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Disasters occur in both developed and developing countries, generating large amounts of disaster waste including construction and demolition (C&D) waste that needs to be appropriately managed. While developed countries are capable of implementing adequate disaster waste management (DWM) strategies to facilitate their recovery processes, developing countries generally struggle to find the resources and expertise needed to develop such strategies. Lebanon is a developing country vexed by several systemic challenges that hindered its abilities to manage disaster waste. In this paper, we focus on the Beirut Port explosion (4 August 2020), which generated more than 800,000 tonnes of disaster wastes. This study first assesses the executed strategies and identifies their enabling factors and implementation challenges. It then proposes a framework for the proper management of disaster waste, which was validated through 18 in-depth interviews with experts and stakeholders involved in disaster management. Interview notes and transcripts were analyzed using an inductive-deductive process that allowed to identify themes using the constant comparative method. The data revealed that the main barriers toward implementing a successful DWM strategy were the absence of appropriate technologies, infrastructure, expertise, legislative framework and financial resources. The study concludes by proposing a DWM roadmap that includes contingency, risk reduction and implementation plans (IPs) that can enhance decision-making and ease the recovery process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pundits, development practitioners, and scholars worry that rising populism and international disengagement in developed countries have negative consequences on foreign aid. However, how populism and foreign aid go together is not well understood. This paper provides the first systematic examination of this relationship. We adopt the popular ideational definition of populism, unpack populism into its core "thin" elements, and examine them within a delegation model of aid policy—a prominent framework in the aid literature. In so doing, we identify specific domestic political processes through which the core components of populism may affect aid spending. We argue that increases in one component of populism—anti-elitism—and in nativist sentiments, an associated concept, in a donor country lead to a reduction in aid spending through a public opinion channel. We supply both micro- and macro-evidence for our arguments by fielding surveys in the United States and United Kingdom as well as by analyzing aid spending by a large number of OECD donors. Our findings show that nativism and anti-elitism, rather than populism per se, influence not only individual attitudes toward aid but also actual aid policy and generate important insights into how to address populist challenges to foreign aid. Beyond these, our study contributes to the broader International Relations literature by demonstrating one useful analytical approach to studying populism, nativism, and foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly interest in the study of education from the perspective of political science has increased rapidly in the last few years. However, the literature focuses on comparing education politics at the country level, neglecting the analysis of micro-level foundations of education policies in terms of individual preferences and their interaction with macro contexts. This paper provides a first step in addressing this research gap, engaging in a multilevel analysis of survey data for a large number of OECD countries. The core research question is how institutional contexts – in this case socio-economic and educational inequalities – shape the micro-level association between the individual income position and support for education spending. The core finding is that these different dimensions of inequality have different implications at the micro level. Higher levels of socio-economic inequality enhance the conflict between the rich and the poor over public investments in education. By contrast, when access to higher levels of education is effectively restricted, the rich are more likely to support public education spending. This is because higher levels of educational stratification ensure that further public investments in education benefit the rich relatively more than the poor, who in turn become less willing to support this kind of public spending. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In some developed countries with lower union density, bargaining coverage becomes almost universal through the extension of a collective agreement beyond union members to non-unionised employees. However, such extensions are criticised for creating a negative incentive for union membership, undermining the independence of unions vis-a-vis the state and distorting competition in the market. The current study presents a moderated mediation analysis to examine the relationship between union density and bargaining coverage through the bargaining level, using data from the OECD/AIAS's ICTWSS. Empirical results confirm that the extension has a positive moderated mediation impact on the link between union density and bargaining coverage with an indirect effect of bargaining level. Also, the conditional direct effect of the extension negatively interacts with the association between union density and bargaining coverage, while the conditional indirect effect of the extension positively moderates their relationship through the centralised bargaining level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has joined the league of rich industrial nations which have accorded top priority to the promotion of telecommunications (both basic telephone systems and value-added services) as well as the new information technologies. The economic policy of 'liberalization' has resulted in a scramble among multinationals to invest in the Indian technology market. However, in the effort to promote these information technologies and the infrastructure necessary for their effective functioning, developing countries like India have overlooked the social and cultural consequences, besides the neglect of other priority sectors like education, employment generation, poverty alleviation, health and medical care, etc. The hope is that the new policy will stimulate industrial and economic growth. This paper takes a hard critical look at Indian government policy on telecommunications and the new information technologies, and the implications of such a policy for the social and cultural life of the nation. The critique takes the stance that information technologies are not a-historical or a-cultural and that they imagine on society in ways that aggravate social conflict, and challenge the cultural values of communities. The focus of the paper is on the possible implications of the technologies for employment, privacy, surveillance, human relations, consumerism, and efficiency in administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study which analysis the news flow from developed and developing nations. It mentions that the study which used the main trunk teletype wire of the Associated Press (AP) in the U.S. focus on the comparison of the news flow from such states with the news flow form more economically and politically developed areas of the world. It states that the I.B.M. 1108 computer at the University of Wisconsin was used to compile the comparative content analysis data during the study. Moreover, the study shows that the largest percentage of news from individual developed countries was concerned in the U.S.

