Suchergebnisse

Susheela Kaushik, Panchyati Raj in Action: Challenges to Women's Role. FES Publication, 1995, ₹1,199. ISBN: 81-440-016-8.

The purpose of this article is to identify the core trends in economic and legal cooperation among the BRICS countries through the prism of strategic documents and normative acts adopted to define national development benchmarks in certain economic sectors. The authors carried out an analysis of strategic and policy documents adopted by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa with a view to developing certain sectors of the national economy. It is pointed out that international cooperation is now considered necessary to achieve sustainable economic growth. The relevance of the research topic is dictated by the need to determine and develop approaches to improve the legal fundamentals of economic cooperation among the BRICS countries, as well as to prepare proposals for their implementation. The analysis of national programs and development priorities of the economies of the BRICS member countries has shown that the programs of Russia and China are the most comprehensive. Brazil's development priorities, the socio-economic development policy of India and South Africa's national development plan are primarily aimed at overcoming the problems inherent in these countries. Among the main areas of interest for all of the BRICS countries are agriculture, digital economy, energy, environment, education and health, finances, labour and employment, infrastructure and transportation and trade. Cooperation among the BRICS countries is likely to develop mainly through the exchange of experiences and best practices, joint research and realization of specific economic projects supervised by executive authorities, central banks and other state bodies. An important institution for economic interaction between the BRICS countries is the New Development Bank; other successful mechanisms of economic cooperation include the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, the Energy Research Cooperation Platform and the Partnership on New Industrial Revolution.

Aims and objectives: The study aims to explore why and how pregnant women use the internet as a health information source, what overall effect it has on their decision making and how this is affecting their interaction with their health care professional. Background: As the internet has become primarily a source of information among mothers-to-be, health care professionals require greater understanding of the impact of such technology to provide adequate support and advice to new mothers. Selection criteria: Pregnant women, from the time of their first meeting with their midwife until birth, were approached for the study. Supplementary criteria included: age 18 and above, living within Frimley Heath Foundation Trust, and fluency in the English language. Data collection and analysis: This was a primary research study with data collected through an online survey. As the purpose of the study was to collect data on an impact that cannot be directly observed, an online questionnaire was utilised to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. The data was analysed and presented thematically. Results: In accordance with the UK government policy to promote registration of clinical studies and public access to research findings affecting health and social care, the research is registered on the public database. Authors' conclusion: The use of the internet as a source of pregnancy-related information has become increasingly popular and influential among childbearing women. As health professionals, midwives have a responsibility to acknowledge the fact that women access the internet for support and pregnancy-related information. For the wider profession, midwifery leaders need to set the direction of travel for their profession in engaging with social media and provide guidance on directing pregnant women towards sources of information which are both evidence-based and valid.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of internal and external factors of SNOWA Corporation on its marketing strategic planning. Is there a relationship between internal and external factors and strategic marketing planning? How severe is this relationship?


Design/methodology/approach
The present study is an applied research using a descriptive-analytic method. The statistical sample of this research includes 300 personnel of SNOWA Corporation. Data were collected applying a standard questionnaire in a five-point Likert scale. Content validity ratio and content validity index were used to evaluate the content validity of the questionnaire, and a Cronbach's alpha test was applied to assess its reliability. SPSS Software (factor analysis) and Amos Software (structural equation modeling) were applied to analyze the collected data. Results of this research show that internal and external factors influence the development of its marketing strategic planning.


Findings
Results of this research show that internal and external factors influence the development of SNOWA marketing strategic planning. Another result of this study is that the severity of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables varies from the viewpoint of the employees of different departments.


Practical implications
The study will help managers deal with environmental opportunities effectively while formulating corporation strategies. In addition, findings reveal that having vision and mission help managers find a clear way to reach the goals.


Originality value
This is one of a few papers to provide empirical evidence of the influence of internal and external factors of SNOWA Corporation on its marketing strategic planning. Identification of the external-internal factors used in formulating marketing strategic planning may prove useful for other researchers working in this under-researched area.

Geodesign is a participatory planning approach in which stakeholders use geographic information systems to develop and vet alternative design scenarios in a collaborative and iterative process. This study is based on a 2019 geodesign workshop in which 17 participants from industry, government, university, and non-profit sectors worked together to design an initial network of hydrogen refueling stations in the Hartford, Connecticut, metropolitan area. The workshop involved identifying relevant location factors, rapid prototyping of station network designs, and developing consensus on a final design. The geodesign platform, which was designed specifically for facility location problems, enables breakout groups to add or delete stations with a simple point-and-click operation, view and overlay different map layers, compute performance metrics, and compare their designs to those of other groups. By using these sources of information and their own expert local knowledge, participants recommended six locations for hydrogen refueling stations over two distinct phases of station installation. We quantitatively and qualitatively compared workshop recommendations to solutions of three optimal station location models that have been used to recommend station locations, which minimize travel times from stations to population and traffic or maximize trips that can be refueled on origin–destination routes. In a post-workshop survey, participants rated the workshop highly for facilitating mutual understanding and information sharing among stakeholders. To our knowledge, this workshop represents the first application of geodesign for hydrogen refueling station infrastructure planning.

Many disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiatives, including land use planning, tend to ignore existing long-term inequalities in urban space. Furthermore, scholars working on urban disaster governance do not adequately consider how day-to-day DRR governing practices can (re)produce these. Hence, following a recent interest in the political dimensions of disaster governance, this article explores under what conditions the implementation of DRR land uses (re)produce spatial injustice on the ground. We develop a theoretical framework combining politics, disaster risk, and space, and apply it to a case study in Santiago, Chile. There, after a landslide disaster in the city's foothills in 1993, a multi-level planning arrangement implemented a buffer zone along the bank of a ravine to protect this area from future disasters. This buffer zone, however, transformed a long-term established neighbourhood, splitting it into a formal and an informal area remaining to this day. Using qualitative data and spatial analysis, we describe the emergence, practices, and effects of this land use. While this spatial intervention has proactively protected the area, it has produced further urban exclusion and spatial deterioration, and reproduced disaster risks for the informal households within the buffer zone. We explain this as resulting from a governance arrangement that emerged from a depoliticised environment, enforcing rules unevenly, and lacking capacities and unclear responsibilities, all of which could render DRR initiatives to be both spatially unjust and ineffective. We conclude that sustainable and inclusive cities require paying more attention to the implementation practices of DRR initiatives and their relation to long-term inequities.

The purpose of this article is to describe the creation of displaced universities (DUs) as spaces for coalition building, resistance, and decolonial practice that have re-invented the university architecture. This article offers a multi-perspectival and historical exploration of higher education in Ukraine before and after the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, with particular focus on the coalitions around Ukrainian DUs. DUs can be seen as one form of decolonial creations, as a unique organic coalition and intellectual community. This organic coalition includes a process of social resistance, resilience, and policy, which are being shaped by people whose lives were and still are uncertain. These people affiliated with higher education created invisible connections that re-shaped the vision and relationality of DUs. The interwoven life trajectories of forced migrants, Ukrainian academics, administrators, and students who made the decision to move to mainland Ukraine and establish (in)visible DUs while continuing their work and education in Ukrainian territories under the control of the Ukrainian government.