scholarly journals Socio-economic outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic for Ukraine

Author(s):  
VITALINA BUTKALIUK

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the causes and consequences of both human and socio-economic losses incurred by Ukraine as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions introduced by the government in order to prevent its spread. The author's attention is primarily focused on exploring the population's social well-being, as well as examining changes in the quality of Ukrainians' lives during the pandemic. The study of the above-mentioned issues is complemented by a sociological inquiry into public views on the coronavirus problem, efficacy of the authorities' actions aimed at combating the pandemic, as well as the essence and real effectiveness of socio-economic policy pursued by the Ukrainian government in present-day conditions. Drawing upon a systemic analysis, the author argues that the ongoing socio-economic crisis in Ukraine, along with vaccine crunch, stems mainly from neoliberal policies implemented by the national government over the past three decades. The article argues the thesis about the transformation of the crisis of confidence, which has been fixed for a long time in Ukraine, into a crisis of vaccination, which today threatens with large humanitarian, economic and geopolitical losses. The research findings allow concluding that the COVID-19 pandemic acted as another trigger for the crisis, thereby intensifying and exacerbating the problems that had already existed in the national economy. The author's arguments are bolstered by a vast array of domestic and foreign statistical data, along with the results of surveys conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (1994–2020), «Research & Branding Group» (2020–2021), as well as other Ukrainian sociological centers.

Author(s):  
N. P. Krutko ◽  
V. V. Kokhanovsky ◽  
T. M. Ulyanova ◽  
I. E. Shimanovich

The article is devoted to the 110 anniversary of the birth of the Belarusian scientist, the founder of the section of chemical science – Chemistry of solids, the organizer and the first director of Institute of the General and Inorganic Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, academician of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus – Mikhail Mikhaylovich Pavlyuchenko. In the article, the career devoted to search of the implication and chemical mechanism of the processes proceeding with participation of solids is described. Identification of the defining stages (limiting stages) and regularities of thermal dissociation reactions and synthesis of different classes and various structure of substances, as well as the definition of ways to operate these processes are described in this paper. His pedagogical and practical activities were purposeful, he looked for and found the young people interested in scientific research, excited them with his ideas, prepared 40 candidates and 3 Doctors of Chemistry. Together with the academician N. F. Ermolenko and the engineering structure of the institute, he prepared, proved the ways and possibilities of use and enrichment of sylvinites of the Starobinsky field, and repeatedly reported for the government and wide audience on importance of chemical industry development in Belarus. His course of life is a service to science and the Homeland.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-321
Author(s):  
Z. H. Popandopulo

In 1977 on the site of famous burial mound Chmyrеva Mohyla located on the northern outskirts of Velyka Bilozerka village of Zaporizhzhia region three bronze pole-tops with images of gryphons were found by local people on the plowed field. There is no evidence whether other artifacts have been found. Luckily nearby in Gunovka village the expedition of Institute of Archaeology of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was working under the leadership of Yu. V. Boltryk who got the founded artifacts and then sent them to Zaporizhzhia regional museum of local lore, history and economy. The history of excavations of Chmyrеva Mohyla numbers more than a century. They were started by F. A. Braun in 1898, M. I. Veselovskiy (1909—1910) continued the excavations and Yu. V. Boltryk in 1994 completed them. The burial mound has not been excavated in full because of various reasons. The destiny of finds from this barrow was tragic. A lot of artifacts among them silver vessels from the hiding-place which was revealed by M. I. Veselovskiy were lost during the World War II when the collections of Kharkiv historic museum were evacuated. Scythian bronze pole-tops as one of the most interesting categories of artifacts for a long time attracted attention of scholar world. They were classified by types and date, their significance in funeral ceremony and everyday life was searched for. The questions still remain. In this article we tried to put into scholar circulation a scanty type of pole-tops with the image of pacing gryphon on the pear-shaped little bell which is characteristic only for Steppe Dnieper river region. For today only eight of them are known and most of them are originated from of the burial mounds of high Scythian aristocracy: Tovsta Mohyla, Haimanova Mohyla, Chmyrova Mohyla. Chronologically they are slightly differed from other pole-tops both with the image of deer on pear-shaped little bells from Tovsta Mohyla, and with the image of deer on flat cone bushes from Haimanova Mohyla. The question about the place of production of such pole-tops is still opened. Probably just these types of pole-tops could be produced in one workshop but not all known variety of objects as V. A. Ilinska thought. One of the problems to be solved by researchers is searching for such workshops. But if these objects have been moulded by wax models the task becomes more complicated.


Author(s):  
Menahem Yaari ◽  
Elhanan Helpman ◽  
Ariel Weiss ◽  
Nathan Sussman ◽  
Ori Heffetz ◽  
...  

