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In most industrialized countries, power transformers built several decades ago are approaching the end of their operational lifespan. The ongoing energy transition, focused on developing 100% renewable energy sources and accelerating global transportation electrification, further exacerbates these assets. Combined with rising electricity demand, there is an increasing risk of critical transformers' degradation acceleration. In this context, understanding the aging mechanisms of the insulation system inside these essential assets, which form the core of every energy network, becomes paramount for today's managers and engineers responsible for their operations. The acids generated through oil oxidation can be classified into two categories: low molecular weight acids (LMAs), which are inherently more hydrophilic and consequently have a greater impact on the degradation rate of solid insulation through hydrolysis, and high molecular weight acids (HMAs), which do not significantly contribute to the degradation of paper insulation. This study specifically addresses the impact of acids generated through oil oxidation—focusing on LMAs. New oil samples were infused with different ratios of LMAs before impregnation. The impregnated paper samples underwent thermal aging at 115 °C. Different physicochemical and dielectric properties were investigated. The investigations revealed that oils blended with formic acid exhibited more adverse effects on the insulation system compared to other LMAs. This information is essential for industry professionals seeking to mitigate the risks associated with transformer degradation and extend the lifespan of these critical assets during the energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban flood resilience can critically diminish the negative effects of extreme climatic conditions. In recent decades, green infrastructure has been gaining attention among researchers and authorities in terms of its use in urban contexts to enhance urban resilience. This paper tries to provide knowledge on how urban flood resilience has been recently approached through green infrastructure. To do this, the distribution of the topics of interest, authors, and sources/regions of publication are investigated through a systematic review of recent articles. Additionally, the methodological approaches and green infrastructure typologies are examined. Findings show an agglomeration of publications in developed countries. It was also observed that there is a predominance of quantitative methodological approaches and a low connectivity for some hot topics within this field of research (e.g., biodiversity). The most common green infrastructure typologies used in urban flood resilience research are also discussed. It is noticeable that more than half of the papers used general terms (e.g., urban park/open space) to describe green infrastructure rather than using technical typologies providing more information on water flow management characteristics. The outcomes are discussed to give an overview of the latest hotspots and gaps in this field of research, which gives some future directions/expectations to be followed in forthcoming investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creep is recognised to be an important physical property of soils, exerting a profound influence on the stability of structures. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the advancements and focal points in soil creep research, the relevant literature was accessed from the Web of Science Core Collection database, totalling 3907 papers (as of 25 March 2024). Statistical analyses on publication volume, keyword co-occurrence, and clustering were conducted using the visualization software VOSviewer (1.6.20). The current hotspots in soil creep research were identified, and a systematic review was undertaken on the influencing factors of soil creep and the corrective methods of creep models. The research findings indicate that the number of papers on creep research exhibits a trend of increase followed by a decrease over time. Developed countries, such as those in Europe and America, initiated research in this field earlier than developing countries like China. Currently, the research focus is primarily centred on creep models. Significant differences exist in the creep deformation of soils under different influencing factors, with soil microstructure, moisture content, and stress path being important factors affecting soil creep deformation. Creep deformation in unsaturated soils primarily considers the influence of matric suction, while indoor creep tests are mainly conducted based on vertical loading, which differs significantly from the stress conditions experienced by soils in engineering construction sites. Currently, adjustments to soil parameters are mainly made through single-factor adjustments involving stress, time, damage, and matric suction to determine creep models under specific influencing factors, and then to modify the models accordingly. However, research on the creep deformation mechanism and creep models under multiple factors is relatively limited. Future research directions are expected to focus on the microscopic scale of creep mechanisms and multi-factor creep models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Neurofibromatosis Type 1 is an inherited tumour predisposition syndrome with a varied clinical phenotype. Long-term monitoring through imaging is inconsistent and varies in high- and low-income countries. Implementation of a clinical practice guideline through a multidisciplinary clinic is instrumental to the care of adult Neurofibromatosis Type 1 patients. This systematic review aims to evaluate the association between a country's socioeconomic status and diagnostic modalities and strategies used for adult Neurofibromatosis Type 1 patients. Our results show multiple imaging modalities are used in high-income countries; however, there is limited use in low-income countries. The two most common diagnostic modalities used in developed countries are WB MRI and FDG PET/CT. Background: Neurofibromatosis Type 1 is an autosomal dominant tumour-predisposition condition commonly diagnosed in childhood and fully penetrant by adulthood. Long-term monitoring through imaging is inconsistent and varies between high- and low-income countries. Implementation of a clinical practice guideline through a multidisciplinary clinic is instrumental to the care of adult Neurofibromatosis Type 1 patients. We aim to systematically review international diagnostic modalities and strategies to evaluate any association between a country's socioeconomic status and diagnostic modalities or strategies used for Neurofibromatosis Type 1 patients. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane. Relevant clinical information on the surveillance of adult Neurofibromatosis Type 1 patients worldwide was reviewed, extracted, and synthesised. Results: We identified 51 papers reporting on 7724 individuals. Multiple imaging modalities are actively employed in high-income and upper-middle-income countries for surveying adult Neurofibromatosis Type 1 patients. We did not find any relevant papers from low- and middle-income countries. Conclusions: This systematic review suggests that there is robust data on diagnostic modalities for adult Neurofibromatosis Type 1 patients in high-income countries, but not for low- and middle-income countries. There is a lack of data on consolidated diagnostic strategies from both high- and low-income countries. Efforts should be made to publish data on usual clinical practice in low- and middle-income countries to develop clinical practice guidelines describing best medical practice to fit a local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve the ambitious goal of "carbon neutrality", countries around the world are striving to develop clean energy. Against this background, this paper takes China and Italy as representatives of developing and developed countries to summarize the energy structure composition and development overview of the two countries. The paper analyzes the serious challenges facing the future energy development of both countries and investigates the possibilities of energy cooperation between the two countries, taking into account their respective advantages in energy development. By comparing the policies issued by the two governments to encourage clean energy development, this paper analyzes the severe challenges faced by the two countries' energy development in the future and combines their respective energy development advantages to look forward to the possibility of energy cooperation between the two countries in the future. This lays the foundation for China and Italy to build an "Energy Road" after the "Silk Road". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inscription of properties on the World Heritage List often places restrictions on existing livelihoods. In these contexts, tourism is widely held to be a panacea for the economic and social wellbeing of local communities. Ecotourism, in particular, is regarded as addressing both environmental and social needs of communities. However, existing research demonstrates that tourism seldom delivers benefits to Indigenous peoples or local communities in developing countries. This paper suggests that such limitations are equally problematic for local communities in developed nations such as Australia. Through ethnographic research including participant observation and interviews, this paper describes the impacts of tourism on the local community of Strahan, a small logging, fishing, and mining town that transformed into a tourism village following the World Heritage listing of Southwest Tasmania. We suggest that contrary to the widely held view that tourism created employment and economic growth in the town, locals experience diminished quality of life, limited opportunities, and reduced amenity and services. This suggests that ecotourism overlooks its responsibilities for local communities in developed countries, with profound consequences for social sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any country's healthcare system is vital for its progress, quality of life, and long-term viability. During the pandemic, many developed countries encountered challenges of differing degrees in the administration of their healthcare systems. The overloading of healthcare services is common, leading to prolonged waiting times for medical services. Thus, the wastage of hospital resources must be taken seriously. In this paper, we examine the problem of no-shows and cancellations in outpatient clinics. By examining the literature and drawing from practical industry experience, we uncover the operational procedures of these clinics. We then suggest a robust optimization strategy for overbooking, incorporating both a conventional overbooking model and a resilient system approach. The proposed model seeks to address the substantial uncertainties in parameters encountered during the pandemic. Taking into account risk aversion, we develop an optimal overbooking policy that considers the associated costs. The primary contribution lies in introducing an alternative approach to manage the uncertainty of no-shows and cancellations through the utilization of an overbooking technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dementia is a growing global health issue, particularly in developed countries with high and increasing life expectancies. Often, health care and social approaches problematise and see as defective people with dementia; they are viewed in terms of their deficiencies. The concept of personhood helps provide a theological framework of inherent worth, regardless of physical or cognitive capacity. This paper takes a case study approach and considers how the notion of personhood impacted the motivations and practice of two chaplains working in Aotearoa New Zealand residential dementia care settings. These chaplains offered a ministry of personal and sacramental presence. They provided simple ecumenical services, comprising elements that were familiar to the residents. They were motivated by and acted with love and compassion. The article concludes by noting implications for chaplaincy practice, including the importance of being personhood-affirming, acting out of love, and being expectant of and attentive to the discipleship and spiritual formation of residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a Stein-like combined estimator for large heterogeneous panel data models under common structural breaks. The model allows for cross-sectional dependence through a general multifactor error structure. By utilizing the common correlated effects (CCE) estimation technique, we propose a Stein-like combined estimator of the CCE full-sample estimator (i.e., estimation using both the pre-break and post-break observations) and the CCE post-break estimator (i.e., estimation using only the post-break sample observations). The proposed Stein-like combined estimator benefits from exploiting the pre-break sample observations. We derive the optimal combination weight by minimizing the asymptotic risk. We show the superiority of the CCE Stein-like combined estimator over the CCE post-break estimator in terms of the asymptotic risk. Further, we establish the asymptotic properties of the CCE mean group Stein-like combined estimator. The finite sample performance of our proposed estimator is investigated using Monte Carlo experiments and an empirical application of predicting the output growth of industrialized countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of economic instruments within environmental policy has become a challenging topic for policymakers, governments and scholars. Environmental taxes have emerged as a prevailing preference in developed countries to promote sustainability. Recently, a particular focus has been given to waste generation and disposal, shifting the attention from greenhouse gases to another important source of environmental pollution. This paper investigates the effect of national environmental taxes and policies on industrial waste. A fixed effects model is used for 34 countries across Europe from 2004 to 2022. The results suggest that environmental taxes and energy policies reduce industrial (hazardous and non-hazardous) waste. However, environmental tax reforms should take into consideration the deterioration in environmental quality, the increase in economic costs and undesirable social consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary mobile communications markets, various agents or players interact to pursue welfare. Regulatory policies enacted by governments in certain markets aim to maximize social welfare. However, some countries, both least developed and developing, often adopt successful models from developed nations without local market validation. Therefore, network economics serves as a pertinent framework for analyzing such policies. This paper introduces a novel scheme based on constrained optimization problems, where the constraints represent multilevel economic game equilibria within a system model involving three agents: the central planner, the mobile network operator, and the mobile data users. These agents strategically optimize their payoff functions by considering benefit factors and decision variables such as the subsidization factor, pricing, and data consumption. To this end, a three-stage dynamic game is proposed to model the players' interactions, employing the backward induction method to ascertain the subgame perfect equilibrium from the Nash equilibrium. A case study is presented, demonstrating a 31.16% increase in social welfare between scenarios involving no adoption of the subsidization factor and its adoption at the optimal value when the central planner enacts it to other players in the game, even if they do not necessarily attain maximum payoff values. In countries aligning with this proposed model, social welfare is maximized through a subsidization scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the sustainability of the environment is a very much concerning issue for developed countries, the drive of the paper is to reveal the effects of nuclear, environment-friendly, and non-friendly energy, population, and GDP on CO2 emission for Italy, a developed country. Using the extended Stochastic Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) framework, the yearly data from 1972 to 2021 are analyzed in this paper through an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework. The reliability of the study is also examined by employing Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS), Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS), and Canonical Cointegration Regression (CCR) estimators and also the Granger causality method which is used to see the directional relationship among the indicators. The investigation confirms the findings of previous studies by showing that in the longer period, rising Italian GDP and non-green energy by 1% can lead to higher CO2 emissions by 8.08% and 1.505%, respectively, while rising alternative and nuclear energy by 1% can lead to falling in CO2 emission by 0.624%. Although population and green energy adversely influence the upsurge of CO2, they seem insignificant. Robustness tests confirm these longer-period impacts. This analysis may be helpful in planning and developing strategies for future financial funding in the energy sector in Italy, which is essential if the country is to achieve its goals of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of our paper is to construct a multidimensional financial inclusion (FI) index to measure the level of FI in 91 countries across different income groups. In order to address our research problem, we use the principal component analysis method. This approach addresses the criticism of the arbitrary selection of weights and reflects the degree of financial inclusion in depth. The data are drawn from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Financial Access Survey (FAS), the World Development Indicators (World Bank) and the Global Findex