As autonomous vehicles (AVs) revolutionize the global transportation landscape, their implications for emerging economies like Malaysia remain a subject of significant interest. This study delves into the multifaceted world of AV technology, focusing on Malaysia’s unique transportation challenges and opportunities. Through interviews with key stakeholders and experts, the research uncovers valuable insights into AV technology’s awareness, regulatory landscape, integration hurdles, potential benefits, and inclusivity impact in the Malaysian context. The study finds that while AVs hold the promise of improved road safety, reduced traffic congestion, and enhanced environmental sustainability, addressing challenges related to regulation, infrastructure, and public acceptance is imperative for successful integration. Additionally, AV technology has the potential to significantly enhance inclusivity in transportation, benefiting individuals with disabilities. The study underscores the need for holistic policy and infrastructure development to leverage the benefits of AV technology and pave the way for a sustainable and inclusive transportation future in Malaysia.

This study explores the dynamic relationship between ethical human resources management (HRM) strategies, the level of commitment an employee feels towards their organization, and their job performance, paying particular attention to how employees’ perceptions of the support they receive from their organization can influence these interactions, especially during challenging times. Drawing on a sample of full-time non-executive Indonesian employees, the research employs descriptive statistics for initial data analysis, followed by structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the proposed hypotheses rigorously. The investigation reveals a positive relationship between ethical HRM and employee performance (EP) and organizational commitment (OC). Additionally, OC emerges as a pivotal mediator in the ethical HRM-EP link. Notably, employees’ organizational support perception (EOSP), often assumed to enhance positive organizational outcomes, displays a surprising negative moderating effect when combined with OC, suggesting a more intricate relationship than traditionally posited. These findings enhance our comprehension of how ethical HRM practices function in times of crisis, questioning conventional beliefs regarding the influence of organizational support. The study’s methodological approach, combining descriptive and advanced statistical analyses, provides a robust framework for understanding these complex relationships. This research holds significant implications for HRM practices, particularly in crisis response and management, indicating a need for nuanced support strategies that reflect the complexity of employee-organization dynamics.

Industrial heritage is a legacy from the past that we live with today and pass on to future generations. The economic value of this heritage can be defined as the amount of welfare that it generates for society, and this value should not be ignored. However, current research based on economic analysis has mostly focused on qualitative statements instead of quantitative assessment. This study proposes an innovative methodology combining qualitative (field research) and quantitative (willingness to pay and contingent valuation) methods to assess the economic value of industrial heritage. The industrial heritage of Tangshan, China, was chosen as a case study, and the research found that museums and cultural creative parks are effective ways to conserve industrial heritage. The entrance fee can be used to represent the economic value of the heritage site. There was a positive correlation between the influence of economic value and the entrance fees residents would prefer to pay. The results indicate the locals would prefer lower entrance fees for the transformed heritage museums (The average current cost: $2.23). Locals were most concerned about the entrance fees for the Kailuan Coal Mine and Qixin Cement Plant Museums, which have both been renewed as urban landmarks for city tourism. Renewal methods have been applied to six industrial heritage sites in Tangshan; these sites have their own conservation and renewal practices based on city-level development or industrial attributes. Thus, when residents recognize the economic value of a heritage site, they are willing to pay a higher entrance fee. This research demonstrates the economic value of industrial heritage using a mixed methods approach and provides a basis for assessing the value of cultural heritage for urban tourism analysis.

Increasing number of smart cities, the rise of technology and urban population engagement in urban management, and the scarcity of open data for evaluating sustainable urban development determines the necessity of developing new sustainability assessment approaches. This study uses passive crowdsourcing together with the adapted SULPiTER (Sustainable Urban Logistics Planning to Enhance Regional freight transport) methodology to assess the sustainable development of smart cities. The proposed methodology considers economic, environmental, social, transport, communication factors and residents’ satisfaction with the urban environment. The SULPiTER relies on experts in selection of relevant factors and determining their contribution to the value of a sustainability indicator. We propose an alternative approach based on automated data gathering and processing. To implement it, we build an information service around a formal knowledge base that accumulates alternative workflows for estimation of indicators and allows for automatic comparison of alternatives and aggregation of their results. A system architecture was proposed and implemented with the Astana Opinion Mining service as its part that can be adjusted to collect opinions in various impact areas. The findings hold value for early identification of problems, and increasing planning and policies efficiency in sustainable urban development.

The recent development of characteristic towns has encountered a multitude of challenges and chaos. Nevertheless, there have been many instances of information asymmetry due to the absence of an effective management model and an intuitive digital management system. Consequently, this has caused the erosion of public interests and inadequate supervision by public agencies. As society is progressing at a rapid pace, there is a growing apprehension regarding poor management synergy, outdated management practices, and limited use of technology in traditional construction projects. In today's technologically sophisticated society characterized by the “Internet+” and intelligent management, there is an urgent requirement to identify a more efficient collaborative management model, thereby reducing errors caused by information asymmetry. This paper focuses on the integration of building information modeling (BIM) and integrated project delivery (IPD) for collaborative management within characteristic towns in the PPP mode. By analyzing the available literature on the application status, this study investigates the implementation methods and framework construction of collaborative management while exploring the advantages and disadvantages. On this basis, this study highlights the problems that arise and provides recommendations for improvement. Considering this, the application of the BIM-based IPD model to characteristic towns in PPP mode will enhance the effectiveness of collaborative management among all parties involved, thereby fostering an environment that facilitates decision-making and operational management in the promotion of characteristic industries.

