8,201 research outputs found

    Towards a circular economy: A cross-case analysis of recycling in three South African towns

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    The concept of circular economy includes three aspects from a human perspective, namely Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Studying human behaviour is important in understanding and evaluating the possible success of any of the three elements. We explored the link between household waste practices and local governments’ ability to provide proper waste management, as stipulated in the South African Constitution, as well as the factors linked to different waste management practices through a crosscase analysis using a mixed-method research design. Households in Calvinia, Philippolis and Polokwane handle waste differently due to different levels of municipal waste services rendered and the availability of local recycling options

    Guidelines for Impact Assessment in Law Drafting

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    These guidelines replace the Guidelines for Impact Assessment in Law Drafting issued by the Government in 2007. The purpose of the revised guidelines is to improve the quality of impact assessments and thus the acts to be drafted. The guidelines help law drafters plan impact assessments, identify and assess different types of impacts and, where necessary, seek further information. The first part of the guidelines lays down general principles for impact assessments. This part deals with starting points for an impact assessment, the stages of the impact assessment as part of the law drafting process, the special features of impact assessments in projects concerning EU legislation and treaties, and information collection, methods and documentation in connection with impact assessments. The second part of the guidelines provides instructions on special questions related to the assessment of different types of impacts. The guidelines describe what the different types of impacts mean, how they can be assessed, and what information sources are available for this purpose. The impacts to be assessed are divided into economic impacts, environmental impacts and other human and societal impacts. In addition, the guidelines contain a checklist for the impact assessment process, a checklist for the identification of impacts and a list of further instructions and information sources referred to in the guidelines

    Openness in Education as a Praxis: From Individual Testimonials to Collective Voices

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    Why is Openness in Education important, and why is it critically needed at this moment? As manifested in our guiding question, the significance of Openness in Education and its immediate necessity form the heart of this collaborative editorial piece. This rather straightforward, yet nuanced query has sparked this collective endeavour by using individual testimonies, which may also be taken as living narratives, to reveal the value of Openness in Education as a praxis. Such testimonies serve as rich, personal narratives, critical introspections, and experience-based accounts that function as sources of data. The data gleaned from these narratives points to the understanding of Openness in Education as a complex, multilayered concept intricately woven into an array of values. These range from aspects such as sharing, access, flexibility, affordability, enlightenment, barrier-removal, empowerment, care, individual agency, trust, innovation, sustainability, collaboration, co-creation, social justice, equity, transparency, inclusivity, decolonization, democratisation, participation, liberty, and respect for diversity. This editorial, as a product of collective endeavour, invites its readers to independently engage with individual narratives, fostering the creation of unique interpretations. This call stems from the distinctive character of each narrative as they voice individual researchers’ perspectives from around the globe, articulating their insights within their unique situational contexts

    Urbanised forested landscape: Urbanisation, timber extraction and forest care on the Vișeu Valley, northern Romania

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    By looking at urbanisation processes from the vantage point of the forest, and the ways in which it both constitutes our living space while having been separated from the bounded space of the urban in modern history, the thesis asks: How can we (re)imagine urbanisation beyond the limits of the urban? How can a feminine line of thinking engage with the forest beyond the capitalist-colonial paradigm and its extractive project? and How can we “think with care” (Puig de la Bellacasa 2017) towards the forest as an inhabitant of our common world, instead of perpetuating the image of the forest as a space outside the delimited boundaries of the city? Through a case study research, introducing the Vișeu Valley in northern Romania as both a site engaged in the circulation of the global timber flow, a part of what Brenner and Schmid (2014) name “planetary urbanisation”, where the extractive logging operations beginning in the late XVIIIth century have constructed it as an extractive landscape, and a more than human landscape inhabited by a multitude of beings (animal, plant, and human) the thesis argues towards the importance of forest care and indigenous knowledge in landscape management understood as a trans-generational transmission of knowledge, that is interdependent with the persistence of the landscape as such. Having a trans-scalar approach, the thesis investigates the ways in which the extractive projects of the capitalist-colonial paradigm have and still are shaping forested landscapes across the globe in order to situate the case as part of a planetary forest landscape and the contemporary debates it is engaged in. By engaging with emerging paradigms within the fields of plant communication, forestry, legal scholarship and landscape urbanism that present trees and forests as intelligent beings, and look at urbanisation as a way of inhabiting the landscape in both indigenous and modern cultures, the thesis argues towards viewing forested landscapes as more than human living spaces. Thinking urbanisation through the case of the Vișeu Valley’s urbanised forested landscape, the thesis aligns with alternate ways of viewing urbanisation as co-habitation with more than human beings, particularly those emerging from interdisciplinary research in the Amazon river basin (Tavares 2017, Heckenberger 2012) and, in light of emerging discourses on the rights of nature, proposes an expanded concept of planetary citizenship, to include non-human personhood

