Privatization Research Articles

OPTIMAL IN THE NATIONAL ENERGY SECTOR DIRECTIONS OF FORMATION OF INFRASTRUCTURE COMPLEX

OPTIMAL IN THE NATIONAL ENERGY SECTOR DIRECTIONS OF FORMATION OF INFRASTRUCTURE COMPLEX

Work-from-home-related musculoskeletal pain during the COVID-19 pandemic: A rapid review protocol

BackgroundThe recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced various workforce industries to work from home. The work-from-home set-up has exposed some workers to some office-related work, typically not included in their jobs, consequently exposing them to an increased risk for developing musculoskeletal pain. MethodsWe will search PubMed, MEDLINE, and CINAHL for observational studies published between May 2020–June 2021. This review will include published peer-reviewed studies in the English language. We will include studies that recruited adults aged 20–65 from any work industry reporting on outcomes related to musculoskeletal functions (i.e., pain, disorder, condition, etc.). Two independent reviewers will screen the search results. Two independent reviewers will accomplish risk of bias assessment using the JBI-MAStARI critical appraisal tools. Likewise, data extraction will be performed by one reviewer and verified by a second reviewer. Pooled prevalence estimates will be generated using Revman V.5.2.1, where Forest plots will be generated to determine overall estimates of random-effects and confidence intervals. To quantify heterogeneity, we will index the I2 and X2 p-value. A narrative synthesis summarised into tables and themes will likewise be used to summarize the extracted data. DiscussionA rapid review methodology was chosen to rapidly synthesize the available literature on the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain associated with work-from-home conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is essential in informing health programs and policies that address both the public and private industry sectors. Systematic review registrationThis is registered in the PROSPERO Registry (CRD42021266097).

INFORMATION PATHWAYS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON CORRUPTION: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

ABSTRACT Current works of the literature suggest that corrupt countries try to hide their corrupt practices from their citizens in attempting to control the number of different types of daily newspapers and that the ability for a nation to provide a variety of media for their citizens as to allow them to choose and to pick from different sources and viewpoints about their country reflects the amount of corruption that country has. This research compares three things: expenditure on R&D, the number of telephone lines in use, and the amount of and variety of newspapers being read in a certain country, and tries to see the relationship between these three variables and the perception of corruption. The results supported the hypothesis that the greater the variety of media that citizens of a country have to choose from, and the greater the expenditure on R&D, the lower the perception of corruption. Interestingly enough, we find that the more the private industry spends on R&D than the government, the lower the corruption. Keywords Information, influence, corruption

Consumer trust in organic food and organic certifications in four European countries

As the European organic market accelerates its growth, consumers are increasingly looking for produce that can be trusted, sustainably produced and environmentally friendly. Over the last decade, organic research has shifted to faster growing markets in Asia, despite fraudulent organic food still being an issue in Europe. This study addresses this gap by investigating the differences in consumers trust in organic meat and vegetables across 4 European Countries (Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK). In this study an online cross-sectional survey utilising validated tools was designed and data collected from 2071 respondents, approximately representative in terms of gender, age and region per country. Results identified between country differences in trust and beliefs in the ‘organicness’ of the produce. Overall, consumers had a high levels of trust in certified organic food chain and produce, and strong beliefs in the benefits of certification bodies; however this differed between countries. Italy and Poland respondents reported higher overall trust and preferred EU certification; whilst the UK and Germany reported lower trust and preferred their national certification bodies. Similarly, there were interesting differences between the products and national preferences. The findings highlight opportunities especially in Germany and the UK, for private industry, national and world-level bodies to improve the sustainability and growth of the organic food market.

