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Researchers have considered how school choice policies affect student achievement, but less inquiry explores how the organization of schools may change in the presence of choice. This descriptive and exploratory paper analyzes a state representative sample of school mission statements at two time points: before the enactment of choice policies in Indiana, namely the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program, and again six years into the policy. Using structural topic modeling, this paper examines whether and how school mission statements topics have changed over this period. Descriptive findings suggest mission statement topics differ significantly between sectors but show few changes over time. The most striking shift is that Catholic and other private religious schools appear to be clarifying the religious aspects of their mission in the presence of robust choice policies.

Schools in the rural context of Limpopo Province, South Africa have a plethora of challenges, which have a negative impact on learner achievement. This paper argues that for schools to triumph over the obstacles, effective school leaders are necessary. Such leaders must define and communicate a clear vision and mission and work with stakeholders to achieve them. With these assumptions, this paper explores how members of the school management team (SMT) of a rural school in the Limpopo Province define and communicate their school's vision and mission. Through the qualitative research method underpinned by the interpretive paradigm, a case research design was adopted and a single high school sampled to participate. Data were generated from semi-structured interviews with seven SMT members, a focus-group discussion with six teachers, and an observation of the research site. The findings revealed that most participants could not articulate the school's vision and mission. In addition, stakeholders were not involved in the processes of defining the vision and mission and communication methods in this regard were also ineffective. Lastly, the SMT viewed the vision and mission as fixed and did not review them. Based on these findings, I conclude that SMT members must understand that the vision and mission could serve more than a visual purpose when designed as guiding principles to direct smaller objectives within the organisation.

This paper aims to determine the challenges and recommendations of an effective writing retreat, investigated from the attendees' experiences and the facilitators of writing retreats held by an accounting college of an (Open distance e-learning) ODeL institution from 2016 to 2022. The researchers purposively sampled sixteen researchers for interviews from the attendees of the writing retreats, namely--four proven researchers, four emerging researchers, eight developing researchers--and two organisers. The researchers captured the participants' experiences during the writing retreats, challenges, and recommendations for an effective writing retreat. The findings reveal that writing retreats face budget approval issues, undefined objectives, noise, unfocused attendees and non-stop emails and calls from work. Recommendations for effective writing retreats were: organisers need timely budgetary support from the organisation, researchers need subject experts, peer review, ongoing support, accountability, clear retreat objectives, and attendees setting pre-retreat goals to improve the retreat's success. Additionally, a far-from-home venue and tranquil environment are important.

The objective of this study was to study the composition and indicators of innovative organizations of secondary schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission using research papers study principles and concepts. Then, data was collected, analyzed, and synthesized to obtain the composition and indicators of the innovative organization of secondary schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission. The tools used to collect data included document notes and assessment forms for the suitability of elements and indicators by confirming elements and indicators from 9 experts. Among the informants are notable people. Three expert groups' credentials are ascertained by Purposive Sampling: Group 1: Academic staff members in postsecondary education establishments who hold a Ph.D. in education, educational administration, or a related field and are assistant professors or higher. Group 2: Educational Administrators having a Ph.D. in Education and a minimum of five years' experience in the field. Group 3 consists of school administrators who have at least five years of experience managing schools and a doctorate in educational administration. The results of the study showed that 1) the innovative organizational composition of secondary schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission consisted of 5 components: (1) Vision and Strategy, (2) Organizational Structure, (3) Organizational Culture, (4) Human Resource Development and (5) organizational communication. 2) Elements and indicators of vision and strategy are most appropriate, 3) Elements and Indicators of organizational structure are most appropriate, 4) Elements and Indicators of Human Resource Development and 5) Elements and Indicators of corporate communication are most appropriate.

This article explores the authors' personal experiences with submitting a manuscript on "woke organizations" to the Academy of Management Perspectives (AMP). The authors express surprise at the lack of feedback they received compared to other participants and discuss the criticisms and challenges they faced during the workshop and review process. They raise concerns about the fairness and integrity of the review process and emphasize their commitment to providing diverse perspectives in the symposium. The authors also discuss issues of bias, lack of understanding, and mistreatment they encountered during the review and publication process, calling for greater transparency, representativeness, and inclusion in journal processes. [Extracted from the article]

The increased demand for online courses correlates to increased workloads for faculty, staff, and leadership. Hiring, staffing, and other logistical matters often trump the emphasis on course quality. This paper introduces a strategic framework for creating and sustaining a successful distance education model. Tarrant County College Connect Campus is the provider of online courses and programs within a larger, urban, two-year public institution. Established as a campus in 2014, TCC Connect Campus reflects an intentional framework to ensure quality. Ten specific strategies for quality assurance in online delivery include: Online Instructor Certification, Peer Developed Courses, E-Faculty Coaching, Faculty Performance Indicators, Supplemental Evaluation Feedback Form, adoption of external standards, data dashboards, campus data team, faculty and leadership repositories, and course readiness checklist. These research-based tenets may be adapted and modified to address the needs of other distance education providers.

