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By replacing traditional fossil fuels, renewable energy (RE) has the potential to become an outstanding sustainable energy supply. However, owing to technological, economic, social and legal constraints, RE is still in its early stages of development. Hence, this paper aims to analyze the sustainable development hindrances in the RE supply chain (RESC).

Twenty-three hindrances to the sustainable development of the RE industry were investigated in this research, which included a review of the expert opinion and literature. Then, a mutual relationship between the hindrances by integrating interpretive structural modeling and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory in fuzzy environment was established. Furthermore, using the cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to a classification analysis, these hindrances were grouped.

The findings show that the important hindrances are “lack of standards for the RESC (H19), lack of entrepreneurship support (H21), lack of incentives/subsidies to encourage RE producers to compete (H30) and lack of governmental support for sustainable supply chain solutions (H31).

This research provides unique insights into the area of sustainability in RESC. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to analyze the sustainability hindrances in the RESC.

The purpose of this paper is to discover and enumerate the elements of the digital library and measure how much an individual library was equipped with the characteristics of the digital library accordingly.

For this purpose several steps were taken. First, research on the characteristics and the representative services of the digital library were comprehensively reviewed. Second, examples of the library services that were being considered for the next generation digital library were investigated to compare with the conventional library services. Third, the elements of the conventional and the digital libraries initially extracted were examined by ten experts. These experts were composed of researchers and professors specializing in digital libraries, and career librarians who had worked in the digital library field for at least ten years. The elements were verified through discussions with them. Fourth, 19 university libraries, 16 public libraries, and 17 special libraries were selected in accordance with the verified elements of the conventional and the digital libraries to measure the digitization level of the libraries.

The following is a summary of the evaluation of the first eight evaluation items, which are covered in Part 1 of this study. The remaining five items will be covered in Part 2. First, the digitization level of the acquisition element and classification and cataloguing was significantly high. Second, book collections excluding “digital video,” reference service, library program service, and space service showed significantly conventional characteristics. Third, in the element of circulation services, the item of lending books offline and returning the books scored 92.64 and the item of lending-returning with use of smart devices and social media obtained significantly low scores. Also, the average in using the book return desk for the circulation service was 81.39, much higher than using the automatic book return machine, which scored 18.61, by a wide margin. Fourth, in the element of user services, the digital item of providing support for mobile services related to the library resources demonstrated higher scores than the conventional item, but other items showed more conventional characteristics. In particular, the item of duplication services for material scored 94.99, but other items such as support for publication/bookbinding services using digital publication tools and devices obtained significantly low scores.

This study is first study in the world to measure the level of digitization of the library. Therefore, hereafter, each library will be able to measure and determine its digital position based on these elements. Up to now, some research was performed in pursuit of extracting the elements of a library but it has relied solely on literature review. Comprehensive research had never been performed as in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relationships between lean manufacturing (LM) principles and concurrent engineering approach to new product development (CENPD).

A survey instrument based on a number of critical factors was used to examine if there are relationships between LM and CENPD. In addition to general organization and managerial profile items, the survey contained 44 items (22 paired) regarding similarities between LM and CENPD factors. Also, the survey instrument contained a number of questionnaire items on NPD performances for LM companies using CENPD and conventional companies.

Statistical results show high degree of similarities between LM and CENPD factors. The results also indicate that LM organizations are able to develop new products with 63 per cent better quality, 52 per cent less development time, 45 per cent less development cost, and 36 per cent less manufacturing cost than conventional companies.

Research is not industry specific. Future research needs to focus on specific industries.

LM companies are able to develop new products better, faster, more often, with less development cost, and less manufacturing cost than conventional companies.

The benefits of LM principles go much beyond inventory reduction and frequent deliveries. These principles are also applicable to other areas such as NPD.

This study aims to explore: first, the formation of the customer value of high‐tech consumer products through application of intrinsic and extrinsic cues of product quality; and second, the effect of the mental price category of the product on the construction of customer value.

The study was conducted in the Finnish consumer market in 2008. In total, 453 completed interview forms were collected through the structured interview method. The factor model was constructed through explorative factor analysis and hypothesis testing was conducted through linear multiple‐regression analysis.

The high‐tech product's price category was found to have a significant effect on the construction of the customer value. The mental price category in which consumers located the product was found to dictate how the perceived value was constructed through the intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions of product quality. The customer value of high‐tech consumer products was composed of visual appeal, excellence, and price satisfaction. Intrinsic cues of product quality were emphasised.

The study provides new insights into how the formation of customer value is dictated by the mental price category perceived by consumers. Also, new information on how intrinsic and extrinsic cues of product quality affect the customer value of high‐tech consumer products was provided.

This research paper aims to discover the elements of good physician leadership as perceived by physicians and to find out how the findings connect to the leadership theory.

The subjects (n = 50) of this qualitative study are physicians from four hierarchical levels (residents/specialising physicians, specialists, heads of departments and chief physicians). Content analysis with a constructivist-interpretative approach by thematisation was the chosen method, and it was also analysed how major leadership theories relate to good physician leadership.

