The Wiener index WI is one of the connectivity parameters used to know the biochemical and physicochemical properties of compounds depending upon their molecular structures. Intuitionistic fuzzy graphs IFG s are a convenient tool to represent the objects and relations between them with two types of information using truth membership degree and falsity membership degree. This research work presents the concept of WI under the structure IFG s, I F trees, and I F cycles. Some bounds on WI are investigated. (...) The relationship between WI and connectivity index CI is also studied. In the end of this study, an application of the WI in transport network flow is proposed. (shrink)

Let G = V G, E G be a molecular graph, where V G and E G are the sets of vertices and edges. A topological index of a molecular graph is a numerical quantity which helps to predict the chemical/physical properties of the molecules. The Wiener, Wiener polarity, and the terminal Wiener indices are the distance-based topological indices. In this paper, we described a linear time algorithm that computes the Wiener index for acyclic graphs and extended this algorithm for (...) unicyclic graphs. The same algorithms are modified to compute the terminal Wiener index and the Wiener polarity index. All these algorithms compute the indices in time O n. (shrink)

To avoid exorbitant and extensive laboratory experiments, QSPR analysis, based on topological descriptors, is a very constructive statistical approach for analyzing the numerous physical and chemical properties of compounds. Therefore, we presented some new entropy measures which are based on the sum of the neighborhood degree of the vertices. Firstly, we made the partition of the edges of benzene derivatives which are based on the degree sum of neighboring vertices and then computed the neighborhood version of entropies. Secondly, we made (...) use of the software SPSS for developing a correlation between newly introduced entropies and the physicochemical properties of benzene derivatives. Our obtained results demonstrated that the critical temperature C T, critical pressure C P, and critical volume C V can be predicted through fifth geometric arithmetic entropy, second S K entropy, and fifth N D entropy, respectively. Other remaining physical characteristics include Gibb’s energy qℰ, log P, molar refractivity ℳℛ, and Henry’s law ℋℒ that can be predicted by using sixth N D entropy. (shrink)

Topological indices are numeric parameters which portray the topology of a subatomic structure. In QSAR/QSPR analysis, topological descriptors play a vital role to examine the topology of a network. An interconnection network is a structure whose components are connected physically according to some pattern. In this paper, an interconnection network, ternary hypertree, which is a structural combination of complete ternary tree and hypertree, is introduced. We have evaluated the topological descriptors grounded on the distances for the ternary hypertree. The analytical (...) expressions for Wiener, different types of Szeged, and Mostar indices are determined. (shrink)

The study examines both general and Internet and Communication Technology (ICT) self-efficacy in cyber-victims, cyber-bullies, and cyber bully victims in comparison to un-involved students. Gender differences were also examined. A total of 1115 Pakistani university students from six universities participated in the study. Analyses were conducted on 950 complete cases (371 males, and 579 females). Data were collected on cyberbullying/victimization, general self-efficacy (GSE), ICT self-efficacy, traditional bullying/victimization, ICT usage, social desirability, and demographics. Multinomial logistic regression analysis indicated that ICT self-efficacy (...) significantly decreased the probability of being a cyber-victim and significantly increased the chances of being a cyber-bully whereas GSE appeared to have no role in predicting participant roles in cyberbullying after controlling for covariates (i.e., age, gender, traditional bullying, traditional victimization, social desirability, Internet usage, time spent on the Internet, and social networking sites (SNS). Findings of the study have important implications for developing and enhancing interventions with respect to the inclusion of ICT related skills in anti-cyberbullying programs. With respect to gender, findings showed that females reported a higher level of victimization while males reported higher perpetration on both traditional and cyberbullying. (shrink)

Cardiac disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Cardiovascular diseases can be prevented if an effective diagnostic is made at the initial stages. The ECG test is referred to as the diagnostic assistant tool for screening of cardiac disorder. The research purposes of a cardiac disorder detection system from 12-lead-based ECG Images. The healthcare institutes used various ECG equipment that present results in nonuniform formats of ECG images. The research study proposes a generalized methodology to process all formats of (...) ECG. Single Shoot Detection MobileNet v2-based Deep Neural Network architecture was used to detect cardiovascular disease detection. The study focused on detecting the four major cardiac abnormalities with 98% accuracy results were calculated. The work is relatively rare based on their dataset; a collection of 11,148 standard 12-lead-based ECG images used in this study were manually collected from health care institutes and annotated by the domain experts. The study achieved high accuracy results to differentiate and detect four major cardiac abnormalities. Several cardiologists manually verified the proposed system’s accuracy result and recommended that the proposed system can be used to screen for a cardiac disorder. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to explore social media marketing activities and their impact on consumer intentions. This study also analyzes the mediating roles of social identification and satisfaction. The participants in this study were experienced users of two social media platforms Facebook and Instagram in Pakistan. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. We used an online community to invite Facebook and Instagram users to complete the questionnaire in the designated online questionnaire system. Data were (...) collected from 353 respondents, and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Results show that SMMAs have a significant impact on the intentions of users. Furthermore, social identification mediates the relationship between social media activities and satisfaction, and satisfaction mediates the relationship between social media activities and the intentions of users. This will help marketers how to attract customers to develop their intentions. This is the first novel study that used SMMAs to address the user intentions with the role of social identification and satisfaction in the context of Pakistan. (shrink)

