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A precise estimation of the evolutionary power spectral density (EPSD) of typhoon wind speed is a difficult and significant undertaking in the analysis of turbulence effects on large-expansive structures. A majority of the prevailing EPSD estimation techniques rely on complex signal processing methodologies, such as wavelet decomposition, Hilbert–Huang transformation and time-varying autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model. However, these approaches often pose challenges in terms of comprehensibility and practical implementation for engineers. In light of this issue, the present study introduces a straightforward and effective EPSD estimation method tailored specifically for typhoon wind speed, aiming to facilitate its understanding and application in engineering contexts.

Firstly, the mathematical model of a uniformly modulated non-stationary process is employed to represent the typhoon wind speed. Secondly, the reverse arrangement test serves as an auxiliary tool in conjunction with wavelet transform or empirical mode decomposition, aiding in the determination of the optimal slowly varying mean wind speed. Thirdly, Kernel regression technique is utilized to discern the time-dependent standard deviation of wind speed fluctuations. Finally, the power spectral density (PSD) of wind speed residuals is computed to facilitate the estimation of the EPSD.

Firstly, the reverse arrangement test-assisted approach enables the determination of an optimal time-dependent mean from the candidate results obtained through discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and empirical mode decomposition (EMD). Secondly, the application of the Kernel regression technique facilitates accurate identification of the time-dependent variance from the fluctuating wind speed data. Thirdly, due to the influence of the extreme weather, the Gaussianity of the reduced turbulent fluctuations in typhoon wind is easily disturbed, resulting in the obvious non-Gaussian features.

This paper employs the mathematical model of uniformly modulated non-stationary process to characterize typhoon wind speeds and then proposes a straightforward and efficient method for estimating the EPSD of typhoon wind. The accuracy and efficacy of the presented estimation method are verified using the field-measured wind speed data from Typhoon Rammasun. The proposed EPSD estimation method for typhoon wind exhibits suitability for engineering applications owing to its simplicity and computational efficiency.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between the big five personality traits and personal financial planning (PFP) by focusing on the mediating role of mental accounting among Indian service sector employees.

The present study used a data set comprising 649 valid responses obtained through the structured questionnaire that was specifically disseminated to employees working in the Indian service sector. Further, the study used a quantitative approach, partial least squares structural equation modeling, to examine the hypothesized relationship.

The study’s outcomes reveal that mental accounting completely mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and PFP. In addition, extraversion and neuroticism traits have directly influenced the PFP, but in the presence of mental accounting, these traits have partially influenced the PFP. Furthermore, the results suggest that agreeableness directly affects PFP, whereas openness does not demonstrate any significant influence.

The existing literature within the field of PFP has primarily focused on exploring various variables associated with mental accounting, such as monetary and time costs, mental budgeting process and tax liabilities. However, it has overlooked the potential mediating effect of mental accounting. This study bridges this gap by investigating the impact of mental accounting as a mediator in the relationship between personality traits and PFP. Moreover, recently, the Indian economy has undergone major overhauls especially due to enactment of Goods and Services Tax and the profound impact of COVID-19, leading to changes in financial behavior of individuals. Therefore, this study endeavors to shed light on the emerging dynamics within the PFP domain, particularly within the context of the newly accustomed economic circumstances in India.

With the changing landscape of the globalised business world, business-to-business supply chains face a turbulent ocean of disruptions. Such is the effect that supply chains are disrupted to the point of failure, supply is halted and its adverse effect is seen on the consumer. While previous literature has extensively studied risk and resilience through mathematical modelling, this study aims to envision a novel supply chain model that integrates blockchain to support visibility and recovery resilience strategies.

The stochastic bi-objective (cost and shortage utility) optimisation-based mixed-integer linear programming model integrates blockchain through a binary variable, which activates at a particular threshold risk-averse level of the decision-maker.

Firstly, visibility is improved, as identified by the average reduction of penalties by 36% over the different scenarios. Secondly, the average sum of shortages over different scenarios is consequently reduced by 36% as the recovery of primary suppliers improves. Thirdly, the feeling of shortage unfairness between distributors is significantly reduced by applying blockchain. Fourthly, unreliable direct suppliers resume their supply due to the availability of timely information through blockchain. Lastly, reliance on backup suppliers is reduced as direct suppliers recover conveniently.

