Social Sciences

Abstract: Most research on generative AI in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) asks whether firms adopt the technology. It rarely asks how they source it. Yet a small firm's main AI decision is often a governance choice: develop the capability in-house, buy a standardized software-as-a-service (SaaS) tool, or delegate the function to a managed service provider. This study argues that the best sourcing mode depends on the jurisdiction. Two parameters vary across countries: the opportunity cost of staff time, and the governance cost of handling data under national rules. We develop a Net Sourcing Value (NSV) model based on transaction cost economics and the task-based view of technological change. We apply it to stylized SME profiles in the United States and Switzerland. The two economies have similar per-capita income but very different wage levels, labor-market institutions, and data protection regimes. The illustrative analysis gives three findings. First, in-house development is the dominated mode in both countries at typical SME task volumes. It only becomes competitive above a scale threshold of roughly 5,000 automatable hours per year. Second, the preferred mode differs by country: standardized SaaS ranks first in the U.S. profile and managed delegation in the Swiss profile. Third, this reversal is driven mainly by the labor-cost parameter, and the switching wage falls within a narrow band of about 60–65 units per hour. Governance costs reinforce the effect but do not cause it. We discuss implications for SME owners, advisors, and policymakers and propose an agenda for empirical calibration.

Abstract: Nepal’s coffee sector is promoted as a high-value, climate sensitive opportunity for mid-hill smallholders, yet its progress is usually judged by planted area. We harmonise official statistics spanning three decades a national series (1994/95–2013/14), five later national observations (2014/15–2024/25) and district tables for 2013/14 and 2024/25 and triangulate them against FAO yields, trade records and a recent plot level study. Reported plantation area grew from 136 ha to 5,501 ha (10.1% yr⁻¹ after 2013/14), whereas green bean output reached only 642 t; yield on plantation area fell from about 225 kg ha⁻¹ (2013/14) to 117 kg ha⁻¹ (2024/25), 17.5% of Ethiopia’s FAO reported yield. Between 2000/01 and 2013/14, production moved one-for-one with area (elasticity 1.01, R² = 0.94) and yield showed no trend (p = 0.74), a pattern consistent with area-derived production estimates. In 24 matched districts, median yield fell from 238 to 111 kg ha⁻¹ (21 declines; Wilcoxon p < 0.001), but the fall was unrelated to expansion speed (Spearman ρ = -0.05) and occurred in all six slowly expanding districts, which weakens an immature plantation explanation. Three districts (Kavre, Nuwakot, Ilam) supply 46% of output, and Koshi Province holds 31.5% of area but 20.0% of output. Meeting claimed demand of 6,000–8,000 t would need 51,000–69,000 ha at today’s reported yield but 12,000–22,000 ha at plot-level yields of 364–486 kg ha⁻¹. Nepal’s coffee constraint is therefore productivity and measurement rather than land. We propose a bearing area census and plot-level monitoring as preconditions for evidence-based coffee policy.

Abstract: Serve return in tennis requires continuous integration between visual information and action regulation, a process that, according to ecological dynamics, emerges from the coupling between perception and action. The present pilot study explored gaze behaviour in competitive and recreational tennis players during serve return, considering fixation duration and count, spatial dispersion of gaze coordinates, and differences between the pre- and post-bounce phases. Four university students who play tennis (two competitive, two recreational) each completed 40 serve returns under representative conditions, wearing a Pupil Labs Neon eye-tracking system. Data were analysed at the block level and at the single-response level using descriptive statistics and mixed-effects models: competitive players showed on average longer fixations, a lower number of fixations, and less spatial dispersion of gaze; in both groups, fixation duration was greater in the pre-bounce phase than in the post-bounce phase; and competitive players descriptively achieved higher serve-return scores, with high-scoring serve returns showing greater overall fixation time. Given the exploratory nature of the study, these patterns suggest that the temporal and spatial organisation of gaze may help characterise the serve return, and point to the usefulness of representative protocols that preserve the functional rela-tionships between visual information and action.