With the rapid development of computer technology, communication technology, and control technology, cyber-physical systems (CPSs) have been widely used and developed. However, there are massive information interactions in CPSs, which lead to an increase in the amount of data transmitted over the network. The data communication, once attacked by the network, will seriously affect the security and stability of the system. In this paper, for the data tampering attack existing in the linear system with multiple binary observations, in the case where the estimation algorithm of the defender is unknown, the optimization index is constructed based on information entropy from the attacker's point of view, and the problem is modeled. For the problem of the multi-parameter optimization with energy constraints, this paper uses particle swarm optimization (PSO) to obtain the optimal data tampering attack solution set, and gives the estimation method of unknown parameters in the case of unknown parameters. To implement the real-time improvement of online implementation, the BP neural network is designed. Finally, the validity of the conclusions is verified through numerical simulation. This means that the attacker can construct effective metrics based on information entropy without the knowledge of the defense's discrimination algorithm. In addition, the optimal attack strategy implementation based on PSO and BP is also effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green spaces are essential for enhancing the quality of life in cities, providing ecological, social, and economic benefits. However, as urban development continues to encroach on green spaces, their area decreases and their structures become fragmented, leading to declines in ecosystem services. To address these challenges, this Special Issue presents 15 research papers that explore innovative approaches and solutions for the strategic planning of urban green spaces. The papers focus on assessing the dynamics of ecosystem services, developing new planning methods, and exploring green space planning from the users' perspective to enhance service equity and efficiency. These studies provide valuable insights for urban green space planning and management. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: There are few concepts in the modern business lexicon where people feel as strongly confident in their understanding of its meaning – while there is simultaneously such profound disagreement in how people actually define the term – than the concept of "strategy." After decades of research and publications trying to correct this situation, the problem remains. It is difficult to advance the field, teach the field, or even effectively put it into practice if you cannot define what "it" is in a clear, concise, and meaningful way. This paper offers updated definitions of key strategic management concepts. Design/methodology/approach: A large academic and practitioner literature review was added to the author's personal experience as a Fortune 500 chief strategy officer and university professor to identify five separate concepts at the heart of current colloquial uses of the term "strategy." These concepts were then clarified and defined with implications summarized. Findings: The generic term "strategy" is frequently used in place of multiple other very distinct concepts. This problem of concept ambiguity can be greatly reduced by understanding and emphasizing the definitions and usage of five other, already existing, business terms – "Strategic Management," "Strategic Planning Process," "Strategic Plan," "Realized Strategy," and "Business Model." Originality/value: This paper identifies the negative effects of the misuse of the term strategy and offers clear, concise remedies. Resolving the definition problems is a necessary precursor to the advancement, education, and practice of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Preceptorships offer prelicensure nursing students the opportunity to meet their clinical objectives by working one-on-one with a registered nurse (RN). Although preceptorships can be provided for any clinical course, most prelicensure nursing programs offer them during the final semester. Preceptorships provide a bridge between academic study and the real world of nursing. By acting as a teacher, role model, evaluator, and person who can help a student to socialize with the profession, a preceptor can reduce the reality shock experienced by new nurses and provide them with realistic expectations about the nursing profession. The recent nursing shortage has inadvertently led to a preceptor shortage and forced the nursing leadership to become dependent on available RNs, including those without preceptor training or experience. Purpose: This practice update paper aimed to address the facilitators and barriers associated with preceptorships for prelicensure nursing students and discuss the proposed solutions for effective clinical preceptorship based on evidence and the author's personal reflections. Conclusion: The major facilitators were the discussion of nursing program expectations, the selection of teaching strategies with real-world examples, the creation of a structured weekly plan to promote learning, and the consideration of alternative teaching approaches. The major barriers were preceptors' dual responsibilities to students and patients, challenging students, and the lack of experienced preceptors. The proposed solutions included obtaining support from the nursing leadership team to ensure that the preceptor had a balanced workload, developing the emotional competence of the preceptor, addressing challenging students through a three-way conference with the student, the preceptor, and the clinical faculty and a written plan to ensure student progress, having the nursing leadership conduct periodic assessments of the preceptor pool, and ensuring that appropriate training was offered to candidates who were willing to become preceptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender differences exist in mental and physical health in schizophrenia, and healthcare education is part of the associated clinical approach. The main goal of the present paper is to describe a women's clinic for schizophrenia and carry out a narrative review about innovative healthcare and learning strategies in the context of women who suffer from schizophrenia, and to discuss innovative strategies for both healthcare and learning projects to be applied in this context. Observing the development of our unit, four clear innovation phases can be distinguished: the generation of new ideas (clinical and social needs), strategic planning (five observatories), the execution of these strategies (observatories/teams/interventions) and feedback, iteration and scaling. We found that the observatory for morbi-mortality adopted a retroactive proactive approach, and the observatory for hyperprolactinemia was proactive and deliberate. We describe the innovation aspects, both clinical and educational, as incremental. There was one exception, the introduction of a social exclusion and discrimination observatory, that from our perspective, was not gradual, but transformative. Future learning projects should include the role of social sciences and humanities and new technologies. Our pilot project gave us the opportunity to apply new learning methods to a relatively neglected field of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial Organization, the Resource-Based View, and the Relational View are some classical, well-established, and widely accepted theories in the strategic management domain regarding the understanding, explanation, and prediction of competitive advantage of firms and above-average firm performance. Recent evidence of economic geography and regional economics added to this stream of research new perspectives like cluster theory and microeconomic competitiveness. Despite the high enthusiasm with which companies and policymakers embraced