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Measuring the Paris Agreement’s Impact on Wind Energy Usage in Member Countries
Full text linkThis review examines the impact of the Paris Agreement\u27s implementation on the development of wind energy across three regions, the European Union (EU), Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. These selected regions respectively represent developed, developing, and OPEC member countries. The Paris Agreement aimed to limit the global warming temperature 1.5 C by 2030, encouraging actors to transition their energy into cleaner, renewable sources. Wind energy thus emerged as a tool in the decarbonization efforts of the agreement. This review compares wind energy growth before and after the Paris Agreement\u27s establishment, through analyzing each region\u27s strategies in response to their differing economic contexts
The \u27Other\u27 in European Colonial Rhetoric: Race, Modernity, and the Legacy of Imperialism
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A Letter to Governor Newsom and the California State Legislature on the Loneliness Epidemic and How to Confront It
Full text linkWe are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness in the United States, with our youth and elderly being the most affected populations. The best solution for loneliness is relational connection. While loneliness is subjective and will never be eradicated, the most serious consequences can be reduced significantly. The approach here focuses on determining what constitutes a healthy, close relationship and how to go about promoting that in order to improve overall relational health in the community. The policy options assessed include increased counseling and therapy, community building events such as neighborhood gatherings, teaching conflict resolution and communication skills, providing “Gateway Services” such as transportation and technology, and increased involvement of the medical community through assessments and referrals. This article finds that for youth, teaching conflict resolution and communication skills would be the most effective option to address loneliness, while community events would be most effective for the elderly. Funding from state and federal programs should support these programs
Robot or not? Uncovering the in-service teachers’ needs for AI literacy integration in underserved schools
No full textThis study aims to uncover the in-service teachers\u27 needs for AI professional development in underserved schools to bridge the AI gap. The AI gap refers to the uneven distribution of resources, support, and readiness to integrate AI in schools effectively and responsibly. In doing so, the study utilized qualitative methods of thematic code analysis to analyze teachers\u27 voices and artifacts. Notably, teachers have indicated various needs to be AI literate, such as AI knowledge, skills, pedagogy, ethics, and mindset shift. Overall, this study is significant in developing effective teacher training to suit their needs and ensure responsible AI use in the classrooms
Caregiver Wellness: Managing Emotional Fatigue and Preventing Burnout
No full textCaregiving is an essential yet often under recognized role, requiring emotional resilience, physical dedication, and mental fortitude. We acknowledge not only the caregivers who stand by lupus patients daily - whether they are family members, friends, or professional healthcare providers - but also lupus patients themselves who take on caregiving responsibilities for others, despite managing their own health challenges.
This session provides valuable insights on self-care, boundary setting, and mental well-being for caregivers, ensuring they receive the same care and attention they provide to others
SIZE PREMIUM IN SMALL BUSINESS VALUATION: ANALYSIS OF CLOSELY-HELD FIRMS
Full text linkOne of the most misunderstood components of valuing a small closely-held business is how to address the impact of small size. Most closely-held enterprises are relatively small in size, with market values less than $1million. Many small mom and pop operations, or single owner-operator family businesses, often have market values even smaller. The most common method to account for size is to use the size premium reports from Kroll or another financial data service provider. However, these small firm premiums are determined exclusively from publicly-traded firms, where even the category of the smallest publicly-traded firms are still magnitudes larger than the typical small closely-held firm. This study examines the Kroll size premium data on publicly-traded firms and compares it with an analysis of size data from a proprietary database of closely-held firm transactions. We develop various models that better assess the impact of size on the cost of equity calculations for small, closely-held firms
Formal Financing of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Nigeria: A Path to Economic Development?
