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This study aims to investigate the morphing concepts able to manipulate the dynamics of the downstream unsteadiness in the separated shear layers and, in the wake, be able to modify the upstream shock–boundary layer interaction (SBLI) around an A320 morphing prototype to control these instabilities, with emphasis to the attenuation or even suppression of the transonic buffet. The modification of the aerodynamic performances according to a large parametric study carried out at Reynolds number of 4.5 × 10⁶, Mach number of 0.78 and various angles of attack in the range of (0, 2.4)° according to two morphing concepts (travelling waves and trailing edge vibration) are discussed, and the final benefits in aerodynamic performance increase are evaluated.

This article examines through high fidelity (Hi-Fi) numerical simulation the effects of the trailing edge (TE) actuation and of travelling waves along a specific area of the suction side starting from practically the most downstream position of the shock wave motion according to the buffet and extending up to nearly the TE. The present paper studies through spectral analysis the coherent structures development in the near wake and the comparison of the aerodynamic forces to the non-actuated case. Thus, the physical mechanisms of the morphing leading to the increase of the lift-to-drag ratio and the drag and noise sources reduction are identified.

This study investigates the influence of shear-layer and near-wake vortices on the SBLI around an A320 aerofoil and attenuation of the related instabilities thanks to novel morphing: travelling waves generated along the suction side and trailing-edge vibration. A drag reduction of 14% and a lift-to-drag increase in the order of 8% are obtained. The morphing has shown a lift increase in the range of (1.8, 2.5)% for angle of attack of 1.8° and 2.4°, where a significant lift increase of 7.7% is obtained for the angle of incidence of 0° with a drag reduction of 3.66% yielding an aerodynamic efficiency of 11.8%.

This paper presents results of morphing A320 aerofoil, with a chord of 70cm and subjected to two actuation kinds, original in the state of the art at M = 0.78 and Re = 4.5 million. These Hi-Fi simulations are rather rare; a majority of existing ones concern smaller dimensions. This study showed for the first time a modified buffet mode, displaying periodic high-lift “plateaus” interspersed by shorter lift-decrease intervals. Through trailing-edge vibration, this pattern is modified towards a sinusoidal-like buffet, with a considerable amplitude decrease. Lock-in of buffet frequency to the actuation is obtained, leading to this amplitude reduction and a drastic aerodynamic performance increase.

This paper aims to answer the following important questions: Is public debt in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries sustainable? What are the determinants of public debt sustainability in these countries, and do these determinants exhibit heterogeneity due to regional, natural resource, and income differences among SSA countries?

This study analyzes the public debt sustainability in SSA countries using the theoretical model known as the Present Value Budget Constraint (PVBC) model developed by Hamilton and Flavin (1986), and adopts the econometric testing method proposed by Trehan and Walsh (1991). Moreover, to empirically investigate the determinants of public debt sustainability in SSA countries, the System-Generalized Method of Moments (System-GMM) method is applied. Furthermore, this study conducts heterogeneity analysis by categorizing the sample based on different regions, natural resource endowments, and income levels. The data of this study are sourced from the IMF and World Bank databases for 45 SSA countries from 2005 to 2021.

Findings reveal that public debt in SSA countries is not sustainable in the long run, with factors such as the previous government debt, long-term debt ratio, debt repayment capacity, economic growth rate, inflation rate, export to GDP, and government fiscal deficit rate influencing sustainability. Additionally, the factors exhibit heterogeneity attributed to regional, natural resource, and income variations among SSA countries.

The findings of our study will serve as a catalyst for policymakers in the SSA countries to embrace and sustain robust fiscal consolidation and debt stabilization measures. Moreover, countries with distinct characteristics should implement tailored approaches. Additionally, policymakers in SSA countries should implement economic measures to address public debt issues. These measures include improving the macroeconomic structure, promoting economic transformation and diversification of industries, fostering sustainable economic growth, ensuring price stability, and strengthening resilience against external shocks and debt risks. Specifically, countries endowed with indigenous species, resources, and tourism potential should adopt a well-coordinated strategy that utilizes agriculture, tourism, ecotourism, and the hospitality industry as instruments for sustainable local community and rural development.

