The global impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on urban air pollution

The coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic led to government interventions to limit the spread of the disease which are unprecedented in recent history; for example, stay at home orders led to sudden decreases in atmospheric emissions from the transportation sector. In this review article, the current understanding of the influence of emission reductions on atmospheric pollutant concentrations and air quality is summarized for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM2.5), ozone (O3), ammonia, sulfur dioxide, black carbon, volatile organic compounds, and carbon monoxide (CO). In the first 7 months following the onset of the pandemic, more than 200 papers were accepted by peer-reviewed journals utilizing observations from ground-based and satellite instruments. Only about one-third of this literature incorporates a specific method for meteorological correction or normalization for comparing data from the lockdown period with prior reference observations despite the importance of doing so on the interpretation of results. We use the government stringency index (SI) as an indicator for the severity of lockdown measures and show how key air pollutants change as the SI increases. The observed decrease of NO2 with increasing SI is in general agreement with emission inventories that account for the lockdown. Other compounds such as O3, PM2.5, and CO are also broadly covered. Due to the importance of atmospheric chemistry on O3 and PM2.5 concentrations, their responses may not be linear with respect to primary pollutants. At most sites, we found O3 increased, whereas PM2.5 decreased slightly, with increasing SI. Changes of other compounds are found to be understudied. We highlight future research needs for utilizing the emerging data sets as a preview of a future state of the atmosphere in a world with targeted permanent reductions of emissions. Finally, we emphasize the need to account for the effects of meteorology, emission trends, and atmospheric chemistry when determining the lockdown effects on pollutant concentrations.

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The Global Impacts of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Short-Lived Climate Forcers: Highlights from a Critical Review

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-10636 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Georgios Gkatzelis ◽

Jessica Gilman ◽

Steven Brown ◽

Henk Eskes ◽

Rita Gomes ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Atmospheric Chemistry ◽

Current Knowledge ◽

Atmospheric Pollutants ◽

Future Research ◽

Data Sets ◽

Government Interventions ◽

Pollutant Concentrations ◽

Transportation Sector ◽

Global Impacts ◽

The Government

The coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic led to government interventions to limit the spread of the disease that are unprecedented in the last decades. Stay at home orders and other measures led to sudden decreases in atmospheric emissions, most visibly from the transportation sector. We present a review of the current knowledge and understanding of the influence of these emission reductions on atmospheric pollutants concentration and notably air quality with a focus on NO2, PM2.5, and O3 based on more than 200 papers utilizing observations from ground-based and satellite remote sensing instruments. We use the government stringency index as an indicator for the severity of lockdown measures and show how key air pollutants change as the stringency index increases. Changes in NO2 and PM2.5 mass concentration are well-studied globally. The observed decrease of NO2 with increasing stringency index is in general agreement with emission inventories that account for the lockdown. Due to the important influence of atmospheric chemistry on O3 and PM2.5 concentrations, their responses may not be linear with respect to primary pollutants. At most sites, we found O3 increased, whereas PM2.5 decreased slightly, with increasing stringency index. Changes in the PM2.5 composition are found to be understudied and not well-quantified so far. We highlight future research needs for utilizing the emerging data sets covering a full seasonal cycle as a preview of a future state of the atmosphere in a world with targeted permanent reductions of emissions. Finally, we emphasize the need to account for the effects of meteorology, long-term trends, and atmospheric chemistry when determining the lockdown effects on pollutant concentrations, especially on PM2.5.

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Civil Wars, Scientific Study of

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.64 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Idean Salehyan ◽

