Instrumental Value Research Articles

The Intrinsic and Instrumental Values of Blockchain to Provide Beef Traceability in Hong Kong, South Korea, and the United States.

Although previous research has identified that consumers are willing to pay for traceability, it remains unknown which types of traceability information might have the highest value, and whether consumers have an intrinsic value for blockchain technology above and beyond the instrumental value of providing traceability. A choice experiment was conducted with over 1500 consumers in Hong Kong, South Korea, and the U.S. In all three countries, consumers were willing to pay premiums for beef with traceability related to all parts of the supply chain, country of origin, and temperature history; however, the preference ordering of beef from different countries varied across Hong Kong, South Korea, and the U.S. The intrinsic value of using blockchain to deliver traceability information differed by country and by attribute, and consumers in the U.S. were most sensitive to the information describing blockchain technology. Even when traceability conveys negative information, such as temperature rising above safe levels for a short period, we find that consumers prefer knowing to not knowing, suggesting uncertainty and ambiguity aversion.

Chaplaincy as a “Living Human Web”

Abstract Engelhardt’s critiques of “generic chaplaincy” rely on the argument that chaplains are secular; however, professionally certified chaplains must maintain ordination with an ecclesial body. Engelhardt’s concerns are better directed at the academic subfield that supports and trains chaplains: pastoral theology. That field is somewhat guilty of forced ecumenism because it attempts a universal theology rooted in experience and the social sciences rather than the authority of creeds, ecclesial bodies, or traditions. Pastoral theology makes too many sacrifices to the authority of the behavioral sciences without sufficient appreciation for sacramental theology and the spiritual bonds that rituals effect in communities of shared belief. In this model, ritual is reduced to its instrumental value in addressing the emotional needs of patients rather than viewed as efficacious spiritual care. Chaplains should take a holistic approach to theology so that they can better identify the duties and scope of interfaith spiritual care.

Insights and Inspirations from Attempts of the EU to “Rebuild the Tower of Babel”

Based on the historical characteristics of Europe’s linguistic diversity, the EU has implemented a pluralistic language policy, aiming to “Rebuild the Tower of Babel” within its organization. However, the language governance in the process of the EU integration has not been smooth. The conflicts between linguistic legislation and linguistic practice, between efforts to preserve multilingualism and the reality of English monolingualism, and between the multiple participants in language governance and their varying interests are still nagging at the EU language policy-makers. The underlying reasons are those difficulties to reconcile administrative efficiency with multilingual equality, the pragmatic instrumental value of one language with its national symbolic value, and the interests of many countries behind languages race. Insights into the EU language governance provide good inspirations for China’s language policy and planning, which will help China better present Chinese language and culture to the world, telling China’s stories well and making China’s voice heard.

Value of Biodiversity on Patagonian Rangeland: Estimation via a Hedonic Price Index

Plant diversity has long been linked to an increase in ecosystem productivity and function, but concrete examples in which ecosystem services are linked to diversity at the scale at which management decisions are taken are rare. We specifically tested for a correlation between plant diversity and provisioning ecosystem services estimated via the potential to produce meat and wool. We also tested whether higher levels of plant diversity conferred higher levels of ecosystem resistance to global change drivers, measured as the ability to sustain productivity across time. This was achieved by analyzing the interactive effects of a range of environmental variables on annual net primary production in a network of long-term biodiversity plots in Southern Patagonia. We found evidence of a positive correlation between plant diversity and plant productivity, which we relate to the ability to produce wool and meat from livestock. We also found evidence of a link between ecosystem resistance and diversity, though the effect was modest. The instrumental (economic) valuation presented doesn't account for the full range of values that rangeland in southern Patagonia generates. Nevertheless, these calculations do provide a starting point for broadening the discussion around the importance and value of natural capital in southern Patagonia. The results are consistent with theory and suggest that plant diversity has instrumental and monetary value as well as insurance value that may increase the resistance of rangeland ecosystems to global change drivers.

