Enlighten Policy Makers Research Articles

Recent Trends and Emerging Approaches in the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes: Lifestyle Modification, Pharmacotherapy, and Bariatric Surgery

Hyperglycemia and insulin resistance are the two major hallmarks of T2DM, a metabolic disorder that is widely spread and severely threatening global public health. Of interest, treatment options for T2DM are also under significant advancements in the recent past, including medication, bariatric surgery, and lifestyle modifications. In addition, lifestyle therapies, including changes in eating and additional physical activities, substantially improve glycemic control, while pharmacotherapy provides a large number of drugs focusing on different components of the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes. Besides, over the past years, bariatric surgery has also been proposed as a possible alternative for intractable diabetics with extreme obesity. This paper seeks to shed some light on the changing roles in type 2 DM therapy by now revisiting the current modifications; ultimately, it is targeted at reducing the burden of the disease for improved patient outcomes and enlightening policymakers and healthcare professionals on the same.

Recent Trends and Emerging Approaches in the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes: Lifestyle Modification, Pharmacotherapy, and Bariatric Surgery

Hyperglycemia and insulin resistance are the two major hallmarks of T2DM, a metabolic disorder that is widely spread and severely threatening global public health. Of interest, treatment options for T2DM are also under significant advancements in the recent past, including medication, bariatric surgery, and lifestyle modifications. In addition, lifestyle therapies, including changes in eating and additional physical activities, substantially improve glycemic control, while pharmacotherapy provides a large number of drugs focusing on different components of the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes. Besides, over the past years, bariatric surgery has also been proposed as a possible alternative for intractable diabetics with extreme obesity. This paper seeks to shed some light on the changing roles in type 2 DM therapy by now revisiting the current modifications; ultimately, it is targeted at reducing the burden of the disease for improved patient outcomes and enlightening policymakers and healthcare professionals on the same.

A Study of the Impact of Executive Power and Employee Stock Ownership Plans on Corporate Cost Stickiness: Evidence from China A-Share Non-Financial Listed Companies

It is of great value to study the stickiness of enterprise cost for reducing enterprise cost and improving enterprise performance. This paper selected all A-share non-financial listed companies from 2014 to 2019 to study the impact of executive power and employee stock ownership plans on cost stickiness. The study found that the higher the executive power, the stronger the cost stickiness of the enterprise. By reducing the adjustment costs and optimistic expectations of management and improving the performance sensitivity of executive compensation and quality of information disclosure, an employee stock ownership plan plays a role in suppressing the cost-stickiness effect of executive power. The larger the scale and the more times the employee stock ownership plan is implemented, the stronger the inhibition effect is. An employee stock ownership plan has a stronger inhibiting effect on the cost-stickiness effect of executive power in enterprises with a large proportion of state-owned and institutional shares and high employee status. Combining the research themes of management accounting and financial accounting, this study discusses the economic consequences of ESOP from the perspective of enterprise cost control, which is helpful for internal and external stakeholders of enterprises to understand the characteristics and effects of ESOP in the new era, and also provides new evidence for enterprise cost control while enlightening policy makers and listed companies to explore the feasible mechanism of enterprise cost control from the staff level. It is of great value to study the stickiness of enterprise cost for reducing enterprise cost and improving enterprise performance. This paper selected all A-share non-financial listed companies from 2014 to 2019 to study the impact of executive power and an employee stock ownership plan on cost stickiness. It is found that the higher the executive power, the stronger the cost stickiness. An employee stock ownership plan has a stronger inhibiting effect on the cost-stickiness effect of executive power in enterprises with a large proportion of state-owned and institutional shares and high employee status. This study provides new evidence for corporate cost control.

Non-linear relationships between built environment and commuting duration of migrants and locals

Internal migrants residing and working in cities in developing countries may suffer multiple disadvantages. Disentangling the complex relationships between built environment and their commuting duration is essential for helping them integrate into urban life, thus facilitating building sustainable and inclusive cities. However, few studies have specifically examined how built environment influences commuting duration of internal migrants. Moreover, prior studies frequently assume a pre-specified (linear or generalized linear) relationship between commuting duration and built environment. Employing Xiamen, China, as the case and using the random forest method, this study comparatively explores the refined non-linear effects of built environment on commuting durations of internal migrants and locals, controlling for the socio-demographics. It reveals that (1) all the built environment variables have salient non-linear and threshold effects on commuting durations of both groups; (2) built-environment effects on commuting duration differ notably between the two groups in shape, gradient, and/or threshold values; effects of built environment variables near residence and workplace also present different patterns; (3) built environment has smaller effects on migrants' commuting durations than on locals. These findings can enlighten policy makers with more nuanced and targeted intervention strategies for lightening migrants' and locals' commuting burdens.

