With the development of wireless technology, two basic wireless network models that are commonly used, known as infrastructure and wireless ad hoc networks, have been developed. In the literature, it has been observed that channel contention is one of the main reasons for packet drop in WANETs. To handle this problem, this paper presents a routing protocol named CCBR. CCBR tries to determine a least contended path between the endpoints to increase packet delivery ratio and to reduce packet delay and (...) normalized routing overhead. Moreover, throughout the active data section, each intermediate node computes its channel contention value. If an intermediate node detects an increase in channel contention, it notifies the source node. Then the source node determines another least contended route for transmission. The advantages of CCBR are verified in our NS2-based performance study, and the results show that CCBR outperforms ad hoc on-demand distance vector in terms of packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, and routing overhead by 4% to 9%. (shrink)

Abusive supervision, defined as subordinates’ perception of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviors, excluding physical contact, is associated with various negative outcomes. This has made it easy for researchers to overlook the possibility that some supervisors regret their bad behavior and express remorse for their actions. Hence, we know little about how subordinates react to the perception that their supervisor is remorseful and how this perception affects the outcomes of supervisors’ (...) undesired behavior. Specifically, drawing on the social exchange theory and displace revenge literature, this study explains how abusive supervision leads to victims’ service sabotage behavior. In addition, this study also investigates how perceived supervisors’ remorse mitigates the adverse effects of abusive supervision. Based on time-lagged, dyadic data from Chinese individuals, this study found support for all the proposed relationships, i.e., abusive supervision leads to service sabotage through the mediating effect of revenge desire. The findings also conclude that PSR lessens the detrimental effects of abusive supervision on victims’ behavior with their customers. Finally, this research contributes to service sabotage literature by highlighting the possibility where abusive supervisors cause service sabotage behavior among victims. This study also shows the importance of PSR’s role in decreasing service sabotage behavior exhibited by victims of abusive supervisors in the service sector. (shrink)

Taking support from ego-depletion theory, this study examines ego depletion as a mechanism that explains how employees’ organizational citizenship behavior leads to antagonistic consequences, i.e., service sabotage. Employees’ positive psychological capital is considered a moderator. PROCESS macro was used to test all the hypotheses using time-lagged, dyadic data collected from 420 employees and their 112 their supervisors associated with the service industry in China. This study finds that employees’ exhibition of OCB is positively linked to ego depletion, which in turn (...) drives service sabotage behavior. Furthermore, employees’ PsyCap weakens the effect of OCB on employees’ ego depletion. This study highlights the dark side of OCB, the mechanism through which it causes adverse effects, and the moderating effect of PsyCap. It also provides insights to the organizations for managing service sector employees to effectively interact with customers. (shrink)

For efficient energy distribution, microgrids provide significant assistance to main grids and act as a bridge between the power generation and consumption. Renewable energy generation resources, particularly photovoltaics, are considered as a clean source of energy but are highly complex, volatile, and intermittent in nature making their forecasting challenging. Thus, a reliable, optimized, and a robust forecasting method deployed at MG objectifies these challenges by providing accurate renewable energy production forecasting and establishing a precise power generation and consumption matching at (...) MG. Furthermore, it ensures effective planning, operation, and acquisition from the main grid in the case of superior or inferior amounts of energy, respectively. Therefore, in this work, we develop an end-to-end hybrid network for automatic PV power forecasting, comprising three basic steps. Firstly, data preprocessing is performed to normalize, remove the outliers, and deal with the missing values prominently. Next, the temporal features are extracted using deep sequential modelling schemes, followed by the extraction of spatial features via convolutional neural networks. These features are then fed to fully connected layers for optimal PV power forecasting. In the third step, the proposed model is evaluated on publicly available PV power generation datasets, where its performance reveals lower error rates when compared to state-of-the-art methods. (shrink)

Data analytics, machine intelligence, and other cognitive algorithms have been employed in predicting various types of diseases in health care. The revolution of artificial neural networks in the medical discipline emerged for data-driven applications, particularly in the healthcare domain. It ranges from diagnosis of various diseases, medical image processing, decision support system, and disease prediction. The intention of conducting the research is to ascertain the impact of parameters on diabetes data to predict whether a particular patient has a disease or (...) not. This paper develops an improved ANN model trained using an artificial backpropagation scaled conjugate gradient neural network algorithm to predict diabetes effectively. For validating the performance of the proposed model, we conduct a large set of experiments on a Pima Indian Diabetes dataset using accuracy and mean squared error as evaluation metrics. We use different number of neurons in the hidden layer, ranging from 5 to 50, to train the ANN models. The experimental results show that the ABP-SCGNN model, containing 20 neurons, attains 93% accuracy on the validation set, which is higher than using the other ANNs models. This result confirms the model’s effectiveness and efficiency in predicting diabetes disease from the required data attributes. (shrink)