The findings indicate that blockchain can enhance visibility and recovery even under high-impact disruption conditions. Furthermore, the study introduces a unique metric for measuring visibility, i.e. penalty costs (lower penalty costs indicate higher visibility and vice versa). The study also improves upon shortages and recoveries reported in prior literature by 6%. Finally, blockchain application caters to the literature on shortage unfairness by significantly reducing the feeling of shortage unfairness among distributors.

This study establishes blockchain as a pro-resilience technology. It advocates that organisations focus on investing in blockchain to enhance their visibility and recovery, as it effectively reduces absolute shortages and feelings of shortage unfairness while improving recovery and visibility.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is a unique supply chain model study that integrates a technology such as blockchain directly as a binary variable in the model constraint equations while also focusing on resilience strategies, costs, risk aversion and shortage unfairness.

This paper aims to investigate and formulate several business models (BM) for various energy communities (EC) members: prosumers, storage facilities, electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, aggregators and local markets.

One of the flexibility drivers is triggered by avoiding the cost and maximizing value that consists of delivering a service such as increasing generation or reducing consumption when it is valued most. The transition to greener economies led to the emergence of aggregators that aggregate bits of flexibility and handle the interest of their providers, e.g. small entities such as consumers, prosumers and other small service providers. On one hand, the research method consists of formulating six BM and implementing a BM that includes several consumers and an aggregator, namely, scheduling the household electricity consumption (downstream) and using flexibility to obtain revenue or avoid the cost. This is usually performed by reducing or shifting the consumption from peak to off-peak hours when the energy is cheaper. Thus, the role of aggregators in EC is significant as they intermediate small-scale energy threads and large entities' requirements, such as grid operators or retailers. On the other hand, in the proposed BM, the aggregators' strategy (upstream) will be to minimize the cost of electricity procurement using consumers’ flexibility. They set up markets to buy flexibility that is valued as long as their costs are reduced.

Interesting insights are revealed, such as when the flexibility price doubles, the deficit coverage increases from 62% to 91% and both parties, consumers and retailers obtain financial benefits from the local market.

One of the limitations of using the potential of flexibility is related to the high costs that are necessary to implement direct load control. Another issue is related to the data privacy aspects related to the breakdown of electricity consumption. Furthermore, data availability for scientific research is limited. However, this study expects that new BM for various EC members will emerge in the future largely depending on Information Communications and Technology developments.

An implementation of a local flexibility market (LFM) using 114 apartments with flexible loads is proposed, demonstrating the gains obtained from trading flexibility. For LFM simulation, this study considers exemplifying a BM using 114 apartments located in a multi-apartment building representing a small urban EC situated in the New England region in North America. Open data recorded in 2016 is provided by UMassTraceRepository.

As a novelty, six BM are proposed considering a bottom-up approach and including various EC members.

This research aims to analyse the perceptions of practitioners in three regions regarding the challenges faced by their firms during the pandemic, considered a black-swan event. It examines the strategies implemented to mitigate and recover from risks, evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies and assesses the difficulties encountered in their implementation.

In the summer of 2022, an online survey was conducted among supply chain (SC) practitioners in France, Poland and the St. Louis, Missouri region of the USA. The survey aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on their firms and the SC strategies employed to sustain operations. These regions were selected due to their varying levels of SC development, including infrastructure, economic resources and expertise. Moreover, they exhibited different responses in safeguarding the well-being of their citizens during the pandemic.

The study reveals consistent perceptions among practitioners from the three regions regarding the impact of COVID-19 on SCs. Their actions to enhance SC resilience primarily relied on strengthening collaborative efforts within their firms and SCs, thus validating the tenets of the relational view.

COVID-19 is (hopefully) our black-swan pandemic occurrence during our lifetime. Nevertheless, the lessons learned from it can inform future SC risk management practices, particularly in dealing with rare crises. During times of crisis, leveraging existing SC structures may prove more effective and efficient than developing new ones. These findings underscore the significance of relationships in ensuring SC resilience.

Brands are seizing their latitude in the metaverse – this study conceptualizes a digital doppelgänger as the sense of embodiment of the physical person and unpacks their effect on consumer brand engagement by examining the mediating role of digital doppelgänger’s brand interactions.

