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Urban areas, especially in the coastal region of Bangladesh, face environmental degradation due to rapid urbanization, uncontrolled socio-economic activities and experiencing the adverse impacts of climate change. Nature-based solutions (NbS) as options for restoring, preserving, maintaining and elevating natural features or systems are becoming popular for reducing vulnerabilities caused either by natural hazards or human-induced activities. With this understanding, this study aims to explore the need of practicing NbS by studying the condition of a tidal canal (known as Thakurani Khal) and its peripheral areas of Mongla Port Municipality, a coastal and seaport town in Bangladesh.

This case study-based research uses multiple inquiries, including focus group discussions, pair-wise comparison, observation, GIS-based mapping, key informant interviews and secondary climate data review, to understand the spatial development of the area and community reactions to the changes in the urban environment.

The natural water flow of this canal is controlled by sluice gates that indirectly allowed the dweller to encroach its lands and convert the canal into a solid waste dumping area. These human-induced activities as well as the climate change-induced events (i.e. extreme heat, intensive and irregular rainfall, increased number of cyclones, etc.) have made the adjacent areas prone to waterlogging and drainage congestion. In this context, the revival of the original natural quality of the canal has been identified as an alternative to ensuring an adaptive urban environment.

This research highlights the importance of practicing NbS for developing urban resilience in the context of climate change.

Personal Protective Equipment plays an inevitable part in the current scenario of pandemics in the world. A novel coronavirus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus-2 (SARS-Cov 2), began as an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019, and quickly spread worldwide. It quickly escalated into an international public health crisis. This opened up the high demand for the innovation and research of new materials in the Personal Protective Equipment industry.

PubMed, Embase and Google Scholar were searched for relevant literature regarding personal protective equipment and the information was organized in a systematic way.

There are no adequate number of studies taken up in the field of use of textiles in medical applications especially with PPEs.

This structured review will generate a sense of the significance of using PPE for controlling pandemics and also awaken need for additional research and innovations in this area.

The authorities of the management should take timely intervention in choosing the right material for their PPE in their hospitals. Hence health care professionals teams have an inevitable role in preventing the adverse environmental impact due to the inadvertent disposal of PPEs.

There is a lack of systematic way of disposing contaminated single-use face masks in a safe, environmentally acceptable manner. The dumping of single-use PPE in domestic garbage has had an adverse effect on the environment. Mismanaged plastic waste endangers the health of ecosystems by polluting marine and terrestrial environments, posing a significant risk of ingestion or injury to animals and contaminating habitats.

This review article provides an in-depth review of the use of different materials in PPE and challenges regarding its long-term use and implications on the environment.

In 2017, it was a challenge to assess the future of global trade. It was an open question whether the US financial crisis and the recession that it triggered would mark a turning point for the liberal post–World War II world order. If one looked toward Europe, China, Latin America, and Japan, there was a flurry of activity. New trade agreements were being completed and pursued. In Washington, DC, on the other hand, President Donald Trump seemed set on ripping apart and/or renegotiating any trade deal the United States was ever part of.

This case explores Trump's opinions and emerging policy stance on trade, bilateralism, and the global economy, among others. It also gives an overview of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and asks whether the Trump presidency would constitute a major challenge to the WTO and what it stood for in 2017.

Although the challenges associated with big data are increasing, the question of the most suitable big data analytics (BDA) platform in libraries is always significant. The purpose of this study is to propose a solution to this problem.

The current study identifies relevant literature and provides a review of big data adoption in libraries. It also presents a step-by-step guide for the development of a BDA platform using the Apache Hadoop Ecosystem. To test the system, an analysis of library big data using Apache Pig, which is a tool from the Apache Hadoop Ecosystem, was performed. It establishes the effectiveness of Apache Hadoop Ecosystem as a powerful BDA solution in libraries.

It can be inferred from the literature that libraries and librarians have not taken the possibility of big data services in libraries very seriously. Also, the literature suggests that there is no significant effort made to establish any BDA architecture in libraries. This study establishes the Apache Hadoop Ecosystem as a possible solution for delivering BDA services in libraries.

The present work suggests adapting the idea of providing various big data services in a library by developing a BDA platform, for instance, providing assistance to the researchers in understanding the big data, cleaning and curation of big data by skilled and experienced data managers and providing the infrastructural support to store, process, manage, analyze and visualize the big data.

The study concludes that Apache Hadoops’ Hadoop Distributed File System and MapReduce components significantly reduce the complexities of big data storage and processing, respectively, and Apache Pig, using Pig Latin scripting language, is very efficient in processing big data and responding to queries with a quick response time.

According to the study, there are significantly fewer efforts made to analyze big data from libraries. Furthermore, it has been discovered that acceptance of the Apache Hadoop Ecosystem as a solution to big data problems in libraries are not widely discussed in the literature, although Apache Hadoop is regarded as one of the best frameworks for big data handling.

