Encyclopedia, Volume 5, Issue 2 (June 2025) – 16 articles

Background: Burnout represented a significant employee problem during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experiencing the psychological flow investigated by Csikszentmihalyi might avoid it. Yet, COVID-19 may have contributed to the unattainability of psychological flow for burnout-prone employees. The objective of this study is to determine the COVID-19 achievability of employee flow and, if attained, whether flow resulted in burnout avoidance during the pandemic. Method: This scoping review includes searches of six primary databases (CINAHL, OVID, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science), two searches of one supplementary database (Google Scholar), and one register (Cochrane COVID-19 register) of the keywords “burnout, COVID-19, employees, healthcare providers, psychological flow, Csikszentmihalyi”. Included are peer-reviewed, COVID-19-related, 2020–2025 journal publications. Excluded are duplicates, non-COVID-19-related publications, reports lacking a research study, keywords, or relevant information. Results: In identifying 754 records, five records met the inclusion criteria. Mental healthcare practitioners, nurses, gig workers, corporate professionals, and working parents were the focus of the studies. Quantitative studies showed statistical significance. Qualitative studies showed promise for psychological flow mitigating burnout. Conclusions: Psychological flow was possible during COVID-19 for various employee types, and attaining it permitted burnout avoidance, suggesting a focus on achieving flow in the workplace during pandemics would diminish the incidence of employee burnout. Full article

To enhance financial reporting quality through increased oversight, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) Section 407 mandates that firms disclose whether their audit committee includes a financial expert or explains the absence of such an expert. The definition of a financial expert has been broadened to encompass not only accounting knowledge but also finance or supervisory experience. Financial experts on audit committees possess an advantage in information access due to their role on the committee and an advantage in information processing because of their superior skills. This combination of skills and access to private information enables audit committee financial experts to achieve superior performance. We review articles that show audit committee financial experts leveraging their information advantage in accounting to improve financial transparency, in auditing to maintain audit integrity, and in corporate governance to enhance monitoring effectiveness. Full article

Location-based Augmented Reality (AR) refers to educational mobile applications where a layer of digital content overlays the users’ physical environment when the users reach specific geographical locations. Unlike marker-based AR, which relies on predefined visual triggers (e.g., 2D images), location-based AR relies on GPS sensors and other positioning technologies and techniques to overlay digital content such as text, images, 3D models, animations, video, or audio onto the physical world based on the user’s real-time location. This approach transforms physical spaces into dynamic learning environments, enabling students to engage with educational content in a way that is tied to their immediate surroundings, adopting in this way principles of learning theories such as situated learning and place-based learning. Full article

The evolution of tall buildings has been shaped by distinct architectural styles, beginning around 1875 and progressing through various stylistic architectural movements. These changes were driven by advancements in structural engineering and digital design technologies, leading to greater experimentation with form and function. Energy and resource conservation of the late 20th century instigated a noteworthy focus on sustainability. Beyond that, the early 21st century saw a significant shift toward a new breed of tall buildings, a suitable architectural vocabulary for “high-performance” tall buildings, in which sustainability with a focus on energy efficiency is joined with the performance of other active and passive functional systems. This paper presents an overview of high-performance tall buildings by exploring key technologies, materials, innovations, safety, durability, and indoor environmental quality. Strategies that have emerged to address skyscrapers’ environmental and economic challenges are also crucial in such a building. It highlights the importance of optimizing and integrating building systems, improving energy efficiency, minimizing resource consumption, and ensuring long-term occupant health and productivity. Furthermore, this study identifies five key dimensions—structural materials and systems, energy-efficient design, high-performance façades, performance monitoring, and integrating building services systems—demonstrating how these factors contribute to environment-conscious urban development and resilient architectural and engineering design. It is concluded that these buildings are poised to redefine urban environments by leveraging advanced technologies, AI-driven management, IoT interconnectivity, health-focused elements, and climate resilience. Also, tall, high-performance buildings will be increasingly automated to an unknown limit, and AI will play a prominent role in the future. Full article

A mixed-methods approach combines qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to provide a comprehensive understanding of complex social phenomena in healthcare. This approach leverages the strengths of both methodologies to address research questions that cannot be fully answered by a single method. While quantitative data offer measurable patterns and generalizability, qualitative research provides critical insights into the human experiences, cultural contexts, and systemic factors that underlie these patterns, and such elements are often missed by purely statistical analyses. Notably, qualitative components can uncover why interventions succeed or fail in real-world settings, adding explanatory power to quantitative results. By integrating numerical data analysis with in-depth contextual insights, mixed-methods research enables researchers to explore, explain, and generalize findings in healthcare settings more holistically than either method could achieve alone. Full article

