Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management are now available here for free:

• Socio-economic innovations in systems analysis: environmental and economic aspects
• Innovative blends to wastewater sludge energy valorisation towards a sustainable circular bioeconomy
• Prediction method of construction land expansion speed of ecological city based on BP neural network
• Quantitative evaluation of landscape architecture environmental benefits based on multi-criteria decision-making
• Landscape architecture environmental adaptability evaluation model based on improved genetic algorithm
• Measurement method of green traffic vehicle exhaust emission based on spark algorithm
• Dynamic monitoring of environmental quality in tourist attractions based on UAV multispectral remote sensing
• Restoration method of garden space environment based on P-IBI factor analysis
• Medium and long-term trend prediction of urban air quality based on deep learning
• Research on the method of landscape configuration of garden plants based on the evaluation method of beauty degree

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing are now available here for free:

• Shopping orientations and its influence on online purchase intention: a study of young adults
• Do health-brand fan pages satisfy their consumers' desires?
• Finding the optimal social media marketing mix to drive customer attraction and sales performance: an exploratory study
• Nipping the dead mall trend in the bud: a modified shopper-based mall equity model for South Africa's distressed malls
• Effect of gender and unplanned shopping on healthy product buying and digital technology use
• The role of the online flower of service in enhancing guest loyalty via the mediating role of guest experience: a structural equation modelling approach

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising indexed by Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index

Inderscience's Editorial Office is pleased to report that the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising has been indexed by Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Prof. Jesús Garcia-Madariaga, the journal's Editor in Chief, says, "IJIMA's inclusion in ESCI is a quality marker for “editorial rigor and best practice at a journal level”, and also an important milestone on the way to being added to the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and receiving an impact factor. I would like to thank IJIMA's authors and readers for the trust they have placed in the journal. Congratulations and thanks also go to IJIMA's editorial board, led by its executive and associate editors, for their hard work in getting IJIMA off the ground and publishing the high-quality issues that have led to this significant milestone."

Clicks and mortar

When the world wide web was opened up to the commercial world in the 1990s, there was a suggestion that it would not become popular and so-called “bricks and mortar” sellers with shops on the high streets and in the shopping centres would outlive the online fad. The so-called dot com bubble burst at the dawn of the 21st Century, but more than two decades later we can safely say online shopping is now ubiquitous while many shop fronts are now boarded up and many of the large department stores and chains have disappeared.

Writing in the EuroMed Journal of Management, a team from Egypt discusses an emerging trend that sees the reversal of the original paradigm whereby online retailers are now opening shops and encouraging customers to walk through their doors rather than browse online.

Abeer A. Mahrous and Ola Tarek of the Faculty of Commerce, Business Administration Department at Cairo University and Wael Kortam of the Faculty of Business Administration, Economics & Political Science at The British University in Egypt in Sherouk City, suggest that this move is driven by the consumer’s obvious desire to have more certainty when buying, which can be achieved by touching and feeling the goods in a bricks-and-mortar store. However, once the online retailers have hooked customers offline in this way, the hope is that those customers will then opt for the online option with subsequent and repeat purchases.

The team discusses the cognitive attributes that initially draw a shopper to an offline store and how their loyalty to the outlet is transferred to the online shopping experience. Fundamentally, it seems that a goal-oriented shopper drawn to the offline shop is more likely to make further purchases from the online outlet. The research suggests that the design of the offline store and salesperson style and communication within the store is important in persuading new customers to make purchases there initially and then to transfer their loyalty seamlessly to the online store.

Mahrous, A.A., Tarek, O. and Kortam, W. (2022) ‘Adding bricks to clicks: Which characteristic of a showroom affects consumers when they shop online?’, EuroMed J. Management, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp.332–344.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Economics and Business Research

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Economics and Business Research are now available here for free:

• An update of the worlds of wine: the emerging countries' influence
• The internationalisation challenges of Portuguese enterprises
• Corporate governance, working capital management and profitability: empirical insights for Indian pharmaceutical firms
• An empirical investigation of value co-creation on customer loyalty: mediating role of customer trust
• Sensory marketing on customers' satisfaction: a tale from the second largest coffee exporter
• Mediating role of job embeddedness in the relation between work engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour
• Ukraine-EU trade relations: statistical analysis of the total trade turnover

