GEOBASE (Elsevier)

In developing countries, governments are often unable to implement urban infrastructure construction projects (UICPs) on their own, mainly due to budget and financial resource limitations. The participation of the private sector, through public–private partnerships (PPPs), has been considered as an alternative effective method for increasing the efficiency and productivity of urban infrastructure development. However, in many developing countries such as those situated in the Middle East, attracting private sector investments for UICPs uncovers profound challenges that have not ever been comprehensively accounted for and prioritized. To fill this knowledge gap, this study seeks to determine and prioritize the major barriers and risks faced by governments and urban managers in attracting private sector investments through the PPP schemes launched by developing countries in the Middle East. Based on a Delphi study conducted in Iran as an example, the opinions of 60 UICPs experts in both the public and private sectors were collected and analyzed. Results show that technical and organizational barriers and risks were perceived as the most important to private sector participation, followed by economic and financial barriers and risks, and then political and legal barriers and risks.

Sludge digestion process can be optimized applying the methods of sludge disintegration. This article analyses the efficiency of the digestion process of disintegrated sludge by methods of ultrasound or high voltage in comparison to the digestion process of non-disintegrated sludge. The sewage sludge from two Lithuanian wastewater treatment plants as used for the research. Both wastewater treatment plants use analogous sludge treatment technology, in both of them the municipal wastewater is treated and the influence of industry on the quality of sewage is analogous. Due to this it has been assumed that the quality of excess sludge is also analogous. The results showed that both analysed methods of disintegration had the same effect on the increase of specific destruction of volatile solids (VSS) and increase of specific biogas production with the maximum values of 22 % and 12–13 % respectively. In case of digestion of disintegrated excess activated sludge applying both methods, the maximum methane content in biogas was 71.9%, whereas in case of digestion of non-disintegrated sludge it was 58.3 % only. The total operation expenses and capital expenditures of ultrasonic disintegration method are more than 8 times higher comparing to the total expenses and expenditures of high voltage disintegration method.

This article presents the results of research on the effect of the customer’s gender on the tenure choice (ownership or tenancy) on the housing market. In the study, an attempt has been made to investigate whether there is a significant role of women in making decisions in this market. The survey was conducted among residents of two cities—Olsztyn (Poland) and Vilnius (Lithuania). The obtained answers were subjected to a multi-dimensional categorical and quantitative analysis. The results showed, among others, that women generally have greater decision-making autonomy in residential issues than men, with Lithuanian women doing this much more often than Polish women. However, it should be noted that the dominant decision-making model in the housing market is the model of joint decisions taken by men and women. The results of the conducted analysis broaden the existing knowledge of the functioning of the housing market and may support the implementation of the pro-social and pro-sustainable spatial development policy of the given territorial unit. The results may also contribute to more sustainable development of enterprises in the housing construction sector. This is an important issue in a climate of intense competition between “providers” of flats and the gradual introduction of the idea of competition between them and the social environment.

The sustainability in energy industry is one of the most prominent issues in emerging economies because of needs for the long-term growth of production and managerial capacity. Accordingly, corporate governance could lead to develop the sustainable production of energy industry. The purpose of this study is to define a set of criteria and dimensions for analyzing the corporate governance-based strategic approach to sustainability in the energy industry of emerging economies. For this purpose, this study provides several novelties by extending a hybrid decision making model with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IVIF) and defining the related criteria and dimensions of corporate governance-based strategic approach with the supported literature. IVIF decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is constructed for measuring the relative importance of criteria and dimensions. IVIF VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) is applied for ranking the corporate governance-based performance of sustainable energy industries in emerging economies. Sensitivity analysis is also used for understanding the coherence of ranking results. Analysis results illustrate that the energy industry could provide more sustainable results than the conventional managerial policies by considering the social capital of board members. Additionally, mass-economies are closely related to the sustainable production capacities of energy industry and have the best performance results for the corporate governance-based sustainable energy production strategies. The results are discussed to provide the policy recommendations by comparing analysis results of emerging economies for further studies.

This work examines how the pollution from landfill aftercare effect the surrounding area and water basins. The subject of the study was a closed landfill where waste was disposed of without any accounting and operation of the landfill. During the study, soil, surface water, and sediment samples were taken over a two-year period. The data obtained compared with the maximum allowable concentrations established in the Northern part of Lithuania. The water sampling sites were selected taking into account the direction of the water flow, and the landfill was found to influence the water quality. Within 500 meters before the landfill, heavy metals and metalloid concentrations did not exceed the maximum allowable concentrations (Pb ≤ 20 µg/L; Ni ≤ 40 µg/L; Cr ≤ 100 µg/L; Cu ≤ 100 µg/L and As ≤ 20 µg/L). Soil and water sediment contamination factor and contamination level were determined for each metal and metalloid individually, which showed that as a single chemical element and its compounds none of them pose any danger to the environment. A different situation can be seen when calculating the total level of contamination, taking into account all pollutants classified as very hazardous, Zd > 10. The results showed that monitoring (of surface water, including soil) and investigations, helping to reduce negative environmental impact, should be continued in the closed landfill. Full article.