A Systematic Review of Utilising Literary Texts in English Classroom: Challenges and Teaching Approaches

The implementation of utilising literary texts in ESL/EFL classrooms has been widely enforced in all levels of schools for its roles and benefits for language learning. Due to challenges faced by teachers, the teaching and learning by using literary texts in the classroom seem to be ineffective. Hence, a systematic review of the 15 published articles is presented in this paper to expound the challenges in incorporating selected literary texts and the suitability of teaching approaches and strategies applied in using the texts in teaching and learning of English from year 2013 to 2022. The findings depict on the common problems encountered by English teachers are related to students’ low proficiency levels, the difficulties of literary text interpretation and teachers’ lack of practices as well as low confidence levels in teaching literary texts in the class. The teaching approaches in literature lesson preferably applied was information-based approach and moral philosophical approach. Moreover, integration of educational technology strategy and student-centred activities are highly recommended to be applied in the literature lessons. It is hoped that this review will provide contribution for researchers to conduct literature related studies and enlighten policy makers into revamping literature curriculum in the future.

Investigating the Patterns of Empathy and Classroom Environment Applied by Effective English Language Teachers

AbstractThe teachers’ fundamental role in the success of the students is inevitable. Thus, knowing the various traits and personality characteristics of effective teachers can be used as guidelines to foster inexperienced teachers’ teaching quality. Among the required teaching qualities, empathy and classroom environment set up are two vital concepts emphasized by researchers. Accordingly, through relying on mega planning, the present study was conducted to find the patterns of empathy and classroom environment utilized by effective teachers. The participants were 50 teachers and 300 language learners. Three instruments were employed, namely teacher effectiveness questionnaire, classroom environment questionnaire, and teacher empathy questionnaire. The results showed that the contributions of each sub-construct in teacher effectiveness in order of their priority are as follows: empathic concern, perspective taking, fantasy, and personal distress. Results from calculating frequency and percentage for classroom environment construct showed that the contributions of each respective sub-construct in teacher effectiveness in order of priority are as follows: participation, personalization, investigation, independence, and differentiation. The findings of the present study can enlighten policy makers and administrators to plan efficient courses of action and take useful steps in training novice teachers.

The impact of macroeconomic policies on Tunisian current account, an ARDL approach

During 1980-2010 Tunisian current account deficit was persistent and worsens between 2011-2018 following the Jasmine revolution of 2011 and contribute to slow down country growth and development. The objective of this study is: 1) to examine the linkage between persistent Tunisian current account deficit and a broad set of macroeconomic variables related to fiscal, monetary and trade policies between 1980-2018; 2) enlighten policy makers in their decision-making process related to the adjustment mechanisms. Based on ARDL approach, the key findings of this study show robust empirical evidence of short and long-run effects of fiscal and monetary policies, while the effect of trade policy is only apparent in the short-term. Therefore, we conclude that, in the short-term, both a tight monetary policy and a balanced fiscal budget are necessary to adjust the current account balance. However, these reforms are not sufficient; making the Tunisian current account deficit sustainable requires structural changes to the economy over the long-term.

Distinction or Discrimination?A Qualitative Study of Sustainable growth of Women-Owned Technology based SMEs in Malaysia

Technopreneurship development and its significance in economic growth has led world’s economies to identify the potential role of growth-oriented women-owned technology based SMEs for economic gains. The existing literature on growth among women owned firms, however, exclusively elucidates dearth of empirical research of this phenomenon particularly in transitional economies. This qualitative study is an attempt to reveal the most significant factors that influence the sustainable growth of women owned technology SMEs in Malaysia. The findings from semi-structured interviews from policy makers explain that sustainable growth among these women owned technology based SMEs appears to be entwined in both personal factors related to distinctiveness of these firms as well as external factors associated with socio-cultural discrimination. Several practical and managerial implications have been provided to enlighten policy makers and women technopreneurs on one hand and enhance theoretical knowledge of researchers in the field of technology, innovation and gender.

The Risk of Amphetamine-Related Stimulants to Users and the General Population in Nigeria

In different communities across the globe, we see more of divergence from normal and/or expected behaviour; some psychotic in nature while others are neurodegenerative diseases of unknown origin. However, the use or exposure to some psycho stimulants at any stage of an individual’s development may not be unconnected with these developments. The aim of this review is to enlighten policy makers across the globe to safe guard the rest of the populace from the psycho-social effects of the proliferation in the unlawful production and use of Amphetamine (AMPH) and its derivatives in our society. A number of amphetamine derivatives, such as AMPH and methylamphetamine (METH), are considered dopaminergic neurotoxicants; they usually resulted in long-term depletions of striatal dopamine that is accompanied by neuroinflammation and by changes indicative of neuronal terminals degeneration.

