Study on the Impacts of Emergency on Economic, Environmental and Social Areas Using Mixed Methods Research

Mixed methods research methodology appears to be a suitable approach for researching complex phenomena such as emergencies. Researchers study the impacts on different areas such as economy, society, or environment, mostly in separate studies. To better understand the reality of emergencies, it is necessary to study the problem in the broadest possible context. So, examining those impacts in one single study is a challenge. The objective of this article is to process a comprehensive assessment of an emergency that has the potential to establish the basis of a robust tool for public managers to support their decision-making, using mixed methods research methodology. The crisis is an explosion of an ammunition storage site in the Czech Republic - the former satellite country of the Soviet Union. The sub-methods used in mixed methods research are analysis of data, interviews, questionnaire surveys, and field research. The main findings include that in the economic area, growth of public budget expenditures was found; in the environmental area, primary and inducted impacts have been proved. Survey also confirms that the emergency reduced the personal sense of security and trust in public institutions in the affected community. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2022-06-01-07 Full Text: PDF

Research on a Good Life and Coordinated Development Based on Intelligent Communication and k-Means Algorithm

Due to the rapid development of society and economy, people have more and more urgent needs for a better life and coordinated development between regions. However, research on people’s good life and coordinated development based on new era technologies such as intelligent communication is not sufficient. The future of smart communications technology will be all over the place, from television to mobile phones and the Internet, and ICT is making the world look new, helping hundreds of millions of people to live, work, and play in the most creative ways. At the same time, ICT is managing cities in innovative ways, especially in an increasingly integrated information society, exchanging information knowledge and communicating on the move. In order to understand the impact of intelligent communication on people’s good life and coordinated development research, this paper uses intelligent communication and k-means algorithm-based methods to study people’s good life and coordinated development and conducts questionnaire surveys and constructs corresponding evaluation indicators analysis. The results showed that 36% of the respondents were satisfied with the housing environment, 24% were relatively satisfied, 76% were satisfied with the greening environment, and 13% were relatively satisfied. 41% of people are satisfied with their health, and 32% are satisfied with their work status. This shows that people’s good life and coordinated development are inseparable from rapid economic development, but rapid economic development alone is far from enough because rapid economic development can improve people’s material living conditions, but not necessarily promote people’s life coordination in the spiritual world. Therefore, for people’s good life and coordinated development, the improvement of material economy and the construction of spiritual level are indispensable.

Role of Urban Agriculture for Livelihood Improvement, Waste Management and Greening in Case of Hawassa City

Background: Urban agriculture is one of the strategies to enhance the livelihood of the urban community, ensure food security and nutrition. Despite, the increasing development of the practice in Hawaassa city, its environmental and societal perspectives had been neglected. Moreover, the increase in urbanization due to several social-economic reasons has become a challenge for urban agriculture practices. Methodology: This study was aimed at investigating the roles of urban agriculture on livelihood improvement, waste management, and urban greening. A purposive random sampling technique was employed to select sample households. Besides questionnaire surveys and key informant interviews were used to elicit necessary information while literature analysis supplemented the data. Result: It was found that urban agriculture in the study area is maintaining the cultural experience of the local society, generating income, and introducing saving habits. It has also improved the esthetic value of the city via utilization of the organic waste. Hence, urban agriculture in the city is compatible with urban job creation, price adjustment, and provision of a green urban environment. Conclusion: Urban agricultural practices should keep the phase of increasing urbanization in the study area.

Analyzing the Time-Varying Thermal Perception of Students in Classrooms and Its Influencing Factors from a Case Study in Xi’an, China

