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Regarding the immense real estate divestitures that have taken place over the last couple of years, some stakeholders have begun to wonder if these short‐term activities may affect the long‐term competitive advantage of a company. While it appears reasonable that property divestitures enhance the financial situation of a company from a so‐called owner perspective, there is no equivalent quantitative evaluation for the loss in space utilisation and flexibility from a user perspective. Consequently, real estate decision making is based upon an insufficient information basis and is dominated by the investment perspective. In order to better align corporate real estate and real estate investment functions better, this paper introduces a formal decision model which describes the situation of corporate real estate decision makers. They have to trade off entrepreneurial flexibility gained by real estate holdings against the financial opportunity cost of freeing up capital. Making use of a prototype decision situation, the paper demonstrates how the decision maker can improve the underlying information basis for property divestment decisions, using a real option approach. Hence, real estate decisions gain in two respects: they are more transparent and, more importantly, their design is more suitable if the company wants to employ real estate holdings to increase the overall value of the company.

A great number of German companies are suffering an acute financial crisis. Financial optimisation of the substantial property holdings owned by German companies offers an opportunity to reduce costs and to free up capital. However, the demands on property for operational purposes create difficulties when optimisation is carried out exclusively for financial objectives. In this paper it will be shown, by means of an empirical investigation of real estate directors and financial managers of the leading German undertakings, that companies are failing to take the decisive step towards optimisation. The reason for this lies in inadequate internal preparations, manifested in the lack of a linkage between real estate strategy and corporate strategy. Property rights‐oriented analyses of real estate assets create new scope to refinance existing holdings, without sacrificing the important requirements of the units occupying them. This paper discusses the essential steps to a solution and explains the potentials that can be enhanced by a structured financial optimisation of property holdings.

This chapter argues that Maleficent's physical difference and social exclusion can be analysed as disabling rather than villainous trajectories in Maleficent (2014) and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019). I explore how Maleficent is (re)represented in the twenty-first century as a more sympathetic figure who contends with disability and social prejudice in her attempt to form meaningful connections with others. I analyse Maleficent's ‘villainous’ traits using Feminist Disability Studies (Garland-Thomson, 1997, 2017; Wendell, 1989) to argue that her physical and cultural differences invite hostility from the human kingdom, especially in relation to her maternal connection with Aurora. While critics have examined themes of disability and motherhood in Maleficent (Donnelly, 2016; Wehler, 2019), I argue that these narratives are continued and subverted further in the sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019). In re-visioning Maleficent in this way, it becomes possible to challenge narratives of female villainy by paying attention to physical disability, social exclusion and maternal love.

The purpose of this paper is to review, from a sustainable management perspective, a range of conceptual frameworks; determine the efficacy and utility of three different data sources in generating indicators collectively; and consider the utility of a single index of total ecosystem services (TESI). The ecosystem service (ES) concept has been discussed as an important model to aid sustainable land-use management.

The historical development and the relative merits of sustainable management frameworks which can be implemented in a decision-making context were examined. The efficacy of a single index TESI was examined considering three data sources for 11 contrasting sites within the UK.

The choice of conceptual framework and data source depends on the specific question and scale being addressed. Publicly available data through the Eurostat route is primarily limited to the assessment of the provisioning services.

Limitation of the study is that both bottom-up and top-down sourcing of data to conduct an ES assessment were considered.

The scale of enquiry when conducting ES assessment to aid sustainable management dictate the most useful data source. If conducting local assessments that give local data is more appropriate while conducting European Union (EU)-wide assessment gives less local precision, it does provide some insight when conducting larger-scale regional assessment which cannot otherwise be achieved.

The various data set analysed in this study all provided insight for sustainable management.

In this paper, the authors aim to propose a method for learning robotic assembly sequences, where precedence constraints and object relative size and location constraints can be learned by demonstration and autonomous robot exploration.

To successfully plan the operations involved in assembly tasks, the planner needs to know the constraints of the desired task. In this paper, the authors propose a methodology for learning such constraints by demonstration and autonomous exploration. The learning of precedence constraints and object relative size and location constraints, which are needed to construct a planner for automated assembly, were investigated. In the developed system, the learning of symbolic constraints is integrated with low-level control algorithms, which is essential to enable active robot learning.

The authors demonstrated that the proposed reasoning algorithms can be used to learn previously unknown assembly constraints that are needed to implement a planner for automated assembly. Cranfield benchmark, which is a standardized benchmark for testing algorithms for robot assembly, was used to evaluate the proposed approaches. The authors evaluated the learning performance both in simulation and on a real robot.

