Higher Hierarchical Levels Research Articles

Diversity challenges in German nursing teams: a participatory organizational development approach

Abstract Background Migration of health care professionals, demographic change and the transformation of the health care system result in highly diverse nursing teams in German hospitals and nursing homes. Different orientations (regarding qualification, generation or migration background) collide in a working environment characterized by staff shortage, time pressure and decisions about life and death. But team cooperation not only has a strong impact on patient safety, but on job satisfaction and therefore retention management. Little is known on how teams cope with diversity challenges and how this is linked with organizational structures. Methods Based on qualitative content analysis of 197,5 hours of participatory observation, 8 group discussions and 25 interviews in 6 nursing teams in 2 hospitals and 2 nursing homes situated in a major German city, we developed workshops on the topic of team diversity and cooperation. 10 workshops (4-16 participants each) were in held in 2023/24 both on team- and management-level. Results All teams are struggling with diversity-related problems, but in their specific ways, depending on the particular neighbourhood of the facility and team composition among other things. Due to the strong team spirit and identity, the teams have a fundamental tendency to integrate diverse perspectives and orientations. But they need time capacities and supportive organizational structures. The workshops created a space to discuss the team specific problems. Starting points for structural changes could be identified and further discussed in the workshops at the next higher hierarchical level. Conclusions Organisational structures provide the framework conditions that enable teams to integrate different perspectives resulting from diversity in a productive way. One-fits all solutions are not suitable to address those problems and improve teamwork. A participatory bottom-up process seems to be the most appropriate approach. Key messages • Institutions need to provide structures in which diversity is not perceived as an additional burden. • The best way to initiate improvements is through a participatory bottom-up approach.

Authority Over Investigation Decisions in Child Welfare Services: How is it Distributed Among Social Workers, Managers and Citizen Representatives?

ABSTRACTThis study examined the distribution of authority over decisions made during investigations within child welfare services (CWS). The distribution between various actors, such as social workers, citizen representatives and managers, was examined regarding 19 key decisions that frequently occur during investigations. The study also examined how the municipal socio‐economic status and the internal organizational conditions of CWS impact the overall hierarchical level of authority using linear regression analysis. The study was a full population study of Swedish municipalities and districts in larger cities (n = 309, response rate of 62%). The study indicates that the head of the unit holds authority over most decision types, followed by the social worker. However, the study also indicates that there are significant variations between municipalities and decision types. In the municipality delegating authority to the lowest hierarchical level, social workers hold authority over 15 decision types compared with two decision types in the municipality delegating authority to the highest hierarchical level. This variation concerns most decision types except two, where authority is almost exclusively delegated to the same actor in all municipalities. The regression analysis indicated that the educational level of the municipal inhabitants and the size of the CWS budget were the strongest predictors of the hierarchical level of authority in a municipality. High educational levels in municipalities are associated with delegating authority to low hierarchical levels, such as social workers, whereas large CWS budgets (spending as SEK per inhabitant) are associated with delegating authority to high hierarchical levels, such as top‐level managers. The implications of these results for social work research and practice are discussed.

Interconnections between the Cation/Alkaline pH-Responsive Slt and the Ambient pH Response of PacC/Pal Pathways in Aspergillus nidulans.

In the filamentous ascomycete Aspergillus nidulans, at least three high hierarchy transcription factors are required for growth at extracellular alkaline pH: SltA, PacC and CrzA. Transcriptomic profiles depending on alkaline pH and SltA function showed that pacC expression might be under SltA regulation. Additional transcriptional studies of PacC and the only pH-regulated pal gene, palF, confirmed both the strong dependence on ambient pH and the function of SltA. The regulation of pacC expression is dependent on the activity of the zinc binuclear (C6) cluster transcription factor PacX. However, we found that the ablation of sltA in the pacX- mutant background specifically prevents the increase in pacC expression levels without affecting PacC protein levels, showing a novel specific function of the PacX factor. The loss of sltA function causes the anomalous proteolytic processing of PacC and a reduction in the post-translational modifications of PalF. At alkaline pH, in a null sltA background, PacC72kDa accumulates, detection of the intermediate PacC53kDa form is extremely low and the final processed form of 27 kDa shows altered electrophoretic mobility. Constitutive ubiquitination of PalF or the presence of alkalinity-mimicking mutations in pacC, such as pacCc14 and pacCc700, resembling PacC53kDa and PacC27kDa, respectively, allowed the normal processing of PacC but did not rescue the alkaline pH-sensitive phenotype caused by the null sltA allele. Overall, data show that Slt and PacC/Pal pathways are interconnected, but the transcription factor SltA is on a higher hierarchical level than PacC on regulating the tolerance to the ambient alkalinity in A. nidulans.

