In rural Kazakhstan, the credit and insurance services are limited and the state support is weak. Therefore, households’ saving is crucial to provide an insurance against the economic and social shocks. The main goal of this study is to contribute to the literature on financial literacy in emerging economies, namely, the effect of financial literacy on saving rates of rural population. Being well educated not always means to be financial literate and make efficient decisions regarding one’s own finance. People with a lower formal education level but with better experience in consuming financial products could be better prepared for making financial decisions including those related to savings. In this paper other socio-economic determinants of saving rates were taken into account, such as an income level, family size and an employment status. This research was carried out in Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan, and the data collection took place in spring 2014. In total, 405 households were surveyed. Results of the analysis show that if a respondent gives at least one correct answer, it positively affects the saving rates as well as one can observe that the higher the financial literacy level, the higher are the saving rates. Availability of state supported financial education programs for rural people will significantly contribute to the financial literacy improvement. At the same time, providing various and appropriate financial products in rural areas will motivate rural people to search for new knowledge and require authorities to intensify activities in this field.

Climate change is an inevitable global challenge of the 21st century. For developing countries like Ethiopia, it intensifies existing challenges towards ensuring sustainable development. Adopting the protection motivation theory, this study examined factors affecting the practice of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies among farmers. The study employed a mixed research approach to assess the subjective understanding of farmers about climate change threats and identify factors determining their responses to climate change effects. Qualitative data were collected using focus group discussions and interviews. Quantitative information was gathered using semi-structured survey from 296 randomly selected farmers. Qualitative data was dominantly analysed using content analysis, while descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyse quantitative data. Almost all respondents (97%) perceived that climate change was occurring and threatening their wellbeing. Dwindling precipitation, increasing temperature and occurrence of human and animal disease were perceived to represent climate change effects. From nationally initiated strategies, farmers were found to largely practice soil and water conservation, which they perceived as less costly and compatible to local knowledge. The result of binary logistic regression revealed that perceived severity of climate change, perceived susceptibility to climate change threat, perceived own ability to respond, response efficacy, and cost of practices predicted farmers’ motivation to practice climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Thus, building a resilient system should go beyond sensitizing climate response mechanisms. Policies should focus on human capital development and economic empowerment which would enable farmers to pursue context-specific adaptation and mitigation strategies, thereby maintaining a sustainable livelihood.

The technical inspection of a building carried out by an expert in civil engineering can identify and classify the physical conditions of the real estate; this generates relevant information for the protection and safety of users. Given the real conditions of the property, and for the real estate valuation universe, using artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic, it is possible to obtain the market price associated with the physical conditions of the building. The objective of this experiment is to develop a property evaluation model using a civil engineering inspection form associated with artificial intelligence, and fuzzy logic, and also compare with market value to verify the applicability of this inspection form. Therefore, the methodology used is based on technical inspection of civil engineering regarding the state of conservation of properties according to the model used in Portugal and adapted to the reality of Latvia. Artificial intelligence is applied after obtaining data from that report. From this, association rules are obtained, which are used in the diffuse logic to obtain the price of the apartment per square meter, and for comparison with the market value. For this purpose, 48 samples of residential apartments located in the city of Jelgava in Latvia are used, with an inspection carried out from October to December 2019. The main result is the 9% error metric, which demonstrates the possibility of applying the method proposed in this experiment. Thus, for each apartment sample consulted, it resulted in the state of conservation and a market value associated.

The paper describes the research support model for improving the effectiveness of the medical research data collection process and data quality. Every research project involves a data collection phase, during which different organisation, legal and technology factors are involved, including various procedures (questionnaire design, annotation, database design, data entry, data validation, discrepancy management, medical coding and data mining). The key task of clinical data management is to obtain high-quality data, which can be achieved by minimising data input errors and timely identifying missing data. This process is often time-consuming and takes up a significant part of the research project budget in both veterinary and human medicine. The aim of this study is to elaborate the research support model for the creation of a data collection automation software tool, which will allow one to ensure better data quality, shorten the time for data collection and minimise human work volume and respective human resource expenses, making research projects more effective in terms of their timing and budget. Research work included analysis of the current situation, its shortcomings, typical research project budget distribution and existing automated electronic data collection tools (EDC). Research was carried out in partnership with the Institute of Clinical and Preventive Medicine of the University of Latvia.

