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This study seeks to collaborate with the discussions on the usefulness of the narrative approach in accounting. In this context, this study aims to elaborate small collective stories, developed from interviews, to expose the population’s perception of the social and environmental impact (positive and negative externalities) resulting from iron ore mining in the city of Congonhas-Minas Gerais (MG).

This research, using counternarratives, aims to elaborate small collective stories, developed from 52 interviews, to expose the population’s perception of externalities resulting from the exploitation of iron ore in the city of Congonhas-MG, Brazil, to give more insight for social and environmental accounting reporting. A qualitative investigation is used with a narrative approach that focuses on a specific event in the participants’ lives.

The authors sought to create a sense of collective experiences of the interviewees through narratives representative of the residents’ perception of externalities in the form of small collective stories. However, it can be observed that the local population recognizes the impact of numerous externalities. Likewise, the use of narratives allows the reader to experience another reality – a reflection on the impact of business activities in a given context. Unlike conventional corporate social reporting, models based on qualitative information can be inclusive, produced by/for the community toward action that transforms the local reality.

This study intends to contribute to the debate on reporting models that are developed by and for external stakeholders. This approach has the potential to improve participants’ both awareness and engagement, supporting transformative social action. This study makes several contributions. It contributes to the literature with a narrative approach, which is not often used in the accounting literature; it brings insights from the Latin American context, which is especially valuable given how the Anglo-American accounting literature includes few papers addressing this context; it presents the view of marginalized communities that are too often overlooked (this narrative approach offers important insights into the lived experience of people at a very granular level).

This chapter explores the origins, development, and organization of the main Portuguese capitalist groups throughout the fascist dictatorship, the Carnation Revolution, and the neoliberal European integration until the onset of the financial crisis of 2008. The Portuguese experience confirms that, far from the usual neoliberal view that presents the process of accumulation and concentration of capital as the result of fair market mechanisms, large capitalist groups emerge as a combination of three factors: privileged access to finance, State protection, and family inheritance. Furthermore, it is argued that, if capital is considered as embodiment of power relations and not as factor of production, the link between concentration/accumulation of capital and economic growth is appropriately lost. Concentration strategies can have a detrimental effect on the economy. In Portugal, the dominance of these large economic groups contributed to the development of a rentist economic structure that was contrary to the goals of productive and economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the share of multiple substance disorders among clients entering treatment for substance-related problems, to identify the most frequent combinations of the substances involved and to investigate the profiles of the clients involved.

Data were taken from the Swiss treatment monitoring system act-info applied among inpatient and outpatient facilities (reporting years 2013–2015). All cases with information on multiple substance disorders, according to a definition close to the diagnosis F19 from the ICD-10 classification of disease were included. The measurements comprised designated primary substance, existing multiple substance use disorder, substances involved and basic socio-demographics.

From 10,009 clients included in the study, 1,653 (16.5 per cent) were reported as having multiple substance use disorders. A great variety of substance combinations was identified and alcohol was found in the majority of them.

Treatment strategies targeting accurately substance-related disorders as a whole complex should be promoted. In particular the alcohol-related aspect of the disorder should not be neglected when the focus is on illegal drugs.

Multiple substance use was until recently not sufficiently documented in treatment monitoring systems. A recent version of the European treatment demand indicator (TDI) has introduced the notion of “polydrug use problem” as complementary information to the primary substance, which remains the key variable for reporting treatment demand. This study represents a first attempt to explore systematically this new data.

As the US criminal justice system and immigration system increasingly interconnect, even immigration policy that is facially race-neutral may involve biased practices. The purpose of this paper is to examine how institutional racism in criminal legal processes creates particular barriers for many individuals of Latin American and/or African descent facing deportation proceedings in US immigration courts, particularly in assertions regarding gang affiliation.

This research is based on ethnographic observation. The work utilized a grounded theory approach. The observation took place at public master calendar hearings at a Midwestern immigration court between 2013 and 2015, yielding over 400 pages of fieldnotes that were coded and analyzed for patterns.

