Search Results (6)

This paper examines the geopolitical challenges and regulatory barriers affecting direct air transport connectivity between China and the UAE, with a focus on their implications for BRICS+ cooperation and sustainable tourism development. While both countries have established strong aviation ties, factors such as regional conflicts, airspace restrictions, and diplomatic issues have hindered seamless connectivity. This study utilizes policy analysis and geopolitical risk assessments to identify key bottlenecks in existing agreements and propose strategic recommendations to enhance air transport links. By exploring the intersection of aviation policy, geopolitics, and sustainable tourism, this paper contributes to understanding the broader implications of improving BRICS+ air transport for regional economic integration and the growth of tourism in the Global South. The findings underscore the potential of aviation as a driver for sustainable development in emerging economies, particularly in the context of China–UAE relations within the BRICS+ framework. Full article

Projects are undertaken in all science, engineering, and technology fields to achieve strategic and tactical goals. It is evident from the literature that projects are becoming more complex day by day, making project complexity a domain for current research. The objective of this study is to evaluate project complexity using a systematic, comprehensive, and widely accepted definition that can capture the multidimensional nature of project complexity and its impact on project success. Therefore, an integrative systemic framework has been selected to define project complexity considering seven key dimensions: context, size, diversity, autonomy, connectivity, emergence, and belonging. The study employed structural equation modeling to analyze project complexity, its dimensions and their relationship with project success for complex engineering projects. After an extensive literature review, a validated questionnaire was developed and used to obtain responses from different countries (Pakistan, China, UAE, UK, USA, and others) in the engineering fields of aerospace, design, manufacturing, oil and gas, IT, and construction. The work shows that project complexity has a negative impact on project success for complex engineering projects. Further, analyses examined the relationship between project success and the seven dimensions of project complexity. The significance of this study lies in its evaluation of project complexity using a systematic and comprehensive definition which is different from previous studies and brings more clarity and understanding of the underlying mechanisms and causal relationships between project complexity, project success and their related factors. The findings suggest that careful consideration of these dimensions and their factors can help project managers better understand and navigate project complexity and ultimately improve project success rates. Full article

Background: Fowl adenovirus serotype 4 (FAdV-4), causing inclusion body hepatitis (IBH) and hydropericardium hepatitis syndrome (HPS), is responsible for the significant economic losses in poultry industry worldwide. This study describes FAdV disease and molecular characteristics of the virus as the first report in UAE. Methodology: Clinical, necropsy, histopathology, qPCR and phylogenetic analysis of hexon gene were used to diagnose and characterize the virus. Results: The age of the infected broiler chicken was 2–4 weeks. The morbidity and mortality rates ranged between 50 and 100% and 44 and 100%, respectively. Clinically, sudden onset, diarrhea, anemia and general weakness were recorded. At necropsy, acute necrotic hepatitis, with swollen, yellowish discoloration, enlarged and friable liver; hydropericarditis with hydropericardium effusions; and enlarged mottled spleen were observed. Histopathology examination revealed degeneration and necrosis, lymphocytic infiltration and inclusion bodies. The qPCR analysis detected the virus in all samples tested. Hexon gene sequence analysis identified FAdV serotype 4, species C as the major cause of FAdV infections in UAE in 2020, and this strain was closely related to FAdV-4 circulating in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Nepal and China. Conclusion: The serotype 4, species C, was the common FAdV strain causing IBH and HPS episodes in the region. This result may help design effective vaccination programs that rely on field serotypes. Full article

In 2013, China proposed the “Belt & Road Initiative” which aims to invest the “Belt & Road” countries so as to help them develop their infrastructure and economy. China consumes the largest part of fossil energy of the whole world, so it is China’s priority to consider its energy supplying security. Therefore, it becomes urgent for China to invest the “Belt & Road” countries’ energy facilities. There comes a question: how to evaluate the overseas energy investment risk? To answer this question, this paper proposes a deep learning method to assess such risk of the 50 “Belt & Road” countries. Specifically, this paper first proposes an indicator system in which 6 main factors are separated into 36 sub-factors. This paper makes use of hierarchical convolution neural networks (CNN) to encode the historical statistics. The hierarchical structure could help CNN handle the long historical statistics more effectively and efficiently. Afterward, this paper leverages the self-attention layer to calculate the weights of each sub-factor. It could be observed that the resource potential is the most important indicator, while “years of China’s diplomatic relations” is the most important sub-indicator. Finally, we use a conditional random field (CRF) layer and softmax layer to compute the assessment scores of each country. Based on the experimental results, this paper suggests Russia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan to be China’s most reliable choices for energy investment. Full article

This special issue took this opportunity to invite researchers to contribute their original research work and review articles to this Special Issue on “Recent Trends in Coatings and Thin Film: Modeling and Application” to be published in Coatings. The goal of this Special Issue was to address challenges and current issues that either advance the state-of-the-art of experimental, numerical, and theoretical methodologies, or extends the bounds of existing methodologies to new contributions that are related to coatings and thin film containing whichever, magnetic, multiphase, material science, nanotechnology, surfaces, interfaces, and mechanical sensing properties. In response to the call for papers, a total of 58 papers were submitted for possible publication. After comprehensive peer review, only 27 papers qualified for acceptance for final publication. The rest of 31 papers could not be accommodated. The submissions may have been technically correct, but were not considered appropriate for the scope of this special issue. The authors are from 17 geographically distributed countries, such as China, Spain, Romania, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, UAE, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Lebanon, Egypt, India, and Kuwait, etc. This reflects the great impact of the proposed topic and the effective organization of the guest editorial team of this Special Issue. Full article

This Special Issue invited researchers to contribute their original research work and review articles on “Symmetry and Fluid Mechanics” that either advances the state-of-the-art mathematical methods through theoretical or experimental studies or extends the bounds of existing methodologies with new contributions related to the symmetry, asymmetry, and lie symmetries of differential equations proposed as mathematical models in fluid mechanics, thereby addressing current challenges. In response to the call for papers, a total of 42 papers were submitted for possible publication. After comprehensive peer review, only 25 papers qualified for acceptance for final publication. The rest of the papers could not be accommodated. The submissions may have been technically correct but were not considered appropriate for the scope of this Special Issue. The authors are from geographically distributed countries such as the USA, Australia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, UAE, South Africa, and Vietnam. This reflects the great impact of the proposed topic and the effective organization of the guest editorial team of this Special Issue. Full article