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The Shift Reverse Gradient (SRG) approach presents a void-size-independent hole bypassing scheme for wireless sensor networks. It does not require establishing any chain or hierarchical tree structure to ensure reliable delivery. The proposed Shift Reverse Gradient (SRG) offers an energy-efficient solution with minimal overhead and consumes minimum power. It has a communication overhead equivalent to greedy forwarding. We have shown through the simulation that SRG energy consumption is minimal and is not much affected by an increase in the void size like other existing void bypassing methods.

In this paper, the author intends to show the interaction between the living standards of the population and the financial situation of Polish local government units at the commune level. The first (theoretical) part of the paper provides a synthetic description of topics related to defining the economic terms and to the local government’s ability to impact the standards of living of the local population. In view of the multifaceted nature of terms covered by this analysis, the second part uses a canonical analysis (which means multiple linear regressions are generalized for two sets of variables) in order to identify the relationships between them. The analysis resulted in identifying a number of indicators, including canonical correlations, total redundancy and variances extracted, as well as six statistically significant canonical variates, which enabled the identification of multidimensional relationships between the categories considered. The greatest and the most statistically significant canonical correlation coefficient was over 0.93; for the last statistically significant canonical variate, it was over 0.57. The analysis provides grounds for concluding that when the values of variables representing the financial capacity of Polish rural communes are known, they can be used to explain over 32% of the variance in the set of variables relating to the population’s standards of living. The statistical data originated from the author’s own surveys carried out with presidents and vice-presidents of commune councils.

The Agriculture and Forestry discipline in local normal colleges and universities plays an important role in cultivating talents and higher education to serve the local \"agriculture, rural areas and farmers\". The Land Resource Management discipline is a science that studies the use, allocation, and management of land resources and assets, and has comprehensive and practical features. In the context of the proposal of the rural revitalization strategy and the establishment of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the State Council, the importance of cultivating land resource management talents who understands both land planning and urban planning is self-evident, and the teaching reform of Land Resource Management discipline is receiving much attention. Taking the Land Resource Management discipline of Jiangxi Normal University, a key normal university in Jiangxi Province as an example, combining the characteristics of the discipline setting and the development process, we analyzed the existing problems in its development, so as to provide recommendations for the teaching reform of Land Resource Management discipline in local normal colleges and universities.

Local and organic food production is often linked to geographical identity that drives consumers to buy products due to their intangible attributes such as protection of the environment, support of local communities, and preservation of traditions. The primary objective of this paper was to find out if the Romanian consumers preferred a closer location of organic food production. Research results were based on a random survey, with a sample of 424 people from Romania. Seven variables related to consumer preferences and habits were analyzed through descriptive statistics and by Mann Whitney, Wilcoxon, Kruskal Wallis tests, and Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient. Three location situations were taken under analysis: local vs. other national locations; national vs. other EU locations; and EU vs. the rest of the world. The results revealed that Romanian consumers were prone to local organic food sources, as long as 65% of them preferred locally produced foods over other national sources. A closer location was also more attractive in the other two tested situations, as follows: 77% of the sample preferred foods from Romania to those from other EU countries and 62% preferred European products to those from the rest of the world. The paper concluded that the promotion of the concept of a closer location could be an unexplored opportunity for those interested in the Romanian market.

“For 60 years the World Bank and the development community have been searching for the secret of prosperity. For both thinkers and doers, this has been an emotional rollercoaster of hope and disappointment, certainty and doubt. In the front seat of this drama were the World Bank’s country directors who were responsible for bridging the world of ideas with that of action, the technical with the political. In this book they tell this story from a deeply personal, humble, and engaged perspective. This book is fundamental reading for the next generation of those who take on the quest for development.”Ricardo Hausmann, Professor of the Practice of Economic DevelopmentJohn F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University In At the Frontlines of Development former World Bank country directors recount their experiences, both as managers of the World Bank's programs in global economic hotspots of the 1990s as well as throughout their careers in development economics. These essays detail, among many stories of development in the 1990s, how China and India lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, while Russia collapsed; how Bosnia and Herzegovina and Mozambique remade their war-ravaged economies; and how Thailand, Turkey, and Argentina fell into financial crisis. These remarkable stories, told in first-person by the country directors who were there to witness them, provide candid assessments of development in the 1990s—what succeeded, what failed, and what lessons emerged. This book is part of a larger effort undertaken by the World Bank to understand the development experience of the 1990s, an extraordinary eventful decade. Each of the project‘s three volumes serves a different purpose. Economic Growth in the 1990s provides comprehensive analysis of the decade's development experience, while Development Challenges in the 1990s offers insights on the practical concerns faced by policymakers.

