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Opportunities and challenges in restoration and preservation of marine and coastal ecosystems highlighting participation, trust and dialogue: the case of Guadeloupe Island LIFE Project
No full textMost of the ocean remains unexplored, rendering the effects of climate change, exploitation of marine resources, and other human pressures largely unknown. The growing influence of the blue economy and blue economy policies presents additional threats linked to the degradation and overexploitation of marine and coastal ecosystems. Consequently, it is crucial to highlight the challenges that the marine ecosystems face, and potential solutions to mitigate these pressures linked to protection and restoration actions.
This chapter delves into the barriers and constraints surrounding the implementation of nature-based solutions for the protection and restoration of marine and coastal ecosystems. This chapter is based on the analysis of the scientific members of one case study through the LIFE Adapt’Island project based on the restoration of emblematic ecosystems such as seagrass beds, mangroves, and corals in a context of degradation and overexploitation boosted by the blue economy. This project was implemented by the Guadeloupe Port Caribes and 2 NGOs on key restoration sites spread over 8000 ha for a period of 5 years. This chapter is drafted by pluri-disciplinary members of the scientific committee of the project, who have been hired to support the project’s implementation and benefited from a privileged access to the project’s data. The chapter is based on their observation and analysis, but also on their strong work experience on similar ecosystemic protection and restoration projects We emphasize the importance of carefully selecting and understanding the installation site as well as the need for local involvement of residents and stakeholders in endorsing and accepting the project as desirable, useful, and viable. We then consider the potential and challenges of developed nature-based solutions applied to marine coastal ecosystems. We approach the importance of participation, coordinated partnerships, research, monitoring, engagement, and awareness to the success of restoration efforts. An ecosystem impact analysis offers an initial overview, while a socio-ecological perspective emphasizes the role of dialogue and trust.
The core assumption of this paper is that restoration efforts will be ineffective without accompanying anthropic pressure reduction measures, such as behavioral change for pollution control, climate change mitigation, and waste management. Furthermore, genuine engagement with local communities involving dialogue and trust is critical to shift from passive to active co-management. An increased and improved management of coastal areas, along with more preventative measures, will be necessary to enhance marine and coastal resilience. Based on our experience and project, it is recommended that future protection and restoration projects incorporate comprehensive stakeholders’ engagement plans from the outset to ensure community buy-in and participation. Robust monitoring and transparent communication of results are essential for maintaining trust and assessing the effectiveness of restoration efforts. Additionally, integrating adaptive management strategies that can respond to new challenges and opportunities will enhance the resilience of marine and coastal ecosystems. These practices in a context of growing blue economy can inspire and guide similar initiatives aiming to protect and restore vital ecosystems under pressure from anthropogenic activities and climate change
Writing across a cultural interface: a guide for non-Indigenous writers
No full textIn recent years non-Indigenous writers have grappled with inclusion and representation of Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples in creative works. Historically, and at times in contemporary fiction, writers have misrepresented, marginalised, or omitted Indigenous people as characters. Writers who craft regional and rural settings perhaps bear a greater onus than their metropolitan peers to characterise Indigenous people due to an expectation of a greater extent of unbroken Indigenous connections to ‘Country’ beyond the dense infrastructure of cityscapes. With the rise of First Nations authorship and authority, non-Indigenous writers are often advised to either avoid writing Indigenous characters or to get to know traditional owners and refine their writing skills to achieve authenticity. In this article, I offer my experience as a non-Indigenous writer crafting a farm novel that situates Aboriginal characters at the centre of the farm and the narrative. My writing process required constant awareness of a cultural interface and an approach that I hoped would recognise yet not impinge on Indigenous knowledge, beliefs, and authorship. My experience led to the development of a set of guidelines that may be useful to other writers crafting Australian settings
Internet Gaming Disorder and Problem Gambling Severity do not Predict Money and Time Spent on Games with Loot Boxes
No full textAlthough loot boxes are structurally and psychologically similar to gambling, they are available to minors and relatively free from government regulations. Amid calls for government regulations, researchers have examined the effects of loot boxes using either a gaming framework, a gambling framework, or both. The current study aimed to examine the ability of internet gaming disorder and problem gambling severity to predict money and time spent on games with loot boxes after controlling for demographic and other gaming-related variables (i.e., money and time spent on games without loot boxes). Participants were 171 (88.9% males) gamers and their ages ranged from 18 to 47 (M = 25.67, SD = 5.29). Participants completed instruments assessing internet gaming disorder and problem gambling severity. Subsequently, they provided demographic and gaming-related information. The results showed that internet gaming disorder and problem gambling severity do not predict money and time spent on games with loot boxes. Instead, the best predictor for each of those variables is money and time spent on games without loot boxes. Overall, the results suggested that it might be premature to introduce legislations to ban loot boxes and research should focus on the effects of microtransactions in general. Future research directions include using objective data for the amount of money and time spent and examining the effects of different types of loot boxes
