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The purpose of this paper is to offer a critique of government intervention in the production of biofuel in northern Sweden and Finland, highlighting some of the welfare consequences.

After a short review of government interventions, including laws, taxes and subsidies, Austrian economic principles are applied, which lead to universal statements about the impacts of government intervention.

Government intervention on behalf of the biofuel production industry leads to the emergence of an investment bubble, with consequential negative impacts on welfare.

The paper informs about the true costs of intervention in biofuel production, which suggests that policy makers may abstain from justifying interventions for the sake of increasing people's welfare.

The paper contributes to the research of the production impacts of a new energy technology in the form of biofuel in particular and of governmental intervention in production in general. The paper, furthermore, enhances the use of the method and theory of the Austrian school of economic science.

The paper's aim is to present a concrete approach of understanding economic time and how acceleration might be controlled based on the application of operation logics of social systems.

Following the reasoning of an indicator that reflects acceleration/deceleration in the economic system and based on the economy's operation logic, a correlation analysis has been undertaken where interest rate and inflation rate statistics from Sweden, Finland and Russia are combined with statistics of roundwood logging from the three countries.

Analysis shows that a confiding environment of the economic system is needed for the control measure to work. Furthermore, given that for complex systems control is limited, not only the question whether control is possible is important but also whether this possibility is probable.

Informs policy makers about the need to maintain a confiding and trustful environment for the economic system to maintain control possibilities.

The paper contributes to the research on the management of time and acceleration, the management of the economic system in general and the wider sustainable development discourse.

The global financial meltdown brought to light a number of weaknesses in the U.S. financial system. Not all financial institution types will be taking large sums of taxpayer money to address their crippling decisions. Credit unions in the United States represent a type of financial cooperative that will probably not take any taxpayer money directly due to their structure and prudential oversight. Commercial banks, especially the megabanks, are likely to see even more bailouts in the future unless structural weaknesses are addressed in the clarifications as part of the enforcement of the Dodd-Frank Act. Using a unique panel data set on U.S. commercial banks, thrifts and credit unions from 1994 through 2010 performance metrics on a number of dimensions (over 300,000 observations) point to strengths and weaknesses of the various financial institutional forms. Credit unions also have had far fewer adjustable rate mortgages and mortgage-backed securities as a percentage of their portfolio. Robust estimators to correct for potential endogeneity are used to analyze the return on assets differentials between different institutional forms and portfolios. When controlling for size, region and portfolios credit unions are often estimated to have a better return on assets. Institutions with assets under 50 million dollars, about 50 percent of the total sample, show credit unions having higher efficiency in that they control more assets per dollar spent on salaries than commercial and savings banks.

This paper aims to present the “Vulnerability Sourcebook” methodology, a standardised framework for the assessment of climate vulnerability and risk in the context of adaptation planning. The Vulnerability Sourcebook has been developed for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and has been applied in more than twenty countries worldwide.

It is based on a participative development of so-called climate impact chains, which are an analytical concept to better understand, systemise and prioritise the climate factors as well as environmental and socio-economic factors that drive climate related threats, vulnerabilities and risks in a specific system. Impact chains serve as the backbone for an operational climate vulnerability assessment with indicators based on quantitative approaches (data, models) combined with expert assessments. In this paper, the authors present the concept and applications of the original Vulnerability Sourcebook, published in 2015, which was based on the IPCC AR4 concept of climate vulnerability. In Section 6 of this paper, the authors report how this concept has been adapted to the current IPCC AR5 concept of climate risks.

The application of the Sourcebook is demonstrated in three case studies in Bolivia, Pakistan and Burundi. The results indicate that particularly the participative development of impact chains helped with generating a common picture on climate vulnerabilities and commitment for adaptation planning within a region. The mixed methods approach (considering quantitative and qualitative information) allows for a flexible application in different contexts. Challenges are mainly the availability of climate (change) and socio-economic data, as well as the transparency of value-based decisions in the process.

The Vulnerability Sourcebook offers a standardised framework for the assessment of climate vulnerability and risk in the context of adaptation planning.

Blues music is in the midst of its second revival in popularity in roughly thirty years. The year 1960 can be identified, with some qualification, as a reference point for the first rise in international awareness and appreciation of the blues. This first period of wide‐spread white interest in the blues continued until the early seventies, while the current revival began in the middle 1980s. During both periods a sizeable literature on the blues has appeared. This article provides a thumbnail sketch of the popularity of the blues, followed by a description of scholarly and critical literature devoted to the music. Documentary and instructional materials in audio and video formats are also discussed. Recommendations are made for library collections and a list of selected sources is included at the end of the article.

Consumer goods supply chains (SCs) are characterized by continuously changing customer trends. Early detection of these trends is crucial for deriving successful long-term SC strategies. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic process to support decision makers in assessing future-relevant issues and developing strategies.

In order to contribute to the quality of long-term decision making for SC strategy, we combine strategic issue management (SIM) and corporate foresight methodology. The authors develop a procedure that integrates the Delphi technique and SIM to empirically demonstrate how “Delphi-based SIM” can support SC strategy development.

