This study sought an innovative quality management framework for Chinese Prefabricated Buildings (PB) projects. The framework combines TQM, QSP, Reconstruction Engineering, Six Sigma (6Σ), Quality Cost Management, and Quality Diagnosis Theories. A quantitative assessment of a representative sample of Chinese PB projects and advanced statistical analysis using Structural Equation Modeling supported the framework, indicating an excellent model fit (CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.06). The study significantly advances quality management and industrialized building techniques, but it also emphasizes the necessity for ongoing research, innovation, and information exchange to address the changing problems and opportunities in this dynamic area. In addition, this study’s findings and recommendations can help construction stakeholders improve quality performance, reduce construction workload and cost, minimize defects, boost customer satisfaction, boost productivity and efficiency in PB projects, and boost the Chinese construction industry’s growth and competitiveness.

New Institutional Economics (NIE) uses solutions from law, economics and organization. The purpose of this article is to link in a single analytical approach the institutional environment, its change in the organizations uniting in one, what is happening in contracts with agricultural lands. The explanation of this type of governance means to integrate: theoretical definitions; formal rules (laws, court decisions and other legal acts); economic institutions—means and mechanisms of exchange; legal and economic forms in which, through governance of transactions property rights are transferred and protected. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to present the elements of the institutional matrix that are the cause of changes in subordination and coordination. Following the process of implementing an approach for reconciling the legal and economic nature of the contract forms and integrating the states, contract organizations and transaction costs in a common model. In order to solve the research problems tasks are adapted methods from law, economics, statistics. Such are: (a) positive legal analysis of legislation; (b) historical (retrospective) method of analysis of changes; (c) discrete-structural analysis to explain the process; (d) comparative-institutional analysis to clarify alternatives and an explanation of any of the effects; (е) regression analysis to model the relationships and present possible one’s scenarios to show the direction in which changes are needed. Changes in legislation, legal forms, mechanisms and the amount of payments create new behavioral patterns that change the contract. Therefore, in retrospect, we are witnessing how the number of changes in legal acts, the amount of fees; the number of participants-administrators of the processes; the number and registers - change the number of transactions; the duration of the actions in the contracts, which ultimately predetermines the different amounts of transaction costs for agricultural lands. This interdependence was established by constructing an econometric model. The analysis presents opportunities for change that would lead to scenarios with a reduced level of transaction costs, that is, improving governance and showing the way to improve the institutional environment related to agricultural lands in Bulgaria.

This study analyzes the importance of strengthening the design of Indonesia’s maritime axis policy. This research uses a qualitative approach to systematically explain the dynamics and importance of strengthening world maritime policy, where the Nvivo 12 Plus tool is used to analyze data and answer the research questions posed. This research shows that Indonesia still has complex bureaucratic and institutional problems and aspects of political identity and leadership attitudes that require systematic and comprehensive improvement. Then, the draft for strengthening the maritime axis policy in Indonesia includes three policy recommendations: reformulating the focus of the maritime axis policy, comprehensive and coherent governance, and an integrated administrative framework, as well as improving the political identity and attitudes of leaders in public policy. Substantially, the relative failure of the Global Maritime Axis (GMA) policy, known as Joko Widodo’s concept of regulating the Indonesian government based on geographical location, was caused by the dominance of political factors and domestic bureaucratic problems. Apart from that, the lack of priority narratives in the maritime and development sectors means that the Indonesian government’s priorities are more oriented towards GMA infrastructure aspects and at the expense of other fundamental elements. This study encourages the Indonesian government to accelerate a more substantive GMA. However, this research needs to be expanded because the analysis results were only carried out through secondary data and focused on two important aspects of GMA. Therefore, further research is needed that explains the prospects for GMA policy in Indonesia in more detail.

The area of lake surface water is shrinking rapidly in Central Asia. We explore anthropogenic and climate factors driving this trend in Shalkar Lake, located in the Aral Sea region in Kazakhstan, Central Asia. We employ the Landsat satellite archive to map interannual changes in surface water between 1986 and 2021. The high temporal resolution of our dataset allows us to analyze the water surface data to investigate the time series of surface water change, economic and agricultural activities, and climate drivers like precipitation, evaporation, and air temperature. Toward this end, we utilize dynamic linear models (DLM). Our findings suggest that the shrinking of Shalkar Lake does not exhibit a systemic trend that could be associated with climate factors. Our empirical analysis, adopted to address local conditions, reveals that water reduction in the area is related to human interventions, particularly agricultural activities during the research period. On the other hand, the retrospectively fitted values indicate a semi-regular periodicity despite anthropogenic factors. Our results demonstrate that climate factors still play an essential role and should not be disregarded. Additionally, considering long-term climate projections in environmental impact assessment is crucial. The projected increase in temperatures and the corresponding decline in lake size highlights the need for proactive measures in managing water resources under changing climatic conditions.

The purpose of the work is to study the transformation processes of constructing professional identity under the influence of new information technologies and to consider the evolution of views on the processes of scientific and practical understanding of new media resources in the context of the development of convergent journalism as a phenomenon of the modern information society. It was established based on the conducted research that the values and beliefs of journalists, reflecting the process of professional self-identification, are forming in the process of choosing certain options among a variety of alternatives and transforming further under the current conditions of the information and communication environment. In the process of the study, the article identifies the features, content, and main trends in the transformational processes of professional identity and professional culture of journalists in the context of technological changes in the media industry. The dynamics of the development of media convergence are shown from the point of view of the mutual influence of traditional and new media and the tendency of improving their technological and dialogue features and capabilities in content creation and broadcasting. An assessment is made of the degree of adaptation of regional media to modern conditions of the information and communication environment in the context of organizational, professional, and communicative convergence.