Impacts of COVID-19 on Sustainable Development Goals and effective approaches to maneuver them in the post-pandemic environment

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In the pursuit of constructing a sustainable world for all through the instrumental seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, the COVID-19 pandemic...     

GIS-based impact assessment and spatial distribution of air and water pollutants in mining area

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Mining is a significant part of the transforming economy, which is generally considered as essential as well as social evil at the same time. It is...     

Fragmented forest in tropical landscape--the case of the state of Selangor,Malaysia

This paper presents the pattern and changes of fragmented forest in relation with changes of total forest cover in the state of Selangor in three decades.In this study,inventoried forest cover maps of Selangor in 1971/1972,1981/1982 and 1991/1992 produced by the Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia were digitized to examine the changes in area and number of fragmented forest.Results showed that in 1971/1972,16 fragmented forests were identified in Selangor.All fragmented forests were identified as diptercoarp forest.A decade later the number of fragmented forests increased by approximately 44%(23).Of the 23 fragmented forests,two were peat swamp forests whereas the remaining were dipterocarp forests.In 1991/1992 the number of fragmented forests(12)was reduced by 47.8%.Two of the fragmented forests were Fragmentation of both dipterocrp and peat swamp forests occurred profoundly during the period between 1971/1972and 1981/1982,which consequently increased the number of fragmented forests compared with before the period of 1971/1972 where fragmentation happened only at dipterocarp forests.However,many fragmented forests vanished between the 1981/1982 and 1991/1992 periods.     

Random binary matrices in biogeographical ecology—Instituting a good neighbor policy

Binary matrices originating from presence/absence data on species (rows) distributed over sites (columns) have been a subject of much controversy in ecological biogeography. Under the null hypothesis that every matrix is equally likely, the distributions of some test statistics measuring co-occurrences between species are sought, conditional on the row and column totals being fixed at the values observed for some particular matrix. Many ad hoc methods have been proposed in the literature, but at least some of them do not provide uniform random samples of matrices. In particular, some swap algorithms have not accounted for the number of neighbors each matrix has in the universe of matrices with a set of fixed row and column sums. We provide a Monte-Carlo method using random walks on graphs that gives correct estimates for the distributions of statistics. We exemplify its use with one statistic.     

Applying TRIZ principles in crowd management

Overcrowding that happens in places like concerts, stadiums or pilgrimage locations might sometimes cause injury or loss of life. Maintaining the safety of crowd in these places is therefore very important. In addition, increasing the performance of the buildings and structures has always been an important concern. Most of the previous work focused on using new devices and methods for monitoring and management of the crowd but they rarely focus on a comprehensive and structured approach with the purpose of increasing efficiency and safety. In this paper, we explore a Russian “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving”, TRIZ, to see whether its principles can help us to solve or improve overcrowding issues. More specifically we find the contradictions that arise in the context of crowd management and we observe which of the categorical solutions suggested by TRIZ might possibly be useful for our problem. Increasing the crowd capacity in a relatively small area, which leads to overcrowding, is one of the common contradictions in crowd management. TRIZ has been suggested as a good method for solving problems which involve contradiction and thus, chosen for this purpose.     

Exergoeconomic Environmental Optimization of Piston-Prop Aircraft Engines

In this study, exergy, exergoeconomic, exergoenvironmental analyses, and exergoeconomic environmental optimization are applied to a four-cylinder, spark ignition, naturally aspirated and air-cooled piston-prop aircraft engine in the cruise phase of flight for the first time to the best of the authors` knowledge. Here, three piston-prop aircraft engine parameters (altitude, air–fuel ratio (AF), and rated power setting (PS)) are selected for optimization purposes. All exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental values are calculated first. These values are then optimized to find the best results of all analyses. The best altitude, AF ratio, and PS values are finally found while the maximum exergy efficiency, the minimum product specific environmental impact, and the minimum average unit fuel exergy cost are obtained. The best results of optimization indicated that the maximum exergy efficiency varied between 19.54% and 19.80%, the minimum unit fuel exergy cost ranged from 126.30 $/GJ to 127.23 $/GJ, and the minimum specific environmental impact of production was in the range of 8.70–9.59 mPts/MJ. Based on the results obtained, for ensuring the optimum conditions, the low AF ratios and the low-altitude flight at high rated power settings have to be selected.     

Rewards and employee creative performance: Moderating effects of creative self‐efficacy,reward importance,and locus of control

The effects of extrinsic rewards on creative performance have been controversial, and scholars have called for the examination of the boundary conditions of such effects. Drawing upon expectancy theory, we attend to both reinforcement and self‐determination pathways that reveal the informational and controlling functions of creativity‐related extrinsic rewards. We further identify the individual dispositions that moderate these two pathways. Specifically, we propose that extrinsic rewards for creativity positively predict creative performance only when employees have high creative self‐efficacy and regard such rewards as important. We likewise propose that extrinsic rewards positively affect the intrinsic motivation of employees with an internal locus of control, thus enhancing their creative performance. Results based on a sample of 181 employee–supervisor dyads largely supported these expectations. The current analysis enriches the creativity literature by combining different perspectives in a coherent framework, by demonstrating the positive effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation, and by demonstrating that the rewards–creativity relationship varies across employees depending on their individual differences. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Testing the relationship between globalization and carbon dioxide emissions in Pakistan: does environmental Kuznets curve exist?

Over the last few decades, the atmospheric carbon dioxide emission has been amplified to a great extent in Pakistan. This amplification may cause global warming, climate change, and environmental degradation in Pakistan. Consequently, ecological condition and human life may suffer in the near future from these indicated threats. Therefore, an attempt was made to test the relationship between globalization and carbon dioxide emissions in case of Pakistan. The study covers the time series data over the period of 1975–2014. We employed modern econometric techniques such as Johansen co-integration, ARDL bound testing approach, and variance decomposition analysis. Results of the Johansen co-integration test show that there is a significant long-run relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and globalization. The long-run elasticities of the ARDL model show that a 1% increase in economic globalization, political globalization, and social globalization will increase carbon dioxide emissions by 0.38, 0.19, and 0.11%, respectively. Further, our findings reveal that the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis prevails an inverted U-shaped relationship between carbon dioxide emission and economic growth. Therefore, the EKC hypothesis is valid in the presence of globalization. The diagnostic test results show that the parameters of the ARDL model are credible, stable, and reliable in the current form. Finally, variance decomposition analysis displays that economic, political, and social globalization are contributing significantly to carbon dioxide emissions in Pakistan.

     

Adoption of green banking practices and environmental performance in Pakistan: a demonstration of structural equation modelling

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Banking industries are blamed to be among the major factors that affect global climate change both directly and indirectly. The green banking concept...