5,390 research outputs found

    Information actors beyond modernity and coloniality in times of climate change:A comparative design ethnography on the making of monitors for sustainable futures in Curaçao and Amsterdam, between 2019-2022

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    In his dissertation, Mr. Goilo developed a cutting-edge theoretical framework for an Anthropology of Information. This study compares information in the context of modernity in Amsterdam and coloniality in Curaçao through the making process of monitors and develops five ways to understand how information can act towards sustainable futures. The research also discusses how the two contexts, that is modernity and coloniality, have been in informational symbiosis for centuries which is producing negative informational side effects within the age of the Anthropocene. By exploring the modernity-coloniality symbiosis of information, the author explains how scholars, policymakers, and data-analysts can act through historical and structural roots of contemporary global inequities related to the production and distribution of information. Ultimately, the five theses propose conditions towards the collective production of knowledge towards a more sustainable planet

    A Critical Review Of Post-Secondary Education Writing During A 21st Century Education Revolution

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    Educational materials are effective instruments which provide information and report new discoveries uncovered by researchers in specific areas of academia. Higher education, like other education institutions, rely on instructional materials to inform its practice of educating adult learners. In post-secondary education, developmental English programs are tasked with meeting the needs of dynamic populations, thus there is a continuous need for research in this area to support its changing landscape. However, the majority of scholarly thought in this area centers on K-12 reading and writing. This paucity presents a phenomenon to the post-secondary community. This research study uses a qualitative content analysis to examine peer-reviewed journals from 2003-2017, developmental online websites, and a government issued document directed toward reforming post-secondary developmental education programs. These highly relevant sources aid educators in discovering informational support to apply best practices for student success. Developmental education serves the purpose of addressing literacy gaps for students transitioning to college-level work. The findings here illuminate the dearth of material offered to developmental educators. This study suggests the field of literacy research is fragmented and highlights an apparent blind spot in scholarly literature with regard to English writing instruction. This poses a quandary for post-secondary literacy researchers in the 21st century and establishes the necessity for the literacy research community to commit future scholarship toward equipping college educators teaching writing instruction to underprepared adult learners

    Chinese Knitwear Brands: The need for creative design to result in global business success

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    Chinese cashmere knitwear companies have become suppliers of international fashion brands because of their technological excellence, advantages of raw materials and competitive prices. However, their in-house brands are steadily declining. In the past 15 years, Chinese cashmere brands have progressively lost their market share to Chinese and Western fashion brands, with a few notable exceptions. Their brands lack differentiation from other Chinese competitors, causing low price competition, which contributes to sustainability issues such as unsold stock and material/manpower waste. The decline is likely to continue as the brands serve only an ageing market, rather than attracting younger generations to their products. Chinese cashmere companies invest little in design, which is a significant limitation for improving the brands’ opportunity to become successful and sustainable businesses. This study looks for solutions from the design perspective. The research aimed to investigate what design can do to help deal with the current problems of the Chinese knitwear brands to improve their prospects for future business success. The objectives of the study were to enquire into the challenges and opportunities facing the Chinese knitwear sector, to evaluate current design practice in knitwear brands, to understand how design and brand management can be integrated to generate a sustainable brand. Research questions were developed to explore the brand and design problems, the role of design and organisational structure, what the barriers and enablers for a thriving design culture were alongside possible solutions for design improvement. A pragmatic philosophy underpinned research design, guiding the adoption of methods in response to research questions. Interviews with stakeholders from both the knitwear industry and design education were undertaken. In addition, a case study using design action research with immersive field research was developed for investigating the knitwear brand issues; furthermore, a knitwear collection was created using western design approaches to demonstrate an exemplar design process for the sector and to illustrate the differences to current Chinese design methods. The study argues the obstacles to design culture enrichment in Chinese knitwear brands was caused by their design context, lack of brand positioning, limited understanding of their consumers and business models that are not fit for purpose. An absence of experienced leadership creates unclear design direction, instead of collections centred around a theme; Chinese brands sell unconnected designs. Brands lack the distinct brand characteristics that distinguish them from their competitors. The contribution to knowledge made by this study includes the identification of the reasons for the decline in Chinese cashmere brands, an understanding of their barriers to design culture to developing good designs and it also highlights the lack of awareness of sustainability issues in the sector. The study sheds new light on the rarely acknowledged issue of how to upgrade these brands as modern business for younger consumers, and how to enrich the design culture for brand business growth within sustainable contexts. The thesis analyses in depth the causes for the decline in these brands and makes recommendations for how design can make a contribution to reversing the brands’ decline and increasing their sustainability