Clayton L. Thyne

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Civil Wars ◽

Civil Conflict ◽

Future Research ◽

Data Sets ◽

Conflict Duration ◽

Breeding Grounds ◽

The Government ◽

Negative Impacts ◽

External Actors

Civil war is an armed conflict between the state and another organized domestic party over a contested political incompatibility, which results in a number of casualties exceeding a certain threshold for both parties. Attempts to operationalize these criteria have produced many data sets, which conceptualize civil war as distinct from one-sided violence, organized crime, and communal fighting. Civil wars are devastating for states experiencing them, their neighbors, and the entire global community. Combatant and civilian deaths, rape, massive refugee flight, negative impacts on economy and infrastructure, spread of infectious diseases, global spread of illegal narcotics, and the promotion of terrorism are all consequences of civil wars. Theories explaining why civil wars occur focus on objectives of the rebels, ability of rebels to successfully challenge the government, influence of external actors on interactions between the government and the opposition, external financing of potential rebel groups, and impact of a state’s neighbors on the likelihood of civil conflict or how neighboring conflicts and refugee communities serve as breeding grounds for cross-border rebel movements. Conflicts persist until neither side believes that it can achieve unilateral victory and continued fighting is costly. Governments are more likely to win early when they have large armies, but time to government victory increases when they are faced with secessionist rebels and when external parties are involved. Meanwhile, external mediation diminishes informational and credible commitment problems during bargaining and reduces conflict duration. Promising directions for future research on civil war include geographic disaggregation, survey research, and computational/agent-based modeling.

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Contemporary Employee Recruitment Practices and Areas of Future Research in Indian Railways

Think India ◽

10.26643/think-india.v22i2.8878 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 745-763

Author(s):

Akhila Rao ◽

Shailashri V. T ◽

Molly Sanjay Chaudhuri ◽

Kondru Sudheer Kumar

Keyword(s):

Selection Process ◽

Secondary Data ◽

Manpower Planning ◽

Future Research ◽

Technological Advancement ◽

Employee Recruitment ◽

Recruitment Practices ◽

Modern Business ◽

The Government ◽

Recruitment And Selection

The modern business milieu is highly competitive due to vast technological advancement which makes employees a vital source of competitive advantage. Precisely, the recruitment process has become a key determinant of an organization’s success and a logistic capital resource to the human resource; thus, the process should be entirely modern. A conventional recruitment and selection process comprises of job analysis, manpower planning, and recruitment and selection. The current study seeks to explore employee recruitment practices and proposes areas of future research in Indian Railways using secondary data. It also gives recommendations on how to improve the recruitment practices in the government-owned Indian Railways. The trends investigated in the study include the applicant tracking software (ATS), use of video resumes, Chatbots, the utilization of social networks, and increased focus on passive candidates.

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The Zoning System for Strategy Development of SMEs Go Online: A Literature Review

10.31227/osf.io/wu38p ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Sumitro Sarkum

Keyword(s):

Development Strategy ◽

Online Marketing ◽

Strategy Development ◽

Future Research ◽

Information And Communication ◽

Qualitative Descriptive ◽

The Government ◽

Market Needs ◽

Marketing Information ◽

Relationship Of

This study aims to figure out what the relationship of empowerment of SMEs through methods of zoning as marketing strategy of SMEs in two different markets (offline and online). The zoning strategy with information and communication system integrated brings together socialization and promotion in a market. This system can help the government in taking and formulating policies to unite SMEs in a new market by not leaving the old market. The method in this study uses qualitative descriptive. There are three propositions produced in this initial research, the first; Offline and online marketing is very relevant for SMEs in Indonesia. Second; marketing information system is access for SMEs to find out the demand or market needs both domestically and internationally. And third; The zoning system can be used as an online development strategy for SMEs to synchronize two different markets, namely offline and online. Further research is needed to validate the propositions found, to generate hypotheses and empirical evidence, we recommend using mix methods for future research.

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A benchmarking study of Indian seaports

Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing ◽

10.1108/jgoss-05-2019-0037 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 88-102

Author(s):

Sajeev Abraham George ◽

Anurag C. Tumma

Keyword(s):

