Status Quo Conditions Research Articles

Leadership Preferences, Minimum Acceptable Nationalist Demands, and Duration of Ethno-territorial Civil Wars

In standard conflict bargaining models, internal ethno-territorial dispute outcomes should be influenced not only by status quo conditions and relative military power, but also by leadership preferences. Since direct, large-sample measures of leadership preferences on both sides of conflicts have not hitherto been available, statistical research typically diverges from case study research in omitting leadership preferences. This paper utilizes a database that measures the ideological nationalist dimension of variation in state and ethnic minority group leadership preferences by examining and ranking leaders’ minimum acceptable nationalist demands. Controlling for the impact of other factors, more extreme minimum nationalist demands, on both the state and the rebel group sides, are robust predictors of longer war duration.

Psychological distances to climate change and public preferences for biodiversity-augmenting attributes in family-owned production forests

Understanding public perceptions on how management can help adapt forests to climate change is fundamental to the design of socially-acceptable policies. A binary discrete choice experiment in Norway and Sweden was conducted to elicit public preferences for biodiversity-augmenting changes in three forest management attributes (set-aside, proportion of uneven-aged tree stands, and number and type of tree species) compared to typical status quo conditions in family-owned production forests. Importantly, how self-constructed psychological (spatial, social, temporal and hypothetical) distances to climate change were associated with management preferences was investigated. Following integrated choice and latent variable modeling approaches to account for their latency, our econometric results show that closer psychological distances to climate change were associated with increased support for biodiversity-augmenting changes in management attributes from status quo conditions of family-owned production forests. On average, the Norwegian public preferred larger set-asides and introducing one more broadleaved species, while the Swedish public favored changes in all attributes. The highest utility was derived from increasing set-aside areas from the status quo (5%) to 10% and 20% in both countries with respective average WTP of about 10 to 11 EUR/month in Norway, and approximately 10 to 14 EUR/month in Sweden. Findings point to universal acceptability of increasing set-aside areas in both nations, and public approval for uneven-aged and mixed forest management in Sweden.

Addressing racial bias in parole decisions: A pre-registered study of the Five-Level Risk and Needs System of risk communication

ABSTRACT Indigenous peoples are disproportionately influenced by biases in risk assessment and risk communication. The Five-Level Risk and Needs System (5-levels) is a risk communication strategy that adds standardized definitions to risk categories and incorporates evidence-based recommendations for rehabilitation. The current pre-registered study examined the ability of the 5-levels to mitigate biases in a mock parole case using a 2 (risk communication format: status quo vs. 5-levels) × 2 (race: Indigenous vs. White) between-subjects design. Four hundred and twenty-three community members residing in Canada were asked to make decisions regarding parole and other risk, treatment amenability, and report utility outcomes. Risk communication format had no effect on parole. However, participants in the 5-levels condition did provide more accurate risk information than those in the status quo condition. The 5-levels system was also rated lower in terms of understandability and resulted in lower levels of confidence in decisions. Contrary to expectations, participants assigned to the case involving an Indigenous client were more likely to grant parole and provided more favourable ratings of the client compared to participants assigned the case of a White client. Findings from this study may inform risk communication strategies resulting in more consistent and reliable decision-making.

Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) in Goulais Bay, Lake Superior: Cohort strength determinants and population viability

Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) is a species of conservation concern throughout North America, and healthy populations are rare. Earlier sampling efforts identified the Goulais Bay population in Lake Superior as a potentially healthy population after three years of sampling. With seven additional years of sampling, we updated the earlier analysis and developed a matrix population model to conduct a population viability analysis (PVA). We identified a non-linear relationship between cohort strength and May river discharge rate which was incorporated into the population model to evaluate the influence of future discharge scenarios on population persistence. Population size was estimated, with an open-population mark-recapture model, at approximately 5,200 juvenile Lake Sturgeon. This estimate equates to approximately 440 mature females and 625 mature males in the population. A population of this size has a probability of extinction of 4 % and 18 % over 250 and 1000 years under status quo conditions. If the May river discharge were to decrease in the future, which may represent the most likely scenario under future climate conditions, our model predicts an increased risk of population extirpation. This indicates that increased management actions may be required to ensure this population remains resilient.

