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Emissions produced by oceangoing vessels not only negatively affect the environment but also may deteriorate health of living organisms. Several regulations were released by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to alleviate negative externalities from maritime transportation. Certain polluted areas were designated as “Emission Control Areas” (ECAs). However, IMO did not enforce any restrictions on the actual quantity of emissions that could be produced within ECAs. This paper aims to perform a comprehensive assessment of advantages and disadvantages from introducing restrictions on the emissions produced within ECAs. Two mixed-integer non-linear mathematical programs are presented to model the existing IMO regulations and an alternative policy, which along with the established IMO requirements also enforces restrictions on the quantity of emissions produced within ECAs. A set of linearization techniques are applied to linearize both models, which are further solved using the dynamic secant approximation procedure. Numerical experiments demonstrate that introduction of emission restrictions within ECAs can significantly reduce pollution levels but may incur increasing route service cost for the liner shipping company.

Two mixed-integer non-linear mathematical programs are presented to model the existing IMO regulations and an alternative policy, which along with the established IMO requirements also enforces restrictions on the quantity of emissions produced within ECAs. A set of linearization techniques are applied to linearize both models, which are further solved using the dynamic secant approximation procedure.

Numerical experiments were conducted for the French Asia Line 3 route, served by CMA CGM liner shipping company and passing through ECAs with sulfur oxide control. It was found that introduction of emission restrictions reduced the quantity of sulfur dioxide emissions produced by 40.4 per cent. In the meantime, emission restrictions required the liner shipping company to decrease the vessel sailing speed not only at voyage legs within ECAs but also at the adjacent voyage legs, which increased the total vessel turnaround time and in turn increased the total route service cost by 7.8 per cent.

This study does not capture uncertainty in liner shipping operations.

The developed mathematical model can serve as an efficient practical tool for liner shipping companies in developing green vessel schedules, enhancing energy efficiency and improving environmental sustainability.

Researchers and practitioners seek for new mathematical models and environmental policies that may alleviate pollution from oceangoing vessels and improve energy efficiency. This study proposes two novel mathematical models for the green vessel scheduling problem in a liner shipping route with ECAs. The first model is based on the existing IMO regulations, whereas the second one along with the established IMO requirements enforces emission restrictions within ECAs. Extensive numerical experiments are performed to assess advantages and disadvantages from introducing emission restrictions within ECAs.

The purpose of this paper is to identify a framework to support adaptivity in e-learning environments. The framework reflects a novel hybrid approach incorporating the concept of the event-condition-action (ECA) model and intelligent agents. Moreover, a system prototype is developed reflecting the hybrid approach to supporting adaptivity in any given learning management system based on learners’ learning styles.

This paper offers a brief review of current frameworks and systems to support adaptivity in e-learning environments. A framework to support adaptivity is designed and discussed, reflecting the hybrid approach in detail. A system prototype is developed incorporating different adaptive features based on the Felder-Silverman learning styles model. Finally, the prototype is implemented in Moodle.

The system prototype supports real-time adaptivity in any given learning management system based on learners’ learning styles. It can deal with any type of content provided by course designers and instructors in the learning management system. Moreover, it can support adaptivity at both course and learner levels.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous work has been done incorporating the concept of the ECA model and intelligent agents as hybrid architecture to support adaptivity in e-learning environments. The system prototype has wider applicability and can be adapted to support different types of adaptivity.

The paper aims to explain the limitations of existing cognitive architectures and affective models, and propose a new cognitive-affective architecture that can be integrated in real intelligent agents to make them more realistic and believable.

The paper evaluates the state of the art, and describes the design and implementation of the cognitive-affective architecture in an agent. A brief evaluation of the agent is provided.

The paper clearly states that it is possible to use cognitive architectures to help, but there is a lack of architectures that address the problem of combining cognition and emotion in agents in a unified, simplified way. A cognitive-affective architecture is useful to make believable intelligent agents in an easier way.

The paper does not explore a lot of possible future work that can be done to extend the emotional expressions of the agent, as well as including direct emotional-sensing capabilities in real time.

The paper argues about the need to include cognitive-affective architectures in modern intelligent agents. The architecture allows to influence and modify the behavior of the agent in real time, to achieve a more realistic and believable interaction with the user.

The paper remarks the importance of a cognitive-affective architecture that makes intelligent agents able to help the users in different tasks and environments.

The paper describes a new cognitive-affective architecture and its utility for modern intelligent agents. This is proven by including it in a previous agent, which boosts its behavior and emotional expression possibilities and thus improves user experience.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the changes in gender‐biased employment practices that it is perceived have occurred in New Zealand accountancy workplaces over the last 30 years, using Oliver's model of deinstitutionalization.

Sequential interviewing was carried out with 69 experienced chartered accountants and three human resource managers, and at a later date with nine young female accountants.

Evidence is presented of perceived political, functional and social pressures cumulatively contributing to deinstitutionalization of overt gender‐biased employment practices, with social and legislative changes being the most influential. Deinstitutionalization appears incomplete as some more subtle gender‐biased practices still remain in New Zealand's accountancy workplaces, relating particularly to senior‐level positions.

This study adds to understanding of how professions evolve. The purposeful bias in the sample selection, the small size of two of the interviewee groups, and the diversity in the interviewees' workplaces are recognized limitations.

Identification of further cultural change is required to deinstitutionalize the more subtle gender‐biased practices in accountancy organizations. This could help to avoid a serious deficiency of senior chartered accountants in practice in the future.

This paper represents one of a limited number of empirical applications of the deinstitutionalization model to organizational change and is the first to address the issue of gender‐biased practices in a profession. The use of sequential interviewing of different age groups, in order to identify and corroborate perceptions of organizational change is a novel approach.

