Topic Review
Street Gang Intervention
Tackling street gangs has recently been highlighted as a priority for public health. In this paper, the four components of a public health approach were reviewed: (1) surveillance, (2) identifying risk and protective factors, (3) developing and evaluating interventions at primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary intervention stages, and (4) implementation of evidence-based programs. Findings regarding the effectiveness of prevention and intervention programs for street gang members were mixed, with unclear goals/objectives, limited theoretical foundation, and a lack of consistency in program implementation impeding effectiveness at reducing street gang involvement. The Good Lives Model was proposed as a framework for street gang intervention.
  • 1.0K
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Meat Quality Perception in Argentina
In Argentina, color and intramuscular fat are the main attributes of raw beef quality; however, it is necessary to clarify how consumers use them, in order to establish different marketing strategies. Consumer preferences are affected by multiple factors. Thus, the objective of the present study was to identify the Argentinian consumer’s choice behavior regarding beef color and fat content. An online survey was carried out in Argentina. It inquired about socio-demographic characteristics, purchase and consumption habits and beliefs, showing pictures related to color, marbling and the amount of fat. Choice behavior was evaluated by asking why consumers chose a particular picture out of the ones shown. Several Kruskal–Wallis tests evaluated the different hypotheses. Three different decision trees using the CHAID analysis method were created. Multifactorial analysis was carried out for clustering consumers. Regarding consumer beliefs, 90% of the respondents agreed with the sentence, “The two main characteristics defining beef quality at purchase time are meat color and marbling”. Socio-demographic characteristics affected purchase habits and beliefs; they also affected perceptions about meat color and marbling. It was possible to build three consumer groups for future marketing strategies: “hedonic” focused on a pleasing sensory experience, “appearance” prioritized the visual aspects, and the “health-conscious” consumers were interested in their healthy nutrition. 
  • 878
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Wicked Problems
Wicked problem thinking is regaining interest in different disciplines, mostly because of the complex and interdependent contemporary issues that are particularly challenging for policy makers. This type of problems is difficult, even impossible to tackle by defining optimal solutions because of both deep uncertainty and high complexity. The causes and effects of wicked problems are cross-scale and multi-level; they are extremely difficult to identify due to the system dynamics and non-linear interactions. Thus, most of these problems are symptoms of or related to other problems. Moreover, wicked problems are poorly formulated and boundary-spanning issues where involved stakeholders bring different perspectives to the definitions and potential resolution of the issue. Indeed, the wicked nature stems from biophysical and social complexity, where divergent values related to multi-stakeholders’ perceptions and interests influence largely the problem-solving and determining desirable outcomes.
  • 1.9K
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Visual Ageism
The concept of “visual ageism” describes the media practice of visually underrepresenting older people or misrepresenting them in a prejudiced way. Visual ageism refers to visual representations of older people being in peripheral or minor roles without positive attributes; non-realistic, exaggerated, or distorted portraits of older people, and over-homogenized characterizations of older people. 
  • 1.4K
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Psychological Traits and E-Commerce
Psychological traits—need of achievement (“N of Ach”) and risk-taking propensity (RTP)—on perceived usefulness (PUF) and perceived ease of use (PercEU), as well as their effects, influence the intention to use e-commerce among rural micro-entrepreneurs.
  • 567
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Port City Sustainability
In resent years, with the development of society, the sustainability of port cities is increasingly valued. Port cities face huge challenges, and their sustainability needs to be better understood.
  • 922
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Participatory Democracy and Sustainability
The crisis of representative democracy triggered democratic innovations. Endeavors for the qualification of democratic systems and democratic reforms are high on the agenda. Political participation plays an important role in democracies. With the Rio conference in the 1990s, the Local Agenda 21 strategies strengthened a new trend towards more deliberative political participation, focusing on sustainability. Political participation is defined as an individual and organized act to influence political decision-making. Democratic innovations focus on political participatory instruments, electoral reforms, etc. In contrast, civic engagement and all forms of communal self-help predominately concentrate on producing certain services and, in general, do not include any decision-making competencies. This social innovation is not primarily oriented towards the influence of decision-making, but focuses on civic engagement as co-production. Political participation and civic engagement are interdependent, but have to be differentiated.
  • 583
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Measuring the Impact of LivingLabs
The living labs (LLs) approach has been applied around the globe to generate innovation within and suited to real-life problems and contexts. Despite the promise of the LL approach for addressing complex challenges like socio-ecological change, there is a gap in practitioner and academic community knowledge surrounding how to measure and evaluate both the performance of a given LL process and its wider impacts. Notably, this gap appears particularly acute in LLs designed to address environmental or agricultural sustainability. This article seeks to verify and address this knowledge gap by conducting an adopted scoping review method which uses a combination of tools for text mining alongside human text analysis. In total, 138 academic articles were screened, out of which 88 articles were read in full and 41 articles were found relevant for this study. The findings reveal limited studies putting forward generalizable approaches or frameworks for evaluating the impact of LLs and even fewer in the agricultural or sustainability sector. The dominant method for evaluation used in the literature is comparative qualitative case studies. This research uncovers a potential tension regarding LL work: the specificity of LL studies works against the development of evaluation indicators and a universal framework to guide the impact assessment of LLs across jurisdictions and studies in order to move toward generalizability.
  • 1.1K
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Jakarta’s Destination Brand Image
Destination image and city branding are accumulating a growing body of knowledge in urban studies and tourism literature. Although several visitor destination image models have been proposed, the most prevalent in Asia remains the comprehensive destination image model. This is the first research to test the applicability of this model beyond the United States and with international (rather than domestic) visitors. Jakarta is chosen as the geographical test area for this study, which incorporates structural equation modeling on a data sample of international leisure visitors in Jakarta. The findings indicate that the destination image model could be generalized beyond the US and applied to Jakarta. This study finds that tourism policymakers in Jakarta should focus on promoting the friendliness of local residents and improving the city’s cleanliness, as these are the two most positive and negative perceptions. Overall, this study showed that a unique destination image—a largely under-researched topic in place branding—is a variable that should be considered when formulating the overall place image of city destinations around the world. 
  • 652
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Catalytic Actions of Transformation Catalysts
Transformation catalysts (TCs) are ways of organizing that take catalytic actions to connect, cohere, and amplify the efforts of numerous initiatives oriented towards resolving complex socio-ecological problems like the ones embedded in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. TCs target systems-level solutions by working with narrative to bring about cognitive or paradigm shifts and orient towards systemic change. They take catalytic actions by connecting, cohering, and amplifying the actions of numerous otherwise unconnected actors. TCs use sensemaking processes to problematize and create urgency around key issues, through adopting a systems orientation. 
  • 2.5K
  • 28 Sep 2021
  • Page
  • of
  • 285
Video Production Service