Agency Organization Research Articles

Agency and Structure in Militarized Conservation and Armed Mobilization: Evidence from Eastern DRC's Kahuzi‐Biega National Park

ABSTRACTOngoing debates in conservation studies stress the dire consequences of ‘fortress’ and ‘militarized’ conservation at violent frontiers. Presenting evidence from Kahuzi‐Biega National Park in war‐torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this article shows how the park has become a focal point for armed insurgent groups in the region. Although fortress conservation has contributed to one major incident of violent resistance in recent years, it plays only a marginal role in defining the structures shaping the actions of armed groups. These structures — some of which are reproduced and (occasionally) reshaped by armed groups — include the legacies of poverty and insecurity, the geographical features of the park and the presence of illicit trading networks. This perspective emerges only when we zoom out from the park to place it within the context of the history and broader political economy of the DRC. On the one hand, these dynamics severely constrain the agency of conservation organizations, leaving militarized conservation as the only feasible form of enforcement. This approach at times generates violent outcomes for certain groups of people and produces a resource‐rich, isolated terrain which provides a staging ground for broader conflicts to play out. On the other hand, militarized conservation could provide basic law and order at the forest's edge. Ultimately, therefore, militarized conservation plays an ambivalent role vis‐à‐vis security and stability.

Pediatric Hepatic Angiosarcoma (PHAS) and Vinyl Chloride—A Ghost of the Past May Loom over East Palestine, OH, and beyond: A Critical Commentary

Road accidents are not infrequent everywhere in the world, but when they involve poisonous and dangerous chemical compounds, they represent a hazard and an issue for public health. In this commentary, we briefly review a recent East Palestine event and one of the chemicals primarily involved with a predisposition to initiate a carcinogenetic process. The author reviewed, as a consultant, numerous chemical compounds for the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a trusted agency of the World Health Organization. Something is looming over the territories of East Palestine, Ohio, United States, draining water from the soil. We speculate that there is a dark and opprobrious fate for this area of the United States due to the potential increase in cases of pediatric hepatic angiosarcoma, which will also be revised in this commentary.

Public Spaces, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Connecting Disabled Entrepreneurs to Urban Spaces

In the UK and in many other countries, the lack of support for disabled entrepreneurs is an economic, cultural, and societal issue. This is because while disabled entrepreneurs belong to and contribute to public spaces, there are often barriers to their full engagement in the local economy. Where interaction is well established, such entrepreneurs add to the cultural richness of places, to personal and societal well-being and economically by wealth creation. The goal of the study is to identify what can be done to overcome the marginalisation of disabled entrepreneurs, which leads to increased local equality of opportunity, thereby adding to the diversity of local economies and, thus, to a more inclusive society. However, as the evidence from this study of the geography of specialised networks which support disabled entrepreneurs in the UK shows, the entrepreneurial capacity of public spaces (inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems) for disabled entrepreneurs is better in some places and entirely absent in others. It is this local dimension that has been missing in other studies of disabled entrepreneurs. By focusing on the formal networks that have been established to support disabled entrepreneurs rather than the entrepreneurs themselves, the particular knowledge gap that this paper addresses is the importance of the networks in making those connections and bringing about systemic change in urban spaces. They do this in three ways. They provide access to resources that disabled entrepreneurs need to start and grow a business; in turn, they need to engage with other local public and private sector organisations in order to sustain their own activities, and by their role as advocates on behalf of their members through their leadership, they increase the visibility of disabled entrepreneurs within urban spaces. The contribution to academic literature is to explore the interconnection between the agency of particular organisations to improve inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems and overcome embedded exclusion within urban spaces. Examples from the UK and from the USA provide empirical insights into what can be done.

