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The current study examined the impact of population ageing on environmental quality in 17 late-demographic dividend (LDD) countries.

The panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model using pooled mean group (PMG) estimator based on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis was used to analyse data for the period 1990–2018.

The empirical results demonstrated that in the long run, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions decrease with population ageing. The prevailing findings also indicated no sufficient evidence of EKC hypothesis validity and electricity consumption, which is the primary driving force of CO₂ emissions in LDD countries.

Unlike prior works, this paper is among the first to discuss environmental quality due to the current demographic transition towards ageing among LDD countries. Based on the results, population ageing reduces the environmental deterioration. The identification of possible ageing impact is vital to combat the climate change in order for countries to achieve sustainability, better economy and quality environment.

As the physical dimensions of the devices are reduced to the submicrometer regime, the hot‐carrier reliability has become an important issue in the scaling of the p‐MOSFET as well as the n‐MOSFET. In this paper, we present a unified approach for p‐MOSFET degradation due to the trapping of the hot electrons in the gate oxide layers. A physical analytical model, based on the pseudo two‐dimensional model, is derived for the first time to describe the linear and saturation drain current degradation. The model has been verified by comparing the calculation and the measurement from submicron p‐MOSFET's with different channel lengths and oxide thickness. There are no empirical parameters in the model. Two physical parameters: the capture cross section and the density of states of electron traps, which can be determined independently from the measured degradation characteristics, are valid for both the linear current and the saturation current degradation. The simple expression is very suitable for the predicting of the circuit reliability.

This paper focuses on how shared objects created by support departments in a software development firm facilitate the advancement of learning and knowledge sharing. Objects can be both facilitative and restrictive in certain ways, and the study seeks to enhance our understanding of how they can be made more facilitative.

This study can best be described as a single location exploratory case study in which data were predominantly gathered through unstructured interviews. The theoretical perspective of practice‐oriented studies is adopted, specifically utilizing activity theory to understand and analyze objects.

It is pointed out that, striving to understand objects with a focus on their often unanticipated usage can be useful in making them more facilitative. While emphasizing that objects are not used coherently in the field, the study explores how they could be made more facilitative by focusing on situated ways in which they act in the field. It was observed that they could become more facilitative by being shells with higher degrees of configurability, by being legitimate facades that create interesting contexts of multi‐project interactions and by being anchors of stability in an organizational setting of constant flux.

The research is exploratory in nature and has focused on the introduction of new ways of looking at objects in project‐based organizations. An enhanced understanding of the dynamics of objects in project settings can enable project personnel and support service personnel to make them more facilitative. For researchers, this study contributes to the discussions on understanding objects by proposing new ways of looking at the role of objects in project‐based organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to address the fact that under current Education Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) funding guidelines, diagnostic assessments for apprentices with additional learner needs are deemed an ineligible cost, which has the potential to reduce access to additional funding and support.

The approach of this paper is to critically evaluate the surrounding literature, government reports and Mencap review produced since the apprenticeship levy and present the implications of these funding guidelines relating to access to apprenticeships and the practical effects of apprentice’s experience and development.

The finding presented by this paper is that the definition of diagnostic assessments as an ineligible cost reduces the quality of training delivered by providers and assurances to apprentices that they will be fully supported from the start of their training.

The limitation of this research was the minimal amount of government/ESFA documentation addressing this subject within apprenticeships.

The practical implications of this paper relate to the on-going delivery of apprenticeship training in the UK, and the detrimental effect of reducing access to diagnostic assessments for apprentices with undiagnosed additional learner needs under the current wording of the Education Skills Agency guidance.

The government policy is currently under review to address this area which is considered an ineligible cost for supporting apprentices with recognised additional learner needs.

The value of this paper is to align with recent Mencap review and collaboratively readdress the ESFA’s current positioning of diagnostic assessments for apprentices with undiagnosed learning difficulties and disabilities as an ineligible cost and non-standardised requirement.

Digital Preservation test‐bed is a three‐year practical research project with the overall goal of investigating options to secure sustained accessibility to authentic archival records over the long‐term, by carrying out experiments in a controlled and secure environment. This allows one to ascertain the effects of undertaken preservation action on archival records. Test‐bed is researching three different approaches to long‐term digital preservation: migration, XML and emulation. Not only will the effectiveness of each approach be evaluated, but also their limits, costs and application potential. Experiments take place on four different record types: text documents, spreadsheets, emails and databases of different size, complexity and nature. At the end of 2003 the digital preservation test‐bed project was to provide: advice on how to deal with current digital records, recommendations for an appropriate preservation approach or a combination of approaches per record type, functional requirements for a preservation function, cost models of the various preservation strategies, a decision model to select the right preservation strategy, and recommendations concerning archival guidelines and regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to describe first the rationale for an embedded process for learning difficulties and disabilities in the criminal justice system (CJS). This is followed by an example of how this approach has been delivered in one offender setting. The use of a novel computerised assessment tool is described, and the way it has been used to undertake the initial screening processes and provide person centred guidance for staff and the individuals. The bio-psychosocial approach to supporting individuals moving through the CJS is suggested as an approach that could be potentially used in other prisons settings. The paper also highlights some of the current challenges in doing so.