Application of Functional Time Series Model in Forecasting Monthly Diurnal API Curves: A Comparison between Multi-Step Ahead and Iterative One-Step Ahead Approach

In Malaysia, Air Pollution Index (API) is used to assess the status of background air quality. The computation of API involved six major air pollutants including PM10, PM2.5, O3, CO, SO2 and NOx. Due to the harmful effect of air pollution, forecasting API is important. This paper introduces the application of Functional Time Series (FTS) model in forecasting monthly diurnal maximum API curves at two selected sites in Peninsular Malaysia; namely Shah Alam Selangor and Pasir Gudang Johor. Two FTS models were compared which include Multi-Step ahead and Iterative One-Step ahead approach. The results show that the Multi-Step ahead model has produced better performance giving the lowest error measures; FMSE, FRMSE and FMAPE compared to Iterative One-Step ahead. This study has shown that FTS model has the advantage because it enables the prediction of continuous API levels within a defined continuum time, which in this study was the interval time within 24 hours. Functional descriptive mean shows a bimodal pattern with a peak at 3.00 pm and the average levels are at a healthy level. Functional mean of API exhibits an increasing pattern after sunrise towards 10.00 am at both sites, which inform that, this is the time with a higher contribution of vehicles emission while the standard deviation differs in the pattern. The model is recommended as an alternative model to be used by the government and environmentalists in providing input for guiding pollution control and protecting public health at the early stage. Furthermore, as for the private sector and industries, this study might provide a predictive analytic tool for forecasting daily API curves instead of a single daily average API value.

Upstream privatization and downstream licensing

AbstractThis study attempts to investigate the impact of downstream foreign licensing on upstream privatization policy in a vertically related market, in which a public firm and a domestic private firm supply exclusively to downstream domestic and foreign firms, respectively. We show that downstream licensing occurs when the cost differential between downstream duopolists is small, and the optimal strategy under licensing is upstream partial privatization. In addition, downstream foreign licensing facilitates upstream privatization. We further show that downstream licensing improves (reduces) local welfare when the cost differential is large (small).

Optimal partial privatization in an endogenous timing game: a mixed oligopoly approach

Optimal partial privatization in an endogenous timing game: a mixed oligopoly approach

Essential teamwork skills: Perspectives of environmental geoscience employers

Geoscience employers have increasingly called for the future workforce (students) to demonstrate competence in non-technical skills, including teamwork. This descriptive qualitative study contributes to ongoing efforts to identify the specific practices, skills, habits, and knowledge that make up these desired teamwork competencies in the geosciences. We collected interview data from three online focus group discussions centered around teamwork. Focus group participants (n = 12) were hydrogeology and environmental geology employers and team managers from government, private industry, and nonprofit organizations in the United States. Using a teamwork skills taxonomy model as our conceptual framework, we coded the transcripts to generate three categories of teamwork skills specific to environmental geoscience teams. First, our data indicate that these employers value team transition skills related to specifying goals, interpreting team tasks, identifying resources, and planning. The second category of desired teamwork competencies included action skills such as metacognition, coordination, and mentoring. These skills directly impact successful task completion. The third category captured interpersonal skills such as emotional intelligence, proactive communication, and organization. A fourth category of desired teamwork competencies emerged from data analysis and include ethical skills related to trust, integrity, and humility. This study provides a detailed description of teamwork competencies desired by environmental geoscience employers. We recommend that geoscience instructors consider using techniques such as intentional teaching of teamwork skills, experiential learning, professional development, and teamwork awareness in order to prepare students for workforce expectations.

The “public body” enquiry in WTO disputes: implications for partial privatization

PurposeThis paper aims to question the “conventional” privatization of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and to propose the neutral position adopted by the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) to reconcile the divergent views within the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime.Design/methodology/approachChina’s partially privatized SOEs have raised numerous attention in WTO disputes regarding whether China's way of social and economic reform is consistent with its accession commitments and with WTO rules, in particular subsidy rules. Instead of providing a definite legal standard applicable to the “public body” enquiry, the DSB adopts the neutral position to reconcile the divergent views between developed and developing countries on whether not fully privatized SOEs constitute “public body.”FindingsAlbeit with interpretative vagueness, the value of DSB’s neutral position lies in its adequacy: first, the adequacy to address the complexity of SOE privatizations in developing countries; second, the adequacy to engage relevant parties to maintain the multilateral trading system; and third, not to impose specific impact on justification of countervailing duties.Originality/valueThis paper captures the recent developments in “public body” enquiry and calls for a compromised approach to maintain the WTO-like multilateral trade regime and to allow for more policy spaces for developing countries that best fit their unique circumstances and needs. It sees new and significant information, in the sense that the paper aims to present why China’s partial privatization benefits from the WTO “neutrality” on the subject.