A seasonal smart market mechanism for sustainable groundwater management in agricultural regions

The water market can be considered as a tool to reallocate water in a more efficient and equitable way in which both non-efficient and efficient users benefit from participating in the market by selling and buying their water quotas, respectively. The prerequisites on which an effective and efficient groundwater market relies is to consider both socio-economic and environmental factors. This paper aims to propose a seasonal smart groundwater market mechanism to improve production efficiency while adjusting the users' total water consumption to the available water. The proposed methodology provides the potential seasonal exchanges of groundwater entitlements among users and groundwater trading prices. Finally, a water banking mechanism based on the cooperative game theory is proposed to evaluate the effect of inter-basin water transfer on the proposed local groundwater market as well as sharing the benefits of water market between water donor and receiving basins. By applying the proposed methodology to the Nough region in central Iran, it is concluded that the average users' water productivity increases by 25% while satisfying environmental constraints. Based on the results of the market mechanism, the groundwater is fairly allocated to the agricultural users in proportion to the area of farms. After applying the water banking model, users in both the donor and receiving basins gained more profit than the status quo condition.

Against Climate Haussmannization: Transformation Through and In Urban Design

Urban design is an essential component of planning for climate transformation. However, the concept of transformation in urban design is complicated by the problematic legacy of design-led mega-projects. Such projects, often called Haussmannization, are criticized as inattentive to existing landscape, built, and social environments. While corrective movements have partially addressed criticisms of Haussmannization, they can also hinder justice-centered climate transformation, by empowering already powerful interests to defend status quo conditions or justifying inequity-deepening interventions in the name of climate action, a phenomenon we label climate Haussmannization. We present a schema connecting transformative urban design with procedural, distributive, and recognitional justice.

Integrating Geographic Information System network analysis and nighttime light satellite imagery to optimize landfill regionalization on a regional level.

More than half of financial resources allocated for municipal solid waste management are typically spent on waste collection and transportation. An optimized landfill siting and waste collection system can save fuel costs, reduce collection truck emissions, and provide higher accessibility with lower traffic impacts. In this study, a data-driven analytical framework is developed to optimize population coverage by landfills using network analysis and satellite imagery. Two scenarios, SC1 and SC2, with different truck travel times were used to simulate generation-site–disposal-site distances in three Canadian provinces. Under status quo conditions, Landfill Regionalization Index (LFRI) ranging from 0 to 2 population centers per landfill in all three jurisdictions. LFRI consistently improved after optimization, with average LFRI ranging from 1.3 to 2.0 population centers per landfill. Lower average truck travel times and better coverage of the population centers are generally observed in the optimized systems. The proposed analytical method is found effective in improving landfill regionalization. Under SC1 and SC2, LFRI percentages of improvement ranging from 58.3% to 64.5% and 22.7% to 59.4%, respectively. Separation distance between the generation and disposal sites and truck capacity appear not a decisive factor in the optimization process. The proposed optimization framework is generally applicable to regions with different geographical and demographical attributes, and is particularly applicable in rural regions with sparsely located population centers.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-022-21462-w.

Pharmaceutical supply chain reliability and effects on drug shortages

Drug shortages occur frequently and are often caused by supply chain disruptions. For improvements to occur, it is necessary to be able to estimate the vulnerability of pharmaceutical supply chains. In this work, we present the first model of pharmaceutical supply chain reliability. We consider three key approaches that companies may use to improve reliability: configuration, risk of disruptions, and speed of recovery. Key metrics include expected drug shortages, average time-to-shortage, and average time-to-recovery. We parametrize the model using data from major drug shortage databases and a case example of a generic injectable oncology drug. With a lean supply chain configuration, we observe that expected shortages at status quo conditions are 10%. By either doubling the speed of recovery or halving the disruption rate, expected shortages could drop to 5%. The most influential single change would be to add a back-up supplier to a lean configuration, leading to expected shortages of 4%. We also consider profitability and present the breakeven prices for different configurations. The results from our analyses could lead to immediate policy impact, providing evidence of the benefits of redundancy and improving facility quality.

