Islamabad’s 2019 ban on single-use plastic shopping bags aimed to reduce plastic waste, but compliance is limited. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the ban as well as other factors in curtailing plastic bag use in Islamabad. Regression modeling within a rational choice framework analyzed survey data from 406 retailers across 18 selected urban and rural markets. We found that the subjective belief that a fine was unlikely (β = −16.10; t = −3.90; p < 0.001), likely (β = −24.99; t = −4.95; p < 0.001), or very likely (β = −43.84; t = −4.07; p < 0.001) for selling bags versus very unlikely was significantly associated with lower usage. Additionally, older retailer age (β = −0.25; p < 0.001) and more education (β = −0.77; p < 0.01) were associated with lower plastic bag usage. Business registration (β = −3.94; p < 0.10) and trade membership (β = −4.04; p < 0.05) also decreased use. Rural location (zone II: β = 13.28; p < 0.001) and plastic bags stock availability (β = 16.75; p < 0.001) increased use. Awareness, viewing bags as “Good”, unlikely fines and lack of substitutes lowered use. Results provide insights to inform more effective policies for reducing plastic waste.

This study explores the pivotal factors influencing the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the banking sector of Vietnam, focusing on the perceptions of its benefits, the competence of accountants, the involvement of managers, and the guidance from the accounting and auditing community. Employing Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) on data collected from 236 professionals across accounting, auditing, banking, and finance, the research reveals that the perceived benefits of IFRS, active managerial participation, and advice from the accounting-auditing community significantly encourage the adoption of IFRS within Vietnamese commercial banks. Interestingly, the competence of accountants was not identified as a significant determinant. These findings suggest a nuanced landscape of IFRS adoption, emphasizing the importance of managerial support and community guidance over individual accountant competence. The study contributes to the broader discourse on IFRS adoption, offering actionable insights for banks, policymakers, and potentially applicable strategies for firms in Vietnam or similarly positioned economies on the path to IFRS compliance.

In the present and future of education, fostering complex thinking, especially in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is critical to lifelong learning. This study aimed to analyze learning scenarios within the framework of a model that promotes complex thinking and integrated design analysis, to identify the contributions of linking design models to the SDGs. The research question was: How does the open educational model of complex thinking link to the SDGs and scenario design? The analysis examined a pedagogical approach that introduced 33 participants to the instructional design of real-life or simulated situations to develop complex thinking skills. The categories of analysis were the model components, the SDGs, and scenario designs. The findings considered (a) innovative design capacity linked to SDG challenges, (b) linking theory and practice to foster complex thinking, and (c) the critical supporting tools for scenario design. The study intends to be of value to academic, social, and business communities interested in mobilizing complex thinking to support lifelong learning.

With the economic development and the carbon emissions cluster rise, this study uses CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and R-based Bibliometrix software to visualize and analyze the relevant literature on carbon emissions retrieved from the Web of Science database from 2014 to 2023. Through the analysis of the trend of publication volume, author co-citation analysis, institutional co-citation analysis, country co-citation analysis, literature co-citation analysis, thematic analysis of research, research evolution, and other related contents, it reveals the main academic forces, hot research areas, thematic focus changes and cutting-edge trends of international carbon emission research. The results of the study found that the themes of international carbon emissions research focus on carbon emissions, the drivers of carbon neutrality, and the impacts of climate change. An in-depth study of these aspects can help formulate more effective climate policies and emission reduction strategies to achieve global carbon neutrality and combat climate change.

An alternative to CMOS VLSI called Quantum Cellular Automata (QCA) is presently being researched. Although a few basic logical circuits and devices have been examined, very little, if any, research has been done on the architecture of QCA device systems. In the context of nano communication networks, data transmission that is both dependable and efficient is still critical. The technology known as Quantum Dot Cellular Automata (QCA) has shown great promise in the development of nano-scale circuits because of its extremely low power consumption and rapid functioning. This study introduces a unique nano-communication parity-based arithmetic circuit that is reversible, error-detecting, and error-correcting. The minimal outputs are needed for the proposed structure. Based on QCA technology, the proposed nano-communication network makes use of reversible logic gates. The performance increase of the suggested parity generator and checker circuit is significant in terms of clock delay, size, and number of cells.

Although much bibliometric research has been conducted to analyze publications on energy policy, a systematic investigation of the sustainability of nuclear energy use after the Fukushima nuclear accident is still lacking. Therefore, this study conducted a comprehensive bibliometric review of the sustainability of nuclear energy policy (NEP). This study discusses NEPs, highlighting their disadvantages; emerging research themes; and networks of the most productive authors, countries, journals, and institutions over the last 20 years (2002–2022). This timeframe was selected because of the Fukushima nuclear accident, which has been one of the largest environmental disasters in recent years. Bibliometric analysis was carried out by reviewing 1146 documents from the Scopus database using the keywords “energy policy” and “nuclear energy.” The OpenRefine software was used to deep-clean keywords with the same meaning, and VOSviewer was used to visualize them. The results show that over the past two decades, future research themes and trends in the study of NEP have focused on nuclear fuel, the Fukushima nuclear accident, risk perception, energy transition, and renewable energy. Bibliometric analysis has positively affected the development of NEP in countries that do not yet have nuclear power plants, such as Indonesia.