Times Of Resource Scarcity Research Articles

Daqing and China’s quest for oil: between survival and ingenuity in times of resource scarcity

Daqing in China is well-known as a, if not the, “Chinese oil city”. However, the reasons behind its importance for the People’s Republic of China and the origins of its current spatial organization remain unclear. “How was such growth achieved against the backdrop of the so-called de-urbanization processes? What was occurring at the local level? What happened to the people of my parents’ generation?” Hou Li, a leading Chinese urban scholar, addresses these questions in her latest book, Building for Oil, explaining how the lowering of urban construction standards to the level of rural ones, the focus of investments on production, and the reliance on individual commitment led to China’s unprecedented growth. Despite the absence (or the concealment) of a critical opinion on the part of the author on the events and decisions described, this contribution is of particular importance to understand the path leading to contemporary China.

Fallback foods and foraging demographics in early Thule diets: Paleoethnobotanical and zooarchaeological results of a column sample from Ganigak (49-NOB-001), Norton Sound, Alaska

Bulk sediment samples can contribute high-resolution subsistence and paleoenvironmental data from archaeological sites excavated before the adoption of modern zooarchaeological and paleoethnobotanical recovery methods in the 1990s. We present faunal and botanical analyses of sediment samples collected from Ganigak (49-NOB-001; 1185–1465 cal CE), Norton Sound, from a “fish layer” identified by J. Louis Giddings in his excavation trench in 1948. Findings reveal that saffron cod and salmonberries were a crucial resource. Although these food items have low caloric yields, we argue that both provide essential nutrients to supplement marine-mammal dominant diets. Drawing on ethnographic accounts, we argue that saffron cod were crucial fallback resources, likely harvested by women and were relied on in times of resource scarcity. These data shed novel insight into Thule coastal subsistence strategies, which may otherwise be overlooked when the focus is on analysis of tool technologies or on unscreened faunal samples. Future research requires additional processing of sediment samples to fully understand the role of small-bodied fauna and plant foods to Thule subsistence strategies.

Principles of resource allocation and triage during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic confronted Canadians with the fact that our health care systems may not always have enough to go around. Critical care resources, specifically, were stretched far beyond the limits of what was thought possible. In the spring of 2021, the exponential growth of patients with COVID-19 brought Ontario’s ICUs frighteningly near the breaking point. When a health system’s resources are overwhelmed by the demands placed upon them, allocation of scarce resources is typically performed by triage — a formalized system to determine who receives critical care resources and who does not. In this commentary, we will explain the rationale for the use of a formal triage protocol during times of resource scarcity; review the ethical foundations of an approach to resource allocation; outline the process of triage protocol development in Ontario during the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlight some lessons learned for the future.

Validation of the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II Score in COVID-19 Patients Admitted to the Intensive Care Unit in Times of Resource Scarcity.

Introduction During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a high number of patients needed to be admitted to the intensive care units (ICUs). Such a high demand led to periods where resources were insufficient and the triage of patients was needed. This study aims to evaluate the performance of the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II as a predictor of mortality in periods where triage protocols were implemented. Methods A single-center, longitudinal, retrospective cohort study was performed on patients admitted to the ICU between January 2020 and December 2021. Patients were divided into two periods: Period 1 (where patients needing ICU admission outnumbered the available resources) and Period 2 (where resources were adequate). Thediscriminative power of the APACHE II was checked using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Calibration was accessed, and survival analysis was performed. Results Data from 428 patients were analyzed (229 in Period 1 and 199 in Period 2). The area under the ROC curve(AUROC) was 0.763 for Period 1 and 0.761 for Period 2, reflecting a good discriminative power. Logistic regression showed the APACHE II to be a significant predictor of mortality. The Hosmer-Lemeshow test demonstrated good calibration. The Youden index was determined, and a log-rank test showed a significantly lower survival for patients with higher APACHE II scores in both periods. Conclusions The APACHE II score is an effective tool in predicting mortality in patients with COVID-19 admitted to the ICU in a period where resource allocation and triage of patients are needed, paving a way for the future development of better and improved triage systems.

