Societal Consequences Research Articles

How digitalisation influences neighbourhood change

Despite much research on the societal and individual consequences of new digital communication technologies, little attention has been paid to the neighbourhood as a locus of impact. This paper investigates how the growing influence of social media and real estate platforms will likely shape the process of neighbourhood change and the geographic distribution of population and financial resources. The investigation is grounded on a model of neighbourhood dynamics based on flows of households and property investments across metropolitan space, which are guided by imperfect information about housing market opportunities. Decision-makers receive information passively (increasingly through local and non-local social media) and when uncertainty about course of action becomes intolerable they turn to active search (increasingly involving online real estate platforms). Based on this conceptual framing, the article synthesises extant research to draw implications on how the expanding use of these new technologies is affecting neighbourhoods by changing the composition of decision-makers and the information that underpins their decisions. It concludes that digitalisation reduces neighbourhoods residential stability, social capital and diversity, while rendering their dwellings less well-maintained and more expensive.

Meaningful Work, Well-Being, and Health: Enacting a Eudaimonic Vision.

Work is one of the most enduring and consequential life domains regarding how meaning and purpose impact health and well-being. This review first examines scientific findings from the MIDUS (Midlife in the U.S.) national longitudinal study that have linked work to well-being and health. Most have focused on adverse work or work conditions as influences on poor health, with a few recent findings investigating links to purpose and other aspects of eudaimonic well-being. Organizational scholarship is then selectively reviewed to show how meaningful work is often linked to motivation, performance, and commitment. Paradoxically, meaning can also lead to the exploitation and erosion of health and well-being when managed without regard for decent working conditions. Recent workplace phenomena known as the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting underscore the societal consequences of work without meaning or adequate working conditions. Both the scientific and organizational literature are enriched by a vision of meaningful work rooted in Aristotle's writings about virtue, ethics, and the realization of potential. Evidence-based practices tied to these eudaimonic ideals are examined at multiple levels, including the societal context (public policy), organizational conditions (culture, human resource practices, leadership), and individual strategies to find meaning, engagement, and fulfillment in work. A concluding section highlights strengths and omissions in the scientific and organizational literature and, going forward, calls for greater interplay among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in enacting eudaimonic ideals.

Between desire and fear: a qualitative interview study exploring the perspectives of carriers of a genetic condition on human genome editing

Human genome editing technologies are advancing at a rapid pace, and their potential disruptive implications lead to ethical and societal questions that cannot be addressed by scientists alone. Further consideration of different stakeholders’ views on human genome editing is crucial to translate society’s needs and values into thoughtful regulations and policies. We therefore explored the views of carriers of autosomal dominant disorders on somatic and heritable genome editing (SGE and HGE) and the role of their (secular or religious) worldviews. This group of stakeholders would be most impacted by the eventual clinical application of genome editing technologies and therefore their views must be taken into account. Ten in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted, and data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. We found an overarching theme: ‘Balancing between the desire to prevent serious diseases in individuals through HGE, and the fear of the harmful impact on society and nature’ and three main themes: ‘The benefits of SGE and HGE for individuals’, ‘the societal consequences of using HGE’, and ‘the consequences of interfering with nature through HGE’. Although the lived experiences of the participants varied, they were positive towards the safe use of SGE regardless of the severity of conditions, and most participants were positive towards the use of HGE but only to prevent severe genetic conditions. A few participants were against using HGE in any case, regardless of the severity of a condition, based on their religious beliefs. However, most participants with either religious or secular worldviews reported similar views on HGE, both regarding their desire to prevent serious genetic disorders and their fear of the impact on society and nature if HGE were implemented more widely. Reflecting on HGE involved complex and often ambivalent views. When engaging different stakeholders, space is needed for ambivalence and the weighing of values.

Terrorist attacks sharpen the binary perception of “Us” vs. “Them”

Terrorist attacks not only harm citizens but also shift their attention, which has long-lasting impacts on public opinion and government policies. Yet measuring the changes in public attention beyond media coverage has been methodologically challenging. Here we approach this problem by starting from Wikipedia’s répertoire of 5.8 million articles and a sample of 15 recent terrorist attacks. We deploy a complex exclusion procedure to identify topics and themes that consistently received a significant increase in attention due to these incidents. Examining their contents reveals a clear picture: terrorist attacks foster establishing a sharp boundary between “Us” (the target society) and “Them” (the terrorist as the enemy). In the midst of this, one seeks to construct identities of both sides. This triggers curiosity to learn more about “Them” and soul-search for a clearer understanding of “Us”. This systematic analysis of public reactions to disruptive events could help mitigate their societal consequences.