    Possessing Amazonia: Global Disputes over the Amazon Basins and the Guiana Highlands (c.1840-c.1900)

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    Grounded on an integrated and global history of Amazonia, this research concerns the intersection between boundary making, the rise of nation-states and modern globalization. Taking South America Amazonia and the Guianas as field of study, our central enquiry is approached from a diachronic historical perspective, which serves our aim of writing a history of mutual recognition, relationships, and influences in remote frontier territories. The central problem to be interrogated, lies in the relation between process of connectedness, the emergence of new codes, symbols, and also ideas related to national states. Then, our aim is to identify the dimension and nature of the late territorial expansion of European empires in South America, the way official and alternative projects in border negotiations emerged in the late nineteenth century. Furthermore, we aim to see how economic and political schemes of colonization failed to establish new colonization schemes, this is, breaking the remoteness. This process connects with the struggle of imperial/national states to deal with distance, remote areas and, more importantly, with the people who lived and produced territory in these ‘isolated’ borderlands. Border arbitrations mapped these areas in search of historical sovereignty, yet found them replete with indigenous territorialities and alternative projects. This ‘clash of territorialities’ is the subject of this research. In this perspective, we reject conservative approaches towards territoriality, and constructivists’ interpretations that take the nation-state and nationalism as result of elites making goal. We conclude that Amazonia as an ‘opened frontier’ was the center of several clashes of territoriality, not only between European powers and new national states, but also between indigenous/black communities living via moving towards the remoteness as a region of refuge.The nation-state was only an option regarding the state building contingency; and boundary making was the creative element that gave ground for national narratives and cartographic anxieties of the fin de siècle. The history of the remote as an approach proposes, then, to overcome the difficulties of studying processes of connection, encounters, and globalization in an integrated perspective.Baseada numa história integrada e global da Amazónia, esta investigação incide sobre a intersecção entre a definição de fronteiras, a ascensão dos Estados-nação e a globalização moderna. Tomando como laboratório a Amazónia e as Guianas da América do Sul, o nosso inquérito central é abordado a partir de uma perspetiva histórica diacrónica, que serve o nosso objetivo de escrever uma história de reconhecimentos e influências mútuas, assim como relações e conexões em territórios fronteiriços remotos. O problema central a ser interrogado reside na relação entre o processo de estabelecer interdependência/conexões, a emergência de novos códigos, símbolos, e ideias relacionadas com os estados nacionais. O nosso objetivo central é identificar a dimensão e a natureza da expansão territorial tardia dos impérios europeus na América do Sul, a forma como os projetos oficiais e alternativos nas regiões fronteiriças emergiram em finais do século XIX, e como os novos esquemas económicos e políticos de colonização não conseguiram se estabelecer, isto é, romper o remoto. Esse processo está ligado à luta dos Estados imperiais/nacionais para lidar com a distância, áreas remotas e, mais importante ainda, com os povos que viveram e produziram território nestas terras fronteiriças ‘isoladas’. As arbitragens fronteiriças mapearam estas áreas em busca da soberania histórica, mas encontraram-nas repletas de territorialidades indígenas e projetos alternativos. Este ‘choque de territorialidades’ é o tema desta investigação. Nesta perspetiva, rejeitamos abordagens conservadoras sobre territorialidades e interpretações construtivistas que tomam o Estado-nação e o nacionalismo como resultado de projetos elitistas horizontais. Concluímos que a Amazónia como ‘fronteira aberta’ foi o centro de vários choques de territorialidade, não só entre potências europeias e novos Estados nacionais, mas também entre comunidades pretas/indígenas que se moveram/viveram no remoto como uma região de refúgio; o Estado-nação era apenas uma opção na contingência da construção do Estado; as fronteiras foram os elementos criativos que deram terreno às narrativas nacionais e às ansiedades cartográficas do fin de siècle. A história do remoto como abordagem propõe, então, ultrapassar as dificuldades de estudar processos de conexão, encontros, e globalização numa perspectiva integrada

    The Relationship Between Customers’ Satisfaction and Trust in the Global Supply Chain and Profitability

