World Environment Research Articles

The Western Orientation of Environmentalism in the Islamic World Today

Abstract Why is so much of official environmental action in the Islamic world Western-oriented? This article investigates this topic by first examining inherited resources in the Islamic tradition that could contribute to an environmentalism. It then proceeds to explain the peripheralization of these resources and the engagement of environmentalist methods of particularly modern and Western origin. A variety of factors are at play, including the large-scale indifference of religious scholars and politicians to the environment in the Islamic world; postcolonial attitudes of inferiority in the East that champion Western views and methodologies over local, traditional ones; the relative compatibility of Western environmentalist means with modernization; and the secularization of the acquisition of knowledge and its applications. In juxtaposition with concerns of romanticizing the traditional or the modern, the present article also examines the relevance of traditional Islamic methods of environmental action.

Goal-seeking compresses neural codes for space in the human hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex

Humans can navigate flexibly to meet their goals. Here, we asked how the neural representation of allocentric space is distorted by goal-directed behavior. Participants navigated an agent to two successive goal locations in a grid world environment comprising four interlinked rooms, with a contextual cue indicating the conditional dependence of one goal location on another. Examining the neural geometry by which room and context were encoded in fMRI signals, we found that map-like representations of the environment emerged in both hippocampus and neocortex. Cognitive maps in hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortices were compressed so that locations cued as goals were coded together in neural state space, and these distortions predicted successful learning. This effect was captured by a computational model in which current and prospective locations are jointly encoded in a place code, providing a theory of how goals warp the neural representation of space in macroscopic neural signals.

Development and Implementation of an Enhanced Recovery Protocol for Bariatric Patients in a Third World Environment.

Introduction: An applicable and reproducible enhanced recovery protocol was developed and implemented to improve our outcomes in a third-world environment. Methods: We compared the results obtained prospectively. The group treated before the application of the enhanced recovery protocol was called usual care (UC) and included all bariatric surgeries operated on between 2014 and 2017. The new protocol was applied between 2017 and 2019 including all operated patients, and this group was called Fast Track (FT). The variables analyzed were the length of stay, readmissions, and complications recorded during the first 30 days. We also analyzed the milligrams of morphine used by each patient, and a cost analysis was performed. Results: During the study period, 816 patients were studied. Of these, 385 (47.2%) belonged to the UC group and 431 (52.8%) to the FT group. The mean hospital stay was 58.5 hours (UC) versus 40.3 hours (FT) (P = .0001). When comparing the global morbidity of both groups, we did not find significant differences (P = .47). There was also no statistically significant difference when comparing major complications (P = .79). No mortality was recorded. Morphine indication reported a statistically significant difference that favored FT. Costs were significantly higher in UC than in FT (P < .0001). Conclusions: We believe that the implementation of an enhanced recovery protocol in bariatric surgery is a reliable measure and can be implemented even in an underdevelopment environment enlarging the benefit for patients.

Radiative cooling surfaces: principles, performance evaluation and applications

With the crisis of greenhouse gases resulting in global warming, radiative cooling can assuage the need to keep cool without any adverse footprints. Radiative cooling is a heat transfer phenomenon in which entities dissipate heat directly into deep space without any effort or requiring input energy. It has been a well-known worldwide phenomenon for nocturnal heat transfer to dissipate heat into deep space. In recent years, however, its potential for cooling during the day leads to be considered as a possible method to mitigate the energy shortage, and it also can benefit the entire world's environment. Radiative cooling materials have leaped with the rapid advancement of nanotechnology. In this review paper, radiative cooling is comprehensively represented with regard to the principle of radiative cooling, energy balance, optimization, and various applications. In the first section, the basic principle of heat transfer mechanisms, which engage simultaneously in radiative cooling surface (RCS), are considered and elaborated. Then various approaches were surveyed to improve the performance of radiative cooling surfaces to outline possible pathways of its development in terms of cooling performance and commercial application. And finally, the application of RCS is discussed to explain the benefits of employing them. This review also makes it possible to researchers to develop the RCS for further upgrade, and the prospect of this subject reviews the major features in summary for further future studies.