Well-being is a common human aspiration. Governments and states, too, seek to promote and ensure the well-being of their citizens; some even argue that this should be their overarching goal. But it is not enough for a country to flourish, and for its citizens to enjoy well-being, if the situation cannot be maintained over the long term. Well-being must be sustainable. The state needs criteria for assessing the well-being of its citizens, so that it can work to raise the well-being level. Joining many other governments around the world, the Israeli government adopted a comprehensive set of indices for measuring well-being in 2015. Since 2016, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics has been publishing the assessment results on an annual basis. Having determined that the monitoring of well-being in Israel should employ complementary indices relating to its sustainability, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Bank of Israel, the Central Bureau of Statistics, and Yad Hanadiv asked the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities to establish an expert committee to draft recommendations on this issue. The Academy's assistance was sought in recognition of its statutory authority "to advise the government on activities relating to research and scientific planning of national significance." The Committee was appointed by the President of the Academy, Professor Nili Cohen, in March 2017; its members are social scientists spanning a variety of disciplines. This report presents the Committee's conclusions. Israel's ability to ensure the well-being of its citizens depends on the resources or capital stocks available to it, in particular its economic, natural, human, social, and cultural resources. At the heart of this report are a mapping of these resources, and recommendations for how to measure them.


Author(s):  
Swarup Roy Chowdhury ◽  
Suman Saha

We can name many industries that are still based on the same working practices and business models that they have had for a long time – maybe since they started. Despite the wealth of modern technology now available, public infrastructure, a critical component for the well-being of the society, is still an industry based on the paperwork, letters, emails, manual approvals, and a large amount of guess work. It involves a lot of manual effort and is also error prone. It is really very hard for the stakeholders and end users to get an update on the progress of the project, which impacts them directly or indirectly. The authors intend to develop a groundbreaking blockchain platform that can meet the needs of all the different stakeholders involved in creating and providing a better infrastructure. They plan to automate the entire process by using smart contracts to minimize paperwork for the government officials. This will not only eliminate the errors that can happen during manual execution but will also provide a real-time update to all the stakeholders in making the process more transparent.


1995 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-262
Author(s):  
Kenneth I. Berns

Members of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) have a considerable history of bringing scientific and technical knowledge to the issue of biological weapons control and being available to serve in advisory roles to the government. ASM's involvement with the biological weapons issue began in the 1940s, when microbiologists served as advisors to the government's Biological Defense Research Program and participated in the Biological Warfare Committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 1970, a controversy resulting from the ASM's involvement with this issue abated when the ASM Council approved a statement concerning non-secrecy and free movement in research. Simultaneously, the society affirmed support for President Richard M. Nixon's action to end the U.S.'s offensive biological weapons program. The society's code of ethics, published in 1985, contains two relevant sections that seek to discourage ASM members from participating in biological weapons development.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Shou Su

<p>Taiwan has performed well economically during the past four decades. However, economic development can be profoundly hampered by natural disasters. Sustainable economic development requires environmental resilience. With 23 million people occupying only 13,974 square miles of land, Taiwan is both densely populated and highly exposed to natural disasters: 73.1% of the total population lives in vulnerable areas, and Taiwan is ranked as the country most exposed to multiple hazards (The World Bank, 2005). Storms and floods damage Taiwan frequently, with an average of six typhoons hitting Taiwan annually for the past four decades. Taiwan had the highest occurrence and highest death toll on the natural disaster density indicator (NDDI) in comparison with China, Japan, U.S.A, U.K., France, and the Netherlands from 1985 to 2014. Also, Taiwan’s economic losses during the past thirty years are estimated at $650, 000 per km². This is approximately 5 times that of the Netherlands’ $134,362 and the U.K.’s $135,292, 8 times that of the U.S.A.’s $78,186 losses, and 9 times that of France’s $70,599. Research finds that every dollar invested into disaster preparedness would save $4 to $7 dollars in post-disaster damages (Multihazard Mitigation Council, 2005; The National Academy of Sciences, 2012). Hence, promoting urban resilience policies for disaster risk reduction should become a priority in Taiwan and other Asian nations in the future. Most important is the need of a strong political commitment and leadership to initiate and implement spatial policies toward resilience.</p>