Healthcare workers in Pakistan are still fighting at the frontline to control the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 and have been identified as the earliest beneficiaries for COVID-19 vaccination by the health authorities of the country. Besides, the high vaccination rates of frontline healthcare workers are essential to overcome the ongoing pandemic and reduce the vaccines hesitancy among the general population. The current research employed the theory of planned behavior to investigate the COVID-19 vaccination behavior among FHWs in (...) Pakistan as well as the predictors of such behavior. Following the epidemic control and prevention policies, a sample of 680 FHWs were accessed to fill in the questionnaire evaluating the components of the TPB. Moreover, the potential role of anticipated regret and perceived susceptibility on COVID-19 vaccination behavior was also assessed. The partial least square structural equation modeling results revealed that the TPB components, as well as the AR, have positive associations with the COVID-19 vaccination behavior. The results further confirmed that PS positively affects the anticipated regret, attitude, and subjective norm to vaccinate against SARS-CoV-2. The perceived susceptibility also has a positive association with COVID-19 vaccination behavior through the mediation of anticipated regret, ATT, and SN. Our findings highlighted the importance of COVID-19 vaccination among healthcare workers, which can be applied to reduce vaccine hesitancy among the general public. (shrink)

Objective: Governments consistently aim to enhance services and establish online connections to efficiently deliver necessary information. This study aims to evaluate the future potential of digital libraries in public libraries in Pakistan by examining various projects that have introduced innovative approaches to foster the development of digital library services. Methodology: The analysis utilized the Amos 24 version, employing the Structural Equation Model (SEM) for assessing model fit indices and validating hypotheses. Additionally, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24 was (...) employed for Pearson correlation and factor analysis. Findings: The results suggest the appropriateness of discussing three out of the seven elements/factors used to assess competence improvement. The study reveals that public library managers can offer both physical and online workshops to community members, addressing emotional management for customers, including children and adults, during post-crisis information retrieval. Practical Implications: The study on public library user literacy skills, user behavior, and digital resources and services integrates the exploration and development of online databases to address challenges faced by public library management and users amidst the information explosion in academic and research activities. This contributes to enhancing the satisfaction levels of public library users. Originality/Value: Librarians are encouraged to conduct online workshops to address challenges faced by research students in information-seeking scenarios, focusing on improving reading and literacy skills, understanding user behavior, and optimizing digital resources and services through a study of online databases. (shrink)

Social media advertisement is a growing phenomenon designed to reach and engage customers. However, despite their continued adoption, less remains known regarding the effectiveness of social media ads to co-create brand value. In response to this gap, this study aims to deepen the theoretical understanding of consumer value co-creation through social media advertising value. The data were collected using purposive sampling from 286 experienced social-media users, and the model was tested using partial least square -based structural equation modeling. The results (...) indicate that entertainment, aesthetic appeal, interactivity, and trendiness significantly affect the adverting value of social media ads. In turn, ad value affects consumers’ intention for value co-creation. Consequently, our findings suggest the importance of social media advertising value where marketers may enhance consumer-brand engagement by incorporating interesting content, which may encourage the customer’s interaction with the social media ads and strengthen value co-creation behavior. The results further contribute to nascent marketing literature by demonstrating that value co-creation acts as an antecedent to generating positive electronic word-of-mouth on social media platforms to drive consumers’ online brand purchase intention. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the incidence of service failure in rendering service process during COVID-19. It further explores the outcomes of service recovery offered to customers in case of service failure. Like other businesses, webstores have also faced the challenges in their efforts to satisfy their customers during COVID-19. Service failure has increased due to unexpected circumstances produced by this pandemic. It has become necessary for the webstores to retain their dissatisfied customers by reconsidering their service (...) strategies. Relevant data for the purpose of this study were collected through questionnaires from 383 respondents by using online channels. The online channels were exclusively employed for maintaining the safety of respondents during COVID-19. Respondents for this study were online shoppers who encountered service failure during COVID-19. The results indicated that the incidence of service failure has increased due to an increase in online shopping during COVID-19. Some customers tend to repurchase from the same webstore. On the other hand, some customers do not want to purchase again from the same seller and decided to switch to the alternative webstore. Based on the findings, new strategy for online shopping service providers was introduced. This strategy will be helpful for the online service providers to increase their profitability by retaining their dissatisfied customers. Service providers can minimize the number of customers switching to other webstores by reducing the events of service failure. Customer’s assistive intent can also be helpful for service providers to increase the efficiency of service recovery. Conducting a proper follow-up after providing service recovery can also reduce the switching of customer. It will be helpful for service providers to understand the customers’ expectations before recovery process and their feeling after getting service recovery. (shrink)

Half a million species of plants could be existing in the world. Classification of plants based on leaf features is a critical job as feature extraction from binary images of leaves may result in duplicate identification. However, leaves are an effective means of differentiating plant species because of their unique characteristics like area, diameter, perimeter, circularity, aspect ratio, solidity, eccentricity, and narrow factor. This paper presents the extraction of plant leaf gas alongside other features from the camera images or a (...) dataset of images by applying a convolutional neural network. The extraction of leaf gas enables identification of the actual level of chlorophyll and nitrogen which may help to interpret future predictions. Our contribution includes the study of texture and geometric features, analyzing ratio of Ch and N in both healthy and dead leaves, and the study of color-based methods via CNN. Several steps are included to obtain the results: image preprocessing, testing, training, enhancement, segmentation, feature extraction, and aggregation of results. A vital contrast of the results can be seen by considering the kind of image, whether a healthy or dead leaf. (shrink)