The future of the technology-based manufacturing in the European Union

The manufacturing industry tries to innovate always to cater to customer-oriented products. The digitization of manufacturing is revolutionizing the future of this industry. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is bringing down the labor cost, reducing the machine downtime, and overall increasing the production speed. A new technological trend like Machine Learning (ML) is a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that uses computer algorithms based on available data and can improve or decide further, automatically, based on experience, without the need for prior programming commands. ML can improve daily processes for identifying bottlenecks, developing products, controlling quality, providing security to the industry, and using AI robotics in place of humans. On one hand, technologies like ML, AI, IIoT, new materials, photonics, and rapid prototyping are driving the manufacturing sector in adopting a future version of Industry 4.0, and on the other hand, the European Commission (EC) has defined a roadmap until 2050 or more, in achieving the sustainable goal of carbon-neutrality and complete digitalization with resilience across the European continent. However, it is challenging to match the planned and actual roadmaps to the future of the technology-based manufacturing industry. There are uncertainties about how the future will be shaped by technologies in the EU manufacturing industry, in the changing political, environmental and social world environment. Recognizing these difficulties, the current article consults the available literature on this topic to determine the factors that will characterize the future of the manufacturing industry across EU countries. The relevant information about the EU manufacturing sectors has first been collected from various sources like Eurostat data, the EC policy documents, manufacturing company's annual reports, research reviews, journal articles, EU Industry Days annual event, etc. Then the collected data were analyzed to gain insight into the future of the technology-based EU manufacturing industry in the context of the European Commission's outlined policies. Variable factors from different manufacturing sectors are presented from different EU member states and scenario analysis was used for understanding the possible future. It is concluded that the future does not lie in adapting to the changing environment but in creating the future by EU companies themselves - revolution must be met by revolution. Their early experiences and path dependency can be seen as stubbornness, which may act as formidable barriers to building new capabilities. Therefore, companies must step-wise integrate resources to create a new process, and new structure, with personnel motivation, that fits with the broader European context in the coming decades.

Environmental Regulation of Transnational Corporations by Host Countries

Transnational corporations play a vital role in the world economic development, is the most important subject of international investment activities, and is closely related to the sustainable development of the world environment. At present, in order to attract foreign capital, many developing countries ignore the importance of environmental protection, which makes many multinational corporations in developed countries transfer high-polluting industries to the outside world, which poses great challenges to the environmental governance of host countries. More and more environmental pollution cases of transnational corporations have occurred, making the international community gradually realize the importance of environmental regulation of transnational corporations. In view of this, this paper mainly makes a comparative analysis of the environmental regulation policies of different countries in the world as host countries. By drawing on, studying and analyzing the advanced experience of developed countries and combining with the current situation and deficiencies of developing countries in the process of development, this paper makes a research and analysis, and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to solve the difficult problems of environmental regulation of transnational corporations by host countries.

Youth Digital Technology Attitudes

Today's digital technologies have become essential tools in daily living. The young generation nowadays is very savvy in using digital technologies. It is essential to instill digital citizenship skills in preparing those who are also technology users for a digital society today. However, not all of them have undergone formal training to survive in a challenging environment in a digital world. Thus, this study aims to examine students' attitudes and digital behaviour, particularly in rural schools, including how youth self-evaluate their perceptions of digital technologies, digital competencies, and attitudes towards digital technologies. Data were collected using survey questionnaires, with 210 valid responses. The study results revealed a statistically significant association between attitude toward digital use and digital competence dimensions, including technological, communication, and cognitive. Accessibility dimension in cyber-ethics was also statistically significantly associated with attitudes toward digital use among male students. To summarize, specific concerns and emphasis on youth digital technology usage and education must ensure that they are not left behind and vulnerable to cybercrime while fostering a responsible e-society with excellent digital citizenship characteristics.

THE MAINTENANCE SYSTEM FOR A SMART BUILDING IN INDUSTRY 4.0 ENVIRONMENT

Buildings, where we spend the majority of our time, have been quickly altering in recent years. Building systems powering integrate consumer-grade Internet of things (IoT) sensors such as cameras with operational technology controllers and actuators to accommodate the increased complexity of building operations. This study discussed the idea of “smart buildings” and the comparison along with the technologies being developed for these structures and the implications for libraries and specialized smart building technology using various IoT approaches used in smart building categories. The research goal is to improve approaches which active in recent years and the gaps researchers have found in their investigations. As a result, smart buildings provide physical value by generating data intelligently to enhance operations and customer skills. Recent breakthroughs in IoT have piqued experts and engineers across the world. However, improvements are only possible if we consider the numerous flaws and mistakes in the present technology. IoT developers might consider many challenges and hurdles while designing a better model in this survey article. Significant IoT technology sectors in which IoT developers and academics are interested are frequently addressed. In addition to providing services, IoT captures a vast amount of data. Therefore, big data analytics is essential, trustworthy judgments can be made, and a more robust IoT framework can be created. This study compares the previous studies that focused on characteristics that a controlling and advanced approach to making buildings smarter with Maintenance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance the world's environment at a lower cost.

