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This study evaluates the implementation of circular economy (CE) design strategies in mass timber construction to identify knowledge gaps and define crucial future research areas for promoting CE design adoption in this field.

A two-stage systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to, first, identify CE design strategies applicable to the construction industry and then investigate the current state of CE design research in mass timber construction. Scopus and Web of Science databases were searched for relevant literature. In total, 52 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2016 and 2023 were shortlisted. Descriptive and thematic analyses were then employed to analyse and synthesise the relevant literature.

Seven CE design strategies were identified in the first stage of the SLR. The second stage of the SLR revealed limited research on CE design strategies in mass timber construction. Several research problems were identified, including a lack of suitable connectors for the deconstruction phase, durability concerns, insufficient knowledge of CE design methods, lack of knowledge and education about mass timber construction, missing actors within the value chain, higher cost, an underdeveloped market and inadequate regulatory requirements. These findings highlighted the future research directions to foster CE design adoption in mass timber construction.

The study systematically identifies existing knowledge on the application of CE design strategies in mass timber construction. Moreover, it presents a conceptual framework that links current research problems to future research directions across technical, social, economic and regulatory categories, thereby advancing CE practice in mass timber construction.

Parallelogram linkages are used to increase the stiffness of manipulators and allow precise control of end-effectors. They help maintain the orientation of connected links when the manipulator changes its position. They are implemented in many palletizing robots connected with binary, ternary and quaternary links through both active and passive joints. This limits the motion of some joints and hence results in relative and negative joint angles when assigning coordinate axes. This study aims to provide a simplified accurate model for manipulators built with parllelogram linkages to ease the kinematics calculations.

This study introduces a simplified model, replacing each parallelogram linkage with a single (binary) link with an active and a passive joint at the ends. This replacement facilitates countering motion while preserving subsequent link orientations. Validation of kinematics is performed on palletizing manipulators from five different OEMs. The validation of Dobot Magician and ABB IRB1410 was carried out in real time and in their control software. Other robots from ABB, Yaskawa, Kuka and Fanuc were validated using control environments and simulators.

The proposed model enables the straightforward derivation of forward kinematics and transforms hybrid robots into equivalent serial-link robots. The model demonstrates high accuracy streamlining the derivation of kinematics.

The proposed model facilitates the use of classical methods like the Denavit–Hartenberg procedure with ease. It not only simplifies kinematics derivation but it also helps in robot control and motion planning within the workspace. The approach can also be implemented to simplify the parallelogram linkages of robots with higher degrees of freedom such as the IRB1410.

This study aims to explore China’s carbon accounting policies and practices to enhance its carbon accounting and trading practices and achieve carbon neutrality.

This study adopts a phenomenological methodology to explore carbon accounting by setting the scope of the phenomenon, establishing research methods, conducting interviews with 30 participants from 14 emitting entities and four accounting firms and establishing methods for data analysis. Five themes were identified using a five-step coding method.

The results show no uniformity in the accounting treatment of carbon trading; however, common characteristics exist, and they have generally adopted simplified and conservative accounting methods under China’s emission trading scheme. Their common characteristics are that the granted allowances are not recognised as assets by most emitting entities, emissions allowance assets are measured using the historical cost method, most emitting entities only conduct accounting when there are actual cash flows or outflows with regard to carbon emissions allowance trading, and only a few emitting entities disclose carbon trading information in their financial statements or corporate social responsibility reports.

This study highlights accountants’ crucial role in carbon activities by guiding emitting entities’ low-carbon initiatives and culture and transforming managers’ mindsets. It also introduces the China Accounting Standards Committee-based accounting methods for allowances and obligations, aiding carbon disclosure quality and sustainability. These findings also inform the carbon accounting standards that may enhance corporate accountability and address climate change.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether mandatory disclosure of information accompanying the sale of real estate achieves its aim of informed purchasers.

Using a case study approach focused on mandatory disclosure in South Australia data was collected from interviews and focus groups with key personnel in the property industry involved in the production of information required to fulfil vendors’ disclosure obligations.

