Cities are no longer viewed as creatures with a linear-climax-established cycle but as ecosystems with dynamic and complicated processes, with people as the primary component. Thus, we must understand urban ecology’s structure and function to create urban planning and appreciate the mechanisms, dynamics, and evolution that connect human and ecological processes. The ecological city (ecocity) is one of the city conceptions that has evolved with the perspective of urban ecology history. The concept of ecocity development within urban ecology systems pertains to recognizing cities as complex ecosystems primarily influenced by human activities. In this context, individuals actively engage in dynamic problem-solving approaches to address environmental challenges to ensure a sustainable and satisfactory quality of life for future generations. Therefore, it is necessary to study how ecocity has developed since it was initiated today and how it relates to the urban ecology perspective. This study aims to investigate the progression of scholarly publications on ecocity research from 1980 to 2023. Additionally, it intends to ascertain the trajectory of ecological city research trends, establish connections between scientific concepts, and construct an ecological city science network using keyword co-occurrence analysis from the urban ecology perspective. The present study used a descriptive bibliometric analysis and literature review methodology. The data was obtained by utilizing the Lens.org database, was conducted using the VOS (Visualization of Similarities) viewer software for data analysis. The urban ecology research area ecology of cities can be studied further from density visualization of ecosystem services and life cycle assessment. Finally, the challenges and future agenda of ecocity research include addressing humans by modeling functions or processes that connect humans with ecosystems (ecology of cities), urban design, ecological imperatives, integration research, and improving the contribution to environmental goals, spatial distribution, agriculture, natural resources, policy, economic development, and public health.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, academic research has primarily focused on the challenges posed by flexible working arrangements. However, there has been a lack of exploration into managers’ intentions to either promote or reject remote work. This paper utilizes a TAM analysis to examine managers’ attitudes and motivations towards implementing telework in a sample of European companies. Our findings reveal that this intention is largely influenced by their perception of its usefulness. Additionally, telework is more likely to be accepted when managerial teams believe that those who hold significance to them also support the implementation of flexible work practices in their companies. Our research contributes to the existing literature by considering the impact of job performance, quality of output, and digital skills on telework adoption. The results confirm that skills related to communication and team building are crucial competencies for successfully implementing telework. The ability of leaders to effectively build, motivate, recognize, and hold accountable teams in virtual environments can make all the difference.
Effective small and medium enterprise (SME) leadership demands creative solutions to ensure organisations survive and thrive during the turbulent times that COVID-19 continues to bring. This paper explores how SME leaders (in micro and small organisations) prioritise and access the skills and development needed to provide effective and sustainable leadership to organisations, focusing on the role of resilience and the benefits it provides. Participants were selected through purposive and snowballing sampling. Online surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted and provided qualitative data that contributes to an understanding of the role of resilience and the view of participants as to what is needed to effectively respond to a dynamic environment. Evidence shows that SME leaders prioritise learning and development opportunities that provide demonstrable benefits throughout the organisation. Building business resilience remains a fuzzy concept; however, viewing resilience as a multi-level construct offers benefits when designing and delivering development opportunities. It has been found that networking, partnerships, and relationship building promote resilience and may offer a solution to how to embed resilience building into development opportunities that SME leaders value and wish to engage with. This article contributes by illustrating and exploring leadership development within SMEs during a period of unexpected and untested uncertainty. The pandemic caused major shock waves within business communities, and SMEs were significantly affected. The research is limited in that it is expected to be a once-in-a lifetime event, and as such conditions may not be replicable, learning opportunities for other ‘shock’ events are possible. The findings of this paper have relevance to practice in that, while the event may be one-off, shocks to the business environment are not.
