The food insecurity and inadequate management of family farm production is a problem that per-sists today in all corners of the world. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the socioeconomic and agricultural production management factors associated with food insecurity in rural households in the Machángara river basin in the province Azuay, Ecuador. The information was collected through a survey applied to households that were part of a stratified random sample. Based on this information, the Latin American and Caribbean Household Food Security Measurement Scale (ELCSA) was constructed to estimate food insecurity as a function of socioeconomic factors and agricultural production management, through the application of a Binomial Logit model and an Ordinal Logit model, in the STATA^® 16 program. The results show that head house a married head of household, living in an informal house, having a latrine, producing medicinal or ornamental plants, and the relationship between expenses and income are significant variables that increase the probability of being food insecure. In this way, this research provides timely information to help public policy makers employ effective strategies to benefit rural household that are food vulnerable.

To fight inflation, European Central Bank (ECB) announced 10 successive interest rate hikes, starting on 27 July 2022, igniting an unprecedented widening of interest rate spreads in the euro area (ΕΑ). Greek banks, however, recorded among the highest interest rate spreads, far exceeding ΕΑ median and weighted average. Indeed, we document a strong asymmetric response of Greek banks to ECB interest rate hikes, with loan interest rates rising immediately, whilst deposit interest rates remained initially unchanged and then rose sluggishly. As a result, the interest rate spread hit one historical record after another. Greek systemic banks, probably taking advantage of the high concentration and low competition in the domestic sector benefited from key ECB interest rate hikes, recording gigantic increases in net interest income (NII), and consequently, substantial profits (almost €7.4 billion in the 2022–2023 biennium). Such excessive accumulation of profits (that deteriorates the living conditions of consumers) by the banking system could be called the inflation of “banking greed”, or bankflation. This new source of inflation created by the oligopolistic structure of the Greek banking sector counterworks the very reason for ECB interest rate increases and requires certain policy analysis recommendations in coping with it.

This study aims to explore the feasibility of using virtual reality technology to educate students with learning difficulties in the Asir region. To achieve the study aims, the researcher employed a descriptive design and deployed a quantitative technique, depending on the questionnaire as the main instrument for data collection. The research was carried out on a cohort of 240 educators hailing from the Asir region who were enlisted through a process of random sampling. The results of this study show that factors like infrastructure, human resources, administrative regulation, and student population have an impact on the use of virtual reality technology. The results suggest that there are no statistically significant differences in the development of using virtual reality technology among teachers of students with learning disabilities in the Asir region when taking into account factors such as experience and level of qualification.

Soundscape tourism has become one type of tourism, and its trend is emerging in most areas with hilly, forested, and natural landscapes, such as Bantul Indonesia, becoming a mainstay for region development and its community. This article explores four human manufactured soundscape tourism destinations in Bantul, Indonesia, examining the interrelationships between each tourism stakeholder and pinpointed development from a socio-economic perspective. We adopt a cross-case study approach, drawing main sources from government statistics, regulations, social media narratives, and online news. Using the NVivo 12 Plus software, we coded and annotated the research source. Our research revealed that in four case studies, tourism soundscapes emerged as the primary tourist attractions, with other attractions only marginally contributed. Presenting music or acoustic stages enabled tourism industry to reap benefits, particularly for local community and regional income. However, it is important to emphasize sustainability issues, thus, the continuous increased in music soundscape in nature has led to the formation of collaborations among tourism actors, with local communities “Pokdarwis” posed as the principal driving force behind destination development. This study demonstrates that human-manufactured soundscapes have the potential to increase visitor numbers and outperform natural soundscapes in natural destinations.

