Corporate Governance: The Sustainability Quest

In recent times, the concept of corporate governance has become a topical interest to both academia and industry, the focus of attraction has mostly been on the need to understand its potency in advancing a corporation’s ultimate interest, and hence the necessity for this study. This study aims to examine corporate governance. The study utilized a narrative literature review methodology to examine the concept of corporate governance, essence of corporate governance, scope of corporate governance, principles of corporate governance, internal corporate governance controls, external corporate governance controls, merit of corporate governance, and stewardship theory perspective to corporate governance. The study finally made postulations on the prospect of corporate governance.

Design and Experimental Validation of a Single-Stage PV String Inverter with Optimal Number of Interleaved Buck-Boost Cells

Increasing converter power density is a problem of topical interest. This paper discusses an interleaved approach of the efficiency increase in the buck-boost stage of an inverter with unfolding circuit in terms of losses in semiconductors, output voltage ripples and power density. Main trends in the power converter development are reviewed. A losses model was designed and used for the proposed solution to find an optimal number of interleaved cells. It describes static and dynamic losses in semiconductor switches for buck and boost mode. The presented calculation results demonstrate the efficiency of the interleaved approach for photovoltaic system. 1 kW power converter prototype was designed with two parallel dc-dc cells for experimental verification of obtained theoretical results. The experimental results confirm theoretical statements.

Comparisons of fall armyworm haplotypes between the Galápagos Islands and mainland Ecuador indicate limited migration to and between islands

The migration of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) is of topical interest because of its recent introduction and rapid dissemination throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. This study compares fall armyworm from island and mainland locations in Ecuador to estimate migration behavior. The Galápagos Islands is a province of Ecuador whose mainland coast lies approximately 1000 km to the west and is the closest major land mass. Air transport modeling indicates that natural migration from the mainland to the Galápagos is unlikely, suggesting that most, if not all, the introgressions of mainland fall armyworm into the Galápagos are occurring through trade-assisted transport in contaminated cargo, which is offloaded at the Galápagos port of entry in San Cristóbal island. Haplotype studies are consistent with this limited migration and further show divergence in the fall armyworm from San Cristóbal with those from the neighboring island of Santa Cruz despite their close proximity (less than 100 km distance) and favorable winds for inter-island flights. These observations indicate that water poses a significant barrier for moth migration in this region, with human-assisted transport probably playing a more important role than natural migration.

Editorial

To our valued hospitality community, welcome to this thought-provoking second issue of 2020. It has been a challenging, tumultuous and difficult year, especially for hospitality artisans, business owners and employees. At times, it seemed that offering hospitality to tourists, local guests and even close family members became instantaneously inaccessible, rather than being a fundamental right. Yet, with creativity and resilience, throughout 2020, hospitality professionals surmounted the challenges and adapted to new times with new ways. This issue takes a hopeful view of a post-pandemic future beginning with an inspiring opinion piece, 2021 dreams of a hospitable society, from Paul Lynch (AUT Adjunct Professor) writing from Scotland. It is followed by an original philosophical reflection that views COVID-19 as an “intruder”. Other topics include the importance of communicating effectively online about accessibility in hotel restaurants, how to extend hospitality to customers with epilepsy, an industry interview with a hotel General Manager in Auckland on what makes New Zealand hospitality unique and finally, the far reaching effects of the Covid-19 crisis on women working in the hospitality industry. The journal provides free, open access to the key implications of hospitality research for a wider readership along with opinion pieces of topical interest. We thus welcome your contributions to future editions of Hospitality Insights on the impact of COVID-19, as well as other issues currently testing the sustainable future of the hospitality industry and communities. He waka eke noa. We are all in this together.

ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY IN TRANSITIVE COUNTRIES: CONCLUSIONS FOR UKRAINE

The article raises a problem of topical interest — establishing the fundamental causes which influence the success of democratic transition. The concept of democratic transition is used here as synonymous to its Ukrainian equivalent — establishment of democracy. Establishment of democracy is a complex, multilevel, and lasting process of transition from authoritarianism to consolidated democracy, which has both country-specific and common features. It allows scientists to categorize the features, factors, and patterns of transition dynamics in aggregate and to detect the universal characteristics of a successful transition. With that in mind the goal of the research was established — to systematize the factors that facilitate successful transition to consolidation phase and to determine their representation during transition in Ukraine. To achieve the goal the author analyzed the indexation criteria of development of different approaches and systematized the most significant of them. Apart from that, the role of protest movements in the process of transition to democracy was determined. As a result, the most significant factors of democratization were established to be economical stability, cultivation of postmaterial values (self-expression), institutionalization of civil segment and independence of legal system. It was ascertained that the most problematic zones for Ukraine are weak dynamics of growth in number of people oriented toward self-expression values and the independence of legal system.