Database during the period of 2004–2020. This paper is the first to consider so many indicators of financial inclusion (13 indicators), belonging to three different dimensions of FI, in order to take into account the maximum number of aspects related to this concept. In addition, unlike previous work, this paper considers both developing and developed countries, which makes it possible to identify differences between them. The proposed index has some advantages. First, it is robust, comparable across countries and has good predictive power in tracking household microeconomic indicators (accounts and savings). It is also well correlated with macroeconomic variables such as literacy rate, poverty, GINI index, real interest rate and employers. Second, our results clearly show that, as a country's income level grows higher, its level of financial inclusion also grows higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each practical action in rural areas should be based on a comprehensive, new, and innovative theoretical paradigm. For nearly three decades, the global economic system has embraced rural entrepreneurship as a "productive" and innovative strategy in rural development in many countries, including both underdeveloped and developed countries. At present, we have large companies, which due to government development interventions, are replaced with small- and medium-sized businesses under inflexible and extreme entrepreneurialism. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to shed light on the prevailing entrepreneurship practice and discourse, criticize them, and finally introduce a new paradigm known as "paradigm of rural prosperity" (PRP). In this work, Aram Ziai's theory of skeptical post-development was used, along with Campbell Jones and André Spicer's critical theory of entrepreneurship and Rosenqvist's theory of the conceptualization of rurality and rural environment called "hermeneutical realism". The present paper attempts to base the paradigm of rural prosperity on three pillars of analysis and explanation: (a) rural embodiment, (b) neoliberalism, and (c) concept of sustainability. Although some case studies in Iran have been used as empirical evidence, this paper argues that the paradigm of rural prosperity is universal in nature and can be used in any geographical and cultural context to provide new rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent construction (IC) has emerged as a new approach to transforming the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry through the integration of advanced information technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). However, due to its interdisciplinary nature, the relevant documents on IC are diverse and fragmented. To provide a comprehensive understanding of research progress and future opportunities in IC and to offer suggestions for both developing and developed countries, this study employed VOSviewer and Gephi to conduct a comparative review of relevant literature from the 21st century. A keyword search of Web of Science (WOS) identified 2788 relevant documents which were subjected to an overall co-citation and co-authorship analysis. To illustrate the differences between developing and developed countries, China, a representative developing country, was taken as the candidate to be compared with developed countries via a co-occurrence analysis. Differences between China and developed countries in the three sub-directions of IC, research foundation and domain knowledge transformation; information perception, fusion, and decision making; and embodied AI, were qualitatively discussed. Finally, four future research directions were suggested: (1) data fusion and decision-making, (2) improving the accuracy and efficiency of knowledge representation, learning, and utilization, (3) the establishment of large, pre-trained models in the field, and (4) embodied AI for taking actions according to the decisions made. This paper provides an overview of the relevant literature and the IC context for practitioners and scholars in the AEC industry in countries with different levels of development, as well as suggestions for the future development of IC. The findings of this study can serve both academia and industry in promoting IC in the AEC industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing evidence of racial and institutional discrimination on minoritized communities and its negative effect on health, there are still gaps in the current literature identifying health disparities among minoritized communities. This review aims to identify health barriers faced by relatively less studied migrant subgroups including documented temporary foreign workers and refugees residing in high-income Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries focusing on the structural origins of differential health outcomes. We searched Medline, CINAHL, and Embase databases for papers describing health barriers for these groups published in English between 1 January 2011 and 30 July 2021. Two independent reviewers conducted a title, abstract, and full text screening with any discrepancies resolved by consensus or a third reviewer. Extracted data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis. Of the 381 articles that underwent full-text review, 27 articles were included in this review. We identified housing conditions, immigration policies, structural discrimination, and exploitative labour practices as the four major emerging themes that impacted the health and the access to healthcare services of our study populations. Our findings highlight the multidimensional nature of health inequities among migrant populations and a need to examine how the broader context of these factors influence their daily experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to supply increasingly individualized market demand in a short period of time while maintaining costs to a bare minimum might be considered a vital factor for industrialized countries' competitive revival. Despite significant advances in the field of Industry 4.0, there is still an open gap in the literature regarding advanced methodologies for production planning and control. Among different production and control approaches, hybrid architectures are gaining huge interest in the literature. For such architectures to operate at their best, reliable models for performance prediction of the supervised production system are required. In an effort to advance the development of hybrid architecture, this paper develops a model able to predict the performance of the controlled system when it is structured as a controlled work-in-progress (CONWIP) flow-shop with generalized stochastic processing times. To achieve this, we employed a simulation tool using both discrete-event and agent-based simulation techniques, which was then utilized to generate data for training a deep learning neural network. This network was proposed for estimating the throughput of a balanced system, together with a normalization method to generalize the approach. The results showed that the developed estimation tool outperforms the best-known approximated mathematical models while allowing one-shot training of the network. Finally, the paper develops preliminary insights about generalized performance estimation for unbalanced lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2022 and 2023, Industry 5.0 attracted a lot of attention. Many articles and papers regarding the basics of Industry 5.0, its pillars, and a comparison of Industry 5.0 and Industry 4.0, Society 5.0, and Operator 5.0 have been published. Although the concept of Industry 5.0 is relatively new, companies from developed countries that have a high level of implementation of Industry 4.0 have already started the transition to Industry 5.0. Even though Industry 5.0 enables developing countries to become a part of developed countries' value chains, it is not known which path to Industry 5.0 developing countries are taking. To fill this gap, the authors proposed research questions regarding the key indicators for measuring the levels of implementation of Industry 5.0 approaches in the manufacturing sector of the Republic of Serbia. This research includes insights from 146 manufacturing companies, gathered in 2022 as a part of the European Manufacturing Survey. The main findings of this study show that the most important indicator when it comes to human-centricity is training and competence development of production employees with a task-specific focus; the implementation of measures for improving efficiency in material consumption is significant for achieving sustainability; and the use of standardized and detailed work instructions is crucial in order to become resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical studies on the subject of Central American design are scarce. This article attempts to fill the gap as well as to overcome the exclusive correlation of design with industrialization. It highlights the relationship in a space and time other than those studied customarily: in the present case, 18th-century Sonsonate, El