Physician leaders are expected to possess the professional skills of physicians, understand how the work affects physicians’ lives and be competent in applying suitable leadership approaches following different situations and people. Trust, fairness, empathy, social skills, two-way communication skills, regular feedback, collegial respect and emotional intelligence are expected. As medical expertise connects leaders and followers, success in medical leadership comes from credibility in medical expertise, making medical leadership an inseparable part of good physician leadership. Subordinates are physician colleagues, who have their informal leadership roles on their hierarchical levels, making physician leadership a multidimensional leadership setting wherein formal leaders lead informal leaders, which blurs the traditional leader–follower boundary. In summary, good physician leadership is leadership through medical expertise combined with good manners, collegiality and traits from different kinds of leadership theories.

This study discovers elements of good physician leadership in a Finnish health-care context in which no similar prior empirical research has been carried out.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the post-adoption stage of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony diffusion, examining usage behavior based on Shih and Venkatesh’s use-diffusion (UD) model.

The research model incorporates technology sophistication, complementary technologies, personal innovativeness, self-efficacy, trust propensity, media exposure, subjective norms, and word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals as UD determinants; rate of use and variety of use as usage variables; intense use, specialized use, nonspecialized use, and limited use as UD patterns; and satisfaction and intention to use future-related technologies as UD outcomes. Data used to test the research model were collected using a web-based online questionnaire form; 360 valid responses were obtained. Partial least squares, multinomial logistic regression, and analysis of variance were used to analyze data.

The results reveal that variety of use, self-efficacy, propensity to trust, media exposure, subjective norms, and WOM referrals increase rate of use, while complementary technologies, personal innovativeness, self-efficacy, media exposure, and subjective norms widen variety of use; variety of use is essential in predicting UD outcomes; when choosing limited use as the reference category, more than half of the UD determinants are capable of predicting UD patterns; and generally, intense users are more satisfied with VoIP telephony, while limited users have less intention to use future-related technologies.

The present study focuses on the post-adoption stage, thereby extending the frontiers of research on the diffusion of VoIP telephony. Academics can obtain some evidence of the explanatory power of the UD model in the context of VoIP telephony use, and practitioners can obtain fresh insights into the dynamics of VoIP telephony usage behavior.

We investigate the relationship between the notion of progressive taxation and inequality reduction under a general version of the concept of inequality equivalence. We consider a two-parameter formalization of the concept of inequality equivalence that both includes, as special cases, the intermediate inequality equivalence and the path-independent/unit-consistent inequality equivalence. Both criteria could range from relative to absolute inequality views as the parameters in the formulation change. For the path-independent/unit-consistent inequality equivalence the condition of nondecreasing average tax rate is necessary and sufficient to guarantee the inequality-reducing effect of taxation for all the inequality views in between the relative and the absolute.

Much of the theoretical literature on inequality assumes that the equalisand is a cardinal variable like income or wealth. However, health status is generally measured as a categorical variable expressing a qualitative order. Traditional solutions involve reclassifying the variable by means of qualitative models and relying on inequality measures that are mean independent. We argue that the way status is conceptualised has important theoretical implications for measurement as well as for policy analysis. We also bring to the data a recently proposed approach to measuring self-reported health inequality that meets both rigorous and practical considerations. We draw upon the World Health Survey data to examine alternative pragmatic methods for making health-inequality comparisons. Findings suggest significant differences in health-inequality measurement and that regional and country patterns of inequality orderings do not coincide with any reasonable categorisation of countries by health system organisation.

Evidences show that the annual total of all incidents along with the number of bombing incidents steadily rose through the late 1970s and began a steady decline in the early 1990s. Before the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, the motivation of transnational terrorism was primarily nationalism, separatism, Marxist ideology, and nihilism. The jump in the number of incidents in the early 1980s corresponded to the rise of religious-based fundamentalism. The downward trend in the early 1990s is attributed to the demise of the Soviet Union. A surge in religious fervor and the hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan account for the prevailing high levels of transnational terrorism. Terrorism surely affects the economy as a whole both in terms of domestic and international trade-related parameters. In this chapter we have used a general equilibrium trade model with special emphasis on terrorism activities to capture the impact of international trade on the production system of the assumed stylized developing economy. In this connection, the presence of defense sector dualism to control or defend the domestic economy has been considered from the perspective of terrorism attack, thereby helping to relate defense, terrorism, and trade within a single framework. Apart from these, the terrorism augmented welfare aspect of the said developing economy has also been introduced in this chapter. Overall, we have claimed that the gains from trade in the presence of terrorism augmented externality exclusively depend on the pattern of trade.

The Wikipedia (2008) entry for mathematical sociology cites four books with ‘mathematical sociology’ in the title: Coleman (1964), Fararo (1973), Leik and Meeker (1975) and Bonacich (2008). Fararo (1973, pp. 764–766) provides a guide to the literature in mathematical sociology covering journals, bibliographies, reviews and expository essays, readers, texts, original monographs and research papers. Many of the references are either broader than mathematical sociology, for example, concerning the behavioural sciences in general, or narrower, dealing with a particular topic within sociology, or concerning a related field such as social psychology. Three classical original monographs are identified: Dodd (1942), Zipf (1949) and Rashevsky (1951). Included in a second generation of monographs is Coleman's (1964) ‘An Introduction to Mathematical Sociology’. Could it be that this is the first use of the phrase ‘mathematical sociology’?