In today's world, businesses are involved in several different initiatives to gain sustainable performance, which can discourse the expectations and demands of society. Emerging economics faces numerous challenges in terms of social, relational, governance, and financial, which made it necessary for firms to perform responsibly in order to make positive contributions toward sustainability. Therefore, this study based on upper-echelon theory constructs a comprehensive framework on responsible leadership, corporate social responsibility, and managerial discretion to provide the guideline for business sustainability. To (...) fulfill the study purpose, an empirical analysis was performed on 382 Pakistani respondents' data by using PLS-SEM through SmartPLS. Outcomes of the study indicated that responsible leadership entails enormous importance in corporations to influence their impact on society, environment, and economy, which leads to business sustainability. Moreover, the study provides insights into that more responsible and experienced leaders are better able to identify the concerns of their firm's stakeholders in the manners of relational, governing, and orientational perspectives, which help them in satisfying the stakeholders' and society's demands. Hence, responsible leadership enables the firm to better strive for sustainability by applying better CSR activities and directing the decisions by maintaining the compliance of the managers. Furthermore, the current study concluded that the managers and leaders of firms need to develop their business models in such a way that it supports the triple bottom line performance of the firm so that they can achieve sustainability. This study would help managers of firms to realize that they should reexamine their leadership practices and behaviors with the consideration of the triple bottom line framework and integrate the sustainable approach and CSR practice into their business strategy so that they can accomplish the goal of sustainability for business and fulfill the social demands and expectations. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility remains a topic of interest for both theory and practice due to its multifaceted avenues and potential for growth. We have chosen embedded CSR and peripheral CSR measures to evaluate how these activities affect the employee turnover intentions via a mediation mechanism of organizational citizenship behavior. In doing so, this study addresses important stakeholder concerns and provides meaningful managerial contributions for the employers to encourage more employee participation toward sustainable corporate performance. This study incorporates four hypotheses that (...) are tested in a structural equation modeling framework by employing Warp-PLS software. Data were collected from 297 employees working in firms that are renowned for their CSR initiatives. We found support for our key hypotheses leading to strong theoretical contributions to the stakeholder theory. We have addressed the main issues of stakeholders’ response to the CSR tradeoffs and have tried to develop a deeper understanding of managers in initiating peripheral and embedded CSR activities for their firms. (shrink)

Manufacturing companies in today's industrial world are seeking to use the new manufacturing process methods. The primary goal of corporations is to achieve optimum production while deploying minimal capital. The fundamental purpose of this study is to examine the influence of various lean manufacturing practices on the sustainability performance of companies and the mediating role of green supply chain management. The data was gathered using questionnaires from 250 Pakistani manufacturing firms and analyzed using AMOS 25. Results demonstrate that process and (...) equipment, product design, supplier relationships, and customer relationships significantly affect sustainable performance. It is also recognized that Green Supply Chain Management mediates the interaction between HR processes, product design, supplier relationship, customer relationship, and environmental performance. The findings of this study will enable managers and decision-makers of manufacturing companies to increase sustainable efficiency and reduce waste through the use of lean manufacturing and GSCM implementation. (shrink)

Currently, there is an increasing trend in the organizations towards examining the artificial intelligence and nonartificial intelligence for the innovation and success of the new product, as well as getting the intentions of the upcoming researchers. Thus, the purpose of the ongoing study is to examine the role of artificial and nonartificial intelligence in the new product success along with the moderating role of new product innovation in the manufacturing organizations of China. The quantitative methods have been followed by the (...) study and gathered the responses from the respondents using questionnaires, and analysis has been conducted by using the smart-PLS. The results exposed that artificial intelligence and nonartificial intelligence have positive and significant nexus with the new product success. The outcomes also revealed that the new product innovation significantly moderated the links among the nonartificial intelligence and new product success, but it insignificantly moderated the links among the artificial intelligence and new product success in the manufacturing organizations of China. These findings have provided the guidelines to the manufacturing companies and their policies developing authorities that they should be developed and implement the suitable policies regarding the adoption of artificial intelligence and nonartificial intelligence that enhance the success of the new product, which ultimately enhances the success of the organization. (shrink)