The authors found that purchasers are ill-served by a long and complex form of mandatory disclosure with a short time frame that prevents the use of the information provided. Without good form design and increased digital affordances provided by the cadastral and conveyancing systems, mandatory disclosure is insufficient to ensure minimisation of information asymmetry between vendor and purchaser.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first Australian qualitative study that examines the utility of mandatory vendor disclosure in real estate sales and the first to consider the impact of the digitalisation of cadastral and conveyancing systems upon the efficacy of mandatory disclosure regimes.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) recognizes the right of disabled people to access work. Against this legislative backdrop, this study explores the strengths and weaknesses of the Italian system of targeted placement for disabled people, based on Law 68/1999, which delegates to regional authorities the management of the labor market. The examination centers on the perspective of companies, the primary stakeholders in the inclusion of persons with disabilities within organizational structures.

The article discusses the results of focus groups conducted with 28 managers of large, medium and small enterprises in Lombardy (Italy). Qualitative analysis was employed, and the results were structured using a simplified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, incorporating practical recommendations.

The analysis leads to practical suggestions to improve the entire targeted placement process at the regional level, from selection and accompaniment to evaluation, such as improving the networking of local stakeholders who deal with the inclusion of disabled people, homogeneity of the procedures in different regions, making all employees aware of diversity management, etc. The territorial network and the welfare environment are particularly important in achieving a successful targeted placement and to promote an inclusive corporate culture.

This study is not representative of Italy as a whole, as it remains a qualitative investigation focused on a single region.

This contribution accomplishes an in-depth study of the law of labor inclusion of people with disabilities observed from the point of view of companies, which are still usually reluctant to integrate people with disabilities into their organizations or encounter difficulties in doing so.

Ultracapacitors find extensive applications in various fields because of their high energy density and long cycling periods. However, due to the movement of ions and the arrangement patterns on rough/irregular electrode surfaces during the charge and discharge process of ultracapacitors, the parameters of ultracapacitors usually change with the variation of operating conditions. The purpose of this study is to accurately and quickly identify the parameters of ultracapacitors.

A variable forgetting factor recursive least square (VFFRLS) algorithm is proposed in this paper for online identifying the equivalent series resistance and capacitance C of ultracapacitors. In this work, a real-time error-based strategy is developed to adaptively regulate the value of the forgetting factor of traditional forgetting factor recursive least square (FFRLS) algorithm. The strategy uses the square of the average time autocorrelation estimation of the prior error and the posterior error between the predicted output and the actual output as the adjustment basis of forgetting factors.

Experiments were conducted using the proposed scheme, and the results were compared with the estimation results obtained by the recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm and the traditional FFRLS algorithm. The maximum root mean square error between the estimated values and actual values for VFFRLS is 3.63%, whereas for FFRLS it is 9.61%, and for RLS it is 19.33%.

By using the proposed VFFRLS algorithm, a relatively high precision can be achieved for the online parameter estimation of ultracapacitors. Besides, the dynamic balance between parameter stability and tracking performance can be validated by dynamically adjusting the forgetting factor.

When solving the cogging torque of complex electromagnetic structures, such as consequent pole hybrid excitation synchronous (CPHES) machine, traditional methods have a huge computational complexity. The notable feature of CPHES machine is the symmetric range of field-strengthening and field-weakening, but this type of machine is destined to be equipped with a complex electromagnetic structure. The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid analysis method to quickly and accurately solve the cogging torque of complex 3D electromagnetic structure, which is applicable to CPHES machine with different magnetic pole shapings.

In this paper, a hybrid method for calculating the cogging torque of CPHES machine is proposed, which considers three commonly used pole shapings. Firstly, through magnetic field analysis, the complex 3D finite element analysis (FEA) is simplified to 2D field computing. Secondly, the discretization method is used to obtain the distribution of permeance and permeance differential along the circumference of the air-gap, taking into account the effect of slots. Finally, the cogging torque of the whole motor is obtained by using the idea of modular calculation and the symmetry of the rotor structure.

This method is applicable to different pole shapings. The experimental results show that the proposed method is consistent with 3D FEA and experimental measured results, and the average calculation time is reduced from 8 h to 4 min.

This paper proposes a new concept for calculating cogging torque, which is a hybrid calculation of dimension reduction and discretization modules. Based on magnetic field analysis, the 3D problem is simplified into a 2D issue, reducing computational complexity. Based on the symmetry of the machine structure, a modeling method for discretized analytical models is proposed to calculate the cogging torque of the machine.

