The business of recovery: embedding health in economies after COVID-19

As the UK rebuilds and recovers after the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling socioeconomic inequalities will become increasingly pertinent. The link between health and wealth has been long established, with those at the highest risk of illness also being less likely to access healthcare. The pandemic has highlighted these disparities, with higher morbidity and mortality rates seen in deprived areas, as well as among ethnic minority communities. Leaders and clinicians across the NHS and social care have called for a ‘reset’ in the way healthcare is planned, commissioned and delivered in the UK. There is a growing need for a holistic approach to disease prevention, and it is crucial that government agencies take a strong role in addressing the wider determinants of health.

Psychological consumer behavior and sustainable green food purchase

PurposeThe study aims to examine the role of consumer psychological attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior control and pro-environmental self-identity on green food purchase intention. Also, it examines the effect of ecological conscious consumers' behavior (ECCB) on green intention and behavior.Design/methodology/approachThe study has focused on the upper-middle-class segment of Karachi. The authors have used area sampling for collecting the data. Six recruited enumerators distributed 450 questionnaires in five areas of Karachi and received 423 filled-in questionnaires. The study has used the Smart PLS version for data analysis.FindingsThe study found that biospheric egoistic and hedonic values affect attitudes toward green products, and altruistic values have no effect on attitude. Also, the authors did not find any association between attitude and green purchase intention, but found that attitude stimulates ECCB. Subjective norms and perceived behavior control strongly affect green purchase intention and ECCB. The results also suggest that pro-environment self-identity and ECCB are significant predictors of green purchase intention. The authors also found that green purchase intention stimulates green food behavior.Originality/valueThe authors have taken a holistic approach by investigating 13relationships. The authors also examined the association between hedonic values and green purchase intentions, which in the past studies have contradictory results.

The Day the Classroom Flipped: Lessons Learned from Interdisciplinary Science Education Online

The Covid‐19 pandemic, evolving needs of students & mentors, and the drive for global educational equality are collectively shifting how courses are packaged/distributed, ushering a more holistic approach and blending of fields. We recently created interdisciplinary courses in chemical biology aimed at massive open online and small private levels. These courses cover biology, chemistry, & physics, and concepts underlying modern chemical‐biology tools. We discuss what we learned while creating/overseeing these courses: content optimization and maintaining material freshness while fostering a stimulating learning environment. We outline mechanisms that help sustain student attention throughout rapidly‐moving courses, how to integrate adaptability to students’ needs in the short & long term, and speculate how we could have improved. We believe this will be an important guide for anyone wanting to develop online learning formats ideal for nurturing interdisciplinary scientists of tomorrow.

Design and Simulation of Manufacturing Organizations Based on a Novel Function-Based Concept

Historically, researchers and managers have often failed to consider organizations as a sum of functions leading to a set of capabilities that produce a product that can serve society’s needs. Furthermore, functions have increased with the development of industrial revolutions, however, many manufacturing organizations have not realized their full potential. As a result, many industrial organizations do not know why, where, and when the existing functions and projects for implementing new functions fail where tactical and strategic functions of a manufacturing organization are commonly over-seen. Thus, the aim of this research was to propose a holistic approach for manufacturing organizations in order to model their functions enabling the assessment, design, management, and control of operations and performance as well as to identify improvement potentials. For this purpose, a conceptual model was developed based on the evolution of functions along with the industrial revolutions. Moreover, using the conceptual model, manufacturing organizations can be modeled, considering common organizational functions in the respective areas of production, maintenance, and quality, etc., in the three planning horizons—strategic, tactical, and operative. As a result, the model serves as a basis for the integral management and control of manufacturing organizations. Moreover, it can be also used as a basis framework for a digital twin model for organizations. Thus, a system dynamics simulation model based on the conceptual model was developed for a generic organization. The goal of the simulation model is to provide an exemplary digital model of a manufacturing organization in which the different functions are applied with different methods, systems, and/or individuals along the development phases.

Simulating Physiological Potentials of Daylight Variables in Lighting Design

A holistic approach to daylight dynamics in our built environment can have beneficial outcomes for both physiological and visual effects on humans. Simulations of how daylight variables affect light levels on the horizontal work plane are compared to their physiological effects, measured as melanopic EDI (Melanopic Equivalent Daylight Illuminance) on a vertical plane. The melanopic EDI levels were calculated in a simulated office space in ALFA software (Adaptive Lighting for Alertness) employing the daylight variables of orientation, time of day, season, sky conditions and spatial orientation. Results were analyzed for how daylight design can contribute to the physiological effects of dynamic light in office buildings. Daylight is shown to be a sufficient light source in the majority of cases to meet the recommended values of EDI and provide the suggested horizontal lx level according to the Danish Standards. A mapping of daylight conditions, focusing on the specific factors presented here, can provide guidelines in the design process and future smart building systems. The complex interrelationship between these parameters is important to acknowledge when working with daylight dynamics as a sustainable element in architecture and lighting design.

