Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a major cause of blindness globally. Effective screening programs are essential to mitigate this burden. This review outlines key principles and practices in implementing DR screening programs, emphasizing the roles of technology, patient education, and healthcare system integration. Our analysis highlights key principles for establishing successful screening initiatives, including the importance of regular screenings, optimal intervals, recommended technologies, and necessary infrastructure. We emphasize the roles of healthcare providers, patients, and policymakers in ensuring the effectiveness of these programs. Our recommendations aim to support the creation of robust policies that mitigate the impact of DR, ultimately improving public health outcomes and reducing the incidence of blindness due to diabetic retinopathy.

This paper analyses the impact of an integrated business management system on business operations in trade in Republic of Croatia. The integration of management systems provides various benefits to a company, so the aim of this paper is to analyse the impacts of integrated management systems on the business operations of trade companies in the Republic of Croatia. The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyse, but also to adequately theoretically argue the impact of transformational leadership, quality culture, and the degree of integration on the development of integrated management systems. Empirical research investigated integrated management systems in companies in the trade sector in the Republic of Croatia. Based on the set conceptual model and research results, we conclude that companies with a highly developed quality culture have proven management system integration. Our research didn’t confirm the significance of transformational leadership in interpreting changes in the degree of management system integration, but it highlights the positive correlation between the application of quality culture and integration; confirms the substantial impact of integrated management systems on both internal and external benefits, emphasizing its strategic imperative for sustained business success.

Urban public spaces are the interface of any city that could tell about the city’s dynamic and status quo. In addition, Urban public spaces play a pivotal role in shaping societies’ dynamics and can significantly affect conflict and peacebuilding initiatives. In a context marked by Conflict’s profound impact, this article aims to contribute to the knowledge base for informed urban interventions that foster positive interactions and reconciliation in post-conflict cities. The article seeks to explore the intricate relationship between urban spaces and their influence on war or to promote sustainable peacebuilding through investigating the various roles of the urban public spaces during the war and peacetimes via residents’ experiences of the diverse spaces’ functions that shaped the city’s status quo. In addition, considering the interplay of social dynamics, conflict history, and the mental spatial map of cities in public urban spaces can influence lasting peace or upcoming conflicts. This article focuses on Aleppo as a case study, understanding the positive and negative experiences from the residents’ perspective before and during the current war in Syria, and even distinguishes between two periods during the recent war, which are the active violence and after the end of the direct active violence, where it could inform the decision-makers and urban planners on the areas of focus while developing post-war urban public spaces to ensure its positive role in fostering peace and be able to deal with the social dynamic and the mental spatial map that developed along with the conflict history. The paper utilised a mixed-methods approach, encompassing a case study review of Aleppo City from an urban perspective and fieldwork involving focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with Aleppian from different backgrounds and geographic areas that represent the social dynamic of the city, as well as approached Aleppian who are still in living in the city and those who flee out of it to ensure the coverage of different political direction in addition field work engaged with academia and technical from the city who shared their knowledge and experiences working in the city. Participants were prompted to reflect on their pre-war familiarity with public places and share their experiences. These experiences were categorized by enabling a comprehensive understanding of how conflict context influenced these spaces. The article results offer an understanding of the peace-guiding functions of the urban public spaces based on the city residents’ experiences that could inform architects and urban planners in designing spaces conducive to sustainable peacebuilding. The article’s findings underscore the importance of strategically designed urban public spaces in promoting peace and social cohesion.

This paper proposes a floating-interest-rate infrastructure bond, where the interest of a government bond is paid to investors during the period of construction and the early period of operation. Unlike the usual government bond, which provides a fixed interest rate, the proposed floating-interest-rate infrastructure bond pays a floating interest, the rate of which depends on spillover tax revenues. Effective infrastructure projects have a positive effect on the economic growth of a region, known as the spillover effect. When user charges and the return from spillover tax revenues are below the fixed rate of the government bond, the interest rate will equal to the fixed rate of the government bond. In this case, investors in the infrastructure will receive interest on the government bond at the minimum rate. As the spillover effect of the infrastructure increases, the rate of return for infrastructure investment will become greater than the fixed rate of the government bond. The success of the floating-interest-rate infrastructure bond depends on the spillover effect and on transparency and accountability. Policy recommendations are provided in this paper on how to increase the spillover effect and improve transparency and accountability. 

In many cases, the expected efficiency advantages of public-private partnership (PPP) projects as a specific form of infrastructure provision did not materialize ex post. From a Public Choice perspective, one simple explanation for many of the problems surrounded by the governance of PPPs is that the public decision-makers being involved in the process of initiating and implementing PPP projects (namely, politicians and public bureaucrats) in many situations make low- cost decisions in the sense of Kirchgässner (1948–2017). That is, their decisions may have a high impact on the wealth of the jurisdiction in which the PPP is located (most notably, on the welfare of citizen-taxpayers in this jurisdiction) but, at the same time, these decisions often only have a low impact on the private welfare of the individual decision-makers in politics and bureaucracy. The latter, for example, in many settings often have a low economic incentive to monitor/control what the private-sector partners are doing (or not doing) within a PPP arrangement. The purpose of this paper is to draw greater attention to the problems created by low-cost decisions for the governance of PPPs. Moreover, the paper discusses potential remedies arising from the viewpoint of Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy.