Experience Them, Love Them, Protect Them—Has the Pandemic Changed People’s Perception of Urban and Suburban Green Spaces and Their Conservation Targets?

Public green and open spaces fulfil various social, ecological, economic, and aesthetic roles, which complement each another, but can also compete with one another. COVID-19 pandemic catalysed multiple societal changes, including citizens’ perception, needs and expectations posed towards urban green spaces. This article discusses the extent to which the temporally and geographically changed patterns of experiencing these natural spaces also influenced users’ perception and behaviour as well as their appreciation of the conservation areas. The study is based upon two surveys carried out in the greater metropolitan region of Vienna, the capital city of Austria. A quantitative survey (representative online panel) among Viennese population (n=1012), as well as qualitive interviews with experts responsible for conservation areas, administrators of federal parks, along with NGOs representatives were carried out in spring and summer 2021. Our study shows the changed use of urban and suburban large green spaces and conservation areas: first, from the perspective of those responsible for the areas as well as the visitors. Both perspectives supplement one another. They highlight also changed perception of urban citizens towards green spaces during COVID-19 pandemic. An increased importance of time spent in nature (68%) and possibility to visit large green areas (67%) was reported by Viennese citizens. Also, higher recognition of green spaces located close to home was observed among 69% of the respondents. Thus, the presented study contributes to the ongoing international discussion on the transition of societal needs and its effects on urban green spaces induced by the pandemic. Presented results deliver solid arguments highlighting the need of urgent transformation towards a more sustainable, resilient and healthy urban space.

Computational Performance Analysis of Neural Network and Regression Models in Forecasting the Societal Demand for Agricultural Food Harvests

Demand forecasting plays an important role in the field of agriculture, where a farmer can plan for the crop production according to the demand in future and make a profitable crop business. There exist a various statistical and machine learning methods for forecasting the demand, selecting the best forecasting model is desirable. In this work, a multiple linear regression (MLR) and an artificial neural network (ANN) model have been implemented for forecasting an optimum societal demand for various food crops that are commonly used in day to day life. The models are implemented using R toll, linear model and neuralnet packages for training and optimization of the MLR and ANN models. Then, the results obtained by the ANN were compared with the results obtained with MLR models. The results obtained indicated that the designed models are useful, reliable, and quite an effective tool for optimizing the effects of demand prediction in controlling the supply of food harvests to match the societal needs satisfactorily.

Information Sources Utilization among Potato Farmers in North East India

Information technology has transformed many other aspects of human endeavor and has helped create systems for responding to a wide range of societal needs. The benefits of pertinent farm related information in empowering farmer are significant and remain to be exploited. Potato is one of the most important crops grown successfully in North East India but farmers have limited access to the updated information. A research study was undertaken in four major potato growing states of NE including Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura with a sample of 480 farmers. It was found that potato farmers preferred to utilize informal information sources more than formal as well as the mass media sources with respect to using inputs and taking pertinent decisions with respect to sustainable potato cultivation. Farmers urgently require timely and reliable sources of information for taking important farm management decisions. Therefore, it is recommended to popularize the strategic use of mass media including user friendly ICT tools for better and faster outreach to the target farmers.

Positioning Corporations as Sustainability Leaders

This chapter explores the evolving field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) research and practices in the Sustainable Development Goals era. The authors introduce a contemporary definition of CSR reflective of the SDGs era. Section 1 provides an exploration of the conceptual and theoretical foundations underpinning the evolution of CSR approaches. Section 2 advocates for the SDGs framework in support of the proliferation of sustainability management across business settings. Section 3 delineates how adopting the SDGs as a framework for corporate sustainability can enhance corporate resilience towards economic shocks. Section 4 discusses strategic perspectives on corporate sustainability management and elaborates on the role of business in satisfying promises of sustainable development. Illuminating the legitimacy of the SDGs as a framework for positioning corporations as global sustainability leaders, this chapter serves as a roadmap outlining how business can advance their CSR strategies to align business goals with societal needs in a post-COVID-19 world.

I Do, We Do, You Do Home Economics: Explicit Instruction Connecting Content with Ideology

Explicit instruction is a teaching model that demonstrates to students what to do and how to do it. One purpose of ideology is to focus the who, what, when, where, and why of a disciplinary field. Trained home economists make a sustained commitment to the core ideology of home economics. Mechanisms for identifying locally relevant challenges faced by individuals, families, and communities are embedded in the home economics knowledge base. To identify challenges and locate solutions (who, what, when, where, and how), home economics education programmes must actively teach or provide explicit instruction about the ideology that underpins the home economics disciplinary field. Neglecting ideology results in teaching unrelated subjects or compartmentalised content that may dilute connection to the core aims of the home economics’ ‘big picture’. This paper outlines how explicit instruction and embedded home economics ideology have positively impacted perceptions of the discipline amongst professionals who are new to the field. In teaching and learning environments, making home economics ideology visible and reinforced continuously across all content specialisation areas, the author observed that students acquired the words and concepts to explain the importance of home economics to others. Professionals who are new to the field became more confident and passionate advocates for home economics, because they had learnt and appreciated, through explicit instruction techniques, the what, the how to, and the why of home economics. Equipped with the discipline’s core ideology, professionals who make visible the home economics ‘big picture’ (i.e., the why) to others are better equipped to enact real-world applications of home economics that can adapt continuously to meet ever-changing and complex societal needs.

