Face Economic Challenges Research Articles

Nursing-Constructed Central Venous Catheter Program: A Six-Step Guide to Implementation

Nurses have successfully inserted Ultrasound-guided Peripherally Inserted Central Catheters (PICCs) at the bedside for many years. In the face of economic challenges in health care, bedside PICC nurses have expanded their skills to offer safe, effective, and financially viable options to provide bedside vascular access. We describe how the PICC team has successfully integrated ultrasound- and electrocardiogram-guided central venous catheter insertions via the internal jugular vein into a nurse-led vascular access program and have outlined a six-step approach to construction and implementation of a similar process.

Analysts Examine Energy Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Resource-rich African countries face economic challenges with the recent drop in oil prices.

2012–2013 world nuclear industry status report

As of December 1, 2013, a total of 429 nuclear reactors were considered operational in 31 countries. The nuclear industry is in decline, however, with global electricity generation from nuclear power plants down by a record 7 percent in 2012. This decline is largely due to the effects of the triple disaster that struck Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in March 2011. All of Japan’s nuclear reactors are shut down, and the struggle to manage radioactive water and a radiation-exposed workforce continues at Fukushima. Currently there are 69 reactors under construction worldwide, 29 of which are in China, but the average age of existing reactors has been increasing steadily. The industry continues to face economic challenges including lengthy construction times, uncertainty about new reactor designs, and difficulty financing projects. Although global investment in renewable energy capacity declined in 2013, the costs of equipment also declined, making it possible to significantly increase renewable capacity. Three of the world’s four largest economies now run on a higher share of renewables than nuclear power.

International Conference on Advances in Radiation Oncology (ICARO): Outcomes of an IAEA Meeting

The IAEA held the International Conference on Advances in Radiation Oncology (ICARO) in Vienna on 27-29 April 2009. The Conference dealt with the issues and requirements posed by the transition from conventional radiotherapy to advanced modern technologies, including staffing, training, treatment planning and delivery, quality assurance (QA) and the optimal use of available resources. The current role of advanced technologies (defined as 3-dimensional and/or image guided treatment with photons or particles) in current clinical practice and future scenarios were discussed.ICARO was organized by the IAEA at the request of the Member States and co-sponsored and supported by other international organizations to assess advances in technologies in radiation oncology in the face of economic challenges that most countries confront. Participants submitted research contributions, which were reviewed by a scientific committee and presented via 46 lectures and 103 posters. There were 327 participants from 70 Member States as well as participants from industry and government. The ICARO meeting provided an independent forum for the interaction of participants from developed and developing countries on current and developing issues related to radiation oncology.

Place-based heritage regeneration in Madaba, Jordan

While image-based heritage regeneration, emphasizing the preservation of the immediately visible environment, has dominated efforts in most Islamic and developing countries, this article uses a case study of Madaba, Jordan to highlight the advantages of place-based regeneration approaches that focus on the preservation local users and uses built environments and spaces. As Jordan continues to face economic challenges, officials have focused on image-based regeneration projects refurbishing high-profile sites with more potential earners while giving little consideration to less well-known sites such as the town of Madaba. This study traces the spatial, functional, and symbolic values of outdoor courtyards (ahwash), as a common feature of vernacular architecture of dwellings in the town known for its Byzantine-era churches. The article analyses forces threatening their sustainability and suggests that policy-makers reorient the county's heritage regeneration policies away from image-based practices towards place-based ones. The article offers a theoretical framework for place-based heritage regeneration and argues such approaches would promise to uncover the human face of cities and their particular social and cultural features. These could better help enhance urban liveability, increases tourist satisfaction, and augments local economic viability.

Association for Library Collections and Technical Services Annual Report 2009–10

This year's primary goal of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) has been Creating Our Future as we have continued our focus on reshaping the organization to meet the needs of those working in the rap icily changing fields of technical services, collections, and preservation. At both the division and section levels, we have sought to decrease the barriers to performance and increase the opportunities for participation. Our effort is all the more urgent in the face of economic challenges that demand we provide products and services of significant value to attract and retain members. While this is an ongoing task, we have made significant strides in a number of areas this year. Reshaping Our Organization Member input gathered over the last several years through surveys, focus groups, and discussions led the ALCTS executive committee to conclude we need to reshape our organization. Our members expressed the following concerns: * ALCTS no longer reflects the diversity of job functions performed by those employed in collections and technical services. * Members are frustrated by competing and overlapping programming. * Processes are slow and not always clear in part because of redundancy in governance. The executive committee, with input from the board, worked this year to construct alternative organizational scenarios that we have now shared with the entire membership for comment. In developing the scenarios, we were looking at options to achieve the following goals: * Members must be able to find a community of colleagues doing the same work or with similar interests. * The structure and processes must be transparent. * The structure must be flexible enough to respond quickly to emerging trends. * The organization must provide opportunities for service and leadership. We look forward to reviewing the feedback from the member survey and from the animated discussions at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference and plan to present a refined plan for a member vote sometime next year. Bylaws Changes In the meantime, the division undertook a process to revise its bylaws so future changes resulting from reorganization would not be slowed by outdated and ambiguous documentation. While the Organization and Bylaws Committee accomplished most of its work in 2008-9 under the leadership of Dale Swensen, the bylaws were put to a membership vote in fall 2009. The new bylaws passed with an overwhelmingly positive vote. Expanding Continuing Education While working toward a reorganization of the division, the executive committee recognized a need and an opportunity to address continuing-education issues. In-person workshops were no longer drawing an audience unless attached to a conference, members were expressing concerns about travel support from their institutions, and the multilayered education committee structure of the division and sections slowed the move of new ideas and products to market. We decided that a change to the education committee structure could move forward before changing the entire organization and might serve as a model for streamlining other product-driven committees, such as the publication committees. To this end, the ALCTS board approved the dissolution of the ALCTS Education Committee and the creation of a new Continuing Education (CE) Committee that began work in summer 2009. Chaired by Pamela Bluh, this committee has quickly coordinated a robust program of Web courses and webinars that complement programming at conferences. Web courses, offered by ALCTS for several years now, continue to be popular. These four-week modules cover acquisitions, electronic resource acquisitions, collection development and management, and new this year, preservation. Under development are courses in collections assessment, cataloging, and serials. With the energetic shepherding of CE members, sixteen webinars were offered this year, almost tripling the number presented last year. …