Intellectual capital and knowledge management for overcoming social and economic barriers in the health-care sector

PurposeThis study aims to explore how knowledge management (KM) influences the intellectual capital (IC) of organizations operating in health care and how IC and knowledge-sharing (KS) can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development in health systems. Notably, this study focuses on telemedicine, investigating how relational capital contributes to KS in the context of remote care services.Design/methodology/approachTo comply with the paper’s aim, the authors use a qualitative research method based on a polar case study suitable for IC in health-care studies. More precisely, this study analyzes a nonprofit organization that, for over 15 years, has offered a free multispecialist teleconsultation service to answer medical questions from the most disadvantaged places in the world.FindingsThe findings show that the KM significantly contributes to the IC of organizations. Indeed, it improves the data management and transmission system, it increases performance flexibility in times of resource scarcity without compromising business objectives and it can attract new human resources even when not motivated by selfish goals (volunteer physicians).Research limitations/implicationsThis research contributes to studies on IC in health care by focusing on the contribution of telemedicine to the creation of IC. In particular, this work emphasizes the ability of telemedicine to develop and share knowledge in disadvantaged areas of the world. Moreover, in the current context, still strongly permeated by the health emergency generated by the pandemic and recently by the war in Eastern Europe, the importance of such assistance and diagnosis grows.Practical implicationsThe conclusions the research findings lead may guide policymakers toward a policy supporting telemedicine. It would alleviate general health-care costs and completely revolutionize light health care’s role. Moreover, reducing socioeconomic distances, improving access to care and applying innovative technologies for sharing outcomes foster balanced socioeconomic development and knowledge dissemination.Originality/valueThis research has shown how telemedicine represents a new successful business model even in times of crisis. The organizational model makes it possible to offer cutting-edge specialized care, contain costs, easily reach disadvantaged areas of the planet, strengthen the skills and autonomy of the most backward countries through a process of KS and push the structures operating there to interact with those in advanced countries.

Different approach to medical decision-making in difficult circumstances: Kittay’s Ethics of Care

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated advances in bioethical approaches to medical decision-making. This paper develops an alternative method for rationing care during periods of resource scarcity. Typical...

The kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra (L.) Gaertn, Malvaceae) as a food source for native vertebrate species during times of resource scarcity and its potential for reforestation in Madagascar

AbstractReforestation in Madagascar often relies on a few tree species with known properties. Species selection may consider aspects like human use, growth characteristics and animal use. Here, we investigated the use of the kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) as a food source for vertebrates during the dry season in North West Madagascar. We observed 21 native vertebrate species (five lemurs, five bats and 11 birds) feed on or within C. pentandra during this period of low food availability, 48% of which are known seed dispersers. As a fast‐growing species, C. pentandra may therefore be suitable for inclusion in reforestation and forest restoration efforts to facilitate seed dispersal, natural forest regeneration and animal movement between adjacent forest fragments.

Ethical decision making during a healthcare crisis: a resource allocation framework and tool

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained healthcare resources the world over, requiring healthcare providers to make resource allocation decisions under extraordinary pressures. A year later, our understanding of COVID-19 has advanced,...

Market knowledge as a driver of sustainable use of common-pool resources: A lab-in-the-field study among pastoralists in Ethiopia

Rural communities that depend on common-pool resources for their livelihoods are being increasingly affected by the expanding global market system. Because such market integration is still relatively thin, communities vary in terms of market comprehension. Using a common-pool resource dilemma experiment, this study examines the effect of market knowledge on decisions concerning the use of common-pool resources among Borana pastoralists. Participants chose to use shared grazing rangelands at low or high levels of grazing intensity. Depending on the resource-use decisions in previous rounds, the participants encountered different pasture-availability conditions that required them to make trade-offs between their short-term interests and the long-term sustainability of the shared rangelands. The results indicate that, when resource conditions were good, resource users with more market knowledge are more likely to choose lower grazing intensity. During scarcity, this effect is weaker. The results further show that within-group variance in market knowledge has a negative effect on decisions relating to sustainable-resource use in times of resource scarcity. The results imply that providing an understanding of market functioning is of vital importance to protecting shared natural resources from depletion in communities experiencing increasing impact from the global market economy.

