Women, decision making and sustainability: Exploring the experience of the Badi Foundation in rural China

Beginning in 1994, international conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity have increasingly encouraged the use of collaborative processes at the local level to manage and protect community resources. Participation on the part of women in particular, in such decision making processes has been advanced and supported by the International Conference on Population and Development (1994), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002), and the 2005 World Summit. While such international conventions do not have binding legal effect, such instruments provide a moral force acknowledging the pivotal role women play in sustainable development and decision making at the grass roots. Such processes involve stakeholders from the public and private sectors who consult together in order to arrive at shared goals regarding resource use and planning. While much scholarship has focused on the requirements and parameters of such participatory decision making processes, little systematic attention has been given to the question of how capacities for genuine participation in local decision making, consultation and collaboration are developed, and the important role of scientific understanding and empowerment in this process. This paper will explore this question through a participatory research approach

After Lehman: international response to financial disputes – a focus on Hong Kong

Recent global financial dislocation has provided an impetus for examining effective avenues for the resolution of financial disputes. Hong Kong, like many financial centers throughout the world, has been directly affected by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Its response to the collapse has included a creative mix of regulatory strengthening and government sponsored mediation and arbitration. Each of these alternative mechanisms of resolution provides a useful case study of the prospects of the use of ADR in response to financial crises. The efficacy of such interventions will be reviewed and options for the future development of a multi-tier dispute resolution system in Hong Kong will be explored

Phencyclidine and (+)-MK-801-induced circling preference: correlation with monoamine levels in striatum of the rat brain

Phencyclidine (PCP; angel dust) is a drug of abuse known to produce a behavioral state in humans resembling schizophrenia/psychosis. PCP is a noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist and produces a variety of behaviors in rats including circling. The behavioral effects of other noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonists such as (+)-MK-801 are still being elucidated. Here, adult female rats were dosed with PCP (10 mg/kg, IP), or (+)-MK-801 (0.1 mg/kg, IP) and circling preference was recorded for 2 h before sacrifice to determine monoamine levels by HPLC/EC. Animals injected with PCP or (+)-MK-801 showed a preference to turn to the left (65% and 72%, respectively). PCP and (+)-MK-801 also produced a significant increase of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and homovanillic acid (HVA) in whole striatum on both sides of the brain. Further dissection of the striatum into medioventral and dorsolateral regions revealed that HVA was increased bilaterally except in globus pallidus where we found significant increases in dopamine (DA), DOPAC, and HVA only on the left side after PCP and (+)-MK-801 administration. These data suggest that PCP and (+)-MK-801 produce a greater preference to turn left than right, a finding similar to that found in human psychosis. Furthermore, it is possible that this preference to turn toward the left hemispace is due to an asymmetry in dopamine function found in the globus pallidus after administration of PCP and similar drugs

Dynamic priority-based efficient resource allocation and computing framework for vehicular multimedia cloud computing

© 2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works In intelligent transportation system, smart vehicles are equipped with a variety of sensing devices those offer various multimedia applications and services related to smart driving assistance, weather forecasting, traffic congestion information, road safety alarms, and many entertainment and comfort-related applications. These smart vehicles produce a massive amount of multimedia related data that required fast and real-time processing which cannot be fully handled by the standalone onboard computing devices due to their limited computational power and storage capacities. Therefore, handling such multimedia applications and services demanded changes in the underlaying networking and computing models. Recently, the integration of vehicles with cloud computing is emerged as a challenging computing paradigm. However, there are certain challenges related to multimedia contents processing, (i.e., resource cost, fast service response time, and quality of experience) that severely affect the performance of vehicular communication. Thus, in this paper, we propose an efficient resource allocation and computation framework for vehicular multimedia cloud computing to overcome the aforementioned challenges. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated in terms of quality of experience, service response time, and resource cost by using the Cloudsim simulator

Sustainable supply chain management trends in world regions: A data-driven analysis