An Efficient and Secure Multimessage and Multireceiver Signcryption Scheme for Edge-Enabled Internet of Vehicles

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is considered an enhancement of existing vehicular ad-hoc networks, which helps connect mobile vehicles to the Internet of Things (IoT) with the support of 5G networks. To assure the quality-of-service demand by the users, the edge computing paradigm of 5G networks can be incorporated in the IoV environment for supporting compute-intensive applications. The basic safety messages are typically transmitted using a multicast pattern in the IoV-enabled edge computing paradigm. The use of the multicast channel may accelerate the communication process; however, it is prone to various attacks due to the open nature of wireless networks. This article proposes a multimessage and multireceiver signcryption scheme for the multicast channel in a certificateless setting to solve the key escrow problem. The security of the partial private key is dependent on the secure channel, which increases the complexities of the system. Therefore, in the proposed scheme, we introduce a new idea that does not require a secure channel. The key generation center only sends the pseudo partial private key of the users on a public channel. Furthermore, the proposed scheme is based on hyper-elliptic curve cryptography (HECC), which has much smaller key sizes as compared to elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). The security proofs and performance comparison for our scheme are carried out. The findings show that the proposed scheme provides high security while using less computational and communication costs.

Race and ethnic group dependent space radiation cancer risk predictions

Future space missions by national space agencies and private industry, including space tourism, will include a diverse makeup of crewmembers with extensive variability in age, sex, and race or ethnic groups. The relative risk (RR) model is used to transfer epidemiology data between populations to estimate radiation risks. In the RR model cancer risk is assumed to be proportional to background cancer rates and limited by other causes of death, which are dependent on genetic, environmental and dietary factors that are population dependent. Here we apply the NSCR-2020 model to make the first predictions of age dependent space radiation cancer risks for several U.S. populations, which includes Asian-Pacific Islanders (API), Black, Hispanic (white and black), and White (non-Hispanic) populations. Results suggest that male API and Hispanic populations have the overall lowest cancer risks, while White females have the highest risk. Blacks have similar total cancer rates than Whites, however their reduced life expectancy leads to modestly lower lifetime radiation risks compared to Whites. There are diverse tissue specific cancer risk ranking across sex and race, which include sex specific organ risks, female’s having larger lung, stomach, and urinary-bladder radiation risks, and male’s having larger colon and brain risks.

The Rubber Industry of Indonesia: Strategy for Competitiveness and Sustainability

The paper presents a systematic review of the latest developments in the natural rubber industry and describes the major predictors for the sustainability of Indonesia’s competitive advantage in this sector. In-depth interviews with experts were conducted to gather data from the private and public industries, International Trade Statistic, and Statistics Indonesia. The data were analyzed using the Diamond Model, which is widely used as the framework of a country’s competitive advantage. The data is processed to find the RCA value and mapping the factors affecting the competitive advantages of ITRC countries. In the face of falling rubber prices, the Indonesia rubber industry's recent management strategy is to increase competitiveness sustainably by increasing productivity in the upstream industry and efficiency in the downstream industry. To boost competitiveness even further, a more concentrated endeavor to stimulate innovation and technology adoption by farmers and businesses is required. The study offers a comprehensive examination of Indonesia as a country with major agricultural export industries. It methodically investigates the strategies that must be implemented to sustain the rubber industry in Indonesia. Keywords: competitiveness, industry, natural rubber, revealed competitive advantage, sustainability DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-3-06 Publication date: February 28 th 2022

A Ghoul at the Gates: Natural Gas Energy and the Environment in Pahlavi Iran, 1960–1979