The authors' approach reduces the amount of programming that is needed to set up new assembly cells and consequently the overall set up time when new products are introduced into the workcell.

In this paper, the authors propose a new approach for learning assembly constraints based on programming by demonstration and active robot exploration to reduce the computational complexity of the underlying search problems. The authors developed algorithms for success/failure detection of assembly operations based on the comparison of expected signals (forces and torques, positions and orientations of the assembly parts) with the actual signals sensed by a robot. In this manner, all precedence and object size and location constraints can be learned, thereby providing the necessary input for the optimal planning of the entire assembly process.

Climate change, poverty and pandemics are some of the complex real-world problems that are increasingly challenging higher education institutions (HEIs) to equip future graduates with meta-competences that have hitherto not been demanded. These graduates need to be able to capture and operate within complex systems and relationships. By focusing on complex real-world problems, this study aims to systematically review competences and frame meta-competences supporting curricula development in HEIs.

This study applies a systematic literature review according to the review protocol of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. The review process resulted in the selection of 39 articles, which were subjected to qualitative synthesis to identify competences for tackling complex real-world problems. These competences were grouped into meta-competences and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Scientific disciplines commonly describe four competences for tackling complex real-world problems including domain-specific competence, inter-relation competence, intrapersonal competence and normative competence.

This study found that inter-relation competence is in line with all the SDGs, which is considered important for tackling complex real-world problems across disciplines.

A study in a survey design across disciplines and a weighting of these competences in respect to complex real-world problems aligned with the SDGs could contribute to a more consolidated and common understanding of the meta-competences identified.

This study investigates the behavior of viscous hybrid ferromagnetic fluids flowing through plain elastic sheets with the magnetic polarization effect. It examines flow in a porous medium using Stefan blowing and utilizes a versatile hybrid ferrofluid containing MnZnFe₂O₄ and Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles in the C2H2F4 base fluid, offering potential real-world applications. The study focuses on steady, laminar and viscous incompressible flow, analyzing heat and mass transfer aspects, including thermal radiation, Brownian motion, thermophoresis and viscous dissipation with convective boundary condition.

The governing expression of the flow model is addressed with pertinent non-dimensional transformations, and the finite element method solves the obtained system of ordinary differential equations.

The variations in fluid velocity, temperature and concentration profiles against all the physical parameters are analyzed through their graphical view. The association of these parameters with local surface friction coefficient, Nusselt number and Sherwood number is examined with the numerical data in a table.

This work extends previous research on ferrofluid flow, investigating unexplored parameters and offering valuable insights with potential engineering, industrial and medical implications. It introduces a novel approach that uses mathematical simplification techniques and the finite element method for the solution.

The purpose of this paper is to present an algorithm for global optimization of high‐dimensional real‐parameter cost functions.

This optimization algorithm, called differential ant‐stigmergy algorithm (DASA), based on a stigmergy observed in colonies of real ants. Stigmergy is a method of communication in decentralized systems in which the individual parts of the system communicate with one another by modifying their local environment.

The DASA outperformed the included differential evolution type algorithm in convergence on all test functions and also obtained better solutions on some test functions.

The DASA may find applications in challenging real‐life optimization problems such as maximizing the empirical area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of glycomics mass spectrometry data and minimizing the logistic leave‐one‐out calculation measure for the gene‐selection criterion.

The DASA is one of the first ant‐colony optimization‐based algorithms proposed for global optimization of the high‐dimensional real‐parameter problems.

The purpose of this paper is concerned with a reliable treatment of the classical Stephan problem. The Adomian decomposition method (ADM) is used to carry out the analysis, Moreover, the authors extend the work to examine the Stefan problem with variable latent heat. The study confirms the accuracy and efficiency of the employed method.

The new technique, as presented in this paper in extending the applicability of the ADM, has been shown to be very efficient for solving the Stefan problem.

The Stefan problem with variable latent heat was examined as well. The ADM was effectively used for analytic treatment of the Stefan problem with and without variable latent heat.

The paper presents a new solution algorithm for the Stefan problem.

Since Bram Stoker’s tale of Count Dracula struck a chord with a sensation-hungry public, vampires have remained a popular part of horror in cinema. Since the turn of the millennium, vampires have now become a mainstay of horror TV. Programmes like True Blood (2008–2014) and The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017) have propelled the vampire into the home.

This chapter will investigate the problematic, but often sympathetic relationship between vampires and humans in The Vampire Diaries.