Owing to movement in the spatial environment and changes in activity levels, students’ thermal perception is time varying in classrooms throughout different periods of the day. However, previous studies have rarely considered the time-varying thermal perception in different periods of the day, which may cause discomfort for students and lead to energy wastage. Therefore, a study was conducted to investigate the time-varying thermal perception of students and its influencing factors in different classes of the day. In addition, the differences in students’ adaptive behaviors in different periods were also explored. A total of 578 university students were surveyed using questionnaire surveys during the heating season in Xi’an, China. The following results can be obtained: (1) The thermal sensation vote and thermal preference vote values in the afternoon were significantly higher than those in the morning. At the start of the first class in the morning/afternoon, the thermal sensation of the students had the highest sensitivity to outdoor temperature changes. (2) The students’ thermal perception was greatly affected by the preclass activity state at the start of the first class in the morning/afternoon. However, in other periods, the above phenomenon was not obvious. (3) In the afternoon, the frequency of clothing adjustment was greater than that in the morning, and this behavior would significantly affect the students’ thermal sensation. (4) Compared with the current classroom heating strategy, the heating strategy of dynamically adjusting the indoor set temperature according to the time-varying characteristics of the students can theoretically achieve energy savings of 25.6%.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS ON THE MODES CHOICE OF TRANSPORTATION IN MANADO CITY

Good infrastructure and transportation facilities move people and goods take place safely and economically in terms of time and cost. The trips made by people on weekdays or weekends affect environmental conditions in the area. The purpose of this paper is to find out the influence of socioeconomic status on modes choice of transportation both on weekdays and weekends. The study location is in Manado Municipality. There are 3 (three) modes of transportation reviewed, i.e. private cars, motorcycles, and public transportation. Indicators of socioeconomics status of transportation users are age, education, occupation, income, number of family members, and vehicle ownership. Data regarding the modes of transportation and socioeconomic status of travelers were obtained through questionnaire surveys. SEM-AMOS was used to measure the validity and reliability of the data. The probability of the mode choice on weekdays and weekends was analyzed using multinomial logistic regression analysis. The results showed that the socioeconomic status of the traveler has an influence on the mode choice of transportation by 49.2% on weekends and 49.5% on weekdays. Furthermore, the probability of transportation mode choice on weekends is the car by 88.4%, and on weekdays is motorcycles by 71.6%.

Comprehensive Assessment of Flood Hazard, Vulnerability, and Flood Risk at the Household Level in a Municipality Area: A Case Study of Nan Province, Thailand

Estimating flood hazard, vulnerability, and flood risk at the household level in the past did not fully consider all relevant parameters. The main objective of this study is to improve this drawback by developing a new comprehensive and systematic methodology considering all relevant parameters and their weighting factors. This new methodology is applied to a case study of flood inundation in a municipal area of Nan City in the Upper Nan River Basin in Thailand. Field and questionnaire surveys were carried out to collect pertinent data for input into the new methodology for estimating flood hazard, vulnerability, and risk. Designed floods for various return periods were predicted using flood simulation models for assessing flood risk. The flood risk maps constructed for the return periods of 10–500 years show a substantial increase in flood risk with the return periods. The results are consistent with past flood damages, which were significant near and along the riverbanks where ground elevation is low, population density is high, and the number of household properties are high. In conclusion, this new comprehensive methodology yielded realistic results and can be used further to assess the effectiveness of various proposed flood mitigation measures.

The role of non-drug methods of increasing adherence to the treatment of patients with arterial hypertension in a polyclinic

Introduction. Arterial hypertension (AH) is one of the important high-risk factors for the development of heart diseases, but its diagnosis and treatment does not require high technologies and substantial costs. However, the asymptomatic course of AH combined with a low level of medical literacy contributes to low adherence to treatment.Aim. To study the indirect impact of remote blood pressure monitoring (RBPM), the introduction of educational materials (EMs) in comparison with self-monitoring of blood pressure (SMBP) on adherence of patients with AH to outpatient treatment.Materials and methods. 60 subjects with an established fact of partial or complete refusal to use antihypertensive therapy were enrolled in the study and randomized into four equal and comparable groups: 1 – SMBP, 2 – RBPM, 3 – SMBP + EMs, 4 – RBPM + EMs. The impact of using RBPM was assessed by comparing blood pressure values in groups 1 and 2; the impact of EM – by comparing the results of questionnaire surveys in groups 1 and 2 and groups 3 and 4.Results and discussion. Additional training of patients with AH contributed to a twofold increase in adherence in using SCAD and RBPM. The average systolic blood pressure in groups 1 and 2 was 134 mm Hg, in groups 3 and 4 – 129 mm Hg; diastolic blood pressure in groups 1 and 2 – 78.5 mm Hg, in groups 3 and 4 – 77.5 mm Hg.Conclusion. The maximum impact on adherence to AH treatment can be achieved with the introduction of a set of measures. However, the introduction of RBPM has a number of limitations associated with the additional economic burden and the lack of an approved methodology. However, the provision of treatment and prevention facilities with EMs does not require additional development of methodology and is significantly cheaper than the cost of modern blood pressure monitors.

