Barriers and Drivers for Mainstreaming Nature-Based Solutions for Flood Risks: The Case of South Korea

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are seen as a promising adaptation measure that sustainably deals with diverse societal challenges, while simultaneously delivering multiple benefits. Nature-based solutions have been highlighted as a resilient and sustainable means of mitigating floods and other hazards globally. This study examined diverging conceptualizations of NBS, as well as the attitudinal (for example, emotions and beliefs) and contextual (for example, legal and political aspects) barriers and drivers of NBS for flood risks in South Korea. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 11 experts and focused on the topic of flood risk measures and NBS case studies. The analysis found 11 barriers and five drivers in the attitudinal domain, and 13 barriers and two drivers in the contextual domain. Most experts see direct monetary benefits as an important attitudinal factor for the public. Meanwhile, the cost-effectiveness of NBS and their capacity to cope with flood risks were deemed influential factors that could lead decision makers to opt for NBS. Among the contextual factors, insufficient systems to integrate NBS in practice and the ideologicalization of NBS policy were found to be peculiar barriers, which hinder consistent realization of initiatives and a long-term national plan for NBS. Understanding the barriers and drivers related to the mainstreaming of NBS is critical if we are to make the most of such solutions for society and nature. It is also essential that we have a shared definition, expectation, and vision of NBS.

Mindset as Characteristic Adaptations: Using Response Surface Analysis to Assess Mindset in the Personality System

This study aimed to assess the congruencies and discrepancies between mindset domains in relation to well-being and sought to demonstrate that mindset falls into the characteristic adaptation level of personality. Data (N = 618, Mage = 16.07, SDage = 0.99) from Wave 1 of a longitudinal study on primarily ethnic-minority adolescents were used in response surface analyses to examine the effects of (in)congruence on well-being. The response surface analyses suggested no overall congruence effect between moral and ability mindsets. However, two-thirds of the participants demonstrated differing levels of mindsets, highlighting the domain specificity of mindsets. Results suggest that mindsets are contextual, domain-specific constructs, suiting the characteristic adaptation level of personality. Congruence for moral and ability mindset does not affect adolescent well-being.

Resilience among Undergraduate Medical Students of a Medical College of Eastern India

Background: Resilience is a dynamic capability which helps people to survive on challenges given appropriate social and personal contexts. Objective: To determine the resilience and to find out the association between resilience and selected socio-demographic variables, if any. Methodology: An institution based mixed method study was conducted among MBBS students from April to May, 2018 at IQ City Medical College by using Child and Youth Resilience Measures Questionnaire (CYRM-28). Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed using SPSS-21software.Results: Older students, Males, 8th semester batch, and day boarder were more resilient in certain areas. In individual and contextual domain, score gradually increased with increase in age groups. Resilience score were more or less similar among both the sexes. 8th semester students were found to be more resilient in all the domains. Personal skills, social skills, psychological care giving, education, played much larger role in differences across the sex, age, semester, and accommodation. Conclusion:Thus counselling and more teacher student bonding are required to propagate the resilience of the medical students. More emphasis has to be given on identified areas so as to make our future doctors more strong and resilient.

Semantics-Driven Remote Sensing Scene Understanding Framework for Grounded Spatio-Contextual Scene Descriptions

Earth Observation data possess tremendous potential in understanding the dynamics of our planet. We propose the Semantics-driven Remote Sensing Scene Understanding (Sem-RSSU) framework for rendering comprehensive grounded spatio-contextual scene descriptions for enhanced situational awareness. To minimize the semantic gap for remote-sensing-scene understanding, the framework puts forward the transformation of scenes by using semantic-web technologies to Remote Sensing Scene Knowledge Graphs (RSS-KGs). The knowledge-graph representation of scenes has been formalized through the development of a Remote Sensing Scene Ontology (RSSO)—a core ontology for an inclusive remote-sensing-scene data product. The RSS-KGs are enriched both spatially and contextually, using a deductive reasoner, by mining for implicit spatio-contextual relationships between land-cover classes in the scenes. The Sem-RSSU, at its core, constitutes novel Ontology-driven Spatio-Contextual Triple Aggregation and realization algorithms to transform KGs to render grounded natural language scene descriptions. Considering the significance of scene understanding for informed decision-making from remote sensing scenes during a flood, we selected it as a test scenario, to demonstrate the utility of this framework. In that regard, a contextual domain knowledge encompassing Flood Scene Ontology (FSO) has been developed. Extensive experimental evaluations show promising results, further validating the efficacy of this framework.

Team Interaction Strategies for Human–Autonomy Teaming in Next Generation Combat Vehicles

The current study focuses on improving team effectiveness in Next Generation Combat Vehicles (NGCVs) that combine humans, intelligent agents, and unmanned assets working together toward common goals, “teaming”, through the development of interaction strategies for this future contextual domain. Twenty interaction strategies were derived from three objectives to account for system changes anticipated from the introduction of NGCVs. In particular, consideration is given for improving awareness of team members, maintaining flexible coordination, and working within the constraints of the new environment. Future work should focus on validating the strategies and the implementation of strategies into NGCV design.