Author(s):  
Jia-Kui Li ◽  
Hui Zhang ◽  
Peng Shang ◽  
Yangzom Chamba

Classical swine fever (CSF) is a major hazardous disease to the pigs and as a dangerous epidemic; it causes a serious economic losses to the pig industry. Though, a national compulsory immunization of CSF vaccines had been carried out for a long time, scarce information can be got about the immune effect of CSF in Tibetan pigs. The present study was to investigate the seroprevalence of CSF in Tibetan pigs in Nyingchi area of Tibet, China. A total 454 samples were collected from November 2014 to January 2015 and were investigated through enzyme-linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA). The results showed that 241 (53.1%, 95% CI 48.4-57.8) pigs were found to be positive for CSF with the further distribution of 53.3% (95% CI 46.8–59.6), 49.5% (95% CI 42.2-56.8) and 93.8% (95% CI 69.8-99.8) in Tibetan counties of Nyingchi, Mainling and Gongbo'gyamda, respectively. There was no significant difference in male (52.8%, 95% CI 46.4-59.1) and female pigs (50.0%, 95% CI 42.6-57.4). Though, 53.1% of the serum samples were tested out positive to CSF, only the seroprevalence of CSF in Tibetan pigs in Gongbo'gyamda were higher than 70% which was ruled by the government. The low seroprevalence of CSF in Tibetan pigs should arise a serious concern and effective methods should be taken, in order to prevent CSF infection effectively.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
S. D. Lysenko

The article republishes the ceramics and bronze decorations of Komarovo and Sosnitsa cultures of the Trzciniec cultural circle (TCC) from the exposition of the Archaeological Museum of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Detailed descriptions of the exhibits and their author’s graphic reconstructions are given. These things, which became a textbook long time ago, previously were published only in the form of schematic and inaccurate drawings or in the form of not very high-quality photographs. The materials originate from the sites of the northern part of the forest-steppe eastern Volhynia (Wojciechowka), Kiev (Ukrainka, Zavalovka, Zdvizhevka, Plitovische, Gostomel) and Chernigov (Rudnya) Polesie. The finds refer to different periods of the formation and development of the TСC and date back to 2nd thousand BC. Special attention is paid to vessels discovered in 1956 by N. T. Evstropov at the site Gostomel, Stekol’nyy zavod 1. S. S. Berezanskaya came to the conclusion that this point is not a household site, but «a small soil burial ground with burning», referring to a series of observations of N. T. Evstropova. Detailed comparison of the primary publication of N. T. Evstropov with subsequent re-publication of the site of S. S. Berezanskaya, allow us to call into question conclusions of the latter. One of the reasons for skepticism is the miraculous transformation of «destroyed teeth of a ruminant animal» (in N. T. Evstropov publication) into «worn-out» and «calcified bones» (in S. S. Berezanskaya publications). Fragments of the teeth of a ruminant animal (bull?) are still folded into one of the vessels exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Could the vessels from Gostomel be connected with ritual-funeral practice, such as the vessels found in the ritual-funeral complexes of the Malopolovetskoe, Wojciechowka, Bukovna cemeteries? It is possible, but there is no evidence for this. Similarly, they can be associated with any other rituals, as well as with the remains of an ordinary household complex. N. T. Evstropov did it at the first publication of the site. Analysis of the ceramic complex allows us to attribute the Gostomel, Stekol’nyy zavod 1 point to the turn of the middle and late stages of the TCC Sosnitsa culture and date it to the end of the 13th — the beginning of the 12th centuries BC.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-45
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lehmann

No doubt the mid-year will see academic staff scurrying to complete Semester 1 teaching and marking, and those of you working in the field will be well into the swing of the year and facing a variety of funding issues as the new financial year emerges. The last few years have been difficult in terms of funding for health and community service programmes and, while the focus has been on enquiries into child abuse, mental health assessment of young children, the acute lack of affordable housing and pressures on single parents raising children, the Australian atmosphere, in general, is one of restraint and pulling back from funding of welfare services. This comes at a time when Australia has enjoyed much better financial well-being than many other countries in the world and, ironically, there appears to have been a drop in what the Government refers to as welfare dependency. However, as the population is continuing to increase and we are continuing to experience the economic losses associated with severe weather events and climate change, it seems we are also, as a nation, less inclined to be generous to those who experience ongoing disadvantage. The gap, according to Nicholas Biddle and Maxine Montaigne (2012) of the Australian National University, is not as great as that in the USA ‒ hardly something we would want to emulate‒ but is still increasing. While on average Australians have experienced an increase in income since the 2006 Census, this is not evenly distributed between states, regions and suburbs. We know that loss of a stable and sufficient income, as in the event of loss of employment, has major impacts on the well-being of family members and this was the message reiterated at the ‘Securing the Future’ Conference held last November. Clearly, we have a long way to go before our services will be able to truly address structural disadvantage.


Author(s):  
Kathleen Short ◽  
Patricia Ruggles

The National Academy of Sciences report on poverty measurement recommended changes to the official measure of poverty in the USA. That report from a panel of experts suggested that it is important to examine the relationship between asset ownership in relation to poverty status. This paper suggests that debt is also an important determinant of economic well-being. While spending down assets can enhance income to make ends meet, servicing debt can be a drain on family income that would otherwise be sufficient to purchase basic necessities. This paper uses data from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine these issues.


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