The current study proposes a novel conceptual model in which Islamic work ethics has a mediating role in the relationship between servant leadership and employees’ life satisfaction within Pakistan’s banking sector. The model draws on the theory of leader-member exchange. Data from a sample of 240 were evaluated using structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3.2.7 software. The findings indicate that servant leadership significantly impacts employees’ life satisfaction. Furthermore, Islamic work ethics mediated this effect. This study introduces ground-breaking bank inputs by (...) creating a new integrated model based on LMX theory. While the impact of several dimensions of Islamic work ethics on employees’ life satisfaction has been widely investigated, the present study is the first to explore the roles of servant leadership and Islamic work ethics in leveraging bank employees’ life satisfaction. The results suggest that bank managers should enact servant leadership in their business and serve their employees ethically to improve their life satisfaction. Additionally, this study provides key theoretical contributions to the literature on Islamic banking. (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)

This study explores the impact of CEO ability on corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. We take samples from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 and use the ordinary least squares as a baseline regression model to check the relationship between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. Our findings are robust to different corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure measures and CEO ability. We found a positive association between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure; thus, firms (...) with a more able CEO are more likely to disclose more corporate environmental sustainability information. Our results also found a significant negative interaction coefficient between CEO ability and CEO career concerns. As the CEO grows older, his/her ability decreases; therefore, corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure reduces. Furthermore, we document that a female CEO strengthens the relationship between CEO ability and corporate environmental sustainability information disclosure. The study results are important for understanding corporate environmental responsibility development and implementation, particularly in China. (shrink)

The premise of this study is to look at the intergenerational transferal of language and racial trauma of Asian immigrants in general and Korean–American immigrants in particular to a western country, the United States of America. This study investigates trauma from a psychological standpoint, based on Chang-Rae Lee’s novel Native Speaker. In describing a marker of citizenship, the novel’s title also points to who is the native language speaker and who is a native of a country, and why one who (...) is not may be excluded. The Korean immigrants’ vulnerability to the English language and racial differences highlights their status as minority “others,” and they suffer from transgenerational trauma. As a result of transgenerational traumatic effects, Henry has various traumatic side effects such as dysphasia, aphasia, and parasomnia and finally leaves no stone unturned to recuperate from trauma. The Trauma of the Unspeakable theory by Michelle Balaev is used in this article to show how trauma affects people’s minds. (shrink)

Emotion-based sentimental analysis has recently received a lot of interest, with an emphasis on automated identification of user behavior, such as emotional expressions, based on online social media texts. However, the majority of the prior attempts are based on traditional procedures that are insufficient to provide promising outcomes. In this study, we categorize emotional sentiments by recognizing them in the text. For that purpose, we present a deep learning model, bidirectional long-term short-term memory, for emotion recognition that takes into account (...) five main emotions. We use our experimental assessments on the emotion dataset to accomplish the emotion categorization job. The datasets were evaluated and the findings revealed that, when compared to state-of-the-art methodologies, the proposed model can successfully categorize user emotions into several classifications. Finally, we assess the efficacy of our strategy using statistical analysis. This research’s findings help firms to apply best practices in the selection, management, and optimization of policies, services, and product information. (shrink)

While major religions espouse moral values encouraging prosocial behavior, the empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of religious influence on such behavior, as proposed by the religious pro-sociality hypothesis, remains inconclusive. To explore this further, we conducted two studies to test this hypothesis in Pakistan, a Muslim-majority Asian nation, focusing on whistleblowing as a prosocial behavior. The first study gathered cross-sectional data from 323 undergraduate business students in Karachi, Pakistan, utilizing hypothetical scenarios of academic cheating and bank embezzlement. Participants completed a (...) scenario-based questionnaire assessing intrinsic religiosity, personality traits, and whistleblowing intentions. Measures were adapted for the Muslim context, with intrinsic religiosity assessed using the Age Universal Intrinsic-Extrinsic (AUIE) scale and personality traits measured using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) scale. Regression analysis of these data revealed that while intrinsic religiosity significantly predicted whistleblowing intentions in the academic cheating scenario, it did not do so in the bank embezzlement scenario. Furthermore, multiple regression modeling to test moderating effects of personality traits did not yield significant results for either scenario. The second study employed an experimental design to observe actual whistleblowing behavior among 85 undergraduate business students in Karachi, Pakistan. Participants were randomly assigned to either a religious or a neutral condition, aiming to assess the impact of intrinsic religiosity on whistleblowing behavior. The experiment used a cover story which involved a confederate cheating during an intelligence quotient (IQ) test. The purpose of this design was to examine whether the participant, acting as the sole witness to wrongdoing, would intervene and blow the whistle. Data analysis using logistic regression indicated that intrinsic religiosity did not significantly predict whistleblowing behavior across both the experimental and control conditions. These contrasting results highlight the complexity of whistleblowing, emphasizing its subjective nature and the influence of social dynamics on behavior. (shrink)