Natech risk assessment for crude oil storage tanks using fish bone diagram

As natural events like storm, earthquake, or flood can have vast areas of impact. Natural disasters have the potential to cause significant impacts on both industrial areas and civil infrastructures like the power plants, communication towers, overhead transmission lines, road transportation, emergency and rescue services etc.). As both Industrial sectors and civil infrastructures are interdependent, such an event can have cascading effects resulting in catastrophes that span regional, national, and international borders. Analysis of past Natech incidents reveals that storage tanks are most susceptible to natural hazards compared to other oil and gas installations. The present paper discusses Natechs that are involved with the storage of hazardous material and also examines the Natech laws and emphasizes the significance of better understanding the interconnectivity of infrastructure failures related to storage tanks and their societal consequences.

Digital euro and accountability of the European Central Bank

The digital euro might be adopted as early as 2026 – a momentous decision, with profound societal consequences. And yet, little attention has been paid to the European Central Bank (ECB)'s accountability in the process of adoption and beyond. This article attempts to fill this void. It argues that the concept of ‘independent accountability’, still prevalent regarding monetary policy, is an inappropriate standard to hold the ECB accountable for its decisions on the digital euro for at least three reasons. First, while the ECB has the power to issue a digital euro with cash-like features, its mandate is not clear-cut, nor are its decisions merely technical in nature. Second, the digital euro affects areas in which the ECB has no specific expertise or authority, such as privacy, and its adoption requires an unprecedented level of coordination with the EU legislators. And third, it is not only public authorities with which the ECB must engage, but also market actors and citizens to ensure the digital euro's success. What emerges is a new accountability standard, with a broader range of ‘accountability stakeholders’ and a stronger role for ex ante consultations.

Discovering Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Formulas for Complex Diseases Based on a Combination of Reverse Systematic Pharmacology and TCM Meridian Tropism Theory: Taking COVID-19 as an Example.

Infections and death have been a part of our daily lives since the COVID-2019 pandemic outbreak in 2019, and the societal and economic consequences have lingered for an unanticipated duration. Novel and effective treatments are still desperately needed around the world to combat the infection. Here, we discovered a novel traditional Chinese medicine formula (TCMF) to potentially combat COVID-19 through reverse systematic pharmacology (disease → targets → TCMF → disease). Combining Integrative network pharmacology and the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) theory, a TCMF for COVID-19 was identified. In silico physiological interactions between herbs and disease hub targets were validated by molecular docking and dynamics simulation. Based on disease-related gene/pathway targets and a combination of reverse pharmacology and TCM meridian tropism theory, a COVID-19-associated herb database was constructed. A new TCMF, including Gancao, Baitouweng, Congbai, and Diyu (GBCD), was discovered for anti-COVID-19 therapy. The KEGG and GO analyses of 49 intersecting genes suggested that GBCD could combat COVID-19 through antiviral, antiinflammation, immunoregulation, and cytoprotection activities. Moreover, these possible effects were validated through docking and MD simulation. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to combine reverse pharmacology and meridian tropism theories for TCMF development, and a novel herbal combination, GBCD, was discovered for anti-COVID-19 therapy.

Experimental study on acoustic emission sensing and vibration monitoring of corroding reinforced concrete beams

Reinforcement corrosion is a major issue in reinforced concrete structures with severe societal and economic consequences if not detected and treated in time. This paper presents an elaborate experimental study to effectively monitor chloride-induced corrosion damage in reinforced concrete beams. A combined method of acoustic emission sensing and vibration-based monitoring is developed to detect, characterise and localise damage. Additionally, crack measurements on the concrete surface are performed as a reference technique. Four beams are corroded with an accelerated corrosion set-up while two additional beams are used as reference specimens. Whereas these monitoring techniques have already been applied individually to assess corrosion in reinforced concrete beams, they are here combined, in order to verify their complementarity. This results in an elaborate and innovative data-set which allows us to draw new conclusions on the way the techniques provide information on the evolution of corrosion damage in time and space. It was found that acoustic emission sensing can accurately detect and localise damage before cracking of the concrete, especially after dedicated noise filtering through clustering of the AE signals. Vibration-based monitoring is less sensitive to early damage, yet natural frequencies contain absolute information about the stiffness decrease due to corrosion damage, and strain mode shapes can localise damage on a larger scale. In addition, results from both techniques are in line with the crack measurements. As a result, the combination of these various monitoring methods offers valuable and complementary insights about the corrosion process.