the new advancements, there is some contradictory evidence regarding the positive effect of local conditions on firm performance. Thus, in this paper, we aim to empirically test some aspects of a modern regional development theory, proposed mainly by Michael Porter and collaborators, and the impact of these aspects on firm performance. External determinants considered at three levels of analysis (local economy, local clusters, and industry) will be investigated in relation to firm performance. We will analyze empirical data through detailed correlational analyses and by building multilinear regression models. After the statistical analysis of the answers provided directly by 67 medium and large manufacturing companies operating in Romania, we will provide empirical support for some external determinants, while for other determinants, we will show that the data rejected the proposed associations. The main conclusion derived from this study is that different combinations of external determinants, considered at all three levels of analysis, have a positive and significant effect on different measures of firm performance. The findings in our paper are important for both regional economics and the strategic management literature, suggesting the importance of creating local or urban conditions depending on the type of performance that the firms in the local economy are underperforming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States Constitution implicitly grants governmental entities the power to exercise eminent domain. But importantly, the Constitution also limits this power. One such limitation, and the focus of this Paper, is the implicit requirement that governments can only take what they need. Perhaps surprisingly, this imbedded constitutional principle is commonly violated. Government entities or their proxies regularly condemn more private property rights than are necessary for the completion of a given public project-hoarding those extra rights for future use, and sometimes, never using them at all. This acquisition strategy has serious consequences that have largely gone unexplored. And even more disturbingly, current takings jurisprudence prevents the judiciary from reviewing the vast majority of challenges to this practice. This Article builds on prior scholarship that investigates this phenomenon in takings law to more deeply understand the causes and effects of this acquisition strategy, and it proceeds in three parts. First, the paper describes the current status of the law around hoardings and discusses how the status quo both allows and facilitates this practice. Second, it provides examples of hoardings and discusses how hoardings jeopardize the animating principles of the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause. And third, it identifies tentative solutions to remedy the effects of hoardings. Ultimately, the Paper concludes that hoardings law needs to be revisited and changed. If not, the poor, the old, the less-educated, renters, and those who identify as non-white will continue to disproportionately shoulder the burden of hoardings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital age, China's economic development is transitioning from high speed to high quality. Through the application of digital technology, China's manufacturing industry is moving toward more environmentally friendly and sustainable innovation, which makes it of great significance to study the effect of green investment and big data on innovation. Grounded in strategic management theory, this paper examines the interplay between CEO big data orientation, environmental investment, and their joint impact on technological innovation in manufacturing enterprises. Data are extracted from annual reports of listed Chinese manufacturing companies using computer-assisted text analysis methods and evaluated with negative binomial regression. The results indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between CEO big data orientation and technological innovation. The results further explain that as CEO big data orientation increases, enterprises with higher levels of green investment will reach the peak of technological innovation performance earlier. According to China's intelligent manufacturing in 2035, we have proposed some methods and suggestions for green investment and big data applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a review of the field of systems thinking and strategic management The evolution of the areas of interest between systems thinking and strategic management follows similar patterns with more prescriptive developments occurring within the 1960s until 1980s; then, an increasing focus on emergence and transformation emerged in later years. From the review, there seems to exist synergies between multiple strands in Systems Thinking and Strategic Management. Suggestions to facilitate the interaction between both fields are proposed, considering the type of processes to generate strategies and the perspectives employed to visualize the organizations as systems. Hopefully, the paper can contribute to embedding systemic approaches to the strategic management of organizations and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic signal control (TSC) plays a crucial role in enhancing traffic capacity. In recent years, researchers have demonstrated improved performance by utilizing deep reinforcement learning (DRL) for optimizing TSC. However, existing DRL frameworks predominantly rely on manually crafted states, actions, and reward designs, which limit direct information exchange between the DRL agent and the environment. To overcome this challenge, we propose a novel design method that maintains consistency among states, actions, and rewards, named uniformity state-action-reward (USAR) method for TSC. The USAR method relies on: 1) Updating the action selection for the next time step using a formula based on the state perceived by the agent at the current time step, thereby encouraging rapid convergence to the optimal strategy from state perception to action; and 2) integrating the state representation with the reward function design, allowing for precise assessment of the efficacy of past action strategies based on the received feedback rewards. The consistency-preserving design method jointly optimizes the TSC strategy through the updates and feedback among the Markov elements. Furthermore, the method proposed in this paper employs a residual block into the DRL model. It introduces an additional pathway between the input and output layers to transfer feature information, thus promoting the flow of information across different network layers. To assess the effectiveness of our approach, we conducted a series of simulation experiments using the simulation of urban mobility. The USAR method, incorporating a residual block, outperformed other methods and exhibited the best performance in several evaluation metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing electrification of the transport sector is expected to cause an increase in electricity demand and, therefore, trigger significant network investments to accommodate it. This paper focuses on investment decision-making for electricity distribution grids and specifically on the strategic and incremental investment network planning approaches. In particular, the former involves network planning with the consideration of a long-term multi-stage study horizon, as opposed to a shorter–term view of the future that applies to the latter case. An investment analysis that is carried out underlines the economic savings generated from adopting a strategic investment perspective over an incremental one. These economic savings are achieved from the fact that the associated fixed investment costs are incurred only once in the horizon under strategic planning. On the other hand, incremental planning involves a series of network reinforcement decisions, thereby incurring the fixed cost multiple times. In addition, sensitivity