Building professional resilience: School music teachers’ instructional practice development under curriculum reform

This study used a mixed-methods approach to investigate the characteristics and development of teachers’ resilience profiles during ongoing school music curriculum reforms in mainland China. During a 12-month voluntary teacher development project, seven mid-career schoolteachers based in Shenzhen City, South China, helped collect longitudinal data on their resilience profiles and instructional practices. Inspired by Mansfield’s resilience model, this study developed a model of the essential dynamics in the resilience development process of individual teachers. The working model mapped the identified factors of teachers’ resilience development into a coordinate system that incorporated two approaches (receptive and autonomous) to resilience building, with two scenarios (mandatory or conditional) in curriculum implementation. The findings suggested that (a) teachers exhibited different resilience properties shaped by both personal and contextual factors, as well as the connection pathways between factors, and (b) teachers used a variety of strategies to build resilience to policy and environmental constraints, including mentoring, peer support, problem-solving, relationship management, and pedagogy innovation. These strategies were mapped onto a functional model for resilience development in curriculum implementation, which further extended the application of Mansfield’s conceptual framework to teacher education programs. Although this study recognized the value of quantitative research instruments in capturing resilience profiles, the ecological validity and reliability concerns of these measurements were also discussed.

Single or pluralistic? The game and balance of China's community governance policy tools.

Policy tools embody policy concepts and are essential to achieving policy objectives. The effective allocation of policy tools directly impacts the effectiveness of community governance and determines the modernization process of grassroots governance. We aim to analyze the logic of community governance policy tool selection, and then provide assistance for the modernization of grassroots governance. We selected 100 national and provincial government work reports and 63 policy documents related to community governance during China's "12th Five-Year Plan" to "14th Five-Year Plan" period as analysis samples. And build an analysis framework based on the three dimensions of time, space, and tools. We used Nvivo.20 software for text encoding analysis. Based on the model framework, we analyze the results as follows. From the perspective of the time dimension, among the five types of policy tools, the proportion of command-type policy tools used showed a downward trend, from 88.16% in the 12th Five-Year Plan to 83.50% in the 14th Five-Year Plan. However, motivation-type and persuasion-type tools showed an upward trend, rising from 1.34% and 5.26% in the 12th Five-Year Plan period to 3.40% and 8.74% in the 14th Five-Year Plan respectively. The system-change-type policy tools decreased from 1.32% in the 12th Five-Year Plan to 0.97% in the 14th Five-Year Plan. The proportion of capacity-building-type policy tools has gradually increased from 2.63% in the 12th Five-Year Plan to 4.85% in the 14th Five-Year Plan. From the perspective of spatial dimension, apart from command and persuasion policy tools, the usage frequency of the other three types of policy tools in the three major regions all display a "growth-decline-growth" trend. From the perspective of tool dimension, command-type policy tools are dominant in China's community governance, with a cumulative frequency of 1405 times and a high proportion of 81.75%. Apart from command policy tools, persuasive policy tools and capacity-building policy tools have a relatively high proportion, with usage frequencies of 186 and 78 respectively. We found that current community governance policy tools mainly consist of command tools. However, there is a trend towards combining tools such as command, persuasion, incentive, capacity building, and system change in the future. There is a typical contradiction between instrumental rationality and value rationality, indicating an evolution from instrumental rationality to the integration of instrumental and value rationality. This study addresses the conflict of policy tools through rational guidance of values, the rational guarantee of tools, and cooperation to achieve the goal of high-quality development of community governance.

