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The purpose of this study was to provide an outline of the process of developing an on-road driving test route and rating form. Comprehensive evaluation of medical fitness to drive should comprise of an off-road and an on-road assessment. Much research attention has focussed on the off-road phase of assessment, while there is less standardisation evident in the completion and measurement of the on-road phase of fitness-to-drive assessment.

A scholarship of practice approach was used to inform the development of an on-road test route and an associated generic on-road assessment tool that was guided by research evidence and best practice recommendations.

A step-by-step guide, outlining seven recommended phases in the development of an on-road route for the assessment of fitness to drive that aligns with best practice recommendations, was developed. A preliminary generic on-road assessment tool (the Maynooth–Trinity Driving Test) that includes higher-order cognition alongside element of strategic, tactical and operational driving ability was developed and piloted alongside the newly developed on-road test route.

This paper offers an overview of an approach to developing evidence-based on-road test routes and an associated generic assessment tool that may assist occupational therapists and on-road driving assessors establish a standard practice for testing on-road behaviour as part of a comprehensive approach to evaluate fitness to drive.

This study investigates the repetitive mixed sampling (MRS) plan based on the Cpk index that was proposed by Aslam et al. (2013a). They were the first to study the MRS plan, but they did not pay attention to the fact that submitting to the variable inspection a sample that was first submitted to the attribute inspection, truncates the X observations. In addition, they did not work with an accurate expression to calculate the probabilities of the Cpk statistic.

The authors presented the results based on their original sampling plan through Monte Carlo simulation and defined the theoretical results of their plan when the sample submitted to the variable inspection is no longer the same one submitted to the attribute inspection.

The β risks of the optimum sampling plans presented by Aslam et al. (2013a) are pretty high, exceeding 46%, on average – this same problem was also observed in Saminathan and Mahalingam (2018), Balamurali (2020) and Balamurali et al. (2020), where the β risks of their proposed sampling plans are yet higher.

In terms of originality, the authors can declare the following. It is not a big deal to propose new sampling plans, if one does not know how to obtain their properties. The miscalculations of the sampling plans risks are dangerous; imagine the situation where the acceptance of bad lots exceeds 50% just because the sampling plan was incorrectly designed. Yes, it is a big deal to warn that this type of problem is arising in a growing number of papers. The authors of this study are the pioneers to discover that many studies focusing on the sampling plans need to be urgently revised.

The intensity of carbon emissions has led to the serious problem of global warming, and the consequences in terms of climatic disasters are gaining increasing attention worldwide. As the energy sector is responsible for most global emissions, developing clean energy is crucial to combat climate change. This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and renewable energy (RE) consumption and explore the interaction between RE production and RE use.

The study adopts an econometric framework of a panel model, followed by the robustness check using alternative methods, including logit regressions. The bivariate probit model is used to analyze the interaction between the decision to use and the decision to produce RE. The analysis is based on a sample of 3,896 firms covering 45 countries worldwide.

The results reveal that appropriate governance mechanisms positively impact RE consumption. These include the existence of a sustainability committee; environmental, social and governance-based compensation policy; financial performance-based compensation; sustainability external audit; transparency; board gender diversity; and board independence. Firms with appropriate governance mechanisms are more likely to produce and use RE than others. Finally, while RE use positively impacts firm value and environmental performance, the authors find no significant effect on current profitability.

This study goes beyond previous research by exploring the impact of multiple governance mechanisms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first study examining the relationship between RE use and firm value. Overall, the findings suggest that RE transition requires, first of all, establishing appropriate governance mechanisms within companies.

This study aims to empirically test the effects of key characteristics of performance-based contracting (PBC) (i.e. reward/payment scheme, increased supplier autonomy and transfer of responsibilities) on supplier goal commitment.

This study developed a conceptual model applying goal-setting theory (GST), expectancy theory (ET) and job characteristics theory (JCT). Survey data were collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to establish a validated measurement instrument for testing the hypotheses.

The findings revealed that PBC positively affects supplier goal commitment due to its unique characteristics, which translates into improved supplier performance. Furthermore, this study validated the mediating role of goal alignment and felt accountability operating between PBC characteristics and supplier goal commitment.

This study explored the buyer–supplier relationship from the supplier's standpoint. Using a more inclusive data set, future research may involve a dyadic analysis and focus on the effects of the following factors on the supplier goal commitment: relational aspects (e.g. trust and collaboration), the risk transfer from the buyer to the supplier, different incentive schemes and successful PBC implementation factors.

This study presents new, validated insights for contract selection, design and management. It underlines the importance of choosing the proper contract, having the appropriate contract design based on the desired outcomes and effective contract management by exhibiting the psychological/behavioral effect of fundamental PBC characteristics.