Data was collected through an online self-administered questionnaire employing criterion-based judgment sampling, resulting in 475 qualified responses. The data was validated through a two-step SEM (structural equation modeling) application of Hayes’s Process in the SmartPLS4 package. The IMPA analysis technique identified the most important and influential factor driving brand performance in the metaverse.

The study reveals that digital doppelgänger’s brand interactions mediate the relationship between the digital doppelgänger (embodiment of the person) and consumer brand engagement. Brand interaction manifests enjoyment, relaxation and reputation felt by the physical person. The result indicates that digital doppelgänger’s brand interaction drives brand performance in the metaverse.

Our study is an original attempt to conceptualize a digital doppelgänger as the sense of embodiment of the physical person and their brand interactions in the metaverse influence consumer brand engagement to produce enjoyment, relaxation and reputation – this is a novel contribution to interactive marketing literature.

Police knowledge of and familiarity with human trafficking determine whether a victim is referred to services or arrested as an offender, along with other implications. Both field experience and training may affect how police officers recognize and respond to human trafficking scenarios. However, recent research suggests the relationship between officer experience and their ability to identify human trafficking is more nuanced. The purpose of this study is to explore whether experience, training or both are preferable to correctly identifying cases of human trafficking.

To do so, 495 police officers from a large Pennsylvania agency were surveyed about their perceptions of human trafficking. Officer demographics and levels of experience and training were compared to their responses to six human trafficking scenario questions.

Bivariate and logistic regression analyses conclude that training, but not experience working human trafficking cases, is associated with an increase in the likelihood of officers correctly identifying scenarios of human trafficking. These findings are discussed in light of the literature.

This study extends previous research by comparing the influence of training and experience investigating cases of human trafficking.

The objective of the research is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the conceptual structure underlying global trends in the utilization of VR/AR for learning purposes among autistic children and adolescents.

With a sample of 57 documents obtained from different databases in the period 2010–2022, a scientific mapping was developed using the bibliometrix library designed in R.

It has been found that there are three main lines of work. The first with VR/AR with emotion recognition and theory of mind. Another line focused on “young children” that works on visual attention, simulation play and social communication. The third line is focused on adolescents with subthemes such as executive function, attention, social skills and learning environments.

The research allows the authors to design activities in those areas where the use of VR/AR has been successful. In this way, future implementation of these tools in the classroom is encouraged.

Of all the deaths associated with disasters, bushfires account for 40% of these fatalities. The resulting fatalities are consequent upon householders’ decision-making, leading to late or non-evacuation from at-risk communities. However, while decision-making is a function of risk perception, this paper aims to investigate householders’ perceptions of bushfire risks following the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires of 2019/2020.

An inductive research approach was adopted. Thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted to elicit qualitative data from southeastern NSW, Australia householders. The data were collected via face-to-face and online Zoom. Each interview was recorded, transcribed using Otter.AI and thematically analyzed with NVivo 12 Pro (Braun and Clarke, 2006, 2019). In addition, inter-rater reliability was done by engaging an independent researcher to code the de-identified data independently. The codes were cross-checked for reliability and adjusted where necessary.

It was found that bushfire risk perceptions were high among the householders in bushfire at-risk communities following the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires. High levels of perceptions were recorded among the participants regarding the likelihood of bushfire occurrence, concern for bushfires, severity of bushfires and vulnerability to bushfire threats.

The study’s results do not reflect all householders in the southeastern part of NSW. It was limited to 30 householders who indicated their intentions to participate and are living in the study area. Therefore, future studies should be undertaken with more participants from broader geographical areas, including emergency responders like firefighters, recovery officers and non-government organizations in charge of recovery operations. This study will add to the prioritization of risk perceptions.

All else being equal, elevated bushfire risk perceptions among participants can potentially decrease the fatalities linked with bushfires and their subsequent ripple effects. This holds particularly true when residents opt for early self-evacuation from at-risk communities.

The paper contributes to developing a better understanding of the bushfire risk perceptions underlying the evacuation decision-making of the residents in bushfire at-risk communities in south-eastern NSW of Australia.

The paper contributes to the existing knowledge on bushfire risks by providing insights into residents’ perceptions after the catastrophic 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires. As a qualitative study, it describes bushfire risk perceptions on four themes: likelihood, concern, severity and vulnerability, which is uncommon in many bushfire studies.