Customers are skeptical about shopping online because e-commerce environments are typically considered impersonal. To assure product quality and to enhance customer proclivity in such environments, post-sale services may be considered to alleviate customers’ skepticism. Therefore, this study’s objective is to investigate the role of an online retailer’s post-sale services on customers’ attitudinal and behavioral aspects. Structural equation modeling is applied to data collected through an online survey answered by 409 online customers of jd.com. Research findings show that product return, exchange, (...) and maintenance services are strongly predictive of online customer satisfaction, and satisfaction significantly impacts customer trust. Both customer satisfaction and trust, as indicators of relationship quality, further mediate the links between product return, exchange, and maintenance services and online customer repurchase intention. In addition, differences between male and female customers were found in various aspects of online retailers’ product return, exchange, and maintenance services. This is the first empirical study that not only examines the influence of all three dimensions of online retailers’ post-sale services on customers’ online shopping perceptions and decisions, but also considers differences between male and female customers. Finally, this research provides theoretical and managerial implications based on conceptual and empirical evidence. (shrink)

The present paper analyzes cultural attires and appearances of Marri and Bugti tribes in Balochistan to find out latent meanings attached to these artifacts. In doing so, the study uses Peirce’s framework of semiotics- an iconic perspective. The analysis has been carried out with the help of close reading of the cultural images and appearances. The results reveal underlying multi-meanings attached to these images and appearances. The findings reflect the richness and diversity of Marri and Bugti cultures and the invisible (...) representational meanings of these objects. This research endeavor may be helpful to promote pluralism, harmony and enhance intercultural awareness necessary for understanding cultural diversities within and across societies. More so, future researchers can explore cultural objects and appearances of Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtuns, Urdu speaking, and Saraiki people by applying various frameworks of semiotics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to define some new operation laws for the trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy number and Hamming distance. Furthermore, we define and use the trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy TOPSIS method to solve the multi criteria decision making (MCDM) method. The new ranking method for trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy numbers (TrLCFNs) are used to rank the alternatives. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify and prove the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed method.

The relationship between psychology and mysticism has gained a great deal of currency over the years. Various psychological models have provided theoretical foundations allowing the researchers to grasp profound varieties and nuances in mystical experiences across cultures and religious traditions. This has, in fact, broadened the canvass for mystical studies. The current paper attempts to carry out a psychological analysis of mystical experience of a character named Kimya in Muriel Maufroy’s novel “Rumi’s Daughter”. The study carries out an analysis of (...) how the mystic’s experience of the Divine can be translated in terms of a psychological process of personality disintegration initiated by a conflict, deconstruction of preconceived notions and beliefs and ultimately leading towards secondary integration of personality. Kazimierz Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration is employed as a framework to analyse her spiritual encounter. Through a minute textual analysis of the novel, the research reveals certain parallels between the process of personality development and mystical experience. It confirms the contention that the culmination of mystical union underlies psychological wellbeing and serenity on the part of mystic. The study also shows that mystics are those rare individuals who are capable of reaching the final level of personality development characterised by self-autonomy and higher level of consciousness. (shrink)

The twenty-first century has seen an increase in ethical misconduct at the workplace, highlighting the need to stimulate discussion on the role of work ethics. The objective of the current study is to extend the literature on work ethics by examining the role of Islamic work ethic in enhancing the task performance of employees. The current study proposes that psychological capital mediates the relationship between Islamic work ethic and task performance. It is also proposed that ethical leadership might act as (...) a boundary condition that boosts the positive relationship between Islamic work ethic and psychological capital. Data were collected in three-time lags from employees working in the service sector of Pakistan through the questionnaire. The results supported the mediation and moderation hypothesis, confirming that psychological capital mediates the relationship between Islamic work ethic and task performance. Ethical leadership moderates the relationship between Islamic work ethic and psychological capital. The results offer implications for theory and practice. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed. (shrink)

We consider a modal language for affine planes, with two sorts of formulas (for points and lines) and three modal boxes. To evaluate formulas, we regard an affine plane as a Kripke frame with two sorts (points and lines) and three modal accessibility relations, namely the point-line and line-point incidence relations and the parallelism relation between lines. We show that the modal logic of affine planes in this language is not finitely axiomatisable.