Identification of functional white matter networks in BOLD fMRI.

White matter signals in resting state blood oxygen level dependent functional magnetic resonance (BOLD-fMRI) have been largely discounted, yet there is growing evidence that these signals are indicative of brain activity. Understanding how these white matter signals capture function can provide insight into brain physiology. Moreover, functional signals could potentially be used as early markers for neurological changes, such as in Alzheimer's Disease. To investigate white matter brain networks, we leveraged the OASIS-3 dataset to extract white matter signals from resting state BOLD-FMRI data on 711 subjects. The imaging was longitudinal with a total of 2,026 images. Hierarchical clustering was performed to investigate clusters of voxel-level correlations on the timeseries data. The stability of clusters was measured with the average Dice coefficients on two different cross fold validations. The first validated the stability between scans, and the second validated the stability between populations. Functional clusters at hierarchical levels 4, 9, 13, 18, and 24 had local maximum stability, suggesting better clustered white matter. In comparison with JHU-DTI-SS Type-I Atlas defined regions, clusters at lower hierarchical levels identified well-defined anatomical lobes. At higher hierarchical levels, functional clusters mapped motor and memory functional regions, identifying 50.00%, 20.00%, 27.27%, and 35.14% of the frontal, occipital, parietal, and temporal lobe regions respectively.

La « gouvernance clinique » : sur un mode de travail particulier chez les directeurs d’hôpital

ContextThe public healthcare system in France is in search of a new “spirit” to address the symptoms of disaffection it currently experiences. Management sciences are exploring how leadership can enhance workplace well-being, emphasizing “salutogenic” approaches and caring leadership. In contrast to previous interpretations of “clinical governance,” often focused on the use of evidence-based clinical data, we investigate the potential use of psychoanalytic theories to shed light on clinical governance practices attentive to the diverse elements contributing to organizational atmosphere. ObjectivesWe aim to return to the conceptions and practices of hospital administrators themselves. The demonstration will revolve around identifying the objects of the specific work done by clinical governance, and the actions taken by hospital administrators practicing this way. Our aim is to extend to the healthcare field the path laid out by institutional psychotherapy in psychiatry, ensuring healthcare institutions do not perpetuate, at their highest hierarchical level, the social symptoms of their time. MethodOur approach is rooted in empirical interpretation sciences and relies on a qualitative analysis methodology that emphasizes proximity to the lived experience of our interviewees. Our field investigation has been ongoing for several years, conducted in collaboration with management teams from institutions of various sizes and regions. The abductive hypothesis of a form of clinical governance gradually emerged while working closely with two well-known hospital administration teams. We engaged in co-thinking with the involved directors to validate our interpretations. ResultsWe revisit the concept of “clinical governance” to describe a way of managing hospitals which symbolically and attentively, though sometimes unconsciously, works with a number of identified objects. We define these objects as related to the organization: hierarchy, space, resources, information, the “scope” of action, and time. Others elements are related to the institutional network: speech, the Self, the perception of others, conviviality, and affects. Each of these elements is examined from the perspective of its symbolic significance, beyond its material or practical aspects, with the understanding that their circulation is of particular interest to clinical governance. InterpretationOur results call for a renewal of institutional psychotherapy in general hospitals, through the perspective of daily “asepsis” of the milieu as facilitated by clinical governance. This involves a recognition by hospital administrators of the symbolic value of the objects we have listed. Clinical governance enables administrators to interpret the symbols behind the apparent materiality of what healthcare professionals discuss. While our results are partial and exploratory, they pave the way for a psychoanalytic clinical perspective regarding hospital governance, alongside management sciences.