We examine the relationship between education and social protection policies across OECD countries and thereby contribute to the growing political and academic discussion on how social investment and social protection are interrelated. We focus on how government policy in two policy domains (education, social protection) affects social stratification. The paper is based on a principal methodological innovation, which lies in disaggregating the ways in which policy-makers influence stratification into two distinct dimensions: one is concerned with how much the state intervenes in the provision of education/social protection and how much it leaves to individual, family and market, and the second is concerned with the bias towards equality or stratification found in the state system itself. We find that countries can be grouped into a distinct number of education–social protection typologies, which differ from traditional clusterings and could indicate the need for multi-faceted pan-European education policies that take into account the longstanding differences in stratification as opposed to one-size-fits-all policy initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To subsidize and win the fight against the violation of the human rights of people with mental disorders, an international working group has built a toolkit of quality assurance services and the exercise of human rights by users, both in low-, middle, and high-income countries. The World Health Organization's (WHO) QualityRights Initiative has been discussed and agreed upon by government entities in many countries in its use and implementation. The program includes a service assessment kit and training modules. Aims: In this context, this article aims to synthesize, from database searches, how the QualityRights Initiative is being used worldwide. Method: This is an integrative literature review, in which 354 articles were initially obtained. After analysis, 25 articles were included in this study. Results: The results show different ways of using the initiative: service evaluation; QualityRights Initiative service evaluation and training provision; innovations on how to use the QualityRights Initiative; and QualityRights Initiative trainings. Conclusions: As the first part of the initiative, the service assessment part, was launched before the training materials, most of the articles found (17) were using it. Despite the recent launch of the training part of the initiative, five articles were found to have already conducted the training. In addition, three articles reported on the use of the initiative in other ways, such as translation and cultural adaptation of the modules; updating the document in light of the QualityRights project; and assessing whether its implementation would be effective in reducing coercive practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing production and wealth in industrialized countries led to an increase in waste production, part of which was clearly harmful to human and non-human health. Out of several intergovernmental organizations that addressed related questions, the NATO Commission on Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS) was the first to organize a specific project dedicated to the topic. Between 1973 and 1981, delegates from nine NATO countries studies aspects ranging from the organization and recommended procedures of waste management to landfills, transportation, various ways of disposal and chromium recycling. Thereby, the CCMS got to set the agenda for problematic wastes, effectively establishing 'hazardous waste' as a recognized category. It also framed the challenge as one of 'disposal,' discouraging systemic socio-economic reviews. Overall, this framing drew attention to the potential dangers of some forms of waste to human health and to the environment and the need for special protective measures, while normalizing and potentially diverting attention away from other forms of waste. At the same time, CCMS activities provided an important push towards international guidelines and regulations of hazardous waste management and trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to find out the similarities and differences of the origin and development of social work in the West and in a South Asian developing country: Bangladesh. In this paper, the author points out four aspects – charity and religion, poor and impoverished, social justice and equality, and concern for women – where the development of social work is almost the same in these two opposite regions of the world. The author also shows that the differences depend on how social work is practiced in different countries as well as on the situation of the country, type of government, social policies and existing laws of the country. The paper also provides a clear picture of how social work, which is not professionalized yet in Bangladesh, assists and provides social services for the well-being of the poor people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rapid growth in the offshoring of information technology services by advanced industrialized countries to less developed countries in recent years has been accompanied by a voluminous amount of research on the subject. However, most research to date has tended to focus on the clients while research on offshore service providers (OSPs), particularly from developing countries, remains scant. This paper adds to the literature on offshoring of information technology services by investigating the sources of competitiveness of OSPs in India. Drawing from the experience of a selection of India's top 20 OSPs, the paper develops a conceptual model which posits that OSPs in India draw their competitiveness from having well-developed internal resources and capabilities such as human resource orientation, knowledge management and relational capital, together with clear growth strategies, while operating in an environment where the government plays a catalytic role in stimulating business growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how key differences in the very manner in which the environment/welfare nexus is experienced and understood in both the global North and the global South are managed in favour of the former over the latter. We show how in the case of the global North — the more affluent world, such as Britain — environmental issues have been usually construed as post-materialist and/or post-industrialist. We argue that predominantly Northern-based post-materialists see environmental welfare (largely through the rhetoric of sustainable development and ecological modernization) as either something separate from humans (for the welfare of the ‘rest of nature’) or for the welfare of unborn, future generations. We use the concept of