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Construction safety is a crucial aspect that has far-reaching impacts on economic development. But safety monitoring is often reliant on labor-based observations, which can be prone to errors and result in numerous fatalities annually. This study aims to address this issue by proposing a cloud-building information modeling (BIM)-based framework to provide real-time safety monitoring on construction sites to enhance safety practices and reduce fatalities.

This system integrates an automated safety tracking mobile app to detect hazardous locations on construction sites, a cloud-based BIM system for visualization of worker tracking on a virtual construction site and a Web interface to visualize and monitor site safety.

The study’s results indicate that implementing a comprehensive automated safety monitoring approach is feasible and suitable for general indoor construction site environments. Furthermore, the assessment of an advanced safety monitoring system has been successfully implemented, indicating its potential effectiveness in enhancing safety practices in construction sites.

By using this system, the construction industry can prevent accidents and fatalities, promote the adoption of new technologies and methods with minimal effort and cost and improve safety outcomes and productivity. This system can reduce workers’ compensation claims, insurance costs and legal penalties, benefiting all stakeholders involved.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first attempt in Bangladesh to develop a mobile app-based technological solution aimed at reforming construction safety culture by using BIM technology. This has the potential to change the construction sector’s attitude toward accepting new technologies and cultures through its convenient choice of equipment.

Global construction has been affected by COVID-19 unprecedently. The construction sectors in the least developed countries are considered as vulnerable, but the covid made the countries experience the worst situation ever. To minimize the losses by effective measures, there needs to assess the COVID-19 impacts on the construction sector. So, the aim of this study is to investigate the most critical impacts of COVID-19 on construction in the least developed countries by considering the case study of Bangladesh.

The authors adopted multistep research methods, including (1) literature analysis and discussion with experts to establish a comprehensive list of COVID-19 impacts; (2) through a questionnaire survey, data were collected from 217 construction professionals by email, Google Form and Skype for quantifying the significance of covid impacts; (3) reliability of the survey checked by the Cronbach Alpha test; (4) Relative Importance Index (RII) to determine the ranks of the impacts based on their significance; (5) Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) to explore the corelations and the hierarchical structure; and (6) cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis to classify the COVID-19 impacts.

The study identified a total of 18 COVID-19 impacts on the construction sector. Among them, the job cuts, schedule delays, project suspension, cost overrun and effects on mental health are more influential and significant than others. Further, this study found that unpaid leave and job cuts are the two most fundamental impacts which influence other succeeding significant impacts. And ultimately all the impacts lead to hampering the national economy and development. Finally, MICMAC analysis suggested that unpaid leave and job cuts should be addressed first to resolve and effects on the national economy and development should be later.

This study does not consider all the COVID-19 impacts due to the relevant context and simplicity of the ISM method. Also, the respondent's attitude might be slightly different during the post-mass vaccination period.

This study will help the company's management, employees and government to develop effective strategies to understand the insight of their interrelations and ultimately overcome the identified covid effects. This will must contribute to the industry, its employees, the government and society by ensuring the national economy and development, construction operations, investment, employment and social security.

This study will contribute to the knowledge body (practitioners and researchers) by providing the list of significant covid impacts and insight into their interrelations for further deep analysis of the pandemic effects. This will also help the authorities and stakeholders in developing policies and strategies to minimize or avoid these effects and avoid future consequences due to any pandemic like covid.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the agriculture-induced environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in South Asian economies (SAE).

This study employs econometric techniques, including Westerlund cointegration tests, cross-sectional augmented distributive lag model (CS-ARDL) and Dumitrescu and Hurlin (DH) causality tests to investigate the relationship between renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, agriculture, economic growth, financial development and carbon emissions in SAE from 1990 to 2019.

The CS-ARDL test outcome supports the presence of the agriculture-induced EKC hypothesis in SAE. Additionally, through the application of the DH causality test, the study confirms a unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption (REC), fossil fuel consumption (FFC), economic growth (GDP) and squared economic growth (GDP²) to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.

This study proposes that future research should extend comparisons to worldwide intergovernmental bodies, use advanced econometric methodologies for accurate estimates, and investigate incorporating the service or primary sector into the EKC. Such multidimensional studies can inform various methods for mitigating global climate change and ensuring ecological sustainability.

Environmental degradation has been extensively studied in different regions and countries, but SAE face significant constraints in addressing this issue, and comprehensive studies in this area are scarce. This research is pioneering as it is the first study to investigate the applicability of the agriculture-induced EKC in the South Asian region. By filling this gap in the current literature, the study provides valuable insights into major SAE and their environmental challenges.

This study aims to analyze the influence of the dimensions of Sharia hospital service standards, religiosity commitment and trust of Muslim patients on attitudes and satisfaction, as well as the implications of loyalty.

This study was carried out by analyzing data obtained from a survey with purposive sampling techniques with 425 patients in an Indonesian-certified Sharia hospital and analyzing it using partial least squares structural equation modeling software to test the path modeling and the relationship between the instruments.

This study shows that hospital amenities, doctor’s services, nurses’ services, health-care technicalities and hospital environmental and administrative behavior affect patient satisfaction. In addition, religiosity and trust in encouraging patient attitudes determine patient satisfaction. High satisfaction points will increase loyalty to Sharia hospitals.

This study encourages managers to maximize the quality of humanist Islamic medical services and the infrastructure of comfortable facilities. In addition, hospitals need to improve their holistic atmosphere, technical services and administrative behavior so that they can become essential value for hospital marketing – the development of competence and ethical behavior of health workers through various training programs internally and externally.

This study presents the determination of Sharia hospital service standards accompanied by a commitment to religiosity and trust as a psychological perspective of Muslim patients on attitudes and satisfaction and its implications on the brand loyalty of Indonesian Sharia hospitals that have been officially certified.