Sustainable solutions to the use of petrochemical products have been increasingly sought after in recent years. While alternatives such as biofuels have been extensively explored and commercialized, major challenges remain in using heterogeneous feedstocks and scaling-up processes. Among biofuels, higher alcohols have recently gained renewed interest, especially in the context of upcycling agri-food residues and other industrial organic wastes. One of the higher alcohols produced via fermentation is butanol, which was developed over a century ago. However, the commercial production of butanol is still not widespread, although diverse feedstocks are readily available. Hydrolysis of the feedstocks and scale-up challenges in the fermentation and purification of butanol are recurring bottlenecks. This review addresses the current state of fermentative butanol production and opportunities to address scale-up challenges, including purification. With the significant interest and promise of precision fermentation, this review also addresses some of the recent advances and potential for enhanced fermentative butanol production. Full article

In Japanese organizations, those who join earlier are called senpai (seniors), those who join later are kohai (juniors), and those who join in the same year are called doki (peers). The relationships among senpai, kohai, and doki function as an informal hierarchical structure working in tandem with the formal job-based organizational hierarchy. These relationships are deeply rooted in unique Japanese concepts, such as ba, the Confucian cultural tradition that influenced the formation of Japanese society, and the historical background of large organizations in modern Japan. Specifically, the seamless school-to-work transition due to the batch hiring of new graduates every April creates a similar hierarchical structure to that of senpai, kohai, and dokyusei (classmates) in schools. The balance between the formal job-based hierarchy and informal seniority-based (senpai–kohai–doki) hierarchy has been the base of the stable and harmonious organizational characteristics that enable effective knowledge management and efficient operations but poses challenges in adapting to new environments. Full article

This manuscript introduces a comprehensive framework for augmenting classical statistical methodologies through the targeted integration of core quantum mechanical principles—specifically superposition, entanglement, measurement, wavefunctions, and density matrices. By concentrating on these foundational concepts instead of the whole expanse of quantum theory, we propose “quantum-inspired” models that address persistent shortcomings in conventional statistical approaches. In particular, five pivotal distributions (normal, binomial, Poisson, Student’s t, and chi-square) are reformulated to incorporate interference terms, phase factors, and operator-based transformations, thereby facilitating the representation of multimodal data, phase-sensitive dependencies, and correlated event patterns—characteristics that are frequently underrepresented in purely real-valued, classical frameworks. Furthermore, ten quantum-inspired statistical principles are delineated to guide practitioners in systematically adapting quantum mechanics for traditional inferential tasks. These principles are illustrated through domain-specific applications in finance, cryptography (distinct from direct quantum cryptography applications), healthcare, and climate modeling, demonstrating how amplitude-based confidence measures, density matrices, and measurement analogies can enrich standard statistical models by capturing more nuanced correlation structures and enhancing predictive performance. By unifying quantum constructs with established statistical theory, this work underscores the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration and paves the way for advanced data analysis tools capable of addressing high-dimensional, complex, and dynamically evolving datasets. Complete R code ensures reproducibility and further exploration. Full article

This paper aims to present the phenotypic characteristics, such as length, width, circular diameter, volume, surface area to cross-sectional area ratio, surface uniformity, and surface texture, of the foodborne pathogens Salmonella enterica serovar Agona, Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter jejuni. It is a novel “field-guide” presentation of the observable morphological characteristics of these four species in the form of a Dichotomous Key. Phenotypic values of the pathogens were measured using a high-accuracy, nano-level-resolution 3D laser confocal scanning microscope. All samples were fixed with glutaraldehyde and stained with methylene blue, ensuring morphological preservation. The images of the pathogens were captured under various imaging modes, including 3D, laser, and transmission electron microscopy resolutions. Results show that these pathogens exhibit distinct morphological and surface properties, with Campylobacter jejuni showing unique features. The dichotomous key shows a simplified way of classifying selected foodborne pathogens from their morphometric properties. The morphometric measurements, in many instances first reported in the literature, and images provide a readily observable way to identify and classify microorganisms, allowing researchers to potentially study evolutionary relationships, assess species diversity, and understand how organisms interact with their environment, especially when genetic information is limited or difficult to obtain. Full article