Acoustical Environment Studies in the Modern Urban University Campuses

The quality of the acoustic environments at Xi’an Jiatong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) and Soochow University (Dushuhu Campus, SUDC) in Suzhou City were investigated in the present work through real-time noise level measurements and questionnaire surveys. Before commencing the measurements and surveys, these two campuses’ sound sources were summarized and classified into four categories through on-site observation: human-made, machinery, living creatures, and natural physical sounds. For the zones near the main traffic road, with a high volume of crowds and surrounded by a park, sound from road vehicles, humans talking, and birds/insects were selected by the interviewees as the major sound sources, respectively. Only zone 3 (near to a park) at XJTLU could be classified as A zone (noise level < 55 dBA) with an excellent quality acoustical environment. All other zones had either good or average quality acoustical environments, except zone 1 (near to main traffic road) at XJTLU, with a fair-quality acoustical environment.

The Carbon Footprint of a Public Sector University Before and During the COVID-19 Lockdown.

<p>Carbon footprint (CF) is a measure of greenhouse gas emissions generated from daily human-induced activities as carbon dioxide equivalent. This study is an attempt to represent a consumption-based CF study from the scope of transportation, electricity, and waste generation for University of the Punjab (PU), Lahore under the WRI/WBCSD greenhouse gas protocol corporate standards. Data acquired through fieldwork, questionnaire surveys, direct sampling, and existing records for the year 2019-20 suggested that electricity is the greatest contributor of CO2 emissions at 59%, followed by transportation at 36%, and waste generation at approximately 5%. The total CF(CO2_eq) generated from different sources is about 18360.62MT for one year. The recent COVID-19 lockdown has offered inimitable prospect to compare the carbon footprint of one of the largest higher education institutes of Pakistan before and during this pandemic. The data can serve for tracking, assessing, and setting goals for greenhouse gas emission reduction programs in future.</p>

Diverging trends of respiratory allergies and eczema in Greek schoolchildren: Six surveys during 1991‐2018

Background: The prevalence of childhood asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis, and eczema in the city of Patras, Greece, has been followed in four consecutive surveys since 1991. After a continuous rise in the prevalence of all three of these disorders, a plateau was reached for asthma between 2003 and 2008, whereas the prevalence of rhinoconjunctivitis and eczema continued to increase. Objective: To investigate these trends in the same population into the following decade. Methods: We repeated two methodologically identical cross-sectional parental questionnaire surveys in 2013 and 2018 among 8‐9-year-old schoolchildren (N = 2554 and N = 2648, respectively). In 2018, spirometry and fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) measurements were also performed. Results: Current asthma (i.e., wheeze/asthma in the past 2 years) decreased from 6.9% in 2008 to 5.2% in 2013 and 4.3% in 2018 (p for trend < 0.001). The prevalence of lifetime (“ever had”) rhinoconjunctivitis also declined (5.1% in 2008, 4.4% in 2013, 3.0% in 2018; p for trend < 0.001), whereas that of lifetime eczema increased (10.8%, 13.6%, and 16.1%, respectively; p for trend < 0.001). The relative risk of current asthma in children with ever-had rhinoconjundtivitis was 7.73 in 2008, 6.00 in 2013, and 6.69 in 2018, whereas the relative risk in those with ever-had eczema was 5.15, 2.80, and 2.22, respectively. Among children with asthma, those with rhinoconjunctivitis had lower forced expiratory volume in the first second of expiration and higher FeNO values than those with eczema. Conclusion: The prevalence of asthma and rhinoconjunctivitis declined during the past decade in Greek schoolchildren, whereas the prevalence of eczema continued to rise. Nevertheless, the relationship between rhinoconjunctivitis and asthma remained strong, whereas the association between eczema and asthma appears to have weakened.