Opinion article: the acute radiation syndrome – need for updated medical guidelines

The major immediate and severe medical consequences in man following exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation can be summarized within the concept of the acute radiation syndrome (ARS). In a dose-dependent fashion, a multitude of organ systems can be affected by such irradiation, presenting considerable medical challenges to treating physicians. Accidents or malevolent events leading to ARS can provoke devastating effects, but they occur at a low frequency and in a highly varying manner and magnitude. Thus, it is difficult to make precise medical predictions and planning, or to draw conclusive evidence from occurred events. Therefore, knowledge from on-going continuous developments within related medical areas needs to be acknowledged and incorporated into the ARS setting, enabling the creation of evidence-based guidelines. In 2011 the WHO published a first global consensus on the medical management of ARS among patients subjected to nontherapeutic radiation. During the recent decade the understanding of and capability to counteract organ damage related to radiation and other agents have improved considerably. Furthermore, legal and logistic hurdles in the process of formally approving appropriate medical countermeasures have been reduced. We believe the time is now ripe for developing an update of internationally consented medical guidelines on ARS.

Causal Relationship Between Economic Growth and Energy Consumption in Jordan

Due to the current situation of the Jordanian economy, this paper aims to evaluate the impacts of economic growth on energy consumption in a developing country like Jordan, a country with limited resources such as oil, agricultural land, and water. This study is very important since the energy bill reflects a notable share in the GDP for Jordan, especially in the recent decade that witnessed energy bills rising due to different political and financial crisis events. The study investigates the causal relationship between the per capita energy consumption and economic growth (proxied by real gross domestic product per capita in constant prices) over the 1975-2011 period. A Granger causality test is utilized on annual time series data. The results of the study confirm a neutral relationship between real GDP and energy consumption, indicating that per capita increase in economic growth may not cause any perpetual rise in energy consumption in Jordan.

Analyzing the Role of Micro-Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in Women Empowerment and Development

In India, societal development is a cynosure, and thus, it is not a truism but a reality. Women's entrepreneurship emerging through self-help groups (SHGs) contributes to the economic well-being, sustainability, and in poverty reduction. The growth of SHGs is evidence in itself. In the recent decade, micro enterprises and SHGs have come up as prominent solutions to the entrepreneurial crisis existing in the country, and their role in empowering women and their development needs to studied. This study uses a descriptive statistic, reliability, and correlation analysis through SPSS and structural equation modeling (SEM) as an analytical tool to explore linkages between empowerment effected by SHG and micro-entrepreneurship. The research study results show that the contributory role of women entrepreneurs to the society is considerably worth appreciation. The causal relationship has also surfaced demonstrating the connection between women empowerment and development brought about by SHG and micro-entrepreneurship from a bottom-of-pyramid perspective.

Efficiency of State Economy Regulation Tools in Contemporary Russia

It has now become obvious that market economy is not able to develop successfully without government support. Moreover, state regulation is becoming increasingly important, particularly in the periods of recession. The pandemic of COVID-19 has changed the world and required strengthening the regulatory function of the state. In 2020, the government had to provide for organizing and financing the national health care system, free vaccination and medicines for the public, allowances to families with children and to people on unpaid leaves, as well as subsidies and reduced-rate lending to businesses. The demand for statism – a doctrine that the political authority of the state is the objective and result of social development – is a new trend in the world. Russian economy currently features a slow pace of growth, a lack of private investments, and a decrease of real disposable income. In this context, studies of efficiency of economy regulatory tools used by the state are becoming topical. The article analyzes the role of the state in the society, determines its functions and objectives, objects and subjects, and describes its administrative and economic regulatory tools. The authors point out the country’s economic problems of the recent decade and estimate the efficiency of the economy regulation tools used by the state.