With the increasing growth of online shopping, businesses are intertwining to establish new shopping antecedents. Customer experience has steadily become the most important source of retailers’ long-term competitive advantage via difference. To preserve long-term and sustained consumer loyalty, retailers must continually improve the customer experiences. This study presents a framework for online retailing in a digital environment called the Online Customer Experience-Engagement Context model in the presence of value co-creation. Data was gathered from 189 people who purchased products online. For (...) additional analysis, testing the hypothesis, and model construction, SPSS 26 and Smart-PLS were used. The data was then evaluated further using descriptive statistics, path analysis, measurement, and structural model. The findings show that the online customer experience substantially influenced customer engagement, which improved customer loyalty. The VCC strengthened the link between online customer experience and customer engagement. It suggests that including consumers in co-creating a delightful online customer experience from time to time may be a valuable strategy for online retailers to increase customer engagement and loyalty. To create an overarching outcome, information integration theory, multi-attribute utility theory, and the attitude-behavior-context theory theories are converged to explain the proposed model in the study. (shrink)

Abū Lahab (d. 2/624), one of the notables of Mecca, was one of the Prophet’s four uncles who reached the Islamic period. Abū Lahab who had generally good relations with the Prophet before the Islamic period developed bad attitudes towards his nephew when his prophethood was proclaimed and maintained these until his death. He, known for loyalty to his ancestor’s religion, did not believe in his nephew’s prophecy and was one of the chief antagonist and enemy of the Prophet in (...) Mecca. In addition to the fact that Abū Lahab had an identity devoted to his ancestor, by force of emphasis of social justice, the Prophet’s new religion defending equality among people and ordering to the faith of afterlife caused to have a strong opposition to his nephew. In the development of Abū Lahab’s opposing attitude his wife Umm Jamīl (d.?/?) plays a crucial role. In this article, Abū Lahab and the reasons which prompted to oppose to the Prophet and his religion were examined in detail. In addition, his life and relations with the Prophet before and after nubuwwa were detailed.Summary: bū Lahab is one of the four uncles of the Prophet Muḥammad, who reached the time of his prophethood. There is no information in the sources related to his birth, childhood and youth. His real name is known as ‘Abd al-‘Uzzā, and his nickname is Abū ‘Utba or, according to a weak opinion, Abū ‘Utayba. In most of the sources, it is noted that the (second) nickname of Abū Lahab was given by his father because he was so handsome, that he was shining like a fire or his cheeks were reddish as if they were fevering. Detailed information about Abū Lahab belongs to the post-prophetic period; information about his life before prophethood is less. Among these rare information there are findings that he was among the richest and most respected people of Mecca; saved by paying his diet a Meccan aristocrat who was held hostage by a caravan he met on the road to Mecca- al-Ṭāʾif; was involved with his friends in the theft incident against the golden gazelle statue in the Kaaba to supply his drinking money. The sources record that he was delighted with the birth of the Prophet and allowed his concubine to breastfeed the Prophet. Relations with the Prophet during this period, except for the anger of the Prophet because the supported Abū Ṭālib (d. 619) in a fight with Abū Ṭālib, generally followed a positive course. So much that he asked the two daughters of the Prophet to marry his two sons. However, these positive relations were broken and replaced by hostility after the Prophet was given the duty of prophethood and the Messenger of Allāh started to serve this duty.Abū Lahab, who can be regarded as a filiopietist, made every attempt to eliminate this new belief, which he saw as contrary to his ancestors' beliefs. He watched his nephew, did everything he could to deny what he was saying and prevent him from getting a response. He would grind him by throwing feces, carrion, animal droppings and stinking things to the door of his house to disturb him. He did not hesitate to increase the severity of this hostility. So much that he was among those who sentenced him to hunger by applying a socio-economic boycott to Muḥammad and his close relatives, Banū Hāshim and Banū Muṭṭalib, who supported him. However, in the pre-Islamic period, a sense of tribalism was dominant in Mecca and its nearby basin. This understanding was also dominant in the lower arms of the Quraysh tribe, who was a resident of Mecca. These communities, especially Banū Umayya and Banū Makhzūm, who represent the Mecca aristocracy, strongly opposed the prophecy of one of the Banū Hāshim. On the other hand, the Banū Hāshim adopted the Prophet with the same understanding. However, there was only one person who acted against this understanding among all Banū Hāshim, and this was Abū Lahab. He treated his nephew so much in hostility that he became the only person among the Mecca polytheists who was condemned by the Qur'ān. Perhaps the most important and influential factor in his persistence in a stubborn and systematic opposition to the Prophet, was his ancestral identity. In addition, in the pre-Islamic Mecca, the people were divided into social strata, inequality among people, and the aristocratic segment was the highest level of society. Islam advocated equality among people due to its vision of social justice. The Mecca aristocrats, including Abū Lahab, considered themselves superior to other people and thought that they were in no way equal to those who were lower in terms of property, position and nobility. This understanding was one of the most important factors that enabled Abū Lahab to take place in the block against this new belief system communicated by the Prophet. Again, one of the important factors in his displaying a stubborn and systematic opposition to the Prophet is that Islam accepts the belief in the hereafter as one of the basic principles of religion. Like the other polytheist Meccans, Abū Lahab did not believe in the resurrection. His wife Umm Jamīl was another factor of his opposition stance. The traditional rivalries between Umm Jamīl’s family Banū Umayya and Abū Lahab’s family Banū Hāshim, lead to a sense of competition against. This feeling prompted her to oppose the prophecy of one of the Banū Hāshim. So she always provoked her husband and Abū Lahab’s hatred toward his nephew never stopped to such an extent that it was mentioned in the surah Tabbat/al-Masad by a metaphor of carrying wood to feed the fire of hatred. Actually it was only Abū Lahab who was hostile to Muḥammad's prophethood among all the Banū Hāshim. With the prophethood of Muḥammad, beginning to display a stubborn and systematic opposition to Islam, Abū Lahab continued this opposition intensely in the following periods and died in the second year of the hijra with this attitude. His wife, Umm Jamīl, died with the same understanding and shared the same contractual fate with him. However, all her children -except for ‘Utayba (d.? /?) - were honored with Islam and were among the Prophet's distinguished companions. (shrink)