Abstract 17558: Using Patient Reported Outcomes to Predict Patency and Revascularization in Peripheral Artery Disease: A Zilver PTX Sub-Analysis

Introduction: Health status measured by patient reported outcomes (PROs) can predict future major cardiovascular events in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). It is unclear, however, whether health status outcomes can also predict revascularization success. Methods: We preformed sub-analysis of the Zilver PTX trial (multinational randomized trial and US single arm) including patients with above-the-knee symptomatic femoropopliteal disease and receiving paclitaxel-eluting stents (Zilver PTX) between 2005-August 2008. We examined the association of patients’ pre-procedural health status measured by EQ-5D-3L Index (EQ-5D), a validated PROs instrument (Value < 0 means health status worse than death, 0: death and 1: full health) and the 12-month treatment durability outcomes measured as primary patency and target lesion revascularization (TLR). Point-biserial correlations were calculated between EQ-5D and outcomes. The 12-month cumulative incidence of patency and TLR was constructed using Kaplan-Meier curves and compared by EQ-5D quartile using Log-rank test. Results: The Zilver PTX arm included 704 patients with a mean age of 68±10 years, 26% women, and 3% Black/African American. The mean EQ-5D pre-procedural Index was 0.79±0.12 and 0.87±0.15 at 12 months. Correlations between the pre-procedural EQ-5D and patency and TLR were, respectively, -0.006 (P=0.82) and 0.034 (P=0.31). In the overall cohort, the cumulative incidence of patency loss was 17% 95%CI 15-21 and of TLR was 9% 95%CI 7-11. There was no significant difference in the 12-month risk of either patency loss or TLR across EQ-5D quartiles (P=0.93 and P=0.85) (Figure). Conclusions: Pre-procedural generic health status are not predictive of post procedural endpoints of revascularization success such as patency and TLR in patients receiving Zilver PTX, underscoring the need of adding these complementary measures to evaluate the full scope of success following revascularization in PAD.

Logical Instrumentalism and Anti-exceptionalism about Logic

AbstractThis paper critically examines logical instrumentalism as it has been put forth recently in the anti-exceptionalism about logic debate. I will argue that if one wishes to uphold the claim that logic is significantly similar to science, as the anti-exceptionalists have it, then logical instrumentalism cannot be what previous authors have taken it to be. The reason for this, I will argue, is that as the position currently stands, first, it reduces to a trivial claim about the instrumental value of logical systems, and second, by its denial that logic aims to account for extra-systemic phenomena it significantly differs from science, in contrast with the AEL agenda. I will conclude by proposing a different kind of logical instrumentalism that I take to have a broad appeal, but especially for anti-exceptionalists, for it is developed as analogous to—and thus much closer aligned with—scientific instrumentalism.

The prognostic value of the NECPAL instrument, Palliative Prognostic Index, and PROFUND index in elderly residents of nursing homes with advanced chronic condition

BackgroundIt is essential to assess the need for palliative care and the life prognosis of elderly nursing home residents with an advanced chronic condition, and the NECPAL ICO-CCOMS©4.0 prognostic instrument may be adequate for both purposes. The objective of this study was to examine the predictive capacity of NECPAL, the Palliative Prognosis Index, and the PROFUND index in elderly residents with advanced chronic condition with and without dementia, comparing their results at different time points.MethodsThis prospective observational study was undertaken in eight nursing homes, following the survival of 146 residents with advanced chronic condition (46.6% with dementia) at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months. The capacity of the three instruments to predict mortality was evaluated by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), with 95% confidence interval, for the global population and separately for residents with and without dementia.ResultsThe mean age of residents was 84.63 years (± 8.989 yrs); 67.8% were female. The highest predictive capacity was found for PROFUND at 3 months (95%CI: 0.526–0.756; p = 0.016), for PROFUND and NECPAL at 12 months (non-significant; AUC > 0.5), and NECPAL at 24 months (close-to-significant (AUC = 0.624; 95% CI: 0.499–0.750; p = 0.053). The highest capacity at 12 months was obtained using PROFUND in residents with dementia (AUC = 0.698; 95%CI: 0.566–0.829; p = 0.003) and NECPAL in residents without dementia (non-significant; AUC = 0.649; 95%CI: 0.432–0.867; p = 0.178). Significant differences in AUC values were observed between PROFUND at 12 (p = 0.017) and 24 (p = 0.028) months.ConclusionsPROFUND offers the most accurate prediction of survival in elderly care home residents with advanced chronic condition overall and in those with dementia, especially over the short term, whereas NECPAL ICO-CCOMS©4.0 appears to be the most useful to predict the long-term survival of residents without dementia. These results support early evaluation of the need for palliative care in elderly care home residents with advanced chronic condition.