the ‘post-political’ to interpret how the global North dominates debates on the environment and how it can be quite dismissive, and even negligent, of welfare issues in the global South. In the case of the majority world, green welfare policy agendas are littered with the consequences of environmental devastation incurred through centuries of Northern oppression and resource exploitation. In the global South green welfare goals concentrate on the alleviation of those more basic needs of survival — provision of shelter, water availability, air quality, food sovereignty, and energy security — for those humans actually living on the planet; rather than those who may at some time in the future. In short, issues of environmental debt are writ large, rather than those of an imagined environmental future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives: To summarize new knowledge on the range of disease due to chronic schistosomiasis and examine the debilitating burden of both light and heavy infection; to outline goals of disease prevention, including current age-targeted strategies and more extended programmes aimed at preventing transmission. Methods: A systematic search of 2004-2007 papers via PUBMED and related databases using `schistosom' and disability- or treatment-related subject headings. Reports were independently reviewed for inclusion. Results: Sixty-eight papers met review objectives. These suggest new evidence for a causative link between schistosome infection, antiparasite inflammation, and risk for anaemia, growth stunting and undernutrition in affected populations, as well as exacerbation of co-infections and impairment of cognitive development and work capacity. Formal quality-of-life assessment defines a significant 9.5-24% disability with the most aggressive schistosome species, Schistosorna japonicum. Discussion: Schistosomiasis represents a serious but under-recognized disease burden for many developing countries. Infection (and not intensity of infection) should be considered the defining feature of morbidity formation. Links between infection and long-term disabilities reduce the chances of combating rural poverty. Changes in our appreciation of schistosomiasis-related disease burden means it is no longer appropriate to leave infected persons untreated, and newer approaches to control should focus on preventing transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) and the 'alternative' press in Great Britain. It mentions several agencies which were the source of information for audiences in advanced country and the dominant reservoir for information in the Third World including Associated Press (AP) in the U.S., United Press International (UPI), and Reuter in Great Britain. It states that news distributors denied access to other agencies in the advanced countries. Meanwhile, other regional news agencies had their own outlet called as the alternative press, which presents the experience of ethnic minority groups in the country.

The article presents a study which aims to find out the nature of the coverage of foreign news in several newspapers in Nigeria. The study used a cross-tabulation analysis to determine the amount of the Nigerian stories on local events and personalities and foreign items, that are treated favourably. The results indicate an evidence of bias in the press coverage of forein news in Nigeria. It concludes that modern journalism can be biased in favor of its immediate location, in terms of quantity and quality.

This article historicises and examines the implications of internet-distributed television for televisual culture and viewing in Japan. It challenges the simplistic media discourse of ' terebi banare ' (i.e. the audiences' departure from television), which overlooks the complexities of evolving viewing practices. It explains why, largely due to the dominance of major terrestrial broadcasters in the media ecosystem, online consumption of television was slower to take hold in Japan than in other developed countries. It also demonstrates how, while Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have popularised pay online viewing from the late 2010s, the content Japanese viewers consume online remains inclined towards local outputs from terrestrial broadcasters. By elaborating on how terrestrial broadcasters have continued to play an important role in shaping audience experiences with their evolving content, frames, and services, this article provides a critical account of the meaning of terebi banare in the age of streaming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Striking disparities characterise the population growth of cities in industrialised countries. Some cities suffer from ongoing population decline, whereas other cities have experienced increasing numbers of inhabitants in recent years. Whether labour market conditions or amenities via their impact on migration primarily account for differences in cities’ demographic development is an important issue. This paper investigates the determinants of the migration balance of German cities between 2000 and 2007. The focus is on the mobility of workers because labour migration in particular affects the future prospects of cities. The findings suggest that not only labour market conditions but also amenities have an impact on the net migration rate. Moreover, large cities seem to be, ceteris paribus, more attractive than small cities. This finding possibly points to the importance of amenities such as cultural infrastructure and matching externalities in urban (labour) markets that are linked to city size. Urban policy aimed at enhancing the attractiveness of cities should thus consider both boosting the local economy and improving the quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Privatization entails a number of quite different aspects that overlap only to some extent: (1) responsibility in provision; (2) possibilities of exit from statutory plans; (3) the transfer of the administration and management of schemes from public bodies acting in a unitary non-competitive administrative environment to private sector actors acting in a more fragmented competitive market based environment; (4) the transfer of the risks of retirement from the collective to the individual; and (5) the ‘recommodification’ and ‘financialization’ of retirement risks. The paper develops a compound index of private pension provision based on a number of quantifiable variables (theoretical replacement rates of public plans, assets of funded pension schemes, private pension expenditure and coverage by private pension plans) that tries to tap into these different aspects. It can be used to empirically categorize the extent to which Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have