The article presents the conclusions formulated on the basis of a qualitative analysis of diaries submitted by Polish teachers in response to the competition conducted in the years 2020-2021 by the Institute of Social Economy of the Warsaw School of Economics. The analysis of the diaries made it possible to answer questions about the condition of not only the teachers themselves, but also, and above all, about the emerging picture of the state of the Polish education system. The difficult times and new circumstances of school functioning during the pandemic highlighted the importance and essence of the teacher profession. However, these experiences also revealed the weaknesses of the education system, forcing us to look at the extent to which teachers are able to adequately recognize the situation of their activities, to what extent they have the ability to recognize the essence of “what is good and right”, how their awareness of their socio-professional role is shaped, what importance they attach to their work and what are their abilities to overcome extraordinary difficulties.The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for education that have resulted in profound changes in the way we think about school and its environment and about the work and professional development of teachers.

ABSTRACT The 2024 NCSA Presidential Address discusses the past and potential future impacts of natural disasters, including COVID-19, on the American people. This NCSA conference talk is based on two edited volumes previously published by Lexington Books in 2021 and 2023. Relevant theories, such as critical demography and historical categorical inequality, are introduced as starting points in the narrative. Next, descriptions of contributions to the volumes are provided, which covered topics such as criminal justice, demographics, economics, history, political science, and sociology to show how effects of natural disasters vary by economic and social class in the United States. Contributors also discussed specific dynamics related to COVID-19, including media responses to COVID-19, differential impacts on the poor, specific impacts on college students through technology, and how the intersection of race, class, and gender matter for natural disaster research. This talk examines social and political mechanisms in disaster response and relief, and then offers potential solutions to the accelerating inequality in America.

ABSTRACT Although the effects of air pollution on economics have been reflected in recent research, very little literature has explored whether enterprises are actively adopting digital transformation under the pressure of air pollution. Considering the serious air pollution in China and the importance of digital transformation, this study uses the panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies and air quality data, from 2014 to 2020, to investigate the impact of air pollution pressure on digital transformation. The results show that air pollution pressure forces enterprises to engage in digital transformation. The conclusion still holds after endogeneity and robustness tests. Further, a mechanism analysis indicates that air pollution pressure affects digital transformation through green cognition, green innovation, and government subsidies. Meanwhile, regional informatization positively moderates the relationship between air pollution pressure and three mechanisms. Finally, a heterogeneity analysis shows that air pollution significantly affects digital transformation in eastern regions, state-owned, capital-intensive, and technology-intensive enterprises.

Previous research identified influencing factors in sustainability of public services but exclusively in large local governments, despite the fact that depopulation is currently a serious problem that affects rural areas of many European countries. However, despite that >80 % of European municipalities have fewer than 5000 inhabitants, more work is needed on the factors influencing the financial sustainability of small local governments, that are being greatly affected by the loss of population. This study identifies influencing factors in the financial sustainability of local governments of different population sizes. We analyse the behaviour of 3625 Spanish municipalities during 2009–2017. Our findings are useful for public managers interested in promoting the financial sustainability of small municipalities as an instrument to fight against depopulation and prevent effects of economics crisis in small and medium municipalities.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is a crucial renewable energy source in the fight against carbon dioxide emissions, aligning well with growing energy demands. However, solar PV efficiency naturally degrades over time, primarily due to uncontrollable outdoor factors such as irradiance, humidity, shading, soiling, aging, and temperature. These collectively lead to decreased efficiency in PV systems. Soiling on PV glass surfaces significantly impacts light penetration and subsequently reduces power generation. To combat this, a self-cleaning nano-calcium carbonate coating has been proposed. The effectiveness of this method is compared with a developed solar PV thermal (PV/T) system, evaluating both performance and cost-effectiveness. After six months of outdoor exposure, the coated glass solar PV achieved an efficiency of 7.6%, surpassing bare glass solar PV at 6.0%. Moreover, the coated glass solution boasts exceptional cost-effectiveness, incurring only an annual expense of 17.6 USD per panel compared to the PV/T system of 59.8 USD per panel. These findings highlight the potential of coatings to enhance solar PV performance and economics, particularly in addressing challenging uncontrollable factors like soiling.

This article examines the enduring iconicity, multifaceted functions, and changing meanings of the Astor Hotel in Tianjin—one of the first international hotels in modern China—from the mid-19th century to the 21st century. Originally built more than 150 years ago, the Astor Hotel still stands exactly where it did in the former British Concession in Tianjin. This hotel was not only a venue boasting Tianjin’s most expensive accommodations but also a crucial site where politics, technology, economics, social, and cultural changes intersected and developed in its treaty port incarnation. Moreover, the expansion of the Astor Hotel evolved along with the development of Tianjin from a hypercolonial city to a Chinese-run metropolis. Shortly after the Communist Revolution in China, its ownership was overtaken by the Tianjin Municipal Government. Following a sequence of major renovations and commercial relaunches in the 1990s, the Astor Hotel was restored and reconstructed as an emblem of Tianjin’s historical status as an international and cosmopolitan city in China. Both continuity and changes will be emphasised in the discussion of the Astor Hotel’s history, as well as its multiple functions and shifting symbolic significance.