Financial Performance ◽

Future Research ◽

Data Envelopment ◽

Operational Parameters ◽

Two Stage ◽

Content Type ◽

The Public ◽

Port Authorities ◽

Financial Performance Measures ◽

The Government

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to benchmark the operational and financial performances of the major Indian seaports to help derive useful insights to improve their performance. Design/methodology/approach A two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology has been used with the help of data collected on the 13 major seaports of India. The first stage of the DEA captured the operational efficiencies, while the second stage the financial performance. Findings A window analysis over a period of three years revealed that no port was able to score an overall average efficiency of 100 per cent. The study identified the better performing units among their peers in both the stages. The contrasting results of the study with the traditional operational and financial performance measures used by the ports helped to derive useful insights. Research limitations/implications The data used in the study were majorly limited to the available sources in the public domain. Also, the study was limited to the major seaports which are under the Government of India and no comparisons were carried out with other local or international ports. Practical implications There is a need to prioritize investments and improvement efforts where they are most needed, instead of following a generalized approach. Once the benchmark ports are identified, the port authorities and other relevant stakeholders should work in detail on the factors causing inefficiencies, for possible improvements in performance. Originality/value This paper carried out a two-stage DEA that helped to derive useful insights on operational efficiency and financial performance of the India seaports. A combination of the financial and operational parameters, along with a comparison of the DEA results with the traditional measures, provided a different perspective on the Indian seaport performance. Considering the scarcity of research papers reported in the literature on DEA-based benchmarking studies of seaports in the Indian context, it has the potential to attract future research in this field.

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Feature and Language Selection in Temporal Symbolic Regression for Interpretable Air Quality Modelling

Algorithms ◽

10.3390/a14030076 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 76

Author(s):

Estrella Lucena-Sánchez ◽

Guido Sciavicco ◽

Ionel Eduard Stan

Keyword(s):

Air Quality ◽

Fundamental Problem ◽

Multivariate Time Series ◽

Quality Data ◽

Data Sets ◽

Air Quality Modelling ◽

Regression Problem ◽

Car Traffic ◽

Pollutant Concentrations ◽

Language Selection

Air quality modelling that relates meteorological, car traffic, and pollution data is a fundamental problem, approached in several different ways in the recent literature. In particular, a set of such data sampled at a specific location and during a specific period of time can be seen as a multivariate time series, and modelling the values of the pollutant concentrations can be seen as a multivariate temporal regression problem. In this paper, we propose a new method for symbolic multivariate temporal regression, and we apply it to several data sets that contain real air quality data from the city of Wrocław (Poland). Our experiments show that our approach is superior to classical, especially symbolic, ones, both in statistical performances and the interpretability of the results.

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The Message of “APEC Blue” for the Prevention and Control of Urban Air Pollution in China

Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies ◽

10.1142/s2345748116500275 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 04 (04) ◽

pp. 1650027

Author(s):

Rong ZHU

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Emergency Response ◽

Prevention And Control ◽

Urban Air Pollution ◽

Pollution Prevention ◽

Warning System ◽

Weather Conditions ◽

Control Measures ◽

Atmospheric Pollutant ◽

And Control

Analysis of the meteorological conditions for atmospheric pollutant dispersion before and after the 2014 APEC meeting shows very significant effects of air pollution prevention and control measures on the meeting. It proves that the proper measures to control air pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region are: establishing a regional emergency response mechanism to reduce emissions in the case of heavy air pollution, strengthening the local emergency response measures for emission reduction, and enhancing the early warning system for weather conditions conducive to heavy air pollution.

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Sunset–sunrise difference in solar occultation ozone measurements (SAGE II, HALOE, and ACE–FTS) and its relationship to tidal vertical winds

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-15-829-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 829-843 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