This eleventh volume of Collected Papers includes 90 papers comprising 988 pages on Physics, Artificial Intelligence, Health Issues, Decision Making, Economics, Statistics, written between 2001-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 84 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 19 countries: Abhijit Saha, Abu Sufian, Jack Allen, Shahbaz Ali, Ali Safaa Sadiq, Aliya Fahmi, Atiqa Fakhar, Atiqa Firdous, Sukanto Bhattacharya, Robert N. Boyd, Victor Chang, Victor Christianto, V. Christy, Dao The Son, Debjit Dutta, Azeddine Elhassouny, Fazal Ghani, Fazli Amin, (...) Anirudha Ghosha, Nasruddin Hassan, Hoang Viet Long, Jhulaneswar Baidya, Jin Kim, Jun Ye, Darjan Karabašević, Vasilios N. Katsikis, Ieva Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė, F. Kaymarm, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, Qaisar Khan, M. Khoshnevisan, Kifayat Ullah,, Volodymyr Krasnoholovets, Mukesh Kumar, Le Hoang Son, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Tahir Mahmood, Mahmoud Ismail, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Siti Nurul Fitriah Mohamad, Mohamed Loey, Mai Mohamed, K. Mohana, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Gulfam, Muhammad Khalid Mahmood, Muhammad Jamil, Muhammad Yaqub Khan, Muhammad Riaz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Cu Nguyen Giap, Nguyen Tho Thong, Peide Liu, Pham Huy Thong, Gabrijela Popović‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Surapati Pramanik, Dmitri Rabounski, Roslan Hasni, Rumi Roy, Tapan Kumar Roy, Said Broumi, Saleem Abdullah, Muzafer Saračević, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Shariful Alam, Shyamal Dalapati, Housila P. Singh, R. Singh, Rajesh Singh, Predrag S. Stanimirović, Kasan Susilo, Dragiša Stanujkić, Alexandra Şandru, Ovidiu Ilie Şandru, Zenonas Turskis, Yunita Umniyati, Alptekin Ulutaș, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vázquez, Binyamin Yusoff, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Zhao Loon Wang.‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

By incorporating the conservation of resource theory, this study examines how high-performance work practices (HPWPs) affect the employee's in-role performance (EIRP) and employee's task performance (ETP) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Furthermore, this study investigates how organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) and positive psychological capital (PPC) affect the relationship between HPWPs and outcomes of employees such as EIRP and ETP. A quantitative technique based on the survey method was used to gather the primary data of the investigation. Two hundred and (...) eleven bank employees working in different banks of Punjab and Pakistan participated in the survey process. The PROCESS-macro was used to test the relationship among the study constructs. Our results supported all the study hypotheses, however positive psychological capital did not moderate the indirect effect of high performance work practices on employee's task performance via organization based self-esteem. This study is the earliest of its kind that focuses on HPWPs and outcomes of employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic in a developing country like Pakistan. The findings of this study provide practical implications in the post and continuing pandemic situation for organizations to human resource management to redesign workforce strategies to increase their contribution and responses to realize organizational priorities. Although researchers have explored the topic in different sectors, scant studies have investigated the potential impact, barriers, and enabling mechanisms that function as a catalyst in HPWPs during the pandemic situation. (shrink)