Examining the lyrical content and musical features of a crowd-sourced, Australian pandemic playlist
Full text linkA recent examination of charting popular music before and during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic indicated that popular music lyrics during turbulent socioeconomic conditions had more negatively valenced words, providing support for the Environmental Security Hypothesis. However, the use of chart data alone cannot speak to what individuals are listening to against the backdrop of COVID-19. The present mixed-methods case study examined a crowdsourced playlist (n=55 songs) created by Australian residents during an extended lockdown in September–October 2021. Qualitative analysis of the lyrics demonstrated that the selected music expresses a closeness to others, references to the current situation (such as illness and staying at home), negative emotions (including confusion and fear), a positive outlook (expressing perseverance and a will to survive), and a changing sense of time. Quantitative analyses compared the “pandemic playlist” songs to charting songs during the first six months of the pandemic in 2020 and the same period in 2021 (n=28 and 26 songs, respectively) with regard to their musical features (using scraped Spotify API data) and lyrical content (using Diction). The findings indicated that the songs included in the “pandemic playlist” differed significantly from the charting songs in 2020 and 2021 by being higher in energy (relative to 2020 and 2021) and less acoustic (relative to 2021). Additionally, the lyrics of the “pandemic playlist” songs had significantly more positively valenced words. These differences suggest that people believed music selected in response to the pandemic ought to be upbeat and realistic (playlist suggestions), but popular songs were relatively pensive and reflected uncertainty and isolation (chart data). These findings broaden our understanding of music listening behaviors in response to societal stress
Coffee culture unravelled: exploring the coffee shop experience model in the Vietnamese context
Full text linkAmidst the captivating realm of the coffee shop experience, this study contributes to its significance across various literature streams and diverse forms. More specifically, the study focuses on the concept of the ‘ideal coffee shop experience’ from the perspectives of consumers and coffee shop owners/managers in Vietnam, drawing upon the experience economy and experience co-creation literature. The investigation takes place in Vietnam, a country renowned for its coffee exports and thriving coffee shop industry. Through qualitative data collected via interviews and an online questionnaire, the study uncovers divergent preferences between the supply and demand sides regarding the coffee shop's physical environment, product quality and variety, service staff performance/traits, and location or parking availability. Building on these findings, the study proposes the ‘supplier and consumer coffee shop experience’ model, which offers a comprehensive understanding of coffee shop experiences and provides valuable insights for practitioners and researchers in the relevant fields
Prescribing Home Digital Thermometry Coupled with Activity Dosing and Optimized Offloading to Prolong Diabetic Foot Remission: A Case Report
No full textPeople with a history of diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) experience diminished health-related quality of life and are at a 40% annual risk of DFU recurrence. Due to a fear of DFU recurrence, people in DFU remission participate less in physical activity and moderate-intensity exercise when compared to people with diabetes who have not had wounds. There is novel evidence to suggest that too little activity during DFU remission contributes to only low magnitudes of repetitive tissue loading creating a higher susceptibility to skin trauma during inadvertent high-activity bouts. Conversely, a hasty return to too much activity could lead to rapid recurrence. There is now high-level evidence from multiple meta-analyses to indicate that home-based foot temperature monitoring, coupled with activity modification and daily inspection of the feet for impending signs of ulceration, could reduce the risk of ulcer recurrence by 50%. There is little evidence, however, to guide the decision-making regarding the appropriate quantity and frequency of physical activity during DFU remission and the acceptability from the patient perspective. This has resulted in limited uptake of this novel intervention in clinical practice. Earlier, we proposed that activity can be dosed for people in foot ulcer remission, just like insulin or medication is dosed. Here, we describe a patient-centered approach to implementing home foot temperature monitoring coupled with daily foot checks and dosage-based return to physical activity in a patient in DFU remission, including his perspective. We believe using such an approach could maximize ulcer-free days in remission, thereby improving quality of life
Contesting clusters: a study of norm weaving in Pacific climate mobilities policies
Full text linkThis article identifies a sub-category of norm contestation I've termed ‘norm weaving’, where actors contest the constitution of norm clusters, instead of the validity of individual norms. This occurs through processes of stretching or reproducing individual strands of existing norm clusters before weaving them together to create behaviour guides in undergoverned issue areas that are greater than the sum of their individual parts. I identify two examples of weaving in the world-leading actions of Fiji and Vanuatu around domestic climate mobilities. Using these two cases, we can see that existing models of norm dynamics need to be developed to better explain and understand weaving-like processes of norm contestation. There are two areas where norm weaving extends our understanding – in how clusters of norms emerge and change, and in how contestation applies to groupings of norms. Clarifying what norm weaving looks like in these cases could open the door to further examples being identified in other contexts and a more complete understanding of how norms operate in global politics
