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AbstractThis study analyzes oil price exposure of the oil–gas sector stock returns for the fragile five countries based on a multi-factor asset pricing model using daily data from 29 May 1996 to 27 January 2020. The endogenous structural break test suggests the presence of serious parameter instabilities due to fluctuations in the oil and stock markets over the period under study. Moreover, the time-varying estimates indicate that the oil–gas sectors of these countries are riskier than the overall stock market. The results further suggest that, except for Indonesia, oil prices have a positive impact on the sectoral returns of all markets, whereas the impact of the exchange rates on the oil–gas sector returns varies across time and countries.

This paper examines the nexus between the main forms of transport, related investments, specific air pollutants, and sustainable economic growth. The research is important since transport may act as a facilitator of social, economic, and environmental development. Based on data retrieved from Eurostat, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and World Bank, the output of fixed-effects regressions for EU-28 countries over 1990–2016 reveals that road, inland waterways, maritime, and air transport infrastructure positively influence gross domestic product per capita (GDPC), though a negative link occurred in the case of railway transport. As concerning investments in transport infrastructure, the empirical results exhibit a positive impact on economic growth for every type of transport, except inland waterways. Besides, emissions of CO2 from all kind of transport, alongside other specific air pollutants, negatively influence GDPC. The fully modified and dynamic ordinary least squares panel estimation results reinforce the findings. Further, in the short-run, Granger causality based on panel vector error correction model pointed out a unidirectional causal link running from sustainable economic growth to inland waterways and maritime transport of goods, albeit a one-way causal link running from the volume of goods transported by air to GDPC. As well, the empirical results provide support one-way short-run links running from GDPC to investments in road and inland waterway transport infrastructure. In addition, a bidirectional short-run link occurred between carbon dioxide emissions from railway transport and GDPC, whereas unidirectional relations with economic growth were identified in the case of carbon dioxide emissions from road and domestic aviation. In the long-run, a bidirectional causal relation was noticed between the length of the railways lines, investments in railway transport infrastructure, and GDPC, as well as a two-way causal link between the gross weight of seaborne goods handled in ports and GDPC.

Beyond the anticipated experience associated with tourism destinations, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has further tasked (especially the destination countries) on the importance of tourism to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From this dimension, this study employed the ecological footprint of the 10 most visited countries (France, Spain, United States, China, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, and Thailand) over the period 1995-2016. Specifically, the study employed an econometric approach and found that increase in tourism arrivals and globalization is detrimental to the attainment of sustainable environmental quality in a long term. Precisely, a 1% increase in international arrivals and globalization is responsible for a 0.18 and 0.89% increase in ecological footprint in the long-run. These impacts of tourism activities and globalization are detrimental to the environmental quality of the destination countries. Meanwhile, the real income per capita and biocapacity in the destination countries improve the environmental quality of the panel of destination countries in the long-run. In addition, the study found significant evidence of Granger causality from tourism and real income to ecological footprint without feedback, the globalization-ecological footprint Granger causality nexus is with feedback. Moreover, potentially effective policies for government and other stakeholders especially toward attaining Global goals were proffered in the study.

The agriculture and horticulture sector in the Netherlands is one of the most productive in the world. Although the sector is one of the most advanced and intense agricultural production systems worldwide, it faces challenges, such as climate change and environmental and social unsustainability of industrial production. To overcome these challenges, alternative food production initiatives have emerged, especially in large cities such as Amsterdam. Some initiatives involve producing food in the urban environment, supported by new technologies and practices, so-called high-tech urban agriculture (HTUA). These initiatives make cultivation of plants inside and on top of buildings possible and increase green spaces in urban areas. The emerging agricultural technologies are creating new business environments that are shape d by technology developers (e.g., suppliers of horticultural light emitting diodes (LED) and control environment systems) and developers of alternative food production practices (e.g., HTUA start-ups). However, research shows that the uptake of these technological innovations in urban planning processes is problematic. Therefore, this research analyzes the barriers that local government planners and HTUA developers are facing in the embedding of HTUA in urban planning processes, using the city of Amsterdam as a case study. This study draws on actor-network theory (ANT) to analyze the interactions between planners, technologies, technology developers and developers of alternative food production practices. Several concepts of ANT are integrated into a multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions (MLP) to create a new theoretical framework that can explain how interactions between technologies and planning actors transform the incumbent social–technical regime. The configuration of interactions between social and material entities in technology development and adoption processes in Amsterdam is analyzed through the lens of this theoretical framework. The data in this study were gathered by tracing actors and their connections by using ethnographic research methods. In the course of the integration of new technologies into urban planning practices, gaps between technologies, technology developers, and planning actors have been identified. The results of this study show a lacking connection between planning actors and technology developers, although planning actors do interact with developers of alternative food production practices. These interactions are influenced by agency of artefacts such as visualizations of the future projects. The paper concludes that for the utilization of emerging technologies for sustainability transition of cities, the existing gap between technology developers and planning actors needs to be bridged through the integration of technology development visions in urban agendas and planning processes.

