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This paper aims to propose a model, based on strategic simulation and scenario planning, to improve the decision-making process in the Brazilian defence area.

Participants are disposed in three levels: decision-makers team – which goes beyond the Ministry of Defence (and military services) alone and includes other representatives of the executive and legislative branches; political and strategic advisory team – civilian representatives with a broad understanding of the national and international contexts that can contribute to developing insights and shaping the forces that may contribute to the nation’s future; and experts database— experts in fields of interest to national defence, comprising representatives of several sectors and broad areas of knowledge, including scholars, scientists, politicians, military, industry, among others.

The planning and preparation of national defence strategies require a long-term approach, which is multidisciplinary, participatory and contextualized to the geopolitical and institutional frames of the country.

However, despite many policy papers intentions, defence issues have always been considered a matter for the military arena due to the country’s cultural background.

Because decisions about defence have long-range impacts and political implications, policy-makers should shape them bearing in mind a complex and politically shared foresight process.

This proposed planning process enables a participatory engagement with some civil organizations and individuals as well as amplifies their commitment in national defence issues.

The proposal is innovative in South America, considering that it encompasses integrated simulations on participatory foresight processes as well as broadened the civilian–military dynamic relationship and the diverse viewpoints in defence implications analysis to include a wider share of the Brazilian society.

This paper aims to define and measure the environmental capabilities that are applied when the circular economy (CE) is introduced in businesses. Founded on the dynamic capabilities theoretical approach, the study analyzes different environmental competences that firms apply during this process. Environmental management systems, corporate social responsibility, reporting and accountability and other environmental accounting practices are studied in the same analytical framework used to study the environmental capabilities that influence the circular scope (CS) of firms. This study contributes to bridging the gap between academic research focused on environmental accounting and that investigating the introduction of the CE in businesses.

The results were obtained by using partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze the relationship between environmental capabilities for the CE and the CS achieved by a sample of Spanish firms with more than 50 employees that expressed interest in the CE, eco-design, eco-innovation and other environmental issues.

Based on an analysis using the dynamic capabilities theoretical approach, the results suggest a positive relationship between the CS of firms, their environmental accounting practices and their level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and accountability. Stakeholders’ pressure – which has a mediating effect on the CS of firms – is also analyzed, adding new insights to recent studies of this topic at the micro-level. The authors also explore whether the CS of businesses, which is related to the degree of their development of capabilities, influences environmental and financial performance.

The new insights obtained in this study can help overcome the limitations of conventional accounting approaches and incorporates a much broader scale of environmental information that can be applied to CE practices. These results also offer insights to practitioners regarding the internal measurement processes related to the CE and regarding CSR in particular for small and medium enterprises, because these metrics can be partially applied depending on the practices introduced in each firm. For policymakers, a better understanding of the CE’s introduction into businesses will contribute to the design of policies that can enhance its deployment, for example, by providing tools that set up regional priorities depending on the CE-related practices adopted by the firms located in the territory.

A CE involves the transformation of a linear economic model into a circular one to reduce dependence on raw materials and energy and to reduce the environmental impact of production and consumption. Understanding how to manage the specific competences that integrate capabilities applied to the CE will allow firms to improve their social and environmental reporting. In addition, other social implications of this study relate to improving relationships with consumers and stakeholders and to the practice of social corporate sustainability.

This study goes beyond previous research on the CE to extend the authors’ knowledge about its adoption at the micro-level by taking a transversal approach, as its subject spans the fields of environmental accounting and the CE while addressing both in a framework of analysis. The analysis of the accounting concerns of the CE in businesses and the study of concerns related to endogenous environmental competences are quite original under the theoretical framework of dynamic capabilities, and this study is a first step in an incipient line of inquiry.

This paper aims to analyze the adherence of social responsibility management (SRM) in Brazilian organizations and to identify the driving and the resistance forces to implement it.

This article presents a deep literature review on SRM, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder management, which aim to support a survey research to define, according to experts, the market perception of adherence of SRM.

The paper presents evidence that there is adherence on the part of the practices of organizations that adhere to the theoretical foundations of SRM in Brazil. It was found that organizations should seek to improve nine areas to implement SRM and can use each of these areas strategically or all together.

This study provides an opportunity for employees whose perceptions are aligned based on educational programs and engagement in CSR, and these gains favor the improvement of their own management and the quality of relationships.

The research provides an opportunity to recast actions and the possibility of being recognized by stakeholders as active agents in this process.

This study sheds new light on both SRM and the CSR literature because of its attempt to bridge the theoretical foundations and market practices, which was performed to verify the gaps in corporative SRM process of Brazilian organizations. This study highlights for researchers and practitioners a relevant field of study whose importance is widely recognized but whose results remain scarce and limited.

Distribution network protection is a complicated problem and mal-operation of the protective relays due to false settings make the operation of the network unreliable. Besides, obtaining proper settings could be very complicated. This paper aims to discuss an innovative evolutionary Lightning Flash Algorithm (LFA) which is developed for solving the relay coordination problems in distribution networks. The proposed method is inspired from the movements of cloud to ground lightning strikes in a thunderstorm phenomenon. LFA is applied on three case study systems including ring, interconnected and radial distribution networks. The power flow analysis is performed in Digsilent Power Factory software; then the collected data are sent to MATLAB software for optimization process. The proposed algorithm provides optimum time multiplier setting and plug setting of all digital overcurrent relays in each system. The results are compared with other methods such as particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm. The result comparisons demonstrate that the proposed LFA can successfully obtain proper relay settings in distribution networks with faster speed of convergence and lower total operation time of relays. Also, it shows the superiority and effectiveness of this method against other algorithms.

A novel LFA is designed based on the movements of cloud to ground lightning strikes in a thunderstorm. This method is used to optimally adjust the time multiplier setting and plug setting of the relays in distribution system to provide a proper coordination scheme.

The proposed algorithm was tested on three case study systems, and the results were compared with other methods. The results confirmed that the proposed method could optimally adjust the relay settings in the electric distribution system to provide a proper protection scheme.

The practical implications can be conducted on distribution networks. The studies provided in this paper approve the practical application of the proposed method in providing proper relay protection in real power system.

This paper proposes a new evolutionary method derived from the movements of cloud to ground lightning strikes in thunderstorm. The proposed method can be used as an optimization toolbox to solve complex optimization problems in practical engineering systems.

South America is a heterogeneous continent, with diverse prison realities. Its prison population is estimated at 600,000 inmates, of whom 10,000 are declared insane. Physical and mental health care supplied to the inmates is precarious and preventive programs in progress are rare. The authors’ comment on the Roman Law tradition and describe the situation in Brazil and Argentina, from the point of view of their legal backgrounds. They also consider the kind of mental health resources found and the types of treatment offered, mainly in Forensic Psychiatric Hospitals. Their conclusion emphasizes the need to improve the conditions of penitentiaries in South America, which, because of their deficiencies, often violate the human rights of prisoners.

This paper aims to provide an analysis of Spanish Defence National Foresight Exercise.

The analysis is based on a content analysis of public domain Spanish Defence National Foresight Exercise, and a study directed to analyse the impact on defence technological and industrial base.

Foresight studies on the defence and security environment uses hybrid methodologies, but rarely involve all the stakeholders, and specially the citizens. The authors place a particular emphasis on the impact of these defence and security foresight studies, and following policies to increase the competitiveness and advanced technologies in the future. The analysis of the Spanish contractors allows an evaluation of the roadmaps as a policy instrument for the industrial defence industry. The main challenges for the next exercises in the European countries are to increase the interest in the firms’ intelligence systems, and the participation and representation of citizens as a way to guarantee their rights. Therefore, a technology roadmap must be complemented with other more participative foresight methods.

Foresight studies on the defence and security environment have been the subject of very few systematic analyses of impact. This paper makes a contribution to such analysis.

This study aims to analyze reform path for waste management policy implementation. With reference to the Bayesian theory, this study provides a dynamic policy conversion method through various context settings. Furthermore, this study attempts to present an empirical research paradigm.

Matland’s “ambiguity-conflict model” is applied to explain the problems and reform paths of China’s waste management policy implementation. Integrating structure discovery and bibliometrics into qualitative analysis, this study used search data from literature search engine with specific themes to achieve structure learning of Bayesian network with key factors refined in waste management policy.

The results show that China’s waste management policy implementation belongs to symbolic implementation with high ambiguity and high conflict. Four basic conversion paths for the waste management policy are proposed, which are classified by length and stability. Then, it is possible to locate the factors, paths and types of policy implementation through involvement analysis with features of each path and each district of policy implementation. Public education holds direct but unstable impact on waste management. Economic incentives hold continuous but gradually diminishing impact. Perceived policy effectiveness plays the crucial role like a central bridge. Resident conditions have a positive impact, which could be enhanced through economic development of China. The impact of subjective norm on waste management is not significant. But subjective norm has the potential breakthrough for solving stagnation of waste classification policy. However, the impacts from each factor may change along with economy growth and technology innovation.