The use of autonomous weapons systems (AWS) has led to several opposing legal opinions regarding their violations of international law. The responsibility of the state, individuals, and corporations as producers, designers, and programmers is all being taken into consideration. If the decision to kill humans without “meaningful human control” is transferred to computers, it would be hard to attribute accountability for the actions of AWS to their corporations. Consequently, this means that corporate actors will enjoy impunity in all cases. The present paper indicates that the most significant problem arising from the use of AWS is the attribution of responsibility for its violation. Corporations are not subject to liability for the legitimate use of weapons under international law. The main problem with corporate responsibility, according to article 25 (4) of the Rome Statute, is that the provision only relates to individual criminal responsibility and that the ICC shall only have jurisdiction over natural persons. Nevertheless, corporations may be held accountable under aspects of international law. The paper proposes a more positive view on artificial intelligence, raising corporations’ accountability in international law by historically linking the judging of business leaders. The article identifies aiding and abetting as well as co-perpetration as the two modes of accountability under international law potentially linked to AWS. The study also explores the main ambiguity in international law relating to corporate aiding and abetting of human rights violations by presenting the confusion on determining the standards of these 2 modes of liability before the ICC and International ad doc Tribunal. Moreover, with the new age of war heavily dependent on AI and AWS, one cannot easily and precisely ascertain who must be held accountable for war crimes because of the unanticipated facts in decision-making combined with the aiding or abetting of violations of international law. International law prioritizes the goal of ending impunity for the individual and largely neglects the need to achieve the same goal for corporate complicity. In sum, progress to regulate the use of AWS by corporate actors could be enormously helpful to the cause of ending impunity.

Local scour, a complex phenomenon in river flows around piers with movable beds, can damage bridge piers during high floods. Predicting scour depth accurately is vital for safety and economic reasons, especially for large bridges. This study using hydraulic flume laboratory experiments compared diamond, square, and elliptical pier models of different sizes under steady clear-water conditions considering different flow rates and discharge levels to identify the most efficient shape with less local scour. Local scour, a complex phenomenon in three-dimensional flow around piers in rivers with movable beds, can lead to detrimental effects on bridge piers due to high flood velocities. Accurate prediction of scour depth is crucial for economic and safety reasons, especially for large bridges with complex piers. Hydraulic engineers are keen on forecasting the equilibrium scour depth. To achieve this, laboratory testing compared diamond, square, and elliptical pier models under steady clear-water conditions to identify the most efficient pier shape with less local scour. This research provides valuable insights for optimizing pier design to enhance bridge stability and resilience against scour-induced risks. A variety of configurations, including different sizes and shapes of piers were experimented with in the flume using diamond, square, and elliptical shapes. The test results showed that the local scour depth around elliptical piers was around 29.16% less, and around diamond piers, it was approximately 16.05% less compared to the scour depth observed around square piers with the same dimensions. The researchers also observed distinct patterns of scouring around different pier shapes. Specifically, the square-shaped piers displayed the highest level of scouring depth, that is, 48 mm, followed by the diamond-shaped pier which experienced a scouring depth of 48 mm while the elliptical-shaped piers experienced the least amount of scouring depth, that is, 34 mm. The test results also demonstrated that pier size significantly influences scouring, with an increase in pier size from 3 × 3 cm2 to 5 × 5 cm2 leading to a rise in scour depth by 26.04%. Moreover, this study findings also elucidated that an increase in flow results in an increase of in scouring depth i.e., elevating the discharge from 0.0026 cumecs to 0.0029 cumecs led to a 28.13% increase in scouring depth for the identical pier size. These findings provide valuable insights into the hydraulic behavior of various pier shapes and can aid in the optimization of bridge design and hydraulic engineering practices. The investigations further revealed that local scouring is sensitive not only to pier dimensions but also to other critical parameters, including flow rate, time of exposure, and the size of a pier.

With the acceleration of economic development and urban construction, urban security accidents have occurred around the world with alarming frequency, causing serious casualties and economic losses. Urban security planning and management as emerging areas of research have drawn widespread attention. For city development plans, urban security planning and management have become one of major topics. This paper first outlines the principles of urban security planning and management, combined with the construction of a digital and intelligent platform for urban emergency management. This research then analyzes the core technology and equipment support system of urban security management and its practical application. It also presents a new model based on urban security planning and management, followed by examples of its application in some mega infrastructure development for security planning and design (for example, Singapore Changi Airport and Shanghai Hongqiao Airport Transportation Hub). Additionally, a blast protection concept of urban security planning and management is provided.