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1 – 10 of over 4000Carmelita Wenceslao Amistad and Daryl Ace Cornell
This study aims to determine the effects of lodging infrastructure development (LID) on Cordillera Administrative Region’s (CAR) environmental quality and natural resource…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to determine the effects of lodging infrastructure development (LID) on Cordillera Administrative Region’s (CAR) environmental quality and natural resource management and its implication to globally responsible leadership. Specifically, this study sought to determine the contribution of LID to environmental deterioration and natural resource degradation in the CAR. As a result, a mathematical model is developed, which supports sustainability practices to maintain the environmental quality and natural resource management in CAR, Philippines.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a descriptive research design using a mixed-methods approach. Self-structured interview and survey were used to gather the data. The population of this study involved three groups. There were 6.28% (34) experts in the field for the qualitative data, 70.24% (380) respondents for the quantitative data and 23.47% (127) from the lodging establishments. 120 respondents from the Department of Tourism – CAR (DOT-CAR) accredited hotels. Nonparametric and nonlinear regression analysis was used to process the data.
Findings
The effects of LID on the environmental quality and natural resource management in CAR as measured through carbon emission from liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), electricity and water consumption in the occupied guest rooms revealed a direct correlation between the LID. Findings conclude that the increase in tourist arrival is a trigger factor in the increase in LID in the CAR. The increase in LID implies a rise in carbon emission in the lodging infrastructure. Any increase in tourist arrivals increases lodging room occupancy; the increased lodging room occupancy contributes to carbon emissions. Thus, tourism trends contribute to the deterioration of the environmental quality and degradation of the natural resources in the CAR. A log-log model shows the percentage change in the average growth of tourist arrival and the percentage increase in carbon emissions. Establishments should observe standard room capacity to maintain the carbon emission of occupied lodging rooms at a minimum. Responsible leadership is a factor in the implementation of policy on standard room capacity.
Practical implications
The result of the study has some implications for the lodging businesses, the local government unit (LGU), the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in the CAR. The study highlights the contribution of the lodging establishments to CO2 emission, which can degrade the quality of the environment, and the implication of responsible leadership in managing natural resources in the CAR. The direct inverse relationship between energy use and CO2 emission in hotels indicates that increased energy consumption leads to environmental degradation (Ahmad et al., 2018). Therefore, responsible leadership among policymakers in the lodging and government sectors – LGU, DOT and DENR – should abound in the CAR. Benchmarking on the model embarked from this study can help in designing and/or enhancing the policy on room capacity standardization, considering the total area with its maximum capacity to keep the carbon emission at a lower rate. Furthermore, as a responsible leader in the community, one should create programs that regulate the number of tourists visiting the place to decrease the number of overnight stays. Besides, having the political will to implement reduced room occupancy throughout the lodging establishments in CAR can help reduce the carbon emissions from the lodging businesses. After all, one of the aims of the International Environment Protection Organization is to reduce CO2 emissions in the tourism industry. Hence, responsible leadership in environmental quality preservation and sustainable natural resource management must help prevent and avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Originality/value
Most studies about carbon emission in the environment tackle about carbon dioxide emitted by transportation and factories. This study adds to the insights on the existing information about the carbon emission in the environment from the lodging establishments through the use of LPG, electricity and water consumption in the occupied guest rooms. The findings of the study open an avenue for globally responsible leadership in sustaining environmental quality and preservation of natural resources by revisiting and amending the policies on the number of room occupancy, guidelines and standardization, considering the total lodging area with its maximum capacity to keep the carbon emission at a minimum, thus contributing to the lowering of GHG emissions from the lodging industry.
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Yixin Zhao, Zhonghai Cheng and Yongle Chai
Natural disasters profoundly influence agricultural trade sustainability. This study investigates the effects of natural disasters on agricultural production imports in China…
Abstract
Purpose
Natural disasters profoundly influence agricultural trade sustainability. This study investigates the effects of natural disasters on agricultural production imports in China within 2002 and 2018. This exploration estimates the mediating role of transportation infrastructure and agriculture value-added and the moderating role of government effectiveness and diplomatic relations.
Design/methodology/approach
This investigation uses Probit, Logit, Cloglog and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models.
Findings
The results confirm the mediating role of transportation infrastructure and agriculture value-added and the moderating role of government effectiveness and diplomatic relations in China. According to the findings, natural disasters in trading partners heighten the risk to the agricultural imports. This risk raises, if disasters damage overall agricultural yield or transportation infrastructure. Moreover, governments’ effective response or diplomatic ties with China mitigate the risk. Finally, the effect of disasters varies by the developmental status of the country involved, with events in developed nations posing a greater risk to China’s imports than those in developing nations.