The paper demonstrates how to craft a strategy for consumer goods SCs supported by Delphi-based SIM. The authors are able to include and evaluate uncertain and ambivalent future developments. Pertinent strategic issues for the consumer goods SC include: consumer demographics, automated ordering, city supply, and concept stores. For the reference company, five different strategic paths were created and evaluated.

It is challenging for companies to be well prepared for dynamic business environments and to successfully establish a robust SC strategy. The authors develop a systematic Delphi-based SIM for detecting and evaluating signals and integrating them into SC strategy development.

To date, a structured approach to integrate uncertain and ambivalent issues into SC strategy development is missing. With SIM and corporate foresight, the authors provide novel methods for strategy development in the consumer goods SC.

The aim is to present research results on global logistics scenarios 2025 with focus on the future contribution the logistics industry can make to the triple bottom line – people, planet and profit.

The research was conducted within the scope of an interdisciplinary foresight conference, where a group of 216 renowned persons from 16 countries in business, academia and politics discussed policies and strategies for the future role of logistics as an enabler and driver of global wealth. Attendants were asked to share their visions of the future via a real-time Delphi study. The results were further discussed in futures workshops according to World Café methodology for group dialog.

Based on extensive desk research of scenario studies, expert workshops, and creative sessions, the authors developed 20 key Delphi projections for global logistics in 2025. Experts were asked to rate the projection's probability, impact, and desirability as well as to provide reasons for all answers via the Delphi online-portal. Key topics of the Delphi-based scenarios include global health care supply chains, resource logistics (urban mining), water transportation, energy supply, and education. Moreover, the authors analysed discontinuities in global logistics, such as pandemics, conflicts, and resource crises.

The increasing impact of logistics on a nation's and company's success underlines the importance of future-oriented and sustainable planning in this field. With this research endeavor, the authors provide insights in action needed to be taken by industry, politics and academia in order to leverage the full potentials of logistics and support the economic development of the world.

Strain gauges can be realised by printing and firing thick‐film resistors on ceramic substrates that are usually based on alumina. However, sensing elements made on some other substrates – tetragonal zirconia or stainless steel – would exhibit some improved characteristics, either due to a lower modulus of elasticity or a higher mechanical strength. As thick‐film resistors are developed for firing on alumina substrates their compatibility and possible interactions with other kinds of substrates have to be evaluated. The sheet resistivities and noise indices of the resistors were comparable, whereas the gauge factors were lower for the dielectric‐on‐steel substrates. The temperature coefficients of resistivity (TCR) of the resistors on the ZrO₂ and dielectric‐on‐steel substrates were higher than the TCRs on the alumina substrates, which was attributed to the higher thermal expansion coefficient of the tetragonal zirconia and the stainless steel.

The purpose of this paper is to provide practical and future research implications for the field of governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in sports to strengthen the depth of knowledge in this area.

This paper reviews parts of the existing international literature and draws on literature from general business, management and governance to widen the scope and open spaces of opportunities for interested researchers.

The authors find six themes that are of particular relevance and cluster them along context, content and process to map out critical and promising aspects that we believe will progress our understanding of and contribution to CSR and governance in sport: features and idiosyncrasies of sport in relation to governance and CSR; the relevance and impact of regional and cultural context; reflections on “content” of CSR in sport in difference to CSR through sport; the quest for the business case for CSR in sport and consumer reactions; the potential for interdisciplinary, multilevel and longitudinal research; and finding a critical voice and relating research (back) to industry and practice.

The paper reviews and interlinks the topic of CSR and governance in sport in new ways and with an established, wider body of knowledge, and provides new inspiration and starting points for research from both a broader management angle and a sport-specific angle.

The purpose of this study is to explore numerical scrutinization of micropolar and Walters-B non-Newtonian fluids motion under the influence of thermal radiation and chemical reaction.

The two fluids micropolar and Walters-B liquid are considered to start flowing from the slot to the stretching sheet. A magnetic field of constant strength is imposed on their flow transversely. The problems on heat and mass transport are set up with thermal, chemical reaction, heat generation, etc. to form partial differential equations. These equations were simplified into a dimensionless form and solved using spectral homotopy analysis method (SHAM). SHAM uses the basic concept of both Chebyshev pseudospectral method and homotopy analysis method to obtain numerical computations of the problem.

The outcomes for encountered flow parameters for temperature, velocity and concentration are presented with the aid of figures. It is observed that both the velocity and angular velocity of micropolar and Walters-B and thermal boundary layers increase with increase in the thermal radiation parameter. The decrease in velocity and decrease in angular velocity occurred are a result of increase in chemical reaction. It is hoped that the present study will enhance the understanding of boundary layer flow of micropolar and Walters-B non-Newtonian fluid under the influences of thermal radiation, thermal conductivity and chemical reaction as applied in various engineering processes.

All results are presented graphically and all physical quantities are computed and tabulated.