Sources of Conventional and Guerrilla Strategies in Ethno-Territorial Civil Wars

ABSTRACT In ethno-territorial civil wars, which factors influence whether rebels choose and retain conventional warfare as their primary military strategy throughout the conflict, or whether they use guerrilla warfare as a primary strategy during periods judged to be less advantageous to conventional warfare? The existing literature almost exclusively emphasizes relative power as the determining factor: rebels use guerrilla warfare because they typically lack the capability to fight conventional wars effectively against states. I find some support for this hypothesis: ethno-territorial rebels are much more likely to fight exclusively conventional wars when external states intervene conventionally on the rebel side. I also find that rebel leaders with more intense, far-reaching nationalist goals are more likely to employ guerrilla warfare as a primary war strategy. For such leaders, the higher costs of using guerrilla methods pending an eventual transition to conventional warfare are made more acceptable by a higher valuation of the far-reaching gains delivered by military victory—gains expected to be made more likely by interim periods in which guerrilla warfare is the primary strategy. Turning to other factors, I do not find that status quo conditions or a high level of state democracy have a significant influence.

Occupational Segregation And Hypertension Inequity: The Implication Of The Inverse Hazard Law Among Healthcare Workers

In the United States (US), Black—particularly Black female—healthcare workers are more likely to hold occupations with high job demand, low job control with limited support from supervisors or coworkers and are more vulnerable to job loss than their white counterparts. These work-related factors increase the risk of hypertension. This study examines the extent to which occupational segregation explains the persistent racial inequity in hypertension in the healthcare workforce and the potential health impact of workforce desegregation policies. We simulated a US healthcare workforce with four occupational classes: health diagnosing professionals (i.e., highest status), health treating professionals, healthcare technicians, and healthcare aides (i.e., lowest status). We simulated occupational segregation by allocating 25-year-old workers to occupational classes with the race- and gender-specific probabilities estimated from the American Community Survey data. Our model used occupational class attributes and workers’ health behaviors to predict hypertension over a 40-year career. We tracked the hypertension prevalence and the Black–white prevalence gap among the simulated workers under the staus quo condition (occupational segregation) and the experimental conditions in which occupational segregation was eliminated. We found that the Black–white hypertension prevalence gap became approximately one percentage point smaller in the experimental than in the status quo conditions. These findings suggest that policies designed to desegregate the healthcare workforce may reduce racial health inequities in this population. Our microsimulation may be used in future research to compare various desegregation policies as they may affect workers’ health differently.

An uncertainty-based smart market model for groundwater management

Abstract This paper presents a new water market mechanism, which can be used for selecting the best trading policy by incorporating the uncertainties of total annual available water and wholesale price of agricultural products. In this mechanism, water users are asked to submit bid packages via a web-based platform. A bid package represents the real values that a user puts on different quantities of withdrawn groundwater considering its quality. Then, the most reliable water trading policy as well as the price of water are calculated by taking the market endogenous and exogenous uncertainties into account using the regret theory. The results show that by applying the proposed uncertainty-based smart groundwater market mechanisms to the Nough Plain in Iran, the average productivity of water users increases about 18% compared to the status quo condition. Furthermore, based on the outputs of the proposed market model, groundwater is finally distributed to agricultural users almost proportional to their farm's area.

