In Memoriam: Andre van der Bijl (Phd)

At the time our 2020 issue of JOVACET had already gone to print, and so the journal was not able to acknowledge Andre van der Bijl's passing, hence our tribute to him in this subsequent issue.

Introduction: special issue on the economics of climate change and sustainability (Part A)

Climate change is one of the most significant and complex challenges facing the world's economies. The necessity to enlarge the knowledge base regarding climate change and its impacts and to design efficient policies is widely accepted by the scientific community, the decision makers and the general public. This special issue, which will be published in two parts in the current and subsequent issue of Environment and Development Economics, is a selection of papers related to the topic of the international workshop on ‘The Economics of Climate Change and Sustainability’ organized by the Economics Department of the University of Bologna in April 2018. The papers in this special issue cover a wide range of climate-change-related topics, which include endogenous growth and overlapping generation models; climate-related financing and green bonds; demographics; location decisions; technology diffusion; quantitative relationships and experimental approaches. We hope that this special issue will provide some new insights into the economics of climate change and help to identify new directions for future research.

Artificial intelligence, Autonomy, and Human-Machine Teams — Interdependence, Context, and Explainable AI

Because in military situations, as well as for self-driving cars, information must be processed faster than humans can achieve, determination of context computationally, also known as situational assessment, is increasingly important. In this article, we introduce the topic of context, and we discuss what is known about the heretofore intractable research problem on the effects of interdependence, present in the best of human teams; we close by proposing that interdependence must be mastered mathematically to operate human-machine teams efficiently, to advance theory, and to make the machine actions directed by AI explainable to team members and society. The special topic articles in this issue and a subsequent issue of AI Magazine review ongoing mature research and operational programs that address context for human-machine teams.

Investor Sentiment and Firm Financial Performance of Malaysian IPO Firms: Pre and Post Financial Crisis

The main purpose of this study is to investigate an important issue in behavioural finance area that is the role of investor sentiment in determining firm performance, alongside with market timing and other fundamental firm factors in the context of Malaysian market. The impact of pre and post financial crisis during study period of 2004 to 2015 is incorporated in the analysis. The study uses a balanced panel data of 143 IPO firms in Malaysia during the study period. The sentiment index is developed using panel data cross section based on three IPOs proxies, which are IPO volume, market turnover and dividend premium. The findings indicate that market timing is found to have a strong influence towards firm performance with a positive and high level of significance relationship during pre and post financial crisis. Whereas investor sentiment does influence firm performance, particularly when timing is proxied by initial return before the financial crisis period. Other firm specific factors, growth show very strong positive relationship with firm performance. The remaining factors, namely tangibility of asset, profitability, size and industry show mix results either consistent or inconsistent with past literature irrespective of pre or post financial crisis. The finding offers a useful reference for firm managers’ to consistently time the market for the new and subsequent issue. While the investors have to pay attention on important information available in the market than become overly optimistic about future prospect of any investment as firm will continue to exploit timing strategy in their financing decision.

Thoughts About the Language of Equity for Population Health

This is the first of two essays addressing equity and social justice, which are interrelated concepts of considerable interest to members of the discipline of nursing. The purpose of this essay is to define equity and related terms, including inequity, inequality, and disparities, within the context of the intersection of nursing and population health science. An essay about social justice will appear in a subsequent issue of Nursing Science Quarterly.

An Awareness Survey of Inhabitants Exposure to Radiological Impacts on Mines in Yauri LGA, Kebbi State, Nigeria

A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Yauri LGA, Kebbi State in between April, 2015 and January, 2016 in order to ascertain the level of awareness of inhabitant’s exposure to radioactivity from the mines. Yauri LGA was sampled based on its metropolitan and suburban parts that receives heavy mining activities by stratified random sampling by proportions. An interactive medium was created to sample the opinions of inhabitants around these mines through questionnaire. A total of 150 questionnaire were designed, 30 were accepted by the respondents and 22 were returned with response from the correspondents during the survey and interview to document and assessment awareness of the inhabitants. The study unveiled facts about the inhabitant’s awareness towards the environmental and health effect of indiscriminate mining activities around living places. The results shows that over 70% of the inhabitants within the suburb and metropolis concurred to the potential health consequences in their dwellings as a result of exposure to radioactivity from the mines respectively. These results indicates that the environmental and health discomfort due to indiscriminate mining activities around living places will be more significant in the near future if no immediate efforts are put in place to mimic future malady. The second aspect of this study whose results will be published in the subsequent issue involved collection of soil, water and vegetation samples in order to further assess the level of radioactive elements viz: 226Ra, 232Th and 40K occurrence in the study locality.

A Tiered Approach for Evaluating the Sustainability of Remediation Activities at Rail Sites