EMERGING AREAS OF SHIELDING RESEARCH—A BIRD’S EYE VIEW

Shielding analysis and design are important tools for ensuring that humans and the environment are protected from the detrimental effects of high levels of radiation. The fundamental principles and methodologies for shielding analysis and design, especially for reactor applications, have been developed and refined since the 1940s and the beginning of nuclear power research programs in Canada and internationally. Other applications are gaining importance due to both increased need and technological advances. In this work, a high-level survey of emerging areas in shielding research and development is provided. Areas of topical interest include remote reactor monitoring, source reconstruction and inverse shielding methods, waste management and decommissioning applications, accelerator, cyclotron, and other advanced medical shielding applications, space exploration, and new materials development. Each of these areas of interest is evaluated based on current capacity of the research community. They are also evaluated in terms of the benefits for the scientific community and industry arising from performing research including development of new technologies and techniques.

Numerical Studies on Cavitation and Surface Roughness

The study of cavitation is of topical interest in both physical and biological sciences. The surface roughness changes the effect of cavitation on a material surface. Due to cavitation, the material with low surface roughness value has relatively more damage, when compared to the one with higher value. In this paper, preliminary numerical studies are carried on cavitation and surface roughness. As a part of the code validation and calibration, the numerically predicted boundary-layer blockage at the Sanal flow choking condition for the channel flow is verified using the closed-form analytical model of V.R. Sanal Kumar et al. (AIP Advances, 8, 025315, 2018) at various surface roughness and found excellent agreement with the exact solution. Parametric analytical studies are carried out for examining the flow features at two different surface roughness and turbulence levels. We noticed that the wavy surface with small waves increases the Nussle number, therefore it is also considered for parametric analysis. Considering the defect-free smooth surface material, we presumed that the cavitation damage in the smooth surface is more than the rough surface because the smooth surface can generate more micro bubbles. These micro bubbles grow into macro bubbles which in turn results in cavitation. This study is a pointer towards for formulating various industrial topics with fluid-structural interaction problems for getting plausible solutions for meeting the needs of various industries.

Editorial: Connecting (Forced) Migration and Media Studies

This Special Issue on (Forced) Migration and Media is the result of two workshops organised at the University of Leicester: a workshop on (Forced) Migration and Media-research that took place on the 13th of June 2016 and a Community Impact event that was organised on the 18th of July, 2016. These workshops were a response to the topical interest for refugees’ access to digital technology and the dehumanizing language used in, especially but not limited to British, media regarding migrants and/or refugees (Berry, Garcia-Blanco, & Moore, 2015). (Forced) was purposefully bracketed as the label ‘refugee’ has its own difficulties. The differentiation between economic and forced migrants for instance negates that reasons behind migration are often multi-causal and multi-layered. It reinforces thinking in dichotomies that homogenizes and tends to negate in-between complexities, as is often appropriated as a governing tool to victimize, exclude and curtail the rights of human beings (Crawley & Skleparis, 2017; Lindley, 2010; Zetter, 2007). In this editorial, we reflect upon the main outcomes of the workshop we and other PhD-colleagues organised on the 13th of June, 2016, and connect them to the articles within this Special Issue.

Volume 2, Issue 1: Special Issue (Forced) Immigration and Media

This PDF includes the editorial and all the articles published in this Special Issue on (Forced) Migration and Media. This issue is the result of two workshops organised at the University of Leicester: a workshop on (Forced) Migration and Media-research that took place on the 13th of June 2016 and a Community Impact event that was organised on the 18th of July, 2016. These workshops were a response to the topical interest for refugees’ access to digital technology and the dehumanizing language used in, especially but not limited to British, media regarding migrants and/or refugees (Berry, Garcia-Blanco, & Moore, 2015). (Forced) was purposefully bracketed as the label ‘refugee’ has its own difficulties. The differentiation between economic and forced migrants for instance negates that reasons behind migration are often multi-causal and multi-layered. It reinforces thinking in dichotomies that homogenizes and tends to negate in-between complexities, as is often appropriated as a governing tool to victimize, exclude and curtail the rights of human beings (Crawley & Skleparis, 2017; Lindley, 2010; Zetter, 2007). In this editorial, we reflect upon the main outcomes of the workshop we and other PhD-colleagues organised on the 13th of June, 2016, and connect them to the articles within this Special Issue.