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The vulnerability of worn-out textures in the face of natural disasters is one of the most significant challenges that have forced planners and urban managers to intervene in these structures. In this context, the new-urbanism, or the new urbanization, movement is one of the most novel approaches. This paper aims to organizing one of the worn-out neighborhoods in Rudsar, northern Iran with an approach toward the new urbanism.

The procedure adopted in this research is a combination of both quantitative and qualitative practices with an applied approach. Therefore, through utilizing the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and space syntax methods, the principles of the new urbanism are examined using the Expert Choice and Depthmap software. Subsequently, the appropriate priorities are mentioned for organizing the neighborhood with the new-urbanism approach using the building information system (BIM) and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) techniques.

The findings of this study indicate that among the main characteristics of the new urbanism, walkability is recognized as the most important factor. Afterward, the components of maintaining the traditional structure of neighborhoods and connectivity were in the second and third ranks, respectively, of importance. Accordingly, by identifying the societal potential of roads according to their spatial configuration, it is possible to boost walkability, as well as economic prosperity in these areas.

The combination and correlation of the four utilized methods in this research can be adopted in the future studies as a new outlook of the mixed methods in the field of urban studies.

Synergy indicators and social network analysis (SNA), as practical tools, provide the possibility of explaining the pattern of scientific collaboration and visualization of network relations. Recognition of scientific capacities is the basis of synergy. The present study aims to measure and discover the synergistic networks of COVID-19’s top papers at the level of co-authorship, countries, journals, bibliographic couples and titles.

The synergy indicator, co-authorship co-citation network analysis methods were applied. The research population comprises COVID-19’s top papers indexed in Essential Science Indicator and Web of Science Core Collection 2020 and 2021. Excel 2016, UCINET 6.528.0.0 2017, NetDraw, Ravar Matrix, VOSviewer version 1.6.14 and Python 3.9.5 were applied to analyze the data and visualize the networks.

The findings indicate that considering the three possible possibilities for authors, countries and journals, more redundancy and information are created and potential for further cooperation is observed. The synergy of scientific collaboration has revealed that “Wang, Y,” “USA” and “Science of the Total Environment” have the most effective capabilities and results. “Guan (2020b)” and “Zhou (2020)” are bibliographic couplings that have received the most citations. The keywords “CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19)” were the most frequent in article titles.

In a circumstance that the world is suffering from a COVID-19 pandemic and all scientists are conducting various researches to discover vaccines, medicines and new treatment methods, scientometric studies, and analysis of social networks of COVID-19 publications to be able to specify the synergy rate and the scientific collaboration networks, are not only innovative and original but also of great importance and priority; SNA tools along with the synergy indicator is capable of visualizing the complicated and multifaceted pattern of scientific collaboration in COVID-19. As a result, analyses can help identify existing capacities and define a new space for using COVID-19 researchers’ capabilities.

University, industry and government relationships, known under the Triple Helix, have been studied under various aspects. The West African region and countries have been analysed with mutual information and transmission power, two information theory-based indicators. The purpose of this paper is to portray the landscape of West African Triple Helix innovation systems using three main game theory indicators (core, Shapley value and nucleolus) with the objective to measure the synergy within the selected innovation systems.

The collaboration between university, industry and government is modelled as a three-person coalitional game. Bibliographical data of selected countries were collected from Web of Science and organised according to collaboration patterns between the three actors. The characteristic functions of the games were computed, the cores plotted, the Shapley values and the nucleoli computed.

Either university or government has more power to create and lead to synergy; government shows solidarity towards university and industry in most of countries; and they are joined in their efforts by industry in two countries. The core exists in all the countries meaning that all the selected innovation systems present synergy; however, the extent is limited and varies over countries.

Innovation includes all research products; however, this study focuses on publications only.

Synergy within a Triple Helix innovation system is studied up to now with information theory indicators. The paper portrays the landscape of West African Triple Helix innovation systems using three main game theory indicators: the core, the Shapley value and the nucleolus and gives a new way to study university, industry and government relationships.