A spatially explicit decision support framework for parcel- and community-level resilience assessment using Bayesian networks

ABSTRACT A spatially explicit decision support framework for quantifying parcel- and community-level resilience against natural hazards is developed using Bayesian networks. Rather than asking ‘how resilient are infrastructure systems in a community’, this work reframes that question to ask, ‘how resilient are parcels in a community given that they rely on these same infrastructure systems’. This framework begins with a probabilistic infrastructure damage analysis which results in operability curves that define the initial loss in infrastructure performance at each parcel and subsequent time to recover. The operability curves populate Bayesian networks, which are then employed as a decision support tool to generate maps of resilience. By applying this framework to Seaside, Oregon and considering seismic-tsunami events, we show (1) that overall resilience is low for the 1,000-yr event under status quo conditions, (2) how the resilience improves with mitigation options, and (3) that the testbed is least resilient to mid-magnitude events.

Explaining Minimum Acceptable Demands of States and Rebels in Ethno-Territorial Civil Wars: The Roles of Democracy and Religion

Direct, large-sample measures of leadership preferences on both sides of ethno-territorial civil wars have not hitherto been available. As a result, statistical research diverges from case study research in omitting analysis of causes and consequences of leadership preferences. We present a new database that directly measures variation in the nationalist ideological preferences of state and ethnic rebel group leaders for post-World War II, ethno-territorial civil wars. Our measures, four-level ordinal scales of minimum acceptable demands, capture both the extent and the intensity of leaders’ upside goals. We examine institutional and cultural sources of these measures while controlling for material sources. Institutionally, regime type more strongly predicts state-side demands than rebel-side demands. Among cultural sources, we find that religious identity-based predictors are significant and powerful predictors. Among material sources, we find that both relative power and status quo predictors have weak statistical and substantive significance. These results indicate that variation in leadership preferences is best explained by institutional and cultural forces, rather than by material conditions related to relative power or status quo conditions.

Road Traffic Crash Data Management in ASEAN: 3-5-2 Perspective


 
 
 Every year approximately 1.3 million people are killed on roads around the world. Without new and effective actions, deaths in low to middle-income countries are forecasted to rise steeply, as the level of motorization is increasing. The availability of road safety data is fundamental to improving road safety outcomes, tracking progress, and achieving the road safety targets set by each country. With consistent and standardize collection and management, these data will provide beneficial and accurate insights for trends monitoring, future and time series prediction, and ultimately a reliable review of currently implemented programs. However, managing the data is a challenging aspect especially when it involves multiple agencies with different focuses and requirements and countless bureaucracy. By continued adoption of the "3-5-2" concept from football strategies, this paper will review the status-quo conditions of road crash data collection and management in the middle-income tier ASEAN countries. These shall be one of the core values for effective road safety management and improvement stipulated under the Decade of Action for Road Safety.
 
 

COVID-19 Boosts the Need for New Competencies for Accountancy Knowledge Workers

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources are considered a major booster to all business functions during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the grand majority of the institutions, in all economic sectors, including education have moved to online work [work from home] and consequently the need for technology literacy as well as information literacy became a much needed competence. These aforementioned literacy competences became salient in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), more specifically, in their endeavor to train students amid the pandemic harsh health conditions and strict requirements for health conservation being at home or while at move. This paper aims to shed light on Accounting major students who are more than other are required to cope with the wave of automation which started even before the COVID-19 emergence. Descriptive analysis is performed shedding light on the status quo conditions of students’ preparation and the acquisition of competences much needed in the years to come beyond the pandemic. Secondary data is considered the source of the evidence needed to discuss the issue herein. Findings of this descriptive essay will serve as an eye opener to policy makers in the concerned HEIs and government officers as well.