Shareholders' political hierarchy and regulatory enforcement: Evidence from corporate risk management

In our study, we investigate the impact of shareholders' political hierarchy on regulatory enforcement within the context of a Chinese local state-owned enterprise where multiple government shareholders, each with different political hierarchical levels, coexist. Our research reveals that the presence of higher-level noncontrolling government shareholders, specifically noncontrolling government shareholders with a higher hierarchical level than the controlling government shareholders, enhances the risk-reducing effect of derivative use. This indicates that higher-level noncontrolling government shareholders play a role in facilitating the enforcement of derivative-related regulations. Additionally, we find that these higher-level noncontrolling government shareholders enhance the efficiency of derivative use through two primary channels: their superior access to regulatory information and their monitoring of corporate regulatory compliance. We also explore the impact of higher-level noncontrolling government shareholders in regulatory enforcement by examining the 2009–2010 top-down derivative-related regulation. In summary, our analysis underscores the positive influence of higher-level noncontrolling government shareholders on risk management efficiency, primarily due to their information advantage regarding regulations, which subsequently strengthens the enforceability of regulatory measures.

Identifying TAD-like domains on single-cell Hi-C data by graph embedding and changepoint detection.

Topologically associating domains (TADs) are fundamental building blocks of 3D genome. TAD-like domains in single cells are regarded as the underlying genesis of TADs discovered in bulk cells. Understanding the organization of TAD-like domains helps to get deeper insights into their regulatory functions. Unfortunately, it remains a challenge to identify TAD-like domains on single-cell Hi-C data due to its ultra-sparsity. We propose scKTLD, an in silico tool for the identification of TAD-like domains on single-cell Hi-C data. It takes Hi-C contact matrix as the adjacency matrix for a graph, embeds the graph structures into a low-dimensional space with the help of sparse matrix factorization followed by spectral propagation, and the TAD-like domains can be identified using a kernel-based changepoint detection in the embedding space. The results tell that our scKTLD is superior to the other methods on the sparse contact matrices, including downsampled bulk Hi-C data as well as simulated and experimental single-cell Hi-C data. Besides, we demonstrated the conservation of TAD-like domain boundaries at single-cell level apart from heterogeneity within and across cell types, and found that the boundaries with higher frequency across single cells are more enriched for architectural proteins and chromatin marks, and they preferentially occur at TAD boundaries in bulk cells, especially at those with higher hierarchical levels. scKTLD is freely available at https://github.com/lhqxinghun/scKTLD.

Evolución de la presencia de mujeres en los órganos de decisión del Sistema Nacional de Salud en España

ObjectiveTo examine the presence of women in the organs of the Interterritorial Council of the Spanish National Health System (CISNS). MethodAnnual reports of the CISNS from 2005 to 2022 were analyzed. Artificial intelligence was used to assign gender, and percentages of women's participation were calculated. Temporal evolution, vertical segregation, and horizontal segregation were analyzed. ResultsBetween 2005 and 2022, there were 14,308 participations in 85 organs, with 52% women, rising from 42% in 2005 to 61% in 2022. There was a higher participation of women in propositional organs (54%), followed by executive ones (50%), and plenary sessions (40%). The General State Administration had 61% women compared to 48% in autonomous communities. Women's participation varied by topic, being higher (82%) in gender violence and lower (35%) in inspection. ConclusionsAlthough there is a slight reduction in the participation gap between women and men, inequalities persist. Women have less presence in higher hierarchical levels (plenary sessions), maintaining vertical segregation. Additionally, women's representation in certain topics remains low, maintaining horizontal segregation. Concrete actions must be taken to continue advancing equality and improving health outcomes in society as a whole.