Abstract: This study examines how truth claims are constructed, contested, and negotiated within the liquid digital environment, extending Zygmunt Bauman's (2000, 2007) theory of liquid modernity into digital epistemology. Using a triangulated qualitative design combining phenomenological inquiry, digital ethnography, and critical discourse analysis, the research investigated how individuals navigate competing truth claims within an increasingly fluid and algorithmically mediated information ecosystem. Data comprised 45 in-depth interviews with social media users in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada; 12 months of digital ethnographic observation across six platforms; and critical discourse analysis of 500 digital interactions concerning contested truth claims posted between 2016 and 2025. The findings show that the digital environment has reorganized the epistemic frameworks through which participants assess reality, producing adaptive credibility strategies alongside heightened ontological insecurity. Three mechanisms emerged through which digital liquidity shapes truth perception: algorithmic mediation of visibility, performative authenticity across multiple identities, and epistemic communities that sustain parallel truth ecosystems. Seventy-eight percent of participants reported diminished confidence in discerning truth online, even as they described sophisticated heuristics for managing uncertainty, including lateral reading, epistemic patience, and the cultivation of algorithmic personas. Awareness of generative artificial intelligence produced a condition of synthetic doubt, in which the mere possibility of machine authorship became grounds for doubting any content. Integrating these findings with recent experimental, meta-analytic, and philosophical scholarship on algorithmic amplification, testimonial trust, and synthetic media, the study proposes liquid epistemology as a framework capturing the fluid, contextual, and perpetually renegotiated character of truth in digital spaces, considers its transferability to high-connectivity, high-trust societies such as Saudi Arabia, and identifies priorities for comparative, longitudinal, and intervention research.

Abstract: This paper examines whether the survival value of different financing sources is contingent on exposure to an exogenous shock. We assemble hand-collected survey data on 301 startups founded during 2021–2022 across five provinces of Vietnam's Mekong Delta—a peripheral entrepreneurial ecosystem within a bank-based emerging economy—and track them for up to 56 months, observing 114 market exits. Cox proportional hazards models show that external finance is protective: debt, angel investment, and family-and-friends funding significantly reduce the exit hazard, whereas re-liance on founder equity increases it; government financial support has no detectable effect. Criti-cally, these effects are concentrated almost entirely among Covid-exposed ventures. Within the exposed cohort, a one-log-unit increase in founder-equity funding is associated with a more than four-fold exit hazard (HR = 4.51; p = 0.001), while debt reduces the hazard by roughly a quarter per log-unit (HR = 0.77; p < 0.001); among non-exposed ventures, financing composition is essentially unrelated to survival. Discrete-time, matching, and logistic estimates corroborate these patterns. The findings challenge the view of debt as a source of fragility for young firms and indicate that financing structure operates as a crisis-contingent resource, with implications for founders, lenders, and the design of startup support policy in emerging economies.

Abstract: The increasing interest in recycled aggregates as an alternative to natural resources has generated a rapidly expanding body of scientific literature; however, the global evolution, intellectual structure, and emerging research directions of this field require comprehensive assessment. This study ana-lyzes two decades of research on recycled aggregates in concrete through a bibliometric and sci-ence-mapping approach. Bibliographic records indexed in Scopus between 2006 and 2025 were retrieved using the search terms “recycled aggregate” and “concrete” and analyzed using Biblio-metrix/Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. A total of 14,044 documents from 1,513 sources were identified, showing an annual growth rate of 19.51%, with publications increasing from 74 in 2006 to 2,189 in 2025. China emerged as the leading country in scientific production, while Tongji University was the most productive institution. Keyword co-occurrence analysis revealed three major conceptual domains associated with recycled aggregate utilization, mechanical performance and durability, and sustainability and environmental impact. Thematic evolution showed a progressive transition from research focused primarily on compressive strength and technical feasibility toward more integrated approaches involving durability, microstructure, sustainable development, and waste utilization. Recent topics such as machine learning, forecasting, carbon sequestration, and geo-polymer concrete indicate an emerging shift toward predictive tools and decarbonization-oriented strategies. Overall, the findings demonstrate that recycled aggregate concrete research has evolved from establishing technical feasibility toward optimizing material performance, environmental benefits, and advanced predictive assessment.

