Job satisfaction of graduates of rural oriented medical students training project in Jiangsu Province, China: a cross-sectional study

Background The Chinese government has worked out the “Rural Oriented Medical Students Training Project” to address physician maldistribution, which attempted to train physicians for rural areas. The present study attempted to evaluate the job satisfaction of the graduates of this project in Jiangsu Province, China. Methods Online questionnaires were sent to the graduates of the “Rural Oriented Medical Students Training Project” (group A) and their colleagues, who were rural physicians recruited from different sources (group B). The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Xuzhou Medical University, and the approval number was 2,018,057. Information on demographic characteristics, work conditions, and self-reported satisfaction was collected to compare the satisfaction differences between the two recruited rural physicians using the Chi-square test and Mann–Whitney U test. Additionally, factors correlated to the satisfaction of group A were assessed using multivariate linear regression. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 23.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Group A exhibited moderate satisfaction (2.81 ± 0.687). The satisfaction score from the highest to the lowest was for occupational ecology, life satisfaction, stress, competency, and internal environment. Positive factors related to the satisfaction of group A were area, monthly income, working hours per week, professional title, and post. Conclusion The satisfaction of the graduates of the “Rural Oriented Medical Students Training Project” was moderate. Factors related to satisfaction included economic incentives, workload, and professional confidence. Possible solutions for increasing satisfaction should consist of economic support and possible ways to improve the professional identification of these graduates.

Knowledge Management and Quality Control in Software Outsourcing Projects

This article describes how entrepreneurs face critical risks in terms of quality control and knowledge management while outsourcing software development to independent service providers. First, it is recommended that lump-sum payment contracts should be avoided since software development project involves uncertainty. Instead, a variable payment contingent on observed quality can induce the service provider to exert optimal effort on the project. Second, entrepreneurs must not overlook the importance of providing economic incentives. They can protect their intellectual property by withholding critical knowledge and paying information rents in terms of higher than market wages to the service providers. Third, a startling result is that a low wage nation is not necessarily the optimal location to outsource software development projects. Thus, high wage-strong IPR nations might be chosen instead of low wage-weak IPR nations. Finally, the article explains the apparent paradox that software projects are often outsourced to locations that are characterized by weak intellectual property rights regime and high propensity of imitation.

Commoning the State Forest: Crafting Commons through an Indonesian Social Forestry Program

Studies of the commons grew out of responses to Hardin's bleak prediction of “tragedy of the commons,” that without state intervention or privatization, any commons will eventually be destroyed by allegedly self-interested users. As such, the commons studies traditionally tend to demonstrate cases where common pool resources (CPR) can be sustainably managed by groups of people beyond the state and market interventions. This paper shows a case from Sulawesi, Indonesia, where a state social forestry program can create a space for the program beneficiaries to build a commons. Through fieldwork that involves participant observation and in-depth interviews with program extension workers and beneficiaries in two social forestry farmer groups, this study found that the program can stimulate beneficiary groups to build collective action in managing the state forest plots admitted to them and that the two groups are the only successful ones among 14 neighboring groups that are involved in the same program. The study also shows that the management of the state-sponsored commons requires extension workers with deep knowledge about local people and landscape, economic incentives, and the flexibility of the local state agency in bending the rules based on bottom-up demands. Therefore, the case study shows that, on the one hand, the state program can actually stimulate the creation of the commons. On the other hand, commoning seems to be the only way to ensure a successful social forestry program.

Implementation and Adaptation of a Combined Economic Empowerment and Peer Support Program Among Youth Living With HIV in Rural Rwanda

Background: Youth living with HIV in rural Rwanda experience poor clinical outcomes. In 2017, we implemented Adolescent Support Groups (ASGs), which provided economic incentives and peer support to youth aged 15-25. Methods: We assessed the ASG program using programmatic and electronic medical records. We described group composition and achievement on three indicators used to determine economic incentive levels: (1) quarterly pharmacy visit attendance, (2) biannual savings target achievement, and (3) annual viral suppression. Results: In total, 324 members enrolled in 34 ASGs. Group size and member ages varied more than anticipated. Groups performed well on pharmacy visit attendance (median quarterly group attendance range 91-100%) and on achieving savings targets (median biannual achievement range 80–83%). The viral suppression indicator could not be implemented as planned. Conclusion: To reflect contextual realities, adaptations in enrollment, indicator evaluation, and awarding of incentives occurred during implementation. Future research should assess whether these adaptations affected results.

