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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether board characteristics moderate the relationship between capital adequacy regulation and bank risk-taking of universal banks in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The paper uses 700 bank-year observations of universal banks in SSA between 2009 and 2019. The paper further uses the two-step generalized method of moments as the baseline estimator.

The paper finds that capital adequacy regulation is positively related to overall bank and liquidity risks. Nonetheless, capital adequacy regulation increases credit risk in the sampled banks. The paper further reports that board characteristics individually and significantly moderate the relationship between capital adequacy regulation and risk-taking.

The findings have implications for regulators of universal banks that board characteristics matter for capital adequacy regulation to impact risk-taking behavior.

The paper extends the existing literature on the effect of board characteristics on the capital adequacy regulations and risk-taking behavior nexus of universal banks.

This work analyzes, through social-environmental reports, whether banks with higher transparency in social-environmental policies better safeguard financial stability in Brazil.

The analysis is carried out through a panel database analysis of the 42 largest Brazilian banks, representing 98% of the Brazilian financial system. Seeking to avoid spurious results, we followed rigorous methodological standards. Hence, we conducted an empirical analysis using a dynamic panel data model, we used the difference generalized method of moments (D-GMM) and the system generalized method of moments (S-GMM).

The results show that the higher the transparency of social-environmental policies, the lower the chance of possible stress on the financial stability of Brazilian banks. In sum, this study builds evidence that disclosing risks related to policies about sustainability can enhance financial stability. It is essential to highlight that social-environmental transparency does not have as direct objective financial stability.

The manuscript submitted represents an original work that analyzes whether banks with higher transparency in social-environmental policies better safeguard financial stability. Some countries, such as Brazil, have their potential for sustainable policies spotlighted due to their green territory and diverse natural ecosystems. Besides having green potential, Brazil is a developing country with a well-developed financial system. These characteristics make Brazil one of the best laboratories for studying the relationship between transparency in social-environmental policies and financial stability.

The aim of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis between Islamic and conventional banks in terms of whether Islamic banks was more or less resilient/risky than conventional counterparts to the pandemic shock. It also examines the role of capital in improving the performance and stability within the two banking systems.

This study uses 82 banks from MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region for periods across 2011–2020, and employs a dynamic panel data approach to examine the resilience within both banking systems during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The results show that the Covid-19 pandemic has a negative impact on conventional banks' stability. However, Islamic banks performed better and were less risky than conventional ones. Banks with high-quality capital are more effective at controlling their risks and improving their performance during the pandemic.

The results offer important financial observations and policy implications to many stakeholders engaging with banks. Actually, the findings of this study facilitate to the stakeholders and bankers to have an alluded picture about determinants of risk and performance. The results can be used by bankers’ policy decision-makers to improve and enhance their consideration for risk management, taking into consideration the type of banking systems.

Compared to the various studies on the stability of Islamic and conventional banks, researchers have not sufficiently addressed the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on risk and performance. Moreover, none of these studies has examined if Islamic banks was more or less resilient/risky than conventional counterparts to the pandemic shock. This leads the authors to identify the similarities and differences between two types of banks in the MENA region in a pandemic shock context.

While the three lines model (TLM) provides an organizational structure to execute risk and control duties, research and practice show limitations in the model's implementation. These limitations result in governance issues. Such issues, together with control weaknesses, could be addressed by leveraging properties of distribution, transparency, and immutability of blockchain technology. To this end, in this paper the authors propose a conceptual control framework based on blockchain technology to augment control practice.

The design of the resulting blockchain-based control framework (BBCF) and its prototype, based on the design science research methodology (DSRM), is presented and discussed in terms of the potential impact in the context of the identified problems within the TLM.

One potential outcome of BBCF could be to redefine the scope and boundaries of some of the activities in audit and control practices from a more static to a more dynamic and prospective role. In a larger context of improving governance practices, the BBCF could set the path for a more inclusive and participatory interaction between the different governance actors of an organization.

However, this assumes that blockchain is more widely adopted despite its complexity and rigidity.

BBCF covering both a conceptual model design and a reference implementation provides an innovation in audit and control. BBCF could include all relevant stakeholders who have an interest in corporate governance and control activities, including the regulators.