THE IMPACT OF THE CRIME RATE ON THE HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM INDUSTRY IN THE EU COUNTRIES

Tourism is the largest service industry in the world. The direct and reverse relationship between crime and tourism significantly affects the economy, society and individuals. Studying this impact is necessary for the state policy making and the organization of law enforcement agencies. The aim of this study was to determine the specifics of the criminal situation in the hospitality and tourism in the EU. The research involved system approach, descriptive analysis, systematic sampling, doctrinal approach, statistical analysis and forecasting as research methods. The results of specialized studies were summarized, and the lack of a comprehensive background for effective law enforcement was revealed. The main trends of the European tourism industry were identified. General European trends regarding the impact of crime on the tourism industry were revealed: a positive correlation of the security index with terrorist attacks; the relationship between the statistical significance of migration processes and the peculiarities of human trafficking in particular EU countries. The theoretical and practical problems of imperfect statistics on tourism-related crimes were confirmed. An approach to the preventive policy principles in the tourism industry was presented. The impact of crime on the hospitality and tourism is a multidimensional problem that requires the development of special preventive policies. The prospects for improving crime prevention in the tourism sector are related to the improvement of the practice of registering crimes and attracting additional opportunities for the public and subjects of the tourism industry. Prospects for further research include identifying the relationship between crime and various types of tourism.

Implementation of the analog switch off towards digital broadcast Jawa Pos

Background: It is a common fact that the rapid development of technology influenced many aspects of the world, including mass communication. Television, as the most popular and familiar broadcast media in Indonesia, has experienced several changes due to the presence of advanced technology. One of the significant transformations is the transition from analog to digital broadcasting systems. The new era of digital broadcasting could improve the performance and quality of digital television itself. Purpose: This recent study aimed to obtain an overview of the realization carried out by one of the local private broadcasting institutions in Banten, JPM TV. Methods: Using a qualitative case study along with in-depth interviews and observation as data collection techniques, this study examines JPM TV from various aspects in realizing digital TV broadcasts in Banten Province. Results: The study’s findings highlighted that JPM TV strives to realize digital broadcasting by gradually replacing equipment with tools that support digital broadcasting and elements of human resources trained and prepared with special internal and external training. JPM TV also collaborated with LPPM (Mix Broadcasting Organizing Agency), namely Mix Metro TV. The ongoing process is coordinated with the government. Obstacles faced during the migration process are the socioeconomic conditions of the people who have not been able to support the digital broadcasting process, which is characterized by the difficulty of obtaining digital broadcasting at relatively low prices; besides that, it is also necessary to increase the capacity of Human Resources (HR) so that television shows are more comfortable to watch. Implications: One of the implications is that the government must innovate to provide incentives that can stimulate the readiness of the digital broadcasting ecosystem.

Features of the experience of Kazakhstan and Belarus in the implementation of the concept of a unified body of preliminary investigation

Formulation and consideration of various issues related to the improvement of the investigative apparatus of Russia are in the constant attention of representatives of legal science. The current state concept and the practical model of the country's investigative apparatus built on its basis require significant improvement in order to resolve existing organizational and procedural challenges. The purpose of the research is to identify and analyze the stages of construction, the positive and negative aspects of organization and activities of single and independent agencies of preliminary investigation in foreign countries, as well as the genesis and trends of their development. Based on the results obtained, the study formulates proposals for improving the investigative apparatus of the country regarding the Investigative Committee of Russia. To achieve this goal, the research explores the experience of organizing unified and independent preliminary investigation agencies in the countries of the former USSR and the West. All the results and conclusions were obtained using general scientific methods of scientific research: dialectical, logical, systemic, as well as private scientific and special such as comparative legal, formal legal, statistical, interpretation and a number of others. The author comes to the conclusion that organization and activities of the Investigative Committees of Russia and Belarus are basically similar, but there are some positions that differ significantly. Negative experience of building a unified and independent investigative committee was demonstrated in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The reason was insufficient attention paid to preparations on the part of the leadership to creation of such an agency. Thus, combination of functions of inquiry, operational-search, investigative, statistics and expert, as well as transfer of some of the important and inalienable powers of the prosecutor's office when creating such a law enforcement agency is unacceptable.