Work-related stress is a critical issue that demands prevention strategy and continuous monitoring due to its widespread influence on workers, businesses, and the global economy. The primary drivers of employees’ work-related stress are psychosocial risks, which arise when key work characteristics—such as job demands, autonomy, or role clarity—are mismanaged, leading to harmful consequences. Conversely, effectively managing these factors can promotes well-being and performance. Supervisors play a central role in this dynamic process of either mitigating or exacerbating psychosocial working conditions. As such, stress-preventive management competencies (SPMCs) are essential for promoting employee and organisational health. SPMCs refer to a set of supervisory behaviours—including planning, organising, setting objectives, and creating and monitoring systems—that contribute to a positive perception of the psychosocial work environment among employees. This entry, by approaching the existing literature on work stress models, psychosocial perspectives, and related management competencies frameworks, aims to provide a comprehensive overview of SPMCs, identifying key insights and proposing directions for future research. Full article

Overpopulation’s central role in environmental degradation is intermittently challenged. This article assesses the impact of mounting demographic pressures on six critical global sustainability challenges: deforestation, climate change, biodiversity loss, fishery depletion, water scarcity, and soil degradation. By synthesizing findings from hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, the article offers a comprehensive review of the effects of expanding human populations on the most pressing current environmental problems. Although the rate of population growth worldwide is slowing, human numbers are expected to continue increasing on Earth until the end of the century. Current research confirms that overpopulation causes substantial and potentially irreversible environmental impacts that cannot be ignored if international sustainability policy is to be effective. Full article

The logarithmic derivative has been shown to be a useful tool for data analysis in applied sciences because of either simplifying mathematical procedures or enabling an improved understanding and visualization of structural relationships and dynamic processes. In particular, spatial and temporal variations in signal amplitudes can be described independently of their sign by one and the same compact quantity, the inverse logarithmic derivative. In the special case of a single exponential decay function, this quantity becomes directly identical to the decay time constant. When generalized, the logarithmic derivative enables local gradients of system parameters to be flexibly described by using exponential behavior as a meaningful reference. It can be applied to complex maps of data containing multiple superimposed and alternating ramping or decay functions. Selected examples of experimental and simulated data from time-resolved plasma spectroscopy, multiphoton excitation, and spectroscopy are analyzed in detail, together with reminiscences of early activities in the field. The results demonstrate the capability of the approach to extract specific information on physical processes. Further emerging applications are addressed. Full article

Nation branding refers to the strategic management of a country’s image to ensure that it is a fair, balanced, and useful reflection of the country itself. A strong nation brand is fundamental to its diplomacy, economy, and the well-being of its inhabitants, among other elements. To monitor the degree of this strength, different international indexes are periodically created and published. This entry focuses on introducing the concept of nation branding, and on describing the methodologies and latest results of the rankings that are currently considered most relevant in both academia and industry. These rankings are divided into two categories, namely, general nation branding indexes (Nation Brands Index, Future Brand Country Index, RepCore Nations, Good Country Index, Best Countries ranking) and field-specific nation branding indexes (Global Soft Power Index, Country Brand Ranking Tourism Edition, Country Brand Ranking Trade Edition, World Economic Outlook, Better Life Index). Full article

Food waste is a significant challenge for modern societies, leading to environmental, social, and economic consequences. In developed countries, including Greece, food waste primarily occurs the final stage of consumption, making consumer behaviour a key factor in addressing this issue. This entry aims to highlight consumer behaviour regarding to food waste in Greece from 2012 to 2024 by synthesizing and evaluating published and unpublished research. Using a systematic review approach, this entry identifies the key trends, behavioural patterns, and determinants of food waste among Greek consumers. The findings highlight the impact of socioeconomic characteristics, economic conditions, and consumer awareness on food waste behaviour. Notably, financial constraints during economic crises have influenced waste reduction, while a growing awareness of food labelling and meal planning has emerged as a consistent trend over time. Additionally, segmentation analyses reveal distinct consumer groups based on their waste-conscious behaviours, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions. This entry contributes to the literature by offering a comprehensive overview of consumer behavioural trends over a 12-year period, identifying knowledge gaps, and proposing strategic directions for future research and policy-making. Understanding these behavioural patterns is essential for developing effective measures to reduce food waste and promote sustainable consumption practices. Full article

Processed cheese (PC) is a widely consumed dairy product and has undergone significant evolution over time, leading to various formulations aimed at enhancing texture and functionality. This review addresses the role of starch addition on PC, focusing on starch interactions with milk proteins and understanding its influence on the rheological properties, microstructure, and overall quality of PC. Our key findings indicate that starch serves as a cost-effective ingredient that can replace or supplement dairy components, improving texture and water-binding capacity while reducing formulation costs. Generally, starches containing a higher amylose content are associated with the increased hardness and decreased meltability of PC. The insights provided in this review underscore the importance of understanding starch–milk component interactions to optimize PC formulations, paving the way for future research and innovation. Full article