

Community Response ◽

Multiple Data ◽

Novel Approach ◽

Data Pipeline ◽

Complex Population ◽

Flexible Integration ◽

Interactive Map

Background Disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic pose an overwhelming demand on resources that cannot always be met by official organisations. Limited resources and human response to crises can lead members of local communities to turn to one another to fulfil immediate needs. This spontaneous citizen-led response can be crucial to a community’s ability to cope in a crisis. It is thus essential to understand the scope of such initiatives so that support can be provided where it is most needed. Nevertheless, quickly developing situations and varying definitions can make the community response challenging to measure. Aim To create an accessible interactive map of the citizen-led community response to need during the COVID-19 pandemic in Wales, UK that combines information gathered from multiple data providers to reflect different interpretations of need and support. Approach We gathered data from a combination of official data providers and community-generated sources to create 14 variables representative of need and support. These variables are derived by a reproducible data pipeline that enables flexible integration of new data. The interactive tool is available online (www.covidresponsemap.wales) and can map available data at two geographic resolutions. Users choose their variables of interest, and interpretation of the map is aided by a linked bee-swarm plot. Discussion The novel approach we developed enables people at all levels of community response to explore and analyse the distribution of need and support across Wales. While there can be limitations to the accuracy of community-generated data, we demonstrate that they can be effectively used alongside traditional data sources to maximise the understanding of community action. This adds to our overall aim to measure community response and resilience, as well as to make complex population health data accessible to a range of audiences. Future developments include the integration of other factors such as well-being.

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Smart EcoCUVA – Tools for Food Marketing Strategy

Suomen Maataloustieteellisen Seuran Tiedote ◽

10.33354/smst.76790 ◽

2006 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Maarit Pallari

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Action Research ◽

Well Being ◽

Complex Problem ◽

Utility Value ◽

Value Analysis ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Usa ◽

Application Fields

The implementation of the green productivity and marketing concept in agribusiness is a must in the future.Food production is influenced by the environment and society, and vice versa. Today a growing number ofconsumers are aware of the link between environmental and social well-being and fresh, pure, healthy, tastyand safe foodstuffs. Enterprises will have to consider three important aspects of value when doing business:economic, social and environmental value. The foundation of the quality research this study is concernedwith is action research. Action research is a way to analyze sustainable development, the aptness ofagriculture and the marketing opportunities these offer for developing ecoproducts in the SMEs.The study seeks to answer the following questions:- What kind of Classical Utility Value Analyses could be tool of the eco-product?- To what extent can a customer/interest group affect the development and decision-making of ecoproducts?- Is the method a suitable tool for analyzing ecological criterions in the marketing model?Classical Utility Value Analysis is a formal, analytic approach for evaluating and comparing differentalternatives. It is one decision making method of multi-criteria analysis. The roots of utility value analysis,which is one of the mathematical models for analytical decision making, are in the USA and Germany. Themethod is almost 40 years old, of the same age as the manuscript of the values tradeoff. The same historicallanguage is being used to build up new tools, principles and theory. The so-called Smart EcoCUVA hasused both methodologies (Utility value analysis and decision making analysis) when setting the goals andmathematical steps. Research results always give the best available alternative.Making rational decisions for any complex problem requires various analyses of trade-offs (compromises)between conflicting goals (objectives, outcomes) that are used for measuring the results of applying variousdecisions in a wide range of application fields. A typical decision problem has an infinite number ofsolutions, and decision makers are interested in analyzing trade-offs between those that correspond to theirpreferences, which is often called a preferential structure of the decision-maker.Smart EcoCuva analysis helps to assess different alternatives according to a variety of environmentalcriteria associated with enterprises and their products. The analysis methods take account of the monetaryand non-monetary aspects when determining the selection of the best alternative. Smart EcoCuva is themethodological cornerstone for the creation of an innovative concept that will contribute to encouraging theefficient use of natural resources and thereby enhancing sustainability.The Smart EcoCuva tools to be developed aim to be environmentally sound, economically viable, sociallyjust and culturally appropriate. They are a new, science-based reaction of sustainable agriculture to globalatmosphere, as well as constitute an appropriate link between people and nature. New environmentallyfriendly food combines healthy food with people’s lifestyles.