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between visual design, user trust, distrust, and willingness to provide personal information in digital interfaces under conditions of information overload. A quantitative survey was conducted among 390 respondents from Bishkek using four structured questionnaires representing different combinations of website familiarity and visual design quality. Participants evaluated interface characteristics associated with trust and distrust and indicated which types of personal information they would be willing to provide. In addition, a dataset of 1,000 website screenshots was analyzed to identify recurring visual and structural patterns in contemporary digital interfaces. The results indicate that high-quality images, intuitive navigation, readable typography, and clear visual organization are frequently associated with trust, while pop-ups and advertisements, visual clutter, overly bright or aggressive colors, outdated design, and insufficient company information are associated with distrust. The findings on personal information indicate that users distinguish between different levels of data sensitivity and show greater reluctance to provide more sensitive information, particularly in low-trust conditions. The study demonstrates that visual and structural characteristics of digital interfaces are related not only to users’ perceptions of trust and distrust but also to their stated willingness to provide personal information. The findings provide a basis for practical recommendations aimed at designing clearer and more trustworthy digital interfaces.

Abstract: The social sciences have traditionally positioned themselves as disciplines of explanation, interpretation, critique, and diagnosis. Yet societies marked by historical violence, institutional fracture, epistemic dispossession, ecological disruption, and persistent social fragmentation increasingly require more than diagnosis. They require forms of knowledge capable of participating in processes of repair without abandoning analytical rigor. This article develops the concept of Restorative Social Sciences and proposes the Transformational Triangle as a theoretical framework linking three mutually constitutive functions of transformative knowledge: Critical Knowledge, Collective Healing, and Institutional Innovation. Drawing on decolonial scholarship, critical social theory, restorative justice, community-based research, African relational thought, and recent scholarship on radical healing and social repair, the article argues that critique alone can reveal structures of domination without necessarily generating institutional alternatives; healing without structural analysis can individualise suffering; and institutional innovation without historical and epistemic reflection can reproduce the very structures it seeks to reform. Restorative Social Sciences therefore integrates these three functions within a single transformational architecture. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is developed as a strategic case in which the need for such an approach is particularly visible because historical extraction, political violence, institutional fragility, ecological pressures, and epistemic dependency intersect. The article proposes a Congolese Paradigm of Societal Regeneration in which social transformation is understood not as a return to an imagined prior equilibrium but as the creation of new capacities for knowledge, relationship, institutional agency, and collective futurity. The framework contributes to debates on decoloniality by shifting the question from the critique of coloniality toward the design of post-captivity social orders.

Abstract: Agenda-setting research emphasizes the role of media visibility in shaping public attention, but longitudinal relationships between recorded crime and media reporting require methods that account for temporal dependence. This study examined national and municipal crime indicators alongside annual Canadian Newsstream mentions of the RCMP, Vancouver Police, and Toronto Police. The national series covered 1969–2023, while the Vancouver and Toronto analyses covered 2002–2023. Initial level-based regressions exhibited severe positive residual autocorrelation. The analysis was therefore repeated using annual first differences, Newey–West standard errors, and AR(1) sensitivity models. After accounting for temporal dependence, none of the national or municipal crime indicators demonstrated a statistically significant and robust association with annual changes in the corresponding media-mention series. The results do not establish that crime rates predict police-related media visibility or that the observed media counts influence public perceptions. Instead, they demonstrate how shared trends and serial dependence can produce misleading relationships in longitudinal media analyses. Interpretation is further limited because organizational mentions do not fully capture crime reporting, and Canadian Newsstream’s archival composition may vary across years.