Scavenging by fishers in relation to season and other scavengers

AbstractCarrion is an energy‐rich resource that benefits many organisms, but scavenging involves both profits and risks. Fishers (Pekania pennanti) are forest‐specialists that scavenge large carcasses but quantitative assessments of their scavenging are lacking. We quantified three characteristics of scavenging behavior by fishers: (a) whether fishers visited a carcass; (b) the time to first visitation of a carcass by fishers; and (c) how long fishers fed at a carcass. We then evaluated the importance of habitat characteristics, cues from other scavenger species, and season on the scavenging behaviors of fishers. Fishers scavenged 25 of the 89 deer carcasses we monitored, and visited carcasses more frequently in winter (n = 22, 34%) than in summer (n = 3, 12%). Time to the first fisher visit to a carcass averaged 4.7 (±1.1 SE) days. On average fishers made 26 (±9 SE) repeat visits to each carcass they found and fed for 118.1 min (±42.3 SE) over an average of 6 days; season also influenced their feeding times (120.3 ± 46.0 SE min in winter versus 63.7 ± 44.7 SE min in summer). Fishers had a crepuscular activity pattern while scavenging, but initial visits peaked mid‐day in addition to a peak near sunset. Our results suggested that fishers may use cues from other scavengers to detect carrion, but that habitat characteristics did not affect exploitation of carrion more than other variables. These results highlight the potential importance of carrion for the foraging ecology of fishers, particularly during times of resource scarcity. Further research based on identifiable individuals is needed to quantify fitness consequences of scavenging for fishers, including possible negative effects of intraguild predation at carrion.

'Where's the map?': Integrating ethnography with maps to understand the complementarity between pastoral mobility and border formation.

The resettlement of herders in pastoral zones is often criticized for hindering pastoral mobility, which is essential to survival. We integrate narratives of conflict and environmental change with maps to demonstrate the complementarity between pastoral mobility - porous borders- and border demarcation - rigid borders. We use evidence from the Sondré-Est Pastoral Zone in southern Burkina Faso, where herders were voluntarily resettled near agricultural villages following the droughts of the 1970s. Over time, however, farmers encroached on the borders of the pastoral zone and surrounding grazing areas declined. This increased land-use disputes. Tensions were exacerbated by the fact that these communities kept maps as community secrets. We re-created the administrative boundaries of the pastoral zone to map land-use/land-cover changes and conflict hot spots. The maps show that conflicts happened along porous borders where agricultural fields encroached. Herders called for a clear demarcation of the border of the pastoral zone to preserve exclusive access to resources within it. Simultaneously, they also wanted to maintain shared access to other resources outside the pastoral zone. The herders' desire for both border clarity and some form of flexibility underlines the complementary between both processes, especially in times of resource scarcity and land-use conflict. The mystery around the maps helps sustain ambiguity that is key for pursuing both goals.

The resilience of social norms of cooperation under resource scarcity and inequality — An agent-based model on sharing water over two harvesting seasons

Water governance remains a challenge for human societies, especially when the variation in resource inflow is large and the resource users are heterogeneous. We analyze with a coupled social-ecological systems (SES) model how socioeconomic and environmental changes affect the resilience of social norms governing resource use. In our model, agents have access to water as a common-pool resource and allocate it between rainy and dry seasons. While it is socially optimal to save water for the dry season, it is individually optimal to take water immediately. In our model, punishment of norm violators is the mechanism that may sustain cooperation. We show that the resilience of social norms could be affected by changes in socioeconomic and environmental conditions. Particularly, we find that social norms may collapse in times of resource scarcity and variability, especially if several drivers act in concert. Finally, we find that user heterogeneity in the form of different skills and inequality in land endowments may undermine cooperation. This implies that climatic changes and increased inequality – both potential drivers in the field – may affect community resilience and may lead to an erosion of social norms.