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics are now available here for free:

• Narrow passage RRT*: a new variant of RRT*
• Anti-phishing model based on relative content mining
• Energy-based virtual screening of drugs documented for schizophrenia against DRD2 and HTR2A
• U-Mosquitto: extension of Mosquitto broker for delivery of urgent MQTT message
• Salient object detection using semantic segmentation technique
• Dynamic hand gesture recognition of sign language using geometric features learning

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics are now available here for free:

• Stackelberg secure modelling game scheme for price-power control in cognitive radio enabled agriculture system
• A comparison of SVR and NARX in financial time series forecasting
• The App-RegMIP: an open access software for regional input-output tables estimation
• A SAS macro for examining stationarity under the presence of up to m endogenous structural breaks with an application on EU28 agri-food exports
• Tax benefits determinants and earnings management: results from the eurozone countries Panagiotis Tachinakis
• The effect of female employment on saving-investment gap and the role of their interaction in the economic growth
• Investigating the monetary and fiscal policy regimes dominance for inflation determination in Nigeria: a Bayesian TVP-VAR analysis

Free open access article available: "Enabling smartphone push notifications: the effect of a framed opt-in request"

The following paper, "Enabling smartphone push notifications: the effect of a framed opt-in request" (International Journal of Mobile Communications 21(1) 2023), is freely available for download as an open access article.

It can be downloaded via the full-text link available here.

Research pick: ASMR alerts for older adults - "Autonomous sensory meridian response as an alert trigger for older users"

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a neurological phenomenon experienced in different ways by different people exposed to various stimuli. It is commonly perceived as a pleasant, almost euphoric, feeling. Often described simply as a tingling sensation, paresthesia, it can be much more subtle. Indeed, it is often referred to as “the tingles”. The experience of this pleasurable feeling often leaves the person feeling relaxed or alert, depending on the specific stimulus.

Commonly it is felt in the scalp and is often perceived as travelling down the back of the neck and the upper spine. These pleasant feelings are often triggered by certain types of sound, such as a person whispering very closely in one’s ear or when seeing certain images. However, it can also be triggered by realizations or epiphanies or when one recognizes pleasure in others, sometimes even when one recognizes one has done a good deed, for instance.

ASMR is a complex phenomenon and in recent years has been used in millions of videos or music where the creator produces content intended to trigger ASMR in the viewer or listener. Indeed, people do often describe music as giving them “the chills”, but in the pleasurable sense as opposed to the edgier notion of fear and anxiety associated with a “shiver down the spine”. One has to wonder whether these are two faces of the same coin in terms of neurology, however. There is overlap with the concept of frisson, goose bumps and related phenomena. And, of course, goosebumps can also be triggered by pleasure or fear, and perhaps other emotions arising in response to particular stimuli.

Superficially, the phenomenon may seem frivolous, but it perhaps points to how bonding in mammals and other animal groups is reinforced by interactions undertaken in close proximity such as grooming and petting between social contacts, family members, and mates. In the context of interactions between mates, the putatively erotic nature of particular kinds of ASMR triggers is certainly well-known to researchers and those on the internet who might utilize this phenomenon.

Writing in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics, a team from Thailand has looked at whether ASMR can have a practical use in helping older people, particularly those with age-related hearing loss. Nattanit Buaban and Sakol Teeravarunyou of King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi in Bangkok, suggest ASMR might be used to grab the attention of someone to alert them to a notification from a device, whether doorbell, smartphone, kettle, washing machine, or alarm, that they otherwise might not notice or hear. In their experiments, an earphone device was used to trigger ASMR, but they added that a touch, haptic, device might also be used. It is early stages, but the team’s practical concept for ASMR holds much promise for older people with hearing loss who could, with appropriate smart devices, be notified in this novel way to changes requiring their attention.

Buaban, N. and Teeravarunyou, S. (2022) ‘Autonomous sensory meridian response as an alert trigger for older users’, Int. J. Human Factors and Ergonomics, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.389–401.