privatized their pension provision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous quantitative research regarding the long expansionary era of public pension generosity has relied mainly on aggregate expenditure data, which capture many pension policy dimensions. Yet, the overall level of national pension generosity may differ from the generosity of each important dimension. To improve our understanding of public pension reforms that increase generosity levels, this study examines the introduction of automatic indexation clauses between 1945 and 2000. The paper tests predictions of welfare policy development and policy diffusion theories. Using event history methods, we argue that the inflation rate and the incumbency of Christian democratic parties are the main determinants of these policy reforms. Countries with higher inflation rates and more entrenched Christian democratic parties are more likely to link pensions in payment or past wages considered for initial calculation purposes to an economic index. This suggests that political parties differ in their support for each measure that improves pension generosity depending on its expected redistributive impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software industry development is acknowledged as an important engine of economic growth for many less developed countries. The role of national policy has been identified by various researchers as a catalyst to software industry and software exports development. Software development is a service that is both labour and knowledge-intensive, and thus an important aspect of related policy is concerned with the provision of appropriately educated and trained human resources in sufficient quantity. This paper provides an analysis of the human resources issues facing policy makers in less developed countries engaged in software exports policy formulation. The complexities are highlighted through the case study of Costa Rica, where there is an ongoing national strategic planning effort to increase software exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few published data are available to support the development and management of health services for refugees in developed countries, despite evidence that refugees are at high risk of suffering a wide range of both physical and mental health problems. Meeting the health needs of increasing numbers of refugees worldwide in culturally acceptable and financially feasible ways is a key challenge to our healthcare systems. This paper reports on seven platforms identified in the development of the Victorian Immigrant Health Programme (VIHP) that the VIHP believes should underpin the management and delivery of healthcare to newly arrived refugees. Sharing this information facilitates and promotes essential collaborative work in the field of refugee health, and assists to prevent duplicate efforts, given constraints on resources for refugee healthcare provision in Australia and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While resistance to human resource management (HRM) practice transfers from multinationals has been widely researched in economically advanced countries, emerging economies are generally assumed to be institutionally more welcoming. This article contributes to debates on international HRM diffusion both by highlighting hitherto neglected arenas of host-country resistance and identifying the multiple levels at which this plays out. Specifically, this article examines the transfer of Japanese multinational corporations' HRM practices into Indonesia. The study reveals that alongside apparently consensual micro-level (organization) relations between home- and host-country management, important political power games are occurring at the meso-level (subnational). These games involve competing notions of 'best practice' with host-country actors more powerful than deterministic models of diffusion would predict. The study shows how local actors seek to defend elements of the established Indonesian business system, while Japanese actors bypass host-country regulations by mobilizing corporate business associations. The findings extend current understanding of cross-border management practice transfer, highlighting contestation and negotiation at the meso-level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the municipal solid waste (MSW) generated in the Latin America (LATAM) region is currently disposed of in landfills and dumpsites, which results in many negative environmental impacts. Mechanical biological treatment (MBT) is a strategy that combines the mechanical separation of recoverable materials with the biological stabilization of organic matter. MBT plants have proven to be a good alternative for the management of MSW and have been successfully implemented in developed countries for more than 30 years. However, the efficient introduction of these facilities in developing countries, such as those in the LATAM region, requires further feasibility studies. Therefore, this mini review seeks to offer significant insights into the main challenges that must be overcome to facilitate the implementation and operation of MBT plants, considering the unique technological, sociocultural, economic and political context of the LATAM region, through a comparison of the reported experiences of MBT plants in more developed countries with those in the LATAM region. The analysis herein indicates that key actions for the successful operation of MBT plants in the LATAM region include both the implementation of source separation as well as selective collection practices. Moreover, this work shows that other factors, like the establishment of valorization markets with safe working conditions for informal collectors, the development of intermunicipal cooperation schemes and the enforcement of strong regulatory frameworks for waste disposal specifications, are important contextual factors that have allowed the efficient operation of MBT plants in developed countries. Although the implementation of many of these practices will be challenging, such measures are necessary to increase the sustainability of MSW treatment practices in the LATAM region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The overarching aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness over time of government interventions and policy restrictions and the impact of determinants on spread and mortality during the first-wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, globally, regionally and by country-income level, up to 18 May 2020. Methods: We created a global database merging World Health Organization daily case reports (from 218 countries/territories) with other socio-demographic and population health measures from 21 January to 18 May 2020. A