Rethinking the Environmental Virtue of Ecological Justice from the Interdependencies of Non-Human Capabilities and Synergetic Flourishing

The capabilities approach has largely addressed individual capabilities via a liberal framework common in its literature. However, a growing number of scholars concerned with sustainable human development are analyzing theories and methodologies that are both suitable for human flourishing and display a respect for nature. This paper explores several forms of considering the value of non-animal and non-individual natural entities, such as ecosystems. I first expose some instrumental reasons why we may care about the flourishing of ecosystems and then other reasons based on the assumption that they have integrity and their own capabilities and, therefore, deserve moral consideration. I argue that despite the possible moral conflicts that may emerge between human and ecosystemic autonomy, they could be avoided by adopting an ecological justice virtue. I present this ecological justice characterized by some contributions of decolonial thought and environmental virtue ethics. I propose that if the capabilities approach was not anchored only in an individualistic ontology, it could better assume a multi-level axiology from which the inherent and instrumental value of ecosystems would be interconnected. And, to this end, I find the concept of synergetic flourishing helpful to accept an interdependent and non-human-centered recognition of the capabilities.

Levers for transformative nature-based adaptation initiatives in the Alps

Transformative adaptation is essential to face the unprecedented biodiversity and climate change crises and the resulting loss in Nature’s Contribution to People (NCP). Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can accelerate this transformation of social-ecological systems. Understanding the drivers of the decision-making context that support NbS implementation is crucial to address potential bottlenecks and barriers for such a transformative adaptation. Here, semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers of twenty NbS implemented in the Alps. Their decision-making contexts were investigated using the values-rules-knowledge framework and their transformative characteristics. A clustering analysis revealed three types of NbS characterized by specific groups of levers and barriers. Firstly, Local transformation NbS are self-sufficient initiatives motivated by relational values to nature. They are supported by informal governance and share experiential knowledge to support the adaptive capacity of nature. Secondly, Green deal NbS employ a gradual change in practices and are supported by funding opportunities or regulations to experiment with new approaches fostering instrumental values of nature. Thirdly, Multi-scale co-production NbS benefit larger areas and communities. Their social acceptance rest on extensive participatory processes involving local practitioners and diverse values of nature. This last group is designed to persist even when challenged by the instability of funding opportunities. These findings suggest that in order to accelerate the implementation of transformative NbS, future policies need to: i) foster NbS implementation by local communities facing economic constraints when implementing new NbS-related practices; ii) support transdisciplinary programmes to create an inclusive network around NbS practices; and iii) adapt incentives to enable transformative adaptation through NbS. A macro-regional strategy may have the potential to address these challenges.

Can live and dead broiler meat be identified through sensory and physicochemical attributes?