Special issue published: "The Global Economy, the Tourism Sector and Sustainable Development"

World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development 19(1/2) 2023

• Impact of the COVID-19 on MSCI world equity market index
• COVID-19 pandemic period reflections on problems experienced in distance education at the primary school level: teacher opinions
• Potential impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Turkish economy and its carbon dioxide emissions: an extended input-output analysis
• CSR: analysing shifting paradigm from climate change to global health emergencies
• Public health system in promotion of water sanitation and hygiene: an analytical study
• The situation of the tourist sectors after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic - tourism covidisation
• An impact study on COVID-19 and tourism sustainability: intelligent solutions, issues and future challenges
• Effects of COVID-19 pandemics on the cost items of hotel operations
• How SARS-CoV-2 crisis could influence the tourism intentions of Azores Archipelago residents? A study based on the assessment of the public perceptions

Additional papers

• Selection of sanitary landfill site by integrated fuzzy AHP and GIS for Multan, Pakistan
• Blockchain for the asset management industry

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining are now available here for free:

• Disease prediction and knowledge extraction in banana crop cultivation using decision tree classifiers
• Heart disease patient risk classification based on neutrosophic sets
• Technical capabilities of business intelligence systems in South African medium to large organisations
• A novel approach to retrieve unlabelled images
• Web mining based on word-centric search with clustering approach using MLP-PSO hybrid
• Mining trailer reviews for predicting ratings and box office success of upcoming movies

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Automation and Control

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Automation and Control are now available here for free:

• A new analytical approach for phase-margin specification-based target-loop selection for different class of dead-time processes
• Minimising weighted completion time on a single machine under uncertain weights
• Research on steelmaking-continuous casting production scheduling problem with uncertain processing time based on Lagrangian relaxation framework
• Scheduling problems with rejection and piece-rate maintenance to minimise the total weighted completion time
• Bi-level programming model for post-disaster emergency supplies scheduling with time windows and its algorithm
• An evolutionary algorithm for a hybrid flowshop scheduling problem with consistent sublots
• Research of local shadow MPPT of photovoltaic array based on EV-IKMTOA

Special issue published: "Innovative Environmental Technologies and Challenges"

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management 26(1/2) 2023

• Landscape architecture noise environment assessment method based on life cycle assessment
• Evaluation method of ecological vulnerability of scenic spots based on entropy weight TOPSIS model
• Study on the impact of rural land development and utilisation on the coordinated development of regional ecological environment
• Evaluation method of ecotourism carrying capacity of popular scenic spots based on set pair analysis
• Water resource pollution load intensity measurement based on SWAT model
• An extraction method of environmental behaviour characteristics in landscape design
• Study on plant allocation method of landscape architecture based on comprehensive evaluation index method
• Testing method for pharmaceutical water quality of inorganic hybrid nano drugs
• Simulation of temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of air pollutant concentration in residential areas based on random forest
• Study on environmental pollution control method of building construction under uncertain influence

Additional Paper

• From environmental management to risk governance: air pollution case of Delhi, India

Prof. Simona Catuogno appointed as new Editor in Chief of International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism

Prof. Simona Catuogno from Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II in Italy has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism.

Research pick: Wearable fitness devices - "To switch or not to switch? Investigating users’ switching behaviours of fitness wearable devices"

Wearable fitness devices have become very popular among people hoping to improve their health. They can be used to monitor activities such as walking, running, and cycling, plotting routes, recording speed, hills and valleys. Some can monitor pulse rate and other physiological factors, estimating “calories” burned and other such results. Once a purchase has been made, it would be interesting to know from the marketing and commercial perspective whether those who adopt this technology later upgrade their device or even switch allegiance to another brand.

Writing in the International Journal of Mobile Communications, an international team from Indonesia, Taiwan, and Vietnam have looked at switching behaviour among users of wearable fitness devices.

Jengchung Victor Chen and Nguyen Thi Lien of the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City, Taiwan, Quang-An Ha of the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Andree E. Widjaja of the Universitas Pelita Harapan in Banten, Indonesia, point out that this market is growing rapidly and is very competitive with sophisticated offerings from many manufacturers. Research into the market has looked mainly at the early adoption of the technology. The current work has considered how users adapt once they have adopted and when and how they switch to other devices once they are familiar with their original purchase and wish to upgrade.