One of the major issues of the construction industry has been the “reworks” that affect the time, quality, and cost of projects. Therefore, reworks and the ineffective use of site resources and materials will always result in significant losses on projects. The development of information technology has led to the widespread use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) to enhance the delivery of more sustainable building construction projects. The purpose of this study is to combine the Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) method and BIM technologies to identify and reduce time delays caused by reworks in construction projects. Firstly, 49 rework causes in residential buildings were identified and ranked. Then, BIM was generated and compared to the initial model. It was observed that working hours were reduced by 4.6%. Moreover, using an Earned Value Management (EVM) system, a 0.06 increase in Schedule Performance Index (SPI) factor was illustrated. Results obtained by this study provide an effective step in reducing a project’s time in the construction industry.

It is difficult to identify, but there is a type of harassment grounded in gender stereotyping in the context of tourism. It would be useful to discover the hidden relationships between gender harassment and certain beliefs about women as travellers, tourism professionals and sex objects in the field of hospitality. Methodologically, a survey was carried out reaching a sample of ±684 units by means of a convenience sampling procedure. The measuring instruments consisted of a structured questionnaire divided into two kinds of Likert beliefs scales comprising general statements and statements related to tourism. The survey respondent data were also gathered as regards sociodemographic characteristics. This paper presents empirical evidence to identify the causal factors of gender violence by considering general and particular stereotyping in tourism. Firstly, by performing three exploratory factor analyses, three female stereotyping dimensions were labelled in the field of tourism (occupational sexism, ambivalent sexist discrimination, and sex as a commodity), as well as three general prejudices about women (dysfunctional romantic relationships, ethically challenged presumptions, and aesthetical manners conventions) and the gender harassment factor. Secondly, a linear regression analysis was carried out to demonstrate that both general stereotyping related to a broader “life” framework and sectorial prejudices in tourism cause gender harassment. Finally, this research proves that general stereotyping determines sectorial prejudices in the field of tourism. The practical implications could be to enhance gender equality and combat gender harassment by revealing unintentional and unobserved prejudices that occur in a general life setting and in the tourism sphere against women as neglected professionals, under the subtle and ambivalent condition of travellers, and even as objects of consumption.

The already scarce and further dwindling natural resources, increasing environmental pollution, and other environmental, economic, and social challenges that transcend national boundaries necessitate the continuous pursuit of the more responsible implementation of the principles of sustainable development in the public and business sectors, especially in general education schools, as the future and welfare of the society depend on education results. Therefore, the implementation of knowledge management practices in general education schools is one of the efficient ways of achieving the principles of sustainable development and their positive outcomes for society and the state. This research aimed to evaluate the peculiarities of applying knowledge management practices in general education schools for sustainable development. Research methods such as analysis of scientific literature, multiple-criteria assessment, survey, and expert evaluation were used to achieve the goal of the study. The results of the study showed that there is a high potential in general education schools for the application of knowledge management practices to achieve sustainable development. However, general education schools still face a lack of teachers’ motivation and a lack of financial resources to apply knowledge management practices and improve knowledge infrastructure for sustainability.

The construction industry is considered as one of the most dangerous industries in terms of occupational safety and has a high rate of occupational incidents and risks compared to other industries. Given the importance of identifying and assessing the occupational hazards in this industry, researchers have conducted numerous studies using statistical methods, multi-criteria decision-making methods, expert-based judgments, and so on. Although, these researchers have used linguistic variables, fuzzy sets and interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets to overcome challenges such as uncertainty and ambiguity in the risk assessment conducted by experts; the previous models lack in efficiency if the experts are hesitant in their assessment. This leads to the inability to assign a specific membership degree to any risk. Therefore, in this research, it is tried to provide an improved approach to the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) method using an Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method based on the hesitant fuzzy set, which can effectively cope with the hesitance of the experts in the evaluation. Also, Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) method is applied for risk factor weighing in the proposed approach. This model is applied to a construction industry case study to solve a realistic occupational risk assessment. Moreover, a comparison is made between the results of this model and those obtained by the conventional FMEA and some other aggregation operators. The results indicate that the newly developed approach is useful and flexible to address complex FMEA problems and can generate logical and reliable priority rankings for failure modes.

This study sheds light on customer loyalty based on three groups of factors (customer, service provider, and environment). Noting the diversity of the effects of customer loyalty factors, this research investigates the impact of every factor upon customer loyalty. This paper provides an innovative insight into how a variety of customer loyalty factors might be combined into a single measure of customer loyalty. Finally, this study examines phases of customer loyalty and identifies the factors that prevent a peak of customer loyalty. The factors determining customer loyalty explain why customers move across different loyalty phases over time. The results of the empirical testing confirmed the practical applicability of the suggested approach for evaluating customer loyalty based on these factors. An innovative approach to the evaluation of customer loyalty is essential for marketers because it will help them to evaluate loyalty in cases where data about customer behavior are not collected. The findings of the research contribute to a better understanding of which factors are a viable basis for increasing customer loyalty, specifically in the catering and beauty markets, and offer guidance to marketing managers on how to shift customers to more desirable loyalty phases.