    Visual Programming Paradigm for Organizations in Multi-Agent Systems

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    Over the past few years, due to a fast digitalization process, business activities witnessed the adoption of new technologies, such as Multi-Agent Systems, to increase the autonomy of their activities. However, the complexity of these technologies often hinders the capability of domain experts, who do not possess coding skills, to exploit them directly. To take advantage of these individuals' expertise in their field, the idea of a user-friendly and accessible Integrated Development Environment arose. Indeed, efforts have already been made to develop a block-based visual programming language for software agents. Although the latter project represents a huge step forward, it does not provide a solution for addressing complex, real-world use cases where interactions and coordination among single entities are crucial. To address this problem, Multi-Agent Oriented Programming introduces organization as a first-class abstraction for designing and implementing Multi-Agent Systems. Therefore, this thesis aims to provide a solution allowing users to impose an organization on top of the agents easily. Since ease of use and intuitiveness remain the key points for this project, users will be able to define organizations through visual language and an intuitive development environment

    Implications of the blockchain technology adoption by additive symbiotic networks

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    Funding Information: Funding: This work was supported by Fundação para a CiĂȘncia e Tecnologia, Lisboa, Portugal [Grant No SFRH/BD/145448/2019 and via the project UIDB/00667/2020 (UNIDEMI)]. Publisher Copyright: © 2023A vibrant debate has been initiated around the potential adoption of blockchain technology for enhancing the development of industrial symbiosis networks, particularly for promoting the creation of additive symbiotic networks. Despite the potential benefits of trust creation and elimination of intermediary entities, adopting such innovative technologies promises to disrupt the current supply chains of those symbiotic networks. The literature on these topics is still beginning; thus, the present research intends to contribute. A framework for understanding the implications of adopting the blockchain technology in the supply chain structure (specifically, in the dependency dimension) of an additive symbiotic network was developed, considering a network theory lens. The case study method was deemed to be suitable for carrying out this research. A case study related to an additive symbiotic network is described in detail, with the development of two scenarios: scenario I “as-is” for the current state of the network and scenario II “to-be” considering the adoption of the blockchain technology. Results show that adopting blockchain technology impacts the supply chain structure of additive symbiotic networks. More specifically, there are implications for the power distribution among the network's stakeholders.publishersversionpublishe

    Knitting Circular Ties: Empowering Networks for the Social Enterprise-led Local Development of an Integrative Circular Economy

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    Circular economy (CE) discourse primarily focuses on business-as-usual and resource-related economic processes whilst overlooking relational-spatial aspects, especially networking for local development. There are, however, many mission-driven social enterprises (SEs) engaging in short-loop activities at the neighbourhood and city scales (e.g., reuse, upcycling, refurbishing or repair). Such localised activities are often overlooked by mainstreampolicies, yet they could be vital to the local development of the CE into a more socio-environmentally integrated set of localised social structures and relations. This paper examines the role of SEs, their networks and structures in building a more socially integrated CE in the City of Hull (UK). Drawing upon the Social Network Analysisapproach and semi-structured interviews with 31 case study SEs representing variegated sectors (e.g., food, wood/furniture, textiles, arts & crafts, hygiene, construction/housing, women, elderly, ethnic minorities, homeless, prisoners, mentally struggling), it maps SEs’ cross-sector relationships with private, public and socialsector organizations. It then considers how these network constellations could be ‘woven’ into symbiotic relationships between SEs whilst fostering knowledge spillovers and resource flows for the local development of a more socially integrative CE. We contend that integrating considerations of SEs’ organizational attributes andtheir socio-spatial positioning within networks and social structures offers new insights into the underlying power relations and variegated levels of trust within the emergent social-circular enterprise ecosystem. These aspects are presented in the form of a comprehensive heuristic framework, which reveals how respective organizational and network characteristics may impact SEs’ performance outcomes and, ultimately, a more integrated approach to local CE development

    Beaver Management Groups: Capturing lessons from the River Otter Beaver Trial and River Tamar Catchment

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    This is the final version. Available from Natural England via the link in this recordThis commissioned report is a social science case study of how beaver management groups are forming around the unofficial beaver populations. It draws on findings from a previous, peer-reviewed study that captured the experiences of stakeholders involved in governing the River Otter Beaver Trial (ROBT) (Renewed Coexistence: Learning from Steering Group Stakeholders on a Beaver Reintroduction Project in England, 2022), and explores the applicability of those findings to the River Tamar. The findings of the report can be applied to other settings and inform the development of other Beaver Management Groups. The findings were that Beaver Management Groups can be adaptive structures that evolve in reflection of changing circumstances and new learning. Rather than being a fixed governance structure therefore, Beaver Management Groups themselves are a process, that seeks to facilitate renewed coexistence between humans and beavers in catchment settings. Three key stages to in the beaver management group process were identified: ‘Formation’, ‘Functioning’, and ‘Future?’. It also considers the external factors at play at each stage of the process
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