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Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to propose a cross-assessment model as an analytical tool for developing sustainable urban transport and land-use strategies for a low-carbon society.

Methodology – A cross-assessment model is developed based on demand and supply models of transport services. The model is able to generate a set of the optimal service levels in public transport reflecting selected target strategies. It is applied to an impact analysis of public transport and land-use strategies in 2030 for all of Japan's 269 urban areas,with outcomes – including the financial balance of public transport operation, user benefits and CO2 emissions reduction – compared among strategies and urban areas.

Findings – The analytical results show that three value factors of efficiency, equity and the environment do not necessarily conflict with each other. In particular, it is clarified that CO2-emission reduction targets can contribute to the improvement of both financial balance and user benefits at the national level. In addition, the results of comparative analysis among the land-use and transport integration (LUTI) scenarios demonstrate that a combination of urban transport strategies and land-use control in the form of ‘corridors and multi-centres’ provides greater emission reduction and increased user benefits.

Implications – The cross-assessment model developed in this chapter could serve as an analytical tool for strategic transport planning. The results in this chapter underlinethe benefit of LUTI strategies particularly in China.

By 2050 there will be 6.9 billion people living in urban areas, accounting for 70% of the global population. The most developed nations will have urbanisation rates as high as 90%. Not only will more people be living in cities, but the largest cities will be getting larger. In their analysis in Chapter 2, Kii and Doi estimate that there may be as many as 17 megacities, with more than 10 million inhabitants, in China by 2050. Even so, the bulk of urban population growth is likely to be in smaller cities.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and discuss a methodological approach for energy assessment and retrofitting of envelope systems in Mediterranean historical buildings, in order to ensure the desirable balance between improvement requirements and preservation principles.

The methodology is based on the assessment of historical districts at the site, building and component scales, the development of energy models of building-types that are highly representative, in terms of materials, construction techniques, typologies and performances, the identification of intervention priorities and the validation of compatible retrofitting solutions.

The methodology, applied to a representative Adriatic sea town in South Italy, shows the potentialities of innovative materials and technologies (aerogel, PCMs, etc.) as tools to achieve the improvement of the energy performances and the preservation of the original characters. Nevertheless, it shows how the preliminary qualification of the environmental, architectural, constructional and technological characteristics is paramount to support the identification of the current behavior of the building system and the transformation boundaries from the historical values.

The paper proves how assessment and intervention methods and tools, besides effective, compatible, low invasive and durable, should be geocluster oriented and performance based, thus with general reliability for the whole local context and suitable flexibility to be tailored to different specific situations, toward the definition of retrofitting micro-scale measures and macro-scale strategies that are replicable and scalable.

JingWei BIAN is Director of Urban Construction Environment and Resources Committee of Xiamen Municipal People's Congress. He graduated from Tongji University with doctor's degree in urban planning and design. He is Professorate Senior Urban Planner and National Registered Urban Planner. He is a part-time Professor at Xiamen University, Huaqiao University and Jimei University. He has served as President of Xiamen Urban Planning and Design Institute and Deputy Director of Xiamen Planning Bureau. His main research interests are the urban planning theory and design, urban traffic planning, urban and rural planning management and regulations. He has published 4 books and over 50 papers on these topics.

This book brings together a number of the papers presented at a workshop hosted by Tongji University, Shanghai, on the implications of green urban transport in China under the auspices of the World Conference on Transport Research Society in September 2010. It is in five sections. Section 1 includes this introductory chapter, which summarises the content of the rest of the book, Chapter 2 is on trends in city size, and Chapter 3 provides an overview of Chinese transport policy. Section 2 considers approaches to policy formulation, drawing on experience in Europe and Asia. Section 3 focuses on passenger transport and traffic, while Section 4 covers freight and logistics. Section 5 draws together the principal conclusions of the 15 papers.

Participation in cross-national assessment is becoming a global phenomenon. While there were only 43 countries that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000, the number of participating countries/economies has increased to 65 in 2009. To understand this global trend, this chapter seeks to answer the following research questions: What are the real incentives for developing countries to participate in cross-national assessments? What do they gain from actual participation in cross-national assessments, given that there are many constraints and barriers associated with test participation? It employs country-level fixed effects to test the hypothesis that there is a positive association between participation in cross-national assessments and foreign aid to education. This study shows that countries that participate in major cross-national assessments receive, on average, 37 percent more foreign aid to education than countries that do not participate in major cross-national assessments, while holding all other variables constant. Although further research is necessary to make a causal warrant of the association between participation in cross-national assessment and education aid, the results of this study have great implications for developing countries that are considering participating in cross-national assessments.

The purpose of this paper is to understand current Shari'ah governance practices with the purpose of promoting greater understanding of some of the crucial issues and to provide relevant information in guiding the future development of Shari'ah governance system. The paper illustrates the state of Shari'ah governance practices in Malaysia, GCC countries (Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) and the UK by highlighting five main elements of good corporate governance that consist of independence, competency, transparency, disclosure and consistency.

Since the availability of secondary data on Shari'ah governance practices is very limited, a detailed survey questionnaire is generated for sourcing primary data from Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs). The study utilizes descriptive analysis approach in extracting and analyzing the data and factual input derived from the questionnaire feedback.

The survey findings affirm that there are significant differences and diverse Shari'ah governance practices in the case countries. This position acknowledges that there are shortcomings and weaknesses to the existing governance framework which needs further enhancement and improvement.

The paper is a very useful source of information that may provide relevant guidelines in guiding the future development of Shari'ah governance practices in IFIs.

This paper provides fresh data and recent information on the actual Shari'ah governance practices of IFIs in three jurisdictions.

MR. R. A. Butler's remark about doubling our living standards within the next twenty‐five years has a secure place in contemporary political obiter dicta. It suffers from being the kind of comment that is remembered long after any qualifying context has been forgotten.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of qualitative research in marketing and the challenges faced by researchers in justifying the need and the quality of interpretive research. The paper reviews the fluctuating trends in employing qualitative research to build marketing theories, and touches on the subject of paradigm shift in research approaches in marketing. It further reviews main rhetorical and practical challenges researchers face in qualitative inquiry in marketing.

This is a conceptual paper discussing the role of qualitative research in marketing discipline and its challenges.

One of the main topics discussed in this paper is understanding the nature of qualitative research and its inherent weaknesses and how to overcome them. Some of the challenges highlighted in the paper include: contextually embedded findings, vague standards for data analysis, presentation of voluminous amount of qualitative data and theoretical criteria for judging the quality of studies. Insights from real‐life experiences in conducing qualitative research in bank marketing reveal practical issues such as participant recruitment and engagement, ethical soundness, triangulation, and perpetual assurance of research quality.

The paper provides personal commentaries on the experiences of a researcher in conducting purely qualitative academic study in marketing. It offers insights into practical difficulties encountered when performing qualitative studies and offers a glimpse into solutions and alternatives incorporated by the researcher, which could be of use to aspiring marketing researchers.