Burning fossil fuel in the North American continent contributes more to the CO2 global warming problem than in any other continent. The resulting climate changes are expected to alter food production. The overall changes in temperature, moisture, carbon dioxide, insect pests, plant pathogens, and weeds associated with global warming are projected to reduce food production in North America. However, in Africa, the projected slight rise in rainfall is encouraging, especially since Africa already suffers from severe shortages of rainfall. For all (...) regions, a reduction in fossil fuel burning is vital. Adoption of sound ecological resource management, especially soil and water conservation and the prevention of deforestation, is important. Together, these steps will benefit agriculture, the environment, farmers, and society as a whole. (shrink)

The aim of this research was to determine the degree to which undergraduate students’ learning approach, academic achievement and satisfaction were determined by the combination of an intrapersonal factor (self-regulation) and a interpersonal factor (contextual or regulatory teaching). The hypothesis proposed that greater combined regulation (internal and external) would be accompanied by more of a deep approach to learning, more satisfaction and higher achievement, while a lower level of combined regulation would determine a surface approach, less satisfaction and lower achievement. (...) Within an ex post facto design by selection, 1036 university students completed validated questionnaires using an online tool. Several multivariate analyses were conducted. Results showed that the combination of self-regulation and external regulation can be ordered as levels along a five-point scale or heuristic. These levels linearly determine type of learning approach, academic achievement and satisfaction. Implications are established for quality and improvement of the teaching and learning process at university. (shrink)

This theoretical analysis seeks to contribute to three objectives within the context of the proposed Frontiers Research Topic: delimit two levels of analysis in the present pandemic situation: medicine-epidemiology and behavioral psychology, still under-addressed. While medicine has its essential role on the biological side, psychology has a comparable role on the behavioral side. Analyze the importance of behavioral-educational factors in the pandemic situation, using a precise theoretical model from educational psychology for this analysis. Propose preventive, psychoeducational intervention strategies based on (...) the previous analyses. (shrink)

In cybersecurity, there is a call for adaptive, accurate and efficient procedures to identifying performance shortcomings and security breaches. The increasing complexity of both Internet services and traffic determines a scenario that in many cases impedes the proper deployment of intrusion detection and prevention systems. Although it is a common practice to monitor network and applications activity, there is not a general methodology to codify and interpret the recorded events. Moreover, this lack of methodology somehow erodes the possibility of diagnosing (...) whether event detection and recording is adequately performed. As a result, there is an urge to construct general codification and classification procedures to be applied on any type of security event in any activity log. This work is focused on defining such a method using the so-called normalized compression distance (NCD). NCD is parameter-free and can be applied to determine the distance between events expressed using strings. As a first step in the concretion of a methodology for the integral interpretation of security events, this work is devoted to the characterization of web logs. On the grounds of the NCD, we propose an anomaly-based procedure for identifying web attacks from web logs. Given a web query as stored in a security log, a NCD-based feature vector is created and classified using a support vector machine. The method is tested using the CSIC-2010 data set, and the results are analyzed with respect to similar proposals. (shrink)

The state of computing science and, particularly, software engineering and knowledge engineering is generally considered immature. The best starting point for achieving a mature engineering discipline is a solid scientific theory, and the primary reason behind the immaturity in these fields is precisely that computing science still has no such agreed upon underlying theory. As theories in other fields of science do, this paper formally establishes the fundamental elements and postulates making up a first attempt at a theory in this (...) field, considering the features and peculiarities of computing science. The fundamental elements of this approach are informons and holons, and it is a general and comprehensive theory of software engineering and knowledge engineering that related disciplines (e.g., information systems) can particularise and/or extend to take benefit from it (Lakatos’ concepts of core theory and protective belt theories). (shrink)

In this paper we present a paradigmatic example of the use in knowledge management of techniques from other fields, namely mathematical analysis. We also highlight that the Jacobi method presented here takes precedence over the better known Hungarian method. Finally, we signify that the Jacobi method represents the first known or recognized case of serendipity in both knowledge management and operational research. This paper thus demonstrates the intersection between knowledge management, mathematical analysis and operational research and how taking historical perspectives (...) are important for recognising future applications of knowledge management. This results in a better understanding of knowledge management and how it can be applied in the future. It has been shown how knowledge management relates to historical mathematical principles. (shrink)

Economies of scale and equivalent consumption units, which are present in households, must be considered in the measurement of monetary poverty, in order to obtain indicators that approximate the reality of each household. Therefore, in this research, monetary poverty in Ecuador is measured and analyzed at the provincial level for the period 2009–2016. It works with data from the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment and the INEC methodology is used to measure poverty, but per-capita income is replaced by (...) equivalent income, generated by applying a one-parameter scale and two two-parameter scales. The main results show that monetary poverty rates are significantly lower when equivalent income is applied, that there is high poverty sensitivity depending on the equivalence scale used and that the provinces with the highest levels of poverty are located in the Amazon region. (shrink)

The recent interest in wisdom in professional health care practice is explored in this article. Key features of wisdom are identified via consideration of certain classical, ancient and modern sources. Common themes are discussed in terms of their contribution to ‘clinical wisdom’ itself and this is reviewed against the nature of contemporary nursing education. The distinctive features of wisdom (recognition of contextual factors, the place of the person and timeliness) may enable their significance for practice to be promoted in more (...) coherent ways in nursing education. Wisdom as practical knowledge (phronesis) is offered as a complementary perspective within the educational preparation and practice of students of nursing. Certain limitations within contemporary UK nursing education are identified that may inhibit development of clinical wisdom. These are: the modularization of programmes in higher education institutions, the division of pastoral and academic support and the relationship between theory and practice. (shrink)

Monetary intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the dark side of monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics—dishonesty. Dishonesty, a risky prospect, involves cost–benefit analysis of self-interest. We frame good or bad barrels in the environmental context as a proxy of high or low probability of getting caught for dishonesty, respectively. We theorize: The magnitude and intensity of (...) the relationship between love of money and dishonest prospect may reveal how individuals frame dishonesty in the context of two levels of subjective norm—perceived corporate ethical values at the micro-level and Corruption Perceptions Index at the macro-level, collected from multiple sources. Based on 6382 managers in 31 geopolitical entities across six continents, our cross-level three-way interaction effect illustrates: As expected, managers in good barrels, mixed barrels, and bad barrels display low, medium, and high magnitude of dishonesty, respectively. With high CEV, the intensity is the same across cultures. With low CEV, the intensity of dishonesty is the highest in high CPI entities —the Enron Effect, but the lowest in low CPI entities. CPI has a strong impact on the magnitude of dishonesty, whereas CEV has a strong impact on the intensity of dishonesty. We demonstrate dishonesty in light of monetary values and two frames of social norm, revealing critical implications to the field of behavioral economics and business ethics. (shrink)