A reservoir of vegetation, wildlife, and medicinal plant abundance is represented by the Haridwar forest divisions. This study deals with the results of ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants conducted in the Haridwar forest division during the period of December 2016 and March 2019. The information on folk medicinal use of plants were gathered by interviewing with local healers and Vaidya’s who have long been advising the folk medicines for medication of various disorders. The important folk medicinal data of 33 medicinal plants species belonging to 22 families and 33 genera practiced by tribal and local people of the study area has been recorded by the survey team of the Institute. Fabaceae followed by the Lamiacea and Asteraceae were the dominant families. The species diversity showed maximum exploration of Trees, Herbs followed by Shrubs and Climbers. Leaves, seed and root were the most prevalently used part in study followed by the stem bark, fruit, flower, stem and fruit pulp. During the study it was observed that the traditional practices of Gujjars of Uttarakhand have close relation with forests and have strong dependency on the same for food, medicine, timber and fodder etc. The information recorded for the treatment in different ailments has been presented in the paper in the pie charts and tabular form. In the recorded information most of the plants along with Plant name, Family name, Voucher Specimen No., Local Name/Unani name, Part Used, Diseases/Condition and Habitat/ICBN status so as to enrich the existing knowledge on ethnopharmacology. Many of the medications used today have their roots in traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and indigenous uses of plant material, and there are still a plethora of potentially useful pharmaceutical chemicals to be found. In this regard, more in-depth field research could aid in the discovery of novel plant species utilized in indigenous medical systems to improve patient needs. With this aim this study was conducted to explore and trace the ethnobotanical potential of flora of the Haridwar forest division so that it could prove to be immensely advantageous for both the development of new medications to treat dreadful and catastrophic illnesses as well as for the study and preservation of cultural and social variety.
Implementing green retrofitting can save 50–90% of energy use in buildings built worldwide. Government policies in several developed countries have begun to increase the implementation of green retrofitting buildings in those countries, which must rise by up to 2.5% of the lifespan of buildings by 2030. By 2050, it is hoped that more than 85% of all buildings will have been retrofitted. The high costs of implementing green retrofitting amounting to 20% of the total initial construction costs, as well as the uncertainty of costs due to cost overruns are one of the main problems in achieving the implementation target in 2050. Therefore, increasing the accuracy of the costs of implementing green retrofitting is the best solution to overcome this. This research is limited to analyzing the factors that influence increasing the accuracy of green retrofitting costs based on WBS, BIM, and Information Systems. The results show that there are 10 factors affecting the cost accuracy of retrofitting or customizing high-rise office buildings, namely Energy Use Efficiency, Water Use Efficiency, Use of Environmentally Friendly Materials, Maintenance of Green Building Performance during the Use Period, Initial Survey, Project Information Documents, Cost Estimation Process, Resources, Legal, and Quantity Extraction applied. These factors are shown to increase the accuracy of green retrofitting costs.
The research aims to explore the degree of acceptance of digital work culture among the youth in the Emirati society within the study sample. Additionally, it aims to reveal the relationship between “gender” and “educational status” as sociodemographic factors among the youth in the study sample and their level of acceptance of digital work culture. Furthermore, the study aims to identify prospective trends in digital work culture among young individuals in Emirati society. Due to the nature of the descriptive research, it employed the “sample social survey” approach. The field study primarily utilized a quantitative tool for data collection, namely the “digital questionnaire.” This questionnaire was administered to a purposefully chosen random sample comprising young individuals actively seeking employment opportunities (unemployed individuals) or those new to the labor market. The participants fell within the age group of 15 to 35 years, totaling 184 individuals. Care was taken to ensure that this sample was representative of all youth categories in Emirati society, considering demographic factors such as gender, place of residence, and educational status. The research findings indicate that an overwhelming majority of young individuals in the study sample (97.8%) have no obstacles to accepting job opportunities that necessitate digital and technological skills. Moreover, the study uncovered a direct and statistically significant relation between “gender” and the “level of acceptance of digital work culture,” favoring females. This implies that females are more inclined to accept digital job opportunities compared to males. Additionally, the results highlighted a positive and statistically significant relation between both “educational status” and the “level of acceptance of digital work culture.” In other words, individuals with higher levels of education demonstrate a greater interest in digital job opportunities. Utilizing Step-wise Regression, the study also made predictions about the spread of “future digital work culture” in the United Arab Emirates based on the variable of “education.”
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