analyses that are carried out capture the effect of key parameters, such as investment cost, discount rate and investment delay, on the generated economic savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The physical urban terrain across cities continually evolves through insights, consultations, deliberate redesigning or random acts by community members and natural forces that reshape the urban landscapes and how urban spaces are used. This research establishes a set of normative principles that planners and others can use when planning and regulating the design and management of public space. Data were collected in the period March 2023 - January 2024. Based on a comprehensive analysis of public space in the city, the paper sets out a number of general principles relating to the essential, but often missing, strategic planning framework for developing and regenerating public spaces, providing seven more detailed considerations for assessing the quality of public space design and a proposal for spatial planning. This is an unreservedly positive framework for shaping public space, based on the idea that public spaces in our cities come in many different shapes and forms, but that together they add immense value to the experience and potential of urban areas. The research takes place in the Bistrița-Târgu Mureș urban axis, the field research carried out as part of the study results in a set of three principles of urban spatial planning that examine proposals for the design of public spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing recognition of the unique advantages of reinforcement learning and genetic algorithms in addressing combinatorial optimization problems, this study aims to integrate these two methods to collectively tackle the classic combinatorial optimization challenge of the travelling salesman problem (TSP). The TSP stands as a quintessential combinatorial optimization challenge, tasked with determining the shortest path among designated cities. This paper introduces an innovative approach by amalgamating reinforcement learning's path selection prowess with genetic algorithms' global search strategy, aiming to uncover superior solutions in TSP. Specifically, the experiment employs a dual Q‐learning algorithm within reinforcement learning to identify multiple optimal paths, serving as progenitors for the genetic algorithm to further enhance performance. The paper meticulously outlines the problem modelling process, elucidating TSP instance definitions, descriptions, and precise objective function definitions. Experimental findings underscore the substantial enhancements achievable in TSP optimization through this comprehensive approach, offering a fresh perspective and methodology for tackling combinatorial optimization challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Globally, children with cancer often experience delays in palliative care referral or are infrequently referred. Therefore, we conducted a qualitative study to gain insight from paediatric oncologists into what enables or deters palliative care referral. Strategic solutions to develop integrated palliative care was a critical study theme. In this paper, we have explained and interpreted these strategic solutions through the lens of feedback intervention theory. Methodology: The study findings were interpreted using Kumar's six-step approach that enabled systematic evaluation of a theory's appropriateness and alignment with the researcher's paradigm, methodology, and study findings. It also explained how theory informed analysis and elucidated challenges or the development of new models. The feedback intervention theory appraises the discrepancy between actual and desired goals and provides feedback to improve it. Results: Strategic solutions generated from the study findings were coherent with the aspects elucidated in theory, like coping mechanisms, levels of feedback hierarchy, and factors determining the effect of the feedback intervention on performance. Paediatric oncologists suggested integrating palliative care providers in the team innocuously, improving communication between teams, relabelling palliative care as symptom control, and working with a skilled and accessible palliative care team. The paper proposes an infinite loop model developed from the study, which has the potential to foster integrated palliative care through excellent collaboration and continuous feedback. Conclusion: Applying feedback intervention theory can bridge the gap between actual and desired practice for integrated cancer palliative care in paediatric oncology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into regional airport system economics in Central Europe, with a particular focus on Slovakia, Czechia, Poland, Hungary, and Croatia. This research aimed to identify key indicators that shape optimal business models for regional airport systems by analyzing data from 24 airports between 2016 and 2019. Through cluster analysis, airports were categorized based on performance metrics, economic indicators, and ownership structures. The findings reveal distinct groupings among regional airports and shed light on critical factors influencing their operational and financial dynamics. By offering insights into the relationships between airport system characteristics and business model effectiveness, this paper aimed to provide valuable guidance for stakeholders, policymakers, and airport management teams. It facilitates informed decision-making and strategic planning for sustainable aviation infrastructure development in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive analysis of intertwinement with other industries caused the energy sector to gain momentum in the recent economic literature. This paper aims to create an indicator that captures the impact of financial stability for energy companies on all other industrial groups. To this end, we use daily data from 2007 until the end of 2021 to compute financial stability metrics for all European companies from the STOXX 600 index. The main contribution of our study is to harness the neural network forecasting power to predict extreme levels of this impact. We motivate this choice with evidence from the literature that documents the improved performance of these methods in predicting crises. Our methodological approach also employs an outlier detection algorithm based on copula (COPOD) to identify situations when the energy sector substantially impacts other industries and develop a framework to predict out-of-sample situations. We found evidence that the Deep Renewal model has superior forecasting accuracy to the standard Croston model. The main conclusion is that the design of this methodological framework allows authorities to monitor the impact of shocks produced by the energy sector on financial stability at the European level and undertake strategic management actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The move from the traditional academic conference format to a loosely defined format of unconference can be contentious and spark a robust debate on the conceptual disruption of conferencing. As part of HELTASA's strategic plan of re-structuring and re-imagining its vision and purpose, it initiated a new way of conferencing; participant-driven and participantfocused. Through self-reflective written narratives, this paper explores three academic development practitioners' experiences in planning and reflecting on the HELTASA's (un)conference. We share our accounts of (un)conference as a conceptual disruption to the traditional conference format, concepts, and ways of doing and being. Qualitative data were collected from the three written narratives through a collective descriptive autoethnography research design and methodology. The insights collected are applied to the Conceptual Disruption Framework which proposes a tripartite framework for conceptual disruption, which distinguishes conceptual disruptions occurring at three levels (individual