On the Analysis of Factors Causing Labor Productivity Decline as an Element in Evaluating the Operating Efficiency of Air Transport Organizations

Aim. The presented study aims to determine the impact of factors causing labor productivity decline on the operating efficiency of air transport organizations.Tasks. The authors examine the types of factors influencing the level of labor productivity among different employee categories in air transport enterprises; identify external and internal factors and measures aimed at reducing their negative impact when analyzing the operating efficiency of air transport enterprises.Methods. This study uses general scientific methods of cognition in various aspects to examine economic factors causing labor efficiency decline among production and management staff.Results. The impact of regulatory documents of various levels on labor efficiency decline in air transport organizations is investigated. The behavior of management personnel in conflict situations is analyzed as one of the factors reducing labor productivity at the enterprise. The most typical causes of conflict escalation in an organization are described and methods for preventing them or mitigating their destructive consequences are proposed.Conclusions. Analyzing labor efficiency as part of a comprehensive economic analysis of enterprise activities is crucial for the further development of the aviation business. Labor efficiency analysis involves identifying the causes of labor productivity decline and possible directions for finding ways to prevent their negative impact. In addition to economic factors, which are manifested in the adoption of legal standards, it is necessary to take measures aimed at mitigating the impact of socio-psychological factors.

A modern Scandinavian “Saga about political economy”: “Against the Stream. Critical Essays on Economics” by Gunnar Myrdal

Introduction. It is proposed to pose the question of the original understanding of fundamental economic science as a political economy, presented by Gunnar Myrdal in the book “Against the Stream. Critical Essays on Economics”, which can be regarded from a certain point of view as a modern Scandinavian «Saga about political economy». Hermeneutic analysis. G. Myrdal’s paradigm concept, based on the concept of “establishment economics” was more meaningful than the modern use of the term “mainstream” to characterize the dominant flow of economic thought. The theoretical and methodological substantiation of the scientific hypothesis about the periodic emergence of crises and the formation of the economic science evolution cycles made it possible to explain the chronology of the Keynesian paradigm ascent and decline cycle by changes in economy and society. The arguments in favor of the institutional approach prompted a fundamental conclusion about the advisability of returning economic science to the original name of political economy and restoring its spiritual, moral, value dimension. G. Myrdal questioned and refuted the traditional abstract assumption about the conflict between economic growth and egalitarian reforms, for which one must pay a high price such as the national economy productivity decline, proposed the concept of “created harmony” to characterize the modern welfare state. Conclusion. The interpretation of the scientific monograph “Against the Stream. Critical Essays on Economics” in the style of Scandinavian “Saga about political economy” added a lot of very interesting details, judgments, explanations that substantively complemented the theoretical and methodological approach, showed the opportunity to study, research and present the history of economic thought in an attractive literary style without sacrificing depth and completeness of acquired knowledge.

Response of Plant Rhizosphere Microenvironment to Water Management in Soil- and Substrate-Based Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Systems: A Review

As natural agroecology deteriorates, controlled environment agriculture (CEA) systems become the backup support for coping with future resource consumption and potential food crises. Compared with natural agroecology, most of the environmental parameters of the CEA system rely on manual management. Such a system is dependent and fragile and prone to degradation, which includes harmful bacteria proliferation and productivity decline. Proper water management is significant for constructing a stabilized rhizosphere microenvironment. It has been proved that water is an efficient tool for changing the availability of nutrients, plant physiological processes, and microbial communities within. However, for CEA issues, relevant research is lacking at present. The article reviews the interactive mechanism between water management and rhizosphere microenvironments from the perspectives of physicochemical properties, physiological processes, and microbiology in CEA systems. We presented a synthesis of relevant research on water–root–microbes interplay, which aimed to provide detailed references to the conceptualization, research, diagnosis, and troubleshooting for CEA systems, and attempted to give suggestions for the construction of a high-tech artificial agricultural ecology.

Australia report foresees ageing workforce

Significance The central finding of the report is that an ageing population will create economic and budgetary challenges for the government in the coming decades as workforce participation and labour productivity decline. Impacts The global transition to cleaner energy will impact Australian coal exports more than it will create new economic opportunities. Declining tax revenues will make it difficult for government to maintain existing levels of public services. Reforms of business regulations and the taxation framework will be needed, with a greater focus on labour markets.