This paper aims to optimize the stiffness coefficient of the elastic element for a passive waist assistive exoskeleton (WAE). There is a tradeoff between stiffness coefficient of elastic element of the exoskeleton and work efficiency of the wearer, because elastic element affects original bending motion of the wearer and the force requirement of erector spinae is compensated by the other muscles. However, there is no accepted conclusion on how to determine the proper stiffness coefficient, especially with respected to the effort of groups of muscles, not only erector spinae.

In this study, a consumption indicator based on muscle fatigue of seven muscles is proposed and a Bayesian-based human-in-the-loop optimization approach is adopted to optimize the stiffness coefficient. Pneumatic artificial muscles are used to replace the mechanical elastic part to adjust the assistive force automatically. The proposed optimization method is verified by the way of load-lifting experiments with three different conditions: without exoskeleton, with fixed air pressure and with optimized air pressure. Six subjects participated in the experiment and each experiment is performed in different day.

Compared with No-Exo condition and static assistance condition, the parameter-optimized waist exoskeleton averagely reduces muscle fatigue of the six subjects by 45.30 ± 29.14% and 30.94 ± 30.29%, respectively. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method is effective to reduce muscle fatigue during stoop lifting task.

This paper provides a novel cost function construction method based on muscle fatigue and muscle synergy for passive WAE stiffness optimization.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are an important strategic tool for continuous adaptation, sustainable corporate development and external growth. At the same time, M&As involve high levels of risk with mixed performance results even under normal circumstances. Even though the M&A market was continuously growing for the last decade, it was abruptly ended by the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic as executives were more concerned about liquidity than with long-term growth strategies. This raises the question how M&A behaviour is affected by the economic fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The mixed method research design was employed in this study.

The authors particularly investigate how target selection as well as synergy management are affected by the pandemic. The study analysis reveals four archetypical responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The authors describe those responses in detail and analyse antecedents that seem to influence firms' acquisition behaviour during the pandemic.

The paper draws on survey and interview data of M&A practitioners.

The implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy is of practical significance for improving the quality and efficiency of economic growth and accelerating the transformation of economic development mode. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of innovation-driven strategies on marine industry agglomeration and industrial transformation.

In traditional grey correlation analysis, when the positive and negative areas cancel each other out during the integration process, the calculation result of the correlation degree is often inconsistent with the qualitative analysis. For this reason, from the perspective of curve similarity, this paper constructs two response curves through the relative change area of the two curves and the relative area change ratio of similar degree, thus constructing an improved grey relational model.

The authors find that the innovation investment has a better correlation with marine industrial agglomeration. It also found that Guangdong Province has the highest degree of correlation between innovation indicators and marine industrial agglomeration. Much beyond the authors’ expectation, in the areas where marine industrial agglomeration is high, the synergistic effect is not obvious by using the location entropy method.

The improved grey correlation analysis method can effectively overcome the phenomenon that the positive and negative areas cancel each other in the integration process of the original algorithm, and it can also effectively measure the negative correlation between variables. This paper explores the impact of innovation drive on the agglomeration of marine industries, which is of great significance to the sustainable development of marine economy.

As an extension to Assael’s (2011) review on media synergy, this chapter examines the latest evolvement of media synergy research in the past 10 years by integrating studies from a wide range of leading journals.

We searched a total of 17 major journals in advertising, communication, and marketing from 2005 to 2014 and identified a total of 42 articles on media synergy. These studies were reviewed to assess the current status of media synergy research.

Studies of inter-media interaction at the individual level provide mixed support for a media synergistic effect, and the occurrence of this effect demands certain boundary conditions. Research on multi-media engagement has been gaining momentum in the past few years and is a promising subject in media synergy research.

We envision two growing approaches in future media synergy research: the neuroscientific approach and the data mining approach.