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    The inability to meet customer demands and expectations impacts an organization’s profitability. Understanding and meeting customer needs are critical for the financial success of business owners. Grounded in the theory of constraints, the purpose of this quantitative ex post facto study was to examine the relationships between customers’ satisfaction and trust in the supply chain and profitability. Secondary data (n = 121) were collected from the Elsevier Research Database using archival data collected from an automotive factory. Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression, and the results were statistically significant, F (2, 118) = 264.347, p \u3c .001, R2 = .90. In the final model, both predictor variables were significant, customers’ satisfaction: mean wait time (t = 22.991, p \u3c .001, β = 16.23); and customers’ trust: minimum stock level (t = 7.306, p \u3c .001, β = .118). A key recommendation is for business leaders to satisfy customers and gain their trust by creating sufficient inventory stocking levels and improving replenishment timeframes that meet customers’ supply chain demands. The implications for positive social change include the opportunity for supply chain managers to develop an effective supply chain that may contribute to the quality of service that promotes success in regional markets, sustain growth, and allows for social development among the local community workforces

    Canada\u27s Evergreen Playground: A History of Snow in Vancouver

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    The City of Vancouver is not as snowy as the rest of Canada; rain, not snow, is its defining weather feature. But snow is a common seasonal occurrence, having fallen there nearly every winter since the 1850s. This dissertation places snow at the centre of the City of Vancouver’s history. It demonstrates how cultural and natural factors influenced human experiences and relationships with snow on the coast between the 1850s and 2000s. Following Vancouver’s incorporation, commercial and civic boosters constructed – and settlers adopted – what I call an evergreen mentality. Snow was reconceptualized as a rare and infrequent phenomenon. The evergreen mentality was not completely false, but it was not entirely true, either. This mindset has framed human relationships with snow in Vancouver ever since. While this idea was consistent, how coastal residents experienced snow evolved in response to societal developments (such as the rise of the automobile and the adoption of new snow-clearing technologies) and regional climate change. I show that the history of snow in Vancouver cannot be fully understood without incorporating the southern Coast Mountains. Snow was a connecting force between the coastal metropolis and mountainous hinterland. Settlers drew snowmelt to the urban environment for its energy potential and life-sustaining properties; snow drew settlers to the mountains for recreation and economic opportunities. Mountain snow became a valuable resource for coastal residents throughout the twentieth century. Human relationships with snow in the mountains were shaped, as they were in the city, by seasonal expectations, societal circumstances, and shifting climate conditions. In charting a history of snow in Vancouver and the southern Coast Mountains, this dissertation clears a new path in Canadian environmental historiography by bringing snow to the historiographical forefront. It does so in an urban space not known for snow, broadening the existing geography of snow historiography. In uncovering snow’s impact on year-round activities, this work also expands the field’s temporal boundaries. Through this work, one sees how snow helped to make Canada’s Evergreen Playground

    SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT FOR URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT PLANNING FOR UNCERTAINTY