Mercury contamination from artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) currently accounts for 37% of the global total, often affecting tropical regions where regulations, if they exist, are often poorly enforced. Ingestion by people and other animals damages the nervous, reproductive, and cognitive systems. Despite the efforts of many organizations and governments to curb mercury releases from ASGM, it is increasing globally. There are many possible interventions, all with significant complexity and cost. Therefore, we recommend taking an established systematic approach to articulate the current situation and construct theories of change (ToC) for different possible interventions for any government or organization trying to solve this problem. Here we present a high-level situation analysis and generic ToC to support a more coordinated approach that explicitly builds upon previous experience to identify organization- and situation-appropriate engagement on this issue. We then illustrate the use of these generic models to construct a specific ToC with a policy-focused entry point. This includes interventions through (1) engagement with the global Minamata Convention on Mercury; (2) support for existing national laws and policies connected to ASGM and mercury contamination; and (3) engagement of indigenous people and local communities with governments to meet the governments’ legal obligations. By methodically articulating assumptions about interventions, connections among actions, and desired outcomes, it is possible to create a more effective approach that will encourage more coordination and cooperation among governments and other practitioners to maximize their investments and support broad environmental and socio-political outcomes necessary to address this pernicious problem.

The need to manage change in local food environments is increasingly evident in local government policies, including the demand for an integrated and “whole systems” approach. Land‐use planning is often used as a mechanism to promote health—both in the creation of healthy environments and the regulation of unhealthy food environments—for example, through facilitating urban food growing and managing the location and number of unhealthy food outlets. In England, the government recently strengthened the ability of planners to promote health, including through food environments, by publishing a renewed National Planning Policy Framework. It also launched a UK‐wide Food Strategy in 2025, seeking to tackle wider food system challenges. This indicates an intention by the government to strengthen food policy leadership, taking a system lens. To date, this has been predominantly led by local government and civil society action via local food policies and healthy planning programmes. Critical to the success of future action is a better understanding of the complexities and barriers to integrated work to deliver healthier food environments. This article reflects on insights gained from qualitative pre‐Covid‐19 research exploring three local authorities in England and their actors involved with integrated food policies and action. In‐depth interviews elicit the perspectives of key stakeholders, including planners and public health officers, and shed light on some important underlying challenges. Stakeholders revealed a range of constraints affecting the ability to enact integrated policy, including conflicting framing and worldviews of food environments, challenges of ongoing organisational and leadership change, and the long timeframes needed to deliver meaningful impact. Reviewed in the light of more recent literature and policy, the insights gained reflect persistent barriers and constraints that are still of relevance today and should be addressed if implementation of integrated policy towards food environment change on the ground is to be realised.

This paper discusses the financial determinants of the efforts of local government units (LGUs) to invest in the area of energy transition (ET). The main objective is to verify the links between the scale, directions, and funding sources of LGUs’ investments in ET and their budgetary situation described by the level of income independence, budget result, and debt level. The general research hypothesis assumes that the ET investment activity of LGUs is associated with their financial situation. The analysis covers the period 2019–2022 and uses data from the questionnaire-based survey conducted in 2023 among 181 LGUs in the Podkarpackie region in southern Poland. Non-parametric tests were employed to verify the association between the LGUs’ ET investment activity and their financial situation: the Chi2 test, the Mann–Whitney U test, the Kruskal–Wallis test, and the Kendall’s Tau correlation. Financial aspects were shown to influence the scale of municipal ET investments, as well as the type of projects implemented. Among the analysed financial indicators, the debt level was the most important constraint for LGUs to make their own ET investments. The debt level not only determined the scale of municipal ET investment, but also influenced decisions on the type of investments.

Revegetation is one practical application of science that should ideally aim to combine ecology with evolution to maximise biodiversity and ecosystem outcomes. The strict use of locally sourced seed in revegetation programs is widespread and is based on the expectation that populations are locally adapted. This practice does not fully integrate two global drivers of ecosystem change and biodiversity loss: habitat fragmentation and climate change. Here, we suggest amendments to existing strategies combined with a review of alternative seed-sourcing strategies that propose to mitigate against these drivers. We present a provenancing selection guide based on confidence surrounding climate change distribution modelling and data on population genetic and/or environmental differences between populations. Revegetation practices will benefit from greater integration of current scientific developments and establishment of more long-term experiments is key to improving the long-term success. The rapid growth in carbon and biodiversity markets creates a favourable economic climate to achieve these outcomes.

The financial crisis of 2008 and associated recession led to a permanent deterioration in the outlook for the UK’s public finances. As part of the fiscal consolidation implemented by the UK government, grants to local authorities in England were cut by more than a third in real terms between 2009–10 and 2014–15. With limited revenue-raising powers, these cuts meant drastic reductions in local authority spending in total and per person: local authority spending per person fell in real terms by 23.4 per cent over this period. But the size of spending cuts per person differed greatly across local authorities, ranging from 46.3 per cent to 6.2 per cent. On average, the distribution of the cuts across authorities does not seem to reflect the principle of ‘equalisation’ that was, at least in theory, in place up until 2013–14; the local authorities with least revenue-raising capacity (which are typically the most deprived) have on average actually seen the largest spending cuts. Moreover, this pattern looks set to continue over the next five years, with those authorities that have seen the largest cuts to date also expected to see the largest cuts in future.