Search results for "concern"
showing 10 items of 105 documents
Key advantages of the leverage points perspective to shape human-nature relations
2021
This perspective paper synthesises the special issue 'Human-nature connectedness as a leverage point for sustainability transformation'. Based on the articles in this special issue, we aim to foster the operationalisation of the leverage points perspective to shape human-nature relations to enable sustainability transformations. Specifically, we draw on four key advantages of the leverage points perspective: (i) the explicit recognition of deep leverage points; (ii) the ability to examine the interactions between shallow and deep system changes; (iii) the combination of causal and teleological modes of research; and (iv) the ability to function as a methodological boundary object. The contr…
Impressing my friends: The role of social value in green purchasing attitude for youthful consumers
2021
Abstract Prior studies predominantly use cross-sectional designs to determine effects of pro-environmental beliefs on green purchasing attitudes, thereby limiting the possibility for causal inferences and examining mediation effects. We overcome these gaps by adopting a two-wave longitudinal design to test a moderated-mediation model that draws on consumer choice theory, positing that the effect of implicit pro-environmental beliefs on green purchasing attitudes is mediated by perceived social value from buying green, while the relationship between pro-environmental beliefs and perceived social value is moderated by perceived inconvenience of buying green. Findings from a sample of Polish y…
Implementation of walk-through audits for designing energy management system: A first step towards an efficient campus
2020
Abstract The purpose of this study is to design a concept of energy management control system (EMCS) at the UNSADA campus, Jakarta, Indonesia by utilizing the results of the previous walkthrough audit. EMCS is an important first step by involving all parties on campus to be concerned the sustainable energy savings. The energy efficiency program utilizes the campus as an energy laboratory to identify, recommend, implement and evaluate the energy consumption, so that the expected energy efficiency targeted by the top managements can be achieved. This program is motivated by several reasons, such as; to support government policies in reducing dependence on fossil energy by implementing energy …
Characterization of the contamination fingerprint of wastewater treatment plant effluents in the Henares River Basin (central Spain) based on target …
2022
The interest in contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) has increased lately due to their continued emission and potential ecotoxicological hazards. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are generally not capable of eliminating them and are considered the main pathway for CECs to the aquatic environment. The number of CECs in WWTPs effluents is often so large that complementary approaches to the conventional target analysis need to be implemented. Within this context, multitarget quantitative analysis (162 compounds) and a suspect screening (>40,000 suspects) approaches were applied to characterize the CEC fingerprint in effluents of five WWTPs in the Henares River basin (central Spain) durin…
Co-circulation of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha and Gamma variants in Italy, February and March 2021
2022
Background Several SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOC) have emerged through 2020 and 2021. There is need for tools to estimate the relative transmissibility of emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 with respect to circulating strains. Aim We aimed to assess the prevalence of co-circulating VOC in Italy and estimate their relative transmissibility. Methods We conducted two genomic surveillance surveys on 18 February and 18 March 2021 across the whole Italian territory covering 3,243 clinical samples and developed a mathematical model that describes the dynamics of co-circulating strains. Results The Alpha variant was already dominant on 18 February in a majority of regions/autonomous provinces (…
What determines a positive attitude towards natural food products? An expectancy theory approach.
2021
Natural food products are becoming increasingly popular worldwide due to their health and environmental benefits. However, these products' increasing anecdotal popularity has not translated into their widespread adoption; in fact, demand for natural food products remains confined to a relatively small segment of consumers. Despite this, little is known about the facilitators and inhibitors of favourable attitude of consumers towards these products. Recognising this gap, our study employed the theoretical lens of expectancy theory to investigate these factors. Through an extensive review of the pro-environmental consumption literature, we identified four facilitating and inhibiting factors: …
Distributed and proximity-constrained C-means for discrete coverage control
2018
In this paper we present a novel distributed coverage control framework for a network of mobile agents, in charge of covering a finite set of points of interest (PoI), such as people in danger, geographically dispersed equipment or environmental landmarks. The proposed algorithm is inspired by C-Means, an unsupervised learning algorithm originally proposed for non-exclusive clustering and for identification of cluster centroids from a set of observations. To cope with the agents' limited sensing range and avoid infeasible coverage solutions, traditional C-Means needs to be enhanced with proximity constraints, ensuring that each agent takes into account only neighboring PoIs. The proposed co…
Governance of Ethical and Trustworthy Al Systems: Research Gaps in the ECCOLA Method
2021
Advances in machine learning (ML) technologies have greatly improved Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. As a result, AI systems have become ubiquitous, with their application prevalent in virtually all sectors. However, AI systems have prompted ethical concerns, especially as their usage crosses boundaries in sensitive areas such as healthcare, transportation, and security. As a result, users are calling for better AI governance practices in ethical AI systems. Therefore, AI development methods are encouraged to foster these practices. This research analyzes the ECCOLA method for developing ethical and trustworthy AI systems to determine if it enables AI governance in development process…
Expectations for supporting student engagement with learning analytics : an academic path perspective
2021
There has been a growing interest in higher education to explore how learning analytics (LA) could be used to support student engagement. Providing actionable feedback with LA for students is an emerging area of research. Previous studies have commonly focused on course-level aspects of supporting engagement with LA, but students' perspectives have received limited attention. This study analyzed pre-service teachers’ needs and expectations for LA to support student engagement on the academic path level, which means observing the continuum of study periods and academic years. Qualitative content analysis was conducted for video-recorded student small-group conversations to analyze in-depth h…
Mediterranean diets and metabolic syndrome status in the PREDIMED randomized trial
2014
© 2014 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors. Results: Over 4.8 years of follow-up, metabolic syndrome developed in 960 (50.0%) of the 1919 participants who did not have the condition at baseline. The risk of developing metabolic syndrome did not differ between participants assigned to the control diet and those assigned to either of the Mediterranean diets (control v. olive oil HR 1.10, 95% CI 0.94-1.30, p = 0.231; control v. nuts HR 1.08, 95% CI 0.92- 1.27, p = 0.3). Reversion occurred in 958 (28.2%) of the 3392 participants who had metabolic syndrome at baseline. Compared with the control group, participants on either Mediterranean diet were more likely to undergo reversion (cont…