This study offers a new perspective on measuring the impact of village funds (DD) on rural development. Using a mixed-method approach, the qualitative analysis reveals that, like previous rural development programs, the DD program struggles to implement inclusive methods for capturing community aspirations and evaluating outcomes. Despite rural infrastructure improvement, many villagers feel they have not fully benefited and do not view it as offering economic opportunities. The econometric model confirms the qualitative findings, indicating no significant DD influence on the village development index (IPD). Instead, effective governance factors like Musdes, regulations, and leadership are essential for the IPD improvement. Thus, enhancing village governments’ institutional capacity is crucial for increasing the DD effectiveness. The paper recommends several measures: training village officials in financial management and project planning, providing guidelines for the DD allocation and usage, creating robust monitoring-evaluation systems, developing communication strategies, and fostering partnerships with local NGOs and universities.

Since 1999, China’s higher education has experienced significant growth, with the government dramatically increasing college enrollment rates, thereby enhancing the overall quality of education. However, most existing studies have primarily focused on the quantity of education, with little attention having been given to the impact of higher education quality (HEQ) on economic growth. This study aims to explore how higher education quality (HEQ) contributes to regional economic growth through scientific and technological innovation (STI) and human capital accumulation. Using panel data from 31 Chinese provinces from the period 1999 to 2022, panel regression models and instrumental variable methods were employed to analyze both the direct and indirect impacts of higher education quality (HEQ) on economic growth. The results confirm that improving higher education quality (HEQ) is crucial for sustaining China’s economic growth. More specifically, higher education promotes regional economic expansion both directly, by enhancing labor productivity, and indirectly, by facilitating scientific and technological innovation. Furthermore, the study suggests that the balanced distribution of educational resources across regions should be prioritized to support coordinated regional development. This research provides insights for policymakers on how balanced regional economic development can be achieved through educational and technological policies. This work also lays a foundation for future studies.

This article examines the history of Russian colonization in Kazakhstan, focusing on identity, resistance, and independence within Russia’s neo-imperial ambitions. It addresses the socio-political barriers in postcolonial Kazakhstan due to ties with Russia and explores how the Soviet migration policies shaped Kazakhstan’s demographic and political landscape. The study outlines the phases of Russian colonization, contrasting Russian narratives of a civilizing mission with Kazakh perspectives on exploitation and cultural erasure. Using postcolonial theory, it deconstructs these narratives and reveals power dynamics. Kazakh literature and poetry are analyzed as mediums of resistance, emphasizing the horse as a symbol of cultural identity. The article concludes by discussing the post-Soviet cultural transformations and the role of literature in nation-building, highlighting the importance of reclaiming cultural symbols and myths for understanding Kazakhstan’s colonial history and postcolonial transformation.

Relational database models offer a pathway for the storage, standardization, and analysis of factors influencing national sports development. While existing research delves into the factors linked with sporting success, there remains an unexplored avenue for the design of databases that seamlessly integrate quantitative analyses of these factors. This study aims to design a relational database to store and analyse quantitative sport development data by employing information technology tools. The database design was carried out in three phases: (i) exploratory study for context analysis, identification, and delimitation of the data scope; (ii) data extraction from primary sources and cataloguing; (iii) database design to allow an integrated analysis of different dimensions and production of quantitative indicators. An entity-relationship diagram and an entity-relationship model were built to organize and store information relating to sports, organizations, people, investments, venues, facilities, materials, events, and sports results, enabling the sharing of data across tables and avoiding redundancies. This strategy demonstrated potential for future knowledge advancement by including the establishment of perpetual data updates through coding and web scraping. This, in turn, empowers the continuous evaluation and vigilance of organizational performance metrics and sports development policies, aligning seamlessly with the journal’s focus on cutting-edge methodologies in the realm of digital technology.

The article emphasizes the dynamism of social processes in the world aimed at humanizing modern society. Social work in the third millennium became one of the priority topics in Europe and acquired the status of an independent field of science and research in terms of science and education. The possibility of extrapolation of innovative foreign technologies into the practice of social work in Ukraine was investigated. It was found that the process of implementation of innovative foreign technologies into the practice of social work in Ukraine has already begun and is ongoing. In the improvement of the domestic system of professional training of social workers, the authors of the article see an appeal to the experience of applying European innovative technologies and practices of social work, in particular in the Republic of Poland. The leading determinants of social technologies, which determine their specificity, are singled out: multidisciplinarity, hierarchy, multidirectionality, flexibility, standardization. The need for effective and timely implementation of the integration of three groups of social support technologies in the conditions of the martial law in which Ukraine is today has been updated. The perspective of further scientific research is defined in the substantiation of the organizational and pedagogical conditions of their application in the process of informal and informal education.

Islamabad’s 2019 ban on single-use plastic shopping bags aimed to reduce plastic waste, but compliance is limited. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the ban as well as other factors in curtailing plastic bag use in Islamabad. Regression modeling within a rational choice framework analyzed survey data from 406 retailers across 18 selected urban and rural markets. We found that the subjective belief that a fine was unlikely (β = −16.10; t = −3.90; p < 0.001), likely (β = −24.99; t = −4.95; p < 0.001), or very likely (β = −43.84; t = −4.07; p < 0.001) for selling bags versus very unlikely was significantly associated with lower usage. Additionally, older retailer age (β = −0.25; p < 0.001) and more education (β = −0.77; p < 0.01) were associated with lower plastic bag usage. Business registration (β = −3.94; p < 0.10) and trade membership (β = −4.04; p < 0.05) also decreased use. Rural location (zone II: β = 13.28; p < 0.001) and plastic bags stock availability (β = 16.75; p < 0.001) increased use. Awareness, viewing bags as “Good”, unlikely fines and lack of substitutes lowered use. Results provide insights to inform more effective policies for reducing plastic waste.