The team has used the so-called “push-pull-mooring” framework to look at how users adopt and adapt in this market. They discuss low enjoyment and low satisfaction as push effects that drive users away from their initial purchase and make them switch to another model or brand of wearable fitness device. They consider greater attractiveness, better health benefits, and subjective norm as pull effects away from their original purchase and towards other devices. Mooring effects, they add, such as switching cost, maintain the status quo.

The team found that various factors would push and pull users. A lack of enjoyment with a given device would drive switching while all the various push and pull factors would have an impact on switching intention, despite the additional cost. The findings could help guide manufacturers and their marketing departments to improve their products but also to increase brand loyalty so that a user who intends to switch is not pushed nor pulled towards a different manufacturer but maintains their loyalty to the original brand when they upgrade to a new model.

Chen, J.V., Ha, Q-A., Widjaja, A.E. and Lien, N.T. (2023) ‘To switch or not to switch? Investigating users’ switching behaviours of fitness wearable devices’, Int. J. Mobile Communications, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp.95–118.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Mobile Communications

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Mobile Communications are now available here for free:

• Understanding mobile learning continuance from an online-cum-offline learning perspective: a SEM-neural network method
• Continuance usage of mobile SMS: the moderating role of habit
• Effects of gamification incorporated in branded apps on brand responses
• Self-service kiosks: an investigation into human need for interaction and self-efficacy
• Determinants and consequences of social media apps usage: from the perspective of the value theory

Special issue published: "Emerging Research Issues in Management, Commerce and Economics"

International Journal of Business and Globalisation 32(2/3) 2022

• Seasonal anomalies in emerging markets: an empirical analysis for Indonesia
• Positive leadership drives work engagement: a perception study of information technology employees
• An evaluation of the scales adapted for examining the job demands-resources model in an Indian policing context
• Popularity of Facebook hotel brand-page posts among consumers: a study of top ten international and domestic hospitality brands in India
• Need of measuring service quality in hospitality education: a conceptual framework
• Learning preferences and attitude towards change acceptance of diverse generational workforce in digital era
• Quality management practices and organisational performance - a study of Indian manufacturing organisations
• Mediating effect of psychological empowerment in the relationship between positive leadership behaviour and flourishing
• Decoding unethical youth buying behaviour: fair trade and unfair means
• Human resource accounting disclosure practices of Indian IT companies
• Corporate social responsibility and financial performance in selected companies of India: an event study approach

International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation indexed by Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index

Inderscience's Editorial Office is pleased to report that the International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation has been indexed by Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Prof. Gwo-Jen Hwang, Editor in Chief of the journal, says, "I would like to thank all of the Editorial Board Members as well as the authors and reviewers for their contributions to the International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation. IJMLO aims to publish high-quality studies reporting the use of mobile technology in school settings and professional training. With the help of the Board, it has become the most representative journal in this field, and will continue to publish innovative and important findings to the readers."

Research pick: Making better photos - "Image enhancement based on skin-colour segmentation and smoothness"

Removing noise, sharpening blurred areas, increasing resolution, and smoothing areas of similar tone are all useful in improving the quality of a digital photo. Writing in the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics, a team from China discusses their novel approach to image enhancement using skin-colour segmentation and smoothness.

Haitao Sang, Bo Chen and Shifeng Chen of the College of Information Engineering at Lingnan Normal University in Zhanjiang and Li Yan of the College of Science at Guangdong University of Petrochemical Technology in Maoming explain how their enhancement algorithm is based on skin texture preservation and works with a mask so that hair detail is preserved during the smoothing and denoising. The mask is created using Gaussian fitting that detects and then feathers the edges of the skin areas in the photo.

Their tests show the algorithm to work more effectively than other approaches. It has a strong adaptive capacity and significantly improves portraits without creating artifacts in the image that would make it obvious changes had been made artificially. In the world of photographic art, magazine publishing, advertising, and in the literature of many other areas, photographic quality is often key to a successful presentation and so tools to improve photographic quality during production are keenly sought by designers of such materials. This is especially the case where a unique photo is available only in a low-quality format. The ultimate aim would be to use machine learning to do the drudge work to improve the quality in an automated fashion and so free up time and resources for the designer to apply their creativity.