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Commercial Mhealth Apps and Exploitative Value Trade-Offs

Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Bioethica ◽

10.24193/subbbioethica.2021.spiss.98 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 66 (Special Issue) ◽

pp. 148-148

Author(s):

Leon Rossmaier ◽

◽

Keyword(s):

Health Benefit ◽

Well Being ◽

Lifestyle Changes ◽

Self Determination ◽

Medical Decision ◽

Access To Health Services ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Access To Health ◽

Mhealth Apps ◽

Insight Into

"Mobile health (mHealth) apps are becoming progressively important for primary care, disease prevention, and public health interventions. They promise to empower its users by offering them more independence, better access to health services, and more insight into their health status resulting in better informed medical decision-making and lifestyle changes. Disadvantages of mHealth apps often include a lack of privacy protection, a decrease in personal attachment, and the acceptance of a normative conception of health challenging the user’s self-determination. Privacy, attachment, and self-determination are, alongside health, linked to fundamental dimensions of human well-being. Users of mHealth apps can either accept those disadvantages or abstain from using this technology entirely. Users, therefore, have to trade-off fundamental dimensions of well-being to gain a certain health benefit if they want to use commercial mHealth apps. This presentation will clarify the values most relevant in this context, focusing on privacy, self-determination, and attachment. I claim that these values imply fundamental conditions of well-being that should not be undermined, especially in the context of health care. I will argue that the value trade-offs users must engage in are an instance of mutually advantageous agreements by which the provider of the app takes unfair advantage of the user. This renders such agreements exploitative. I will discuss the notion of exploitation that I think applies in this case and explain under what circumstances exploitative agreements that come with the use of commercial mHealth apps oppose the empowerment narrative. "

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Antepartum Assessment of Fetal Well-Being

50 Studies Every Obstetrician-Gynecologist Should Know ◽

10.1093/med/9780190947088.003.0022 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 121-126

Author(s):

Jonathan S. Hirshberg ◽

Nandini Raghuraman

Keyword(s):

Perinatal Mortality ◽

Fetal Heart Rate ◽

Research Question ◽

Relevant Literature ◽

Well Being ◽

Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring ◽

Funding Sources ◽

Novel Approach ◽

Biophysical Profile ◽

Contemporary Context

This article provides a concise summary of a landmark paper from the field of Maternal-Fetal Medicine on antenatal fetal testing. The authors describe a novel approach to identify fetuses that are at risk of perinatal mortality. Combining ultrasonographic features and fetal heart rate monitoring, a biophysical profile (BPP) score was assigned to each fetus and the rates of perinatal mortality for each range of BPP score were determined. The article reviews the research question, funding sources, study design and outcomes. It places these findings in contemporary context and reviews relevant literature. The authors provide a clinical case to highlight the study’s applicable findings.

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Assessment of the Spatial Dynamics and Interactions among Multiple Ecosystem Services to Promote Effective Policy Making across Mediterranean Island Landscapes

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10093285 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (9) ◽