War, Coal, and Forced Labor: Assessing the Impact of Prisoner-of-War Employment on Coal Mine Productivity in World War I Germany

This paper assesses the causal relationship between POW assignments and labor productivity for a vital sector of the German World War I economy, namely coal mining. Prisoners of war (POWs) provided significant labor. Combining data on all Ruhr mines with a treatment-effects approach, I find that POW employment alone accounted for 36 percent of the average POW-employing mine’s annual productivity decline over wartime. Estimates also suggest that the representative POW’s productivity averaged 32 percent of the representative regular miner’s productivity and that POWs’ contribution to wartime coal output amounted to 3.9 percent. Violence did not serve as a powerful work incentive.

Anatomy of an extinction revealed by molecular fossils spanning OAE2

The Cenomanian–Turonian mass extinction (Oceanic Anoxic Event 2-OAE2) was a period of profound ecological change that is recorded in the sedimentary record in many locations around the globe. In this study, we provide a new and detailed account of repetitive changes in water column ecology by analyzing the organic geochemical record preserved within the OAE2 section of the Greenhorn Formation, Western Interior Seaway (WIS) of North America. Results from this study provide evidence that OAE2 in the WIS was the result of the cumulative effect of reoccurring environmental stresses rather than a single massive event. During OAE2, extreme variations in biotic composition occurred erratically over periods of several thousands of years as revealed by molecular fossil (biomarker) abundances and distributions calibrated to sedimentation rates. These cycles of marine productivity decline almost certainly had follow-on effects through the ecosystem and likely contributed to the Cenomanian–Turonian mass extinction. While the causes behind organic productivity cycling are yet unproven, we postulate that they may have been linked to repeated episodes of volcanic activity. Catastrophic volcanism and related CO2 outgassing have been interpreted as main drivers for OAE2, though this study provides new evidence that repetitive, punctuated environmental stresses were also important episodes within the anatomy of OAE2. Following OAE2, these cycles of productivity decline disappeared, and the WIS returned to conditions comparable to pre-OAE2 levels.

Automatic Scaffolding Workface Assessment for Activity Analysis through Machine Learning

Scaffolding serves as one construction trade with high importance. However, scaffolding suffers from low productivity and high cost in Australia. Activity Analysis is a continuous procedure of assessing and improving the amount of time that craft workers spend on one single construction trade, which is a functional method for monitoring onsite operation and analyzing conditions causing delays or productivity decline. Workface assessment is an initial step for activity analysis to manually record the time that workers spend on each activity category. This paper proposes a method of automatic scaffolding workface assessment using a 2D video camera to capture scaffolding activities and the model of key joints and skeleton extraction, as well as machine learning classifiers, were used for activity classification. Additionally, a case study was conducted and showed that the proposed method is a feasible and practical way for automatic scaffolding workface assessment.

Reallocation and Productivity during Commodity Cycles

I study the firm-level dynamic response of a commodity-exporting economy to global cycles in commodity prices. To do so, I develop a heterogeneous-firms model that endogenizes declines in aggregate productivity through reallocation towards less productive firms. Within a given sector, commodity booms reallocate market share away from exporters because of currency appreciation and away from capital-intensive firms because of the increase in capital cost. I provide empirical evidence for these channels using microdata for Chile, the worlds largest copper producer. When fed with the commodity super-cycle of 2003-2012, the calibrated model generates about 50% of the observed productivity decline.

Nexus Between Smallholder Irrigation Farming and Farmers’ Livelihood Outcomes in Ghana’s Guinea Savannah

The aim of the study was to relate small-scale irrigation farming and farmers’ livelihood outcomes using the poorest District in the Upper West Region of Ghana. The livelihood implications of rural farmers remain inconclusive across the literature. Mixed methods and primary data consisting of key informant interviews, household questionnaires and personal observation were used for the study. Data were obtained from 120 farmers drawn from 173 farming households living in four (4) small-scale irrigation dams’ communities. The results revealed a significant source of supplementary income and household food is provided by smallholder irrigation farming. The results further revealed that farmers employ a plethora of technologies including the use of mulch to stem soil moisture loss, livestock manure and chemical fertilizers to remedy soil productivity decline as well as hand-dug wells to supplement the reduction in irrigation water. However, the results revealed that irrigable land is not accessible to non-land owning ethnic groups. Access to irrigable land should be the number one consideration in siting irrigation facilities in Ghana.