This study proposes a data-driven analysis that describes the overall situation and reveals the factors hindering improvement in the sustainable supply chain management field. The literature has presented a summary of the evolution of sustainable supply chain management across attributes. Prior studies have evaluated different parts of the supply chain as independent entities. An integrated systematic assessment is absent in the extant literature and makes it necessary to identify potential opportunities for research direction. A hybrid of data-driven analysis, the fuzzy Delphi method, the entropy weight method and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory is adopted to address uncertainty and complexity. This study contributes to locating the boundary of fundamental knowledge to advance future research and support practical execution. Valuable direction is provided by reviewing the existing literature to identify the critical indicators that need further examination. The results show that big data, closed-loop supply chains, industry 4.0, policy, remanufacturing, and supply chain network design are the most important indicators of future trends and disputes. The challenges and gaps among different geographical regions is offered that provides both a local viewpoint and a state-of-the-art advanced sustainable supply chain management assessment

Large CP Violation in B_s Meson Mixing with EDM constraint in Supersymmetry

Motivated by the recent measurement of the like-sign dimuon charge asymmetry, we investigate anomalous CP violation in the B_s- bar{B}_s mixing within the supersymmetry. We show that when gluino diagrams dominate supersymmetry contributions, it is very difficult to realize a large B_s- bar{B}_s mixing phase under the constraint from electric dipole moments barring cancellations. This constraint can be ameliorated by supposing superparticles decoupled. In this limit, we find that it is possible to achieve the large CP asymmetry, and the branching ratio of B_s -> mu^+ mu^- tends to become sizable.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Prevalence and Correlates of Common Mental Disorders among Mothers of Young Children in Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania.

Although poor maternal mental health is a major public health problem, with detrimental effects on the individual, her children and society, information on its correlates in low-income countries is sparse. This study investigates the prevalence of common mental disorders (CMD) among at-risk mothers, and explores its associations with sociodemographic factors. This population-based survey of mothers of children aged 0-36 months used the 14-item Shona Symptom Questionnaire (SSQ). Mothers whose response was "yes" to 8 or more items on the scale were defined as "at risk of CMD." Of the 1,922 mothers (15-48 years), 28.8% were at risk of CMD. Risk of CMD was associated with verbal abuse, physical abuse, a partner who did not help with the care of the child, being in a polygamous relationship, a partner with low levels of education, and a partner who smoked cigarettes. Cohabiting appeared to be protective. Taken together, our results indicate the significance of the quality of relations with one's partner in shaping maternal mental health. The high proportion of mothers who are at risk of CMD emphasizes the importance of developing evidence-based mental health programmes as part of the care package aimed at improving maternal well-being in Tanzania and other similar settings

Circular economy needs the resilient systems in COVID-19 pandemic

This note reveals the gaps from circular economy (CE) and resilience in the literature during COVID-19 pandemic. The disruptive event affects the circularity in the supply chain due to numerous single-use-products in food, health, plastic industries. The unsustainable production and consumption is harmful for social, ecological, and economic systems. The industrial practices need a highly resilient network to have better visibility and agility to shift sourcing. Prior studies reveal the gap that CE needs the resilient systems. Still, there is a need to conceptualize and models resilience in CE studies using quantitative and qualitative approaches

A telephone survey of cancer awareness among frontline staff: informing training needs

Background: Studies have shown limited awareness about cancer risk factors among hospital-based staff. Less is known about general cancer awareness among community frontline National Health Service and social care staff. Methods: A cross-sectional computer-assisted telephone survey of 4664 frontline community-based health and social care staff in North West England. Results: A total of 671 out of 4664 (14.4%) potentially eligible subjects agreed to take part. Over 92% of staff recognised most warning signs, except an unexplained pain (88.8%, n=596), cough or hoarseness (86.9%, n=583) and a sore that does not heal (77.3%, n=519). The bowel cancer-screening programme was recognised by 61.8% (n=415) of staff. Most staff agreed that smoking and passive smoking ‘increased the chance of getting cancer.’ Fewer agreed about getting sunburnt more than once as a child (78.0%, n=523), being overweight (73.5%, n=493), drinking more than one unit of alcohol per day (50.2%, n=337) or doing less than 30 min of moderate physical exercise five times a week (41.1%, n=276). Conclusion: Cancer awareness is generally good among frontline staff, but important gaps exist, which might be improved by targeted education and training and through developing clearer messages about cancer risk factors