Years of Good Life (YoGL): A new indicator for assessing sustainable progress

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) consist of 17 goals with 169 targets and 230 indicators. They provide a wide-ranging set of partly overlapping and partly contradictory social, economic and environmental goals which are important in their own rights but are almost impossible to measure in their entirety to assess whether overall there has been progress or not. This paper proposes the opposite approach; it defines one quantitative indicator for overall quality of life which can be applied to any sub-population of humans and over a long-term horizon, allowing for the inclusion of feedback from environmental change, and measuring whether there has been any genuine progress or not. We define this indicator as Years of Good Life (YoGL) which is based on the fact that in order to be able to enjoy any quality of life, first and foremost one has to be alive. While life expectancy is at the basis of this indicator, it also reflects that mere survival is not enough, life years need to be weighted by subjective and objective factors in order for them to measure years of good life. The objective variables considered are being in acceptable health (as measured by activity limitations), being out of poverty (as measured by a basic-needs approach) and being cognitively fit (as measured by tested literacy). These also refer to the dimensions of capable longevity as suggested by Sen. Only life years that both satisfy the minimum levels of these objective criteria, and at the same are time are associated with positive life satisfaction, as a subjective indicator, are counted as ʹgood years’ in the YoGL indicator. Technically, this is done on the basis of demographic life table methods where the person-years lived at each age are multiplied (following the Sullivan method) with the proportions of people at each age that are above the critical quality of life thresholds. This paper discusses the requirements needed for a new indicator, such as YoGL, to be used as a sustainability criterion and as the dependent variable of a well-being production function. These requirements include (1) the need to be based on observable individual characteristics that can be flexibly aggregated to (sub-) populations, and (2) have substantive meaning in its absolute level that can be compared across populations and over long timespans. The paper also compares this new indicator to other existing indicators in terms of theoretical framework, criteria and calculation methods, and discusses the advantages of YoGL with regards to meeting the specified criteria. It also includes examples for how YoGL can be calculated and estimated empirically based on survey data

Global nomads, cultural chameleons, strange ones or immigrants? An exploration of Third Culture Kid terminology with reference to the United Arab Emirates

© The Author(s) 2019. The term ‘Third Culture Kid’ (TCK) is commonly used to denote children living in a host culture other than their passport culture during their developmental years. However, its meaning in relation to other terminology referring to a similar concept is a source of interest for many stakeholders. This paper opens up opportunities for further exploring and critiquing the definition of TCK, and opening this up to case studies within the context of the United Arab Emirates and more widely. It is critical to clarify the terminology in light of unprecedented levels of international migration throughout the world. This paper reviews the meaning of culture in relation to TCKs, and explores the meaning of the TCK concept as well as a number of other terms used as alternatives to TCK. A contextualization of the literature follows in relation to the researchers’ own lived experiences in the United Arab Emirates. The term TCK can be seen as part of the general stock of theoretical concepts. This paper acknowledges that it cannot catch all nuances of migrant children in the global context

A GaAsSb/InP HBT circuit technology

A InP/GaAsSb/InP double-heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) structure has been defined, realized by MBE epitaxy, and optimized, thanks to simulation based on in-depth physical characterizations. A circuit-oriented technology has been developed, which has been validated by the design and fabrication of a full-rate (40 GHz clock) 40 Gbit/s D-FF

Focus Group Method:Doing Research Inclusively and Supporting Social Inclusion

This chapter relates to the inclusive or democratic turn in social science research. Increasingly researchers are seeking to shift the dynamics of research production away from doing research on people, mining them for information, and towards researching with participants and recognizing that research needs to be purposeful and beneficial for participants. One important way of doing this is by creating vibrant interactive spaces in which best use can be made of participants’ potential not just to contribute, but to learn from each other’s contributions and come to know themselves and their own situation a little better. Focus groups can create these spaces, especially when the researcher is alert to their inclusive and transformative potential and open to the idea of hybrids of focus groups and other methods. Taking a Freirean approach to the focus group method, the authors have been using focus groups to support participants’ power in the research process. This comes through embracing the praxis of defining their focus collaboratively and by embedding the research authority in the interactive space between individuals. The chapter shows how focus groups can be political or playful as a means of co-production. This will be illustrated using data from studies involving people with intellectual disabilities, where the mutual support among those in dialogue is evident. The authors argue that the experience of taking part in focus groups enhances the social inclusion of those involved