Modelling transformational adaptation to climate change among crop farming systems in Romagna, Italy

As the impact of climate change on the agricultural sector has begun to manifest itself in its severity, adaptation planning has come under scrutiny for favoring the preservation of status-quo conditions over more substantial changes. The uptake of transformational adaptations, involving a significant re-structuring of the agricultural system, is however hindered by a lack of assessment tools capable of quantifying the effects of these often more complex, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes. Agent-based models can simulate decision processes and multi-level feedbacks between system components and may therefore illustrate how transformational adaptations emerge and help identify cases where their implementation is necessary and desirable. We explore this modelling potential and aim to quantify (1) how climate change, farmer behavior and water policies may influence strategic adaptation decision-making at the farm-level, (2) the extent to which implemented adaptations represent transformations, and (3) their impact on farm structure and wider socio-ecological change. We investigate these aims through a case study of crop farming systems in the drought-prone historical region of Romagna (NE Italy), integrating insight from stakeholder interviews, local reports, spatially-explicit biophysical data and behavioral theory in the construction of an agent-based model. Results show that, on average, more than half of all implemented adaptations are transformations, thereby requiring important social and financial investments from farmers. The number of implemented transformations is highest in scenarios where drought risk perception among farmers is more widespread, notably in scenarios simulating drier climates, more adaptive behaviors and policies promoting greater water use efficiency. Under higher drought risk perception, farmers are motivated to explore a broader set of adaptations, including those outside of the trajectory determined by their farming strategy. This process particularly favors the implementation of transformational increases in farm size and irrigated area, eventually stimulating farmers to adopt an expansionist strategy. Regionally, these adaptations lead to the smallest decline in agricultural extent with fewest, yet highest profit-earning farmers, largely exacerbating presently occurring trends. Under policy scenarios simulating increased irrigation availability, fewer farmers initially experience drought and therefore perceive a drought risk. Consequently, fewer farmers undertake transformational adaptations and switch from a contractive to an expansive strategy, culminating in a relatively smaller and less profitable agricultural extent despite a larger farmer population. As transformative changes to farming strategy trigger farmers to engage in new path-dependencies, aims of water policies may therefore rebound into unintended effects, emphasizing the importance of accounting for transformational perspectives.

Enhanced, coordinated conservation efforts required to avoid extinction of critically endangered Eastern Pacific leatherback turtles

Failure to improve the conservation status of endangered species is often related to inadequate allocation of conservation resources to highest priority issues. Eastern Pacific (EP) leatherbacks are perhaps the most endangered sea turtle population in the world, and continue on a path to regional extinction. To provide coherent, regional conservation targets, we developed a population viability analysis and examined hypothetical scenarios describing effects of conservation activities that either reduced mortality or increased production of hatchlings (or both). Under status quo conditions, EP leatherbacks will be extirpated in <60 yr. To ensure a positive, long-term population trajectory, conservation efforts must increase adult survivorship (i.e., reduce adult mortality) by ≥20%, largely through reduction of fisheries bycatch mortality. Positive trajectories can be accelerated by increased production of hatchlings through enhanced nest protection and treatment. We estimate that these efforts must save approximately 200–260 adult and subadult leatherbacks and produce approximately 7,000–8,000 more hatchlings annually. Critically, reductions in late-stage mortality must begin within 5 years and reach 20% overall within the next 10–15 years to ensure population stabilization and eventual increase. These outcomes require expanded, sustained, coordinated, high-priority efforts among several entities working at multiple scales. Fortunately, such efforts are underway.

Are Low-Cost Private Schools Worth the Investment? Evidence on Literacy and Mathematics Gains in Nairobi Primary Schools

Background/Context Low-cost private schools (LCPSs) represent a large and growing share of schools in many low- and middle-income countries, including Kenya. In some Nairobi neighborhoods, more than half of children attend LCPSs, despite policies providing free access to public education. Parents generally choose LCPSs because they believe they are higher quality, although there is little conclusive evidence supporting this belief. Objective In this study, we aim to add to the evidence available on the comparison between LCPSs and public schools by using student gains over time as our outcome, thus controlling for the initial level of achievement and instead examining improvement. Participants The randomly selected longitudinal sample was composed of 326 children attending 47 LCPSs and government schools in several of Nairobi's geographic zones. These children's literacy and numeracy outcomes were tracked over two academic years to determine their learning gains over time. Research Design We used residual gain scores—as opposed to cross-sectional measures—in English and Kiswahili literacy and mathematics, to compare the outcomes of students attending LCPSs and public primary schools across the first and second grades. We discuss how these schools impacted achievement over time. Findings/Results We found that these LCPSs did not produce significantly higher student growth than public schools under the status quo condition. However, among schools participating in an instructional improvement intervention supported by the United States Agency for International Development, LCPSs increased performance more than public schools in English, Kiswahili, and mathematics, with the largest differences in English. Conclusions/Recommendations These findings offer a cautionary note to the rapid expansion of LCPSs in low-resource settings. The fees paid to LCPSs by low-income households are often burdensome for families and, in some contexts, may not be worth the trade-offs that families make to afford them. On the other hand, the findings also suggest that low-cost private school teachers may respond more effectively than public school teachers to project-based support.