Dendrites contribute to the gradient of intrinsic timescales encompassing cortical and subcortical brain networks.

Cytoarchitectonic studies have uncovered a correlation between higher levels of cortical hierarchy and reduced dendritic size. This hierarchical organization extends to the brain's timescales, revealing longer intrinsic timescales at higher hierarchical levels. However, estimating the contribution of single-neuron dendritic morphology to the hierarchy of timescales, which is typically characterized at a macroscopic level, remains challenging. Here we mapped the intrinsic timescales of six functional networks using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, and characterized the influence of neuronal dendritic size on intrinsic timescales of brain regions, utilizing a multicompartmental neuronal modeling approach based on digitally reconstructed neurons. The fMRI results revealed a hierarchy of intrinsic timescales encompassing both cortical and subcortical brain regions. The neuronal modeling indicated that neurons with larger dendritic structures exhibit shorter intrinsic timescales. Together these findings highlight the contribution of dendrites at the neuronal level to the hierarchy of intrinsic timescales at the whole-brain level. This study sheds light on the intricate relationship between neuronal structure, cytoarchitectonic maps, and the hierarchy of timescales in the brain.

Decision Fusion Networks for Image Classification.

Convolutional neural networks, in which each layer receives features from the previous layer(s) and then aggregates/abstracts higher level features from them, are widely adopted for image classification. To avoid information loss during feature aggregation/abstraction and fully utilize lower layer features, we propose a novel decision fusion module (DFM) for making an intermediate decision based on the features in the current layer and then fuse its results with the original features before passing them to the next layers. This decision is devised to determine an auxiliary category corresponding to the category at a higher hierarchical level, which can, thus, serve as category-coherent guidance for later layers. Therefore, by stacking a collection of DFMs into a classification network, the generated decision fusion network is explicitly formulated to progressively aggregate/abstract more discriminative features guided by these decisions and then refine the decisions based on the newly generated features in a layer-by-layer manner. Comprehensive results on four benchmarks validate that the proposed DFM can bring significant improvements for various common classification networks at a minimal additional computational cost and are superior to the state-of-the-art decision fusion-based methods. In addition, we demonstrate the generalization ability of the DFM to object detection and semantic segmentation.

Electro-Chemo-Mechanical Coupling in Hierarchical Nanoporous Gold-Polypyrrole-Water Hybrids

Nanoporous (np) metals made by dealloying is a novel class of nanostructured materials that offers numerous functionalities, ranging from sensing, energy storage, to (electro-)catalysis and beyond. A substantial amount of research in np materials has been focused on np gold due to its excellent structural and chemical stability, adjustable pore size, high conductivity, biocompatibility, and easy fabrication process via free corrosion or electrochemical dealloying. A considerable number of studies have been conducted to investigate np gold infiltrated with an aqueous electrolyte [1]. In that way, the material is considered as a hybrid so that one can reversibly tune the gold surface state by manipulating the superficial charge densities or adsorbate coverages via the applied electric potential [1]. The above-mentioned approach results in a number of intriguing properties of np Au revealed upon electrode potential variation in aqueous electrolytes such as actuation [2, 3], sensing [4], tunable strength [5] and elastic modulus [6]. The behavior is well-studied in case of weak ion adsorption and surface oxidation.One of the promising methods towards further improvement of functional and mechanical properties of np metals was implemented by Roschning and Weissmueller [7]. It was shown that the actuation strain of np Au can be enhanced via electrodeposition of a conductive polymer polypyrrole (PPy) on the gold surfaces. The actuation strain of the np Au-PPy hybrids strongly scales with the PPy phase fraction. Moreover, Li et al. [8] observed variations of effective elastic modulus in np Au-PPy-water hybrids. Thus, introducing the conductive polymer into a pore space of the np metal yields a hybrid actuator with a significantly improved actuation amplitude and yield strength.Here, we employ PPy for surface functionalization of hierarchical (hc) np Au (Figure 1) to explore the impact of the conductive polymer coating on the functional behavior of the hierarchically structured np metals. Np metals with structural hierarchy made by dealloying [9] open up new opportunities for multifunctional hard-soft hybrids. The larger pores at the higher hierarchical level (characterized by diameters around 120 nm) can promote fast mass exchange, while nanopores at the lower hierarchy level (below 30 nm) provide a large surface area and high chemical activity. Actuation behavior of the hybrid materials was analyzed in situ in a dilatometer upon potential cycling in a 1 M HClO4 aqueous electrolyte. The elastic response was examined in situ in a dynamic mechanical analyzer in the same electrolyte. We revealed pronounced changes of the macroscopic length and Young’s modulus in response to the voltage-induced redox reactions of the polymer films at the np electrodes. In the contribution, we discuss the origin of the electro-chemo-mechanical coupling phenomena.[1] Shao et al., in Nanoporous Gold: From an ancient technology to a high-tech material. RSC (2012).[2] Kramer et al. Nano Lett., 4(5) 793 (2004).[3] Jin et al. Nano Lett., 10(1) 187 (2010).[4] Stenner et al., Adv. Funct. Mater. 26 (28), 5174 (2016).[5] Jin et al., Science 332, 1179 (2011.)[6] Mameka et al., Acta Mater. 76, 272 (2014).[7] Roschning et al., Adv. Mater. Interfaces, 2001415 (2020).[8] Li et al., Acta Mater., 212 (1), 116852 (2021).[9] Shi et al., Science 371, 1026 (2021).Figure 1. Scanning electron micrograph of hierarchical nanoporous Au-PPy hybrid microstructure. Figure 1