The study was conducted to identify live and dead broiler meat through sensory and physicochemical attributes at 0 h and 24 h intervals. For this purpose, 15 live and 15 dead broilers were collected from the local market. After deboning, each live and dead bird’s breast, thigh, and liver were collected. A 2 × 2 factorial experiment was used for data analyses. Samples were preserved at 40C for 24 hrs. Different types of analysis, such as sensory (color, flavor, tenderness, juiciness, overall acceptability), physicochemical properties (pH, cooking loss, drip loss, water holding capacity), and instrumental color value L*, a*, b* were determined. In the case of breasts, sensory attributes like color, flavor, tenderness, juiciness, and overall acceptability mean value decreased (3.80 to 1.70) significantly (p<0.05) between live and dead birds and the mean value also decreased (3.50 to 2.00) significantly (p<0.05) at 0 h and 24 h. On the other hand, the physicochemical attributes and instrumental color values like water holding capacity, L*, a*, SI and Chroma mean value decreased significantly (p< 0.05) between live and dead birds, and the mean value of pH, drip loss, water holding capacity, and chroma also decreased significantly (p< 0.05) at 0h and 24h. In the case of the thigh, sensory attributes like color, flavor, tenderness, juiciness, and overall acceptability mean value decreased (4.90 to 1.70) significantly (p<0.05) between the two treatment levels, and there is no significant difference (p<0.05) in term of mean value at 0h and 24h of intervals. On the other hand, the physicochemical attributes like pH, water holding capacity, L*, a*, b*, SI, and chroma mean value decreased significantly (p< 0.05) between the two treatment levels, and the mean value of water holding capacity, a*, b*, SI, chroma also decreased significantly (p< 0.05) at 0 h and 24 h. In the case of the liver, sensory attributes like color, flavor, tenderness, juiciness, and overall acceptability mean value decreased (4.90 to 1.00) significantly (p<0.05) between the two treatment levels, and the mean value of color, tenderness, juiciness, overall acceptability also decreased (3.40 to 2.80) significantly (p<0.05) at 0h and 24h. On the other hand, the physicochemical attributes like pH, cooking loss, L*, b*, SI, and chroma mean value decreased significantly (p< 0.05) between the two treatment levels, and the mean value of cooking loss, drip loss, water holding capacity, a*, SI, chroma also decreased significantly (p<0.05) at 0h and 24h. On the basis of the sensory and physicochemical attributes, live broiler breast, thigh, and liver in fresh condition showed better quality. For differentiation, color, flavor, tenderness, juiciness, water holding capacity, L*, a*, b*, SI, and chroma value can be used as an identification marker between live and dead broiler meat, which is an ethical as well as religious issue.

Higher Education Branding through Instrumental Values

Due to the complexity of the educational market, changes are also occurring in the field of education itself - from the constant transformation of the curriculum to new trends in the management of education at all levels. Faculties compete with each other for the best students, professors, projects, discoveries and resources. This forces higher education institutions, which want to survive in the long term and to be highly listed on the market, to take special care of their reputation and prestige. In order to improve their own quality and thereby ensure a competitive advantage, higher education institutions use brand management activities to emphasize the values on which their engagement is based. The aim of the work is to investigate the opinion of students - users of the service of a higher education institution and to show the importance of instrumental values on the basis of which the brand of the faculty should be shaped. Descriptive statistics and survey techniques were used in the empirical research, and the sample consisted of 403 respondents - students at six private and state faculties. The obtained results indicate a positive opinion of the respondents about instrumental values, as those on which a higher education institution should build its own brand. This finding provides a basis for the creators of not only higher education brands, but also for the creation of study programs based on the estimated value, an incentive for further research of other values in higher education, as well as for the creation of an optimal brand model of higher education institutions.

Leader’s Value Orientations in Social and Structural Relations of the Business Sphere

Relevance. Today, when Russia, like the whole world, is experiencing unprecedented changes in all spheres of life, more great responsibility and burdens fall on the shoulders of the leader. Faced with new realities, they begin to re-evaluate not only the effectiveness of the business, but also their approach to the main aspects of the management process: social performance, interaction with personnel and strategies.The purpose is to study the value orientations system of a modern leader in social and structural relations of the business sphere.The objectives are to identify and describe the value orientations of a modern leader through the analysis of the main components of the questionnaire of M. Rokeach’s values; assess the validity of using the value orientations system of a leader in the context of the new realities of the fourth industrial revolution, the pandemic and economic sanctions.Methodology. The study involved 100 managers aged 30 years and older, of different levels and managerial experience. They were asked to arrange the terminal and instrumental values in order of their importance.Results. The study showed that despite the different age, geographical, professional and personal data, there are only minor differences in the value orientations system of managers, and the values proposed by Rokeach determine their value-semantic aspect of life and work.Conclusions. In order for the described values of the manager to fully reflect the latest events and moods in the world, the author proposes to supplement them with digital values, on which efficiency and competitiveness in business directly depend, and gives his own definition of this “phenomenon”.