Concrete gravity dams are important structures for flood control and hydraulic power generation, but they can be vulnerable to seismic activity due to ground movements that trigger crack propagation.

To better understand the factors that affect the stability of concrete gravity dams against concrete fracture during earthquakes, a concrete plastic damage model has been utilized with two new expressions to simulate compressive and tensile damage variables.

The findings showed that the crack patterns were strongly influenced by the concrete’s strength. The simulation results led to the proposal of appropriate concrete properties aimed at minimizing damage. These findings, together with the proposed model, offer significant insights that can enhance the safety and stability of concrete gravity dam structures.

This study offers a comprehensive analysis of concrete behavior under varying grades and introduces simple and robust expressions for evaluating concrete parameters in plastic damage models. The versatility of these expressions enables accurate simulation of stress-strain curves for different grades, resulting in excellent agreement between model results and experimental findings. The simulation of the Koyna Dam case study demonstrates a similarity in crack patterns with previous simulations and field observations.

The organizational digital transformation (ODT) in companies presents small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – who remain at the beginning of this transformation – with the challenge of offering digital services based on sensor technologies. Against this backdrop, the present paper identifies ways SMEs can enable digital servitization through sensor technology and defines the possible scope of the organizational transformation process.

Around 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from different hierarchical levels across the German manufacturing SME ecosystem. Using the Gioia methodology, fields of action were identified by focusing on influencing factors and opportunities for developing these digital services to offer them successfully in the future.

The complexity of existing sensor offerings must be mastered, and employees' (data) understanding of the technology has increased. Knowledge gaps, which mainly relate to technical and organizational capabilities, must be overcome. The potential of sensor technology was considered on an individual, technical and organizational level. To enable the successful implementation of service offerings based on sensor technology, all relevant stakeholders in the ecosystem must network to facilitate shared value creation. This requires standardized technical and procedural adaptations and is an essential prerequisite for data mining.

Based on this study, current problem areas were analyzed, and potentials that create opportunities for offering digital sensor services to manufacturing SMEs were identified. The identified influencing factors form a conceptual framework that supports SMEs' future development of such services in a structured manner.

As this article reports, in recent years most legislative activities focused on start-ups, with as many as 12 European Union (EU) Member States having introduced tax incentives for employee share ownership (ESO) in this type of small and middle-sized enterprise (SME). But incentivising ESO in SMEs should be extended to all SMEs, the engine of the European economy, including those from the social economy, having shown their crucial function for the resilience of our societies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Against the background of this recent and very dynamic development this article, it provides an overview of the start-up business segment in comparison to other types of companies, particularly focusing on differences with the SME sector; examines the legal regulations that hinder a broader adoption of ESO in European start-ups; presents best-practice examples to demonstrate the favourable conditions already established in some EU Member States and discussed whether these reforms and best practice examples could be extended and – as is already the case in some countries – applied to the whole SME population including social economy enterprises.

Since the European Commission launched the 2011 Social Business Initiative (SBI) followed by the 2016 Start-up and Scale-up initiative, many actions to support social enterprises in view of their potential to address societal challenges and contribute to sustainable economic growth have followed. Most recently, the 2021 Social Economy Action Plan of the European Commission gave important impulses. The potential of employee buyouts offering a continuation perspective to SMEs owners looking for successors was highlighted in the 2022 EC report “Transition Pathway for Proximity and Social Economy,” calling for the implementation of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs).

The situation of employee share ownership in start-ups has some parallels with that in traditional SMEs, but in many respects, they differ fundamentally. Although, on the other hand, social enterprises may also have to compete with large firms for qualified staff and face challenges when growing or scaling their activities, the reason why ESO in this enterprise segment is not widespread in the EU is altogether different. In the absence of a prescribed legal form of incorporation, social enterprises operate in various forms (be it for profit or non-profit), e.g. cooperatives, closely held limited liability companies, mutuals, associations, voluntary organisations or foundations. Therefore, this article looks into the extension of the incentives for ESO to social enterprises inasmuch as they are organised in legal forms allowing for share ownership, above all in the form of limited liability companies.