Impact of Citizens' Economic Status on Policy Formulation and Implementation

There are many factors that are considered in public policy implementation. This paper seeks to explore the economic abilities of citizens influence on the formulation and implementation of public policy. Behavioural economics has been used to explore individuals behavioural antecedents especially in decision making. The paper explores this concept coupled with how economic ability and behavior of citizens, particularly the middle class can play in enlightening policymakers. The general purpose of the paper will be to find out how these factors influence the making and execution of policy. It uses Thomas Humphrey Marshall social concept to argument, critique and analyze how policymakers react to the nature of the society.

Behavioral Insights for Development from Mobile Network Big Data: Enlightening Policy Makers on the State of the Art

The discipline of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) gained traction against the exponential growth in mobile phone connectivity. There has been a multitude of projects, services, applications and even policies that aim to leverage the mobile phone to contribute to the broader development of society. This has gone hand in hand with much academic interest in understanding the effects of mobile phone connectivity on development. However it is only of late that attention is being paid to posing development related questions to the basic data artifacts that are left behind by society when consuming mobile phone services. These artifacts come under the class of Transaction Generated Data (TGD) having been recorded by mobile phone operators when certain events (for e.g. when one makes a call) occur for the purposes of billing and network optimization. Given the volumes of TGD that is produced it also falls under the category of Big Data. Big data is an amorphous category that could, for instance, include data from an astronomical observatory or the full text of all the digitized books from the 20th century. Like many others, the 2011 McKinsey Global Institute report on Big Data focuses solely on the "big" in defining the term: "Big data refers to datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze" (Manyika et al., 2011). This definition is intentionally subjective and incorporates a moving definition of how big a dataset needs to be in order to be considered big data with the implicit assumption that as technology advances over time, the size of datasets that qualify as big data will also increase. Also note that the definition can vary by sector, depending on what kinds of software tools are commonly available and what sizes of datasets are common in a particular industry. With those caveats, big data in many sectors today will range from a few dozen terabytes to multiple petabytes (thousands of terabytes). Gartner (2011) introduced additional important definitional characteristics in addition to volume, namely velocity and variety. Velocity refers to the speed at which data is generated, assessed and analyzed. The term "Variety" encompasses the fact that data can exist as different media (text, audio, video) and come in different format (structured and unstructured). Value is a fourth definitional characteristic that acknowledges the potential high socio-economic value that may be generated by Big Data (Jones, 2012). Included within its scope is the category of transaction-generated data (TGD), also sometimes described as "data exhaust." This category was first discussed in 1991, though the term then used was transaction-generated information. The value of this subset of big data is that it is directly connected to human behavior and its accuracy is generally high because the data is generated for a purpose, such as the completion of telephone call or a commercial transaction.TGD has great potential for broader development and is already being leveraged to predict flu trends, forecast unemployment, understand societal ties and overall socio-economic well-being, etc.However unlike in developed countries, the only streams of comprehensive big data with wide socio-economic coverage in developing countries are those generated by telecom networks, because commercial banks and supermarkets, for example, do not reach a majority of people. Even whilst internet access is growing fast in developing economies, as noted in the 2013 Measuring the Information Society report by ITU, overall household internet penetration in developing economies was expected to be only 28% as of end 2013, as opposed to almost 80% in developed economies. Basic mobile subscriptions however have almost peaked at 96% globally (ITU, 2013). Therefore in the near term, it is non-Internet related mobile network big data that has the widest socioeconomic coverage. Such data is already being utilized for development and monitoring not just in developed economies but also in developing economies. Therefore the focus of this paper is mainly on mobile network big data for development.This policy paper serves to enlighten policy makers in developing economies, as to the range of behavioral insights on mobility, connectivity and consumption that can be extracted from mobile network TGD. Importantly, this paper also addresses how these insights can be leveraged by multiple policy domains inter alia transport, health, and economic development.

Happiness and Utility in Economic Thought—Or: What Can We Learn from Happiness Research for Public Policy Analysis and Public Policy Making?

In the past decades, a great interest has emerged in understanding the nature of people’s well-being beyond consumption opportunities. It is widely believed that happiness research based on self-reports on people’s satisfaction with life has made a significant contribution to this understanding. The growing numbers of happiness studies provoke the question whether, and eventually how, public economists should include well-being considerations into policy analysis. Aiming to contribute in answering this question, this review paper provides a survey of the general happiness conception, the formative steps of happiness research, and its relationship to the economic concepts of ordinal and cardinal utility. We furthermore describe the pitfalls of conventional utility approaches and find that both the ordinal and the cardinal approaches have shortcomings which are not shared by happiness measurements. One advantage is that self-reports on well-being reflect the consequences of people’s choices in terms of the well-being they eventually experience. Externalities, as well as the effects of bounded rationality, are inherently taken account of when using happiness measurements for the evaluation of public policies. While it is not entirely clear yet how evidence from happiness research is to be used towards enlightening policy makers, the answer will certainly depend on the policy field under consideration. In general, happiness research may make two major inroads: it may help to discover which conditions foster people’s well-being, besides the goods and services provided by the market; it may also help to develop a realistic conception of man, thus facilitating an adequate modeling of multiple-goal and potentially bounded rational real-life actors in policy impact analysis.