Sang, H., Chen, B., Chen, S. and Yan, L. (2023) ‘Image enhancement based on skin-colour segmentation and smoothness’, Int. J. Computational Vision and Robotics, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.1–20.

Research pick: Digital payback for the generation gap - "Understanding consumer adoption and actual usage of digital payment instruments: comparison between Generation Y and Generation Z"

Research in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing looks at the difference of opinion between Generation Y and Generation Z in the adoption of digital payments. They found that people in the older group were less tolerant of risks associated with digital payment and were more prone to social environmental influences whereas those in the younger group were more concerned with ease of use and satisfaction with the process.

Irfan Fadhilah and Daniel Tumpal H. Aruan of the Department of Management at the University of Indonesia in Depok had various hypotheses regarding the adoption of digital payments and surveyed two demographics to understand better the differences in attitudes. Their findings offer new insights into the world of digital payments that can feed back into research in this area and ultimately help direct the further development of the requisite technology.

Digital payments have become a popular alternative to cash or card among many smartphone users. They can link their bank account to an app on their mobile device and quickly and easily make payments for goods and services in a wide variety of settings. It is often assumed that younger people will be the early adopters when it comes to new technology. There might, of course, be subtle differences between the younger age groups.

People in Generation Y are colloquially referred to as “millennials” and are usually defined as being born in the approximate period 1981 to 1996. They are commonly the offspring of Baby Boomers or Generation X, which encompasses those born 1946 to 1964 and 1965 to 1980. Generation Z encompasses those born from 1997 to the early 2010s. This group is often considered to be the first “digital natives” as they were born after the advent of the world-wide web, near-ubiquitous internet access, and easy access to connected mobile devices.

The team’s findings corroborate earlier research and once again show that younger people are more likely to adopt the novel technology of digital payments whereas the older group is generally happier to use cash and card. The team suggests that their findings could guide those in the technology and banking sectors to market their services more appropriately to the older group based on their revealed attitudes and opinions regarding digital payments.

Fadhilah, I. and Aruan, D.T.H. (2023) ‘Understanding consumer adoption and actual usage of digital payment instruments: comparison between Generation Y and Generation Z’, Int. J. Electronic Marketing and Retailing, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp.39–60.

International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology indexed by Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index

Inderscience is pleased to announce that the International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology has been indexed by Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Prof. Saeid Eslamian, Editor in Chief of the journal, says, "The International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology began in 2011 with a publication frequency of two issues per year, and now publishes eight issues annually. It was indexed by Scopus in 2013 and is now also indexed by Clarivate's Emerging Sources Citation Index. I deeply appreciate the great assistance of IJHST's Editorial Board Members in promoting the journal for more than a decade. I would also like to thank the journal's authors across the world for sharing their experiences by submitting outstanding articles to IJHST."

Research pick: Music as diplomatic food for thought - "Instrumentality of music in cultural diplomacy between India and Pakistan"

Music has been at the heart of humanity for millennia. It allows us to express and share emotions in ways that are often difficult or impossible with spoken language. While musical tastes can vary from culture to culture there is the potential for ameliorating relationship problems through music, perhaps even at the level of international diplomacy. That is the suggestion posited in the International Journal of Public Law and Policy.

Mayank Mishra of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, India, has looked at how music might act as a diplomatic conduit through which relations between India and Pakistan might be improved. In this paper, Mishra traces the evolution of music and its role in bilateral politics, as well as the day-to-day lives of the people of both countries. Where political language and discussion are fraught with the problems of misinformation and the misconstrual of what is said between two parties, music offers a shared diplomacy through its long cultural legacy in this part of the world.

Where diplomacy can be delicate, often it fails if compromise and contrition cannot be formulated in the discussions when each side faces challenges. Problems often arise where there are differences of opinion rooted in differences in culture, beliefs, knowledge, morals, laws, and, even art. However, where art, and music as one form of art, stands alone from those cultural roots it is perhaps in the potential for shared appreciation of music regardless of differences in other cultural traits.

