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In search of a way to bring back the positive aspects of an internship into the curriculum, TU Delft identified serious games as a potential solution. The literature studied showed that games could increase motivation and understanding, leading to improve knowledge retention. This paper has brought these insights together in a framework identifying the benefits that contribute to knowledge retention but also the requirements and risks for the application of serious games to be addressed. These insights were used to explain the success of a longstanding business game course for advanced students first. Next was the development of a virtual reality practice in a first-year course to replace the lost internship. In this case, knowledge retention was improved significantly, albeit only by 5%. Furthermore, in light of the developed framework, the VR simulation is a more balanced approach with fewer risks compared to the more extensive master course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gaza Strip is dependent on external aid to deliver basic services, including water and sanitation. Such services are not sustainable due to the Israeli occupation and the limited financial and technical capacities of service providers and the state. This paper examines the incentives of stakeholders in delivering sanitation services in the Gaza Strip through a qualitative institutional economics analysis of literature supplemented with qualitative key informant interviews. External aid is crucial to deliver basic services in the Gaza Strip. However, this has created a dependency that undermines the sustainability of sanitation services. Donor agencies often prioritise capital expenditure on visible infrastructure, such as wastewater treatment, without addressing its long and short-term operational needs; hence the Gaza Strip's needs are continually addressed as an emergency response. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas de facto governments lack sovereignty over the Gaza Strip and Palestine. Therefore, they also lack the capacity and incentives to create an enabling environment for delivering safely managed sanitation. This paper contributes to development policy literature, the politics of infrastructure and wider politics of settler colonialism and siege basic services such as water and sanitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews and summarizes six economics papers written as part of a project bringing together economists and anthropologists on conceptions and analyses of wealth. The project paired economists and anthropologists in order to illuminate differences in method, analytic technique, and disciplinary framings between the two fields. Anthropologists comment on the economists' papers from their discipline's point of view. The overall project was intended to increase understanding and to encourage future collaborations and learning between the two fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Clinton administration’s drive to enact reform in Ukraine during the 1990s was viewed at the time as being necessary for the nation’s revitalization and re-integration into Western Europe. Decades later, these policies have been critiqued for antagonizing the Kremlin, causing it to seek political control over its former satellite. This paper addresses the viability of the Clinton administration’s efforts and the reasons for their ultimate failure. It finds that despite its best intentions, the administration’s economic strategy faced unanticipated resistance from the Kremlin, as long-standing ties with Kiev undermined US-led efforts for economic and political reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wellbeing is an increasingly prominent topic across academia, including analyses of the myriad factors that influence it. Of these, perhaps the most prominent is economics, with a relatively-well substantiated link, especially at lower levels of income. However, most work has been limited to select measures (usually life evaluation) and/or populations (usually Western nations). This paper offers an expansive approach, exploring associations between income and a selection of 31 items pertaining to wellbeing in the Gallup World Poll over 3 years (2020–2022), covering 386,654 people in 142 countries. Significantly, on every single variable, participants with higher incomes fare better than those with lower incomes. However, there are also many interesting nuances when filtering the results through various demographic considerations, including comparing participants in terms of global regions, sex, age, and level of education. Together, these nuances paint a complex picture of the impact of economics on wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On-demand work applications (ODWAs), a type of digital platforms (DPs), are technology-enabled intermediaries for gig workers. In this paper, we study these platforms and their impact on women belonging to the low socio-economic section in a developing economy. These women act as primary unpaid workers while being expected to make an economic contribution. Hence, they suffer from time scarcity where they need to find mechanisms to generate economic success from the limited time they have, in a largely informal economy. We employed the theoretical lens of affordances to delineate the affordances that are provided by the various features of ODWAs and their impact on life satisfaction of women. We conducted a mixed method study using interviews of 20 female gig workers, supplemented by a survey of 927 workers on one of the largest ODWAs in India. Our analysis points to the sense of identity and individuality that these platforms provide as well as lowering the market boundaries for greater inclusion. Our research is significant from both, the information systems and inclusion research perspectives, as it contributes to the theoretical understanding of the impact of DPs on breaking societal structures and providing avenues to marginalised sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long been preoccupied with the role that