Apple diseases: detection and classification using transfer learning

Human diagnosis of horticultural diseases comes with added monetary costs in the shape of time, cost, and acces-sibility, with still considerable possibilities of misdiagnosis. Most common plant diseases present visually recognizable symptoms like change in color, shape, or texture. Deep learning is known to work with such accuracy and precision in recognizing patterns in such visual symptoms that rivals human diagnosis. We specifically designed a deep learning–based multi-class classification model AppleNet to include extra apple plant diseases, which has not been the case with other previously designed models. Our model takes advantage of transfer learning techniques by implementing ResNET 50 Convolutional Neural Network pretrained on image-net dataset. The knowledge of features learned by ResNET 50 is being used to extract features from our dataset. This technique takes advantage of knowledge learned on a larger and more diverse dataset and also saves precious computational resources and time in training on a relatively lesser data. The hyper-parameters were uniquely fine-tuned to maximize the model efficiency. We created our own dataset from the images taken directly from the trees, which, unlike the publicly available datasets created in a controlled setting with smooth (white) background, has been created in a real world environment and includes background noise as well. This helped us train our model in a more realistic way. The results of experimentation on a collected dataset of 2897 images with data augmentation demonstrated that AppleNet can be efficiently used for apple disease detection with a classification accuracy of 96.00%. To examine the effectiveness of our proposed approach, we compared our model with other pretrained models and a baseline model created from scratch. Results of the experiment demonstrate that transfer learning improves the performance of deep learning models and using pretrained models based on residual neural network architectures gives remarkable results as compared to other pretrained models. The mean difference in classification accuracies between our proposed model AppleNet and other experimental models was 21.54%.

Treatment of Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder in a Pediatric Patient with COVID-19

It is unknown that the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), which emerged for the first time in December 2019 and spread all over the world, have affected how many children symptomatically or asymptomatically. The uncertainty of the treatment algorithm of pandemic factor and rapidly developing pandemic process created a chaotic environment in whole world. Children and adolescents have been adversely affected by this chaotic environment. Studies examining the effects of this period on the mental health of children and adolescents are scarce. It has been suggested that individuals with psychiatric disorders such as attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) adapted more difficultly and were affected more negatively than other individuals. In this study, we present a patient with ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) who was using short-acting methylphenidate (IRISMPH) for treatment, had no worsening or any adverse side effects and was treated carefully for COVID-19 infection. However, further studies are required to evaluate the safety of IRIS-MPH and other psychotropic agents in patients with COVID-19.

Inspiring STEM education focused on solutions

Inspiring STEM education focused on solutions Nancy Butler Songer, from the University of Utah, makes a call for collective action to create a new curriculum focused on the design of solutions. June 5, 2023, marked The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) fiftieth anniversary of World Environment Day, the largest global platform for environmental public outreach. Hosted by Côte D’Ivoire, this year’s celebration emphasized a need for collective action and policy to realize known solutions, such as the sustainable design of products and materials to reduce how much plastic waste flows into aquatic ecosystems. World Environment Day helps us to recognize that to address many current environmental, educational, health, and economic challenges that have foundations in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines, we cannot rely on individuals or even experts within one area of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, or education. We must innovate with, study, and empower students, teachers, community members, and university and industry partners toward collective action.