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 current research examines the possible outcomes of cronyism like organizational deviance, organizational cynicism, and counterproductive work behavior and also investigates the mediating variable violation of psychological contract among cronyism and its possible outcomes. Many studies have investigated the presence of organizational cronyism at the workplace and its impacts on certain variables. However, the outcomes observed in this study, i.e., OD, OCy, and counter-productive work behavior were not empirically investigated previously as per researchers’ knowledge. The second gap this study fills (...) is the mediating effect of VPC between the studied variables. Thirdly, the study was conducted in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan, which is almost the first attempt to investigate this phenomenon in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Data were collected from the employees working under different ministries of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan like education, forest, sports, information, local government, finance, and tourism. The data from 350 employees were collected through convenience sampling. The data collection process was conducted at two distinct time lags. Results show that OC significantly and positively relates with OD, OCy, and counter-productive work behavior, whereas VPC mediates the relationship among OC and OD, OC, and counter-productive work behavior. Employees enjoying special favors from the leadership seem to be more dedicated toward the organization than the employees who do not have this favor, and the ultimate result is negative for the organization. (shrink)

This study determined the effects of techno-stressors on employees' well-being. It also determined the moderating role of technostress inhibitors in techno-stressors and employees' well-being. We employed a time-lagged design and self-administered survey method to collect data from banking employees. We retrieved 355 usable responses. The results showed that techno-stressors significantly and negatively affected employees' well-being. Technostress inhibitors significantly and positively affected the employee's well-being. The moderating effects of techno-stressors and technostress inhibitors showed that six of nine moderating effects were significant (...) and positive. The results implied that technostress inhibitors help to improve employees' well-being. In the end, we present some implications for theory and practice. (shrink)

The basic purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of intellectual capital on corporate financial performance. This study is conducted on pharmaceutical sector listed in Pakistan Stock Exchange. Data for this study was collected from audited annual financial statements of selected business organizations over period of ten year i.e. from 2005-2014. Value Added Intellectual Coefficient methodology is employed, in order to measure IC and its different components. The firm’s financial performance is measured by using profitability measures including ROE (...) and ROA, market to book value and asset turnover. In order to analyze the collected data, the Partial Least Square, a SEM technique. These approaches are used to assess the measurement and structural models. The results of analysis have supported the proposed hypothesis i.e. there is significant positive impact of intellectual capital on firm’s financial performance among pharmaceutical industries of Pakistan. (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)

To determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding organ donation in a selected adult population in Pakistan.

Drawing on the theory of engagement, the present study aims to examine the outcomes of the co-creation experience in a realistic co-creation setting, a hotpot restaurant. To this end, the current research links the relationship marketing literature to hospitality and tourism research and formulates a novel framework by incorporating tourists’ co-creation experience, brand evangelism, brand trust, and brand passion in an integrated conceptual model. Using a quantitative research design, a total of 453 international tourists were surveyed in China. The findings (...) revealed that co-creation experience dimensions positively impact brand evangelism, trust, and passion. Additionally, we found that brand trust and brand passion positively affect brand evangelism. We also confirmed the mediating effect of brand trust and brand passion in bridging the co-creation experience and brand evangelism. This study offers valuable insights for restaurant brand managers regarding attracting and engaging foreign travelers with their service businesses. (shrink)

Sierpinski networks are networks of fractal nature having several applications in computer science, music, chemistry, and mathematics. These networks are commonly used in chaos, fractals, recursive sequences, and complex systems. In this article, we compute various connectivity polynomials such as M -polynomial, Zagreb polynomials, and forgotten polynomial of generalized Sierpinski networks S k n and recover some well-known degree-based topological indices from these. We also compute the most general Zagreb index known as α, β -Zagreb index and several other general (...) indices of similar nature for this network. Our results are the natural generalizations of already available results for particular classes of such type of networks. (shrink)

This fourteenth volume of Collected Papers is an eclectic tome of 87 papers in Neutrosophics and other fields, such as mathematics, fuzzy sets, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, picture fuzzy sets, information fusion, robotics, statistics, or extenics, comprising 936 pages, published between 2008-2022 in different scientific journals or currently in press, by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 99 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Ahmed B. Al-Nafee, Adesina Abdul Akeem Agboola, Akbar Rezaei, Shariful Alam, Marina Alonso, Fran Andujar, (...) Toshinori Asai, Assia Bakali, Azmat Hussain, Daniela Baran, Bijan Davvaz, Bilal Hadjadji, Carlos Díaz Bohorquez, Robert N. Boyd, M. Caldas, Cenap Özel, Pankaj Chauhan, Victor Christianto, Salvador Coll, Shyamal Dalapati, Irfan Deli, Balasubramanian Elavarasan, Fahad Alsharari, Yonfei Feng, Daniela Gîfu, Rafael Rojas Gualdrón, Haipeng Wang, Hemant Kumar Gianey, Noel Batista Hernández, Abdel-Nasser Hussein, Ibrahim M. Hezam, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Muthusamy Karthika, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, Kifayat Ullah, Valeri Kroumov, Tapan Kumar Roy, Deepesh Kunwar, Le Thi Nhung, Pedro López, Mai Mohamed, Manh Van Vu, Miguel A. Quiroz-Martínez, Marcel Migdalovici, Kritika Mishra, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohammed Alshumrani, Mohamed Loey, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Shabir, Mumtaz Ali, Nassim Abbas, Munazza Naz, Ngan Thi Roan, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Rishwanth Mani Parimala, Ion Pătrașcu, Surapati Pramanik, Quek Shio Gai, Qiang Guo, Rajab Ali Borzooei, Nimitha Rajesh, Jesús Estupiñan Ricardo, Juan Miguel Martínez Rubio, Saeed Mirvakili, Arsham Borumand Saeid, Saeid Jafari, Said Broumi, Ahmed A. Salama, Nirmala Sawan, Gheorghe Săvoiu, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Seok-Zun Song, Shahzaib Ashraf, Jayant Singh, Rajesh Singh, Son Hoang Le, Tahir Mahmood, Kenta Takaya, Mirela Teodorescu, Ramalingam Udhayakumar, Maikel Y. Leyva Vázquez, V. Venkateswara Rao, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Gabriela Vlădeanu, Michael Voskoglou, Yaser Saber, Yong Deng, You He, Youcef Chibani, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Hongbo Wang, Zayen Azzouz Omar. (shrink)