A methionine biomolecule-modified chromenylium-cyanine fluorescent probe for the analysis of Hg2+ in the environment and living cells

The objective of the study is, for the first time, to construct a new near infrared (NIR) fluorophore, spectrophotometric, colorimetric, ratiometric, and turn-on probe (CSME) based on chromenylium cyanine platform decorated with methionine biomolecule to provide an efficient solution for critical shortcoming to be encountered for analysis of hazardous Hg2+ in environment and living cell. The CSME structure and its interaction with Hg2+ ion were evaluated by NMR, FTIR, MS, UV–Vis and fluorescence methods as well as Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. The none fluorescence CSME having spirolactam ring only interacted with Hg2+ in aqueous solution including competing ions. This interaction caused the fluorescence CSME with opened spirolactam form which exhibited spectral and colorimetric changes in the NIR region. The probe based on UV–Vis and fluorescence techniques respond in 90 s, has wide linear ranges (for UV–Vis: 6.29 × 10−8 – 1.86 × 10−4 M; for fluorescence: 9.49 × 10−9 – 1.13 × 10−5 M), and has a lower Limit of Detection (LOD) value (for fluorescence: 4.93 × 10−9 M, 0.99 ng/mL) than the value predicted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) organization. Hg2+ analysis was performed in drinking and tap water with low Relative Standard Deviation (RSD) values and high recovery. Smartphone and living cell applications were successfully performed for colorimetric sensing Hg2+ in real samples and 3T3 cells, respectively.

Stratification of stakeholders for participation in the governance of coastal social-ecological systems.

Knowledge co-production has become part of an evolution of participatory and transdisciplinary research approaches that are increasingly important for achieving sustainability. To effectively involve the most appropriate stakeholders there is a need for engagement and increasing prominence of stakeholders in environmental management and governance processes. The paper aims at developing and testing a methodology for stratifying stakeholders by (i) classifying organisations involved in coastal and ocean governance by their agency, and (ii) grouping them into organisational archetypes for representation and selection in research processes. Agency was measured by the three dimensions of scale, resources, and power. Each dimension was further elaborated as a set of indicators. The methodology is applied in the context of a research project set in Algoa Bay, South Africa. The stratification of organisations enabled the research team to gain a better understanding of the stakeholder landscape of organisational agency, and thus identify the most relevant stakeholder with which to engage. The use of a hierarchical cluster analysis identified five organisational archetypes in relation to ocean and coastal governance in Algoa Bay. The methodology used in this study proposes an informed and intentional approach to create the conditions under which the co-production of and participation in research processes can take place.

Determinants of Public Service Performance in the Manpower Social Security Organizing Agency (Case Study in Ternate City, Indonesia)

Determinants of Public Service Performance in the Manpower Social Security Organizing Agency (Case Study in Ternate City, Indonesia)

Approach to Patients with Consecutive Helicobacter pylori Eradication Failure

<i>Helicobacter pylori</i> (<i>H. pylori</i>) is associated with various gastrointestinal disorders, such as gastritis, peptic ulcers, mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma, and gastric cancer. Therefore, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, categorizes <i>H. pylori</i> as a definite gastric carcinogen (group I). <i>H. pylori</i> eradication is a major challenge both medically and socioeconomically in countries with high prevalence of <i>H. pylori</i> and gastric cancer. However, the efficacy of first-line clarithromycin-containing triple therapy and second-line bismuth-containing quadruple therapy continues to decline worldwide including in Korea. The role of salvage therapy is being recognized globally; however, the exact salvage therapy which is useful in daily clinical practice remains unestablished. In this review, factors associated with eradication failure will be discussed. Furthermore, eradication regimens that may be useful as salvage therapies based on Korean guidelines, Maastricht VI/Florence consensus report and previous research are summarized.

The Role of Jamkeswacht in Helping Cicadas Village Communities Who Experience Health Service Difficulties

Jamkeswatch is a national social health insurance supervisory institution established by the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions as a control function for the implementation of National Health Insurance and the Social Health Security Organizing Agency. This is done to ensure that the implementation of health insurance in this country can run as we expect. In addition to criticizing policies, Jamkeswatch also advocates for people who have difficulty having access to health insurance. In this research, we will discuss the role of Jamkeswatch in helping people who experience difficulties, especially in the Cicadas Village area, Bogor Regency.