Full text linkThis investigation assessed the influence of formal financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the economic advancement of Nigeria, utilising annual time series data ranging from 1992 to 2022. Employing the Cobb-Douglas framework, control variables, including capital formation and labour, which could influence economic development, were incorporated into the empirical model to mitigate bias. Following initial tests for stationarity, it was determined that all variables achieved stationarity upon the first difference, a finding that validated the Vector Error Correction Mechanism (VECM) application. The analysis revealed that the credit extended to SMEs by commercial banks and the loans provided by microfinance banks exhibited a negative and significant influence on economic development, as measured by GDP per capita, in both the long and short term. The negative coefficients associated with the credit from commercial banks to SMEs and the loans from microfinance banks indicate that these financial institutions have not yet catalysed the requisite leap in Nigeria\u27s economic development, probably due to the negative effects of unstable interest rates on lending. Both gross capital formation and labour demonstrated a significant impact on GDP per capita; however, the effect of labour was found to be negative. Consequently, it was concluded that financing for SMEs through commercial banks’ credit and microfinance bank loans had a negative and significant effect on Nigeria\u27s economic development. The study recommended that policymakers and regulatory bodies should empower and facilitate formal financial institutions, such as commercial banks and microfinance banks, to extend financial services to SMEs, thereby enhancing their productivity
Group flow perceptions and dynamics as compared to taxonomy and integrative group flow theory
Full text linkThis qualitative study investigated group flow through a team-building exercise with 18 professionals, examining participants’ and an observer’s perceptions of flow in social contexts. Analysis of interviews and observer notes identified eight themes: Sensory Network of Shared Experience, Adaptive Group Identity and Performance, Goal-Skill-Motivation Alignment, Essential Social Dynamics, Calm Intensity, Synchrony and Engagement Patterns, Spontaneous Collective Celebration, and Observer Integration. These themes revealed that flow in groups manifests as dynamic forces in constant motion. When compared to an emergent Taxonomy and the Integrative Group Flow Theory (IGFT), findings aligned more closely with IGFT\u27s conceptualization of flow as a holistic balancing of interpersonal fit and group-task-environment fit. The study confirms trust as crucial for group flow and suggests that measuring group flow is challenging due to constant adaptation. Results indicate group flow is a dynamic phenomenon requiring continuous nurturing rather than rigid control, implying the need for flexible approaches to team development
Does AI help or harm? Why and how AI use influences workplace outcomes and employee well-being
Full text linkAlthough the recent surge in excitement surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) might suggest it is a new development, AI has been applied in organizations for over forty years (Fanti et al., 2022; Markelius et al., 2024). Indeed, the term artificial intelligence itself emerged in the 1950s during a research project at Dartmouth College, where it was used to describe machines able to simulate human intelligence (Haenlein & Kaplan, 2019, p. 3). Most recently, in 2022, the landscape of AI use for laypeople greatly changed when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, a generative AI tool, to the public; ChatGPT is an advanced AI language model designed to understand and generate human-like text based on user input (Kalla et al., 2023). Within two months of its launch, ChatGPT achieved the fastest user adoption in history, reaching 100 million active users (Hu, 2023).
Alongside this rapid consumer uptake, investments in AI by businesses have been steadily increasing and are expected to double next year alone (Annual Global Corporate Investment in Artificial Intelligence, by Type, 2023; McWilliams, 2024). While research is showing that the adoption of generative AI in organizations is beginning to show value for the business, such as, greater stock returns when AI is used in business to business marketing (Zhan et al., 2024), meaningful cost reductions in human resources, and revenue increases in supply chain management (Singla et al., 2024), its impact on employees remains under-explored.
Despite the excitement around AI and particularly generative AI among individual consumers and the growing investments by companies, research on AI in the workplace is limited. Some general advice exists on using AI effectively, such as a practical paper explaining how to create valuable prompts so that HRM assistants can use ChatGPT effectively (Aguinis et al., 2024). Another paper sheds light onto employee preferences, demonstrating that in work situations requiring high empathy, employees prefer human managers as opposed to AI ones; in fact, employees perceive AI management to be less benevolent and this leads to a negative impact on trust in AI management (Li & Bitterly, 2024).
Some studies have begun exploring the impact of AI in the workplace on employees, but the general trend is that effects are not straightforwardly positive or negative. However, predictive studies showing why and under what conditions generative AI adoption is influencing individuals’ workplace outcomes and well-being are rare. One study looks at how employee wellbeing and performance can be helped or harmed as a function of AI use at work; the research finds that employees’ wellbeing suffers when they interact with AI a lot, because they feel increased loneliness, which leads to greater insomnia and alcohol use. This effect is greater for those with attachment anxiety (Tang et al., 2023). Yet, employees can also interact with AI a lot, feel a need for affiliation, and thus be more helpful to coworkers, thereby increasing their own contextual performance (Tang et al., 2023). Another study explores the use of AI for repetitive tasks at a telemarketing company; on one hand, it finds that employees can solve more difficult tasks creatively when they use AI for basic tasks, but this is usually for skilled employees (Jia et al., 2024). On the other hand, lower skilled employees experience negative reactions to the AI help (Jia et al., 2024). Another study finds that frequent use of AI leads to greater knowledge gain and improved task performance, but also to information overload, lowered performance and detachment from work (Shao et al., 2024). These relationships depend on employee levels of openness and positive affect (Shao et al., 2024). Overall, the few studies that explore the impact of AI at work show mixed impacts