T. Sakazaki ◽

M. Shiotani ◽

M. Suzuki ◽

D. Kinnison ◽

J. M. Zawodny ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Atmospheric Chemistry ◽

Seasonal Variations ◽

Climate Model ◽

Transport Model ◽

Stratospheric Aerosol ◽

Data Sets ◽

Chemical Transport Model ◽

Latitude Range ◽

Solar Occultation ◽

Vertical Winds

Abstract. This paper contains a comprehensive investigation of the sunset–sunrise difference (SSD, i.e., the sunset-minus-sunrise value) of the ozone mixing ratio in the latitude range of 10° S–10° N. SSD values were determined from solar occultation measurements based on data obtained from the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) II, the Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE), and the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment–Fourier transform spectrometer (ACE–FTS). The SSD was negative at altitudes of 20–30 km (−0.1 ppmv at 25 km) and positive at 30–50 km (+0.2 ppmv at 40–45 km) for HALOE and ACE–FTS data. SAGE II data also showed a qualitatively similar result, although the SSD in the upper stratosphere was 2 times larger than those derived from the other data sets. On the basis of an analysis of data from the Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder (SMILES) and a nudged chemical transport model (the specified dynamics version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model: SD–WACCM), we conclude that the SSD can be explained by diurnal variations in the ozone concentration, particularly those caused by vertical transport by the atmospheric tidal winds. All data sets showed significant seasonal variations in the SSD; the SSD in the upper stratosphere is greatest from December through February, while that in the lower stratosphere reaches a maximum twice: during the periods March–April and September–October. Based on an analysis of SD–WACCM results, we found that these seasonal variations follow those associated with the tidal vertical winds.

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Social Norms Sustaining Intimate Partner Violence: A Systematic Review of Methodologies for Proxy Measures

Trauma Violence & Abuse ◽

10.1177/15248380211013141 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 152483802110131

Author(s):

Ilana Seff

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Intimate Partner Violence ◽

Social Norms ◽

Partner Violence ◽

Evidence Base ◽

Intimate Partner ◽

Future Research ◽

Data Sets ◽

Boolean Search ◽

The Many

In light of the many robust quantitative data sets that include information on attitudes and behaviors related to intimate partner violence (IPV), and in an effort to expand the evidence base around social norms and IPV, many researchers construct proxy measures of norms within and across groups embedded in the data. While this strategy has become increasingly popular, there is no standardized approach for assessing and constructing these norm proxies, and no review of these approaches has been undertaken to date. This study presents the results of a systematic review of methods used to construct quantitative proxy measures for social norms related to IPV. PubMed, Embase, Popline, and Scopus, and PsycINFO were searched using Boolean search techniques. Inclusion criteria comprised studies published since 2000 in English that either (i) examined a norm proxy related to gender or IPV or (ii) analyzed the relationship between a norm proxy and perpetration of, experiences of, or attitudes toward IPV. Studies that employed qualitative methods or that elicited direct measures of descriptive or injunctive norms were not included. Twenty-six studies were eligible for review. Evidence from this review highlights inconsistencies in how proxies are constructed, how they are assessed to ensure valid representation of norms, and how researchers acknowledge their respective method’s limitations. Key processes and reflections employed by some of the studies are identified and recommended for future research inquiries.

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(In)effective leadership? Exploring the interplay of challenges, goals and measures in the context of school improvement

Journal of Educational Administration ◽

10.1108/jea-07-2020-0162 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Susanne Böse ◽

Stefan Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz

Keyword(s):

School Improvement ◽

School Effectiveness ◽

School Quality ◽

School Principals ◽

School Context ◽

Strategic Decision ◽

Future Research ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Content Type ◽

The Government

PurposeThis study aims to explore the extent to which schools principals serving disadvantaged communities in Germany are able to set appropriate goals and choose suitable measures for improving their schools according to the specific challenges they face. The authors determine whether principals are able to identify their schools' challenges or whether they merely follow “universal recipes” of the school effectiveness research paradigm regardless of their particular school context. This effectiveness-driven accountability approach requires an in-depth evaluation of the school and its stakeholders and might lead to a new attitude toward failure that sees it as an essential part of developing effective school improvement plans.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted descriptive and correlative analyses as well as exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using longitudinal data of 164 school principals. Through cross-sectional analyses, the authors investigated the connection among challenges, goals and measures and how they correlated with (self-reported) improvements.FindingsFrom a leadership perspective, priorities for school improvement should be aligned with the school-specific challenges they identify and the goals they set to address them.Research limitations/implicationsThe extent to which legislation concerning individual school quality development programs can translate into feasible and effective actions is unclear. Caution should be taken when interpreting the findings of this study, as they reflect school principals' self-selected evaluation measures and therefore might be biased.Practical implicationsIn future research, emphasis should be placed on school management processes, in particular, the development of strategic decision-making, structuring of target perspectives and derivation of steps in school improvement and instructional development. The authors recommend the government offer school principals appropriate and adequate training and support services to prevent them from overburdening their staff.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to a deeper understanding of processes concerning strategic leadership, as opposed to operative management, of schools by revealing context-sensitive considerations.

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