Search results for "Indicator"
showing 10 items of 997 documents
A comparison of two methods for surveying aquatic macrophyte communities in boreal lakes: Implications for bioassessment
2013
To compare the performance of two common methods for surveying boreal lake aquatic macrophyte communities (the transect survey and the phytolittoral inventory) in lake bioassessment, we studied five small humic lakes with both methods. In addition to this pairwise comparison, we contrasted available independent sets of reference lake data of either methodological origin. Specifically, we compared the observed species richness and a number of ecological quality (community) metrics and their variability both between the methods and within them in relation to sampling effort and operator. With the phytolittoral inventory, more taxa (mean 38.8 ± s.d. 12.1) were observed than with transect surve…
FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES OF LATVIA’S SOCIAL SYSTEM AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF CRISIS
2010
Latvian social system is ahead of serious financial problems. The article analyses causes and beginnings of the crisis, in the context of the 1st budget level of social systems in relation to the national budget, as well as the negative impact of the state budget on the social security budget for the financial future. The government also discussed the measures taken by the social system of financial regulation and their impact on society's social environment. Recommendations have been developed for improvement of the situation.
Examining Benchmark Indicator Systems for the Evaluation of Higher Education Institutions
2009
Higher Education Institutions are undergoing important changes involving the development of new roles and missions, with implications for their structure. Governments and institutions are implementing strategies to ensure the proper performance of universities and several studies have investigated evaluation of universities through the development and use of indicator systems. In this paper, we review some of the systems applied to the OECD countries, with special attention to Spain. We demonstrate the difficulty involved in establishing classification criteria for existing indicators, on which there is currently no consensus.
The state of global hunger.
2008
With the passing of another world day Against Hunger (on 30 October), it is time to take stock of the state of global hunger. Sadly, Millennium goals are still far from being reached, and over 800 million people suffer from malnutrition in the world. The latest core health indicators from the World
Access to Preventive Health Care for Undocumented Migrants: A Comparative Study of Germany, the Netherlands and Spain from a Human Rights Perspective
2016
The present study analyzes the preventive health care provisions for nationals and undocumented migrants in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain in light of four indicators derived from the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ General Comment 14 (GC 14). These indicators are (i) immunization; (ii) education and information; (iii) regular screening programs; and (iv) the promotion of the underlying determinants of health. It aims to answer the question of what preventive health care services for undocumented migrants are provided for in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain and how this should be evaluated from a human rights perspective. The study reveals that the ac…
The influence of agriculture on the structural economic vulnerability of small island spaces: Assessment using DEA based composite indicators
2020
Small island spaces are confronted with significant disadvantages that ultimately result in strong economic vulnerability. The conventional literature emphasizes the main role of agriculture in generating structural vulnerability. Specifically, the higher the weight of agriculture compared to other sectors is, the more structurally vulnerable an economy is. However, the recent food crises revealed that the economic dependence on agriculture is not a problem on its own, but the issue is rather the efficiency of this sector along with the orientation of domestic production towards diversification and food self-sufficiency. In this paper, we thus propose a new structural economic vulnerability…
Aspetti economici e commerciali dell'arancia di Ribera
2010
The Sicily is the first region for orange cultivation in Italy. This sector, throughout the ages, has been characterized by a decrease of the invested areas and by a reduction of the fresh product’s demand; in the meantime, the competitiveness of the new producer countries is increased for a better commercial organization and for lower production costs. The aim of the paper is to improve the knowledge of orange cultivation in Ribera area, in the province of Agrigento (Sicily). It is carried out a microeconomic analysis on a sample of 20 farms to determine profitability of orange cultivation by means of various economic indicators (production costs, profits, net incomes). The business survey…
Leading indicator properties of US high-yield credit spreads.
2010
Abstract In this paper we examine the out-of-sample forecast performance of high-yield credit spreads for real-time and revised data regarding employment and industrial production in the US. We evaluate models using both a point forecast and a probability forecast exercise. Our main findings suggest that the best results come from using only a few factors obtained by pooling information from a number of sector-specific high-yield credit spreads. In particular, for employment and at short-run horizons, there is a gain from using a principal components model fitted to high-yield credit spreads compared to the prediction produced by benchmarks. Moreover, forecast results based on revised data …
Environmental performance: an index number approach
2004
Abstract Tyteca [J. Environ. Manage. 46 (1996) 281] reviews the literature on environmental performance indicators. In that paper he calls for an index that simultaneously accounts for resources used, good outputs produced and pollutants or undesirable outputs emitted. Here, we provide a formal index number of environmental performance which can be computed using data envelopment analysis (DEA) techniques. The implicit benchmark is that of finding the highest ratio of good to bad outputs. Our environmental performance index is constructed from distance functions which implies that it satisfies a number of desirable properties. Since the component distance functions require only information …
Measuring consumers’ level of satisfaction for online food shopping during COVID-19 in Italy using POSETs
2021
Abstract The pandemic COVID 19 has upset the economic, social, financial, and general behavioral systems. Global crisis has a large impact overall and related fallouts significantly affect existent structural paradigms in every country and region across the world. In particular, the spread of COVID-19 pandemic has led to having to rethink the way we produce and consume food. Within this global change, a rise in the number of consumers who purchase food products online in order to comply with the rules aimed at limiting the circulation of the virus should be emphasized. Consequently, probably causing a long-term positive effect on m-commerce. The purpose is to elaborate on the index of the s…