This eighth volume of Collected Papers includes 75 papers comprising 973 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2010-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 102 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 24 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abduallah Gamal, Firoz Ahmad, Ahmad Yusuf Adhami, Ahmed B. Al-Nafee, Ali Hassan, Mumtaz Ali, Akbar Rezaei, Assia Bakali, Ayoub Bahnasse, Azeddine Elhassouny, Durga Banerjee, Romualdas Bausys, Mircea Boșcoianu, Traian Alexandru Buda, Bui Cong Cuong, Emilia Calefariu, Ahmet Çevik, Chang Su Kim, Victor (...) Christianto, Dae Wan Kim, Daud Ahmad, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Mamouni Dhar, H. A. Elagamy, Ahmed K. Essa, Sudipta Gayen, Bibhas C. Giri, Daniela Gîfu, Noel Batista Hernández, Hojjatollah Farahani, Huda E. Khalid, Irfan Deli, Saeid Jafari, Tèmítópé Gbóláhàn Jaíyéolá, Sripati Jha, Sudan Jha, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, M. Karthika, Kawther F. Alhasan, Giruta Kazakeviciute-Januskeviciene, Qaisar Khan, Kishore Kumar P K, Prem Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, Maikel Leyva-Vázquez, Mahmoud Ismail, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa Masood Malik, Mohammad Abobala, Mai Mohamed, Gunasekaran Manogaran, Seema Mehra, Kalyan Mondal, Mohamed Talea, Mullai Murugappan, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Aslam Malik, Muhammad Khalid Mahmood, Nivetha Martin, Durga Nagarajan, Nguyen Van Dinh, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Lewis Nkenyereya, Jagan M. Obbineni, M. Parimala, S. K. Patro, Peide Liu, Pham Hong Phong, Surapati Pramanik, Gyanendra Prasad Joshi, Quek Shio Gai, R. Radha, A.A. Salama, S. Satham Hussain, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Selvaraj Ganesan, Shahbaz Ali, Shouzhen Zeng, Manjeet Singh, A. Stanis Arul Mary, Dragiša Stanujkić, Yusuf Șubaș, Rui-Pu Tan, Mirela Teodorescu, Selçuk Topal, Zenonas Turskis, Vakkas Uluçay, Norberto Valcárcel Izquierdo, V. Venkateswara Rao, Volkan Duran, Ying Li, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Jian-qiang Wang, Lihshing Leigh Wang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas. (shrink)

This twelfth volume of Collected Papers includes 86 papers comprising 976 pages on Neutrosophics Theory and Applications, published between 2013-2021 in the international journal and book series “Neutrosophic Sets and Systems” by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 112 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 21 countries: Abdel Nasser H. Zaied, Muhammad Akram, Bobin Albert, S. A. Alblowi, S. Anitha, Guennoun Asmae, Assia Bakali, Ayman M. Manie, Abdul Sami Awan, Azeddine Elhassouny, Erick González-Caballero, D. Dafik, Mithun Datta, Arindam (...) Dey, Mamouni Dhar, Christopher Dyer, Nur Ain Ebas, Mohamed Eisa, Ahmed K. Essa, Faruk Karaaslan, João Alcione Sganderla Figueiredo, Jorge Fernando Goyes García, N. Ramila Gandhi, Sudipta Gayen, Gustavo Alvarez Gómez, Sharon Dinarza Álvarez Gómez, Haitham A. El-Ghareeb, Hamiden Abd El-Wahed Khalifa, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ibrahim M. Hezam, German Acurio Hidalgo, Le Hoang Son, R. Jahir Hussain, S. Satham Hussain, Ali Hussein Mahmood Al-Obaidi, Hays Hatem Imran, Nabeela Ishfaq, Saeid Jafari, R. Jansi, V. Jeyanthi, M. Jeyaraman, Sripati Jha, Jun Ye, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Abdullah Kargın, J. Kavikumar, Kawther Fawzi Hamza Alhasan, Huda E. Khalid, Neha Andalleb Khalid, Mohsin Khalid, Madad Khan, D. Koley, Valeri Kroumov, Manoranjan Kumar Singh, Pavan Kumar, Prem Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, A.N. Mangayarkkarasi, Carlos Rosero Martínez, Marvelio Alfaro Matos, Mai Mohamed, Nivetha Martin, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, K. Mohana, Muhammad Irfan Ahamad, Rana Muhammad Zulqarnain, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Saqlain, Muhammad Shabir, Muhammad Zeeshan, Anjan Mukherjee, Mumtaz Ali, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Iqra Nawaz, Munazza Naz, Roan Thi Ngan, Necati Olgun, Rodolfo González Ortega, P. Pandiammal, I. Pradeepa, R. Princy, Marcos David Oviedo Rodríguez, Jesús Estupiñán Ricardo, A. Rohini, Sabu Sebastian, Abhijit Saha, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, A.A. Salama, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Sajana Shaik, Soufiane Idbrahim, S. Sowndrarajan, Mohamed Talea, Ruipu Tan, Chalapathi Tekuri, Selçuk Topal, S. P. Tiwari, Vakkas Uluçay, Maikel Leyva Vázquez, Chinnadurai Veerappan, M. Venkatachalam, Luige Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Xiao Long Xin.‬‬‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