The Role of Women as Agents and Beneficiaries in the Hungarian Family Planning System (1914–1944)

The article outlines the developments in the national concept of family planning with particular reference to the female agents of healthcare and social policy measures from the turn of the century up to 1944. After the lost war and the shattering Treaty of Trianon in 1920, Hungary found itself in a deepening demographic crisis. High infant mortality and criminal abortion rates, the deficiency of graduate midwives, and the one-child system in the south-western part of the country concerned both politicians and intellectuals. The paper aims at connecting the medical, political, and social discourses based on archival and press sources on family planning by analyzing the role and agency of different women's organizations. I argue that state social policy measures and aid actions of the church and civic organizations and associations principally assigned two types of roles to women. On the one hand, they were active participants and agents, on the other hand, they were passive subjects and beneficiaries of social assistance activities. Furthermore, the article highlights the role of medical professionals (doctors, midwives, nurses) intersecting with the role of women as active agents in the execution of social policy measures. By integrating documents on family planning such as journal articles, political speeches and criminal abortion data into the national and political discourses, the article claims that women have often played contradictory roles in the process of family planning. Midwives and nurses who served as gatekeepers either helped women by providing access to birth control and abortion or complied with the regulations of the pro-natalist state, depriving women of choice.

Organization of the Activities of the Internal Affairs Bodies in the Context of the Emergence of New Challenges to Russia's Cybersecurity

The article deals with the problem of the organization and effectiveness of law enforcement agencies in ensuring cyber security of the Russian Federation. Based on the analysis of regulatory legal acts and the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies. Cybercrime is gaining more and more popularity every year, and thus more and more importance is attached to it by law enforcement agencies. Statistics of the GIAC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on the state of crime in the Russian Federation for January - October 2022 shows that the number of crimes committed using information technology decreased by 5.6%. However, such statistics only confirm that law enforcement agencies are successfully coping with the performance of a preventive function, preventing and suppressing crimes in the field of information technology. At the same time, statistics do not indicate that cybercrimes are losing their relevance. They are acquiring a new format, becoming more sophisticated in technical terms, which, of course, requires more competence and professionalism from law enforcement agencies in this area. In 2022, a new department is operating in the structure of the internal affairs bodies – the "Department for the Organization of Combating the Illegal Use of Information and Communication Technologies" as a specialized department in the structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The legislator points out as the reasons for the creation of the Department – the growth of computer attacks, remote theft of funds and the active development of the illegal digital industry.

Resource mobilization in security partnerships: Explaining cooperation and coercion in the EU’s partnership with the African Union

Security partnerships between unequal partners walk a fine line between mutually beneficial cooperation and coercion. This article theorizes resource provision in security partnerships in which a funder substantively supports a recipient organization. Specifically, I develop an argument concerning the effect of principal–agent interactions in security partnerships on the recipient’s agency through mechanisms of agenda-setting and capacity-building. The European Union’s (EU) peace and security partnership with the African Union (AU) illustrates the contentious politics of resource mobilization in security partnerships, and how these politics affect the secretariat of the recipient organization. The article arrives at the rather optimistic conclusion that the EU is a generous partner with an explicit goal of cooperative engagement. Furthermore, opportunities for coercion are minimized by the EU’s internal bureaucratic obstacles, the AU’s strategic sequencing of the resource mobilization process, and the overarching post-coloniality of the partnership. However, occasional episodes of coercive EU behaviour have led to considerable tensions in the partnership. These findings add important contrast to postcolonial critiques of AU funding: the AU Commission exercises considerable organizational agency, which relegates the EU – despite being a large payer – to the role of a small player, particularly when it comes to directly influencing the AU.

