348 research outputs found

    Everything and nothing: A critical review of the “social” in Innovation and Entrepreneurship studies

    Get PDF
    Over the past two decades we have witnessed growing academic and policy interest in phenomena such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In these instances, the “social” element has often been described as a new or rediscovered category, indicating a normative predisposition to “elevate” existing or emerging innovation and entrepreneurship processes by identifying and promoting socially-acceptable standards of behavior and goal-setting. While previous reviews on social innovation have focused on the historical development of the concept and its role in academic debate, this article critically reviews the place of the “social” in current mainstream Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) studies. The aim is to understand how this literature has been evolving in relation to this element and to what extent this addition has promoted a radical shift in the research direction. Our review, based on selected articles from 16 I&E mainstream journals, advances a novel classification of the dominant approaches to the social dimension in I&E studies, identifying four main categories: disciplinary, integrationist, separationist, and essentialist. What emerges is that most I&E studies ignore, minimize, or compartmentalize the “social”, using it to extend existing frameworks rather than to evolve them. Indeed, while the “social” has been offering an avenue for critical views to challenge mainstream discourse, at present it does not seem to significantly affect the latter’s evolution.Over the past two decades we have witnessed growing academic and policy interest in phenomena such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In these instances, the “social” element has often been described as a new or rediscovered category, indicating a normative predisposition to “elevate” existing or emerging innovation and entrepreneurship processes by identifying and promoting socially-acceptable standards of behavior and goal-setting. While previous reviews on social innovation have focused on the historical development of the concept and its role in academic debate, this article critically reviews the place of the “social” in current mainstream Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) studies. The aim is to understand how this literature has been evolving in relation to this element and to what extent this addition has promoted a radical shift in the research direction. Our review, based on selected articles from 16 I&E mainstream journals, advances a novel classification of the dominant approaches to the social dimension in I&E studies, identifying four main categories: disciplinary, integrationist, separationist, and essentialist. What emerges is that most I&E studies ignore, minimize, or compartmentalize the “social”, using it to extend existing frameworks rather than to evolve them. Indeed, while the “social” has been offering an avenue for critical views to challenge mainstream discourse, at present it does not seem to significantly affect the latter’s evolution

    Everything and nothing: A critical review of the “social” in Innovation and Entrepreneurship studies

    Get PDF
    Over the past two decades we have witnessed growing academic and policy interest in phenomena such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In these instances, the “social” element has often been described as a new or rediscovered category, indicating a normative predisposition to “elevate” existing or emerging innovation and entrepreneurship processes by identifying and promoting socially-acceptable standards of behavior and goal-setting. While previous reviews on social innovation have focused on the historical development of the concept and its role in academic debate, this article critically reviews the place of the “social” in current mainstream Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) studies. The aim is to understand how this literature has been evolving in relation to this element and to what extent this addition has promoted a radical shift in the research direction. Our review, based on selected articles from 16 I&E mainstream journals, advances a novel classification of the dominant approaches to the social dimension in I&E studies, identifying four main categories: disciplinary, integrationist, separationist, and essentialist. What emerges is that most I&E studies ignore, minimize, or compartmentalize the “social”, using it to extend existing frameworks rather than to evolve them. Indeed, while the “social” has been offering an avenue for critical views to challenge mainstream discourse, at present it does not seem to significantly affect the latter’s evolution

    The role of wetlands in stormwater runoff for the Flint and Mutton Creek watersheds, Lake County, Illinois

    Get PDF
    "November 1993.""Prepared for the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission.""Office of Sediment & Wetland Studies.

    Critical trends assessment project report: trends in suspended sediments and sedimentation in Illinois streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs

    Get PDF
    Includes bibliographical references (p. 52)."Prepared for the Illinois Dept. of Energy and Natural Resources.

    Hydrologic Modeling of Landscape Functions of Wetlands

    Get PDF
    An extensive literature review of existing hydrologic and hydraulic models has been conducted to select a mathematical model suitable for simulating the dynamic processes of wetlands and their impact on the hydrologic responses of the watershed containing the wetlands. Due to the lack of a single suitable model, a base model was developed by incorporating watershed and channel-routing components from two of the reviewed models. This physically based, distributed-parameter model has been tested and applied to one of the selected test watersheds in Illinois to evaluate the impact of wetlands on the watershed hydrology. The simulation results indicate that the peakflow reduction due to the presence of wetlands is significant for wetland areas of up to 60 percent of the watershed area. The reduction in peakflow was observed to diminish with distance downstream of the wetland outlet, indicating that the influence of the wetlands decreases as the distance from the wetland increases. The model results cannot be generalized for other watersheds until the model has been tested and verified for several watersheds in different parts of Illinois.Ope

    Watershed Monitoring and Land Use Evaluation for the Lake Decatur Watershed

    Get PDF
    Lake Decatur is the water supply reservoir for the city of Decatur. The reservoir was created in 1922 by construction of a dam to impound the flow of the Sangamon River. The dam created a lake with a volume of 20,000 acre-feet, but was later modified in 1956 to increase the maximum capacity of the lake to 28,000 acre-feet. The drainage area of the Sangamon River upstream of Lake Decatur is 925 square miles.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

    Trends and causes of maternal mortality in Ethiopia during 1990-2013:Findings from the Global Burden of Diseases study 2013