There is a widespread, popular view—and one I basically endorse—that Nietzsche is, in one sense of the word, a nihilist. As Arthur Danto put it some time ago, according to Nietzsche, “there is nothing in [the world] which might sensibly be supposed to have value.” As interpreters of Nietzsche, though, we cannot simply stop here. Nietzsche's higher men, Übermenschen, “genuine philosophers”, free spirits—the types Nietzsche wants to bring forth from the human, all-too-human herds he sees around him with the fish (...) hooks, as he says, of his books—seem to engage in what looks like valuing. These free spirits are supposed to revalue the old values—revaluing, as is clear from the texts, is not simply to remove the old values from circulation (Nietzsche uses “umwerten” and not “entwerten”)—and they are supposed to create new values. And, of course, Nietzsche himself, free spirit that he is, takes on the task of revaluing all values and seems to assert many a strident evaluation. So we need to say more here. What are Nietzsche and his free spirits up to when they engage in what looks, for all the world, like a practice of valuing? What is the practice of valuing Nietzsche is recommending for his free spirits? I argue for two claims: (i) First, we end up facing an interpretive puzzle when we attempt to explain how Nietzsche's free spirits are supposed to engage in a practice of valuing. (ii) Second, we can solve the interpretive puzzle by taking Nietzsche's free spirits to be engaged in a fictionalist simulacrum of valuing. (shrink)

Since their introduction in the early 2000s, the use of social networking websites has exploded. Many businesses are seeing increased revenue due to their social commerce strategy. Despite the popularity of social commerce websites, some consumers are still hesitate to use them. This study aims to evaluate the factors that influence the adoption of social commerce. A sample of 721 Chinese We Chat users took part in the research. The findings reveal that social capital mediates the positive effect of social (...) commerce adoption and perceived ease of use on techno-stress and online impulse purchasing. Likewise, information overloading mediates the positive effect of social commerce adoption and PERU on techno-stress and online impulse purchasing. The findings have implications for both practice and research in understanding social commerce adoption in emerging economies. (shrink)

Establishing a reliable and valid measure of academic integrity that can be used in higher education institutions across the world is a challenging and ambitious task. However, solving this issue will likely have major ramifications for understanding dishonest action. It also enables the development of a standardised measure that can be used to assess the efficacy of interventions aimed at enhancing academic integrity that can be administered across regional boundaries and diverse cultural groups. This study has used a combination of (...) confirmatory factor analysis and item distribution inspection procedures to further validate the cross-cultural academic integrity questionnaire version 2. Primary participants in this study were from Saudi Arabia, and secondary reference participants were from New Zealand. The findings indicate that a revised 10-item questionnaire, the cross-cultural academic integrity questionnaire version 3, has better credibility in terms of construct validity than its predecessor. Three CCAIQ-3 domains are proposed: copying, cheating, and complying. This research will inevitably create further academic and international debate; however this measure is likely to be useful in terms of creating a research protocol for evaluating and measuring cross-cultural issues and interventions aimed at promoting academic integrity. (shrink)

Establishing a reliable and valid measure of academic integrity that can be used in higher education institutions across the world is a challenging and ambitious task. However, solving this issue will likely have major ramifications for understanding dishonest action. It also enables the development of a standardised measure that can be used to assess the efficacy of interventions aimed at enhancing academic integrity that can be administered across regional boundaries and diverse cultural groups. This study has used a combination of (...) confirmatory factor analysis and item distribution inspection procedures to further validate the cross-cultural academic integrity questionnaire version 2. Primary participants in this study were from Saudi Arabia, and secondary reference participants were from New Zealand. The findings indicate that a revised 10-item questionnaire, the cross-cultural academic integrity questionnaire version 3, has better credibility in terms of construct validity than its predecessor. Three CCAIQ-3 domains are proposed: copying, cheating, and complying. This research will inevitably create further academic and international debate; however this measure is likely to be useful in terms of creating a research protocol for evaluating and measuring cross-cultural issues and interventions aimed at promoting academic integrity. (shrink)