Purpose This study aims to examine the factors influencing the intention of Muslim Millennial Generation in Indonesia to donate cash waqf digitally. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative approach was employed, surveying 284 Muslim Millennial Generation in Indonesia. The study integrated the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (DTPB) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to investigate the key factors driving the intention to contribute to cash waqf digitally. The researcher analyzed data using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings The findings of this study indicate that all hypotheses related to the variables are supported, including both direct and indirect correlations, except for perceived religiosity. This study confirms that the decision of millennials to donate cash waqf online is influenced by various factors, including their attitudes, the environment they are in, their ability to control their behavior, their perception of the ease and usefulness of technology and the availability of suitable facilities. Knowledge of technology is also a decisive component. Nevertheless, this study yielded intriguing findings that the perceived level of religious devotion does not impact the millennials’ willingness to make online cash waqf donations. Practical implications This study’s findings offer valuable insights for waqf institutions, providing a better understanding of Muslim millennials’ characteristics and preferences regarding spending, donations and waqf activities. This understanding can be instrumental in enhancing innovative digital platforms for cash waqf in the digital economy era. Originality/value This study uniquely explores the determinants of digital cash waqf donations among Muslim Millennial Generation in Indonesia. Contributions include integrating the DTPB and the TAM for a comprehensive analysis. Cross-disciplinary perspectives from behavioral economics and digital marketing enrich the research. Comparative studies and potential longitudinal analysis enhance depth, providing nuanced insights into the dynamic factors shaping digital donation behavior among Muslim millennials.

In the rapidly evolving field of real estate economics, the prediction of house prices continues to be a complex challenge, intricately tied to a multitude of socio-economic factors. Traditional predictive models often overlook spatial interdependencies that significantly influence housing prices. The objective of this study is to leverage Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) on open statistics knowledge graphs to model these spatial dependencies and predict house prices across Scotland’s 2011 data zones. The methodology involves retrieving integrated statistical indicators from the official Scottish Open Government Data portal and applying three representative GNN algorithms: ChebNet, GCN, and GraphSAGE. These GNNs are compared against traditional models, including the tabular-based XGBoost and a simple Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), demonstrating superior prediction accuracy. Innovative contributions of this study include the use of GNNs to model spatial dependencies in real estate economics and the application of local and global explainability techniques to enhance transparency and trust in the predictions. The global feature importance is determined by a logistic regression surrogate model while the local, region-level understanding of the GNN predictions is achieved through the use of GNNExplainer. Explainability results are compared with those from a previous work that applied the XGBoost machine learning algorithm and the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) explainability framework on the same dataset. Interestingly, both the global surrogate model and the SHAP approach underscored the comparative illness factor, a health indicator, and the ratio of detached dwellings as the most crucial features in the global explainability. In the case of local explanations, while both methods showed similar results, the GNN approach provided a richer, more comprehensive understanding of the predictions for two specific data zones.

The study analyzes how graduate students in economics, administration and accounting perceive their managerial skills for employability, with the aim of determining its associated variables to improve the educational processes of future managerial leaders. It focuses on the importance of developing transferable skills that meet current and future job demands. To measure the perception of skills, a structured and duly validated questionnaire (Employability Skills 2000+) was used, answered by 225 graduate students in Economics, Administrative and Accounting Sciences in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The data obtained from the application were analyzed using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) method with the FACTOR software. The CFA generated an adaptation of the original scale with 21 variables. The resulting scale determined three predominant factors: personal management skills, fundamental skills and teamwork skills, which presented good consistency and validity, allowing us to make conclusions regarding employability skills in the context studied. The findings show the existence of a correlation between fundamental skills and variables such as work experience, employment status and gender, as well as a high correlation between teamwork skills, work experience and employability conditions.

ObjectiveThis study aims to assess the survival status and predictors of mortality among under-5 children with severe acute malnutrition in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.DesignA retrospective cohort study was employed on randomly selected 422 medical records of children under the age of 5 admitted to stabilisation centres in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Survival analysis and Cox regression analysis were conducted to determine time spent before the outcome and predictors of desired outcome.SettingsThe stabilisation centres in four governmental hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Tikur Anbessa Specialised Hospital, Zewditu Memorial Hospital, Yekatit 12 Hospital and Tirunesh Beijing HospitalParticipantsOf 435 severely malnourished children under the age of 5 admitted to four governmental hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from January 2020 to December 2022, we were able to trace 422 complete records. The remaining 13 medical records were found to be incomplete due to missing medical history information for those children.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe primary outcome is the survival status of under-5 children with severe acute malnutrition after admission to the stabilisation centres. The secondary outcome is predictors of survival among these children.ResultsOf 422 children, 44 (10.4%) died, with an incidence rate of 10.3 per 1000 person-days. The median hospital stay was 8 days. Full vaccination (adjusted HR (AHR) 0.2, 95% CI 0.088 to 0.583, p<0.05), feeding practices (F-75) (AHR 0.2, 95% CI 0.062 to 0.651, p<0.01), intravenous fluid administration (AHR 3.7, 95% CI 1.525 to 8.743, p<0.01), presence of HIV (AHR 2.2, 95% CI 1.001 to 4.650, p<0.05), pneumonia (AHR 2.2, 95% CI 1.001 to 4.650, p<0.01) and occurrence of shock (AHR3.5, 95% CI 1.451 to 8.321, p<0.01) were identified as significant predictors of mortality.ConclusionThe study identified a survival rate slightly higher than the acceptable range set by the social and public health economics study group. Factors like vaccination status, HIV, pneumonia, shock, intravenous fluid and the absence of feeding F-75 predicted mortality.