This is not to say that music can reconcile geographical, territorial, and political differences, but through education and exchange there is the potential to highlight and appreciate its shared legacy and perhaps build on the trust the music can bring to us to allow diplomatic discussions to progress on an even footing to the benefit of all parties. Music could help advance not national interests but communication and compromise generating the much-needed goodwill to allow parties with conflicting perspectives on the challenges to come together more readily.

Mishra, M. (2023) ‘Instrumentality of music in cultural diplomacy between India and Pakistan’, Int. J. Public Law and Policy, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp.75–91.

New Editor for International Journal of Healthcare Policy

Associate Prof. Julius Mugwagwa from University College London in the UK has been appointed to take over editorship of the International Journal of Healthcare Policy.

Free sample articles newly available from Journal for Global Business Advancement

The following sample articles from the Journal for Global Business Advancement are now available here for free:

• Organisational commitment, work engagement and job performance: empirical study on Nigeria's public healthcare system
• The nexus between FDI inflows and economic development in Ghana: empirical analysis from ARDL model
• A framework for agile project management for the water industry in developing economies
• An assessment of employees' intention to retire in Kenya
• Loyalty and word-of-mouth as outcomes of South African Airbnb customers' relationship quality
• Linking sustainability reporting to sustainability performance through regulation

Special issue published: "Ushering in a New Era of Global Business Research Excellence: Taking a Leaf out of Recent Trends in the New Normal"

Journal for Global Business Advancement 15(1) 2022

• Internationalisation and the performance of German firms
• Determinants of the budgetary transparency of public finance in Thailand's educational sector
• Understanding the influence of user adaptation on the continuance intention towards ride-hailing services: the perspective of management support
• The influence of career adaptability on well-being indicators and job performance
• The influence of employees' perceived work performance on the pro-environmental behaviours: the role of organisational identification in the Vietnamese hospitality industry
• Poverty alleviation among Vietnamese ethnic minorities: a behavioural economics perspective

Research pick: Transport solutions for health - "Assessment of human physiology as indicators of stress when driving, biking and walking"

A team from Brazil has looked at the different stresses on the human body when walking, cycling, and driving. Their findings suggest that taking non-motorised trips is the best option in terms of health and wellbeing.

Wesley Cândido de Melo, Augusto César de Mendonça Brasil, and Rita de Cássia Silva of the Transport Graduate Program at the University of Brasília-UnB, Campus Darcy Ribeiro in Brasília discuss details in the World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research. The team examined data from volunteers – blood pressure, galvanic skin response, pulse, and breathing rate while the volunteers walked, cycled, or drove from their homes to the University of Brasília in the early morning and late afternoon along six dedicated routes for walking, cycling, and driving.

Motor transport is a growing problem in big cities in terms of congestion, pollution, and a reduction in the number of people experiencing the health benefits of self-propulsion, whether walking or cycling. Cities built to a plan based in a 1950s ethos are especially problematic in this sense as those cities were commonly designed for cars rather than pedestrians and cyclists. Rebooting and rerouting those cities will take time, money, and effort to open up the healthier route. Brasília has well over one motor vehicle for every two people in the city. However, the city also now has almost 300 miles of cycle paths. Walking and cycling offer health benefits and potentially lower stress levels than driving.

“The results show that non-motorised trips are less stressful than motorised ones, proving that when walking and cycling the traveller is free to obtain the best body conditions to reduce effort and stress, a fact explained by the cost of the minimum specific energy used during the shift,” the team writes.

de Melo, W.C., de Mendonça Brasil, A.C. and de Cássia Silva, R. (2022) ‘Assessment of human physiology as indicators of stress when driving, biking and walking’, World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, Vol. 11, No. 2.

Free sample articles newly available from International Journal of Petroleum Engineering

The following sample articles from the International Journal of Petroleum Engineering are now available here for free:

• A permeability model for gas flow in coal considering the water content and slippage effect
• A technique to fight against formation damage via turbulence control for saltwater disposal
• Selection of friction reducer for slickwater fracturing to achieve both fracking robustness and production maximisation
• Gravitational sorption method for extraction of vanadium-containing oil from reservoirs with the use of redox polymers