Locating Identification the Nearest Social Security Organizing Agency for Health Recipient Hospital Using the Haversine Formula and Black Box Method

Currently, many people have difficulty finding the nearest hospital that can accept the health insurance of the Health Social Security Organizing Agency (BPJS) and the ignorance of the community whether a hospital can accept BPJS Health or not. This can cause critical problems, especially if the patient's condition requires immediate health action. This problem can be solved with an application that can find the closest distance to BPJS recipient hospitals. One method to find the closest distance that currently has the highest level of accuracy is the Haversine Formula method. Applications made using the Haversine Formula method and based on Location Based Service can find the location of the nearest hospital based on the coordinates of the user's location. In this study, the application built using the Haversine Formula method and Location Based Service was able to find the closest distance from 38 hospitals in the Bekasi Regency area using Google Firebase as a database and Mapbox as a Maps API application. Tests were carried out by comparing the distance of 15 hospitals in 3 different locations, showing that the distance between the application and Google Maps was no more than 0.5 km, in location 1 the distance equation was 99%, location 2 was 97% and location 3 was 96% with an average success rate of 97%.

The Evolution of Migrant Mobilization in One Polish Diaspora Community: A Case Study of the Polish Catholic Society Eindhoven

This research concerns the transformation of one migrant community. It is based on an analysis of selected documents presenting Polish migrant associations in the Netherlands from the beginning of 1950s until the 1990s. The study offers an analysis of the minority mobilization process, with a focus on migrant organizational agency. It is a case study devoted to the Polish community in Eindhoven and its association, which was a local branch of migrant organization operating at a national level. The main sources used in the study are archival records, including organizational statute, circulars, information leaflets, press releases, official and private correspondence, bulletins, protocols, organizational reports, official declarations, and minutes from meetings. In addition, interviews and biographical data are taken into account. Most of the written sources were obtained from the archive of Franciszek Łyskawa, a Polish migrant soldier who settled in Eindhoven shortly after World War II. Over the course of the following decades, he remained an active member of the diaspora while also integrating into the host society, and he became a Dutch citizen. The study shows the evolution of this Polish migrant community from the precarious situation of the early postwar years through the development of immigrants’ associations and institutions which emerged in parallel to efforts to integrate into the multicultural society in the 1960s and 1970s and eventually the gradual decline of activity among the members of this community as immigrants.

International legal standards as a methodological basis for the creation and improvement of national law enforcement systems

Having declared a firm and irreversible course for European integration, Ukraine continues to increase the pace of bringing its national law enforcement system to modern world and European standards, which is, in turn, a positive and very important indicator of the state's development in a democratic direction. The main guidelines in this process, in addition to national, historical and legal traditions, should be international legal standards that allow building Ukrainian statehood and its legal system openly and transparently in interaction with foreign and international law, by borrowing and using modern progressive foreign legal concepts , doctrines, ideas, generally recognized international principles, norms, standards.
 The implementation of international legal standards into the Ukrainian national law enforcement system began immediately after the declaration of Ukraine's independence and continued for thirty years, but it is now necessary to accelerate this process by means of a constant and scrupulous search in international legal sources, which become more and more every year more and more, new democratic directions of the functioning of judicial and law enforcement bodies, the latest forms and means of guaranteeing and protecting human rights, freedoms and legitimate interests.
 In addition to the analysis of the sources of international law, it is necessary to follow the scientific work of well-known foreign and domestic specialists, who in their works can offer modern and effective methods and techniques of borrowing international legal standards in the activities of national law enforcement agencies. This is also a significant way and method of solving the main issue of bringing the Ukrainian law enforcement system up to modern world and European standards. However, there cannot be an ill-conceived and simple mechanical transfer of an international standard or foreign experience of their implementation into national law enforcement systems, since our state is an original country with its own history, culture, mentality, its own way of developing law and legal system, which combine general civilizational and specific , trends peculiar only to Ukraine.
 In this regard, there is an urgent need to analyze the existing domestic and foreign developments regarding the borrowing of international legal standards as a methodological basis for the creation and improvement of the national law enforcement system, the development of acceptable for Ukraine procedures and mechanisms for the implementation of positive elements of the organization and activity of law enforcement agencies, which determines the need to conduct relevant scientific research.