The influence of context effects on exit choice behavior during building evacuation combining virtual reality and discrete choice modeling

Exit choice is critical to saving lives during a building evacuation. Numerous studies have examined how environmental factors, social interactions, and individuals’ internal factors affect exit choice behavior. However, due to their limited ability to perceive and combine these multi-attributes, people do not always make strategic and rational decisions but instead rely on preferences. The choice context can facilitate or hinder the evaluation of attributes, and thus preference reversals may occur in the same choice set but in different contexts. Researchers have long known that the context effect – i.e. preference reversals depending on the availability of other options – plays an important role in decision-making behavior. However, no research on decision-making behavior has been conducted that considers the context effect on exit choice during building evacuation. To fill this gap, we conducted a series of virtual reality (VR) experiments to examine the influence of context effect on exit choice. Before conducting the experiments, the validity of exit choice behavior in the VR-based method was analysed by comparing controlled experiments in both the real world and virtual environment. The results from our VR experiments provide novel and clear empirical evidence that contextual preference reversals involving three major effects, the compromise effect, the similarity effect, and the attraction effect, play an important role in exit choice during evacuation. Additionally, we compared three models for estimating discrete choice – expected utility theory (EUT), cumulative prospect theory (CPT), and accentuation of differences (AOD) – which primarily focus on the option attributes, the risk attitude of decision-makers, and the context of options, respectively. The outstanding performance of AOD, which is based on a psychophysical law and takes into account the impact of the context of options, highlights the psychological perspective of evacuees towards various option attributes and the importance of context effects in exit choice.

Synthesis, Modification and Application of Polylactic Acid

The massive use of petroleum-based plastics has caused tremendous damage to the world's environment, so it has become increasingly urgent to develop biodegradable materials represented like polylactic acid (PLA). PLA is a non-polluting, completely degradable and renewable polymer material with high strength, high modulus and good biocompatibility. However, the disadvantages of conventional PLA, such as poor heat resistance and limited flexibility, limit its application. Therefore, its modification is needed. This article summarizes the structure and properties of PLA and describes the synthesis methods based on direct polymerization, ring-opening polymerization and enzyme-catalyzed polymerization. The article also reviews the methods of PLA modification, including physical modification by adding fibrous materials, nucleating agents, and compound modification, and chemical methods such as copolymerization and cross-graft modification. Moreover, the article presents the applications of PLA in packaging and medical materials. At the end of this article, future research and development directions of PLA are discussed.

CPA Evolution: Curriculum revision for Higher Education

Recent proposals from the National Association of States Board of Accountancy and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants aim to modify the CPA license model to reflect the knowledge and abilities that new CPAs will need both now and in the future. The Uniform CPA Examination has recently undergone its most significant modification in many years thanks to the CPA Evolution project. This article discusses the exam's revised structure and content, evaluates the anticipated effects of those changes on accounting education, and explains how colleges will need to modify their curricula to meet the new exam core Plus requirements.&#x0D; Today's accountants and the accounting industry require different technical capabilities than they did even a few years ago. For the accounting profession to advance, proficiency in technology, data analytics, risk management, and IT governance are becoming crucial competencies. The joint CPA Evolution project of the AICPA and NASBA acknowledges the rapidly evolving abilities and competences needed by today's CPAs. The quick development of technical advancements, such as data analytics, robots, and artificial intelligence, among others, is significantly altering the way CPAs do their business. Additionally, this report illustrates the constraints that the COVID-19 placed on the world's environment and economy. The CPA profession is changing, and data from IPEDS and responses from participating U.S. universities and public accounting companies enable us to assess the effects of this change on both the supply and demand of new accounting. The public accounting firms have started to fill the technology and data analytics talent gaps among accounting recruits by hiring non-accounting staff, according to the AICPA's 2021 Accounting Graduate Supply and Demand Report, which includes a survey of the hiring practices of public accounting firms. According to the research, new hires of master's graduates increased by 2% in 2020, despite a 10% decline in the total hiring of new accounting graduates.

The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World by Katherine Johnston (review)

The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World by Katherine Johnston (review)

Entrepreneurship in the age of the digital economy.

Entrepreneurship in the age of the digital economy.

