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Evaluates the perception of US industrial purchasers of products of industrialized countries and major Latin American nations. Shows that price is the only perceived strength of Latin American products while quality and delivery variables constitute the perceived core competency of products manufactured in advanced economies. Japan leads the world in perceived positive product attributes. Even industrial buyers who have never purchased from Latin America perceive the products of the region as technologically‐inferior and price‐superior compared to products made in advanced countries. Proposes that country‐of‐origin cue is still an important factor in industrial purchase decisions.

This study aims to explore the key challenges and drawbacks of smart contracts (SCs) and how they impact digital resilience within small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Whilst this type of technology is seen as a step forward in terms of traceability, transparency and immutability to increase digital resilience, we argue that it should be approached with trepidation.

In developing this paper, the authors conduct a systematic literature search using the Scopus database. Through this, we identified 931 relevant articles, of which 30 were used as the focus of this article. Thematic analysis was used as the analytical approach to develop themes and meaning from the data.

In this paper, there is an emphasis on the importance of understanding the potential risks associated with SC implementation, as well as identifying appropriate strategies for mitigating any negative impact. In our findings, we puts forward three key themes, namely legality, security and human error, which we argue are key smart contract challenges that impact SME digital resilience.

In this paper, we propose the notion of “centralised control in decentralised solutions”. This comes from the research highlighting SC weaknesses in digital resilience for SMEs. We argue that there is a need for standards, regulations and legislation to address these issues, advocating, ironically, a centralised approach to decentralised technology.

This study aims to examine how Brazilian universities have implemented the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in institutional practices, curriculum and teaching, management and community outreach programs.

This study is based on content analysis of the data sets of Brazilian higher education courses and their link to SDGs. A literature review has also been developed to integrate the knowledge of sustainability practices in Brazilian universities. Dashboards will be used to present the related findings.

Brazilian universities’ practices have concentrated their efforts on SDGs, which include responsible consumption and production, sustainable cities and communities and quality education. The literature emphasizes energy efficiency, reflecting its prominence as a subject of study among universities.

This research highlights the innovative use of data analysis techniques to present the findings. It also provides examples of environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices, frameworks and tools that can help sustainability management in this sector.

Seaports seek to find innovative technological solutions to deal with the ever-increasing growth of transportation and increasing the intensity of competition through the use of emerging technology such as digital twin technology to improve the quality of their logistics operations. Despite the success of digital twins in many industries, there is still a lack of their application in the field of seaports where ports play a central role as part of global transportation chains. Seaports sustainability comprises three main aspects: the social aspect that encompasses more job opportunities, the economic aspect that enhances foreign trade, and the environmental aspect that refers to the process of managing and operating ports in a way that saves the environment. This chapter discusses how to apply digital twins’ technology on the imported Twenty equivalent foot unit (TEUs) taking into consideration the population growth, and the capacity of the storage area of the container terminals in an attempt to explore the impact on Kuwait’s seaports sustainability. The study provides a framework for capacity management in an attempt to initiate the next generation of smart seaports cities and consequently impact society, economy, and well-being in Kuwait and Gulf region. The results of the study showed that there is a strong correlation between population growth and imported TEUs growth during the essential stage of the study. The correlation factor was 0.97, and this correlation will support the prediction until Kuwait vision 2040.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly recognizing that their unique functions and expertise in research, education, and community leadership make them essential societal partners for helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the sector is not reaching its full potential, or acting fast enough, given the dire state of global progress on the SDGs. There has been a growing recognition that higher education’s (HE) ability to scale up action on the SDGs is hampered by a range of systemic and structural barriers within institutions, the HE sector, and the local and global contexts more broadly. However, many of these barriers and the potential solutions for overcoming them have been known for years, and a key challenge HE now faces is how to put these changes into practice. In this chapter, we build on insights from the work of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and others on system transformations for sustainable development, as well as our own work on HE engagement with the SDGs, to propose several ‘meta’ reasons that might be hampering efforts to scale up HE action on the SDGs, as well as some suggested approaches for addressing them. These approaches include treating HE as a system, defining better the outcomes we are aiming for, employing adaptive leadership approaches, and investing in genuine partnerships. While a detailed treatment of these approaches is beyond the scope of this chapter, we hope to encourage the HE community to look at this old problem in new ways.

THE VAST PORTIONS of land south of the United States, commonly known as Latin America, form a political, social and cultural structure which—with very few exceptions—owes its singularity to its spiritual ties with Spain and Portugal. Although sharp social and cultural contrasts among the Latin American nations do exist, the Spanish language is a formidable link which has helped to overcome many differences. Latin American literature, despite its very distinctive voices, proclaims in unison a literary wealth which ignores political and geographic boundaries. The development of modern Latin American literature springs from the modernista movement, which roughly spans the period between the late 1880's and the 1930's. The Nicaraguan Rubén Darío (1867–1916) is considered the focal point of this new literary school which led to “the discovery of the emotional life made by the romantic, the almost professional awareness of what literature and its latest fashions are” and “the pride of belonging to an Hispanic American generation which, for the first time, is able to specialize in art”. By the time Latin American literature reached European and North American shores during the late 1920's, a vigorous regionalist novel developed. Its basic themes were played against the background of the Argentinian pampa, the Venezuelan plains, the Andean mountains, the villages of revolutionary Mexico or the jungle of Brazil. In essence, this literature was concerned more with nature than with the social and cultural realities of city life. Writers sought to present exotic materials to the urban dwellers.

“A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one's self from the tyranny of any of them.” Jose Marti, Cuban writer, poet and statesman.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the presence of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) proposed by the UN (2015) in university degrees within the fields of education, humanities and environmental sciences (ES) at Andalusian public institutions (Spain).

This paper shows an empirical analysis from a mixed methodological model on a total of 99 syllabi and training programs from nine different universities. The collection of information has been carried out through a rubric specifically designed within the framework of this body of research.

The results show that the syllabus of the subjects in the faculties of education includes the SDGs related to the social aspect of sustainability, with special focus on SDG4, SDG5, SDG10, SDG16 and SDG17, whereas others like SDG6 and SDG7 are less represented. SDGs are present in the majority of syllabus of the subjects analysed. It is certainly a positive finding which shows predisposition and a high interest on by the teachers involved. However, this is not enough as there is still a long way to go until achieving a thorough and complete incorporation of the principles of sustainability.

This research sheds light on the changes and transformations that the discourse linked to sustainability is generating in the university syllabi. Taking the SDG as a framework this paper highlights the most original aspects: a replicable methodology that allows diagnosing the level of curricular greening of the university syllabi is provided to other contexts the innovative value of connecting teaching with local and global environmental problems in their physical-chemical social and economic dimensions is shown and it has been possible to compare the difficulties of some universities in addressing compliance with the SDGs and curricular sustainability from a systemic and integrative perspective that will lead to methodological transformation and pedagogical renewal.