This study aims to explore the urban resilience strategies and public service innovations approaches adopted by the Shanghai Government in response to COVID-19 pandemic. The study utilized a combination of primary and secondary data sources, such as government reports, policy documents, and interviews with important individuals involved in the matter. The current research focused on qualitative data and examined the different aspects resilience, including infrastructure, economy, society, ecology, and organizations. The findings indicate that infrastructure resilience plays a crucial role in maintaining the stability and dependability of essential public facilities, achieved through online education and intelligent transportation systems. Implementing rigorous waste management and pollution control measures with a focus on ecological resilience has significantly promoted environmentally sustainable development. Shanghai city has achieved economic resilience by stabilizing its finances and providing support to businesses through investments in research, technology and education. Shanghai city has enhanced its organizational resilience by fostering collaboration across several sectors, bolstering emergency management tactics and enhancing policy execution.

Our study investigates the relationship between firm profitability, board characteristics, and the quality of sustainability disclosures, while examining the moderating effects of financial leverage and external audit assurance. A key focus is the distinction between Big 4 and non-Big 4 audit firms. Using data from Malaysia’s top 100 publicly listed organizations from 2018 to 2020, we analyze sustainability reports based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. Unexpectedly, our results indicate a negative association between firm profitability and board characteristics, challenging traditional assumptions. We find that non-Big 4 audit firms significantly enhance sustainability disclosure quality, contradicting the widely held belief in the superiority of Big 4 firms. Our finding introduces the “Big 4 dilemma” in the Malaysian context and calls for a reassessment of audit firm selection practices. Our study offers new perspectives on the strategic role of board composition and audit firm selection in advancing sustainability disclosures, urging Malaysian organizations to evaluate audit firms on criteria beyond the global prestige of Big 4 firms to improve sustainability reporting.

The goal of this work was to create and assess machine-learning models for estimating the risk of budget overruns in developed projects. Finding the best model for risk forecasting required evaluating the performance of several models. Using a dataset of 177 projects took into account variables like environmental risks employee skill level safety incidents and project complexity. In our experiments, we analyzed the application of different machine learning models to analyze the risk for the management decision policies of developed organizations. The performance of the chosen model Neural Network (MLP) was improved after applying the tuning process which increased the Test R² from −0.37686 before tuning to 0.195637 after tuning. The Support Vector Machine (SVM), Ridge Regression, Lasso Regression, and Random Forest (Tuned) models did not improve, as seen when Test R² is compared to the experiments. No changes in Test R²’s were observed on GBM and XGBoost, which retained same Test R² across different tuning attempts. Stacking Regressor was used only during the hyperparameter tuning phase and brought a Test R² of 0. 022219.Decision Tree was again the worst model among all throughout the experiments, with no signs of improvement in its Test R²; it was −1.4669 for Decision Tree in all experiments arranged on the basis of Gender. These results indicate that although, models such as the Neural Network (MLP) sees improvements due to hyperparameter tuning, there are minimal improvements for most models. This works does highlight some of the weaknesses in specific types of models, as well as identifies areas where additional work can be expected to deliver incremental benefits to the structured applied process of risk assessment in organizational policies.

The present study aims at exploring the extent to which the quality standards of educational activities in Arabic language syllabi is practiced. For this goal, the research adopted the descriptive approach. For the objective of the study, the researcher resorted to the mixed method; quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. The mixed data collection methods comprised list of quality standards for educational activities, observation card, and semi-structured interviews. The research sample included 28 Arabic language teachers in government schools for boys in Abha city and 4 language teacher supervisors and 4 School Accreditation Evaluation Specialist. The respondents of the sample were distributed as follows: 10 teachers from the upper grades of primary school, 10 Arabic language teachers from intermediate school and 8 teachers from secondary school. The study tools include a list of quality standards of educational activities and a classroom observation card. An observation card was designed to reveal the extent of practicing the quality standards of educational activities in Arabic language courses. Regarding the list of quality standards, the research identified 25 quality standards for educational activities in Arabic language syllabi. Ultimately, the study concluded that the degree of practicing the quality standards of educational activities ranged from 2.28 to 1.18, which means that the degree of practicing them is between average and low. Moreover, the extent of practicing the quality standards of educational activities in Arabic language syllabi as a whole was 1.59, which means that they are practiced at a weak level. Accordingly, the researcher suggested some recommendations and future studies.