Introduction to A Symposium on Fiscal Stress, Budget Choices and Cutback Management

Understanding how state and local governments respond to and manage fiscal stress, often caused by recession, is important for understanding government decision making in the U.S. This symposium addresses several broadly important questions: what budget cutback strategies state and local governments use to deal with revenue shortfalls; what factors influence state and local governments’ responses to revenue shortfalls; what impacts do budgetary cutback have on government services; and how are cutback decisions made. the symposium contributes to our theoretical and empirical understanding of budgetary choices in times of fiscal distress, and by doing so, to the broader challenges of governance in times of resource scarcity.

Social networks of spotted hyaenas in areas of contrasting human activity and infrastructure

In group-living animals, the structure of social interactions among group members can have important consequences for individual fitness. Changes in resource abundance can influence social interactions with an expected weakening of social ties during times of resource scarcity. Although human activity and infrastructure often impose a disturbance on animal populations, they can also be a source of reliable resources that are relatively easy to access. We evaluated whether the social networks differed between four spotted hyaena, Crocuta crocuta, clans experiencing contrasting levels of human activity and infrastructure in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. The clan living in an area of high human activity and infrastructure had a less dense social network than the other clans, and the clan living in an area with limited human activity and infrastructure had shorter path lengths than the other clans, suggesting that it had more closely associated individuals. Our results did not support substantial differences between clans in the relative social network positions of animals from different age and rank classes. Contrary to our expectations, we suggest that anthropogenic resources may have weakened the social cohesiveness within spotted hyaena clans. We also argue that our study supports previous suggestions that there may be individual variation within broader classes of rank, age and sex in the position of individual animals in social networks.

Frugivory and seed dispersal effectiveness in twoMiconia(Melastomataceae) species from ferruginouscampo rupestre

AbstractSeed dispersal effectiveness (SDE) is a useful framework to explore the evolutionary and ecological consequences of seed dispersal to plant fitness. However, SDE is poorly studied in tropical open grasslands. Here, we studied both quantitative and qualitative components of SDE in two species ofMiconia(Melastomataceae) from ferruginouscampo rupestre, a vegetation highly threatened by mining activities. We determined fruit traits and fruit availability and found that fruits of both species are produced in times of resource scarcity at the study site. Based on the number of visits and the number of fruits removed per visit, we calculated the quantitative component of SDE for both species. Finally, we explored the qualitative component of SDE by means of a controlled experiment that simulated the effects of gut passage on seed germination. Bird species differed strongly in the quantitative component of SDE. Gut passage did not affect germination compared with hand-extracted seeds, except for a minor negative effect on germination time inM. pepericarpa.However, seeds within intact fruits showed lower germination percentages compared with hand-extracted seeds. Our data indicate thatMiconiaspecies from ferruginouscampo rupestreare visited by a diverse assemblage of generalist birds that differ in quantitative, but not qualitative, seed dispersal effectiveness. We argue that plantingMiconiaspecies can overcome seed limitation in degraded areas and thus assist ecological restoration after mining abandonment.

Do smart cities realise their potential for lower carbon dioxide emissions?

‘Smart cities’ embrace technologically based solutions as an enabler of efficient, affordable and more sustainable urban living in times of resource scarcity, persistent austerity and high-tech innovations. However, cities’ evermore complex systems are, albeit unwittingly, causing mismanagement, future uncertainty and lack of transparency to exacerbate their challenges. Climate change is likely to be the greatest of the contextual challenge scale and in terms of scale and diversity of impacts. This paper explores the role of smartness indicators, in which ‘green’ undoubtedly is a large innovation engine, yet not the only one. Similarly, the beneficial impacts of ‘green’ technology solutions are yet to be fully understood or rigorously established. Cities that adopted smart roadmaps embedded lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions within the environmental sustainability agenda; however, the degree to which the two issues have been directly linked is unclear. Findings from this study suggest that lower carbon dioxide emission initiatives are embodied within the environmental sustainability initiatives agenda, yet are not clearly defined in the smart cities ideology. This paper proposes a balanced combination of human talent, ‘green’ innovation and technological innovation – the interdependent triptych philosophy for ‘smart city’ resilience that can be adapted and offer tailored solutions for cities, communities and individuals.