PBC represents an active research stream, but its psychological/behavioral implications are understudied. Therefore, this research puts forth a conceptual framework with multiple testable hypotheses illustrating the relationship between PBC and supplier goal commitment.

The purpose of this research is to test the effectiveness of integrating Grasshopper 3D and measuring attractiveness by a categorical based evaluation technique (M-MACBETH) for building energy simulation analysis within a virtual environment. Set of energy retrofitting solutions is evaluated against performance-based criteria (energy consumption, weight and carbon footprint), and considering the preservation of the cultural value of the building, its architectural and spatial configuration.

This research addresses the building energy performance analysis before and after the design of retrofitting solutions in extreme climate environments (2030–2100). The proposed model integrates data obtained from an advanced parametric tool (Grasshopper) and a multi-criteria decision analysis (M-MACBETH) to score different energy retrofitting solutions against energy consumption, weight, carbon footprint and impact on architectural configuration. The proposed model is tested for predicting the performance of a traditional timber-framed dwelling in a historic parish in Lisbon. The performance of distinct solutions is compared in digitally simulated climate conditions (design scenarios) considering different criteria weights.

This study shows the importance of conducting building energy simulation linking physical and digital environments and then, identifying a set of evaluation criteria in the analysed context. Architects, environmental engineers and urban planners should use computational environment in the development design phase to identify design solutions and compare their expected impact on the building configuration and performance-based behaviour.

The unavailability of local weather data (EnergyPlus Weather File (EPW) file), the high time-resource effort, and the number/type of the energy retrofit measures tested in this research limit the scope of this study. In energy simulation procedures, the baseline generally covers a period of thirty, ten or five years. In this research, due to the fact that weather data is unavailable in the format required in the simulation process (.EPW file), the input data in the baseline is the average climatic data from EnergyPlus (2022). Additionally, this workflow is time-consuming due to the low interoperability of the software. Grasshopper requires a high-skilled analyst to obtain accurate results. To calculate the values for the energy consumption, i.e. the values of energy per day of simulation, all the values given per hour are manually summed. The values of weight are obtained by calculating the amount of material required (whose dimensions are provided by Grasshopper), while the amount of carbon footprint is calculated per kg of material. Then this set of data is introduced into M-MACBETH. Another relevant limitation is related to the techniques proposed for retrofitting this case study, all based on wood-fibre boards.

The proposed method for energy simulation and climate change adaptation can be applied to other historic buildings considering different evaluation criteria and context-based priorities.

Context-based adaptation measures of the built environment are necessary for the coming years due to the projected extreme temperature changes following the 2015 Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda. Built environments include historical sites that represent irreplaceable cultural legacies and factors of the community's identity to be preserved over time.

This study shows the importance of conducting building energy simulation using physical and digital environments. Computational environment should be used during the development design phase by architects, engineers and urban planners to rank design solutions against a set of performance criteria and compare the expected impact on the building configuration and performance-based behaviour. This study integrates Grasshopper 3D and M-MACBETH.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between citizen participation and the level of trust in government’s decisions and policies; as well as examining the impact of disclosure of information on the level of citizens’ engagement with governments’ projects. In addition, testing the real motives behind Egyptian citizens’ participation in financing national projects. The study is applied to the “New Suez Canal,” which was finished in only one year opposing the three years implementation period suggested by some studies.

The researcher depended on secondary and primary data as well in working on this paper. She used secondary data gathered from scholars and from domestic and international institutions. Then, she conducted a field study and collected data through distributing 384 Likert Scale questionnaires containing 34 self-administered among respondents to test the following: 1. Citizens perceptions regarding the level of trust in government’s decisions and policies. 2. The impact of citizens’ trust on their willingness to participate in governments’ projects. 3. Is ‘public service motivation’ (PSM) behind citizens’ willingness of participating in national projects. 4. Is the ‘high expected profit of Suez Canal Investment Certificates’ behind citizens participation in national projects.

H1 and H2 have been accepted as trust, transparency and citizen participation proved to be important pillars of building a participatory government. Moreover, citizens’ participation in national projects encouraged national and international enterprises to invest in the canal provision. H3 and H4 are accepted and the statistical study revealed dual contradicting results regarding the motive of citizens’ financial participation in the New Suez Canal project. The justification for the contradiction is that right after the 2011 up-rise, Egyptian citizens were overwhelmed with patriot emotions and feelings pushing them to participate in national projects. At the same time this patriot drive was moderated by the “performance-based rewards and citizens” self-interests’ pushed by the Egyptian government (offering a high-interest rate for Suez Canal Certificates at that time). Citizens might be motivated to participate in national projects triggered by many factors: public service drive – patriotism or self-interest.