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    The urban water sector is confronted with a multitude of challenges. Rapid population growth, changing political landscapes, aging water infrastructures, and the worsening climate crisis are creating a range of uncertainties in the sector around managing water. Scenarios have been used extensively in the environmental domain to plan for and capture uncertainties to develop plausible futures, including the field of urban water management. Scenarios are key in enabling plans and creating roadmaps to attain desired futures. Despite the advantages and opportunities that scenarios offer for planning, they also have limitations; generally, and within the urban water space. Firstly, the growing uncertainty surrounding urban water management systems necessitates a focused review specifically aimed at the use of scenarios in urban water management. This thesis presents a systematic review to empirically investigate the crucial dimensions of urban water scenarios. Through this review, key knowledge gaps are highlighted, and recommendations are proposed to address these gaps. Secondly, scenarios often depict distressing, almost dystopian futures. Though negative future visions help understand the consequences of present trends and aid in anticipating imminent threats, the limited exploration of positive future visions can make it challenging to find the direction to transform. Optimistic scenarios delve into what people want for the future and capture how their aspirations shape them. Imagining positive visions encourage innovative thinking, creates agency, and creates pathways to desired futures. There is therefore a recognition to move towards more positive, desirable futures. This thesis uses a narrative, participatory scenario process, the SEEDS method, to develop positive visions of urban water futures. The Greater Sydney region in New South Wales, Australia is used as a case study to evaluate the applicability of this approach for urban water management. The urban water sector in the Greater Sydney region faces a multitude of challenges including impacts from climate change, managing diverse water supply sources, and meeting future water demand. These challenges create an increasingly uncertain future for the water sector, where the scale and nature of water services needed in the Greater Sydney region can be unclear. Hence, the Greater Sydney region is selected as the case study region to apply the SEEDS method and develop scenarios for urban water management to plan for future uncertainties. Thirdly, only a few scenario studies include surprises, the unexpected events, which make scenarios useful for planning. Challenges around capturing surprises in scenarios include a lack of structured approaches as well as a lack of evaluation of those methods that have been developed. This thesis discusses the effectiveness and suitability of various surprise methods for scenario development. These methods have been applied in the context of the SEEDS method for urban water management. Finally, there is a lack of evaluation of the tools used to cope with surprises as well as a lack of evaluation efforts of urban water management scenario studies. The assessment of the SEEDS approach for urban water management as well as the different surprise methods for scenario development requires evaluation criteria. This thesis develops and presents an evaluation criteria list based on existing literature that captures key criteria required for adequate assessment of the surprise methods and the scenario process. This thesis contributes to the fields of scenario development and urban water management, and the use of surprises within scenarios. Critical gaps in existing urban water management scenario practices are highlighted and key recommendations are proposed to fill the gaps. Through the pilot study and full-scale implementation of a positive-visioning, narrative-based scenario approach - the SEEDS method, the thesis demonstrates that the SEEDS method is applicable for urban water planning and shows potential for use at different stages of water planning. The positive visions generated through the SEEDS method highlight fundamental aspirations for the urban water sector, possible challenges, and conflicts, and discuss pathways to achieve positive future visions. By using in-situ experimentation and engaging participants with expertise in the relevant field, this thesis provides a realistic evaluation of the scenario process and surprise methods. This thesis thus fills the critical gap about the lack of evaluation in urban water management scenario processes by assessing the scenario method using selected evaluation criteria. Further, the thesis contributes towards the development of quality surprise methods through application and evaluation, thus addressing the gap about the lack of evaluation of the methods used to explore surprise events. Finally, the lack of surprises in scenarios is addressed by presenting different methods that can be used to explore surprise events. Guidance is provided to researchers working with scenario development to understand the different surprise methods available and for choosing the appropriate method(s) to plan for uncertain futures

    Alternative Seafood - Exploring Pathways for Norway in the Protein Transition

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    Our global food system is facing major challenges. The growing global population and demand for animal proteins are driving resource pressures, environmental impacts, and hazardous health effects for humans and animals. If we are to feed the world without further destabilizing our planet, major transformations in our food systems are called for. This requires shifts towards sustainable and healthy diets, coupled with transitions to sustainable and equitable production systems. Meat and livestock production is gaining increased attention for being an environmental and health hazard. Seafood on the other hand has a reputation for being a healthy and sustainable alternative. However, seafood supply chains and fish farming systems are currently far from innocent. Industrial wild capture, fish farming and feed production are harming marine and terrestrial ecosystems alike, and the health and wellbeing of animals and humans. Along with the transition to renewable energy and a circular economy, a sustainable civilization calls for transitions toward alternative proteins and regenerative food systems – including a shift in seafood production. New technologies are opening possibilities for a phase-shift in how we produce food. Innovation in plant-based proteins, microbial fermentation and cellular agriculture are providing alternative ways of making the seafood and animal products we know and love – without any animals involved. These alternative proteins are accelerated by the convergence of biotechnology, information technologies, nanotechnologies, 3D-printing, sensors and the like. The fourth industrial revolution has reached the agro-food industry, with sustainable innovations disrupting the incumbent system, and opening up an ocean of opportunity. Megatrends such as the sustainability imperative and flexitarian movement are creating ripe conditions for change. In this research, we explore how Norway can contribute to the protein transition by leading the way in alternative seafood. Despite scarce activity in the space, Norway has an abundance of resources that could be leveraged for alternative proteins, ranging from natural resources to financial and cultural capital. We investigate opportunities, barriers, and strategies to drive forward value chains for this emerging industry, while ensuring a sustainable and just transition. The intended outcomes are foundations for a shared vision and strategy – a roadmap for building an innovation system that can enable new value chains and the protein transition in Norway. We apply pragmatic tools and theoretical frameworks to address this complex challenge - such as systems innovation, value chains, and sustainability transitions. Keywords: alternative proteins, alternative seafood, aquaculture, food systems, bioeconomy, sustainability transitions, socio-technical systems, multi-level perspective, value chains, technological innovation systems, innovation ecosystems, strategy, Norwa
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