新興人體胚胎研究技術、 十四天規則和胚胎的特殊地位

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in English ; abstract also in Chinese. 胚胎研究的＂十四天規則＂已經在國際上實施了幾十年。當前，很多科學家正在挑戰這一限制，因為技術進步使得人類胚胎和胚胎的細胞模型可以培養到其早期發育階段的後期。一些學者質疑人們長期以來持有的胚胎研究應該受到限制的信念，即超過十四天的胚胎研究是不道德的，他們開始提出替代性指導方針。本文通過回顧“十四天規則”的歷史和受這一規則影響的新興研究領域的情況，審查一項新的關於人類胚胎和類胚胎的指南。我們表明社會和政治哲學、形而上學和倫理學所關注的問題對於解釋和應用新的建議或開發替代方案具有核心作用。至關重要的是，科學家在突破十四天的限制去做任何研究之前，應該制訂明確的、深思熟慮的、且有文化敏感性的指導方針，包括具體限制和監督程式，以確保科學能夠適當地回應社會的需求和價值判斷。 After 40 years of abiding by an international guideline that barred human embryo research beyond day 14 of embryonic development, many scientists are now challenging this limit due to technological advances suggesting that embryos and cell-based models of embryos can be cultured to later points in early development. Some scholars have questioned the long-held belief that research beyond 14 days is unethical and have begun proposing alternative guidelines for research. In this paper, we examine a proposal for new human embryo and embryoid guidelines by reviewing the history of the 14-day limit and emerging areas of research that are impacted by these guidelines. We then show how social and political philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics are central to interpreting and applying these new recommendations or developing alternatives. Before conducting any research beyond day 14, scientists must develop clear, thoughtful, and culturally sensitive guidelines that include limitations and oversight procedures to ensure that science responds to societal needs and values.

Coastal HF radars in the Mediterranean: Applications in support of science priorities and societal needs

The Mediterranean Sea is a prominent climate change hot spot, being their socio-economically vital coastal areas the most vulnerable targets for maritime safety, diverse met-ocean hazards and marine pollution. Providing an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution at wide coastal areas, High-frequency radars (HFRs) have been steadily gaining recognition as an effective land-based remote sensing technology for a continuous monitoring of the surface circulation, increasingly waves and occasionally winds. HFR measurements have boosted the thorough scientific knowledge of coastal processes, also fostering a broad range of applications, which has promoted their integration in the Coastal Ocean Observing Systems worldwide, with more than half of the European sites located in the Mediterranean coastal areas. In this work, we present a review of existing HFR data multidisciplinary science-based applications in the Mediterranean Sea, primarily focused on meeting end-users and science-driven requirements, addressing regional challenges in three main topics: i) maritime safety; ii) extreme hazards; iii) environmental transport process. Additionally, the HFR observing and monitoring regional capabilities in the Mediterranean region required to underpin the underlying science and the further development of applications are also analyzed. The outcome of this assessment has allowed us to finally provide a set of recommendations for the future improvement prospects to maximize the contribution in extending the science-based HFR products into societal relevant downstream services to support the blue growth in the Mediterranean coastal areas, helping to meet the UN’s Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the EU’s Green Deal goals.

Social Decisions from Description Compared to Experience Rely on Different Cognitive and Neural Processes

Social decisions reveal the degree to which people consider societal needs relative to their own desires. Although many studies showed how social decisions are taken when the consequences of actions are given as explicit information, little is known about how social choices are made when the relevant information was learned through repeated experience. Here, we compared how these two different ways of learning about the value of alternatives (description versus experience) impact social decisions in 147 healthy young adult humans. Using diffusion decision models, we show that, although participants chose similar outcomes across the learning conditions, they sampled and processed information differently. During description decisions, information sampling depended on both chosen and foregone rewards for self and society, while during experience decisions sampling was proportional to chosen outcomes only. Our behavioral data indicate that description choices involved the active processing of more information. Additionally, neuroimaging data from 40 participants showed that the brain activity was more closely associated with the information sampling process during description relative to experience decisions. Overall, our work indicates that the cognitive and neural mechanisms of social decision making depend strongly on how the values of alternatives were learned in addition to individual social preferences.

Grave developments

The burial site at Borre is a common example of centralization that took place in Scandinavia during the transition between the early and late Iron Age in the sixth century. The major activities of the site are dated to the Late Iron Age, ca. 550-1050 AD. The site, which is specifically known for its uncommonly large collection of monumental mounds, has often been referred to as a burial place for kings, and the mounds have been interpreted as symbols of power meant to solidify the control of the ruling elite. This article examines changes that take place during the sites use and discusses four possible phases based on a reworked chronology. The article argues that the phases are results of different societal needs and place the mounds in a larger setting than simply elitist constructions. The reworked chronology is based on a thorough Bayesian analysis and suggests some alterations to the current understanding of the chronology at Borre.