Poultry production decision setting is full of risk and imperfect information. Attitude towards risk is a measure of farmers’ willingness to take risks which is an important determinant in their production decisions. Strong social capital emanating from social networks can lead to efficient risk management strategies, thereby minimizing risks faced by the farmers. Therefore, the effects of social capital on the risk attitude of small-scale commercial poultry farmers in Oyo state were assessed. Data were collected from two hundred small-scale farmers and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, factorial analysis, multinomial logit and a two-stage least square. Results showed that 52.5%, 37.5% and 10% of the poultry farmers were risk averse, risk neutral and risk preferring, respectively. About 31.4% and 68.6% of the female and male farmers respectively were risk averse. Close to a fifth, a quarter and two-thirds of the risk averse, risk neutral and risk takers respectively contributed 21-30% of the decisions in the associations. Fourteen percent of the farmers belonged to homogeneous groups. The choice of being risk averse was affected by marital status, educational level, family size, percentage spent on poultry income and aggregate social capital. There was no reverse causality between risk attitude and social capital.

In rural Kazakhstan, the credit and insurance services are limited and the state support is weak. The main goal of this study is to contribute to the literature on financial literacy in emerging economies, namely, the effect of financial literacy on saving rates of rural population. Being well educated not always means to be financial literate and make efficient decisions regarding one’s own finance. People with a lower formal education level but with better experience in consuming financial products could be better prepared for making financial decisions including those related to savings. In this paper other socio-economic determinants of saving rates were taken into account, such as an income level, family size and an employment status. This research was carried out in Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan, and the data collection took place in spring 2014. In total, 405 households were surveyed. Results of the analysis show that if a respondent gives at least one correct answer, it positively affects the saving rates as well as one can observe that the higher the financial literacy level, the higher are the saving rates. Availability of state supported financial education programs for rural people will significantly contribute to the financial literacy improvement.

Nitrogen management strategy in plant growth period based on chlorophyll content evaluation in plant can improve nitrogen usage efficiency and reduce environmental contamination. This study is aimed to determine the impact of different nitrogen and sulphur fertilizers rates on dynamics of chlorophyll content in winter wheat during vegetative growth and to determine the relationship between nitrogen and chlorophyll content and grain yield of winter wheat. Field trial involving a winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) variety ‘Kranich’ was conducted at the LUA Research and Study Farm Vecauce during a three-year period (2012-2015). The treatments were 0, 85, 153, 175+S21, 175 (in 2015), 187 N kg haE−1 and different nitrogen norms according to chlorophyll meter Yara N-tester (Konica Minolta Ltd.) data: 180, 150, 205 N kg haE−1 depending on the year. The results of the trial show that the maximum chlorophyll content in different plant parts was observed at the end of flowering stage. The chlorophyll content depended on the level of mineral fertilisation. The highest chlorophyll content in leaves, stems and ears was obtained by using additional sulphur in two trial years. Usage of chlorophyll meter Yara N-tester obtained the highest chlorophyll content in all analysed plant parts in one trial year. Chlorophyll content was significantly dependant on plant growth stage in stems in all trial years, in leaves in two trial years, and in ears in one year. Nitrogen fertilization significantly affected chlorophyll content in leaves and stems in one trial year. Close positive correlation was observed between grain yield and wheat plant chlorophyll content and average nitrogen concentration at the end of flowering stage in all three trial years.

This study examined the livelihood strategies and food security situation of rural households around Derba Cement Factory by taking a randomly selected sample of 215 heads of farm households from three rural kebeles. A mixed research approach was employed to triangulate concurrently collected data through household survey, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. Informed by the sustainable rural livelihood framework, descriptive statistics were used to describe rural households’ livelihood strategies and challenges they faced while inferential statistics was employed to explain households’ food security situations with different livelihood combinations. While mixed farming was found to be the mainstay of the household economy, small-scale irrigation and extracting forest products were also used as supplementary economic activities. More than a half of the respondents (52.5%) reported at least one non-farm activity. Land shortage was identified as a major constraint to expand crop production and this was further aggravated by the activities (e.g. querying leading to displacement) of the Derba Cement Factory. This further affected household labour allocation and natural resources utilization. The result of household food (in) security access scale indicated that 59% of the respondents have experienced food access insecurity in 2016. However, respondents who combined agriculture and non-farm activities appeared relatively more food secure than those engaged in agriculture alone or in non-farm activity only. Overall, households with multiple livelihood strategies had diverse food entitlements to maintain sustainable food consumption. Yet, necessity induced diversification was found to affect food access security of households. This calls for inclusive policies and strategies that integrate rural non-farm activities to subsistence farming in order to assure sustainable livelihood in rural communities.