Nature-based tourism has increased significantly in recent years. The special segment adventure travel has doubled in size, from 10 to 20 percent of the international tourism market. This type of tourism is characterized by visiting remote and spectacular areas, and uniqueness. One of the most popular type of adventure based travel is so-called expedition cruise. The number of cruise vessels is ...

Seafaring is one of the oldest documented human activities, with a rich heritage created by generations of seamen. The first boats were developed several thousand years ago, based on primitive principles, and they were probably not suitable for other than simple purposes. Analyzing the history of boat building shows a gradual change in designs. These design changes were most likely due to improvements, ...

Passenger ships facilitate the mobility of people at sea and are a significant revenue stream for societies. Simultaneously, they should meet safety standards. One of the main safety pillars is offering passengers a reliable emergency evacuation plan. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has disseminated guidelines for passenger ships to enhance the evacuation process understanding. Although ...

This paper focuses on migrants and migration in the context of the Czech Republic, an ethnically and nationally homogeneous country without significant migration experience. Despite this fact, the issue of migration became very prominent in 2015 and has been an integral part of Czech political and public discourse since then. Although the topic has attracted scholarly interest, but the reflection ...

Large seasonal and spatial variabilities in Arctic shipping and its associated emissions are expected in the future, due to continuous sea ice decline. This study collected ship traffic data and the associated emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter (PM), and black carbon (BC) along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in 2013. The aim is to analyze ...

A reinforcement learning algorithm based on Deep Q-Networks (DQN) is used for the path following and heading control of a ship in calm water and waves. The rudder action of the ship is selected based on the developed DQN model. The spatial positions, linear velocities, yaw rate, Heading Error (HE) and Cross Track Error (CTE) represent the state-space, and a set of rudder angles represents the action ...

With organizational environments becoming increasingly complex and volatile, the concept of “organizational resilience” has become the “new normal”. Organizational resilience is a complex and multidimensional concept which builds on the myriad of capabilities that an organization develops during its lifecycle. As learning is an inherent and essential part of these developments, it has become a ...

The importance of leadership on safety has been well acknowledged and studied for many years in various high-risk industries. This paper aims at (1) synthesising the existing safety leadership research by performing a systematic literature review to gain an overview of the relationship between various leadership styles and safety performance in high-risk industries with a main focus on health and ...

<p><b> Background</b> Geographical differences in health outcomes are reported in many countries. Norway has led an active policy aiming for regional balance since the 1970s. Using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2019, we examined regional differences in development and current state of health across Norwegian counties. <p><b>Methods</b> Data for life expectancy, healthy ...