Estimation of evaporation losses from water bodies in the Sudan and Ethiopia

The novelty of this study/manuscript is its focus on one of the most tension river basins in the world (region of highest competition on little amount of river flow) and deriving new results that were not reached before, in addition; it gives way forward to the leaders and decision makers in the Nile Riparians that if followed could switch the approaching threat into unprecedented opportunity through regional cooperation/integration and benefits sharing of its transboundary Nile water as a catalyst for other modes of developments intra and inter-basin. The aim of this manuscript is to estimate the additional evaporation losses caused by the new dams constructed as well as planned in the near-future in Ethiopia and The Sudan; namely {Merowe, Rumela & Burdana System, Tekeze, and heightening of the Rosseires dams in the Sudan; The Great Ethiopian Renaissance, and Karadobi dams in Ethiopia}; compared with the status-quo condition which is (Khashm Elgerba, Rosseires, Sennar, and Gebel Awlya dams in The Sudan, and no dams in Ethiopia). It is estimated that higher annual evaporation losses shall significantly occur, an increase from 4.80 to 9.13 Billion m3 (more than doubled); causing more water stress and reduction in the River Nile flow toward its downstream (additional losses could arise from the unilateral filling and operation, seepage, leakage, conveyance and abstraction from those dams’ reservoirs). This manuscript intended—in addition—to inform the political leaders and decision makers in the three Eastern Nile Region countries (Egypt, The Sudan, and Ethiopia) that if half of the additional amount of evaporation losses is conserved; shall be enough water to irrigate more than 0.9 Million Acers of agriculture lands; so that appropriate collective action should be taken in proper timely manner. It is recommended that the three countries to share together the operation of all Eastern Nile Dams, as one integrated system toward more benefits sharing and efficient Nile water utilization.

How current lawn attributes affect choices concerning water conserving lawn options: An individualized choice experiment in Kelowna, British Columbia

This paper contributes to the study of water use and policies governing land use in residential landscapes. We employed a discrete choice experiment to examine the effect existing lawn attributes have on stated preferences of residents of detached homes in the City of Kelowna, British Columbia, for four approaches to reducing the irrigation requirements for their residential lawns: restrictions on lawn sizes; the use of drought-tolerant turfgrass; restrictions on outdoor irrigation; and subsidies for removing or replacing lawns. Each respondent’s current lawn (i.e., the status quo) was included as a possible choice in the choice sets, and the attributes of the current lawn were used in constructing the alternatives. Part-worth utilities for a conditional logit and mixed logit model with these status quo predictors were used to analyze the choice data and provide estimates for lawn choices. Results show that status quo conditions contribute to the estimation of utility coefficients for lawn features and lawn choices. Irrigation watering costs and low levels of subsidies to encourage lawn replacement were found to only marginally influence residents’ landscaping decisions. Contrastingly, status quo factors representing the current fraction of turfgrass in the homeowner’s total landscape was the strongest motivating factor driving residents’ lawn choices. Residents with larger proportions of turfgrass were more likely to choose landscaping changes that featured smaller percentages of lawns. Another significant status quo factor in residents’ lawn choices was turfgrass variety, where residents with traditional varieties of turfgrass were more likely to choose landscaping options with water conserving lawns.