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This book applies the ecosystem services framework to coastal environments, showing how it could facilitate an adaptive management strategy. The contributors describe a decision support system (DSS) based on the 3 Ps pluralism, pragmatism and precaution that leads to a more flexible, learn by doing approach to the stewardship of coastal environments. The book lays out a Balance Sheets Approach to formatting, interrogating and presenting data and findings. The opening chapter defines coastal zones, their characteristics and natural resources, and describes their complex and dynamic nature. The chapter shows that large-scale trends and pressures have led to a global loss of 50% of marshes, leading to significant declines in biodiversity and habitat. Part I presents a conceptual framework, describes natural science techniques for coastal and shelf modeling, and describes valuation of ecosystem services. Part II outlines practical ecosystem indicators for coastal and marine ecosystem services, reviews literature on valuation of coastal and marine ecosystem services, explores scenarios, outlines marine and coastal ecosystem services data and offers tools for incorporating data into decision-making. Part III offers case studies including one linking the ecosystem services of Marine Protected Areas to benefits in human wellbeing; and another on valuing blue carbon captured by oceans and coastal ecosystems. Also included are a study of managed realignments and the English coastline, and their value estimate transferability; and studies of the impact of jellyfish blooms on recreation in the UK and on fisheries in Italy.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Introduction -- Bibliography -- I. Office Organization: 'Insurance as a Profession', Bankers' Magazine (1893) -- Archibald Hewat, 'The Actuary in Scotland', Transactions of the Faculty of Actuaries (1907), excerpt -- Joel L. English, 'Home Offi ce Management' (1912) -- II. The Work Environment -- Office Machinery -- 'Writing Machines, by a Caledonian Typist', Caledonian Jottings (1893) -- Henry N. Kaufman, 'Some Uses for the Hollerith Machines', Transaction s(1909) -- Palatial Halls -- 'A Lady Clerk on the New Offices', Ibis Magazine (1879) -- F. A. McKeand, 'The Palatial Halls of Insurance', Norwich Union Magazine (1897) -- The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company: Its History, its Present Position in the Insurance World, its Home Office Building and its Work Carried on Therein (1914), excerpt -- III. The Sales Force -- Advice to Agents -- Eagle and Protector Life Assurance Company, Observations for the Use of the Agents (1847) -- 'Advice to Insurance Agents', Insurance Gazette ([c. 1855]) -- Popular Perceptions -- Robert Sulivan, 'Insurance and Assurance', New Monthly Magazine (1825) -- Robert Chambers, 'The Life-Assurance Agents Appeal', Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art (1860) -- 'The Dodges of Life Insurance Agents', Sphinx (1869) -- E. C. Browne, Life Agencies: Thoughts and Suggestions Concerning their Economic and Efficient Arrangement (1878), excerpt -- 'Bank Officials as Insurance Agents', Bankers' Magazine (1889) -- Edward A. Woods, 'Agency Management' (1912), excerpt -- IV. Institutional Investment -- British Portfolios -- 'The Profits of Joint-Stock Enterprise: Life Insurance', Economist (1869) -- 'Some Life Insurance Investments', Bankers' Magazine (1896) -- Lester William Zartman, 'The Character of the Investments' (1907)

Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and events on the Eastern Front that same year were pivotal to the history of World War II. It was during this year that the radicalization of Nazi policy-through both an all-encompassing approach to warfare and the application of genocidal practices-became most obvious. Germany's military aggression and overtly ideological conduct, culminating in genocide against Soviet Jewry and the decimation of the Soviet population through planned starvation and brutal antipartisan policies, distinguished Operation Barbarossa-the code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union-from all previous military campaigns in modern European history. This collection of essays, written by young scholars of seven different nationalities, provides readers with the most current interpretations of Germany's military, economic, racial, and diplomatic policies in 1941. With its breadth and its thematic focus on total war, genocide, and radicalization, this volume fills a considerable gap in English-language literature on Germany's war of annihilation against the Soviet Union and the radicalization of World War II during this critical year. Alex J. Kay is the author of 'Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940-1941' and is an independent contractor for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences. Jeff Rutherford is assistant professor of history at Wheeling Jesuit University, where he teaches modern European history. David Stahel is the author of 'Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East and Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East.'