This chapter posits that media synergy research has evolved in the most recent years to a new phase, which is multi-media engagement. Hence, this chapter extends Assael’s work in terms of explicating media synergy in the context of social media engagement and identifying research gaps in current literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between top management support, project mission (PM), synergy and project management effectiveness (PME) in the Malaysian local councils. It also attempts to analyze the relative importance and performance of the predictor constructs on the target construct for managerial actions.

Primary data based on 169 respondents were collected and analyzed using PLS-SEM to assess validity, reliability, hypothesis testing and importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA) of the study constructs.

PM and synergy were found to be significantly and positively associated with PME. However, top management support was not related to PME. Synergy has the highest relative importance level in influencing PME and it is regarded as the most relevant construct for managerial actions.

This study examines the significant factors that contribute to the effectiveness of project management in the local councils. It forms a basis for other state local councils to emulate the research model and compare the findings among different project teams in different locations.

The IPMA identifies synergy as a primary important construct for project management activities. It explains PME is linked with extensive collaboration, inter-departmental relations, interpersonal coordination and close liaisons.

This study is among the few that examines factors influencing PME in the Malaysian local councils. Inclusion of synergy as one of the predictor constructs will definitely help to improve the well-functioning and coordination of the project.

The 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) constitute an overarching global milestone for creating a better sustainable future worldwide. The risk component of the agenda under the SFDRR must be better embedded into the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and integrating disaster risk management policy with broader development objectives at national and subnational levels in many countries is still a work in progress. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the progress between the SDGs and the SFDRR in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and its complementary features

Comprehensive and contextualized analyses of the progress of SFDRR and SDGs related to the LAC region need to be fully addressed to examine synergies and trade-offs with the two global agendas. Based on empirical evidence from United Nations global reports, a literature review of DRR and DRM, as well as development planning evidence, this paper addresses the implications of building coherence between the SDGs and the SFDRR in the region.

Interplay and connections of the two agendas are highlighted together with an analysis of coherence among indicators. Despite the richness of several indicators, the examined evidence suggests that derived from the current progress, indicators are unable to completely reflect the dynamics among disaster risk drivers for both the SFDRR and the SDGs in the region.

Data availability at UNIDSR as well as at the regional level can limit the scope of the research. When comparing and matching the agendas, results could be further improved upon new releases of data. SFDRR and SDGs have also ground for improvement and countries are doing well but still slow.

The paper offers new insights and findings for decision/policy makers in Latina America and the Caribbean.

The paper offers an overall understanding of the progress and coherence among SFDRR and SDGs global frameworks and provides insights to identify the gaps and opportunities that need to be addressed to integrate disaster risk reduction into sustainable development planning at national and regional scales in LAC.

Purpose – This chapter outlines the need for policy packages in urban areas, demonstrates how effective policy packages can be designed by combining appropriate policy instruments and discusses the implications for Chinese cities.

Methodology – The results in the chapter are derived from a predictive model of two UK cities (Edinburgh and Leeds), an objective function to reflect a city's objectives and constraints, and an optimising routine which identifies the most effective level of intervention for each policy instrument.

Findings – Where available, fuel taxes, fare levels, road pricing charges, low-cost capacity improvements and public transport frequencies are the most effective policy instruments. Optimal combinations designed to cost no more than current strategies offer substantial benefits to society. Infrastructure projects typically offer much lower value for money. Strategies designed to meet challenging climate change targets can be designed, but may well substantially reduce other benefits.

Research limitations/implications – Other policy instruments such as awareness campaigns and walking and cycling measures could be tested in a similar way. Similar analyses could be conducted in high growth contexts typical of Chinese cities.

Practical and social implications – Policy packages will be important for Chinese cities. They are likely to differ from European specifications, and include greater use of infrastructure. The methodology presented here could be applied to their design.

Originality – The chapter brings together research reported elsewhere, presents some new results on synergy and discusses the implications for China.