Phase transformation and mechanical properties of heat-treated nickel-titanium rotary endodontic instruments at room and body temperatures

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to evaluate the phase composition, phase transformation temperatures, bending property, and cyclic fatigue resistance of different heat-treated nickel-titanium (NiTi) rotary instruments with the same tip diameter and taper at room (RT; 25 ± 1 °C) and body (BT; 37 ± 1 °C) temperatures.MethodsFive heat-treated NiTi rotary instruments, HyFlex EDM (EDM), HyFlex CM (CM), Vortex Blue (VB), RE file CT (RE) and JIZAI, and a non-heat-treated NiTi rotary instrument (Mtwo) with a size 40, 0.04 taper were investigated. Temperature-dependent phase transformation was examined with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The bending loads of the instruments at RT and BT were evaluated using a cantilever-bending test. Cyclic fatigue resistance at RT and BT was measured using a dynamic test, during which the instruments were rotated in combination with a 2-mm back-and-forth motion in an artificial curved canal, and the number of cycles to failure (NCF) was determined. The results were analyzed using two-way repeated measures analysis of variance, a simple main effect test, and the Bonferroni test (α = 0.05).ResultsDSC results indicated that EDM and Mtwo were primarily composed of martensite/R-phase and austenite, respectively, while the other heat-treated instruments were composed of a mix of martensite/R-phase and austenite at the tested temperatures. Regardless of the temperature setting, the bending loads of heat-treated instruments were significantly lower than those of Mtwo (p < 0.05). EDM showed the lowest bending loads and highest NCF at both temperatures (p < 0.05). CM, VB, and JIZAI showed significantly higher bending loads at BT than at RT (p < 0.05). The NCF of all the heat-treated instruments, except VB, was lower at BT than at RT (p < 0.05). At BT, the NCF of CM, VB, RE, and JIZAI were not significantly higher than that of Mtwo (p > 0.05).ConclusionsHeat-treated NiTi instruments exhibited lower bending loads and higher NCF values than Mtwo. However, this tendency was less pronounced at BT than at RT, especially in the NCF values of instruments with a mixture of martensite/R-phase and austenite phases at the tested temperatures.

Diagnostic accuracy study of the VALENF instrument in hospitalization units for adults: a study protocol

Recently, the VALENF instrument, Nursing Assessment by its acronym in Spanish, was developed as a meta-tool composed of only seven items with a more parsimonious approach for nursing assessment in adult hospitalization units. This meta-tool integrates the assessment of functional capacity, the risk of pressure injuries and the risk of falls. The general objective of this project is to validate the VALENF instrument by studying its diagnostic accuracy against the instruments commonly used in nursing to assess functional capacity, the risk of pressure injuries and the risk of falls. An observational, longitudinal, prospective study is presented, with recruitment and random selection based on admissions to six adult hospitalization units of the Hospital Universitario de La Plana. The study population will be made up of patients hospitalized in these units. The inclusion criteria will be patients over 18 years of age with a nursing assessment within the first 24 h of admission and an expected length of stay greater than 48 h and who sign the informed consent form. The exclusion criteria will be transfers from other units or centers. A sample of 521 participants is estimated as necessary. The evaluation test will be the VALENF instrument, and the reference tests will be the Barthel, Braden and Downton indices. Sociodemographic variables related to the care process and results such as functional loss, falls or pressure injuries will be collected. The evolution of functional capacity, the risk of falls and the risk of pressure injuries will be analyzed. The sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive values of the VALENF instrument will be calculated and compared to those of the usual instruments. A survival analysis will be performed for pressure injuries, falls and patients with functional loss. The VALENF instrument is expected to have at least the same diagnostic validity as the original instruments.Trial registration The study will be retrospectively registered (ISRCTN 17699562, 25/07/2023).