Abstract: Autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents are increasingly transacting with one another and with digital services without direct human mediation, and dollar-pegged stablecoins have emerged as the dominant settlement medium for this machine-to-machine (M2M) commerce. Industry data indicate that agent-initiated stablecoin settlements grew from a negligible base to tens of millions of dollars across hundreds of millions of micro-transactions within roughly a year, with a single stablecoin issuer accounting for the overwhelming majority of settled value. This concentration, combined with the sub-second, high-frequency, low-value nature of agent payments, raises under-examined questions about transaction failure, liquidity adequacy, and settlement risk that existing payment-systems literature — built largely around human-initiated, lower-frequency transactions — does not directly address. This study develops and empirically tests a structural model in which liquidity adequacy, settlement latency/throughput constraints, issuer credibility and reserve transparency, and protocol interoperability jointly predict transaction failure likelihood, which in turn predicts settlement risk exposure and, ultimately, organizational intention to adopt stablecoin-based agent payment infrastructure; regulatory clarity is modeled as a moderator of the interoperability–failure relationship. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS on survey data from 385 professionals across blockchain engineering, AI agent development, fintech risk/compliance, and treasury functions, the measurement model demonstrates strong reliability and convergent/discriminant validity (all composite reliabilities > 0.90; all AVE > 0.66; HTMT < 0.65), and the structural model explains 40.3% of variance in transaction failure likelihood and 36.2% in settlement risk exposure. All four exogenous predictors significantly influence transaction failure likelihood, transaction failure likelihood significantly predicts settlement risk exposure (β = 0.501, p < .001), and regulatory clarity significantly moderates the interoperability–failure relationship. Bootstrapped mediation confirms that transaction failure likelihood partially mediates the effect of protocol interoperability on settlement risk (indirect effect = −0.172, 95% CI [−0.221, −0.124]). The paper contributes a domain-specific construct set and validated instrument for agentic-payment risk, offers evidence-based guidance for stablecoin issuers, protocol designers, and enterprises deploying autonomous agents, and outlines a concrete pathway — including a fully documented replication dataset — for extending this model with primary field data.

Abstract: Organisations are increasingly expected to address both climate change mitigation and adaptation; however, these agendas are often developed through separate governance, planning, and management processes, creating barriers to integrated climate action. While existing frameworks provide valuable guidance on climate governance, risk management, adaptation planning, and disclosure, they offer limited support for translating climate ambitions into coordinated organisational implementation. This study develops a transferable Organisational Climate Capability Framework for integrating climate mitigation, adaptation, climate-risk management, governance, and implementation within existing organisational systems. The framework was developed through an integrative review of climate resilient development, climate governance, adaptation planning, co-production, and organisational capability literature and refined through iterative application within a government organisation. The framework identifies six interconnected implementation mechanisms: governance integration, stakeholder co-development, risk-informed planning, integrated prioritisation, institutional embedding, and implementation readiness. These mechanisms contribute to the development of organisational climate capability, conceptualised as the capacity to coordinate, sustain, learn from, and adapt climate action over time. The study proposes that organisational climate capability mediates the relationship between integrated climate governance and climate-resilient development outcomes. The paper contributes a practical framework and climate capability maturity model to support organisational assessment, capability development, and continuous improvement, providing an organisational pathway for operationalising climate-resilient development and supporting sustainable development objectives.

Abstract: Research on societal resilience and national security has increasingly focused on the factors that determine citizens’ readiness to defend the state; however, the interrelationships among individual financial resilience, institutional trust, and motivation for civil defense remain under-explored. The aim of this article is to empirically assess the direct and indirect effects of individual financial resilience on citizens’ willingness to defend the state, and to compare the structure of these relationships in Estonia and Lithuania, while accounting for the moderating effects of income and ethnicity. The study employed a quantitative comparative research method, and moderated mediation was applied to assess to hypothesis. The results showed that in both countries, individual financial resilience significantly increases institutional trust and citizens’ willingness to defend the state, and that institutional trust significantly mediates this relationship. In Estonia, a significant moderating effect of income and ethnic affiliation was found, whereas in Lithuania, the influence of these factors was not confirmed. The results indicate that financial resilience and institutional trust are important prerequisites for public willingness to defend the country, but their interaction depends on the national context. This study contributes to research on societal resilience and national security by highlighting the importance of economic and institutional factors in shaping citizens’ willingness to contribute to national defense.

Abstract: Problem solving is a universal, innate, unceasing activity in the living sphere, survival depends on it. The ensuing problematic areas of surviving, achieving ambitions, adapting to environments and troubleshooting are considered in this article. Problem solving is described as the mental processes involved in identifying a problem and specifying the details of its required resolution followed by the dynamic system and static structure as the means of implementation. The ‘subject-predicate’ form of natural language is about : ‘Something is said about the subject by the predicate’, or ‘The predicate describes what the subject is connected to’. The static and dynamic version of the latter is developed as the elementary constituent or ordered pair of structures and systems. Stories in natural language are used as the first step in identifying problematic areas which are transformed by linguistic modelling into reasoning schemes leading to representation of 1st and 2nd order cybernetic configurations by predicate logic conditionals. This forms an empirical, integrated theory of problem solving using systems thinking and processed, natural language as the symbolic basis. The method is applied to instances of product and safety engineering and introduces application of ChatGPT in the APPENDIX.