Women’s underrepresentation in business-to-business sales: Reasons, contingencies, and solutions

AbstractSales faces the second-largest gender gap of any corporate function, with women’s underrepresentation even more pronounced in business-to-business (B2B) sales and at higher hierarchical levels. Concurrently, the call for a more gender-diverse sales force is gaining momentum for social and economic reasons, moving the question of how to attract and promote women in B2B sales to the top of sales managers’ agenda. Using an inductive approach, we uncover male-centricity of communication and job structures in B2B sales as the underlying reasons deterring women from entering and advancing in B2B sales. Specifically, male-centricity implies a misfit between B2B sales and women’s self-conception and needs. By deriving contingencies of these relationships, we offer solutions to women’s underrepresentation in B2B sales by showing, for example, which sales positions are less prone to signal or create a misfit to women and what gender-inclusive resources sales departments can provide and saleswomen can build.

Spherulites of supramolecular polymers formed from undercooled melts, and their adhesive properties

Abstract The solid-state properties of crystalline supramolecular polymers have generally remained unexplored. Herein, we investigated the isothermal crystallization of a supramolecular polymer and showed that, depending on the temperature, it formed distinct structures at a higher hierarchical level. Interestingly, the resulting crystalline forms showed distinct adhesive properties and mechanical-failure modes (adhesive or cohesive).

Developing an integrated performance management and measurement system in healthcare organisations: a Canadian case study.

This study proposes a performance management and measurement system for a large healthcare organisation. First, data is collected to analyse and understand the current performance management system. Second, the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) method is used to identify the main aspects of the performance management system to be improved. Third, based on the scientific literature and SWOT analysis, BSC principles are integrated to this performance management system to better align the organisation's performance objectives and indicators with its strategy. Finally, we develop a performance indicator structure and specify indicators to be used as well as how these indicators could be integrated and shared with higher hierarchical levels in the organisation by using AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). Our approach is applied to the program "Physical disability, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorder" of CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l'île-de-Montreal, a large healthcare network, in the province of Québec, Canada.