This paper presents a review of the currently literature to provide a rationale for the example of the embedded approach taken.

The approach, aligns to the challenges cited in much of the research.

The model presented can be used as a basis for potentially delivering such a system in other prisons settings and to highlight areas that remain contentious.

The embedded model represents a bio-psychosocial approach to supporting individuals moving through the CJS so has important implications.

This is novel approach.

The purpose of the article is to improve the understanding of the role of institutional factors in real estate development. The authors take into account zoning (existence and type), type of right of disposal and type of buyer and seller of property in a multivariate econometric estimation. Dependent variable of the analysis is the time between acquisition of empty land and the application for a building permit, a period when many important development decisions have to be made. This indicator is closely related to debated phenomena like land hording and speculation.

The authors estimate a Cox proportional hazard model with the time between acquisition and application for a building permit as dependent variable and institutional indicators and a number of control variables as explanatory variables. Study area is the GZM Metropolis in the South of Poland. This region shows enough variability in institutional arrangements to allow for this type of analysis.

The analysis shows that institutional factors significantly influence the real estate development process. In areas that have not issued a zoning plan, the period until the building permit application is significantly longer. When the state is involved in a transaction (as purchaser or seller), it also takes longer until the building permit application is submitted. Although the instrument is usually intended to speed up development, perpetual usufruct implies a longer period until building permit application. Because of the results the authors get for control variables and for robustness checks, the authors are confident of the results of the analysis.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that deals with the question how institutional factors influence the timing of real estate development. By using data for a region in Poland, the authors also add to knowledge about real estate development in CEE countries.

Wheelchair robot navigation in different weather conditions using single camera is still a challenging task. The purpose of this study is to develop an autonomous wheelchair robot navigation method in different weather conditions, with single camera vision to assist physically disabled people.

A road detection method, called dimensionality reduction deep belief neural network (DRDBNN), is proposed for drivable road detection. Due to the dimensionality reduction ability of the DRDBNN, it detects the drivable road area in a short time for controlling the robot in real-time. A feed-forward neural network is used to control the robot for the boundary following navigation using evolved neural controller (ENC). The robot detects road junction area and navigates throughout the road, except in road junction, using calibrated camera and ENC. In road junction, it takes turning decision using Google Maps data, thus reaching the final destination.

The developed method is tested on a wheelchair robot in real environments. Navigation in real environments indicates that the wheelchair robot moves safely from source to destination by following road boundary. The navigation performance in different weather conditions of the developed method has been demonstrated by the experiments.

The wheelchair robot can navigate in different weather conditions. The detection process is faster than that of the previous DBNN method. The proposed ENC uses only distance information from the detected road area and controls the robot for boundary following navigation. In addition, it uses Google Maps data for taking turning decision and navigation in road junctions.

Finding efficient disaster recovery center location-allocation-routing (DRCLAR) network schemes play a vital role in the disaster recovery logistics network (DRLN) design. The purpose of this paper is to propose and demonstrate how to design efficient DRCLAR network schemes under the risk of facility disruptions as a part of the disaster relief activities.

A goal programming (GP) model is formulated to consider four performance measures simultaneously for the DRCLAR design. The cross-evaluation based-super efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach is applied to better evaluate the DRCLAR network schemes generated by solving the GP model so that more efficient network schemes can be identified.

The proposed approach identifies more efficient DRCLAR network schemes consistently among various network schemes generated by GP. We find that combining these two methods compensates for each method's weaknesses and enhances the discriminating power of the DEA method for effectively identifying and ranking the network schemes.

This study presents how to generate balanced DRCLAR network schemes and how to evaluate various network schemes for identifying efficient ones. The proposed procedure of developing and evaluating them could be extended for designing some disaster recovery/relief supply chain systems with conflicting performance measures.

This paper presents a new discretization technique of the hydrodynamic energy balance model based on a finite‐element formulation. The concept of heat source lumping is introduced, and the thermal conductivity model includes the effect of varying both carrier concentrations and temperatures. The energy balance equation is formulated to account for kinetic energy as a convective flow. The new discretization method has the advantage that it allows for assembling the functions out of elementary variables available over elements instead of along element links. Therefore, theoretically, calculation of the Jacobian should be three times faster than by the classic method. Results are given for three examples. The method suffers from mathematical instabilities, but provides a good basis for future work to solve these problems.