We studied the impact of teachers’ ethical leadership on students’ moral identity and academic citizenship behaviors. Data from 256 student–teacher matching dyads were collected from one of the top 5 Pakistani business schools. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to ensure factorial validity of the measures that were employed, and the hypothesized relationships were tested using structural regression models that utilized structural equation modeling in AMOS with 5,000 bootstrap samples. Based on social learning theory, the results supported the hypothesis that teachers’ (...) ethical leadership had significant direct and indirect positive effects on the students’ academic citizenship behaviors that were directed toward other students and the school. This study contributes to existing literature on ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior by highlighting useful implications of these organization-based constructs in an academic context. (shrink)

This study examined the influence of ethical leadership on knowledge sharing, the mediating role of psychological ownership, and the moderating effect of professional commitment between ethical leadership and knowledge sharing. Data were collected from 307 public listed Pakistani companies’ employees. Statistical analyses were performed by using SPSS Version 25 and AMOS version 22. The findings indicate a positive relationship between EL and KS behavior. Additionally, the impact of EL on KS was partially mediated by psychological ownership. Furthermore, professional commitment buffers (...) the link between EL and KS. This study contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of leadership by confirming the role of ethics. The results show that ethical leaders develop employee attitudes that contribute to employee KS behavior. Ethical leaders create and encourage a learning culture to enhance organizational performance. This study adds to the little data on the positive impact of EL on listed company’s employees and addresses the gaps in previous studies on the role of EL in changing environments. In addition, professional commitment as a moderator has not been previously investigated with ethical leadership antecedents. (shrink)

The World Health Organization declares coronavirus disease 2019 as a pandemic, and The World Economic Forum argues that the COVID-19-induced global lockdown is the biggest psychological experiment. This study is an attempt to empirically evaluate the possible adverse psychosocial effects caused by COVID-19-related lockdown, if any. To do so, a cross-sectional study is conducted based on a comprehensive online survey using snowball sampling to analyze the level of social and psychological impacts during the early stage of the outbreak in Pakistan. (...) The questionnaire is filled out by the residents in Pakistan including working professionals and students. We find that the development of stress due to COVID-19-induced lockdown is particularly because of mood swings. Additionally, a higher prevalence of stress in the children of highly educated mothers is evident. To assess the belief in stakeholders, we focus gender, demographics, and education. It is observed that parental education and age significantly affect the belief in several stakeholders. The lockdown-induced fear of losing job is lower in female and male children whose fathers are graduates. Lastly, we observe that food storage and “no fear of losing job” significantly increases the odds of life satisfaction. These findings have important implications in the context of social insurance, parental education, and policy related to COVID-19 at various levels. This study further facilitates to understand the factors that might affect the mental health and life satisfaction of people during such pandemics. (shrink)

In January 2023, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 s before midnight.

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

This research probes the influence of the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor on the tourism development behavior of local residents. By applying social exchange theory, this study examines the impact of the community dimension on tourism development behavior through overall attitude. In addition, this study also examines the use of social media as a moderator in the relationship between overall attitude and tourism development. A survey tool has been used to obtain data from the people of Gilgit-Baltistan. Hypotheses were (...) examined using the structural equation method on 417 survey responses. The findings indicated community satisfaction and an overall positive attitude to the effects of development, although a negative attitude regarding concerns about community resources. Overall, attitude has a significant impact on tourism development behavior. Additionally, the use of social media strengthens the relationship between overall attitude and behavior that favors tourism development. (shrink)

The primary aim was to assess the role of mental and physical health of COVID-19 and its psychological impact in the general population of Pakistan during the first wave of COVID-19. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant predictive association among socio-demographic variables, psychological impact and mental health status resulting from COVID-19, and poor self-reported physical health would be significantly associated with adverse psychological impact and poor mental health status because of COVID-19. A cross-sectional survey research design was (...) used in which 1,361 respondents were sampled online during lockdown imposed in the country. The Impact of Events Scale-Revised was used to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales was used to assess participants’ mental health status. 18% of the respondents reported moderate to severe event-specific distress, 22.6% reported moderate to severely extreme depression, 29% reported moderate to extreme anxiety, and 12.1% reported moderate to extreme stress. Female gender, having graduate-level education, currently studying, and self-reported physical symptoms were significantly associated with higher levels of psychological impact exhibited through higher scores on the IES-R and poorer mental health status exhibited through higher scores on the DASS-21. (shrink)