Multiscale Entanglement Renormalization Ansatz: Causality and Error Correction

Computational complexity reduction is at the basis of a new formulation of many-body quantum states according to tensor network ansatz, originally framed in one-dimensional lattices. In order to include long-range entanglement characterizing phase transitions, the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) defines a sequence of coarse-grained lattices, obtained by targeting the map of a scale-invariant system into an identical coarse-grained one. The quantum circuit associated with this hierarchical structure includes the definition of causal relations and unitary extensions, leading to the definition of ground subspaces as stabilizer codes. The emerging error correcting codes are referred to logical indices located at the highest hierarchical level and to physical indices yielded by redundancy, framed in the AdS-CFT correspondence as holographic quantum codes with bulk and boundary indices, respectively. In a use-case scenario based on errors consisting of spin erasure, the correction is implemented as the reconstruction of a bulk local operator.

HLA DQ protein changes the cell surface distribution pattern of HLA proteins as monitored by Förster resonance energy transfer and high-resolution electron microscopy.

Peptide presentation by MHC class I and MHC class II molecules plays important roles in the regulation of the immune response. One factor in these displays is the density of antigen, which must exceed a critical threshold for the effective activation of T cells. Nonrandom distribution of MHC class I and class II has already been detected at the nanometer level and at higher hierarchical levels. It is not clear how the absence and reappearance of some protein molecules can influence the nonrandom distribution. Therefore, we performed experiments on HLA II-deficient bare lymphocyte syndrome (BLS1) cells: we created a stable transfected cell line, tDQ6-BLS-1, and were able to detect the effect of the appearance of HLA-DQ6 molecules on the homo and heteroassociation of different cell surface molecules by comparing Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) efficiency on transfected cells to that on nontransfected BLS-1 and JY human B-cell lines. Our FRET results show a decrease in homoassociation FRET between HLA I chains in HLA-DQ6-transfected tDQ6-BLS-1 cells compared with the parent BLS-1 cell line and an increase in heteroassociation FRET between HLA I and HLA II (compared with JY cells), suggesting a similar pattern of antigen presentation by the HLA-DQ6 allele. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that both HLA class I and class II molecules formed clusters at higher hierarchical levels on the tDQ6-BLS-1 cells, and the de novo synthesized HLA DQ molecules did not intersperse with HLA class I islands. These observations could be important in understanding the fine tuning of the immune response.

'Status Quo' on Different Aspects of Gender Distribution in Rheumatology in Germany-Results from a Nationwide Online Survey among Physicians.

Despite the increasing number of female medical students and fellows in Europe, women are still under-represented in higher academic careers and positions in medicine. The aim of this survey was to assess the 'status quo' on gender distribution among rheumatologists in Germany. A web-based anonymous survey (21 questions with multiple answers and free text) using QuestionPro® was distributed among rheumatologists in Germany via newsletters, social media and personal contact, including questions regarding hierarchical positions and work characteristics. Among the total of 170 respondents (72% women, 28% men, 1% diverse), 48% were rheumatologists in training, 35% were trained rheumatologists and 7% were heads of rheumatology departments. Regarding the gender ratio at different hierarchical levels, 74% of respondents reported more men than women in leadership positions. Part-time work was possible in the departments of 86% of respondents, with more women working part-time (56%) compared to men (29%). Most respondents stated their impression that employees working part-time did not have the same career chances as full-time workers in their departments. In total, 66% agreed that activities to improve gender equity are necessary. The highest need was seen in reconciling work and family through, e.g., part-time models, flexible childcare options at work and a higher acceptance of part-time work in leadership positions. According to our results, a gender imbalance is prevalent among rheumatologists in Germany, with lower numbers of women evident at higher hierarchical levels. Traditional role assignments are still represented by a higher proportion of part-time work in women. The establishment of structural changes to achieve better gender equity is needed.