“The business of business is business?”: The myth of amoral business and business practices in Zimbabwe

The subject of business ethics has continued to provoke debate among academicians, proprietors, politicians and even members of the public because of its continued relevance to the prevailing situation in the business arena the world over. In the case of Zimbabwe, the economic challenges faced by the country have invited and incited serious debate on the subject of business ethics. This paper examines the immoral business practices and the myth of amoral business that have fast gained root in the Zimbabwean business sector in recent times. In the process of exploring the myth of amoral business and the concept of business ethics, the paper justifies the necessity of integrating a culture of ethics in business in the country. It thus notes that though the integration of business and ethics in the face of economic challenges in Zimbabwe is riddled with numerous absurdities and controversies, cultivating a culture of ethics is necessary in business decision making by business people, if the country’s business sector is to gain a modicum of respect. Thus the key conclusion from the paper is that the need to dispel the myth of amoral business practices and to pronounce the indispensability of an ethics culture in the Zimbabwean business landscape remains a necessity.KEYWORDS: Ethics, myth, amoral, business, Zimbabwe, cultural, economic

Water Diplomacy: Effecting Bilateral Partnerships for the Exploration and Mobilization of Water for Development

In the face of economic challenges facing small developing states, they have had to find innovative and entrepreneurial ways of securing funding to develop national infrastructure and to cope in an increasingly competitive global environment. In such an environment small states continue to seek niche markets in which they can attract foreign direct investment, and identify new frontiers for conducting diplomacy. One such way, is through the exchange of expertise and technology from the more to the less developed countries to help explore, access, store and utilize water resources in return for which the latter is able to secure funding for infrastructure and other developmental projects. The paper examines the role of bilateral arrangements in assisting small developing states to explore and mobilize water resources. This is done through an analysis of arrangements between South Africa and Lesotho around the area of “water diplomacy”. In so doing, the discussion explores one type of partnership that can develop between states around the management and use of water resources for mutual benefit and also, illustrate how water becomes a trade-able commodity and the basis for entrepreneurial diplomatic relations between states.

Internet-Based Virtual Classroom and Educational Management Software Enhance Students’ Didactic and Clinical Experiences in Perfusion Education Programs

A challenge faced by many university-based perfusion education (PE) programs is the need for student clinical rotations at hospital locations that are geographically disparate from the main educational campus. The problem has been addressed through the employment of distance-learning environments. The purpose of this educational study is to evaluate the effectiveness of this teaching model as it is applied to PE. Web-based virtual classroom (VC) environments and educational management system (EMS) software were implemented independently and as adjuncts to live, interactive Internet-based audio/video transmission from classroom to classroom in multiple university-based PE programs. These Internet environments have been used in a variety of ways including: 1) forum for communication between the university faculty, students, and preceptors at clinical sites, 2) didactic lectures from expert clinicians to students assigned to distant clinical sites, 3) small group problem-based-learning modules designed to enhance students analytical skills, and 4) conversion of traditional face-to-face lectures to asynchronous learning modules. Hypotheses and measures of student and faculty satisfaction, clinical experience, and learning outcomes are proposed, and some early student feedback was collected. For curricula that emphasize both didactic and clinical education, the use of Internet-based VC and EMS software provides significant advancements over traditional models. Recognized advantages include: 1) improved communications between the college faculty and the students and clinical preceptors, 2) enhanced access to a national network of clinical experts in specialized techniques, 3) expanded opportunity for student distant clinical rotations with continued didactic course work, and 4) improved continuity and consistency of clinical experiences between students through implementation of asynchronous learning modules. Students recognize the learning efficiency of on-line information presentation but still prefer the traditional face-to-face classroom environment. Traditional paradigms impose limitations that are rooted in dependence upon the students and instructors being physically located in the same place at the same time. These represents significant impediments for PE programs that use geographically separate clinical sites to provide clinical experience. Historically this has led to a disintegration of the presentation of theory, and a reduction in the quantity or quality of clinical experience opportunities. New PE models help to eliminate limitations and improve the quality of education especially in the face of economic challenges. Perfusion education students and faculty will have to work together to find computer-based offerings that are equivalent to traditional classroom methods.