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In response to food supply constraints resulting from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) restrictions, in the year 2020, the project developed automated household Aquaponics units to guarantee food self-sufficiency. However, the automated aquaponics solution did not fully comply with data privacy and portability best practices to protect the data of household owners. The purpose of this study is to develop a data privacy and portability layer on top of the previously developed automated Aquaponics units.

Design Science Research (DSR) is the research method implemented in this study.

General Data Protection and Privacy Regulations (GDPR)-inspired principles empowering data subjects including data minimisation, purpose limitation, storage limitation as well as integrity and confidentiality can be implemented in a federated learning (FL) architecture using Pinecone Matrix home servers and edge devices.

The literature reviewed for this study demonstrates that the GDPR right to data portability can have a positive impact on data protection by giving individuals more control over their own data. This is achieved by allowing data subjects to obtain their personal information from a data controller in a format that makes it simple to reuse it in another context and to transmit this information freely to any other data controller of their choice. Data portability is not strictly governed or enforced by data protection laws in the developing world, such as Zimbabwe's Data Protection Act of 2021.

Privacy requirements can be implemented in end-point technology such as smartphones, microcontrollers and single board computer clusters enabling data subjects to be incentivised whilst unlocking the value of their own data in the process fostering competition among data controllers and processors.

The use of end-to-end encryption with Matrix Pinecone on edge endpoints and fog servers, as well as the practical implementation of data portability, are currently not adequately covered in the literature. The study acts as a springboard for a future conversation on the topic.

Due to its fast growth, cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) is becoming a popular internationalization model, especially in those destination markets with impressive e-commerce development like China. However, CBEC also brings new logistics challenges and uncertainty. This paper aims to understand how companies cope with logistics uncertainty in this field and whether the different types of uncertainty influence the risk management strategies adopted to face them.

A survey targeting online exporters to China and third-party forwarding logistics service providers (3PFLs) is conducted. A structural equation model (SEM) analysis is performed to test the possible relationship between the adopted risk management strategies and the types of uncertainty. The type, industry and size of the company, as well as the distance between the company's home country and China, are used as control variables in the study. Survey results are enriched via interviews with some of the respondents.

The risk management strategies adopted are dependent on the type of logistics uncertainty that the companies face and, to a minor extent, on the industry the company operates in. Conversely, no significant influence is exerted by other types of control factors, i.e. home country, company size or company type.

The paper investigates logistics uncertainty and risk management approaches in the novel context of CBEC. A systematic review of relevant sources of uncertainty is offered to help both scholars and practitioners understand the current complexities of CBEC. From a theoretical perspective, the paper models the investigated concepts in light of the contingency approach. From a practical perspective, results can be of interest since the list of proposed items can support risk identification and evaluation while the interviews with managers can provide insights on risk management practices.

This paper examines the impact of a blockchain platform on the role and importance of trust in established buyer-supplier relationships.

A literature review provides insight into trust development in supply chains. Research uses a case study of two wine supply chains: the producers, importers, logistics companies and UK Government agencies. Semi-structured interviews determine how trust and trustworthiness develop in buyer-supplier relationships and the impact of a blockchain-based technology proof of concept on supply chain trust.

A blockchain-based platform introduces common trusted data, reducing data duplication and improving supply chain visibility. The platform supports trust building between parties but does not replace the requirements for organisations to establish a position of trust. Contrary to literature claims for blockchain trustless disintermediation, new intermediaries are introduced who need to be trusted.

The case study presents challenges specific to UK customs borders, and research needs to be repeated in different contexts to establish if findings are generalisable.

A blockchain-based platform can improve supply chain efficiency and trust development but does not remove the need for trust and trust-building processes. Blockchain platform providers need to build a position of trust with all participants.

