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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.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to project the global emergence of megacities through the 21st century using population scenarios consistent with the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Methodology – A dynamic urban growth model is developed based on a scale-independent theory of growing networks taking into consideration the geographical and climatic suitability of the location of cities. The model is able to generate a series of megacity projections consistent with an experimental city size distribution based on a national urban population scenario consistent with Zipf's law. The model is applied to population projections for 45,316 cities around the world using three population scenarios from SRES.

Findings – All of the projections indicate that a large number of megacities will be generated in developing regions towards 2100, although the range is wide and depends on the population assumed in the scenarios. Some results indicate an extreme population concentration in megacities; this might be undesirable for national security, quality of life, and sustainable development. Transport policies affect urban growth and national land development through changes in mobility and accessibility across the nation.

Implications – The results presented in this chapter could serve to stimulate discussions on urban and national transport policies and planning, particularly in China.

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.

Previous research studies have noted that veterinarians are up to four times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. Studies have indicated possible catalysts for this increased risk, including exposure to euthanasia, depression, burnout, compassion fatigue, occupational stress, work–life imbalance and anxiety. With female veterinarians reporting higher rates of mental health issues and the fact that the ratio of female to male veterinarians is almost 2:1, the study focused on the female veterinarian population. Few research studies have been conducted to examine stressors directly related to human factors. The present study aims to examine the path to depression and burnout as it relates to positive versus negative interactions with human clients (owners of animal patients).

The study recruited 222 female veterinarians online (average age = 36.89). The participants completed three scales measuring (1) burnout; (2) depression, anxiety and stress; and (3) positive and negative experiences with human clients.

Using the structural equation modeling (SEM), the results showed contrasting patterns of positive versus negative client-related experience in relation to burnout and depression. Positive client experience showed a direct path to the lower levels of depression and client-related burnout while negative client experience revealed a non-direct path to depression but a direct path to more specific burnout such as client-related and work-related burnout.

Results of the study offered insight into the unique contribution of client-related experience in burnout and depression as positive versus negative client experience took on differential paths to depression and burnout.

This study examines the impact of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation on education quality. We discern the prospective influences of AACSB, focusing on shifts in teaching methods and content and assessment procedures.

Using a case study approach, in-depth interviews are conducted with a Japanese-accredited business school’s faculty members to understand their perceptions of the school’s education-quality issues. The data were thematically analyzed.

Respondents acknowledged that AACSB accreditation has positively influenced teaching, encouraging active learning and the case method. However, they also indicated that accreditation had a restrictive effect on assessment activities, pushing toward compliance rather than genuine learning evaluation. This dichotomy suggests a need for balancing standard adherence with the flexibility to maintain educational depth and assessment integrity.

Convenience sampling may introduce self-selection bias. Furthermore, the qualitative case study approach does not allow for statistical generalization. However, when combined with existing literature, the findings can be analytically generalized and transferred to other contexts.

We provide insights regarding AACSB accreditation’s impact on business education, encompassing shifts in teaching methods and content and faculty perceptions of assessment. This study enhances the scholarly understanding of business school accreditation and offers guidance to accredited or accreditation-seeking academic institutions.

This study aims to propose a novel viscoelastic–viscoplastic combined constitutive model for glassy amorphous polymers within the framework of thermodynamics at finite strain that is capable of capturing their rate-dependent inelastic mechanical behavior in wide ranges of deformation rate and amount.

The rheology model whose viscoelastic and viscoplastic elements are connected in series is set in accordance with the multi-mechanism theory. Then, the constitutive functions are formulated on the basis of the multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient implicated by the rheology model within the framework of thermodynamics. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and loading/unloading/no-load tests for polycarbonate (PC) are conducted to identify the material parameters and demonstrate the capability of the proposed model.

The performance was validated in comparison with the series of the test results with different rates and amounts of deformation before unloading together. It has been confirmed that the proposed model can accommodate various material behaviors empirically observed, such as rate-dependent elasticity, elastic hysteresis, strain softening, orientation hardening and strain recovery.

This paper presents a novel rheological constitutive model in which the viscoelastic element connected in series with the viscoplastic one exclusively represents the elastic behavior, and each material response is formulated according to the multiplicatively decomposed deformation gradients. In particular, the yield strength followed by the isotropic hardening reflects the relaxation characteristics in the viscoelastic constitutive functions so that the glass transition temperature could be variant within the wide range of deformation rate. Consequently, the model enables us to properly represent the loading process up to large deformation regime followed by unloading and no-load processes.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic. The policy responses to this outbreak have caused many impacts on our daily life and economic activities around the world. Also, this outbreak has affected financial reporting practices of the firms. Thorough financial reporting in such uncertain times plays an essential role in providing qualitative financial information. It is very important for a firm to increase transparency and report on the impacts of possible risks in times of uncertainty. Furthermore, stock markets may react to COVID-19 as they have already responded to major events like disasters, news, environmental and political events. This study investigates whether and how firms’ providing information about COVID-19 pandemic in their financial reports plays a role in explaining the stock market reactions. For this, annual reports of companies included in BIST-100 index in Turkey is used to analyze the capacity for detecting risks early and determine whether there is an association between early reporting about COVID-19 and the stock risk.

Studies in psychology have long revealed that making personal choice involves multiple motivational consequences. It has only been recent, however, that the literature on neuroscience started to examine the neural underpinnings of personal choice and motivation. This chapter reviews this sparse, but emergent, body of neuroscientific literature to address possible neural correlates underlying personal choice. By conducting the review, we encourage future systematic research programs that address this topic under the new realm of “autonomy neuroscience.” The chapter especially focused on the following motivational aspects: (i) personal choice is rewarding, (ii) personal choice shapes preference, (iii) personal choice changes the perception of outcomes, and (iv) personal choice facilitates motivation and performance. The reviewed work highlighted different aspects of personal choice, but indicated some overlapping brain areas – the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) – which may play a critical role in motivational processes elicited by personal choice.

The Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) is noted as an investment destination recently. However, there are few surveys about this region. In particular, direction of the regional disparity and economic linkage cannot be found, although it is inevitable to formulate economic or business policies. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

First, the author calculated the regional GINI coefficient of the GMS, converting the per capita GDP using the purchasing power parity. Then, the trend of intra-regional trade was calculated by using the data of Direction of Trade Statistics of IMF. In addition to that, to consider the trade structures, bilateral trades of Thailand with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar were analyzed.

This paper made clear that the regional disparity of the GMS has been gradually shrinking from serious level to moderate in recent years, although it is still larger than the disparity of ASEAN original members. Two Chinese districts and Vietnam played an important role to improve the disparity. As for the intra-regional trade, it used to be very poor in the early 1990s, but is increasing in these years. There may be some signs of starting of the intra-industrial trade between Thailand and Vietnam, although trades with lower developed countries such as Laos and Myanmar are led by natural resources-related products.

This paper is the first survey to calculate the regional disparity of the GMS with time series data. The analysis of the intra-trade among the GMS members expresses the current situation of the economic linkage of this area.