Originality/value
China should devise an early warning system to protect its agricultural imports by using advanced technologies such as data analytics, remote sensing and artificial intelligence. In addition, it can leverage this system by improving its collaboration with trading partners, involvement in international forums and agreement for mutual support in crisis.
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Everyone is extremely concerned about environmental protection and health safety due to the rise in living standards. Plant-derived natural dyes have garnered much industrial…
Abstract
Purpose
Everyone is extremely concerned about environmental protection and health safety due to the rise in living standards. Plant-derived natural dyes have garnered much industrial attention in food, pharmaceutical, textile, cosmetics, etc. owing to their health and environmental benefits. The present study aims to focus on the elimination of the use of synthetic dyes and provides brief information about natural dyes, their sources, extraction procedures with characterization and various advantages and disadvantages.
Design/methodology/approach
In producing natural colors, extraction and purification are essential steps. Various conventional methods used till date have a low yield, as these consume a lot of solvent volume, time, labor and energy or may destroy the coloring behavior of the actual molecules. The establishment of proper characterization and certification protocols for natural dyes would improve the yielding of natural dyes and benefit both producers and users.
Findings
However, scientists have found modern extraction methods to obtain maximum color yield. They are also modifying the fabric surface to appraise its uptake behavior of color. Various extraction techniques such as solvent, aqueous, enzymatic and fermentation and extraction with microwave or ultrasonic energy, supercritical fluid extraction and alkaline or acid extraction are currently available for these natural dyes and are summarized in the present review article.
Originality/value
If natural dye availability can be increased by the different extraction measures and the cost of purified dyes can be brought down with a proper certification mechanism, there is a wide scope for the adoption of these dyes by small-scale dyeing units.
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Muhammad Tahir and Muhammad Mumtaz Khan
The MENA region is very rich in terms of natural resources. At the same time, the MENA region has also been a victim of terrorism during the last few years. This study is an…
Abstract
Purpose
The MENA region is very rich in terms of natural resources. At the same time, the MENA region has also been a victim of terrorism during the last few years. This study is an attempt to investigate whether there is any relationship between natural resources and terrorism in the MENA region.
Design/methodology/approach
We have focused on 15 resource-rich countries located in the MENA region for the period 2002–2019. We have applied appropriate econometric techniques and have also controlled for other dominant determinants of terrorism while studying the relationship between these two variables.
Findings
The results provide solid evidence in favor of the hypothesis that natural resources encourage terrorism. We find that natural resources have positively impacted terrorism. Besides, the natural resources, other factors such as per capita GDP, trade openness, political stability, domestic investment and government expenditures have negatively impacted terrorism. Moreover, the findings suggest that FDI and corruption are irrelevant in explaining terrorism while the findings regarding employment level and terrorism are unexpected. The obtained results are robust to alternative estimating methodologies.
Practical implications
The results have serious policy implications for the MENA region. The MENA region in general is suggested to devise appropriate policies regarding their huge natural resources so as to tackle the terrorism problem effectively. Similarly, paying favorable attention to trade liberalization, political stability, government expenditures, investment, rising income of the population in the presence of macroeconomic stability in the form of lower inflation would also help the MENA region to eradicate the problem of terrorism.
Originality/value
The available literature has largely ignored the role of natural resources in explaining the problem of terrorism. Therefore, this study has provided relatively new evidence regarding the determinants of terrorism.
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This study aims to investigate the implications of natural gas rents and institutions as co-drivers of economic growth, focusing on the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) with…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the implications of natural gas rents and institutions as co-drivers of economic growth, focusing on the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) with panel data between 2001 and 2021.
Design/methodology/approach
This research paper uses a specialised two stage estimator, the panel instrumental variable technique (panel IV), which takes care of the potential endogeneity issues in the model.
Findings
The findings show that natural gas rent significantly impacts the economic growth of the GECF. On average, natural gas rent increases the sample’s growth rate by about 2.634% percentage points in the short run. The result indicates that the qualities of institutions (political and economic) have a significant positive long-term effect on the economies of the GECF. In addition, the study’s energy price volatility positively correlates with the countries’ growth.
Research limitations/implications
There might be a need to investigate the effects of natural gas rents and institutions as co-growth drivers in each country within the GECF. The likelihood exists that the impact of natural gas rents and institutions on economic growth at the country’s level may differ from the outcome of such an experiment on the group level. Because of space and time limitations, this study could not carry out the specific country’s investigation of natural gas rents and institutions as a co-growth driver. That limitation may constitute further study to advance this study to a new height.