Firm–civil society organizational collaborations in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives; development of collaboration typology

PurposeBusiness firms operate in society not only for market gains but also for generating positive social externalities. Civil society organisations (CSO) have helped society to develop across various spheres of influence. The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) ushered in an era wherein both business economic objectives as well as socio-environmental responsibilities of firms were prioritized simultaneously. The path of firms and CSOs intersected through CSR. In this work, the authors develop a typology on firm–CSO collaboration regarding CSR initiatives.Design/methodology/approachThe authors through a twin approach of systematic literature review (SLR) with qualitative study developed a categorization of collaborations between a firm and a CSO in the context of CSR engagements. Apart from the SLR, the authors undertook two focus group discussions (FGD) with CSR experts (engaged in firm–CSO collaboration). This was done with a semi-structured discussion agenda frame. The data were content analysed for thematic aspects. Thus, both SLR as well as FGD outputs were considered for the study results.FindingsThe authors found six elements in firm–CSO collaboration and seven archetypes of collaboration. The six elements were CSR action elements (CSRAE) consisting of CSR agenda (CSRA), CSR resources (CSRR), CSR capabilities (CSRC), CSR Pprocess (CSRP), CSR monitoring (CSRM) and CSR stakeholder engagement (CSRSE). The seven typologies were CSO as auditor , outsourcing of CSR , CSO-driven CSR, joint CSR, support to CSO for CSR ,guided support to CSO and coordinated CSR.Research limitations/implicationsDoty and Glick, (1994) had undertaken a seminal work on theory building based upon the unique method of application of typologies. Doty and Glick, (1994) elucidated how application of typologies could through a typology study enhance the scope and level for understanding and modelling in a contextual domain involving theory. This study was a step in this direction in the context of firm–CSO collaboration in the context of CSR initiatives.Practical implicationsThis study would help managers from both CSOs and business firms to comprehend in which sphere they were required to collaborate like in resource /capabilities deployment or in designing CSR agendas or CSR process or CSR monitoring or in stakeholder engagement during CSR management. This typology would enable managers to comprehend what would be the most suitable form of collaboration between a firm and a CSO for a specific CSR engagement.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies that theorizes regarding firm–CSO collaboration in the context of CSR initiatives both in terms of the collaboration building block elements as well as typology presented.

Existential and Locative Constructions in the Romance Languages

Existential and locative constructions form an interesting cluster of copular structures in Romance. They are clearly related, and yet there are theoretical reasons to keep them apart. In-depth analysis of the Romance languages lends empirical support to their differentiation. In semantic terms, existentials express propositions about existence or presence in an implicit contextual domain, whereas locatives express propositions about the location of an entity. In terms of information structure, existentials are typically all new or broad focus constructions. Locatives are normally characterized by focus on the location, although this can also be a presupposed topic. Romance existentials are formed with a copula and a postcopular phrase (the pivot). A wide range of variation is found in copula selection, copula-pivot agreement, expletive subjects, the presence and function of an etymologically locative precopular proform, and, finally, the categorial status of the pivot, which is normally a noun phrase, but can also be an adjective (Calabrian, Sicilian). As for Romance locatives, a distinction must be drawn between, on the one hand, a construction with canonical SV order and S-V agreement and, on the other hand, another construction, with VS order and, in some languages, lack of V-S agreement. This latter structure has been named inverse locative. Both existentials and locatives have a nonverbal predicate: the locative phrase in locatives and the postcopular noun or adjectival phrase in existentials. In locatives the predicate selects a thematic argument (i.e., an argument endowed with a thematic role), which serves as the syntactic subject, exception being made for inverse locatives in some languages. Contrastingly, in existentials, there is no thematic argument. In some languages the copula turns to the pivot for agreement, as this is the only overt noun phrase endowed with person and number features (Italian, Friulian, Romanian, etc.). In other languages this non-canonical agreement is not licensed (French, some Calabrian dialects, Brazilian Portuguese, etc.). In others still (Spanish, Sardinian, European Portuguese, Catalan, Gallo-Italian, etc.), it is only admitted with pivot classes that can be defined in terms of specificity. When the copula does not agree with the pivot, an expletive subject form may figure in precopular position. The cross-linguistic variation in copula-pivot agreement has been claimed to depend on language-specific constraints on subjecthood. Highly specific pivots are only admitted in contextualized existentials, which express a proposition about the presence of an individual or an entity in a given and salient context. These existentials are found in all the Romance languages and would seem to defy the semantico-pragmatic constraints on the pivot that are widely known as Definiteness Effects.

Philosophy of Qur’ānic Weltanschauung in the Light of Different Exegetical Modes: A Discourse of Traditional-cum-Modern Scholarship

This paper aims to highlight the role of different exegetical approaches considering traditional to that of modern scholarship to comprehend possible dimensions of Qur’ānic worldview regarding a particular topic. This discussion has been demarcated generally into four major phases succinctly with further minor segments where scholars’ elaborations are also important elements expressing their own opinions and vantage points. For example, proportionality and coherence among various Qur’ānic subjects, contextual framework in addition to the involvement of thematic exegetical methodology, etc. where each dimension contributes well up to the possible extent. Employing the analytical method, we may examine the question of Qur’ānic Worldview to judge the text to contextual domain considering traditional vis-à-vis modern scholarship. Hence, this paper finds that in contemporary context together with epistemological concern, the mutual nexus between traditional-cum-modern scholarship supplements each other concerning different exegetical modes concerning cultural fluctuations depending upon the scholar’s capability of inference and insight. All these factors revolve around the various modes integrating the whole concept intermingling number of facets collectively that may project the possible Whole Part Relation Paradigm (WPRP) with a homogeneous view. It leads one to know, highlight, and demonstrates the Qur’ānic weltanschauung.