The contribution intends to serve both as a starting point for discussing the evolution of audit and control practice based on blockchain technology, as well as an initial actionable prototype for experimentation and further development.

The Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is considered a standard for measuring equipment productivity in terms of efficiency. Still, Artificial Intelligence solutions are rarely used for analyzing OEE results and identifying corrective actions. Therefore, the approach proposed in this paper aims to provide a new rule-based Machine Learning (ML) framework for OEE enhancement and the selection of improvement actions.

Association Rules (ARs) are used as a rule-based ML method for extracting knowledge from huge data. First, the dominant loss class is identified and traditional methodologies are used with ARs for anomaly classification and prioritization. Once selected priority anomalies, a detailed analysis is conducted to investigate their influence on the OEE loss factors using ARs and Network Analysis (NA). Then, a Deming Cycle is used as a roadmap for applying the proposed methodology, testing and implementing proactive actions by monitoring the OEE variation.

The method proposed in this work has also been tested in an automotive company for framework validation and impact measuring. In particular, results highlighted that the rule-based ML methodology for OEE improvement addressed seven anomalies within a year through appropriate proactive actions: on average, each action has ensured an OEE gain of 5.4%.

The originality is related to the dual application of association rules in two different ways for extracting knowledge from the overall OEE. In particular, the co-occurrences of priority anomalies and their impact on asset Availability, Performance and Quality are investigated.

The study aims to evaluate PubMed publications on ChatGPT or artificial intelligence (AI) involvement in scientific or medical writing and investigate whether ChatGPT or AI was used to create these articles or listed as authors.

This scoping review was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. A PubMed database search was performed for articles published between January 1 and November 29, 2023, using appropriate search terms; both authors performed screening and selection independently.

From the initial search results of 127 articles, 41 were eligible for final analysis. Articles were published in 34 journals. Editorials were the most common article type, with 15 (36.6%) articles. Authors originated from 27 countries, and authors from the USA contributed the most, with 14 (34.1%) articles. The most discussed topic was AI tools and writing capabilities in 19 (46.3%) articles. AI or ChatGPT was involved in manuscript preparation in 31 (75.6%) articles. None of the articles listed AI or ChatGPT as an author, and in 19 (46.3%) articles, the authors acknowledged utilizing AI or ChatGPT.

Researchers worldwide are concerned with AI or ChatGPT involvement in scientific research, specifically the writing process. The authors believe that precise and mature regulations will be developed soon by journals, publishers and editors, which will pave the way for the best usage of these tools.

This scoping review expressed data published on using AI or ChatGPT in various scientific research and writing aspects, besides alluding to the advantages, disadvantages and implications of their usage.

Connecting autonomous drones to ground operations and services is a prerequisite for the adoption of scalable and sustainable drone services in the built environment. Despite the rapid advance in the field of autonomous drones, the development of ground infrastructure has received less attention. Contemporary airport design offers potential solutions for the infrastructure serving autonomous drone services. To that end, this paper aims to construct a framework for connecting air and ground operations for autonomous drone services. Furthermore, the paper defines the minimum facilities needed to support unmanned aerial vehicles for autonomous logistics and the collection of aerial data.

The paper reviews the state-of-the-art in airport design literature as the basis for analysing the guidelines of manned aviation applicable to the development of ground infrastructure for autonomous drone services. Socio-technical system analysis was used for identifying the service needs of drones.

The key findings are functional modularity based on the principles of airport design applies to micro-airports and modular service functions can be connected efficiently with an autonomous ground handling system in a sustainable manner addressing the concerns on maintenance, reliability and lifecycle.

As the study was limited to the airport design literature findings, the evolution of solutions may provide features supporting deviating approaches. The role of autonomy and cloud-based service processes are quintessentially different from the conventional airport design and are likely to impact real-life solutions as the area of future research.

The findings of this study provided a framework for establishing the connection between the airside and the landside for the operations of autonomous aerial services. The lack of such framework and ground infrastructure has hindered the large-scale adoption and easy-to-use solutions for sustainable logistics and aerial data collection for decision-making in the built environment.