Analysis of nucleotide sequences of the ABI3 gene coding region in pea varieties with different percentage of seed storage proteins

The main source of vegetable protein in the world are leguminous crops, among which peas are the most common in Russia. Dozens and even hundreds of genes are involved in the regulation of biological processes associated with the maturation of seeds and the accumulation of reserve nutrients in them, including proteins. The study conducted on legume species related to peas indicate that one of the genes at the highest hierarchical level in this regulatory chain is the ABI3 transcription factor gene; however, its role in the biosynthesis and accumulation of seed storage proteins remains poorly studied. The purpose of the current work is to identify high-protein pea genotypes and analyze the nucleotide sequences of the coding region of the ABI3 gene to search for possible DNA polymorphisms associated with protein percentage in their seeds. The study was carried out in 2020–2021. The objects of the study were 37 pea varieties from the collection of genetic resources of leguminous crops of VIR. Protein percentage in seeds was determined by the Bradford method. Selection of primers and comparative analysis of nucleotide sequences were performed using the PrimerSelect and MegAlign programs. Sequencing was performed according to the Sanger method. There were identified pea varieties with the highest (‘Aksaisky Usaty 55’, ‘Sakharny’) and low (‘K-8361’ (VIR), ‘Fregat’) seed protein percentage. In these variety samples, the coding region of the ABI3 gene was sequenced. Comparative analysis of their nucleotide sequences with the sequence of the ABI3 gene fragment annotated in the GenBank database revealed significant variability among them: nucleotide substitutions, deletion of 6 nucleotides. In the high protein variety ‘Sakharny’, there has been found a 9-nucleotide insertion, leading to the insertion of three additional amino acids, and in the low-protein variety Fregat, there has been found a single nucleotide insertion, causing a shift in the reading frame. The data obtained may indicate a correlation between mutations in the ABI3 gene and protein accumulation in pea seeds.

LEVEL APPROACHES TO THE INTERPRETATION OF THE CONCEPT OF ECONOMIC POTENTIAL

The article analyzes such a concept as “economic potential”, which is the aggregate ability of a country, region, and enterprise to carry out its production and economic activities, to meet the needs of the population, to develop production, etc. With regard to the category of economic potential, an analysis of modern scientific literature shows the multidimensionality of this concept. It is worth noting that when studying economic potential, it should be considered as the present and future ability to create the maximum amount of material goods, taking into account specific resource constraints, and the balance of labor and material resources. Given the study, the author identifies the main four level approaches to the interpretation of economic potential: mega-level, macro-level, meta-level, micro-level. It is noted that at the mega-level the functioning of the country’s economic potential takes place; the macro-level requires the formation of economic potential at the regional level; the meta-level studies the functioning of the sectoral or territorial economic mechanism; the micro-level allocates the economic potential of an enterprise. The author characterizes the essence of each of the levels and the relationship between them, which is quite important for the development of the country’s economy. Thus, summarizing scientific views, some researchers tend to believe that from a methodological point of view, economic potential is an integral sum of lower-level potentials, each of which characterizes the quality of a particular resource or opportunity. Based on the analysis, the article proves the importance of analyzing and structuring the essence of economic potential. The economic potential begins to be formed at the enterprise level, ensuring the creation of the economic potential of the region, and in turn, the country. At the same time, it is worth noting that quite often the highest hierarchical level (country) creates barriers to the development of lower levels. Therefore, there is a need to create a toolkit of regulations and budgetary instruments that could activate economic potential at all levels and not limit the possibility of its use.

Human societal development: is it an evolutionary transition in individuality?

An evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI) occurs when a previously independent organism becomes a lower level unit within a higher hierarchical level (for example, cells in an organism, ants in a colony). Using archaeological and historical accounts from the last 12 000 years, I empirically examine the proposition that human society increasingly functions as a higher hierarchical level within which individuals integrate as lower level units. I evaluate human societal development with respect to three criteria that together indicate complexity in biological systems and serve as an operationalization scheme for ETIs: size, inseparability and specialization. The size of the largest polity has increased seven orders of magnitude, from hundreds to billions. Inseparability became nearly complete since Mesopotamian city-states, following the first appearance of intricate specialization (division of labour). Connectivity within a polity has increased rapidly during the last few centuries, and particularly within the last few decades. In view of these results, I formulate the following hypothesis: human society is undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality, driven by socio-cultural-technological processes. This proposition requires a detailed theoretical basis and further empirical testing. I propose four predictions derived from the hypothesis that may be used to test it. This article is part of the theme issue 'Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions'.