Remediation of environmental sites is of concern across the rail industry. Impacted sites may result from releases of chemicals to the environment along active rail lines or in rail yards; historical activities; or through acquisition of impacted property. Management of these liabilities may require investigation, planning, design, and remediation to reduce risks to human health and the environment and meet regulatory requirements. However, these investigation and remediation activities may generate unintended environmental, community, or economic impacts. To address these impacts, many organizations are focusing on the incorporation of sustainability concepts into the remediation paradigm. Sustainable remediation is defined as the use of sustainable practices during the investigation, construction, redevelopment, and monitoring of remediation sites, with the objective of balancing economic viability, conservation of natural resources and biodiversity, and the enhancement of the quality of life in surrounding communities (Sustainable Remediation Forum [SURF]). Benefits of considering and implementing measures to balance the three pillars of sustainability (i.e., society, economics, and environment) may include lower project implementation costs, reduced cleanup timeframes, and maximizing beneficial while alleviating detrimental impacts to surrounding communities. Sustainable remediation has evolved from discussions of environmental impacts of cleanups (with considerable greenwashing), to quantifying and minimizing the environmental footprint and subsequent long-term global impacts of a remedy, and currently, incorporating strategies to address all three components of sustainability — environmental, social, and economic. As organizations expand their use of more sustainable approaches to site cleanup, it is beneficial to establish consistent objectives and metrics that will guide implementation across a portfolio of sites. Sustainable remediation objectives should be consistent with corporate sustainability goals for environmental performance (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption, or waste generation), economic improvements (i.e., reduction of long term liability), and community engagement. In the last decade, there have been several Executive Orders (13423, 13514, 13693) that provide incrementally advanced protocols for achieving sustainability in government agency and corporate programs. Resources for remediation practitioners are available to assist in developing sustainable approaches, including SURF’s 2009 White Paper and subsequent issue papers, ITRC’s Green and Sustainable Remediation: State of the Science and Practice (GSR-1) and A Practical Framework (GSR-2), and ASTM’s Standard Guide for Greener Cleanups (E2893-16) and Standard Guide for Integrating Sustainable Objectives into Cleanup (E2876-13). These documents discuss frameworks that may be applied to projects of any size and during any phase of the remediation life cycle, and many provide best management practices (BMPs) that may be implemented to improve the environmental, social, or economic aspects of a project. Many of these frameworks encourage a tiered approach that matches the complexity of a sustainability assessment to the cost and scope of the remediation. For small remediation sites, a sustainability program may include the selection, implementation, or tracking of BMPs. A medium sized remediation site may warrant the quantification of environmental impacts (e.g., air emissions, waste generation, etc.) during the evaluation and selection of remedial alternatives. Often, only large and costly remediation sites demand detailed quantitative assessment of environmental impacts (e.g., life cycle assessment), economic modeling, or extensive community or stakeholder outreach. However, if a tiered approach is adopted by an organization, components of each of these assessments can be incorporated into projects where it makes sense to meet the needs of the stakeholders.

From Boxing to Philosophy

This article begins the cycle of portraits of the members of the Editorial Board and Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research, who are eminent social scientists researching the issue of sport. Among them, there are many world-class professors, rectors and deans of excellent universities, founders, presidents and secretaries-general of continental and international scientific societies and editors of high-scoring journals related to social sciences focusing on sport. The journal Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research started its activities in 2008 and gathered many readers, distinguished authors and outstanding reviewers. It is worth taking a moment to present the profiles of the individual editors, thanks to whom the journal keeps getting better and better. The journal is increasingly appreciated internationally particular among the scientists from the humanist and social areas of investigations. The rapidly increasing number of its readers and its surprisingly wide reception, indicated by the number of visits and downloads in English-speaking countries, including hundreds of universities (up to 791 were interested in the content of issue 62 of our magazine), research institutes and related libraries, as well as academics, researchers and students, should be celebrated. These data are derived only from one bibliographic data base (EBSCO). It must be noted that the journal is indexed in 43 bases.Portraits presenting the journal’s editors include, among others, their most important professional, organizational and scientific achievements. Each subsequent issue of PCSSR will include one such portrait. We shall begin with the portrait of Professor Jerzy Kosiewicz, Ph.D., who is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

Apparent extirpation of prey fish communities following the introduction of Northern Pike (Esox lucius)

We examined the long-term effects on prey fish communities of introducing Northern Pike (Esox lucius), a top predator fish, into small, Boreal Shield lakes lacking natural piscivore populations. During 1987–1994, Northern Pike were introduced into Lakes 110, 221, and 227 in the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario, Canada. In Lake 227, prey fish were undetectable three years after the addition of Northern Pike. Although Northern Pike were removed from the lake by 1996, multiple independent visual and trapping surveys have yielded no evidence of any fish in Lake 227 since then. In 1994–1995, 85% of the Northern Pike were removed from Lake 221. In 2012, despite intensive sampling efforts using baited minnow traps, fyke nets, trap netting, gill netting, angling, and visual observation, no forage fish of any species was observed or caught in Lake 110 or 221. In all three lakes where Northern Pike were added, prey fish populations were extirpated or too small to detect. In Lake 221, we estimated the current population of Northern Pike to be 49 ± 37, a 59% decrease since 2000 when prey fish were still present. The mean total length and body condition of Northern Pike in Lake 221 had not changed since the prey community collapsed. Our findings suggest that the introduction of Northern Pike into lakes without natural piscivore populations has long-lasting effects on fish community structure, to the detriment of both Northern Pike and prey fish populations.Note: an erratum for this article was published in the subsequent issue, and is attached to the end of this article's pdf. Table 2 had not been justified properly; the revised table corrects this issue.

Music Making Interventions with Adults in the Forensic Setting – A Systematic Review of the Literature – Part I: Group Interventions

The purpose of this systematic review of international research is to summarize the available literature on active music making interventions with adult offenders in forensic settings (i.e. forensic psychiatry or correctional facilities at different security levels). A systematic search of 13 electronic databases according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta- Analysis (PRISMA) statement was employed. 28 articles fitting the inclusion criteria were included in the review. The search revealed mainly qualitative and narrative reports including articles on group music therapy, educational music making, choir interventions, individual music therapy sessions and musical projects. The musical interventions are described in detail to provide therapists with ideas on how to set up session with clients in this particular situation and to help understand the possible impact of musical interventions in the forensic setting. Furthermore, implications from the current evidence and ideas for future research are discussed. Note: Due to the length of the review it is published in two subsequent issues. This is the first part of the review focusing on group interventions. The second part of the review is published in the subsequent issue of Music and Medicine focusing on case studies and established music programs in the forensic setting.