Practical implications
With good institutions, natural gas rent is likely to be an alternative growth driver for some economies that rely on fossil fuels like oil as a growth driver. By extension, the GECF has the potential to rival Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the global energy market, particularly in achieving Sustainable Development Goal number seven. In essence, evidence in this study suggests that natural gas rent has long-term positive effects on the growth of the GECF, conditioned on good institutions. Moreover, the drive of global energy consumption towards sustainable energy usage is an economic blessing for the GECF. By extension, the demand for natural gas would continue to rise, creating opportunities to improve natural gas rents. By implication, the GECF would continue to benefit from the pursuit of sustainability as the world shifts towards energy consumption with less CO2.
Originality/value
Firstly, this study models the qualities of institutions for the GECF. Secondly, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first attempt to examine natural gas rents and the qualities of institutions as co-determinants of economic growth among the GECF (a potential cartel).
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Yash Daultani, Ashish Dwivedi, Saurabh Pratap and Akshay Sharma
Natural disasters cause serious operational risks and disruptions, which further impact the food supply in and around the disaster-impacted area. Resilient functions in the supply…
Abstract
Purpose
Natural disasters cause serious operational risks and disruptions, which further impact the food supply in and around the disaster-impacted area. Resilient functions in the supply chain are required to absorb the impact of resultant disruptions in perishable food supply chains (FSC). The present study identifies specific resilient functions to overcome the problems created by natural disasters in the FSC context.
Design/methodology/approach
The quality function deployment (QFD) method is utilized for identifying these relations. Further, fuzzy term sets and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) are used to prioritize the identified problems. The results obtained are employed to construct a QFD matrix with the solutions, followed by the technique for order of preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) on the house of quality (HOQ) matrix between the identified problems and functions.
Findings
The results from the study reflect that the shortage of employees in affected areas is the major problem caused by a natural disaster, followed by the food movement problem. The results from the analysis matrix conclude that information sharing should be kept at the highest priority by policymakers to build and increase resilient functions and sustainable crisis management in a perishable FSC network.
Originality/value
The study suggests practical implications for managing a FSC crisis during a natural disaster. The unique contribution of this research lies in finding the correlation and importance ranking among different resilience functions, which is crucial for managing a FSC crisis during a natural disaster.
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Mozhgan Hosseinnezhad, Kamaladin Gharanjig, Shahid Adeel and Alireza Mahmoudi Nahavandi
Agricultural waste and food sources are some of the pollutants of the environment. One of these wastes is the peel of fruits that cannot be consumed as food. In this regard…
Abstract
Purpose
Agricultural waste and food sources are some of the pollutants of the environment. One of these wastes is the peel of fruits that cannot be consumed as food. In this regard, walnut husk (WH) and oleaster peel (PO) are known as two important sources of tannin and are bulky wastes. Because of the high percentage of tannin, these materials can be used as a natural source for the preparation of bio-mordant in the dyeing process.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, Reseda and Madder were used as natural dyes in the presence of a mixture of two bio-mordants. WH and PO were selected as bio-mordant. All natural resources are extracted to obtain the juice. The phenolic percentage of tannin-containing extracts was evaluated and then it was used for wool yarns by premordanting method. The results of evaluating the fastness properties using the ISO method.
Findings
The most important achievement of this research is the use of agricultural waste in the dyeing process to reduce environmental pollution and create added value. All compounds rich in tannin have some phenolic components, therefore the amount of phenolic content of these extracts was evaluated. The effect of mixing the mordant on the color characteristics of the yarns was investigated and the results showed that changing the ratio of the combination of two mordant is effective on the K/S values. The results of evaluating the fastness properties using the ISO method showed that the washing, rubbing and light fastness in the presence of mordant is good, good and moderate, respectively.
Originality/value
In this paper, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, the combination of two natural extracts obtained from agricultural waste has been used to create a new bio-mordant on fibers and improve stability.
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Tomoyuki Takabatake, Nanami Hasegawa and Suguru Nishigaki
This study aims to clarify the following research questions: to what extent do people consider natural disaster risks as important for residential selection? what personal…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to clarify the following research questions: to what extent do people consider natural disaster risks as important for residential selection? what personal demographics and attitudes toward natural disaster risks are associated with the relative importance of natural disasters for residential selection? and to what extent do the associated personal attributes influence the relative importance of natural disasters for residential selection?
Design/methodology/approach
An internet-based survey was performed to collect 2,000 responses from residents of Osaka Prefecture, Japan, to gauge people’s relative importance of safety against natural disasters regarding residential preference. The obtained results were analysed using two types of statistical analysis, specifically chi-square test and multivariable logistic regression analyses.