concepts, clusters of concepts, conceptual schemes), taking on two forms (conceptual gaps, conceptual conflicts), and leading to three distinct levels of severity (mild, moderate, severe). Using this framework, we describe our personal thoughts and perspectives in engaging with the novel approach of (un)conferencing. We probe into the potential of collaborative reflection to gain deeper insights and understanding of our shift from a traditional academic conference to a HELTASA (un)conference. We explore the discomfort, displacement, and learnings of the intentional disruption of our conceptual understanding of (un)conference practices. This paper highlights our shifting mindsets as we reflect and interrogate our thoughts and perspectives on the conceptual framing of (un)conferencing. The analysis of the data reveals that the engagement in the conceptual disruption of (un)conferencing together with the engagement with the concept planning and event provided the environment and atmosphere where the team appreciated brainstorming conceptual understandings, self-reflecting, and exploring different perspectives. This study provides empirical evidence of strength in collaboration, the building of conceptual disruption as a community of practice and possibility of (un)conferencing being a shape-shifter in higher education. At an interpersonal level, the process allowed us to self-interrogate the conceptual disruption, unpacking our thoughts and shaping our own thinking. The paper asserts that shifting mindsets from conference to (un)conference, involves conceptual disruption which is a messy process and requires a level of trust, openness, adaptability amongst all members of the organising team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The customers of a sports club are among the important pillars of its survival. In this paper, with the help of data mining and machine learning methods, a framework is presented to predict the level of effectiveness of salespersons' performance to encourage customers of clubs to choose an appropriate shopping strategy. This framework uses a set of data on the topics of idealized influence behavior, inspirational motivation behavior, intellectual stimulation behavior, individualized consideration behavior, and smart selling behavior, as its inputs. In the proposed framework, first, the data is refined using the Pearson criterion, and invaluable questions/features are removed from the data set. There are five levels of effectiveness in our questionnaire, and each of them has a different number of records in the data set. So, in the second step, the data set is balanced using repetition, SMOTE, and Int-SMOTE methods. The Int-SMOTE balancing method is introduced in this paper for the first time. It is a SMOTE method with integer outputs. Finally, using different classifiers, we predict the level of effectiveness of salesperson's behaviors in encouraging customers. Evaluating the models indicates that the different models have been able to correctly identify the level of effectiveness of salesperson's behaviors between 76.16% to 96.82%. Also, we confirm our findings about the effects of different salesperson's behavior to encourage customers using several other published papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research article explores the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC) to ascertain whether it is a myth or a reality. It also examines its transparency, timeliness, and primary objectives. Against the backdrop of instability in the Middle East, mainly arising from the ongoing Gaza situation, the study assesses the regional and global implications of the IMEC, considering arguments both in favour and against the initiative. Nevertheless, the problem has a similar impact on all such ventures as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since the successful realisation is contingent upon the stable and enabling regional environment. This exploration suffers from the challenge of access to authentic sources. Given the contemporary nature of the subject matter, this study will primarily rely on secondary literature. Employing an Intergovernmentalism theoretical approach, this research delves into the dynamics of IMEC, discussing its intended objectives and challenges. The central argument contends that a meticulous analysis of the corridor's cause and effect on Pakistan's economic and geostrategic interests is imperative. The IMEC initiative exhibits the potential of a relatively cheap system, enhancing contemporary transportation infrastructure. However, the study asserts that the IMEC presents an obvious threat to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the BRI, potentially compromising Pakistan's economic and strategic interests. The paper adopts a nuanced perspective, emphasising that IMEC and BRI contrast in strategic planning and development approaches. Should the IMEC materialise according to its envisaged plan, it will yield substantial diplomatic, strategic, and economic benefits for India. The article concludes by underscoring the challenges faced by IMEC, including coordination complexities, financial constraints for some participating nations, and potential geopolitical tensions affecting corridor operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational Behaviour (OB) is a subject which is useful for becoming a successful manager in any type of organization. As far as teaching and learning OB was concerned, some performance and theoretical gaps were observed particularly in a developing country context. This research paper is a result of a conceptual study which attempted to achieve six objectives: (1) to present definitions of OB given by various appropriately qualified authors, make a brief descriptive analysis about the definitions, and assert the general meaning of OB; (2) to ascertain whether OB is a part of HRM; (3) to explore and describe how OB distinctly differs from HRM; (4) to explore and describe how OB relates or becomes a synonym to subjects such as Industrial Psychology, Organizational Psychology, and Work Psychology; (5) to explore and describe how OB relates to Human Relations; and (6) to argue that OB should be an essential subject in Management Education. Adopted research strategy was the desk research and two non-scientific methods, i.e., authority to a greater extent and intuition to a lesser extent were used to carry out the study. A concept called 13 A's of OB Competencies is introduced in this paper. It is believed that the write-up and the findings in achieving the six objectives are useful for teaching and learning the subject or course of OB at least in a developing country context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The purpose of this paper is to lay the foundation for development of a new strategic plan for the work of the Academy to 2030. Its aim is to invite suggestions from WAAS members and partners regarding priorities for future work. It traces the origins and historical development of the Academy leading up to the present and provides an overview of recent activities and emerging opportunities aligned to its mission which were presented at a meeting of the Board of Trustees at the Academy of Athens in November 2023. The paper ends with a call for proposals from WAAS Fellows for topics to be discussed at an upcoming conference and general assembly of the Academy in mid-2024 as well to be considered during the WAAS strategic Planning Process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Graded diagnosis and treatment, referral, and expert consultations between medical institutions all require cross domain access to patient medical information to support doctors' treatment decisions, leading to an increase in cross domain access among various medical institutions within the medical consortium. However, patient medical information is sensitive and private, and it is essential to control doctors' cross domain access to reduce the risk of leakage. Access control is a