Salvador. With this purpose, it analyzes crafts, based primarily on an unpublished census of 1787 housed in the Archivo Municipal de Sonsonate. Considering design as a practice inherent to human life, this paper argues that design was present in craft activity through the creation of products, becoming a key factor for survival in a colonial periphery and overcoming guild barriers. Research findings indicate the limitations of conceiving design in industrial societies as a construction of coloniality, positing also the need to advance a concept of design that addresses the cultural and historical realities of peripheral regions like Sonsonate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has demonstrated that racism is a social determinant of health (SDOH), particularly for racialized minority newcomers residing in developed nations such as the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and European countries. This paper will focus on racism as a SDOH for racialized newcomers in these countries. Racism is defined as "an organized system of privilege and bias that systematically disadvantages a group of people perceived to belong to a specific race". Racism can be cultural, institutional, or individual. Berry's model of acculturation describes ways in which racialized newcomers respond to their post-migration experiences, resulting in one of several modes of acculturation; these are integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization. After examining the definition and description of racism, we argue that racism impacts newcomers at the site of acculturation; specifically, the paths they choose, or are forced to take in response to their settlement experiences. We posit that these acculturation pathways are in part, strategies that refugees use to cope with post-displacement stress and trauma. To support acculturation, which is primarily dependent on reducing the effects of cultural, institutional, and individual racism, health policymakers and practitioners are urged to acknowledge racism as a SDOH and to work to reduce its impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the characteristics and inter-relationships of tax systems in the OECD countries over the period 2014–2020, i.e., from a relatively consolidated economic period until the end of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. A predictable tax system is essential for the proper functioning of the economy. One of our two main research objectives was to develop a composite indicator for taxation, consisting of tax rates and tax administration time. This composite indicator was then tested using multivariate statistical methods. Our second research objective was to explore the correlation between tax rates, tax burden indicators and macroeconomic indicators over the period 2014–2020, focusing on three years, 2014, 2019 and 2020. An important criterion for the choice of the study years was that 2014 was considered the first overall year of recovery from the crisis, 2019 the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2020 the first year affected by the pandemic. We investigated the significant differences between the composite indicator categories and the tax burden macroeconomic indicators, and examined and tested correlations between the variables under study (tax rates, tax burden and macroeconomic variables). We found that the amount of working time spent on tax administration is decreasing, presumably due to the increasingly digitalised environment, but this trend has been slightly interrupted by the pandemic. Furthermore, we found that countries with more complex tax systems with a high tax burden perform worse on certain macroeconomic indicators, mainly in southern Europe from a geographical perspective; however, these potentially more burdensome, higher-rate tax systems of more developed countries do not put these countries at a competitive disadvantage. This reflects on the fact that these countries rely on the monetarist school rather than the Keynesian school, a fact which was also compared and considered in our paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many European and some other developed countries have addressed the use of geothermal energy systems as a renewable source of energy worthy of investment and development. Geothermal energy is a non-intermittent and potentially inexhaustible source that can be used for energy saving and environmental energy production, as well as to provide heating and cooling to buildings, by increasing the energy efficiency of conventional systems. This editorial paper collects the most significant and recent studies, dealing with geothermal source exploitation, the possible role of geothermal systems in the building retrofit measures, the use of shallow geothermal sources, and specific aspects of systems that exploit geothermal energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-acquired pneumonia represents the third-highest cause of mortality in industrialized countries and the first due to infection. Although guidelines for the approach to this infection model are widely implemented in international health schemes, information continually emerges that generates controversy or requires updating its management. This paper reviews the most important issues in the approach to this process, such as an aetiologic update using new molecular platforms or imaging techniques, including the diagnostic stewardship in different clinical settings. It also reviews both the Intensive Care Unit admission criteria and those of clinical stability to discharge. An update in antibiotic, in oxygen, or steroidal therapy is presented. It also analyzes the management out-of-hospital in CAP requiring hospitalization, the main factors for readmission, and an approach to therapeutic failure or rescue. Finally, the main strategies for prevention and vaccination in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised hosts are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global food safety and security are key principles to be followed in the context of the implementation of food safety management systems. The objective of this paper is to assess the contemporary developments of Food Safety Management System standards (FSMS) worldwide and to identify the primary constraints and advantages associated with their implementation by small and medium-sized enterprises across different regions. The effectiveness of these systems has also been evaluated. 116 case studies have been employed across developing and developed regions worldwide across 27 primary food sectors. After the implementation of FSMS, there was a significant increase in the percentage of companies that have implemented the international FSMS, both in developed (16.7% to 63.9%) and developing countries (26.6% to 48.1%). Certification has also increased from 34.2% to 59.6% in the total sample, namely from 33.3% to 61.1% in developed countries and from 34.6% to 59.0% in developing countries. There was a significant increase in medium vs. small company size (57.1% to 62.3%, p = 0.046), only in developing countries. Food safety culture and manager leadership implementation were increased to over 80% after FSMS implementation in both developed and developing countries (p < 0.001). Training, resources, and technology adequacy were also increased in all companies (p < 0.001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Huge advances in peer-to-peer systems and attempts to develop the semantic web have revealed a critical issue in information systems across multiple domains: the absence of semantic interoperability. Today, businesses operating in a digital environment require increased supply-chain automation, interoperability, and data governance. While research on the semantic web and interoperability has recently received much attention, a dearth of studies investigates the relationship between these two concepts in depth. To address this knowledge gap, the objective of this study is to conduct a review and bibliometric analysis of 3511 Scopus-registered papers on the semantic web and interoperability published over the past two decades. In addition, the publications were analyzed using a variety of bibliometric indicators, such as publication year, journal, authors, countries, and institutions. Keyword co-occurrence and co-citation networks were utilized to identify the primary research hotspots and group the relevant literature. The findings of the review and bibliometric analysis indicate the dominance of conference papers as a means of disseminating knowledge and the substantial contribution of developed nations to the semantic web field. In addition, the keyword co-occurrence network analysis reveals a significant emphasis on semantic web languages, sensors and computing, graphs and models, and linking and integration techniques. Based on the co-citation clustering, the Internet of Things, semantic web services, ontology mapping, building information modeling, bioinformatics, education and e-learning, and semantic web languages were identified as the primary themes