Emergence and Structuring of the Clean Energy Regime Complex

Abstract While many have observed a regime complex for global clean energy governance, research has not yet accorded sufficient attention to the interplay of multiple streams of politics that have led to the structuring of overlapping governance initiatives and, ultimately, the articulation of a set of norms that hold this regime complex together. To understand these dynamics, this article argues that with the visibly increased agency of transnational actors and international organizations, four mechanisms together are likely to shape regime complexity: divergent state preferences, the agency of transnational actors, practices of intergovernmental organizations, and interorganizational recognition and normative legitimation. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of policy documents and interviews, and a social network analysis, it studies global clean energy governance from 1980 to 2014 to illuminate these dynamics. The findings suggest that the combination of these four mechanisms can explain the evolution from a nonregime to a loosely coupled governance system for clean energy.

The Impact of Self-efficacy and Health Literacy on Medication Adherence and Health-related Quality of Life in Patients with Heart Failure: A Systematic Review

Context: Effective implementation of self-care programs can reduce the treatment costs and the risk of severe complications of heart failure. However, people with low health literacy fail to properly conduct the complex care techniques. The control of chronic, progressive, and complex diseases largely depends on self-efficacy, adherence to treatment, and health-related quality of life. The purpose of this systematic review is to study research literature to explore the impact of self-efficacy and health literacy on medication adherence and health-related quality of life in patients with heart failure. Evidence Acquisition: Considering the PRISMA guideline, this systematic review study the articles published between 1999 and 2022. The articles written in the English language were recruited from PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science, CINAHL Plus, Embase, Cochrane, PsycINFO and google scholar databases. The quality of the studies was assessed by the organization Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and then the data was collected based on the designed checklists. Results: A total of 27 articles met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The studies were conducted on range of 44 to 705 patients with heart failure. Inadequate health literacy was observed to have a high prevalence in heart failure patients. Health literacy had a direct impact on quality of life and treatment adherence in all studies. Several studies have shown that interventions to increase patient self-efficacy led to greater adherence to treatment, higher quality of life, and lower hospitalization rates in the heart failure population. Low self-efficacy in patients was linked to high rates of comorbidity. Conclusions: Self-efficacy and health literacy have a positive effect on the quality of life, adherence to treatment, and reduction of mortality in patients with heart failure. Therefore, the implementation of training programs to improve these areas should be formulated by the health systems.

Procedural status of the prosecutor in electronic criminal proceedings

Purpose. To analyze the problems of the prosecutor's procedural status in electronic criminal proceedings. Method. The methodology includes a comprehensive analysis and generalization of the available scientific and theoretical material and the formulation of relevant conclusions. During the research, methods of scientific knowledge were used: comparative-legal, logical-semantic, functional, systemic-structural, logical-normative. The results. The article examines the problems of the prosecutor's procedural status in electronic criminal proceedings. It is noted that today the activities of prosecutor's offices are practically impossible without the introduction of modern information technologies, since the growing information flow requires increasing the efficiency and speed of work. In this context, one of the main tasks of the prosecutor's office should be to consider obtaining, processing and using a large amount of information on matters of public order protection, on fighting crime, as well as other information that ensures the proper organization and work of law enforcement agencies. Scientific novelty. Without information technologies, it is practically impossible to create an effective system of interaction between power structures, which in turn creates obstacles in the field of increasing the level of efficiency and quality of decision-making, ensuring the speed of detection of management errors. Therefore, the key to the effective functioning of the prosecutor's office is modern and proper information support for its activities. Practical significance. The procedural status of the prosecutor during electronic criminal proceedings is partially regulated by the norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and is in the process of formation. It is necessary to improve the legal mechanisms for the introduction of "electronic justice" tools, as well as to ensure clear interaction of the information systems of courts, the prosecutor's office, the bar, the penitentiary service and other justice bodies.