Findings
It was found that 37.3% of the respondents in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, considered the “safety against natural disasters” relatively important when selecting a residential location. The statistical analysis also demonstrated that those having a relatively higher level of disaster awareness and preparedness were 1.41 times more likely to prefer to live in a place that is safer from natural disasters. Thus, it was suggested that disaster education aimed at raising the level of people’s disaster awareness could be effective to increase the number of people who choose to live in a safer place from natural disasters.
Originality/value
Living in an area that is safer from natural disasters can effectively minimize human and property damage. Recently, several measures have been taken in Japan to guide people to live in a safer place. The clarification of the extent to which people consider natural disaster risks as important for residential selection and the understanding of the categories of the people who are likely to do so is important to develop more effective natural disaster measures; however, there has been less attention on such investigation. Therefore, this study conducted an internet-based survey and examined it.
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Sílvio Aparecido Verdério Júnior, Pedro J. Coelho and Vicente Luiz Scalon
The purpose of this study is to numerically investigate the geometric influence of different corrugation profiles (rectangular, trapezoidal and triangular) of varying heights on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to numerically investigate the geometric influence of different corrugation profiles (rectangular, trapezoidal and triangular) of varying heights on the flow and the natural convection heat transfer process over isothermal plates.
Design/methodology/approach
This work is an extension and finalization of previous studies of the leading author. The numerical methodology was proposed and experimentally validated in previous studies. Using OpenFOAM® and other free and open-source numerical-computational tools, three-dimensional numerical models were built to simulate the flow and the natural convection heat transfer process over isothermal corrugation plates with variable and constant heights.
Findings
The influence of different geometric arrangements of corrugated plates on the flow and natural convection heat transfer over isothermal plates is investigated. The influence of the height ratio parameter, as well as the resulting concave and convex profiles, on the parameters average Nusselt number, corrected average Nusselt number and convective thermal efficiency gain, is analyzed. It is shown that the total convective heat transfer and the convective thermal efficiency gain increase with the increase of the height ratio. The numerical results confirm previous findings about the predominant effects on the predominant impact of increasing the heat transfer area on the thermal efficiency gain in corrugated surfaces, in contrast to the adverse effects caused on the flow. In corrugations with heights resulting in concave profiles, the geometry with triangular corrugations presented the highest total convection heat transfer, followed by trapezoidal and rectangular. For arrangements with the same area, it was demonstrated that corrugations of constant and variable height are approximately equivalent in terms of natural convection heat transfer.
Practical implications
The results allowed a better understanding of the flow characteristics and the natural convection heat transfer process over isothermal plates with corrugations of variable height. The advantages of the surfaces studied in terms of increasing convective thermal efficiency were demonstrated, with the potential to be used in cooling systems exclusively by natural convection (or with reduced dependence on forced convection cooling systems), including in technological applications of microelectronics, robotics, internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, information technology, industry 4.0, etc.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the results presented are new in the scientific literature. Unlike previous studies conducted by the leading author, this analysis specifically analyzed the natural convection phenomenon over plates with variable-height corrugations. The obtained results will contribute to projects to improve and optimize natural convection cooling systems.
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K.G. Rumesh Samarawickrama, U.G. Samudrika Wijayapala and C.A. Nandana Fernando
The purpose of this study is to extract and characterize a novel natural dye from the leaves of Lannea coromandelica and the extraction with finding ways of dyeing cotton fabric…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to extract and characterize a novel natural dye from the leaves of Lannea coromandelica and the extraction with finding ways of dyeing cotton fabric using three mordants.
Design/methodology/approach
The colouring agents were extracted from the leaves of Lannea coromandelica using an aqueous extraction method. The extract was characterized using analysis methods of pH, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) and cyclic voltammetry measurement. The extract was applied to cotton fabric samples using a non-mordant and three mordants under the two mordanting methods. The dyeing performance of the extracted colouring agent was evaluated using colour fastness properties, colour strength (K/S) and colour space (CIE Lab).
Findings
The aqueous dye extract showed reddish-brown colour, and its pH was 5.94. The GC-MS analysis revealed that the dye extract from the leaves of Lannea coromandelica contained active chemical compounds. The UV-vis and FTIR analyses found that groups influenced the reddish-brown colour of the dye extraction. The cyclic voltammetry measurements discovered the electrochemical properties of the dye extraction. The mordanted fabric samples showed better colour fastness properties than the non-mordanted fabric sample. The K/S and CIE Lab results indicate that the cotton fabric samples dyed with mordants showed more significant dye affinities than non-mordanted fabric samples.
Originality/value
Researchers have never discovered that the Lannea coromandelica leaf extract is a natural dye for cotton fabric dyeing. The findings of this study showed that natural dyes extracted from Lannea coromandelica leaf could be an efficient colouring agent for use in cotton fabric.
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