contributing to the flow of knowledge and the growth of the semantic web and interoperability field. Overall, this review substantially contributes to the literature and increases scholars' and practitioners' awareness of the current knowledge composition and future research directions of the semantic web field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising income inequality has become a defining global challenge that hinders the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The paper investigates the effect of fiscal policy and institutional capacity on income inequality among developed and developing countries. Applying the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to control potential endogeneity for countries from 2000 to 2019, the following results have been established. The dynamic effect captured by the first lag of inequality suggests that the widening income gap is persistent in both developed and developing countries. We also find evidence that income tax is more progressive and may abate income inequality in developing countries and not in developed countries. However, taxes on goods and services were found not to impact income equalization globally. Furthermore, the findings reveal that government size, education expenditure, and health expenditure are negatively associated with income inequality in developed countries only. Public debt was observed not to influence income distribution across the world. We observed that corruption and government effectiveness do not significantly impact income distribution in developed and developing countries for institutional capacity. However, in most cases, the coefficients of the interactions between fiscal policy and institutional capacity bear the expected signs, albeit insignificant. Some policy recommendations have been offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to empirically review the process of housing financialisation in London, exploring a time series causal relationship between house prices and financial instruments, using the Granger method and a VAR test. In order to carry out this analysis, we use a vector autoregressive model with a monthly data series that seeks to contribute to exploring this relationship. The results are relevant to the important role that the theory of housing financialisation plays in explaining the crisis of access to secure tenure that can be seen in developed nations. The results also provide an empirical background to pursue this theory more specifically in the context of the vectors that are effectively causal to the financialisation processes that impact everyday life through housing prices. The study is original, given that this type of modelling has not previously been carried out for a major world city such as London, and adds to the findings of similar explorations that have applied other methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pupose - This essay uses service marketing concept to discuss how domestic medical tourism (DMT) can contribute to healthcare equity in developed countries. Approach - The authors take up several vital issues. First, the potential benefits of DMT are outlined from a healthcare equity perspective; second, the challenges that DMT confronts in reaching its aim are identified; and finally, a few research areas are suggested. Finding - It is suggested that increased awareness about the healthcare service and proper service delivery are required to improve healthcare equity. Practical implication - This paper raises several research issues from service marketing to deal with delivery, communication, efficiency, and insurance practices regarding healthcare. Social implication - From a societal point of view, it explores how healthcare equity can be improved by DMT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of hungry people is on the rise and more efforts are needed to improve the global food security status. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) proposes more investment in the agricultural sector to boost production and alleviate hunger. However, there are fewer papers that distinguish enterprises investment from public investment. In this case, we take advantage of detailed investment data in the fDi Markets database to explore the global patterns of agricultural investment. In particular, we identify the top destination countries based on aggregate and sub-sectoral agricultural investment data. Then we investigate the relationship between agricultural investment and food security, which is measured by per capita protein intake. Finally, we propose some suggestions from the investment motivation perspective to help food-insecure countries to attract overseas investment. We find that developed countries are the primary sources of global agricultural investment and these sources have been becoming more diverse in the past decade. It implies the trend towards a more inclusive investment environment worldwide. However, the global distribution of agricultural investment is uneven as food-insecure countries only receive 20% of the global agricultural investment. The top three destination countries, USA, China, and Russia, have a relatively high food security level. In contrast, countries suffering from food insecurity receive fewer investment projects, and most of which are on a small scale. Given the limited socio–economic development status in food-insecure countries, it is essential for all levels of society to help them and contribute to ending hunger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary turns a critical lens on the perspectives of labour in the potential green transition. It shows what changes when we focus on worldwide social labour—the labour which most of humanity currently performs—and its worldwide impact, going beyond climate to damages from mining and to biodiversity and other elements of the ecology. Such an optic forces scepticism about approaches which only consider the North when it comes to a large-scale green transition. Indeed, this paper argues, using illustrative examples, how such approaches rely on suppressing the historical role of colonialism and imperialism in making First World (core) development possible. It shows how lenses such as "social reproduction" or policies such as "universal health care" focused only on the core reproduction of worldwide patterns of domination. It then puts forward the outlines of an alternative approach to decent work in the context of a worldwide green transition toward a non-hierarchical world system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's world faces a serious public health problem with cancer. One type of cancer that begins in the breast and spreads to other body areas is breast cancer (BC). Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers that claim the lives of women. It is also becoming clearer that most cases of breast cancer are already advanced when they are brought to the doctor's attention by the patient. The patient may have the evident lesion removed, but the seeds have reached an advanced stage of development or the body's ability to resist them has weakened considerably, rendering them ineffective. Although it is still much more common in more developed nations, it is also quickly spreading to less developed countries. The motivation behind this study is to use an ensemble method for the prediction of BC, as an ensemble model aims to automatically manage the strengths and weaknesses of each of its separate models, resulting in the best decision being made overall. The main objective of this paper is to predict and classify breast cancer using Adaboost ensemble techniques. The weighted entropy is computed for the target column. Taking each attribute's weights results in the weighted entropy. Each class's likelihood is represented by the weights. The amount of information gained increases with a decrease in entropy. Both individual and homogeneous ensemble classifiers, created by mixing Adaboost with different single classifiers, have been used in this work. In order to deal with the class imbalance issue as well as noise, the synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE) was used as part of the data mining pre-processing. The suggested approach uses a decision tree (DT) and naive Bayes (NB), with Adaboost ensemble techniques. The experimental findings shown 97.95% accuracy for prediction using the Adaboost-random forest classifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: The results presented in this paper provide a reference point on the important determinants of honey consumption which can help honey marketers to promote consumer buying behaviour as well as provide doctors and nutritionists with arguments to encourage higher honey consumption by patients. Due to its sensory qualities and therapeutic properties, honey is a desirable dietary ingredient. Despite the growing interest in proper nutrition in developed countries, honey consumption in developed countries is relatively low. This is also true in Poland. Hence, research was undertaken to determine Polish consumers' behaviour with