Scientific and Technological Progress and Economy of the USSR: Theory, Practice, Lessons for the Present

The article is devoted to the main approaches of Soviet economists to the issue of introducing the achievements of scientific and technological progress into production related to the experience of economic development of the USSR. Among the research provisions, general economic planning stands out as a key tool for the balanced dissemination of the elements of scientific and technological revolution in the interests of the entire population. Practice showed the validity of the advantages of socialism noted by researchers in a number of spheres. However, there were also significant imbalances in economic development, which were insufficiently worked out theoretically. The successes were concentrated mainly in the important strategic industries, while the production of consumer goods faced systemic difficulties. Ultimately, these imbalances started growing, and the intensive component of economic growth began declining. This tendency is substantiated by a system of motivations at different management levels, among employees. Public enthusiasm and intangible motives were substantial but limited, while economic incentives were insufficient. Nevertheless, despite the current dominance of an economic system being fundamentally different from the Soviet model, there are prerequisites of the growing relevance of turning to Soviet theories and practices in economic development based on advanced technologies. This is due to a significant degree of similar content of technologies attributed to the fourth industrial revolution, compared with the post-war stage of scientific and technological revolution. The new nature of technologies presupposes greater calculation possibilities in planning, the prospects for widespread automation of production, coupled with the need to form new, non-economic motives of work. Similar problems were widely discussed in the Soviet academic sources.

The role of fine management techniques in association between agricultural pollution and farmer income: The case of fruit industry

Abstract text is required. Whilst the agriculture enjoys booming development, it is facing increasingly serious environmental pressures. With the growth of fruit planting scale, the inorganic minerals elements are one of the main sources of non-point pollution. How to achieve the sustainable production of agriculture is an issue that needs urgent attention in the current rural development. In this paper, based on the micro-production data of peach farmers in eighteen prefecture-level provinces, we introduce fine management techniques into the production function to analyze the effects of different techniques and further explore the influence of fine management techniques on the fertilizer efficiency. Findings show that with no changes in the degree of fine management techniques investment, the increase of chemical fertilizers and pesticides not only made little contribution to increase in profit, but also resulted in excessive investment of fertilizers that worsens the environment. Notably, the fine management techniques exerting positive effects on the application efficiency of minerals elements could be an efficient and sustainable way to ease the conflict between environment and profit. However, those techniques are rarely used in practices due to the lack of economic incentives. A brief review of main measures, such as market information timely-updating，agricultural product branding, and socialized services, is offered.

Midterm impacts of a water drought experience: evaluation of consumption changes in São Paulo, Brazil

From late 2013 until the beginning of 2015, the metropolitan region of São Paulo, Brazil, experienced a severe water shortage. During that period, economic incentives were implemented by the regional water provider in a successful attempt to reduce water consumption. We aimed to investigate whether such incentives, as well as the experience of a scarcity period itself, had a persistent impact on consumer behaviour after the water crisis was over. This study was conducted by means of a hierarchical linear model with three levels (HLM3) to verify if the reduction effect remained in the midterm and a regression using panel data to understand which factors influenced water consumption behaviour change before, during, and after the local severe water drought. The results indicate that the average water consumption level subsequent to the rain scarcity period was significantly lower than before and that, in addition to the economic incentives, the severity of the scarcity event explained the behaviour change verified in water consumption.

International legal, technical and financial challenges for implementing the concept of space traffic management

Focuses on the concept of Space Traffic Management (STM), the matter which has been of high interest for many space actors in the last three decades. With the emergence of the NewSpace era, and flourishment of commercial and economic incentives for space activities, this topic has gained the attention of many space actors in the preceding decades, thus turning into a separate agenda item in the Legal Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. However, establishing and implementing such regulations is a challenging task, especially for new space actors. This article aims to assess the existing challenges of STM and provide solutions to overcome them. Firstly, this article provides the necessity of establishing such a regulation: it is evaluated and discussed while describing the requirements for achieving this goal. Secondly, the paper studies definitions provided by governmental and non-governmental entities regarding this concept and the measures taken towards its realising. Finally, the research discusses the challenges that space actors face regarding implementing this concept, both legal and practical. In conclusion, the authors highlight the importance of promoting endeavours and coordination among all current and potential space actors with due considerations for their relevancy.