The study needs further deeper investigation and empirical pieces of evidence to answer the following questions: would different participatory actions result differently in other circumstances? Do individuals’ levels of PSM vary over time? Besides, the researcher needs to find ways to test PSM against various motives such as self-interest, which needs to be confirmed empirically.

The author came up with important recommendations for central government and decision-makers in Egypt and is based upon the study’s statistical results. The most important recommendations were: central government and decision-makers should frame a policy designed to promote citizens’ participation in decision-making drawing on the guidelines for civil participation in political decision-making. Decision-makers in the central government should work local and regional authorities to update and improve local and regional regulations concerning the participation of citizens in local public life and promote a culture of democratic participation shared by communities and local authorities. Performance-based rewards (high-interest rate) are moderating the citizens’ public service motivation (PSM – patriot sense) and citizens may be motivated by different factors such as public service drive – patriotism or self-interest.

The study is tackling an important issue, which is civil participation in political decision-making. It is also discussing promoting cultural awareness regarding the importance of democratic participation shared by communities and local authorities. The study came up with certain findings proving Egyptian civil society’s willingness in participating with the government in national projects; believing in its socio-economic benefits.

Finally, the study is of value, as it could be considered a pilot study representing the outcomes of citizen participation in national projects; in addition, it can be considered as a road map to policymakers. Moreover, the findings provide a set of recommendations and policies for governments and decision-makers to undertake tangible actions to accelerate citizen participation in further projects and decisions and be able to establish a democratic system in developing countries.

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the tensile strengths of JIS G3549 super high-strength steel strand wire ropes (1,570 MPa-class high-carbon steels) and wire rope open swaged socket connections at fire and post fire.

Steady-state tests from ambient temperature (20 °C) to 800 °C, transient-state tests under the allowable design tensile force and tensile tests in an ambient temperature environment after heating (heating temperatures of 200–800 °C) were conducted.

The tensile strengths of the wire rope and end-connection specimens at both fire and post fire were obtained. The steel wire rope specimens possessed larger reduction factors than general hot-rolled mild steels (JIS SS400) and high-strength steel bolts (JIS F10T). The end-connection specimens with sufficient socket lengths exhibited ductile fracture of the wire rope part at both fire and post fire; however, those with short socket lengths experienced a pull-out fracture at the socket.

The fundamental and important tensile test results of the super high-strength steel strand wire ropes (1,570 MPa-class high-carbon steels) and wire rope open swaged socket connections were accumulated at fire and post fire, and the fracture modes were clarified. The obtained test results contribute to fire resistance performance-based design of cable steel structures at fire and fire-damage investigations to consider their reusability post fire.

Intumescent coatings are nowadays a dominant passive system used to protect structural materials in case of fire. Due to their reactive swelling behaviour, intumescent coatings are particularly complex materials to be modelled and predicted, which can be extremely useful especially for performance-based fire safety designs. In addition, many parameters influence their performance, and this challenges the definition and quantification of their material properties. Several approaches and models of various complexities are proposed in the literature, and they are reviewed and analysed in a critical literature review.

Analytical, finite-difference and finite-element methods for modelling intumescent coatings are compared, followed by the definition and quantification of the main physical, thermal, and optical properties of intumescent coatings: swelled thickness, thermal conductivity and resistance, density, specific heat capacity, and emissivity/absorptivity.

The study highlights the scarce consideration of key influencing factors on the material properties, and the tendency to simplify the problem into effective thermo-physical properties, such as effective thermal conductivity. As a conclusion, the literature review underlines the lack of homogenisation of modelling approaches and material properties, as well as the need for a universal modelling method that can generally simulate the performance of intumescent coatings, combine the large amount of published experimental data, and reliably produce fire-safe performance-based designs.

Due to their limited applicability, high complexity and little comparability, the presented literature review does not focus on analysing and comparing different multi-component models, constituted of many model-specific input parameters. On the contrary, the presented literature review compares various approaches, models and thermo-physical properties which primarily focusses on solving the heat transfer problem through swelling intumescent systems.

The presented literature review analyses and discusses the various modelling approaches to describe and predict the behaviour of swelling intumescent coatings as fire protection for structural materials. Due to the vast variety of available commercial products and potential testing conditions, these data are rarely compared and combined to achieve an overall understanding on the response of intumescent coatings as fire protection measure. The study highlights the lack of information and homogenisation of various modelling approaches, and it underlines the research needs about several aspects related to the intumescent coating behaviour modelling, also providing some useful suggestions for future studies.