Smart cities in India are going to be a reality very soon by turning challenges into opportunities for the society. However, due to rapid increase in population burden, fast urbanization and growing demand of advanced services in the smart cities, the quantity of per capita municipal solid waste (MSW) has escalated. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has further challenged the municipal solid waste management (MSWM) system with the increasing amount of infectious wastes coming from households (HHs), quarantine centers, healthcare facilities, vaccination centers, etc. Therefore, the present study attempts to explore and analyze the various dimensions of sustainable MSWM system in the smart cities.

The study identifies 13 factors of sustainable MSWM system from the literature, field surveys and stakeholders' opinions. Thereafter, stakeholders' opinions are collected and analyzed using total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) approach to explore the interrelationships among the factors of sustainable MSWM system. These relationships are further validated through the empirical investigation of the real-life case study of Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC), Odisha, India.

The TISM approach places all 13 factors into six levels in the hierarchical digraph depending upon the inputs received from the various stakeholders on their interrelationships. Study also validates the proposed TISM model by collecting the data of RMC, Odisha, on the development of MSWM system over the period of 2015–2021.

The study also highlights various implications for the other developing cities and stakeholders to set up the roadmap for developing the sustainable MSWM system. Study defines “IT platform” and “awareness among citizens” as the base of the sustainable MSWM system in any smart city.

The present study is the first of its kind to explore the interrelationships among the factors of sustainable MSWM system by using TISM approach. Moreover, the proposed TISM framework is further validated through the empirical journey of one of the smart cities in India.

This study evaluates the quantity and composition of solid waste produce in secondary schools and assesses level of environmental consciousness and management activities. This is aimed for the present and future planning of high schools' environment as well as integrating the system into urban waste management.

This research used primary and secondary data to realize its purpose. Primary data was obtained through measurement of actual waste generation and questionnaire administration. Secondary data was the official information obtained on the schools selected. The primary data collected was analysed with descriptive statistical method such as percentage, mean cross measures of central tendency, frequency distribution and cross tabulation.

The study established that a total of 375.6 kg of solid waste is generated in the selected schools and daily per capita waste generation is 0.56 kg. Paper material is the waste component with the highest quantity and 88.5% of waste produced is recyclable. Thus, solid waste generated in secondary schools if carefully managed with suitable management options has potential for promoting circular economy and sustainable development. The paper recommends environmental education for stakeholders in secondary schools and waste segregation culture should be enforced in every secondary school.

The paper builds on the reasons for poor environmental quality in secondary schools in developing countries and revealed unscientific means by which resources are wasted and the environment is mismanaged through low understanding of solid waste.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to examine the financial implications of Maghreb Steel’s substantial investment in the Blad Assolb complex in 2007 within the restructuring plan; explore how this decision influenced the company’s financial health and strategic position in the steel market, within the context of the restructuring plan; assess the impact of the 2008 economic crisis within the restructuring plan; analyze how the crisis affected the company’s pricing strategies, profitability and overall business strategy; investigate the financial and strategic consequences of the hot rolling activity initiated as a result of the Blad Assolb project within the company’s restructuring plan; and critique how this venture impacted the company’s operations, cost structure and competitiveness in the steel industry, aligned with the restructuring plan.

This case study deals with the only flat steel producer in Morocco: Maghreb Steel, the Moroccan family-owned company created in 1975 by the Sekkat family. It was a leading steel company. At the beginning, the company was specialized in the field of steel tubes, but thanks to its growth ambitions, the Sekkat family had made Maghreb Steel a major player in the Moroccan steel sector. In the same logic of development, the top management of Maghreb Steel launched in 2007 in the adventure to create the first production complex of cold rolling in Morocco – an investment that pushed Maghreb Steel to resort to a debt of more than 6bn dirhams (DH) with a consortium of six banks and would have allowed the company a huge leap in growth, except that the decision-makers of the group Sekkat could not see coming the economic crisis of 2008 causing the fall of steel prices by 62% compared to 2007. Thus, from its effective launch in 2010, the activity of hot rolling would become, for the company, a regrettable orientation. Moreover, the national market could not absorb all the production of the complex that the company called Blad Assolb. In response to this difficult situation, Maghreb Steel decided to store its goods to avoid selling at a loss. Faced with this situation of sectoral crisis and deterioration of its activity, Maghreb Steel lost its ability to honor its financial commitments with the banking consortium. From then on, the company became a case of failure, and the recovery measures had not ceased to be duplicated by the various stakeholders: State, Sekkat family, creditors and management of the company, having only one objective in mind: Save Maghreb Steel! This said, the present case study is dedicated to the financial and strategic analysis of the current situation and the evolution of the company throughout the crisis period to finally propose a suitable recovery plan to save Maghreb Steel.

The case study can be taught to students of master’s degrees in financial management as a synthesis of finance courses. It can also be used to train executives and managers working in family businesses as part of professional certification training.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and finance.