Invited to answer questions about his relationship to Judaism, Jacques Derrida spoke through Franz Kafka: "As for myself, I could imagine another Abraham."From the experience of a summons that surprises us and prompts the query "Who, me?" Derrida explores the movement between growing up Jewish, "becoming Jewish," and "Jewish being" or existence. His essay "The Other Abraham" appears here in English for the first time. We no longer confront "Judaism" but "judeity," multiple Judaisms and Jewishnesses, manifold ways of being and writing as a Jew--in Derrida's case, as a French-speaking Algerian deprived of, then restored to French nationality in the 1940s. What is it to be a Jew and a philosopher? How has the notion of "Jewish identity" been written into and across Jewish literature, Jewish thought, and Jewish languages? Here distinguished scholars address these questions, contrasting Derrida's thought with philosophical predecessors such as Rosenzweig, Levinas, Celan, and Scholem, and tracing confluences between deconstruction and Kabbalah. Derrida's relationship to the universalist aspirations in contemporary theology is also discussed, and his late autobiographical writings are evaluated. This multifaceted volume aims to open the question of Jewishness, above all, to hold it open as a question, though not one of practical or theoretical identity. As much a contestation of identity as a profound reflection on what it means today to seek, elude, and finally to wrestle with the significance of "being-jew," Judeities invites us to revisit the human condition in the twenty-first century

Japan is the world's second most powerful economy and one of the most urbanized nations on earth. Yet English-language literature contains remarkable little about cities in Japan. This collection of original essays on Japanese urban and industrial development covers a broad spectrum of city experiences. Leading Japanese and Western urbanists analyze Japan's largest metropolitan areas (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya); proto-typical industrial cities (Kamaishi, Kitakyushu, Toyota); high technology urban satellites (Kanagawa); and smaller, more traditionally organized industrial districts (Tsubame). This book demonstrates how Japan's flexible economic growth strategies and changing relationship to the world economy have produced a uniquely Japanese pattern of urban development in this century. Throughout the essays that describe individual cities, contributors provide commentary on each city's twentieth-century history and functional relations with other cities and focus on the dynamic linkage between global relations and local activities. They examine the role of government--central, prefectural, and local--in the restructuring of Japanese industrial and urban life. One essay is devoted to the urbanization process in pre-World War II Japan; another considers urban planning on the western Pacific Rim. This is the first book that analyzes how the economic transformation of Japan has restructured Japanese cities and how urban and regional development policies have kept pace with (and in some ways effected) changes in the economy. This comprehensive study of Japanese cities provides interdisciplinary coverage of urban development issues of interest to the fields of economics, business, sociology, political science, history, Asian and Japanese studies, and urban planning.

Japan is the world's second most powerful economy and one of the most urbanized nations on earth. Yet English-language literature contains remarkable little about cities in Japan. This collection of original essays on Japanese urban and industrial development covers a broad spectrum of city experiences. Leading Japanese and Western urbanists analyze Japan's largest metropolitan areas (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya); proto-typical industrial cities (Kamaishi, Kitakyushu, Toyota); high technology urban satellites (Kanagawa); and smaller, more traditionally organized industrial districts (Tsubame). This book demonstrates how Japan's flexible economic growth strategies and changing relationship to the world economy have produced a uniquely Japanese pattern of urban development in this century. Throughout the essays that describe individual cities, contributors provide commentary on each city's twentieth-century history and functional relations with other cities and focus on the dynamic linkage between global relations and local activities. They examine the role of government--central, prefectural, and local--in the restructuring of Japanese industrial and urban life. One essay is devoted to the urbanization process in pre-World War II Japan; another considers urban planning on the western Pacific Rim. This is the first book that analyzes how the economic transformation of Japan has restructured Japanese cities and how urban and regional development policies have kept pace with (and in some ways effected) changes in the economy. This comprehensive study of Japanese cities provides interdisciplinary coverage of urban development issues of interest to the fields of economics, business, sociology, political science, history, Asian and Japanese studies, and urban planning