    Get PDF
    Background: Maternal mortality is noticeably high in sub-Saharan African countries including Ethiopia. Continuous nationwide systematic evaluation and assessment of the problem helps to design appropriate policy and strategy in Ethiopia. This study aimed to investigate the trends and causes of maternal mortality in Ethiopia between 1990 and 2013. Methods: We used the Global Burden of Diseases and Risk factors (GBD) Study 2013 data that was collected from multiple sources at national and subnational levels. Spatio-temporal Gaussian Process Regression (ST-GPR) was applied to generate best estimates of maternal mortality with 95% Uncertainty Intervals (UI). Causes of death were measured using Cause of Death Ensemble modelling (CODEm). The modified UNAIDS EPP/SPECTRUM suite model was used to estimate HIV related maternal deaths. Results: In Ethiopia, a total of 16,740 (95% UI: 14,197, 19,271) maternal deaths occurred in 1990 whereas there were 15,234 (95% UI: 11,378, 19,871) maternal deaths occurred in 2013. This finding shows that Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in Ethiopia was still high in the study period. There was a minimal but insignificant change of MMR over the last 23 years. The results revealed Ethiopia is below the target of Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) related to MMR. The top five causes of maternal mortality in 2013 were other direct maternal causes such as complications of anaesthesia, embolism (air, amniotic fluid, and blood clot), and the condition of peripartum cardiomyopathy (25.7%), complications of abortions (19.6%), maternal haemorrhage (12.2%), hypertensive disorders (10.3%), and maternal sepsis and other maternal infections such as influenza, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis (9.6%). Most of the maternal mortality happened during the postpartum period and majority of the deaths occurred at the age group of 20-29 years. Overall trend showed that there was a decline from 708 per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 497 per 100,000 in 2013. The annual rate of change over these years was-1.6 (95% UI:-2.8 to-0.3). Conclusion: The findings of the study highlight the need for comprehensive efforts using multisectoral collaborations from stakeholders for reducing maternal mortality in Ethiopia. It is worthwhile for policies to focus on postpartum period

    Mortality and Disability-adjusted Life-years (DALYs) for common neglected tropical Diseases in Ethiopia, 1990 to 2015: evidence from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

    Get PDF
    Introduction: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are important public health problems in Ethiopia. In 2013, the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) has launched a national NTD master plan to eliminate major NTDs of public health importance by 2020. Benchmarking the current status of NTDs in the country is important to monitor and evaluate the progress in the implementation of interventions and their impacts. Therefore, this study aims to assess the trends of mortality and Disability-adjusted Life-Years (DALY) for the priority NTDs over the last 25 years. Methods: We used the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2015 estimates for this study. The GBD 2015 data source for cause of death and DALY estimation included verbal autopsy (VA), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), malaria indicator surveys (MICS) and other disease specific surveys, Ministry of Health reports submitted to United Nations (UN) agencies and published scientific articles. Cause of Death Ensemble modeling (CODEm) and/or natural history models were used to estimate malaria and NTDs mortality rates. DALY were estimated as the sum of Years of Life Lost (YLL) due to premature mortality and Years Lived with Disability (YLD). Results: All NTDs caused an estimated of 6,293 deaths (95% uncertainty interval (UI): 3699 – 10,080) in 1990 and 3,593 deaths (95% UI: 2051 – 6178) in 2015, a 70% reduction over the 25 years. Age-standardised mortality rates due to schistosomiasis, STH and leshmaniasis have declined by 91.3%, 73.5% and 21.6% respectively between 1990 to 2015. The number of DALYs due to all NTDs has declined from 814.4 thousand (95% UI: 548 thousand–1.2 million) in 1990 to 579.5 thousand (95%UI: 309.4 thousand – 1.3 million) in 2015. Age-standardised DALY rates due to all NTDs declined by 30.4%, from 17.6 per 1000(95%UI: 12.5-26.5) in 1990 to 12.2 per 1000(95%UI: 6.5 – 27.4) in 2015. Age-standardised DALY rate for trachoma declined from 92.7 per 100,000(95% UI: 63.2 – 128.4) in 1990 to 41.2 per 100,000(95%UI: 27.4 – 59.2) in 2015, a 55.6% reduction between 1990 and 2015. Age-standardised DALY rates for onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and lymphiatic filariasis decreased by 66.2%, 29.4% and 12.5% respectively between 1990 and 2015. DALY rate for ascariasis fell by 56.8% over the past 25 years. Conclusions: Ethiopia has made a remarkable progress in reducing the DALY rates for most of the NTDs over the last 25 years. The rapid scale of interventions and broader system strengthening may have a lasting impact on achieving the 2020 goal of elimination of most of NTDs. Ethiopia should strengthen the coverage of integrated interventions of NTD through proper coordination with other health programs and sectors and community participation to eliminate NTDs by 2020

    The burden of cardiovascular diseases in Ethiopia from 1990 to 2017: evidence from the Global Burden of Disease Study

    Get PDF
    In Ethiopia, evidence on the national burden of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) is limited. To address this gap, this systematic analysis estimated the burden of CVDs in Ethiopia using the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study data. The age-standardized CVD prevalence, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and mortality rates in Ethiopia were 5534 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 5310.09 - 5774.0), 3549.6 (95% UI 3229.0 - 3911.9) and 182.63 (95% UI 165.49 - 203.9) per 100 000 population, respectively. Compared with 1990, the age-standardized CVD prevalence rate in 2017 showed no change. But significant reductions were observed in CVD mortality (54.7%), CVD DALYs (57.7%) and all-cause mortality (53.4%). The top three prevalent CVDs were ischaemic heart disease, rheumatic heart disease and stroke in descending order. The reduction in the mortality rate due to CVDs is slower than for communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional disease mortalities. As a result, CVDs are the leading cause of mortality in Ethiopia. These findings urge Ethiopia to consider CVDs as a priority public health problem.publishedVersio
    • …
    corecore