Suchergebnisse

Water scarcity has become a critical problem in many semi-arid and arid regions. California is located in the arid southwest and is expected to experience more frequent and intense droughts under climate change. Currently, residents of Southern California rely on groundwater and imported water from both the state water project, which transports water from the Bay-Delta, and Colorado River Aqueduct. With concerns over current and future levels of water availability, municipalities and state governments are focusing significantly more attention and resources towards groundwater management strategies and alternative water supplies via desalination and the reuse of municipal wastewater. While the reuse of treated wastewater is not a new concept, concerns over the rising demand for water from population growth, coupled with challenges—both economic and environmental—confronting agencies in their efforts to appropriate new supplies, have made this option significantly more attractive. Consequently, the reuse of treated wastewater presents municipal water and irrigation agencies, including farmers, with the possibility of a low-cost, reliable and environmentally friendly local water source whose value will only increase under expected climate change conditions. Currently, information relating to groundwater extraction, groundwater use, managed and natural recharge throughout California is limited. Unconstrained use of this source has led to groundwater table depletion, land subsidence, and impact of water quality. Groundwater depletion and degradation of groundwater aquifers results from a lack of effective governance. Moreover, climate change conditions have an immediate impact on the natural recharge in some regions. The coupling of climate change and a growing population presents a challenge to sustainable management of groundwater resources; as demand increases and recharge decreases groundwater levels drop, which results in increased production costs and potential depletion. Thus, municipalities are exploring adding additional resources to their resource portfolios, with cost, quality, and reliability concerns serving as guidelines in this quest. Desalination water, therefore, may become an answer to water shortages due to continual depletion of many groundwater basin and unreliability of imported water—amplified by the climate change. This research will build upon current research and further explore water supply alternatives that are intended to improve local water supply reliability and provide greater resilience to drought and climate change conditions by evaluating different wastewater treatment technologies and their impacts on municipal wastewater effluents for varying degrees of agricultural applications. In addition, the research will also study the impacts of droughts on municipal wastewater quality and treatment technologies in compliance with state and federal regulations. This research is designed to give water agencies the tools needed to make informed management decisions under future water and climate uncertainties.

Road haulage solutions are incredibly adaptable, having the capacity to link domestically and internationally. Road transportation offers a greener, more efficient, and safer future through sophisticated technology. Symmetry and asymmetry exist widely in industrial applications, and logistics and supply chains are no exception. The multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model is considered as a complexity tool to balance the symmetry between goals and conflicting criteria. This study can assist stakeholders in understanding the current state of transportation networks and planning future sustainability measures through the MCDM approach. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare the sustainable development of existing road transportation systems to determine whether any of them can be effectively developed in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The integrated entropy–CoCoSo approach for evaluating the sustainability of road transportation systems is introduced, and the framework process is proposed. The entropy method defines the weight of the decision criteria based on the real data. The advantage of the entropy method is that it reduces the subjective impact of decision-makers and increases objectivity. The CoCoSo method is applied for ranking the road transportation sustainability performance of OECD countries. Our findings revealed the top three countries' sustainability performance: Japan, Germany, and France. These are countries with developed infrastructure and transportation services. Iceland, the United States, and Latvia were in the last rank among countries. This approach helps governments, decision-makers, or policyholders review current operation, benchmark the performance of other countries and devise new strategies for road transportation development to achieves better results.

The literature on African American (AA) men generally tends to focus on negative aspects of their health, but a more balanced approach is needed to understand positive factors that contribute to their overall well-being. This exploratory cross-sectional study examined the effect of different components of emotional wellness (happiness, self-esteem, and lack of stress) on AA men's perceived overall health. The Wellness Self-Perception Questionnaire was administered among 115 AA men aged 18 to 45. Logistic regression analyses revealed that only happiness and self-esteem significantly increased the odds of better perceived overall health, with happiness being the strongest predictor. These findings suggest that broadening and strengthening the focus on positive aspects of AA men's emotional health may improve their perceived overall well-being.

This study explores the extension of microeconomic and migrant network theoretical frameworks for explaining perceived post-migration life satisfaction of repeat (temporary) and more permanent labor force internal migrants in Thailand. Data from the 1992 National Migration Survey were used in logistic regression models to predict increased versus decreased post-move satisfaction with employment situation, living environment, and community facilities. Contrary to the neoclassical migration theory assumption, results showed that migration was associated with decreased post-move satisfaction. Microeconomic theory indicators were related to increased employment satisfaction but decreased post-move satisfaction with living environment. For network theory indicators, the results showed the opposite pattern - related to improved living environment satisfaction but decreased employment post-move satisfaction. Repeat (temporary) migrants were disadvantaged in post-move employment satisfaction compared to more permanent single move labor force migrants.

AbstractThis study investigates the influence of old directors on corporate social responsibility (CSR) using roughly 25,000 firm-year observations from 2001 to 2015 in the United States. We employ the widely used selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) model from psychology to explain the CSR decisions of old directors. Our results indicate that firms with a higher percentage of old directors tend to have lower engagement in CSR activities. To address endogeneity, we adopt the difference-in-differences method and use the event of sudden deaths and unexpected retirements of old directors and find that our results remain robust. Our analysis also reveals that the negative impact of old directors on CSR is more significant in firms where directors receive fewer reputational spillover benefits from CSR initiatives and/or firms exhibiting poor corporate governance. In addition, this adverse impact of old directors comes from two effects: a reduction in efforts to enhance CSR strengths and an increase in inaction to address CSR concerns. Overall, these findings suggest that the CSR decision-making process of old directors involves assessing the costs and benefits of CSR engagements, consistent with our hypothesis derived from the SOC model.

Tony Buzan first developed mind mapping, which has since become a popular learning technique. It solves various educational tasks by combining information from various sources and displaying it as keywords in a bright, colorful manner. Mind maps have been said to be a good way to study when applied to written material. This research aimed to guide and integrate mind mapping into descriptive writing with primary students. Ninety-four fifth-grade students at a primary school were chosen to participate in the study. Two groups of students from a primary school were recruited for the experiment. The proposed method was to be taught in one class, while the traditional method was to be taught in the other. The results showed that the students in the experimental group who learned using the mind map technique did better in writing than in the control group. Mind mapping has numerous educational applications and can assist students in their writing process. Teachers can use mind mapping tools to expand their knowledge and lay the groundwork for their students' learning. Teachers should be encouraged to take training courses on mind mapping to learn and practice the skills they need to use mind mapping in their classrooms.

Received: 20 February 2023 / Accepted: 12 June 2023 / Published: 5 July 2023