Striking longevity in a hibernating lemur

AbstractBody mass correlates with life span across mammals; larger species tend to live longer than small ones. There are, however, exceptions to this pattern. One metabolic strategy that has been linked to increased longevity is hibernation; that is, small‐bodied hibernating mammals live longer than expected based on their size alone. Hibernation may be beneficial in seasonal and unpredictable habitats because individuals can reduce metabolic rates to conserve energy in times of resource scarcity. On the downside, the extended periods of dormancy hibernating mammals undergo afford them fewer reproductive opportunities per year compared with their similarly sized non‐hibernating relatives. One strategy to compensate for a reduced reproductive rate is to extend reproductive life span. Increased longevity may also be expected if hibernators possess cellular machinery resilient to metabolic stress, which is generally associated with aging. Here we present data on life span and other life‐history variables for four small‐bodied strepsirrhine primates: (1) the fat‐tailed dwarf lemur Cheirogaleus medius, a hibernator; (2) the gray mouse lemur Microcebus murinus, a closely related species, which opportunistically expresses torpor and/or hibernation; (3) the Northern giant mouse lemur Mirza zaza another closely related species, which does not hibernate, but may employ daily torpor; (4) the bushbaby Galago moholi, a non‐lemur, non‐hibernating strepsirrhine that employs torpor only as an emergency response to harsh conditions. We analyzed newly compiled captive data from the developing Duke Lemur Center Database, and report that dwarf lemurs live significantly longer, reproduce longer and show later incidences of both morphologic and reproductive senescence than the other species analyzed. That these correlations hold in captive populations with no predation indicates that intrinsic biologic effects must play some role.

English

Recent times have seen a tremendous surge of multimedia traffic over the Wireless Local Area Networks or WLANs. However, the bandwidth intensive multimedia traffic takes the most brunt when a WLAN is overloaded. Longer packet delay, jitter and lower throughput deteriorate the video quality significantly at the receiving end, thus diminishing the user experience. In this paper, we implement a new scheme to guarantee Quality of Service (QoS) for resource intensive traffic such as video even in times of resource scarcity in the network. We accomplish this by prioritizing certain (but not all) video packets and ensuring resource allocation to these packets over others. We also ensure that such preferential treatment to one class of traffic do not rob other low priority traffic of their fair share of resources. This scheme is implemented in the interface between the Logical Link Control (LLC) layer and the Media Access Control (MAC) layer of an 802.11 protocol stack. Extensive simulations over the NS-2 platform shows that our scheme leads to significant improvement in video quality at the receiver end while still retaining the QoS requirements for other traffic like audio and ftp, within acceptable bounds.

Barriers to green supply chain management in Indian mining industries: a graph theoretic approach

A country's mining industry, despite its significant contributions to the country's economic growth, generally has a very poor public image because it is considered as a major environmental polluter. To acquire an improved social image, as well as to comply with government regulations, mining industries are increasingly implementing environmental management systems (EMS), cleaner production (CP), and adopting green supply chain management (GSCM) practices. GSCM focuses on a reduction of the adverse impacts of supply chain activities as well as a minimization of energy and material usage. This study focuses on the mining industry as a case study by which we will identify factors and sub-factors hindering GSCM implementation. A graph theoretic and matrix approach (GTMA) has been used to quantify the adverse impact of these barriers on GSCM implementation. An assessment of the inhibiting strength of the barriers will help decision makers rank them and decide a course of action that will make an optimum utilization of available resources during times of resource scarcity.

Governmental influence on unreserved fund balances for Mississippi counties

This research examines the relative influences of different forms of government on local governments' financial management. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether or not the impact of financial and environmental factors on the unreserved fund balance differs between an administrative form of government, such as the Unit system, and a political form of government, such as the Beat system of county governments in Mississippi. The purpose of this study is to explain further why governments maintain far more savings than are the recommended benchmarks. The findings suggest that savings behave differently under different financial environments. During times of resource abundance, Beat systems increase savings as per capita income, property tax, and other revenues increase. Beat systems decrease savings as the population, debt per capita, and intergovernmental revenues increase. Unit systems, however, increase savings as property tax, intergovernmental and other revenues increase, but decrease savings as per capita income, population, and debt per capita increase. During times of resource scarcity, majority-non-white counties spent savings at a much slower rate than did the majority-white counties.