continuous and long-term process, and it first requires verification of the legitimacy of user identities, while utilizing control policies for selection and management. After verifying user identity and access permissions, it is also necessary to monitor unauthorized operations. Therefore, the content of access control includes authentication, implementation of control policies, and security auditing. Unlike the existing focus on authentication and control strategy implementation in access control, this article focuses on the control based on access log security auditing for doctors who have obtained authorization to access medical resources. This paper designs a blockchain based doctor intelligent cross domain access log recording system, which is used to record, query and analyze the cross domain access behavior of doctors after authorization. Through DBSCAN clustering analysis of doctors' cross domain access logs, we find the abnormal phenomenon of cross domain access, and build a penalty function to dynamically control doctors' cross domain access process, so as to reduce the risk of Data breach. Finally, through comparative analysis and experiments, it is shown that the proposed cross domain access control model for medical consortia based on DBSCAN and penalty function has good control effect on the cross domain access behavior of doctors in various medical institutions of the medical consortia, and has certain feasibility for the cross domain access control of doctors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prediction of patient attendance in emergency departments (ED) is crucial for effective healthcare planning and resource allocation. This paper proposes an early warning system that can detect emerging trends in ED attendance, offering timely alerts for proactive operational planning. Over 13 years of historical ED attendance data (from January 2010 till December 2022) with 1,700,887 data points were used to develop and validate: (1) a Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average with eXogenous factors (SARIMAX) forecasting model; (2) an Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) surge prediction model, and (3) a trend persistence prediction model. Drift detection was achieved with the EWMA control chart, and the slopes of a kernel-regressed ED attendance curve were used to train various machine learning (ML) models to predict trend persistence. The EWMA control chart effectively detected significant COVID-19 events in Singapore. The surge prediction model generated preemptive signals on changes in the trends of ED attendance over the COVID-19 pandemic period from January 2020 until December 2022. The persistence of novel trends was further estimated using the trend persistence model, with a mean absolute error of 7.54 (95% CI: 6.77–8.79) days. This study advanced emergency healthcare management by introducing a proactive surge detection framework, which is vital for bolstering the preparedness and agility of emergency departments amid unforeseen health crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different types of rural settlement agglomerations have been formed and mixed in space during the rural revitalization strategy implementation in China. Discriminating them from remote sensing images is of great significance for rural land planning and living environment improvement. Currently, there is a lack of automatic methods for obtaining information on rural settlement differentiation. In this paper, an improved encoder–decoder network structure, ASCEND-UNet, was designed based on the original UNet. It was implemented to segment and classify dispersed and clustered rural settlement buildings from high-resolution satellite images. The ASCEND-UNet model incorporated three components: firstly, the atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) multi-scale feature fusion module was added into the encoder, then the spatial and channel squeeze and excitation (scSE) block was embedded at the skip connection; thirdly, the hybrid dilated convolution (HDC) block was utilized in the decoder. In our proposed framework, the ASPP and HDC were used as multiple dilated convolution blocks to expand the receptive field by introducing a series of dilated rate convolutions. The scSE is an attention mechanism block focusing on features both in the spatial and channel dimension. A series of model comparisons and accuracy assessments with the original UNet, PSPNet, DeepLabV3+, and SegNet verified the effectiveness of our proposed model. Compared with the original UNet model, ASCEND-UNet achieved improvements of 4.67%, 2.80%, 3.73%, and 6.28% in precision, recall, F1-score and MIoU, respectively. The contributions of HDC, ASPP, and scSE modules were discussed in ablation experiments. Our proposed model obtained more accurate and stable results by integrating multiple dilated convolution blocks with an attention mechanism. This novel model enriches the automatic methods for semantic segmentation of different rural settlements from remote sensing images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: It is now widely recognised that engaging consumers in research activities can enhance the quality, equity and relevance of the research. Much of the commentary about consumer engagement in research focuses on research processes and implementation, rather than dissemination in conference settings. This article offers reflections and learnings from consumers, researchers and conference organisers on the 12th Health Services Research Conference, a biennial conference hosted by the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand (HSRAANZ). Method: We were awarded funds via a competitive application process by Bellberry Limited, a national not‐for‐profit agency with a focus on improving research quality, to incorporate consumer engagement strategies in conference processes and evaluate their impact. Findings: Strategies included consumer scholarships, a buddy system, designated quiet space and consumer session co‐chairs; the reflections explored in this paper were collected in the funded, independent evaluation. Our insights suggest a need for more structured consumer involvement in conference planning and design, as well as the development of specific engagement strategies. Conclusion: To move toward active partnership in scientific conference settings, our experience reinforces the need to engage consumers as members in designing and conducting research and in presenting research and planning conference content and processes. Public Contribution: Consumer engagement in research dissemination at conferences is the focus of this viewpoint article. Consumers were involved in the conception of this article and have contributed to authorship at all stages of revisions and edits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprises develop and interact with the global environment. Their activities are influenced by various factors, and timely identification of the degree of their influence allows forecasting business development and reasonably choosing development strategies. The puprose of the paper is to develop a toolkit for evaluating an enterprise in a global environment for choosing a development strategy. The ability of enterprises to simultaneously achieve advantages in the domestic and international markets characterizes the expediency of using process and system approaches, as well as the use of competitive advantages. The implementation of the elements of the structural and logical model of ensuring the stable development of enterprises involves the use of methods of comparative and structural analysis, expert assessments, taxonomic method and generalization. Achieving the desired state occurs due to changes in the state of the enterprise, the causes of which are the interaction of a set of conditions of the global environment. To predict changes in the state of enterprises, it is proposed to develop methodological support for evaluating the development