The Worth of Nature: Valuations of Glaciers in Alaskan and Norwegian Media Discourse

ABSTRACT This article presents a comparative case study of public valuation of glaciers in Alaska and Norway. The first case examines Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier, which has been central in public debate over the US Forest Service’s proposed expansion of the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area. The second case centers on Norway’s Svartisen glacier, which garnered international attention when the startup company, Svaice, announced its intent to extract glacier ice cubes for cocktail coolers at high-end bars and restaurants. A rhetorical analysis of newspaper coverage relevant to each case reveals that in both debates, instrumental, relational, and intrinsic values are attributed to the respective glaciers, and that government, business, and community actors hold the most power in these conversations. However, nuances within articulations of instrumental value suggest that Norwegian actors strive to balance human and glacier needs, whereas Alaskan actors largely prioritize human needs by constituting the glacier as a utilitarian object.

Who cares about coral? The biological species concept and ‘cumulative intrinsic value’ in cross-cultural perspective

This paper examines the intrinsic and instrumental value of corals, and coral reefs, from the epistemological perspectives of Western conservation biologists and Pacific coastal fishers. It uses data on local language names (‘folk taxonomies’) from several language groups to understand the salience, or perceived value, of corals and coral reef fishes for the speakers of those languages. In all of the folk taxonomies examined, there are very few local language names for corals or reef-associated fishes in the most species-rich families (gobies, blennies, damselfishes, and butterflyfishes). This is interesting particularly because one of the primary rationales for Western conservation interest in Indo-Pacific coral reefs is the ‘cumulative intrinsic value’ of the large number of biological species associated with these ecosystems, irrespective of their other values, including fishery production. The ‘weight’ of this cumulative intrinsic value underpins a moral mandate for transnational conservation intervention, typically in the form of marine protected areas, most of which impose a short- to medium-term economic cost on people who are already very poor. The related and widely used Western cultural construct of ‘iconic’ is also investigated. The paper examines various implications of the large differences between Western scientific and Pacific Islander attributions of value to corals and coral reef ecosystems, including in the context of their importance for fishery production and food (or nutrition) security. I also discuss the apparent lack of (a) reflexivity about the social construction of science and (b) curiosity about the environmental knowledge and values of Indo-Pacific coastal fishers, among many in the Western transnational conservation community.

Mainstreaming nature-based solutions through five forms of scaling: Case of the Kiiminkijoki River basin, Finland.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are considered as means to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss while simultaneously enhancing human well-being. Yet, it is still poorly understood how NBS could be mainstreamed. We address this gap by proposing a framework on NBS and employing it in Finland's Kiiminkijoki River basin through participatory workshops and a questionnaire. We examine socio-environmental challenges and visions, existing and emerging NBS to reach the visions, and ways to scale-up NBS to a river basin level. In the river basin, water quality is the priority challenge, due to its relationships with local culture, climate change, and biodiversity. Our results consider how (1) to ensure the relevance of NBS for local actors, (2) instrumental, intrinsic, and relational value perspectives can be enhanced simultaneously by NBS, and (3) site specific NBS can be mainstreamed (i.e., by scaling up, down, out, in, deep) to the river basin level and beyond.

Impatience for information: Curiosity is here today, gone tomorrow

AbstractBased on the curiosity‐as‐drive theory and the theory of information gaps, we argue that curiosity—that is, the desire to seek out novel information for its own sake—is highly transient, and while people may be tempted by immediate answers, they may be less motivated when they need to wait for information. Contrary to standard economic models, we predict an immediacy effect (or present bias) for information even in those cases when waiting does not affect the objective value of information. Furthermore, we argue that this immediacy effect is independent from motivated emotion‐management; that is, introducing delays makes people less willing to obtain information for its own sake even when information does not elicit strong anticipatory feelings. We test these hypotheses in two pre‐registered experiments (N = 2406) featuring real effort and monetary incentives and find that introducing a delay in information provision significantly reduces participants' willingness to obtain information. In Study 1, we also show that people display a stronger immediacy effect for information than for monetary rewards. In Study 2, we demonstrate that people are impatient for information regardless of how they expect to feel after receiving the information, and even when the perceived instrumental value of information remains unaffected by the delay. The strong impatience for information in both studies is consistent with the notion that curiosity acts as a drive, and as such, is highly transient.