This study deals with the protection of intellectual property rights in French and Iraqi civil law. This is because the literary and life creativity in Iraq is declining, it is difficult to invest money in new things, and the number of people who comply with the artificial laws made since 2003 is increasing, and secondly, another reason, people's ignorance of the existing laws in Iraq. Iraq, so it is necessary. In each legislation, legal mechanisms are used to promote media and (...) life publishing and help people make money in the process of inventing literary and life works, which can be achieved by granting them a series of intellectual property rights that represent different privileges. From the fundamental rights of people, which are psychologically and morally valid at one or more points in time. This leads us to delve deeper into these rights, which have been incorporated into civil subjects since the creation of some of them through exchanges between authors and publishers or those who own innovative objects. This returns to the ownership model of the target company. In this way, we will mainly discuss the issue of intellectual property rights and carefully discuss the specific rights divided between the French Civil Code and the Civil Code, and then turn our attention to the two themes of law and incentives. The Civil Code collapses. This consists of comparing the independence of intellectual property rights, mainly regulated by French and Iraqi civil laws, and secondly with some provisions of the model. (shrink)

Publication date: 11 June 2018 Source: Author: Jude Nwafor Eze, Umar Aliyu, Abdulmalik Alhaji-Baba, Muhammad Alfa This research evaluates the farmers’ vulnerability to climate change in Niger State. Strategies for reducing the effect of climate change have regularly been made without experimental foundations and adequate information on farmers’ vulnerability to climate change in the study area. Thus, integrated farmers’ vulnerability assessment approach was employed by classifying socioeconomic and biophysical indicators of vulnerability into adaptive capacity, sensitivity and exposure to determine (...) the farmers’ vulnerability to climate change. This is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s definition of vulnerability. The study adopted a survey design and the method utilized for the study was questionnaire administered to 400 households in the study area. The results indicate that the farmers’ vulnerability was low in zone A with a mean index of 2.86, very low in zone B with a mean index of 3.74, and high in zone C with a mean index of 1.95. It is recommended that measures should be taken to integrate climate change adaptation into Niger State development process. These measures should include improvement in adoption of good agricultural practices. (shrink)

Advancements in science and technology have not only brought hope to humankind to produce disease-free offspring, but also offer possibilities to genetically enhance the next generation’s traits and capacities. Human genetic enhancement, however, raises complex ethical questions, such as to what extent should it be allowed? It has been a great challenge for humankind to develop robust ethical guidelines for human genetic enhancement that address both public concerns and needs. We believe that research about public concerns is necessary prior to (...) developing such guidelines, yet the issues have not been thoroughly investigated in many countries, including Malaysia. Since the novel often functions as a medium for the public to express their concerns, this paper explores ethical concerns about human genetic enhancement expressed in four Malay science fiction novels namely Klon, Leksikon Ledang, Transgenesis Bisikan Rimba and Transgenik Sifar. Religion has a strong influence on the worldview of the Malays therefore some concerns such as playing God are obviously religious. Association of the negative image of scientists as well as the private research companies with the research on human genetic enhancement reflects the authors’ concerns about the main motivations for conducting such research and the extent to which such research will benefit society. (shrink)

Lifestyle refers to a set of personal and group behaviours related to normative and semantic aspects of social life. Any coherent set of behavioural patterns derived from religious teachings that exist in life can be considered a religious lifestyle. Considering that the dominant religion in Jordan is Islam, the present study focused on the Islamic lifestyle. In addition, given that the correct relationship between couples has been compared to life-giving blood in marriage, and since the quality of marital role plays (...) a determining role, the existence of communication skills in any of the couples can generate satisfaction and compatibility, whereas lack of awareness of these skills could cause misunderstandings and tension. Therefore, the current study aims to study the role of the Islamic lifestyle in communication skills of 250 Muslim couples of Jordan (Amman, Zarqa and Irbid) in 2022. Data were collected using questionnaires during four months, and the validity and reliability was confirmed. In addition, data analysis was performed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) using mean tests and structural equation modelling. According to the results, Islamic lifestyle had a positive, significant effect on the improvement of communication skills in Muslim couples in Jordan (P-value: 0.76; T-value: 7.92). Therefore, it is recommended that more attention should be paid to this issue by families, researchers and cultural authorities in the country.Contribution: Our findings revealed that Islamic lifestyle improved communication skills in Muslim couples, which demands special attention. By adhering to the Islamic lifestyle, couples can influence each other’s knowledge, emotions, education and growth, and try to have a realistic understanding of each other’s desires, needs, living environment and perceptions that each has in life issues. Furthermore, they can organise their role in the common life in appropriate ways to prevent problems and solve them in the event of problems. (shrink)