capital plays in Indonesia's democratic institutions. Observers emphasize a tight overlap between the worlds of politics and business, with many describing murky connections and corrupt alliances among state officials, oligarchs, and local bosses. While such relations remain fundamental to Indonesian politics, this paper draws attention to a parallel but under-analyzed transformation of both the social and political status of business actors in contemporary Indonesia. From tech entrepreneurs to mining giants, people with established business careers are increasingly taking up the reins of government. Once considered the inferior political and policy actor during Suharto's New Order, businesspersons now exercise direct political power and entrepreneurial success is valued, even revered, within political and policymaking circles. While evidence of such changes can be identified at different moments in Indonesia's recent history, during the presidency of businessperson politician, Joko Widodo, there has been a marked intensification of these trends. Today there is a far broader acceptance of business elites as stewards of state institutions. The result is a fusing of private power and public office in a form, and to a degree, that is unprecedented in Indonesia's political history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intercropping enhances diversity, productivity, resilience, and soil health. To achieve these benefits of the intercropping system, drilling patterns and species mixture play a key role. Therefore, to optimize the productivity, profitability, energetics, and carbon footprint of the castor-based millet intercropping system, a field experiment was conducted for two consecutive kharif seasons (2020 − 2021 and 2021 − 2022) at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka (India). The results revealed that all the crops under monoculture outperformed their intercropping system for seed and stalk/stover yield. Among the different cropping systems, castor + finger millet (2:4) showed highest castor equivalent yield (CEY; 1911 kg ha−1) due to excellent land utilization efficiency (LUE; 106%), land equivalent ratio (LER; 1.13), land equivalent co-efficient (LEC; 0.32) compared to other cropping systems. Castor + finger millet (2:4) was even found superior in terms of monetary returns. Finger millet monoculture showed the highest energy consumption (10,770 MJ ha−1), energy output (96,507 MJ ha−1), and also net energy gain (85,737 MJ ha−1) compared to other cropping systems. However, it was comparable with castor + finger millet (2:4) despite its modest energy consumption (10,530 MJ ha−1). Castor monoculture showed the highest carbon (C) emission (2045 kg CO2-eq. ha−1) and also C output (1760 kg CE ha−1). While, net C gain (1210 kg CE ha−1), C efficiency (3.39 kg kg−1 CE), and C stability index (2.39) were highest in the castor + finger millet intercropping system. Consequently, the adoption of a castor + finger millet (2:4) intercropping system will be a viable alternative for achieving enhanced system productivity, and energy efficiency with lower C-footprints under semi-arid regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A retired manager and university teacher reflects on global ethics, on the purpose of life, and on the challenges facing global ethics in a contemporary world where there is no certainty about shared belief or shared values. The future lies, he concludes, with process and with a deeper understanding of one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antibody-mediated rejection (ABMR) is a major cause of late kidney allograft failure, but its economic and humanistic impacts have not been well-characterized in the literature. We reviewed available literature on economic burden (costs and healthcare resource use) and humanistic burden (health-related quality of life impacts [HRQOL] and utility estimates) in patients diagnosed with kidney transplant rejection; ABMR-specific studies were of particular interest. In total, 21 publications reporting economic and humanistic burden were included in the review; 9 of these reported ABMR-specific outcomes. The reviewed studies consistently showed a greater burden associated with ABMR-related transplant rejection than with non-ABMR transplant rejection. Evidence suggests greater economic burden and increased HRQOL impairment with ABMR-related kidney transplant rejection relative to non-ABMR, although small sample sizes and missing definitions for ABMR make meaningful comparisons between studies challenging. Because no International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 codes currently describe the etiologies of transplant rejection, it is difficult to characterize the burden of distinct types of transplant rejection. The paucity of high-quality data on the burden of ABMR in kidney transplant rejection demonstrates the need for more etiology-centric ICD-10 codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although compliance with constitutions is undoubtedly one of the most essential topics in the current public debate, there are still a lot of questions about its determinants that have to be addressed. What is the impact of the populistic and anti-pluralistic character of ruling political parties on constitutional compliance of the government and does it depend on how long such parties have been in power? In our study, based on data for 147 countries during the period between 1990 and 2019, we aim to investigate the relationships between populism, anti-pluralism, and constitutional compliance, with a special focus on the years of the populist or anti-pluralistic ruling parties in office. In a series of panel regressions, we find that the longer anti-pluralists remain in power, the worse the effect they may have on constitutional compliance of the government. These results suggest that the respect for a constitution shown by government representatives is dependent on the nature of the party from which they originate and that anti-pluralism entrenched in the political scene for many years can be a real peril. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]