Built environment analysis for road traffic hotspot locations in Moshi,Tanzania

Road traffic injuries (RTIs) cause significant morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income countries. Investigation of high risk areas for RTIs is needed to guide improvements. This study provides built environmental analysis of road traffic crash hotspots within Moshi, Tanzania. Spatial analysis of police data identified 36 hotspots. Qualitative comparative analysis revealed 40% of crash sites were on local roads without night lighting and increased motorcycle density. Paved narrow roads represented 26% of hotspots and 13% were unpaved roads with uneven roadsides. Roadside unevenness was more predominate in low risk [n = 19, (90.5%)] than high risk sites [n = 7 (46.7%)]. Both low [n = 6 (28.6%)] and high risk [n = 1 (6.7%)] sites had minimal signage. All sites had informal pedestrian pathways. Little variability between risk sites suggests hazardous conditions are widespread. Findings suggest improvement in municipal infrastructure, signage and enforcement is needed to reduce RTI burden.     

Promote or Perish? A brief note on academic social networking sites and academic reputation

ABSTRACT

This commentary explores some of the reputational issues of using academic social networking sites (ASNS) such as ResearchGate, ResearcherID, ORCID, Academia.edu, Google Scholar, and Mendeley for academic self-promotion and considers whether the adage of ‘Publish or Perish’ has been recently overshadowed by the new imperative of ‘Promote or Perish’?     

Project Ranking in Petroleum Exploration

Abstract

Project ranking based on project value is an essential management task for organizations that face resource bottlenecks. Project value focuses on the hard elements of projects that can be expressed in monetary terms. In the petroleum exploration business, however, there is also soft information, like effects on corporate liquidity, advantages of compliance with the strategic goals, or learning potential and organizational development, which may change the ranking hierarchy. The aim of this research is to provide a solution for incorporating industry-based selected soft data in the project ranking process. The process is illustrated with a case study. We took the structured system of criteria identified from the petroleum industry.     

Recognizing consumerism as an “illness of an empty soul”: A catholic morality perspective

Catholics personalist authors have been always concerned about consumerism, which is considered a radical dissatisfaction that compulsively tries to fill the emptiness of the inner self. It is a form of idolatry where malls are modern cathedrals. What are the antecedents and consequences of this moral approach, inducing consumers’ engagement in anti-consumption behaviors? This conceptual paper updates the literature review about this research topic, acknowledging the thoughts written in encyclical letters of three Popes of Catholic Church: John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. This paper also proposes a new model of ethical decision-making model that aims to describe the implications of recognizing consumerism as a moral/spiritual issue according to the Catholic Church teaching. This paper provides useful insights into the influence of Catholic teaching on the adoption of anti-consumption behaviors.     

A green Lewis development model

This paper develops an environmental extension of a Lewis dual economy model, in which the interaction between environmental quality and economic growth, in one of its several dimensions, is explicitly modeled to explore long-run effects of a pollution abatement rule in developing economies. The government requires the modern sector to dedicate a fraction of its output to pollution abatement, with such profitability-reducing fraction being endogenous to the level of environmental quality. Meanwhile, the level of environmental quality positively affects labor productivity, profits and, therefore, savings, which has a positive impact on capital accumulation. It is shown that this pollution abatement requirement, by affecting profitability in the modern sector both negatively and positively, makes for the emergence of an ecological development trap from which a developing dual economy, if left to the free play of its structural forces, never escapes. Fortunately, however, this economy can be released from such a trap not only through a standard Big Push, in the spirit of Rosenstein-Rodan, but also by means of what we call an Environmental Big Push.     

BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE QUANTITATIVE METHODS APPLIED TO THE MEASUREMENT OF INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS

Literature on methods for analysing interindustry interdependence and geographical concentration of firms began to multiply since the 1990s. The aim of this paper was to systematize the literature on methods and measures applied to the analysis of industrial clusters, as well as to identify trends in this knowledge field. The method used was bibliometrics, which consisted of a frequency evaluation of the publications and the relationship network between them. It was verified an exponential increase in the number of papers that composed this area, based mainly on the theories of New Economic Geography. Recently, the literature has focused on the geographic location in relation to interindustry linkages, and the frontier of knowledge has shifted from traditional methods of regional science to areas such as spatial statistics, econophysics and artificial intelligence. There are still relevant questions being explored, as Modifiable Area Unit Problem (aggregation bias), nevertheless, spatial anisotropy (directional bias) is still neglected and indicates a new research path.     

Strategic analysis of providing corporate sustainability open data

How companies report their data is undergoing digitization and sustainable transformation. Sustainability is important; therefore, various stakeholders are interested in sustainability information. Companies provide the required information and strive toward the use of information systems to ensure efficient data processing. A possible approach for information provision is open data. This research introduces the idea of corporate sustainability open data (CSOD) as one new mechanism of companies' sustainability self-reporting. Since CSOD is not yet commonly practiced by companies, a strategic analysis of the situation and its possible consequences is conducted with an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This research provides an overview of companies' sustainable development through open data. Moreover, it identifies drivers, challenges, and reasonable strategies for CSOD adoption. Thus, the research contributes to the establishment of an innovative application of open data in the private sector to support sustainable transformation worldwide.     

ALGORITHMIC METHODS FOR SINGLE SERVER SYSTEMS WITH REPEATED ATTEMPTS

In many practical situations customers applying for service and finding the server busy will not join a queue, but make a new attempt to enter service after some time. In this paper we study single server systems with repeated attempts both for infinite-source input and finite-source input where the service times are general and the reattempt times are exponential. Numerically stable recursion schemes are derived by which the time-average and customer-average steady-state probabilities can be effectively computed.     

The Link Between Wages and Productivity in Spain

This paper examines the effect of productivity on wages for Spanish industrial sectors by developing a model that captures effects from both sector‐specific and aggregate variables. The results show that a dual behaviour can be inferred, at the sector level, in the wage‐setting mechanism. It is also found that the linkage between wages and productivity varies over time. Some explanations for the increase in wage dispersion are provided, focusing on the increasing decentralisation in wage bargaining after 1986. Finally, we cast some light on the theoretical structure underlying the labour market.