Publications by authors named "Igor Martek"

Objectives: The allocation of resources in elderly care institutions is directly linked to the well-being, quality of life and sustainable development of public health for the elderly. However, a disparity in elderly care resources between urban and rural areas exists. Therefore, this study aimed to explore resource allocation efficiency in China's urban and rural institutional elderly care.

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Introduction: Travel satisfaction as experienced by rural residents is closely related to personal physical and mental health, as well as rural economic conditions. An improved rural road environment can be expected to enhance villagers' satisfaction with regards to visits to markets, but to date this has not been established empirically.

Methods: In this study, a questionnaire was designed to obtain local residents' evaluations of road environment characteristics for periodic market travel.

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Due to the increasing emission of greenhouse gases and global warming, the development of renewable energy has become very important. The availability of fossil fuels and the low cost of their extraction compared to renewable energy projects reduce the motivation of countries, especially countries that have abundant natural resources, to develop this technology. Renewable energy deployment has become crucial in response to rising greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

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Under circumstances of pervasive global aging combined with weakened traditional family elder care, an incremental demand for institutional elder care is generated. This has led to a surge in research regarding institutional elder care. Rural residents' institutional elder care is receiving more attention as a major theme in social sciences and humanities research.

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China suffers from frequent large-scale earthquakes, posing a significant challenge to the development and integrity of its rural water supply system (RWSS). The earthquake resilience of water supply systems is understood to be a function of multifaceted factors, which are time- and space-dependent. Measuring the seismic-resilience of RWSS in China remains a challenge.

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The seismic resilience of water supply systems can be impacted by numerous factors, but what these factors are in the rural context of China is unknown. In this study, 41 potential influencing factors of seismic-resilience for rural water supply system (RWSS) were obtained through a literature review and semi-structured expert interview, comprising 26 general influencing factors (GFs) and 15 water supply safety influencing factors (SFs). This study verified and ranked these factors through a questionnaire survey delivered to RWSS stakeholders in Sichuan Province, China.

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The Covid-19 pandemic impact on people's lives has been devastating. Around the world, people have been forced to stay home, resorting to the use of digital technologies in an effort to continue their life and work as best they can. Covid-19 has thus accelerated society's digital transformation towards Industry 4.

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The recent coronavirus outbreak has captured worldwide attention. This study investigated the anxiety of the Chinese public and its relationship with social support during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby providing empirical support for interventions on improving the public's mental health. On the basis of an online questionnaire survey conducted on 10-18 February 2020, this study shows that 19.

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Industrialization has been widely regarded as a sustainable construction method in terms of its environmental friendliness. However, existing studies mainly consider the single impact of greenhouse gas emissions or material consumption in the construction process of industrialized buildings, and pay less attention to ecological pollution and community interest, which leads to an insufficient understanding. There is an urgent need to systematically carry out accurate assessment of comprehensive construction environmental impact within industrialized building processes.

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The construction industry consistently ranks amongst the highest contributors to global gross domestic product, as well as, amongst the most corrupt. Corruption therefore inflicts significant risk on construction activities, and overall economic development. These facts are widely known, but the various sources and nature of corruption risks endemic to the Iranian construction industry, along with the degree to which such risks manifest, and the strength of their impact, remain undescribed.

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In the light of increased environmental concerns and the unsustainability of current construction practices, 'reverse logistics' (RL) has emerged as a remedial strategy, whereby decommissioned buildings are salvaged and returned back through the value chain for recovery, refurbishment and reuse. The drivers that impact the uptake of RL are known, but if sustainability outcomes are to be enhanced, the strength of those drivers must be quantified in order to ascertain where efforts should be focused. This study aims to quantify the effects of known drivers on RL, and in so doing identify action items with the greatest potential to positively improve RL outcomes.

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Corruption in the construction industry is a serious problem in China. As such, fighting this corruption has become a priority target of the Chinese government, with the main effort being to discover and prosecute its perpetrators. This study profiles the demographic characteristics of major incidences of corruption in construction.

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