of business systems and using management tools in the development and implementation of strategies. The interpretation of metastate indicators allows assessing trends in business systems and developing strategies, as well as priority areas for future development. As a result of the research, a toolkit for assessing enterprise development trends was formed, which will allow business systems to gain additional benefits in the global environment and form a development strategy. The methodology for assessing the development of enterprises can be used in any industry. The paper makes a contribution to the research of the methodology for assessing the development of enterprises that can be applied to other enterprises, not only to the Kharkiv area. In the event of a change in the influence of global environmental factors, the degree of influence should be specified. The work offers an opportunity to develop further research from the point of view of strategic management, the concept of six sigma, and production optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anales de Investigación en Arquitectura is the property of Universidad ORT Uruguay, Facultad de Arquitectura and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper describes the innovative approach of using liberating structures to the development of the AUR 2023 strategic plan, and lessons learned in their application. The 2023 strategic plan built on the results and approach of the prior 2015 plan. Similar to the 2015 strategic plan, traditional tools such as a SWOT analysis and strategic retreat were used. In addition, the 2023 process included tools called liberating structures and was iteratively co-produced through a series of virtual meetings over 18 months. Advantages of liberating structures included increased creativity and speed in moving through meeting tasks, increased number of meaningful contributions from AUR members and increased engagement from participants during discussions and meetings. The 2023 AUR strategic plan is provided along with examples of completed goals and those under early implementation. Lessons learned from using these tools for strategic planning can be applied to other society and group meetings. Moving forward, the 2023 strategic plan will be a living document, which will be reviewed at each Board of Directors meeting and periodically adapted., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest Competing interest statement: Hanna Zafar is on the AUR Board of Directors. James Rawson is on the Academic Radiology editorial Board. Otherwise, the authors have no competing interests to declare., (Copyright © 2024 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Liquefied natural gas (LNG), recognized as the fossil fuel with the lowest carbon emission intensity, is a crucial transitional energy source in the global shift towards low-carbon energy. As the natural gas industry undergoes rapid expansion, the complexity of investment business models has increased significantly. Optimizing the combination of various segments within the value chain has become standard practice, making it essential to control risks and enhance economic benefits in these multifaceted scenarios. This paper introduces an integrated economic model encompassing upstream, liquefaction, shipping, regasification, and consumption, suitable for both upstream and downstream integration. The model offers a comprehensive analysis of the primary business models and key factors across each segment of the value chain. By constructing a robust economic evaluation framework, the study aims to provide a holistic approach to understanding the economic feasibility of LNG projects. Two detailed case studies are conducted to demonstrate the application and effectiveness of the proposed model, highlighting its capability to guide investment decisions, support risk management, and optimize asset portfolios. The integrated economic model developed in this study serves as a valuable tool for stakeholders in the LNG industry. It not only facilitates informed investment decision-making but also enhances the strategic management of risks and resources. By leveraging this model, investors and managers can better navigate the complexities of the LNG business, ensuring sustainable and economically viable operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the Critical Success Factors in e-commerce in Uzbekistan. First, the most essential variables are identified through a literature review. Then, experts in the Uzbekistan e-commerce industry evaluate each potential success factor. Third, the most outstanding factors are elicited through Factor Analysis. While some of the research findings suggest addressing IT-related variables to help secure customers in line with previous studies in developing countries, an unexpected discovery is human resources emphasis, which is typically emphasized in more developing countries. A qualitative part of the research makes an important contribution to e-commerce development. In particular, responsible institutions are recommended to revisit their counterfeit products policies. The paper serves as a guide for Uzbekistan e-commerce entities. Besides its practical value, the study contributes to the extant literature by enlarging the research body of critical success factors among developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lubelski Rocznik Pedagogiczny is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Motives: Local authorities are seeking new approaches to development, with a strong emphasis on multifunctional development. Taking into account the state of the natural environment, they need to implement various activities that effectively reduce anthropogenic pressure. Poland's membership in the EU requires the implementation of the European Green Deal. The neighbouring Polish and Ukrainian regions of Lublin and Lviv, which share similar environmental conditions and a common cultural heritage, were chosen for this study. The Polish border regions have the potential to serve as an important model for Ukrainian border regions as they strive to integrate into the European Union. This paper provides an overview of development and environmental support policies, as well as in-depth case studies, to establish a basis for assessing the sustainable functioning of rural municipalities and territorial partnerships. Aim: This study examined supra-local strategic documents concerning environmental protection and rural development in Polish and Ukrainian municipalities. Their socio-economic situation was characterised, and the goals and activities proposed under their environmental protection programmes and local development strategies were identified. Results: Based on the research findings, a proposal was formulated for implementing systemic solutions in the development of strategic plans to ensure that local strategies become fundamental tools for implementing measures that support environmental protection and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The supply chain process has been widely modeled, especially with respect to the optimization of system performance. Recent years have highlighted the outbreak of many crises, such as the financial crisis of 2008, COVID-19, and the semiconductor shortage. The impact of such crises has become more challenging for manufacturers, particularly in the automotive industry. In this context, the present study was undertaken with the specific aim of providing an integrated approach for resilient decision-making under deep uncertainty (DMDU), especially in the downstream supply chain. Methods: The research is based on design science research (DSR) and case study methodologies. A design methodology was used to develop the framework. A case study is included to prove the pertinence of the framework. Results: The findings of this study demonstrate that the suggested comprehensive approach is helpful for companies and could help top management with strategic decision-making when customers decide to increase or decrease demand. This paper develops and models two approaches that help firms to manage and make resilient decisions when the supply chain is facing deep uncertainty, such as the bullwhip effect. Finally, the proposed models are implemented in a real-life case study within an automotive company to illustrate the applicability and efficacy of the proposed approach. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study suggesting this approach. The paper is original and contributes towards sharing a new approach to understanding the supply chain within an uncertain context. As part of its contribution, the study draws attention to how managers and executors should integrate this approach into the global strategy of a company. Moreover, it explores some of the most complex variables that affect supply chain performance under high demand variation so it is possible to clearly show the risks associated with obsolete materials and products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm to Fork Strategy, which is the center of the green ambitions of the EU, presents indicators for organic farming development and sets ambitious targets. However, most EU Members lag behind, which is raising various questions about implementing the developed strategies and plans. The study aims to observe trends and changes in organic farming with a particular focus on Bulgaria and outline prospects post-2023. The analysis shows an increase in the share of organic UAA in almost all Member-States. In Bulgaria, there are variations, and the share is decreasing in 2021 compared to 2020. The EU emphasizes the importance of organic farming for the food system. Organic farms are eligible for support from several measures for 2023-2027 as a part of national strategic plans under the CAP. On the other hand, implementing the measures has to be efficient and well-targeted to achieve the EU's ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality is an important indicator for the service sector. Currently, increasingly competitive conditions, technological development and changes in customer demands and needs bring importance to the concept of quality in the tourism sector, as in many other sectors. The key role of quality management in enabling sustainable competitive advantage has guided many researchers in the field of tourism science to focus on this issue. Nevertheless, there are limited bibliometric and systematic assessments, even though they are becoming increasingly popular in the tourism industry. To contribute to further research collaboration and expand knowledge in this subject area, a bibliometric study was conducted. This research examines quality management in the tourism literature, the growth trajectory and geographical distribution of studies, the distribution of publications according to WOS indexes, the most productive authors and countries, the authors and documents that have had the greatest impact, the intellectual structure of quality management, global academic collaboration, and the main themes of publications. This study aims to identify the key issues and gaps in the literature related to quality management in the context of tourism. For this purpose, the Web of Science (WoS) database was scanned. This paper conducts a bibliometric literature evaluation of 993 articles published between 2004 and 2023. Performance analysis and science mapping techniques were used in this study. Visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software was used to create bibliometric maps. It is concluded that the concepts of service quality and quality of life (QoL) have become prominent in tourism. It is also determined that words related to sustainability and the environment have been used in recent years. According to the results of the study, 2021, 2022 and 2020 are the most productive years. China, the USA, and Spain are the countries that have contributed the most to the development of the literature. The United Kingdom has worked in cooperation with twenty-nine countries, China's link strength is greater, as it has cooperated with twenty-seven countries. Conversely, the university that has made the greatest collaborative contributions to science is Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Thus, it is anticipated that this research will further scientific contributions to the examination of quality management in the literature related to tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine and their impact on regional and global geopolitical dynamics, focusing on the importance of military organizational management in this complex situation. The confrontation between the two countries, fuelled by Moscow's geopolitical aspirations to consolidate its control over Ukraine, has escalated into a military conflict with far-reaching repercussions. Ukraine's rapprochement with the European Union and NATO has exacerbated tensions, generating indirect arms deliveries and threatening regional stability. In this context, military organisational management becomes crucial to manage and mitigate the escalation of the conflict. The capacity for strategic planning and coordination of military actions is essential to maintain stability and prevent wider conflict. Also, the ability to manage human and material resources effectively and strategically can influence the outcome and duration of conflict. In addition, it is important to stress that tensions between Russia and Ukraine not only have bilateral consequences, but also affect relations between Russia and NATO. Military management must therefore be adaptable and address the complex and interlinked challenges of this rapidly changing geopolitical context. The paper further argues that an appropriate approach to military organisational management can be essential for managing the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as for maintaining regional and global stability in the face of the complex challenges of current geopolitical tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of digital technologies, scholars and industries are pushing into the information age, where data processing is the accounting industry's major challenge. This study aimed to analyze the use of these digital technologies for strategic performance attainment and mediating the accounting information system (AIS). Further, this study also explores the moderation of the DT and strategic performance linkage. In this rapid change, the business organization is crucial to competition. Hence, technology is the key factor for maintaining the competitiveness of the industrialists, specifically where information plays a vital role in making management decisions. Accounting software is a significant tool that efficiently collects data and makes timely decisions to declare the business strategy to respond quickly to the market. However, the available accounting software is costly, and small-scale businesses cannot afford it. Therefore, this paper developed a digital accounting system using artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing (EC) to process and store the accounting data. This article introduces novel edge framework for digital data processing with advanced data processing methods. The with the growth of IoT, the data sizes have increased significantly. Moreover, the traditional cloud platforms are enriched with EC to process the vast amount of data where it is collected. Therefore, the business can adapt to new size data and raise its standards in terms of technical content. It will define the distributed storage in the cloud and test the cluster performance of the system once the system design and its effects on the system. In the end, the system operation time, load balancing and rows of data is tested experimentally. The results and its analysis demonstrated that the data processing with EC for AIS utilized is improved acceleration rate, operational efficiency and execution rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]