regard to honey, and its determinants, with particular emphasis on nutritional knowledge and health status. The relationships between the different aspects of consumer behaviour in the honey market and the demographic and economic characteristics of the respondents were verified using the Mann–Whitney U test for comparisons of non-dependent groups for variables on an interval scale. A multiple regression model was developed to examine the relationship between the respondents' nutritional knowledge and their honey-related behaviour, while the relationship between the respondents' health status and their behaviour towards honey was verified using a logistic regression model. Obtained results indicate that gender, age, education, and income differentiate consumers' behaviour with regard to honey. The level of nutritional knowledge had a moderate effect on variations in the respondents' behaviour. A better assessment of health status was associated with greater importance of nutritional-health motivators of honey consumption, while poorer health status determined a greater importance of such determinants as the place where honey is sold or its label attractiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) initial version provides several safety performances functions (SPFs) that can be used to predict collisions on a roadway network. The calibration of the HSM SPFs for Fatal and Injury (FI), Property Damage Only (PDO), and Total crashes for Urban Four-lane Divided Roadway Segments (U4D) in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, and the development of new SPFs were investigated in this paper. The HSM SPFs were calibrated first with the HSM methodology, and then new forms of specific SPFs were evaluated for Muscat urban roads to determine the best model using the Poisson-Gamma regression technique. The results of this study show that the HSM calibrated SPFs provide the best fit of the data used in this study and would be the best SPFs for predicting collisions in the City of Muscat. The developed collision model describes the mean crash frequency as a function of the natural logarithm of the annual average daily traffic, segment length, and speed limit. Overall, this study provides an important foundation for the implementation of HSM methods in Muscat city, and it may aid in making SPFs established in more developed countries adaptable for use in less developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Megaproject practices worldwide have triggered increasing research in megaproject management issues and led to an increasing number of papers being published during the last decade. However, it is demonstrated by the literature that there is no systematic examination on research development in the discipline of megaproject management, and consequently it is very difficult for scholars to quickly understand and grasp the research trend. Therefore, a research question naturally comes out, i.e., what is the status quo of megaproject management research and what are the research directions worthy of further investigation? This study aims to answer the question by conducting a systematic examination of the research development in the discipline of megaproject management. A total of 117 relevant articles, identified from six major international journals between 2009 and 2021, were analyzed based on the number of papers published annually, main author contributions, citations, categorization of the research methods and data analysis methods adopted, and research topics covered. The results indicated that developed countries, such as Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, have enjoyed significant advantages in terms of megaproject management research. It also revealed that more sophisticated views and theory have been used effectively, rather than only basic qualitative methods, in a number of studies on megaproject management. Future studies on megaproject management will be led globally, where megaprojects will remain designed and built to better built environments. In addition, continuous in-depth research on related topics can promote innovation in megaproject management to achieve sustainable megaproject development. Megaproject management will continue to be a hot research topic in the future; in particular, megaproject investment and finance management have emerged as new challenging topics. The findings can be valuable for both industry practitioners and researchers to gain deeper understanding of the current status and future directions of megaproject management research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, research into autonomous vehicles (AVs) has become highly popular in industrialized nations due to their importance in the future success of smart cities. Research on this mobility technology and the critical elements affecting its development in developing countries, however, has been rather limited. This paper aims to shed light on the most influential elements of AV adoption in developing nations. A structural analysis approach is used, based on the primary qualitative data—that was gathered via an expert-opinion poll utilizing the fuzzy Delphi with a snowballing method and engaging 25 experts in the field in two rounds—, in accordance with the tradition of futurist research. The analysis has led to the identification of 11 key factors, from the initial factor pool of 54, affecting AV adoption in the case study context of Iran. The results of the analysis revealed the following conclusions, that fall under the policy and legislation domain, and present the most significant issues impacting AV adoption: (a) Future orientation of government—consistency and of accountability of policies, the long-term vision of the government for developing AVs industry; (b) Managing the international sanctions for foreign investment, and; (c) Funding mega projects to enable AVs. The results indicate that the establishment of legislation and the formulation of government policy regarding the provision of infrastructure, investment, and credit allocation are crucial for the development of AVs in Iran and other developing nations with comparable characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balancing electricity demand and supply remains a significant challenge for the power systems in developing countries, such as Nigeria. In Nigeria, there is a shortage of adequate power supply, and demand-side management (DSM) plays a minor role in the power balancing mechanism with load shedding being widely used. The paper aims to review and compare various existing and emerging DSM strategies in developing countries. An extensive and systematic review was conducted to evaluate potential solutions using DSM to increase the overall energy efficiency in the Nigerian electricity market. This study found that, although the technical and economic potentials of DSM vary in developed countries, the uptakes of DSM have been severely hampered hence preventing the full exploitation and utilisation of the full potential of DSM. The initiatives of a DSM model in Nigeria and other developing countries can play a significant role in addressing demand and supply challenges but an upgrade of the energy infrastructures, a reform of the market structure and the provision of financial incentives are required to allow for wide implementations of DSM strategies in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between CO2 emissions in three economic sectors of G20 member countries using the environmental IPAT model and STIRPAT model and validates the EKC hypothesis by comparing the results for developing and developed countries. The results confirm that there is a significant long-run equilibrium relationship between the three sectors (primary, secondary, and tertiary) and CO2 emissions across the panel. Furthermore, the long-run elasticities suggest that the primary sector (agriculture) positively and negatively affects the CO2 emissions of developing and developed economies, respectively. This finding proves that the development of agriculture is in line with the EKC hypothesis that a more developed economy will instead improve environmental degradation. Based on the findings, for each sector, we provide policymakers with suggestions to potentially curb CO2 emissions without significantly compromising economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many developed countries with a long history of urbanization, there is an increasing need for automated computer vision (CV)-based inspection to replace conventional labor-intensive visual inspection. This paper proposes a technique for the automated detection of multiple concrete damage based on a state-of-the-art deep learning framework, Mask R-CNN, developed for instance segmentation. The structure of Mask R-CNN, which consists of three stages (region proposal, classification, and segmentation) is optimized for multiple concrete damage detection. The optimized Mask R-CNN is trained with 765 concrete images including cracks, efflorescence, rebar exposure, and spalling. The performance of the trained Mask R-CNN is evaluated