four-level government policy interventions score (low to very high) was created based on the Oxford Stringency Index. Results: Our results support the use of very high government interventions to suppress both COVID-19 spread and mortality effectively during wave one globally compared to other policy levels of control. Similar trends in virus propagation and mortality were observed in all country-income levels and specific regions. Conclusions: Rapid implementation of government interventions was needed to contain the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak and to reduce COVID-19-related mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a contribution to the ongoing development debate. It focuses on some of the general problems underlying the development problematic, and makes use of a broad range of historical experiences. Emphasis is laid upon the development problems emerging from competence differentials in the world economy, particularly on the threat of peripheralization of less developed countries. This threat has been ever present. Whether it can be overcome depends on background conditions like the underlying social structure, in particular the agrarian structure, and the innovation and transformation capacity of individual societies, respectively. Very much depends on the sophistication of concrete development policies, particularly on the skilful opening of individual societies to the world economy and a selective delinking from it at the same time. This development issue, as most, is highly political in character. The paper substantiates this assumption by looking once again at the European development experience. The latter can only be understood by reference to its underlying process of democratization resulting from a multiplicity of political conflicts among a broad range of social forces. This experience was quite different from the history of 'world empires" outside Western Europe. Although present developing societies, whether capitalist or socialist, resemble to some degree the highly bureaucratized and centralized empires of the past, they cannot escape the development and modernization pressure characteristic of the present international system. Their success or failure depends mostly on their own efforts, but also on the circumspection of the presently developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most industrial countries women earn less in employment than men. This paper investigates the reasons for this fact. Specifically it considers in detail the relationship between domestic labour and gender inequalities in income. Using evidence from Australia the paper explores the impact on earnings of both responsibility for domestic labour and time spent on domestic labour. Earlier research suggested that responsibility for domestic labour is a greater constraint on women's position in paid labour than the actual time spent on it. The paper also seeks to discover whether the relationship between the housework and paid labour is qualitatively and quantitatively different for men and women. Using regression analysis the paper provides empirical evidence about these relations and argues that gender inequities in wages are based, at least in part, on the structure of the household system. Policies aimed at reducing the male-female wage gap will need to take account of this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reverse innovation, defined as the flow of ideas from low- to high-income settings, is gaining traction in healthcare. With an increasing focus on value, investing in low-cost but effective and innovative solutions can be of mutual benefit to both high- and low-income countries. Reverse innovation has a role in addressing maternal health challenges in high-income countries by harnessing these innovative solutions for vulnerable populations especially in rural and remote regions. In this paper, we present three examples of 'reverse innovation' for maternal health: a low-cost, easy-to-use blood pressure device (CRADLE), a diagnostic algorithm (mini PIERS) and accompanying mobile app (PIERS on the Move), and a novel method for mapping maternal outcomes (MOM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Smoking in youth remains a major public health issue. As increasing tobacco prices is considered one of the most effective prevention strategies, examining youth's responsiveness to price changes on cigarettes will provide crucial knowledge. This study aims systematically to review research examining the price elasticity of demand for cigarettes among youths (<30 years of age) in high-income countries. Methods: Searches were conducted in three databases (Web of Science, Pubmed and Scopus). Inclusion criteria were publications within the past 10 years (2011–2021) written in English and with a population of youths below 30 years of age, concerning price elasticity of demand for cigarettes and from high-income countries. Searches were screened by two independent reviewers and the quality of studies was assessed using a quality assessment tool. Results: Four outcomes related to price elasticity of demand for cigarettes were examined in six studies included in this review; that is, cigarette initiation, consumption, prevalence and cessation. Overall, findings indicate that increasing tobacco prices affect youth tobacco use. The effect was associated with gender and age; young women were more price sensitive concerning smoking initiation, whereas young men were more price sensitive concerning cigarette prevalence and consumption. Moreover, younger age was associated with higher price elasticity. Conclusions: Estimates for price elasticity varied across the included studies. This may be caused by differences in data sources, collection methods used and country of origin. Most included studies were of older date. Therefore, to make reliable predictions of the expected effects of increased tobacco prices, further examinations of up-to-date and locally embedded measures are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) economies are entrenched in traditional economic and employment structures driven by the informal sector. There is a small and regulated formal sector, built upon public sector employment. Unlike the discussion of gig work in advanced capitalist economies, the development of gig work in SSA is within an environment where employment standards and labour regulations are largely absent. The concern in developed countries is that gig work erodes the norm of regulated employment; in developing economies gig work is part of the norm of informal and unregulated employment. Gig work in SSA offers the potential for formalisation of production and work, new forms of agency, and supporting decent work. However, the challenge