Non-citizens in the USA, including lawful permanent residents, are subject to deportation if labeled “criminal.” Racial profiling and criminalization of communities of color create heightened risk of deportation. Assumptions that common tattoos or urban fashion indicate criminality, reliance on Facebook posts to “prove” gang membership, and the use of arrest records as evidence of criminality even if charges were dropped all put immigrants of Latin American and/or African descent at heightened risk.

The ethnographic method used has strong validity but weaker reliability and generalizability.

This paper can help analysts, policymakers and advocates consider how to adapt systems to increase equity.

This research provides direct examples and ethnographic evidence of how race and cultural bias in criminal legal processes and immigration policies can affect people in deportation proceedings.

We present a comparison of coverage and values for five inequality data sets that have worldwide or major international coverage and independent measurements that are intended to present consistent coefficients that can be compared directly across countries and time. The comparison data sets are those published by the Luxembourg Income Studies (LIS), the OECD, the European Union’s Statistics on Incomes and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), and the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI). The baseline comparison is with our own Estimated Household Income Inequality (EHII) data set of the University of Texas Inequality Project. The comparison shows the historical depth and range of EHII and its broad compatibility with LIS, OECD, and EU-SILC, as well as problems with using the WDI for any cross-country comparative purpose. The comparison excludes the large World Incomes Inequality Database (WIID) of UNU-WIDER and the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) of Frederick Solt; the former is a bibliographic collection and the latter is based on imputations drawn, in part, from EHII and the other sources used here.

Human-induced marine environmental noise, such as commercial shipping and seismic exploration, is concentrated in the low-frequency range. Meanwhile, low-frequency sound signals can achieve long-distance propagation in water. To meet the requirements of long-distance underwater detection and communication, this paper aims to propose an micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) flexible conformal hydrophone for low-frequency underwater acoustic signals. The substrate of the proposed hydrophone is polyimide, with silicon as the piezoresistive unit.

This paper proposes a MEMS heterojunction integration process for preparing flexible conformal hydrophones. In addition, sensors prepared based on this process are non-contact flexible sensors that can detect weak signals or small deformations.

The experimental results indicate that making devices with this process cannot only achieve heterogeneous integration of silicon film, metal wire and polyimide, but also allow for customized positions of the silicon film as needed. The success rate of silicon film transfer printing is over 95%. When a stress of 1 Pa is applied on the x-axis or y-axis, the maximum stress on Si as a pie-zoresistive material is above, and the average stress on the Si film is around.

The flexible conformal vector hydrophone prepared by heterogeneous integration technology provides ideas for underwater acoustic communication and signal acquisition of biomimetic flexible robotic fish.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the role of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) test on transmission data globally to reveal the fact that the actual picture of transmission history cannot be exposed if the countries do not perform the test adequately.

Using Our World in Data for 212 countries and areas and 162 time periods daily from December 31, 2019, to June 09, 2020, on an unbalanced panel framework, we have developed a panel-based path analysis model to explore the interdependence of various actors of COVID-19 cases of transmission across the globe. After controlling for per capita gross domestic product (GDP), age structure and government stringency, we explore the proposition that COVID-19 tests affect transmission positively. As an anecdote, we also explore the direct, indirect and total effects of different potential determinants of transmission cases worldwide and gather an idea about each factor's relative role in a structural equation framework.

Using the panel path model, we find that a 1 standard deviation change in the number of tests results in a 0.70 standard deviation change in total cases per million after controlling for several variables like per capita GDP, government stringency and age population (above 65).

It is not possible to get balanced data of COVID-19 for all the countries for all the periods. Similarly, the socioeconomic, political and demographic variables used in the model are not observed daily, and they are only available on an annual basis.

Countries which cannot afford to carry out more tests are also the countries where transmission rates are suppressed downward and negatively manipulated.

Cross country collaboration in terms of COVID-19 test instruments, vaccination and technology transfer are urgently required. This collaboration may be sought as an alternative to foreign development assistance.

This article provides an alternative approach to modeling COVID-19 transmission through the panel path model where the test is considered as an endogenous determinant of transmission, and the endogeneity has been channeled through per capita GDP, government stringency and age structure without using any regression-based modeling like pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed-effects, two-stage least squares or generalized method of moments (GMM). Endogeneity has been handled without using any instruments.