This study uses the “ambiguity-conflict model” to position China’s waste classification policy and suggests that structure discovery methods help understand feasible reform paths for reform policy. The integration of theoretical analysis and quantitative simulation can achieve a comprehensive analysis of problems and solutions in waste management policy implementation of China. Promotion and education, economic incentives, perceived value, behavior control, subjective norm, perceived policy effectiveness, informal waste recycling system and residential conditions are explored as key factors for waste classification policy implementation as a representative in waste management policy. The role of each key factor and features of each conversion paths are integrated to position reform paths in the ambiguity-conflict model. This work helps to explain the stagnation of waste management policy implementation from the perspective of dynamic structure evolution, and some specific suggestions to get out of stagnation are proposed.

This paper aims to revisit the issue of anchoring effects in real estate markets to consider the current dual-processing theory of mind.

The effects of high and low anchors in a price estimation task are, thus, explained by both Systems 1 and 2 as these play a key role in the guess of the “correct” list price. The authors also take into account the mediation of overconfidence in the estimates and how confidence relates to cognitive ability. Moreover, the authors nuance the field experiment by considering the decisions taken by professional real estate agents and amateur students alike because experts are expected to be less prone to cognitive biases.

The large anchoring index of 67 per cent found for the real estate agents suggests these professionals make their judgment unconsciously by priming (and thus, using their System 1), despite being overconfident. In contrast, an even larger anchoring index for the undergraduates (86 per cent) was found, as expected for nonexperts. However, the authors suggest the students’ judgments use their System 2 because they are clueless in their non-anchored estimates and, as result, consider the list prices as a heuristic to deliberately anchor and adjust.

Anchoring effects in real estate markets have not been approached so far by the dual-processing theory of mind.

This study aims to develop an artifact to measure the level of manufacturing competitiveness of a country in the global context and provide a suitable interpretation mechanism for the measured values, and to provide prescriptive solution where necessary so that the country can develop an actionable plan of program to move from the current level of global competitiveness to another such that they could provide more economic opportunities for their citizenry.

A manufacturing competitive index (MCI) was developed which includes relevant variables to capture a country’s manufacturing activity level in an economy with a balanced perspective. Reliable international sources were used. Ward algorithm was used to identify clear clusters of performance upon which competitive gaps were measured and improvement projects were identified and prioritized to obtain the best value for cluster transitional plan.

This study shows that the case country is not doing as well as it wants to believe, even when the relevant technology import measures were included in the expanded metric, but also, the next level of competitiveness is achievable within the national budget if proper prioritization is done.

The paper presents a cocktail of indexes that is more exhaustive of MCI, including both research capacity and technology import variables. It also uses clustering mechanism to provide a proper context to interpret the MCI scores in the context of peer nations. It presents a gap determination methodology and shows how priority projects could be logically selected to close measured gaps based on anticipated value from budget expenses

Excessive sodium intake is associated with several diseases. Accordingly, several measures, including microparticulate salt, have been adopted to reduce the salt contents of food products. However, no studies have reported the effectiveness of microparticulate salt in semisolid and liquid products. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the application of microparticulate salt to reduce sodium contents in semisolid products.

The optimal salt content to be added in butter was defined by the just-about-right-scale test. Butter samples were prepared using microparticulate salt to achieve 25, 50 and 75 per cent reductions in conventional salt concentrations. Multiple comparison tests were performed to evaluate sample taste.

The ideal concentration of conventional salt to be added to butter was 2.16 per cent. Discriminative tests showed that samples with 25 and 75 per cent salt reduction showed significant differences (p ⩽ 0.05) compared with butter prepared at the ideal salt content, whereas the sample with 50 per cent salt reduction had no significant difference (p > 0.05). Thus, microparticulate salt showed higher salting power than conventional salt. These results indicated the effectiveness of microparticulate salt in the preparation of semisolid products with sodium reduction.

More detailed studies about the reduced-sodium butter shelf life are necessary to verify the microparticulate salt application in the product preparation. Moreover, microparticulate salt application in semisolid and liquid products elaboration must be more investigated to better elucidate its practicability of reducing sodium content in these kinds of products. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

Microparticulate salt has been successfully applied to reduce sodium in solid products, being added to the finished product surface. However, there are no studies that report its effectiveness in semisolid and liquid products, such as the butter, in which the salt is added during the product preparation. Thus, this research provides new scientific information to the food industry and research fields, to expand the knowledge of reduced-sodium products development using microparticulate salt with sensory quality.

No studies have evaluated the application of microparticulate salt for semisolid product preparation. Therefore, the findings will support the development of healthy products.