Planting Productive Seeds Based on Watersheds in Order to Welcome World Environment Day in Kelambir V Kampung Village, Hamparan Perak Region, Deli Serdang District

Planting Productive Seeds Based on Watersheds in Order to Welcome World Environment Day in Kelambir V Kampung Village, Hamparan Perak Region, Deli Serdang District

Impact and Viability of Gastronomic Ventures in Manzanillo, México: Situational Analysis in the Post Covid-19 Era

One of the alternatives that are available to people in a situation of economic crisis are gastronomic ventures. The economic environment plays a fundamental role for the success of this type of company, so it is necessary to identify and develop instruments that empower the entrepreneur to achieve their organizational objectives in order to be present in an increasingly competitive market. The gastronomic sector in Mexico has been beaten over the last two years by different factors; public health (pandemic restrictions), violence (curfews in some regions) and economic (inflation and shortages). However, this sector represented -until 2019- 2% of the national GDP, so it was important to know the economic impact in the post covid-19 era in this sector of the country. In times of economic turbulence, crises behave like a kind of "sweeper" that wipes out companies and businesses that lack organizational strength to face the ravages of a phenomenon of this type such as lack of liquidity, low sales and rising prices. Prices. For this reason, this research focuses on studying the ventures in the gastronomic sector, the impact suffered by covid-19, the scarcity and the rise in prices of inputs derived from war conflicts and political situations in the world environment that affect the macroeconomic indicators of the country and region. The study will focus on companies in the gastronomic sector of the municipality of Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico. Where inflation was identified as the main problem that lacerates restaurant businessmen with 88.7% of the cases studied. Finally, the instruments used to cope with the crisis experienced are detailed, the main strategies for the improvement and reactivation of sales were identified, as well as the red flags to attend to a possible resurgence of economic stagnation in the short term.

PECULIARITIES OF THE DIGITAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IN POST-PANDEMIC GEORGIA

The development of digital technologies is a modern challenge that has changed the world's economic processes, infrastructure, and business environment. Today, everyone uses e-business services in Georgia, and therefore the digital business environment consists of people with different backgrounds, education levels, views, and values. The development of digital technologies and the electronic market led to the emergence of new business models, contributed to the sustainability of the business environment, the creation of a digital economy, business dynamism, and increased competitiveness.The paper aims to study the peculiarities of the digital business environment in Georgia and determine the possibilities for its improvement.The research conducted within the given topic revealed that the development of private sector online service organizations in Georgia is conditioned by the growing segment of Internet users, global competitiveness, flexibility, and the production/presentation of products/services corresponding to global market requirements.The article discusses the features of the digital business environment in Georgia today, the main challenges, and opportunities for its improvement.

PERSONNEL POLICY IN THE CONDITIONS OF BANI WORLD: MOTIVATION TOOLS FOR INTELLECTUAL PERSONNEL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SECURITY MANAGEMENT OF THE ORGANIZATION

The purpose of the study was to establish the place of staff motivation in the system of ensuring intellectual and personnel security of the organization and to identify effective management tools for stimulating staff to effective and loyal behaviour in the process of performing professional duties. Method. In the research process, the method of content analysis of scientific sources and literature, generalization, systematization and addition of the work of domestic and foreign scientists were used in the search for means of managerial influence on the motivation of personnel to work. A graphic method of visualization of individual provisions, assumptions and conclusions obtained in the research process is used. Results. The content essence of the concept of motivation is characterized by such categories as stimulus, creativity, reward, aspiration, interest, desire. It is proposed to use motivation to develop personnel potential and ensure a high level of intellectual and personnel security in such areas as: a combination of material and non-material forms of motivation, promotion of lifelong learning of personnel, application of an individual approach to motivation, use of clear and understandable career growth parameters, fixation of incentives for self-development of employees in personnel policy. In the realities of BANI World, the motivation will be the creation of a favourable working atmosphere for employees, the emotional background of teamwork, and minimum guarantees of employment stability. Establishing channels of two-way communication between managers and employees will allow top-management to find out the needs, wishes and interests of the staff and take them into account in a timely manner when making management decisions. Scientific novelty. Content elements of the concept of personnel motivation are summarized. The specifics of using motivation for the development of personnel potential in enterprise management have been established. The motives of people to work are determined and the features of the BANI World environment, in which modern enterprises function and their personnel work and live, are characterized. The parameters of personnel motivation are proposed, which should be fixed in the personnel policy of the business entity in order to lay the foundations for the motivational toolkit to strengthen the state of intellectual and personnel security. Practical significance. The proposals presented in the study can become a framework for the section of personnel policy of enterprises, devoted to the mechanisms of personnel stimulation. They can be used to select parameters for rating employees in the process of performing their job duties in order to identify those who deserve stimulation in one form or another.