The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) progress targets have not been met. Nevertheless, the United Nations (UN) has not yet undertaken in-depth review in order to discover the reasons behind this lack of progress in achieving the MDG. From a political…

Virtual and remote laboratories have improved
learning and training in the academic community. They allow students to acquire methods, skills and experience related to real equipment in an intuitive and cost-effective way. The purpose of this paper is to present…

An analytical approximate technique for conservative nonlinear oscillators is proposed. This method is a modification of the generalized harmonic balance method in which analytical approximate solutions have rational form. This approach gives us not only a truly periodic solution but…

In recent years, holographic optical elements have been introduced in different applications such as high-density data storage, interconnections, spatial and temporal filters and three-dimensional displays. Simultaneously, more sensitive, efficient and durable holographic materials have been developed. Thus it is necessary…

The impact of environmental practices on firm performance raises an ongoing debate in which the review of the existing literature yields no conclusive results. Different methods have been used to study this relationship and most of the analyses have focused…

Because environmental regulations may be adjusted over time to reflect updated understanding or new circumstances, there may be scope for strategic behaviour too. Regulations affect not only current emission levels, but also the effect on investment in R&D or new…

This special issue of the Journal of Physical Agents is devoted to human interaction with domestic robots. The form, features and future, of domestic robotic devices, from entertainment-based agents through to robotic cleaners, companions, assistants and helpers, are considered and…

Can you imagine a useful task you would like a social robot to perform for you? This paper presents an Internet survey where participants were asked this question to identify applications for social robots. The applications mentioned by the participants…

If robotic companions are to be used in the near future by aging adults, they have to be accepted by them. In the process of developing a methodology to measure, predict and explain acceptance of robotic companions, we researched the…

Although radix 10 based arithmetic has been gaining renewed importance over the last few years, decimal systems are not efficient enough and techniques are still under development. In this paper, an improvement of the CORDIC (coordinate rotation digital computer) method…