Understanding Game-based Approaches for Improving Sustainable Water Governance : The Potential of Serious Games to Solve Water Problems

The sustainable governance of water resources relies on processes of multi-stakeholder collaborations and interactions that facilitate knowledge co-creation and social learning. Governance systems are often fragmented, forming a barrier to adequately addressing the myriad of challenges affecting water resources, including climate change, increased urbanized populations, and pollution. Transitions towards sustainable water governance will likely require innovative learning partnerships between public, private, and civil society stakeholders. It is essential that such partnerships involve vertical and horizontal communication of ideas and knowledge, and an enabling and democratic environment characterized by informal and open discourse. There is increasing interest in learning-based transitions. Thus far, much scholarly thinking and, to a lesser degree, empirical research has gone into understanding the potential impact of social learning on multi-stakeholder settings. The question of whether such learning can be supported by forms of serious gaming has hardly been asked. This Special Issue critically explores the potential of serious games to support multi-stakeholder social learning and collaborations in the context of water governance. Serious games may involve simulations of real-world events and processes and are challenge players to solve contemporary societal problems; they, therefore, have a purpose beyond entertainment. They offer a largely untapped potential to support social learning and collaboration by facilitating access to and the exchange of knowledge and information, enhancing stakeholder interactions, empowering a wider audience to participate in decision making, and providing opportunities to test and analyze the outcomes of policies and management solutions. Little is known about how game-based approaches can be used in the context of collaborative water governance to maximize their potential for social learning. While several studies have reported examples of serious games, there is comparably less research about how to assess the impacts of serious games on social learning and transformative change

Transdisciplinary Research Priorities for Human and Planetary Health in the Context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Part of a Special Issue Ten Years of Urgent Action: Global Environmental Threats to Health and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable DevelopmentHuman health and wellbeing and the health of the biosphere are inextricably linked. The state of Earth’s life-support systems, including freshwater, oceans, land, biodiversity, atmosphere, and climate, affect human health. At the same time, human activities are adversely affecting natural systems. This review paper is the outcome of an interdisciplinary workshop under the auspices of the Future Earth Health Knowledge Action Network (Health KAN). It outlines a research agenda to address cross-cutting knowledge gaps to further understanding and management of the health risks of these global environmental changes through an expert consultation and review process. The research agenda has four main themes: (1) risk identification and management (including related to water, hygiene, sanitation, and waste management); food production and consumption; oceans; and extreme weather events and climate change. (2) Strengthening climate-resilient health systems; (3) Monitoring, surveillance, and evaluation; and (4) risk communication. Research approaches need to be transdisciplinary, multi-scalar, inclusive, equitable, and broadly communicated. Promoting resilient and sustainable development are critical for achieving human and planetary health.Peer reviewe

Analysis an development of a prototype based on media wiki and semantic media wiki integrated with a design modeling that allows modeling of organizations based on demo

In a world where organizations are ever more complex the need for the knowledge of the organizational self is a growing necessity. The DEMO methodology sets a goal in achieving the specification of the organizational self capturing the essence of the organization in way independent of its implementation and also coherent, consistent, complete, modular and objective. But having such organization self notion is of little meaning if this notion is not shared by the organization actors. To achieve this goal in a society that has grown attached to technology and where time is of utmost importance, using a tool such as a semantic Wikipedia may be the perfect way of making the information accessible. However, to establish DEMO methodology in such platform there is a need to create bridges between its modeling components and semantic Wikipedia. It’s in that aspect that our thesis focuses, trying to establish and implement, using a study case, the principles of a way of transforming the DEMO methodology diagrams in comprehensive pages on semantic Wikipedia but keeping them as abstract as possible to allow expansibility and generalization to all diagrams without losing any valuable information so that, if that is the wish, those diagrams may be recreated from the semantic pages and make this process a full cycle.Universidade da Madeir

Transdisciplinary Research Priorities for Human and Planetary Health in the Context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Ebi KL, Harris F, Sioen GB, et al. Transdisciplinary Research Priorities for Human and Planetary Health in the Context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. International journal of environmental research and public health. 2020;17(23): 8890.Human health and wellbeing and the health of the biosphere are inextricably linked. The state of Earth's life-support systems, including freshwater, oceans, land, biodiversity, atmosphere, and climate, affect human health. At the same time, human activities are adversely affecting natural systems. This review paper is the outcome of an interdisciplinary workshop under the auspices of the Future Earth Health Knowledge Action Network (Health KAN). It outlines a research agenda to address cross-cutting knowledge gaps to further understanding and management of the health risks of these global environmental changes through an expert consultation and review process. The research agenda has four main themes: (1) risk identification and management (including related to water, hygiene, sanitation, and waste management); food production and consumption; oceans; and extreme weather events and climate change. (2) Strengthening climate-resilient health systems; (3) Monitoring, surveillance, and evaluation; and (4) risk communication. Research approaches need to be transdisciplinary, multi-scalar, inclusive, equitable, and broadly communicated. Promoting resilient and sustainable development are critical for achieving human and planetary health

In Depth Look Into The Transformational Leadership Of Southern University And Agricultural & Mechanical College At Baton Rouge: A Focus On Engaging Economy, Diversity, And Implications For Community

Deficiencies in economic resources and unwelcoming practices toward diversity represent two issues facing current American higher education institutions. Budget deficits have plagued higher education across America, and especially here in Louisiana. As a result, higher education institutions in Louisiana have become, and continue to be, targets for state funding cuts, with certain HBCUs, like Southern University, suffering the brunt of the cuts because of decades of inadequate funding. Along with revenue shortfalls, Louisiana institutions and others across America are seeing demands to strategize diversity efforts. As most institutions follow federal guidelines to diversify the campus, some are facing challenges because they tolerate diversity but do not necessarily accept it. In recent years, just like in years past, students and other constituents of higher education institutions have protested injustices where minority students were discriminated against. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are facing diversity issues also, but in a somewhat different way. HBCUs, such as Southern University and Agricultural & Mechanical College (Southern University), are facing diversity challenges that question their very existence. Since their inception, HBCUs have seen injustices, financial inequalities, and now post-desegregation criticism as to why they still exist when Black students can attend Predominately White Universities. Although they were not formed in segregation, but rather because of it, HBCUs have continued to show their significance. This body of research takes residence at one particular HBCU, Southern University and Agricultural & Mechanical College. It gives a narrative focused on methods a transformational leader uses to engage economic and diversity issues that the university faces. This research also looks for implications of community culture on the campus

Making Pushkar Paradise: Religion, Tourism, and Belonging in a North Indian Pilgrimage Town

This dissertation is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Pushkar, India, a Hindu pilgrimage site that doubles as an international tourist destination with an influx of two million visitors each year. Here, I explore the massive enterprise on the part of Pushkar locals to build “heaven on earth,” paying particular attention to how the articulation of sacred space works alongside economic changes brought on by globalization and tourism. Central to my work is an investigation of how tourism and global thinking affect everyday life in this pilgrimage site, and how Hindu ideas—about religion, identity, and belonging—shape the contours of tourism; the goal, then, is to show how religion and tourism are in fact mutually constitutive. In examining the entanglements of making Pushkar paradise, I look to a number of different topics: beliefs about Hindu universalism and how its principles incorporate people from outside of the Hindu fold; ritual repertoires that brahmans perform on behalf of their clients in order to propitiate the gods; mythic tales that boast of Pushkar’s greatness, printed in 5-rupee pamphlets or narrated by priests at the lake; environmental action taken up by locals worried about lake pollution; and guided tours designed to promote the kind of atmosphere where people from around the world can feel as if they belong