with 25 actual test images containing damage as well as environmental objects. Two types of metrics are proposed to measure localization and segmentation performance. On average, 90.41% precision and 90.81% recall are achieved for localization and 87.24% precision and 87.58% recall for segmentation, which indicates the excellent field applicability of the trained Mask R-CNN. This paper also qualitatively discusses the test results by explaining that the architecture of Mask R-CNN that is optimized for general object detection purposes, can be modified to detect long and slender shapes of cracks, rebar exposure, and efflorescence in further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of economic freedom along with traditional economic factors on economic growth for a panel of European countries. The growth of the gross domestic product was observed over a twenty-year time period on a sample of 43 developing and developed countries. Based on a robust dynamic panel setting, we conclude that increases in economic freedom as expressed by the Index of Economic Freedom/Heritage Foundation (but not its levels) are related to economic growth. The EU membership status either had no effect or it curbed the effect of the economic freedom on growth. We also find that the subprime economic crisis of 2008-2009 exerted a negative impact on the growth of European economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production process from iron ore to steel can be divided into several stages, among which the processes of vanadium extraction and steelmaking are two key technological sections. The products of vanadium extraction are important strategic resources for modern industrial countries, and the remaining molten iron after vanadium extraction provides the material used in the subsequent steelmaking processes. In some mechanism models of vanadium extraction and the steelmaking process, the contact area of the reactions is considered to be constant in the empirical formula; furthermore, even the masses of the molten steel and slag are taken to be constants. This paper presents an important improvement to the existing models, in which the contact areas of the slag–metal interface and the emulsion system are considered to be non-constant. The improved model is simple and easy to analyze theoretically. Theoretical analysis of the model equations can be used to explain the competitive oxidation between each element, as well as the oxygen conservation of the system. The numerical simulations are consistent with existing production data, showing that the mass fraction of vanadium can be reduced to the specified threshold after about 3.5 min of blowing, which provides an important reference for production control. Furthermore, it is shown that the model captures the "trapezoid" structure of the decarburization rate. This paper also considers the relationship between FeO and O, the numerical simulation partly reflecting the dependence between the concentrations of FeO and O. The improved model can be used to describe and predict the change of the molten steel and slag composition in the process of vanadium extraction, which provides a mathematical foundation for the automatic control of the vanadium extraction process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological thought and practice have a longstanding presence in the Daoist tradition, yet these principles are not adequately upheld in contemporary times. This can be attributed to two primary factors: firstly, adverse environmental conditions due to economic reasons have hindered the maintenance of a viable interconnection between humans and nature. Secondly, intense competition has impeded the preservation of human-to-human interconnections. In this regard, it is inappropriate to place the blame for ecological threats solely on the Daoist cultural sphere. Prior research has predominantly focused on Daoist ecological thought, often neglecting the real problems concerning ecological responsibilities and potential solutions. To address this, two theoretical bases were proposed. First, attention was given to the Daoist concept of "connection", which emphasizes the relationship between humans and nature, and among humans themselves. As "connection" is a universal human concept, it carries significant weight even when discussed from a Daoist perspective. Second, through a critical reflection on "the myth of meritocracy" prevalent in Western discourse and the application of a "social model of disability", understanding and assistance from developed countries were solicited. These theoretical underpinnings form the basis for advocating improvements within the fragile ecology of the Daoist sphere. Before criticizing the Daoist cultural sphere—often perceived as a global factory—it is crucial to confront the realities faced by both developed and developing countries and the disparities between corporate headquarters and impoverished factories. This study suggests that a portion of excessive profits should be invested in ecological improvement initiatives. This would enable entities within the Daoist cultural sphere to uphold its ecological thoughts and practices independently—an ethos deeply rooted in their long-standing practice of being one with nature. This philosophy is increasingly vital given our interconnected existence on Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperature, salinity, and pressure (TSP) are essential parameters for the ocean. Optical fiber sensors (OFSs) have rapidly come into focus as an ocean detection technology in recent years due to their advantages of electromagnetic interference, light weight, low cost, and no waterproof requirement. In this paper, the most recently developed TSP sensors for single parameter and multi-parameter TSP sensing and measurement based on different OFSs are reviewed. In addition, from the practical point of view, encapsulation methods that protect fibers and maintain the normal operation of OFSs in seawater, and the response time of the OFS, are addressed. Finally, we discuss the prospects and challenges of OFSs used in marine environments and provide some clues for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Allergic diseases are becoming a major healthcare issue in many developed nations, where living environment and lifestyle are most predominantly distinct. Such differences include urbanized, industrialized living environments, overused hygiene products, antibiotics, stationary lifestyle, and fast-food-based diets, which tend to reduce microbial diversity and lead to impaired immune protection, which further increase the development of allergic diseases. At the same time, studies have also shown that modulating a microbiocidal community can ameliorate allergic symptoms. Therefore, in this paper, we aimed to review recent findings on the potential role of human microbiota in the gastrointestinal tract, surface of skin, and respiratory tract in the development of allergic diseases. Furthermore, we addressed a potential therapeutic or even preventive strategy for such allergic diseases by modulating human microbial composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention to Smart Infrastructure (SI) has risen due to its advantages, including better access, increased quality of life, and simplified maintenance management. To develop SI, Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs) are identified as potentially beneficial procurement strategies, which boost capacities to manage risks by pooling diverse resources. However, the applicability of PPP in SI developments in developed countries is scarcely researched. This may be due to underestimating the other potential benefits from PPP, although developed countries may have their own funding to develop SI. Hence, this research aims to evaluate the significant factors influencing the success of PPP in SI projects in developed countries based on public-sector satisfaction (S1), private-sector satisfaction (S2), and end-user satisfaction (S3). A comprehensive literature review was followed by expert interviews and an international survey, focusing on developed countries. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was applied to map the connections amongst the influencing factors and S1, S2, and S3. The results reveal that legal and political-related factors significantly impact on S2 and S3, while social barriers significantly impact on S1. The effect of the constructs and factors on S1, S2, and S3 along with their rankings are unveiled in this research paper, providing a sound basis to increase success levels and minimize shortfalls in PPP to boost SI developments in developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the need to adjust public pension systems to meet changing demographic, economic and social conditions, most developed countries have created government reserve funds to ensure macroeconomic sustainability. This paper aims to study the importance that this reserve fund plays in the sustainability of the Spanish public pension system. Using data for the 2000 to 2019 period (20 observations) on the main variables impacting on the system, we calculate probabilities and other indicators of its unsustainability in relation to the reserve fund. Our model accurately reflects certain aspects of the data, and suggests that the probability of unsustainability is inversely associated with the size of the reserve fund, but that this relation is moderated by the heterogeneity of the members of the pension system. Moreover, the probability of unsustainability increases in line with the pension system deficit, the time elapsed until unsustainability is reached is shorter when the Reserve Fund balance falls, and the size of this fund at which the system becomes unsustainable diminishes with the probability of unsustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food loss is a serious global problem, particularly in developed countries; in the European Union, approximately 20% of the food produced each year is wasted. Food losses occur in the entire agri-food chain, starting from primary production, through post-harvest operations and storage, processing, distribution and consumption. The paper presents the results of studies on the evaluation of food losses at the stage of primary production (agricultural production) of consumer cereals in Poland in the context of their impact on the environment and ensuring food security. It was shown that the amount of food losses in the first link of the agri-food chain in the cereal sector in 2017–2018 was on average 219.6 thousand tonnes per year. The level of losses per farm averaged 0.91 tonnes, which accounted for 1.7% of total production. The weight of consumer grain waste at the primary production stage, calculated on the basis of the results of food losses and taking into account the grain management methods, amounted to an average of 117.24 thousand tonnes/year, which accounted for 23.08% of all food waste generated at the primary production stage. By relating the amount of food losses in the primary production of consumer cereals in Poland to the assumed emission factor, it was calculated that food losses at the stage of production of consumer cereals during a year are responsible for the emission of 0.608 million tonnes of CO2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The main aim of our paper was to quantify the potential impact of socioeconomic environment on cancer patients' survival in Slovenia in the 21st century. Despite of universal health coverage and after accounting for basic demographic variables (age and gender), differences in stage at diagnosis, as well as the impact of the cancer treatment improvements over time, we show that cancer patients in Slovenia who have a lower socioeconomic status experience worse survival and increased mortality. The results of this analysis could help decision-makers to better understand inequalities in cancer burden and inform the development of policies to improve or resolve them. Despite having an established systematic approach to population survival estimation in Slovenia, the influence of socioeconomic environment on cancer patients' survival has not yet been evaluated. Thus, the main aim of our study was to quantify the potential impact of socioeconomic environment on cancer patients' survival in our population in the 21st century. The net survival was calculated and stratified into quintiles of Slovenian version of the European Deprivation Index for all adult cancer patients diagnosed between 2004 and 2018 using the national cancer registry data. After accounting for basic demographic variables (age and gender), differences in stage at diagnosis, as well as the impact of the cancer treatment improvements over time, we found that cancer patients in Slovenia with lower socioeconomic status experience worse survival and have higher mortality. In particular, the odds of dying from oral, stomach, colorectal, liver, pancreatic, lung, breast, ovarian, corpus uteri, prostate, and bladder cancers, as well as for melanoma, leukemia, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, are significantly higher in the socioeconomically most deprived group of patients compared to the most affluent group. The inequalities in cancer burden we found could help decision-makers to better understand the magnitude of this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the negative effects caused by structures of the dominant agricultural system and new market opportunities, increasing food supply structures have re-emerged in the urban-rural context of industrialized countries in recent years. These food supply structures often accompany new forms of hybrid cooperation models, including actors and institutions that have not shared resources previously. They form new alliances for sustainable transformation in the agri-food sector. Simultaneously, discourse has arisen in science and practice about the sustainability potential of such hybrid cooperation, referring to a lack of critical systematization and the necessity for creating an assessment concept. From the latter, one could draw conclusions about the transformative potential of such cooperation models and their potential to serve as blueprints for other regions. In this conceptual paper, a classification approach derived from social enterprise literature is elaborated, extended, and evaluated, to design a classification of new hybrid cooperation models that allow comparisons between regions and are sensitive to their dynamics. We show in an application how the classification approach, considering the dimensions "actors", "resources", and "actions", serves to discover patterns in the development of short food-supply chain practices, identifying individual transition paths and, thus, making statements about their sustainability and challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial planning has become an important measure for countries and regions to promote sustainable development. However, there remains a lack of systematic and quantitative research on spatial planning worldwide. In this study, CiteSpace was used to perform bibliometric analysis and visualization research on the Web of Science core collection and China National Knowledge Infrastructure database. It was found that: (1) The number of papers published in global spatial planning research shows an increasing trend, especially after 2018, with China showing an obvious increasing trend. (2) Globally, the United States has the largest number of relevant research results, and Italy has the most cooperation with other countries. The highest research output is from developed countries, while that of developing countries is relatively weak. (3) There is some intersection among countries, disciplines, and authors but it is not strong, indicating that cooperation should be strengthened. (4) Through keyword cluster, timeline, and time zone analysis, global development can be roughly divided into three stages: the first stage is characterized by the study of spatial planning system theory, the second stage is characterized by building green infrastructure and providing ecological services, and the third stage is characterized by an emphasis on public participation and the establishment of justice mechanisms. China's development corresponds to three stages: the theory and experience learning stage, the spatial planning system focused on economic development stage, and the integration of multiple plans and the sustainable development exploration stage. (5) There are differences in burst words between the world and China, indicating that there are great differences in research hotspots in different countries' periods and conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence and maturity of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) security along with subsequent frameworks and security mechanisms in Australian organisations is a growing phenomenon somewhat similar to other developed nations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, even organisations that were previously reluctant to embrace BYOD have been forced to accept it to facilitate remote work. The aim of this paper is to discover, through a study conducted using a survey questionnaire instrument, how employees practice and perceive the BYOD security mechanisms deployed by Australian businesses which can help guide the development of future BYOD security frameworks. Three research questions are answered by this study: What levels of awareness do Australian businesses have for BYOD security aspects? How are employees currently responding to the security mechanisms applied by their organisations for mobile devices? What are the potential weaknesses in businesses' IT networks that have a direct effect on BYOD security? Overall, the aim of this research is to illuminate the findings of these research objectives so that they can be used as a basis for building new and strengthening existing BYOD security frameworks in order to enhance their effectiveness against an ever-growing list of attacks and threats targeting mobile devices in a virtually driven work force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]