Abstract: This study investigates the pathway through which short-term macroeconomic dynamics impact the financial performance of publicly listed residential real estate firms in Israel, addressing a gap in the literature that often focuses solely on macro-level housing market aggregates. We employ Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) on 190 firm-year observations from 38 companies spanning the high-volatility period of 2020–2024. The model, which demonstrated strong overall explanatory power, maps the linkages from core macroeconomic inputs (interest rates, construction costs) to corporate profitability. Core results reveal a stark divergence in the efficacy of macroeconomic tools: While Central Bank interest rate hikes powerfully suppress transaction volumes, corporate profitability is primarily driven by the positive and significant transmission of Construction Input Index (CII) inflation to housing prices. Crucially, this study quantifies the effect of Israel’s unique institutional feature: the widespread contractual indexation of pre-sale agreements. This mechanism functions as an effective risk-transfer conduit, insulating developers from cost volatility and allowing them to convert market price appreciation into significantly enhanced corporate performance. Furthermore, maintaining a strong capital structure (higher Equity/Assets ratio) is shown to be vital for firm resilience. The findings suggest that effective policy aimed at price moderation must target structural supply rigidity and rising input costs rather than relying exclusively on demand-side monetary interventions.

Abstract: The question of which structural levers actually enhance climate governance arises when hydrocarbon-dependent economies strive for low-carbon growth. In fact, this paper aims to analyze the impact of climate economy and ‎sustainability‎, digital transformation and ‎smart platform, economic development‎, trade openness and women's empowerment ‎and leadership on climate governance in short and long term in Saudi Arabia from 1990 to 2025 using the Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) approach. The unit root tests: Philipps-Perron (PP) and Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) verify that all series are integrated of order one. The Wald test (F = 41.96) indicates the presence of long run relationships between variables. However, the Bounds test (F = 12.75) verify that long run cointegration relationships exist, and the CUSUM and CUSUMSQ plots verify parameter stability. The chosen ARDL(1,0,1,2,0,0) specification indicates that in the short term, female labor force participation (-0.122), digital transformation (-3.738 contemporaneous; -3.097 lagged), and renewable energy consumption (-1.537) all significantly lower per-capita emissions, while GDP effects cancel each other out across lags and trade openness is negligible. Long-term impacts like digital transformation (-6.955), renewable energy (-1.564), and women's empowerment (-0.125) are substantial at 1%, whereas trade openness and economic progress have no equilibrium influence. Therefore, as complementary tools of climate governance under Vision 2030, policy should prioritize expedited deployment of renewable energy, ongoing investment in e-government and smart platforms, and participation of women in the labor market.

Abstract: Acute poisoning places a substantial burden on health systems in low- and middle-income countries, where limited medical toxicology capacity can constrain timely diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. However, little is known about healthcare workers’ perspectives on medical toxicology needs in Nigerian tertiary healthcare settings. This study explored healthcare workers’ perspectives on poisoning management and medical toxicology needs at a tertiary referral hospital in Abuja, Nigeria. A qualitative descriptive study was conducted at the National Hospital, Abuja. Fourteen purposively selected healthcare professionals completed a pre-interview survey and participated in face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis. Two overarching themes emerged: factors influencing poisoning and its management, and opportunities to strengthen poisoning management. Participants described socioeconomic vulnerability, environmental and occupational exposures, cultural health practices, and limited medical toxicology training as important challenges. They also identified inadequate antidote availability, limited access to specialist toxicology advice, lack of poison information services, and the need for improved surveillance, clinical decision-support tools, and continuing professional development. The findings identify key priorities for strengthening poisoning management, including medical toxicology training, antidote availability, poison information services, and surveillance, which may be relevant to similar tertiary healthcare settings in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa.

