Securing the Environmental Water Requirements of Seasonally Ponding Wetlands: Partnering Science and Management Through Benefit Sharing

Although environmental flow regime assessments are becoming increasingly holistic, they rarely provoke water managers to enact the adaptive water reallocation mechanisms required to secure environmental water for wetlands. The conditions that cause science-based environmental flow assessments to succeed or fail in informing the management of environmental water requirements remain unclear. To begin to resolve these conditions, we used process tracing to deconstruct the sequence of activities required to manage environmental water in four case studies of seasonally ponding wetlands in Mediterranean and Mesoamerican watersheds. We hypothesized that, when the flexibility and equitability of the socioeconomic system do not match the complexity of the biophysical system, this leads to a failure of managers to integrate scientific guidance in their allocation of environmental water. Diagnostic evidence gathered indicates that science-management partnerships are essential to align institutional flexibility and socioeconomic equitability with the system’s ecohydrological complexity, and thus move from determination to reallocation of environmental water. These results confirm that institutions e.g., river basin organizations need to be supplemented by motivated actors with experience and skill to negotiate allocation and adaptive management of environmental water. These institutional-actor synergies are likely to be especially important in water scarce regions when the need to accommodate extreme hydrological conditions is not met by national governance capacity. We conclude by focusing on benefit sharing as a means to better describe the conditions for successful science-based environmental flow assessments that realize productive efficiency in environmental water allocation i.e., recognition of multiple values for both people and ecosystems.

Towards Sustainable Finance: Conceptualizing Future Generations as Stakeholders

The paper aims to address a difficult yet important issue of the modern world, which is related to a lack of consideration, from investors’ point of view, for the sustainable future of our socioeconomic system. Many investors think in terms of MSV (maximization of the shareholder value) and fail to consider other important stakeholders. Future generations will “inherit” the results of the actions of current generations. Investing money in some lucrative ideas is definitely a very important financial activity, but it must be done responsibly. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) postulated by the UN; the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria; and the Equator Principles are some notions proposed to be considered to make investors’ actions more responsible. Future generations deserve a better, safer, and unwasted place to live in, so it is the right time to start thinking of them as major stakeholders. The paper reviews some of the important research related to this issue and brings its contribution to the stakeholder theory by proposing a new vision, one that is future oriented. The proposal to conceptualize future generations as stakeholders is an important contribution of the paper. Methodologically, we relied on relevant literature and recent initiatives and approaches. Further research is needed to identify the means to operationalize our proposal.

Infections in a Tertiary Care Pediatric Center in Southern Poland during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

The worldwide surge of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a global pandemic and led governments to control spread of the virus and provide care for the population affected by the infection. Although, in children, COVID-19 is usually asymptomatic or mild (except PIMS), the pandemic affected the whole socioeconomic system and led to the overwhelming of healthcare facilities. We report retrospective observations of the prevalence of various infectious diseases during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in a tertiary multidisciplinary pediatric center in Southern Poland. We retrospectively evaluated the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the number of other infections diagnosed in a pediatric tertiary care referral center. Our analysis included the period from the beginning of February to the end of April 2020 (spring pandemic wave), and from the beginning of September to the end of November 2020 (autumn pandemic wave). We compared them to the appropriate periods of 2019. The evaluation included blood, urine, stool and lover respiratory tract cultures as well as virological investigations. Additionally, the costs of antibiotics and antifungal drugs in selected departments were assessed. Our analysis showed considerable reduction in the majority of common infections except for influenza A and B. The microbiological data correspond with economical summary of antibiotic costs, which were significantly lower during the pandemic. One exception was the number of positive blood cultures, which increased even though the overall number of tests was lower. A general reduction of the number of infections diagnosed in children could result from the implemented preventative measures associated with the pandemic and the generally increased awareness of the risk of infection among parents and guardians. The treatment of the most serious diseases continued as it did before the pandemic. To our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence of infections in a large pediatric center. Further research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare systems is necessary.