Governments typically employ an indicator for energy intensity as their target to achieve national energy policies. By using all European Union member states as a sample and dividing them into Baltic Sea region (BSR) and non-Baltic Sea region (NBSR) countries in order to compare regional economic and energy matters, this study finds that the indicator of room for improvement in energy intensity (RIEI) correlates with energy efficiency (EE) and the energy technology gap ratio (ETGR). The research results show that introducing advanced energy technology and taking an energy management approach are ways in which BSR states can reduce their RIEI. As our study only considers NBSR countries, we see that they pay attention on improvements in energy technology, but ignore improvements in energy efficiency when their GDP per capita increases. Finally, we note that the inversed-U-shaped relationship between RIEI and GDP per capita is a better economic development type. Keywords: Room for improvement in energy intensity, Energy efficiency, Energy technology gap

Dans cet article, nous étudions l'utilisation du flux de lots dans les problèmes de planification de flowhop sans permutation. L'objectif est de minimiser le makepan soumis aux contraintes de flowhop standard, mais où il est maintenant autorisé de réorganiser les tâches entre les machines. En outre, les tâches peuvent être divisées en sous-lots gérables, une stratégie connue sous le nom de flux de lots. Les expériences informatiques montrent que le flux de lots réduit le makepan jusqu'à 43% pour un large éventail de cas par rapport au cas où aucun fractionnement de tâches n'est appliqué. Les avantages augmentent à mesure que le nombre d'étapes du processus de production augmente mais atteignent une limite. Au-delà d'un certain point, la division des tâches en sous-lots supplémentaires n'améliore pas la solution. En este documento investigamos el uso de la transmisión de lotes en problemas de programación de Flowshop sin permutación. El objetivo es minimizar el makepan sujeto a las restricciones estándar de Flowshop, pero donde ahora se permite reordenar trabajos entre máquinas. Además, los trabajos se pueden dividir en sublotes manejables, una estrategia conocida como transmisión de lotes. Los experimentos computacionales muestran que la transmisión de lotes reduce el makepan hasta un 43% para una amplia gama de instancias en comparación con el caso en el que no se aplica la división de trabajos. Los beneficios crecen a medida que aumenta el número de etapas en el proceso de producción, pero alcanzan un límite. Más allá de cierto punto, la división de trabajos en sublotes adicionales no mejora la solución. In this paper we investigate the use of lot streaming in non-permutation flowshop scheduling problems.The objective is to minimize the makespan subject to the standard flowshop constraints, but where it is now permitted to reorder jobs between machines.In addition, the jobs can be divided into manageable sublots, a strategy known as lot streaming.Computational experiments show that lot streaming reduces the makespan up to 43% for a wide range of instances when compared to the case in which no job splitting is applied.The benefits grow as the number of stages in the production process increases but reach a limit.Beyond a certain point, the division of jobs into additional sublots does not improve the solution. في هذه الورقة، نتحقق من استخدام تدفق اللوت في مشاكل جدولة ورشة التدفق غير القابلة للتحويل. الهدف هو تقليل فترة التشغيل وفقًا لقيود ورشة التدفق القياسية، ولكن حيث يُسمح الآن بإعادة ترتيب الوظائف بين الآلات. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، يمكن تقسيم الوظائف إلى أقسام فرعية يمكن التحكم فيها، وهي استراتيجية تعرف باسم تدفق اللوت. تظهر التجارب الحاسوبية أن تدفق اللوت يقلل من فترة التشغيل إلى 43 ٪ لمجموعة واسعة من الحالات عند مقارنتها بالحالة التي لا يتم فيها تطبيق تقسيم الوظائف. تنمو الفوائد مع زيادة عدد المراحل في عملية الإنتاج ولكنها تصل إلى حد. بعد نقطة معينة، لا يؤدي تقسيم الوظائف إلى أقسام فرعية إضافية إلى تحسين الحل.

This study seeks to understand how entrepreneurs of SME beach resorts mitigate challenges in their efforts to survive and simultaneously expand their businesses. SMEs in tourism related industry including beach resorts cater towards accommodating increased number of tourist arrivals. Malaysia targets to bring in 36 million tourists, with RM168 billion tourism receipts by the year 2020. The sun, sea and sand are naturally the magnets of tropical islands of Malaysia. The authors employed in-depth interview technique on two resorts located on Perhentian Kecil Island, offshore Terengganu, Malaysia. Observation of the premises complements data collected from interviews. Findings suggest that the resorts employed various strategies to manage their operations. Cost saving methods like employing family members, constructing additional resort features during monsoon period and smart business arrangement with resorts suppliers contributed towards resorts expansion. The study outcome would amongst others benefit policymakers in nurturing the SME sector, further facilitating Malaysia towards a developed nation. This study also contributes to the performance management literature particularly on island beach resorts.