Firstly, it assesses the sustainability of public debt and its determinants for countries in SSA, which distinguishes it from previous studies that only focus on either debt sustainability or determinants of debt separately. Secondly, by including multiple SSA countries in the analysis, this study stands out from prior research that predominantly concentrates on specific nations. Thirdly, the utilization of the System-GMM method for analyzing determinants adds a novel dimension to this study, departing from earlier literature primarily focused on debt thresholds. Lastly, the heterogeneity analysis conducted in this study provides an empirical foundation for tailoring policies to different countries, addressing a facet often overlooked in earlier literature.

As the world is becoming more volatile and uncertain, organizations face much complexity in their daily operations. Further, there is a much ambiguity in business operations to achieve the effective utilization of resources. The work optimizes a novel constraint programming model approach of the utilization of shuttle services vehicle while considering cost savings, employee wellbeing and other real an Information Technology enabled service (ITES) industry constraints.

The present work considers a novel extension of the vehicle routing problem related to the shuttle service operation in an ITES industry in VUCA context. Additionally, the model considers the women safety aspects, which engages the company to provide a security guard for women employees in the night shift.

Numerical experiments were conducted on real instances data of ITES industrial partner. The results show that the vehicle utilization increased from 75% up to 96% while ensuring in parallel the wellbeing of employees and women safety during the night shift. Finally, the proposed model is converted to a decision support application allowing ITES partner to plan employees shuttle service operations efficiently.

Study has evaluated the shuttle services optimization for ITES industry using data from industrial which makes it a unique contribution to literature in shuttle operations. Further, the study used constraint programming to evaluate the vehicle utilization and security allocation, thereby introducing new parameter on security allocation in open VRP problem.

Internet use has a high environmental footprint that is often overlooked by end users. This paper contributes to limiting the negative environmental footprint of Information Technology (IT) use by understanding the relationship between environmental concerns and use of IT amongst users who are aware of the environmental footprint of IT use. Second, the paper argues that taking environmental concerns into account in technology acceptance studies is relevant, even in studies concerning ordinary IT (i.e. IT not commonly classified as “green” technology).

The authors conduct two vignette-based surveys in two different countries: the USA and Belgium. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to analyse the effect of environmental concerns on the intention to use the webcam during online meetings and binary logistic regression is used to analyse the relationship between environmental concerns and reported actual use of webcams.

The higher the respondents' environmental concerns, the higher their intention to use internet systems in a more environmentally responsible way, provided the respondents are aware of the environmental footprint of internet system use. Moreover, the higher the respondents’ environmental concerns, the more likely they are to use internet systems in a more environmentally responsible way.

This study is the first to distinguish “Greening of IT Use” from “Greening of IT” and “Greening by IT” and to show that environmental concerns has an impact on the way end users (intend to) use internet systems, provided the users are aware of the environmental footprint of that use.

The present study aims to bring out the impact of consanguinity on spontaneous pregnancy loss (SPL) and on descendants’ health, among the population of north Morocco.

Convenience sampling was used for collecting data. A questionnaire was randomly administered to 385 couples represented by either the husband, the wife or both. The study lasted for three months, from January to March 2015.