This article has explored the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 -induced decline in consumer durables and mobility on nitrogen dioxide emission in Europe by providing empirical and graphical justifications based on consumer price index and gross domestic product deflator indexes. The empirical estimations show that carbon dioxide and NOx emission along with other greenhouse gases drastically decreased in the wake of COVID-19-induced lockdowns and decrease in the demand of consumer goods in Europe. This means that COVID-19 improved environment in the (...) European region. However, high cost makes COVID-19 an unstable solution to environmental woes where positive impact of COVID-19 on environment achieved in short run cannot be guaranteed in the long run. Besides environment, COVID-19 drastically curtailed economic activities and exposed them to the risk of economic crisis particularly in case of Europe. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply influenced the tourism and hospitality industry, and it has also reshaped people’s travel preferences and related behaviors. As a result, how prospective travelers perceive travel constraints and their effects on future travel behaviors may have changed to some extent. Besides, such perception arguably varies across gender. Therefore, this research examines the interplay between travel constraints, gender, and travel intentions for facilitating robust tourism recovery by revisiting the Leisure Constraints Model from a gender perspective. Data were (...) collected through a survey from 357 Malaysian prospective travelers. By conducting path analysis and multigroup analysis, it is found that structural and interpersonal constraints impose indirect effects on travel intentions, and gender moderating the effect of structural cost on intrapersonal constraints and effect of intrapersonal constraints on travel intentions. Based on these findings, this research provides theoretical and practical implications into how to adjust their marketing strategies and travel products during the era of “new normal” for tourism policy makers, destination marketers, and related businesses. (shrink)

By combining the art of Saudi heritage, because of its aesthetic values that increase and enrich the work, and the recycling of old environmental materials, innovative artistic artifacts were produced. The importance of the research came Attention was paid to the decorations of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art and benefiting from it in creating innovative artistic artifacts. The The research aims to demonstrate the aesthetic values of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art and benefit from them in creating innovative modern art objects through the idea (...) of recycling. The research assumes the possibility of making artistic artifacts through recycling using the idea of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art. The research problem is represented in the following question. (shrink)

ABSTRAK Dalam artikel ini akan diulas mengenai akar kata worldview dan maknanya, baik dari sisi filsuf Barat, teolog Kristen, maupun ulama’ Islam. Worldview adalah pandangan hidup atau filsafat hidup yang dimiliki setiap orang, juga berupa keyakinan yang mendasar dan berimplikasi terhadap pikiran dan cara pandang seseorang terhadap sesuatu. Artikel ini berjenis kajian kepustakaan dimana data-datanya diambil dari beberapa buku terkait worldview. Metode kualitatif dengan pendekatan deskriptif-analisis penulis terapkan dalam penelitian ini. Data-data yang telah diperoleh dan dianalisa oleh penulis kemudian akan (...) dikomparasikan antara satu sama lain. Hasil penelitian ini adalah bahwa filsuf Barat, teolog Kristen, dan ulama’ Islam memiliki pandangan berbeda terkait worldview yang dipicu oleh perbedaan sumber epistemologinya. Barat dan Kristen meletakan akal sebagai sumber dalam menentukan worldview. Sehingga worldview Barat dan Kristen berubah-ubah, karena setiap akal pikiran seseorang berbeda-beda dan dapat berubah-ubah. Ini berbeda dengan makna worldview dalam Islam yang bersumber dari wahyu Ilahi. Worldview Islam bersifat absolut, karena wahyu Ilahi yang diturunkan bukan hasil produk akal pikiran manusia, akan tetapi merupakan petunjuk langsung dari Allah. Islam tidak hanya berbicara tentang apa yang nampak saja akan tetapi juga yang tidak nampak. Sedangkan Barat dan Kristen hanya membahas yang nampak oleh panca indera. Kata-kata Kunci: Worldview, Barat; Kristen; Islam. (shrink)

This article discusses Islam and homo deus as a new agenda for humanity’s future. This article tries to explain the reading of homo deus and the problems of humanity in the future. Likewise, regarding the issue of immortality and human happiness in the future from an Islamic perspective. This article tries to analyze the problem using the library research model in carrying out an analysis of the main problem. Humans to fight death and the problems that humans expect in the (...) future to maintain eternity feel like a god who will live eternally in the world. It is not only immortality in the world that modern humans will achieve, but how humans live in the world and gain happiness. True happiness is difficult for humans to obtain, even though humans use the discoveries of modern science. Humans will truly find happiness if they believe in and draw closer to God. The happiness that modern humans feel is only temporary pseudo-happiness. The immortality that modern humans desire is not directly proportional to happiness. This can be seen from the large number of people dying by suicide in various countries, the majority of which are advanced, and technology is developing rapidly, but it still cannot help their spiritual problems. Modern humans think that everything can be solved with the modern science they have discovered, even though there is God’s intervention in life in this world. (shrink)