pp. 3285 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Roxanne Lorilla ◽

Konstantinos Poirazidis ◽

Stamatis Kalogirou ◽

Vassilis Detsis ◽

Aristotelis Martinis

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Spatial Dynamics ◽

Well Being ◽

Temporal Variations ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽

Natural Ecosystems ◽

Economic Resilience ◽

Central Mediterranean ◽

Ionian Islands ◽

Trade Offs

To manage multiple ecosystem services (ES) effectively, it is essential to understand how the dynamics of ES maintain healthy ecosystems to avoid potential negative impacts on human well-being in the context of sustainable development. In particular, the Ionian Islands in the central Mediterranean are characterized by high natural, ecological, and recreational value; however, the intensification of human activities over time has resulted in the loss of natural ecosystems, which might have negatively impacted ES. Here, we aimed to assess and understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of ES supply and how these components interact across the Ionian Islands to optimize future ES provision and mitigate current trade-offs. We quantified multiple ecosystem services and analyzed their interactions at a temporal scale across the four prefectures of the Ionian Islands. Seven ES were quantified covering all three ES sections (provisioning, regulating and maintenance, and cultural) of the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES). ES interactions were investigated by analyzing ES relationships, identifying ES bundles (sets of ES that repeatedly occur together across space and time), and specifying ES occurrence within bundles. The three ES groups exhibited similar patterns on some islands, but differed on islands with areas of high recreation in parallel to low provisioning and regulating ES. Temporal variations showed both stability and changes to the supply of ES, as well as in the interactions among them. Different patterns among the islands were caused by the degree of mixing between natural vegetation and olive orchards. This study identified seven ES bundles that had distinct compositions and magnitudes, with both unique and common bundles being found among the islands. The olive grove bundle delivered the most ES, while the non-vegetated bundle delivered negligible amounts of ES. Spatial and temporal variation in ES appear to be determined by agriculture, land abandonment, and increasing tourism, as well as the occurrence of fires. Knowledge about the spatial dynamics and interactions among ES could provide information for stakeholders and decision-making processes to develop appropriate sustainable management of the ecosystems on the Ionian Islands to secure ecological, social, and economic resilience.

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Ecosystem services

Progress in Physical Geography Earth and Environment ◽

10.1177/0309133311423172 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 35 (5) ◽

pp. 575-594 ◽

Cited By ~ 241

Author(s):

Marion B. Potschin ◽

Roy H. Haines-Young

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Ecosystem Service ◽

Natural Capital ◽

Well Being ◽

Physical Geography ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Puzzle Solving ◽

Emerging Issues ◽

Stocks And Flows ◽

Change Impact

The ‘ecosystem service’ debate has taken on many features of a classic Kuhnian paradigm. It challenges conventional wisdoms about conservation and the value of nature, and is driven as much by political agendas as scientific ones. In this paper we review some current and emerging issues arising in relation to the analysis and assessment of ecosystem services, and in particular emphasize the need for physical geographers to find new ways of characterizing the structure and dynamics of service providing units. If robust and relevant valuations are to be made of the contribution that natural capital makes to human well-being, then we need a deeper understanding of the way in which the drivers of change impact on the marginal outputs of ecosystem services. A better understanding of the trade-offs that need to be considered when dealing with multifunctional ecosystems is also required. Future developments must include methods for describing and tracking the stocks and flows that characterize natural capital. This will support valuation of the benefits estimation of the level of reinvestment that society must make in this natural capital base if it is to be sustained. We argue that if the ecosystem service concept is to be used seriously as a framework for policy and management then the biophysical sciences generally, and physical geography in particular, must go beyond the uncritical ‘puzzle solving’ that characterizes recent work. A geographical perspective can provide important new, critical insights into the place-based approaches to ecosystem assessment that are now emerging.

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Resilience for Whom? A Case Study of Taiwan Indigenous People’s Struggle in the Pursuit of Social-Ecological Resilience

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12187472 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (18) ◽

pp. 7472 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hsing-Sheng Tai

Keyword(s):

Central Government ◽

Indigenous Rights ◽

Indigenous Communities ◽

Well Being ◽

Ecological System ◽

Ecological Resilience ◽

Research Approach ◽

Social Ecological ◽

Trade Offs

While the notion of social-ecological system resilience is widely accepted and applied, the issue of “resilience for whom” is clearly ignored. This phenomenon has also occurred in Taiwan. This article explores the roots of, and a possible solution to, this issue through a case study in the context of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. The Danungdafu area, the focal social-ecological system, was studied. Qualitative research methods and an action-oriented research approach were employed. For a long period, the central government shaped the political, economic, social, institutional, and ecological contexts; dominated resilience discourses and determined the problem-framing and problem-solving agenda; defined the scale and levels at which social-ecological system governance issues were addressed; and determined the knowledge system used to define and solve problems. After 2011, a new participatory governance regime emerged. Multiple stakeholders, including indigenous communities, began to contribute to resilience discourses and influenced governance and trade-offs among differing governance goals. However, under the established structures dominated by Han people, indigenous views, rights, and well-being continue to be ignored. Affirmative action is required to recognize and safeguard indigenous rights. A practical institutional pathway is available to facilitate the transformation from “resilience for mainstream society” to “resilience for indigenous people” in indigenous territories.

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