is how to realise this potential. The role of platforms in developing and transmitting decent work protocols into gig contracts is discussed as a potential means for supporting decent work in SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the absence of domestic standard-setting, it seems that the legislative landscapes of poor countries are subject to the policy direction of key developed countries which seek the highest returns from transnational trade and wish to have their economic interests broadened via the conduit of bilateral trade agreements. Consequently, a classic pattern that has tended to create deep concern among African countries lately is the priority given to the UPOV Convention-style Plant Breeders’ Rights over effective sui generis regimes under the TRIPS Agreement. This paper identifies a regional bilateral trade agreement—the African Growth and Opportunity Act 2000, which is already a failed initiative, as the source of political pressure on African countries to enact Plant Breeders’ Rights legislation as opposed to the reasonable and effective sui generis regimes under the TRIPS Agreement. The author will show that after signing the African Growth and Opportunity Act initiative, African countries have surrendered their territorial sovereignty to the extent that they are now under political pressure to prioritise the commercialisation of agro-biotechnology resources via the UPOV Convention-style Plant Breeders' Rights in line with the commercial interests of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although sanitary household waste disposal was achieved in China, an efficient source separation system has not been built yet. The Unit Pricing System has been proved effective for household waste sorting by developed countries and regions, while rare developing countries have successfully introduced the system in their local context. The study, taking an interactive perspective of dominant factors of residents' waste sorting and governments' intervention, combines theoretical analysis with system simulation to dissect the evolution process of residents' waste sorting and local governments' Unit Pricing System policy making, and to provide a Unit Pricing System policy making tool to support policy implementations. The results suggest introducing a Unit Pricing System can significantly push ahead the household waste sorting behaviour for cities with relatively low initial status of environmental awareness, and immediately trigger sorting behaviours for cities with higher initial status of environmental awareness. The study can also benefit other developing countries when imposing waste sorting management instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What welfare state regimes are observed when the analysis is extended globally, empirically and theoretically? We introduce a novel perspective into the 'welfare state regimes analyses' – a perspective that brings developed and developing countries together and, as such, broadens the geographical, empirical and theoretical scope of the 'welfare modelling business'. The expanding welfare regimes literature has suffered from several drawbacks: (i) it is radically slanted towards organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) countries, (ii) the literature on non-OECD countries does not use genuine welfare policy variables and (iii) social assistance and healthcare programmes are not utilized as components of welfare state effort and generosity. To overcome these limitations, we employ advanced data reduction methods, exploit an original dataset (https://glow.ku.edu.tr/) that we assembled from several international and domestic sources covering 52 emerging markets and OECD countries and present a welfare state regime structure as of the mid-2010s. Our analysis is based on genuine welfare policy variables that are theorized to capture welfare generosity and welfare efforts across five major policy domains: old-age pensions, sickness cash benefits, unemployment insurance, social assistance and healthcare. The sample of OECD countries and emerging market economies form four distinct welfare state regime clusters: institutional, neoliberal, populist and residual. We unveil the composition and performance of welfare state components in each welfare state regime family and develop politics-based working hypotheses about the formation of these regimes. Institutional welfare state regimes perform high in social security, healthcare and social assistance, while populist regimes perform moderately in social assistance and healthcare and moderate-to-high in social security. The neoliberal regime performs moderately in social assistance and healthcare, and it performs low in social security, and the residual regime performs low in all components. We then hypothesize that the relative political strengths of formal and informal working classes are key factors that shaped these welfare state regime typologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Victims of natural or humanitarian disasters sometimes resist aid offered to them, resulting in slower recovery among victims, and feelings of rejection among aid offerers. We present two studies conducted in Indonesia that investigated motives for spurning offers of humanitarian aid. Both studies showed that beliefs in developed countries' conspiracies lead participants to see humanitarian aid as guided by strategic rather than prosocial motives. Perceived strategic motives in turn enhanced aid resistance, whereas perceived prosocial motives decreased resistance. Conspiratorial beliefs and aid resistance were positively predicted by national collective narcissism (Study 1) and intergroup conflict (Study 2). Together, these findings show that humanitarian aid resistance arises from the recipients' beliefs in malignant intentions of the providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the measurement of efficiency and productivity in the tourism industry at the micro level has been the subject of considerable research in recent years, there has been little research at the macro level. Using data envelopment analysis, this paper analyses the efficiency of the tourism sector in 105 countries, including 34 developed and 71 developing countries. It finds that globalization and accessibility are critical for the efficiency of the tourism sector in developing countries and that labour productivity may be a good proxy for the efficiency of the aggregate tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews research studies on the information needs and information-seeking behaviour of rural dwellers in developed and developing countries. The analysis suggests that the information needs of rural communities from all countries are very similar, although rural communities they do vary from region to region and from country to country depending on socio-economic conditions. These needs are mostly related to the daily life of rural dwellers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper compares the effect of terrorism on the tourism industry in developing and developed countries. Analysis of a cross-sectional data set of 60 countries supports the hypothesis that terrorism's effect on the tourism industry is larger in developing countries than in developed countries. Based on this result, developing countries especially should implement ways to prevent terrorism and avoid the detrimental effects on their tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Surveillance of infectious diseases is recognized as the cornerstone of public health decision-making and practice. The aim of the evaluation of communicable diseases surveillance systems (CDSS) is ensuring that communicable diseases are monitored efficiently and effectively. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the experiences of both developed and developing countries in the evaluation of CDSS in order to learn lessons from these experiences to improve systems everywhere. Methods: A literature review of studies published in English in PubMed and databases of the World Health Organization (WHO), and Center of Diseases Control (CDC) from 1981 to 2007 was undertaken assessing CDSS. The studies were divided into those from developed and developing countries. Results: A total of 32 studies were included, 20 from developed and twelve from developing countries. Both developed and developing countries faced difficulties in CDSS. Studies from the developed countries have been analysed based on the quality of the system alone. In developing countries, most of the studies have been on the integrated diseases surveillance (IDSR) and have been performed shortly after the adoption of the IDSR. Thus it might be too early to make a fair evaluation. Some of the systems over-centralized, while some lacked private health sector involvement in the system. Further, some of the systems were affected by conflicts and civil wars which are common problems in developing countries. Conclusions: None of the countries had ideal CDSS. The strategy of integrated diseases surveillance seems to be functioning well especially in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Many low-income households in rich countries have very little wealth, but the role of intergenerational wealth transmission in underpinning this deficit is not known. This article seeks to fill that gap by investigating patterns of past wealth transfer receipt for low-income versus other households in seven rich countries and assessing the contribution that these transfers, or their absence, make to current wealth levels. We find that households on low incomes are relatively disadvantaged in terms of intergenerational transfers received in the past, both in terms of the likelihood of having received any and the amounts received by those who do benefit from such transfers. The role that this disadvantage plays in the linkage between current low-income and low wealth is assessed and evidence presented that it is significant. Simulation of a universal wealth transfer scheme or 'capital endowment' on reaching adulthood for two countries shows that such a policy could lead to a marked decline in the proportion of low-income adults with negative or no wealth. This and alternative or complementary policy responses to these wealth deficits merit the most serious attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings on truth telling with reference to the problem of medical error in developed nations. Physicians' resistance to disclosing their own mistakes to injured patients and their families; Barrier of the hidden curriculum within the culture of medicine.

Although the populations of the richest advanced industrial societies have achieved unprecedented levels of formal credentials, analysts report on the massive scale of underutilisation of knowledge and skills in current market economies. This paper describes the underemployment situation in the Netherlands (1977-95).We show by different methods that the education-jobs gap 'has widened increasingly. The return to credentials of Dutch employees has diminished for every educational category Within the total labour population,an increasing share of employees can be considered as underemployed and deal with credential inflation. At the lower levels of education men have suffered from credential inflation more than women. At the higher levels of education it is the reverse. ft also appears that young people deal with a `waiting-room effect': they enter the labour market at relatively low skill levels, given their educational level and gender. A further breakdown by educational specialisation shows that employees with an educational background in health care or technical studies have suffered relatively more from credential inflation compared to those with a commercial education. We conclude by stating that in spite of much rhetoric about the skill deficiencies of the current workforce, the lack of decent jobs has caused basic allocation problems at the Dutch labour market From a human resources perspective, the growing wastage of employees' potential should not be underestimated or dismissed. We argue that an effective allocation of knowledge and skills to occupations will he the basic tenet of labour market policy and new forms of work organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen science, and public engagement with science, has become prominent in science policy programmes. Given the expectations attached to citizen science in academic and science policy discourses, it is worthwhile to look at where the actual work is done. The case of South Africa, the study focus, is interesting because the country follows similar programmes as many developed countries, but has a socioeconomically and educationally more unequal society. Thus, South Africa presented a test example of whether the institutional similarities of science or socioeconomic and educational differences prevail in shaping the reality of citizen science. Results from 56 projects showed that nearly all of them were limited to data collection in life science fields and were managed largely by one university and mainly communicated within the respective science communities. This led us to conclude that the ambitious rhetoric accompanying citizen science in science policy programmes is not matched by reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to help serve community members suffering from public library access inequity, many library institutions provide mobile library services to help them