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The paper reviews existing literature on South Asian ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) and identifies how community participation can be used to plan and implement ecosystem-based DRR approaches.

The literature review methodology involved several stages. Firstly, the research objective was determined. Secondly keywords for the literature search were determined. Scopus, Google Scholar, JSTOR and AUT online library were utilized for the literature search. After the search, the literature was screened. The study design, methodology, results and limitations were identified and documented. After data extraction, the literature was analyzed. The patterns, trends and inconsistencies in the literature were identified based on the research question. Later the gaps, controversies and future research needs were identified. Then, a comprehensive and structured literature review that summarizes the relevant literature, synthesizes the findings and provides a critical evaluation of the literature was documented. After writing the document, it was reviewed and edited to ensure its clarity, accuracy and coherence.

The paper identifies four different themes recurrently emerging in literature on the importance of community participation in ecosystem-based DRR in South Asia. The themes are local community participation in ecosystem-based DRR governance, knowledge production, livelihood enhancement and increased public acceptance.

The paper also illustrates the challenges in integrating community participation with the dominant physical scientific approaches ecosystem-based DRR and proposes a five-element framework to facilitate the integration.

The role of local authorities is crucial in addressing the essential needs of communities, and they possess the right to impose property taxes on all properties within their territory. Property taxes are levied on all properties, contributing to approximately 60% of the local authority’s finances. However, their role in this policy is not frequently understood, primarily in executing property tax reassessment. Hence, this paper aims to reveal property tax reassessment implementation and identify its key challenges.

The latest tone of the list record was extracted from the local government division, Ministry of Housing and Local Government Malaysia, to answer the research objective. The data were received on November 2021 by email. Furthermore, through the literature review, the most significant challenges in property tax reassessment were identified, compared and presented.

The results highlight that property tax reassessment implementation in West Malaysia is at the level of concern where only two councils have the latest tone of the list. However, larger councils have a higher performance compared to smaller councils. The findings also reveal various challenges in property tax reassessment, such as insufficient human resources, inadequate property systems and software and lack of financial capacity. Others include a shortage of competent assessors, lower public education, political interference and socioeconomic uncertainty.

This study offers practical implications to policy and decision-makers in the West Malaysian local authorities. Despite inferior performance by West Malaysian local authorities, there is a need for conducting property tax reassessment activity to ensure the quality and uniformity of the assessment. This study suggests that local government stakeholders and managers should devote more attention to formulating long-term plans and promoting the property tax reassessment practice. The property tax reform could solve the current situation of substandard reassessment activity.

This study explains, compares and interprets the actual statistical data through the figures and summarises the challenges of property tax reassessment activity among local authorities.

The study examined the influence of slums on policies affecting the slums' lives in Ghana.

An exploratory qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews (IDIs) was used to select 24 respondents using purposive and snowball sampling techniques.

The findings show that slum dwellers have an adequate understanding of policies that affect the dwellers' lives. Furthermore, slum dwellers use statutory, technological, media and right-to-vote-based strategies to influence government policies. This also indicates that implemented policies do not align with realities in the slums

The outcome of this study cannot be generalised to represent the whole population of slums due to the inherent limitations associated with a qualitative design

This study uncovers context-specific strategies through which slum residents influence policies. The study concedes that policy actors involve the slums in policies that affect their livelihoods

The results are unique not only to developing countries, but are also useful to other economies with similar characteristics.

The role of academic libraries in dissemination of information and facilitating research of academic community is well-established world over. However, a significant role of libraries in ensuring fair use of information to promote an ethical research culture at the higher education institutes is also flourishing. This study aims to explore the perceived causes of unethical use of literature by university scholars and deterrents to plagiarism in universities of Pakistan.

The design of the study was qualitative, and interviews were conducted on nine university library heads in Pakistan who were officially administrating anti-plagiarism (Turnitin) software service at their universities and were providing “similarity index certification” of PhD and MPhil research work through the software. They were purposively selected for the interviews because of their direct interaction with the researchers and faculty on matters of information searching as well as its ethical use. The study is based on PhD thesis work of the first author.

The findings of the study depicted that conceptual unawareness of plagiarism, lack of information skills, socio-cultural factors and weak policies were the prime reasons for unethical research practices among graduate scholars. Participants were positive that a role of university library in combating plagiarism through provision of anti-plagiarism software and guidance could prove more beneficial for both the researchers and libraries.

Multiple studies have been conducted, in and out of south Asian region, to gather the views of the students and faculty on the matters of academic misconduct. However, no study was found presenting the views of the other stakeholders in promotion of academic integrity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is first of its kind in South Asian context and provided observation-based views of a group of university library heads who are also administrating anti-plagiarism service in their universities on the causes and deterrents to plagiarism.

This research uses contingency theory and Venkatraman’s concept of moderating fit to explore how key project stakeholders (clients, consultants and suppliers) influence project performance from the perspective of small and medium contractors in the Jordanian construction industry.

An anonymous structured survey was performed comprising 200 key informants including senior project managers, construction managers, engineers and general managers working for small- and medium-sized contractors in the Jordanian construction industry. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data.

The results of this study show that consultant-related factors (quality of documentation produced, ability to communicate and technical competencies) are perceived to have the most significant direct effect on project performance, followed by client-related factors (payment promptness, decision certainty and documentation control) and supplier-related factors (supplier performance, defects control and logistics management).

The results contribute new theoretical, empirical and practical insights to existing construction project performance research by highlighting the key performance factors which need to be managed for each stakeholder group to ensure effective project performance from a small- and medium-sized contractor perspective.

It has been suggested that homicides in Jamaica are partly driven by conflicts among criminals over funds coming from international lottery scams; most of these funds are channeled into the country via remittances. This study aims to determine the empirical relationship between remittances and homicides in Jamaica over the period 1985–2019.

The authors apply an error correction modelling framework while accounting for indicators of changes in socioeconomic conditions.

There are two. First, the authors find from impulse response analysis of the long-run dynamics that an increase in remittances is associated with an increase in homicides, and vice versa. Second, the authors find that there is bidirectional Granger causality between remittances and homicides in the short run.

Two important implications are that policies should be strengthened to channel remittances to productive and legal investment opportunities and that greater efforts may be needed to stem the flow of funds coming from international lottery scamming and other illegal activities.

This is the first study that examines the dynamic relationship between remittances and homicides in Jamaica from a robust statistical perspective.