Establishing a reliable and valid measure of academic integrity that can be used in higher education institutions across the world is a challenging and ambitious task. However, solving this issue will likely have major ramifications for understanding dishonest action. It also enables the development of a standardised measure that can be used to assess the efficacy of interventions aimed at enhancing academic integrity that can be administered across regional boundaries and diverse cultural groups. This study has used a combination of (...) confirmatory factor analysis and item distribution inspection procedures to further validate the cross-cultural academic integrity questionnaire version 2. Primary participants in this study were from Saudi Arabia, and secondary reference participants were from New Zealand. The findings indicate that a revised 10-item questionnaire, the cross-cultural academic integrity questionnaire version 3, has better credibility in terms of construct validity than its predecessor. Three CCAIQ-3 domains are proposed: copying, cheating, and complying. This research will inevitably create further academic and international debate; however this measure is likely to be useful in terms of creating a research protocol for evaluating and measuring cross-cultural issues and interventions aimed at promoting academic integrity. (shrink)

This paper aims to examine how humorous leadership enhances employee workplace creativity from a novel angle of employee psychological capital (EPC). This study also explores the moderating roles of supervisor–subordinate dyadic tenure and work autonomy in the proposed model. Data from a sample of 355 supervisor-subordinate dyads working in an information technology enterprise in the People’s Republic of China were used to test the assumed moderated mediation model. The results indicate the positive relationship between humorous leadership and employee workplace creativity, (...) which is partially mediated by EPC. Moreover, work autonomy significantly moderates the relationship between EPC and employee creativity. Humorous leadership drives creativity among subordinates; this can have a significant effect on the extra-role behavior of subordinates, leading to workplace creativity. The deliberate establishment of a humorous image by leaders may encourage subordinates to achieve creative goals. Combined with traditional management practices that emphasize the supportive behaviors of leaders, leaders can use humor to provide an open and friendly atmosphere for employees, thereby encouraging creativity in the workplace. Organizations should also place greater emphasis on employee work autonomy, allowing employees flexibility on when and how they do their job; this could enhance the positive impact of other factors on employee workplace creativity. These findings carry implications for research on humorous leadership, EPC, and creativity. (shrink)

Considerable demand for academic research and publications is not a new subject of discussion in the academic field. In Indonesia, there is increasing challenge and pressure to conduct scientific publications, making it a very competitive field for academics, particularly for lecturers and postgraduate students. The present study examines Indonesian scholars’ perceptions of academic publishing as a demand from institutions and the government, as well as their understanding of academic misconduct. We conducted a survey with open-ended questions to 55 scholars. The (...) results suggest that Indonesian scholars are knowledgeable about academic publishing and believe that this obligation is inevitable and beneficial for them. To what extent academic misconduct in publications falls under their understanding, though, is still unclear. When presented with information on academic misconduct, in particular using unethical publication services, they show an ambiguous and inconsistent manner, as if the misconduct is understandable. Interestingly, they also reveal other ethically dubious behaviors that appear to be common among Indonesian scholars. The findings indicate that the issue of academic misconduct is still addressed ambiguously by using publication demands as a scapegoat to justify certain unethical publication practices. (shrink)

Resumo: Para Paul Auster, um quarto é, em essência, “a própria substância da solidão”, uma solidão espacialmente definida. Nesse sentido, o fenômeno transcendeu suas limitações físicas e assumiu significado existencial e filosófico. Em seus escritos, uma sala é, antes de tudo, um espaço arquitetônico que um escritor solitário ocupa; além disso, é metaforizado como a mente que é a sala - um espaço construído intelectualmente; e, por fim, é um lugar narrado em suas histórias, onde seus personagens meditam e compõem, (...) um espaço que existe em palavras. O artigo realiza estudos sobre os escritos da vida de Auster e uma de suas ficções, Homem no Escuro, para apresentar a complexidade das três formas de quartos solitários e sua mútua inclusão na solidão intersubjetiva. (shrink)

Stakeholder pressure and public awareness of environmental protection drive organizations to improve environmental practices in the supply chain, such as green supply chain integration and green innovation. The use of information technology is crucial to manufacturing organizations’ GSCI and performance. However, the research on the relationship between IT capabilities, GSCI, GI and organizational performance is still limited. Therefore, empirical research is needed on the cognitive thinking of employees using IT capabilities to improve GSCI and organizational performance. The data for this (...) study comes from SC personnel in manufacturing organizations through a structured questionnaires and was analyzed by employing structural equation modeling. Based on the results, this paper concludes that organizational IT capabilities positively affect the GSCI and improve organizational performance. Furthermore, the study discovered that GI increases organizational performance and acts as a positive mediator in the link between GSCI and performance. The findings contribute to existing GSCI and GI knowledge, which can provide a bird’s eye-view to develop an organization’s IT capabilities to achieve competitive performance goals. (shrink)