Modelling framework to evaluate societal effects of ecosystem management

The ecosystem effects of different management options can be predicted through models that simulate the ecosystem functioning under different management scenarios. Optimal management strategies are searched by simulating different management (and other, such as climate) scenarios and finding the management measures that produce desirable results. The desirability of results is often defined through the attainment of policy objectives such as good environmental/ecological status. However, this often does not account for societal consequences of the environmental status even though the consequences can be different for different stakeholder groups. In this work we introduce a method to evaluate management alternatives in the light of the experiential value of stakeholder groups, using a case study in the Baltic Sea. We use an Ecopath with Ecosim model to simulate the ecosystem responses to management and climate scenarios, and the results are judged based on objectives defined based on a stakeholder questionnaire on what aspects of the ecosystem they value or detest. The ecosystem responses and the stakeholder values are combined in a Bayesian decision support model to illustrate which management options bring the highest benefits to stakeholders, and whether different stakeholder groups benefit from different management choices. In the case study, the more moderate climate scenario and strict fisheries and nutrient loading management brought the highest benefits to all stakeholders. The method can be used to evaluate and compare the effects of different management alternatives to various stakeholder groups, if their preferences are known.

Inherently unstable? Scaling, mission drift, and the comparative performance of community-based platforms in the sharing economy

Digital platforms have enabled sharing among strangers as a means to satisfy economic needs. This development was expected to allow traditional, community-based sharing to be taken to a much larger scale, providing a mechanism to address a variety of societal and environmental concerns. However, this early optimism seems misguided, as commercial sharing economy platforms are increasingly criticized for their negative societal consequences and ambiguous environmental impact. Testing claims made in the literature, we investigate whether this mission drift in community-based platforms can indeed explain this shift towards an increasingly commercial orientation in the sharing economy. Building on a comprehensive geographical mapping, the quantitative analysis of our granular dataset does not support these claims. Rather, we find that community-based platforms perceive increased scaling potential while avoiding mission drift. By complementing these quantitative findings with an in-depth case study, we explain the underlying mechanisms allowing for this alternative scaling strategy of community-based platforms.

Societal Impacts of Open Government Data Use

The purpose of this research is to investigate the impacts of Open Government Data (OGD) use on the societal-economic sphere and to identify possible gaps in the literature between its several categories. Therefore, this paper led to a deliberate literature study of the OGD research that primarily collected on empirical earlier papers. We systematically reviewed 88 reputable articles connected with the societal impacts of OGD use utilising Scopus Gateway from 2012 to 2022. We followed the Prefered Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) Protocol, and several software tools such as Mendeley, Publish or Perish, and VOSViewer to support the literature review process. This research provides several essential statistical views related to the social impact in the OGD field using Altmetric. The result shows that there were 26 categories of the OGD used for the societal consequences, with 8 main keywords most frequently used by the authors. Additionally, the highest number of authors who contributed to the discussion of social impact data, especially on the issue of open government, was 19, recorded in 2012. A number of topics overwhelmed the discussion of social impacts, namely, open government, citizen engagement, socio-economic value, and transparency in the period of 2015 and 2017.

Information crimes as one of the obstacles to institutional communication on the Gulf Cooperation Council

Abstract: The global nature of the digital space combined with weak identification of users, insufficient attribution of actions, the complexity of internationally deployed services, the global development of social networking sites, and emerging international crime markets all raise serious concerns about the rise in cybercrime and thus the sustainability of a stable society as a basis for personal development and economic prosperity, and the weak societal infrastructure for technology Information, communications, and the unlimited collection and storage of data threaten personal freedom and international stability. Citizens’ trust in society and government to protect their security, safety, and prosperity is eroded by the risks and uncertainties arising from technological developments, with the heavy economic losses that this entails. This study aims to understand cybercrimes and the statement of the resulting crimes. Therefore, urge urgently to find a strategy to address these problems based on a coherent analysis of technological, societal, economic, and political trends and consequences. Keywords: Cybercrimes, Institutional Communication, Networking