Conjoint analysis: the assumptions, applications, concerns, remedies and future research direction

PurposeSince the inception of the conjoint analysis technique in the year 1971, papers addressing the epistemological aspects of conjoint analysis are scant. Hence, this paper attempts to address the vacuum of qualitative discourse addressing the epistemological and methodological aspects of conjoint analysis including different issues, challenges, probable solutions, limitations and future direction of conjoint analysis in the recent decade.Design/methodology/approachFor exploring the methodological and epistemological aspects of conjoint analysis, the seminal papers on conjoint analysis were reviewed. Moreover, the authors' experience for the state-of-art review was also taken into consideration.FindingsThe findings suggest that conjoint analysis that roots back since 1971 has not seen much exploration in Asian regions and is mainly used for new product development in the field of marketing or allied areas. Moreover, the reliability and validity of conjoint analysis is always a matter of concern for the researchers that hinders this technique's wider adaptability. Thus, the paper presents some probable solutions to address the focal issues useful for improved reliability and validity of the conjoint analysis technique.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper attempts to familiarize the researchers with epistemological and methodological aspects of conjoint analysis with certain solutions to evolve beyond existing conjoint analysis dimensions in terms of improved validity, reliability, epistemological and methodological aspects of conjoint analysis (CA). Moreover, it acts as a call for research in different research domains, especially in the Asian continent.Originality/valueThere exist certain seminal research papers on epistemological aspects of conjoint analysis. However, there is a dearth of such attempt in the recent decade addressing the application issues of conjoint analysis incorporating the recent issues as well. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to usher the future researcher to understand the methodological aspects of conjoint analysis. It may prevent them from violating the basic assumptions and methodological threshold. This research technique is preferred equally by academicians and practitioners, thus making it imperative to have clarity beforehand for improved research rigor.

Seismic Tomography of Kamchatkan Volcanoes

—The Kamchatka Peninsula is one of the most tectonically active regions in the world, where intensive and diverse modern volcanic activity takes place. In the recent decade, substantial progress in the investigation of deep structures beneath Kamchatka has been achieved owing to numerous tomography studies based on seismological data provided by permanent stations and temporary networks deployed in some key areas. The goal of this review is summarizing and systematizing dozens of separate multiscale geophysical studies in Kamchatka and constructing an integral model of volcano-feeding systems. An important part of this review contains the description of results of various seismic studies related to the Klyuchevskoy group volcanoes, which can now be considered one of the best studied volcanic areas in the world. The results of the regional-scale seismic tomography reveal the existence of the Pacific slab window, which determines the particular activity of the Klyuchevskoy group volcanoes. Middle-scale tomography studies have found traces of an ascending hot mantle flow that passes through the slab window, reaches the bottom of the crust below Shiveluch Volcano, and then propagates laterally toward the Klyuchevskoy group. Seismic models of the entire crust in the area of the Klyuchevskoy group were used to identify different mechanisms of magmatic feeding of three most active volcanoes: Klyuchevskoy, Bezymianny, and Tolbachik. The data of local networks deployed on several volcanoes of Kamchatka were used to image the magma sources in the upper crust, which are directly responsible for the current eruption activity. The comparison of the results for the Kamchatka volcanoes with tomography models of several other volcanoes of the world allowed determining some common features and differences in feeding active magmatic systems.

Топологическая унифицированная (r,s)-энтропия непрерывных отображений в квазиметрических пространствах

The category of metric spaces is a subcategory of quasi-metric spaces. It is shown that the entropy of a map when symmetric properties is included is greater or equal to the entropy in the case that the symmetric property of the space is not considered. The topological entropy and Shannon entropy have similar properties such as nonnegativity, subadditivity and conditioning reduces entropy. In other words, topological entropy is supposed as the extension of classical entropy in dynamical systems. In the recent decade, different extensions of Shannon entropy have been introduced. One of them which generalizes many classical entropies is unified $(r,s)$-entropy. In this paper, we extend the notion of unified $(r, s)$-entropy for the continuous maps of a quasi-metric space via spanning and separated sets. Moreover, we survey unified $(r, s)$-entropy of a map for two metric spaces that are associated with a given quasi-metric space and compare unified $(r, s)$-entropy of a map of a given quasi-metric space and the maps of its associated metric spaces. Finally we define Tsallis topological entropy for the continuous map on a quasi-metric space via Bowen's definition and analyze some properties such as chain rule.