The entire world was taken by surprise when 1990 brought an end to Soviet communism in Europe and thus a genuine end to World War II. The fact that these developments surprised not only the leaders and the people of the countries concerned, but also scholars is an extraordinary challenge to the students of Soviet-type economics. In the academic world, where predictive force is one of the key indicators of a successful theory, this weak performance calls into question the validity of earlier findings and interpretations. Something was wrong in the general framework. Socialist Investment Cycles offers an explanation of this failure. Socialist Investment Cycles is the first monograph in English on investment fluctuations in planned economies, a chapter in history. While providing a broad overview of the literature on socialist investment cycles, as well as a quantitative description of the actual processes, the author puts forth a new framework for understanding investment fluctuations. In this framework socialist planners were able to adjust the volume of investments without risking the fulfillment of politically more sensitive target variables. Socialist Investment Cycles encompasses all thirty-five countries which were ruled by communism and is the first study to penetrate deeply into the data problem, country by country, and series by series. Socialist Investment Cycles has been written after the collapse of Soviet-type communism in Eastern Europe, the USSR, and the countries of Asia and Africa. It thus offers a retrospective view on both the theory and practice of socialist economies

Braille literacy enables equal access to learning for students who are blind or have very low vision in a mainstream, inclusive classroom. Teachers need to know which teaching strategies best support the development of braille literacy skills in beginning touch readers. A scoping review following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines was conducted to identify and synthesise the body of literature on braille literacy. The search criteria were peer-reviewed research publications focusing on pedagogy for teaching braille in mainstream Kindergarten to Year 4 settings to beginning readers with vision impairment, without other disabilities, who spoke English as their first language. The publication period searched was from 1975 to 2022. A total of 740 articles were identified. After screening for eligibility using the search criteria, 10 articles were included. A thematic analysis identified the overarching theme of evidence-based pedagogy and the sub-themes of uncontracted and contracted braille, the Learning Environment of the Classroom and Reading Instruction. There was limited research found on evidence-based pedagogy to support the sustained, systematic development of braille literacy in Kindergarten to Year 4 students with vision impairment. The scoping review identified one seminal US study that found braille readers were falling behind their sighted peers as more complex reading skills were not being learned at the same rate. Determining successful evidence-based pedagogy which will support the sustained development of braille literacy skills in developing readers will require a sophisticated research approach involving braille literacy experts and braille readers.

Background: Vocational programmes run by teachers in the special needs school context can play a significant role in the vocational development of learners with severe intellectual disability (SID). This study aimed to answer the question 'what are the challenges faced by teachers in the implementation of vocational programmes in selected public special needs schools for learners with SID in the Metropolitan (Metro) District within the City of Cape Town?'Objectives: The objectives were to describe the challenges as perceived by participants, to highlight common and contrasting challenges in the different schools and to share recommendations on support needed.Method: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted. A combination of purposive and snowball sampling strategies was used to select six teachers from six special needs schools. One-on-one semi-structured interviews with teachers were performed. An interview schedule was used as a tool and all interviews were transcribed and translated into English verbatim. Thematic analysis was applied.Results: The findings showed that teachers encounter inadequate resources, a lack of training, and poor support systems. This study highlights the issues of existing policy and the lack of a mandatory policy on vocational programmes in South Africa.Conclusion: The participants' experiences added to the existing literature by providing valuable insights into the obstacles teachers encounter in this relatively new curriculum. A multifaceted policy framework that is well funded and implemented is much needed to address the challenges identified.Contribution: The findings may contribute to the development and strengthening of policies on vocational programmes within the South African context.