Adaptation and Peace: Extending the Agenda for Capacity‐Building in Climate and Conflict‐Affected Communities
Full text linkClimate change impacts on the social–ecological conditions that communities depend on may increase the vulnerabilities to new conflicts. Yet, the communities that will be most impacted by climate change, as noted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are already conflict-affected communities. Here, we present the results of a systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies (n = 212) in Spanish and English on the climate–conflict relationship. We found that most studies are focused on a direct relationship between climate change and violent conflict, and there has been less attention on a contextual or indirect relationship in already conflict-affected communities. Studies on this contextual or indirect relationship suggest a climate change–conflict cycle that is negatively reinforcing, whereby violent conflict increases climate change vulnerability and feedback from climate change increases violent conflict vulnerability. While limited in number, such studies provide important insights enabling further conceptual development and empirical examination of how climate impacts interact with violent conflict, and how governance efforts can simultaneously support peacebuilding and climate change adaptation. Drawing this work together with the latest frameworks in conflict studies and adaptation, we sketch out a promising synthetic agenda, focusing on how to design policies and projects that build synergistic capacities and address cumulative and interactive impacts of climate change and violent conflict. Without such insight, efforts to treat climate and conflict in parallel may be ineffective or even counterproductive, worsening violent conflict and, in turn, further reducing the capacities of communities to build peace and resilience
The prevalence of incivility in hospitals and the effects of incivility on patient safety culture and outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Full text linkAim: Workplace incivility is a barrier to safe and high-quality patient care in nursing workplaces and more broadly in tertiary hospitals. The present study aims to systematically review the existing evidence to provide a comprehensive understanding of the prevalence of co-worker incivility experienced and witnessed by nurses and other healthcare professionals, the effects of incivility on patient safety culture (PSC) and patient outcomes, and the factors which mediate the relationship between incivility and patient safety.
Methods: A systematic review with narrative synthesis and meta-analysis was undertaken to synthesize the data from 41 studies.
Data Sources: Databases searched included MEDLINE, PubMed, SCOPUS, CINAHL, PsycInfo, ProQuest, Emcare and Embase. Searches were conducted on 17 August 2021 and repeated on 15 March 2023.
Results: The pooled prevalence of experienced incivility was 25.0%. The pooled prevalence of witnessed incivility was 30.1%. Workplace incivility was negatively associated with the PSC domains of teamwork, reporting patient safety events, organization learning/improvement, management support for safety, leadership, communication openness and communication about error. The composite pooled effect size of incivility on these domains of PSC was OR = 0.590, 95% CI [0.515, 0.676]. Workplace incivility was associated with a range of patient safety outcomes (PSOs) including near misses, adverse events, reduced procedural and diagnostic performance, medical error and mortality. State depletion, profession, psychological responses to incivility,
information sharing, help seeking, workload and satisfaction with organizational communication were found to mediate the relationship between incivility and patient safety.
Conclusion: Experienced and witnessed incivility is prevalent in tertiary hospitals and has a deleterious effect on PSC and PSOs. A better understanding of the mechanisms of this relationship will support the development of interventions aimed at reducing both incivility and patient harm.
Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care Impact: This study quantifies the effect of incivility on PSC and outcomes. It provides support that interventions focusing on incivility are a valuable mechanism for improving patient care. It guides intervention design by highlighting which domains of PSC are most associated with incivility. It explores the profession-specific experiences of workplace incivility.
Reporting Method: This report adheres to PRISMA reporting guidelines.
Patient or Public Contribution: No patient or public contribution. The focus of this study is the nursing and healthcare workforce, therefore, patient or public involvement not required
The Influence of Customer Relationship Management in Enhancing Hospitality Business Performance: The Conditional Mediation of Digital Marketing Capabilities
Full text linkThis study examines the potential advantages of amalgamating customer relationship management (CRM) platforms with digital marketing capabilities (DMC) within the hospitality sector. Using structural equation modeling, data collected from 569 hospitality employees in Vietnam supported the hypothesis that DMC exerts both a direct and an indirect positive influence on DMC and CRM. This study offers novel perspectives on how DMC impacts the dynamics between CRM and the performance of lodging businesses. It added a nuanced understanding of the interconnections between DMC, hospitality business performance (HBP), and CRM and their collective impact on organizational performance within the hospitality industry. The results provide valuable insights for making informed policy decisions and fine-tuning marketing and CRM strategies to enhance hospitality organizations’ competitive edge in this competitive industry