Month: January 2024

A Discussion of Positive Behavior Support and Applied Behavior Analysis in the Context of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the UK and Ireland

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Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between applied behavior analysis (ABA) and the emergence of positive behavior support (PBS) in context of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the UK and Ireland. Two overarching issues that are salient in this discussion are professional training and certification. To date, there has been a lack of standardized training or statutory requirements to practice PBS despite proponents insisting that its practice should be grounded in behavior analytic principles. Furthermore, there is an undercurrent of anti-ABA bias fueled by misinterpretation and unsubstantiated anecdotal claims used to promote an alternative “value based” approach to managing behavior.

Participatory justice and climate adaptation for water management in Small Island Developing States: a systematic literature review and discussion

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Abstract

As the impacts of climate change increase, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in particular shall face increasingly significant adaptation challenges. Past climate adaptation efforts within SIDS have had limited success. As such, the purpose of this systematic literature review has been to identify areas of importance for facilitating climate adaptation, particularly within Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and more specifically, to assess the extent to which participatory justice within decision-making processes is recognised as an important component of climate adaptation through the lens of water management. This review process utilised the SPIDER tool to guide the literature search across SCOPUS, Web of Science and EBSCO host databases, generating 495 publications that were reduced to a total of 70 sources guided by PRISMA, informing the review’s results and discussion. Thematic analysis of the selected studies was applied, utilising the Values-Rules-Knowledge framework. Through this analysis, five principles were created and comprise the major conclusions of this review: (1) ensuring community engagement, (2) expanding available options through local experimentation, (3) ensuring that monitoring and evaluation of adaptation initiatives are taken seriously, (4) adopting decision-making mechanisms that are systems-oriented and inclusive, and (5) investing only if there is a long-term commitment to protecting SIDS. It is hoped that these principles can serve as a comprehensive guide for funding agencies, applied projects and research aiding climate adaptation within SIDS.

SWAT based analysis of multiple GCM models for predicting the long-term effects on various hydrometeorological components of a dam-to-dam river basin

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Abstract

This study explored how the water balance components of the Middle Tapi Basin (MTB) might alter between 2010 and 2100 as an outcome of climate change. We used an approach were Statistically downscaled future predicted data for temperature and rainfall for five different Global circulation models were employed under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). The baseline and future scenarios’ monthly analyses of multiple water balance indicators also showed that RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 will see an increase in maximum temperature of 5.2% and 9.5%, respectively, by the end of the century. The baseline period contribution from monsoonal rainfall and streamflow was also 89.3% and 90.6%, but in future scenarios, the figures are likely to reduce to 75.2% and 57.8% for RCP 4.5 and 70.8% and 54.7% for RCP 8.5. While the average inflow estimates at the Ukai dam tend to rise by 19.2% and 46.8% till the distant future scenario for RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, respectively. In future scenarios, the percentage of groundwater flow and surface runoff contributions will be lesser due to the higher evapotranspiration rate and revaporisation of water to the root zone. Even though the monsoonal rainfall tends to reduce, the flow duration curves for the future scenarios exhibited a consistent increase in water availability compared to their respective historical counterparts, possibly due to more frequent and severe rainfall events.

Climate change impacts on hydroclimatic variables over Awash basin, Ethiopia: a systematic review

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Abstract

Hydroclimate combines hydrology and climate variables, including the influence of water resources and their processes on Earth’s climate pattern and the change in the hydrological cycle. This review aimed to investigate the historical, current, and future projections of hydroclimatic variables within the Awash River basin. The spatiotemporal climate fluctuations caused by meteorological anomalies, catchment topographical processes, and human activities impact hydroclimatic variables. This systematic review was conducted to define and conceptualize hydroclimatic variables’ trends and variation. Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were used to assess relevant works of literature. Most of the rainfall stations in the basin exhibited an increasing and decreasing trend; however, this was not statistically significant. The mean, maximum, and minimum temperature variables continuously increased in the basin while streamflow declined. Besides, hydroclimatic variables and trends in response to climate change differ by local topography, length of data and statistical methods. Additionally, the basin encounters various trends and patterns in hydroclimate variables over time. This review emphasizes the importance of historical, current, and future climate change scenarios in the development of water resources and practices for sustainable environmental management. As a result, reviewing the findings provides a scientific basis for evidence-based practice for environmental and water resource managers, researchers, and policymakers.

Critical geopolitics in the era of identitarian populism

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Abstract

The transformation of the current world paradigm is generating new, strong stimuli for geopolitical knowledge. The sharpened geopolitical competition grows from colorful mix of postmodern instruments, modern motivation, premodern and hybrid methods, clearly territorialized and deterritorialized threats, state-centric and diffusion processes. Identitarian populism, which restores the boundaries that have been pushed out of the political space by integration and globalization, is getting in the forefront of geopolitical discourse. In international relations, the clash of identities, their instrumentalization and revival of imperial dreams extend the area of critical geopolitics, which has instruments for exploring geographic permanence of power as well as identity discourse, and whose cognitive apparatus is therefore an attractive analysis tool. The article contributes to a debate about options for greater usability of sub-discipline in the new context, proposes arguments for depoliticization of critical geopolitics in the right-left plane, discusses possibilities for complementary, synthetic deployment of neoclassical and critical geopolitics in exploring new context and argues in favour of even closer cooperation with the international relations theory.

How do forewarnings and post-warnings affect misinformation reliance? The impact of warnings on the continued influence effect and belief regression

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Abstract

People often continue to rely on certain information in their reasoning, even if this information has been retracted; this is called the continued influence effect (CIE) of misinformation. One technique for reducing this effect involves explicitly warning people that there is a possibility that they might have been misled. The present study aimed to investigate these warnings’ effectiveness, depending on when they were given (either before or after misinformation). In two experiments (N = 337), we found that while a forewarning did reduce reliance on misinformation, retrospectively warned participants (when the warning was placed either between the misinformation and the retraction or just before testing) relied on the misinformation to a similar degree as unwarned participants. However, the protective effect of the forewarning was not durable, as shown by the fact that reliance on the misinformation increased for over 7 days following the first testing, despite continued memory of the retraction.

Impact of energy efficiency information on homebuying searches: evidence from a visual choice experiment in the USA

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Abstract

A lack of specificity exists on whether likely homebuyers utilize home energy efficiency information in future home searches. This study addresses this gap using a visual choice experiment to sample 1538 intended homebuyers in the USA, and the preference for home attributes through a simplified real estate website. Each home presented on the website featured six attributes: price, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, square footage, number of days on the market, energy efficiency, and a photo — each relative to participants’ initial specification of location, preferred price, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms. The respondents were assigned to one of six experimental conditions where energy information was provided as (i) estimated annual energy costs, (ii) home energy score (number only), (iii) home energy score along a continuum, (iv) estimated annual energy costs and energy score along a continuum, (v) home energy scores provided for only above average homes, and (vi) no energy information provided (control). We find that homebuyers are more likely to select energy efficient homes when presented with any form of energy efficiency information, with conditions that include home energy scores providing the greatest increase in energy efficiency. Furthermore, this preference for energy efficiency information persists even under less-than-ideal home searches. The preference for energy efficient homes is influenced by type of home and region with detached homebuyers and homebuyers in the Midwest US Census region more likely to select homes featuring higher energy efficiency scores. Finally, we find that rural homebuyers are more likely to prefer energy efficient homes over urban homebuyers.