The purpose of this study is to provide an explication of micro foundations of Corporate Social responsibility (CSR). CSR, as a study domain, has been accommodating individual centric aspects. Extant literature delved into firm aspects like regulation, the role of individuals such as leaders and managers in shaping the agenda and practice on CSR.

Based upon the responses of 396 managers, the authors explored how young managers assessed firm CSR actions and develop their role as potential customers, investors and potential employees toward a firm. For this study, a mediated moderator analysis has been applied to test the model.

The authors found that between an individuals’ customer-centric role toward firm products, positively relate to being a potential employee. However, there was also the presence of the mediation role of the individuals’ inclination for becoming an investor in firm shares. Further, there was a moderation role of an individual’s firm CSR product assessment. The developed model had four factors, namely, customer CSR firm assessment (CCFA), customer CSR product assessment (CCPA), investor CSR evaluation (ICE) and employee CSR aspiration (ECA).

In this research, based upon systems justification theory and expectancy theory an individual-centric micro foundation based theoretical model on CSR were developed consisting of CCFA as an antecedent variable, ICE as mediating variable, CCPA as moderating variable and ECA as the dependent variable.

This study was one of the contributions toward a micro foundations based CSR approach model with role-plays as a customer, investor and potential employee.

The first objective of this study is to review the mechanism of conducting extra-curricular activities (ECAs) in the open and distance learning (ODL) setting. To achieve this objective, the procedure of ECAs at the Virtual University of Pakistan has been studied. The second objective of this study is to find the impact of ECAs on student engagement.

This is a cross-sectional quantitative study. The questionnaire has been used to collect the data. The purposive sampling technique has been used, while this study's sample size is 970. An independent sample t-test has been used to find the difference between the groups.

This study shows a significant difference between the engagement levels of students who have been part of any ECA at university compared to the students who never participated in any ECA.

The results have been derived from the data gathered from one university only that might hinder the generalizability of the findings. The same study can be conducted in other ODL institutions to authenticate the findings.

This study will help in realizing the policymakers of ODL about the importance of ECCAs. This study has also discussed an existing system of conducting ECCAs in an ODL setting that can be generalized and implemented across all the ODL universities to enhance student engagement.

This study has highlighted the importance of ECAs in ODL institutions that have been neglected since forever. This study is novel because it has highlighted the importance of social interaction of students in ODL and its relation with student engagement that has not been highlighted by any study so far.

Reactive rules are used for programming rule-based Web agents, which have the ability to detect events and respond to them automatically and can have complex structure and unpredictable behavior. The aim of this paper is to provide an appropriate formal framework for analyzing such rules.

To achieve this goal, the authors give two alternative semantics for the basic reactive rules’ families which allow us to specify reactive rule-based agents and verify their intended behavior. The first approach expresses the functionality of production and event condition action rules in terms of equations, whereas the second methodology is based in the formalism of rewriting logic. Both semantics can be expressed within the framework of CafeOBJ algebraic specification language, which then offers the verification support and have their advantages and downsides.

The authors report on experiences gained by applying those methodologies in a reactive rule-based system and compare the two methodologies.

Finally, the authors demonstrate a tool that translates a set of reactive rules into CafeOBJ rewrite rules, thus making the verification of reactive rules possible for inexperienced users.

Objective – The implications of social health insurance (SHI) for labor markets have featured prominently in recent debates over the merits of SHI and general revenue financing. It has been argued that by raising the nonwage component of labor costs, SHI reduces firms’ demand for labor, lowers employment levels and net wages, and encourages self-employment and informal working arrangements. At the national level, SHI has been claimed to reduce a country's competitiveness in international markets and to discourage foreign direct investment (FDI). The transition from general revenue finance to SHI that occurred during the 1990s in many of the central and eastern European and central Asian countries provides a unique opportunity to investigate empirically these claims.

Methodology/approach – We employ regression-based generalizations of difference-in-differences (DID) and instrumental variables (IV) on country-level panel data from 28 countries for the period 1990–2004.

Findings – We find that, controlling for gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, SHI increases (gross) wages by 20%, reduces employment (as a share of the population) by 10%, and increases self-employment by 17%. However, we find no significant effects of SHI on unemployment (registered or self-reported), agricultural employment, a widely used measure of the size of the informal economy, or FDI.

Implications for policy – We do not claim that our results imply that SHI adoption everywhere must necessarily reduce employment and increase self-employment. Nonetheless, our results ought to serve as a warning to those contemplating shifting the financing of health care from general revenues to a SHI system.

Low productivity and the prevalence of marketing and demand constraints are all interrelated problems for banana growers in East Africa. The purpose of this paper is to examine how different marketing policies can alter the incomes of banana‐growing households in the Ntungamo district of Uganda.

A partial equilibrium model and a trader profit‐maximisation model are used to analyse changes in banana market equilibrium conditions, marketing costs and market competitiveness.

The results indicate that increasing supply relative to demand reduces grower returns. It appears that reducing market power and lowering middlemen marketing costs may lead to higher grower returns. Policies facilitating lower marketing costs for traders are proposed in conjunction with strategies that promote banana processing.

Drawing on both primary and secondary data, this paper examines how increasing demand and reducing marketing costs impacts on banana‐grower returns. Furthermore, sources of price movements in the Ugandan banana industry are assessed.

This paper demonstrates that the health of juveniles in deprivation of liberty in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, deteriorates while in detention and that conditions of detention are the major catalyst for offenders’ declining health status. The environment is conducive to the propagation and contamination of health‐related problems such as skin, respiratory, dental, and ear illness and viruses and parasitic infections. The paper concludes that at the moment, both inmates and the environment are disease carriers, deteriorating juveniles’ health status.