Higher Education Management in Ecuador

Higher education is the last phase of the academic learning process, that is, the one that comes after the secondary stage. It is provided at universities, colleges or technical training academies. The education offered by higher education is at the professional level. The objective of the study was to analyze the management of Higher Education in the country and to describe the main activities of the institutions linked to these activities. The main results indicate that three institutions are the protagonists in management. The Secretariat of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (SENESCYT), the Council for Quality Assurance in Education (CACES) and the Council of Higher Education (CES). Higher education is one of the main drivers of societal evolution. Investing in education is vital to ensure a prosperous and competitive socioeconomic system. Higher education has a high responsibility to society: they are responsible for preparing the professionals of the future.

Indicative assessment of the financial and economic security of the area: Practical approval of the method

Subject. This article considers the financial and economic security of an area as a complex system. Objectives. The article aims to develop and test a methodology for assessing regional financial and economic security based on a system of indicators divided into metrics. Methods. For the study, I used a statistical analysis and the indicative approach. Results. The article defines the integral safety factors of the Ulyanovsk Oblast, as well as a set of indicators and their threshold values for financial and economic security metrics. Conclusions. The article notes that the number of negative factors that can adversely affect the overall level of regional security and reduce the stability of the regional socioeconomic system has increased over time.

The current status, challenges and prospects of using biomass energy in Ethiopia

Despite enormous challenges in accessing sustainable energy supplies and advanced energy technologies, Ethiopia has one of the world's fastest growing economies. The development of renewable energy technology and the building of a green legacy in the country are being prioritized. The total installed capacity for electricity generation in Ethiopia is 4324.3 MW as on October, 2018. Renewable energy accounts for 96.5% of total generation; however, despite the county's enormous biomass energy potential, only 0.58% of power is generated using biomass. Ethiopia has surplus woody biomass, crop residue and animal dung resources which comprise about 141.8 million metric tons of biomass availability per year. At present the exploited potential is about 71.9 million metric tons per year. This review paper provides an in-depth assessment of Ethiopia's biomass energy availability, potential, challenges, and prospects. The findings show that, despite Ethiopia's vast biomass resource potential, the current use of modern energy from biomass is still limited. As a result, this study supports the use of biomass-based alternative energy sources without having a negative impact on the socioeconomic system or jeopardizing food security or the environment. This finding also shows the challenges, opportunities and possible solutions to tackle the problem to expand alternative energy sources. The most effective techniques for producing and utilizing alternate energy sources were also explored. Moreover, some perspectives are given based on the challenges of using efficient energy production and sustainable uses of biomass energy in Ethiopia as it could be also implemented in other developing countries. We believe that the information in this review will shed light on the current and future prospects of biomass energy deployment in Ethiopia.

Infrastructure Vandalism and Protection in a Vulnerable Zimbabwean Environment: Review of the Structural Materialism Theory

Many institutions are facing or have faced challenges related to vandalism of equipment and property in Zimbabwe. This criminal phenomenon is not only restricted and peculiar to this country but is experienced in other regions of the world, however with variations. The purpose of the study is to explore and unpack the various dimensions of infrastructure vandalism by gazing at Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) a power utility in Zimbabwe. The level of vandalism has been increasing unabated resulting in in a multitude of undesirable effects on the power utility and the economy as a whole. A plethora of stimulants have been seen to be triggering and sustaining the theft and vandalism of the infrastructure which targets copper conductors, copper windings, oils and the poles in the majority of cases. The study adopted the mixed method approach due to its technical advantage of converging and merging qualitative and quantitative data in order to provide comprehensive results and produce new knowledge claims. This methodological framework was guided by the structural materialism theory which is an off shot of the critical criminology perspective. Thus, the study found out that infrastructure vandalism is representative of a broader dysfunctional socioeconomic system of a country riddled by poverty, unemployment and the absence of mores and values within communities. Consequently, the levels of infrastructure vandalism have spiraled to unprecedented levels. The study concludes that the government is failing to sufficiently address the macro-economic fundamentals as way of discouraging citizens from engaging in crime and criminality while the traditional leaders are not being respected yet they have a significant role they can play in promoting the stability and serenity of communities. In view of these conclusions the study recommends that all stakeholders contribute towards the protection of all infrastructure and migrate to digitalize the protection of such infrastructure as well as promulgation of appropriate pieces of legislation.