Systems dynamic modeling on sustainable apples agriculture

History shows the long process of apple plants originating from subtropical regions adapting to Indonesia's tropical climate until its popularity is increasingly marginalized and replaced with other commodities, as evidenced by the decreasing land area, especially in Batu City. Indonesia. In developing and analyzing solutions based on the principles of sustainable development, an integrated and holistic approach is required. To understand problems and find solutions, we can use Systems dynamics. The purpose of this study is to obtain a policy scenario that encourages sustainable apple farming. Data is collected from the local government and BPS City or Province so that the selected variables follow the specific location. The system approach is used to identify needs, problem formulation, preparation of input-output diagrams, cause-effect diagrams and stock-flow diagrams. A series of scenarios is created and tested through simulation to understand the system's dynamic behavior better and obtain the desired output. The best scenario was chosen, namely by replanting 10% of old plant each year, using integrated agriculture with 3 female and 1 male brooders, reduction of land change with 50% success, Local economic development by integrating tourist ticket and hotels with 0,75 kg apple fruits also increasing health support for students

Key drivers that impact the quality of education – a holistic approach

PurposeThe education sector acts as an input for every other sector and contributes around 7% to the service industry; hence, it is important to identify, measure and analyze the drivers that impact the delivered service quality.Design/methodology/approachThis paper used different approaches to identify measure and analyze the drivers that impact the service quality. In addition to a thorough literature review, qualitative tools like brainstorming, the focused group technique, and the survey technique have been used. Decision-making tools like the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and a quantitative tool, one-sample t-test, with the help of MINITAB software, were used to analyze the inputs received from 179 experts. By using the stated approach, the planned research outcomes have been achieved.FindingsQuality of teachers, quality of students, quality of policies, and quality of facilities have been identified as the key drivers that impact quality of education. The paper highlights that the people quality drivers play a significantly important role in the quality of education when compared to the quality of non-people drivers. From the statistical analysis of the hypotheses, it was inferred that the People quality consisting of the quality of a teacher and the quality of students are the two prominent drivers to the Quality of education. This paper demonstrates the importance of the quality of a teacher and its significance to the quality of education. The recommendations made might be considered for the implementation, which can improve the quality of education in the country.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is focused on the data collected from the experts in the top-ranked management institutes only. The data from the experts from undergraduate institutions and other management institutes could have added more value.Practical implicationsIn the paper, the drivers were identified and further analyzed to suggest that teacher quality is a dominant driver of education quality. The findings also suggest that there should be a high focus on having a great quality teacher as compared to the facilities. The weights identified will enable the researcher to arrive at the overall quality scores of any Institute. As a part of the process, the user just needs to collect the ratings from the end customers (the parents of the students) against each driver, and the institute level scores can be derived. These scores can then be used by the Institute's management to analyze the results and improve upon the weak areas to improve the delivered service quality in the education sector.Originality/valueA holistic approach to exploring major drivers that impact the quality of education is a new approach. Moreover, using different tools like AHP, hypothesis testing, t-test, using the coefficient of variation in a single paper has not been attempted before. The revalidations of accepted hypotheses with respondents is also a new approach.

Artificial Intelligence in the Water–Energy–Food Model: A Holistic Approach towards Sustainable Development Goals

This study aims to analyze the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the Water–Energy–Food (WEF) nexus under the lens of institutional, stakeholder, and innovation theories. Specifically, this study focuses on AI as the technology adopted by companies to promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A structured literature review has been conducted on 94 articles published from 1990 to 2021 in ISI Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. This study develops an in-depth review of the literature on the main articles arguing about these issues. The findings highlight the increasing relevance of AI in the water, energy, and food industries individually considered, but the study of AI as a connector between water, energy, and food to achieve SDGs is still under investigation. Research on AI for WEF nexus management has adopted mostly a technical perspective, neglecting the relevance of management tools and the business model concept. Most of the articles did not adopt a specific theoretical lens, but scholars recognize the need to adopt a multi-stakeholder approach and the important role played by AI and other digital technologies to address the WEF nexus challenge. This study proposes an integrated approach for managing the nexus through AI technologies to meet sustainable and responsible business models. The gap between research and policy making could be filled by combining scientific data and policy needs with inclusive tools that are technically viable for sustainable resource utilization.