Abstract: Regional economies with high extractive dependence have high exposure to external shocks, but their monitoring faces restrictions due to the low frequency of regional statistics. The objective of this study is to analyze the trajectory of Meta’s business cycle and its response to shocks by constructing the Coincident Economic Activity Indicator for Meta, by its Spanish acronym, ICAEM, by their acronyms in Spanish. To do this, monthly information was consolidated (2010–2025), estimating a Dynamic Factor Model, complemented with the extraction of the cyclical component and Local Projections. The results show that the ICAEM consistently reproduces the turning points of the activity and presents high synchronization with the national cycle, although with larger amplitude fluctuations. Overall, Meta's sensitivity to external and macroeconomic shocks does not depend exclusively on its oil specialization, but on the interaction between its productive structure, costs, financial conditions, and territorial logistical restrictions. Local Projections show asymmetric transmission patterns in the face of international price shocks and failures in the national road infrastructure. The ICAEM constitutes a monthly monitoring tool that allows timely identification of changes in the cycle and provides empirical evidence to guide economic decisions and public policies in natural resource-intensive regions.

Abstract: This article examines whether global value added is better explained by territorial scale, sectoral specialization, time, or the configuration that emerges when specific sectors are embedded in specific economies. Using the OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) 2025 edition for 1995–2022, the study applies a hypothetico-deductive design to a clean panel of individual economies and ISIC section sectors. The empirical strategy combines fixed-effect variance decomposition, transformation robustness, sectoral-share analysis, principal component analysis, cluster validation, concentration indicators, structural-change measures, and external robustness tests using World Bank WDI covariates. The evidence shows that economy, sector, and year effects are all relevant, but the economy-sector configuration carries the strongest explanatory weight. Controls for GDP, population, GDP per capita, and trade openness confirm that observed differences are not reducible to economic size. More demanding economy-sector fixed-effect models also indicate that sectoral composition remains informative after persistent pair-specific heterogeneity and global year shocks are absorbed. The article contributes to global value-chain and structural-transformation research by showing that value-added heterogeneity is primarily territorial-sectoral: it arises from the way sectors are organized within particular economies.

Abstract: The rapid growth of social media has transformed how individuals’ access, consume, and share information. While these platforms have improved the speed and accessibility of communication, they have also encouraged reading behaviours characterised by rapid scanning, superficial engagement, and immediate reactions. As a result, users frequently overlook information that is clearly presented, ask questions that have already been answered, and form opinions without fully engaging with the original content. Existing research has largely explained these behaviours through concepts such as information overload, cognitive load, misinformation, and digital literacy. However, these concepts do not adequately explain why individuals consistently fail to engage with information that is readily available despite having the opportunity and ability to do so, nor do they sufficiently consider how behavioural influence within digital environments reinforces this tendency. This paper addresses this gap by further developing and formalising Information Ignorance as a multidimensional theoretical construct within information-behaviour scholarship. Drawing on Information Overload Theory, Cognitive Load Theory, Dual Process Theory, Information Foraging Theory, the Attention Economy, and Social Engineering Theory, the paper develops an integrated conceptual framework explaining how information overload, cognitive fatigue, heuristic processing, and social engineering interact to influence social media reading behaviour and subsequent behavioural outcomes. The study contributes to information behaviour literature by positioning Information Ignorance as a distinct construct that complements, rather than replaces, existing theories. It further extends the application of social engineering beyond its traditional cybersecurity context by demonstrating its role in shaping everyday information engagement on social media.

Abstract: Sus scrofa (wild boar), a native species in Catalonia, has been considered a pest for several decades due to its economic and social impacts, including road traffic accidents and agricultural damage. As a result, it is subject to control strategies that combine increased hunting pressure with measures aimed at reducing its reproductive capacity. In the context of exacerbated human-wild boar conflicts, including the 2025-2026 African swine fever outbreak, this article analyses the current Wild Boar Monitoring Programme in Catalonia and current population management strategies to assess their implications for human-wild boar coexistence. Based on data obtained through transparency requests to the Government of Catalonia covering the period of available official records, including programme reports, breeding facility records, and accident statistics, the article examines potential contradictions and broader socio-political processes in which the category of pest emerges from human management practices rather than purely ecological conditions.