Objective To gather and assess current literature on the prevalence and efficacy of lifestyle behavioral interventions (sleep, nutrition, physical activity) for health outcomes, including QOL, psychological well-being, behavioral changes, and seizure frequency, among PWE. Data Source A review was conducted of English-language articles identified from PubMed, Scopus, and Embase between January 2013 to January 2023. Study Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria Inclusion criteria were randomized controlled trials (RCT) with human subjects diagnosed with epilepsy who participated in a lifestyle behavioral intervention. Data Extraction Two researchers independently completed the title, abstract, and full-text reviews. Information extracted includes study population, duration, type of intervention, findings, and outcomes. Data Synthesis Data was narratively synthesized to show level of evidence and degree of consistency in findings. Results: 4001 studies identified, 66 full texts reviewed, and 24 included. A majority (n = 16) of studies utilized diet specific RCTs, and some focused on physical activity (n = 7) and sleep (n = 1). Diet-specific RCTs (eg, ketogenic, Modified Atkins) reported reduced seizure frequency with adverse effects, such as gastrointestinal complications. Physical activity-based interventions found that maintained levels of exercise improved QOL and psychological well-being. However, physical activity and diet-based interventions did not have lasting effects after study conclusion. Only the behavioral sleep intervention reported that sleep quality improved significantly and was maintained post-intervention. Conclusion Future research is needed to establish the relationship between lifestyle behavioral interventions on QOL and other health outcomes (eg, seizure frequency).

The effectiveness of third-wave psychotherapies has been demonstrated in a range of mental and physical health conditions in Western cultures. However, little is known about the cultural appropriateness and effectiveness of third-wave psychotherapies for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) populations. This review aimed to critically evaluate cultural adaptations to third-wave psychotherapies and explored the effectiveness of these interventions on physical and mental health outcomes in GCC populations. Five bibliographic databases and grey literature were searched; both English and Arabic studies conducted in the GCC were included. Mental and physical health-related outcomes were included. Eleven studies were identified. The overall degree of cultural adaptation ranged from 2 to 5, based on Bernal et al.'s cultural adaptation framework. Language and assessment tools were most frequently adapted. Several studies incorporated goal, method, and context adaptations, whereas metaphor and content were least frequently adapted. None of the studies incorporated person or concept adaptations. Culturally adapted third-wave psychotherapies were associated with improvement in numerous mental health outcomes, including psychological distress, well-being, and psychological traits. No physical health outcomes were identified. Although findings are promising with respect to the effectiveness of third-wave psychotherapies for GCC populations, they should be interpreted with caution due to the small number of studies conducted, cultural adaptation evaluations relying on explicit reporting in studies, and the weak methodological quality of studies. Future rigorous research is needed in the evaluation of culturally adapted third-wave psychotherapies in GCC populations, with more comprehensive reporting of cultural considerations.

AbstractAlthough the field of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIEd) has a substantial history as a research domain, never before has the rapid evolution of AI applications in education sparked such prominent public discourse. Given the already rapidly growing AIEd literature base in higher education, now is the time to ensure that the field has a solid research and conceptual grounding. This review of reviews is the first comprehensive meta review to explore the scope and nature of AIEd in higher education (AIHEd) research, by synthesising secondary research (e.g., systematic reviews), indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC, EBSCOHost, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect and ACM Digital Library, or captured through snowballing in OpenAlex, ResearchGate and Google Scholar. Reviews were included if they synthesised applications of AI solely in formal higher or continuing education, were published in English between 2018 and July 2023, were journal articles or full conference papers, and if they had a method section 66 publications were included for data extraction and synthesis in EPPI Reviewer, which were predominantly systematic reviews (66.7%), published by authors from North America (27.3%), conducted in teams (89.4%) in mostly domestic-only collaborations (71.2%). Findings show that these reviews mostly focused on AIHEd generally (47.0%) or Profiling and Prediction (28.8%) as thematic foci, however key findings indicated a predominance of the use of Adaptive Systems and Personalisation in higher education. Research gaps identified suggest a need for greater ethical, methodological, and contextual considerations within future research, alongside interdisciplinary approaches to AIHEd application. Suggestions are provided to guide future primary and secondary research.