Case study research shows how blockchain facilitates but does not remove trust, trustworthiness and trust relationships in established supply chains. The reduction in information asymmetry and improved supply chain visibility provided by blockchain does not change the importance of trust in established buyer-supplier relationships or the trust-based policy of the UK Government at the customs border.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a concept of cloud auction robot (CAR) and its execution platform for transforming perishable food supply chain management. A new paradigm of goods-to-person auction execution model is proposed based on CARs. This paradigm can shift the management of traditional manual working to automated execution with great space and time saving. A scalable CAR-enabled execution system (CARES) is presented to manage logistics workflows, tasks and behavior of CAR-Agents in handling the real-time events and associated data.

An Internet of Things enabled auction environment is designed. The robot is used to pick up and deliver the auction products and commends are given to the robot in real-time. CARES architecture is proposed while integrating three core services from auction workflow management, auction task management, to auction execution control. A system prototype was developed to show its execution through physical emulations and experiments.

The CARES could well schedule the tasks for each robot to minimize their waiting time. The total execution time is reduced by 33 percent on average. Space utilization for each auction studio is improved by about 50 percent per day.

The CAR-enabled execution model and system is simulated and verified in a ubiquitous auction environment so as to upgrade the perishable food supply chain management into a new level which is automated and real-time. The proposed system is flexible to cope with different auction scenarios, such as different auction mechanisms and processes, with high reconfigurability and scalability.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) provides a useful tool for the prescreening or detection of goods and containers moving across the border and for controlling the trade of illicit materials and preventing or mitigating the effects of terrorism. Although anti-terrorism measures are important in today’s dangerous world, RFID tools, if misused, may violate the WTO trade rules. Whenever goods or container control measures using RFID are proposed, their contents, objectives, and rationale must be published, and WTO members must be notified through the WTO Secretariat and allowed to make comments. WTO members should not take such measures that are designed or applied in a discriminatory manner and those measures must be adopted only under necessary situations and to the extent necessary. These measures must reduce the incidence and complexity of import and export formalities, and there should not be substantial penalties for minor breaches of the requirements under the measures. If the measures require country-of-origin information in RFID tags, they must apply in the same way to like products, and they must not cause unnecessary inconveniences or unreasonable cost. If the measures deal with containers in international transit, they must be reasonable, consider the conditions of the traffic, and guarantee transit through the most convenient routes for international transit.

A container control measure designed to restrict the flow of fissionable materials or their derivative materials, traffic in arms, ammunition, and implements of war, or traffic in military supply goods and materials may be justified, even if it violates some of the GATT rules. In addition, a measure established in time of war or other emergency in international relations or based on the United Nations Charter and designed to maintain international peace and security can also be justified. As a last resort, WTO members may request a waiver from GATT and TBT Agreement obligations for container control measures that include RFID.

Superpowers must be careful not to use RFID to practice power politics and create regulations to deal with national security and anti-terrorism issues that do not conform to international law. The key question is how to maintain a balance between the two inalienable values of free trade and national security in this era of globalization, harmonization, and terrorism .

On 24 July 2019, the European Commission adopted a Communication to the European Parliament and the Council towards better implementation of the European Union’s (EU) anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) framework. This Communication was accompanied by four reports. This papers aims to investigate these reports.

Review of EU developments and reports.

The European Commission continues to work on eliminating the vulnerabilities of the current AML and CFT system. As the reports show, there are still many issues regarding the EU’s AML and CFT framework. The reports offer useful insights into weaknesses and failures and provide a good basis for further discussions with relevant stakeholders, for certain amendments to the current rulebook and enforcement as well as for stronger mechanisms regarding supervision and supporting cross-border cooperation.

This article discusses important relevant EU developments.

This study investigates the impact of global economic sanctions on foreign direct investment (FDI).

Data were gathered from several sources, including the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Global Sanction and the World Bank database, to build a dataset that consists of 172 countries during the period 2003–2019. The panel ordinary least square with a fixed-effects estimator was exploited to achieve the research objective.