Predicting wildfires in Algerian forests using machine learning models

Algeria is one of the Maghreb countries most affected by wildfires. The economic, environmental, and societal consequences of these fires can last several years after the wildfire. Often, it is possible to avoid such disasters if the detection of the outbreak of fire is fast enough, reliable, and early. The lack of datasets has limited the methods used to predict wildfires in Algeria to the mapping risk areas, which is updated annually. This study is the result of the availability of a recent dataset relating the history of forest fires in the cities of Bejaia and Sidi Bel-Abbes during the year 2012. The dataset being small size, we used principal component analysis to reduce the number of variables to 6, while retaining 96.65% of the total variance. Moreover, we developed an artificial neural network (ANN) with two hidden layers to predict wildfires in these cities. Next, we trained and compared the performance of our classifier with those provided by the Logistic Regression, K Nearest Neighbors, Support Vector Machine, and Random Forest classifiers, using a 10-fold stratified cross-validation. The experiment shows a slight superiority of the ANN classifier compared to the others, in terms of accuracy, precision, and recall. Our classifier achieves an accuracy of 0.967±0.026 and F1-score of 0.971±0.023. The SHAP technique revealed the importance of the features (RH, DC, ISI) in the predictions of the ANN model.

Соцієтальні наслідки сучасної гібридної війни: теоретичні засади та інституційний вимір

The article reveals the concept of societal in the political-economic discourse, and shows its connection with the relevant philosophical and sociological vision. It is argued that the current Russian-Ukrainian war has clear signs of a modern hybrid war, which is generated by the global-local hybrid system of "peace – war" and combines a whole range of means, from military-political and economic to cybernetic and cultural and humanitarian ones. Based on the combination of political-economic and sociological discourses in a broad sense, it is substantiated that the main components of the hybrid system "peace – war" from the point of view of the transformation of social relations are: armed-military, financial-economic, and informational-spiritual components, which cause a comprehensive impact on people’s worldview, positioning and behavior, which leads to significant societal consequences. The authors give various characteristics of the institutional dimension of the war’s societal consequences. Theoretically, the phenomenon of emergent institutional order is taken as the basis for considering the institutional dimension of the societal consequences caused by the hybrid war. It is revealed that in the martial law conditions, the role of the trust institution is growing (the trust institution is considered as a defining and integral construct of the socio-economic system’s institutional architecture, embodied both in trust in the state and power structures, and in trust in new institutions created by the hybrid war (volunteers and various forms of amateur civil movements)). The authors show that in the context of societal development in the conditions of war shocks and post-war recovery of Ukraine, the quality of institutions and the state’s institutional potential play an extremely important role. Analysis of the societal consequences of the Russian Federation’s invasion in Ukraine in the institutional dimension shows the need to overcome the key institutional destructions generated both in the previous period and during the war. Also, it is necessary to create an institutional basis for a new economic model focused on ensuring a combination of Ukrainian effective reconstructive recovery in the post-war period and its full integration into the European Union and the world space.

Societal Consequences of Modern Hybrid Warfare in Political-Economic and Institutional Discourse

Object: to reveal the features of the societal approach to the study of the modern hybrid war consequences, a striking example of which is the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, based on the study of the reflection of changes in social reality in the unity of political-economic, sociological and institutional discourses.
 Methods: ascension from the abstract to the concrete; dialectical; logical-historical; fractal method of institutional economics; structural-functional and world-systems analysis. Findings: the current Russian-Ukrainian war has clear signs of a modern hybrid war generated by the globallocal hybrid system “peace — war” and combines a whole complex of means: military-political, economic, cybernetic, etc. On the basis of the combination of political-economic, sociological (in a broad sense) and institutional discourses, it is substantiated that the main components of the “peace — war” hybrid system from the point of view of the societal relations transformation are: armed-military, financial-economic and informational-spiritual components. It is shown that through the channels of world perception and positioning they lead to changes in behavioural patterns, through which the response of the actors is carried out, changing the already changing reality. This leads to the closure of changes in social reality through the behaviour of subjects on themselves, gives integrity and acceleration to societal processes.
 Conclusions: the feature of the societal approach is revealed only on the basis of a combination of politicaleconomic (which opens up the possibility of tracing chains of cause-and-effect relationships), sociological in a broad sense (allowing you to look at society as a whole in the unity of its components and measure them) and institutional (giving the key to understanding changes in rules and norms of social life) approaches. This feature consists, in contrast to the social approach (fixing the structural and functional structure of social reality), in the study of social transformations, which actualizes the problems of interaction and reflexivity of social structures and functions. In the conditions of martial law, the role of the trust institution as a defining and integral construct of the socio-economic system’s institutional architectonics, embodied both in trust in the state and power structures, and in trust in new institutions born of hybrid war. The societal approach opens up the possibility of a new look at the problems of the Ukrainian post-war reconstruction, taking into account both the objective logic of social transformations and the need to increase social activity in institutional transformations that involve the formation of a new development model in the European socio-economic space.