connect directly with their communities and provide strong social, educational and emotional support to those in need. Via the use of a series of in-depth one-on-one interviews with individual mobile librarians practising in different parts of the world, this article aims to examine the new and changing roles of mobile libraries and librarians – the roles they play in supporting communities that suffer from a lack of readily accessible library resources, have extreme social inequity, or have lost touch with their usual library community owing to natural disasters. Nine mobile librarians took part in this study and the countries they represent are as follows: Australia, China, Croatia, Greece, Iceland, India, Japan, the USA and Zimbabwe. The user groups of the nine participating mobile libraries included refugees, impoverished children, migrant families and disaster-affected populations, who suffered, in particular, from extreme educational and informational inequality. The interview findings from the study indicate that mobile libraries play an important role in providing resources to different disadvantaged user groups, as well as enabling those with limited access to educational facilities and reading programmes with opportunities to survive and prosper in their communities. Not only do mobile libraries provide age- and content-appropriate resources and alternative literacy programmes for their patrons, but they also create new spaces for social connection for community members who may be disparate, isolated or physically unable to venture far from home. In summary, mobile libraries have the potential to function as a 'social equaliser' by extending the philosophy of social equality and erasing social, economic and educational barriers through the provision of literacy and learning opportunities for community members of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we make sense of the great Western malaise? This article argues that it results from a sharp decline in the capacities of Western governments to accomplish basic socioeconomic goals. These failures (objective and perceived) are undermining the legitimacy of Western states and fuelling political disarray. For two hundred years, the modernisation of industrial society went together with the building of capable and legitimate states. Today, it is difficult to see what progressive 'projects' remain that reinforces the state's primacy and legitimacy. The paper examines three basic state responses to declining capacity and legitimacy: 'shedding', 'shifting', and 'shouldering'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical section of this paper describes three mechanisms through which science in non-Western countries is institutionalized to follow the forms that are prevalent in the major industrial nations. The empirical section, which is based on a sample of 73 less developed countries (LDCs) and underdeveloped countries (UDCs) demonstrates that the findings are inconsistent with predictions made by theories of economic development and modernization. These theories predict a positive relationship between the degree of institutionalization and economic performance, but, for LDCs we find no such relationship; for the UDCs, it is even negative. Thus we conclude that institutional isomorphism and conformity to external rational myths are loosely coupled with internal economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past century, Japanese society has undergone a radical change in its temporal experience, moving from one following the rhythms of nature to one of mathematical precision, namely, the western time system. Why did Japan westernize its time? This paper argues that it was for the sake of industrialization, where time was equated with profit. The accelerating sense of time reflected Japan's desperate efforts to catch up with the western level of industry in the shortest possible time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberal theories of post-industrial society and Marxist theories of the labour process tend to converge in their respective accounts of the place of supervisors in relation to putative changes in the organisation of work. A common conjecture is that supervisors are progressively being denuded of theft powers and functions within industry. This paper uses data from a national sample survey of Britain to discuss the substance of the supervisory role in modem capitalist enterprises. The conclusion reached is that direct supervision in the workplace is not obviously in decline. The data also raise issues about the categories of employment status used in official statistics as well as those of the Goldthorpe class schema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empowering ordinary citizens with the capacity to deliberate is a core issue in science communication. Despite growing deliberative practices in developed nations, it is significantly less understood how public deliberation can happen among populations who live with limited educational resources and poor urban infrastructure in developing countries. This article studied a case of a well-designed deliberation method, Deliberative Poll, in Tamale, Ghana. I analyzed the stimulus information video and thousands of speech acts from deliberation transcripts to examine how expertise was used and what was deliberated in public dialogue. A broad range of expertise and interests were represented. Participants had thoughtful discussions on complex policy issues and their discussion results were considered by local policymakers. This article contributes to our understanding of how to effectively foster public deliberation among populations in the Global South and measure the nuances of expertise and public reasoning on science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'mass tourism' can simply be an empirical description of tourism enjoyed by many in modern, industrial societies. However, in context, it often refers to more than this. The 'mass' involves an aggregation of individuals, and involves assumptions and inferences about those individuals and their society. Hence mass tourism is, in an important sense, a social construct. It is therefore surprising that there is little consideration of this aspect of 'mass tourism' and its corollary, the 'mass tourist' in relevant literature. The article develops a provisional periodisation of mass tourism in social thought, linking constructions of the mass to the politics of the day. It has an exploratory character, suggesting themes for contestation and/or further research. It indicates changes in the view of mass tourism, but also important continuities relating to an assumption of a lack of agency on the part of mass tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]