Role of Digital Technology in Transforming Organizational Competencies Influencing Digital Economy: Moderating Role of Product Knowledge Hiding

Digital technology has gained momentum in the recent decade, with its relationships with digital entrepreneurship, digital economies, digital social interaction, green economies, etc. These have changed the perspective of business and hence digitalized the strategic policies through blockchains. The current study aims to identify such benefits that have changed the day-to-day life processes and procedures for carrying out different tasks due to the convenience of adopting digital technology. Those benefits have been classified as transparency, centralization, and access to new markets for the organizations considering their consequences, especially when using digital technology. When processes are taking place online, there are fair chances of hiding knowledge about certain products or procedures to gain particular benefits. Hence, this study has considered the moderating role of product knowledge hiding while interacting online. This study is a quantitative post-positivist cross-sectional study that has followed a survey technique for data collection. The population used in this study is the managerial staff of the telecom sector in the mainland in China. The sample size used in this study is 358. The software used in this study is Smart-PLS 3.3. The technique used in this study for data analysis is structural equation modeling with measurement modeling. The findings of this study show that digital technology has led to many benefits for organizations like centralization, access to the new markets, and transparency, which have been made possible remotely only because of the use of digital technology in business operations. However, the moderating role of product knowledge hiding has been found significant only for transparency. This research paper highlights the important benefits of the use of technological use in the corporate world. Also, it contributes to expanding the network of knowledge hiding, addressing the moderation of product knowledge hiding, and extending the known consequences of digital technology influencing knowledge hiding.

Characteristics of rainfall pattern for crop planning at Jabalpur region (Madhya Pradesh) of India

The daily rainfall data of past 31 years (1978-2008) of Agro meteorological Observatory, Department of Physics & Agriculture Engineering, Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh) has been analyzed for establishing the long term average of weekly, monthly, seasonal and annual rainfall and its variability. The weekly probability of rainfall was estimated using Markov Chain probability model for receiving >= 10 and 30 mm rainfall per week. The mean annual rainfall observed as 1309 mm and its variability was 27.1 per cent. The highest annual and kharif season rainfall 2083 and 2052 mm respectively were recorded in 1994. On the other hand the lowest annual and kharif rainfall were 620 mm and 471 mm respectively in 1979. The study revealed that the recent decade rainfall has increased during last 31 years. The seasonal average kharif, post monsoon, winter and summer seasons recorded 1197.3 mm, 32.1 mm, 49.8 mm and 29.8 mm of rainfall. About 91.5 per cent of total annual rainfall was received in kharif, 2.5 per cent in post monsoon, 3.8 per cent in winter monsoon and 2.3 per cent in summer. During the period under study 16 per cent of the years recorded excess, 23 per cent deficit and 61 per cent normal rainfall. The July month is regarded as suitable for transplanting of rice crop in Jabalpur region. The highest contribution has been observed in August (33 per cent). Standard week from 25 to 37 received rainfall more than 30 mm indicating the crop growing period from June 2nd week to September last week.

Monsoon variability in recent years from synoptic scale disturbances and semi-permanent systems

In the recent decade from 1987 to 1996, the Indian summer monsoon rainfall has shown less interannual variability in comparison with its earlier decade. Except 1987 and 1988, the area weighted average monsoon rainfall of all other years are within 10% (normal) of its long period average value over India. The paper discusses monsoon rainfall and several other associated circulations features with their variability in interannual scale during 1987-96. The results show that though the variability of monsoon rainfall is less during the decade, there is a significant interannual variation in the number of synoptic systems, their days, intensities and number of days of presence of monsoon trough and Tibetan anticyclone. The years with positive side (negative side) of normal seasonal rainfall are characterised by more (less) number of days of synoptic disturbances and more (less) number of days of presence of monsoon trough and Tibetan anticyclone in their favourable positions. However, overall activity of heat low, tropical easterly jet and sub-tropical westerly jet in the season have no direct relation with seasonal monsoon rainfall. In addition, the dates of onset and withdrawal of monsoon over India and the number of days monsoon took to over all India also have no relation with the monsoon rainfall.