Abstract
We contribute to the literature by exploring the variation in the trade-creating effect of migration networks across historical migrants and recent migrants by applying a micro-founded gravity model of trade. Both the stock of historical migrants and recent migrants variables are constructed by merging Canadian Census data with the migration data available in Statistics Canada. We address the endogeneity issue by applying IV estimators including two-step feasible GMM and PPML with IV and fixed effects by utilizing the imputed annual migration flow, the historical stock, and recent stock of migrants as instrumental variables proposed by Peri and Requena (2010). Taking Canadian geographical features into account, this study also applies carefully measured gravity variables. We control for the time-varying, exporter-year fixed effects, and importer-year fixed effects in a panel estimation. Estimated results show that annual migration, recent provincial stock of migrants, and historical stock of migrants significantly increase Canadian interprovincial trade. This impact is stronger for the stock of historical migrants relative to the stock of recent migrants and annual migration flow. Sub-sample analysis shows that both recent and historical migration consistently increase interprovincial service trade, only but not interprovincial goods trade. A greater combination of English and French-speaking provinces-pair significantly increases interprovincial trade. Regional trade agreements significantly impact the interprovincial trade of Canada. Our estimated results are robust to different estimation methods and alternative measures for the migrants' stock and flow variables.

Objective The aim of this study is to scope the literature on what is currently known between physical activity and presenteeism. Data Source A search strategy was conducting in six scientific databases. Study Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria Studies written in English about the relation between physical activity and presenteeism were considered for inclusion. Data Extraction Data on definitions and measurement of presenteeism and physical activity were extracted. Data Synthesis The data is categorized according to the understanding of presenteeism of the studies to give a better idea of how this phenomenon is studied in relation to physical activity. Results After screening 9773 titles and abstracts and 269 full-text articles, 57 unique articles fulfilled our eligibility criteria. The majority of the articles were published since 2010 and originated predominantly in the United States. Most studies (70%) define presenteeism as lost productivity due to health problems, according to the American line of research, whereas 19% of the studies define it as "working while ill" which refers to the European line of research. The studies that reflected the American school of thought tends to report more results that supported their hypothesis (i.e., that more physical activity is associated with less presenteeism). Conclusion This review has highlighted the homogeneity in how presenteeism is conceptualized and measured in studies included in our sample. Research on physical activity and presenteeism should be expanded across various disciplines in social sciences to respond to the needs that many researchers have expressed to promote healthier organizations.

AbstractIn a recently published study, we completed a systematic literature review of 10,084 peer reviewed English language studies since 2000 within the context of threat assessment, sense making, and critical decision‐making in police, military, ambulance, and firefighting contexts. The results of our descriptive analysis found that although research into threat assessment and decision‐making has been historically 'siloed' from a service context perspective there are nonetheless some common elements that have either independently identified or in some instances coevolved. The insights gained and lessons learned from this vast data pool enabled the enhancement of the urban fire service operational response‐based SPAR decision framework into the Situation, Context, Decision, Plan, Act, Review or SPAR (CD) framework, a true interoperable all hazards and all services decision‐making framework that not only incorporates complexity analysis and contextual factors but is applicable to the full spectrum of emergency management operations. It is hoped that the application of a common framework may facilitate cross industry learnings by applying a more consistent lens for the review of high‐risk, low‐time decisions and the identification of common decision errors and effectiveness (and measurement) of current strategies to improve decision‐making including learning and development and policy and procedure design and implementation. While the SPAR (CD) framework has been developed based on research in high consequence and low time emergency service and military environments, we posit it is equally as applicable in other environments including business contexts and board rooms wherever decisions are required.