AbstractIn the 1960s and 1970s, Iranian officials embraced natural gas as a new energy source for their rapidly industrializing society, seeing it as a readily available substitute for the lucrative oil products their country's citizens were consuming in increasing amounts. Reacting to the growing concentrations of smoke and haze in cities, and unable to alter the mountainous terrain and semiarid climate that intensified them, gas seemingly promised to be a technical savior upon which to build an Iran as environmentally sound as it was prosperous, technologically sophisticated, and energy hungry. Pahlavi-era developmental choices were shaped by officials’ concern for deteriorating environmental conditions, the natural factors that compounded the issue, and the interests of private industry. Using archival and published materials collected in Iran, this article focuses on urban air pollution and the fitful efforts to mitigate it through the conversion of industrial facilities to gas.

Environmental taxes and the effects of partial privatization on environmental R&D, environment and welfare

This paper considers environmental R&D (ER&D) of clean technology for reducing pollutant emissions in a polluting mixed duopoly and analyzes partial privatization’s impacts on ER&D, environment and welfare. In the situation that environmental taxes are exogenously given, it finds that the impacts of privatization policy on ER&D and environment critically depend on the level of environmental damage. However, regardless of the marginal damage, an appropriate partial-privatization policy can increase social welfare. In addition, it also considers an endogenously determined optimal environmental tax and shows that if the marginal damage is high, partial privatization’s impacts on ER&D, environment and social welfare may be not the same as the exogenous environmental tax situation.

Pricing Strategies and Partial Privatization Policy Based on Complementary Competitive Market

Pricing Strategies and Partial Privatization Policy Based on Complementary Competitive Market

Industry Payment Trends to Orthopaedic Surgeons From 2014 to 2018: An Analysis of the First 5 Years of the Open Payments Database.

The Open Payments Database (OPD) provides transparent reporting of all payments made to physicians from private industry. Previous studies have described the nature of these financial relationships using the first year of publicly available data. However, long-term trends of these relationships have not been well described. Therefore, we report on the value and distribution of payments within the OPD and analyze trends of payments made to orthopaedic surgeons from 2014 to 2018. The OPD was queried from 2014 to 2018. Payments within the database were categorized into (1) general payments, (2) research interests, and (3) ownership interests. We report on the number, value, and payment trends between private industry and all licensed orthopaedic surgeons who have completed residency training. A total of 631,000 physicians and 23,859 orthopaedic surgeons were included, representing 79.8% of US board-certified orthopaedic surgeons (n = 29,908). Although orthopaedic surgeons received an average of 2.9% of the number of payments made annually, payments to orthopaedic surgeons represented 10.0% of the value of payments made to all physicians. From 2014 to 2018, payments to orthopaedic surgeons increased in both number and value, from 313,194 separate payments ($883.8 million) in 2014 to 335,815 separate payments ($958.6 million) in 2018. In 2018, the top 1% of orthopaedic surgeons (n = 239) accounted for 58.0% ($265.8 million) of all payments to the field. Despite representing only 2.4% of the number of general payments, royalties represented 68.9% ($290.4 million) of the value of general payments to orthopaedic surgeons. Payments for research and education both increased. Industry payments to orthopaedic surgeons represent 10.0% of all physician payments, with increases in payments for research and education. Royalties represented most (68.9%) of the value of general payments made to orthopaedic surgeons. Transparency in physician payments from industry is essential to avoid conflicts of interest. Level III.