Causal Loop Diagramming of Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19: State-of-the-Art, Gaps and Good Practices

The complexity, multidimensionality, and persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted both researchers and policymakers to turn to transdisciplinary methods in dealing with the wickedness of the crisis. While there are increasing calls to use systems thinking to address the intricacy of COVID-19, examples of practical applications of systems thinking are still scarce. We revealed and reviewed eight studies which developed causal loop diagrams (CLDs) to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a broader socioeconomic system. We find that major drivers across all studies are the magnitude of the infection spread and government interventions to curb the pandemic, while the most impacted variables are public perception of the pandemic and the risk of infection. The reviewed COVID-19 CLDs consistently exhibit certain complexity patterns, for example, they contain a higher number of two- and three-element feedback loops than comparable random networks. However, they fall short in representing linear complexity such as multiple causes and effects, as well as cascading impacts. We also discuss good practices for creating and presenting CLDs using the reviewed diagrams as illustration. We suggest that increasing transparency and rigor of the CLD development processes can help to overcome the lack of systems thinking applications to address the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis.

ТЕОРЕТИКО-МЕТОДИЧНИЙ КОНЦЕПТ МОДИФІКУВАННЯ ДЕКОМПОЗИЦІЙНОЇ СТРУКТУРИ ПРОЦЕСУ УПРАВЛІННЯ ЛОГІСТИЧНИМ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯМ РОЗВИТКУ ІННОВАЦІЙНОГО СПІВРОБІТНИЦТВА В УМОВАХ ЦИРКУЛЯРНОЇ ЕКОНОМІКИ

The article addresses a range of theoretical and methodological issues related to managing effective logistics support to the development of socioeconomic systems of the national circular-based economic model. It is argued that there is a need to regulate cooperation between socioeconomic systems and build various integration patterns (alliances, clusters, holdings, industrial and financial groups, consortia, innovative partnerships, etc.) which open new opportunities to their participants. The current theoretical and methodological developments in the area of providing logistics support to enhance the development of socioeconomic systems are focused primarily on the microlevel. Unresolved issues of the logistics support to enhance socioeconomic system development at higher levels (meso- and macro-) tend to generate a vast pool of scientific ideas for further innovative research. The purpose of this article is to rethink the existing theoretical, methodical and methodological foundations of logistics support for the socioeconomic system development and to design a qualitatively new conceptual and methodological framework to manage the logistics support to innovative partnerships in a circular economy settings. The findings reveal that the formation of this theoretical and methodological framework is the result of a symbiosis of empirical and theoretical cognitive levels that have certain differences in certain aspects of comparison. The study offers a generalized survey of scientific and philosophical approaches to perceiving socioeconomic processes which provided for using a transdisciplinary paradigm as a theoretical and methodological premises to manage the logistics support to innovative partnerships in a circular economy. To build a common vector of research, it is recommended to use a semantic modeling approach which can be viewed as a converter of natural language, a scientific terminology framework, and a tool to shape a nomological basis in building new theories to explore socioeconomic systems that contributes to constructing a logical semantic model which specifies the mechanism of logistics support to innovative partnerships in a circular economy in terms and definitions of relevant subject areas, including all known logically consistent statements and facts, and is based on certain principles. Based on the research, a relationship between logistics management, innovative partnership development and circular economy has been verified which allowed to develop a theoretical and methodological framework to manage the logistics of innovative partnerships in a circular economy settings. Implementation of the proposed theoretical and methodological framework translates into a comprehensive concept to enhance management of logistics support to further innovative partnership development in a circular economy which makes the foundation of government policy to promote circular economy based on reversible logistics to attain socioeconomic sustainability of the national economy.

TOURISM INDUSTRY OF THAILAND: THROUGH CRISIS, LOCKDOWN AND SANDBOX - TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY

The article analyzes the structural-functional crisis of Thailand’s tourism sector caused by the 2020 pandemic. Prospects and destimulating factors of the crisis within the tourism sector for the whole socioeconomic system of the country have been assessed from the standpoint of the author’s own vision of “accumulating uselessness”. The author also analyzed the major consequences and development results inside the sectors of tourism and hospitality in Thailand and also — how these sectors have been reacting to economic, social and medical shocks from the coronavirus pandemic. Reformatting prospects of Thailand’s tourism sector are evaluated taking into account the significant transformation of its strategic priorities, resources and market orientation.