Keyword extraction refers to the process of selecting most significant, relevant, and descriptive terms as keywords, which are present inside a single document. Keyword extraction has major applications in the information retrieval domain, such as analysis, summarization, indexing, and search, of documents. In this paper, we present a novel supervised technique for extraction of keywords from medium-sized documents, namely Corpus-based Contextual Semantic Smoothing. CCSS extends the concept of Contextual Semantic Smoothing, which considers term usage patterns in similar texts to improve (...) term relevance information. We introduce four more features beyond CSS as our novel contributions in this work. We systematically compare the performance of CCSS with other techniques, when implemented over INSPEC dataset, where CCSS outperforms all state-of-the-art keyphrase extraction techniques presented in the literature. (shrink)

This study presents a modified simplest equation method to investigate some real and exact solutions of conformable time fractional Benjamin-Bona-Mahony equation and Chan-Hilliard equation. We use traveling wave transformation to obtain the results in the form of series solution. Some calculations are performed through Mathematica software to analyze the accuracy of this approach. Graphical representations are reported for more significant results at different fractional-order which demonstrates that this approach is very simple, adequate, and legitimate.

This research aims to identify the investor’s decision-making styles and their impact on entrepreneurial opportunities through the mediation role of entrepreneurial intention and moderation effect of social capital in the healthcare sector of Pakistan. This study applied a structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses on a sample of 400 healthcare investors. Our findings reveal that the conditional indirect relationship of entrepreneurial intention through social capital was significant on opportunity creation and an insignificant influence on opportunity discovery from decision-making styles. (...) This study provides implications for policymakers to enhance entrepreneurial opportunity creation by providing robust social environment investors and encouraging them to create business ventures in the healthcare sector. (shrink)

Energy poverty is a problem that affects developed and developing economies, and its mitigation is of great significance to social welfare. EP affects Latin American countries, and policymakers have recently attempted to address this issue, particularly in the aftermath of the recent economic crisis. It is essential to measure and evaluate EP to implement strategies and policies effectively. Using a panel quantile regression approach, we investigate the heterogeneous impact of green finance, renewable energy, and energy efficiency on EP for 33 (...) Latin American countries from 2000 to 2018. Furthermore, certain associated control variables are incorporated into our model to avoid an omitted variable bias. According to empirical results, the impact of independent variables on EP is heterogeneous. Specifically, green finance is an essential source of alleviating EP, and it has a significant positive effect across all quantiles, but it is especially strong in the middle quantiles. RE and EE significantly mitigate EP, with the strongest effects occurring at higher quantiles. By including green finance, RE, and EE as the main explanatory determinants of EP, the findings urge policymakers in Latin American countries to design a comprehensive energy conservation policy to minimize the effects of massive EP. (shrink)

Student character survey in Indonesia in 2021, on average, produced lower index numbers compared to last year’s index results. This research aims to explore the policies and content of Character Building Training (CBT), and the impact of the programme on student character. This research was qualitative, involving informants: 60 students and 8 lecturers, who were selected using purposive and snowball techniques, so that if the data were saturated, collecting the data was considered sufficient. Data were collected through observation and in-depth (...) interviews carried out from June to September 2022. Data analysis was carried out manually using the Discovering Cultural Themes model by carrying out data reduction, data display, and drawing conclusions and verification. The research results show that CBT is implemented through a cycle of CBT campaign, capacity building, and institutionalisation with a nurturing, learning, mentoring, and consulting approach. The content includes attitudes and values, skills, knowledge and moderate integrative insight, as well as amplifying tolerant, open, critical, caring, and creative behaviour, respecting differences, and polite and commendable behaviour. The CBT programme has amplified some aspects: religious character, discipline, politeness, caring for the environment, and patriotism. The greatest and dominant strengthening was in religious character and love of the country. The implication and contribution of this research is the continuation of character education for young people as an instrument to substantiate religious moderation. Contribution: This research is important theoretically and practically to contribute to the formation of character building in young people in Islamic tertiary institutions. Currently, character education is the main vision of Islamic tertiary institutions in Indonesia, which is associated with religious moderation as one of the priorities in the national medium-term development plan. (shrink)