The Impact of Concessioners on Sustainability in and around U.S. National Parks: A Case Study of Grand Teton National Park Concessioners

Concessioners play an important role in park and protected area management by providing visitor services. Historically, concessioners were criticized for their negative impacts on environmental sustainability. However, due to policy changes, technological advances, and shifting market demands, there is a need to reevaluate the role of concessioners in sustainable destination management in and around parks and protected areas. The purpose of this qualitative case study situated in Grand Teton National Park (GTNP), which was guided by social exchange theory, was to explore U.S. national park concessioners’ influence on sustainable development at the destination level from the perspective of National Park Service (NPS) staff, concessioners, and local community members. Sustainability was examined holistically as a multifaceted construct with integrated socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental dimensions. Twenty-three participants completed semistructured interviews. Researchers identified four thematic categories describing concessioners’ influence on sustainability; motivations and barriers to pursuing sustainability initiatives; and situational factors that facilitated concessioners’ sustainability actions. While participants commented on the negative environmental impacts of concessioners and their operations, these data suggest that concessioners were working individually and collaboratively to promote environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural sustainability in and around GTNP. Some concessioners were even described as leaders, testing and driving the development of innovative sustainability policies and practices. These actions were motivated, in part, by contractual obligations and profit generation. However, concessioners also had strong intangible motivators, such as intrinsic values and a strong sense of community, that drove their positive contributions to sustainability. Based on these data, we recommend that those involved in future theoretical and practical work with concessioners acknowledge the importance of both tangible and intangible motivators when attempting to promote higher levels of sustainability achievement and collaboration. This will become increasingly important as land management agencies continue to embrace strategies beyond the traditional “parks as islands” approach to management. Additionally, future work should explore more specifically the role of policy, conceptualizations of sustainability, and private industry sponsorship in promoting concessioners’ contributions to sustainability, especially in collaborative settings. This work is needed to understand if and how these observations generalize to other contexts.

What Drives University-Industry Collaboration

This study aims to analyze the implementation of collaboration between private universities and industry at the faculty level to improve the quality of graduates and test an effective collaborative learning model between faculty and industry.

Exploring the Key Practices of E-HRM in Place of Traditional HRM: A Study on Private Industry of Bangladesh

E-HRM is relatively a new term in Bangladesh which is called the internet-technology-supported human resource management used today in various private industries through the power of web-based technology. It has brought a great change in the way of traditional HRM functions. The aim of this paper was to identify the key practices of e-HRM instead of traditional HRM practices in the private industry of Bangladesh for making our current HRM practices more need-based, effective and practical oriented. Data were collected from the total number of 108 respondents including all HR officers, senior officers and professionals etc through a close-ended structured questionnaire survey from January to April 2022. In this case, a five point Likert scale has been used to design the whole questionnaire. A simple random sampling technique has been used to reach the sample respondents. The collected data has been analyzed though Garrett ranking method in this study to find out the research result. The study found some of the key practices of e-HRM in the private industry such as e-communication (62.26%); e-personal profile (64.44%), e-training (64.53%), e-application tracking (66.36%), e-recruitment (66.57%). Based on the study, it was recommended that, our private industry should continue to practice e-communication, e-personal profile, e-training, e-application tracking, e-recruitment in place of the conventional HRM practices.

Sharing precision medicine data with private industry: Outcomes of a citizens’ jury in Singapore

Precision medicine is an emerging approach to treatment and disease prevention that relies on linkages between very large datasets of health information that is shared amongst researchers and health professionals. While studies suggest broad support for sharing precision medicine data with researchers at publicly funded institutions, there is reluctance to share health information with private industry for research and development. As the private sector is likely to play an important role in generating public benefits from precision medicine initiatives, it is important to understand what the concerns are and how they might be mitigated. This study reports outcomes of a deliberative method of citizen engagement in Singapore that asked whether sharing precision medicine data with private industry would be permissible, and if so, under what circumstances. Findings from this citizens’ jury suggest sharing with industry would be permissible under certain conditions that are set out in nine recommendations. Implications of the recommendations and their underlying assumptions for policy decision makers are discussed. This study aligns with prior international studies which found conditional acceptance for data sharing with private industry, a public benefit requirement, specific reluctance to share with insurance companies and an emphasis on accountability and transparency to demonstrate trustworthiness. However, our results differ from prior studies in that opt-in consent did not dominate the deliberations as jurors were able to set it aside as an assumed prerequisite for participation in a precision medicine programme.