‘Milk is Milk’: Organic Dairy Adoption Decisions and Bounded Rationality

Bounded rationality is an especially appropriate framework for organic dairy adoption decisions as it recognizes internal and external constraints which are critical in understanding complex farm decision making. Farmers use of, and access to, information is examined using interview data gathered from organic, conventional, managed graziers, and Amish dairy farmers in Southwestern Wisconsin at a time when organic milk prices offered a 50% premium over conventional prices. Focusing on certain aspects and impressions of organic dairy, such as the sentiment that “milk is milk”, may lead to information satisficing where farmers do not take full advantage of the information available to them. Organic farmer interviews reveal the challenges they faced with bounded rationality constraints and how they countered these challenges with the help of social networks, as well as how situational factors such as economic and health crises may have motivated them to adopt organic dairy. The interview data from organic and conventional farmers alike also reveals how many conventional dairy farmers utilized information strategies which did not fully consider the pros and cons of the organic system. A bounded rationality framework could enlighten policy makers and educators as they tailor sustainable agricultural policy design and information dissemination strategies to serve the diversity of farmers on the landscape.

Adapting gender budgeting support framework in Nigeria: Policy issues and options

Gender relevance in national planning and development cannot be overemphasized. In Nigeria, women are responsible for about 50% of the labour force in Agriculture and over 70% of the nation.s food supply, yet their contributions to the economy are rarely acknowledged. Studies indicate that there is need for governments at national level tomake efforts to systematically review how women benefit from public sector expenditure and adjust budgets to ensure equality of access especially inrural areas. This paper therefore attempts to examine policy issues and options needed to adapt a comprehensive easy accounting system forgender budgeting framework to measure implementation of national budgets for national development agenda. Being a perspective paper,various approaches of mainstreaming gender issues, where they exist; into national development programmes were reviewed. In order to properlydirect national resources to the achievement of equity and gender specific programme in the country, the process of .engendering budget. orgender mainstreaming was employed. Preliminary findings indicate that despite the involvement of Nigeria in four international conventions, Nigeria is yet to adequately mainstream issues of gender into her national budgeting framework. It was also observed that challenges of adapting an easy accounting framework is more of a political will of those in government and the implementing agencies involved. The paper concludes that further studies need to be initiated and advocacy groups have to enlighten policy makers of the relevance of allowing easy to measure accounting framework to track implementation and/or lapsesof yearly budgetary provisions viewed with gender perspective.

Terrorism and Policy: Introduction

This article sets the stage for the special issue by indicating the current focus in the literature on applying analytical tools to enlighten policy makers in the practice of counterterrorism in the post-9/11 era. In particular, the article briefly indicates the main areas of recent work. The article also introduces some key concepts. Next, the article highlights the methodology and main contributions of each of the seven articles of the special issue. The novelty and policy insights of each article are emphasized.

Psychology, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy

Economics has typically been the social science of choice to inform public policy and policymakers. In the current paper we contemplate the role behavioral science can play in enlightening policymakers. In particular, we provide some examples of research that has and can be used to inform policy, reflect on the kind of behavioral science that is important for policy, and approaches for convincing policy-makers to listen to behavioral scientists. We suggest that policymakers are unlikely to invest the time translating behavioral research into its policy implications, and researchers interested in influencing public policy must therefore invest substantial effort, and direct that effort differently than in standard research practices.

Ethics and disclosure: An analysis of conflicting duties

Abstract The ethics of many professionals, including accountants, have come under increasing scrutiny and have been frequently challenged. In the case of accountants an area of concern is fairness of disclosure. Frequently referred to as “the expectations gap”, there seems to be a difference in perception on the part of the public and accounting professionals as to what constitutes fair disclosure. This paper is an attempt to clarify the ethical duties of the accountants in the area of disclosure. It is shown that accountants sometimes have a genuine conflict between duties to comply with professional rules and duties to disclose information in the public interest. The conflict is analysed by bringing to bear the extensive research on conflicting ethical duties from the philosophy literature. Four criteria used in the philosophy literature are applied in an attempt to resolve the conflict. The results of that analysis indicate that, at least sometimes, accountants are ethically compelled to violate rules requiring compliance with GAAP and/or maintenance of client confidentiality. The circumstances under which disclosure is ethically compelled relate to the certainty of outcomes and consequences of not disclosing. This paper is not a prescription for practicing accountants, but is forwarded in the hope of enlightening policy makers to the ethical dimension of disclosure issues in practice. As it stands, professional rules in accounting do not necessarily support ethical behaviour on the part of accountants in regard to disclosure.