In total, 238 valid questionnaires were analysed. The results showed that the consanguinity rate was 45.23% and that most consanguineous unions were between first cousins (91%). Data analysis revealed that SPL risk was similar in consanguineous and non-consanguineous couples (OR = 1.6; IC95% = 0.9–2.9). Also, no significant difference was observed in terms of SPL type (OR = 1.6; IC95% = 0.7–3.9) and frequency (p = 0.81). However, late SPL frequency was significantly lower in consanguineous couples (p < 0.001), whereas no significant difference was registered in terms of early SPL frequency (p = 0.73). On the other hand, consanguineous couples displayed a significantly higher risk of descendants’ health disorders in comparison with non-consanguineous ones. Moreover, the consanguineous couples had a significantly higher number of children with health disorders (p < 0.001). The risk analysis also showed that consanguineous couples displayed a significantly higher risk of congenital malformations (OR = 7.23; IC95% = 3.52–14.84) and multifactorial diseases (OR = 3.72; IC95% = 1.46–9.49), but no significant difference was observed in terms of behavioural disorders risk.

The population awareness regarding the negative effects of consanguinity should be raised through education programmes and premarital, prenatal and genetic counselling services.

The purpose of this study is to examine the management perceptions towards calculative practices behind the reconstruction of a mandatory hospital accreditation (HA) system that transforms multiple facets of health-care quality into a single performance index.

This study contributes to the sociology of quantification mobilising the concept of commensuration as a social process to reflect on contemporary changes in managing HA systems. Data are collected adopting a case study of a Spanish public hospital drawing on semi-structured interviews, observation and documentary review.

Findings emphasise a shift from standards’ compliance to a more comprehensive view encouraging continuous quality improvement. Accreditation acts as a tin opener to facilitate external inspection removing contextual differences amongst hospitals and reducing organisational practices into controllable objects. It also reveals underlying ethical concerns as the system was built as a care quality measure that promptly developed into an attainment goal.

The valuable role of HA to enhance quality standards and the limitations resulting from its commensuration practices will be of interest to policymakers, organisational managers and researchers.

Despite a growing emphasis on audit and valuation practices in health care, accounting studies examining the capacity of public hospitals to manage quality improvement are scarce. This study inspires further research on accreditation to overcome commensuration flaws regarding external transparency, evaluation ambiguity and extra incentives.

In Chapter 1, we critically reviewed the foundations of the free enterprise capital system (FECS), which has been successful primarily because of its wealth and asset accumulation potentiality and actuality. In this chapter, we critically argue that this capacity has been grounded upon the profit maximization (PM) theories, models, and paradigms of FECS. The intent of this chapter is not anti-PM. The PM models of FECS have worked and performed well for more than 200 years of the economic history of the United States and other developed countries, and this phenomenon is celebrated and featured as “market performativity.” However, market performativity has not truly benefitted the poor and the marginalized; on the contrary, market performativity has wittingly or unwittingly created gaping inequalities of wealth, income, opportunity, and prosperity. Critical thinking does not combat PM but challenges it with alternative models of profit sharing that promote social wealth, social welfare, social progress, and opportunity for all, which we explore here. Economic development without social progress breeds economic inequality and social injustice. Economic development alone is not enough; we should create a new paradigm in which economic development is the servant of social progress, not vice versa. Such a paradigm shift involves integrating the creativity and innovativity of market performativity and the goals and drives of social performativity together with PM, that is, from market performativity to social performativity.

The 170-year-old Master in Business Administration (MBA) program is becoming obsolete and inefficient to address today's real-world problems, and is facing mounting criticism from business scholars, management deans, and academic scholars alike. Reviewing major criticisms, this chapter suggests a new design for the MBA program that will not only address the criticisms but also accept a paradigm shift that will spearhead it in coming decades. The redesigned MBA “structure” proposes a four-semester full-time program, during which each semester delves into deeper marketplace problems of increasing complexity (i.e., from simple to complex to unstructured to wicked problems) and deals with these problems with new levels of critical thinking skills and ethical reasoning processes tempered by corresponding entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, and values. The “content” of the redesigned program is anchored around five major themes of business learning: namely, intrinsic motivation management, creativity and innovation management, productivity management, revenue management, and eco-sustainability management, each geared to generate professional entrepreneurial knowledge, and skills and values urgently needed today. Numerous beneficial features of this newly redesigned integrated business management program (MBA) are also discussed.