Societal Consequences of Modern Hybrid Warfare in Political-Economic and Institutional Discourse

Societal Consequences of Modern Hybrid Warfare in Political-Economic and Institutional Discourse

Towards A Bully-Free Pesantren: The Role of Educational Management With Adaptive Psychology and Mental Health Interventions

Bullying's complexity is influenced not only by the individual's features and behavioural tendencies but also by the practice of family upbringing, as well as environmental elements such as the frequency and type of bullying. A qualitative paradigm is used in the research. The sampling method employing the purposive sampling technique seeks to identify teenagers who have been bullied. Interviews, observations, and documentation reviews of bullying episodes were used to collect data. Dayah leaders in the area of parenting serve as study informants. The veracity of the data is checked using sources of persons involved in bullying. Data triangulation techniques and peer discussion were used to examining the data. The findings revealed that verbal bullying occurred in Islamic boarding schools. Adaptive psychology is demonstrated through students' communication abilities, which are classified as passive communication, aggressive communication, and forceful communication. Meanwhile, adaptive techniques such as enhancing teacher counselling abilities (informative-communicative), monitoring assessments, and anti-bullying policies are used to provide mental health coaching. Students, on the other hand, are expected to cooperate with the facts of the occurrence under the structure of the solution-focused counselling strategy. Cultural reference, resources, research literature, formalization, and pesantren policy are all institutionally focused on in adaptive psychology. So far, the pesantren are concerned about their reputation; consequently, the societal consequences of this study need pesantren management to be upfront whenever bullying occurs.

The Politicization of COVID-19 and Anti-Asian Racism in the United States: An Experimental Approach

AbstractThe deadly outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has accompanied a worldwide surge in anti-Asian hate crimes and racial violence. In this paper, I experimentally assess the downstream effects of the health crisis on the racial attitudes of the American public. Survey respondents were randomly assigned to different messages about COVID-19 and its association with China and answered a battery of racial attitude questions, including a new measure of anti-Asian racial resentment. Across all outcome measures, I find null effects for both treatment messages, which suggests that racialized views toward Asians may be stable individual-level dispositions that have shaped American responses to the pandemic. Findings from this study have important implications for research on the far-reaching societal and political consequences of the pandemic in the United States and beyond.

A broad-spectrum macrocyclic peptide inhibitor of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had great societal and health consequences. Despite the availability of vaccines, infection rates remain high due to immune evasive Omicron sublineages. Broad-spectrum antivirals are needed to safeguard against emerging variants and future pandemics. We used messenger RNA (mRNA) display under a reprogrammed genetic code to find a spike-targeting macrocyclic peptide that inhibits SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) Wuhan strain infection and pseudoviruses containing spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 variants or related sarbecoviruses. Structural and bioinformatic analyses reveal a conserved binding pocket between the receptor-binding domain, N-terminal domain, and S2 region, distal to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor-interaction site. Our data reveal a hitherto unexplored site of vulnerability in sarbecoviruses that peptides and potentially other drug-like molecules can target.

Hybrid threats-possible consequences in societal contexts

Hybrid threats have become a persistent term in the 21st century geopolitical architecture, acquiring new values ​​as innovative unconventional means come to be used by both state and non-state actors in contemporary conflicts, with a view to obtaining strategic advantages, yet with devastating consequences at individual level. While the armed conflict effects have long been studied, the war metamorphosis with hybrid threats innuendos bring new challenges in assessing societal consequences, even more so, as they are increasingly identified in apparently peaceful times. A multifaced perspective on the threat outcome reveals multiple latent consequences, such as physical, material, psychological and emotional ones. Fear, one of the dominant human emotions, is the first to be triggered when any threat is present, regardless of its occurrence probability or possible effects. Fear becomes a strong drive for individuals’ future actions, sometimes prompting an offensive or defensive reaction previously embedded in the main actor’s behavior. In this context, the present paper aims to identify, analyze and understand the Russian-Ukrainian conflict consequences on the European states’ neighboring population, looking at the reactions and decisions triggered by fear. Using observation as a research method but also the case study method, we identified a series of similarities and differences in these countries’ reaction to solving situations, migration- generated crises, Russian disinformation and propaganda and Ukraine or other European state oriented cyber-attack. The main goal for this approach is to highlight the hybrid threats emotional consequences in conflicts that are more than psychological. Moreover, this is a preliminary step in a PhD research thesis with a view to provide states with solutions for resilience policies, to ensure their citizens’ survival and well-being.