The research findings reveal that sanction exerts a detrimental effect on the total inflows of FDI and its components. Regarding different types of sanctions, while military and trade sanctions have little or even no impact on greenfield investment, they have more adverse and sizable effects on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The authors further show that sanctions exert devastating influences through the infrastructure and economic development channels.

Overall, this study implies that a closer look at particular types of FDI is required when implementing policies as different types of FDI may be affected differently by changes in the economy, such as economic sanctions.

This paper is the first empirical study that critically investigates the impact of sanctions on the total inward FDI flows and its two components: greenfield investment and cross-border M&As. It then explores how the sanction–FDI nexus varies depending on several country-level economic factors to understand better how sanctions and different types of sanctions are related to international trade and relations.

This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.

This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.

Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.

Authorities have set up numerous security checkpoints during times of armed conflict to control the flow of commercial and humanitarian trucks into and out of areas of conflict. These security checkpoints have become highly utilized because of the complex security procedures and increased truck traffic, which significantly slow the delivery of relief aid. This paper aims to improve the process at security checkpoints by redesigning the current process to reduce processing time and relieve congestion at checkpoint entrance gates.

A decision-support tool (clearing function distribution model [CFDM]) is used to minimize the effects of security checkpoint congestion on the entire humanitarian supply network using a hybrid simulation-optimization approach. By using a business process simulation, the current and reengineered processes are both simulated, and the simulation output was used to estimate the clearing function (capacity as a function of the workload). For both the AS-IS and TO-BE models, key performance indicators such as distribution costs, backordering and process cycle time were used to compare the results of the CFDM tool. For this, the Kerem Abu Salem security checkpoint south of Gaza was used as a case study.

The comparison results demonstrate that the CFDM tool performs better when the output of the TO-BE clearing function is used.

The efforts will contribute to improving the planning of any humanitarian network experiencing congestion at security checkpoints by minimizing the impact of congestion on the delivery lead time of relief aid to the final destination.

This article intends to analyse the explanatory power of the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) and some of its constituent factors on national success metrics in managing the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors study the outbreak control effectiveness of 132 countries during the first semester of 2020. The authors apply generalized linear regression models and weighted least squares models using 6 COVID-19-related dependent variables, 9 TTCI-related independent variables and 12 control variables.

The results suggest that countries with superior TTCI values and selected constituent factors have the highest daily averages of coronavirus infections and fatalities per million and the highest speed rates of COVID-19 spread. The authors also find that these countries have the shortest government response time, the lowest daily average of the social restrictions index and the shortest time from the first case reported in China to the first case reported nationally.

To the best of the authors' awareness, no previous study exists analysing the statistical relationship between the TTCIB and some of its constituent factors with the selected metrics of national success at managing the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. This fact represents the primary evidence of this article's unique contribution.

本文擬分析旅行及觀光競爭力指數、以及其部份構成因素，如何影響有關國家在新型冠狀病毒肺炎大爆發初期控制病毒傳播方面的成功指標。

我們就132個國家於2020年上半年控制肺炎爆發方面的表現進行研究。我們以廣義線性回歸模型和加權最小平方法進行分析研究，當中使用了六個與新型冠狀病毒肺炎有關的因變數、九個與旅行及觀光競爭力指數有關的自變數、和12個控制變量。

研究結果暗示、在擁有優越的旅行及觀光競爭力指數值和選定的構成因素的國家，以百萬人來計算，每日冠狀病毒感染及死亡的平均數字是最高的; 而且，新型冠狀病毒肺炎的傳播速度也是最高的。研究結果亦顯示、在這些國家，政府反應所需的時間是最短的，社會限制指數的日均值是最低的，以及首宗在中國被報導的個案與首宗在有關的國家被全國性地報導的個案之間的時間距是最短的。

盡作者們所知，從前似沒有相關的研究、以國家在新型冠狀病毒肺炎大爆發初期成功控制病毒傳播的選定指數、來分析旅行及觀光競爭力指數與其部分構成因素之間的統計關係; 這正是本文所作獨特貢獻的基本證據。