The evolution of future autonomous aerial services should be accessible to all users, “democratising” the use of drones. The data collected by drones should comply with the privacy-preserving use of the data. The proposed ground infrastructure can contribute to offloading, storing and handling aerial data to support drone services’ acceptability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper describes the first design framework for creating a design concept for a modular and autonomous micro-airport system for unmanned aviation based on the applied functions of full-size conventional airports.

This paper aims to explore the topic of adaptive reuse referring to urban open spaces into a more-than-human perspective. It underlines that dealing with heritage means being part of an inherent and ongoing process of transformation and so that reuse is inextricably an adaptive practice, constantly facing mutations, and that adaptation is a coral practice that involves different kinds of users and makers, inclusive of human and not human livings.

This paper looks at the lexicon of abandonment, in search of the more essential and intense meanings of words, and at some pioneering practices in Europe to comprehend the aesthetic and ethical implications of adaptive reuse of neglected landscapes.

Processes of reuse involve many different communities of users who in turn continuously redesign the site, into a comprehensive, coral and conflicting collaboration, whose results are never given once for all and are both uncanny and beautiful, scaring and marvellous, like a monster.

Accepting the idea that humans are not the only users and makers of urban sites can widen the range of tools, methods and values involved in heritage adaptive reuse.

This paper tries to widen the meanings of adaptation into a multispecies perspective. It intends to broaden the range of agents that can be involved as users and makers, assuming a more-than-human point of view that is not yet commonly applied.

Renal failure is an end-stage consequence after persistent hyperglycemia during diabetic nephropathy (DN), and the etiology of DN has been linked to oxidative stress. The purpose of this research was to determine the beneficial synergistic effects of S-Allyl Cysteine (SAC) and Taurine (TAU) on oxidative damage in the kidneys of type 2 diabetic rats induced by hyperglycemia.

Experimental diabetes was developed by administering intraperitoneal single dose of streptozotocin (STZ; 65 mg/kg) with nicotinamide (NA; 230 mg/kg) in adult rats. Diabetic and control rats were treated with SAC (150 mg/kg), TAU (200 mg/kg) or SAC and TAU combination (75 + 100 mg/kg) for four weeks. The estimation of body weight, fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), oxidative stress markers along with kidney histopathology was done to investigate the antidiabetic potential of SAC/TAU in the NA/STZ diabetic group.

The following results were obtained for the therapeutic efficacy of SAC/TAU: decrease in blood glucose level, decreased level of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and increased levels of GSH, glutathione-s-transferase (GST) and catalase (CAT). SAC/TAU significantly modulated diabetes-induced histological changes in the kidney of rats.

SAC/TAU combination therapy modulated the oxidative stress markers in the kidney in diabetic rat model and also prevented oxidative damage as observed through histopathological findings.

The overall objective of this study is envisaged to provide decision makers with actionable insights and access to multi-risk maps for the most in-danger stave churches (SCs) among the existing 28 churches at high spatial resolution to better understand, reduce and mitigate single- and multi-risk. In addition, the present contribution aims to provide decision makers with some information to face the exacerbation of the risk caused by the expected climate change.

Material and data collection started with the consultation of the available literature related to: (1) SCs' conservation status, (2) available methodologies suitable in multi-hazard approach and (3) vulnerability leading indicators to consider when dealing with the impact of natural hazards specifically on immovable cultural heritage.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of place-based vulnerability with local mapping dimension also considering future threats posed by climate change. The results highlight the danger at which the SCs of Røldal, in case of floods, and of Ringebu, Torpo and Øye, in case of landslide, may face and stress the urgency of increasing awareness and preparedness on these potential hazards.

The contribution for the first time aims to homogeneously collect and report all together existing spread information on architectural features, conservation status and geographical attributes for the whole group of SCs by accompanying this information with as much as possible complete 2D sections collection from existing drawings and novel 3D drawn sketches created for this contribution. Then the paper contributes to a better understanding of place-based vulnerability with local mapping dimension also considering future threats posed by climate change. Then it highlights the danger of floods and landslides at which the 28 SCs are subjected. Finally it reports how these risks will change under the ongoing impact of climate change.